COLUMN: Back to Nothing in Particular

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By Tobin Barnes
Nope, there will be no more discussion about the global war on terror from this guy.

After spending three weeks nattering on about something with which I’m only vaguely familiar and totally unqualified to comment upon, I have decided to come back to my roots. That’s right. I’m going to talk about nothing in particular…again. Like usual.

It’s not that serious substance doesn’t suit me—I think I made as good a case on that deeply important global problem as any other blathering idiot—it’s just that solemn, well-intentioned analysis hardly ever makes any difference anyway. So why bother?

After all, nothing ever really happens until there’s some mind-blowing crisis that can’t be swept under the rug and simply ignored like everything else. It’s the modus operandi of human kind throughout history. Emotion trumps analysis every time.

Nope, I’m going back to writing about nothing in particular—at least for a while.

Yeah, nothing in particular like what a cold, rotten, stormy winter it’s been.

There. Enough said about that one. Who wants to hear anymore?

Hey, this nothing-in-particular stuff is easier than I remember.

And, let’s see, other nothings in particular, such as my puppy getting a really rare, weird disease and dying after getting to live for only four months. Uh huh, it was a bummer. Scout was a good little dog with a lot of potential.

And it’s sad.

We’ve talked about this kind of stuff before. How when compared to the mass of misery out there needing to be documented and grieved and addressed, we sometimes get caught up in little tragedies that might better be quickly passed over and given little regard—little tragedies like the grossly premature death of a puppy.

That little loss is a mere drop in the ocean of the global suffering that takes place every day. Therefore, it’s hardly remarkable in comparison.

But, nevertheless, I mention it anyway. Little tragedies make an impact, too, just like little joys. Actually, they are much of what life is made of. If it were all big stuff, good and bad, we couldn’t cope.

So I think I’ll treasure my little bouts of sadness and joy and pass on the big ones; that is, if it’s a matter of choice, which I highly doubt.

And some more recent nothings in particular…?

How about trying to lose weight, a theme that touches most of us?

As for me, it’s been so far so good. I’m about twenty-five pounds less than I was this time last year. I guess that’s one of those little joys I was talking about.

But as we’ve often been told by the media, the process of losing weight and then keeping it off, statistically, is likely to be a failure. Now that certainly qualifies as a little sadness.

That’s right. Most people can’t keep the weight off that they’ve struggled mightily to take off. In other words, taking it off is easier than keeping it off.

Huh.

When I talked about this subject last summer, I was approaching a total weight loss of nearly twenty pounds. I said at the time that after all the effort it took, I shouldn’t weigh a mere twenty pounds less, I should weigh only twenty pounds, period. That’s what the effort feels like.

Yeah, it’s a job, an everyday grind, and, admittedly, things have slowed down this fall and winter. As I said, I’m now at a twenty-five pound weight loss, total, only five more pounds than last summer.

The cause of the weight-loss slowdown must be my caveman genes. It’s like I need to preserve some bulk like our ancestors to survive the life-threatening winter. But like the appendix, this latent characteristic no longer does us much good.

It’s one of nature’s cruel jokes. Ha, ha, I can almost see some humor. My genes are making me work as hard now just to keep weight off as I was when I was losing it.

But then on the bright side, I’m not gaining weight as I statistically should be, which is an unqualified little joy.

If only this and a few other little joys could continue. That would certainly be more than nothing in particular.

Uh, No

Good Old Days of Late Night

(Sent by Roy Wilson)

COLUMN: This Doesn't Totally Make Sense, but What Does?

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By Tobin Barnes
If you’ve been following my columns the last couple weeks—heck, maybe you gave up—I wrote a couple harangues on the War on Terror, a topic, admittedly, very well out of my league. But I’ve got opinions just like anyone else, so I gave them.

Today, I’ll finish up my viewpoints with my last geopolitical rant. (I think I can hear “Thank goodness!” collectively rising from my dwindling audience. “It’s about time, Barnes. Go back to those light, slice-of-life-type things instead, like dealing with a new puppy and that kind of powder-puff stuff.”)

Uh huh, thanks for the vote of confidence. Now is your chance to escape because here I go again for one last time:

My basic premise is this: We should fight the War on Terror from outside third-world countries rather than in them. The war should be fought from a position of strength instead of chasing around foreign countries, losing precious lives and using borrowed resources, stirring up resentment but little gratitude, and never knowing when we’re finally done.

I said we should cut off (quarantine) these troublesome countries with our global reach and influence and let them work out their own problems in their own good time—starting from whatever century they’re currently living in—until these countries are ready to become contributing members of the world community. Pressure from without would be much more effective than pressure from within.

Yeah, I know it’s a mouthful, and by stating it that simply, I also realize it sounds naïve and filled with gaps a battleship could steam through.

But let’s consider some arguments against my weakest points.

For example, quarantining “bad” countries didn’t work prior to World War II.

True, but we were trying to quarantine territorially aggressive military superpowers that had the power to grab whatever they wanted. The present third-world trouble-spots have difficulty ruling within their own borders.

Next weak point: Don’t we have a humanitarian obligation to these countries?

Yes, two-thirds of the world could use our help, so, as with the rest, we should give the trouble spots aid and instruction where it is wanted and is effective, but we shouldn’t hold their hands. It’s insulting. They themselves have to do the heavy lifting, or improvements will never take hold.

Then how about this? Many of those trouble spots have resources (let’s go ahead and call it oil) that we want and need.

Granted, but we tend to forget that third-world countries, oil rich nations such as Saudi Arabia included, need us as much or probably more than we need them. Their pugnacious attitudes may change once we have cut off relations and trade with them. If not, they can enjoy all that oil amongst themselves.

But our way of life will fall apart if we can’t access the oil and/or other essential resources we must have.

Well, maybe this is where the real War on Terror needs to be fought. Maybe we should spread the burden of war around to everybody instead of hefting it solely on the shoulders of our patriotic young people who are willing to fight for our country. Our war should be a war on foreign energy dependence with all citizens doing their parts as we re-gear our energy infrastructure for a greener future.

This will necessarily require sacrifice from all our citizenry, as well as some economic dislocations, but this is the war we really need to fight. And in the long run, it will be much cheaper as technological energy efficiency will spur job creation through a burgeoning economy that will leave a better world for future generations.

Okay, even if we buy that overly-optimistic scenario, Barnes, how about the nuclear threat?

If we had forces trying to regulate every benighted country in the world, it still wouldn’t eliminate the chance of some disaffected group successfully touching off the big one. There will never be a total guarantee against that.

And what will more likely continue to ignite terrorist fervor, our forces rampaging through every trouble-spot that pops up in a virtually infinite stream, or just allowing these wild-eyed fanatics to fester in isolation until their own people come up with their own solutions to their violent agendas?

So there. That’s my two cents worth even if it’s worth only two cents.

Monologue | Wednesday night on “The Jay Leno Show” on NBC: It’s hard to believe President Obama has now been in office for a year. And you know, it’s incredible. He took something that was in terrible, terrible shape, and he brought it back from the brink of disaster. The Republican Party. Read more…

Monologue | Monday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: People are worried about NBC. Earlier today, President Obama announced that he’s sending in 30,000 troops. Out to Burbank. Read more…

COLUMN: Some More of What I Think...I Think

Image by Cokaigne via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
Last time I made some outlandish statements--holy cow!--about the War on Terror, knowing absolutely nothing about it other than what I’ve seen in the media. And, boy, what a swamp the media can be—hardly a bedrock from which to form opinions.

Nevertheless, I figured I could take a few random shots in the dark as well as the other idiots we hear from all the time, so I launched with the preposterous idea that we should fight the War on Terror from outside these Muslim third-world countries rather than in them.

If any of my readers actually comprehended this weird foreign policy knuckleball, I’d be surprised. But I did promise to explain myself this time, so here goes:

History has shown that sending forces into somebody else’s country necessarily creates a mean, nasty, ugly mess. The only times it has worked is where there’s a definable front line or when the native population overwhelmingly supports the incursion.

The definable front line of our major wars has worked because the good guys were here and the bad guys were over there. That allowed our forces to focus their resources on the nut that needed to be cracked.

The other times that being in someone else’s country has worked was when the native population fully understood that what they had before our entry was a rotten situation, and anything, including a foreign power, would be better to provide stability and protection. Post-World War II Germany and Haiti are good examples of that.

Most other cases of being in someone else’s country has turned out to be, at best, an undesirable experience—even when there’s been some degree of success. People—red, green, blue or purple—don’t like having other people, armed to the teeth, driving through their neighborhoods.

I guess people are funny that way. They genetically hate having people of another color, race, creed, nation, or planet tromping around on their patch of ground, and understandably so. Who doesn’t want friendly separation, even amongst family members.

So whatever the intentions, putting our people into another country is to be avoided at all costs. The moment a boot hits the ground, you’ve got antagonism at the very least—no matter how many soccer balls you hand out to the children.

Therefore we need to fight these who-knows-when-we’ve-won type of wars from a position of strength outside the borders, not inside the borders where we’re trying to figure out the nuances of foreign cultures on the fly and dodging the latest innovations in sabotage.

People, no matter what century they’re living in, have to figure out their own problems. So let them. But that doesn’t mean we can’t apply a healthy dose of carrots and/or sticks—hopefully, a lot of carrots and relatively few sticks.

I’m not talking about isolationism here. We have no choice but to be involved in world affairs--that’s a given--as disagreeable as it may sometimes be.

What I’m talking about is freedom for the people of the inevitable trouble spots in the world and us. We can solve our problems, and we can take well-conceived and directed action when others are infringing upon our rights, but we can’t solve other people’s problems. They need the freedom and time to do it themselves.

On the other hand, we need the freedom to avoid having our hands tied with other cultures’ idiosyncrasies.

So if there’s a festering trouble spot in the world that’s adversely affecting us, clamp down on them, but from the outside. Surgically pull our people out of the area, cut off relations, cut off trade, and seize their assets, including ships and planes anywhere we have the power to take hold of them.

Quarantine them until they themselves come to their senses and rejoin the world community. And one-time enemies do gradually, if unevenly, come to their senses when left to their own devices. Look at the Soviet Bloc and now look at Less-Communist China.

But please don’t send our brave young men and women into other people’s countries to awesomely kick behinds, naively educate the people into our better way of life, and then beneficently rebuild them using borrowed money. It’s not appreciated by anyone and it doesn’t work.

But…but…but, you’re thinking.

Oh, sure, I have some more “splaining” to do. I realize that, but maybe next time. After all, this column is called “Off the Wall.”

Homer Simpson Quotes

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When will I learn? The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle - they're on TV!

Bingo! I love that game, but I can't remember what to say when you win.

Ah, beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life's problems.

What's the point of going out? We're just going to wind up back here anyway.

Lisa, vampires are make believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.

Save me, Jeebus!

Facts are meaningless - you could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!

I'm not impressed easily. Wow! A blue car!

Well, crying isn't gonna bring him back, unless your tears smell like dog food.

I don't hate your mother, I just won't be sad when she dies.

How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain - remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?

Who are you? Why am I here? I want answers now or I want them eventually!

Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding, 'You/re making a scene'.

I'm a 'Spalding Gray' in a 'Rick Dees' world.

Donuts...is there anything they can't do?

Trying is the first step toward failure.

Because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything!

That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!

You know those balls that they put on car antennas so you can find them in the parking lot? Those should be on every car!

Marge, I'm going to miss you so much. And it's not just the sex! It's also the food preparation.

When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something.

America's health care system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, well...all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay!

It's like something out of that "twilighty" show about that zone.

Marge, you being a cop makes you the man - which makes me the woman; and I have no interest in that, besides occasionally wearing the underwear, which (as we discussed) is strictly a comfort thing.

Whenever Marge turns on one of her "non-violent" programs, I take a walk. I go to a bar, I pound a few, then I stumble home in the mood for love...

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England!

I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming.

Without our immigrants, who will kick our field goals, or train our white tigers?

Oh no! What have I done? I smashed open my little boy's piggy bank, and for what? A few measly cents, not even enough to buy one beer. Wait a minute, lemme count and make sure...not even close!

Beer - now THERE'S a temporary solution.

How could you? Haven't you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain What's His Name? We live in a society of laws! Why do you think I took you to all those "Police Academy" movies? For fun? Well, I didn't hear anybody laughing - did you? Except at that guy who made sound effects. Where was I? Oh yeah, stay out of my booze.

Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark they shoot bees at you?

You're saying butt-kisser like it's a bad thing!

Well, let's just call them, uh, Mr. X and Mrs. Y. So anyway, Mr. X would say, 'Marge, if this doesn't get your motor running, my name isn't Homer J. Simpson.'

I know what you're saying, Bart. When I was young, I wanted an electric football machine more than anything else in the world, and my parents bought it for me, and it was the happiest day of my life. Well, goodnight!

Apu, you got any Skittle Brau? Never mind, just give me some Duff and a pack of Skittles.

You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel.

Those guys were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

Extended warranty? How can I lose?

Mmmmmm - 52 slices of American cheese.

Hey, I asked for ketchup - I'm eatin' salad here!

When I first heard that Marge was joining the police academy, I thought it would be fun and zany, you know like that movie... "Spaceballs". But instead it was dark and disturbing, like that movie "Police Academy".

I think Mr. Smithers picked me for my motivational skills. Everyone always says they have to work twice as hard when I'm around!

Son, when you participate in sporting events - it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get.

Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie, and one to listen.

Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!

I'm trying to fix your mother's camera. Easy, easy - Hmmm. I think I need a bigger drill.

You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is 'never try'.

Oh, everything's too damned expensive these days. Like this Bible. It cost 15 bucks! And talk about a preachy book! Everybody's a sinner! Except this guy.

God bless those pagans.

Don't let Krusty's death get you down, boy. People die all the time, just like that. Why, you could wake up dead tomorrow! Well, good night!

If you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now, quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers!

You couldn't fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.

Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.

I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.

With $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like... love!

All right, let's not panic. I'll make the money by selling one of my livers. I can get by with one.

Woo hoo! 350 dollars! Now I can buy 70 transcripts of Nightline!

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.

When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power - like God must feel when he's holding a gun.

You know boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like women. You just have to read the manual and press the right button.

I hope I didn't brain my damage!

Nuts and gum, together at last!

We'll die together, like a father and son should.

Let us celebrate this agreement with the adding of chocolate to milk.

We're gonna get a new TV. Twenty-one inch screen, realistic flesh tones, and a little cart so we can wheel it into the dining room on holidays!

First you don't want me to get the pony, then you want me to take it back. Make up your mind!

Son, a woman is a lot like a... a refrigerator! They're about six feet tall, 300 pounds. They make ice, and... um... Oh, wait a minute. Actually, a woman is more like a beer.

Now what is a wedding? Well, Webster's dictionary describes a wedding as the process of removing weeds from one's garden.

Now, Marge, don't discourage the boy. Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

You can't go wrong with cocktail weenies. They look as good as they taste. And they come in this delicious red sauce. It looks like ketchup, it tastes like ketchup, but brother, it ain't ketchup!

I saw this movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode! I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."

I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun!

I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!

Oh, they have Internet on computers now.

Marge I swear, I never thought that you would find out.

Books are useless: I only ever read one book, "To Kill A Mockingbird" - and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin, but what good does THAT do me?

Shut up, brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!

I am so smart, I am so smart, S M R T, I mean S M A R T.

I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. See ya soon!

--Comedy2.com

Monologue | Wednesday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: There’s a new book out about the most recent U.S. presidential campaign. In the book, it says Sarah Palin was unprepared to be vice president. And I thought, boy, you think you know somebody. Read more…

If Only These Guys Could Dribble

COLUMN: I Don't Know, but Here's What I Think

Image by Julio Martinez via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
Admittedly, I have absolutely no background or expertise to discuss the following. But then, when has that ever stopped me?

Nevertheless, I am, as are most of you, a very interested observer of the world scene, and I, like you, have my opinions. So here they come.

But yet I hope I won’t appear as presumptuous here as Alfonso the Wise, who said, “If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints.” Let’s just say I have a few modest proposals to throw out there. And I’ll qualify my assumptions much as Bette Midler did with, “I never know how much of what I say is true.”

Anyway, this on-going, never-ending War on Terror has me concerned. How about you? Now we’ve got underwear bombers in addition to shoe bombers and the potential carry-on snack and soft drink bombers. Travel life has become painfully circumscribed as well as too often tedious.

Here’s the War on Terror situation:

We’re going to have to have more things scanned and prohibited and, it looks like, revealed: our underwear and even what’s under our underwear.

As for my personal whole-body scan, I say to any potential TSA screener, “Hey, Buddy, knock yourself out.” I don’t care. It’s either that or our coming to accept losing a plane every once in a while. And most of us cringed mightily during the Russian roulette scenes in the movie “Deer Hunter.”

Because the underwear bomber allegedly got his instructions in Yemen, our counter-terrorism efforts are now focusing on that 13th century lackwater. Holy-moly, how many of these self-troubled trouble spots are we going to have to attack, bomb, mop up, rebuild and hand hold? There’s a never-ending supply out there.


I read the other day that there are some ninety countries in the world with unstable, Rube Goldberg-type governments, and a goodly number of them are Muslim.

Countries with unstable governments, Muslim or not, are jam-packed with unstable, rightfully restless people who are clawing for solutions—perfect breeding grounds in the Muslim countries, if not elsewhere, for more terrorists.

And these terrorists are religiously inclined to use the ultimate weapons, not only nuclear but self-immolation. In their pinched, myopic, fundamentalist worldview, everything, from babies to old ladies, is fair game if it’s in the name of Allah. Amen.

Of course, all religions have had their crackpots who having been willing to reek mayhem on society whether society needed it or not, but these are the crackpots we’re dealing with right now. And few times has western civilization had to deal with people intent on destroying themselves and the general vicinity to make a point. Patriotism to the point of heroics is one thing, but single-minded dedication to self-destruction is a whole nother ballgame rarely played in the West.

How do you stop suicidal fanatics, especially these suicidal fanatics who think God wills what they do? The obvious answer is “Sometimes you don’t.” It’s the nasty reality of the current predicament. Suicide attacks are potent and will necessarily take their toll.

And what about the Muslim religious leaders? We often hear that Islam is a religion of peace. So why don’t we hear the outrage from the mullahs against these perversions of their beliefs? Wouldn’t muslim protests for peaceful avenues help the situation, even somewhat? Well, maybe the outrage is there, but as far as can be discerned in the West, it seems to be on the back burner.

So there’s the situation as I humbly see it. No revelations, of course, no burning bushes, but I wanted to lay the ground work for my modest proposals.

And here’s the first one: We need to change our current approach to remedy this mess and get on top of it from a position of strength, rather than guessing where the next trouble spot is going to be. Yeah, that’s right. Change the entire strategy.

Instead of invading these trouble-spots and expending young lives and borrowed treasure, we need to fight this war from outside these places, not in them. Uh huh, stay out of these cesspools and battle terrorism from outside the borders of these countries. In other words, we need to stay out of other people’s nasty back alleys.

I’ll explain this preposterous notion next time.

Unfortunate Ad Placement

Sight Gag | Whether this is real or not, it’s just ducky:

Found here

Monologue | Tuesday night on “The Late Show With david Letterman” on CBS: Cold. Am I right? You know, Rush Limbaugh was ill. And he had to go to the hospital. He had chest pains but he’s completely recovered. He’ll be back on his job on Wednesday, which is great because the country really can use some hot air now. Read more…

COLUMN: Too Much Time on My Hands

Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
We don’t really understand what we want, do we?

Boy, that’s a pretty broad statement. Let me narrow that down a bit.

I don’t really understand what I want, do I?

Yeah, that’s much better. Now if you happen to see some similarities to yourself in the following description, we’ll work from that angle to start widening my theory back out to the totality it was in the first sentence.

Anyway, before the holiday season, I was looking forward to some down time after a lot of busy-ness. Added to that, for a change, we weren’t going to be traveling anywhere for the holidays, so we figured we’d have many wonderful empty hours to fill with nothing in particular—just whatever, you know?

Ah, the bliss of unscheduled time!

Well, don’t you know, we got that in spades. There’s a fine line between “empty hours to fill with nothing in particular” and pure, unadulterated, left-studying-the-wall boredom.

It all began with the big Christmas blizzard. Yeah, a relentlessly white Christmas! That, in theory, would be nice, apropos of so many carols. Uh huh, it was one of those things that at first sounds quaint, picturesque, and somewhat inviting, but then turns into something you’d never want if you knew what it was going to be—like much in life.

The effects of the blizzard—we had drifts people in eastern South Dakota would think of as mountains—and its attendant deep-freeze went on for days. Days, I tell you, days without being able to go anywhere and with nowhere to go even if we could get there. Ay, Caramba! Save me from myself.

Sure, it started great. But after making pancakes, fiddling around with my gadgets, and catching up in a few hours with stuff I thought would take days, I was left with too much time to get anything else done.

Too much time?

That’s right, too much time.

When you have too much time on your hands, doing anything of value becomes nearly impossible.

Why? Because you turn into a big, fat banana slug, barely able to move, that’s why. All you can manage is a few “blub” sounds as you occasionally roll from one side to the other on the couch like a sunning walrus.

Granted, that’s hyperbole…but not by much.

Certainly, when you’ve got too much time on your hands, you can still get out of bed, you can still eat, and you can still turn on the TV. But beyond that, there’s no immediacy. There’s no urge. There’s no need.

And if there’s no need, there’s no action. The metamorphosis from fairly active, somewhat achieving, middle-aged man to banana slug is complete. It is de-evolution at its most deficient. It’s survival of the wastrels. Blub.

Normally, you’d think natural selection would eliminate blubbing animals like wastrel banana slugs and wastrel couch potatoes, but they continue to exist, if not thrive.

Maybe it’s because a banana slug looks like…well, obviously…a banana. And a banana in the jungle is a threat to nothing else. It just hangs there ripening, causing other living things no problem (unless they don’t know how to open a banana properly—which I’ve taken pains to point out before is not by the so-called stem, but by squeezing the bottom).

It is much the same for a couch potato with too much time on his hands. He is a threat to nothing else, except maybe to his wife’s sanity or perhaps to an infinitesimal portion of the Gross Domestic Product.

But, happily, all this will be remedied when the banana is finally eaten properly, the banana slug stays out in the sun too long and shrivels up into a wet spot, and the couch potato goes back to work and returns to a schedule.

And then the world will spin again on greased grooves.