Everything I Ever Leared in the World, I Learned from "Saved by the Bell"

I'm just going to quick telling you (if you're still checking this bad boy regularly) that "I promise to update regularly." I sound like someone in D.C. for crying out loud (we'll get to that in a moment.) Oh, I've had a few auditions, things are going fine, blah blah blah...let's have some fun.

Lesson 1: It's perfectly normal for an administrator to spend time with 6 of his students in social settings.

When Penny Belding argued with Principal Belding over her mother staying at the house, Belding follows Screech over to Zack's house, and Belding proceeds to hang out with Zack, Slater, and Screech. He even buys them pizza and spends the night at the Bayside locker room with "all the towels a guy could want." He would also make frequent appearances at the Max, and when Kelly left Zack for Jeff, her boss at the Max, Belding wanted in on the gossip during their photojournalism class. Pefectly normal, acceptable behavior between an adult and his students. Seriously, were Derrick Morris Major Slater too busy selling computers to deal with this dude showing up to hang with their kids?

Lesson 2: Any adult in a position of authority can be easily manipulated.

No one manipulated better than Zack Morris. Seriously, dude got whatever he wanted, and he didn't even have to stoop to using subliminal messages (Oh wait...they did). Zack would appeal to people's greed to or emotions, and pretty much got what he wanted, like when he wanted to throw a baby shower for Mrs. Belding to coincide with his Physics mid-term from Mr. Heimlich. Enter one Richard Belding to help facilitate Zack's request (only to postpone it for the weekend). And before I forget, kudos to Slater for teaching us to take a much needed shower after the baby shower, but before the impending earthquake. I think back fondly on all the showers I took immediately right after school let out at 2:15. I think Miss Bliss could've acted as more of a conscience to Zack, but alas, Zach, Screech, Lisa, Screech, and of course Belding all moved form Indiana to Los Angeles to go to high school. Starting to see a pattern here?

Lesson 3: Sterotypes are real and they 're hilarious.

It's perfectly OK for two of the most popular guys at Bayside to be friends with Screech, so long as he keeps doing stuff to benefit you (see the manipulation above for further clarification). Everything from making fake ID's to stealing a water pump from the school garage, Screech was on it for Zack and Slater. How is poor Screech repaid? By Zack making out with the love of Screech's life, Ms. Lisa Turtle. All though it only lasted one episode, Screech should have grown a pair and stood up to Zach. Hell, let loose your robot Kevin on him, and beat him with his own arms and legs. I'll have more on Samuel Powers later, but I also need to cover guys like Ox (the token jock), who was on the football team, Mawell (the richest, most powerful dork at Bayside), and Violet Anne Bickerstaff (played by a pre-90210 Tori Spelling). Oh, that also reminds me...

Lesson 4: No matter how many times a girl turns you down, just keep trying and holding out hope, because maybe, just maybe one day she might like you back.

Because one thing all women love is a guy who can't take a hint (I'm looking at you Screech). From gluing ears onto the heads of worms to dressing up as a giant heart on a flashback show to inventing the dance "The Sprain" and winning the dance contest at the Max with Lisa, Screech never let up. I was a bit disappointed he didn't pick his favorite love ballad by the band Europe and sing it to her (seriously, no one sings a love song like Joey Tempest). Nowadays, Miss Turtle could easily head over to her local county courthouse and pick up a nice restraining order to solve this problem. Maybe she was insecure and attention starved and she liked to manipulate poor Screech also, who knows.

Lesson 5: No matter what happens between you and your high school significant other, you must remain friends and continue to hang out in the same circle.

Again, because your feelings as a guy don't matter. It's much healthier to be friends with a member of the opposite sex under false pretenses than to say "you know what, you left me for that dude you work for at the Max, Kelly. That's not cool, and we're done. Give me back my buddy band, because evidently, it didn't work." Oh, and if you make a nice gesture, like scoring Raider tickets that cost Slater $100, you're a pig. Again, never mind the fact that a high school kid in the early 90's was able to procure said tickets (which would be considerably higher today, adjusted for inflation and the fact that Slater had no income at all) and he just wanted to spend time with Jessie, he's wrong. So what's the best way to fix this problem? If you guessed dress up in spandex and prance around the fast food joint where you have lunch 5 days a week and probably spend considerable time there on the weekends...oh, and have a mutual friend dress up and impersonate your pissed off girlfriend, you'd be right. Funny how those things work out.

Lesson 6: You can control the space/time continium simply by calling "Time Out."

Pretty bad ass if you think about it, all though Zack didn't use it as much as he could've. Maybe he only got 3 per episode or week, like football. No matter how hard I try, I can't do it (not yet, at least).

Anybody out there watch the debate tonight? Last thing I want to do is turn my blog into something political, but with the election coming up, people are going to talk about it. Let me first say for the record, I have opinions on politics (if you know me really well, you know how I am), and I'm not out to change anyone's mind or anything. I like to look at things a tad differently (I get that from my dad...my brother and I think very much alike). So, while I'm up and writing and waxing philosophical on "Saved by the Bell," let's cover some current events.

Issue 1: The econonmy, specifically the $700 Billion bailout.

I'm no Milton Friedman by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a take on this hole matter. Let me first start off by pointing out that this bailout is one of the least polarizing issues of the upcoming election, in that pretty much everyone hates the idea of it. Seriously, whether you're a liberal, conservative, democrat, libertarian, independent, republic, progressive, bull moose party, whig, or know-nothing party member, you're not down with borrowing money we don't have to bail out big businesses. Those same people sent a message to the House, which voted down the measure. From a personal stand point, I don't think any business should be bailed out by the government when things go bad, especially when said business's decisions got them in this situation. I've been in shitty situations before, and I'm sure plenty of you who are reading this (all 10 or so of you who still read this bad boy) have been in a crappy financial situation, and the government didn't cut you a check. For the record, if you use one credit card to pay down another credit card, guess what...the debt is still there (since we don't have this money laying around any where, we're essentially doing the aforementioned). I'm not saying something doesn't need to be done, however we as the taxpayers don't need to "invest" in all of these bad mortages(because the government doesn't spend your money, they invest it...sounds better, don't it?). We're going to have to pay this bad boy back someday ("From those according to their abilities...") because so many of these dumb ass banks thought it would be good to loan money to people who normally wouldn't qualify for a $100,000 mortage and are getting $300,000 mortages that they would no way in hell pay back. Now the banks require $700 Billion to remain solvent because so many people are defaulting on loans ("...to those according to their needs."). And that quote? Some dude named Marx wrote about that philosophy back in the 1840's. It was in some kind of Manifesto, or something. Of course, technically, the banks would still be privately owned, with the government telling them what to do, so in all actuallity we call that practice facisim. You know, if we're going to engage in pseudo-marxism, let's freaking do it. Why stop at $700 Billion? Go for a cool trillion, hell get the Fed involved and they can make the first ever trillion dollar bill. Put all of the presidents pictures on it (they can all be having a party, and Grant is passed out in the corner...and you'd have to have 2 differnt, non-consecutive versions of Grover Cleveland). Send that money to the tax payers, and let them circulate it back into the economy. Why stop there? Let's just print more money!!! Problem solved, and the tax payers wouldn't even take the hit.*

*Let the record show that I'm well aware of what would happen to our economy if we introduced a trillion dollars of counterfeit money into circulation, I'm not going to go into all the fun stuff, since this blog isn't about learning, it's about me bitching and moaning...end result would be high taxes and the value of the dollar significantly diminishing.

Issue 2: Healthcare reform.

I think it's pretty safe to say that people want healthcare. It's pretty safe to say that any reasonable person would like to see everyone have healthcare. Again, not trying to convince anyone or sway opinions, but I have my own thoughts, so here we go. Let me state for the record that yes, we need to fix healthcare in America. My issue is that the solution being bandied about right now is to put 1/6 of our national economy under government control (i.e. socialized medicine...FYI, if doctors on on the government payroll, there's no nicer way to say it, it's socialized medicine). So we're going to put the same people who are in charge of the post office, the DMV, and airport security in charge of our healthcare. Hmm.......not sure about that. My reasons? One thing the government doesn't do well is customer service, so you could imagine the bedside manner of these doctors. A possible solution? Keep reading...

We live in an awesome country. I truly love America, I love the free market (maybe to a fault), and I love the Constitution (way better than the Articles of Confederation...no contest). So let's look to the 10th amendment. Most people are familiar with the 1st, 2nd, and 5th, but what's the deal with the 10th? In a nutshell, it basically says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Awesome. That's a big one. Oh, what does it mean, and how does it relate to healthcare? Funny you should ask, and here's where the compromise/solution comes in. Let's say people in, oh, I don't know, let's use my current state of New York, let's say the people of New York want the government to pay for their healthcare. Each individual state has it's own government with it's own constitution and its own laws, so if the voters of the state of New York want the state of New York to pay for it, fine. Let the state of New York cover everyone's healthcare costs (through increased taxes), let the state of New York cover the out of network, and if you want to have government healthcare, move to a state that covers it. People who don't necessarily want socialized medicine are then free to live in states that don't have it on a public level. No one is forcing it on people who don't want it, so it's kind of a compromise. It's an option, and I think it's a pretty good idea (since I did come up with it). :)

Sorry, I only covered 2 issues, but I gave you an extra long blog (that's what she said). See you soon.