I am now more than ever, convinced that the right to vote should no longer be a right, but a privilege. One bestowed upon those that can pass a simple civic test. It has become all too apparent in the past couple of weeks that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to be stupid are quickly becoming the tenants under which this country and it’s right leaning member’s think we should head. It’s not just a symptom of Republicans; it’s across the aisle. Which makes this even sadder to witness.

At a time when partisanship should be the core of every debate, when the very livelihood of our citizens is at risk, this political bullshit has to stop. And one way I see that we can stop this trend of narcissistic, self-aggrandizing politicians is to force the very people who vote for them to prove in some small way their value as citizens of this great country.

I therefore propose the following: Upon entering the voting booth, each person will be required to take a ten question test encompassing basic knowledge regarding our government. Before you can vote, you must answer all ten questions. If you answer in the 90% percentile, meaning nine out of ten right, the voting screen will then allow you to vote. If you do not pass this test, the voting booth will shut down and off you go about your day. Maybe on the way home you can pick up a book. Or a newspaper.

A sampling of how this test might look:

1. What is the title of the document that contains the first 10 Amendments to U.S. Constitution?
2. In what year did the U.S. declare its independence from English rule?
3. Name the three branches of government.
4. Who is third in line after the President and Vice-President to assume the duties of U.S. President?
5. Name one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
6. Who is the Commander in Chief?
7. How many Senators are elected?
8. What are the colors of our flag?
9. Who signs bills into law?
10. What kind of government does the United States have?

And there you have it. Simple. Answer them all correctly and you get to vote. It’s time we start taking responsibility in this country. Our politicians need to go, but the only way we can make that happen is to make sure our people aren’t seduced by God-fearing banter, or activist talk. Religion shouldn’t be a part of government. Just as hate, racism, bigotry, and stupidity shouldn’t.

It wasn’t until Starbucks officially prohibited smoking outside of any of its stores, did it really hit me how I now belong to a group of people who are systematically and methodically ostracized and pushed to the periphery of society.  Local governments, businesses, cities, towns, all enacting new laws that prohibit the use of tobacco and come with a hefty fine if caught.

I am what I like to call a “respectful smoker.”  One who understands that my choice may not be someone else’s.  I have always been aware of where I am, whom I am around, and how my habit may affect anyone nearby.  Smoking in restaurants?  I think it’s completely legit to have to step outside.  Smoking in the mall food court?  The mall is a dying breed anyway, no need to even be there.  Smoking on planes?  I remember a time, flying across the Atlantic in a marathon 12-hour flight, sneaking to the back where the smoking section was located.  You can’t do that anymore.  I never sat in the smoking section, I found that to be too much, even for me.  So no smoking on planes anymore?  Alright.  I can live with that.

I understand the bandwagon wave of change we are on in regards to smoking.  But there is a hypocrisy that is rearing its ugly head.  We live in a country where freedom supposedly reigns supreme.  We have the choice to believe in whatever we want, eat whatever we want, travel freely, speak our minds.  But we also live in a country where the power of decision is not made by the “people for the people”; it’s made by bandwagon change.  See the Prohibition era and it’s not so hard to make a correlation to history repeating itself.

Truth . com can air ads as often and offensive as it likes.  But the very industry they are protesting has been legally withdrawn from advertising in the same medium.  Fair?  Not even close.  Businesses should be able to make decisions on their own whether or not they want to permit a smoking section.  They shouldn’t be forced to one way or the other by a rogue government.  I don’t eat meat, so I choose not to venture into steak houses.  If you don’t smoke, find a bar that is smoke-free.  But give me the right, just as you have the right.

Obesity has taken the lead over smoking in health related disease and is fast approaching more deaths.  What’s next?  Eliminating fast food drive-thru’s so you at least have to walk a little bit?  Now that I would vote for, as long as I could smoke on the walk.

“Um, that’s Therapists, Sean.”

One of the classic exchanges from a bygone era when Saturday Night Live was still consistently funny.  And one of the few television quotes I repeat with accuracy, most of the time.  And while funny, it’s become a bit of a mid-week saying for me in the past couple of months.

You see, it’s been a horrible 2010.  And while therapy would suggest I talk openly about it, I don’t necessarily think that blogging about it is what she means.  But it has led to an interesting meandering of thought for myself, this notion of therapy and mental well-being, achieved through conversation with a stranger.

In very general terms, without being callous to those with serious mental disorders, therapy is essentially me paying someone money to sit across from me and listen to me talk for 50 minutes.  You don’t even get an hour.  Which I liken to joining a fraternity in college.  Paying someone to automatically like you and what you say.  And while in my short stint in “the-rapy”, I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t have this stranger listening to me.  Money well spent, so far.

Not surprisingly, the United States leads the world in mental illness.  And not just because we invade and occupy countries for long periods of time.  It is reasonable to assume, that our level of mental illness is higher because of the “higher expectations” put upon us, both as citizens of a world power but also as occupants in a society where success is not based on personal happiness, but how new your is your white picket fence.  (“Higher expectations” is from Ronald Kessler, a Harvard Medical School researcher who conducted a study in 2004 of 16 countries)

According to the Labor Department, the field of “therapy”, which encompasses a broad range of disciplines, is a pretty safe field to enter for long-term employment success.  Each year, there is growth.  Each year, more and more people look to therapy for help.  And I am one of those people.

I suppose there was a time when going to therapy was taboo, a social stamp of disapproval for some major underlying disorder.  A cause for teasing and temptation for others to walk on the other side of the street.  But these days, it seems as though if you aren’t in some sort of therapy, you are shunning your responsibility for always attempting to achieve better balance.  Some people choose yoga, or running.  Painting, playing music, all forms of therapy.  And as the world around us becomes more chaotic and harder to understand, we naturally look for places that provide comfort and help to ease the strain on our minds.

The-rapists.  Funny because in essence it does rape your mind.  Fuck’s with you, but in an effort to clean it up, clean it out, and stand taller.  A stranger equipped with nothing more than textbook education.  But more importantly, an open ear and heart to listen without judgement.  Something we are severely lacking in society.

Let’s start back in the late 90’s when there was an onslaught of house transformation shows, led by “Trading Spaces”.  A wave of shows followed showing the home viewer how to cheaply and effectively alter their space, creating that “wow” factor missing in so many cookie cutter homes.  These shows blossomed at a time when more people were buying homes, tract housing projects were going up left and right, and the economy was flourishing.  The natural step when those things happen is to invest in real estate.  The surest return on investment.  Or so we thought.  Those shows naturally progressed into programming involving large families.  You know the ones I’m talking about.

Eight kids, 12 kids, and twenty kids here we come.  The trials and tribulations of large families.  A glimpse into the life of these American dreamers living whatever kind of weird dream having a football team means.  These shows fizzled quickly as the parents got swollen heads and the viewers lost interest in yet another pregnancy.  Baby number “who the fuck cares anymore” is here!  Large families at a time when prosperity was available in every drugstore on the corner.  Not so much anymore.  Having a lot of kids now is damned expensive.  Not all that interesting to the common middle class person just trying to pay the mortgage.  So we went from large families to small ones.  The little person wave.

Show after show came on the air following the lives of little people staking their claim in the American landscape.  Interesting, incredibly educational, and more often than not absolutely no different than any other reality show following someone’s life.  But a fascination by the television consuming public fueled the airing of more and more couples, families, specials involving these people.  Why this wave?  I have no societal reason to attach, no trend, other than one successful show led to two, which led to more and more.  And as the trend caught on, it fizzled because of overload.  Sure some of these shows still exist; in fact some of all of these examples still exist.  They are cheap to make.

But here is where the trending confounds me.  Cupcakes?  What the hell?  Every time I change the channel a new cupcake show is on.  Or cake show.  Or chocolate show.  But mostly cupcakes.  I like cupcakes well enough.  And sure, I’m writing this blog so I’ve watched my fair share of cupcake shows, but more to the point….why cupcakes?  Why now?  I’ve tried to reason with myself.  Cupcakes make people happy, and right now there isn’t a whole lot of happiness in the world.  The oil spill, the economy, racism back on the rise, etc. etc.  But cupcakes?  Are cupcakes the answer to our troubles?

Talk amongst yourselves.  I can’t type and eat a cupcake.  Dangerous for the laptop.

If you watch any show with the name “Kardashian” in the title, you are the problem.  Not just a part of it, THE problem.

84% of people who buy and/or drive Volkswagen vehicles are cute.  Proven after a year long, unscientific research study conducted while spending 11% of my life in Los Angeles traffic.

If you melt a Peep over a fire, not only do you get the roasted marshmallow you so desire, but also you get the added flavor and texture of crème brulee.  And no, they don’t explode.

Discovering a 30-year old poaching egg pan and not knowing how to use it = priceless.  Spending a lifetime ruining dozens and dozens of eggs, relatively expensive.

After 72 hours of trying in vain to make sense of the phrase “If you give a mouse a cookie…”, I realize it still doesn’t make any damned sense.

Watching a marathon of “Lock-up Raw” is not a waste of time.  How else will you learn how to make a shank?

Starbucks doesn’t brew their “bold” coffee after noon.

If you just randomly smile in public, people tend to clear the way for you.

Skinbook is for nudists as facebook is to stalkers.

Fact:  enough people have already googled the phrase “If Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga had a love child” that you don’t even have to type in the whole thing.  Google, where everything you read is true.

And finally, there are no new ideas.  Just recycled ones in new packaging.

Sometimes I wonder if watching all of these movies has skewed my view of the real world.  You know that same argument that is made about violent video games corrupting the minds of our youth?  Creating killers with anger issues and violent tendencies.  The idea that escaping into this false reality and living there, but not coming back out to the real world.  Having a gross misunderstanding of fact versus fiction, life versus fantasy.  And while I don’t think that the highly entertaining “Saw” movies have created a monster inside me, the overall viewing of movies has definitely caused a riff in my own personal living in this world.

Hollywood endings.  You know, the ones where the girl gets the guy, the hero saves the day, the town is rebuilt after the flood, the monster is relegated back to hell, dreams become reality, and so on.  And even though scholars study periods in film making as a reference to what society was like, very few movies actually comment on what life is like from beginning to end.  For good reason, yes, movies don’t sell so well if they end on a bad note, or a sad note, or unhappiness remains.

But life isn’t a Hollywood ending.  The world we live in doesn’t always have the perfect ending, all wrapped up nice and tidy at the end of the day.  I know, pessimistic me is coming out full force right now.  But as much as I want the orchestra to swell in my head so I know something exciting is about to happen, as much as I want the girl to knock on my door and tell me that she loves me no matter what, as much as I want the dead and gone to visit me with a smile and tell me how to move on, as much as I want each day to end with a slowly rolling stream of credits that thank and congratulate all those that have graced me with their presence, it just doesn’t work that way.

My folks live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Known for success during the steel and coal-mining booms of pre-war and post-war America, this little haven in the country has since found itself struggling against the tide of outsourcing, large mechanized corporations taking over every industry, and it’s proximity to a larger urban hub being far enough away that the usual trickle of suburban flockers doesn’t quite reach it’s grasp.

Several years ago there was a front page article in the paper arguing the finer points of how much a citizen of this quaint little town would pay for a cup of coffee. Why pay more than 75cents when you can go to McDonald’s or the local diner? The local convenience stores had recently all been expanded to include a rather large, multi-faceted coffee exploration, the likes of which most folks in these parts have never seen.

The main subject of this article, Starbucks. That greedy, green awninged international coffee behometh. The town was going through a transition, new stores being built, roads being repaired, new high schools going up in every district, and the headline in the paper was “How Much is too much for a cup of coffee?” After a lengthy debate, lots of grumbling, and a weariness amongst the locals, Starbucks officially opened. Not a lot of fanfare, just a quiet opening, offering free coffee to local educators, reaching out to the community by sponsoring little events with coffee and pastries. Within 6 months, it was booming. Lines out the door, chairs filled with older customers debating the state of the union, church politics being hammered out in the overstuffed chairs…..and all of this in the largest coffee chain in the world.

I love going home with or without Starbucks being there. But now when I go home, I know I will always have access to a good cup of coffee.

I recently heard that soccer is anti-American.  It holds no place in our sports culture.  There is a great boredom and lack of excitement in the game and it can never compete with our national pastimes.  Our professional league, Major League Soccer, struggles with revenue and television time, struggles with ingratiating itself into our sports obsessed culture.  As I sat with family watching the USA’s opening game, I heard more than once, “what is the point of this game?”

In my opinion, there is no clearer indication of the superiority complex our country holds when it comes to other country’s national sports.  Soccer being the most prominent in the world.  Yes, the WORLD.  And yet, here in the U.S., we joke and brush to the side the passionate involvement in the sport by other countries.  It’s astounding to me how insular we are as a country when we belittle and dismiss something so important to 75% of everyone else on this planet.

Our country is being represented right now by a group of passionate, dedicated men who are wearing our colors with pride in hopes of achieving glory on a large worldwide stage.  And yet, 3 out of 4 things I read or see are filled with disassociated comments and ideas about how unimportant this sport and event is.   It’s worth stating again, soccer is the most popular sport in the world.  And we have a team that qualified to participate in the most popular sports greatest tournament.  Quit bitching and bemoaning, and get to cheering.

Sports and politics shouldn’t mix.  We have historical evidence of brutality and death to remind us of this.  But in this event, we have an opportunity to rally with the world and step down off of our soapbox of “democracy” and take interest in what the rest of the world deems as very important to their culture.  We live in a great country, but sometimes this “greatness” clouds over our ability to see that we aren’t the only ones on this planet.

I got the fever.  The World Cup Fever.  You don’t have to like the sport or even want to play the sport.  But at the very least, we can support our team as they compete in what is arguably the most watched sporting tournament in the world.

It’s not until you are forced to go through your stuff do you realize how much we keep around and for reasons that often can’t be remembered.  I have moved so many times in my life, that although my packing ability has become an art form, the things I choose to move all around the country or the world for that matter, are so random and seemingly unimportant, and ultimately just keeps costing me money to pack and ship.  But I keep them around for some reason.  And it wasn’t until I became involved in going through someone else’s stuff, did I realize that what we keep with us, ultimately would be decided in value by someone else.

It’s a morbid thought to think that you spend your life gathering meaningful things only to know that after you are gone, most of it will just be thrown away.  Because that little box of seashells you once collected, doesn’t hold any value to anyone but yourself.  The drawer we all have in our kitchen filled with randomness, is just that, random and ends up in the garbage.  But it’s the “stuff” we choose to keep that defines who we are at any given moment in life.

You start with nothing and end with nothing.  And in between all of the material things gathered are meaningless in the end.  But in the meantime, while you are around to live day in and day out surrounded by these things, you are brought joy at seeing the trinket on the shelf given to you a decade ago by an old friend you haven’t spoken to in years.  Or opening a box and seeing the first crayon drawing you did in kindergarten.

It’s the most surreal thing to open a door to someone else’s home and know walking in your job is to literally clean house.  Keep what must be kept, toss what needs to go.  Determine in seconds value and worth.  Rooting through closets and drawers and cabinets piecing together an understanding of how this person lived, who this person was while they remained a participant in collecting stuff.

If you had to open my door today, I don’t know what kind of person you would think I am.  I have gone from having two suitcases to my name, to an apartment filled with things.  And I enjoy each and everything I have surrounding me.  But what does it say?  I don’t know.  But I’d like too.

I knew going in that even though I researched the process on-line, there was going to be hitches and loops and apparently hoops to jump through to simply transfer my title.  But I didn’t realize what a colossal waste of time and lack of any real motivation for efficiency would take precedence over just getting it done.

It occurred to me very quickly, that our governmental agencies are so entrenched in processes that are outdated and aged, well beyond their years of being useful.  The processes, paperwork, lines, workers, are all blasts from a bygone era when truth be told, there just weren’t that many people lining up to take care of DMV business.  The population has exploded, families now have an average of 2 cars per household and as we continue to grow, the governmental agency, which oversees our “transportation” needs, has remained as slow and disorganized as it has always been.

I recently received my monthly Union newsletter, only to read that they are projecting a 1.9 million deficit in the coming year.  And it occurred to me, a large part of that deficit is the ridiculous, antiquated newsletter they still put in the MAIL.  It’s filled with so little real information, and what information it does contain is geared towards only a handful of people.  Get with the times my unnamed UNION and stop spending unnecessary money on mailings when you could just as easily send an e-mail blast with important information for my region, not generic ramblings by an overpaid staff.

It doesn’t take a doctorate to understand efficiency, cost control, management.  All it takes is someone to speak up and change the status quo.  Of the 30 “windows” available for processing people at the DMV, only 15 of them were open.  Of those 15, it seemed as though after 3 or 4 people were taken care of, time for a break.  A break?  What could you have possibly accomplished that exhausted you so much you needed to step away for 10 minutes to rejuvenate yourself?

Look, money is tight all around.  And talk of deficits and furlough days and cuts headlines any news you may read.  But in a matter of days, it was clear to me that money is being wasted left and right simply because of inefficiency.  Give me one week at the DMV and one week at the “union” and I guarantee you that things would change.  It’s not rocket science, hell it isn’t even just science, it’s common sense.  Which seems to be a phrase no longer used.