That FastPass thing....

Okay, I'm going to break from politics and give out some tips for Disney trekkers and dispel some myths about their FastPass system. Before going we had heard all sorts of things, from "they don't have Fastpass anymore" to "you can Fastpass everything", and the truth is pretty much somewhere in between. 1. Can I Fastpass everything? No. Some rides do not offer a Fastpass option because they are broken, because they are so popular that the Fastpasses were booked before you tried, or just because that's the way Disney rolls. You will be given a list of rides from which to pick from, and sometimes they are further divided by the park, so that you pick 2 rides from one category and one from another. Some rides you don't want to Fastpass anyway because they are low in popularity or because the Fastpass you are offered doesn't fit with your schedule. Many Fastpass times for rides high in popularity we were given were near closing time, so we opted to just wait in line in stand by rather than have to wait all day to ride the ride. If you are wanting to ride the Seven Dwarves' mine cart on Fastpass, good luck with that. It is the most popular attraction in the park system right now and the Fastpasses fill up, so don't bank on it and rather you should plan to wait for an hour in standby for that one. 2. After I use my first 3 fastpasses, can I load 3 more? No. You get 3 initial fastpasses, and after you've burned them, you can only add them one at a time. You probably wouldn't want it that way anyway, since they all have to be synchronized in time, and you'd be running around like a headless chicken dealing with so many fastpass times. It is best to use the fastpass for those rides that you really want to do as a family, and we found that they worked best on medium popularity rides like Splash Mountain, because the standby lines really got crowded because those are rides that people want to ride, but don't want to burn a fastpass for. 3. If I miss my fastpass time, I can just go to the attraction at any time after my slot, right? No. People were saying that in the park, but it is not true. They give you a window of opportunity, and if you go before or after the slot you will be denied entrance. Nancy missed her slot for Tower of Terror by only a few minutes and only got in because she had a birthday button and the fastpass attendant was being nice. Of course you can always do standby entrance, and we did that for several fastpasses that we missed. 4. Do I need to use the kiosks or can I just use the app on the phone? Probably the kiosks. Nancy has an iPhone 4 and I have a Casio g'Zone running an old Android system, and neither would work the app, so unless you have the latest cell phone technology, you will have to use the kiosks to modify your fastpasses. That's sometimes a good thing, because Disney has special fastpass attendants who know how to manipulate the system better than you do, so it's best to use a kiosk, tell them what you are trying to do, and let them help you rather than spending time trying to make the system do something that it might not do. 5. Does the Fastpass system actually work? Yes. The last time we went to Disney under their old system, we were waiting forever to ride rides and only got to ride a few, and that was in October. Though there are naysayers, our experience is that the fastpass system makes the lines move quicker for everybody, even if you are doing standby. Even in standby for the mine cart ride, people were only waiting about an hour and a half. So everyone benefits from this system, where in the past only a select few did. So all in all, Disney's Fastpass system is a great way to get more rides in, you just have to realize that it does not give you the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

The Elephant, the Donkey, and the Tired Horse

Once a horse was trying to pull a cart through a muddy road. The cart was very heavy, as too much had been heaped upon the cart for the horse to pull. Perhaps those that loaded the cart assumed the horse could pull it. You see, they had been gradually putting more and more weight on the horse, and he had always been able to somehow find the strength. On this occasion, however, the horse found they had finally loaded it past his ability, and he could not pull the cart, and was thus stuck in the road. Along came an elephant down the road. Maybe he would help the horse pull the cart. Absolutely not. The elephant scolded the horse for not being strong enough to pull the cart himself. Of course, it was easy for the elephant to say that since, being an elephant, he had never been in the horse's position. So the elephant continued down the road. Then a donkey came down the road. Perhaps he would help the horse pull the cart. After all, donkeys look a lot like horses and have a lot in common with them, so they ought to know how hard it is to pull an overloaded cart. Indeed the donkey did want to help, but weirdly he did not want the horse to help pull his own weight. He insisted that the horse be unhitched from the cart while he, the donkey, pulled it for him. But the load was too heavy for the donkey. He pulled and pulled but could not budge the cart an inch. The donkey was genuinely puzzled, but still refused to let the horse do some of the pulling and said, "I know. We will find some way to MAKE the elephant pull it for us!" So the donkey went off to fight with the elephant, leaving the horse still stuck in the road, wondering why neither the elephant nor the donkey would give him a little help. The elephant wished to give no help to the horse, and the donkey was determined that someone other than the horse should do the job entirely.

Crematorium Controversy Burns Up City's Credibility

In yet another interesting turn of events for Spring Hill, the Board of Zoning Appeals has done a 180 and given a green light to a crematorium that no one in the town except for the prospective proprietor wants. We live in a "me" society where every individual seems to think the world revolves around him, and if I want to open a crematorium, dog gone it I'm going to do it, and if some kids get sick from inhaling ash, so be it. Not my fault. If the property values of the homes near my crematorium go to pot, so be it. Not my fault. The good of the one outweighs the good of the many. That's democracy right?

States Should Stand Ground on "Stand Your Ground"

The left, through Bill Clinton and other voices, is using the Trayvon Martin tragedy to attack the "Stand Your Ground" rule of States like Florida. What many have failed to point out, though, is the fact that neither account of what happened has anything to do with "Stand Your Ground". According to the family of Mr. Martin, Mr. Zimmerman shot him down in cold blood when there was no imminent threat to Zimmerman's life, and experts who have reviewed the tapes indicate that Mr. Martin may have been on the ground screaming before he was shot. If this is what happened, Mr. Zimmerman is culpable for homicide, and "Stand Your Ground" is no defense. On the other hand, Mr. Zimmerman's story is that he did NOT "stand his ground" but in fact was retreating back to his car when Mr. Martin attacked him, forcing him to use force. This terrible situation should not be used by the left as an opportunity to attack gun rights, and the fact that this young man died changes nothing about the dangers to law abiding citizens posed by criminals in this country daily or citizens' natural rights of self defense. If Mr. Zimmerman did something wrong, he should be punished. If Mr. Martin did something wrong, then unfortunately he paid the ultimate price for it. While we wait for the judicial branch of Florida to work, we don't need anti-gunners like Clinton blaming gun owners other than Zimmerman. And while I believe Mr. Zimmerman is culpable based on the evidence, who knows what the evidence will show or what a grand jury would do? I do know this. If I were Mr. Zimmerman, I would call Jose Baez, because he has already got one Florida client off for murder when the evidence showed she was guilty as sin.

Romney-the Face of the GOP or Independent Party Raiders?

Mitt Romney will soon ride into South Carolina as the Republican frontrunner, having already won two states. A Massachusetts moderate from a non-evangelical Christian background leading at the polls should cause us all a ponderous pause. Liberals love to bash the GOP as a hard right conservative Bible thumping party, but if that is really the case, why is Mitt doing so well? I am still waiting for the liberal media to answer that question. Of course, a great answer might lie in Obama's failure to deliver on the "hope and change" he promised Democrats, independent voters and Republicans disillusioned after 8 years of George W. Bush. The Obama administration has been, with the exception of bagging Osama, an abject economic and foreign policy disaster. Thus, with Obama unopposed in the Democratic primaries, independents may have gone into the GOP looking for an alternative, and have ended up bolstering Romney against the conservative base. Either way, Obama has a problem. If the GOP with its Tea Party and Ron Paul contingents have succeeded in taking the party back to moderate Rockefeller Republicanism (a process I would say started the second Reagan left office), the Democrats' sad, tired old attacks will be as effective as the GOP's bloody shirt tactics were in the 1932 election. If Romney's rise is coming from independents and Democrats coming into the party for reasons other than "raiding" the primaries, then it shows that the Democrats have sunk back to the Carter years among independents, i.e. a party that can't get anything done and makes bad situations in economics and foreign policy even worse when they win the White House. Independents and disillusioned moderate Republicans were a key part of the Obama coalition. If he's lost them, getting an endorsement from the Band Perry won't be enough.

Perry in a Pickle Over Peculiar Petrograph

Did he paint over it before...he was before...was it before or after the press took a picture of it?

Egyptian Democracy Could Benefit U.S.

Egypt and Tunisia are large tourist attraction states partially dependent on the tourist trade for a large share of the economy. Not many Egyptians would welcome an Islamist regime that would have every tourist and journalist afraid to go to Cairo lest they become another victim of anti-Western terrorism. Yemen, however, also undergoing upheaval, stands as the Arab nation with the most propensity toward switching to radical Islam. With terrorist attacks having already occurred even under the current regime and little Western investment, the radicals there could impose a Taliban-like theocratic regime. Obviously Egypt has been a staunch ally of the US and has respected the sovereignty of Israel. These actions were wise and gave Egypt the opportunity to develop its economy by fostering friendly relations with the West. Unfortunately the fruits of this alliance have been enjoyed by too few Egyptians. I don't know a lot about modern Egypt, but I do know about our own Egyptian namesake--Memphis, Tennessee, where we have an NBA franchise, a shiny new Forum, and are home to the nation's distribution center. Yet Memphis also has the highest car theft rate in the nation, the highest bankruptcy rate, and foreclosures and violent crimes so numerous that it spawned two television shows, one fictional (Memphis Beat) and one based in an all too true reality (Police Women of Memphis). Perhaps the people of our Memphis should go down to our own defunct pyramid and start protesting like the people in Tahrir Square.