More Welfare, More Bowls

A little bit of socialism is okay. Those who cannot work due to physical or mental injury/handicap should be helped. And sometimes people are laid off. It's unfortunate, but it happens.

But those who are physically and mentally able to support themselves should not be allowed to become dependant on the system. To that end, here are some guidelines I'd like to see implemented:

1. Welfare benefits are limited to nine months, contiguous. If a person loses his job, regardless of reason, he has nine months of support. During those nine months, it is up to him to find another job. I think nine months is a nice compromise: six months might not be enough time for some people, while one year might be long enough for a person to become "hooked" on the government teat.

2. There may be no jobs available in a person's "trade" in that nine-month span, but it is likely that if a person is willing to try something different -- and is dilligent in his search -- that he can find a job. Working this job, he can continue looking for something in his desired industry.

3. Encouragement of charitable organizations taking over after that nine-month welfare stint has run out. If a person is trying to find a job but cannot, for whatever reason, we could help hook him up with a charitable organization. The charitable organization could get some sort of tax credit for taking him off the public books. Charitable organizations may also be called on to help those who do find work but who are either underemployed or are not making enough money to keep up.

I think the above three could help reduce the welfare state by providing incentives for people to find work and become responsible for themselves and for espousing private charity if they cannot find work (or while the work they do find is not enough). The bottom line is, we need to stop feeding dependancy. People need to be productive.

Forthwith I will leave politics out of this blog; this will not become a political rag.

More Bowl Predictions:

BCS CG: Oregon 41, Auburn 38
Sugar: Ohio State 34, Arkansas 31
Orange: Stanford 27, Virginia Tech 21
Fiesta: Oklahoma 35, UConn 17
Capital One: Alabama 23, Michigan State 17
Cotton: LSU 20, Texas A&M 16
Outback: Penn State 24, Florida 23
Gator: Michigan 37, Mississippi State 27
Holiday: Nebraska 41, Washington 20
Alamo: Oklahoma State 49, Arizona 42
Peach: Florida State 24, South Carolina 21
Other: Notre Dame 27, Miami 20
Other: Boise State 45, Utah 34
Other: Iowa 17, Missouri 14

I'm Back!

My last post was some time ago -- some three years ago. I had tried posting but had forgotten the URL, how to find my page, how to log in, etc. As I sat there, once again longing for my blog, I was shaken with insightful memory: like a bolt out of the sky, I remembered the URL. My login ID and password took a bit of work, but at any rate, here I am.

Okay, where to start?

Well it's Bowl Season 2010-2011, the most wonderful time of the year (thank you, ESPN).

My beloved Wisconsin Badgers have made it back to the Rose Bowl after a 10ish-year hiatus. We have a three-game winning streak in the Game, and with 70,000 Badger fans turning the stadium into Camp Randall West, I think we can do it again. The Red Sea might be an apt metaphor for what we'll see in the Rose Bowl -- red everywhere.

Wisconsin has been known for a strong running game. It's our reputation: we have big lines, we have good backs, and we run the ball until you can stop it. But this year it's been taken to another level: this year the Badger O line is perhaps the best in my lifetime. Some experts have said that we could run on the Houston Texans. While that might be a tad of a stretch, I think it's fair to say that Wisconsin's running game is arguably the most effective in college football right now, and when you combine it with the uber-efficient passing game led by Tolzien/Kendricks/Toon, ours is one bad mutha of an offense. Great line, three-deep with high-quality tailbacks, and a good passing game = nightmare for TCU.

Go Badgers!

Ugh, the tax plan thing in Washington is such a hassle.

The Democrats want to add a year to unemployment benefits so people can continue to be paid not to work (which is really not much of an incentive to get back off the couch...), while the employers of most of us have their taxes increased. Um... isn't that bass-ackwards? Shouldn't we be rewarding success and punishing failure? Or at least not subsidizing laziness? And why does it seem that Washington, or at least the Left, act like they own our money? "Oh, no, you can't keep your tax cut; it would cost us our money."

Excuse me, but whose money is that, exactly? The person's who earned it! Yes, in this country, where we value economic liberty, what a person earns (or owns legally otherwise) is his. Not the government's. Instead of reaching into taxpayers' pockets for more money to waste, they ought to look into ways to CUT SPENDING. Earmarks, pork -- do away with them. Period. If you want money for some small program in your state, write a bill and have it debated on the floor of the House and the Senate. I could personally care less for bike lighting in West Virginia; I sure don't want that coming out of my pocket. Let the state solicit donors, fer cryin' out loud.

Into this Capitaliam vs. Socialism feud has been injected Lord Jesus Christ. So many on the Left have seen fit to label Jesus a Socialist. That is flatly wrong, and unsupported by Scripture.

Jesus told us -- as individuals -- to give of our own time and money. Jesus did not condone the state stealing from some and giving that money to others. That is not biblical. Stealing is expressly forbidden; it's one of the Ten Commandments. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's" was to tell us to pay our taxes, to obey the law; it did not condone the government wasting that money. The Good Samaritan is a story of a person -- not the government -- stopping to help a person in need of help. I don't believe there are any stories in the Bible of a state agency helping people. It's all about individual giving. Not only can you personally minister to the person, but you are the one choosing to give your own money; it's not taken from you at virtual gunpoint. (if you think you have a choice in regard to paying taxes, be sure to look me up -- I'll be your pen-pal when you're in prison on tax evasion.)

This was, is, and should remain an economy based mainly on free-market Capitalism (AKA Free Enterprise). Free Enterprise is the American ideal. This system preserves economic liberty, rewards success, and punishes failure -- rather than disrespecting people's right to own money and property, rewarding failure, and punishing success... the way of Socialism. Free Enterprise frees up money for us to spend, invest, and start businesses. Free Enterprise encourages entrepreneurialism, which creates jobs, investment opportunities, and good products at low prices. Socialism encourages sloth.

Arg, that's enough.

Okay, prediction: Wisconsin 31, TCU 24.

If I don't post again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And... GO BUSH TAX CUT EXTENSION! hehe

Airplanes & Ducks, Oh My!

This is the email I sent to co-workers concerning my trip back to Nashville after this past Thanksgiving:


I was at the Central Wisconsin airport Monday night to get on a flight to Detroit – leg one of my trip back to Nashville. I was scheduled to get to Nashville at approximately 11pm, back home in plenty of time to be here at work on Tuesday (yesterday).

Well, we’re all sitting there as waiting passengers do, when we get news of a delay – our plane still isn’t at the airport. It’s expected to land in half an hour (or whatever), pushing our departure back about 45 minutes.

So… I’m ticked-off because this Wisc/Detroit flight was scheduled to land in Detroit at 9:30PM, and my flight from Det to Nash was scheduled to depart at 10pm. IF the Wisc/Det flight had been on time, I would have had to hurry to make it to my Det/Nash flight. So I was frustrated.

So anyway, we wait, and wait, and wait. No plane.

Finally, maybe an hour later, we receive notification that our plane – the one we were waiting for to take us to Detroit – had skidded off the runway, into the ditch, and that it was stuck. The flight was canceled.

So they tell us to re-book for the next day, which we all get in line to do.

So we’re standing in line when we notice a plane on the tarmac.

At first we see it in profile… then it turns left, so that we have a perfect view of the nose of the plane.

The nose is crumpled – totally dented.

About that time we receive news that the plane, at an altitude of three thousand feet, and only five miles from landing at the Central Wisc airport, had hit three ducks.

The ducks had crumpled the nose and taken out the hydraulics.

They were lucky to land, according to airport staff.

So while we were frustrated that our plane was inoperable… when I consider what might have happened, it sort of takes the edge off the frustration.

So I booked tickets for yesterday afternoon-evening, endured an hour-long delay in Minneapolis (lol – I hate Northwest), and got home very late last night.

Bottled Water

An esteemed colleague and I were recently discussing the merits of bottled water.

We came to the conclusion that it tastes like plastic, mostly does not actually come from "rolling, pristine mountain streams", and is probably bottled in people's bathtubs.

IE, not all bottled water is Evian.

(I hope the folks at Evian won't mind that I used their name. To the Evian people: I take no financial gains from the publishing of this blog. Thanks so much for allowing me to use your hallowed name.)

The best water is well water -- water from a private well.

But what about the plight of the city mouse? What of the person who lives in an apartment among the concrete jungle?

I think we ought to be able to dig and maintain our own wells.

In my case, I would pretty much have to dig my well in my apartment complex's parking lot -- it's gravel and, as such, is the only area on which one could dig.

The next time you're visiting, watch out for the large hole in the ground...

"Honey, is that a pothole?"

"Um... no... it's a... LOOK OUT!"

hehe

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The World of Sports

Pretty soon Englishman Ricky Hatton fights American Floyd Mayweather for some grandiose boxing title (or number of titles). This is being referred to by some as the fight of the year. Normally I cheer for the American, but Mayweather is such a jerk that I might just pull for Hatton to beat the quick-fisted Mayweather.

The Packers just lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the Battle of 10-1 Teams. Ho-hum. Of greater concern to me is that none of the Packer fans in attendance at Texas Stadium were trampled by Longhorn steers during their stay in Texas.

The Wisconsin Badgers have accepted a bid to play in the 2008 Outback Bowl, where they are likely to face the Tennessee Volunteers or the Auburn Tigers. I refer to the old saying, "Better the devil you know" -- I hope the Badgers play Auburn.

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Well, that's about it. I mostly just wanted to revive the blog. I'll talk again sometime before Christmas.

Making Movies

We recently finished shooting (filming -- I'll use "shooting" throughout this piece, so don't think I'm talking about using firearms) the short version of our motion picture. This short film is being made to make it easier for us to obtain monetary investments -- we show investors that we are capable of producing a quality product and they show faith by investing in the feature-length film. Another possible reward for making this short film is what I'll call "hype" -- we may market the film at film festivals, at which we could possibly win awards or at least become known in the industry; we will screen the short version multiple times in Nashville; and we will produce a limited number of DVDs to donate to friends and family, who will hopefully show the "short" to additional friends and family, creating a sort of Bernoulli trialish distribution/viewership chart.

I will tell you three things about making this short film:

1) It is hard, long work
2) Acting is fun
3) Parts of the process can be frustrating (aside from/on top of being hard work)

Hard, Long Work
We spent three days shooting this 15ish-minute short film. The first day, we worked from about 7am-midnight. The second day, we went from about 4pm-11pm. The third session, we toiled from 3pm-11pm. In sum, we worked 32 hours to shoot footage for what will be a 15ish-minute short film -- a little over two hours per minute yielded.

Our director and one of his editor pals have begun editing the film, which is expected to take about three weeks to accomplish (working about two days per week, since our guy does not own the editing equipment).

To give a detailed description of the non-acting-or-directing-related work that goes on at a set would take pages and pages of tedious prose, to which I am not about to subject you. I'll simply state that it is hard work -- setting up, tearing down, moving and setting up again, tearing down again, doing the click-board thing ("Scene 1a, take two" smack), holding the boomed microphone at weird angles from difficult positions so that we can hear the actors at all times, holding special handleless lights to provide "fill" light, figuring out how to get the correct lighting itself -- is tough labor. I was sore and tired after each session.


Acting Is Fun

Without getting into the script too much, I'll say that I had a blast acting out my part. I play a sarcastic jerk of a boss. My character gives an underling coworker a hard time for no good reason.

The thing I like most about acting is the opportunity to alter my voice to fit both my character and his mood. In my scene I attempted to portray mood-traits such as humor, sarcasm, anger, irritation/irritability and understanding (the last, briefly).

It was the third or fourth shot, of course, before I remembered to speak all of my lines into (or near enough to, in the direction of...) the boom microphone.


Frustrating
Setting up and tearing down a set is tough work, but the toughness of that is understandable. What was most frustrating (and oddly funny) about acting/shooting the film was having to deal with variables outside of our immediate environment.

For instance, the crickets and/or cicadas (whatever they were) were very loud at certain times during one of our shoots. We continued anyway, hoping that the microphone would adequately pick up dialogue and that we'd be able to edit out the background noise later. So far, there have been no complaints.

Secondly, there were several shots (takes) of my scene that were interrupted by Saturday-night patrons on Broadway. I'd be standing not two feet from my acting counterpart when, all of a sudden, someone would look into the window and manage to get his or her face into the shot, right between us. One guy knocked on the window and waved at us. Talk about weird -- we're staring back at the window laughing and muttering "Uh -- thanks a lot" at the same time.


This is not a term paper, so I'll leave without a more formal conclusion -- I'm not going to tell you what I told you, in other words. I'll end by saying that the whole film/shooting/short experience has been fun, and that we should have those DVDs ready in a few weeks.

Until then, au revoir.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

To mark the occasion, I figured I'd reach back in time to one of the most important dates in the history of the United States.

Date: July 4, 1863

Events: Union wins at Vicksburg and Gettysburg

Stars: General Meade (Gettysburg), General Grant (Vicksburg), Abraham Lincoln.

Things had been going poorly for the Union (USA) in the US Civil War. But on July 4, 1863, Union forces effectively kicked the Confederate forces out of the US at Gettysburg, split the Confederacy in half (Vicksburg) by taking control of the Mississippi River, and took a major morale boost from the two huge victories.

On November 19, 1863 a national cemetery was dedicated at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. At this dedication, President Abraham Lincoln -- probably our greatest President -- gave his famous Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.


Lincoln spoke of one of the two great battles that ended on the same day -- results that, when taken together, may have saved the Union. Who knows what the USA, or the world, would have been like if not for the results of that great day 144 years ago?

The Importance of Reading

I was chatting with a co-worker over IM earlier today. Somehow, the topic of reading came up.

I started going into what types of books I enjoy most.

She replies (paraphrasing), "I hate reading. Reading is boring. Books suck. I only like to read facts...."

And I thought to myself, "I don't think I've ever been so offended."

Now... this person is otherwise cool. But to me, reading is one of the neatest, most beneficial (emotionally, intellectually, etc.) activities available to us. And here she is, spitting in literature's eye! Well what could I do but insult her back? She had ripped on my beloved literature, my favored act of reading.

I made some hint to the effect that her statements made her sound like an uneducated, dumb hick. Well... of course I didn't say that, but man, that's what I was thinking. What more could one say to convey that he or she doesn't care about learning or imagination, than to say that she hates reading?

(She'd said something about entering chat rooms for the sake of fomenting her imagination, as opposed to reading books to do so... to which I replied "Yeah, and aside from being fun, a good thing about chat rooms is that they really exercise your brain..."). My statement positively oozed sarcasm.

I am still somewhat troubled. I've never wanted to convert anyone -- to any cause aside from Christianity -- as much as I feel like bashing her over the head with a book (figuratively) and leading her to the light of literature.

How horrified would y'all be if someone made such a ghastly admission, if someone denounced one of our greatest achievements ever -- the written word? Would you go into shock/defense mode as I did? I bet Frost, Whitman, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Hemingway, Poe (et al.) are rolling over in their graves.

I'm now going to take a deep breath and attempt to enjoy the rest of my day here at work. Maybe I'll get her a book for Christmas or something. Ahhhh, that's better.