Sacred Cods and Holy Mackerals

This just in: TLC has put the show on hiatus. Not because of the divorce. But because they dont have enough fresh footage to air new episodes. Nice.

Congratulations to Pearl Jensen of Sioux Falls, Iowa for correctly guessing last night’s big announcement: the kids got Crooked Houses!

One thing I admire about Jon & Kate is their total openness and willingness to shill for whatever theme park/hotel/resort/playhouse provider is willing to give them free stuff. Unlike other shows where the product placement is more subtle, Jon & Kate leave no doubt as to where they are, what they’re doing, and have always been quick to give a big plug. You could play a drinking game with how many times the name of the theme park/hotel/resort/playhouse provider is mentioned during the episode. That’s some good ‘ol American honesty there.

As for the big news, what can really be said? It’s not a surprise. It’s been the world’s worst kept secret. Frankly I’m more surprised they didn’t film as they told the kids. Now THAT would have brought some ratings!

Personally, I think the reason Kate has become such a villan is because Jon comes off as nice guy and a good Dad. Normally when we see naggy wives on television, we excuse the naggy-ness due to the fact the husband is typically portrayed as little more than an oversized children who will sell the house as part of some crazy plot with the whacky next-door neighbor the second the wife turns her back. Seriously, how is Kate any different than Ray Romano’s wife on Everybody Loves Raymond?

The difference is that on Jon & Kate, Jon isn’t that bumbling, oafish husband. He’s a decent guy who tried hard, but could never seem to adjust or anticipate his wives rules, whims, and needs.  And that small difference is what makes Kate look so nasty, even though I would bet there are millions of husbands out there who want to shake Jon’s hand and say “Congratulations.” 

I did laugh when Kate said she still wasn’t sure what she had done to make Jon so angry at her. No, seriously. She doesn’t know. And now Jon is too bitter to even try to explain to her that 10 years of criticism, nagging and emasacalation can lead to feelings of hostility that not even 8 kids and millions of dollars can overcome.

Maybe that can be the ultimate lesson learned by all the wives out there. Nagging does not lead to better husbands. It leads to bitter, ground-down husbands that eventually don’t resemble the “man” they married.

What do YOU think it is?

Are they divorcing? Are they “separating?” Are they temporarily pulling the plug on the show to “work things out?” Is Kate pregnant with triplets?

I think they will announce the Jon & Kate: The Musical, with songs and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Guess the right answer and you’ll win a special prize!*

*Offer not valid in the United States or any country with a vowel in the name.

Over at Blue Mass Group I have posted some additional tidbits on the  transportation reform bill that you won’t find anywhere else. Supporters and opponents of the Fall River/New Bedford line may be interested in one nugget in particular: that the bill will make it harder for the state to build projects it knows it can’t afford to operate and maintain.

And, as of right now, the state CANNOT afford to build, operate and maintain the Fall River/New Bedford line.

That is not a commentary on the worthiness of the project, more a statement of realism.

I will comment on the worthiness of the City of Boston’s mounted patrols, however. It’s a tough issue. I think mounted patrols are one of those neat things that can be helpful and always makes people smile. Nothing sends someone back in time faster like hearing the clomp-clomp of horseshoes on a cobbled street. But I don’t know if the historic charm justifies preserving the patrol at a time when the city is laying off workers.

I do, however, feel very strongly that the city should do a “Last Ride” from the stables in JP to Downtown Boston. It would make for a great procession and I bet thousands of kids and families would turn out to see it. Maybe it can be included as part of the City’s July 4th festivities?

Finally, nothing in this world makes more sense that Jordan’s Furniture purchasing the Enchanted Village display. They have the money for the reapir and the space to set it up. Plus, I have to give Eliot Tatleman credit for at least admitting that this is a promotions ploy designed to get people to come and walk through their store:

“The only catch for Jordan’s,’’ Tatelman said, “is that you are just going to have to walk through a lot of furniture to get to it.’’

It appears Jon & Kate are headed towards Splitsville. Unless this television promo was designed to mislead the public, and stir up ratings, but come on, how often does that happen?

You know something is up when a TV promo starts with “On a very special…” Sometimes Alex P. Keaton is forced to deal with an amphetamine addiction, and sometimes the parents of 8 young children announce their divorce.

Either way, I wish I could buy stock in things like “10 million people are going to watch this episode Monday night.” 

 By the way, did we ever find out exactly where Splitsville is located? If I has to guess I’d say it’s in central Pennsylvania just north of Palookaville.

Thank you for making yesterday by far the most-read day in Sacred Cods history!

I’m glad a political blog can lure people in with continued coverage of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 drama.

To reward you, the reader, here is a very special picture of Kate from high school…

Well, maybe brutalize isn’t the right word. But she did spank one. Thankfully it was all caught on film by people standing hundreds of yards away using telescopic lenses, who then called the police to report this thuggery and then snapped away when police responded to confront this maniac mother.

InTouch is all over the latest scandal, dedicating several pages to the vicious assault perpetrated at the hands of an out-of-control woman who clearly hates her children. Why else would she do something that only 90% of parents in the country say they have done?

Thankfully, InTouch has talked with a number of specialists who have never met Kate or her children so we can proprerly understand “the debate over whether her children are safe!”

Well, it’s Bunker Hill Day so if you’re reading this it means one of two things:

a) you have a private sector job and are bored and looking for anything to take your mind of the slowly moving clock hands, or:

2) You’re a state employee who has pissed off your boss and the term “skeleton crew” means you, in the office, by yourself, with your iPod and Dunkin’ Donuts Coolatta.

Either way, you could probably use a fun few links to whittle away the hours. And I’m just what the doctor ordered.

1) It wouldn’t be a Sacred Cods blog posting without a Jon and Kate link. This is a compilation of the history behind Kate Gosselin’s hair-do. I’ve seen it alternately described as “neo-punk” and a “rabid opossum.” And just so I lure in more google/bing hits I’m going to type the following search terms: Jon & Kate, affair, divorce, news, Aeden, cheat.

2) Hulu.com – Most of you already are familiar with Hulu, but if you are not, this will easily help you eat away 4-5 hours of your day. Remember in the early days of VCRs when youd record your favorite shows so you could enjoy them again later? Well this is your home VCR collection times a million squared by awesomeness.

3) The Weird One is back with an homage to The Doors, courtesy of Ray Manzarek on keyboards. I don’t know who in Al’s band has the musical ear, but these non-parody style homages he does are so amazingly dead-on. This song literally is an amalgamation of four or five different Doors songs.

4)  Here’s a great resource on movie box office records. For example, did you know that although Titantic has taken in the most cash, if you adjust for inflation, Gone With the Wind is the all-time box office champ, followed by Star Wars and The Sound of Music? Did you know My Big Fat Greek Wedding made $240 million but never was the #1 movie of the week? And did you know 1984 may have been the greatest year for movies of all time? (Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones/Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Karate Kid make up the Top 5, followed not in order by Footloose, The Natural, Police Academy, Splash, Purple Rain, Amadeus, Red Dawn, Terminator, Killing Fields, A Nightmare on Main Street AND Muppets Take Manhattan. Wow!)

More later perhaps?

A few thoughts on a few different things…

1) Simply a fantastic slap-down on Howie Carr by Dan Kennedy today. Sure, we can talk about how Howie is a great example of a self-made man. But tell me how Dan Totten ISNT self-made? Howie got a free prep school education thanks to his dad’s job mowing the lawns at Deerfield Academy. Totten went to Boston Public Schools, attended a state college, went to work at the local newspaper, and rose internally through the ranks to become a union leader who would still be semi-anonymous if it wasn’t for the NY Times decision to strip-mine the Globe.

And considering the Herald remains a paper largely read by union tpes, I remain confused as to why Howie would then denigrate a self-made union leader. Oh yea, because Howie’s a self-interested fraud, and Totten works for the Globe.

2) Hello voting populace! It’s me, the ballot box. You should visit me more often. If you did, you too could see yourself as a protected class in Massachusetts. The unions come and see me regularly. And they’re allowed to make good wages and good benefits. Public employees stop by regularly too. And they continue to receive pay raises even during lay-offs. But noone comes and pulls my lever more than seniors. And you wonder why the Legislature is so slow to yank their licenses? The funny thing about democracy is you actually have to participate to have your voice heard. And if your voice isn’t heard, that means someone else’s voice is being heard instead, in this case, seniors.

3) Speaking of this whole senior driving brou-haha, it’s amazing the complete flipflop the conservative commentators in this state have taken. No rants about legislators rushing to respond to a media-driven hysteria. No lectures on how government needs to stay out of our private business, and let adults make adult decisions and then pay the consequences if something goes wrong. No discourses on how personal liberties shouldn’t be infringed in the name of public safety.

Nope. None of that. In fact, the always rational Michael Graham, is apopolyctic that the Legislature essentially didn’t call an emergency session on Sunday afternoon and ram Sen. Joyce’s elderly drivers testing bill through on a series of voice votes.  But hey, at least they have their principles. Right? Right?

My apologies for the week off. The trout were biting at Mosquito Lake, the house needed some painting, the kid’s swingset needed to be built, the grass needed to be mowed, and  I had to divest my investments of all companies with Q’s in their names, just like the man on TV at 2:30 a.m. told me to.

Anyway, this has been a topsy-turvy period for many political observers. There’s been the sudden re-awakening of Deval Patrick as Gov. Reform. There’s been the Legislature realizing they need to throw a bone to the good-government types every once in a while, even if the true savings are more symbolic than monetary. Jim O’Sullivan of State House News Service summed up this self-discovery quite nicely last Friday:

The Democrats among them chant the reform mantra in cultish fashion, ferociously hopeful that whatever bills they do pass perfume away the stench infesting the capitol in time to allow them to avoid being indicted by voters next year as the party of DiMasi-Wilkerson-Marzilli.

And then there’s the increasing recognition among the Progressive wing of the Progressive/Hack Alliance (the voting bloc that helps keep Democrats firmly entrenched on Beacon Hill) that they may have entered into a relationship that in the long-run will prove to be more parasitic than symbiotic.

Oh, the conversations over at Blue Mass. Group as of late have been most interesting and polarizing. (For those of you Republicans reading this, yes Democrats do allow for differing opinions within their party. They even occaisionally have – gasp! – primaries!)  

There was the fission over the Suffolk County-only holidays. (progressives anti, hacks pro). Then there was the kerfuffle at the state party convention when the progressives decided the party-authored platform was too blah, and wanted to kill it. Said one BMG poster:

[T]he draft platform for presentation at yesterday’s state convention illustrated an entrenched bureaucracy. It was worse than lacking leadership. Despite strong progressive calls and actions by Gov. Deval Patrick and President Barack Obama in campaigns and since election, the platform was devoid of strong positions or specifics. After numerous hearings where Dems made their best pitches for such planks, the party boo-bahs went vanilla with whipped cream for the draft.

And then Party Chairman John Walsh nearly got booed off the floor for not ordering a roll call. Then again, it is worth remembering that John Walsh is the guy who ran Plymouth County Sheriff Joe McDonough’s ill-fated  2004 re-election campaign — the same Joe McDonough who was, as the Brockton Enterprise put it “the worst county official in recent memory.” Get more of the fun details here.   My guess is that this race isn’t particularly high on Walsh’s resume.

The latest debate comes over whether or not the Legislature should remain exempt from the state’s Open Meeting Laws. We’ll ignore the fact for the moment that the current laws contain enough loopholes, and are so poorly enforced, that they rarely prevent municipal boards from engaging  in behind-the-scenes mischief.  

The progressives of course are stunned — STUNNED! — to learn that the Open Meeting Law, as well as the state’s Public Records Law, don’t apply to the Legislature. While the Hacks, of course, would rather see the TV cameras turned off during sessions, the reporters kicked out of the gallerys, and think 10am public hearings make John Adams faint out of pride for democracy.

The truth is that what really should be targeted are the party Caucuses that take place prior to important legislative sessions. This is where the real debates are held, where the real votes are taken. This is where the party progressives put up a stink before walking into the chamber and voting the leadeship line.  But I don’t know exactly to eliminate this. If you apply the OML to the Legislature, the House Speaker and the Senate President, will just break the caucuses up into two shifts, so that a majority is never in the same room at the same time. The outcome will still be the same. It will just mean more time spent in closed-door meetings.

No volume of laws will ever prevent politicians from meeting in corners, taverns, smoke-filled-rooms, etc. Political plotting and horse-trading has been a part of the process since the first caveman said “Oog, this no fair.’ I’m not saying this is right or ideal — I’m just pointing out a reality.

The point of having an accountable democracy is that votes are public. You know how your representative and senator votes on an issue. And often that’s the deciding factor in these closed-door sessions: “I can’t vote for this, I’ll be killed back home.” While sunshine is a great disinfectant, nothing beats an informed and engaged electorate. No law will ever prevent a House Speaker from twisting a representative’s arm. But that representative’s arm gets alot stronger, if he knows the people back home are watching.

I don’t want to do this. In fact I really hate the thought of having to type these words but here they are: Howie Carr is a must-read today.

(shivering in self-loathing and disgust)

For the first time since Wade Boggs was still roaming the Sox infield, Howie Carr breaks a sweat and puts out a Sunday column that is worth his enormous salary. Inventive, snarky and brutal — a reminder of how dangerous he could be if he felt like trying on a regular basis.

I, however, would have added the following entry:

Hack columnist — Hackasaurus Howiecarrus  This beast tends to rest on past laurels. While other species are out “contributing” this lumbering, overweight, navy-blue blazer sporting dinosaur forages off the honorariums given to him by slower, stupider followers. The species manges to hold two jobs but still only work for about 4 hours a day. Somehow, it still is able to convince harder-working, poorer species that he is struggling alongside of them. Only time it breaks a sweat is on the way to the buffet table, cash a check , or to tell a Bill Bulger story for the 2,685th time.