From outside the box

We are all hiding a secret from each other. In fact, most of us hold this secret so near and dear to our heart, that we even hide it from ourselves.

There are things in life we know to be true, and there are things in life we believe to be true. The mistake that most humans make is when we assume our beliefs to be knowledge. Sometimes we do that based on common sense. If we have never been to Europe and we fly there on a plane, we don't really "know" there is a Europe because we have never directly experienced Europe, but common sense tells us that our belief in Europe is logical because so many others have had direct experience with Europe and testify to the fact that it exist. Therefore, we're not going to worry about our plane landing in the ocean where there should have been a Europe, but there isn't. Still, until we experience Europe first hand, we don't really know it's there, but it is logical to assume it's there, logical enough to bet our lives on it.

Where we are fooling ourselves is in the areas of philosophical, spiritual, and cultural beliefs. We start assuming things to be true that we have not had a direct experience with, and often, nobody else has either. Sometimes a few people will testify to a direct experience, such as getting abducted by aliens, but when were talking about something as amazing as aliens, or ghosts, or near-death experiences, or astral travel, or personal savior's, we need more than a small percentage of the populace to have had a direct experience in order for us to assume it's true based on the logic of so many others having had the experience.

In truth, we believe a lot of things we don't know for fact. I believe in reincarnation but I don't know it's a fact because If I lived before, I can't remember it. And since I haven't had the direct experience of remembering, I have to be honest and say I don't really know, but the idea makes more sense to me than anything else I've heard. I also believe in a unified universe, that all things in existence are connected, nothing is separate. That belief however, is being tested and proven by science. But still, it's a belief, I don't really know that to be true. I also believe that aliens are visiting this planet, I believe in ghosts, angels, miracles, synchronicity, and aura's. But they are only belief's, maybe true, maybe not.

We assume many of our beliefs to be a fact based on our "feelings" about that belief. We feel that our feelings validate our beliefs, but do they? Is a phobia a validated fear? It's based on very strong "feelings". But what is valid about being afraid of a garden spider? How often do you "know" somebody is mad at you, based on feelings or intuition, only to find out later that you totally misread them? The problem with investing so much faith into feelings is that often we misread our feelings.

When I was a Christian, I "knew" Jesus was not only my savior, but He was savior of the whole world, wether the world knew it or not. Later in life, I "knew" being vegetarian was good for everybody, wether they knew it or not. I think we turn belief into assumed knowledge because we hold a vision of a certain thing so close and personal in our minds eye, that we loose our ability to see the difference between reality and fiction. Besides, we all want validation for what we believe, but since we can't prove that belief to be true, we rely on intuition, belief, emotional experience, and the testimony of others who we have invested our trust into.

Deep inside we know, we all consciously know, when we are presenting a belief as a fact, and this is the "secret" that we keep from each other as well as ourselves. This is the elephant in the room that we all keep quiet about. We really do know that we don't know, but we have put so much into the script of our story, we're not going to change it, and often, we couldn't if we wanted to because of deeper feelings of guilt and fear.

In my life, I've known a lot of things. The older I get I find the less I know. I still have my beliefs, but at least now, I know the difference.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Their going to do what downtown? Change it from three to two lanes? That is nucking futs! What are they thinking? We trust the people we elect to use common sense, and I think they do most of the time. But every now and then.....

I remember when Marie Calanders was going in and the city put them thru hell over the palm trees they wanted to put in out front. They said it didn't jive with the architectural continuity of the area, or something like that.

About twenty years ago, before drive-thru coffee shops, McDonalds opened the first drive-thru over on Palmetto and the city had a fit about that. It took a few years before coffee drive-thru's could come to Chico because the reasoning was that drive-thru's encouraged more car use. We used to joke about somebody sitting at home getting ready to get on their bike and go to McDonalds, and then, remembering they had a drive-thru window, thought, "No, wait, we can take the car!"

There was another crazy plan the city councel was throwing around back in the early eighties to make the streets downtown go zig zag, the idea being that it would discourage traffic. Crazy! And now they are talking about taking away a lane, restricting the flow of traffic, in order to what....I'm not sure.

If parking is the problem, I have a solution that will free up downtown parking while adding more money to the city coffers. The more ideal a parking space is, the more money it cost to park there. The best spaces, the ones on Broadway and Main between first and third streets as well as on second and third between those streets, should cost $3 an hour to park there. Each block further out, the price goes down. Salem and Flume would be $2 an hour, fifth street $1 an hour, etc. Also, charge into the evening hours and on Saturdays. The meters would have to be changed or modified to accept bills, or better yet, pre paid cards which could be purchased from the retailer's downtown. This would also encourage more walking, more bicycles, and less pollution. And I'd be willing to bet that the good parking spots would still be hard to get!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The following is a test to determine if your mission on earth is complete....Check your pulse. If you have one, your mission on earth is not complete.

Depression is nasty. I know because I was deeply depressed for the first fifty years of my life. The worst years were in my thirties. I remember cursing in the morning because I woke up and was still alive. I never went to counseling or took medication for depression, although I probably should have. I just dealt with it. I don't think anybody who was close to me had a clue as to how bad my depression was, they just saw me as being sad a lot of the time. I think that most people who deal with depression are worse off than they let on.

Depression is many things to many people. It kills your energy, it sucks out your life force, it kills your creativity, it flattens your personality, it can even make you suicidal. At the time, I saw depression as every negative thing I could imagine, and as long as I saw it that way, it held it's ugly power over me. In my early fifties I decided to attack depression from a different angle. Why not, nothing else had worked. I chose to see my depression as a gift. It was a gift because it offered me the motivation I needed to change my outlook about life. I realized that I had to take power over this thing and quit reacting to it. As long as I reacted to it, I fed it, and the more I fed, the stronger it became.

I started to read motivational and self help books. These books gave me the inspiration I needed to take control over the way I thought about things, to start acting and quit reacting. I realized that life was always going to be riddled with problems, but we can chose how we deal with those problems. We can chose to be in control or be controlled. I was tired of being controlled.

Suicide was never an option for me. No matter how dark I felt, I never entertained the option of suicide for one second. I have always believed down to the core of my soul that we are here for a reason and that it is important to do what we came here to do. One of the things I came here to do was to experience depression. It would be my Avenue to connecting to my higher consciousness, to change from pessimism to optimism, to see the glass as always half full instead of half empty.

I started my journey out of darkness by practicing what is called the law of gratitude. I started giving thanks for everything in my life. Every night I would lay in bed and think about the good things that happened that day, no matter how small they were. If it was only the weather, then I would try to focus on how nice the weather was and feel gratitude for the wonderful weather that day. I worked on ignoring the things that depressed or upset me. In the morning, I would give thanks for a brand new day, regardless of how I really felt about it.

I also focused on the beauty of things. I made myself recognize everything that was beautiful. It could be a dog or a tree or a pretty lady who smiled at me. If it wasn't beautiful, I refused to put anymore attention on it than I needed to. In time I would stretch this exercise out to the point of seeing beauty in everything. The important thing is not that you see everything as beautiful all the time, but that you try to. By keeping your attention focused on the positive things in life, you kill the breeding ground for depression. Soon it has nowhere to survive.

I still feel those dark moments trying to creep in from time to time like a heavy weight descending down on my consciousness. Except now, I have the tools to shrug them off. I will not let it own me, not ever again. There is so much beauty and joy in life, we just have to chose to recognize it. The hardest part is recognizing the beauty in the problems that we face everyday. When we can see everything as a potential gift, we diminish the negative power those experiences could otherwise have over us.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever notice how some words just role off the tongue with the greatest of ease? Some words are so beautiful and sweet sounding, they almost sound sacred, like they should be whispered. To me, the most beautiful words I can think of are the names of many of the cities in California. Looking over a map I see names like Cucamonga, Rialto, Temecula, Escondido, Yucaipa, Cabazon, Calimesa, Indio, Hisperia, Loma Linda, Astascadero, Tulare, Visalia, Manteca, Sacramento, Petaluma, Ukiah, Sonoma, and Tehama. These all sound either Mexican or Native American, which is a testimony to the beauty of those languages.

Other languages aside, have you ever noticed how different facets of our society seem to "own" certain sets of words. For instance,"education" has the ology words like psychology, urology, technology, and biology. Every ology word seems to require education. Other groups have their buzz words. New age speak uses words like synchronicity, paradigm, and synergy. Christians like to use rapture, covenant, and hallelujah. Environmentalist's use buzz words like endangered and sustainable. Politicians like to use buzz phrases, sets of words that have a dash between the words, like tax-and-spend, faith-based-initiatives, partial-birth, and pro-choice.

I've always appreciated nice sounding words. We all have our favorites, you know, the words you like to say slowly or even repeat. Words like "geometry" or "Sasquatch" or "debilitating". Some of my favorite words are words I can't use because I'm not gay. I wish I could offer somebody a "libation" when I'm serving up drinks, or talk about what a "travesty" something is, or how somebody is acting like a "savage", or how I'm feeling a bit "trepidatious", but if I did, they would just think to themselves, "wow, I didn't know Joe was gay."

Then there's the portmanteau words, words that combine two words into one for two different meanings. Years back I heard of a client at the Work Training center getting upset over something he was trying to do and yelling out, "I'm so pissapointed!" Great word, huh? Sometimes I give people a "guesstamite" of what a job is going to cost. An "adornament" is something that adorns and is an ornament. If your lonely and alone, you are "alonely". I've made up a few good ones over the years, mostly on the spot, just can't think of them now.

Besides city names, some of the sweetest sounding words, often taken from nature, are assigned to streets. Chico has a few nice ones like Esplanade, Vallembrosa, Ceonothus, Cohasset, and Verbeena. Plants and trees and most things in nature probably have beautiful sounds attached to their names in just about every language. In San Bernardino, where I grew up, there are street names like Muscupiabe, Muscott, Del Rosa, and Sepulveda. Here again, a lot of Native American sounding words. Look at the beauty of the sounds given to colors. Blue, violet, umber, yellow, beige, maroon, sienna, to name a few.

Sometimes when I'm sitting alone in a coffee shop, I will get out my pad and just start writing down words that I like. I don't know why, there's something about the vibrational quality of certain words and just writing them down or saying them inspires me. Acclamation, scenario, visualization, augmentation, revelation, aquarium, calligraphy, enhancement, fluorescent, silhouette, embellish....you see what I mean? Just reading these words opens up something inside. The magic of words must have something to do with the vibrational aspect of the sounds connected to each word. In their essence, the vibration stirs feeling and emotion. I think the Indians must have been in touch with something sacred and deep when they came up with words like Tehachapi, Mojave, and Sequoia. I'll bet there's a flow to their languages, the way the words ease into and complete each other. English is probably a very abrupt language being that it is a melding of so many other languages. But here I go again, talking about things I really know little about. To borrow a phrase from a fellow blogger...."just thinkin out loud".

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GREAT BUMPER STICKERS (T-SHIRTS, GEMS OF WISDOM, ETC.)....THERE WERE HUNDREDS, I COPIED MY FAVORITES

Apathy: I could take it or leave it.

I never thought I'd miss Nixon.

Churches only worship the prophet margin.

Screw world peace, visualize DRIVING.

My feminine side is lesbian.

Without geometry, life is pointless.

I'm schizophrenic and so am I.

Stable relationships are for horses.

Just say NO to negativity.

I thought I was indecisive; now I'm not so sure.

I read the Constitution for the articles.

Beer doesn't make you fat. It makes you lean (against doors, tables, walls).

National Spellling Bee Runer-Up

The winner of the rat race is still a rat.

The Moral Majority is neither.

Dyslexics Untie!

I would rather hunt with Dick Cheney than drive with Ted Kennedy.

Be alert. The world needs more lerts.

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

Veni, Vidi, VD. I came, I saw, I cankered.

Alcohol and calculus don't mix. DON'T DRINK AND DERIVE!

Kids in the back seat cause accidents; Accidents in the back seat cause kids.

Money is the root of all evil. For more information, send $10 to me.

I didn't believe in reincarnation in my last life, either!

Excess is never too much in moderation.

To err is human, to moo bovine.

Think globally, Act galactically.

If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

Help your local Search & Rescue. Get lost!

Carpe Diem = Seize the day. Carp In Denim = Fish in pants.

Never believe generalizations.

The generation of random numbers is too important to leave to chance.

I don't think, therefore I am not.

Jesus saves. He uses double coupons.

Avoid alliterations always.

Fishermen don't die, they just smell that way.

Dyslexics are teople poo.

Say "NO" to drugs. That will bring the prices down.

An Apple a day keeps Windows away.

This bumper sticker intentionally left blank.

When you do a good deed, get a receipt in case heaven is like the IRS.

My mother was a moonshiner, and I love her still.

I'm Canadian. It's like being American, but without the gun.

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

The meek shall inherit the earth, after we're through with it.

Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it!

Nuke the Whales! We'll hunt them at night.

Jesus loves you! Everybody else thinks you're a jerk.

Lawyers have feelings too (allegedly).

If you believe in telepathy, think about honking.

The box said Windows 2000 or better. So I installed Linux.

Use the best: Linux for servers, Mac for graphics, Windows for Solitaire.

I plan to live forever. So far, so good! .

Veni, Vidi, Velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

On the journey of life, I choose the psycho path.

What would Scooby do?

Honk if the twins fall out.

I don't have a beer gut, I have a protective covering for my rock hard abs.

My drinking team has a bowling problem.

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

I am not infantile, you stinky poopyhead.

I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability.

If you can read this, you're not the president.

To err is human, to blame it on somebody else shows management potential.

Liberal Arts major: will think for food.

Visualize Whirled Peas

If you can read this, I've lost the trailer!

Stoplights timed for 30 mph are also timed for 60 mph.

I didn't climb all the way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

Practice safe lunch: Use a condiment.

Follow that car, Godzilla - and step on it !

Frankly, Scallop, I don't give a clam.

Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up!

I fought the lawn, and the lawn won.

If you can't read this, thank the teacher's union.

Procrastinate now.

The last time politics and religion were mixed, people were burned at the stake.

Rehab is for quitters.

My dog can lick anyone!

I have a degree in Liberal Arts - do you want fries with that?

Suburbia: Where they tear out the trees and name streets after them.

If you were born again, would you have two bellybuttons?

West Virginia: One million people, and 15 last names.

I'm always late. My ancestors arrived on the Juneflower.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

Quoting one is plagiarism. Quoting many is research.

Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble wrap is cheap. You choose.

Gravity: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.

If you are what you eat, I'm fast, cheap and easy.

Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.

Warning: Dates on calendar are closer than they appear.

Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you weren't asleep.

I'm supposed to back up my hard drive, but how do I put it into reverse? .

Is it time for your medication or mine?

Nyquil: the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-hell-is-the-room-spinning medicine.

How do I set a laser printer to stun?

I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert.

If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.

In dog years, I'm dead!

South Korea's got Seoul!

Above all else, sky.

God made us sisters; Prozac made us friends.

IRS: Be Audit You Can Be

(Spotted on a passing motorcycle): If you can read this, my wife fell off!

I used to be schizophrenic, but we're OK now.

Wanted: Meaningful overnight relationship.

I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes.

Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well.

A day without sunshine is like night.

First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Old age comes at a bad time.

If going to church makes you a Christian, does going into a garage make you a car?

You're just jealous because the voices only talk to ME.

So you're a feminist. Isn't that cute?

I'm an English major: You do the math.

I need someone real bad. Are you real bad?

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

The more you complain the longer God makes you live.

I R S: We've got what it takes to take what you've got.

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.

Without ME, it's just AWESO.

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.

I took an IQ test and the results were negative.

Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

Rap is to music as Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

Taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

If you can read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you.

Save the whales! Trade them for valuable prizes.

Whitewater is over when the First Lady sings.

My wife keeps complaining I never listen to her (or something like that).

Sure you can trust the government! Just ask a native American!

Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.

Stop repeat offenders. Don't re-elect them!

What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0!

Driver carries no cash. He's married.

All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

Karaoke bars combine two of the nation's greatest evils: people who shouldn't drink with people who shouldn't sing.

If I get you advantage, can I take drunk of you?

Watch out for the idiot behind me.

Honk if you hate peace and quiet.

I have the body of a god. Buddha.

I doubt, therefore I might be.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

New Mexico: Cleaner than regular Mexico.

Archaeologists will date any old thing.

If you're happy and you know it see a shrink.

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.

Keep the dream alive: Hit the snooze button.

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So were winning the war in Iraq are we? There are less Americans dying over there, the Iraqi government is slowly starting to act like a real government, sort of, and there's even talk of possibly some troops leaving at some point in the (as yet to be determined) future, maybe. But is that winning? Even if were completely out of there in a year, what will we have won? Will we win back the lives that were lost? Will the soldiers who have lost eyes and limbs as well as their sanity, will they win those things back? Will we win back the trillion dollars we have spent so far, money we never had to begin with but will be paying interest on for generations to come? Will we have stopped terrorism? Will we have established a democracy in a country that is hell bent on ruling via a fundamentalist type theocracy, much like Iran? Will the price of oil change? I ask, what will we have won? If this is winning, I'd hate to see what loosing is!

This war was lost from the first day it started. There is and never was anything to win. The only winners are Halliburton, Blackwater, and every other corporate whore who has the right wing party and half of the left wing party in their pockets. Whatever bread crumbs we salvage out of our victory, such as disposing of Sadam, will not have been worth the cost. Barak Obama cannot say these things because that would be telling American families that their sons and daughters died for corporate and political greed. So he's forced to dance around the truth as he tries to walk both sides of the fence.

You Americans who support this war scare the hell out of me. You scare me because you were so quick to beat the drums of patriotism just because your fervor and fear was ripe for exploiting after 9-11. You scare me because you were so quick to give up so much of your privacy and personal freedom to a bunch of crooks who have been hell bent on transferring the wealth of this nation from the working middle class to the elite few. You scare me because there are so many of you and if you can be fooled this easy, what else will you be willing to sell your country out for in the future?

You call us, who do not support this war, cowards. We are cowards because we refused to believe the lies of George Bush and those cowards like Colin Powel and Scott McClellan who couldn't take their lips off Georges ass long enough to question the obvious and then later tried to cleanse their dirty souls by saying that perhaps they should have questioned the policy a little more at the time? We are cowards because we did not want to over react to 9-11 in a way that we might regret later? We are cowards because we love this country enough to question the motives of our leaders who wanted to take us into war when they were not connecting the dots in their logic? We are cowards because we do not think Americans should die in an unprovoked war? We are cowards because we do not agree with the principals of the patriot act? We are cowards because we do not believe in our great country using torture on prisoners and suspending habeas corpus? We are cowards because we do not believe you should go to war and give a tax break at the same time? We are cowards because we don't always trust our government?

We got attacked and you got scared. Your reaction was to believe everything you were told because you were angry and scared and wanted revenge for 9-11. Sadam was a bad man and we had been pissed at him for years. This made for the perfect set up. But much like a guy who gets sucker punched in a bar and then goes home and kicks the dog, your anger was misplaced, but it felt good. After that mission accomplished fiasco on the big boat, things began to spiral downhill. By this time, you had invested too much into that war to change your course. As things got worse, you looked for the smallest resemblances of progress to say, "Aha! There's proof! Your wrong, were right!" You never had the courage to question your leader because that might mean that you would have to question how you voted and maybe even the whole agenda of the republican party. Not only did you allow this war to go on without questioning, you dared to and continue to dare to speak up for failed policies as you chose to ignore the obvious....that we never should have went there in the first place! And for what, to protect your ego's? In my book, that makes you the cowards.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In 1968 my Uncle Ed gave me a book titled "How To Grow Rich With Peace Of Mind" by Napoleon Hill. When I started reading that book, I couldn't put it down. What a stark contrast this book was from my catholic teachings, and yet the philosophy resonated with me on every level. Thru my catholic teachings, I believed that suffering was a good thing and we shouldn't strive to be more than our lot in life allowed for us to be. Then here comes this guy telling me that it's ok to make money, it's ok to be successful, it's ok to be happy, and it's ok not to feel guilty! All I knew was that I wanted to know more.

This book started me on a life long journey of self awareness. Soon after, I was reading Alan Watts and Kahlil Gabrahn. Watts was saying things like "Think of the brain as a meat computer", and Gibrahn talked of the body as being a house for the soul. These new concepts made sense. Instead of taking things (that made no sense) on faith, like the church asked me to do, I was now being introduced to a way of thinking that explained why things might happen the way they do. There was no turning back.

The hardest part in leaving the church was the "fear factor". What if I was wrong? Would I go to hell? Soon I started thinking that I'd rather be in hell with people who thought like me than in Heaven with people who thought like the catholic church. My fear became balanced with anger. I was angry over being instilled with so many lies during my impressionable childhood. The anger propelled me forward, however, I carried it well into middle age because it would take me at least that long to begin to undue the damage the church had done on my psyche.

So here I was at twenty years old, with the catholic church in my rear view mirror, entering a world of new thought's, new ideas, and endless possibilities. I was starving for truth. I wanted to understand everything. I wanted to know why we were here, where did we come from, and where were we going. I wanted to know why bad things happened to good people and good things happened to bad people. I wanted to know how other religions besides Christianity viewed God. I wanted to know who I was and what my purpose in life was. I saw life as a gigantic puzzle and I wanted to fit all the pieces together.

I went down a few dead end roads along the way, I still do that. At first I was looking for the right religion, thinking that one of them might have the truth. After 20 years of experimenting with religions and masters and gurus, I decided that was not where the truth was, at least not for me. I remember thinking in my early thirties that by the time I was in my forties, I would have enough knowledge to write a book about life. The older I got, the smaller that book got. By the time I was in my middle forties, I realized that I didn't know a thing. I did not have any of the answers I had been searching for. All I had learned about truth was....what wasn't true. So I gave up. And that's where the journey truly begins.

Once I quit the game of searching, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't asking the right questions. They say that when the student is ready, the master appears. The master is a metaphor for anything that comes to us that we are ready for, that new idea that will open the next door on our journey. I began to see truth as a carrot on a stick in front of the donkey. The search for God, the search for truth, the quest for self awareness, none of these things are "out" there. The harder you try to find them, the more they will elude you.

By my early fifties, I realized that everything I had been looking for all these years was right inside of me. We are the truth. Truth was not something to be found but rather something to be explored. God, life, universal consciousness, truth, reality, soul....these are all words that point to the same thing....the reality of being. I did not need a book or a church or a teacher. I didn't need anything! Nobody does, unless of course, they think they do. The mind plays this game with us. It goes by this rule that says, "If you think you need something, then you do". We spend our whole lives doing things that we only need to do because we think we need to do them.

My life has been a journey of self realization, as everybody's life is. And it seems that the more I learn, the less I know. I always feel like the journey is just beginning, like I've learned just enough to start asking the right questions. I suspect that I will feel this way until the day I die, and that's ok.
I don't know what other people know, I try not to measure myself to them. It's not about that anymore. It's about realizing my connection to the universe and all of life and then living my life in accordance with that "truth". Somewhere in the moment of beingness, between before and after, in the silent space between thoughts, I find that connection. And in that connection I find myself, laughing at myself. Laughing at me for taking so long to go nowhere.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was watching some news show on MSNBC this evening and these African American fellows were debating who should and shouldn't be able to use the "N" word. They also showed clips from "The View" where Whoopi Goldberg, and whoever the other ladies are on that show, were having the same discussion. The black people all pretty much agreed that only black people should be able to use the "N" word.

This got me to thinking. What about people who are 1/2 black, can they use that word? Probably so, because like Barak Obama, they are generally referred to as black. So then, what about people who are 1/4 black? Can they use that word? What if a person is half black but looks whiter than a person who is 1/4 black....who should have priority over who in being able to use that word? What if a person is white but grew up with a black family thru adoption? Can they use that word? Would they have priority over a black person who was adopted by a white family and grew up in a white culture? And what if a person is black, but say their roots are from some country other than Africa? Do they get to use that word? What if your 1/4 black, and you look white, would it be acceptable to use part of the word, like say....igger?

All races and cultures seem to have certain words or phrases that are politically incorrect for anybody else to use that is outside of that race or culture. Women can call each other bitch, but men can't. Gays can call each other queers but straight people can't. I'm feeling a little left out. I am a straight white American male and I cannot think of one word that I can call another straight white American male that any other race, gender, or culture cannot use also. I want my own dirty word that is privy to just my people, the straight American white male. I want to be able to freely use a word that will offend me if anybody outside of my race, gender, or culture uses it.

After giving it much thought I have come up with the perfect word for my people. It is a word that we can use in reference to or about each other, the straight white American male, in a derogatory yet jovial or playful way. The word I chose is "Dude". Women, gay's, black's....from this day forward, none of you can use that word without offending me or my people.

Now when a white person, such as Michael Richards, uses the "N" word, he has to apologize to The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who is obviously, or at least he must be, the conscience of the African American community. If The Reverend Jesse Jackson is not available, it is acceptable use The Reverend Al Sharpton for the same purpose. So I also want a straight white American male who will serve as the conscience of the straight white American male community. I want a white guy with a very serious face, one who will be good at acting indignant, to hear the confessions, and then forgive, any person other than a straight white American male, who uses the word "Dude". There are a few men who would be well suited for this job. I'm thinking Ben Stein because he's got that stoic Abe Vigoda thing going, and besides, Abe's dead, at least I know he was dead when he was filming "Barney Miller". No wait, Ben Stein's Jewish. Now that I think about it, all the white guys who have the right look, the kind of face you just want to apologize to, are all Jewish. Well, I'll think of somebody, but until I do, don't any of you black, gay, or women folk be dissin on me or my Dudes with the "D" word. We got feelings too you know!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Posted by Joe Shaw at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A husband and wife came for counseling after 20 years of marriage.
When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate,
painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 20
years they had been married.

She went on and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness,
loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list
of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of
time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and, after
asking the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately as
her husband watched with a raised eyebrow. The woman shut up and
quietly sat down as though in a daze.

The therapist turned to the husband and said, 'This is what your
wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?'

The husband thought for a moment and replied, 'Well, I can drop
her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I fish.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In letters to the editor this morning, letter writer Jon Skillman writes, "I believe homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral." He later goes on to say, "Same-sex marriage goes against my faith, beliefs, and moral convictions...."

Letter from me to Jon....

Dear Jon,
I don't eat meat. I think it's unnatural and immoral. So if you eat meat, would you please stop? I also don't own a gun. I think they are unnatural and immoral, as well as dangerous. If you own one, would you please get rid of it? Guns and meat go against my faith, beliefs, and moral convictions. It's very important to me Jon that you accomodate my personal beliefs. Just as you expect homosexuals should understand where you are coming from, despite their personal beliefs and feelings, and give up their rights and freedoms, Im sure you, in return, will do the same for me.
Sincerely, Joe Shaw

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If your over 40, you probably remember The Andy Griffith Show. The show was well written for it's time and it had outstanding characters. But to most of us, the magic of that show was not the characters or the story lines, but the idea of the small town these characters lived in. Over the years, Mayberry has become synonymous with small town America.

The magic of Mayberry is that it was always spring, there was always a gentle breeze ruffling thru the trees, nobody worked too hard, there was no crime other than Otis the town drunk having a couple too many on Saturday night, everybody knew everybody, there wasn't much traffic, and the idea of sitting in an old rocking chair on a creaky porch on a warm summer evening and just listening to the crickets is, well....pure magic.

I was looking for Mayberry when I moved to Chico in 1972. Actually, I was looking for Mayberry-with-a-little-pop, and Chico fit the bill perfectly. Over the years, Chico has developed a little more "pop" than I had hoped it would, but it still works. Whenever I think Chico is getting too busy, all I have to do is spend a day in Sacramento or San Francisco and presto!!, Chico becomes a small quiet town again.

If I had to pick out one town in our area that most resembles Mayberry, I'd have to pick Biggs. The downtown is very Mayberryish and I'm sure everybody knows everybody there. I bet you could walk the boarder of that whole town in about an hour. I wonder if they have a barber shop where the men gather to gossip and talk about last nights high school ball game while a guy named Floyd gives them a bad haircut?

Of course Mayberry is only a mythical place in the heart, a dream, a fantasy, a place that probably never existed, at least not in this world. The reality of Mayberry would probably be more like this....

Otis would have been a drunk because his family left him due to the fact that he beat his wife, couldn't hold a job, and he had a thing for young boys. Opie would have abandonment issues over not knowing who his mother was or why she wasn't there. He would learn of her later in life when he found an old letter in his Dad's closet she had written to Andy, who was overseas fighting in Korea, and explained that she had gotten pregnant when they were together on his recent furlough, but soon after Andy went back to Korea she had met and fallen in love with Gus, a traveling encyclopedia salesman, and they would be running away together to start a new life in Richmond and as soon as the baby was born she would bring it back and give it to his Aunt Bee for safe keeping until Andy returned from the war except the part she left out was that the baby really wasn't Andy's, it was Gus's, they just didn't want it and she knew how gullible Andy was. Aunt Bee would have worked part time for the only appliance dealer in town as a book keeper where she was secretly embezzling about $75 a month which explains those well kept fancy hairdo's. Barney would have had a rented room over Floyd's garage where he had a clear shot into Clara's (Aunt Bee's best friend) bedroom next door where he would pleasure himself in the evenings as he watched Clara getting ready for bed. And Andy would drive into Mount Pilot every Friday night, supposedly on official business, where he was having an affair with Thelma Lou's sister Doris, who he met at bingo last year, who was married to the high school principal but justified her time with Andy because her husband Bob would rather dance around the house in her underwear to the music of Lawrence Welk, than have sex with her....or something like that.

But still, on days like today, with the smoke starting to lift, as I look out my window and notice the trees dancing lazily to the soft summer breeze that ripples thru the Maple's and watch the dragon flies doing loopedy loops over my back yard, I find my mind drifting to the mythical town of Mayberry. I don't think I'll ever find Mayberry in this life. Maybe Heaven is Mayberry. Maybe Mayberry is just a state of mind. I know one thing though, if I ever get to Mayberry, the first thing I'm going to do is to play guitars with Andy on his front porch on a warm summer evening while the crickets are chirping, the frogs are croaking, and the fire flies are jetting around the front yard. Afterwards we'll take a short walk into town for a bottle of cold pop as we discuss how much money Chester must have spent on that new chrome handled shovel he bought last week at Harold's Hardware And Dry Goods. Then I'm going to warn Clara about Barney, tell Opie the truth about his mother and Gus, turn Aunt Bee in to the Feds, and beat the crap out of Otis!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I must still be harboring some issues over being taken to task by two friends who have a masters degree in psychology, concerning a blog I wrote last week about how the subconscious mind works in relation to the conscious mind (the blog has since been removed). Now mind you, I asked for their input and I appreciate what they had to say. The issue I am dealing with is not about them but rather about the emphasis they both put on education and research, and I have a few more thoughts about this.

A wise person realizes that education is not a means to an end in itself but rather a tool to assist you in life. As I read my article to one of my educated friends, they kept asking me where I got this information, did I do research, and should I really be writing about the workings of the subconscious mind without being educated in this field?

I have noticed in life that there are at least as many educated idiots as there are wise people (with or without a degree). Do we not have religious doctorates who know all about biblical theology and yet haven't a clue what Jesus was trying to teach? Do we not have medical doctors who know all about drugs but next to nothing about nutrition, which is what really regulates the health of the body? Do we not have professional counselors who are just as screwed up in their personal lives as the people they are counceling?

We do not gain wisdom from books, we only memorize information, and information is just a tool to assist us in understanding. Understanding comes about from paying attention. We learn from our experiences when we pay attention to cause and effect. Isn't research just the study of cause and effect? You can have college degrees coming out your ears, but if you are not paying attention and learning from your life experiences, you will remain an educated idiot.

When one of my educated friends, who I asked to critique my article, asked me how I could possibly know this information. I answered, " Because I pay attention." We all have a body and a mind. In fact we are all quite intimately connected to our bodies and minds. By that fact alone, we are all somewhat of an expert on how the body and mind works. That doesn't mean we know even 1% of all there is to know about the body and mind, it does mean however that we all have unlimited access to research (by way of paying attention to cause and effect) as to how the body and mind work. In other words, if you just process your experiences, you will learn. Wisdom comes from paying attention. Education comes from studying what others have paid attention to. Of course, it's best to do both.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Everybody has their favorite grocery store to shop at. We pick them based on price, selection, location, or whatever. Mine happens to be Raleys, the one on East Ave. I use this store because of location and the fact that they have a pretty good health food section. I don't do all my shopping at Raleys, I think we all use a combination of three or four stores, but whenever I need a commercial type grocery store, that's where I go.

Raleys is a great store in many ways, although I hear a lot of people say their prices are high. That may be true but I wouldn't know because I am a convenience shopper, not a value shopper. There is one thing however that Raleys does that bugs the hell out of me and I wish they would just ease off a little bit. At the risk of sounding like an old bah-humbug, I'll explain....

After going to that store for several years, I have become aware of what I call "the cycle of friendliness". They must have periodic meetings about this because it gets really out of control all in one day, and then after a few days it settles down again. It's fine to be greeted now and then by an employee or asked if you need help finding something, but at Raleys, you get bombarded! Everybody who works there greets you, asks how your day is going, do you need help, did you have a good weekend, what are you up to this weekend, and by the time your finished shopping you feel like you don't want to do anymore shallow talk for weeks!

Personally, I don't go shopping to meet people or to do small talk with strangers. I don't care to tell a 19 year old kid bagging groceries what my plans are for the weekend. It's not that I'm a private or shy person, I just like to focus on shopping when I'm shopping and sometimes I don't feel like talking to every employee in the store. I appreciate their kindness, but when they go overboard, it doesn't feel real. It feels to me like they just had a pep meeting the night before. I call it a cycle because soon the employees settle down and become less aggressive with their over the top friendliness. Things will be normal for a while, and then bang, one morning you go in there and it feels like you just won a popularity contest! Once it starts at the door, you know you are going to have to verbally acknowledge every employee in the store, they are going to kill you with kindness and you have to respond.

I know the employees are just following store policy, but the higher ups who dictate this kind of policy should know better. Customers appreciate a smile by an employee or just knowing that if you ask, they are more than willing to help you find something. What we (and maybe it's just me) don't like is constantly getting pulled out of our concentration or our "shopping mode" to have to talk or respond to twenty different people. They need to find a better balance.

I know, this sounds pretty damn shallow when I'm writing about folks being too friendly. It's really no big deal, in fact, it's a lot better than employees who ignore you or are not around when you need directions, and I'm sure it's harder on the psyche of the employee than it is the customer. I couldn't imagine having to verbally greet hundreds of people a day.

So in spite of their friendliness and eagerness to assist me, the great health food section, the clean environment, convenient location, large deli, fast check out service, and the fact that the Raleys employees do seem like genuine good people, I will keep shopping there anyway.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Years ago my niece gave somebody else in the family a book titled "100 Ways To Motivate Yourself" by Steve Chandler. She hadn't read the book and I think it was meant to be a joke for the person she gave it to. I somehow got hold of the book and once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. Since then, I have read that book several times as well as given away several copies.

Steve Chandler is a professional motivational speaker, coach, and author. He writes a lot about pessimism versus optimism, and he does it quite well. One of his over all themes is "go to extremes to get results", i.e. if you want to have a better talking voice, practice by singing opera. If your child is having a hard time hitting a baseball, practice by pitching golf balls instead of baseballs and when he faces a baseball coming at him, it will look like a watermelon being thrown in slow motion.

This is good logic because it works. When I read this, I became aware that most of us use this same technique in many other areas of life besides improving a skill. Parents use it when they tell a child to clean his room until it's spotless, hoping they will at least get their clothes picked up off the floor. In more subtle versions, you see this same technique used by car salesmen when they get you to think of a high price as acceptable and then hit you with the sale price, which is much lower but still high, and by now, your thinking it's a good deal. Some have called it "Asking for the stars in order get the moon". Politicians have mastered this art to the point of it becoming manipulation. We all know that a president will ask congress for billions more in a budget than what he really needs, expecting that the eventual compromise will give him what he originally wanted.

This new spy package that congress recently approved, is putting a whole new twist on "ask for the stars and you'll get the moon". They want us to believe they are asking for complete eaves dropping power over all Americans in order to be able to spy only on terrorist's or potential terrorist's. We are supposed to go along with this with a "wink-wink" attitude. After all, they only want to keep us safe, and if we have to open up every personal aspect of our privacy in order for the government to (wink-wink) find out what the bad guys are up to, well, whatever works.

Remember when California raised it's sales tax by 1.25% in order to pay for the damages of a major earthquake back in the eighties? It was supposed to be a temporary tax. Twenty years later and we still have that tax. Do you think president Obama is going to give up that power? Do you think that the government would relinquish that power if terrorism were to suddenly disappear? Do you think terrorism will ever disappear? And if it did disappear, terrorism would always be whatever the government defines it to be i.e. we will always have terrorism and therefore the government will always have these new powers to spy on any American it chooses to, for any reason, from now on.

Those in power will spy on other politicians for political purposes. The IRS will eventually have these powers at their disposal to better target their audits. Who knows to what end these powers will be used, and by who? If I had to detail the steps that an open and free democracy would go thru to become a closed government controlled society, the first step would be to promote fear. Fear manipulates people into giving up freedoms in order to feel safe. Giving up our privacy, allowing the government to know anything they want to know about any of it's citizens is the first step, and maybe the only step needed, to eventually loosing our democracy altogether. Isn't it amazing that the same conservative's who love to preach about getting government out of our personal lives, are the ones who push these kinds of legislation's into law, especially when they have a conservative in the white house?

Shame on Barak Obama for voting for this bill. In his eager quest to appeal to the middle of the road undecided's, he has demonstrated that he is not the emissary of change he would like us all to believe he is, but rather just another politician. Oh I'll still vote for him in November, but now instead of voting for hope and change, I will be voting for the lesser of two evils....and just that's sad.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was 14 years old our family car was a 1955 Pontiac. At the time I was into reading hot rod magazines and fantasizing about custom cars. One summer day I got the bright idea that I could customize our Pontiac. I Don't know why my mom gave me permission to do this, but I think I convinced her that I knew what I was doing and it would turn out beautiful. So armed with a hammer and a screw driver, I decided that I was going to start with the dashboard. I had no money and no experience, but in my youthful innocence I was sure I could customize that dashboard and make it look like the dashboards in the magazines.

Two hours later I realized that all I was capable of doing was screwing up the dashboard, which I had done quite well. Gages were hanging by wires and dents were everywhere. This was one of those defining moments in life, I never forgot that experience.

Years later, back in the early nineties, I spent thousands of dollars developing a nutritional supplement. After I figured out how to make it, had it tested, got my bar code, had it labeled and bottled, had a shop to produce and sell it out of, and even had my 800 phone number, I went to work on selling the product. By now I was broke and had racked up my credit cards to about $12,000. I thought that finding a distributor for my product would be a snap, but it wasn't. I quickly learned about the catch 22 in trying to promote a new product. Stores would only buy it thru a distributor, and a distributor wouldn't touch it unless it had proven itself in stores.

As I dismantled my shop and started giving away the remainder of my product, I remember thinking, "Here I go again, banging on the dashboard of the Pontiac". I have used that phrase often since then because I have this tendency to test out how cold the water is by jumping in.

Life gives us every lesson we need and if we don't learn the lesson, it comes around again. My style of learning lessons is to screw up so many times that by the time I get the lesson, I've got it down quite well. I still have a tendency to jump into things head first, but time is slowly tempering me, the lesson is beginning to sink in. The lesson for me that I need to learn is to do more research on a project before I invest too much of my time into it or to think before I speak and make a total ass out of myself.

I still put the cart before the horse more often than I should. But on the other hand, I have discovered and uncovered a lot of precious gems in life because of my nature to experiment, try new and untested ideas, and just jump into things. I don't always error on the side of caution, but I do ask myself every now and then the important question...."Do I know what I'm doing here or am I just banging on the dashboard of the Pontiac?"

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Humor alert!!!!

Another hot, smokey, and humid Sunday....what to do, what to do.... My first thought was to take my dog out to the tree farm for a Sunday morning stroll, but then I remembered the problem out there with rattlesnake bites. If I could just get my dumb ass dog to quit biting rattlesnakes, we could go out there again. So I decided to go to the local neighborhood park. Imagine how exciting it was for a furry creature romping around the park, chasing squirrels up trees, approaching strange women to get a pat on the head, eating an old hot dog somebody left on the ground by a picnic table, and pissing on bushes and trees. I tell you, I had so much fun, I wished I had remembered to bring my dog. I would have stayed out longer except for the smoke issue. Soon after I got home, closed up the house, and turned on the AC, my eyes quit bleeding. I tell you, this smoke is hazardous stuff. I'll be happy when I can go outside for a cigarette without my lungs hurting from all the crap in the air.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Recently I wrote a blog about how the subconscious mind processes negative information. It was brought to my attention by a few well meaning and highly educated personal friends of mine that I should not be putting out this kind of information as "facts". They made some pretty good points and I have to agree with them. I did not research for this article, I am not educated in this field, and I did not state that what I wrote was strictly my own opinion. Points taken and I am removing that article from this blog site.

All that being said, I would like to restate something I have said several times in past blogs. The very first blog I wrote, over a year ago, was called "Truth versus a Viewpoint". In that blog I stated loud and clear that everything I would be writing about in the future would only be my opinion and should not be taken as fact, or is anything I write meant to be taken, as fact.

The fun thing about blogging is that you can write about anything you want to write about. And when you write all over the map like I do, you tend to push buttons when you write about certain subjects you are not educated in, especially with people who are educated in those areas. My response to those people who believe I am overstepping my bounds is this....Do you need to have a degree in political science to write about politics? Do you need a degree in nutrition to write about healthy eating? Should I quit writing songs on my guitar because I have no formal education or training in music? Blogging is not journalism, it is simply sharing your ideas and points of view.

In the future I will do more disclosures. I guess I need to state more often that certain things I am writing about are only my opinion and not necessarily a fact. However, that will not stop me, nor should it stop any blogger from writing about anything they want to write about. There are always going to be those educated professionals who will read your blog and say that you don't know what your talking about, especially when you are writing about something from their area of expertise. Some bloggers, like Anthony Watts stick to their field of expertise. Maybe that's why Anthony has more readers than the rest of us. It's a personal choice. Many of us folks who blog enjoy the freedom of expressing opinions on anything and everything that interests us. I am one of those bloggers. Now and then I am going to insult an expert. Now and then I am going to come off as arrogant. Now and then, I am going to say things that are just plain stupid or wrong. I understand that, you understand that, we have an understanding....now on to my next blog.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Years ago I read a quote in an entrepreneur magazine that has stuck with me ever since. It said...."In business you offer either good service, quality product, or low price. To be successful, you must offer two out of the three. If you offer all three, you will go bankrupt." I thought about this concept and realized that it applied to just about every successful business I could think of. Service, product, and price....Fast food businesses offer service and price but not high quality. Upscale retail stores offer service and quality but not low price. A few businesses, ones that are in demand and have little competition, can be successful only offering one out of the three (usually quality), but they are an exception to the rule.

At the time that I read this quote, about 20 years ago, I was on the verge of bankruptcy because I had been trying to offer all three in my contracting business. I made the conscious decision then and there that I would offer quality and service and not try to have the lowest price. It has been frustrating over the years to compete with other contractors who take jobs away from you by convincing the customer that they can offer quality and service at a low price. Usually the customer ends up getting a low quality job, although they may not realize it until a couple of years down the road when the product begins to fail prematurely.

As the economy keeps winding down and money gets tighter, people are looking more at the cost of having a job done. This is forcing many contractors, especially those who operate the way I do using the two factors of quality and service, to rethink how they operate their business. Competition is tuff these days. People are not spending. I suppose many contractors will lower their quality of work in order to compete and survive. I for one will not. I will find another way to make a living if I have to, and I may have to real soon.

History tells us that this recession will turn around, and I'm sure it will. The problem is, how many of us in business can survive doing what we are used to doing without loosing our homes or going bankrupt. For me, neither of those are an option. So the challenge is....How do I keep running my business at a profit without cutting quality or service? It's a question that businesses are asking themselves all over the country. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have now entered what I call the WTF?! (What The F...?!) phase of politics. This is that time period between when the candidates have been chosen and the November elections. In the WTF?! phase of politics we get to see the republican become a liberal and the democrat become a conservative. It's a very humorous thing to watch and it gets hard to take politics too serious when the candidates start playing these games. Barak is getting religious and McCain is becoming an environmentalist....and this is just the beginning! Watch for McCain to come out with more specifics on ending the war, what he will do to promote alternative energies, and specific taxes that "might" have to be raised on specific corporate profits. On the other hand, watch for Barak to go duck hunting, make more speeches from military bases, and take a stronger stand against gay marriage.

The philosophy of course is that they already have their voting base on their side so now they both go after the middle 20% of undecided's or what I like to call the "idiots-who-don't-really-follow-politics-but-want-to-be-taken-serious group of folks. Politicians walk a fine line playing this game and often it comes back to bite them on the butt. Remember Dukakas riding around in that army tank with that little helmet bouncing on his head?

So if they must play the Im-everything-to-everybody game, then here are a few things I want to see. I mean, why not go all the way and make it really interesting....

I want to see Barak heal a handicap person at a prayer service. I mean Barak lifts his hands and prays and this paraplegic person gets up out of his wheel chair and walks away. Praise the lord! I want to see McCain smoke pot with a group of old hippies who are lobbying the feds for their right to "medical" marijuana with Pink Floyd being played in the background. As he's leaving the event, a reporter asks him if he will fight states rights to allow medical marijuana to which he responds, "Isn't there a donut shop somewhere around here?" I want to see Barak go duck hunting with a 5.56 caliber XM8 700 RPM lightweight assault rifle in which he accidentally takes off the leg of a secret service agent to which he remarks, "Shit happens." I want to see McCain hump an old growth redwood tree. I want to see Barak, in a pathetic attempt to relate to Joe six pack, do something very ordinary, like, oh I don't know....go bowling....no wait, I think he did that one. I want to see McCain pump his own gas, except he lifts the hood to do it and puts the gas in the radiator. I want to see Barak slapping a flaming gay guy as he yells, "Where are your morals you little bitch, didn't your mother teach you anything!" I want to see McCain picking fruit next to an illegal Mexican immigrant. The conversation would be something like this....
McCain...."You are a proud and hard working people."
Mexican guy...."See Senior."
McCain...."Why don't you find a rich white woman who will support you?"
Mexican guy...."See Senior."
McCain...."Could you reach that apple for me?"
Mexican guy...."See Senior."
McCain...."Momma, I don't like this, help me down off this ladder."
Cindy McCain...."This was your idea John. I'm not stepping in that dirt!"
Mexican guy then helps John off of ladder to which John replies, "Thank you Jose, Juan, Julio.... whatever. Your people are a good people."

Ok, now I'm just getting stupid. But you get my point. It's going to be hard to take either side too serious from this point on, so we may as well sit back and enjoy the show.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)