A Little Foolishness can't Hurt

April Fools! There, I said it. Now you can relax and not worry about me playing any stupid April Fool jokes. You ever wonder how April Fool's Day came about? So do many others. There seems to be much dispute about it's origin. In fact, there are a number of explanations for it, the most popular one being that it started when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582 that moved New Year's Day from April 1st to January 1st. In France, those who did not know about the change (communication was much slower in those days) and still celebrated the new year on April 1st were derided as being "fools". Personally, I think the French look foolish most of the time, calendars aside.

Many other theories about how April Fool jokes became a universal passion are just as convincing as that one. I think it maters not as to origination. In fact, something like an April Fool joke day must be an inevitability. Humans need to laugh. They also need to laugh at others. April Fool's pranks, those harmless and fun stunts are a good way for people to release tension. The great theologian, Martin Luther, once wrote that "If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go." I agree with Luther (though I doubt any heaven would let me in anyway).

Laughing is probably what keeps us from weeping, so how could any reasonable person object to a reasonable Aril Fool prank. Throwing someone's cell phone it a garbage dumpsite is not reasonable. Hiding it for a few minutes is. I would suspect reasonable people play reasonable April Fool jokes and unreasonable ones do not.

A problem with April 1st is that many people don't take serious matters seriously. I don't want to have a heart attack or die on April 1st (though dying then might great timing because it would catch others off guard). Hmmm If on April 1st some babe or hunk you have dreamed about forever tells you he or she must have you and only you in bed what do you think...uh, ok, that obviously has to be an April Fool joke. It would never happen to me. But on April 1st there are borderline events that could be interpreted as funny that yet might be real ones.

This is the dilemma of April 1st. How should we react to events that seem a little unusual? We don't mind being the butt of April Fool jokes, but we also would feel stupid to be tricked by one or to think something said or done in seriousness is in fact a joke. Maybe the best strategy on April 1st is to just lock oneself inside the house and turn off all the electronic communications.

Uh...as you can see, I didn't take my own advice here. What a cruel joke to play on you.

No Immigration Restrictions Anywhere

The U.S. Census bureau last week released census figures that reports that the Hispanic population of United States is now more than 50 million. And it also said the growth in the Hispanic population accounted for almost half this country's population increase in the last 10 years. During the time, the number of Hispanics grew 43 percent. Uh..and those are just the "legal" Hispanics here. Add another 10 to 20 million who are here illegally and one can see the invasion is out of control. Unlike most other immigrant groups, after arriving in the new land many Hispanics prefer to keep their own language and culture. So in a sense, there is becoming a second nation within a nation among those who do not care to assimilate after arrival.

But the U.S. isn't the only industrial nation being over-run by people who come without asking or getting permission. All over Europe there continues to be a mass immigration of poor, uneducated, and culturally foreign immigrants that are making Europeans see changes in their countries that they do not like to view. Too the cost of social welfare programs to support those new immigrants is helping to bankrupt many European countries.

This illegal influx of job seekers from Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and Africa is causing chaos for many Western European governments. Spain's government, for example, has called the level of immigration there "unacceptable". Spain has long been a target of illegal immigrants from North Africa due to its relatively easy access from Morocco. It's similar to the invasion the U.S. gets from Mexico in that most who come use the system more than they contribute to it, given limited education and skill levels of the newcomers.

While the influx of badly educated, low skilled and unsuitable (criminal, drug dealers, gang members, and other social deviates ) into the U.S has been unprecedented during the past 50 years, the European influx is wrecking the economies and causing social problems there. The largest segments of Europe's immigrants are from Muslim countries. They assimilate even less than the United State's Hispanic group, Those insular Muslim communities in Europe are already long past the point of being merely troublesome, already having become an outright danger to the European governments. It has been a long time coming, but some Europeans are finally getting to the point of having had enough of people entering without being invited. More and more Europeans are finally beginning to speak out. But just like in the United Sates, Europe’s politically correct attitudes and platitudes are hard to overcome.

One could examine every Western European nation and find in each a multitude of exasperation there with the inability to stop the immigration that is wrecking their nations. But one example of panic among the established residents right now is in Italy. The Libyan civil war and other African upheavals are sending hordes to Italy. At Lampedusa, the island off of Sicily where most illegals who arrive by boat are held for processing, more than 3,000 new migrants have arrived in the last three days alone on the island that has a total population of 5,000 residents. Lampedusa lives off tourism and fishing, both of which are threatened by the human invasion.

The residents are fed up with the invaders and with their government's unwillingness to stop the invasion. Local Lampedusa fishermen yesterday pulled the migrants' seized boats across the harbor to block any more refugee boast from landing. It was symbolic, but an indication of the worry there. Islanders knocked over garbage bins along the roads and several women chained themselves together, shouting that the migrants should no longer be brought to shore. Islanders have sent their children to relatives who live elsewhere due to the stench of the garbage left by the vast numbers of migrants in the fields. Lampedusa has forever been despoiled and is a microcosm of what is happened to many nations themselves.

And what does the Italian government have to say about it all? It is asking other European countries to take "their share of the hordes". Good luck on that one. Italy is likely to become Africa's dumping ground just as the U.S. is Mexico's. At this time in most western industrial countries, the consensus world is that any person, possessed of any character and background, has an inalienable right to live where he or she wishes without any reason other than want.

There is no political will to protect the legal inhabitants of nations by enforcing immigration policies that ensure the safety and prosperity of the legal residents, and as a result, western nations are killing not only their cultures and stability but bankrupting themselves. One wonders if the fall of the west will open day be traced to this pen door policy.

Latest Priest Molestation Judgement

Another priest molestation settlement was announced to day. The reason I mention this one (there seems to be one everyplace where people have the right to sue) is that the incidents happened right here in the Oregon and Washington area. is Under terms of the agreement, the province will pay $48.1 million and its insurer will pay $118 million. Not surprisingly, the lawyers will be the big winner in the case of child molestation's here because 40 percent of the settlement will go toward attorneys' fees. In the world of litigation the lawyers are the biggest molesters of all.

There are also other clergy molestation's (most were sexual, but a few were allegations of beatings and other physical abuse) cases not covered by this suit that will further make the church ask the flock to pay for their priests deviant behavior.

Along with agreement for making the the payment to the accusers the church tried to cover it's behind with a statement saying it was not really at fault because only some priests can't keep their pants on when around their smallest church members show up for spiritual guidance. "We reach out to the Jesuits who have been innocent through all of this. Those who were the abusers clearly need to be sanctioned, but the majority of religious, Jesuits and others, are not charged or in any way involved."

Nothing like denial to cover any possibility of the church feeling any of the guilt that it passes on to its members within the catholic liturgy and practices the church demands of members. I think one thing Catholics are still wondering about is why their church does not come clean and admit guilt and systemic complicity in covering up abuse by their clergy. In the vast majority of cases of these allegations world wide, the church simply transferred those priests accused of the charges and did not report them to local police for investigation of their alleged criminal behavior, (the "if I am a priest I am immune from prosecution" policy). As a result, church membership and donations to the church by members have fallen dramatically in recent years.

So far more than $500,000,000 in priest abuse claims have been paid by the Catholic Church and the figure could reach 1 billion in total. What is glaring about this entire problem is that the Catholic Church had no specific policy for dealing with abusive priests, more often it simply pretended the abuse did not exist. There is a pattern because even today it still practices the avoidance policy, admitting to the abuses only when forced to do so by public allegation, litigation or physical evidence.

In a sense the Church just wants the allegations to just "go away". Yet as they continue to stonewall and evade about the molestation's, the only disappearing act is in the number of adherents sitting in church pews. Fewer and fewer are continuing their affiliation with Catholicism.

OMG Is Now Official

OMG! If you know the meaning of that exclamation, you probably won't be shocked that OMG is the latest entry into the famed Webster English dictionary (OMG already made it into the Oxford Dictionary in 2010) version 2011. It seems that OMG has been used often enough, long enough in speech and in varied citation references to be declared official. That is essentially the criteria of whether or not a new entry makes it into a dictionary. Thus, even idioms as silly as that one become recognized as off limits to English teachers' red pens when they are grading student homework papers.

OMG may seem to be something a Valley Girl teen coined on line, but it's actually not originally a tech term. It was first used in 1917 in a long published letter written by a famed British admiral, not by Paris Hilton or used the same way it is used (over used) today. But there were some other Internet inspired expressions given the stamp of approval by Webster this year .

How about, LOL, IMHO, and BFF? It's enough to make one learn another language. My favorite new entry for the year is the non tech appellation, "muffin top". Webster defines it as "a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a tight pair of trousers. I prefer that to what we all know a muffin top is, old fashioned stomach flab. Please call me muffin top, not fatty.

Well, the nature of English is such that it must continually add even the silliest of words. An English dictionary evolves because the language is an amorphous one, one that adds frequently in order to stay vibrant. Unlike some other languages that are closed (French, for example), English does not discriminate on origin and welcomes new contributions from everywhere. The English vocabulary is one of the toughest to master because there are more words contained in it than any other language on earth. OMG!

What's interesting about the inclusion of OMG and other acronyms is that they are not really words. They are acronyms, or phrases or words...OMG..I am confused as to what they are. And this year a new type of "word" was added to Webster. It's that crazy heart symbol we all see on chat sites. Webster's Dictionary has now posted the little red symbol for a heart as a new "word".

OMG! I am confused and should probably ask Webster to please redefine one of it's long standing entries, "word". What exactly is a word? I will LOL if you try to define that one.

Ok Day

Guess what day it was Friday? It was the annual OK Day in the U.S. I think we are supposed to celebrate OK by saying OK allot. But everyone already says it too much. The whole subject of an OK day is not OK for me, I am confused. I am, not even sure where the work OK came from. I was a taught in school that OK came from a U.S. Presidential campaign in 1840 in which political supporters of a candidate, Martin Van Buren, formed OK from Van Buren's nickname "Old Kinderhook But that's just one theory. Here are some more claims for the start of our overuse of OK.

-It's an Old English acronym for 'Orl Korrect'.

- That in the American Civil War large blackboards would list the number killed each day. If none were killed the blackboard would read OK (zero killed)

- Another theory is that OK (or "Okay" as Americans say it) comes from the Scottish "auch aye", which means "ah yes

- That OK was born 172 years ago in the Boston Post newspaper of March 23, 1839, when the editor created humorous abbreviations. He wrote in the middle of a paragraph, "o.k. - all correct (Thus, why we celebrate OK on the March date)

- That ok comes from when the ships would return from sea. The French would say "au quai" which translates to "at the dock". The French!!! I refuse to believe the French contributed anything that significant to the world.

-That OK came from a Swedish production line worker named Olaf Knutssen. Every time he checked an assembly line product that was good he would stamp his OK initials on it.

There are more theories, but I will spare you the torture if it is OK with you. I think OK is probably the most spoken word, worldwide. It's universally understood and that may make it the most important word in any language. Ergo, we have a OK day to honor it. We are supposed to say OK even more than we normally do (but I hope not more than a teenager says "you know") It's all OK with me, and I am using OK often here in the spirit. You'll have to wait until March 23rd of next year since you missed OK day this year.

OK is good for us because it is a non offense word. People write OK on documents to mark their approval and we nod our heads or speak OK to express assent to something or just to say we're listening. It's also a great way to shorten or end a conversation. Just say OK and walk away. No one ever thinks anything of it when you do that. I bet you are hoping right about now that I say OK and shut up. That's OK with me....

Elizabeth Taylor

It's been a week since Elizabeth Taylor has died. I think most who knew her films and her life story are saddened because Elizabeth Taylor did it all....both naughty and nice. She had eight marriages and seven divorces, four children and a brood of grandchildren, more than 100 roles in movies, at least 70 hospitalizations/operations, several life threatening illnesses including the removal of a brain tumor, and two trips to the alcohol/drug abuse rehab.

Yet it was all done with grace and humor, a far cry from the typical "movie star" celebrity of this generation, who are frequently mean spirited, dysfunctional, spoiled and downright unpleasant to observe. Liz Taylor once said about herself that , "One problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues." Liz had many. Her personal life's plot twists that captivated so many, but in a fun way. Liz Taylor was always in love with somebody, often to many men and married men. She claimed to be blinded by passion. But it wasn't the kind of ugly passion that we see in today's "stars".

Think Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, and many more who are far from lovable in their naughty exploits. the death of Liz Taylor brings us closer to the death of the fun Hollywood and continued growth of the mean spirited and boring tinsel town Hollywood. While Liz Taylor had compassion for all and made sacrifices to support AIDS victims, the pathetic Michael Jackson, charities of all sort, today's star is too self obsessed to notice anything except him or herself in a mirror.

I remember years ago taking my mom to see Elizabeth Taylor in a play that was touring in New Orleans. Not being a huge fan of Liz Taylor I was interested in seeing her performance, but my mom had a child-like adoration for Liz Taylor the person, not the actress. She saw Taylor as a woman who lived life broadly, sometimes naughtily, but always with grace and enthusiasm. I think she and many others admired Taylor for that and perhaps envied her too. I didn't understand it then, but I do now.

Surely, Taylor wasn't the best role model in the world, given her many escapes that strayed from what is the norm. But she never was mean spirited, self absorbed or malicious. She never had an unkind word for or about anyone, even those she disliked or who disliked her, and she showed that being beautiful on the outside doesn't imply one must become ugly on the inside.

Elizabeth Taylor did what few humans can ever bring themselves to do. She lived her life the way she wanted and never worried about how society would view her. And through it all she never engendered any hate from those who watched her show, either on screen or off.

Turkey Burgers Are Coming

Carl's Jr., the fast food restaurant that sells huge hamburgers that popular here on the west coast made an announcement today that is intriguing. It's the introduction of the turkey burger. That's a 480 calorie burger as opposed to their huge 1400 calorie Monster hamburger. The only fast food that I eat here in Portland is Carl's Jr. burgers (I get the "small" one and that is almost too big to eat). I sometimes get one at lunch if near a Carl's Jr. outlet (they are all over the city).

The burger there is tasty, uses high quality beef and is the least expensive of all the fast food burger places. But today carl's Jr. will become the first national fast-food chain to add turkey burgers to its permanent menu. Hmmm Can anyone make a turkey burger anything but dry? There's not enough fat in turkey to make a burger that is moist...unless they add various fatty condiments and toppings to the burger. Loaded with turkey skin and fat in order to make them vaguely edible, I think we will see more than that dry ground turkey on a Carl's Jr. bun. By the time the mayo, bacon, and the bun are slapped on, the turkey burger is no nutritionally better than a beef burger, but it could be a nice guilt relief when chowing down on one.. T Would that not defeat the purpose of selling the "healthier" turkey sandwich.

Carl's Jr. says it isn't suddenly food and health conscious, but that since people are asking for such things as turkey burgers Carl is giving it to them. It's probably a publicity stunt because I doubt many people will do more than try one once, and then head back to the artery clogging Carl's Jr. hamburger. In matters of fast food, taste trumps health for all but the truly heath food devotees (who don't eat in places like Carl's much anyway).

Ok, this subject is stupid and a waste of time for you because you don't eat fast food burgers. But adding this sandwich to fast food menus is a sort of test about whether people really are as concerned with "healthy choices" as are the food police that seem to look over my shoulder when I order that Carl's Jr. hamburger. I say the turkey burger will sell about as fast as one can sell ice to an Eskimo.

But wait! There is one good aspect to the new Carl's Jr. turkey burger. Ads for the Carl's Jr., turkey burger will feature the former Miss Turkey from last year’s Miss Universe pageant.... in a bikini. Now that's mouth watering!