LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

I think Boomers are The Greatest Generation

— Bumper sticker of the week: It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush.

— Quotes of the week (In memory of Molly Ivins):

• Deregulation: “When we left that merry band of Republican brothers in Congress, they were deregulating shit on beef.”

• On Clinton’s sex scandal: “With all due respect to the President’s private parts, we do have bigger problems in this country.”

• Foolish military strategy: “It’s hard to convince people you are bombing that you’re doing it for their own good.”

• Iraq: “I have a suggestion for a withdrawal deadline: Let’s leave before we’ve killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein did.”

— Movie of the week: An Inconvenient Truth. An Oscar for best full length feature documentary. Al Gore stood out as a champion. He even joked around a bit. The movie is good, especially for a documentary. And wouldn’t you know it, Melissa Etheridge takes best song for “I Need to Wake Up,” from “An Inconvenient Truth.” I particularly like the part where she thanked her wife.

— A war budget leaves every child behind.

— Churches should consolidate: Now that we’ve started consolidating school districts, it’s about time to start consolidating churches. Most have probably one-fifth of the people their building can hold on a Sunday morning. The rest of the time the place sits empty. This becomes our business as taxpayers because the space being used by all these churches could be more productively used by businesses or private homes who would pay taxes. Seeing the church pays none, they are using a lot of valuable space for no good reason. The question becomes: Why have such a gigantic building for such a small crowd? Who are you trying to kid? I say it’s pride, vanity, and senseless arrogance. I say let’s start forcing them to consolidate. In one building, you could have a Methodist service in the morning, a Baptist service in the afternoon, and a Presbyterian service in the evening. Jehovah’s Witnesses can have Saturdays, no problem. For some of the different religions, it might require bringing in different paraphernalia, but in the long run, moving things around a bit would be a whole lot cheaper. Christ on the cross, or off the cross, is a pretty simple adjustment.

— Who would have ever guessed that we would be paying as much for heating and cooling our homes as we do for the mortgage payment? And we should thank our state legislators for doing such a good job for us. You’re one of a kind.

— I hate it when I’m embarrassed to be an American.

— Tom Brokaw was wrong: Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation. He based most of that greatness on the fighting of WW II. I don’t think that’s fair. As a baby boomer, we haven’t really had any good wars to fight. Or maybe more appropriately, any popular wars to fight. The greatest generation handed us Vietnam. That was not a really good war and I don’t think we should be penalized for it. I think maybe they did that on purpose. I think we are The Greatest Generation. Sorry. We enjoy sex.

— You would think Sen. McCain would be the first person to stand up against war. Ends up he’s one of the only persons running for President in 2008 who is supporting the Iraq War. I e-mailed him to ask what he thought his years of captivity in Vietnam had accomplished? What our mission had accomplished? Did it preserve democracy? What happened to the “domino effect”? Had the war in Vietnam protected us from foreign invasion, or occupation? He hasn’t answered. I really don’t think he supports war. I don’t see how he could. I just don’t think he knows what else to say.