'Cause everything is rent...

I'll admit it - I'm not ready to be a homeowner yet.

I'm not ready financially. Gretchen and I have decades of higher education between us, and that comes with a cost. While she's still in school and we're living apart, buying a house would be crazy. Even once we move in together, it would be a tough sell, financially.

I'm not ready for the responsibility. I don't know how to fix minor plumbing catastrophes. I don't know (or much care) about proper lawn maintenance. I like having my lawn mown by the landlord, and my driveway plowed when the blizzards hit. I like being able to call in my broken water heater, and know that someone is taking care of it... and that it won't mean a hit on my checkbook.

I'm not ready for the commitment. Being tied down to a piece of property scares me. I've seen with one of my friends how hard it can be to move a house for a price you're happy with. With the next several years a big question mark, as my wife and I try to establish a life together for ourselves someplace, it doesn't make sense to be bogged down, even if I could joke about joining the "landed gentry." And with pastors (and possibly professors?) being more mobile than many middle class workers (and with housing still provided by many of our employers), I'm not sure owning a house will make sense down the road, either.

None of which is to rule out buying a house, if Gretchen and decide together that it's the right move for us. But it does make me want to shout a big "AMEN!" to Paul Krugman's recent column in the Times, questioning America's policy of promoting an "ownership society" of owner-occupied housing.

Why is it that my parents, friends, and parishioners are given a huge subsidy for owning their homes (deducting the interest on their mortgages come tax day), but we renters are given nothing but the finger by the IRS? What compelling government interest in home ownership justifies that kind of bias?

As Krugman points out, there are lots of arguments in favor of rental housing over against purchasing a home, particularly in tough economic times, and among workers who need to follow the jobs. He rightly wonders about the president's line of thought, when he utters in a speech: "If you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country." Don't renters have just as vital a stake in this country? Are we really only second-class citizens?

For now, both my wife and I rent, brazenly defying (out of necessity or out of choice) the government's preferred mode of living for us. And we, along with a whole lot of others, are paying a hefty price for being renters in an "ownership society." It's hard not to wonder why our government throws such huge amounts of money every year at discourging what is, for us right now, the best choice.

It's public policy, but is it a good policy for the public? Mark me down as unpersuaded.

Argh - suicidal!

No, not ME... That stupid, obnoxious song!

If you really, truly haven't heard this tripe at least a dozen times ("you have me sooo-icidal, sooo-icidal"), I'm sure you can google "Sean Kingston beautiful girls" and partake to your heart's content. Which more than likely will be exactly thirty-four and a half seconds.

Me, I can't get through a meal at Subway without hearing it once, maybe twice. Supper at the Arches tonight, and there it was again ("you're way too beauooo-tee-ful, girl, you have me sooo-icidal, sooo-icidal"). Make it stop!

Here are my top five reasons for loathing this song:

1. Overplay. Seriously, even the best songs get tired when you hear them on about a 43-minute cycle in every public venue out there. This probably says as much about the generic, played-out state of Top 40 radio as it does about this song, but "Beautiful Girls" would be a lot easier to swallow if I didn't have to gag it down again and again and again...

2. Earworm. That's the proper name for getting a song stuck in your head. Researchers have identified all sorts of traits that make a song "catchy" in this way, and, I can testify to the fact that BG has earworm written all over it. And not in a good way. Much the same as "The Song That Never Ends," it's the kind of song you're not happy to have worm its way into your brain.

3. It rips off Ben E. King. One of the few positive things about th song id that it's got a good groove. Except that groove was lifted straight from "Stand By Me." So if you're humming BG, it might have something to do with the fact that it's Ben E. King's supremely catchy bassline you're hearing, not anything Sean Kingston cooked up himself.

4. Stupid ending. The song comes to an abrupt close with an effect that's supposed to sound, I guess, like a tape deck melting down. So is that supposed to be the sonic equivalent of of offing oneself? "Sooo-i-showww-darhhhhhhgh." Lame.

5. "Suicidal" for you - how charming. Maybe I'm becoming a fuddydud in my old age, but it really bugs me hearing a peppy, bouncy song whose chorus is the word "suicidal." The song's lyrics are moderately tragic, but the tone of the song makes it sound almost like a compliment to be "sooo-icidal" for a girl, if she's really "beauooo-tee-ful." There re some things that I just don't think are appropriate to trivialize, and the way this song makes ending one's own life catchy, flattering, and perfectly reasonable, reinforced every hour of every day, is just not appropriate. Sean K's lack of common sense and common decency toward those who have lost a TRULY suicidal loved one are sad.

Let's move on to the next mediocre #1 hit, and let this song find its way quickly into the waste bin of music history. With any luck Sean Kingston will be the epitomy of the one hit wonder, and I won't have to listen to his follow-ups, "Pedophilic," "Schizophrenic," and "Homicidal."

*end of rant*