Anonymous Communist

Despite my inclination as a lover of animals (in a strictly platonic sense, of course), I find it hard to get worked up about Eight Belles getting shipped off to the glue factory.

In fact, it’s surprising that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. What do you expect when an animal that weighs 1000 pounds or more is forced to run at top speed on little spindly-ass legs? If you mess with the bull, you’ll get the horns, as the saying goes.

But of course, the frenzied hordes at PETA have made Eight Belles a martyr for its cause (even though its spokesman cannot defend her position), calling for a ban on racetrack betting, saying the sport is “no better than dogfighting.” They’ve even condemned Hillary Clinton, calling her complicit in the horse’s death.

Yawn. All of that is ridiculous, course. My issue with horse racing is not because it’s allegedly barbaric. I dislike it simply because it’s boring. Watching a bunch of horses run around in a big circle is worse than watching paint dry. The most exciting two minutes in sports? How about the most over-hyped and anti-climactic?

Except when a horse dies, I guess.

There’s been an e-mail sweeping through Springfield inboxes the past couple of weeks, and Wednesday was my day to receive it.

The e-mail’s originator apparently was dissatisfied with the food and service she’d received from a local eatery and decided document her concerns to the owner (or manager; I’m not sure). While it was incredibly detailed, the e-mail plainly informed the owner/manager of the shortcomings of the food and service without malice.

The reply, on the other hand… Let me relay a few snippets:

I’m sure you yourself are not perfect in your occupation either.
[…]
You are the only one with a negative comment.
[…]
We try to predict and prepare for what business we receive, but it is impossible as we cannot read minds.

But wait, it gets better. The owner/manager, perhaps worked up into full raging lather, closes the e-mail thusly:

By the way, what is it that you do for a living? Perhaps I’ll use your services someday and send you a critique of how you did on one of your worst days of the year and see how much you appreciate my feedback.

Now obviously, this was the wrong way for the owner/manager to handle this. In the service industry, you never want to burn bridges with a customer, but the owner/manager here used an MX Missile topped with multiple, independently targeted re-entry vehicles on this particular bridge. Certainly it would have been better for the owner/manager to sit on the response overnight, cool off a little bit and then maybe consider a different, more measured response. It is my understanding that the owner/manager is something like 22 years old, and therefore lacks the experience and, well, the maturity to properly handle the situation.

But (and there’s always a “but”)… in the response, the owner/manager brings up a very valid point:

If you do not point out the problem at the time of service (i.e. the tuna burger) we cannot correct it.

This is 100 percent correct. To quietly stew about bad food and then complain after the fact smacks of passive-aggressiveness. The owner/manager’s snotty reply and the subsequent e-mail frenzy (and this shitty blog post) all could have been avoided had the customer brought to the attention of the staff while at the restaurant.

While the owner/manager never should have sent such a snotty reply, the customer also bears some responsibility for letting things get to that point.

The Girl’s soccer lidlifter was this past weekend. Those of you who know me or who regularly read this Web log know I harbor a severe and unyielding prejudice against the sport.

My anti-soccer bias is one of my many shortcomings as a human being. But I am big enough not to pass along my prejudices to my children (except for my loathing of the Chicago National League Ball Club; some things are just too important), so I keep my yap shut around my kids when it comes to soccer.

I also keep my yap shut at the games. I wish I could say they same for the other parents. Some of them were a little enthusiastic with their “encouragement.” As soon as the whistle blew to start the game, some “adults” were screaming instructions from the sidelines, things like:

[redacted], get after the ball!

Get back! Get back! Get back!

Take the shot!

ARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!

I heard one mom say, out loud, how “stressed out” she was watching her kid play, in between embarrassing, asinine bleatings from the sideline. Her child, along with her child’s teammates, is SEVEN YEARS OLD. If a parent is going to get that worked up now, what’s it going to be like in later years when the games actually mean something? “Adults” were actually getting frustrated by what their child was doing or not doing on the pitch.

Here’s a friendly tip for all you overbearing soccer parents: Shut up and let your children play. It’s supposed to be fun for them. You screaming “instructions” or “encouragement” from the sidelines only causes embarrassment, for them and for yourself. Even though they’re only 7 years old, I’m pretty sure that they know they’re supposed to run after the ball and kick it and stuff.

Here’s another tip: Let Coach be Coach. It’s his/her job to do the instructing and encouraging, not yours. If you want to practice one on one with your child on your own time, fine. But once your little Beckham steps between the white lines, it’s Coach’s ballgame.

Gosh, I can’t wait for Game 2 on Saturday.

The next time someone orders both plain wings and wings with sauce, don’t put the plain wings in the same to-go box as the saucy wings. Thanks.

Your pal,

A.C.

“Thou shalt getteth thy freak on.”

In the latest in the long, storied history of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do megachurch leaders, the “archbishop” of a suburban Hotlanta congregation is getting Bill Clintoned:

An 80-year-old leader of a suburban megachurch who is at the center of a sex scandal has been charged with lying under oath for saying he had sex outside marriage with only one other woman, court documents show.

Apparently, one Earl Paulk of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church has been sticking his dick into all kinds of pudding for quite some time now. And one former church employee has had enough and is suing Paulk, his brother and the church:

…on allegations that Paulk manipulated (Mona Brewer) into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation.

I can only imagine that conversation:

Paulk: Oh, come on, baby… you know you want to. It’s, uh, God’s will. You want to go to heaven, don’t you?
Brewer: But I don’t recall seeing anywhere in the Bible that an extramarital affair is the path to salvation!
Paulk: (undressing) I think it’s somewhere near the back… Jesus wants me to get freaky with you tonight, baby! If you want, I’ll make you church organist! (winks)

While I understand that a preacher abusing his authority and trust in such fashion is despicable, but this affair went on for about 15 years. At what point does it cease to be “manipulation” and become a behavioral choice on the woman’s part? A person just doesn’t allow herself to be “manipulated” for so long without realizing what role she plays in the situation.

But wait… it gets better. A court-ordered paternity test has found that Paulk has carried on that great Southern tradition:

Paulk is the biological father of his brother’s son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church.

Awesome. The guy’s uncle is his dad, which was revealed in October. That must have been some Thanksgiving.

…people who drive slower than the speed limit need to be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

Same deal with jerks who:

• Ignore or are too stupid to comprehend “Right Turn Only” lanes (think eastbound Monroe at Ninth or northbound Koke Mill at Old Jack);
• Change lanes to get in front of you then slow down to make a turn;
• Wait until you make a complete stop at a stop sign before they go;
• Can’t comprehend four-way-stop hierarchy;
• Waive their right of way;
• Don’t creep into an intersection while waiting to turn left;

I could go on and on, but it’s late and I have to go to bed. Anyone else want to add to the list?

My 18-year-old self would not approve of this post.

Back in the day, I had written a column for Windows, the student newspaper at Southeast High School, titled “Take This Shirt And Shove It.” In it, I registered my disapproval at being told by a teacher to turn the T-shirt I was wearing inside out.

So in the current dress-code kerfuffle, you might think I would be on the side of free expression through clothing.

You would be wrong.

To get you up to speed, Franklin Middle School is one of a few schools that require a uniform of sorts, generally khaki pants and a school-colored polo-style shirt. A seventh-grader there is challenging this “uniform” by wearing what she pleases, and Mommy and Daddy are squarely in her corner.

Some well-meaning but misguided people are trying to make a federal case out of this. Others, seemingly completely without irony or perspective, are calling the girl’s actions “heroic” and comparing her “plight” to that of Rosa Parks:

How much longer before the administration starts widdling that down to the kids with blond hair and blue eyes sit in front, kids with black hair and brown eyes in back. … (I)t took one woman to stand up for her rights by saying No,I will not give up my seat so you can sit down. History was changed. This is about what is right and just.

Dress codes! It’s the new racism!

Is undermining the school’s authority “right and just?” This is a school rule. Students are to follow school rules. If a student can defy a rule and still pretty much get away with it, why would any other student follow the rule? Not being able go to a dance or a basketball game is hardly a punishment.

Still others think that the dress code is some sort of conspiracy to push clothing that the school sells:

This school capriciously enforces a standard of dress that is designed to push the sale of school apparel. It is no coincidence that this “policy” began soon after the sale of candy was eliminated. It’s all about the money, foks!

OK, so what? What’s the difference between buying a polo-style shirt at Kohl’s and buying a Falcons sweatshirt from the school? And is it such an awful thing to actually support your public schools beyond the property taxes you pay?

It’s all very simple. The school rule is very clear. If you break the rule, there will be consequences. Well, there were consequences, until the Franklin principal folded faster than Superman on laundry day.

And this is the message that is being sent to the students: If you don’t like the rules, don’t follow them. They aren’t going to be enforced anyway.

I just don’t understand the people who complain about how bad they think District 186 is but still actively undermine the district’s authority to enforce its own rules.

Here’s a piece of advice for all iPod owners:

Don’t forget to take it out of your pocket.

I got a call at work Saturday night from Mrs. Communist. She said, “I’ve got bad news. Really bad news. Bad bad bad bad bad news. Are you sitting down?

“I found your iPod.”

I couldn’t find it before work today. The second she’d said she found it, I knew what had happened:

It went through the wash.

Maybe she oversold the buildup on purpose so I’d actually be relieved that the bad news merely was my iPod being rendered completely useless.

I couldn’t have gotten upset anyway. I’m the dumbass who left it in his pants. This is an occasional problem in our house. I have the world’s cleanest wallet, driver’s license and credit cards.

To her credit, Mrs. Communist seized an opportunity to break my balls a little bit and suggested I get a man purse so this doesn’t happen again. I politely declined. No offense, Your Neighbor.

On a post a couple of weeks ago, I noted that a miscreant had altered former San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh’s page on Wikipedia:

Well, as of a couple of days ago, the vandalism has been removed. That piqued my curiosity as to who was behind the vandalism.

Poking around the page’s edit history file, I was surprised to learn that the nonsense about Walsh starting his career at Chatham Glenwood High School had been up since last Nov. 28.

While it would be impossible for a schmendrick like me to find out exactly who was responsible, I was interested in finding out from where the change was made. My first assumption was that it was some wiener kid at a Glenwood computer lab. Wikipedia logs the IP addresses of anonymous “contributors,” so I clicked on the address from the history page to learn more about it.

The first query was through DNSstuff.com’s WHOIS, and I was surprised to find out that the IP address was located in Jacksonville. The organization that owns the particular network is called the Illinois Century Network, which bills itself as

“… the largest publicly owned voice and data network in the country that serves nearly eight thousand schools, libraries, hospitals, municipalities, and other public institutions across the state.”

Interesting. Our tax dollars at work, I guess. The next querying tool Wikipedia offers is a reverse DNS lookup, and clicking on that reveals that IP address on a computer from Illinois College, specifically student215.ic.edu.

So instead of some wiener kid at Glenwood goofing off, it’s apparently some wiener student at Illinois College with too much free time. If you’re reading this, anonymous Glenwood grad at I.C., you are a douche. It’s people like you who give Wikipedia an undeserved bad reputation.

Hey, guess what? There’s been another round of recalls of Chinese-made toys, again because of lead-paint hazards.

If he wasn’t upset the last time, The Boy is going to be really pissed with this one. His beloved die-cast Sarge car (from the “Cars” movie) “could contain lead levels in excess of federal standards.”

If he knew who Charlton Heston was, he’d be giving the “Cold, Dead Hands” speech. I mean, this kid goes to bed clutching his “Cars” cars. Life has been put on hold more than once because we couldn’t find Fillmore or Chick or Mater before leaving the house.

But what I find interesting is that out of the about 20 different die-cast “Cars” vehicles, only Sarge is being recalled. Sarge, of course, resembles a U.S. military jeep.

Is this some sort of symbolic threat by China? Sort of a “first we go after your toy cars, next it’s the Panama Canal” kind of thing?

Or am I just inventing a black-helicopter conspiracy theory to rationalize having to take away a favorite toy from a 3-year-old?

Whatever it is, I don’t like it.

“Don’t mess with the bull, young man. You’ll get the horns.” — Richard Vernon, 1985.

If it’s the middle of July, it must be San Fermin Festival time. You know, it’s what Ernest Hemingway wrote about in “The Sun Also Rises,” where a bunch of idiots take to the narrow, cobblestoned streets of Pamplona, Spain, to run with a pack of bulls.

It’s the one chance the bulls have to exact some payback before they are cruelly slaughtered in the bullfighting ring. On Thursday, several people, including two American brothers, got the business end of one bull who broke away from the pack. Check it:

(Photos by The Associated Press)

As bad as that looks, these two got off easy compared to this guy, the photo of whom I’ll just link to because of the mildly disturbing content. It’s totally worth clicking on, though; pay attention to the bull’s left horn.

Maybe I’m just not adventurous, but this seems like a phenomenally stupid thing to do. You put yourself in close proximity to an angry bull while running on slippery cobblestones and you’re just asking for a horn up the poopchute.

I’ll just stay inside in the air-conditioning, thanks.