When in doubt read USA Today

It comes free with the room, which is why I read it at all. I remember when this little bright and cheery newspaper first started, it was a bit deal to have all that color in a newspaper. The fact that it covered the most germane and boring news it could find seemed to be a bit of a side issue. Hey, it’s got big color charts in there!
The front page today covers a nice gamut from pills work as well as angioplasty-yes, I had to check the spelling-to the goal of most Gen-Xers is to get rich. Hmm, isn’t that like, everyone’s goal?
The center story is about a school for poor kids and their struggles when one of the kids gets killed. It is a school for troubled kids and the photo is filled with crying and thoughtful black kids attending the funeral. I am not black, but I did grow up in one of the many fine ghettos in Fort Worth, TX surrounded by poor people of all colors and sizes. While I lived there it went from poor white lowlifes, to poor black lowlifes and last time I was there was working its way through poor Mexican lowlifes. It skipped the poor Asian lowlifes phase, or maybe I just missed it. One of my coworkers was talking about poor blacks the other day and said something along the lines of they can all make it if they wanted to-look at Bill Cosby. Hmm, Bill Cosby? Not even look at Oprah or Tiger Woods, but look at Bill Cosby. Of course, that fact of the matter is they all look at Pro Ball players, even the girls want to grow and be sports stars now. Is there any easier way to make millions of dollars before you turn thirty? Well, besides being born into it like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie and all the little darlings that Angelina is collecting like seashells from around the world. It’s hard for most people who have not been there to know what it is like to walk around hungry all the time. It tends to make you a bit pissed off.
Which brings me to another front page story, cities set limits on feeding the homeless. What a nifty concept that is. Ok, I think the homeless should be treated like stray dogs, you put them in a shelter and if no one claims them in three days put them to sleep. Being people, not dogs or cats or iguanas, means that we shouldn’t take them out and shoot them. Which didn’t stop people in Brazil from rounding up street urchins a few years ago and taking them for a ride they didn’t return from. But we’re America by God, we don’t do things like that. Not any more anyway. Texas is famous for most small towns having signs that read Don’t Let The Sun Set On You. These signs were not for homeless per say, as the PC term didn’t exist in those days, but it was clear that staying after sunset was a bad idea. A few years ago I meet a homeless loony that wanted businesses in Dallas to ‘adopt’ a bum. Feed them, give them a place to sleep, maybe even give them a job. Hmm, you can guess how well that idea went over. All any business owner wants from a bum is for them to go away and stay away. Which is most likely why cities want to limit feeding schedules, maybe the animals will migrate somewhere else. Being homeless was a crime for a long time, and it still maybe for all I know. Being gay is still a crime in places, so who knows? I had an idea for feeding all these lowlifes once, take all the food that is going out of date and the supermarket has to toss anyway and feed it to the homeless. Oh my God the screams that idea provoked, you can’t feed them bad food! Ever been to a food bank? It all has to be brand new, hot off the line, just like it was going to a supermarket for sale to the public. I also thought that restaurants that routinely prepare fresh food all day, like say, fried chicken places, could give their tossed food to shelters. Same response, if it’s not good enough for the buying public, it’s not good enough for some addle-brained wino. Ok, not all homeless are drug addicts who haven’t had a bath in ten years, some have bathed in like, oh, five years.
Last front page story-Poll backs subpoenas for Bush aides. Bush had someone fired for political reasons? This is a shock? Has the dimwit ever done anything that was not for a political reason? As always when given a choice of doing something that makes sense and doing something that makes him look like an idiot, he chooses the looks like an idiot option by saying, sure, you can ask them anything, so long as you don’t use it, record it, or admit that it was ever said. Hmm, what’s wrong with that picture? It makes it look like our fearless leader is afraid of something. I think that Bush is like every other leader in history that he just has this tiny little belief that he is Above the Law. Hey, he’s the President, right?
Ok, there is also some stuff about Anna Nicole, but hey, who gives a rat’s ass? There is also a big photo of some basketball player and finial four talk, but again, who cares?
So I have a post from responding to a few headlines and doing a tiny bit of reading of the articles. I’m sure there is more interesting stuff hidden inside, but I don’t want to spend all day doing this. I tend to carry my own beliefs and ideas with me into the story, does everyone do this? We all have opinions about, well, everything. These were a handful of mine.