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10 ) Insane weather in the south kills more than 300 people as of this writing.

9 ) Massachusetts engages in Wisconsin-lite dealings with municipal unions over collective bargaining rights for health care. A prudent move to cut costs while still respective unions, or the first step toward gutting rights for public employees?

8 ) Former House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s federal corruption trial inches toward its formal start. Bet he’s wishing he could set the rules for the process now, huh?

7 ) Alan Khazei, who failed to capture the Democratic nomination in the 2009 special US Senate election, announces his intention to face the man who won that race, Scott Brown, in 2012. This could be a really good race (especially in Martha Coakley doesn’t show up to screw things up for the Democrats again).

6 ) President Obama releases his full birth certificate, causing critics to claim some sort of odd victory — perhaps in an effort to hide their embarrassment at being so thoroughly revealed as a bunch of clueless buffoons who were absolutely, completely, totally WRONG WRONG WRONG about the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship.

5 ) Britain celebrates the big wedding day, which will cost taxpayers more than $20 million pounds (about $33 million). So THAT’S why they really passed all those “austerity measures”; they were banking money for security and clean-up.

4 ) Barbara Lenk, an openly gay candidate for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, is accused during a public interview of promoting the gay agenda. Yeah, how dare those gays demand they be treated with dignity and respect!

3 ) The re-appearance of Right Whales near the Cape has Cape Wind opponents in a tizzy worrying about the mammals’ safety…because Right Whales are so populous in the area of Horseshoe Shoal, with its maximum depth of 55 feet.

2 ) The new season of “Doctor Who” premieres. Important? No. Thrilling for Doctor Who geeks? Damn straight!

1 ) Donald Trump continues his transformation into the snotty rich kid you went to elementary school with. This week he claimed Obama’s academic standing was inadequate to get him into the Ivy League schools he attended. Next week he’ll claim Obama’s mama wore combat boots and swam after troop ships.

10 ) Standard & Poors threatens to downgrade the nation’s bond rating unless it starts whittling down the deficit. But since that would mean doing radical things like ending all military action in the Middle East, meaningful spending cuts, raising taxes on the wealthy, and eliminating absurd subsidies for corporations earning record profits, I guess we’re all screwed.

9 ) Gas hits $4 a gallon in six states and is heading in that direction here in Massachusetts. If it keeps on going, soon the only people who will be able to afford gas will be oil company executives.

8 ) Barnstable County FINALLY passes wind turbine siting and review regulations. Time to update my “I SURVIVED PAVE PAWS CAPE WIND” T-shirt…another earth-shattering threat survived!

7 ) A data center run by Amazon.com goes kerflooey, taking down Foursquare with it. How am I supposed to know whose homes to burglarize if I can’t tell where they are at any given hour of the day?

6 ) McDonald’s moves to have a lawsuit against them dismissed, a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco mom who claims Happy Meals entice children to eat at McDonald’s. Well FRACKIN’ DUH, woman! That’s their purpose! Just like your purpose is to act like a damned parent and say NO to your children on occasion.

5 ) Panicky Burlington Mall shoppers mistake a man’s umbrella for a rifle, sparking a major police response and a reactive media mini-frenzy. To steal a line from my friend Justin, the difference between a gun and an umbrella is huge, unless you’re The Penguin.

4 ) During his show in D.C., Charlie Sheen reveals himself as a birther. Oy. But he also called Sarah Palin “a lunatic,” which suggests that there is still a rational shred of brain matter somewhere within the man. Come back to us, sane Charlie! Speaking of whackjob Presidential wannabes without a hope in Hell of ever achieving the Oval Office…

3 ) Donald Trump expands his platform to spout misinformation about Mitt Romney. Apparently The Donald’s not wasting any of his precious resources on things like research and fact-checking.

2 ) A bunch of people run through Boston. C’mon, the Boston Marathon is boring! Even for a sporting event! Make it an obstacle course next year! DeathMarathon 3000!

1 ) The Royal Wedding is next week, and for a few hours the US will conveniently forget about important stuff to watch two people get hitched in a ceremony projected to cost upwards of $48 million and utterly fail to appreciate the irony.

This week’s talked-about topics, ranked by importance (10 = extremely important, 1 = completely trivial fluff)

10 ) America goes to kinda-sorta war with Libya, and this country’s habit of taking moral stands against tyranny continues (not counting all those other tyrants that we won’t touch because they can actually fight back…unless their country is strategically important to the US).

9 ) Japan hangs in there. Meanwhile, a bored Godzilla, not wanting to add insult to injury, is eyeballing North Korea.

8 ) HyLine Cruises, long-time critic of Cape Wind, partners with the wind farm to launch eco-tourism venture. Former critics Bill Keating and Dan Wolf now praise Cape Wind for the job creation prospects. Lawyers plot to convince the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound that obstructionist lawsuits against all of these people would be a great idea. Boy, Cape Wind really IS an economic engine for the region!

7 ) New census data shows that people under the age of 18 are leaving the Cape in huge numbers. Strangely, their parents are still here.

6 ) The Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners discuss wind turbine regulations, and not once does a member of the audience hog the microphone to deliver a melodramatic off-topic lament about how wind turbines are as bad as Michael Ironside in “Scanners.” Rational discourse? About wind energy? Jeez, I don’t know if I could get used to such luxury.

5 ) Elizabeth Taylor dies at age 79. Knowing her she’ll die at least eight more times.

4 ) Studies show that the number of men seeking plastic surgery to maintain their youth is on the rise. Yeah, because growing a ratty ponytail, getting an earring, and buying a Corvette just makes you look like a desperate loser.

3 ) Chris Brown storms out of the Good Morning America studios after an interviewer refused to let him off the hook about his domestic assaults on ex Rihanna, then whines on Twitter that people need to let it go. GMA offers a weepy apology and swears to god, baby, they can change, they won’t ever ambush-interview him again.

2 ) The Westboro Baptist Church announces plans to picket Liz Taylor’s funeral because of her work raising awareness of HIV and AIDS. Someone please, for the love of God — and I mean that literally — run these tools over with a steamroller.

1 ) Ellen DeGeneres takes Selena Gomez to task for lying about not dating Justin Bieber on a previous show. Hey, if I were her I wouldn’t want to admit that either…that puts her on every teenage American girl’s hit list.

This week’s talked-about topics, ranked by importance (10 = extremely important, 1 = completely trivial fluff)

10) Charlie Sheen (as viewed from the perspective of Charlie Sheen)

9) Moammar Rhymes With Ga-Daffy is still, barely, in power, but that can’t last long.

8 ) Gas prices spike because of the unrest in Libya…which makes no sense since Libya is not even in the US’s top 15 oil suppliers, and what we’re paying for now was taken out of the ground months ago. Screw you, commodities speculators.

7) The Supreme Court makes a tough call and protects the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to conduct their protests at funerals for soldiers killed in action. A victory for our right to free speech, but that’s about where the winning ends.

6) The MBTA apologizes for its antiquated trains and poor decision making. Get used to the apologies, commuters, because if the MBTA has its way it’s not going to be reimbursing you for late trains. But hey, they’ll have nifty signs to let you know the trains are running late!

5) A Brigham Young University athlete gets booted from his team, and could face expulsion, for having premarital sex. So remember, kids: sex before marriage BAD. Sex with your thirteen wives GOOD.

4) Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtains FBI files that reveal the pre-Senate Ted Kennedy rented a brothel to “entertain” Latin American dignitaries. Transparency in government is always important, and no one’s history should be above standing revealed before the light of day — and yet, I wonder what is to be gained by revealing this info. If this is nothing more than an attempt to somehow smear the entire liberal left by dragging the hallowed Kennedy name through the mud, then Judicial Watch should examine its priorities.

3) Justin Bieber’s hair sells for $40k on eBay. The Gentle Barn benefits from the money. A 15-year-old girl with her parents’ stolen credit card and access to a genetics lab, benefits from the DNA samples.

2) Anne Hathaway and James Franco do a meh job of hosting the Oscars. This is no big deal at all, especially when you consider that, apparently, the Oscars have outright sucked ever since Billy Crystal stopped hosting.

1) Charlie Sheen (as viewed from the perspective of everyone who hasn’t friend his brain on crack).

It’s Saturday, I’m at home, there’s a bulldog sprawled across my legs, and I’ve just had the best laugh I’ve had in a long while, thanks to white supremacists.

A group called the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white power organization, is calling for a boycott of the upcoming film “Thor,” the latest Marvel Comics-based movie. The reason? The character of Heimdall, guardian of Bifrost (a.k.a. The Rainbow Bridge that connects Asgard to the land of Midgard, a.k.a. Earth), will be portrayed by actor Idris Elba, who is black. The character is traditionally portrayed as white (what with him being a Norse figure).

Their reasoning (for want of a better word) is that it’s a white character, so it should be played by a white actor and not “a negro” (their term, I stress, not mine). The CCC rants about pro-black liberal agendas and other ignorant, socially backwards concepts, and tries to argue that if other race-based support groups can get peeved over casting Caucasian actors as characters of race (such as putting Jake Gyllenhaal in the role of “The Prince of Persia” or just about anyone in any role in “The Last Airbender”), white folks can get upset over the darkening of Heimdall without it being racism.

One: it’s Heimdall. He’s not a major character. Who cares?

Two: when you refer to Idris Elba as a “negro,” you undermine your claim that you’re not racist.

Three: Hollywood does not do a good job of giving roles to actors of color. That said…

Four: an actor’s job is to portray something they are not. If that ends up applying to race, gender, sexual orientation, whatever, so be it.

Five: How can you boycott a move that looks THIS AWESOME?!

***

Yesterday I attended the wake of James Ayube, the Salem soldier who was killed in action in Afghanistan last week. I’ve been friends with his wife for many years and was at their wedding –which happened about three years ago this month, and not too far away from the church where his service was held.

I’ve honestly not thought about the war, but it’s hard not too when it strikes so close to home. I can’t help but wonder what we’ve truly gained from being in the Middle East, and if it’s worth what we’ve lost. I hear all the reasons for being over there, but they all ring false, and so far I have yet to see or hear anything that makes me think it’s been worth all the lives lost.

PS: In case anyone out there feels like blasting me for “not supporting the troops,” kindly go to hell. Supporting the troops and supporting the war are two related but separate issues. I support the troops, and I think the best way to support them is to end the war and bring them home, alive and well, to be with their friends and families.

***

Speaking of war: seems the “war on Christmas” is in low gear this year. I’ve not heard quite as much furor over the “secularization of Christmas” as in years past, but nevertheless, I’ll offer my annual two thoughts:

1) It really doesn’t matter if someone wishes you “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”; as long as they don’t tell you to go [expletive deleted] yourself, accept the thought in the spirit it was given and don’t be a jerk;

2) The majority of the trappings associated with Christmas are pagan in origin, so don’t go nuts about how the Christianity has been drained from the holiday. (Fun fact: Pope Julius I moved the celebration of Christ’s birth to December in the Fourth Century to make the transition to Christianity more palatable for the pagans being forced to covert).

I’m sitting in my mother-in-law’s kitchen in New Jersey waiting for the start of the Macy’s parade and surfing the news sites. There seems to be quite a few stories suggesting the so-called “war on Christmas” is now spreading to Thanksgiving, and that Christians are pushing back against a (real or imagined) secularization of Turkey Day.

The claim is that in digging deeper into the origins of Thanksgiving, historians are (or are at least attempting) to strip the holiday of any religious roots and, spiritually speaking, neuter it, and well, we can’t have that, can we?

I have an announcement for Christians out there: not everyone believes in God — yours or anyone’s.

I was raised in a Methodist household but I grew out of it; in my early teens I came to the conclusion that in my world, God had no role. I did not and still do not claim that God or any deity (Odin, Zeus, Chtulhu, Flying Spaghetti Monster, whoever) does not exist, because that is a question that no one has an irrefutable answer to (sorry, people, believing in something is not the same as that something actually existing. Just accept it).

The lack of God or even a basic spirituality does not make me a bad person (just like being a devout Catholic does not make you a good person, as any victim of the sex abuse scandal will tell you). I’ll make the bold statement that you’d have a hard time categorizing me as a sinner except perhaps by the most stringent, hardcore, and no-fun-at-all standards. There are a lot of people like me and several studies indicate that the non-believers are increasing in number.

The religious right might use that as evidence of society’s downward spiral, but that’s one of those easy answers that is steeped in correlation but not causation; one can claim that there is a parallel in the decline of spirituality and the increase in crime, poverty, abortion, what have you, but that is just taking two data sets and implying a cause-and-effect where none may exist.

To get to my point: just as the devout don’t care to have secularism forced upon them, there are those of us who don’t care to have religion forced upon us, and just as you push back against us, we’re going to push back against you — and neither side is less justified than the other.

Instead of turning every holiday into a pointless “war” in which no side truly gains anything, might I suggest to those who want to bring holidays back to their actual or alleged religious roots observe the wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge: you keep the holiday in your way and let me keep it in mine.

Later today I’ll be heading out to cover the public hearing on the proposed ocean DCPC for Cape Cod, and I will be bringing along a large cup of coffee, my steely resolve, and maybe a book to entertain me during the less interesting parts of the afternoon — which is to say, most of it.

I kid, of course, but I’m bracing for a formulaic forum: session opens, explanation of what’s going on is given, floor opens up to public comment, I die a little inside with each speaker who stands up and wastes an ungodly amount of time.

Especially with a controversial subject (offshore wind turbines), these hearings tend to be predictable and, really, unproductive affairs. I don’t deny an individual’s right to speak his mind on anything, especially something that stands to affect his quality of life, but good lord, people, have you absolutely no concept of how to get your point across without eating up half the day?

Let me help with these friendly suggestions:

1) For the love of all creatures great and small, BE BRIEF!

Quality over quantity, folks. Nattering on for 15 minutes doesn’t make you sound knowledgeable or informed; it bores people to tears. And why do so many potentially short, punchy, and effective addresses instead linger on interminably like the aftertaste of a cheap domestic beer?

2) Stay on topic

Let’s say the Cape Cod Commission is reviewing a proposal to build the world’s largest Chuck E. Cheese at the Bourne Rotary. They want to hear from people about what the impacts will be to traffic, the local economy, noise, etc. Half the speakers will rail about how unhealthy the pizza is, and keeping local kids healthy is a great reason to deny the project.

Let’s say the Cape Cod Commission wants to enact a regulation dictating where future Chuck E. Cheese franchises may be sited. The proposed regs require a minimum 1,000 foot setback from residential neighborhoods to mitigate the smell of yummy yummy pizza and prevent it from disturbing people. Half the people will bemoan the persistent smell of fresh tomato sauce with a balanced blend of Italian seasonings and whole-milk mozzarella cheese emanating from the nearby Domino’s — without ever noting how far away they live from the place or making any direct suggestions as to what a sufficient setback might be.

The point is, I could really go for a pizza right now.

Oh, yeah, and speakers should actually address the specific topic.

Now, about that pizza…

3) I said stay on topic!

Some years back I covered a Cape Cod Commission hearing on the Cape Cod Wind Farm. More specifically, it was a hearing on the submarine cables that would transmit power from the wind farm to the mainland. Installing this cable would disrupt the ocean floor upon which it was laid, the beach/wetland area where it would make landfall, and the residential streets it would be buried under until it reached an NStar substation.

The subcommittee asked speakers to address the issue of the cables directly; don’t talk about the wind farm, don’t be a Cape Wind cheerleader, don’t whine about how it’ll destroy Cape Cod, TALK ABOUT THE DAMN CABLES.

This is how one speaker approached that request:

“The wind farm — which is attached to the mainland by this cable — will create cheap renewable energy. The wind farm — which is attached to the mainland by this cable — is good for the environment. The wind farm — did I mention that it’ll be attached to the mainland by this cable? — will generate new jobs.”

No jive, that’s what he did. Yakked for 10 minutes and never once weighed in on the frickin’ cables.

4) Don’t be repetitive, redundant, repetitious, redundant, or say the exact same thing over and over with slight changes in the phrasing to make it sound like you’re not being repetitive.

Don’t be repetitive, redundant, repetitious, redundant, or say the exact same thing over and over with a degree of reiteration to make it sound as if you’re making a new point. It happens a lot, sometimes for emphasis — just in case folks didn’t get it the first five times — sometimes because people don’t pay attention to themselves while speaking.

5) Don’t be repetitive (but in a different way)

There’s something of an unwritten rule among reporters about public hearings: after the first five to 10 speakers, everything that can be said about a given subject has been said, and from that point on speakers will just hit those same talking points over and over. Diligent committee chairmen will ask people to instead submit their comments in writing if they have nothing new to add, so as to allow other people with fresh perspectives a chance at the mic, but that request is not often heeded.

6) It’s not storytime, dude…

Oh boy! The old guy is going to open with a joke or an amusing anecdote that has a vague connection to today’s topic! That’ll get stuff done double-quick!

7) Nor is it amateur night at “America’s Got Talent”

I can’t count how many times a person’s “testimony” has been delivered in the form of a poem or a song. Seriously. I’ve witnessed people performing original songs, complete with musical accompaniment (okay, a bad recording of music they played on an electric keyboard), do express their displeasure or delight with the wind farm. Dignity, people! Always dignity…

In the spirit of point number seven, I will close this post with a haiku:

Sign up to speak please; Don’t make me cut you off, sir; We’ll be here all night.

I’ve just learned that my blog’s spam filters have been working a little too hard, and a lot of legitimate comments got shunted into the spam pile. I’m working to find and restore those comments now.

My apologies to anyone who commented over the past several weeks and wondered why that jerko Bailey wasn’t posting them or responding. I blame my HAL-9000-like software.

I have an opinion.

This is an expression of my thoughts and feelings toward a given topic. It is a personal interpretation of a person, place, thing, or event. (more…)

Here we are with the final column before the US Senate special election on Tuesday!

This was actually supposed to be in this week’s print edition, but thanks to a mix-up stuff that appeared in last week’s online version saw print, which what you’ll read below is just for your eyes only, web-surfers. (more…)