Al-Baik Fried Chicken (albaik.com)

There is an AMC Cinema Hall just a short mile from his compound. One wonders if he ever snuck out to the movies. Perhaps to see “Fahrenheit 9/11″ when he needed a good laugh. Pity anyone sitting behind him and trying to see the screen. I have to drive 15 minutes to my nearest theater and a half an hour for the first really decent one.

There are many nearby hotels, including the Hotel City Centre. I listed this one because it was the only one I could find with pictures. It has a variety of rooms, a conference room, and a banquet area. It also has a mall on the first floor. Heck the town I live in does not even have a hotel. Our closest thing to a hotel is the Holiday Inn the next town over and their only shopping provided is the Adult Bookstore adjacent to their parking lot.

There look to be many stores located up and down the nearby highway but not all were listed with Google. I managed to find listings for a coffee shop called Coffity, Al-Baik Fried Chicken, and Milano Pizza among others. There are computer firms and schools all over the town. There are parks and sporting fields. No baseball or football, but Soccer and what looks like a very nice Cricket field.

Far from a cave in the middle of nowhere, Mister Bin Laden spent his last years living in a neighborhood, a typical suburban neighborhood. A neighborhood unaware of just who their most famous neighbor was. Unaware that was, until the helicopters showed up to clean up their neighborhood.

Frontier Desk - Corey Leopold (CC)

Well last Friday afternoon, she was shown nothing but disrespect. Not disrespect from the third graders  she had been teaching daily since about mid year, but from the administration. About 15 minutes before she was supposed to leave for the day she received a call, not from the principal who was still in the building, but from the woman who calls the substitutes for the district. She was told that this would be her last day and that she had 15 minutes to gather her things and leave. No chance to say goodbye to her students, just get her things and go.

It seems that the problem arose because one parent questioned her qualifications to teach. Seems my Mother did not meet some Act 48 requirements to be able to teach more than 90 days for years. I am told this law has been on the books since 2000 and she was never been questioned about it before. Mom had had no contact from this parent and no problems with their child.

I realize that rules are rules, and the law is the law, but I also know my Mother deserved more respect from the Belle Vernon Area administration than she was shown. Substitute teaching is a tough job. No benefits, no retirement, and you only get paid a fraction of what a regular teacher would be paid for the same time. My Mother very rarely refused a call to substitute and she would go above and beyond to do a good job for the students. She should have had someone look her in the face about the situation and been given a chance to make a smoother exit transition both for her and the students.

My Mother was not just a temp at some job, she was a teacher substituting for another teacher. If teaching is still to be considered a noble profession then my Mother deserved treated much, much more nobly. The funny thing is they may have taken away her ability to substitute, but they cannot take away her ability to teach. That she will still do for the dozen kids she tutors one on one after school 4 nights a week.  She only charges ten dollars an hour and her rates have never gone up in over twenty two years of doing it. She tutors because it  is teaching, and a teacher is what and who she is.

LaKisha Jones - Jyle Dupuis (CC)

Kauffman weighs 150 pounds, according to the CDC the average American woman weighs about 165 pounds. Anyone can do the math on that one. The average American woman is too big for the front row of American Idol. That is ridiculous. We are not talking about to be a model, to be a star, but only to sit in the front row of an audience. If that is not blatant discrimination then what is?

Plus size have actresses have made strides this season. Melissa McCarthy is half of a hit on Mike & Molly for CBS. Fox itself has brought Ashley Fink into the forefront of Glee as the the confident Lauren Zizes. Guess that stars are one thing but audiences members are a different story.

The discrimination against the heavy has reached the point where it is discrimination against the average. As a heavy American, and I can not believe I just used that term, I can say that enough is enough. When the average American is too heavy for a seat in the front row, then maybe American Idol needs a reality check. Otherwise rename it Elitist Idol, because their policies no longer represent America.

Wedding Ring - Eivind Barstad Waaler (CC)

He realized over time that he supported civil marriage equality. He realized that gays and lesbians were not out to destroy American culture, they were just real people who wanted the same rights to participate in it as the rest of us. I commend him for having the courage to stand up to those he once supported, and to apologize to those he once attacked. I also commend him for commenting on the difference between civil marriage and holy matrimony.

He summed it up clearly and eloquently by saying “Once you understand the great difference between civil marriage and holy marriage, there is not one valid reason to forbid the former from same-sex couples, and all that is left to protect is the latter.”

Some may challenge Marinelli’s right to continue to call himself a conservative, but I consider myself a conservative and I agree with him. Being conservative is not a matter of religion, and those that see that it is have hijacked the term for their own use. Being conservative is also not a matter of discrimination, bigotry, or denying individuals their right to equality under law.

Arguments against civil marriage equality are impossible to make without religion entering the argument. If religion is the only basis for the argument, then a little thing called the First Amendment comes into play. Our government has no right to deny civil equality of any kind based only on religious arguments. People are guarantee the freedom of religion, but they are also guaranteed freedom from religion.

Marinelli had a change of heart, but it will take a lot more hearts to change before there is any chance of national civil marriage equality, especially if you take into account recent polls in Mississippi about GOP voters’ views on interracial marriage, marriage equality still has a long way to go.

For the benefit of anyone that has been living under a rock for past couple months, Sherrod came to the attention of the public for some allegedly racially insensitive statements she had made that were taken out of context by Breitbart. Officials in the Obama Administration forcefully requested her resignation when they became aware of what Breitbart was planning on posting about Sherrod. Mainstream media cried foul against FoxNews for running with the story, in spite of the fact that after initially being on Breitbart’s side (sticking with just the edited version), the network ended up on Sherrod’s side, implying that the administration was wrong for forcing her resignation. While Breitbart was irresponsible in his actions, Sherrod suffered professional and financial damages as a result of her forced resignation – theoretically that should have left Breitbart as at best a co-defendant with the Obama Administration in any lawsuit, but apparently he’s the only one with litigation in his future. As for why Sherrod won’t take on a full-time position with the Department of Agriculture, her story is that she needs a break, and has aspirations to work on civil rights issues elsewhere. Other than pointing out that one needs a scorecard to keep track of this story, all I can say is “no comment!”

Now fast forward to today. We have finally withdrawn from Iraq, leaving behind only logistics personnel for the moment. The last combat troops have left. But there is no big press-op or speech broadcasting that the mission has been accomplished, perhaps because while “Iraqi Freedom” is complete, operation “New Dawn” is just beginning. But what precisely is that operation’s mission? Does it include the possibility of re-engaging insurgents as needed? Is it an open-ended operation that could leave us supporting the Iraqi government indefinitely? Is there any real hope that the Iraqi government will manage to start doing business without U.S. assistance or intervention? And finally, what does all of this mean, if anything, when it comes to where we are going in Afghanistan?

What are your thoughts?

Personally, I find Slater’s ex-wife far more interesting. The fact that she appeared on the morning news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC touting her ex’s good qualities is noteworthy. Cynthia Susanne is the name to remember in all of this. How often will there be a woman praising her ex-husband on national television as many times as she can get face time? Throw in the fact that he’s gay, and it’s downright phenomenal! (Would be even better if she was right about him, but you can’t have everything…)

Instead of focusing on internal issues with members of the administration picking fights with the media, or ethics issues with members of Congress, the most important issue heading into the mid-term elections should be unemployment, and the general state of the economy. While there should be worries about rank and file voters even bothering to come to the polls in the first place to support Dems in November, voter apathy may also be a death knell for GOP candidates. The malaise of the unemployed toward the democratic process in general is increasingly looking like the wild card in play for the 2010 elections.

Most are assuming at this point that Obama is going to be pinning all his hopes on the concept of closing the barn door after the horses have all left, by taking over the the claims process, theoretically ensuring that the people affected are compensated for their losses. And that may very well be his undoing, particularly when the Brits are questioning his credibility. This shouldn’t be unexpected, since Obama’s waited close to 60 days to bother talking directly with BP officials.

And there lies the biggest problem – the lack of communication amongst the stakeholders involved. That failure is snowballing at nearly the same rate that the Gulf is filling with oil. Instead of worrying primarily about making BP pay for the damages, it would be better if Obama was focusing more on solutions. Taking over full control of clean-up would be a nice start. Putting out a standing call for help to all corporations and individuals worldwide would be an even better move. Yes, it would be chaotic to say the least. Of course, a few phone calls to the environmental organizations out there to recruit people to manage phone calls, emails, and letters would be a smart first step. The point is that there should be absolutely no headlines about anyone offering help and being flat out refused. Whether it’s a group of people like Shoq Value’s #corral project, or Hollywood personalities like Kevin Costner, no source of ideas should be ignored.

Big corporations in the U.S. have been demonized lately, so it isn’t hard to understand why it would be difficult to come out suggesting something like radical tax breaks for companies that would do anything significant to help with the oil spill. Each minute that this situation isn’t addressed meaningfully is inches and feet worth of spoiled coastline. Eventually someone will come up with the bright idea to come up with an equation to figure out at least a reasonable estimate of the losses. The fact that Alaska still has not recovered completely from the Exxon Valdez spill should be plastered in the back of the mind of every person involved in the clean up now.

Talk this evening will undoubtedly limited to reassuring the public that the problem is of the highest priority in the White House, and that BP will be held financially accountable for the damages. We’ll have to watch in the coming months to see what effect that has on our relations with Britain. But it’s doubtful that there will be any mention of opening the floodgates, and taking suggestions from the public at large for solutions – doubtful there will be talk about incentives to encourage corporate America to lend a hand in the clean up. And those incentives are needed, because unless the clean up is directly related to the current business goals of any given corporation, there is no chance they’ll consider lifting a finger. Even if their business is management of disasters of this kind, they will do nothing unless there is some promise of benefit on their end, or if they are directly hired to help. BP is not showing any signs that they are interested in enlisting help, so that is a moot point. It is tempting to leave them to clean up their own mess, but since they are proving to be grossly ill-equipped to manage it, we need to take the reins. Hopefully Obama won’t be talking just about money from BP. It’s a small hope, and there’s little chance that the situation is going to change.