McDonaldization of Society
   Around 1993 sociologist George Ritzer coined one of my favorite phrases. He came up with the phrase, "the McDonaldization of Society." I wish I had thought of it. Basically, it uses the McDonald's template of having all the prices on the keys, giving the workers set steps to wait on customers and make the food, and even lighting up the pie keys on the cash register to remind the counter-person to ask if the customer wants dessert.  The workers are to always be polite and quick but only polite enough so as not to take too long for each customer.  Around 1991, Robin Leidner did a field study of McDonald's and actually worked the job and then wrote about it.  She found much of the same rituals that Ritzer found. 
   The movie Falling Down took a shot at the ritualism trend.  Michael Douglas played a troubled character that had a bit of a dangerous tantrum when he could not get his hamburger the way he wanted it.    
   Now all this is interesting and well and good except what if this robot type ritualized service spills over into the greater society?  Wall-Mart stores all basically look the same.  Cruise ships herd you about on the ship to their events and activities - one often does not even know they are on water.  Suburban lawns are all cut the same and the houses only differ in design slightly, often for blocks or even miles.  The car companies convince us to be "individuals" and find our manhood but only if we drive one of their monstrous Hummers - regardless that the gas prices are outrageous. 
   Old dead sociologist Max Weber called this "rationalization."  That's a $50 academic word meaning we all muck about like robots.  O'l Max also coined the term the "Iron Cage" of ritual.  Believe it or not he came up with that over a hundred years ago.  I believe the cynical term is best used when bureaucracy is so ritualized in its inept rules that it is to the detriment of an individual or even a whole group. 
   Hey, I say hop on a f---'n plane and see a third-world country. You will learn rather quickly we don't need to do half the nonsense we do on any given day here in this country.  Although I have noticed some third-world country tourism now likes to herd you to their "special sites."  And, they are becoming enthralled with fast food joints.  The "Colonel" and his chicken are global man - the Bird Flu be damned.  It is best to get out on your own in the third-world - dangers not-with-standing.  But it is best to get out on your own here too and just free-lance your travels out from under the ubiquitous ritualism of society. 
   Yet, when it is all said and done, it is still a relatively free country here in the United States.  I will defend to my death your right to drive a Hummer until you go bankrupt and cut your lawn four times a week until it cries in pain. 
 - by Bob Keith, July 23, 2006 -

McJob 
   I first ran into this nifty and handy little condescending term in the book, Generation X by Douglas Coupland.  It has a publication date of 1991.  Here is the definition used in the book: 
   "A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector.  Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one." 
   There is just something pleasantly cathartic about this book and all its quirky little made-up terms.     
 - by Bob Keith, July 23, 2006 -

McNamarian-esque 
   Fighting a war in the construct that resembles the strategy that former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara crafted. McNamara left the Ford Motor Company to work in government.  With him he brought a business construct to the war fighting philosophy.  Basically, in the case of Vietnam, this meant fighting the war as if it were a business. McNamara measured success by body counts. People were moved from productive communities to fortress strategic hamlets with micro-managed economies. These hamlets proved to be a mess as entrepreneurial peoples enjoy more self determination than a fortress business compound in the jungle can offer.  Behemoth fortress military compounds were constructed to house war management.  Those unlucky enough to have to venture out in the field beyond the compounds ("outside-the-wire") saw a different war.   
   The greater war was managed by a business and governmental class of people removed from the lower classes. Even in the height of the war in 1968 with half a million U.S. soldiers in the county of Vietnam and surrounding countries, people back in the United States went about their business relatively unaware of the war. People got a half hour of world news at supper time. College campuses frequently embraced awareness of the war process and protested or not, periodically. The average guy on the street could live the whole war out none-the-worse basically removed from it if he desired. 
   This is a marked difference to a total war such as World War II where citizens rationed goods and services, collected recyclables for the war effort, and often worked in some job that emerged for a re-tooled war economy. 
   The McNamarian model embraces the notion a war can be won by a fighting class, managed by a business class, all removed from the economy and society at large - basically a part-time war. The problem with this model is if the war goes too long more and more average people are touched by it through deaths of family members or some other acquaintances. Prices of goods and services eventually are effected. People then get disenchanted that their personal worlds are upset. This after they had been reassured the war could be fought just fine with out their direct involvement.
 - by Bob Keith, July 14, 2006 -

Meadow/Orchard Affect (Wisconsin yards)
    If you have just the right amount of trees for shade; if you do not pour buckets of fertilizer on your yard weekly; if you do not water the grass; if you have not seeded your yard with foreign turf grass; and, you cut your crass a couple of times early in the growing season, the native grass will dominate your yard presentation.  By June the native grass will stop growing and it will take on a meadow-orchard affect at a reasonable height.  It will look uneven at about three to four inches high but you should not need to mow it the rest of the summer and fall.
    Remember, people did not really phase into the landscape culture and mow their lawns until after World War II - the post war economic boom and suburban construct lifestyle.  Try to imagine what vast acreage looked like before that time - meadow/orchard. Good night every one!
 - by Bob Keith, October 15, 2008 -

Nefarious
   A wicked, wicked soul.

Nanny-fication of America
   The methodical, longitudinal, attempt at the removal of everything potentially risky from American society.  Closely related to the "criminalization of everything," because once an activity has been upgraded from a suggested safety practice, to a mandated practice, there then must be punitive consequences for a violation.  It involves a society enamored with the protection of itself, from itself.  It is one thing to manufacture safety equipment for a society's benefit, such as car seats, motorcycle helmets, bicycle helmets, seat belts, safety seals, etc., etc., (build your own list); it is another thing to create a whole class of citizens who have police records for not using this equipment. 
   As far as I can tell, American is one of the few places on earth obsessed with carding people who walk into a place that serves alcohol or sells cigarettes.  We ban toys and cloths we deem dangerous.  American is fraught with preemptive warnings to avoid litigious attacks, i.e. a warning an a plastic bag to let you know if you put it over your head you will not be able to breath.  
   The best therapy for having succumbed to this insanity of nanny-fication is to climb on board a cheap airliner and go the third-world county of your choice.  Throw a dart at a map - oh yeah real metal darts are dangerous.  Anyway, go to a place that has never heard of smoking bans, and if they have rules, those rules are only mere suggestions. If you are lucky, you may twist your ankle in a sewer hole in the sidewalk because someone has stolen the iron sewer hole lid for scrap.  Perhaps you will bang your knee on a metal pipe that just sticks up for no apparent good reason, out of the crumbling sidewalk.  
 - by Bob Keith, August 24, 2006 -
     
Obfuscation
   The basic definition is to confuse.  It gets good mileage when it is used in the technique of confusing of language.  Examples: Collateral damage = dead civilians; going forward = our plan was really messed up in the past so don't bring it up; and, ethnic cleansing = killing groups en masse you don't like.  
   Obfuscation is similar but not the same as an oxymoron.  An oxymoron is opposites that end up together.  Examples: jumbo shrimp; military intelligence; head butt; and catfish. 
   A phrase that bridges the two worlds of oxymoron and obfuscation is, "killed by friendly fire," which means you just shot one of your comrades. And, rarely is the firing of a weapon a friendly gesture.     
 
Outposts of Paradise
   Places we send our soldiers that the greater society rarely knows about or even cares about. Yet, these places are the front lines of the American interest - the frontiers of paradise as it were. While people go about their business and go to the mall back in America, there are soldiers somewhere in the world in a duty station from hell. The general idea of this strategy of placing soldiers so far from America is that a threat to America will be caught or influenced before it gets to our own borders. We had thousands of soldiers in Europe and Asia for decades in the Cold War to let potential enemies know that if they encroached on those territories they would run into Americans at that point and that would no-doubt activate a greater United States defense mechanism. 
 - by Bob Keith, July 14, 2006 -

Paradigm Pimps 
   People who emphatically defend the established inept parts of norms, mores, and status quo. They often defend the established ritualism of society to society's detriment. People were actually beheaded back in the day for bringing up the possibility when the notion first surfaced, that the world might not be flat after all. They are the "enforcers" of inept policy and repeated failings. They are the "apologists" for the same. They are the "enablers" of inefficient norms and nit-wit customs. They take ownership for an inept societal custom or ritual and are vehemently offended when it is questioned. 
   A simple urban example: Southern Wisconsin lawns do not need to be mowed three times a week, cut so low the grass cries in pain, watered daily, and fertilized and chemicalized weekly. The best lawn is thick native grass that is left to grow a bit longer than the urban norm. If you don't water it every day it reverts to its native defense mechanisms to survive - it stops growing. Timed just right in this state of growth, it can be mowed every three weeks. You save gas for your lawn mower and wear and tear on your body (it is a myth that yard work is healthy exercise as it is some of the worst activity the body must endure - I was a landscaper for 12 years). Trees and shrubs enjoy being left alone and not clipped daily as if in the salon. People are often surprised that their little clipped-to-death shrubs will grow to be 30 feet tall if left alone. These shrubs in their natural state create shade and collect moisture for your immediate living area. 
   I am also quite familiar with the culture of landscape marketing and its insistence that yards be manicured and over cared for, of course at your expense. Urban landscaping we endure today really never existed until after World War II and the suburban construct emerged. People that practice modern marketed yard care waste countless hours, spend tons of money, and ruin their bodies - all for the modern paradigm of "manicured lawns." 
   Caveat: However, you practice this method of lawn care rebellion at your own urban peril. You will most likely be scorned and hated in your modest middle-class ranch style neighborhood - possibly even beheaded by the neighborhood association.     
 - by Bob Keith, July 13, 2006 -

Perennial-job-listers
   Have you ever noticed there are companies that continually list job openings?  In this neck-of-the-woods, there seems to be five or six redundant suspects.  I have foolishly applied at them all at one time or another.  They post job offerings every weekend in the local regional paper as well as the regional bi-weekly advertising paper.  Their postings are always larger than the other job listings.  In fact, sometimes they take out a whole page ad.  The timbre of the ad is urgent as they plea in desperation for help.
   However, I recently went to one of these company's job fairs at a local hotel conference room (they pleaded for candidates in a flier put in the Sunday paper).  The on-site interviewer told me how impressed he was with my education and experience and they would surely call me within the week.  Of course they never did.  A month or so later I was taken aback when just down from my street was a large highway billboard by the same company again pleading for help.
   Here's the deal.  When average blue-collar guys like me from humble roots only get a piece of the picture, we fill in the missing information on our own.  I can only conclude then that perhaps these companies get some government tax breaks for each person they interview; perhaps they steel and then use interviewees' ideas that are discussed in the interview process; and, if you don't want people with an education and lots of experience then I can only conclude you want people that will not be competition to the current management.  Until someone corrects me I will assume my blue-collar guessing is correct.  
   The outing of these companies is as follows: Actually, I really don't want, that after they finally call me for the first time, for it to be a call from from one of their attorneys.  
 - by Bob Keith, July 22, 2006 - 

Return to college as an old guy canard 
    Returning to college in my forties was sold and touted as a retooling and potential life-changing endeavor.  Giving my best effort, unlike my young classmates, I never drank alcohol during my ten years of attaining two associate's degrees, a bachelor's degree, and 45 graduate credits.  I worked at shitty jobs the whole time.  I never missed a class.  I took extra classes to enhance my knowledge of a subject. I maintained a 3.65 grade average throughout.  
    Yet, I began to worry when for a second time, a second professor pulled me aside and shut the office door and said, "You just won't get hired as an older male when you get out."  This I thought and knew from experience is surely true in the blue-collar world - that is why I went back to college.  My father never had a chance to and by 50, his blue-collar body was broken.  He had no educational prowess to fall back on.  I did not want that to happen to me as well. I did not heed the sagely professors' caveats.  I still bought into the marketing of "retool."  It turns out the "retool" is a joke on the "old-fool."
    For the sake of time-line on the World Wide Web, in case this posting survives into the future, it is now 2008 and one of the worst economies since the 1970s and early 1980s.  But before this current economy fell apart, companies still would not even interview me.  If interviewed I even resorted to pleading that I had not called in sick in ten years. 
    My experience has resulted in my reluctantly coining the phrase, "Return to college canard." And I have written about it before but to deaf ears, of course - "Over 50 years old and need a job, then screw you!"
 - by Bob Keith, July 26, 2008 -

Second World Orwellian America with Nukes
    Ingredient Number One.  All the millionaire media pundits seemed surprised the fall 2008 "urgent" 700 billion dollar bailout is not working out so good.  Mega corp after mega corp asks for government bail outs.  The three U.S. auto makers claim they need government cash or they will go bankrupt. The pundits argue about the pros and cons of slinging out tax money to save the financial ruling class.  But not once have any pundits suggested the notion that people actually need real jobs to buy the junk that the mega corps ooze into the retail economy - but of course why would millionaires know anything about real meaningful jobs performed by the rabble.  End game of Ingredient One - the country is collapsing.
    Ingredient Number Two.  Since "Nine-Eleven," the paranoia permeating the country due to government promises of public surveilance, is matched in my life time only by the Vietnam-Watergate era. And, segued further by the evolution of ubiquitous private sector surveilance and privacy invasion, the country is slipping into a Soviet-esque demeanor. End game of Ingredient Two - we are becoming a Soviet-like nation we so abhorred during the Cold War.
    Mix Ingredient One and Two.  Realize a once powerful democracy now imploding into a bleak Second World, Orwellian, Soviet-esque monstrosity with nukes. 
 - by Bob Keith, November 18, 2008 -   

Selective Adulthood
   Society using its young citizens per their age to some convenient advantage for society.
Example one: Restricting people under 21 years old from drinking alcohol; thereby, creating a culture of underage alcohol offenses by people who are otherwise able to vote at 18 and serve in the military at 17.

Example two: Forbidding people from smoking cigarettes until they are 18 years old, implying they are too immature to decide about the perils of smoking; but, waving a 12 year old into adult court for some type of offense against society claiming they should have known better.   
 - by Bob Keith, April 29, 2008 -

Shitty-work-schedule-culture 
   See 24-356
 - by Bob keith, June 28, 2008 -

Strategic Procrastination
   Have you ever noticed people that try to do things too quick?  For example, like someone at work starting a project (say moving equipment to another area) that is suspected of getting the nod from the boss, only to get nearly done and then having the boss nix the project.  Now the work must be undone - causing more work for more people that never needed to be done in the first place.  The colloquial phrase, "let the dust settle" did not get invented for no good reason.  Consider letting things sit for a bit.  Half the time someone else will come along and change the original plans anyway - at best, some unassuming chap will do the task not realizing he has just saved you a bunch of effort. 
   Not to be confused with "productive procrastination" which is usually understood to mean busy-work someone does while putting off something more critical - organizing the closet instead of starting the college term paper.  
 - by Bob Keith, July 13, 2006 - 

Talk Radio Participation Futility
    Since the advent of ubiquitous talk radio stations and shows in the 1980s, an entire culture of talk hosts and listeners has evolved.  Both national and local talk shows have developed a detectable construct.  Although national shows are more notorious for manipulating participants, local shows practice the manipulation template as well, albeit to lesser extent.
    The hosts control the topics. If lucky, a caller will be allowed 30 seconds to make a point - next to impossible.  If the host does not like the warning message the call screener puts on the caller monitor, said host may simply leave the caller on hold for an hour.  Some hosts rant on about their own points for most of the subject hour and maybe let in two callers.  Some local shows allow more callers but the hosts often ridicule the caller after they have hung up on said caller.  
    A trend in the talk radio culture is that the hosts are mostly men, often with no or little college back ground.  The egos of these said hosts are often enormous.  They will risk job termination in lieu of admitting making a mistake.  The themes of the shows often reflect already posted stories on Internet sites or newspapers.  Often even then, the hosts are poorly prepared in subject matter.  If the caller gets too nuanced or tries to expand the topic, the hosts often seem befuddled and dismiss the caller as eccentric or out of the main stream in some manner.  
    Talk radio often reflects an anti-intellectual and anti-college-educated timbre.  Talk radio has been said to be the new town hall meeting place for a modern, 24-hour, fast-paced, over-stressed, and electronic dominated society.  If this is indeed true, community communication has slunk perhaps, to a level of new quirkiness and eccentricity - a sad commentary on a society and its communication culture that at the very least might beg one's pity rather than awe.    
    - by Bob Keith, November 10, 2008 - 

Third-World Logic
   Oddly enough it is logic clung to by people many of whom seem to have never been in a Third-World country, yet claim to speak for them. The general mantra is that all poor Third-World people hate Americans and America is the source of all evil in the universe. The average guys in the Third-World countries I have been in don't even seem to know where America is let alone hate it. 
   Another tenet of this philosophy claims Europe can do no wrong and America should change itself to be just like Sweden. The problem with that is Sweden has a small mostly white population. American is one of the most ethnically diverse places on earth. We have to work rather hard to all get along. It is no doubt easier to have utopia if you all look the same and there ain't so many of you. I have been to Scandinavia and have no desire to rush back - a place where everyone looks the same is boring. 
   A third version of Third-World logic seems to emanate from apologists and enablers for the waves of people coming from south of the United States boarder and besieging the country and entering it illegally. The apologists and enablers are generally more affluent than the poor beleaguered people trying to find a better life. They will never call the border crossers illegal. They often hint that parts of American should be part of Mexico. They refuse to discuss the phenomena that the border crossers do not always seek or even desire to be American citizens. I worked for years with Mexican immigrants and they all vehemently refused to seek United States citizenship. And finally, the apologists and enablers claim all this border mess is of course America's fault - ignoring Mexico's inept attempt to manage its own lousy economy invariably causing the flow of people trying to escape.
   Closely related to the idea in the above paragraph is the strange phenomenon where virtually no Arab peoples or Islamic peoples step forward to criticize, with any gusto anyway, the people who facilitated the bringing down of the World Trade Center towers.  Nor, will one hear much anxiety from the Muslim world about the constant death wreaked on the people of Baghdad, Iraq and also the constant killing of American soldiers by Islamic guerrilla fighters.  Perhaps I am using the wrong news sources.  But, like other things in a blue-collar guy's life, if I don't get the full story I fill in the blanks myself until otherwise corrected. 
 - by Bob Keith, July 14, 2006 - 

Third-World Optimism
   When traveling in Third-World countries beware of service people (travel agencies especially) that offer up travel times that seem a bit too efficient for what they have to work with.  If they say the bus to some place will take one hour, figure it will take two.  If they say it is the "new" bus, figure you will only ride with a couple of chickens.  If it is the "local" bus, you should anticipate many chickens, a pig, a ton of bananas on the roof, and gallons of contraband whiskey under your seat and feet.  In Vietnam for example, they have a tendency to have the bus stop for a break at uncle Pham's café (cousin to the tour guide) and do not count the time spent there. If they say it will leave at 6:00 a.m., figure 6:45 a.m.  Also, beware of promises to the "biggest," "newest," "oldest," "first," "original," and, "best" attractions.  In Vietnam, there seems to be a lot of Buddhist shrines that are all of the above. 
 - by Bob Keith, August 21, 2006 -

Threshold Syndrome
    Ever try to make your way through a doorway only to find some fool standing in it talking or pausing? Ever find yourself hurrying down a hallway only to be delayed by some moron waddling down the center of the common-way taking up just enough space so you can't get by on either side?  Every wait behind some lunatic that is turning their car so slowly around a corner that you are then stuck at the next red light?  All these people are oblivious to their surroundings and not the least bit aware of any possible affect they might have on other members of their species.  These members of a disturbing subculture of dummies are engaging in a condition known as "Threshold Syndrome" - perpetually in someone else's way.
 - by Bob Keith, April 1, 2008 -

Time Bandits 
   These are companies and jobs that have an all too common theme and mantra these days: they pay your poorly; give you no benefits; bring you in different days each week; schedule you for different times each day; if they give work evaluations at all they give you poor ones; they write you up if you are one minute late; fire you if you are one minute late twice; they are fraught with relatives as supervisors; their equipment is poor which effects your performance which causes them to claim you are too slow; and, they most likely give you a poor reference so they can keep you prisoner at their miserable jobs.  
   These kind of work places have you working such odd and disorganized hours it hard to look for another job. Their erratic hours make it hard to work a second job if you need one and are lucky enough to find one.  The work they have you do wrecks your body.  When you are finally beaten down to the point of no return they let you go, claiming, "well, he just didn't take care of himself." 
 - Bob Keith, July 17, 2006 -   

Traffic Calming
    Ever suspect that a series of stop and go lights on a straight boulevard are unreasonably out of sync? It takes you a half hour to get just three miles through a dozen lights.  It seems to you like the boulevard should get the benefit of a synchronized light system to let the flow of traffic proceed smoothly?  Too bad for you.  Municipalities sometimes set the lights out of sync to slow the traffic flow down.  Defer to "Convenient Inefficiency."
 - Bob Keith, April 1, 2008 -

Two-Party Paradigm
   The two political parties in the United States seem to have no differences. The tendency really reared its ugly head during the Vietnam War as both parties took turns running the war over the 15 years that Americans had soldiers on the ground there.  The complications in prosecuting a war that long and so far away and the eventual domestic consequences back home made it hard after a while to tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats - they were all eventually written off as crooks. 
   It seems that now in this new era of perennial war, the trend of the two parties to convergence is back.  Both parties solicit your money and vote ad nauseam.  The nightly talking-head millionaire pundits are recycled over and over on each others' shows and argue their parties' right and left politics. After a while they all sound contrived and ratings-driven.  
   It seems to happen from time to time that the highest representatives of their parties cloud any party differences and drag the loyal to the end of their ropes: Lyndon Johnson gave up on Vietnam and gave up on politics; Richard Nixon carried on the war for five more years and then fell apart politically and resigned; Gerald Ford the only unelected President inherited Nixon's legacy of lame politics and economy and then had to oversee the humiliating defeat of South Vietnam; Jimmy Carter seemed impotent to bring our hostages home from Iran as his economy nearly collapsed (misery index); the first George Bush won a war and lost the election because his economy faltered; Clinton cheated on his wife which lead to his impeachment; and finally, the second George Bush does not seem to be able to win the current war and has trouble convincing people he is sensitive to civil liberties and the domestic economy (high gas prices).
   The two parties pass power back and forth every few years or so accomplishing little except managing to give themselves pay raises in their government positions. Neither party while in power seems too quick to undo tax increases or encroachments on freedoms that the other enacts while in power. Most of the time they lobby for the erosion of our freedoms in the name of saving us from ourselves. 
   The caveat might be that if you do sell your soul to one of these parties you may be left with your brains sucked out. When the parties via their leaders crash hard from time to time they seem to leave their loyal followers bitter and disenchanted. 
 - Bob Keith, July 17, 2006 -

Unnecessary Collective Misery
   Never have so many, worked so hard, to make what should be an easy-going, fun society, into such an unnecessary, miserable experience.
 - Bob Keith, July 23, 2006 -

Vagal-Down Dudes
    Without going on a medical jargon journey I am not qualified to lead, suffice it to say there is a cool nerve that wanders around our head and upper body called the vagus nerve. Many things can agitate the ol' vagus, but one utilitarian urban legend is that when you bear down (as if having a bowel movement) the vagus nerve can reduce the heart rate and blood pressure. Having worked on an ambulance for 10 years, it is not uncommon to find a great deal of older patients unconscious in the bathroom - usually pinned between toilet and wall, etcetera. This is urban legend to ambulance crews. 
   If you have a intolerable heart arrhythmia (odd, fast, and inefficient heart beat - Ventricular tachycardia), a utilitarian suggestion sometimes given by responding emergency crews before they dive into their medicine bag, is to "vagal-down." It is called the vagal maneuver, or also the valsalva maneuver. Bearing down as if holding the breath might temporarily simmer down the fast, irregular heart beat - or, maybe not. Do not try this on your own for it has been known to kill people too. Often those old folks in the bathrooms are, well - dead. 
   Hey, didn't Elvis die in the bathroom? Las Vegas, Elvis, Vagal-down, Elvis, Vegus nerve, Elvis, Hmmmm? August 16, 2007 is the thirtieth anniversary of the "King's" fateful end. Was it a case of, "vagal-down?" 
   "The King" notwithstanding, I however see the vagal maneuver as a missed opportunistic, potential pop-culture term to hurl at workaholics and hyper-overactive nuisance jerks. Vagal-down dudes!
 - Bob Keith, August 15, 2007 -

Wars on adjectives and nouns 
   Closely related to obfuscation.  Somewhere in the last century we decided to declare war on adjectives and nouns rather than the dicey task of declaring war on nations. Rather than declare war on a nation that allows dangerous drugs to spill from its boarders we declare war on the drugs.  Rather than declare war on a cult-like communist nation that fires missiles recklessly near its peaceful neighbors we declare war on the politics.  Rather than declare war on countries that train and harbor renegade political groups and their leaders who want us dead, we declare war on their terrorist tactics (exception Afghanistan and possibly Iraq).  Some examples: the war on communism; the war on poverty; the war on drugs; and, the war on terrorism. 
   Playing with language and semiotics is fun in academia, colloquial speech, and local politics; however, it is most annoying when it is related to serious geo-political strategy to keep us safe and healthy.   
 - Bob Keith, July 17, 2006 -  

Weenigrief
    My Irish mother and grandmother used the word "weenigrief" all the time. It denotes a sourpuss of a person - a whiner, a perennial grump.  I suspect my spelling is only phonetic in nature.  It know doubt has Irish roots.  Perhaps even regional Irish pertaining to a certain county in Ireland.  
    We have a cat who is a weenigrief. She is a dwarf-cat born to a winter litter.  The mother cat was starving.  Heide says that if "weenigrief" were in the dictionary, Beanie the cat's picture would be under the entry.  Beanie cries when she is picked up, she cries when Sam the cat goes out on his harness and leash, she cries when she eats.  What is odd is we used to pick her up to see if she was OK.  She would always purr.  "You can't cry and purr at the same time Beanie," Heide will say.  
    I had a bachelor uncle my Mom called a weenigrief.  He lived alone in a sad little trailer and never talked to anyone.  He had no friends. When he did talk, he complained about bygone subjects. He would only go to family events after prodding from my Mom and Dad and then only after he had sulked for a week or so. When he died, only two people came to his funeral. Perhaps he could have gotten on swimmingly with Beanie - two weenigriefs in a pod. 

Wisconsin Logic
    "Wisconsin Logic" is like trying to define pornography; like the U.S. Supreme Court says, "I can't pin it down, I know it when I see it."  You may hear someone make what strikes you at first impression as an idiotic statement regarding something Wisconsin oriented. Ask them if they are from Wisconsin and if so, just let it go.  Growing up in Wisconsin and moving away has afforded me a special relationship with my beloved state.  For years I have noticed momentary snippets of "Wisconsin Logic."  The next time I hear a doozy, I will post it here....
 - Bob Keith, July 26, 2008 -
    Example One - 
    In the November 2008 election, the Republicans put no challenger up against incumbent Democrat Mike Sheridan in the 44th State Assembly District.  As well, the Democrates put up an extremely weak challenger (basically no contest) against incumbent Republican Paul Ryan in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District for the United States House of Representatives.  Both State and federal districts essentially cover Janesville, Wisconsin.  The area has been ravaged by unemployment and the closing of one of the last General Motors factory plants in the country as well as several companies that facilitate products and services for such a plant.  The area has been stagnant in other economic catagories for years.   
    Only in Wisconsin would a region so devastated by mismanagement and economic misery re-elect two politicians who sat in office while the long deconstruction of the community's financial solvency took place.  But then there is - "Wisconsin Logic." 
 - Bob Keith, November 10, 2008 -
    Example Two - 
    Wisconsin has been tinkering with schemes to get students (high school, college, medical) to stay in the state after they graduate.  The various facilitators of the desperate and seemingly pitiful pleas, seem to be oblivious to the reality that there must be jobs in place for said graduates to have if they decide to stay in the state.  But then there is - "Wisconsin Logic." 
 - Bob Keith, November 10, 2008 -