May 10, 2005

Sounding Off
First let me say this to Internet advertisers: knock it off with surprise ad audios.

This is the latest trick to get us to pay attention to ads on the web pages selling things we have no reason to care about. Having once owned a small newspaper I understand the need to please paying advertisers. But I also understand the importance of not pissing off readers.

And – Washington Post.com you pissed me off this morning when, still sleepy-eye I was about to take my first sip of coffee when that Hyundai ad began blaring loud music through my computer speakers. Jesus H. Christ! I'm still trying to get the coffee out of my keyboard.

Thanks to that little surprise I am now against all things Hyundai. And if you keep it up I will be against all things Washington Post as well. So, knock it off. Take note of Pizzo’s Rule No. 1 of Internet Marketing: Just because you can do something on the Internet does not mean it’s a smart thing to do.

Jarring your readers with “surprise sounds” is neither smart nor endearing. So knock it off.

One more personal rant before I get down to ranting about the news.

I have said this before and will not say it again, so listen up. I am a mistake factory. Not with facts but with spelling, punctuation and syntax. I think I have a touch of dyslexia and know I have a bunch of stupid going on in this 60-year old head. Neither condition is curable.

And, I am tired of people emailing me and telling me to get an editor. Right. You pay for an editor and I will happily get one. I appreciate good editing more than most writers. I readily admit I am a carefree and careless writer. Always have been. It's amazing I got as far in this business as I did. And I credit all the editors I drove to drink over the years for all of it.

But now I have no editors so what you get is Pizzo-raw. If you are one of those anal types that just cannot get past the typos, then spare yourself the pain. Just go away. Both of us will be happier for it.

Now To The News (Sans Sound or Editing)

At Last, Free Medical Care for the Uninsured!
Yes, it’s true. And – I hope you are sitting down – it is even backed by the Bush administration. Free hospital care for the sick and injured. Nationalized medicine.

But not for you, unless of course you are an illegal immigrant (translate that to Mexican illegal immigrant.)

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration announced on Monday that it would start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants…. The money, totaling $1 billion, will be available for services provided from Tuesday through September 2008. (Full Story)

Yes, while 47 million certified, taxpaying American citizens go without health insurance, Washington politicians are going to use $1 billion of YOUR tax money to purchase the hearts and votes of the growing Hispanic demographic.

The money is also being spent to help hospitals that complain that the flood of illegals using their facilities for free is a burden they can no longer carry. So you and I will pay the bill now -- even if you can't get health insurance for yourself or your family.

This whole illegal immigration thing is going to bite both parties right in the ass if they don't wise up pretty damn soon. Pandering to illegal Hispanics to curry favor with Hispanic voters is only going to end badly for both this nation and for those politicians using our money to votes. Especially so because these are the same politicians who cannot muster the courage and wisdom to figure out how to provide basic health coverage to legal citizens.

And they wonder why people are cynical about politics and fed up with both parties. I would say "a pox on both your houses," but a pox epidemic is the last then we need with so many uninsured citizens.


Add This to Evolution
Born-agains are going to have another piece of science to hate besides evolution. It seems that more proof has surfaced that gays are born that way.

“Using a brain imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that homosexual and heterosexual men respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that the gay men respond in the same way as women… The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones, as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. (Full Story)

Religious fundamentalists of all flavors are not going to believe a word of that research. They hate it when anyone tries to take away a sin. Sin is critical to their whole shtick. Without sins what they have left? A whole race of humans who are just fine and need no unsolicited advice. And among Christians Top Ten sins is homosexuality -- strange when you consider the guy they worship spent most of his adult years wandering the desert with twelve men in robes.

Speaking of Hypocrites
Whenever I hear a politician demagoguing any matter sexual I know in my gut that he/she has a kinky side they have not quite come to terms with. Here’s the latest proof of that concept:

“Citing what he called persecution and hysteria, Republican Mayor Jim West says he's taking a few weeks off to defend himself against allegations of child molestation and new claims that he offered city jobs to men he met online.” (Full Story)

Oh man, is that sweet, or what? I would not normally take pleasure in another person’s misfortune except that this guy made his spurs by pontificating on the evils of homosexuality and opposing gay marriage.

At the same time he was beating gay voters over their heads with righteous indignation, he was sexually harassing men on his own staff. Ryan Oelrich, an openly gay 24-year-old, says he accepted West's appointment to the city's Human Rights Commission in April 2004 after meeting the Mayor – where? At City Hall? Ah, no. He met him online at Gay.com.

Oelrich said he finally had to resign from the commission because West "hounded me for months, telling me I was cute and asking me out on dates. Oelrich told the local newspaper that he knows of "five or six other young gay men that Jim West has met online and offered City Hall jobs."

What a piece of work! But it gets worse. He is now accused of trying to solicit sex from a reporter who was masquerading on a gay web site as a 17-year old boy. And in a series it began publishing last Thursday, The Spokesman-Review reported that West had abused two boys while he was a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Just keep all this in mind the next time you hear the likes of Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberson and Dr. James Dobson berating gays. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Hint: Suspect those that protest too much about personal matters that should be none of their damn business – unless of course, it is their business… if you get my drift.

Pope Putin I
By now you have heard that one of the first acts of the new Pope was to fire the editor of an influential Jesuit magazine. Ft. Thomas Reese was canned at the orders of the Vatican.

The National Catholic Reporter, the U.S. weekly reported that the Vatican had objected to articles in Reese’s magazine that openly questioned the Vatican’s ban on condom use to prevent AIDS, homosexual priests and secretive Church disciplinary measures.

The orders came from the department the Vatican renamed after the world learned about the horrors of the Inquisition. The department’s job now, as then, is to disciple Catholic theologians that stray from the party line. Cardinal Ratzinger ran this department from 1981 to 2005.

Now Pope Bene' the Ratzinger appears to be taking a page from Vladimir Putin’s playbook by slamming the lid down on the Church’s free press, particularly in America. How ironic that this guy should follow the Pope credited with ending Communist rule of Eastern Europe.

Maybe President Bush should give the new Pope his lecture on democracy and the indispensable nature of a free press.