Hey, we won’t tell anyone (snicker, snicker).

Love the outfit, babe!

Okay, so I’ve slacked on this. Sue me!

I must admit, cars come off the assembly line a lot better than before; it is difficult to find a hopptie that comes right off the lot, but I am sure I have found one: the Chevy Avalanche.

This baby is full of plastic. It’s a gas guzzler and can’t decide if it’s a pickup or an SUV. In other words, the worst of both: a pickup with a small bed and a SUV with not enough interior space. Not only that, the MSRP is near a paltry $32K for the base model.

I found an extra picture for this monster, one that people of certain persuasions would die for: the Iraqi Guntruck version!

Enjoy!

im in campeche at an internet cafe. the problem with spanish language keyboards is that i am not sure how to shift or put the right punctuation in- so forgive the childlike look of this post.

campeche is awesome. its a little spanish colonial city formerly known for bieng ripe pickins for pirates. im enjoying alot of mexican baseball and i climbed to the top of the ek balalm ruins. my thighs are still paying the price for that one- the stairs are about 4 inches wide but 18 inches tall each.

so far the food has rocked and no travelers stomach for me-yay. in a few days i am off to see the giant head sculptures and monkeys in villahermosa. tonight we are having drinks with one of the campeche piratas baseball players.

hasta luego mis amigos, i have to go pick up my laundry. some nice old lady is washing all of it for me for about 3 dollars. i love having someone else wash my stuff. whoopee.

I’m checking out the map of the Cancun airport to see where I am supposed to meet the Naughty Professor and this is what I run across:

This is service is no longer available since after the hurricane Wilma the airport terminal building number 1 is under remodelation.

I have to wonder what is remodelation? At least I feel better knowing that their english is about as bad as my spanish. I did learn how to say “I have the sneaking suspicion that your mother’s a whore” though. Score one for me.

but we want our girls in nylon burkas when they’re on the beach.

I know I suck. I promise I’ll be back and full o’snark in just a few short weeks (just after August 1st with a tan and a severe tequila hangover).

In the mean time, the DHS has decided that things like the Mule Day parade in Columbia, TN are very important events to guard against the threat of terrorism.

I have actually been to the Mule Day parade in Columbia. I lived there for about 9 months when I broke the iron rule of “never follow a boyfriend to the depths of hell for love”. The Mule Day parade is the ONLY thing happening in the tiny redneck town all year. The town is too small to have a Target- you have to go all the way to Frankin for that. A big night out includes dinner at the Steak and Shake and dancing at the cowboy bar (full of not-real cowboys and girls with big-ass hair). The Saturn plant is close by, but I can’t imagine terrorists deciding that the way to break America is to destroy a small car plant that makes crappy, inexpensive cars with no resale value.

Honestly, a terrorist attack on Columbia might be a boon for the local economy. Think of the tourists who would love to cruise the redneck ground zero. There are legions of southerners who still spend vacations driving around checking out civil war battlefields. This would give them something to see from a war they didn’t lose (yet).

It’s not just that we shouldn’t fund anti-terrorism measures in places with virtually no threat of terrorism, but for the good of the community we might want to encourage terrorists to strike those places.

The question in the the title of this post is inspired by a NY Times article: At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust .

The articles makes very clear that women presently outperform men in scholastics. They remain more motivated throughout their college career, register and succeed in more difficult subjects and garner more academic rewards. Though success in school does not yet quite show up in the corporate world–men still make more than women–it may just be a matter of time before their scholastic triumphs transfer to the workday world. Whatever, your opinion about gender based economic inequality, overwhelming evidence suggests that American women’s desire to flourish outweighs that of men.

While this certainly bodes well for women, this reality troubles me in many ways as it should everyone. I know that successful women now complain about the difficulty of finding suitable men to date and marry; because they make more money and are better educated, their choices are limited to men below their social or economic status. One can easily extrapolate the circumstance to where we have a class of highly educated and motivated females running corporations ruling over less educated and motivated men. Yes, a bit of stretch, but certainly a possibility.

So my question to any of you still reading “The White Papers” is: Is it time to help men? Obviously, gender inequality still favors those with penises; our representative government is woefully short of female representatives; women still have more reason to fear men than the opposite. Nonetheless, an unequal society of any kind is worrisome for reasons already stated. Women still bear more responsibilty for child-rearing, but must they also find some way to motivate men to do more?

Personally, I am one of the unmotivated. My father, though he remained married to my mother until his death was a father in name only; he paid the bills (after many arguments) and that was it. My mother overcompensated for his absence and declared me, at a young age, as “The Man of the House”. I have struggled with this ever since. I mention this because the end of the article refers to men who isolate themselves to their rooms, neither going to class or socializing until they flunk out. I know that pain. Men generally do not have the support systems women do. The quiet loner is still seen as a romantic hero instead of a flawed underdeveloped human.

It is time to address the emotional needs of males in a different way. But how?

All experts agree, even the experts on this blog agree, the major problem Democrats face is trying to appeal to too many constituencies. Picking a platform that appeals to all risks being considered as pandering. Picking one that is too narrow risks leaving out groups that can swing an election one way or another.

How about this challenge? We don’t care who you vote for, just vote. At a 60% participation rate among possible voters the US stands at one of the lowest rates in democratic societies. If the Dems simply do everything possible to get out the vote, they probably would win and they could frame ingthe effort as one of patriotism. It would scare the hell out of all politiciansm, but would especially hurt the ‘publicans. It is something that everyone, no matter their political persuasion, would agree improves our political system.

I think it’s a brilliant idea. What do you think?