the FLOGG

Puritanical Homecoming and Other Musings

Breakfast on Sunday morning was interesting conversation.  It was the morning after the homecoming dance and we were asking the kids how the evening went.  It really wasn’t what I expected.  We were regaled with stories of breathalyzers, security guards and kids being kicked out for inappropriate dancing.  The morality police were out in force.  I was actually shocked to hear all this.  What happened to the days of parents and teachers chaperoning?  I guess it’s not in the union contract.  As for volunteering, I’m a bit surprised no parents were there because you’re a second class citizen in this culture if you don’t volunteer for everything.  What we’ve evolved to is hiring security guards to breathalyze and terrorize the kids at a social function.  I had confirmation from three different teenagers that there were approximately 20 security guards onsite.  Was this a Charger/Raider game?  Is the TSA on campus?  At least the teens have a healthy dose of teenage rebellion in them.  I was told many of them pretended they were drunk just to mess with the security guards and got pulled over to a secondary inspection where they had to recite the alphabet.  They danced inappropriately just to get tossed out for ten minutes to sneak back in.  I thought Footloose was just a movie.  Was Kevin Bacon at Rancho?  I want an autograph. This has spurred other... [Read more]

Occupied

The 99% are trying to send a message to the 1%.  I get it.  I truly do.  My sympathies are with them.  Naturally, I always surprise myself with how conservative I am on some issues and how liberal I am on others.  I have also been reading Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.  Why?  In reality, I’m kind of a history nut and a World War II nut.  Some most interesting reading with a lot of parallels to some of our current conditions.  Hitler offered that the 1% were too arrogant and disregarded the lower classes when it wouldn’t have been much skin off their backs to give them a better wage, better living conditions and thus a better life.  He had a real insight into the lives of the lower classes and how there was no opportunity to raise yourself up.  His main warning was that by ignoring the lower classes you gave the communists a free reign on spreading their ideas throughout the populace, mainly the unions.  The fear wasn’t just communism as we know, but also something Hitler himself seemed to get off the ground called fascism. I agree that these economic conditions have gone on for long enough.  What’s the solution?  I don’t know, I’m just a simple blogger.  My sense of the situation is that the civil unrest seen in other countries for whatever reasons has been held at bay here in the U.S. partially due to the government constantly extending unemployment... [Read more]

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh MY

This sure is a weird one.  If you’re an anarchist or a high saluting communist where does this event fall in the law of unintended circumstances?  If you don’t know the news story, a fellow in Ohio has his own private zoo.  For some reason last week, he decided to open all the cages and let all the animals go out into the wilderness and then he committed suicide.  This was no little private zoo with a handful of animals, but large numbers of big mammals like lions, tigers, bears and monkeys totally close to fifty animals that escaped. I guess the first question is, in our land of one zillion laws (I’m probably breaking one right now), how did this guy ever get to the point of having a zoo this large?  A lot of these animals are hard to come by, expensive to obtain, and also expensive to maintain.  I’m guessing money was no problem for him.  In this day and age, I’m surprised he was able to pull this off.  Even if he loved the animals and they were well taken care of, he would have not only governmental agencies after him, but also animal rights activist organizations. How about the minutes right after the release of the animals?  I’m sure it was pandemonium in the surrounding area.  I’m sure people were frightened.  Kids playing in the front yard, moms pulling into the driveway from the grocery store, dads on the freeway coming home from work to... [Read more]

It Never Fails

No matter how organized we try to be, no matter how far in advance we try to look at the calendar and no matter what our past experiences are, we always seem to get taken by surprise.  It begs the question, are we stupid or is this just the way things are or do we just get told these things in passing at 10:30pm at night or did the teacher not post it or did the coach not know about it or does anyone even give a crap? For instance, a young lady asked our son to a dance earlier this year.  What we would call a Sadie Hawkins dance, they call MORP(prom spelled backwards).  Well, the day of the dance a water polo tournament is scheduled.  A water polo tournament goes on all day long and is exhausting for those who do not know.  Well, let’s just say it provided a lot of stress to our son who ended up having to race home from La Jolla, jump in the shower, shove some food down his throat and meet his date at the dance.  Is this good stress or bad stress?  I guess that’s just the way life is, but it happens so often. Prom is this Saturday night and he has had this planned and arranged now for a month.  We didn’t even know juniors could attend since at our high school only seniors were allowed to attend.  In total, we will probably be spending somewhere between two and three hundred dollars on prom.  A group of them are supposed to meet for dinner and photos at 5:30pm and... [Read more]

Is Everybody a Badass?

My son is on the verge of being a senior in high school.  He and his friends are full of the energy and optimism of youth and inexperience.  They’re fit, strong, and bright young men and women that have a bit of swagger to them, but are they any different from anyone else at that age. My older daughter is on the verge of being a a sophomore and isn’t so impressed with this group of  upperclassmen.  Her and her friends seem to want to throw their hat into the ring as the best and the brightest and the prettiest and the most sensitive and the most caring.  They’re  just a bunch Mother Theresa’s those female freshman. My youngest daughter is still in elementary school and I can assure you that she and her friends think they know everything.  I can’t seem to tell them anything that they don’t already know.  From this, you must deduce that they think they’re the best of the best. I remember a mom a couple of years ago that informed me that my son and his friends were an immature and childish group( yeah, they were in the ninth grade).  Her son and his friends(upperclassmen) were mature and smart and really with it.  It seems the parents get into this line of thinking also.  It gets even better when I hear parents constantly bragging about their children and trying to tell you they are better than the next coming of the savior.  Their gpa is this, they... [Read more]

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