The Next Revolution in Soap Bars

Yes, you read the title correctly. This post is about a revolutionary idea for soap. It finally came to me today and you heard it here first. Are you ready for this? It's going to blow your mind. The idea:

Soap bars with a sliver on the side.

What could I possibly mean by that, you ask?

Well let me start with some background.

It's always aggravated me that at the end of a soap bar's life, the last 5% of the soap bar becomes too small to use. So you either throw it out, or it drops down the drain, or it breaks into little pieces, or it gets stuck on the soap dish, or any number of futile, wasteful demises.

But now, with my idea, you get a new bar of soap, take the old, small bar of soap, and insert it into the small opening on the side of the new bar. Thus, you waste no soap and the old bar gradually melts seamlessly into the new bar as it gets wet from washing. You just saved yourself the aggravation of dealing with an otherwise useless remnant of a soap bar, and you saved a few cents as well. Why not?

Yes, I told you this idea would blow your mind.

Now who will be the wise person to clean up on this free idea?

Fixing Politics One Issue at a Time

For some reason, a thought about politics just flashed through my weary Monday evening brain. I can't say I've thought this one out a whole lot... more of a fleeting idea, if anything, but perhaps it has some merit. Take a gander...

So I'm thinking about politics in this country. And I'm thinking about how everything else operates in the "real world," because the political life certainly is far from what most people would consider real or normal. The two, for some reason, have gotten so far apart from the original beginnings that perhaps we need to take a look at how this system operates.

Back when this great country of America was started, there were probably a grand total of about five pressing issues, judging based on what was written in the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights. The main topics were roughly: Giving people rights while having fair representation in government; defending the country from Indians and foreign countries; slavery; taxes; and crime. Granted, there were probably more, but these were the core issues, and collectively these issues could be handled pretty well by elected officials.

Fast forward now to the present day. Think about the vast number of issues on the table at any given time: the current Iraq War (or, more generally, foreign relations); the environment; the economy; taxes; disease control; social security; crime; local interests; abortion; education... the list goes on, and indeed even these main topics each have dozens of sub-topics that are pretty in-depth.

So here's the question I ask: How can any given elected official possibly be able to follow each and every issue and subsequently vote intelligently on such a wide array of bills? Before answering that question, let's take a look at a typical NFL football team for a moment. It has a head coach, an offensive coach, a defensive coach, a special teams coach, a QB coach, an offensive line coach, a.... well you get the idea! Each coach has a specialty and does his best to nail down his particular area of expertise in order to improve the team as a whole.

Another example: If you go to a big-time law firm, you'll find lawyers practicing dozens of different areas of law. Need an environmental attorney? Fifth floor. Need criminal defense? Tenth floor. Looking for a tax lawyer? Eighth floor. Again, you get the idea.

Lastly, think about a major company like Pfizer. There are probably dozens of departments divided throughout the organization, each having a specific job, perhaps focusing solely on specific product lines out of their vast array of products. Everybody's got their defined job, and they do it to the best of their abilities.

Why, then, don't we elect officials to cover specific issues, or a limited umbrella of issues? Specialization has become the name of the game these days. Except in the wild world of politics, where a politician is expected to vote effectively on a frighteningly wide array of issues. I would think that if we had to vote elected officials based on their stance on specific issues, this country would be a lot more efficiently run and the whole "liberal" vs. "conservative" stereotypes and mental blocks would be a thing of the past.

That's all I got for this Monday. Now back to the real world.

Taking the plunge

Though I am no plumber, I do like to think I know how to clear a clogged toilet.

Option A:

Step 1- Grab plunger.
Step 2- Insert rubber end of plunger into toilet drain.
Step 3- Deftly push down ("plunge") on wooden end.
Step 4- Lift up.
Repeat steps 2-4 until water drains. Try flushing again.

Option B:

Pour hot water into toilet, in hopes that this will, shall we say, loosen things up.

Option C:

Put on rubber gloves and root around.

Option D:

Pray.

What's the metaphor here? Beats me. I'll leave that part up to you. At any rate, I hope to open the door to ideas of new ways of doing things, or ways of getting out of a mess, or who knows what.

Thanks for joining. Let's have some fun, shall we?