ProgressOhio

Now is a good time to get your tax records in order. This task sure got easier once you could print cancelled checks online. Part of this exercise is adding up charitable donations.

No matter what the amount or your philanthropist inclination -- church, political causes, international relief agencies, whatever -- it's good to know where you stand. That way, you can reassess your charitable tithing for next year.

You probably gave up a good amount of cash to non-IRS-approved charities, such as door-to-door solicitors from who-knows-what. I've given small donations to political and environmental organizations that I thought were tax deductible, but later found out were not.

For tax purposes, you're not counting those crumpled bills in collection plates and kettles, cash tips to those in need, and duplicate Girl Scout cookies and Boy Scout popcorn purchases you made just because you wanted to be fair to the neighbors' kids.  I propose that these small acts of monetary kindness are a legitimate piece of your personal philanthropist pie.

So, too, are donations in kind to Goodwill and other organizations, and often these are tax-deductible as well. Here in Columbus, MAP Furniture Bank and Habitat for Humanity will pick up large items for free.

Certainly, volunteering time is a way to give back, though it's difficult to quantify. In my estimation, coaching Little League qualifies as charitable giving. So does watching out for old folks in your neighborhood.

For some of us, it's better to just give money. Years ago, I volunteered at a Habitat home building site in the Hilltop area. I was trying to move a wheelbarrow filled with gravel and I accidentally dumped it all over the sidewalk and spent the rest of my time there picking it up. Now I give them a small cash donation and they seem very appreciative.

My favorite local charities are Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio and Mid Ohio Foodbank. For Christmas, MOFB will mail paper Christmas ornaments to friends and family for $15 each.

Because I like cops, I've been donating $20 to the central Ohio Lodge #9 FOP every time they ask me. However, they ask me for a donation twice a year, as does the similar-sounding FOP Foundation of Ohio. Now Cops for Kids is starting to call me and it's getting a little unnerving. I'm the mother of two young men -- I hate it when cops call me.

This year I bought Christmas gifts from the World Vision catalog instead of junk my relatives don't want. I'm not crazy about faith-based international charities, but the catalog is such a thought-provoking piece about world poverty. Not only can you buy a goat for a needy African family, but also a share of a deep well that can serve a rural village for years or "hope" for sexually exploited girls.

I maintain my pledge to my long-time church even though I consider myself to be an atheist now and never attend services. I like what the church does for my community and its members, and I'm so glad they didn't get involved in politics this year.

I don't claim to know what's best for you. I'm just saying, it's a good time to evaluate your charitable giving now that the economy is so uncertain. Are you really giving of yourself the way you want to?

My home-from-college son showed me these photos of the crazy building going on in the Persian Gulf city of Dubai: Dubai is Nuts!

Between the largest waterfront development in the world, 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the earth, the world's only "7-star" hotel, the first underwater hotel and the world's tallest structure by a longshot, Burj Dubai -- well, Dubai is pretty full of itself.

This macho manifestation of modernity in the United Arab Emirates is just across the pond from Iran. It's hot and humid there and virtually every structure is air conditioned. Construction workers outnumber citizens.

According to BBC News, "Dubai's nationals have become a minority in their own land as international expatriates have flocked to the hi-tech, high-rise city which has sprung up in the desert in little more than 30 years.

"With the job opportunities of a booming economy, a government drive to empower and educate women and exposure to other cultures, Dubai's women are moving in increasing numbers into a wide range of professions."

Moving, perhaps, but not nearly as quickly as the city is wildly growing.

While 65% of UAE university students are female, women make up only 15% of the workforce.

There's a real crack in the foundation of this artificial desert city, as expressed in these comments to BBC:

"Arab societies are not healthy for women's development. The existing laws to protect women remain only on paper. In reality Arab women are treated like merchandise. I am not sure what will free them."
Asmaa, Dubai

"People in the Arab world need to wake up and respect the women as they would respect their mothers and sisters. I've been to UAE and saw how women are so restricted. Think what women can contribute to their economy if they are allowed to be treated as equals."
Kamal Hussain, Sylhet, Bangladesh

"Sultana's comments show the reality for Muslim women - the few women who have independent working lives are the exception. Moreover, what this article glosses over is that Dubai's booming economy is underpinned by a raft of expats, many of whom (the unskilled ones employed for housework or manual labour) are very badly treated by their Arab employers and are discriminated against in the courts. Dubai needs to have more than glitzy buildings to count as a civilised place."
Rustam Roy, London, UK

Building the future without corresponding freedoms for women is a formula for trouble. To me, Dubai looks like a lonely display of pricey phallic symbols.

Do you think about your bills, your ex, your deadlines or when you think your gonna die? Or do you long for the next distraction? -- Alanis Morrisette, All I Really Want, Jagged Little Pill

As a public service, I present these five distraction suggestions:

1. Visit the ever-changing world of Kitlers at Cats That Look Like Hitler and its sister site Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians.

2. Potholderpalooza! Get a little potholder loom and loops at a hobby store and go crazy. Weave six potholders into a cube, stuff it with obsolete (clean!) underwear, and voila, you have a decorative fiber arts-and-crafts object-thing! Or just make potholders -- moms love 'em.

3. Make collages. Glossy photos, cereal boxes, catalogs, whatever -- cut out images and glue stick them together. If you have access to a color copier with reduce & enlarge features, you can make a groovy collage of collages to stare at aimlessly. A good source of imagery (and a daily dose of anarchist history) is the Daily Bleed.

4. Visit the library. Most of us don't have the attention span to read novels, but at the library you can sample a book without risk. And there are a lot of nonfiction books, magazines, CDs and DVDs worth perusing. For something different, I suggest borrowing graphic novels (e.g., Harvey Pekar's American Splendor Anthology: From Off the Streets of Cleveland) and R-rated foreign DVDs. (Adult movies are easily identified on the racks and chances are you haven't seen these foreign films before. If there's enough sex and violence, there won't be as many subtitles to read.)

5. Play the State Dating Game. I wrote this over a year ago and, my, things have changed on the red/blue map since then. Perhaps you can make some purple happen.

Appropriately, public outrage has been heaped on American Psycho lobbyists and high-flying automotive executives who come to Washington, tin cup in hand. A lot of people, including me, think these bloated companies should be allowed to fail and let the free-market system do its job.

I am sympathetic to real laborers and retirees who are at the mercy of incompetent management, but whatever happens on Wall Street and in Detroit won't affect my household very much. Paying for college is our biggest money drain.

All told, a bachelor's degree at an Ohio university costs about $72,000. It's like buying a new car every year for 4-5 years. Who's up for that?

Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute, an academic himself, wrote a column headlined Has nation forgotten that failure can be healthy? which was published in today's Dispatch. One paragraph was an ah-ha moment for me:

"Universities raise tuition rates that exceed the rate of inflation. But in our brave, new no-failure world, why worry when more promised federal-guaranteed student loans and credits will ensure steady paying enrollment? With guaranteed federal money, why be concerned that colleges and universities are overstaffed with administrators, replete with centers and programs that have nothing to do with undergraduate education, and erecting Las Vegas-like student unions and colossal recreation centers?"

Sound familiar?

Public universities have been getting mini-bailouts all along. It's the taxpayers and especially parents and students currently up to their necks in college debt who are going to bear this burden -- big time.

Given that Ohio's universities and public colleges will never file for bankruptcy, how about a little accountability? Just what do you get for your $72,000?

Those wbfp's, as the Realtors call them, are getting a workout now that the temperature has dropped below freezing. I can smell the smoke.

Fireplaces in homes built in the sixties like ours were designed for aesthetics and stocking-hanging, not energy efficiency.  Probably more BTUs go up the chimney than into the room. We don't use our fireplace, but we finally got a chimney cap installed to keep out the birds.

Firewood is another issue. You have to be careful about measurements, moisture content and specific laws about firewood transport which are a result of ash tree insect infestation. The Ohio Ag Dept. offers these firewood consumer tips.

From personal experience, I've learned that wolf spiders like to lurk in wood stacks, and wood left indoors is likely to lead to ants getting into your house. Frequent wood-burning in a fireplace is not only inefficient, but also messy.

Wood stoves, of course, are an altogether different story, and today's models are more efficient than ever. For many people, a wood stove can be a cheaper alternative to gas or heating oil.

My eco-conscious friends who live near Logan in a large modern home have composting toilets and a wood stove as their primary heat source (an electric heat pump supplements when necessary). It seems to work for them -- a renewable heat source literally from their backyard.

But there is an environmental caveat to wood burning, as the Green Lantern column of Slate points out:

[A] "burn local" movement won't do much to help the environment if your stove starts spitting out toxic fumes. In some communities, wood smoke accounts for as much as 82 percent of particulate matter—tiny particles that can cause serious respiratory problems—emitted during the winter. Moreover, because that smoke is being produced right in (or outside) your house, the probability of exposure is greater—and that can have significant health effects....

My friends in the sparsely populated Hocking Hills don't seem to have a problem with wood smoke, but if you've ever flown over Aspen, you've probably seen the brown haze that collects over the valley. Even here in suburbia, fumes from wood burning can be strong, especially if the wood is unseasoned.

The main eco-friendly aspect of heating with wood is that, unlike oil and gas, wood is a renewable resource. But that's only true if you actually plant more trees. (And in the case of my southern Ohio friends, they do.)

I wouldn't discourage anyone from gathering around the hearth. Just try to be considerate of your neighbors and the earth at large.

I didn't believe Andy Warhol was a great artist before I saw the extensive Other Voices, Other Rooms exhibit, and I still don't, but I've come to appreciate him as a conceptualist and creative role model.

Warhol was a self-promoting egotist as evidenced by the way your mind conjures him portrait-style with white, spiky hair. You don't immediately think about his artwork when I mention Andy Warhol. You think about his image.

He was a so-so illustrator and filmmaker. Others executed his ideas. His Factory fully embraced the once-taboo idea of "selling out." He said he was merely a mirror of social desires -- a machine that churned out what people wanted.

He wasn't an outstanding artist, per se, but Warhol was an extraordinary image maker. He made copies. He understood the power of early TV and print mass media. He wooed the wealthy elite and slyly represented gay culture before there was a mass gay culture. He produced works of camo, cow and high heel shoe patterning, as well as screen prints of violent car wrecks and suicides. He worked in every medium imaginable.

In the turbulent sixties -- and I know that phrase is overused, but it really was turbulent back then -- Andy Warhol just had to exist. If he wasn't the cultural icon who would bring pop art to the masses, someone else would be.

Later in life, Warhol was a victim of his own celebrity when he was shot by a female stalker. He did not die from those wounds, but the incident exposed the dark side of fame.

I urge everyone to spend $8 to see the Warhol exhibit at the Wexner Center on OSU campus before February 15th. If you've never been to the Wex, you should because it's an Alice in Wonderland architectural experience in itself.

The exhibit has lots and lots of two-sided film screenings, sound recordings in sit-down nooks, surprising tiny celebrity photos, magazine and album cover designs (Who knew Warhol designed Sticky Fingers?), the memorable and large Double Elvis, and, of course, Marilyn in duplicate.

Two positive things I got out of this exhibit: First, there is a wonderful installation called Silver Clouds which I won't describe so you can experience it for yourself without prejudice. It is participatory and interactive, yet simple in design. So simple, in fact, I could probably duplicate this art experience in my own home without much expense. Maybe I will.

Secondly, Warhol was a collagist and I feel a connection with him in that regard. For him, it was usually done by cutting up celebrity glossy photos. For me, collage-making involves printing and scissoring interesting images found online, then arranging and duplicating them on my cheapo Epson printer -- all for the cost of a glue stick, paper and ink. Collage-making requires no artistic skills. Anybody can be a collage artist.

We are all artists, whether we get our 15 minutes of fame or not. Creativity begins at home and takes many forms. Your art doesn't have to be well executed or even original.... It's funny what you can learn from a gay eccentric from Pittsburgh.

Capitalism can be cruel, but it works. If they can't sell cars and make a profit, U.S. automakers should fail. Industry output is determined by the free market, not a Central Planning Committee -- and thank goodness for that.

Maybe after bankruptcy reorganization, the once-Big Three can rise from the dead in a morphed, more fuel-efficient form. But they must be allowed to die without government prolonging the agony.

It's not like bad times just snuck up on GM, Ford and Chrysler. These hulking corporations weren't profitable even in good economic times. While the influx of Toyotas, Hondas and other imported cars in the seventies helped to raise the quality bar on all car manufacturing, the obsolescence rate decreased. American manufacturers failed to retool for the future when they had a chance.

In my non-expert opinion, American automakers blew it by foisting useless and costly option packages on consumers. To wit, here are a few of the features on the Cadillac Escalade SUV (starting at $61K): Tri-zone climate control, Bose Cabin Surround Sound, rearview camera, Ultrasonic Rear Parking Assist, power adjustable running boards, heated and cooled cupholders, and heated steering wheel. Jeez! Wear gloves, for crissakes.

I think they crossed the line between luxury and silly with the introduction of heated seats in cars and trucks. As it turns out, heated car seats aren't just silly, they're bad for sperm:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Heated seats are a luxury in some cars, but they may be a little too hot for men, a preliminary study suggests.

Researchers found that 90 minutes on a heated car seat created a significant increase in men's scrotal temperature. Because heat stress on the testicles has been shown to impair sperm quality, the findings raise the possibility that over time, heated car seats could affect a man's fertility....

I say, keep your ass cool and drive a stick shift -- manual transmissions are 15% more fuel-efficient and way more fun to drive (wink, wink).

Steve Martin's Born Standing Up* is a memoir of the comedian's explosive stand-up career of the midseventies and how he walked away from it in 1981. It's a serious little book about comedy.

Here's how the book jacket summarizes:

"At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week.

"Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times -- the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies...."

Martin's largest audience in one day -- 18,695 -- happened at the Coliseum in Richfield. I saw him perform in 1977 at Mem Aud in Athens. His signature white three-piece suit and clean-cut appearance made him seem counter-counter-culture. The balloon animals, "happy feet," and arrow-through-the-head visual gags were absurd. He never resorted to profanity for laughs. He gave frantic neck rubs to the people in the first two rows (not mentioned in the book; a very funny routine). He was not your father's Shecky Greene.

In comedy parlance, Steve Martin killed that OU student audience. His closer at the time was: "Well, we've had a good time tonight, considering we're all going to die someday."

It doesn't seem that funny now. I guess you had to be there.

  * Book was published in 2007. Check your library for copies. 

Mental time-waster of the day: Besides music and certain human voices, what sounds please you the most?

My imaginary eco-warrior self might answer: crickets, bullfrog croaks, moaning cats in heat, or a honking gaggle of Canadian geese in Doppler effect.

Those are all great natural sounds, but gentle mechanical noise can be compelling too. Like the strained whirr of an electric pencil sharpener or the ding and flutter of a '70s pinball machine.

I think the best sound is the reassuring soft hydraulics and shuffle that comes just before an ATM machine blurts out money.

What's your favorite sound?

If the auto industry and Gordon Gekko set get a bailout, why not us? Business is way down at the Italian restaurant in my neighborhood. Why not a bailout for Luigi?

Handing over money to the Wall Street American Psychos seems like an utter waste. They'll just buy jets, yachts and business cards. Luigi could make more meatballs.

With online cut-throat competition and sting operations in full swing, the porn industry could use a bailout. They are losing customers like the guy in Hamilton who was recently arrested and charged with using a church computer to view and distribute child porn. As the suspect explained it, "It's the Catholic girl, plaid skirt thing." Oh yeah, that explains it. So why do we feel relieved that he doesn't have a thing for altar boy robes?

Come to think of it, those plaid-skirted Catholic girls could use a morality bailout of their own. Their Catholic leadership seems obsessed with making abortion a political issue to the point of publicly shaming Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. Shame on you, Catholic bishops.

Plus, the newest thing this millennium at Vatican City -- one of the few fabulously wealthy places on earth that doesn't need a bailout -- is raising environmental awareness and stewardship. Has it occurred to you, Mr. Pope, that without sensible, science-based birth control our planet would be an unsustainable, overpopulated eco-mess?

These are the kind of contradictory messages about sex celibate leaders are dispensing these days.

Those Catholic girls don't need cash, they just need a little empathy from their deeply paternalistic spiritual leadership.

I'm for more meatballs. Keep your stimulus package to yourself, please.

Columbus has had a wonderful African American leader in Michael Coleman. Most recently, our mayor has refused a pay raise for himself as well as 400 other city employees in preparation for a tight city budget. He did the same in 2003 as City Council President. It's a small gesture, but a meaningful one.

Apart from his politics, Mayor Coleman seems like an all-around good guy. He's been in the C-bus public eye for a long time, and I've been impressed with him as a husband and father. He's a handsome man too -- he reminds me of Billy Dee Williams, especially in his Lando Calrissian persona, and not so much as the Colt 45 pitchman.

Mayor Coleman fits right in marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Like President-Elect Obama, he's a black man we Caucasians can trust -- oh, I didn't mean to infer that black men are untrustworthy, um...this is why it's best not to discuss race issues if you're white. But since I am gleefully unemployed and don't have to worry about getting fired, I shall continue to blather....

I was touched by the tears of joy and expressions of "I never thought I'd live to see the day..." from people of color in the aftermath of Obama's election. I'm sure I have never fully appreciated their struggle.

Just as a thought experiment, I tried to imagine Hillary Clinton being elected. Would women be jumping for joy in the streets for their first woman president? No. The young girls I know have no doubts that they could grow up to be president. You really can't compare gender to race.

African Americans -- and it is cool that Obama is a genuine African American -- have certainly made great strides and we whites are happy for them. However, while we readily accept blacks in the public sphere, we lack personal relationships with them. Personally, my immediate neighborhood has exactly one black family in it, and I no longer have contact with the black people I used to work and occasionally lunch with.

My lack of black friends makes me feel a bit guilty. On the other hand, I haven't made any new white friends in the last 20 years either -- no discrimination there.

I cringe when I think of racist remarks my parents used to say, and it's unfortunate that those rare negative memories have stuck with me. But lately I've been self-aware of my own prejudices against Hispanics. Why do Spanish-speaking workers in my neighborhood annoy me so much? Could it be that I don't understand Spanish? I have obsessive thoughts about their immigration status.

My neighborhood is about 10% Asian American -- their immigration status never crosses my mind. These are super-studious people who dress their children nicely and walk them to school. Asians -- a really broad, catchall ethnicity -- are great neighbors in my stereotype portfolio.

One of my favorite websites in Stuff White People Like. It's so funny. It has spawned Stuff Asian People Like and other knockoffs. SWPL is funny because it's so true for me -- I love New Balance shoes (#96)!

I voted for Obama and I support Mayor Coleman, but not because they are black. It's just an added bonus.

Thankfully, we no longer have to listen to worn-out campaign rhetoric, but I'm afraid that the nebulous label maverick is here to stay. It was entrenched in our culture long before Mavericks to Nowhere McCain and Palin adopted it.

As you may know, the term maverick originally meant an unbranded calf. A hot Russian chick explains the word's etymology surprisingly well in this Hot for Words video.

Bret Maverick, played by James Garner, was a poker-playing anti-hero in the comedy-western early TV series of the same name. Maverick was Tom Cruise's character name in Top Gun.

The Mavericks is a deadly surfing spot in northern California as well as an NBA team in Dallas.

The Maverick ('70-'77) was one of the most successful car models Ford Motor Co. ever built.

It's also the name of a roller coaster at Cedar Point, a Texan family with radical roots, a band, a record company, and -- my favorite -- a registered trademark for fancy but damaged fruit.

As columnist Maureen Dowd has pointed out, anyone who calls themselves a maverick probably isn't one. Self-branding just doesn't work, unless you're a bruised pear.

It seems like Obama won the presidency by a mandate of the American people, but that's not really true. He won by 7.86 million votes -- a mere 2.6% of the total U.S. population.

The fact is, a huge segment of eligible American citizens did not vote and evidently don't care about politics. Here's how it breaks down (thanks to my crunchy-number husband):

Total U.S. Adult Population 11/08: 230.43 M

Obama Votes                           65.002 (28.2%)

McCain Votes                            57.143 (24.8%)

Other for President                      1.200 (0.5%)

Ineligible to vote*                      12.800 (5.5%)

Eligible & Didn't Vote                      94.285 (40.9%)

  * 8 million adult illegal immigrants & 4.8 M convicted felons.

Sure, there are people who don't have transportation, who are too sick or too busy or have a problem with voter registration, expired drivers licenses or whatever. But it seems pretty clear to me that a jumbo piece of the American pie doesn't give a rat's ass who their president is.

And that's cool! Here in America, you have a right to not participate! 

As Republicans try to regroup after their sound defeat, I'm feeling a bit smug.

They lost. They lost not because the Democrats won -- Dems being a rather disjointed group -- but because they continued to play to the same old shrinking good old boy base.

I honestly think the GOP strategists are so used to thinking of women as subordinates, they failed to recognize our equality as voters.

While Obama extended a hand to women with promises of equal pay for equal work, health care fairness and the biblically inspired phrase of "my sister's keeper," McCain mocked women's "health" and chose an intellectually shallow beauty queen as his running mate in an any-skirt-will-do move.

It seems unlikely that a man who grew up in the military and married a woman 17 years younger than he is would ever have a feminist thought in his head.

According to one report, "Exit polls show that women, who are more than half of all voters, broke for Barack Obama by about 56 percent." (One of the reasons that women outnumber men as voters is because the prison population is 80% male, says Newsweek.)

Republicans had virtually nothing to offer to independent-thinking women. On abortion, they were wrong, wrong, wrong. (I feel like the mean kid on The Simpsons who says "ah-ha" when someone screws up. I did, after all, warn you, Republicans....see #17 of this post dated 1/17/08.)

I think we all figured out that it is disingenuous to preach limited government and at the same time put rules on gynecologists' office procedures.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said: "I've been wondering what it would feel like to know that the president of the United States supports women -- it's been a while -- and I must say, it feels amazing." I agree!

I will be voting for Obama because of his worldview, his policies, genuineness, intelligence, willingness to embrace new technology, his beautiful family and his unique ability to unite us all, among other reasons.  But to be honest, the guy could blather on about nothing at all at this point, and I would still vote for him.

I'm in love with his voice. That rich baritone just sends me. Mrowr.

A steady, low male voice makes me feel reassured.  Plus, there's a civil-rightsy lilt to Obama's speech patterns that I find both refreshing and nostalgic.  It's a pleasure just to listen to him.

In the broadcasting business, a low speaking voice is known as ballsy -- such is the respect accorded to the Bowzers among us.

Women who aspire to be politicians and preachers are definitely disadvantaged vocal cords-wise. I think Hillary Clinton has an exceptionally strong voice, but even she is often accused of being shrill. When her voice cracked just a bit, the media called her a crier.

Good thing Obama is using that ballsy voice of his for the purposes of good, not evil. I really could just close my eyes and be mesmerized by the sound of it.

Add another one to the you've-got-to-be-kidding-me list: John McCain and Sarah Palin are holding a rally in Columbus during Beggars Night. Will the GOP graveyard metaphors never cease?

It's bad enough that the Republican Party was allowed to manipulate the timing of the NFL season opener for the benefit of its convention coverage. Now they are tampering with my favorite non-patriotic, non-religious community event. Is nothing non-sacred?

I wonder if the Party is taking a cue from party-pooper Pat Robertson:

"I think we ought to close Halloween down. Do you want your children to dress up as witches? Druids used to dress up like this when they were doing human sacrifice....[Your children] are acting out Satanic rituals and participating in it and don't even realize it."

If you really want to scare kids, pass out Bible tracts like these. (Seriously, if you are looking to put cartoon depictions of Mohammed in the hands of children, look no further than Chick Tracts.)

Yes, porch lights will be out Friday evening at GOP loyalists' homes. Just as well, really. As any savvy Trick-or-Treater knows, rich people give out sub-standard candy. Don't waste your time climbing steps in McMansion neighborhoods, kids. Full-size Hershey bars are readily available in kid-rich areas with more modest homes. Check your Catholic parish maps!

Adding to the incredulousness of the Nationwide Arena rally are special guests Arnold the Terminator, Hank Bocephus Jr. (author of "Family Tradition," a song about his family's penchant for drinking and puking), and Joe the Bloviating Idiot.

And a costume contest! Yes, it's fun to dress up, Gov. Palin, but enough is enough.

I wouldn't miss Beggars Night for anything. In fact, I purchased eight bags of 100 Grands and I've already eaten about a million's worth. I look forward to sharing the wealth tomorrow. It just may save my expensive dental work.