There is an Associated Press article in the New York Times today letting those of us that care know that former House majority leader Tom Delay was just awarded for his indictment over campaign finance issues with a seat on the Appropriations Committee. Sorry, did I read that correctly? I did? Okay, let me get this strait. The Republicans claim that the branding of their party as a "culture of corruption" is completely unfounded and the next thing they do is go out and name some D-bag that's just been brought up on Federal charges to a committee that hands out money? This can only be one of three things: galacticly stupid, mind bendingly crooked, or that the Republican members of the House are so ill informed that they don't even know that he's been indicted yet. Oh my friends, but it doesn't end there. This article also reports that he was named to a subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which you should know, is investigating the confessed evildoer Jack Abramoff. This same committee (in a weird twist of congressional bureaucracy) is also responsible for NASA, which is fine by Tom because his Congressional District just so happens to be the home of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

So here is where we stand, this man, this "Congressman" who has recently been indicted on counts of fiscal ballduggery has just been given committee placements on committees in charge of (in order form most heinous to least): THE FEDERAL OPERATING BUDGET, overseeing a department investigating other such criminals, and overseeing NASA, which has a major base of operations in his district (wonder how he'll view their budget proposals). Some one needs to explain to me how the American public is supposed to see Republicans as anything less crooked than a dog’s hind leg. Even if he is cleared of all charges it is still blatantly irresponsible. You wouldn't give some one being investigated for pedophilia a job in a school would you?

A phone call has just interrupted my blogging for the umpteenth time in my brief stint here at Blogstream...this time the you-know-what store sounds very urgent indeed. Well there’s no avoiding it, hey House Republicans, the jerk store called. They ran out of you.

Moody

This is a comment I posted on Hoodo's Blog "Right on Q". It took me forever to piece these stats together out of all of the stories sighting the U.S. Treasury Department as their sources so I decided I would should share it with my readers as well.

The President has just asked for $120 billion more for a war effort that has already cost $60 billion (white house estimate). The Federal Government was 7.9 trillion dollars in debt at the end of the 2005 fiscal year(an increase of $554 billion since last year). As of September 2005 $2.6 trillion of that debt is foreign owned. $252 billion of that is owned by China, and their not the leading debt holders. If thats not enough our Debt Burden (debt-to-GDP)is now at 200 %(this is actualy a CIA stat). Thats twice as much dept as the U.S. collects in taxes per year. If now isn't the time to bring in more money than I don't know when is. All data courtesy of our very own U.S. Treasury Dpartment. I hope you like this post because it was a pain in the ass to compile.

Moody

This is part two of what will eventually be a three part essay on police malfeasance.

I will say, assuming that you have read part one of this essay, that my second example of the "Boys in Blue" behaving badly will not be as extreme an example as part one, but, in the opinion of your humble author, no less upsetting. This example begins with a story, a true story, and a story that I saw first hand. I even played a part, however small, in the tale I am about to tell.

We begin bright and early on a Monday morning. On this particular Monday morning there was a golf tournament. Not just any golf tournament, but a charity golf tournament thrown for and played in by a local sheriffs department of (once again) an affluent St. Louis suburb. This golf tournament started out like every other golf tournament I had ever worked. They began their tournament with a 9:00 shot gun start (everyone starts at different holes and tees off at the predetermined time), There was a mini cooler of beer on every cart to be refilled by the club staff as needed (you did indeed read that right). They then broke for lunch at 12:00 with more free beer, and they finished the round at about 3:30, which gave them time to see who won and clean up before dinner at 5:00.

Dinner rolled around and there was an open bar for even more free beer and mixed drinks. Those of you that can already see where this is going please don't ruin it for everyone else. The lead cop during all of this is a particularly arrogant ex-Cardinals pitcher. I can't remember his name or I would give it to you. Sufficed to say he wasn't a very good pitcher or he wouldn't have been moonlighting as our weekend nights security guard as well as policing. (I only added a brief editorial on this mans life because anyone that came into contact with him for more than 30 seconds thought he was a jerk off, and I couldn't resist bad mouthing him now that I have the chance). After dinner he stands up to hand out the awards as they do at the end of all golf tournaments of this sort, and here is the point in the evening in which this seemingly average golf tournament breaks from the norm. The second he stands up the mood of the crowd shifts, whether it was because they realized that with him there they had an “in” at the club, or because collectively they were just a loud group of people, who knows? The reason this is different is because the only people I had ever heard behave that raucously after a golf outing, up until that point, were dues paying members of a country club, and for 400 bucks a month after their multi-thousand dollar initiation fee I’m not going to tell them to quiet down. Their being louder than most groups isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but I was under the impression that because these men were police officers and this was a charity golf tournament that there would have been at least a modicum of self restraint. But hey, cops are blue-collar guys and I've got no problem with a bunch of men getting a little loud after a long day of drinking, bo big deal (shit knows I've gotten more than a little loud after spending a day like they just had). Anyway, after the end-of-day ceremony had come to a close they all filed out. I should add that they treated all of the club's staff fairly and kindly throughout the day.

Now we're to the bad part of the story (or the good point depending on what youre looking for). Here is the part in our story where the shit hit the proverbial fan, until that day I had never thought about the fact that most of the people that had come to our club for golf outings likely drove home drunk, and these gentlemen were no exception to this newly realized rule. What was unusual was that this group of guys didn't have to try and sober themselves up for the drive home. They didn't have to because everyone that would have pulled them over was already there. Even if they did get pulled over the officers that did it would have been friends from work, or, at the very least, acquaintances (but this wasn't going to happen for reasons you'll find out later). Well, apparently not having to worry about the repercussions of your actions does strange things to men because the second these drunken assholes got into their squad cars (that’s right, their fucking squad cars are the reason they weren’t going to get pulled over) they started acting like a bunch of 5-year-olds at Six Flags on crack . They turned their sirens on, they turned their lights on, they were honking their horns, and they were, generaly speaking, acting like a bunch of dicks. Can you even picture what a parking lot of 15-20 cop cars all driving around like a bunch drunken hillbillies would look like? I mean, holy fuck, we were a country club. There is no way we would have accepted this sort of behavior out of anybody else, but what were we going to do, call the cops? They then furthered the insult to both the country club I worked at and their badges by playing a 15 minute game of "bet I can block your way out of the parking lot with my car" all with sirens, lights, and horns a blaring. These were police officers mind you. This is the moment of a another epiphany, for this is the moment in which it occurred to me that there must have been people pulled over after leaving golf tournaments for Driving While Intoxicated(it would be against the odds if there weren't), and here were the very men that had pulled them over jerk-dicking around our parking lot like a bunch of coked up grade-schoolers at a theme park. After they grew bored of their game they all eventually made it out, away, and home presumably without any major disasters. I assume they made it home all right because I didn’t see any reports of a wild caravan of drunk ass cops causing wrecks all over town on the news that night (and don't think I didn't check). And that, for those of you that have read this far, is the end of our tale.

I guess what I was hoping you would get out of this story is that while cops may be normal people at home (or on the golf course) they have the ability to use their position of power to circumvent and break the law, for the most part, with out consequence, and not only do they have this ability, but they use it. Whether it's fixing speeding tickets for friends and family, driving around drunk as a skunk in their squad cars after a party, or just speaking to people they've pulled over in a tone they wouldn't except if it were used towards them, the police officers in our country take for granted the fact that even though they are paid to enforce the laws they can’t necessarily be made to follow them.

My third and final installment of this essay will be on the ridiculousness of high-speed chases( at my Mom's request) and the threat they pose to any and everyone on the streets while they are taking place. I've once again come to the end of a post, and as per the usual, the phone has rung. After answering it I have to say that I'm no longer even surprised by who it is or whom it’s for, but I guess I have to tell them anyway. Hey all of you drunk ass cops out there, the jerk store called. They ran out of you.


P.S. As before, if any of you know, are, or are related to police officers, I’m sure that you/they have all behaved in an upstanding manner throughout your/their careers.

Moody

What I'm about to give to you may be the crowning achievement of my forays into the culinary arts (which Winston can tell you have been many and mostly successful if i do say so myself). This particular chili recipe has gone through several names within my circle of friends. My favorite name was 90-dollar chili but this was found to be a bit of a misnomer when it was discovered that a large amount of that 90 dollars was put towards the beer that was bought at the same time as the ingredients. The name settled on was Championship Chili because the occasional championship is about as often as any of us wants to fork out the dough for this, the King of all chilies. I can't take all of the credit for this recipe but as i have made several changes to it I feel I can now call it my own. The original recipe for this chili is the brainchild of one Wilfred P. Martineau of Lowell, MA. Now that the credits are done, here is the recipe that should be cherished and honored by all chili lovers everywhere.

INGREDIENTS

4 slices of hickory cured bacon strips
4 lbs. sirloin steak tips
2 lbs. sweet Italian sausage (in bulk if possible but not necessary)
2 large white onions-chopped
2 large bell peppers of a color of your choice-cored, seeded, and, chopped
4 cloves garlic-chopped
1&1/2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
3 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
2 tsp. chicken bullion
2 cups hot water
1/2-cup honey
2 cans light red kidney beans
1 Tbls. cayenne pepper
2 Tbls. cumin
4 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. coriander (this, i believe, is the secret ingredient)
1 tsp. black pepper
2 tsp. salt
1-cup (fine shredded) mild cheddar cheese
1/4 cup flour give or take, depending on how thick you want your chili

In a large pot (nothing smaller than 8 qt), fry bacon to a crisp. Remove the bacon and set aside. Keep the bacon fat in the pot. Chop all four pounds of the sirloin into 1/2-inch cubes. If you got linked sausage remove the casings. Put the meat, the peppers, onion, and garlic and begin frying. When the meat is browned, the onion is translucent, and the peppers have softened add the diced tomatoes, the tomato sauce, the bullion, the hot water, honey, and kidney beans stirring in between each ingredient. Bring this mixture to a slow boil while stirring occasionally. After the chili begins to boil add the spices, salt, and pepper one at a time stirring well after each one. Now you add the cheese and stir until it has completely melted into the chili. Next, if you want to thicken the chili some, you should sprinkle the flour into the chili a little at a time until it is ALMOST as thick as you will want it as a finished chili (it will continue to reduce as it cooks). Stir and let cook at the lowest simmer you can manage for no less than 1 1/2 hours (stiring occasionaly to keep the ingredients from burning to the bottom of the pot) and I would recommend 2 1/2 to 3 hours. The longer you cook it the less flour you will need for thickening. Top the chili with the cooled crumbled bacon and more cheddar cheese. Enjoy.

There you have it. Championship Chili. This chili has a little heat to it but nothing any of my friends have ever determined to be too much. This recipe makes enough for 10 people and seconds for anybody that wants 'em. I hope you like it. This will be my last non-political post for a while so those of you that prefer my writing in this less abrasive form... tough noogies.

Moody

I have very recently gotten into a discussion with my girlfriend about poetry. She claims that modern poets are more accessible and less pretentious than poets of ages gone by. While I can see that the archaic dialect may be a stumbling block I most definitely will not concede to the fact that these masters of old are more pretentious than any of the so-called "modern masters". She offers, as an example of exemplary modern poetry, the works of Billy Collins (2001-2003 U.S. Poet Laureate). I, on the other hand, am fonder of the works of older poets such as Keats. This brings me to the point of this post. I've found a sonnet by John Keats that I think I like quite a bit. The reason I say I "think" I like this poem is because I’m having trouble fully understanding it. The first poem below will be one written by Keats. As I said, I'm having trouble understanding a piece of this poem so I'm hoping that you will read it carefully with the expectation that you may be of some aid in deciphering it. The second poem posted will be one by Billy Collins. By the end of this long entry (long entries are getting to be my M.O.) I'm hoping you, the readers of my humble blog, will have some opinions on the meaning of a crucial line within the Keats poem as well as opinions on whether the oldies or the newbies do it better.

WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness

-John Keats-

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of "Three Blind Mice"


And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.

Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass

or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.

By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"

which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.

Billy Collins




So what'd ya think? The line I’m having trouble with in the Keats poem is "Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;” Any ideas on what this might mean?

I guess, as this is supposed to be a political blog, I have some explaining to do. Well, as a rule, I wouldn't usually admit I like poetry let alone post a message addressing this topic. My motivation for such an admission can only be because, as it is both the night of the super bowl and my birthday, I have imbibed several more alcoholic beverages than a Sunday night would usually warrant. I hope that my inability to stay on task hasn't chased anyone away from my blog (except for you Winston... come on, a poetry post, I'm sure you’ve got something to say about that :).

In conjunction with the recently departed super bowl I will be posting a recipe for chilli that has been declared by everyone that has ever had it, the best, if the most expensive chill1 ever made. After the upcoming recipe post I will be back to spouting opinions on political matters as usual (this recipe will be dedicated to Bill Cowher’s massive under bite). Thank you for your patience.

embarrassingly yours,

Moody