There's Fortune to be Made in Michigan

I've decided to move to Michigan to become a bridge salesman after Mitt Romney won the Republican primary. He campaigned on empty baloons of hot air promising to bring jobs to Michigan. The only real accomplishment of Mitt's tenure as governor of Massachusetts was getting his name in the press in order to look presidential by opposing gay marriage, or reacting with glee when the Big Dig tunnel collapsed and he had a chance to don a hard hat and show his "leadership."

My mission now is to save the rest of the country from the same mistake Massachusetts voters made in 2002. Thankfully, Verbal Jazz did not vote for Mitt then.

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Poll Finds Bush Soft on Crime

Satire

As Scooter Libby celebrates his newfound independence, new opinion polls show that 76% of Americans now think of President Bush as soft on crime. In response, President Bush has petitioned for the death penalty in the case of William Jefferson.

"Lewis Libby fights for freedom," said the president. "William Jefferson is a terrorist. He kept all of that cash in the freezer in order to aid Al-Qaeda, and I think that is worthy of the death penalty."

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It's a .... Little Critter Vallancourt

Apparently Verbal Jazz is too chipper at 4:15 in the morning, according to the obstetrician who returned my call. She sounded as though she had been asleep, whereas I had been awake since 3:30 am timing the Missus Jazz’s contractions and figuring that I would not be sleeping any more that day. Two-and-a-half hours of sleep would do for me, and based on what I had heard of child rearing, two-and-a-half is a luxury.

The Missus Jazz had been having contractions since 11 pm the previous night. She told me to go to bed at 1 am so I could get some sleep. A similar scenario had played out the night of the Oscars. We were up until 2 am, timing sporadic contractions that began because the baby was bored with the Oscar speeches and wondered why Al Gore did not show the same personality seven years ago.

But this was different – it was 9 days later and 6 days past the Critter’s due date. In this age of modern medicine and 24-7 information, we decided not to find out the sex of our baby until the day it was born, hence the name “Critter.” It was looking more and more like March 6 would be the day we found out, as the Missus would pause with each contraction.

It was 11 deegrees Fahrenheit when we left for the hospital. We arrived in the darkness of 5 am, when early birds are starting to wake up and night owls are going to bed. Labor progressed into the next shift which started at 7 am. My Mother-in-law and I ate breakfast, and the Missus Jazz continued to experience the pain of a Critter that was ready for its new adventure.

The Missus Jazz was attended to by a regular nurse, the obstetrician, and a nursing student who wanted to be part of another childbirth. The nursing student was game until the anesthesiologist had to try three times with the epidural catheter. She turned white and bolted out of the room. I spoke with her later. She was embarrassed, as she had witnessed one live birth prior to ours. She surmised that her lack of food and standing around had caught up with her. For the epidural procedure, I was told to sit down in case something like that should happen to me. The epidural procedure is the one point in the whole process in which the birthing coach is not involved.

My mother-in-law was not allowed stay through the epidural process. Forty five minutes later she came with the news that Scooter Libby had been found guilty. If only Cheney could be indicted, I mused. Meanwhile, the Missus had gone from excruciating pain to feeling slight pressure when she had a contraction.

The obstetrician asked what sex we each thought the baby was. In every dream I had, the baby was a boy. The one I remember most vividly involved me not telling my mother about the baby until the day after it was born. She would have been horrified had we waited that long. Not putting much stock in dreams as predictors of the future, I said that it was a girl. We had a girl name picked out for months, but boy
names were becoming increasingly difficult. The Missus got to the point where she wanted to find out just to see if we had to worry about a boy name at all.

The doctor settled on “she” for the baby during the labor. The doctor said that she does not like to call babies, "it", and that whatever she settles on is usually wrong. The Missus was convinced that the baby was a boy because we had such a hard time coming up with boy names.

“I can see her head,” the doctor said, coaching the Missus through the pushing process. The doctor took some time to style the baby’s hair into a Mohawk. A “sick, sick profession” the doctor had called her line of work, as an attempt to tell the Missus it was okay to vomit during the delivery process.

The doctor also declared that the baby “has more hair than your husband.”

“How would you know,” I asked, “you’re way down there.” Verbal Jazz is not above the occasional retaliatory short joke while his wife is pushing out a baby.

“Whenever you come into the office you’re sitting down,” the doctor replied.

My mother-in-law and I held the Missus’ legs during the delivery and watched the head crown and the baby pop out. 3:30 pm came and the Missus was still pushing…12 hours after waking me up. “Here she comes,” the doctor said. Our little girl was coming. At 3:41 pm the baby finally slipped out, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of our little girl’s…penis.

“We have a boy!” I said with surprise, and all 9lbs. 11.5 oz and 22.5 inches of Samuel Lee Vallancourt started crying.

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Oscar Makes Us Grouchy

The only reason people watch the Oscars is to complain about watching them. Four hours of one’s life down the drain to watch Martin Scorsese hoist an award he should have hoisted many years ago, or so goes the common assumption. But, really, was Goodfellas that much better than Dances With Wolves? If Kevin Costner is involved the answer is painfully easy. Maybe Oscars should be handed out 10 years after the release date of any given film instead of two months later. The perspective of time might have talked some sense into voters who picked The English Patient over Fargo for Best Picture.

Oscar loses a bit of its luster when one learns how much marketing goes into it. It has become so bad that Congress is thinking of stepping in and set up campaign finance rules for Oscar nominees. But then no one in Washington wants to take on Big Hollywood unless they are Republican. You can’t run for office as a Republican unless you take on Big Hollywood at some point. Democrats have Big Oil, Republicans have Big Hollywood. Although I think I might rather watch a gay love story than see footage of an oil covered polar bear any day.

Speaking of political parties - Oscar nominees should split themselves into five separate parties – Comedy, Musical, Documentary, Drama, and Action Film. The primary season would begin with February releases declaring their candidacy for Best Picture. The drama nominee could then decry the comedy nominee’s lack of seriousness about grave subject matters. Picture it, Scorsese on the stump focused on the talking point of how “Little Miss Sunshine” treats depression, suicide and Proust lightly. And Al Gore could talk about how global warming is a greater threat than the South Boston Irish Mafia.

The Oscars will keep sucking me in, as does the Super Bowl every year, because I am addicted to the spectacle. Also because I like saying things like – “I’m glad Scorsese finally won, but can you believe that someone thought that Dances With Wolves was better than Godfather III?”

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Presidents Day -- All Inclusive

This holiday used to be known as Washington’s Birthday when I was younger. Then someone got the bright idea to call it Presidents Day. According to Wikipedia this change was driven by advertisers who wanted to hold “Presidents Day” as opposed to Washington’s Birthday sale events. That’s like calling Christmas Deities Day – in which one can celebrate the birthday of the deity in choice. Apparently George Washington doesn’t have enough of a Q-rating to move mid-sized sedans – Lincoln was always a better pitchman anyway.

One benefit of calling the holiday “Presidents Day” is that now lesser-known presidents won’t feel so left out. Arthur, Hayes and Polk are like the kids who can’t play soccer, but get a participation trophy anyway. Perhaps all presidents should get onto Mount Rushmore, but only after they are dead. And in smaller scale than the four already on there so that they’ll be easy to get rid of if America ever gets run over by Islamo-fascists, or some other wacky cult that believes in the divinity of civic leaders.

That’s what this day is all about – honoring the legacy of the Executive Branch. But why should the EB get all the love? There are supposed to be two other branches of government. There should be a Supreme Court Justices Day – preferably in mid spring – and a floating Congressional Representatives Day.

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