Shrek doesn’t like donkeys. I don’t like dogs. But you don’t see anyone hatin’ on Shrek. Why? Donkeys aren’t cuddly. The comments I get from dog-lovers when I’m around dogs are starting to make me consider hating the dog-lovers themselves. Lemme ‘splain something to you: I simply don’t like dogs. It’s not that I hate them, and neither am I scared of them. If you were to happen upon a situation in which a dog is around me, you’d find me ignoring the little guy. I won’t bend down and lose my mind over the ball of fluff, but I won’t kick it either. And if I hated dogs, I could do a lot worse than that.

But the seemingly growing human constituency of dogs obviously sees this encounter between me and man’s best freeloader as a prime example of my abhorrence for the creature. It is simply untrue. It is an example of my capacity to maintain dignity in circumstances that, for some reason which I am nowhere near discovering, cause normal humans abandon all social behavioral norms. Apparently the creatures are simply far too cuddawie wuddawie to just pet and move on. I believe the main reason for my stayoffishness towards dogs is this human behavior I have just outlined for you. No, I submit that it is not the dogs’ fault. “But Kevin, what are your kid’s gonna do for a pet?” Oh, please… they’ll get their hermit crabs. But I will not have any of these flea balls roaming my living quarters.

On behalf of all others with the ability to see dogs as mammals instead of personifying a collie because he saved Timmy and you think you saw him smile once, lay off with the contempt. Your behavior is as ridiculous to me as the bug lover’s is to you.

Linda! Why? There’s certainly no reason to lie about it. So you like multi-millionaire news beguiler Michael Moore, who doesn’t? But lets not try to play it off as if you were MTV’s latest attempt to get people out and voting. After all, several national studies have shown that crowds will very rarely throw their martinis at a living public service announcement.

The amazing thing about this story is that while claiming that her expression was simply an exercise of her right to free speech, Michael Moore’s open letter to the Aladdin’s President Bill Timmins claims that Timmins does not have the right to remove the catalyst of a riot that might cause damage to his Casino. Is that Un-American? No, and it’s not stupid either, Mr. Moore. What is stupid is the crazy, unsubstantiated claims that you make. How could you possibly know if every American loves “Desperado”? And there’s really no need to throw the crowd out, even the half that appreciated Ronstadt’s comments. After the entertainment’s left, they don’t have much to stay for.

Expanded Ego exhibit #1: I think you owe Ms. Ronstadt an apology. And I have an idea how you can make it up to her — and to the millions of Americans you have offended. Invite her back and I’ll join her in singing “America the Beautiful” on your stage. Then I will show “Fahrenheit 9/11″ free of charge to all your guests and anyone else in Las Vegas who wants to see it. – Michael Moore, “Open Letter to Bill Timmins, President Aladdin Casino and Hotel”

He follows that brilliant spectacle of egotism with the statement that Bill simply couldn’t refuse such an offer. Is anyone seeing this but me? “Mr. Timmins, it is clear that you do not agree with my political views. Now apologize to Linda, and I will grace your theater with free admission to my WWII-esque work of propaganda.” To accept such an offer would be a display of the kind of flip-flop most recently made famous by John Kerry’s voting practices.

The whole thing’s a shame though. I just hope that Ronstadt hasn’t ruined her sweet gig playing the casinos in Las Vegas. But it’s not an entirely hopeless situation. The good news is that anyone can become one of America’s greatest singers through a simple song dedication to the patriot Michael Moore… and I just saved a load of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

I haven’t been able to post anything since school started; I’ve been a lot busier than I’d expected. On the first day of Audio Engineering I, Janas dropped two projects on us, and the next day he had us book studio times. I didn’t even have an artist yet! It took me until Thursday night to finally find someone. The whole week was basically crap, but there was light at the end of the tunnel. Though I had some 6 hours of driving for the coming weekend, it would still be a first-rate couple of days because Chun and I had people coming to visit us and I’d get to see my family back home. Apparently I was mistaken, and I ended up feeling insanely unwelcome in my own apartment.

Hindsight being 20/20, I imagine that I probably should have just gone home for the whole weekend instead of running quickly home for the wedding and then back to Nashville early the next morn. Slept only 3 hours Saturday night, not nearly enough Sunday night, and through my first class and into my second on Monday morning. This week’s getting starting on the right foot, and there’s hardly a light at this end of this tunnel.

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I have yet to arrive at the day when it ceases to amaze me just how far Americans will go to win at the blame game. Personal responsibility is one value that we simply don’t value. It seems the American dream is to get by on as little as possible and blame everyone from Jenny Jones to the ever elusive “Man” for causing you trouble and keeping you down.

I just watched Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning documentary “Bowling for Columbine”, and something in the film seemed a little too representative of the American public at large. Forget who’s to blame for school violence or wars overseas. At one point in the movie, Moore focuses on the hardships endured by Tamarla Owens, the mother of a 6-year-old boy who brought a gun to an elementary school in Flint, Michigan and shot and killed one of his classmates. In some truth-stretching I haven’t seen since “my sister ate the cake”, Moore insecurely links the boy having brought a gun to school to the mother’s inability to pay living expenses. Moore then paints a picture of this woman being among the proverbial “downtrodden”. Her position is surely the fault of some higher authority that refuses to give her an opportunity.

It’s a tragedy, it really is. I think it’s horrible that the mother was working 70 hours a week in two full-time jobs 40 miles away from her son, both of which were insufficient to afford the cost of rent. I’m not faulting her for the position she’s in. But we shouldn’t fault big businesses or the government either. It’s Tamarla’s own responsibility to do whatever she can to get out of the situation she’s in. Situations like that are the furthest from “feel good.” But simply trying to glaze over the situation at hand and “fix” the problem we see never does anyone any good. In the film itself, Moore highlights that one of the government’s “fixes” is the work-for-welfare program that has Owens riding a bus 80 miles round-trip for inadequate wages. Has anyone thought of heading the problem off at the pass? Perhaps we should focus on the children and give them something to work hard towards.

If a person’s goal in life is simply to survive, then that can be done on welfare. But who wants that? Where’s the excitement there? If I’m going to be poor, I’d like it to be because I tried and failed, not because I never tried at all. I don’t want the government to be responsible for taking care of my every need. That’s what my parents were for, and I’m transitioning from that point in my life to the point where I make decisions for myself. What’s the idea behind a childlike society in which Mommy and Daddy in D.C. make all my decisions for me? The very people lobbying for such a socialist society are the same people that will charge at the government full steam once such programs are in place, whining that the government isn’t performing its duties to their satisfaction. Well, before such systems are in place, why don’t you take responsibility for your own well-being? You set up your own personal systems to your own satisfaction. That’s one of the beautiful things about America: options! Sure, there’s more risk! But you get to make your own decisions! With bigger risks come bigger chances to either win big or be a dismal failure. But in this world, the world I want to live in, it’s me that failed trying, not some far off overseer that didn’t care whether or not I made it.

I somehow feel that, at this point, I should end thusly: RESPONSIBILITY. THE ANTI-DRUG.

When I was in high school, I had a few more dreams than I do now. Back then I had the preposterous idea of becoming an actor. Sure, I’d been in a few plays here or there, but no matter the training, the stage just isn’t the place for the sensibilities of a mature adult. I know. I’ve been assured.

My co-workers from Bruster’s Ice Cream and Men’s Wearhouse that are old enough for experience saved my dream chasing by reminding me that should I ever want to afford the finer things in life such as tickets to the movies or a CD every now and again, then it’d be prudent for me to fix myself on a successful career, love it or hate it, that would allow me those much needed breaks from the daily grind. They’d laugh as I rattled off juvenile dreams of an epic-sized life. “You’ll learn, just like I had to,” their experience reassured me.

But I’m not totally cured. Lately, I’ve been stricken with the idea that I might even enjoy being some sort of writer, even if only just on the side. But clearly that is just as asinine a thought as dreams of thespianism, if not more so. See, I’m no English major. I’m just glad I caught it early before it got out of hand.