The American Ninny Factor

Main Entry: nin·ny
Pronunciation: 'ni-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ninnies
Etymology: perhaps by shortening & alteration from an innocent
: FOOL, SIMPLETON


I usually get a flu shot every year. I started doing this because I worked in hotels you see all sorts of germs in hotels, and I would invariably get something from them. It was the practical thing to do. I was going to get one this year, but they said there was a shortage and all "able-bodied Americans" (of which I consider myself one) should go without.

Fine, I said. No problem. I'll do without, as most "Able-Bodied Americans". It's the patriotic thing to do.

Boy, was I wrong.

The last couple of weeks have seen mobs of hysterical ninnies, who probably would not have even thought about getting a flu shot running around freaking out because they can't get a flu shot.

It's the ninny factor. This country is getting overtaken by ninnines.

It's ninnies who support the home alarm industry. It's ninnies who move into gated communites. Ninnies are also behind SUV's, AOL, Campbell Soup Supper Bakes, The Franklin Mint, Fox News, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and everything in the Harriett Carter Catalog.

The Republican Party is supported by ninnies, as are the suburban Mega-Churches. Anything that depends on simple-mindedness and cheap sentimentality is the province of the ninnies, and they are growing in numbers. Pretty soon they may tip the balance of power, and we will become a nation of ninnies. So much for "land of the free, home of the brave".

More Dottie-Ness

OK, Last debate - last time I'll bore you with this.

Again, Bush whined and wheedled, and made himself sound like that IMU Night Custodian/ Shop Steward that I talked about in my last post. Maybe because I listened to these debates on the radio, but Bush really seems to be a pouty, defensive whiner: I mean, come on - "Tax and Spend Liberal"? Didn't that go out with Reagan? What about a "Spend, Spend and Spend Conservative"? And all the 80's bogey-man words: Kennedy, Liberal, Massacheusetts. Can't they think of something new?

I hope that the people out there in the "heartland" - from whence I came, after all - will see through the BULLSHIT that Bush is spewing. The guy's a feeb. He needs to go.

In other words, the cabinet work for the kitchen is done, and all the kitchen needs now is paint. It should be done by Halloween. It HAS to be done by Halloween. Once it is, pics will be forthcoming. I know you are just on the edge of your seats ;-)

I just want this election over, my kitchen done, and Kerry as the president-elect. Is that so wrong?

Oh, for Christ's Sake....

I get the email newsletter from the American Family Association - the notoriously anti-just-about-anything-intelligent organization based out of some godforsaken shithole in the south (aren't they always?)

Anyway, they've had their carefully hidden panties in a bunch recently about Proctor & Gamble - the multinational soap, etc company that is based out of Cincinatti. It seems that P&G has been trying to get their hometown to not be such an embarassment (they don't like homos) and come into the 19th Century by repealing a really dumb law they passed in 1990 or so.

The AFA has been pushing a boycott of three big P&G products: Tide, Pampers and Crest. While I have no need for Pampers, and usually go for a bit more of a high-end product than either Tide or Crest, I find myself purchasing these items recently, and giving them to friends as gifts. While I am fully aware that my little purchases are like the proverbial teaspoon in the ocean (however that cliche goes) I do feel that I am doing my part to counteract whatever the white trash - who are the only people who would follow such a boycott - are doing.

On the upside, I just received an email from them stating, with predictable hysteria, that "Procter & Gamble actively seeks out individuals who practice the abnormal and destructive homosexual lifestyle to come to work for the company." via a website called gaywork.com , which I had never heard of. Any of you reading this - all five of you - whether you are gay or straight, should check this site out. After all, These pseudo-Christian freaks should be good for something.

Dubya and Dottie or, Another Debate Debacle

I listened to the debate again last night, and it took me back. When I was in college, I had a Graduate Assistant position (although I was not in Graduate School - long story) as a Night Manager at the Iowa Memorial Union - the student union at the University of Iowa.

My job was to oversee operations of the building during the evening hours. It was a big facility, with three ballrooms, 20 meeting rooms, five restaurants and bars, two movie theatres, and a 110 room hotel.

Such a building requires a large staff of custodians - and the most memorable was Dottie.

Dottie was the evening shop steward, a royal pain in the ass, and what might generously be considered "trailer trash". Until she was threatened with a write up, she insisted on wearing a black bra underneath her thin white uniform blouse (and judging from her smell, it was the same black bra, everyday). She was married, but had affairs with several of the other custodians (always the ones in supervisory positions, of course, and usually on work time) When these affairs soured, she would turn on them and manipulate the union and building management to have them fired. At this, she was ruthless, and since these men were not particularly bright, she was quite successful.

She also managed to get herself in a lot of accidents, so that she could have time off. There was the time she fell into the dumpster, the time she fell down the front stairs and - most memorably to me - the time she "splashed" toilet bowl cleaner in her eyes (during my shift. of course - I always had the drama) She came in the next morning, wearing dark glasses, and using her hands to shade the corners of the frames. While the other employees had files on them, which included any accidents, Dottie had a separate binder.

The reason why the debate reminded me of Dottie was this: Everytime Bush got in a corner, he sounded just like her - down to the bad grammar and shrill voice. Nothing was every Dottie's fault, just as nothing seemingly is ever Dubya's fault. Dottie, just like Dubya, couldn't make a mistake - it was always someone else's doing. Dottie thought her power as shop steward made her above questioning, and if you challenged her you were "union busting" just like Dubya thinks that anyone who questions him is not "an Amurican"

The good news is that Dottie finally got hers - we busted her for stealing a cash bag one night. It took a few of us staying late and spying on her, but just like every other crook, she made a dumb mistake, and we nabbed her.

Hopefully, enough Americans saw through that line of crap Bush fed us on Friday night, and will send him packing. If so, maybe he can go to Iowa, and join Dottie in the business she now operates.

She's a state certified daycare provider. Youth, after all, must be served.

Westlake, Schmestlake

With the company I work for relocating to the Westin Building, I now have opportunity to go through Seattle's Westlake Mall every working day. I must say it never fails to depress.

Westlake was built in the late 80's, and it shows. It's tall and narrow (which makes it very claustrophobic, even when there's few people there) and filled with stores that only a tourist could love (Godiva Chocolate, the Made In Washington Store). It's top floor food-court not only is filled with banal restaurants (McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Sbarro) it has succeeded in driving out most of the other luncheon options in the vicinity.

It used to be just a little tiny bit of fun back in the days when the monorail stopped at it, but since the monorail is now under the weather, even that thrill is gone.

But the worst thing about Westlake Mall is what it replaced. The "Old" Westlake was sort of like the "Old" Times Square - without the porno theatres, of course. It was earthy and worn and very open. The old Monorail station was a fabulously tacky 60's structure. The few buildings on the Westlake site were low-rise, gritty, and not at all "upscale" or that dreaded Seattle term, "World-Class". But neither is the Westlake Mall when you get right down to it.

The sad truth is that Downtown Seattle was much more interesting 15 years ago than it is now. Now it is a sanitized "safe zone" for tourists and suburbanites. That's the price of progress, I suppose.

Since we're on a nostalgia kick here, and I can't not talk about politics - listened to the debate last night. Edwards did OK, I think - especially compared to Mr. Burns - I mean Dick Cheney.

What was really telling to me were the closing statements. Edward's somewhat optimistic "anything-is-possible-in-America" speech was just about what you'd expect. Cheney's "Land-of-the-grim-home-of-the-scared" speech of doom made me wonder what would happen if something really bad were to happen to this country. We've already used up almost all our hyperbole. Whatever happened to reassuring leaders like Roosevelt, who comforted and inspired a nation during a much more stressful and dangerous time than what we are currently facing?

A lament for the Olive Crest

My old apartment building (well, not MINE, but the one I lived in for my "formative years" here in Seattle) is being demolished for a new development.

This, I suppose in inevatible. It was an early 60's lo-rise on land that has much more earning potential - just as I'm certain it replaced a few charming turn of the century homes in the rush to provide housing for the 1962 Worls's fair.

But still....

I'll miss the spacious apartments with peach bathroom fixtures, the large balconies, the severely angular swimming pool with the ceramic fish and natural stone "diving rock", the central courtyard with vaguely Asian Fountain, and the casual carports for parking the essential vehicle (which I didn't have for most of my tenure there)

And as for the memories. La, the memories.... but I digress. I will miss the Olive Crest.

John Kerry Wins!

OK, this really isn't a political blog, but I'm excited about the elections, so you're going to be hearing from me about this from time to time.

There's no way around it - Kerry was the winner of the first debate. He left Georgie-boy squriming and uncomfortable, able only to repeat his "flip-flop" charge ad nauseum, and showing what a poor leader he really is. Hopefully, this will wake up enough Americans to the need for change in November.

By the way, my friend LORA! coined a great phrase - "Flip the FLOP out of the White House"

As Kerry's momentum builds it will be fun to hear those chants of "Four More Years" become even more shrill and desparate than they already are.

In other news, My Metlox Navajo china pattern is getting more serving pieces. I finally got the coffee pot, and am hoping to score the oil and vinegar cruets and fork and spoon set for the salad bowl.

And remember to buy Tide, Crest and Pampers - help counteract the "Christian" Fundamentalist Freaks boycott of these products.