In my business, I was taught to look for places to cut costs. This is a graphic world. We can process information easier if we see it graphically. POTUS has been spending money like a drunken sailor, and it’s been bothering the heck out of me. The most recent dialog on the news concerns the massively huge bonus package being given to AIG out of the bailout money from the government.   I agree, one hundred sixty five million dollars is a huge amount of money. It is so large that most people can’t process the number. Most likely because many of us accumulate much less than a million dollars over fifty years of hard work.  Those who do amass that much can retire,  as long as they also receive Social Security. The population is angry that we donate our tax dollars to save a failed company, and then reward the men who caused it to fail with bonuses twenty times larger than a typical nest egg.

What I can’t understand is why the citizens of this good country aren’t upset with the antics of our elected  representatives. The chart above shows it clearly.  All I have done is graph the costs of the federal budget, and the various bailout bills next to the cost of the AIG bonuses. The left side of the chart is graduated in trillions of dollars. I ask you this; if  this chart represented your personal expenses, and you had to trim your spending, where would you look first? Which area would produce the most benefit if it were attacked looking for savings?  Do I have to explain further?  Lee Iaccoa, chairman of the Chrysler Corp wrote that he could cut ten percent out of any budget and no one would notice. Ten percent of the first bar on the chart amounts to three hundred and fifty billion dollars. Any one with a brain could trim that bar deeper than ten percent. If you have a job in manufacturing in the USA you are faced with making cuts of that nature everyday. There are many qualified people who could see where to make cuts. Most of these people are managers, accountants, and engineers. Do we have people from these disciplines sitting in the Capital ?  

Why then, are these morons in the White House and the Capital steering all the news toward the AIG bonuses. Do they think we are as stupid as they are? Do they think the people of the USA are so dumb as to not see through their subtrafuge. It is clear to me they are trying to deflect the news away from massive spending they call “Change You Can Believe In.”  

Here is something to think about; after spending all those dollars shown in the chart all we will have left is “change”  in our pocket.

“What do you do with a Drunken Sailor”…..one of the great tavern drinking songs of all time!…..HHParrot!

Booktrust is controversially  in the papers and on the news today with what I think is a really interesting discussion. Their Bookstart project has sent out song sheets for their baby bounce and rhyme sessions and these have caused a considerable stir amongst parents and the press alike.

I caught a glimpse at the arguments on both the BBC news this morning and The Wright Stuff. As you may know the theme for National Bookstart day last year was Pirates Ahoy! and so the song sheets being used were themed to suit. Basically, in keeping with pirate theme Bookstart changed the lyrics of “What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor” to a more politically correct version, “What shall we do with the Grumpy Pirate”.

Personally I think it was unnecessary to change the lyrics. If they were concerned about the choice of song, it may have been better to use a different rhyme or create something entirely new. It could easily be argued that pirates are even more of a tricky subject than drunken sailors and so if Bookstart wanted to be terribly PC about it, they shouldn’t have either. But where’s the fun in that?!

It’s easy though to criticise them. What also needs to be understood is that there is a lot of pressure on schemes such as this to please all audiences and not offend. While everybody is up in arms about the sanitisation of this classic and historical rhyme, I can guarantee that if Booktrust had printed the original, they still would have some backlash of a different kind.

To hear further discussion take a listen to Vanessa Feltz’s show on BBC iplayer. Lots of newspapers are covering the story also, try The Sun, The Daily Mail or The Telegraph for a bit more gossip.

On the up side of this rather serious argument, Milo seems to have enjoyed me singing “What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor” in a dodgy pirate voice all day. For some of your own pirate talking fun, take a look here.

Yarr!

Boring.....

We headed over to North Beach and Nob Hill, with me being the sober one and Rich and Emad being super drunk.  It was pretty mundane, nothing special, until I saw this…

You tax dollars hard at work!

What do you with a drunken sailor?  Earli in the morning…!  He was completely out for the night.  His sailor friends couldn’t even get him to walk.

I wanted to go see Full House.  You know the street with the house when they sing “everywhere you look…” but we were out of time.  So we saw the Golden Gate Bridge instead.

My car on the bridge!

I can’t wait to go back and make Emad the designated driver.

Shiver me timbers! As ye be nay doubt aware, Fridee, Septembree 19, be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. In honor o’ this fine occasion, Johnny Thunders an’ On Deaf Ears would like t’ give ye some “Pirate Love”:

Wot’s that ye say, lass? You don’t want any lovin’ from we pirates? Lucky we don’t make ye walk t’ plank.

Guess we’ll just go drinkin’ with our lads:

“Drunken Sailor” by the Irish Rovers:

Or perhaps we should keelhaul ye, ye scurvy wench.

Who needs ye, anyway? We be havin’ ways o’ entertainin’ ourselves, an’ ‘taint safe fer werk (unless ye be a pirate, and “Friggin’ in the Riggin’” is just part o’ the job).

(And b’lieve ‘t or nay, Sex Pistols fans, that last be a real sea chantey.)

We have seen many stupid drivers out in force this weekend. On one drive we almost got into, not one, but 2 different accidents. One guy was coming off the freeway, didn’t stop at his red light. Turned right into the lane in front of us. Not only did we almost hit him- he had a lane he could have turned into. That pissed me off. Another guy was half way into his left turn when he realized that he didn’t have a green arrow, and the rest of the traffic was going straight. At least he realized what he was doing and waved an apology. So glad that my wife knows how to drive. And lay on the horn. And curse like a drunken sailor.