Daylight Savings Time annoying AND deadly

It may come as a surprise to sophisticated readers, but the inspirational soundtrack for these posts is often the morning farm report.

I rise with the roosters and am on the road by 6 a.m. most mornings, my radio set to Latrobe WCNS-AM.

As the local agriculture reporter drones on about the price of soy, winter wheat and dairy futures, I drive half asleep past about a dozen chickens, four cows and a black and white goat my daughters tell me is named Oreo, famed among the school bus set for once having escaped by chewing a hole in his fence.

The farm report and the bucolic scenery seem to further soften my still-foggy mind so the first lively newspaper story I see jumpstarts my thinking so I can wax euphoric over things like mimes and Earth’s eventual occupation of Kepler 22b.

Today I’d like to issue a little farm report of my own.

The cows look relaxed, the chickens serene and Oreo fit as a fence-chewing fiddle.

And I feel like I was out drinking all night and got all of the headache and none of the fun.

It’s Day II of our great national hangover, Daylight Savings Time.

I’ve had my share of killer hangovers, but those I’ve suffered in solitary.

Turns out Daylight Savings Time is killing us all.

A University of Alabama at Birmingham news release said the Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks ahead are associated with a 10 percent increase in the risk of heart attack.

It’s a common vanity for men and women to boast they have some time to kill.

Foolish mortals. Time’s killing you!

The exact opposite is true in October when we move the clocks back: Risk decreases by 10 percent.

It’s only logical to conclude if we move the clocks back an hour once a month we could eliminate killer heart attacks all together.

I don’t understand the need to monkey around with time so much.

I have enough trouble sleeping. I lay awake worrying about money, my fathering deficiencies, Sidney Crosby’s return from concussion symptoms, international conflicts and irrational tyrants bent on attaining the WMD that experts say will nudge the world ever-closer to nuclear doom.

And now I have to worry about artificial time manipulations increasing my risk of deadly heart attack.

Then there’s the tedious logistics of it all. My computer and phone both automatically reset, but my three watches, my Bose stereo, car radio and two battery operated clocks require pesky manual adjustments.

Changing clocks takes time. And every second spent tinkering with the hands of time is another second spent dreading the unhealthy consequences.

And, really, big picture, I fret over what DST does to the Doomsday Clock. Artificially operating since 1947, it was intended to herald the threat to humanity from nuclear catastrophe, but has since upped the gloom quotient by adding the threat from climate change.

Could a careless re-setting of the Doomsday Clock render all my cares and worries moot?

I’m too sleep deprived to calculate the possibilities.

I do know this much: I’ve never once heard my morning farm report announce there’s a strange outbreak of bovine insomnia striking the region.

And until you start seeing cows with wristwatches strapped to their left front legs, I doubt you’re going to find a cow that has trouble sleeping.

They go through life untroubled by our vanities regarding time and the pretense of our ability to control it -- right up until the kind-hearted farmer packs them off to the slaughter house.

And now I’m doomed to spend at least part of the day wondering if the Doomsday Clock has a snooze alarm. Holocaust or not, I’m still going to need my beauty sleep.

But that’s a matter to be resolved another day.

Right now I just don’t have the time.

Re-Run Sunday: In praise of profanity

Consider this a mission statement: I enjoy swearing and often tell my daughters there are no bad works, only bad times to say some words. Joe Biden learned this in March 2010 when live mics picked him up saying the f-word to Barack Obama.

Later the next day, I said the same word twice before breakfast:

At least once a week I regret my vow to make this a family-friendly blog. See, I’m pro-profanity. I love to swear and my life is enriched with ample provocations to do so.

Happened just this morning.

For reasons of economy, taste and snobbery, I’ve pretty much kicked the fast food habit.

But sometimes the body simply needs fuel. Today I wanted to accomplish a lot in a little time so I swung by the nearest McDonald’s and ordered a sausage biscuit with cheese. The place is notorious for its inefficiency and I hadn’t been there in probably two years.

I zipped through the drive-thru and made it back to my office in under two minutes.

I was pleased to think that maybe my faith in humanity was being restored in that they’ve evolved and learned to work together more efficiently and, yeah, I gave all the credit to Barack.

That will please conservatives because of what happened next.

I unfolded the paper and inside was just the biscuit with cheese.

I’d been awake barely 20 minutes and I screamed my first profanity of the day.

My entire order was just four words long: “sausage biscuit with cheese.” And only three of the words involved food.

I understand in these busy times that many people are distracted and that many of our attention spans have shortened to jiffy fractions. So if the wrapper had contained just a sausage biscuit, I’d have understood.

But how Person A says or prints “sausage biscuit with cheese,” and Person B omits the sausage is incomprehensible.

It is the very essence of any sausage sandwich. I’d wager in the history of McDonald’s history no one’s ever said, “I’d like a biscuit with cheese.”

So now I’m on a mission. I grab the inedible mistake and dash straight back to the drive-thru determined to keep my cool.

I like situational profanity, but using it at someone always makes me feel small. Plus, the store was clearly staffed with idiots who’d have responded to my barbs with either gunfire or dumbfounded stares.

I politely explained to the girl I needed to see the manager. She said, sure, and asked me to pull up to the second drive thru.

No, I’ll wait here, I said.

It was a small act of civil disobedience, but I have a pet theory about the progression of drive thrus and here was an opportunity to perhaps further its potential.

See, there were no drive thrus when I was a boy. Now each restaurant has two. My theory is that in 20 years it will take four drive thrus to screw up each order.

The manager, a sweet grandmotherly lady, approached and heard my complaint. I said I wanted a new sausage biscuit with cheese and compensation for the inconvenience.

“Well, we don’t have any gift certificates here, but I can give you some pie!”

Pie?

As I said, I’m not a frequent patron so I don’t know what McDonald’s breakfast pie would entail. I’ve had and enjoyed quiche, which is a pie-shaped entree. But I’d already ordered my breakfast entree.

I said no thanks. She took my address and said she’d send some gift certificates. Soon she handed me a sack and said, “Here’s your sausage biscuit with cheese -- I put a free hash brown in for you!”

She said it in a way that led me to believe this gesture led past disgruntled customers to emerge from their vehicles and do handsprings around the parking lot.

I just said, “Thank you for your consideration.”

I get back to the office and opened the sack and unfolded the wrapper. Know what was inside?

Biscuit with cheese, egg and bacon.

I shouted the day’s second profanity with such a reverberating gusto that I imagined flocks of birds simultaneously lifting off from branches all across distant savannahs.

It helped relieve the strain.

That brings me to Joe Biden’s profane gaffe. I was so pleased to see it didn’t inspire the usual holier-than-thou back and forth that’s become so common in our over-heated political climate.

We’re all becoming more comfortable with profanity.

It gives me hope that someday I’ll be able to use all my favorite swear words right here in this family-friendly blog.

And on that day, I’ll tell you exactly what I thought when I bit into that bacon mistake I was too furious to return a second time.

“Hey, this is pretty #@$*-ing good!”

Candidate families play "staring" role in creepy admiration

This primary season has convinced me one of the great disqualifying attributes for normal Americans is that we have no one who’ll stare adoringly at us for hours at a time.

Take the Santorum children.

They stare at Rick the way the apostles must have stared at Jesus after he told a really great joke.

The only way I could get my children to gaze at me with that combination of wonder and awe is if they spied something dangling from my nose.

It seems so unnatural.

I know many great fathers, both Republican and Democrat, and none of their teenage children look at them with even the least bit of regard, if they ever even bother to look at them at all.

If the father says something that requires their attention -- like, “Run for your life! The house is on fire!” -- the offspring’s reflex reaction is to roll their eyes, remove their earbuds, and glare at him with a mixture of contempt and impatience so deadly it’s like they’re trying to cause the beleaguered dad to detonate.

It’s not like that with the Santorum children.

It’s like they’re trying to convey to any mind readers they are thinking thoughts like, “This is a truly great man. I inner weep at my good fortune that he wasn’t engaged in mere recreational sex the night I was conceived. I’m comforted to know he’ll keep me forever safe from public education, Romneycare, its evil spawn, and all the sinful modernities exposed on his @ricksantorum Twitter account on the internet he’s never allowed me to see.”

It’s a bi-partisan phenomenon.

I remember seeing the children of a prominent Democrat casting the same adoring gazes upon their father, looks that conveyed daddy was a man of steadfast family devotion and loving wisdom. That father was ...

John Edwards!

Now he’s got two families who stare at him, but he’d probably rather not know what either of them is thinking.

The creepiest, of course, is Callista Gingrich. She’s always stationed there like she’s Newt’s big defective candle -- all wax, no wick.

Angelina doesn’t look at Brad Pitt the way Callista looks at Newt.

He’s her Adonis, her Rocky to his Adrienne, and it’s just hilarious because the Pillsbury Doughboy has more masculine definition than Newt -- and, yeah, the Doughboy’s probably a better roll model (rim shot!).

Mitt Romney’s wife seems more naturally easygoing, and their children are adult enough that they don’t have to sit and grin like tranquilized chimps whenever their father drones on and on about things like proper tree height.

The Huntsmen daughters were very cool, as was their father. I liked Jon Huntsman and believe it says something regrettable about the current GOP that Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman earned more serious consideration.

And I don’t remember seeing the Bush daughters reverentially staring at the old man like he was some thoughtful genius who’d never do anything rash that might damage America and her global reputation -- and, boy, I’ll bet in hindsight they’re relieved they didn’t.

Of course, they were too busy evading their Secret Service minders long enough to go out and get all gooned up like normal kids and, in fact, their own father did when he was their age.

Strong drink is a curse for many men and women, but I think America during the Bush/Cheney would have been better off if W. had never fully sobered up.

I know I could never have made it through without bourbon.

Some people are so hyper-partisan they reflexively hate without reason, but we have a great first family in the White House right now.

The girls are poised and Michelle Obama’s fantastic. I think it’s healthy they look at Barack when he’s speaking with the same sort of veiled contempt conveyed by Republican congressional leaders.

It’s like they don’t trust him to speak in public and are ready to pounce the second he says something stupid.

My wife and daughters are a lot like that even though I contend I’m a man of true greatness deserving of adoration.

I don’t know what I’ve done to earn such familial scorn.

I mean besides spending so much time writing this blog, of course.

Honked off about Egyptian nose jobs

I’m feeling optimistic about budding Egyptian democracy after reading that a member of parliament resigned in shame after it was revealed he’d gotten a nose job.

I hope you read that carefully.

That’s N-O-S-E job.

And nose job means the same thing in Egypt as nose job means here in America, although I’m sure if you troll the internet you can find adults-only pictures of American nose jobs that don’t involve rhinoplasty.

Anwar al-Balkimy felt forced to resign after his vanity was revealed. He’d initially said the bandages covering up his healing honker were from an attack by thugs.

It’s said in American politics the cover-up is always worse than the scandal. It may be the reverse in ultra-conservative Egypt where Islamists condemn plastic surgery as tampering with God’s creation.

They shun cosmetic surgery and all the oily contrivances of appearance we so value in our American leaders and entertainers. Apparently, it’s not like that in Egypt.

When people in Egypt want to see an ageless face incapable of natural expression, they turn to the ancient Sphinx.

We Americans look to Joan Rivers.

I’m ultra-conservative in my opinion of most plastic surgery, too. I believe there’s way too much of it.

I think we should focus on all our inner beauty, although the undying adolescent in me will always understand the playground appeal to a really great set of cartoon porn hooters.

I was disappointed at being unable to find a before-and-after profile of the now disgraced al-Balkimy.

I was eager to see the nose that was so offensive that he’d risk his career and national scorn to be rid of it. It must have been a real whopper.

We grew up with a kid we called Tommy Hoagie Nose. He had the biggest nose I’ve ever seen. It was so big neighborhood dogs used to congregate beneath it in the summer to enjoy the shade. If he turned his head against the breeze on a gusty day and began nodding, the cavernous nostrils would whistle “Dixie.”

Understand, we didn’t call him Hoagie Nose to be mean. We did it so everyone knew we weren’t talking about Cross-Eyed Tommy or Tommy the Booger Eater.

Looking back, I can see how it might have led to hurt feelings. Of course, none of that would have happened if any of the Tommy parents had been a little more creative in naming their sons.

All this judgmental talk about how people look could lead folks to conclude I’m The Ugly American.

That’s the title of a 1958 bestseller co-written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer about American arrogance and the failure to understand a foreign culture.

If I’m the Ugly American, I’m likely the last one.

We as a people are becoming far too pretty. Perfection has become homogenized, true beauty cheapened.

So I salute the Egyptian attitude that seems to be placing wisdom and integrity above superficial looks.

But what do I know? Who am I to be making culturally insensitive remarks about a people and a religion of which I have little understanding?

Maybe one day I’ll learn to just keep quiet instead of just shooting my mouth off whenever a thought starts drifting up from the swampy parts of my mind.

I guess that’s what you can expect from a guy all the neighborhood kids used to call Idiot Chris. I heard that throughout my childhood.

“Hey, look, everyone! Here comes Idiot Chris! It’s Idiot Chris! Idiot Chris!”

The nickname always seemed kind of stupid to me.

Why would I have even needed a nickname when I was the only Chris for miles around?

Hard facts on GOP contraception controversy

I am the father of two daughters I adore. I love them both very much.

Most of the time.

I love them both equally except when I don’t. Sometime I find myself loving the one more than the other because the one is being extra-affectionate to compensate for her sister calling me stinky. She will learn one day this behavior is called “ass kissing” and while I disapprove, it’s often very effective with me and other people given to shallow emotions.

I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I never had children. In many ways, I imagine it would be much more leisurely and I’d be a more skilled golfer.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we had four or five children. I imagine it would be hell.

While, as you can see, I am an ambivalent parent, I’ve not once had any negative feelings about condoms or birth control pills.

I’m very much in favor of them and all their fertility-busting cousins.

In fact, there were times when I exalted over having access to a single condom the way professional football players exalt over having victorious access to the Lombardi trophy.

Just when did contraceptives become so controversial?

It contradicts logic.

Global warming, starvation, poverty -- there isn’t a problem on the planet that couldn’t be eased by reducing the number of people we have standing on it.

I’m one of those guys who think men and women should have access to every single type of contraceptive they want and they should be in sidewalk vending machines right next to the ones that dispense Coke and other sodas harmful to our health.

I’d go ever further.

I think the government should put erection detectors in the beds of every single adolescent boy in America. As soon as a virgin boy’s first erection is detected, SEAL Team 6 should should parachute onto the house armed with suitcases full of condoms.

These men should then explain to the boy what sex is, what it leads to, and how it can enhance or destroy his life depending on the choices he makes.

Then he should be told that whenever he’s alone with a girl and feels an erection beginning to bud he should immediately begin putting condoms on everything and three condoms on some things.

When I hear leading Republicans tell us this isn’t about sex, it’s about religious freedom, I’m reminded of H.L. Mencken who said, “When someone says it isn’t about money, it’s about money.”

U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers updated the phrase for the Clinton impeachment trials when he said, “When you hear someone say this isn’t about sex, it’s about sex.”

This has nothing to do with religious freedom and everything to do with sex.

The Republicans are once again trying to legislate it out of human nature, and even Republicans are beginning to sense it’s going to cost them.

“Republicans being against sex is not good,” observes sensible GOP consultant Alex Castellanos. “Sex is popular.”

It’s looking more and more like Republicans, in fact, are going to get a lesson on over-population come November 6 when vast majorities of Americans show up to vote for Democrats.

That’s fine with me. I support a party that encourages common sense solutions to the impulsive challenges Mother Nature imposes on us all.

Every responsible parent, church and political party should be encouraging behavior that reduces the likelihood of unplanned pregnancies.

That’s why we need artificial ways to reduce the number of unwanted children we have.

The reduction in the number of unwanted Republican office holders will occur more naturally.

And, just to be clear, I was being facetious earlier when I said I only love my daughters just part of the time. I love them both all of the time with a love so great it’s difficult to express.

And I love only slightly less all the contraceptives we use that ensure I’ll never have another one.

Re-run Sunday: Take two naps, call me in the morning

Ah, naps, one of the top two things there is to do in bed. I wrote this in May 2010 and have only grown in my support of regular human napping. It's maybe the one realm where people should emulate cats.

I hope you get some nap time today. Encourage someone cuddly to join you.

Tomorrow's post will deal with just how contraception managed to become controversial.

One of the most wonderful things to do in bed or on a desk in the afternoon is once again being disparaged by Type-A personalities, the same people who continue to find speedier and speedier ways to screw up this godforsaken world.

And I’m not talking about sex, which needs no defending from the likes of me. Types-A through Z love sex and are having it all the time all over the place. They have nooners in cheap hotels, handy closets and right out in the open and I’m all for it.

So is practically everybody else. We all enjoy a good romp and can agree that the more time people spend drilling each other the less time they’ll spend drilling things like deep sea oil wells so that’s a net positive.

What I’m talking about is another basic human act that can leave you feeling as refreshed as you do after sex without all the emotional entanglements, the texted lies to suspicious spouses or weeks of worry about exotic social diseases that’ll leave you feeling anything but sociable.

I’m talking about the nap, the doze, the 40 winks.

In some hard-charging corporate centers, office drunks get more understanding than anyone who’d dare to nap during company time.

And please don’t mistake that easy example for a bash on office drunks. I support them, too. In fact, it’s hard to find a human vice I don’t encourage in others or nurture in myself.

Napping is in the news because this week two high profile baseball figures have been exposed as on-the-job nappers.

Teammates of Seattle Mariners great Ken Griffey Jr. tattled to reporters that Griffey was unable to pinch hit one recent game because he was napping in the clubhouse. And doesn’t “pinch hit” sound like a fast escalating sequence of violence from someone with anger management issues?

And, hilariously, Keith Hernandez, a former New York Met great, “Seinfeld” guest and a team announcer, is making the YouTube rounds after being caught on camera napping while he was -- shhhh! -- broadcasting a game.

This, of course, led to predictable howls of snide humor at the expense of a game that’s always being bullied by freakish numbskulls devoted to professional football.

If Major League Baseball had any sense it would promote its games as a great place to nap. I’ve enjoyed napping during many baseball games. Heck, as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, now in their 18th consecutive year of losing baseball, I’ve napped through many seasons.

I’ve become a nap aficionado in the last few years because of the little sleep bandit that lives across the hall. Like her sister before her, she comes unbidden into our room in the wee small hours, snuggles in between my wife and I, and spends the rest of the night kicking me in places no man likes to be kicked.

On top of that, once I’m awakened, my mind is off and running. I start thinking about why it seems I’m doomed to be broke. I think about great rounds of golf I’ve shot and courses I’d like to play. And I think about the thing I’ve thought about ever since I was 14 and I was surprised to learn there are things to do in beds other than doze.

I haven’t had a good night’s sleep ever since.

Just the other night, I had a romantic dream about my lovely wife. Really, it was great. Very fulfilling. But then I woke up angry that dream Rachel McAdams had blown me off.

Bitch.

What, is dream me not good enough for dream her?

So given all this, it would probably be wise for a guy like me to lay down for extended stretches on a psychiatrist’s couch.

But that’s not for me.

Naps are. I’m trying to build in a little nap time into any day when I feel a refresher is needed. Studies show that power nappers experience benefits in both the mind and body. It worked for renown nappers like Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Maybe it’ll work for me. Maybe it’ll help turn my floundering career around. Maybe I’ll be an inspiration to sleep-deprived scores of others who’ll follow my lead.

I’ll be Johnny Nappleseed!

But that all sounds pretty ambitious for a sleep-deprived guy like me.

First, I need to make time for a little slumber siesta.

I hope stuck-up dream Rachel McAdams isn’t too busy for an afternoon quickie.

Heathen seeking Mormon baptism

I’d be surprised if there are any busy Mormon church leaders out there who read a blog that references the Amish in the title but if there are, I have a simple request:

Will you please baptize me in the Mormon faith?

Now, I wrote that last sentence and sat back in my chair for a good 12 seconds. I figure that ought to do it.

If it did happen -- and my fingers were crossed -- then it was the most painfree religious experience of my entire life.

My request will seem heretical to men and women of many faiths, but it will get a hearty “Amen!” from an icon worshipped around the world.

That would be Elvis.

Raised a Christian by his Jewish mother, The King who died of problems associated with obesity viewed religion the way he viewed an all-you-can-eat buffet. His spiritual plate was heavy with portions from all the great religions and included morsels from some of the really wacky ones.

And let’s for now set aside the arguments that every single religion is to some degree really wacky.

When he was asked the year of his death why he wore jewelry featuring symbols from different religions -- notice the necklace in the picture -- and Elvis said, “I don’t want to miss out on goin’ to heaven on a technicality.”

The statement is the ecumenical equivalent of “Jail House Rock.” It’s pure genius.

Today’s news is full of stories of Christians outraged that Mormons are baptizing the soul of Jew murdered by Muslims 10 years ago.

At last, something to unite all the great religions!

The Mormons have a peculiar habit of converting to Mormonism dead folks they think they’d like to see in Mormon heaven.

Recipients of these belated baptisms include Joan of Arc, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Mahatma Gandhi, and Adolph Hitler.

That’s right, Hitler! And if ever there was a case to be made for a community saying, “There goes the neighborhood!” it must have been when Hitler showed up in Heaven.

Imagine being at the church council meeting when it was proposed they retrieve from Hell the soul of Hitler, who by then was probably pretty used to Hell and may have been reluctant to relocate, moving being such a pain the butt -- even from Hell to Heaven.

Think of the salesmanship. That had to be one persuasive Mormon, an articulator capable of convincing masses of adults that his ideas were superior.

I’m guessing it wasn’t Mitt Romney.

Parts of these in absentia baptism are very appealing, especially the part that involves me staying home Sunday mornings rather than having to go to church.

The latest controversial post-death baptism is that of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2002 was beheaded by Khalid Sheik Muhammad -- and, please, let’s not give any posthumous passes to bin Laden or any of the 9/11 terrorists.

It all stems from a Mormon belief that to gain entry to heaven, we must all be Mormon.

Christians conservatives are reacting with self-righteous indignation, which is how Christians conservatives react to any topic ranging from condoms to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Expanding the never-ending religious wars to heavenly realms seems fraught with pitfalls. Our very souls have become bargaining chips.

I fully expect Rick Santorum to make this a campaign issue at the next debate:

“Gov. Romney, I hold in my hand the Salt Lake City phone book containing the names of more than 200,000 Mormons. If you don’t give us back Marilyn Monroe, I’m turning them all Roman Catholic. I’m giving you four seconds . . .”

I wonder if heaven is like Disney World. Once you get in, you get a pass that will allow you to spend a day in Jewland or Mormonworld or skip between parks depending on your mood -- and if Disney’s in charge you can bet the pass will cost something like $20 million per soul.

Me, I welcome the baptisms of anyone who thinks spending eternity with a guy like me would be a hoot -- and I thank you for not consulting my wife in advance.

Otherwise, I’m content leaving my spiritual disposition up to that supreme being loved and admired by men and women of differing faiths from all over the world.

And if Elvis is busy, I’m fine leaving it all up to God.