What's Wrong With America? Punkin' Chunkin'!

Ah yes, once again time for this columnist to take issue with new holiday traditions that I think are nothing short of hokey and dumb, if not outright pointless. You'll recall that I took aim at the whole Punxsutawney Phil Groundhog Day thing, and now it's time for that brand new Halloween tradition... punkin' chunkin'.

Never heard of it? Consider yourself lucky. It means you have been fortunate enough to never have to waste a Sunday afternoon watching rednecks launch pumpkins hundreds or thousands of feet. And for what? Well, actually, there is some good out of this. The Punkin' Chunkin' Association (yes, there IS such thing) pledges 10 cents per foot for the winning hurl at their competition in Delaware every year, and the proceeds go to St. Jude's Children Hospital. So, it is for a worthwhile cause; however, there are plenty of other things you can do to help sick children besides launching pumpkins.

Consider, if you will, how this "sport" came into being. Basically, a bunch of rednecks, presumably drunk, were coming up with ways to pass the time that included, as far as I can tell, doing dumb things with heavy objects. This is an actual quote from one of the "inventors" of punkin' chunkin': "We used to throw anvils by hand, but that was hard on people's backs." They then tried a tree-chopping competition, "but somebody ripped his scalp open. His wife wouldn't let him play anymore."

I should hope not! In fact, I would think at that point, the wife would call the police and have these guys rounded up on drunk and disorderly charges. Instead, they tried again, and came up with launching pumpkins with medieval-sized catapults. Now, it's a hot new trend; the PCA's competition is the third-biggest event in Delaware, behind the state fair and NASCAR. I never thought of Delaware as a redneck state, but apparently, it may be more redneck than anywhere this side of West Virginia (insert "Dueling Banjos" here). And now more and more fireman's fairs and other neighborhood whoo-has include a punkin' chunkin' competition. In Morton, Illinois last year, the winning pumpkins traveled 4,859 feet! That's right, nearly a mile!!! This begs the obvious question: how do you make sure that one of these catapult-launched flying gourds doesn't land on, oh, a house, a car, or even worse, some random guy minding his own business and doing something other than watching flying pumpkins? I mean, we're talking about one helluva large open field that you would need in order to have a pumpkin fly, unimpeded by trees or something else, close to a mile. And these things don't exactly fly straight, ya know; there can be a wind factor. Not that weather stops these guys; one competition was held in a blizzard. Yeah, that's really safe... can't see two feet in front of your face, how are you going to see a pumpkin flying at you?

I just don't understand the whole concept, plain and simple. However, better we should be talking about silly things like punkin' chunkin' rather than what is becoming an increasingly popular topic: outlawing Halloween altogether. The other day, I read what has to be the dumbest line of reasoning for getting rid of Halloween; unfortunately, though, it probably will be something the Fundamentalist Christians take and run with. A letterwriter to the Harrisburg Patriot-News said that with all the "evil" going on in the world, terrorists running about, that Halloween should be stopped because watching scary movies and dressing kids up as witches and vampires puts them on the side of "evil". In other words, if we send our kids out trick-or-treating, (everybody all together now...) the terrorists have won.

This is a new spin on an old and tired argument, old and tired despite the fact that its a relatively new phenomenon. Fundamentalist Christians want Halloween banned, because of its roots in "pagan" tradition, and its traditions of gross-out horror movies and children in demon costumes. Thanks to these people, trick-or-treating has now been distilled down to kids going out (with parents accompanying them, regardless of age) to get candy during daylight hours, on a pre-determined day that often falls several days BEFORE Halloween, and in extreme cases, the kids aren't even allowed to dress up anymore! This is just plain ridiculous. I remember my childhood days, and once I got to the age that I was allowed to go from house-to-house without parental supervision, I went from house to house after dark, ON Halloween, confined to my neighborhood, because I knew my limitations. That is the result of good parenting. Well, that, and the fear of getting beaten up and my candy taken from me if I ventured into "hostile territory".

It's often funny and ironic how we make our childhood Halloween exploits into the stuff of legend, but we won't allow our kids to observe the day. I'll admit, I had friends when I was growing up who decided they would rather spend Halloween night engaging in vandalism. The gazebo at the old Green Gate Inn in Camillus, New York, got TP'ed and shaving creamed more than once in those years. I also had friends who, for whatever reason (let's just say my friends were as suspect upstairs as I consider myself to be) chose to make their vandalism be of a political nature, as on the morning of November 1st, there were a lot fewer political signs up in the Camillus area. However, these are things we can look back at and laugh about now, and at no time did we think we were doing "the work of the devil" by doing what we did. I wonder if kids today know about these accusations about Halloween and may indeed be motivated to do stuff on Halloween night because they want to be "evil". What I hope is that they dismiss these things just like they dismiss their overbearing parents at soccer games, and that they can just be allowed to be kids.

I seriously doubt there will be any kids out there Halloween night dressed as Middle-Eastern looking terrorists. Even dressing as Bin Laden is just plain wrong. Hell, dressing as Britney Spears is just plain wrong too, but I won't link the two, as that is also plain wrong. We want America to return to a more innocent time? Fine. Send the kids out trick-or-treating in whatever costume they want, albeit within reasonable boundaries of taste. If they're old enough, let them go by themselves. Let your kids have as enjoyable a Halloween as you had growing up. Save dealing with the "evils" of the world for another day.

I Don't Want to Go to War

It is finally time for me to weigh in on the whole Iraq issue, and even though my opinion doesn't mean a damn thing to the whole debate, that hasn't stopped me from giving it anyway. Simply put, I'm against it. I think we have no business trying to start a war with someone whose only form of aggression against us in the past decade is firing the occasional shot or two at our patrol planes over the "no-fly zones".

Here's my problem: I don't like who I'm sharing this side of the issue with. It makes me uncomfortable to know that by being against going to war with Iraq that I am on the same side as the still-irrelevant Al Gore, many more Democrats than Republicans, the whole "peacenik" crowd, and the anti-globalization crowd (a.k.a. "the Seattle mob"). Which means that some may try to characterize me as someone who may state my views on Iraq before going to ride a bicycle into Washington, D.C. traffic in a pathetic attempt to "shut down the nation's capital". Either that or they think I'm against all war in general. I was firmly behind our efforts to get Osama Bin Laden and overthrow the Taliban. Of course, we had a very good reason to do that; the loser had just killed 3000 innocent Americans on American soil.

A better columnist than I wrote better about this whole "I'm against the war but I don't like the people I'm with" thing; however, I cannot remember who the guy was or when the column was written (I do know it was in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, my new official newspaper). At first when thinking about how to write this column, I almost decided to link to that column and say, "This guy can explain it better than I can." This is what happens when you don't save stuff...

The fact of the matter is that I don't agree with a lot of my peers on the anti-war side of the fence, especially when it comes to the reasons for the war. I do not believe this is a war for oil, nor is this just Dubya getting a friendly government in place in Baghdad so he can get his oil tycoon buddies more business. A recent study of Iraq's struggling oil industry says that it would take 10-15 years before Iraq is back to the output capacity it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 10-15 years, or just about the same amount of time it would take to get a good amount of oil coming out of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Why would Bush fight a war for oil he can't get until long after his presidency is gone, when he can just wait until next January, when the Republicans once again have control of Senate, and just shove the ANWR drilling plan right through without any problems? Then again, liberals will believe what they want to believe; remember that these are the same people who think that Bush let the California energy crisis happen in order to help out his oil buddies. What did you want him to do, federalize the energy industry? Actually, they would probably love that, but Bush did the right thing in refusing to have federal intervention in a STATE-level crisis that was caused by a blundered deregulation process. One recent letter to the editor just absolutely slayed me; the writer suggested we go back to the energy policy President Carter had. Yeah, I remember that "energy policy"; it was called "gas lines".

I mentioned a while back that if he continued to bang the war drums exclusively that people would accuse him of ignoring other things in this country, and they certainly are. To say the war is for political reasons, though, and that by threatening war with Iraq, Bush is ensuring people will vote Republican is ludicrous. Bush doesn't need a war with Iraq to get the Senate back in GOP hands. I've mentioned before that all the Democratic Party has been good at this election season is shooting themselves in the foot. The latest gaffe came when they dumped Bob Torricelli from the New Jersey Senate race in favor of a candidate with a better chance of winning. If the Republicans don't win that seat in a laugher, then maybe something is afoul in the swamps of Jersey.

The worst part of all of this is that the Democrats are trying to claim that the reason for the war is to distract voters from what they believe is the "poor state of the economy." Liberal cartoonists and pundits (I don't wanna name names, but Garry "Doonesbury" Trudeau for one...) are screaming to anyone who will listen that the economy is "tanking", or in a "sorry state", and some are even asking, "Mr. President, what about the 'recession'?" I put "recession" in quotes because THERE IS NO RECESSION!!! The economy is in its fifth straight quarter of growth, which means that the economy has actually been on the rise longer than it has been in recession during the Bush presidency. You would never know it, though, to listen to Democrats. The nutty thing is that when Bush was mentioning the coming recession just before he took office, he was right, but the Democrats accused him of "talking down the economy". Now, there is no recession, hasn't been one for over a year, and the Democrats are claiming we're in one; by your logic, Democrats, would that not be "talking down the economy"?

No, here is my reasoning for not going to war with Iraq, plain and simple: I think Bush and his team have put themselves at the front of a crusade to rid the world of "the evildoers", and he's now cementing our unwanted position as "the world's police". Going after Al-Qaeda is one thing, and unfortunately the results are not as good as we wanted, but what happens if the Indonesians don't try harder to go after the cell in their country, do we start bombing over there? And now we find out that North Korea, another member of the "axis of evil", has been lying to us all along about not developing a nuclear weapons program, and worse yet, they think the non-nuclear treaty they signed with us is invalid. So, following the precedent of regime change when faced with an unwanted possible new nuclear power, when do we start the bombing runs over Pyongyang?

See, it's certainly idealistic for President Bush to think he can solve all the world's problems with the swift hand of military justice, and although a little idealism isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's better to leave well enough alone and focus on Osama. That's a much more rational explanation against war than "impeach Bush because he wants to fight a war rather than lead us out of the 'deepening recession'." I just wish I wasn't on the same side as those who feel that way...

Thank God for Tony Soprano

It was not a good Saturday to be me. I finally had a full weekend off this weekend, and I chose to spend the Saturday portion watching some sports on TV. I should have taken the previous night as an omen; my West Genesee Wildcats lost a must-win game against Auburn, all but ending their chances at both the playoffs and a winning season. The last time they had a winning season was 1993... my SOPHOMORE year there. Anyway, I was watching Florida State play Miami (rooting for FSU; my two favorite college teams are Syracuse and whoever is playing Miami), while listening to the Syracuse-Temple game. Any of you who are big followers of college football know what happened next... Syracuse lost.

We lost. To Temple.

WE LOST!!! TO @%#&ING TEMPLE!!!

Anyhoo, SU is now 0-5 (beating a I-AA school doesn't count), and I have long since cancelled my plans to go to Morgantown next weekend for SU-West Virginia, because I have no intention of watching 0-6. At least not in the stadium. Moments later, FSU finds a new way to lose to Miami... wide LEFT, rather than wide right as they have done so many times in the past. Within minutes, I learn that Susquehanna scored an impressive 35 points against highly-ranked Widener... and gave up 52. Then I watch as Penn State loses to Michigan in overtime, so not even my adopted hometown team wins today. The capper comes later that night, as the Minnesota Twins (who I declared on the radio as my pick to win the World Series) fell behind 3-1 to the Angels in the ALCS. Hell, even "Saturday Night Live" sucked.

However, there was one saving grace for my Saturday, and that is that I finally had a chance to catch up on the TV shows I had to tape throughout the weekend. Not being able to watch prime-time television anymore is an unfortunate side effect of being the highly-rated night slammer that I am. The biggest problems with this are 1) remembering to set the VCR to record, and 2) finding time to watch what you have taped. I also have a problem with the fact that my digital cable box apparently cannot switch channels by itself, so I can no londer record two shows on two different channels. I know what I need, I need TiVo...

Anyhoo, Saturday night, once the Twins have been put away, I dive into an evening of catching up, and most importantly, that means finally getting to watch last week's episode of "The Sopranos". Yup, I too am an addict. Former roommate Jay got me interested in the show; the first hook of course was Jamie Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano, but once that gets you in the door, you get hooked on everything about this show. It is, quite simply, the best show on television. This is why every other show breathed a huge sigh of relief when they learned it would be 16 months between seasons, and therefore, "The Sopranos" would be ineligible for this year's Emmy Awards. Those were the only people sighing relief; the rest of us were waiting eagerly for the next season to begin. I got HBO just so I could watch the new season.

To put it mildly, "The Sopranos" is a national obsession, more long-lasting than "The Osbournes" or even Anna Nicole Smith. More people watched the season premiere (on a pay cable channel) than anything on regular network television that night. And the day after the second episode, everyone had one question on their lips: "Did you see Adrianna throw up all over those FBI guys???"

And I have to bet that the show is providing an invaluable lead-in for the two shows that follow it: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "The Mind of the Married Man". I for one had never seen either show before the new season of "The Sopranos" started, but I have to say that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is pretty good, and "The Mind of the Married Man" is absolutely hilarious. Larry David continues to excel at the type of comedy that made "Seinfeld" a classic series, only now he does it with real celebrities like Ted Danson and Richard Lewis as his comic foils. And Mike Binder is a freakin' GENIUS! Just the sequence from last week's episode where he's watching his wife and infant son leave for church was brilliant; Binder's character "Mickey" yelling into a toy megaphone, "There is half a midget Jew in the cathedral...." as they walk out the door. Then, once the door closes, Mickey announces into the megaphone, "Break out the porno!!!" I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Then, the closing sequence with Mickey in the church imagining the "Jew alarm" going off and him getting the "gag communion wafer" was priceless.

But back to "The Sopranos". This is a show that takes so long to produce for a reason: excellence takes time. To the point that some are expecting excellence and so they even criticize one-episode storylines like the whole Columbus Day bit as sub-standard for this show. I understood the storyline perfectly; I interpreted it as a jab at all the Italian-American groups who whine about the show being offensive. And the scene in the car on the way back from the casino where Tony is going on about how Gary Cooper wouldn't be belly-aching about offending Native American groups or gays, and Chrissy responds with, "Gary Cooper was gay?" Great television, a sprinkle of comedy in the right places, everything a good show should be.

And by watching last week's episode last night, the wait will be short before a new episode, which I can actually watch WITHOUT TAPING IT tonight. So, the weekend is looking promising after all. After all, my Jets can't lose this week...

It's their bye week.

The Joys of Automobile Ownership

I believe I am experienced enough in several areas of life that I can offer advice to today's young adults, and so the first thing I will tell the Youth of America is... don't buy a car.

Sure, it is pretty important and kinda fun these days to own and be able to drive a car. If you need to go somewhere that cannot be reached by walking (and for me, both by reasons of safety and laziness, that's not very far), then yeah, a car is probably the best way to go. However, there are certain innate headaches that only come with owning a car. For example...

I got my car inspected the other day. I think you know where I'm going with this, because if there is one thing that is certain in this world, it is this: your car will NEVER pass a state inspection on the first try. You can believe that your car is in perfect running condition, or at least in adequate, passable running condition, but the truth is that in the one year, the 12 months between inspections, something will inevitably go wrong with your car that will cause it flunk a state inspection. And usually it is something you will not see coming.

This time around, it was the tires and the muffler. When I pulled my trusty VW Passat into the local auto service center before my Georgia trip this past summer, they told me that the tires would have to be replaced soon. That should have been a red flag right there; however, three months had passed, and nothing went wrong, and you keep in the back of your mind that you MAY have to get the tires checked out soon, ya know, before the snow flies. Then you go into the service center to get the car inspected, and they tell you, "That two-hour trip you wanted to take this weekend? Not on THOSE tires..."

After the job was done, the repair guy proceeded to tell me that there was actually a belt sticking out of one of the tires. Certainly not safe at all, but then certainly not something I would notice. I have a problem with the fact that 90-95% of the stuff that could go wrong with a car is something you cannot actually tell is wrong just from looking at your car. The fact that my dome light doesn't come on and my clock never works? Figured that out; the fuse keeps blowing out, I have no idea why, but as it is purely cosmetic, I don't really need to get it checked out. Then again, ten bucks says next year they use THAT as an excuse to flunk the car at state inspection time. Why don't I have a right side-view mirror? Simple, because the dumbasses at the borough of Chambersburg have their trash cans pinned down way too close to the curb, and as I was backing into a parking space, I nailed it and the stupid thing knocked the actual glass mirror right off. Just sitting in the driver's seat of my car, I can figure out that those things are wrong.

However, there is no way that I could have just walked out to the car to go somewhere in recent days, taken a good long look at the thing, and said, "Ya know, I could be wrong here, but I think there's a BELT sticking out of one of my tires!" Then, I am told that my muffler was leaking, so I had to get a new one installed. I will admit, I was stunned; my muffler can leak? I didn't even know that was possible! And leak what, exactly? Because everything I thought I knew about cars (which is little to nothing) tells me that if there is anything in your muffler that could actually leak out of it, then you've got a problem! OK, so the guy technically meant the exhaust was escaping from a hole in the muffler, but see I don't think that way, and that just proves my point, that I couldn't just look at my car and tell you something was wrong with it.

All the stuff that can go wrong with a car is usually under the hood or under the car. Under the hood, I have an elementary knowledge of all that, but then if you'll recall how little you actually knew in elementary school versus today, you can deduce that by "elementary", I mean "I know what it all looks like from lifting the hood up and actually looking at it." OK, I can top off my coolant and check my oil. It's just that I'd prefer someone at a gas station or service center to do it instead.

I tell my whole sad story to Linda, our sales guru at the radio station, and her reply is, "Yeah, but what do you know? You can't even drive stick!" Yeah, this is true; however, considering how bad a driver I am with two hands on the wheel and two pedals to choose from, the thought of adding a third pedal and having to take one hand off the wheel to shift positively FRIGHTENS me. In case you didn't know, my driving record is, well, checkered. I've had a couple accidents, none in the past four years luckily (knock on wood). Still, the car insurance payments are always larger than I'd like them to be.

To tell the truth, I don't know which is worse: my record of driving cars or my record of choosing cars to buy. My dad found and bought me my first one, and had I not done so much to it, it would probably have lasted longer than just over 2 years; hell, I'd probably still be driving it. One thing I can pass along to the Youth of America: if you are buying a car, DO NOT buy one from a private owner. If you can't tell what's wrong with YOUR car from just looking at it or driving it, what makes you think you know if there's anything wrong with SOMEONE ELSE'S car; for that matter, what makes you think THEY know what's wrong with it? The car I bought from a private owner lasted all of four months, before it (all together now) flunked a state inspection.

My absent-mindedness when it comes to cars can be summed up with this anecdote: when the repair guys finally finished bringing my car up to Pennsylvania standards, they asked me, "Your registration and insurance card are in your glove box, right?" To be honest with you, I didn't know. Luckily, they were, but thank goodness for that, because although I have never been pulled over (knock on wood harder), if I ever was, could you see me panicking because I can't remember where the hell my registration is?

No, I think I was right with my original advice: just don't buy a car.