Don't bury your head in the sand about ECONOMIC RECOVERY!

Ah, in a perfect world, everyone would do business based on niceness and sunshine. Every desirable, green, quality-of-life loving company would relocate to Sarasota Florida because they just adored theater, art galleries and sugar sand. Well, wake up folks: if you want to KEEP this quality of life, you've got to compete as a community to attract the high-wage, high-skill companies to come here and bring economic recovery with them. Think of this economic playing field like a sporting event where your opposing teams have grown bigger, more muscled, better equipped, faster, more aggressive and intensively competitive, while our nice little 'ol hometown team says aw, heck, we're just going to keep playing in our tee shirts and flip flops 'cuz that's what we like and it's worked in the past... as we're stomped into the mud, overrun, and left to tend our wounds and eventually shrivel up and disappear from the game altogether. Then, no fans... no popcorn and beer... no income... the players that survive LEAVE, the fans go somewhere else too, the vendors close up shop, and the dominoes fall, one after the other. Incentives are not bribery even if we don't like them, they are the padding and cleats our competitors are wearing while they trample us. Heck, we might not even get on the field to try to win a game if we can't even wear the same equipment. VOTE YES, don't let people with their heads in the sand pretending that it'll all go away if we ignore the problem cloud your reason.

Do I LOOK like a "guy"? Stop calling me that!

If one more restaurant server refers to me and my husband as "you guys," I'm going to lose it a la the classic film, Five Easy Pieces. We constantly hear, "Are you guys ready to order?" "Would you guys like some more coffee?" "Do you guys want the check now?" AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH. I'm a very feminine female, and am quite certain I look nothing whatsoever even remotely like a "guy." What's wrong with a server saying, "you folks" or "you two" or "you both" or any number of other substitutes? Come on, restaurant managers, grow some vertebrae in those rubber spines and MANAGE your staff -- teach them some civility and common courtesy, some generally accepted phrases used by cultured mankind, such as how to say "YOU'RE WELCOME," when a customer says "thank you." The response we get in restaurants in Sarasota these days? "No problem." "Uh huh." "Yeah, okay." "Sure." What?!!??? Vocabulary, people... Are the teachers teaching it any longer? And I shouldn't even GO THERE about "manners" but I will: I'm not even 40 yet, and I remember what my parents taught me about the basics: Say "Pardon me," when you bump into or walk in front of someone; "Excuse me" if you have to interrupt; "Please pass the --" at the dinner table; "Thank you" for each and every courtesy or kindess shown to you or for help given in any way; get up and give your seat in a crowded waiting room or on public transportation to an elderly person and stand; hold the door open for people with physical challenges of any age or gender; refer to adults older than you as Mr., Mrs. or Ms. if they're not your own personal friends (and especially if they're your friends' parents!), etc. The list goes on and on, but it seems to have blown away on the breeze of crude, rude, low class or just plain stupid. PS to servers: better manners and being polite equals better tips too!

Hey Big Brother, I know you're watching ~ Tweet Me!

If you REALLY want to be creeped out, consider that everything you “Tweet” or Facebook is monitored 24/7 by the real, present day, genuine article BIG BROTHER: specialized software aggressively, continually scouring your postings and triggering on keywords which automatically put into motion notifications of organizations, companies, corporations, government, etc., connecting them to your tweet and information. Check out http://www.radian6.com/ for an example. It’s the new “science” of social network monetizing called ‘LISTENING.” The nice explanation is that they’re just listening in for purposes of “measuring and engaging” customers… and one of the biggest of these companies is owned in part by the CIA. Seriously.As a person wiser than me has said, “Never write or say anything anywhere that you would not be comfortable seeing plastered up on a neon billboard, with your name on it, every day as you drive back and forth to work, or next door to your church, synagogue or mother’s house.” The internet, social media, cyber space, etc. IS THE WORLD’S BILLBOARD and anyone can see it any time, and you can never take it down once it’s there…

Pass the Ammo and Hunker Down y'all!

Before everyone panics about the Blair Holt gun control bill stripping Americans of their right to keep and bear arms -- Here's some truth to chew on:

Although this bill IS indeed in the hands of Congress, where it’s now been referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, and a version of it has been getting submitted every year for three years (since 2007), it is generally believed it will never go anywhere because it is entirely too “far-reaching and repressive of gun owners’ rights to merit serious consideration by a majority of congress,” and it has absolutely no co-sponsors in the legislature.

HOWEVER, the more important truth is that we all as citizens need to pay close attention to all bills that can will impact our rights or freedoms under the Constitution, and speak up vigorously when they are threatened, demanding that our elected officials represent our wishes. Once gone, those rights are far harder to ever get back than they were to lose to begin with. Vigilance is a duty we all have as Americans, to be aware and informed.

By the way, if you REALLY want to be creeped out, consider that everything you “Tweet” or Facebook is monitored 24/7 by the real, present day, genuine article BIG BROTHER: specialized software aggressively, continually scouring your postings and triggering on keywords which automatically put into motion notifications of organizations, companies, corporations, government, etc., connecting them to your tweet and information. Check out http://www.radian6.com/ for an example. It’s the new “science” of social network monetizing called ‘LISTENING.” The nice explanation is that they’re just listening in for purposes of “measuring and engaging” customers… and one of the biggest of these companies is owned in part by the CIA. Seriously.

As a person wiser than me has said, “Never write or say anything anywhere that you would not be comfortable seeing plastered up on a neon billboard, with your name on it, every day as you drive back and forth to work, or next door to your church, synagogue or mother’s house.” The internet, social media, cyber space, etc. IS THE WORLD’S BILLBOARD and anyone can see it any time, and you can never take it down once it’s there…

Exploding Underwear and Other Bad Ideas

I'm seeing spots in front of my eyes this week, as my mind reels from the bizarre and absurd and just plain frickin' annoying things that have been going on. A wannabe terrorist crams plastic explosives into his undies but is too inept (thank God) to set them off without alerting the surrounding passengers who (thank God) put some major hurt on the almost-bomber, stopping his efforts -- a fine act by the passengers, but the entire scenario makes me think we're being toyed with, distracted by "incompetent" terrorists, etc., to lower our expectations about what they're capable of doing. If we become lulled into thinking that our enemies, in particular those bent on suicide terrorist acts, are bumbling idiots, then the high-skilled well-focused highly-destructive plans that we SHOULD be aware of but aren't, continue to ramp up undetected. We need to beware scurrying around after these possible "decoys" and investing huge amounts of manpower and money on them instead of the larger scale threats under development.

It reminds me of "spamming" and "junk email" events going on by the billions of incidents daily: According to CIA, FBI and other knowledgeable evaluations, most of these are in reality well-organized Middle East and Asian web-attack centers with high-skill teams who are TESTING the boundaries, poking the perimeter, wiggling the fences, and steadily determining our most electronic vulnerabilities. Plus, they're effectively costing America BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in lost productivity in the workplace and throughout industries of all kinds, as that spam/junk email must be dealt with by employees, IT departments, webmasters, companies security systems and teams, etc. And because that Internet Tsunami "looks" like nothing more than aggravating nonsense selling products for sexual performance, Nigerian money transfers, get rich quick schemes and the like, we aren't paying enough attention to what it all is really doing, in damaging our economy and weakening/draining resources from our private and public sectors. Decoys, folks, decoys.

And don't EVEN get me started on the TSA policies ... travel over the holidays included various flights to various states other than Florida. We milquetoast white folks who were polite and nice were always the ones singled out for extra security checking, no doubt because we'd behave and not kick up a ruckus (including several very elderly paleskins in wheel chairs, no kidding, watched it myself -- not an internet myth). Meanwhile, surly, shifty-eyed, foreign, grumbling mumbling types who are probably on all kinds of "watch lists" just shuttled on through unnoticed, unchallenged and undelayed (no doubt how the exploding underwear guy was ignored as well). Ridiculous! Obscene in its political correctness.

And as an unrelated but incredibly annoying postscript related to increased traffic on the roadways (or perhaps traffic in general all the time): all you morons in the left lane of traffic going fifteen miles an hour under the posted speed limit, MOVE OVER and let that line of cars behind you go by!!! Hey, Florida DOT -- make it a law that any and all cell phone use in a car must be HANDS FREE devices only! Stupid parents with loose children in their vehicles, STRAP 'EM IN SEAT BELTS! Lady putting on your lipstick while swerving around, WAIT TO DO THAT AT A RED LIGHT you nitwit!

Holy schmoley, Batman: AVATAR rocks the world!

If you haven't seen it, don't miss it. Yes, you'll likely see the plot development a mile away, but the execution is exquisite, the universe created is breathtaking, and the art form of "motion capture" in the 3-D world as we know it has just taken one giant leap into a new dimension -- this is a paradigm shift in the special effects cosmos and motion capture will never be the same. Forget about lame attempts such as Beowulf and the awkward efforts of 3-D to date to master motion capture and make animated humanoids "realistic." To date, their mouths were inadequately made to create the illusion, their eyes could not express emotions, their facial "muscles" all but didn't electronically exist. AVATAR has changed the game, invented all new rules, thrown out the umps and the refs that said it couldn't be done. Find out for yourself!

They just WON'T show me the money...!

A certain bank of our great country sent me a form letter saying "If you're current on your mortgage and have not been late with any payments for 12 months, you can take advantage of mortgage modification to lower your interest rate, especially those homeowners whose houses have dropped significantly in value." HEY! That's me! In my never-ending quest to keep my credit rating healthy (I am such a sucker), I'll go without before I'll be late on my mortgage... I'll skip eating out and pass by that big 'ol flat screen TV on sale or avoid tooling around burning up gas to sightsee, keep my 2005 car in good shape so I don't have to buy a new one and have a car payment, etc. etc. ... You get it.

Well lemme tell ya, kids -- the letter's a great big ol' phoney come-on and in reality, unless you're months BEHIND in your mortgage, no one will actually help you. You pay your bills on time? You struggle to meet that 7% mortgage? Fugheddaboudit, you're penalized and punished and ignored by any and all "help" programs! If you're not a deadbeat, become one quick they tell you slyly ("Now I would NEVER advise you to stop making your mortgage payments, but...."). There's a $2500 commission in it for them if you do fall behind and they get to "modify" your mortgage!

Where's the reward in good citizenship and commited stewardship of your money? Where's the reward in raising financially responsible children and being a strong link in the community chain of supply and demand, paying for goods and services that in turn generate the multilayed income through private citizens and businesses that feeds and houses strata after strata of our society?

When will those of us footing all the bills for those that don't, climb up and scream from the rooftops, I'M MAD AS HECK AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!" I'm getting my ladder out as we speak.