Backed Up Against the Exchange Barrier...

Apparently, I 'm HUGE in Nigeria....

2011-01-16T15:24:00.001-05:00

Recently an internet scam went down in Nigeria and my name was on the roster of those who had been scammed... I received an email from Mary Jones, the Assistant Director of the "The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)" of Nigeria alerting me. Curiously, the roster received only a cursory mention before announcing that once the "fraudsters" had been apprehended, several things transpired that both surprised and flattered me...
I will spare you the details of a poorly written, albeit complimentary email. However, I will share this word for word snippet from paragraph two:

"This is to officially announce to you that some scam Syndicates were apprehended in Lagos, Nigeria few weeks ago and after several interrogations and tortures your details were among those mentioned by some of the scam Syndicates as one of the victims of their operations."

Did you catch that?!? After chasing these people whose organization had become so large that they had formed a "Syndicate", they not only interrogated them, they tortured them! Keep in mind that only after torturing did this global syndicate utter my name from bleeding swollen lips and bruised faces.... I feel like I am starring in an action movie with Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme.... You know, the ones where they beat the living fuck out of someone for some trite, unbelievable bullshit reason?

Apparently, I am HUGE in Nigeria....

researching research on redundant redundancy....

2011-01-15T14:18:00.001-05:00

This is not a fabrication... Nor is it an embellishment... Today while looking for a nice picture to go along with what was to become my latest blog I Googled this exact phrase... "scientists doing research"... I was going to do a little hyperbolic writing on some scientists trying to figure out the way I think... Add in some thought bubbles and maybe have a little fun...

Instead, I found this on page two, row three...

Now I just don't feel like being funny... Google did it for me... Thanks Google, all five of my readers will laugh and I can relax... Having to please all five of you at once is a tough job but somebody has to do it...

raising the douchebag bar for posterity.. almost...

2011-01-14T10:34:00.003-05:00

So here I am finally doing the thing that I have secretly always wanted to do but never did for fear of looking like the douchebag in the comfy chair... I am blogging at Starbucks... Right here in front of God and everyone... Chances are that no one, including God, gives a rat shit... I have been set free from the bonds of my aversion to public blogging by the douchebag in the comfy chair... With his giant laptop plugged into the wall, iPod plugged into the laptop, earphones plugged into the iPod... On top of that, he has an extra hard-drive and an extraneous mouse plugged into his laptop... He looks like he is getting ready to re-enact Tron right here in Starbucks.. Wait, maybe he is a traveling one man troupe of Tron re-enactors... Nevertheless, he is a douchebag... So now that the douchebag bar has been raised, I am quite comfortable with my single piece of gear and a cup of coffee... Ok... Not coffee but a Grande Latte in a Venti cup with extra Whip...

Fuck...

I'm a douchebag...

imperceptible nods of encouragement...

2011-01-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

remember when toning shoes were okay? it seems like only a few months ago that it was all the rage for women to go buy shoes that would enhance their legs and butt... so it seems as if it was trendy and sexy that you made the effort... many, many of the shoes were sold under the assumption that your super-sized ass would magically shrink as if the shoes, in addition to toning, also had a covert liposuction machine in them... if you at this very moment are simultaneously wearing those shoes and eating a Big Mac, you know what to do...
however...
whenever i see a fat girl or guy making a effort, i inwardly applaud them... usually... one time on the streets of Los Angeles, I saw an overweight, very hairy man jogging with what looked like foam coming out from his armpits... much like a horse that has been running too long... out of sheer horror, i missed out any and all kudos i could have awarded him , either public or private... but... a fat girl dressed like a bloated Olivia Newton John walking quickly with an MP3 player strapped to one massive bicep always gets a nod... not a physical nod, god forbid she would think i am nodding at a overweight chick... but i am inwardly nodding at the future thin girl who at some time in the future we both hope escapes from the high cholesterol, diabetic body she is trapped in... then i will just judge her for her loose skin and the fact that i can see she USED to be a fat girl... don't think you can escape... so whenever i see a fat girl wearing a pair of "Reebok Butt Toners" or the "Puma Ass Master" i always give them the inward "atta girl" quickly followed by a quick, yet non-canceling "fat ass" just so my mind doesn't introduce scenarios i can't unsee...
that was then, this is now...
MBT shoes and Sketchers have introduced a new line of "fitness shoes" that don't appear to be fitness shoes... i am in total disagreement... if I have to see this -

then you better be wearing this -

i know it doesn't work, you know it doesn't work, but goddamn it, come on... i know you blew a hundred dollars on the latest "exercise" fad but that is one hundred dollars you didn't spend on cheeseburgers and fries...
remember, i can't see your BowFlex, Total Gym 2000, Total Gym 3000 or the Total Gym XL gathering dust in your spare room... i suspect that you are using a TreadMaster 9000 with the patented 9 degree reverse incline to keep dirty laundry off of your floor, but i cannot prove it... what i can see is your shoes Miss Arbuckle... You get ZERO positive recognition from me if i can't see it...
so...
wear the retard shoes and get silent acknowledgement followed by immediate dismissal... or wear secret fitness shoes and face a secret tirade of derision that is so intense it can almost be perceived...

the choice is yours....

two minute drill... and... go!!!

2010-12-31T01:11:00.000-05:00

every so often the questions arise of what you would take with you in case of epic failure of the system... just for kicks, the scenario says you have less than one minute to decide... beside you is a backpack... Pick one book, one DVD boxset (movie series, television show, set of films of a single actor or director...) and discography of one band....

the event has occurred, you have one minute...

tell the truth, use up your minute but no more...

go...

thar she would blow if she had the lung capacity for it....

2010-12-23T16:22:00.001-05:00

I used to play... I spent hours and hours of my youth running my Atari Asteroids game up to a million to see if it actually said 1,000,000 points or if it just turned over to zero like some failed Y2K decimal point experiment... As a side note, it simply turns to zero after 999,999 points which was disappointing to say the least but as a child, I was quite a legend among my friends... In my early twenties, I drug out the old Atari and did the thing for a few hours every now and then... When my kids got old enough to need video games to stay out of my life, I bought the best available for them... I played the Hedgehog for hours and hours finally getting beyond the point in the game where the screen fills with water... Never did make it to the end... I supplied endless PC games, stolen, hacked and copied from every BBS, friend and CDROM I could find. My kids and I played Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem and the like. The advent of GUI Internet brought more games, more patches, updates and higher and higher scores... Adolph Hitler became Barney the Dinosaur and cheat codes gave the kids unlimited access to multiple death scenarios without the bother of getting killed...

Eventually, Playstations were cracked, games were more available than ever, PS1, PS2 and PS3... XBOX, XBOX 360 exploded onto the scene and I realized that I had neither the time nor inclination to even attempt what they were designed to do... So I stopped... Oh, occasionally, I would steal a car and go on a killing rampage and then hand the controller back to whatever red-eyed, pasty skinned child happened to be parked on my couch at the time... Seems that big screen video gaming is somewhat a status symbol in that world so occasionally, to make sure they weren't turning into the things in the picture above and to pretend I really wanted kids in my life I surrendered my couch... And stop judging me, I supplied a world that every kid wants... That being multiple expensive toys and to be left alone... My oldest boy told me that he had a great childhood, so fuck off...

Now, in my middle aged years, I am so, so, so glad I completely missed out on the modern game phenomenon... Take a real good look at what it spawned...

I don't want to be even remotely affiliated with Dumbo and Fat Albert in the photo above... I would not want either of them to approach me with a question or suggestion about a game and possibly touch me with a greasy hand that hasn't been washed well since Lara Croft first enticed them to drop their stained underwear and took their virginity with Nacho Cheese Dorito stained fingers...

Recently, I was in a GameStop to find a game to keep my current child responsibility out of my life as much as possible and when the door opened, the smell of Low-T, fear, desperation, dried semen, Dr. Pepper and feet swirled around me... Thank god I was on crutches and my wife had to touch the door...

To say that all gamers are these two lame fuckers is an over generalization and a logical fallacy... I am not saying that... What I am saying is the gaming industry has given birth to a bunch of incredibly fat, nimble fingered douche-bags with no social skills but they possess incredible puzzle solving skills... It would take them far, if they didn't get winded trying to get there...

ATTENTION GAMERS: John Madden NFL 2010 is NOT exercise... May I join René Magritte and say...

This is NOT playing Football...

My name is bob and I am NOT a gamer... Join me...

yourself, or someone like you...

2010-12-13T01:25:00.001-05:00

when i met him, i didn't like him... simple as that... one of those clash of personalities type deals where you don't even need to talk to someone, you just know... it was said that it was one of those "dad" things where you can't like the guy who marries your daughter... i disagreed... to me, it was just another person i didn't like in a long line of people i didn't like... this one just happened to become part of the family...

and so it goes...

at first, he kinda grew on me... like a fungus or that ivy that creeps up a tree trunk and now that i think about it, eventually strangles the tree... pretty sure he won't strangle me though... i did sleep at his house for a week and the only thing that even came close to killing me was the air in bakersfield and maybe one of my daughters cats, but i can't be sure because all i have is that feeling it was watching me... more than likely it was just upset that i moved the litter-box to the bathroom but still...

i learned over the years that michael was just a straight up asshole... a self centered, egotistical, thoughtless prick who in any given situation would sacrifice many lives at the expense of sparing his own... sharp tongued, sarcastic and rude to perfect strangers...

realization of all this led only to one conclusion... my daughter married someone just like her dad...

so... fast forward a few years... a wedding, a couple of visits, some sarcastic comments to one another and a dawning realization that we were quite a bit alike in those ways that make people like us get along... yes, he played video games, watched sports and eschewed hippies... the most important part was that he allowed me to make fun of all of it and returned the favor in rather mean ways... in other words, we started getting along... in a genuine way, not because i was his wife's father or he was my forced son-in-law... i liked the way he disliked everyone and he dug the way i made fun of people to their face without them realizing it... we aren't a buddy cop movie because neither of us would allow anyone to view us as "sidekick", we are more like an action team where everyone gets made fun of every now and then but when it comes time to work together, we jump right in a do a great "team hate"... great cinema, better working relationship...

now...

for the last six weeks, i have been trapped like a chilean miner... almost exactly so... i have television, food, water and exercise in the space by my bed every day in preparation for when my doctor says i can walk again... i have the internet, text messages, twitter, blogs, videos and my photography...

since i am without mobility, i rely on all this technology...

today i realized that mike texts me every day with the weirdest shit imaginable... i appreciate it... during a CSI marathon, it always helps to get one of these:

mike: dude... next time you take a shit, sit on the toilet backwards and put your laptop on the toilet tank... you will experience a whole new world of awesome... how did i never think of this...

me: sounds intriguing...

mike: you're welcome.

me: doesn't your shit fall on the porcelain instead of the water? multiple flushes?

mike: i don't have that problem.

me: okay..

me: you can see how the design of some repositories would prohibit, or at the very least, inhibit the 180 degree juxtaposition of myself with the computer... meaning my turds wouldn't fall into the water but rather be beached... like whales...

mike: of course... i even have room for my coffee on mine. surely tis worth a try.

me: i agree... i will get back to you maybe tonight... had a lot of bran lately...

and thus you get the picture of what my son-in-law and i do... we speak of the most inappropriate things possible leaving no stones unturned...

he amuses me, so anything amusing is worth the trouble... unless of course they are ethnic... i am sorry that his mom's vagina made him jewish, but i will let it go... for now...

you're an asshole michael... so glad i got to know you...

an open letter to "god"...

2010-12-07T17:02:00.002-05:00

Dear God,

Free will? Yeah right... You're a prick.

-bobby

Calcaneus Corrections...

2010-11-26T21:28:00.006-05:00

Greetings everyone... Been a few weeks (months?) since I last posted... I have been fairly busy with one of these:

Seems that my last surgery was a complete failure and for those of you who know me, I am speaking of the necessary surgery as a result of THE accident from a few years back. The accident that sent everyone involved on a different, difficult journey than was primarily intended... For those of you who don't know me, then I will provide you with the answer I offer when asked during this particular round of crutches...

For example, I encountered an old "friend" today in the pharmacy whilst acquiring medication and she said, "oh god, what happened?" I looked her straight in the eye and said...

"Mexicans"...

Truthfully I blame Queen Isabella of Spain for the entire debacle but that would take too much explanation in a conversation with someone I don't want to talk to in the first place... After all, I don't offer the explanation unless someone inquires in the first place... Actually, unless I am making fun of someone, being sarcastic or just plain being an asshole I don't speak to anyone anyway.

Secretly, I blame Queen Isabella of Spain for the accident, surgeries, horrendous pain, mind numbing anxiety and death of my step-son Jake. The bitch in question set the entire process in motion five centuries before I was even born, but it is entirely her fault.

In 1492, Mr. Columbus came to her with a plan to save Spain from certain doom. It seems that the entire continent of Europe was deforested, polluted, overpopulated and pretty much stripped of every natural resource available due to overpopulation. So along come Chris with this plan to find a shortcut to India in order to blah diddy blah blah whatever you know the rest of the fucking story unless you slept through history class... Actually, you don't know the rest of the story because no one really discusses the genocide, carnage, annihilation, mass murder, butchery, extermination and slavery unless you are an academic, and then everyone is suspicious of you anyway... (Personally I think this is due to fear of looking stupid questioning one of us, rather than out and out dislike...) We all do know about slavery because of Alex Haley and that February thing but it's a short month so why bitch...

The truth of what really happened is a bit more complicated... Little American kids think that this joker's name was "Christopher Columbus"... After doing a little research it has been reported that some historians have questioned the traditional accounts surrounding Columbus's Italian origins. Some even claim that Columbus was in reality a Portuguese Jew whose real name was Salvador Fernandes Zarco. So, another Jew in a long line of Jew troublemakers with "big" ideas...

Whatever, most people are happy to believe the following:

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

Which in reality he did, but the greasy little, big nosed (hello? Jew...) fucker started a long line of cause and effect that eventually put me in this goddamn cast... But all big ideas cost money and long before the Jews had all the money, some shithead had to fund this operation and this particular shithead was, yes, Queen Isabella of Spain. She agreed to fund and here I sit with a four inch stainless steel bolt in my foot... Not a big leap from that "Well... OK, I guess so..." to this piece of stainless steel in my foot... Really...

Not to go off on a tangent, but thank God for Hitler... I mean seriously, without all those medical experiments where would I be? According to history, Josef Mengele literally snapped bones and inserted steel rods into them to see if it would work... So I have this nifty little bolt in my foot under the guise of a quietly cleansed name of "subtalar fusion"... Back in the day it was called the "crush the little Jew fucker's foot with a sledgehammer and we'll see what we can do" surgery... Which in German is "zerquetschen Sie den kleinen Jude-Ficker-Fuß mit einem Vorschlaghammer, und wir ll sehen, was wir Chirurgie tun können" which sounds really far more elegant... Unless you were the guy or gal (probably a guy, the gals were for those "other" experiments... The ones with the canines...) strapped to the table hellishly aware of the entire thing...

My sledgehammer was a Mexican guy (named "Edgar" of all things...) in an Audi and my personal Mengele was a highly trained surgeon who mercifully let me sleep through the whole thing... I also had percocet for the pain and when I heal, I can't be sure but I don't think anyone will kill me and cut me back open to see if it worked... In fact, they will probably just x-ray me and send me on my way with a little pat on my butt... They made around twenty thousand dollars from sawing and hammering on me all due to Hitler... Hopefully, Columbus was indeed a Jew and one of his direct descendants was the crowning achievement in stainless steel rod insertion surgery experimentation so then, I have a teensy bit of vindication... Nice side-note but, we have that other item to attend to now...

Back to the Queen of Death...

So along comes this big robed guy (you know you've seen the renaissance portrayals...) and asks the Queen for some stuff... He wanted some ships, some crew and some money because he was fairly certain that the far east was just over the horizon if you sailed due West... Luckily for them, the Pope never heard about this or otherwise that whole "flat earth" thing may have cropped up again and Edgar wouldn't have gotten that Audi...

So, as the story unfolds, he gets the boats, crew and money and sails due West (kinda) and again, lucky for him, right before the crew turns on him, it's "Land Ho!" and then they all pile out and kisses all around in that kinda, but not really, gay European way... Then, as they are starting to realize that they aren't in India, a group of naked natives ("Huzzah!" thought the sex starved, syphilitic and dirty crew... Except that they thought it in Spanish and probably not "huzzah" but something more like "Ay-Chee-Wah-Wah!") greets them and history marches on...

Before I go on... Can you IMAGINE the bush on the native girls? Holy shit, get me some white panties and a 3/4 length sleeve baseball tee and I am all in...

If the natives had been Mayans, they would have looked into the future and seen my misery and killed the dirty fuckers right there on the beach and then swam out and sank their boats... But they were not and besides, the Mayans were all worried about 2012 anyway...

Another side note, if the Mayans were really prognosticators, they would have looked into the future and seen that horrible fucking movie and sneakily listed it as 2050 and then sat around and snickered that it really was 2012 and they know that CNN won't even hint at it until 2046 or 2047... Those sneaky Mayan fuckers...

Now, instead of reiterating an old, false story, and to make a long ass, brutal story short, the Europeans marched West and North "conquering" the "New World"... Eventually they reached Central America and literally wiped out 90% of the population via disease and gunpowder and took all the gold, silver, precious metals and literally anything that wasn't nailed down...

Here is where the story shifts from the "historical" to the "Why I Personally Blame Isabella"... Lots of European men killed lots of native population... Lots died as a result of small pox and various other surprise diseases... I imagine what was left was lots of women and children and a few weak males. (hopefully, but not necessarily effeminate...) Guess what happened next?

Lots and lots of fucking... Lots and lots of what would become known as "mestizos" were born... Half European and half natives of the Mayan and Aztec descent... Guess what those became?

Mexicans...

Yeah... Mexicans... Are you feeling my flow here yet?

Isabella leads directly to Mexicans... No Isabella? No Mexicans...

A Mexican fucked up my entire world...

Somebody ran, skipped or swam across the border, had some Mexican babies and those Mexican babies had un muchacho nombre Edgar who grew into a fine young man who worked at a local hotel as a desk clerk... Meanwhile, my family and I packed up and moved to California... One day, Edgar the Mexican went to the Audi dealer and the next day I went to the zoo... On our way home, at a random moment in time our paths crossed and the son of a bitch broke my Calcaneus...

Fuck you Isabella... Thanks again Josef Mengele... But seriously, fuck you Queen Isabella...

Bitch.

Forced to Litter...

2010-10-14T03:12:00.006-04:00

I am not one for being Earth's bitch... I litter, use excessive amounts of electricity, water and fossil fuels… I revel in technology and hope one day to get that fabled chip placed in the back of my hand so I can easily purchase even more stuff to have it unceremoniously tossed into the landfill, covered and have schools built on top of it. I have neither the time nor the inclination to worry about Global Warming, Cooling or any other theories about how humans are “wrecking the planet 1.5 times faster than it can recover”… Who the fuck cares? I do not and obviously neither does 7-11…

A while ago, I got a nice nice little gift of a punch card with a “buy four get one free” deal with four purchased and a free one waiting to be guzzled… Placing it in the drawer, I had forgotten about it and luckily discovered it this evening when looking for money to buy coffee on the way to work. Having your identity stolen (again... sigh…) and items purchased with your money but not your consent really fucks up the ability to consume properly… I blame this whole situation on the jackass who took my credit card number and bought that stuff in Austin, Texas… So listen up 7-11, if you have a beef with me, I suggest you locate the guy or gal who stole my shit and break his or her legs…

Stopping on my way to work to get coffee is a nuisance… Perpetually always nearly late, I was in a hurry and took my mug inside, filled it and presented my little punch card to the greasy haired, mousy, backwards hillbilly behind the counter…

Before I go any further… I know how I appear to people… My “look” is a mixture of aging hipster doofus and paroled serial killer… It all depends on the look on my face. My children, wives and various others have commented more than once about how I sometimes get a murderous look in my eyes when I am angry, confused, embarrassed or challenged… I can't help it if I have always been a borderline sociopath. I have an MMPI to prove it. I like I am a potentially violent offender if that helps.

So there we are standing with the counter between us and she looks at the card and says “that ain't fur refills…” Which, upon entering my mind and being processed with the strict logic I adhere to, that being the logic of “I hate coupons, asking for discounts, arguing mis-marked prices please just accept this Jew token and let me the fuck out of here…” it came out sounding like “You didn't read the fine print did you?” As you can guess, my brow furrowed and I suppose I got that dark eyed stormy look and she absolutely backed all the way up against the cigarettes… I politely, but tersely asked her what does she expect me to do because I lacked number one, the time to deal with this shit, and number two, the money to pay for it… She was silent. So we danced a little dance right there in a sleepy little 7-11/BP gas station… I inquired again if she had any suggestions for us? Almost inaudibly she repeated, “It ain't fur refills…” I plainly told her that does not make any sense. This is like explaining the rules of Monopoly to a farm animal… Nothing really gets through, they only understand tonal inflection and I believe that the farm animal behind the counter was picking up on mine.

Then, I suddenly understood… The bar-code on the side of the cup is what she needed. No problem, I turned and went back to the “Coffee Corner” and procured a vessel known commonly as a “large cup” and returned to the counter under the bemused stares of several customers… Some waiting to purchase things and two who were hanging out trying to score some pussy off of the counter girl when she clocked out… I guess in West Virginia a chick with a job is more desirable than a chick without, especially if she is mousy. That way, you can get money off of her to buy hydrocodone to crush and snort when your welfare check runs out. Plus you can hit her, which is always a plus.

So there we are back at the counter and I offer the cup to her and ask her to scan it… As if I am offering her a human flesh covered book of spells, she recoils telling me that “It's empty, I can't do that.” I ask her what was it she that couldn't do. She says she can't sell me an empty cup. I said you that technically she wasn't selling me an empty cup, the coffee was safely in my travel mug. She looked frightened and confused so I put the cup down, opened my mug and poured the coffee into the cup and again offered it to her with the card and asked her politely to scan it so I could go. She took the card, scanned the cup and glanced at the security camera. I proceeded to then pour the coffee back into the travel mug and placed the empty cup back on the counter asking her to throw it away for me. The tension was palpable, she was confused and the two pussy hunters were poised to strike should the aging hippie become violent.

I fully comprehend that the girl behind the counter was just following rules. I doubt she deserved to graduate from high school, let alone understand the complex logic of the two cups, one drink crisis that I had presented for her to unravel. I am aware that company policy is company policy and her I.Q. wasn't anywhere near “average” so not following policy was a bit beyond the scope of her understanding. So just because I compared her to a farm animal doesn't mean I didn't understand where she was coming from. I mean really, if everyone just willy nilly gave away a free drink without a cup then 7-11 would have a glut of cups to explain to the I.R.S. and who needs that?

So go ahead, ask me what my complaint is?

Wouldn't you all agree that we have had “It's the small things that will save us from ourselves” rammed down our throats since this whole “global disaster” bullshit started? Turn off a light, put air in your tires, carpool and any number of small nudges to get us to save the planet have been suggested to me… I was pissed off not at the potential hillbilly pill supplier behind the counter, just at the idiocy of corporate America in general.

Then it dawned on me...

A refill is somewhat cheaper than a cup of coffee… Oh, now I see… If 7-11 “gives away” a refill, the tax structure wouldn't look as good. If 7-11 “gives away” an entire cup of coffee, the I.R.S. gives them a break for their “loss”… So that extra cup in the landfill is worth so much more than I could ever imagine.

In essence, 7-11 is not only giving you free coffee, they themselves are sipping the beautiful cup of profits… It's like a capitalistic two-fer… All it costs is some landfill space and four minutes of your time to unravel the mystery of how to play the cup game on the dirty counters of consumerist America.

I wanted to explain that to the crowd, but it's the middle of the month and I know money is tight, pills grinders are empty and nerves are frazzled, so why bother… My tonal inflection is completely wrong and my explanation could have earned me a beating...

By the way, I would like to thank 7-11 for allowing me to waste a cup tonight. I just wish I would have gotten an ill fitting lid to throw out also… My night would have been so much better… I am somewhat relieved to know that on the floor in the back seats of every free drink recipient lay the travel mugs of thousands… We do need more places to construct schools and the quicker we fill the valleys of America with trash, the more plentiful the land to build them…

As I walked out, the dirty little clerk asked me if I wanted a new punch card… Fuck yes, I cannot wait to waste another foam cup... next time it will be lid and all baby… Maybe a stir stick, three napkins and a sleeve so I don't get a burn from transferring it to my travel mug…

Because life is precious, and God and the Bible...

2010-10-04T02:20:00.002-04:00

In the King James Version of the Christian Bible, Leviticus 18:22 is translated: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." Nearly every rock throwing Christian knows this verse and will chuck it without hesitation at anyone who presents a logical argument in the pro-gay marriage arena.

So…

Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you all, regarding some of the other specific Old Testament laws and how to follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? According to the Old Testament Law, a man could only sell his daughter in extreme circumstances, how does this translate in the modern age? Does imminent termination of my cable and Internet access due to lack of payment allow me to sell my daughters?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19-24. The problem is how do I tell? Personally I am married and I know when this is occurring, but what about the single guys out there? Perhaps we should have entire sections of our cities with blocks of hotels for menstruating women with big fences to keep men from sinning with them? Secondly, would these hotels be kept open with special taxes on God's people or are the women themselves responsible for their own Tampon Taxation?

4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A co-worker of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians? Can I own a Canadian of Mexican ancestry?

5. I have a neighbor who mowed his lawn (Consequently part of mine also…) on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Would God spare him and kill me because it was my lawn?

6. I notice that eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10. Is this a lesser abomination than homosexuality? Can you settle this? An abomination is an abomination in my eyes. Do you think we should burn all Red Lobsters to the ground in some country wide cleansing rituals?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? Suppose I have Lasik Surgery to correct my vision. Does this correct the defect or simply mask it?

8. Most males get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die? I personally haven't had a haircut in ten years; do I get to kill them?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. I know a man who has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

You can see where I am going here, and I do believe I have presented enough “scripture” to point out that using Old Testament law to condemn modern behaviors is quite laughable. In fact, using the Christian Bible to point out anything is nonsensical at the best. Picking and choosing your favourite laws in order to condemn others of things that make you personally uncomfortable is fairly distasteful.

Now let me point out my own personal pet peeve… Twisting scriptures out of context and having it backfire on you… Not because you mean well, but simply because you lack the knowledge of the book you claim to live by… Which is, in MY book, really fucking funny…

The third commandment of the “Big Ten” states that “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” This beats out, in order of listings “Don't steal”, “Don't covet”, “Don't Kill” and completely trumps “Don't rape” which doesn't even make the list which is kind of odd, but hey, the lord has done some genocide in His time, so if genocide doesn't make the list what's a little rape going to do any real harm?

The modern Christian will not use the words “aw goddamn it!” or “Jesus fucking Christ!” because they sincerely believe that this is “taking the Lord's name in vain”. May I point out something here? I am sure that God, in His infinite intelligence would give us a list that would be in some logical order. So the first commandment would be the most important (Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.) and consequently the list would be in order of importance from there on down. So modern Christians believe that it is far more important to not cuss than to say, not murder? I guess if rape isn't listed, then am I led to believe that a serial rapist can get into Heaven before a guy who screams out the name of the Savior when he smashes his thumb under a hammer? I guess as long as the rapist doesn't 1) kill his victims or 2) scream “oh goddamn!” when he blows his load he isn't violating the Ten Commandments at the very least. Maybe the Ten Commandments doesn't list rape because God knew that up until the mid eighties, the ten were on the walls of every kindergarten in the United States and he didn't want any five year olds to ask what rape was? Oh that Lord, he is so cautious isn't he?

Seriously, any fool with half a brain knows that using the Lord's name in a swear-a-thon does not have any connection with the Ten Commandments. Perhaps it isn't the best use of the language but I am fairly certain that profanity was not in the top ten things God was worried about when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to convene with Him.

To boil it down to laymen terms, it simply means don't take on his name pointlessly. In other words, don't become a Christian in word, and then throw rocks at gay people you stupid fuck…

coming back really soon...

2010-09-15T03:58:00.001-04:00

Billion Dollar Visual Banquet..

2010-04-19T16:24:00.008-04:00

After a long not personally chosen hiatus, I have finally returned… The revisit will be brief however as the end of my bachelor’s level college career looms and a comprehensive Algebra final threatens to kick my ass in a rather spectacular way. It will be a Wendy Testaburger, Eric Cartman showdown and I believe both of us will take some devastating blows in this one… I have, for some reason been jolted to public comment on the most popular film in the history of cinema. A near billion dollar extravaganza called Avatar… Let the good times roll…

Let me first lay down a solid foundation by saying that yes, the CGI was fucking amazing… For about ten minutes… I nearly finished an entire bowl of cereal before coming to the conclusion that CGI alone does not make a film. It took another thirty minutes to see that this cookie cutter, poorly acted piece of junk rode solely on the graphics and little else… Congratulations to James Cameron for making another “Titanic” film. For the first time in my life I wished that I could have seen this one in IMAX 3D. The headache just may have been worth it. However, I certainly realize that a thirty foot 3D turd is still a thirty foot 3D turd no matter how much money you spend on it.

Before I go on with my completely personally opinionated, useless analysis I would like to touch on the subject of why this particular movie was so moving, so acclaimed and so damn popular. The American public has the attention span of a five year old and the film taste of Booji Boy… Quickly now, go Google that before you lose track of what I was saying. Avatar followed the same crippled, tired plot line as the other four thousand Hollywood films. The dog-eared banal, dead beat and predictable structure used so many times even a child would recognize it. Like a tired hillbilly knows the calloused fist she will experience when the dinner is late. Let’s take a quick look at the configuration, shall we?

1) Stage One - "The Opportunity". The opening must draw the audience into the initial setting of the story. It must reveal the everyday life your hero has been living, and establish identification with him or her by introducing them as sympathetic, likable, funny and/or powerful. In the case of Avatar, it has to be sympathy because the Jake is in a wheelchair. The constant references to modern medicine supplying him with legs makes us want him to succeed in his endeavors. In the back of our minds we know that he will turn against the raging, scar headed, one liner spewing asshole commander because a cripple is obviously a good guy in this case...

2) Stage Two – “New Situation”. In most movies, the hero enters this new situation willingly, often with a feeling of excitement and anticipation, or at least believing that the new problem he faces can be easily solved. But as the conflict starts to build, he begins to realize he's up against far greater obstacles than he realized.

3) Stage Three - "Progress". Main story falling into place and in a better film than avatar, we might find out what "unobtainium" is used for. In other words, the plot might fill in some holes and the characters be fleshed out a bit. Not without conflict, this part of the movie is very important because it leads us into the most important part of the film.

4) Stage Four – “Complications and Higher Stakes”. Right when it appears that Jake Sully can do no more, Sigourney Weaver is dead, the big tree is down and all the blue people are hurt and disillusioned…

5) Stage Five – “The Final Push”. Oh bitches, the war is fucking on now… The big red flying thing is now controlled by Jake for only the sixth time in the oral history of the blue things. The audience knows that SOMETHING is bound to happen now… And god knows we are hoping, it has been two hours we have been forced to sit through this visual brouhaha… Just get Jake to that tree already… Jesus Christ…

6) Stage Six – “The Aftermath”. Or, as I like to think of it as “I can finally go take a piss soon stage…” Jake saves the day, gets to be a real blue person, gets the girl and sends the entire human race home to their “dying planet”… Anybody else catch that “dying planet, green bullshit” reference? Sigh…

Curtain closes, not a dry eye in the house…

There you have it… Same shit, different, expensive pile. From Beverly Hills Cop to The Hills Have Eyes, plot synopsis intact. Seems like Cameron has it all figured out. People don’t see that most Hollywood movies are the same because they have the mental recall of a lobster. If you overwhelm them with visuals, they don’t mind…

As I twittered throughout the movie while I watched it, I pointed out that James Cameron movies, for the most part are like really sexy, really hot retarded girls. After about ten minutes you realize that your attraction is solely visual but I guess you stay and eat her pussy anyway, because you kinda feel like you have to… Looks pretty good but you don’t get much out of it… After-wards you just keep talking about how great she looked… You never mention that her I.Q. was about the size of your shoes and you are more than a little ashamed when you see her years later…

Jen did point out that this wasn’t a Lars von Trier film and it wasn’t supposed to be anything more than what it was… I agree for the most part, but… Most people would just get that tired, puzzled expression and say… Who?

At least it didn’t have Dennis Quaid in it… A 3D Quaid? *shiver*

irony is ironic....

2009-12-05T07:58:00.003-05:00

"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11

So... Belief that God Almighty came down in the form of a man via a "virgin birth" and eventually was crucified by the Romans, descended into Hell for three days, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of Himself... Should we um, "put this away" also Mr. Apostle Paul?

drop kick me jesus through the goalposts of life... or whatever...

2009-11-29T10:48:00.009-05:00

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." (RSV Exodus 20:3-6).

Excellent scripture taken right out of the bible... for those purists who insist that the king james version is the "original" and therefore only "viable" copy of the bible, i would remind you it is the oldest "english" version of the bible, but not the first...

allow me a few minutes of your time to entertain myself some more... i have, since my childhood, been fascinated with the images of jesus that "appear" in divers places... the ones i can truly remember are an overpass in oklahoma, a tortilla in tucson, a slice of toast, a windowpane, a reoccurring shadow on the back of a warehouse, the side of a refrigerator, a knot in the pine of a bathroom door and a prune... the prune was always my favorite... until now..

meet my newest target for sarcastic comments leveled at the supremely stupid...

this is mary jo coady... recently she "discovered" that the face of jesus was burned into the bottom of her iron... raised catholic (oh reeeeeeaaaaalllllly?) she has reaffirmed her faith and feels a whole lot better about her current situation of reduced hours, divorce, loss of income and potential financial disaster... when asked what she would do with the iron in question, she said she would put it back in the box and buy a new iron... methinks the catholic church could capitalize on that one... lots of catholics need to know that their particular god is real... they would probably pay good money to mary jo to gaze upon the visage seared upon her iron... in reality, mary jo is thinking about it, but cnn would more than likely play that up... like all those people who win the lottery and tell the press they will continue to work and 5 years later you read that tax evasion blurb on page seven... i think mary jo's boyfriend is already hard at work on the gazebo out back... just a hunch...

here is a closer look at the savior's visage...

jesus appears to have some long hair in this one... just like ALL the anglo saxon jesii of the last four or five centuries...

however... did you know this?

Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice--nor do the churches of God.

1 Cor 11:13-16

just a thought...

getting tired yet? there is so much more...

meet jim... a johnson city tennessee resident of no particular faith... however... since it is thoroughly illegal to strike a person blind, as the lord did unto saul of tarsus, who became the apostle paul and eventually wrote the whole "hair" scriptures, the lord can no longer smite people due to legal implications and whatnot... so.. in order to get a man's attention the lord does this...

every day, ole' jim comes out and there in the side window of his s-10 pickup is the face of jesus... with the posture and stance of jim, i don't think the lord has reached him quite enough to postulate new scriptures about hair styles, but maybe jim will do something else, equally as great... perhaps it will become a shame for a man to be a goth, or something along those lines...

that's about all i have for now... but i am thinking... if a person who finds a burnt image of jesus in a tortilla is somehow supposed to take that as a sign he or she should be more devout, more pious and maybe even be called into the ministry, shouldn't other "appearances" of the famous take on similar considerations? what if, tonight as i make my sandwiches for work, the mustard stains suddenly look like ron jeremy? should i take this as a sign i need to go into the porn industry? now if god wants to wake me up one night and give me a dick like ron jeremy, i'm thinking instant ministry... praise the lord for he hath given me a hog leg!!! hallelujah! what if my turkey falls into a clump that just out of nowhere, looks like nicolas cage? i guess i should sign myself up for some poorly written action movies?

come on... somebody famous once said that if a thousand monkeys sit at a thousand typewriters for a thousand years, one of them will write a shakespearean play... doesn't this also mean that if a thousand walmarts sells a thousand irons to a thousand housewives who iron a thousand shirts, one of them will burn a picture of jesus in the bottom of her iron?

in retrospect, the whole "no image" thing just doesn't play anymore... not since the great tortilla image of the seventies anyway...

and lord, if you're real... could we discuss that dick situation?

getting your boner back... naturally...

2009-11-22T04:55:00.004-05:00

yep... I am OCD... actually enjoy it for the most part. sometimes it keeps me awake but hey, i would rather have a clean coffee pot, dishes done and floor swept before i lay down, go out or get laid.... i can't help it though. the "C" in OCD lets me know that most of this is just out of my hands as far as doing things... but...

i have a new secret... a secret i will gladly share with all of you... let me change my shoes and get my sweater on and we can all go see king friday together...

i was driving down the road the other day... yeah... i drive about 600 to 700 miles a week to cover full time work, full time school and part time life... i have way too much time on my hands with sirius radio and my thoughts... but, every now and again, as i am running through the landfill i call my mind, i do find solutions to my myriad of really trivial, excruciatingly meaningless problems i call my life...

can i go off on a tangent here? before i give you the secret to a happy existence?

sometimes i like to put my problems in perspective... i may have insurmountable odds against me... bills piling up... job stress... shitty car... blah blah blah.. the same stupid shit we all stress about... but... i like to consider that i am not carrying a bucket filled with polluted water from the Ganges river so i can cook my last goat... i am not scrounging for food in a landfill... i am not sitting on a street in new york with a styrofoam cup and a sign that says "help a homeless veteran, god bless you..." i am not incarcerated nor am i on welfare... so, all in all, life is okay... i am busier than a one armed crack dealer on the first of the month and my free time consists of sleeping but things are okay... just thought i would throw that out there for all of you who complain that your internet is too slow... at the very least, you do have the internet... so to those who would complain i say to you the same thing i say to all giggly bitches in the back of the theater... shh!

now.. where were we? hmm... ah yes... the secret of happiness...

let's run through a short list of things that ARE NOT the secret to a happy existence...

your family - name the last time all of your family was in harmony and at least one of them wasn't talking shit about you...

your friends - will turn on you like jackals if they see a weakness...

your jesus - makes demands that you cannot possibly give him... (whosoever would look at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery...) so don't lust! yeah right jesus... thanks a lot...

your job - fleeting moments of happiness called a payday... usually spent before the day arrives anyway...

your children - yeah, they make you sporadically happy... and also so fucking miserable you want to kill them and bury them in the back yard and take that trip to europe like you always wanted to...

your stuff - truly does make you happy occasionally... until the fire...

yourself - part of the key to happiness lies right here but if you don't know the secret, then this fucker makes you the most miserable of all... don't listen to you, you don't know what the hell you are talking about... you even lie to yourself occasionally to try and make it better but you know you are lying and then you don't trust you anymore... vicious circle... so stop...

that makes the short list... there is a big list out there of things that people chase to make them happy... drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, driving fast... most of them will end up getting you into trouble, so avoid them.. except for the sex and the drugs... just be careful... herpes and the police are waiting out there and your name is on their list...

now... think about this for a second...

you don't have to play the guitar... you choose to... you don't have to paint... you choose to... you don't have to collect snugly bears, you do it because you choose to... all these things are just hobbies... they pass the time and do what? well, obviously they make your life more tolerable...

so far, so good...

next statement will be very objectionable to about 95 percent of those who read it... but before you get your panties in a bunch, think very carefully about what i am about to say...

you don't have to be alive... you choose to...

now before you freak out... look around you right now and locate at least ten things within walking distance that you could choose to end your life with... bottle of pills, car, the roof of a tall-"ish" building, a gun, a knife, razor blade... you get the idea... and yes, i know you want to balk and say something foolish right now about "suicide is wrong" or some other banal platitude that a three year old could shoot down without trying...

you don't have to be here folks... interesting isn't it? really, when you think about it you are choosing to keep breathing another day... in and of itself, when you realize you have a choice in the matter, it kind of makes life better right there doesn't it?

now connect the two thoughts...

guitar - pleasant, enjoyable, a choice...

painting - pleasant, enjoyable, a choice...

collecting stuffed bears - pleasant, enjoyable, a choice...

life - *insert your thought here*

now... i know that logically, my argument fails in that not all chosen things are pleasant... i am not stupid... deciding to choose to fight your cancer is not pleasant... just because we choose something doesn't automatically equal good...

but...

all hobbies ARE pleasant aren't they? here is the funny part about it... you can absolutely suck at your pastime... i truly suck at playing the guitar... i have my moments, don't get me wrong... i know a painter who just got started and she has a little talent, not a lot of knowledge about how to, but she loves it... i love my music... the point is, you do not have to be good at your hobby for it to make you smile... i can forget about fucking up a chord change because i know it isn't important... the new artist can toss a canvas and feel just as good as she did before she started... why? because these are the things we choose to take us away from our shitty lives...

but wait...

what if your shitty life WAS your hobby? what if, you treated life like it was your hobby? then you could be smiling even if you fail... you could just say "yep, i fucked that up..." and be okay with it because life isn't so serious once you look at it like it is something you choose to do rather than HAVE to do...

so.. ever since that moment in the car i can't get this out of my head... actually cheered up considerably... i even made a humongous error in judgment tonight but i am okay with it... all i really did was fuck up a chord change in a figurative sense... forget about it and keep playing i guess...

i kind of like my life again... so the next time someone asks you, "what's your hobby?" look them straight in the eye and just say... "being alive"... then smile...

think hard about this one... it might improve your mood and you just might enjoy the rest of the time you choose to be here...

now excuse me while i go do my dishes, sweep, mop, dust, vacuum and arrange the knick knacks in my living room... i know i just did it, but hey OCD demands it of me...

Going with the "Flo"... Pun Intended...

2009-11-16T04:58:00.002-05:00

well... here we go again... i read and read and read your comment flo... then, just for shits and giggles (god, how i love that saying...) i read it again... for me it all came down to this statement:

"This leads to the other issue of everything in life carrying a risk, and being okay with that and being okay with not being in complete control at every moment."

before i begin to answer that, i would like to bring up the conversation i had this afternoon with jen... we were talking about that last little diatribe of mine and it came up that i don't really "believe" in anything... to me, since that last revelation of mine, there isn't really anything concrete to believe in outside of the empirical little life i lead... i feel hot, cold, wet dry... i see things... i taste salt, sweet, bitter... i hear noises and i smell stuff... there you go, the five senses...

outside of that, most everything is just conjecture... morals, ethics, codes, laws, gods, ideas, philosophy, religion, psychology, school... the list is nearly endless... every day we see and do things "by the book"... we follow the signs, do our jobs, raise our kids... we talk, we think, we worry, we fear...

our lives are based in, and in what we have been taught. nothing more, nothing less... but if we back up, some of what we have been taught to think is just the ideals or ideas of someone else... what seems wrong to you may be perfectly okay with someone else.. no, i am not talking about the extremes here... killing is not correct, nor rape, nor robbery... however, these things are perfectly acceptable in some cases... if i am hungry, i may steal... my dying from starvation isn't a good idea when all i have to do is hop the fence and take your things... killing in the name of a country, or political system is acceptable to most... ask any american about a terrorist and there ya go... not too sure about the rape part but... i am sure that somewhere out there in dreamland, someone can come up with a valid reason or explanation for some weird scenario... for all of you reading this who have been raped, robbed or had someone die or be killed, save it... i have no time to listen to the rants of the psychologically maimed...

in any case... i don't really see things as "right" or "wrong", "good" "bad" or "indifferent"... to me, things just are... we can't stop it by condemning it or praising it... we can certainly protect ourselves from those who would harm us but for me, all i can see is that they are put into prisons for doing the incorrect action against society... there is no afterlife for them to face... there is no karma to repay them... sometimes, actually most times, folks break the law and get by with it... no harm, no foul...

springing from this... i don't believe in "should have been", "could have been" or "would have been"... I don't see fate as a valid interpretation of finding the one you love or meeting the one you come to hate... we can't back up and redo anything unless it is written in pencil and you realize you filled in the wrong bubble...

i myself, exist solely in this moment... like my blog said, i exist on the edge of what i have come to call the "event horizon"... there is no control here... no expectations either... think about that...

with loss of the expectation of control, there is loss of fear... i can't fear what i don't expect.. can i? lets look a little closer at that statement and take it to some philosophical extremes... people burst into flames... for no reason... they call it spontaneous combustion... it is a very real thing... i don't fear that... that would be ridiculous. i do not expect that i will burst into flames at any second... but i could... people do.. i'm a people.. therefore...

so what am i trying to say? i don't really know yet, but i have an inkling... i can almost grasp that this life is so fleeting, so useless, so meaningless that fear is not an option... its like this... if every action has the same meaning (i.e. - none), then picking up a piece of trash and throwing it in the waste basket has the same fear factor as say, skydiving... if i can get this straight in my head, then i can live a pretty damn good life if i try my best to do what i think is the correct action. yes, i know, people take this and run with it saying that if i think murder is okay then, blah blah, blah... the thing is, every "normal" person in the world does not want to be incarcerated or strapped to a gurney and injected with drugs that will kill them... we all pretty much want to survive don't we? therefore, maybe i can come to some conclusion that even if i don't take life all that seriously, i can still make money, pay taxes, raise my kids, yada, yada... but instead of worrying my way through it, i can kind of watch it go by with a wry little smile on my face seeing the man behind the curtain but not bothering him...

now... don't get me wrong flo... my home is a bastion of OCD... i cleaned all weekend so i could do my homework without thinking about my housework... i bath meticulously, groom myself and think about if my cabinets are in order... but... i don't stress it... it is the way i am... raised by a tyrant, i picked up some fairly odd psychological tics...

we are what we are flo... a large portion of us cannot accept that. we feel like we have to stop thinking like we think and join the cult of correctness... many of us, millions in fact, medicate ourselves to the point we aren't ourselves anymore... how sad... i read a tirade against psychotropics the other day that said "we are medicating the childhood out of our children"... how odd... shouldn't it go further and say, we are medicating the humanity out of humans... we worry, we stress... some of us take all this shit way too seriously though... we worry until we worry about being worried...

here is my concern... for myself... i realized it yesterday after meditating on your blog... i though about how i try to unstress myself by doing something i enjoy and then when it doesn't work, i get stressed about the thing i used to enjoy..

cycles... we must break them flo... know that your worry is human... know that your stress is stressful... you worry so much about that left turn that you can't take it and you stand paralyzed on the brink of acting.. if you think about it, you stand on the brink of everything, every single second of every day of your life...

want to be free? think about this... no matter what you do, the possibilities are endless and the decisions you make about those are endless... you are free... free to make that left turn with a smile on your face....

please notice that there are exits in the front and back as well as over both wings...

enjoy your life... it is the only one you get...

the simple tying of a shoelace can change your life.... and other nonsense i used to believe...

2009-11-14T04:27:00.002-05:00

ten minutes from now, your life will be much different than it is right now... believe me, it isn't impossible. for what seems like eons now, i have believed that if i had only stopped to tie my shoe in the parking lot of that zoo... if i had only hesitated for an instant, the world would be a different place...

bullshit... i have completely freed myself of that notion. and here is why...

which cigarette gave your uncle cancer? which drink killed your dad? in order to give life a purpose, a reason, diligently search the past to give the present some kind of logic. maybe that time in third grade when i stopped on the playground at blenman elementary school made me hesitate just long enough to, years later, be at the right place at the right time and pow! jake is dead... what nonsense.. what folly we all expound in order to give ease our simple little minds when something bad happens...

how about this scenario... stopping to ponder a flower in seattle at age two leads to a complex system of interaction that, 56 years later, places you in just the right place and time to get a blowjob from a 19 year old girl desperate for drugs that gives you a heart attack in the alley behind a chinese restaurant in burlington, vermont. hey, maybe is she had stopped to tie her shoe... right?

the past is passed... the future lies beyond the event horizon and so many factors are woven into the tapestry we call now that we are barely able to comprehend it... but, in fact we exist at event horizon don't we? it is always now and no matter what we stop to tie, hesitate to listen to or hurry through so we can get to where we are going, it is always now... i like to think of it that way... a billion threads coming in from a billion angles that tie together in a beautiful tapestry for a split second and then it unravels behind us like a torn tarp flapping in the wind... it is always different, always new, always now... things cannot be any different than they are... the infinitesimal split second of time we exist in is mind boggling... this blog post you are reading already happened... as you read this, it is has already been written... go ahead, glance through the rest of it, its been done for hours, days, weeks... perhaps you are reading it and it was written long ago... maybe i am dead and this is just weird little thought you came across... hopefully though, it is entertaining for you... maybe it is making your now tolerable...

so go ahead and get on with it... stop thinking about how your moment on this particular event horizon may have been different if you had done something different.

look down right now and see if your shoes need tying, go ahead and kneel down and do the knot properly... you just might save your life 50 years from now... or not...

the loss of a testicle is not the end of the world and other caffeinated thoughts...

2009-11-13T11:15:00.007-05:00

Anniversaries... The day we met, the day we parted, the day you got hired, the day you died, the day... The day... The day... 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, 12 months in a year, ten years in a decade, ten decades in a century, ten centuries in a millennium... Time goes on and on... Time... Short term goals, 10 minutes.... Mid Term goals, 10 months... Long term goals, 10 years... When I woke up in the hospital they told me so many things... He is in a better place... It happened for a reason... At least he didn't suffer... Perhaps the worst one of all... Time heals all wounds... Not so... in the past ten years I have learned many things...

Time is irrelevant... Based on nothing more than the revolution and rotation of my planet going around my star... Everything in the universe cannot be based on this measure of nothing more than movement... Can it?

Death is unavoidable... Doesn't matter if you are 7 or 107... Eventually you will either be killed or just plain wear out... Sooner or later, the Platypus of Death will visit your doorstep...

Life is fundamentally meaningless... Yes, I know... Nobody wants to hear that... Get over it... Sometimes a person's belief system runs so deep within them that it drives everything they do, say and think... The only reason most people don't want to hear it is because it sounds so terrible... Ooh, maybe I'm not as important as I think I am... Scary thought that 100 years after you die, no one will remember you except in a photograph and if records aren't kept, they will probably get your information wrong anyway... Maybe if you try and assassinate the president, you might get a notation in a history book... Doubtful still... Who tried to kill Ronald Reagan 64 days into his first term? Yeah... The only thing most people know about him is that he loved Jodie Foster... So invent some meaning, live it, forget about it... Everyone else will...

Although meaningless, life can be pretty damn good... Get drunk, get high, get laid, eat a nice piece of fish... Oh... try and get some exercise, it will make you feel better...

wiping the tarnish off brass monkey balls...

2009-11-13T05:26:00.003-05:00

I just read a statistic that the number of 5 - 13 year old trick or treaters declined 381,000 from 2008 to 2009... It could be a decline in the actual number of children but... I am imagining 381,000 5 to 13 year olds who are too fat and lazy to even get off the couch for free candy... Actual walking, knocking and talking would just be too strenuous on their already taxed, diabetic systems... Perhaps mom should do it for them next year...

in the event of a water landing the cushions can be used as flotation devices...

2009-11-08T05:34:00.001-05:00

here is another idea of mine that won't be paid any attention to... everybody has regrets in life and if you don't, then i suspect you are either autistic or a christian... same difference...

so.. start by cutting and pasting the list of regrets and add your own and publish...

allow me to begin...

1. I should have spoken to Valerie White in the fifth grade... I liked her dresses and white tights... She was very socially awkward and I loved her...

it won't ever happen to you... until it does...

2009-11-08T03:24:00.004-05:00

the time has come for you to dream out loud... openly discussed, they become the things that make you wet rather than uncomfortable... that's a rather private thought isn't it? well, it isn't private anymore... but remember... this just in: god probably doesn't care much about your sex life... you are wild and rebellious and beyond the law, but not really...

bent over in the bright light with your panties around your ankles, you feel violated and turned on and totally free... isn't that amazing how things can be right, wrong, good, bad and righteously delicious all at once? if you leave your shoes on, why does it feel like you are more exposed? so everyone, tonight... have sex with your clothes on, you'll love it...

gently slammed? what the fuck does that mean? you want or you don't.. you can't jump part way out of an airplane can you? isn't life about experience? how is being careful not to hurt someone make you feel when you want to live and they say "gently please"... fuck 'em if they can't take a joke and choke 'em if they can't take a fuck is my motto... sometimes feelings get in the way and we suddenly brake right on the brink of spanking her when she in the throes of an orgasm... oh god, doesn't that sound wonderful? we stop when we desire not to do so... machinations of ourselves, playing the games of our lovers instead of them playing ours... fuck you then, i will just take my ball and go home... oh the wonders of double meanings...

i sometimes think back on all the games that have turned into something so strange, so wonderful.. choke you? why? i act innocent as if i don't know what you mean... and if i don't will you end up on the coroner's table like mr. Hutchence? put my hands on your throat while i fuck you? well, if have to, i guess i will to please you... but should i let you know how much it excites me or will that ruin the game for you? do you want me to because you want it or does it excite you to think it scares me? either way is okay... let go people, let it happen... tomorrow is too late... thinking about another while you fuck is fine, but being lost in the one you are with is divine... i suspect that she is into much more than you can imagine, the boundaries are illusionary... the only reason she holds back is because she doesn't trust you. why? why wouldn't the one who is oh so intimate with you trust you? because the things you want are the things a hooker does for money and she doesn't want to feel like a hooker because she thinks maybe you won't respect her for it... and you know what asshole? you won't... the truly odd part of the whole situation is that after she leaves because the things she did for you made you suspicious are the things you will think about at night when you are alone in bed playing with yourself... imagining what she did with you and taking it further than you did in reality... is she doing that with him now? you hope she isn't, know she is and fighting your urges to cry... she was your free cable hookup brother and you called the company and turned yourself in... don't ever ask for it, unless you can handle it...

so now you know why you don't do what you don't do... interesting isn't it? afraid.. both sides.. he is afraid to ask... you are afraid he won't ask and you will be left to desire that which you cannot have... within this odd little conundrum is the answer to the folly of man..

i stopped and reread all that i have written and for a brief second i thought maybe i wouldn't publish it... and then i reconsidered.. because just once you all should do what comes to mind... want to hear the shocking don't you? then pull out when she in the middle of that hard orgasm and spank her and watch her cry and scream out in pleasure and in pain... watch her squirm around clutching the sheets and not believing what you just did and loving it so much she is ashamed of herself... then hold her while she calms down and cherish that moment in time... because that only happens once... the next time she has, you have already experienced it... I doubt any of you have the fortitude to even try, but now, a little part of you will grin and consider it... think of it as my little gift to you... at the very least, you can imagine what it would be like...

let the search for healthy debauchery begin...

waxing (of your car) and waning american public concern...

2009-11-05T10:17:00.003-05:00

Since April of 2008, American public belief about the "Global Warming" dangers have dropped from 71% to the current number of 47%... In other news, gasoline prices in April of 2008 were an astounding $3.34 per gallon and have since dropped to an average of $2.67 per gallon...

Anyone else smart enough to see the correlation or am I alone in the room again?

i see the nipple on your soul, sir!

2009-11-02T01:12:00.002-05:00

After decades of searching the dark corners for the origin of life, the reasons behind our existence and any purpose we may or may not have, I came to some startling revelations. Religion has no answers to these questions, science fails and although philosophers do appear to inquire with some sense of reason, even we fail miserably in our quest by first allowing our intellects to guide us and secondarily not admitting that we can never know what the truth is. The barrier between humans and answers to the ultimate questions is in fact, impermeable. I believe with my entire mind that even if we could find answers to life’s most intriguing questions, we don’t have the capacity to understand them. Perhaps Darwin was correct, maybe we crawled out of the soup and spent millions of years just trying to stand upright. Or maybe aliens landed and one of them took a dump behind a rock and we are the product of the evolution of the organisms in that fecal matter. The point is we can’t know for sure. I suppose the fun is in the quest for the answers and the arguments that are generated by our search.

I did want to try and make a point here that many of you may need. When faced with the arguments of the believers, the scientist and the philosopher, it is wise to know their games. For those of you with bookshelves in your homes, apartments and/or rental rooms, I would like you to take a good long look at what manuscripts you own. For those of you without a bookshelf, please, stop arguing altogether because you are not making any sense whatsoever. At the very least, stop quoting statistics you heard on the John Tesh Radio Show, you are embarrassing yourselves. On second thought, I rescind that last statement, your comments are amusing to those of us who have the aforementioned well stocked shelves. Now, before any of us get all self-righteous and giddy about our knowledge, let’s not start sucking each other’ dicks quite yet. We have to discuss what is on these shelves.

Story time… When I was much younger, I was on a frantic search for the correct religion to follow. I spent a few years behind the iron curtain of hard core Christianity in the form of Pentecostalism and when that failed me, I began a decade long quest that ended with me realizing I had wasted a large amount of time because there was not a “correct” religion and the lifelong responsibility of boxing up a huge personal library of books every time I need or want to move. During my search I came to the conclusion that even the most dedicated believers have not read the manuals assigned to them. As an example, I had a gang of Mormons come to my door one bright Saturday morning with some literature and an invitation to their meeting. I began to question their core beliefs and the hesitations, stuttering and embarrassed looks led to some uncomfortable silences. One of the “elders” told me that he was not carrying his “Book of Mormon” but he would be glad to answer my questions if he could return the next day. I told to hold on, I would get my copy and when I came back to the door with my well read version, they were gone. Probably didn’t want to discuss the Golden Tablets and “Seer Stones” with me… Point is, when faced with the facts, even those who would travel halfway around the world to give testimony of their wondrous beliefs have no fucking clue as to what their beliefs are.

During my search, I met prophets, preachers, teachers and confessors. I went to Jewish Temple, dozens of churches, Jehovah’s Witness meetings, Mormons and all kinds of ceremonies. I even met one of the 144,000 chosen ones going to Heaven to rule and reign in the event that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are correct. His name was Philip. Phillip was kicked off of the “List” because he was caught having sex with his wife’s sister. Later on, through Divine Intervention, he was later placed back on the list when he said he was sorry. I do find it odd that out of the entire organization, they couldn’t find 144,000 people who at the very least, hadn’t boned their wife’s sister, but hey, who I am to say who rules and reigns? I guess having ol’ Phil up there makes me feel better about my shortcomings. If Phillip can have sex with his sister-in-law and still be one of the “chosen few”, then I get some leeway. I suppose Phillip was my epiphany that most organized religions are just so full of shit that it is entirely pointless to try and think they have any answers. Joseph Smith looked through “seer stones” to translate his little bible and got information from the Angel Moroni about golden plates buried in upstate New York. People believe in an immaterial soul that animates human consciousness. I know that we as humans don’t know what consciousness is, but I am fairly certain it isn’t a soul. Personally I think it is electricity and we are going to be pretty upset when we get the electric bill when power companies figure out how to put a meter on us.

Okay, Okay… I have digressed into humor again. I apologize. My point at the beginning of this little diatribe was about the strength of your arguments is in direct correlation to the quality of books on your shelf. I shall continue.

I am going to make a blanket statement here and those of you who wish to argue, please do. If you do not have, at the very least a copy of the Christian Bible, The Quran, The Vedas and Upanishads, the Analects of Confucius, some form of the sayings of The Buddha, Das Kapital, Origin of Species, some works of Freud, Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, some philosophy and maybe a Satanic Bible, you need to go to the used bookstore right now. Stop reading and just go. Every intelligent person ought to have these in their possession. You do not, I reiterate, do not have to believe them, you just should know them. Within these books are the keys to shutting off the stupid fucking arguments that you hear every day of your life if you are paying the slightest bit of attention… Knowledge based in fact is like bullshit repellent. Once you recognize that the person you are speaking with is just spewing things he or she heard, then just get out a little Freud and spray it on them. Should they be immune, switch to some Baudrillard and they usually stop because the instant you say French Postmodern Deconstruction, they go glassy eyed and stop because they know that continuing speaking with you is dangerous to their self esteem. They may have to admit that their vocabulary lacks the size and structure needed to compete. After all, “Jesus said” without knowing where “Jesus said” or not being absolutely certain “Jesus said” is kind of embarrassing…

So, for those of you who didn’t glass over while reading this, check your bookshelves… There is hope for you after all…

Let You Entertain Me... Let You, Make Me Smile...

2009-10-14T13:07:00.002-04:00

I have quite a few readers but very few react to my musings... Today I am inviting you to respond with your own personal agonies. Please limit yourselves to 200 words or less in your responses to maximize succinct, concise answers. Please look inward and answer this question:

What is the one nagging thing about yourself that you do not understand?

Explore any dimensions you wish... Psychology, sociology, philosophy and science are all valid...

Enjoy... I shall answer first in order to get the ball rolling...

... a world gone mad...

2009-09-25T03:28:00.001-04:00

...for those of you unsure or unaware of the term "manther"... may i suggest this:

http://www.ferrariguyforhire.com/index.htm

...please do not forget to gawk (the only choice you have actually) at the photos...

..in the spirit of Elijah...

2009-09-20T01:18:00.002-04:00

...keeping with the spirit of family, genealogy and just plain old fashioned values, I ask my son Zach if he remembered his Grandmother Beth... This would of course be my mother... He said... No, not really... I ask him if he would like to meet her since she only lives about 2 miles from us. He tilted his head to one side and told me that yes, he would like to meet her... So I told him I would, even though my mom and I have not spoken in years, try to arrange such a meeting...

So...

I wrote my mom a little email telling her that her grandson Zach would like to meet her... Here is what I got back from her today...

"He has met us, but if he would like to see us again, our phone number and address is listed in the phone book, and also under white pages on the computer. Beth Ann"

Fuck you "Beth Ann"... Fuck you, fuck you and fuck... You... You are the same old fucking drama queen you have always been... Beth "difficult to the end" Ann... When I got your little uncooperative email today, I laughed out loud at you... In the 26 years that we have been at war over nothing, I have agonized, cried, hated and guilted myself. Now you are nothing more to me than a cliche... A hateful old woman who knows she has gone too far and yet, continues... I hope that you enjoy the grandchildren your second husband's child has produced for you... Why don't you use that money you stole from your brothers and sisters to buy something for them...

Done with that.. Years ago... Should have known your shrunken little heart couldn't warm enough to want to see your grandchild...

But hey "Beth Ann".. Thanks for the laugh... Bitch...

you can pretend all you want...

2009-09-20T00:28:00.002-04:00

...you may block all the porn, claim that the devil is moistening your underwear against your will and take a cold shower instead...

just this once, you should find a quiet place and do it... come on... you know you want to...

you are not who you think you are...

2009-09-18T04:23:00.002-04:00

i know who reads this… they tell me… you come to read the sometimes intellectual, sometimes wildly inappropriate ramblings of a self proclaimed lunatic wandering the deserts of his own mind… tonight I am talking to you… no one else… just you…. i know you read this… hoping to capture some essence of freedom that you yearn for… do you yearn? do you? really? do you know that you are far from alone in your terrifying, incredibly difficult, painful excruciatingly short life experience that sometimes the best you can hope for is to close your bedroom door and dress in fake furs and boy shorts and wish to god that someone would understand you? i know that all those socially imposed limitations drive you insane… they drive me insane. we both suspect don’t we? we suspect that there can be so much more to life… so much more than this tertiary experience than work and school and traffic and hostility and, and, and… know this also… sitting next to you on the bus, sitting next to you in the desk at school, at work… know that for certain there is a man or a women who wants to stop and unfurl their freak flag and test the limits of culture, society and art… they long to test the limits and push further and harder than even they think possible… testing limits… they know, you know, we all know we are running out of time… time to dance, drink, take drugs… but mostly time to push the limits of human awareness… know that the person next to you reading that people magazine is looking for something more than that magazine has to offer… know that the stranger next to you fantasizes about oral sex in public places… know that the man next to you has a steel rod piercing his scrotum and watches constantly for the look of another who knows that he does… know that somewhere in a walmart bathroom is a woman masturbating at three o’clock in the morning just for the fucking thrill of it… we exist… we understand… countless are your type-a personality friends and acquaintances hovering anxiously over some project or problem wandering frenetically back and forth waiting for that moment, but know that they will never let go and find the thing that cracks open their skull and folds their brain back on itself in a mind blowing moment of self realization that they are the freak they think they are. right there and forever more their world view shifts and their id swallows its own tongue and our lady of endless possibilities opens her legs wide and shows them the way. You would be astonished to know who they are… they are you… lurking in back of your mind is the person wandering the sex shop, not laughing anymore, not uncomfortable anymore, not ashamed… the person naked in a field getting photographed in an erotic session of art... lust… desire… need… buried in your mundane existence is the person up on all fours, naked, waiting… she wants… he wants… we all want… that girl, or that boy, waiting for you to let go before you kill them… yes, i know… i am aware that you are reminded of your mortality everyday… the media tells you… h1n1, terrorism, arms dealers, accidents, suicides, plane crashes… then we forget… we forget what it would be like to be under the bridge in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing more than socks and boots with our underwear around our ankles locked in a mind blowing orgasm pushing our sex against a hungry mouth… and even though we forget, we know that we are not long for this world, a fleck of nothing on a piece of space dust hurling through the wide open zilch… on a collision course with our own deaths… we know don’t we? we are not afraid on some level… at night with your genitals in your hands there is a refreshing lack of uptightedness isn’t there? Your mind wanders through the corridors of its own debauchery and there is no fear of sex, or drugs and personal expression… no dogma, veils drop away, boundaries blur, genders intermingle and all those insipid sociocultural fears drop down and you wish you had the fucking courage to ask for what you want… what you need… your fantasies run wild and your forget that you shouldn’t want it, shouldn’t think it, shouldn’t be what you are… meaning shifts and dance before you, fantasies run wild and pass out from the heat of the moment and you wonder why you can’t be like this all the time... as you fade into sleep with the smell of sex in the air it leaves that single burning question… what the fuck are you going to do about it?

Couldn't have said it better myself...

2009-08-17T23:08:00.002-04:00

Now and again I read something so moving, I am compelled to share it with others.... Read carefully and enjoy...

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If at this moment, you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude -- but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real -- you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues." This is not a matter of virtue -- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being "well adjusted," which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphal academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in, day out" really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home -- you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job -- and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day-rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your check or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etcetera, etcetera.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid g-d- people.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...

Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do -- except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am -- it is actually I who am in his way. Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do, overall.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line -- maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible -- it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important -- if you want to operate on your default-setting -- then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

nothing to fear except for fear itself... oh, and being kidnapped...

2009-08-16T03:02:00.002-04:00

While out and about today I encountered a seemingly nice woman who decided she wanted to strike up a conversation about current events... Not surprising I suppose, I seem to be a “current events magnet” with many people. I guess my sarcasm bleeds enough truth that the natives recognize I may have something to say. However, my job allows me to read many news, political, social and world newspapers and I sometimes come across as knowing a bit too much for them once they engage me… Before you make any judgments about that last statement, consider the reality of my job. I work from 10:00 P.M. until 8:00 A. M. and after my paperwork is done, I am allowed the freedom to do homework, blog, read, watch movies and/or do anything I want to do. At best, I am engaged with actual work about two hours per night which leaves me approximately 8 hours of what I like to call “learning stuff”… Every night I read:

1. http://www.politico.com/
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
3. http://www.cnn.com
4. http://www.foxnews.com/ (For laughs…)
5. http://news.google.com/
6. http://online.wsj.com/home-page
7. http://www.reuters.com/
8. http://www.nytimes.com

Then I read the U.S. Market financial Summary and the weather. After all the web news, then I read the local papers here at work and every Wednesday, the Weston Democrat… For those of you interested in some really racist editorials, some overtly religious musings disguised as editorials, writing so improper it is humorous and some meaningless small town news, I wholeheartedly recommend the Democrat. You can find it here: http://www.westondemocrat.com

So it can be said that I am a “well informed citizen” and can converse on many subjects rationally and can even compare and contrast the news from several angles. What is spun one way on Fox can literally be the exact opposite over at the New York Times. The Guardian may have some front page news about our congressional hearings that doesn’t even make page 6 in the United States.

With all of that background out of the way, fast forward to today and my conversation with the woman about current events. She asked me if I had heard the “breaking news” about the woman who got kidnapped. Apparently she was walking home and talking on her cell phone and some people pulled up and kidnapped her and now she cannot be found. The news story she related had explicit details and even had an interview with the person she was talking to on the phone when it happened.

My first thought as she was enlightening me to this “horrific” story was that it probably wasn’t true. Yeah, I am an asshole that way. It seems like every time someone tells me a second hand story about anything, it turns out to be false, misunderstood completely, urban legend or just a wild rumor turned into a true account by word of mouth. I am not saying that it didn’t happen, but after a fairly comprehensive search of all the news agencies online, I can’t find a story about a woman being kidnapped as she talked on her cell phone anywhere.

After ten minutes of wild, fearful looks, hand flapping and just general over reacting to a news story about literally nothing I interrupted her. She trailed off with a wild glance around the general area and said “no one is safe anymore…” I ask her if she knew the population of the United States. She replied that she did not know. I quietly informed her that it was approximately 305,000,000… That would be three hundred and five million people walking around on U.S. soil… Using the FBI definition of kidnapping in the context she was talking about, I said that there were maybe 100 kidnappings last year in America. This does not count of course for child abductions and the drug cartel kidnappings in Arizona. I told her that out of 300 million people if 1 gets “kidnapped” every three days, she was more than likely pretty safe. Acting as if she never heard what I said, she just continued to blather on about not being safe anymore… I didn’t give her any indication that I agreed and she let me go…

As soon as I got the chance, I looked up my WAG (Wild Ass Guess) about kidnapping and lo and behold, I was correct. According to my research there were 870,000 disappearances last year in the United States. Removing the child abductions, drug cartel abductions and “non specific cause” disappearances there were 115 certified FBI kidnappings… Sounds like a lot?

Consider this…

In 2008 there were 329 people struck in the USA, with 302 injured and 27 killed. 74 (7 killed) were under trees, 29 in yards, 16 (3) on the beach, 12 (2) in the water and 10 (1) camping in or near tents.
27 Fatalities: All were outside, 22 males & 5 females. One child (6 years old), 7 teens and 19 adults.
302 Injuries: There were 176 adults, 62 teens and 15 children injured, 201 males and 60 females. 184 were outside and 13 were inside. The busiest day was Wednesday, July 23 with 7 incidents injuring 10 people. There were 14 injuries on both July 27 and October 31. The breakdown by day is Sunday 66, Saturday 47, Tuesday 46, Thursday 41, Wednesday 38, Friday 36 , & Monday with 27.

And this…

There were 823 people in the U.S. last year who literally choked to death accidentally…

So… What is my point? Stop being afraid… You have 3 times the chance of being struck by lightning and 8 times the chance of choking to death than being kidnapped… We all have to die and most of us will have events in our lives that are not very pleasant but I am fairly certain that kidnapping isn’t one of them.

I hope the woman in question doesn’t read this… She may become frantic about lightning and choking… Possibly she may add it to her list of “things to fear this week”… All I have to say is…

Be very wary on Sundays, apparently, people get struck by lightning a lot…

The Passing of a Family Icon...

2009-08-07T00:56:00.004-04:00

Daphne Perrine...

Born: August 1994

Died: August 6, 2009

Yesterday marks the passing of a family heirloom. After a long fight with a debilitating illness, Daphne Perrine passed away quietly at home in Bakersfield, California in the care of those who loved her.

Born in Weston, West Virginia, Daphne was a farm girl picked from a litter of four siblings. She was the love child of her Mother Pumpkin and a passing stranger known only as "Tom"...

Well traveled for a cat, Daphne crisscrossed the North American Continent several times in her life and lived in West Virginia and California. The epitome of hippy cat, she once crossed the country in the back seat of a light blue Volkswagen named "Jake" with her cat companion Miles Perrine, a tarantula and a rat.

Daphne was preceded in death by her long time companion Garfield Perrine, her Uncle Jacob Tyler White (Perrine), her friend Miles Perrine and several assorted rats, fish and that tarantula... She is survived by her Mother Amy, her father Michael, Uncles Elijah and Zachariah, Aunt Tabitha, Grandfather bob Perrine of West Virginia and many other relatives and friends.

Known as "Fancy Pants" to her family, Daphne will be sorely missed by everyone. Cremation was performed and the scattering of her ashes will be at the discretion of her Mother.

Fancy Pants is dead! Long Live Fancy Pants!

...is it solipsistic in here or is it just me....

2009-08-04T05:53:00.002-04:00

I do not know if I can pull this one off but I am damn sure going to try… For the last ten years of my life I have wrestled with the suspicion that life as we know it is not life as we know it. There is no definitive philosophy in all of this, just a simple intuition that life is simply meaningless. Over the years I have accepted that there is meaning at this juncture in time but not in the larger sense of the word. The only authentic meaning in a human life is defined only by single person. Meaning is personal and nothing more. Those people and things that become significant to us do so only because we choose to let them. This includes entities that exist empirically and those that exist irrationally. Not that all things outside our sensory datum are irrational, but according to the Gettier problem, Justified True Beliefs (JTB) require more than just sensory datum. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem) For those who do not wish to do research, Gettier was simply saying that a JTB was in fact, not knowledge.

At the core of my argument is knowledge. If my beliefs are based in falsities, then my beliefs are probably mistaken. As an example, we can look back at the Gettier example of the man getting the job.

Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that "Jones will get the job". He also has a justified belief that "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of the transitivity of identity) that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".
In fact, Jones does not get the job. Instead, Smith does. However, as it happens, Smith (unknowingly and by sheer chance) also had 10 coins in his pocket. So his belief that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket" was justified and true. But it does not appear to be knowledge.

This is problematic in that “accidental true beliefs” does not equal knowledge. What was true in this case did not come from anything other than dumb luck.
How does this relate to meaning? Fascinatingly enough, human belief systems are the basis for meaning in our lives. Belief in our families, the courts, our government, God, gods, religion and faith gives us the basis for our existence. Some believe that without some sort of entity or religious faith, we may not be able to distinguish right from wrong. I am suspicious of this theory in that some fear imprisonment more than God and knowing this allows them to function in society without God. Others abide by social mores that they fear would alienate them from society so they behave as if these had some over arching importance. Most people however, simply function knowing that “somewhere”, “somehow” all of this isn’t for naught but to take a closer look would be anathema. They fear looking at it too closely in that there may be nothing to see other than their own shallow belief systems. What, for the average person, could be more frightening than the knowledge that your entire life is based on nothing more than what you think? I hope now that it is clear that Justified True Beliefs, knowledge and the meaning of existence are all intricately tied together and the lack of one is detrimental to the entire system.

Religious Systems

The exact number of religions in the world is unknown. Best estimates place the number around 4200. Of this number, a dozen have been classified as “major world religions.” Of the major world religions, there are:

1. Baha’I (7 million adherents)
2. Buddhism (360 million)
3. Christianity (2 billion)
4. Confucianism (6 million)
5. Hinduism (900 million)
6. Islam (1.3 billion)
7. Jainism (4 million)
8. Judaism (14 million)
9. Shinto (4 million)
10. Sikhism (23 million)
11. Daoism (2.7 million)
12. Zoroastrianism (150,000)

Fortunately, this is not up for a vote so the religion with the most followers wins. In reality it appears quite humorous that a large number of Christians who have what they believe to be a JTB about the God of Christianity have never heard of Jainism, Sikhism or Baha’I and yet without ever knowing about them, denounce them so quickly. Most of these have similar threads about what is right, what is wrong with reward and/or punishment systems based upon these doctrines. It can be said that all these belief systems, especially the bastardized versions inject a philosophy of meaning into the believers lives. Most goals in these systems are “end goals” based in what happens after death. In order to achieve the end goals, the lives of the believer must align with the doctrine being followed.

For the sake of my argument, I am using philosophical license in this case to remove this system. There are many reasons people lose their faith in God. I wish to make no claim here as to the rationality of religion but simply am saying that a person in question suddenly loses their belief in religions.

Social Mores (MAWR-ayz, MAWR-eez)

Mores may be defined as “The customs and manners of a social group or culture. Mores often serve as moral guidelines for acceptable behavior but are not necessarily religious or ethical.” Interestingly enough, one of the most imperative social mores is that we have to believe that our lives have some sort of meaning. Certainly this circular reasoning is faulty. If my belief violates the social mores, then these must be in question also. Although violation of American Social Mores is not dangerous, it certainly will alienate an individual from the group. Other cultures can have much harsher punishments for defiance of social norms. My hypothesis now can include this:

“If Social Mores are determined by specific cultures, then these can only have meaning in that specific culture.”

Once again, using philosophical license, social mores are removed from our test subject. The subject now has no religious beliefs and no belief in a comprehensive meaning of life based in social norms.

…Somewhere, somehow…

In America, this is the category that most citizens fall into. They do not go to church, they do not belong to any organized system and they certainly question nothing. When asked about the meaning of life they quickly exclaim “Of course life has meaning” and then regurgitate some theory they have that is inevitably based in some supernatural bastardized version of a religious system. Most commonly heard forms include “God” or “Supreme Being” but their beliefs lack any outside knowledge of any valid recognized religion. It appears that out of fear of the unknown, they refuse to accept that their beliefs are based on nothing more than their own sense of right and wrong.

For a final time, let philosophical license remove this also. Religious beliefs are gone; trust in the culture is now gone and now all vague notions of a broad sense of meaning have disappeared.

Lack of time allows us to now remove, based on the given information, any and all sense of standard belief in a comprehensive meaning of life. Religion, society, politics, personal beliefs and any other system are now erased from our test subject. The subject now has a valid sense that life is indeed meaningless.

What Happens Now?

As soon as one accepts the idea that life in general is truly meaningless a new concept of freedom is born. For simplicity, there are three main concepts appear:

1. True freedom. The freedom to choose why we do or do not do specific acts in our lives. The ability to choose what is right and what is wrong from within us.
2. These acts themselves take on a truer, personal meaning instead of being based on some system of law, social morays or religion.
3. Responsibility becomes one’s own instead of a socially acceptable moral code (agreeing because every does and this is done without thought.)

Are you uncomfortable yet? How can it be that a human being intuitively knows what is a right act and a wrong act? I am sure that some of you are reading this with horror thinking that all society would decay if this happened on a global scale. There would be murders and rapes, systematic torture and robbery worldwide.

Most of you reading this will stop right here in considering my argument. Unfortunately I have no solid evidence to support my theory. I cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. I do not even wish to do so. For those of you who believe in religion, I admit fully that you may be correct. You just may have the ten coins in your pocket accidentally to make your beliefs true. However, your evidence as to that belief does not constitute knowledge of that Entity you base your existence on. The most I can say here is, “good luck”.

As for the Social Mores, anyone can see that they vary from culture to culture and when it comes down to history, cultures end but existence of the Homosapien continues for the time being. Looking for comprehensive meaning from this angle appears to be very ethnocentric at best.

There is no importance in my argument in the end. Your decisions will continue to be your decisions. Whatever those decisions are based in should make you comfortable with them. If your religion allows or disapproves of certain behaviors and you feel safe with those decisions made by others for you, then by all means continue with them. If you feel that your social group would reject you for an act of defiance against them, then do not allow yourself the freedom of that act. In any situation, the punishment is the same whether or not you believe. This is the key. The punishments are the same, but the rewards of not believing may differ.

I realize that all I have done here is muddy the water a little bit. I do not wish to remove meaning from life. I still love and sometimes hope for a better life. I still wonder why I am here and for what purpose, I simply suspect that I have no purpose in any grand scheme. My thoughts have been reigned in, nothing more, nothing less. My purpose is minuscule.

Gettier was right… We need more information…

The Inconclusive Conclusion

In reality, human beings simply refuse to believe that their lives have no purpose other than what they themselves assign to it. Mothers are all about their kids, people are into each other, people serve God with “all their heart and soul”, careers, personal servitude, earth friendly, orphans, oppose the violence, help the homeless and an endless list of what we feel we are here for. In actuality, we are simply passing the time. The scary thought of dying and not existing anymore frightens the hell out of people. Saving the earth for Jesus, Voting for Christ, being civic minded for the betterment of society and the acceptance of your peers are all just simple beliefs based on nothing. If we removed the fear of the unknown, then all could say I act because I believe that it is the correct act. I accept things as they are. I am responsible for these acts. God did not make me give to a homeless person, I felt like I should. The devil didn’t make me not give, I didn’t want to and God will not punish me for it later. The Captain has turned off the seat belt sign… You are now free to move about the cabin…

terrifying the anxious and other ways to control the herd...

2009-08-03T00:18:00.006-04:00

Welcome to the Orwellian Future!!!! Terrorists! September 11! Fascism! Communists! Obama is a Socialist! War on Terrorism! Homeland Security Advisory System at Yellow! Global Warming! Nuclear Fallout! Pollution!

Sigh… Can somebody please tell whoever is doing this to stop it? I mean really…

We have become a bunch of spooked cows watching over our shoulder, waiting for the next buzzword to be afraid of. Every day, anywhere in America you can get your cup of coffee, turn on the television and sit down to have the living shit scared out of you before you go to work. Some smiling little hottie will tell you about the landslides, fires, mudslides, casualties, car accidents, shootings, stabbings, killings, domestic disputes, drug arrests, acts of terror, list of worst air quality in America, apartment complex collapse, crane collapse, train wreck, plane crash, border disputes, congressional gaffs, presidential goofs, racist remarks by prominent officials, Lindsay Lohan screw up, celebrity porno tape releases, church beatings, muggings, air pollution, water pollution, sea turtles dying, whale killings, El Nino, African combat situations, AIDs, Hepatitis, Teen abortions, and on and on and on…. That’s just the morning…

Come home at night after a day of discussing the excruciating minutiae in a car you can’t afford to drive to a house you can’t afford to pay for and eat some food that may be tainted with some obscure form of bacteria that may very well kill you… Meanwhile, the Swine Flu is always in the back of your mind and you wonder if the fucker who sneezed at work without covering his mouth may have very well given it to you. Every ache and body pain is something to worry about. Then you shower with water that may have high levels of something that may kill you… Can’t drink bottled water because after years of telling us that bottled water is good for you, suddenly some ambiguous CNN story about why tap water may be best catches our eye and confuses us ever so slightly. Why our tap water, after years of being tainted with prescription drugs that have been flushed down the toilet is suddenly better I am not sure, but what the hell, if they say it, it must be true. Then the local news from your home town is on at 10… Cut to a really silly man in a bow tie with reading glasses and a laptop computer open on the anchor desk. Looks kind of tranquil but tonight’s lead story is of course the most horrific thing that happened locally that day. Luckily for them, a juicy car accident or murder investigation or a local city going bankrupt is always available and very helpful to continue scaring the living shit out of you. Recently there was an all day argument between local rednecks that ended in a shooting. I think it was over a woman, drugs or some other really banal, unimportant stupidity… I seriously don’t know but the rumor mill coupled with my family in conjunction with the bow tie wearing, laptop guy the buzz is definitely buzzing. My favorite thing about local news is right before every commercial break they ask a question like” Is your child a ticking time bomb?” or “Will you be killed by a disgruntled worker? How safe is YOUR job?” Even if you roll your eyes, you watch because hey, if my child is a ticking time bomb, shouldn’t I be aware of it?

The fear has reached a fever pitch ladies and gentleman… Everywhere you turn there is something to worry about. As usual, I think that a brief look at what has been done to you coupled with some hard facts may ease your mind, get you off the “mood enhancers” and let you sleep at night without a pill to calm you…

Shall we? Oh yes bobby, lets!

The last 70 years have given us… (Not in any specific order but just how they came to mind…)

1. Fascism
2. Nazism
3. McCarthyism
4. Communism
5. Cold War
6. Nuclear Holocaust
7. Russians
8. Gasoline Shortage of the Mid-Seventies
9. Global Cooling (Soon to be a blog… Stay tuned…)
10. Economic Meltdown
11. Cocaine Scourge
12. Drug War
13. Iran
14. Iraq (Twice…)
15. September 11
16. Osama bin Laden
17. War on Terror
18. Korea
19. AIDs
20. Inflation
21. Deflation
22. Housing Market Meltdown
23. Stock Market
24. 401k Deflation
25. Overseas Ownership of American Properties

I think you get the picture… These are the historical events and/or non events that have frightened us for a time period laid out by… THEM… Which also happens to be the name of a really cheesy film of the fifties… Remember? Back in the day when Nuclear Holocaust was a fear but they only let us know by showing us films about giant bugs?

Now that the foundation has been laid we can get to the point of this rant… That only took 838 words… Before we start, allow me to show you this to scare you into reading the rest of the blog…

I have no idea exactly what this woman is afraid of but she looks sufficiently freaked out doesn't she? Perhaps she just read about how the slowing economy is linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome... Forgot about that one didn't you? I guess the climbing rate of Autism shifted your focus... Maybe she realized she has wasted her entire life being afraid of everything...

Here is a list from the Institute of Propaganda Analysis to assist you in spotting the obvious… Kind of like pointing out a handicapped person at the Special Olympics but maybe you just didn’t notice…

Propaganda Techniques Assertion:
Assertion is commonly used in advertising and modern propaganda. An assertion is an enthusiastic or energetic statement presented as a fact, although it is not necessarily true. They often imply that the statement requires no explanation or back up, but that it should merely be accepted without question. Examples of assertion, although somewhat scarce in wartime propaganda, can be found often in modern advertising propaganda. Any time an advertiser states that their product is the best without providing evidence for this, they are using an assertion. The subject, ideally, should simply agree to the statement without searching for additional information or reasoning. Assertions, although usually simple to spot, are often dangerous forms of propaganda because they often include falsehoods or lies.

Bandwagon:
Bandwagon is one of the most common techniques in both wartime and peacetime and plays an important part in modern advertising. Bandwagon is also one of the seven main propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. Bandwagon is an appeal to the subject to follow the crowd, to join in because others are doing so as well. Bandwagon propaganda is, essentially, trying to convince the subject that one side is the winning side, because more people have joined it. The subject is meant to believe that since so many people have joined, that victory is inevitable and defeat impossible. Since the average person always wants to be on the winning side, he or she is compelled to join in. However, in modern propaganda, bandwagon has taken a new twist. The subject is to be convinced by the propaganda that since everyone else is doing it, they will be left out if they do not. This is, effectively, the opposite of the other type of bandwagon, but usually provokes the same results. Subjects of bandwagon are compelled to join in because everyone else is doing so as well. When confronted with bandwagon propaganda, we should weigh the pros and cons of joining in independently from the amount of people who have already joined, and, as with most types of propaganda, we should seek more information.

Card stacking:
Card stacking, or selective omission, is one of the seven techniques identified by the IPA, or Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It involves only presenting information that is positive to an idea or proposal and omitting information contrary to it. Card stacking is used in almost all forms of propaganda, and is extremely effective in convincing the public. Although the majority of information presented by the card stacking approach is true, it is dangerous because it omits important information. The best way to deal with card stacking is to get more information.

Glittering Generalities:
Glittering generalities was one of the seven main propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. It also occurs very often in politics and political propaganda. Glittering generalities are words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but are linked to highly valued concepts. When these words are used, they demand approval without thinking, simply because such an important concept is involved. For example, when a person is asked to do something in "defense of democracy" they are more likely to agree. The concept of democracy has a positive connotation to them because it is linked to a concept that they value. Words often used as glittering generalities are honor, glory, love of country, and especially in the United States, freedom. When coming across with glittering generalities, we should especially consider the merits of the idea itself when separated from specific words.

Lesser of Two Evils:
The "lesser of two evils" technique tries to convince us of an idea or proposal by presenting it as the least offensive option. This technique is often implemented during wartime to convince people of the need for sacrifices or to justify difficult decisions. This technique is often accompanied by adding blame on an enemy country or political group. One idea or proposal is often depicted as one of the only options or paths. When confronted with this technique, the subject should consider the value of any proposal independently of those it is being compared with.

Name Calling:
Name calling occurs often in politics and wartime scenarios, but very seldom in advertising. It is another of the seven main techniques designated by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It is the use of derogatory language or words that carry a negative connotation when describing an enemy. The propaganda attempts to arouse prejudice among the public by labeling the target something that the public dislikes. Often, name calling is employed using sarcasm and ridicule, and shows up often in political cartoons or writings. When examining name calling propaganda, we should attempt to separate our feelings about the name and our feelings about the actual idea or proposal.

Pinpointing the Enemy:
Pinpointing the enemy is used extremely often during wartime, and also in political campaigns and debates. This is an attempt to simplify a complex situation by presenting one specific group or person as the enemy. Although there may be other factors involved the subject is urged to simply view the situation in terms of clear-cut right and wrong. When coming in contact with this technique, the subject should attempt to consider all other factors tied into the situation. As with almost all propaganda techniques, the subject should attempt to find more information on the topic. An informed person is much less susceptible to this sort of propaganda.

Plain Folks:
The plain folks propaganda technique was another of the seven main techniques identified by the IPA, or Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The plain folks device is an attempt by the propagandist to convince the public that his views reflect those of the common person and that they are also working for the benefit of the common person. The propagandist will often attempt to use the accent of a specific audience as well as using specific idioms or jokes. Also, the propagandist, especially during speeches, may attempt to increase the illusion through imperfect pronunciation, stuttering, and a more limited vocabulary. Errors such as these help add to the impression of sincerity and spontaneity. This technique is usually most effective when used with glittering generalities, in an attempt to convince the public that the propagandist views about highly valued ideas are similar to their own and therefore more valid. When confronted by this type of propaganda, the subject should consider the proposals and ideas separately from the personality of the presenter.

Simplification (Stereotyping):
Simplification is extremely similar to pinpointing the enemy, in that it often reduces a complex situation to a clear-cut choice involving good and evil. This technique is often useful in swaying uneducated audiences. When faced with simplification, it is often useful to examine other factors and pieces of the proposal or idea, and, as with all other forms of propaganda, it is essential to get more information.

Testimonials:
Testimonials are another of the seven main forms of propaganda identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Testimonials are quotations or endorsements, in or out of context, which attempt to connect a famous or respectable person with a product or item. Testimonials are very closely connected to the transfer technique, in that an attempt is made to connect an agreeable person to another item. Testimonials are often used in advertising and political campaigns. When coming across testimonials, the subject should consider the merits of the item or proposal independently of the person of organization giving the testimonial.

Transfer:
Transfer is another of the seven main propaganda terms first used by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. Transfer is often used in politics and during wartime. It is an attempt to make the subject view a certain item in the same way as they view another item, to link the two in the subjects mind. Although this technique is often used to transfer negative feelings for one object to another, it can also be used in positive ways. By linking an item to something the subject respects or enjoys, positive feelings can be generated for it. However, in politics, transfer is most often used to transfer blame or bad feelings from one politician to another of his friends or party members, or even to the party itself. When confronted with propaganda using the transfer technique, we should question the merits or problems of the proposal or idea independently of convictions about other objects or proposals.

Here is a list, although not comprehensive, of some words and phrases I think we all recognize from the Frightly, er… uh… Nightly News… Maybe if we break the code of “news speak” we can get past our fear… Think of it as being in a Carnival Haunted House, we may be alarmed but we all know it isn’t real…

1. Possible – As in “Up next, possible links between driving in a car and butt cancer…”

2. Link – As in “Link found between breathing and butt cancer…”

3. Our Nation - Think of this in terms of “Our Nation’s water supply” or “Our Nation’s shipping ports” or “Our Nation’s roadways”…
Usually this is not about “Our Nation’s “anything. Maybe farmer brown turned over his tractor in the local reservoir and some gas and oil got in the town’s drinking water supply. Farmer Brown isn’t really news but if you spin it as “Local water supply disaster could happen anywhere threatening “Our Nation’s” drinking water…

4. Shocking New Details – “Shocking New Details on last week’s brutal rape killing slaying murder of innocent Nun…”
Usually not shocking but just a repeat of last week’s news story with a new picture of the nun that helps us picture her being, uh…. Unless of course new evidence shows that she kind of enjoyed it, then it would be shocking… kind of…

5. Serious Threat – “Officials concerned with a serious threat to nation’s children…”
May I enquire as to what “threats” are not being taken seriously? Are there threats that officials giggle about perhaps?

6. Officials are closely monitoring – “Officials closely monitoring national security issue…”
Here is an implication that SOMETHING is happening that needs close supervision… Maybe they should show the Whitehouse Chief of staff on the Whitehouse roof with a pair of binoculars? Oh wait, the local news guy with the bow tie “closely monitoring his laptop would qualify here I guess…

7. Could, Perhaps, Potential, Might – These usually pop up on a slow news day… “NASA reports that a piece of space junk, perhaps the size of a small sedan may strike the earth at any time. Potentially killing thousands…”
Yep… It could… Problem is that as far as I know people getting hit by space junk happens, uh, never… Thousands of odds and ends enter our atmosphere every day but burn up before hitting the ground. I seem to remember when the space shuttle blew up in the atmosphere above the U.S. It was WAY bigger than a sedan and killed no one…

8. An alarming percentage – “As many as 15% of Americans are at risk of being hurt on America’s highways this year…
Sigh… As long as you are on the road, you are at risk of being hurt on the highway. Does choking on a chicken sandwich you got at a drive thru count as being hurt on the highway or is that a “potential risk” of eating?

9. As many as – “As many as 100,00 Americans carry this deadly virus in their blood…”
“As many as” could mean any number between zero and the number given… Not scary at all but hey, who really thinks about it anyway?

10. Former employees – “Former employee at the beer factory reveals shocking new information.”
Okay… Former employee… What exactly will he reveal? Maybe he was fired for being too ethical? He wasn’t there on the night of the incident was he? No, he is a former employee… Is this dude the best source of information you could find? Truthfully the report should read something like “Guy who wasn’t there for four months interviewed next…”

11. Deadly – “Deadly virus threatens population…”
Remember SARS? Currently it is the “Swine Flu” that is so deadly… I guess “Local man gets highly survivable cold” just doesn’t sell advertising…

12. Warning signs – “Next up, Warning Signs of Car Jacking…”
Here they give you a list of signs of your impending doom. These would include: Armed stranger approaches car, looks around suspiciously and taps on window with gun. I’m not sure but not opening the door, blowing the horn continuously and/or driving away may help. Just a thought…

13. Disaster Unreadiness - “Downtown Hospital officials admit being unprepared for major catastrophe…”
Yeah… This is a sure fire way to scare the hell out of you. How many catastrophes have we been “prepared” for? Most catastrophes are things that haven’t ever happened aren’t they? Let’s say a hospital in downtown Chicago handles 200 patients a day. On any given day, a deadly strain of something or other is dropped into the Chicago water supply by a “terrorist”. Does the news media think that every hospital in America has a team of 500 doctors waiting in a bunker just out of sight to rush in with backpacks full of antidote for the surprise biological attack? Perhaps deep in the earth below Los Angeles a team of men and women wait patiently with supplies and equipment designed to give a relief effort for the impending Southern California earthquake? Things happen, we are unprepared, but it isn’t news…

Finally…

14. An event that will never be forgotten – “Next up, A lady trapped in burning wreckage saved by a passerby, the day she will never forget…”
Yep, she won’t forget it, and neither should you forget it could happen to you. The implication here is that the event was so horrible it will be in her memory forever. No shit… I don’t think I could ever say, “I think I was maimed in a car accident but I can’t remember for sure…Sometimes I do wonder why I limp on cold days…”

Okay… This blog has gotten out of hand. The simple wrap up here is that you are being duped folks. Yes there are things to be afraid of but letting that fear control you is nonsense. The next time you sit down to read/watch/listen to the news, listen for buzz words, fear tactics, non-facts and news speak… You may just enjoy the news, for once…

Tune into my next exciting blog: “Is it Solipsistic in Here or Is It Just Me?”

because that is what the heathen believes silly..

2009-07-26T03:08:00.003-04:00

Attention readers with short attention spans... There are no pictures in this blog to entertain you. Instead, try visualizing what I am trying to illustrate. Get it? Illustrate? Visualize? See how those two go hand in hand?

Early in my bloggins career, I picked out news stories from the day and pointed out the ridiculous, the ludicrous and preposterous beliefs humans have… I abandoned this practice early on but every now and then a news story just leaps out and begs to be mentioned…

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plow parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials said on Thursday.

Witnesses said the naked girls in Bihar state plowed the fields and chanted ancient hymns after sunset to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the plows.

"They (villagers) believe their acts would get the weather gods badly embarrassed, who in turn would ensure bumper crops by sending rains," Upendra Kumar, a village council official, said from Bihar's remote Banke Bazaar town.

"This is the most trusted social custom in the area and the villagers have vowed to continue this practice until it rains very heavily."

Well now… We are all smiling now aren’t we? Those silly, silly Indians (The “dot” kind, not the “woo woo”) and their wild beliefs and unimaginable hierarchy of Gods and Goddesses… The Weather God?!?! Obviously they are not familiar with the one true God… They have no clue that they are in fact being punished for naked plowing… Silly heathens… I suppose this is a kind of “punishment BEFORE the fact” situation isn’t it? God must have known that these people would send their little virgin daughters into the field to plow naked if there wasn’t any rain, so… Hmmm… He must have withheld the rain so that he could prove a point by punishing them for plowing naked because there was no rain. Whew… Are you confused yet? Shouldn’t be… God works in mysterious ways my friends…

Now if you are a believer, right now is the time to wipe that self righteous grin off of your face. If you think that these people are just stupid heathens who don’t have a clue, then you should read your KJV (After all, there is no better English translation is there? Especially if you are a 17th century illiterate who believes that the King is placed there by God Himself…) and then just sit back and think about what you just read…

Before we begin, let me remind you of what Christian fundamentalism really means… Here is a simple list of the ground rules for ladies and gentlemen of the faith:

• Inerrancy of the Scriptures
• The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14)
• The doctrine of substitutionary atonement by God's grace and through human faith (Hebrews 9)
• The bodily resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28)
• The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his pre-millennial second coming)

Okay… Now we can go on and peer into some bible stories that Christians believe with absolutely no doubt in their minds. I shall attempt to do this without mockery but apologize beforehand with my hat in my hand. Admittedly I have a tough time not pointing at you and giggling… However, my understanding of the KJV Bible is quite excellent and I am telling the stories without embellishment…

In the beginning, there was nothing, God said “Let there be stuff” and there was stuff and there you go…

And…

There were some cities and they were very wicked. The, uh… The stench of them rose up to the nose of God Himself and God was really disgusted with the people of these cities and he wanted to destroy them… Consequently, there was one guy in one of the cities who was a righteous man and God, upon hearing and argument was persuaded to let this man live. So He sent some angels to the guy in the city in question and the angels told the man that God planned to destroy the city that night and he had better skedaddle because it was going to be really bad. After telling the guy the story, the angels were approached by some gay men who wanted to butt pirate the angels. The angels couldn’t just disappear like real angelic beings so they blinded the gay men and got out of the city… (I really wanted to make a joke about Scotty having trouble with the transporter here but I refrained…) That night, the guy escaped with his family into the hills but his wife looked back at the city as it was being fire bombed (Think Dresden, German here…) and God smote her by turning her into a pillar of salt…

And…

God was really just blessing the crap out of one of His most loyal followers. This guy followed the law, gave thanks, burned his sheep in honor and raised his family in the most Godliestestest way… So one day, God is sitting around scratching Himself (oops… sorry about the sarcastic imagery here…) and along come who? Why, the Devil! So God sits up and dusts the Doritos off His robe and says something like “Check out MY servant Devil McDevil...” “He loves me like no other…” The Devil (Yes, the Devil… giggle…) says, something to the tune of “It is only because you bless him so much… Take all his stuff and he will curse your name beeatch…” God says he wouldn’t do that to his loyal follower but he placed a sawbuck (For the people who have never known a person from Philadelphia, a sawbuck is a twenty dollar bill…) on the table and said that the Devil could do whatever he wanted to the servant and he would still serve Him at the end of it. The devil pulled out a two twenties and called, then raised and God called and the bet was on. The Devil then beat the living shit out of the servant. He killed his livestock, burned his house, killed his wife and his children and then for the pièce de résistance the Devil smote the dude with boils all over his body. I am quite sure that the servant was a bit confused about the whole thing but decided to go ahead and worship God anyway. After using a broken piece of pottery to scrape the boils off, I am quite sure he was in a state of shock and didn’t even notice that the Devil had appeared and took forty dollars out of his wallet. You see, the Devil knew all along that the servant was going to keep serving God and wanted to recoup his cash. So God looks down and laughs and tells the Devil to back off. The Devil slinks off, God replaces all that the man had and happily the man keeps serving God. As Billy Joel once said, “Got a new wife, got a new life and the family is fine…”

And probably the biggest unbelievable story of all… By the way, this is one that is quite prevalent in the scriptures but seldom referred to…

Before there was a human, before time itself God was in Heaven with a bunch of angelic beings who did nothing but worship God. God had already created Earth and the stuff but it was uninhabited… His most beautiful creature was named Lucifer and this angelic creature was a walking, talking, living, breathing musical instrument designed for nothing else than praising God. Seriously, the dude was like a living pipe organ. Lucifer was also God’s most beautiful creation. Alas, beauty got to Lucifer and he decided that he was better than God Himself. He amasses an army of other angels together… Wait a second… How did Lucifer get his army together to overthrow God without God knowing about it? Doesn’t God know everyth… Okay… Whatever… Anyhoo… Lucifer goes to battle and God flicks him out of heaven like a fly off the table... Lucifer falls from the sky and crashes into the Earth and you know the rest of the story… God got some dust, spit in it, made a guy, the guy named all the plants and animals and then he got bored… So God sedated him, took a rib out of side and made a Woman for him to hang out with. The woman got tricked by a serpent and ate from the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil and God made them see that they were naked and He cast them out of His protected place. Not only did God cast them out, he made having a baby hurt, cursed the serpent to slither on the ground and generally sanctioned incest, but only until there were enough people to have sex with that weren’t close family. Later on it became illegal to bone your family members.

Just one more…

Noah's age is 600 years, two months and 17 days when the flood began. So we are to believe that a six hundred year old man built a boat that was the length of three football fields and gathered ALL the animals of the world and they literally got onto the boat by themselves and then God flooded the ENTIRE planet so that all the mountains were underwater so that he could obliterate evil? Then the water receded… Excuse me for using the evil, evil physical sciences here but at any given time there is 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (326 million trillion gallons) of water on the earth. In order to flood the entire planet it would take how much water? Some Christians believe that God actually sunk Pangaea and then it reappeared in the continental configuration it is today… I absolutely love it when Christians try their best to introduce real science into their belief systems… Reminds me of those guys I have seen in New York wearing tin foil on their heads and explaining about radio waves from aliens penetrating their minds. However, the KJV literally says the water “receded”… This means that the water had to rise. This isn’t even all that ridiculous when you hold it up against some of the other bible stories… Maybe God raised the ocean floor? Maybe God just willed the water into existence and then willed it out of existence? Lastly, God then let the Earth be under water for five months and then when it was all over, He sent a rainbow to let everybody know that he wouldn’t do that again… Yeah… Right…

Lastly, just for pondering…

A great fish (No, not a whale. Only children believe it was a whale. Adults are MUCH too sophisticated to believe it was a whale…) swallowed a guy and then swam around and then projectile vomited him upon dry land…

Jesus was born of a virgin. Uh… Hello?

Jesus and his vast array of miracles. This guy was like the Kris Angel of the first century… Hey Jesus! Freak my mind and turn these grass clippings into some hydro dude…

Methuselah was 950 years old… Uh huh… Benjamin Button aged backwards too…

One of the more inspirational passages in the Bible tells the story of Elijah, a wise man, yet one cursed with male pattern baldness. One day he was minding his own business, making the long walk to Bethel, when he is attacked by a roving band of children who tease him with names like “bald head.” But Elijah was having none of this, he turns round and curses them in the name of the Lord, and instantly two female bears emerge from a nearby wood and maul all 42 children to death. The moral of this story? Don’t make fun of bald people. Frankly, why this story isn’t included along with the Ten Commandments is anybody’s guess, but I think it would serve as an excellent lesson for children who think baldness is something to be made fun of. 4 Kings 2:23-24

Before Byron, before Casanova, there was David. Young and in love, David desperately wants to marry Saul’s daughter Michal and offers Saul anything he wants to let him marry her. What could Saul possibly want? Money? A vow of love? No. Saul wants foreskins. 100 to be exact. Why? Who cares. If you want my daughter, you’re going to have to find 100 foreskins by tomorrow. David finds this odd, but then again this girl is hot, so he goes out and kills 200 men, and collects their foreskins. It’s only then he remembers that he only needs 100 foreskins. Oops. Oh well, maybe if he hands over twice as many foreskins, Saul will be doubly as impressed. Indeed he is and duly hands over his daughter to David. The moral of this story? Never be ashamed to do crazy things for love. 1 Kings 18:25-27

So, Jesus is walking from Bethany and he’s feeling a bit peckish. He encounters a fig tree, but unfortunately it is barren as it’s the off season for figs. Annoyed, Jesus demands the fig tree bear him fruit, however the fig tree doesn’t respond (it’s a tree), so Jesus, in an act of uncharacteristic rashness, curses the fig tree to death. This story is bizarre for many reasons, but mainly for how little it means to the Jesus story and how Jesus seems to react so harshly. OK, so he’s hungry, and we all get a little cranky when hungry, but come on, the fig tree had done nothing wrong. This just seems like abuse of powers to me. The moral of this story? I honestly can’t think of one. This story seems so unimportant and purposeless yet both Mark and Matthew mention it so it must have some importance. The best I can think of is: don’t disobey Jesus, even if you’re an inanimate tree. Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:13-14

Want more?

It’s a big day for Moses. He’s finally going to meet God face to face and is giddy with anticipation. Soon the time comes and Moses positions himself on a rock ready to see the divine creator himself. But God backs out at the last minute claiming that no man can see his face and live. However, he has a solution. He will let Moses have a peek at his backside, “And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.” Moses must be heartbroken. He was hoping to see God’s face not his bottom! Imagine explaining that to the wife: “Oh honey, did you see God’s face?” “Umm not quite…I got a great look at his ass though!” Moses most likely slept alone that night. The moral of this story? God works in mysterious (and slightly gay) ways. Exodus 33:23

And finally… I promise this is the last one…

And the most bizarre tale in the Bible goes too…this head-scratcher from Genesis, with its utterly bemusing explanation of the genetic code. Basically, Laban is taking all of Jacob’s beloved striped and spotted cattle. Jacob is left with boring old, plain-coloured cattle, which he doesn’t seem to like at all. So Jacob concocts a cunning plan: he gets some sticks and begins painting stripes on them. He then plants them next to his cattle. What Jacob thinks is that if he gets his cattle to look at the striped sticks while copulating, then they will give birth to striped young. Now, we’d all expect this idiotic plan to fail and Jacob to learn a lesson about something or other, but no it actually works. The cattle give birth to striped young, and Jacob is happy. What on earth is going on here? Anyone with the most basic understanding of genetics knows that this is bunk. The odd thing is that this story seems to have no purpose and moral – it’s just there. And I can’t help wondering how many scientists with painted sticks had attempted to repeat this process before Mendel came along and said, “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to happen dudes, why don’t we try this instead?” The moral of this story? Your guess is as good as mine. Genesis 30:37-39

*** Thanks to JT at http://listverse.com for the last five weird tales...

Now nude virgins plowing the field in the twilight isn't as fucking amusing is it? Looks almost normal when held up next to these stories... Admit it Christian men, naked virgins plowing the fields is just a little bit sexy isn't it? Don't worry, you can tell me, after all, God didn't know about Lucifer's plan did he? I won't tell and you can still uh... Go to Heaven...

So the next time you read about naked people plowing to appease the Weather Gods… Keep your wise cracks to yourself… Oh yeah… And your stupid belief system...

The Istigkeit of Je ne sais quoi....

2009-07-23T23:42:00.016-04:00

I have nightmares about the Exchange Barrier... This blog was named after one of those nightmares. I thought tonight I would sit down and try and explain myself so that the title of my blog makes more sense… Not that it matters all that much…

As you will see…

In order to explain the “Exchange Barrier” there is a couple of fundamental ideas that we all need to understand. “Exchange” is of course the act of giving and receiving reciprocally or in other words, trading one thing for another. “Value” is defined as “An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com) Each of these words has multiple meanings assigned to them but for all intent and purposes, these are the two which will suffice for a blog that few will ever read.

Now conjoin the words for a new term, “Exchange Value”. When one “thing” or “idea” is equal to another “thing” or idea”… Easy enough…

Now the difficult part…

What I would like to do now is remove every idea of “exchange value” that pertains to the worth of the object in question. I want to bring you up to a new level of thinking where words have “exchange value” for the objects that they represent. For example I am going to exchange these letters…

C-A-T

For this picture…

I have done EXACTLY what I said I was going to do. I “exchanged” the letters c-a-t for a picture and everyone can agree that the exchange value is equal. However, by using the definitions from before, I see no “reciprocity” or “equality” here. I only see one idea being exchanged equally for another. Thus now we have two separate concepts using the same words. Congratulations Mouseketeers, now we can move on… Please tell Cubby if he can’t understand he needs to review and catch up to us later. Oh, and by the way…

C-U-B-B-Y

Is equal to…

An even easier way to look at it is mathematically. If a line “X” passes through a point on the graph that has an assigned value of “zero” then at that point, “X” is equal to zero. If another separate line “Y” passes through the same point simultaneously then at that point “Y” is equal to zero. Here we can see that obviously the two lines are not the same thing but have equal value at a given point. Cubby is not a picture of himself, nor is he the arrangements of some alpha numeric symbols. Cubby is what Cubby is and several things can be exchanged for him so that we may illustrate a point using Cubby. This idea follows just about everything we call a “noun”. Cat, dog, door, car and mountain the list goes on and on. Now pay close attention because if you don’t get the next few sentences, the whole idea is a bust.

When we are telling a story, or giving an explanation all we can do is exchange symbols for objects. Seriously, that is ALL we have. Unless I have Cubby right beside me and I can gesticulate towards him whenever I utter the word “Cubby” the best I can possibly get is a photo and an explanation. I don’t have Cubby but I have an accurate ideological exchange for him by way of thought and language.

Drum roll please…

It is Logical Fallacy time!!!!

If all I have to represent the ideas and concepts in my head are symbols and descriptive language, then it must certainly be sufficient to give these metaphysical objects specific meaning.

A serious error is being made here. Let’s say I start talking about my cat. I ask my neighbor to picture my cat playing with my children. This man has never seen my cat and never met my children. He does however have his own memory of being a child and playing with his own cat and he substitutes his own memories for the scenario I have laid out for his and my entertainment. So I am talking about MY cat and MY kids and he is picturing HIS cat and His childhood. Is this sufficient to give the objects in the conversation specific meaning? Although they are similar the exchange value is zero. My cat is NOT his cat. There are simultaneous similar stories being played out but when the conversation ends, the story being told has nothing to do with the story being retold.

So now…

C-A-T

Is still equal to…

But also equal to…

Now that we have come to the conclusion that although we do understand one another, nobody knows what the hell anybody else is saying so we can now move on…

A real problem with language lies in the fact that human understanding is based almost solely in binary opposites. We understand colour because we understand “not” colour. We understand up because we know down and stop because of go and on and on almost endlessly…

Again, looking at it mathematically, we can see what “equal and opposite” means. On a number line point “X” is at -5 and point “Y” stands at 5. Both are five sectors away from zero but in opposite directions. Here, “X” and “Y” are equal in numeric value but binary opposites. This how “light outside” can be used to describe “dark outside”. In “Structuralism” this is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language and its basis is a built in “presence/absence” dichotomy. For example, the word “On” has a presence of on and an absence of “Off”. Conversely “Off” is the lack of, or absence of, “On” and so forth… Simple enough conceptually I hope.

We have almost reached the Exchange Barrier…

Okay… based on this we are going to teach a child something we all understand. The scenario is thus… I am in a room reading and it is getting dark outside. My child walks by and for some reason, I have forgotten to teach him “On” and “Dark” so instinctually, being rooted in “Binary Opposition” Junior doesn’t understand “Off” or “Light”… As he walks by I ask him to please turn on the wall switch. He looks at me questioningly and I get up and put my hand on the switch and say “Off” and then as I flip it up I say “On”. I do this several times and then Junior has gained the knowledge of “Off” and “on” if he hasn’t had a seizure from me flipping the lights on and off… Bringing Junior back at a later time, I can refresh his memory with “Off” and “On” and imbed “Light” and “Dark” with a little further explanation. The system of Binary Opposition, although limited, appears sufficient to give language meaning.

Doesn’t it?

We have arrived… This is a simplistic, childish explanation of what I personally think is the apex of philosophy. The most important part of any philosophical system is what is known as the “base”. What inspired it? What are the simplest components? In other words, “What is the “base” of the ideology?”

The ideologies of postmodernism are based in language. Hell, the entire system of philosophy is based in language and thought. Philosophy loosely translated into Greek is “love of wisdom”. When others ask me to explain what exactly it is that philosophers do, I usually tell them that philosophy is “thinking about thinking”…. Strictly speaking that would technically be Epistemology but whatever, you get the point.

Before I go on, I would like to take a second to describe what I imagine is happening in the exchange process. On one side of the fence is the concept “On” and on the other, “Off”. Clearly we can exchange one for the other and with little or no fuss. The same goes for the nouns, pronouns and so forth. In my mind it is almost an arena where things are exchanged for the meaning of things via language.

Wait a second… Did I just say Language?

Okay, I don’t want to use language just yet, so let me say that in my thoughts…

Wait as second… What is a thought?

See the pattern yet? With the offering of the three or four sentences I have introduced the biggest problem in philosophy. The problem is so gargantuan that most modern day philosophers simply ignore it. Many professionals dismiss the postmodernists such as Jean Baudrillard as a “silly provocateur” whose ideas about meaning couldn’t possibly be correct due to their absolute simplicity. To say that language and/or thought have no binary opposite and are therefore invalid is just ridiculous.

I suspect Mr. Jean Baudrillard is correct is some ways. Not knowing, or being able to exchange one thing for another is quite annoying if anything. When getting down to the “nuts and bolts” of the most basic philosophies, don’t we need to understand what we are talking about? This isn’t science in any way. This is thought, plain and simple. We have no way of recording it accurately. If there is no way to translate it out of my head and into yours, then we have a problem.

For those of us who labor in postmodernism to explain “meaning” and give examples of “what is meaningful” we truly do have our backs up against the Exchange Barrier.

The only thing I can reply to Baudrillard with is that there are certain words in specific languages that cannot be translated into other languages. For example, the words “déjà vu” translate as “déjà vu” in English also. I like to refer to it like Stephen King did as “that feeling you get that can only be described in French.” Another French phrase that does not translate well is “Je ne sais quoi” which literally translates “I know not what” and loosely means an “intangible quality that makes something distinctive or attractive.” The German language has “Istigkeit” which literally means “is-ness” but does not translate into any other language.

There could be a conclusion drawn from these few examples that not all things are translatable and maybe there are even a few things that are not explainable but they have that certain “Istigkeit” quality that makes them what they are. Maybe the Exchange Barrier is real but not such a problem as Baudrillard believes. Perhaps not having a clear definition of such concepts as thought and language are not as crippling as once believed. After all, when I speak of my cat, you know what I mean…

Don’t you?

Warning Children About Hell Without all the Fuss...

2009-07-17T00:20:00.005-04:00

How do you get from here...

to here?

Welcome Christian Parents. Today we will be discussing the very helpful practice of teaching our children about the Sacrament of Santa. This much needed, yet highly disregarded Christian Parent opportunity has recently been scoffed at. My interest in the Santa Sacrament grew from a recent conversation with a lapsed Christian. The evil backslider was lamenting the fact that her parents did not allow the belief in Santa Claus for fear that when the children found out that Santa wasn’t real, they would also scoff at the belief in Christian Fundamentalism. That is to say when the children found out that the parents lied about Santa, they may also conclude that Jesus Christ may also be a fabrication. Allow me about ten minutes of your time to refute this ridiculous nonsense so that you may come to realize that Santa is an important stepping stone to belief in Christian Doctrine.

This will not be an easy task. Convincing anyone of omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent beings is a very serious business. However, in the scheme of things, children are far easier to dupe than adults and this should be noted. Proselytizing adults does not require any talk of Santa as they may be frightened with talk of eternal damnation right away without any softening of the blow. Converting the young mind is much easier but may backfire if the transition from the “I will not bring you any presents if you are bad Loving Santa “character to the “I will fry your ass in hell if you are bad Loving Jesus” persona. Please note I utilized the word “transition” in these cases. The building blocks of the entire method rely heavily on the transition from one character to the other without gaining the insight that both are entirely implausible. A child born into a Christian home is an important event. God Himself has blessed you with the opportunity to make him incredibly happy by the possible addition of another who will live and die just to sit at His feet for all of eternity praising Him. (Please tell the child that he or she may sit as they may balk at the idea of standing for eternity because that sounds ridiculous.)

For the first few years of the child’s life, please be an instrument of God’s Will in front of the child. Things such as praying at fast food restaurants, thrice weekly (or more) church services and nightly scripture readings and bible stories at every opportunity prepare the child for the future transition. Children who grow up in this setting usually do not begin to recoil from the group until the teenage years but with the right amount of Santa Claus, they as a rule return to the fold with the correct amount of guilt application.

At approximately age two, when the child is just beginning to gain access to conceptualizing his or her world is the perfect age to introduce the child to the simple version of Santa Claus. This Santa is a great guy who has some access to the 24/7 world of the child. Long lists are generated by the Santa Network divided into the “Who is Good” and “Who has been Bad” dichotomies. This Santa doesn’t really punish yet. Later on as the child grows, he or she may be slowly set up to buy into the “Santa as Punisher” and may even be threatened with this persona. When the child is being bad near to the annual holiday season he or she may be told “Santa Claus can see your every move!” This is frightening to the child who wants a new bike or some other large purchase such as a Nintendo or PSP. The parent may note here that this threat is very effective in that the power of capitalism and fear of loss of capital persuades the child to be good for at least four months out of the year. This would include the three months prior to Christmas and the month after Christmas as the child discovers that marketing has indeed fooled them and they are left with a deep sense of loss and regret over not being bad when they had the chance. These feelings will not be experienced until later in the child’s life. This has to occur before the child reaches school age. If the child is not inoculated with the transition to Jesus before they go to school, they may be sidetracked forever when another child ridicules them for believing in Santa in the first place. It is imperative that the child believes in Jesus before they reach school age as most children, including the bully will not ridicule religious beliefs for fear of retribution from Jesus Himself or at the very least the ACLU. To reiterate, Santa is childish while Jesus is just plain intimidating.

At the moment when the child reaches the questioning point about Santa he or she MUST be pressed in their beliefs and all doubt must be removed. Half eaten cookies with a partially drank glass of milk helps. A note that appears to have been written by a 125 year old Alzheimer’s patient also does wonders to the child’s belief structure. Please be diligent in the theatrics of your props. Lipstick on the glass ruins the effect Mom! Had my mother been paying closer attention to detail, I could have been watching hookers masturbate in hotel rooms while simultaneously preaching God’s word in over 100 countries via television instead of getting a dumb degree in Philosophy or Psychology. Instead I became the bully who ridiculed belief in Santa and probably sent more than my share to burn in the fiery pits of Hell. I am quite sure that both God and Santa see right through my education steeped in Logic and Philosophy.

Now that your preschooler is terrified that Santa is a cruel bastard who watches them touch themselves at night and burn ants with magnifying glasses during the day, he or she is ripe for the transition. If you have been doing your job as a Christian Parent properly, the child knows that Jesus loves the fuck out of little kids. His kind, caring hippy appearance soothes them as they see depiction after depiction of a smiling Christ with children all around him. Children at his feet playing happily and children in his lap laughing and Jesus with his robes and kind visage guarding over them is the Jesus every child needs as a primary transition tool to Christianity. The Jesus that a child sees is of crucial importance and this fact cannot be stressed enough to the Christian Parent. An omnipotent scary Jesus should be withheld until masturbation starts as curtailing onanism is of the utmost importance. This, can be forgiven of course if the child grows up to masturbate for a Televangelist with a world following. Included here are a Jesus beaten to a pulp with a crown of thorns and a Jesus nailed to a cross. These frighten children and can cause an adverse reaction to Christianity later in life. For example the bust of a thorn crowned, severely beaten Christ beside my bed at my Grandmother’s house scared the living shit out of me. This, coupled with the lipstick on the Santa glass at a later age caused me great distress. By the time I had reached age 15, I had nearly beaten my penis to a pulp with my uncontrolled masturbatory habits. Now at age 44, I don’t think I can get a pass because televangelism is nearly over and I can’t imagine a world renowned Christian Crusader who would like to watch me run off a batch.

Now that we have two separate but equal versions of omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent power in the child’s life, the Christian Parent can start to introduce the fact that Santa is in fact nothing more than a parent’s love for his or her children and Jesus is in fact, the only omni-omni in the universe. By telling the child we have pulled a fast one out of love, this hides the real fact that you were in fact lying to them all along. Should the child suspect that the lie is nothing other than a lie, the Christian Parent may have to deal with a masturbator of which they have no recourse but to release the child into the custody of the state and/or confine him or her to a Christian Youth Facility that teaches self pleasure does in fact make Baby Jesus really sad.

There is some discussion as to the age of complete transition. Some believe that it should be complete before first grade. This thread teaches that preschoolers and kindergarteners are allowed belief in both schools and ridicule will not soften the resolve of a five year old. Others argue that in order to rise to the greatness of a Swaggart or Baker, the preschooler must have completed the transition by or before age five.

Before we finalize the transition, let’s take a look at what we have so far. Santa is all knowing and so is Jesus. Santa is all powerful able to deliver presents with a magic sleigh and eight reindeer. Jesus can peer right into your soul and tell what you are thinking! Santa is everyfuckinghwhere watching you at every corner and yep, Jesus is right over his shoulder and He even knows why you are doing the bad thing! So the child can see that Jesus is just ever so slightly better because he can see the “why” and not just the deed itself. Now if the child has any sense whatsoever, he or she can see that Jesus could probably whip Santa’s ass for him because he would know what Santa was thinking of doing. This is the perfect opportunity for the Christian Parent to sit down and tell the child about what Santa is (Remember? A parent’s love!) and what Jesus is. Jesus is real and Santa is just a tool to make you behave for us! It is critical at this point to drag out the savagely beaten, crucified and humiliated Christ figurines and paintings. This is critical, because if the child has that moment of clarity, he or she must be shown that Jesus is a scary motherfucker who can take a beating. Santa getting beaten up is frightening but not in the correct way. If Jesus can take a punch, then believing in Him may be wise. You may not know it, but psychologically the child may be equating Jesus with the fat sixth grader at the end of the block that can probably also take quite a punch and since they are afraid of him, they should also be afraid of Jesus. Anyone who can take a punch is pretty scary to a preschooler. So now the transition is nearly complete.

As children associate fear and guilt they can be introduced to the idea of eternal damnation. Santa simply did not reward bad behavior. Jesus on the other hand is a scary fucker with a dark place full of fire and smoke and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The child may not know what “gnashing” is but it sounds painful when coupled with the fire and heat aspects of Hell. So what was no Playstation for teasing your sister becomes some lengthy terrifying ordeal filled with pain and agony.

So, why should we lie to our kids about Santa? So we can lie to them about Jesus! Who in their right mind would believe that a jolly fat man in a red suit could possibly have a good kid/bad kid list and thus shower and/or withhold gifts? Who would believe that this fat man is in possession of elves who work for him year round making toys? Who would believe that this fat man resides at the North Pole and delivers his booty on one cold night in December with the accompaniment of magic deer and a flying sled? Why, a child of course!

Remember now that the Apostle Paul said “When I was a child I spake as a child and believed as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things”. So as young children we trade, with the help of our parents, trade our fairy tale for this…

Jesus is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful. Jesus sees what is in our heart. Jesus can reward us here but would rather shower us with blessing after we die, provided we do his bidding every day of our lives without any proof that he exists other than our own incomplete belief system we call “faith”. Jesus is all powerful, all seeing and exists everywhere at all times. In essence Jesus has the ultimate good kid/bad kid list and it will be brought out at the proper time in which to judge you for all eternity. In all actuality who would believe this? Why people who were prepped as children to believe the other ridiculous, childish nonsense about Santa.

Lie to your kids Christian Parents, it will help control them as children and prepare them for the ultimate adult belief system based in control… The Christian Church.

It Is Turtles All The Way Down....

2009-06-22T04:55:00.004-04:00

A long time ago I had a professor who changed my life... I guess that is the exact job description of a university professor but I suppose very few actually live up to that potential... I came to California State University Bakersfield for what was supposed to be my final semester at college and sat quietly in the back of Dr. Paul Newberry's Philosophy 100 course... I took this class on a whim... Here is the exact course description lifted from the catalogue...

PHIL 100 Introduction to Philosophy

A study of philosophical methods and some of the major philosophical ideas which have resulted from the application of that method. These ideas are taken from the past as well as the present, from the East as well as the West. They concern the kinds, sources, and tests of knowledge; the nature of reality, of self and God; and the various kinds of value that ought to inform our lives.

After a major car accident, two divorces, loss of a business and just general mayhem, I had decided that my life needed some answers to some very tough questions and maybe, just maybe Dr. Paul Newberry had some of those answers hidden in his vast supply of textbooks, lectures, films and classwork..

Boy... Did he ever...

Two weeks into the course, I make this existence altering decision that literally changed the course of my life... Two weeks later I change my major, add three years to my college career and eight thousand dollars to my loans. I became a philosophy major...

What did the illustrious Dr. Newberry say that turned my life upside down? He told this simple story...

According to Hindu legend, the world is supported by elephants standing on the back of a turtle. A Sadhu, or Hindu Holy Man was recounting this story to his students and upon telling it, a student ask the Sadhu what is the turtle standing on? The priest replied, "It is turtles all the way down..."

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Was the reply of my classmates but I sat stunned... Maybe because I had read the text, I realized that the old Doc was speaking of infinite regress but he was telling me something so personal I was more than a little stunned... This was the ultimate answer to the meaning of life... In this little bullshit story told time and time again in many languages and by many people lay the secret of philosophy...

There is no answer... The answer to life's most ask question is that there is none...

Here is where it gets tricky though... I am not claiming life has no meaning. To make that assumption would be ridiculous. In 7 years of studying philosophy all I have come up with is that finding a definitive answer to the meaning of life is impossible. This is not saying that it does not exist. I have formulated this little analogy to illustrate my point...

Let "blind man" equal all humanity...
Let "red baseball" equal "the meaning of life"

My analogy is simple... If a football stadium was filled to the top with 100 million green baseballs and within that sea of baseballs was a single red one... Take a blind man and lead him up to the stadium and tell him to find the red ball...

First of all the blind man does not know what "red" is. Secondly, even if he put his hands right on the red baseball, he wouldn't know that he had it.. Basically, to make it very simple, human beings do not have the capacity to know the meaning of life even if they had it in their hands...

We can insert dozens of things here to fill our need though with religion being number one on the list for thousands of years... Even the most pious among us, the most devout can never fully wrap our minds around the concept of faith.

But I believe my friends... My mind is fully satisfied with the knowledge that...

Yes.. It IS turtles... ALL the way down...

...before there was an ollie...

2009-06-13T05:45:00.004-04:00

...found out today I am what is known as a "middle aged shredder"... Over forty guys who still skateboard. Hey, I am not as good as I once was. I don't get much air, my ankles are wasted, I break easier and I heal slower... I am not exactly at the peak of my fitness level and when I skate, I like long slow downhill slalom... I was around before skating became extreme but I remember the days of jumping curbs and trying to figure out how to get a tow behind a car and learning to let go without eating pavement. I broke all kinds of shit, lost all kinds of skin and ended up in many emergency rooms waiting for plaster. Tonight I read an article from a young man who told me that I should have stopped at thirty because I look like a pathetic wannabe who just can't let go and grow up...

Fuck him... I still try... I still learn things... I can still get up on a board...

So I went and found some videos for teaching me new tricks... Gonna get me some airtime... As long as I can walk, I can skate... I may appear to be a pathetic loser who can't grow up, but I am having a good time doing it...

So tomorrow, after I get up, I am embarking on a new venture... I am going to relearn some old stuff and learn a new trick or two... Just for spite I guess... Fuck it, I still remember how to bleed...

Let go and let Magic Eight Ball...

2009-06-09T04:20:00.004-04:00

All my life, I have relied on the phenomenal power of Magic Eight Ball to guide me through the roughest periods of my life. My Grandmother Pearl Watson was a firm believer and so is her grandson. I will not ever, for any reason, reveal the questions I have posed to this galactic wonder but I can tell you, I have taken the advice it has offered me every time.

For starters, let's look at a brief history and description of Magic Eight Ball as described by Wikipedia:

“The Magic 8-Ball, manufactured by Mattel, is a toy used for fortune-telling or seeking advice. The device was invented in 1946 by Albert Carter, son of a clairvoyant. It is a hollow, plastic sphere resembling an oversize, black and white 8-ball. Inside is a cylindrical reservoir containing a white, plastic, icosahedral die floating in alcohol with dissolved dark blue dye. The die is hollow, with openings in each face, allowing the die to fill with fluid, giving the plastic die minimal buoyancy. Each of the 20 faces of the die has an affirmative, negative, or non-committal statement printed on it in raised letters. There is a transparent window on the bottom of the 8-ball through which these messages can be read.
To use the ball, it must be held with the window initially facing down. After "asking the ball" a yes-or-no question, the user then turns the ball so that the window faces up, setting in motion the liquid and die inside. When the die floats to the top and one of its faces is pressed against the window, the raised letters displace the blue liquid to reveal the message as white letters on a blue background. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary (or recommended) to shake or jostle the ball before turning it, as doing so can create air bubbles that may visually distort the answer.” –Wikipedia

There are 20 answers for every question you ask of Magic Eight Ball. The complete list is as follows:

● As I see it, yes
● It is certain
● It is decidedly so
● Most likely
● Outlook good
● Signs point to yes
● Without a doubt
● Yes
● Yes - definitely
● You may rely on it
● Reply hazy, try again
● Ask again later
● Better not tell you now
● Cannot predict now
● Concentrate and ask again
● Don't count on it
● My reply is no
● My sources say no
● Outlook not so good
● Very doubtful

In order to understand my insanity, you have to understand that over the course of a lifetime, I have learned that most people, if not all, myself included are just plain full of shit. Their advice comes from a multitude of experiences that are nowhere near the experiences of others around them. My problem, although similar to Mr. Average Joe, is not necessarily solved by his advice. His wife’s cancer is not my daughter’s stomach problem. When Joe experienced his mother’s death, it does not mean his advice about my son’s demise is relevant.

In our culture, asking advice from a perfect stranger, be it “Dear Abby” or any other newspaper columnist is more revered than the advice from the closest friend. Why is this? Psychologically we ask people for advice not to get help but in a very real sense, we are trying to get another human to understand us or relate to us. When we want real advice, we read self help books on the subject or as mentioned before, we seek the advice of the uninvolved third party. In order to receive real advice, we need a certain level of detachment from our problem in order to gain some new perspective.

So… How many people do you know that have 20 random answers just waiting to be revealed to us? Magic Eight Ball does. Magic Eight Ball cares not for your problems. Unlike our human peers, Magic Eight Ball isn’t trying to comfort us with answers we seek. It does not want to appear sympathetic. Magic Eight Ball does not have an ego it is feeding nor does it see we are having some trouble and looks for an opportunity to sleep with us. Magic Eight Ball is the perfect, uninformed third party.

When a human being is asked advice, he or she will search through the databases in their heads and present you with a random answer that tumbles to the front of their cerebral cortex. When Magic Eight Ball is asked a question, it just tumbles an answer to the top of its tiny plastic window. In all actuality, the same thing is occurring in both instances.

My last advice to you is not to ask Magic Eight Ball a question you do not want an answer to. Again, this is the same for human beings. Why ask a person a question that could be injurious to your health or psyche? Use your own judgment on this issue.

I suggest that you go to your local toy store today and purchase your own private Magic Eight Ball, but if you cannot for some reason come up with the cash here is Magic Eight Ball online for your help and amusement…

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi

Knock yourselves out…

Do gangstas blog about electric sheep?

2009-06-08T05:22:00.001-04:00

It is always the fault of the white guy...

2009-05-27T01:28:00.002-04:00

Let me begin by saying that I watch a great number of movies. I recognize many of the subtleties of film and the richness of cinema psychology. Movies can astound us, teach us, frustrate us… People identify with movies, dress like actors, adopt mannerisms from characters. At the conclusion of a well done film, we can be altered for life from a simple plotline. After one particularly disturbing Michael Haneke film, I am still uneasy when I think about the unlimited brutality of humans. The truly odd thing about it was that Haneke never really let me see anything all that visually disturbing. I watched a pair of utterly normal looking teenager boys humiliate, psychologically torture and then kill an entire family. The boys weren’t even truly mean about the situation, in fact they looked bored. Haneke, Lynch and von Trier all have this knack of leaving us feeling like we have been punched in the gut when we weren’t looking.

Some movies are simultaneously wonderful and awful… My family calls these gems “shitastic”, “shitabulous” and or “shitacular” not to be confused on any level with just plain old “shitty”. Shitastic movies are movies that are just simple plotlines, a level of profanity that is just silly and some explosions, a booby or two and a well place full blown panty shot for the guys. Just to insert some veracity into this, let’s all agree that the boobies and panty are for the women also… I always hear about how there isn’t any male full frontal nudity in movies and well, I offer you Harvey Keitel and then we can agree that male full frontal isn’t all that magnificent. I will say that Buscemi’s taint and ball sack was one of the most amazing moments in movie history. Notwithstanding, I would pay for a ticket in a nice theatre to see the vag/taint combo on a spread eagle Natalie Portman but I deviate. These movies are overwhelmingly the “action” genre. When you see Schwarzenegger, Willis and Eastwood in an explosion filled, guns blazing movie trailer with the inevitable catch phrase (I’ll be back, yippee ki yay motherfucker or Do you feel lucky punk?) think “must see shitacular”.

***note*** To lessen the blow for children and Christians, “crap” may be inserted lieu of “shit” as in “craptacular” of “craptastic”.

After the addition of the shitacular category we have fairly typical tiers like great (must see), good (should see), watchable (see if you’re bored or sick) and shitty (don’t waste your time). Next we have the “I don’t have words” class of film. This section is divided into two distinct and opposite categories that for the purpose of this blog will be named “If you don’t watch this you are a loser” and “If you watch this you are a loser”. This is the “I don’t have words” class because when someone walks into the kitchen and asks the inevitable question, “Hey how was that movie last night?” Your react in one of two ways:

1) Your response displays how your soul was damaged and your I.Q. fell just ever so slightly for two hours and you are recovering from it. The only thing you can do is just say “no, no… no…” and walk into the other room. This alerts anyone in our family to not go in that direction. Should he or she decide to weather the onslaught of such a film is required by family law to admit that he or she had watched it and then accept the mockery and ridicule from the rest of the family members. Then and only then can the derision of actors, plot, special effects, poor dialogue and or disappoint with a director or actor who should have known better begin.

2) Tears well up in your eyes and only body language can reveal how you saw exactly what the director was trying to say and you just immediately go into the other room and get the DVD to hand it to them yourself as a gesture of love and kindness. Or in the case of a Haneke, Lynch or von Trier film, you want your family member to be as psychologically abnormal as you are. Some people cut themselves to feel alive, in my family we watch people make each other commit horrible acts on others and revel in the cognitive dissonance of the situation. Sick, yet we feel intellectual about it.

Lastly, we have the truly just awful. To describe them as shitty would be an affront to shitty movies. Tonight, I was awakened out of my bloggers block (ooh… new terminology for my ultra pretentious family to use and then act mortified others don’t recognize it…) by watching “Lakeview Terrace”.

For those of you who haven't seen it, and believe me, you shouldn't... Here is a synopsis from IMDB:

"In California, the Caucasian Chris Mattson and his Afro-American wife Lisa Mattson move to a house in a safe compound. The racist and dysfunctional next door neighbor is the abusive LAPD Officer Abel Turner that feels uncomfortable with the relationship of the newcomers and transforms their lives into Hell on Earth. “
In order for a mainstream film to do well in American theatres it has to have the three primary components of set up, main conflict and a resolution. Of course there are secondary story lines with resolutions and a variety of other mechanisms to keep us occupied while the characters develop.

For the sake of boredom, we can just use the Internet Movie Database synopsis above as the setup and main conflict. Samuel L. Jackson is a black racist who hates his new neighbors because they are… gasp… An INTERRACIAL COUPLE!!!!!! He displays all the trimmings of a so called “reverse racist” and even uses the word “nigger” in one scene to make everyone around him feel uncomfortable. Several lines about “the chocolate drop” are dropped to make us feel like Samuel L. is just horrible. To make it even better, Jackson plays an L.A.P.D. cop who has anger issues with just about everyone. Perfect setup to make us believe that racism is wrong from any angle. Yawn…

But Wait!!!

About half way through the movie, you find out why Jackson’s character is alone. His wife died. Okay, we can let the anger issues go now. Beware though folks, it is a simple setup. By luring us into excusing the character’s complete disregard for simple politeness, the director wants us to go even further. In fact, he wants us to see why black men are exempt, even allowed to be racists.

Here is the setup… In several interactions with his own motherless kids he is either trying hard to be a strong father figure or telling everyone that he is trying to raise his kids to be polite and moral. In a later scene, Jackson chases down a gun wielding young black man in Los Angeles, takes the gun away from him and then forces him to make a promise to go back home and be a man. He makes him, at gunpoint, to promise to go home and take care of his baby. Jackson’s character is sick of young black men turning to crime and not being a father to their children.
As the film progresses, the dialogue tunes us in to the fact that Jackson is perturbed at the way the black men are treated in America. The key scene is in a bar when Jackson and his neighbor are having a discussion and Samuel L. lets him know that the real problem with white men is that they get whatever they want. I guess that includes black women.

Still undecided the audience is starting to lean towards the idea that the Jackson character may need a little sympathy. At the end of the bar scene, Jackson bizarrely confesses that his wife died in a head on collision on highway 101 in the middle of the afternoon when she was supposed to be at work but was out driving around with her… Hold your breath… WHITE boss…

OHHHHHHHH!!!!! Now we get it! Samuel L. Jackson is racist but he has not just one but two valid reasons… Primarily he is sick of what white racists have forced young black men to do and a rich white guy was sleeping with his wife. Well, no problem Sam… We’re sorry… The white dude is wrong again… Damn you white culture and all your selfishness!

In the end, Sam gets shot by the cops and the interracial couple is saved. The sad point of this entire tirade is that I was left feeling sorry for Jackson when I shouldn’t have. He was just as “evil” as any racist in any movie. Because of his race, Jackson is given a pass to help us understand the plight of the black racist.

A sad commentary if there ever was one…

I think I will sit down tonight and start my new screenplay. Bubba Billy Joe Ray Bob Greenlief will be my antihero. Bubba will work in a Tyler Chicken slaughterhouse clipping bad portions off of chicken wings as they pass him by on the conveyor. He will work beside many black people whom he will secretly hate. Bubba will attend Ku Klux Klan meetings and revel in his racism.

We will hate Bubba.

Then as the storyline progresses we will put bits and pieces together giving us a deeper understanding of Bubba that lets us feel compassion in some twisted sense. Bubba was a mega-rich neurosurgeon who operated on a young black child and the child died. The child’s family took everything Bubba ever had through litigation led by a black lawyer. Bubba’s beautiful wife died in a tragic accident when she collides with a BET television bus. Bubba’s daughter is gang raped by twenty black guys and then commits suicide when she is assigned a black psychologist for therapy sessions. Bubba hates black people but it will be okay because I gave him a reason. Even black people will excuse Bubba and his excessive use of the word nigger…

Then I will be crucified on the Oprah Winfrey Show even though I have the exact opposite, yet parallel example from Lakeview Terrace.

I think maybe I should stick to shitastic and forget the whole fucking thing…

Nonsensical Nothingness....

2009-05-04T23:33:00.002-04:00

blog with a haiku
maybe stupid maybe lame
but you just read one

Not Exactly What We Had Hoped For...

2009-04-26T11:35:00.001-04:00

Yep... We torture... Yawn... Can you stop here honey? I want a Starbucks....

Welcome to My Newest Attempt...

2009-04-21T17:16:00.000-04:00

My Facebook and my Blogger are now linked... Imagine a world where you can link electronic universes together... I tell you man, it's like the future or something...

Does the End Ever Jusitfy the Means?

2009-04-21T16:11:00.000-04:00

When did it become okay to torture people into giving up information? Torture? Lets take a look at the definition of torture...

tor⋅ture – noun
1. the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
2. a method of inflicting such pain.
3. Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
4. extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
5. a cause of severe pain or anguish.

Notice here that EVERY instance of the definition has the some form of the word "pain" involved. Again, I ask the question... When did it become okay to torture people for the sake of information? Since The United States became a nation, we have condoned acts of torture. We have imprisoned people and put people to death for torture.

This morning Dick Cheney... (I even kind of shudder typing his name but I REFUSE to personally attack anyone during a semi-intelligent discussion. Even if the person in question accidentally shot someone in the face and no one even flinched. Try that as a private citizen and see what happens to you.) This morning Dick Cheney demanded that more CIA memos be released "proving" that waterboarding (um... tortue by definition?) was effective and prisoners (uh... victims?) gave up pertinent information. In effect he is demanding that the CIA memos be released so that he and Bush will be revealed as the "Good Nazis"... Yes we tortured, but we did it for YOU!!!!! YOUR safety!!!! YOUR children!!!!

Here are my thoughts... Since Bush and Cheney already set themselves up as untouchable with pre-pardons, then they should tell the fucking truth. After it is released that you waterboarded a prisoner 183 times in 30 days, you cannot justify that. That is 6 times a day for 30 days.

Here is a copy of what the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) says about the allowable use of waterboarding:

"...where authorized, it may be used for two "sessions" per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water appliaction. See id. at 42. Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period."

Later in the same memo it was revealed:

"The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91."

In order for this to happen, Zubaydah had to be subjected to simulated drowning six times a day. Much more than the DOJ (Department of Justice), the IG (Inspector General) and the OLC had authorized as "legal".

Not only were the techniques applied too frequently they were applied too harshly according to another memo released by the CIA:

The IG Report noted that in some cases the waterboard was used with far greater frequency than initially indicated, see IG Report at 5, 44, 46, 103-04, and also that it was used in a different manner. See id. at 37 ("[T]he waterboard technique ... was different from the technique described in the DoJ opinion and used in the SERE training. The difference was the manner in which the detainee's breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject's airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency Interrogator ... applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee's mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogator

s acknowledged that the Agency's use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is "for real--and is more poignant and convincing.")

Apparently training someone to torture another human being brings out the worst in people... Imagine that. They broke broke the rules of tortue. Wait a second here... Rules of torture? What the fuck are the rules of torture? When did torture get assigned rules? I guess SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance Extraction) training has invented the "Rule of Torture"... Torture this way and stop when I say...

Now we know why Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was the site for the prison.. Oh shit, I mean uh... Detainment facility. Now we know why they wanted to keep them off of American soil. No soil, no rights... Detain for as long as "necessary" and extract information by any means possible.

I am not condoning terrorist activities here. I am not saying that we shouldn't protect ourselves. What I am asking is simple... Is it okay to torture another human being? If it isn't what should be done in this situation? If it is, let me set up this scenario for you.

Let's just say that a killer is caught and refuses to incriminate himself by telling the police where the bodies are. He is captured, detained and questioned over a period of days. The police suspect that he will kill again if released and so in come some certified "SERE" trained "Inquisitors"... Three days of locked door, begging and pleading... Some gurgling sounds followed by thumps and muffled screams and presto chango, the police have located the bodies... All done in the name of "What may have happened"...

Most of us are too busy worried about our jobs, economy and personal problems right now to focus on anything as serious as this. I am asking everyone who took the time to read this soliloquy to take a few seconds and sit back and truly ponder this situation. What has become of America? Didn't we use to be the "Good Guys"?