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Getting some love from Stephen Colbert

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Stephen Colbert has been doing a great job in the past few weeks promoting donorschoose.org, a site that allows people to donate directly to help fund programs in Pennsylvania public schools. Because of his efforts, the site raised more that $100,000 in just a few weeks. That alone puts him on my "what a great guy" list, but tonight he went over the top. He plugged the site once again during his build up to his own trip to Philly for the upcoming primary, and this time he mentioned a couple of the programs seeking funding. The first one took me by surprise because it was from my own district. Yes, he did joke concerning a request from Titusville Middle School's band program. Here's the bit:

Thanks, Stephen!

Getting love from Stephen Colbert, part II

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In case anyone is interested, the request from Titusville Middle School that Stephen Colbert mentioned on air this week was completely funded by the next morning. More, apparently the good will spilled over into the rest of the district because this morning three other teachers received word that their requests were also likewise fully funded by donations made via donorschoose.org. Seriously, what Colbert is doing is just too cool for words. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go finish putting my request for funding together.

We need national health care for pets

family health humor pets Scoobert

Scoobert is feeling a bit anxious today. Tomorrow morning he goes in for surgery...again. It's not major, hopefully. He's got a big, black mole on his belly that bleeds if he catches it when he's scratching. The vet just wants to take it off as a precautionary measure. We love the little guy like a son, so of course we agreed. And, of course, it's going to cost us about $100 or more.

This is the second trip to the vet for something of this magnitude in 2008, and the third in the past full year. If it keeps him healthy and happy, I'm not complaining, but I sure wish I could put him on my health insurance as a dependent. It's barbaric that this country, the richest in the world, still has such vast number of its four-legged citizens that go without the basic security of health coverage. What does it say about us as a people when a family has to choose between surgery for their puppy and being able to afford new chew toys? And while we're at it, have you seen Scoobert's teeth? His lower jaw juts out a full half inch beyond his uppers. He looks like a hairy extra from Aliens vs. Predators.

Sure, we'd love to get him braces, but we just can't afford them now. This means that Scoobert must continue to live with being mocked by the neighborhood cats who I have heard call him "shovel jaw." Scoobert puts up a good front, but dammit...he's crying on the inside. I can just tell. Could I at least claim him on my taxes?

This made me chuckle

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The Best Colbert Interview In A Long Time

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Colbert had George WIll on last night. Will is, in my opinion, one of the few conservative pundits around anymore that I still respect. He's got one of the sharpest minds around, and he's unfailingly proper. Seeing him on Colbert's show shocked me, not because it satirized modern "conservatism" (which WIll really isn't a part of, but because I would have thought he simply would find distastefully chaotic. But appear he did, and what struck me was how fun it was watching Colbert's frantic, frenetic faux blowhard interact with the calm, cool, unflinchingly assured, and piercing gaze of WIll. At a couple of points, it looked like Will's responses actually left Colbert a bit taken back. I don't think I've ever seen Colbert intimidated by a guest before, but I think that's exactly what happened here.

I thought my wife was bad with our dog

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The other day, Dolores bought our dog Scoobert an "official Rockets Mascot" T-shirt (the Rockets is the name of our local high school team), and he's been wearing it non-stop for ever since. I felt really bad for him until I saw THIS picture:

That's not a dog costume; they shaved and dyed that poor poodle to look like that.

Dolores has her Lucy moment of the month

Dolores family humor landscaping

So Dolores and I are pulling weeds and doing some general cleaning around the yard as summer winds down. She gets out the Ortho and starts to spray around the base of the house to prevent bugs and such from getting in. I'm in the back of the house and she's in the front, and I hear a scream.

She yells for me, and when I meet up with her, she's lost her normal coffee-with-cream completion and is as pale as...well...me. She chokes out the second worst name of invaders home owners fear the worst, "we have rats."

(The first is termites.)

She points a shaky finger at the slate water-catch under the eaves drain and tells me to pick it up. I ask her what she saw under it, and she screams "JUST PICK IT UP, DAMMIT!!"

Hesitantly, I pick it up. I have visions of a giant, black, greasy rat springing for my jugular the moment I expose it to daylight. I toss the piece of stone to the side and leap back.

And I do see black fur--I concede that. The black fur on the back of an absolutely terrified two inch long mole.

"IT'S A RAT!!" Dolores screams.

She proceeds to defend herself by pulling the trigger on the Ortho Max bottle at a rate that would do Chuck Conners as The Rifleman proud. Sadly, her aim is a tad wanting, and I find myself doused in enough chemicals that l think may mutate or otherwise make me develop superpowers sometime in the near future.

The poor little mole scurries away, terrified but otherwise unharmed.

McCain Aides Take Cue from Otter

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The surreal aura surrounding the McCain campaign continues. According to an article on the Huffington Post, a McCain aide sideswiped the real issue of the hate speech and utter crassness at the McCain rallies and tried to make out the criticisms as attacks on McCain's war record.

"Look, Chris, I think we have to take this very seriously," Davis told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. "And the kind of comments made by Congressman Lewis, a big Obama supporter, are reprehensible. The idea that you're going to compare John McCain to the kinds of hate spread in the '60s by somebody like George Wallace is outrageous. Where was John McCain when George Wallace was spreading his hate and segregationist policies at that time? He was in a Vietnam prison camp serving his country with his civil rights also denied."

It sounded extremely familiar to me, but I couldn't place it all day. Then this evening I was cleaning out the shelf of DVDs under the TV, and I came across my copy of Animal House. Instantly it hit me; This was the classic "Delta House v Faber College" defense.

The scene was set during the Civil Rights Era of American History, and in dramatic moment reminiscent of Inherit The Wind, Delta's council, Eric 'Otter' Stratton, stood up against the injustice and blatant smears of the establishment represented by Dean Vernon Wormer and his stooges Greg Marmalard and Doug Neidermeyer and gave this impassioned and brilliant speech:

Eric 'Otter' Stratton

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female guests.

We did.
But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg, isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the United States of America! Gentlemen?


Eric 'Otter' Stratton

With that Stratton and his co-defendants marched out of the courtroom, refusing to play a part in that sham of a kangaroo court. It was a Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless. It's easy to see why those who support an esteemed presidential candidate would choose to go for such a classic legal move. After all, the rest of their campaign seems to have been devised during a drunken frat party as well.

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