Hockey-Playing Triplets and Dead Irishmen

What a delightful scene for a television commercial: a mother transporting her identical triplet boys to a hockey game in a Subaru Forester.  The background song is a lively one:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfwk5y_subaru-trailer-hockey-mom_auto

Actually it's an excerpt from "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" by the Pogues.  Here's the lyrics:

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

Let them go, boys
Let them go, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
Then no corpse can lie upon me.

Only the first stanza and the refrain is used; nevertheless it definitely gives a WTF moment.  The song is about a dismal time in Irish history: forced conversion to Protestantism, displacement from their lands, emigration, slavery.  Maybe 500,000 people died.

I thought it was kind of odd that they would use it in the context of a car commercial.  No, it's bizarre! 

Waaay to Much Information from Kathie Lee!

In what must have been the weirdest of televised discussions, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb give some detailed information about their grooming.

Now we know which one is a natural woman!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/15/kathie-lee-and-hoda-insane-landing-strip_n_2884438.html

Too Damned Little in Steubenville

Some of the sordid story is out: How an incapacitated 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted (digitally, at that) by a bunch of football louts, hauled from party to party, urinated on, and in general treated like a piece of meat without a shred of compassion or humanity.  For this, two identified rapists got what amounted to a slap on the wrists and some boo-hooing by CNN about their fate and how their lives are ruined.

What about tears for their victim, CNN?  Geesh!

And it seems to me that even this little would have been done if it wasn't for a hacker group publicizing the whole sorry affair.  What values are misplaced if a community can let an enormity such as this be ignored.  Rape is an ugly crime; it's not to be snickered about.

Those guys are not like most guys.  Most communities would not let that kind of crime go by (I hope, at least).  Most prosecutors would on this like a mockingbird on a june bug.  Does being on the football team confer exemption from the responsibilities of wrongdoing?  If that's the case, then God help us. 

What about the other attendees at those parties?  What about the guy that filmed and commented on the whole thing.  Did not anyone say, "This is wrong?"  Or call the police? 

Those awful parties happened in private homes.  Where were the homeowners, the parents?  Did they also watch that poor girl get fingered?

Where did they get the booze?  Who sold it?  Who bought it for them?

Shit!

Too much is left unsaid and unaccounted for.

Uncited Reasons

A previously-uncited reason for not getting pregnant out of wedlock:
Being referred to as someone's "baby mama."

An undersung reason for affiliation with one or the other political parties:
Not being labeled "undecided."

An undercited reason for not driving from Missoula to Minneapolis:
Having to drive through South Dakota.

A good reason for not living in Tennessee:
Having to choose between the stupid Democrats and the stupid Republicans.

The best reason for not living in the South:
The fetish over "sweet tea."

The real problem with living in the Northwest:
If you want to travel East, you either have to leave at an ungodly early or late hour.

Why not try to save money by buying a large bag of potato chips:
Because you tend to graze at other times.

Why I'm glad I'm not Scottish:
Haggis

Why I'm glad I'm not a urologist:
No reasons need citing.

Unlikely Idaho

File this in the category of pipe dreams of lonely, sex-starved Montanan men.

 

Actually, all kidding aside, Idaho is overrated both as a dogpatch and as a promised land.  It's an underpopulated, potato-growing state without the weirdness of Portland or the standoffishness of Seattle.

 

Boise is kind of pretty.  The state university is located in Moscow.  The team name is the Vandals, by the way.

 

How Kinky Is Your State?

Go to this web site to find out:

http://jezebel.com/amoreperfectunion or this one:

http://1075zoofm.com/how-kinky-are-the-women-in-montana-this-graph-has-the-answer/

The pinker the state's color, the more kinky are the women; the bluer the state's color, the more kinky are the men.  Too bad for Minnesota and Wyoming.

Hot women in West Virginia.

The Motorcyclist Liberty Restoration Act

My first thought, when I saw this come up, is that the satirist from Notsville made it up, but no.  This is real.

A bill to be considered by the Tennessee House and Senate this week would give motorcyclists 21 years old or older to have the option of wearing a helmet while riding.  Tennessee is currently one of 19 states, most of them southern, that require cyclists to wear a helmet while riding.

I know the motorcyclist's helmet does not go with the ethos of the open road, but is this law really a good idea?  Yeah, your hair blowing in the wind while riding the Tail of the Dragon (U.S. 129 through Deal's Gap) is romantic; but concussions and contusions are not so cool.

It also begs the question: maybe the existence of a freedom does not necessarily require that someone act on it.  Sometimes simple prudence should trump those rights!  Yeah, I'm all for rights, and screw the Federal government; but sometimes a little bit of law is a good thing.  Helmets reduce the extent of injuries; and motorcyclists have more than their share.  And more injuries = more costs for TennCare.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130226/NEWS0201/302260006/Motorcycle-helmet-could-become-optional-adult-riders-TN

Obeying the helmet law.

Odd Architecture

Sometimes it is inspiriting to see architecture that catches the eye, whether from the "Wow!  That's amazingly beautiful!" or from the "Who had that nightmare?" one.  Without editorializing, I give you just a collection of pictures of unusual buildings and monuments.  You have the joy of opinions!