September 28, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 181
A good starter business for young entrepreneurs is a church. You pay no taxes, and your customers pay you money to yell at them one day a week. It's a good racket.
20 QUESTIONS THEY DIDN'T ASK THE CANDIDATES
It's presidential election time, and along with the campaigning and incessant TV ads we get Presidential Debates, those forums where the candidates go head-to-head answering questions from TV moderators with the imaginations of fence posts. They pose the same old tired questions about foreign policy, the economy and the candidates' domestic agenda. Here's 20 questions the voters might like to pose to our next president:
1. What is your plan for doing something about our ugliest state, New Jersey?
2. Is there any chance of the Federal Government taking over something profitable like a big oil company, Walmart or Microsoft or something to offset the huge losses of the bank takeovers?
3. Will your administration do anything about Reality Television or are we stuck with this abomination?
4. Will anything other than cantaloupes ever again bear the label "Made in America?"
5. Where do you stand on mandatory re-education camps for former banking executives? And would you start with remedial math or anger management?
6. Who gets Bill O'Really's job as Minister of Propaganda?
7. Is is too much to ask that in a war where we annihilated their army and hung their leader, two fairly solid indications of victory, we can just call it a day in Iraq and let them figure out what's next for their nation?
8. How about creating a new government agency, The Department of Peace?
9. When you are President, will you require your Vice President to live in a disclosed location?
10. What are your positions on the designated hitter and artificial turf in Major League Baseball? What about mandating a few daytime games in the World Series for the kids to enjoy?
11. What about the immigration problem? Specifically: Can you find a way to shut up the critics of immigration in a nation completely made up of immigrants?
12. How do you plan to address the Donald Trump problem? Can he be made to go away?
13. What are your plans to correct the overabundance of nerdy wimps in the rock and roll star business? Do you have a Wild Man Initiative in place to correct this unsettling turn of events, perhaps a system of warning labels for the records put out by the timid sissies?
14. As Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, what changes would you make in the stale repertoire of songs of their marching bands? Is a Stevie Wonder song out of the question?
15. Will you continue to enforce the James Crow laws against gay people?
16. As president, will you call for a truce in the War Against Fat Guys?
17. How would you rate your brush-clearing skills with those of Ronald Reagan and Bush The Younger?
18. What is the bigger threat to our national security: Congress or the Executive Branch?
19. Is there any plan in place to restore the Bill of Rights?
20. Will torture be outlawed in your administration, specifically waterboarding and synchronized swimming?
1. What is your plan for doing something about our ugliest state, New Jersey?
2. Is there any chance of the Federal Government taking over something profitable like a big oil company, Walmart or Microsoft or something to offset the huge losses of the bank takeovers?
3. Will your administration do anything about Reality Television or are we stuck with this abomination?
4. Will anything other than cantaloupes ever again bear the label "Made in America?"
5. Where do you stand on mandatory re-education camps for former banking executives? And would you start with remedial math or anger management?
6. Who gets Bill O'Really's job as Minister of Propaganda?
7. Is is too much to ask that in a war where we annihilated their army and hung their leader, two fairly solid indications of victory, we can just call it a day in Iraq and let them figure out what's next for their nation?
8. How about creating a new government agency, The Department of Peace?
9. When you are President, will you require your Vice President to live in a disclosed location?
10. What are your positions on the designated hitter and artificial turf in Major League Baseball? What about mandating a few daytime games in the World Series for the kids to enjoy?
11. What about the immigration problem? Specifically: Can you find a way to shut up the critics of immigration in a nation completely made up of immigrants?
12. How do you plan to address the Donald Trump problem? Can he be made to go away?
13. What are your plans to correct the overabundance of nerdy wimps in the rock and roll star business? Do you have a Wild Man Initiative in place to correct this unsettling turn of events, perhaps a system of warning labels for the records put out by the timid sissies?
14. As Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, what changes would you make in the stale repertoire of songs of their marching bands? Is a Stevie Wonder song out of the question?
15. Will you continue to enforce the James Crow laws against gay people?
16. As president, will you call for a truce in the War Against Fat Guys?
17. How would you rate your brush-clearing skills with those of Ronald Reagan and Bush The Younger?
18. What is the bigger threat to our national security: Congress or the Executive Branch?
19. Is there any plan in place to restore the Bill of Rights?
20. Will torture be outlawed in your administration, specifically waterboarding and synchronized swimming?
September 26, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 180
If you need seven or eight TV commentators to explain and interpret what someone plainly stated in your native language, perhaps you're not cut out to vote. When a person says the sky is blue, that's pretty much what they meant, and no amount of dissection or discussion can change that. There is no secret code.
SANTA'S ON HIS WAY
The people who run J.P. Morgan-Chase Bank must think Christmas came early this year. The Federal Government seized Washington Mutual Bank, with assets worth $300 billion, and sold it to Morgan-Chase for less than $2 billion. That's less than a penny on the dollar. The news stories say that included in those assets is $31 billion in losses. Well, okay, but that leaves approximately $269 billion that are not losses. So, if you pay two bucks for a three hundred dollar item, then pay 31 bucks to have it fixed, you're ahead 267 dollars, no? Math doesn't change when you add a bunch of zeroes to it, does it? Why the fire sale in the middle of the night? You think maybe someone else would have bid another few billion for those 267 billion dollars worth of solid assets?
But most of us are not finance industry professionals so presumably that's a naive view to compare a 300 dollar item to a 300 billion dollar item. The workings of the world of high finance are a mystery to most of us, and apparently also beyond the grasp of the current crop of corporate leadership in that industry judging by the rash of bank failures, takeovers, government bailouts and fire sales. Didn't there used to be a bunch of careful, pudgy guys with rimless glasses running the show in those businesses? People who crossed every t, dotted every i and would never dream of gambling like a drunken sailor with their investors' money? What happened to those guys?
When did the solid bankers get replaced with the greedy punks who are killing an industry? And if they screwed up so badly and broke all kinds of laws as they looted their companies' treasuries, why aren't they in handcuffs and why aren't their personal assets being seized? What about the RICO laws the Feds use to seize the ill-gotten assets of gangsters? Gangsters and drug dealers are small potatoes compared to these corporate princes. It looks to the untrained eye that a systematic and coordinated violation of the laws of the land in order to gain illegal profits has been going on for years, the definition of organized crime. And like a lot of mob organizations, there seems to be a lot of public officials on their payroll. How else could Morgan-Chase make a $267 billion profit with the stroke of a pen in the middle of the night?
Why treat the CEOs and corrupt officials differently than mob bosses? If you believe the government's pitiful blathering on the subject, these corporate princes will hurt more Americans than any gangster organization ever has. With the gangsters, you have to seek out their services; drugs, gambling, prostitution and the like. The CEOs are running mainstream public institutions that everyone must deal with in the course of their ordinary lives. So, who's worse? Gangsters know exactly what business they are in and don't pretend otherwise. Corporate princes, on the other hand, have proven equally corrupt and amoral and yet insist upon being cloaked in a blanket of respectability, even of superiority as they approach the government for a handout not with hat in hand, but with threats and bully tactics.
To respond to these strong-arm tactics, lock them up, seize their assets and show them no one is above the law. Use the RICO statutes and give the real gangsters some company in Federal prisons. Instead of acting like Santa Clause coming early, the government should just throw them all in jail. Nobody's coming to the rescue of middle class people struggling mightily to make ends meet in an economy ruined by these clowns, so why worry about super-wealthy pigs who just might be criminals? You try pulling half the crap these guys have pulled and see how long it is before you're looking for a good defense attorney. And no one in the halls of government will move heaven and earth to help you. A bail out? You'll be lucky to make bail.
But most of us are not finance industry professionals so presumably that's a naive view to compare a 300 dollar item to a 300 billion dollar item. The workings of the world of high finance are a mystery to most of us, and apparently also beyond the grasp of the current crop of corporate leadership in that industry judging by the rash of bank failures, takeovers, government bailouts and fire sales. Didn't there used to be a bunch of careful, pudgy guys with rimless glasses running the show in those businesses? People who crossed every t, dotted every i and would never dream of gambling like a drunken sailor with their investors' money? What happened to those guys?
When did the solid bankers get replaced with the greedy punks who are killing an industry? And if they screwed up so badly and broke all kinds of laws as they looted their companies' treasuries, why aren't they in handcuffs and why aren't their personal assets being seized? What about the RICO laws the Feds use to seize the ill-gotten assets of gangsters? Gangsters and drug dealers are small potatoes compared to these corporate princes. It looks to the untrained eye that a systematic and coordinated violation of the laws of the land in order to gain illegal profits has been going on for years, the definition of organized crime. And like a lot of mob organizations, there seems to be a lot of public officials on their payroll. How else could Morgan-Chase make a $267 billion profit with the stroke of a pen in the middle of the night?
Why treat the CEOs and corrupt officials differently than mob bosses? If you believe the government's pitiful blathering on the subject, these corporate princes will hurt more Americans than any gangster organization ever has. With the gangsters, you have to seek out their services; drugs, gambling, prostitution and the like. The CEOs are running mainstream public institutions that everyone must deal with in the course of their ordinary lives. So, who's worse? Gangsters know exactly what business they are in and don't pretend otherwise. Corporate princes, on the other hand, have proven equally corrupt and amoral and yet insist upon being cloaked in a blanket of respectability, even of superiority as they approach the government for a handout not with hat in hand, but with threats and bully tactics.
To respond to these strong-arm tactics, lock them up, seize their assets and show them no one is above the law. Use the RICO statutes and give the real gangsters some company in Federal prisons. Instead of acting like Santa Clause coming early, the government should just throw them all in jail. Nobody's coming to the rescue of middle class people struggling mightily to make ends meet in an economy ruined by these clowns, so why worry about super-wealthy pigs who just might be criminals? You try pulling half the crap these guys have pulled and see how long it is before you're looking for a good defense attorney. And no one in the halls of government will move heaven and earth to help you. A bail out? You'll be lucky to make bail.
September 25, 2008
WHAT ELSE CAN WE SUSPEND?
Senator John McCain has decided to suspend his campaign for the Presidency to return to Washington to work on a solution to the financial crisis. What? Can you do that? Can you suspend your campaign for the presidency in what is one of the most crucial turning point elections in American history? Guess so, because that's just what he did, even canceling the first of 3 presidential debates this Friday. He did this, he said, "to put politics aside" in his quest to serve his nation, even though he is on record as saying that he knows very little about the American economy. So how's he supposed to help the Senate wrangle with an issue he knows nothing about? One supposes that's what politicians do; never let their ignorance stand in the way of putting their 2 cents worth in on any issue, no matter how complex and beyond their grasp it might be.
And to Republicans, this crisis is real and dire. It's rich people losing money this time, not your usual working class chumps getting screwed by their kind. Like the movie voice-over guy says: "This time, it's personal." So personal that John McCain drops everything to help his fellow super- wealthy people when they are in danger of becoming somewhat less wealthy. Not injured, not destitute, not horribly maimed or infected with some dread disease. Nor being made poor, or middle class or even moderately well off, but less wealthy. Well, boo friggin' hoo! What we have here is the unbridled greed of corporate princes coming back to bite them in the ass. It's only an emergency to them, not regular people.
So why would they let McCain sit in on this latest attempt to use the United States Treasury as an ATM for wealthy corporate princes? The doddering old fool just might say something honest about his Republican puppet masters and screw up the whole process, maybe wonder out loud why super-rich former investment banker Henry Paulson gets to have control over the $700 billion to be distributed amongst his former colleagues, no questions asked, no oversight or appeal allowed, with not a nickel of that dough going to worthwhile social programs like medical coverage or education. Why should the Treasury re-line the pockets of rich guys who just gambled away a trillion dollars of their fellow wealthy people's dough? Now they want ours too?
Why not suspend this Paulson guy from his job as Secretary of The Treasury? Being a former Goldman/Sachs partner who built a $700 million personal fortune, can he really say that he didn't see any of these banking collapses coming? Or was he hoping he'd be out of office when the dominos started falling? Either way, like most Bush The Younger appointees, he wasn't up to the job and should not be the guy administering a solution, that solution basically being to give the rich guys back the money they lost. Doesn't seem to be any thought given to the other 99.5% percent of the population who aren't in their (no)tax bracket.
The rest of us are being asked to suspend our powers of reasoning and deduction. We are being told that this banking crisis is going to affect our lives dramatically. Exactly how has yet to be explained. Perhaps the Republicans think that most Americans would be demoralized if we had fewer billionaires next year that we have this year. Maybe it will come as a flash to them that most of us don't give a rat's ass about the super wealthy, since no worry need be expended on people who are insulated from reality by thick blankets of money. Most people tend to worry about people who are hurting and vulnerable, and multi-millionaires and billionaires don't qualify for our sympathy. Even if they do lose millions, they've still got millions more to keep the wolf from the door.
You have to figure that if regular people were going to suffer, it would have happened already since they're always the ones to take the first hit in hard economic times. And you further have to wonder how much these rich people are suffering, what with the sky-high salaries they've been enjoying and the bonuses they kept awarding themselves out of their stockholders' money. Angst doesn't count. Last year alone the financial industry awarded their executives $55 billion in bonuses in an industry less than a year away from collapse. So how bad a crisis is this scandal? If it's that extreme, shouldn't there be some criminal investigating going on? Some corporate heads rolling? The way it's shaping up it's simply a bank robbery with the aid of an inside man named Henry Paulson. Call the police and let them sort it out.
Other than a few rich guys bounced from their jobs with millions in severance pay, everybody's lives are pretty much the same, nobody's starving and no enemy is threatening our borders. So maybe we should suspend our belief in what others tell us is a huge calamity and save ourselves $700 billion. If John McCain decides that saving the fortunes of the super-wealthy is more important than being president, well, we can accommodate him and elect the other guy, the guy who's not one of the super wealthy and forgets how many houses he owns. The guy who's not suspending his efforts to put his case for election before the American people.
Let's elect the smart guy, Barack Obama, the guy who's not in the pocket of the people trying to shove a $700 Treasury heist down our throats. Welfare is for poor people, not the wealthy, and when poor people gamble their money away on lottery tickets the government doesn't trip all over themselves to replace it. Let the chips fall where they may and let the super wealthy become merely wealthy. Then we ought to greed-proof our banks so they can't use these public institutions as personal ATM machines. Until then maybe the government can suspend all this talk of a dire crisis where none exists.
And to Republicans, this crisis is real and dire. It's rich people losing money this time, not your usual working class chumps getting screwed by their kind. Like the movie voice-over guy says: "This time, it's personal." So personal that John McCain drops everything to help his fellow super- wealthy people when they are in danger of becoming somewhat less wealthy. Not injured, not destitute, not horribly maimed or infected with some dread disease. Nor being made poor, or middle class or even moderately well off, but less wealthy. Well, boo friggin' hoo! What we have here is the unbridled greed of corporate princes coming back to bite them in the ass. It's only an emergency to them, not regular people.
So why would they let McCain sit in on this latest attempt to use the United States Treasury as an ATM for wealthy corporate princes? The doddering old fool just might say something honest about his Republican puppet masters and screw up the whole process, maybe wonder out loud why super-rich former investment banker Henry Paulson gets to have control over the $700 billion to be distributed amongst his former colleagues, no questions asked, no oversight or appeal allowed, with not a nickel of that dough going to worthwhile social programs like medical coverage or education. Why should the Treasury re-line the pockets of rich guys who just gambled away a trillion dollars of their fellow wealthy people's dough? Now they want ours too?
Why not suspend this Paulson guy from his job as Secretary of The Treasury? Being a former Goldman/Sachs partner who built a $700 million personal fortune, can he really say that he didn't see any of these banking collapses coming? Or was he hoping he'd be out of office when the dominos started falling? Either way, like most Bush The Younger appointees, he wasn't up to the job and should not be the guy administering a solution, that solution basically being to give the rich guys back the money they lost. Doesn't seem to be any thought given to the other 99.5% percent of the population who aren't in their (no)tax bracket.
The rest of us are being asked to suspend our powers of reasoning and deduction. We are being told that this banking crisis is going to affect our lives dramatically. Exactly how has yet to be explained. Perhaps the Republicans think that most Americans would be demoralized if we had fewer billionaires next year that we have this year. Maybe it will come as a flash to them that most of us don't give a rat's ass about the super wealthy, since no worry need be expended on people who are insulated from reality by thick blankets of money. Most people tend to worry about people who are hurting and vulnerable, and multi-millionaires and billionaires don't qualify for our sympathy. Even if they do lose millions, they've still got millions more to keep the wolf from the door.
You have to figure that if regular people were going to suffer, it would have happened already since they're always the ones to take the first hit in hard economic times. And you further have to wonder how much these rich people are suffering, what with the sky-high salaries they've been enjoying and the bonuses they kept awarding themselves out of their stockholders' money. Angst doesn't count. Last year alone the financial industry awarded their executives $55 billion in bonuses in an industry less than a year away from collapse. So how bad a crisis is this scandal? If it's that extreme, shouldn't there be some criminal investigating going on? Some corporate heads rolling? The way it's shaping up it's simply a bank robbery with the aid of an inside man named Henry Paulson. Call the police and let them sort it out.
Other than a few rich guys bounced from their jobs with millions in severance pay, everybody's lives are pretty much the same, nobody's starving and no enemy is threatening our borders. So maybe we should suspend our belief in what others tell us is a huge calamity and save ourselves $700 billion. If John McCain decides that saving the fortunes of the super-wealthy is more important than being president, well, we can accommodate him and elect the other guy, the guy who's not one of the super wealthy and forgets how many houses he owns. The guy who's not suspending his efforts to put his case for election before the American people.
Let's elect the smart guy, Barack Obama, the guy who's not in the pocket of the people trying to shove a $700 Treasury heist down our throats. Welfare is for poor people, not the wealthy, and when poor people gamble their money away on lottery tickets the government doesn't trip all over themselves to replace it. Let the chips fall where they may and let the super wealthy become merely wealthy. Then we ought to greed-proof our banks so they can't use these public institutions as personal ATM machines. Until then maybe the government can suspend all this talk of a dire crisis where none exists.
September 24, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 178
When newspaper headlines and television news entertainers declare a severe crisis over something that neither alarms you nor ever interested you even a little bit in the first place, you are under no obligation to get upset. If nothing's in flames and nobody's bleeding, odds are it's no dire emergency.
IT'S U.N. WEEK AGAIN!
It's that magic time in New York City again, the General Assembly of the United Nations, when world leaders gather together to pay lip service to the U.N. before going back home to do the unneighborly things the U.N. is designed to discourage. Stuff like oppressing their people, making war, practicing genocide, letting large chunks of their populations starve to death, stealing the wealth of their nations, harboring terrorists, those sort of things. But for one week in the city that never sleeps, all the various heads of states get to pretend that they are the nearest thing to Ghandi. It's all a farce, we know it, they know it and we just put up with their blowhard lies and move on.
So, the only interesting thing to happen this week is the revelation of what keeps the spring in the step and the smile on the face of the President of France, one Nicolas Sarkozy. That would be Carla Bruni Sarkozy, his beautiful and sexy wife. Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy is a model, singer, songwriter and actress born in Italy. She was the daughter of a Brazilian classical guitarist with whom her mother had an affair but was raised by her mother and her husband, a wealthy Italian industrialist and classical composer. Not exactly the life path one expects from the First Lady of France, but she is adored by the French anyway.
And getting a look at her, it's easy to see why. A long legged, slender beauty with a beguiling smile and a model's poise, she charms and disarms any potential critics of her past nude modeling sessions. Why anyone would complain about naked photographs of a beautiful woman is another matter, but the French are pretty okay with that stuff. What her politics are is not so clear, but then again, who cares? It's her husband who's President of The French Republic, not her. As First Lady, she dutifully attends luncheons on world literacy and shows up on her husband's arm when he makes a public appearance, and that's petty much all any nation should expect from their first ladies.
So, to sum up The United Nations General Assembly of 2008, a bunch of politicians got up and lied, nothing was done about the 36,000 people who die every single day of starvation, little was said about the pockets of genocide in Africa, no mention was made of all the wars the world is currently waging and no word uttered on the continued enslavement of Muslim women, like half of a billion of them. It was all about the stock market collapse and Carla Bruni, and Ms. Bruni was by far the more interesting subject. Here's hoping her husband what's-his-name keeps getting elected so we can see more of her around here.
So, the only interesting thing to happen this week is the revelation of what keeps the spring in the step and the smile on the face of the President of France, one Nicolas Sarkozy. That would be Carla Bruni Sarkozy, his beautiful and sexy wife. Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy is a model, singer, songwriter and actress born in Italy. She was the daughter of a Brazilian classical guitarist with whom her mother had an affair but was raised by her mother and her husband, a wealthy Italian industrialist and classical composer. Not exactly the life path one expects from the First Lady of France, but she is adored by the French anyway.
And getting a look at her, it's easy to see why. A long legged, slender beauty with a beguiling smile and a model's poise, she charms and disarms any potential critics of her past nude modeling sessions. Why anyone would complain about naked photographs of a beautiful woman is another matter, but the French are pretty okay with that stuff. What her politics are is not so clear, but then again, who cares? It's her husband who's President of The French Republic, not her. As First Lady, she dutifully attends luncheons on world literacy and shows up on her husband's arm when he makes a public appearance, and that's petty much all any nation should expect from their first ladies.
So, to sum up The United Nations General Assembly of 2008, a bunch of politicians got up and lied, nothing was done about the 36,000 people who die every single day of starvation, little was said about the pockets of genocide in Africa, no mention was made of all the wars the world is currently waging and no word uttered on the continued enslavement of Muslim women, like half of a billion of them. It was all about the stock market collapse and Carla Bruni, and Ms. Bruni was by far the more interesting subject. Here's hoping her husband what's-his-name keeps getting elected so we can see more of her around here.
September 23, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 177
There's a good reason why mimes come to America. They are persecuted and outlawed in many nations. Which, on the face of it, doesn't seem like such a bad thing, but in America we protect everyone's rights. Even mimes.
HELL OF A JOB, PAULIE
Henry Paulson is a former partner in Goldman Sachs investment bank, a place where he made a $700 million dollar personal fortune. Under his watch as Secretary of the Treasury he watched and did nothing as a financial Hurricane Katrina drowned his industry in red ink. Untold billions were being lost daily. His former business rivals bit the dust in rapid succession, and he refused to lift a finger to save Lehman Brothers, but promised to bail out several others in a sweeping plan that will give himself sole discretionary power over an estimated $700 billion dollar fund, with no oversight from Congress and no appeals via the courts. The Bush The Younger Administration has gone into overdrive to shove this last bit of treasury-looting down America's throat before it closes up shop in January, leaving a fine mess indeed for the next president.
The last time Congress bent over for Bush The Younger to grant him unilateral power to act, the man attacked the wrong country! Is there any reason not to shudder when he decides to tackle a problem by handing it over to a subordinate to do with as he will? So instead of Rummy in Iraq and Brownie in New Orleans, now we get Paulie in New York rounding up hundreds billions of tax dollars to be distributed as he sees fit? This would be a good time for Congress to say Fuck you! And when asked to clarify their position, just say it again louder; Fuck You!
Before we go handing more good money to the guys who gambled so much away and awarded themselves billions of other people's money in bonuses, shouldn't we see the plan? Shouldn't this guy Paulson have to answer to this government of the people, by the people and for the people? And shouldn't he have been fired for fiddling while Rome burned? He's probably on a first name basis with half the people he's supposed to be regulating, like good old Shotgun Dick Cheney and the Haliburton boys. Fire his useless scheming ass too or you'll have the wolves in charge of the hen house and the whole chicken farm. You just know that that 700 bil is going to get divvied up between all these decadent jackasses and none of the problems that created this mess will get corrected.
Is there something that the Congress isn't getting here, something new they have to learn about this administration? For 8 years its been government-by-disaster with the result always being more corporate pigs being allowed at the public trough. There have been no exceptions, from 9/11 to Iraq to New Orleans to Wall Street, that answer has always been to hand out keys to Fort Knox like it was the executive rest room. Or will Congress simply be shut up again, bought cheap for all the pork barrel earmarks sure to be included in that $700 billion? That will be one more thing for the next president to restore along with the Bill of Rights; accountability.
The last time Congress bent over for Bush The Younger to grant him unilateral power to act, the man attacked the wrong country! Is there any reason not to shudder when he decides to tackle a problem by handing it over to a subordinate to do with as he will? So instead of Rummy in Iraq and Brownie in New Orleans, now we get Paulie in New York rounding up hundreds billions of tax dollars to be distributed as he sees fit? This would be a good time for Congress to say Fuck you! And when asked to clarify their position, just say it again louder; Fuck You!
Before we go handing more good money to the guys who gambled so much away and awarded themselves billions of other people's money in bonuses, shouldn't we see the plan? Shouldn't this guy Paulson have to answer to this government of the people, by the people and for the people? And shouldn't he have been fired for fiddling while Rome burned? He's probably on a first name basis with half the people he's supposed to be regulating, like good old Shotgun Dick Cheney and the Haliburton boys. Fire his useless scheming ass too or you'll have the wolves in charge of the hen house and the whole chicken farm. You just know that that 700 bil is going to get divvied up between all these decadent jackasses and none of the problems that created this mess will get corrected.
Is there something that the Congress isn't getting here, something new they have to learn about this administration? For 8 years its been government-by-disaster with the result always being more corporate pigs being allowed at the public trough. There have been no exceptions, from 9/11 to Iraq to New Orleans to Wall Street, that answer has always been to hand out keys to Fort Knox like it was the executive rest room. Or will Congress simply be shut up again, bought cheap for all the pork barrel earmarks sure to be included in that $700 billion? That will be one more thing for the next president to restore along with the Bill of Rights; accountability.
September 22, 2008
WHAT A TRILLION BUYS
So, Bush The Younger is going all Socialist on us now. He's nationalized a bunch of banks, but being Bush The Younger, he picked the ones that were losing big money. It's costing you and I a trillion bucks too, or about $3,300 apiece before interest. But wait, not everybody pays taxes around here, like disabled people, children and the wealthy, so your share is probably double or triple that amount. Why couldn't he nationalize something profitable like an oil company or Microsoft or something? That way we could collect dividends instead of paying for rich guys' greed and blunders. What's next, Ford Motors? They certainly qualify, having lost $15 billion in three months time.
With the election coming, electing a smart guy doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. And what exactly was the problem with electing the smartest guy in the room like we used to? People that used to keep an eye on things? In retrospect, that whole free-market non-regulating mentality doesn't seem like such a brainstorm now that the our entire financial industry is going kablooey. That trillion dollars could have come in handy to provide healthcare for every American like most other advanced nations. The trillion could also have paid for a lot new schools and great teachers. Instead, it's paying for the bad habits of greedy executives.
What else does a trillion buy? A trillion lottery tickets, for one thing. About 125 billion packs of cigarettes. 90 billion 6-packs of beer. 67 billion pizzas. 50 million cars. 5 million houses. 12 1/2 billion pairs of shoes, 2 pairs for everybody on earth. 10 billion steak dinners, complete with appetizer, salad, a couple of drinks, coffee and desert plus a tip. 450 billion subway rides. 200 billion foot-long Subway sandwiches. 280 billion Big Macs. About 350 million diamond rings. 100 million deluxe hot tub spas. 17 billion bottles of good whiskey. 5 billion visits to a high class hooker. 2 trillion newspapers. 3 trillion packs of chewing gum. 1 trillion, 333 billion candy bars. 4 billion pistols. 750 sky scrapers or football stadiums, take your pick.
That's a lot of buying power, $1,000,000,000,000. Look at all those zeros! And for our trillion, the U.S. taxpayer is getting pretty much a bunch of those zeros. Doesn't seem fair. Could we at least get a refrigerator magnet or a pen or something? The executives who screwed up these giant companies all got millions and millions of dollars before they got fired, and then they got millions more to go away quietly. Nice work if you can get it: burning through a trillion dollars worth of wealth like a bunch of drunken sailors. They must have had a lot of fun doing that. You have to figure that yachts, casinos, fur coats for hookers, champagne and lots and lots of recreational drugs had to be involved in there somewhere. You don't burn a trillion bucks doing regular stuff, you had to have been really out there trying your damnedest. It's amazing these guys lived through it.
So now we pay for their fun, having had no taste of the high life these guys enjoyed for years and years. We don't get to ride in the back of a spacious limousine with expensive girls or fly to St. Tropez for a weekend rendezvous with our mistresses. No personal trainers for us, or luxury boxes at sporting events. No adrenaline rushes as a result of gambling billions of somebody else's dollars. Nothing but another sizable bill to pay for the failure of our government to keep an eye on these decadent clowns. Which will be a neat trick at the rate our jobs are disappearing.
With the election coming, electing a smart guy doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. And what exactly was the problem with electing the smartest guy in the room like we used to? People that used to keep an eye on things? In retrospect, that whole free-market non-regulating mentality doesn't seem like such a brainstorm now that the our entire financial industry is going kablooey. That trillion dollars could have come in handy to provide healthcare for every American like most other advanced nations. The trillion could also have paid for a lot new schools and great teachers. Instead, it's paying for the bad habits of greedy executives.
What else does a trillion buy? A trillion lottery tickets, for one thing. About 125 billion packs of cigarettes. 90 billion 6-packs of beer. 67 billion pizzas. 50 million cars. 5 million houses. 12 1/2 billion pairs of shoes, 2 pairs for everybody on earth. 10 billion steak dinners, complete with appetizer, salad, a couple of drinks, coffee and desert plus a tip. 450 billion subway rides. 200 billion foot-long Subway sandwiches. 280 billion Big Macs. About 350 million diamond rings. 100 million deluxe hot tub spas. 17 billion bottles of good whiskey. 5 billion visits to a high class hooker. 2 trillion newspapers. 3 trillion packs of chewing gum. 1 trillion, 333 billion candy bars. 4 billion pistols. 750 sky scrapers or football stadiums, take your pick.
That's a lot of buying power, $1,000,000,000,000. Look at all those zeros! And for our trillion, the U.S. taxpayer is getting pretty much a bunch of those zeros. Doesn't seem fair. Could we at least get a refrigerator magnet or a pen or something? The executives who screwed up these giant companies all got millions and millions of dollars before they got fired, and then they got millions more to go away quietly. Nice work if you can get it: burning through a trillion dollars worth of wealth like a bunch of drunken sailors. They must have had a lot of fun doing that. You have to figure that yachts, casinos, fur coats for hookers, champagne and lots and lots of recreational drugs had to be involved in there somewhere. You don't burn a trillion bucks doing regular stuff, you had to have been really out there trying your damnedest. It's amazing these guys lived through it.
So now we pay for their fun, having had no taste of the high life these guys enjoyed for years and years. We don't get to ride in the back of a spacious limousine with expensive girls or fly to St. Tropez for a weekend rendezvous with our mistresses. No personal trainers for us, or luxury boxes at sporting events. No adrenaline rushes as a result of gambling billions of somebody else's dollars. Nothing but another sizable bill to pay for the failure of our government to keep an eye on these decadent clowns. Which will be a neat trick at the rate our jobs are disappearing.
September 20, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 175
Autumn in New York is even better than the songs says. There is no better time to feel completely alive, hopeful, strong, and free than Autumn in New York City.
DOPOTO REPORTS: YOU CAN'T UN-RING A BELL
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been fielding phone calls and faxes asking what Senator John McCain meant when he said the fundamentals of our economy were sound while Rome burned around him. While it is not our job to interpret events, merely to point out the readily apparent, we can only say this about the venerable Senator's statement: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, odds are it's going to like the water and fly south in the winter. In our experience, once you make a plain statement that needs no interpretation, no amount of "what I really meant to say when I made a perfectly unambiguous statement" spin-doctoring will un-ring that bell.
Unfortunately, DOPOTO has over the years discovered that politicians think that voters are pretty stupid, and often with much justification. Case in point: we are now near completing President Bush The Younger's second term in office. The first time around the message was that Al Gore was too smart for his own good and too closely associated with another really smart guy, Bill Clinton and his girly-man peace and prosperity agenda. The second time around the message was that John Kerry, a genuine war hero, was really a coward while the president, a man who deserted his military post during that same war, was the real hero. In a monumental failure to see the obvious, the electorate was fooled twice.
The results? As stated above, we don't interpret events, but do urge people to observe was actually did happen as opposed to what somebody tells you happened. If the two accounts jibe, that person is not a liar or out of touch. If, on the other hand, hard reality and glib explanations are miles apart, the obvious conclusion is that this person is either a liar or completely delusional, and for The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious, "obvious" is the operational word here. Our motto is simply this: "What is, is." That's how most of us operate in our personal lives. If we didn't we'd all be the proud owners of the Brooklyn Bridge, lose our paychecks at three-card Monte games every week and get hit by cars we didn't notice because somebody told us they really weren't there. Which, thankfully, is not the case.
This is not to say that things cannot change. "What is" is a fluid state of affairs. Things change all the time. Two weeks ago this nation had 5 world class private investment banks. Now it has one. Of the other four, three were bought out by the government and the fourth went bankrupt, which leads to an obvious question: Who exactly was it at Lehman Brothers that pissed off the Bush The Younger administration so much? They were in better financial shape than a couple of the other banks that were "saved" and yet they were allowed to sink like a stone while the government threw away a trillion of our tax dollars to prop up the others, the bad debt they generated now becoming our bad debt, a huge chunk of our national budget.
And many literal minded Americans who are drowning in debt are wondering when the Federal government will step in to pay off all their credit card debts, their mortgage, their car loan and their backlog of unpaid taxes and utility bills. DOPOTO advises such individuals not to hold their breath. Unless of course they were so irresponsible that their unmet obligations add up to hundreds of billions of dollars. Then perhaps you can expect the Secretary of the Treasury to hand you a duplicate key to Fort Knox like he did for the president's wealthy buddies in the finance and oil industry.
The Department is also fielding endless inquiries about the current presidential campaign, and why Senator McCain's people are trying to out-dumb Bush The Younger. Simple. It worked before. Twice. In the past two presidential elections, it was not the smart guy who got elected. To emphasize this strategy, McCain picked the dumbest Vice Presidential candidate ever, Sarah Palin, a woman who makes Republicans nostalgic for the days when Dan Quayle was a heartbeat away from power.
This same campaign is the one who would have you believe that Barack Obama, a man raised on Food Stamps by a single mother, rising through poverty to gain a first class education and paying off his own student loans is an "elitist," while John McCain, a man so wealthy he forgets how many homes he owns and is on a first name basis with billionaires is the "man of the people." And one can make an argument that he is a man of the people, just not a convincing one. A man of the very rich people, perhaps. This is how stupid the Republicans think Americans are, that they can't see what is so painfully obvious. And it is the Department's official position that this "dumb" strategy would have worked if it was not for the collapse of America's financial system, an event that sort of emphasizes the wisdom of electing a smart guy as our president this time around. Ignore the obvious at your peril.
Unfortunately, DOPOTO has over the years discovered that politicians think that voters are pretty stupid, and often with much justification. Case in point: we are now near completing President Bush The Younger's second term in office. The first time around the message was that Al Gore was too smart for his own good and too closely associated with another really smart guy, Bill Clinton and his girly-man peace and prosperity agenda. The second time around the message was that John Kerry, a genuine war hero, was really a coward while the president, a man who deserted his military post during that same war, was the real hero. In a monumental failure to see the obvious, the electorate was fooled twice.
The results? As stated above, we don't interpret events, but do urge people to observe was actually did happen as opposed to what somebody tells you happened. If the two accounts jibe, that person is not a liar or out of touch. If, on the other hand, hard reality and glib explanations are miles apart, the obvious conclusion is that this person is either a liar or completely delusional, and for The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious, "obvious" is the operational word here. Our motto is simply this: "What is, is." That's how most of us operate in our personal lives. If we didn't we'd all be the proud owners of the Brooklyn Bridge, lose our paychecks at three-card Monte games every week and get hit by cars we didn't notice because somebody told us they really weren't there. Which, thankfully, is not the case.
This is not to say that things cannot change. "What is" is a fluid state of affairs. Things change all the time. Two weeks ago this nation had 5 world class private investment banks. Now it has one. Of the other four, three were bought out by the government and the fourth went bankrupt, which leads to an obvious question: Who exactly was it at Lehman Brothers that pissed off the Bush The Younger administration so much? They were in better financial shape than a couple of the other banks that were "saved" and yet they were allowed to sink like a stone while the government threw away a trillion of our tax dollars to prop up the others, the bad debt they generated now becoming our bad debt, a huge chunk of our national budget.
And many literal minded Americans who are drowning in debt are wondering when the Federal government will step in to pay off all their credit card debts, their mortgage, their car loan and their backlog of unpaid taxes and utility bills. DOPOTO advises such individuals not to hold their breath. Unless of course they were so irresponsible that their unmet obligations add up to hundreds of billions of dollars. Then perhaps you can expect the Secretary of the Treasury to hand you a duplicate key to Fort Knox like he did for the president's wealthy buddies in the finance and oil industry.
The Department is also fielding endless inquiries about the current presidential campaign, and why Senator McCain's people are trying to out-dumb Bush The Younger. Simple. It worked before. Twice. In the past two presidential elections, it was not the smart guy who got elected. To emphasize this strategy, McCain picked the dumbest Vice Presidential candidate ever, Sarah Palin, a woman who makes Republicans nostalgic for the days when Dan Quayle was a heartbeat away from power.
This same campaign is the one who would have you believe that Barack Obama, a man raised on Food Stamps by a single mother, rising through poverty to gain a first class education and paying off his own student loans is an "elitist," while John McCain, a man so wealthy he forgets how many homes he owns and is on a first name basis with billionaires is the "man of the people." And one can make an argument that he is a man of the people, just not a convincing one. A man of the very rich people, perhaps. This is how stupid the Republicans think Americans are, that they can't see what is so painfully obvious. And it is the Department's official position that this "dumb" strategy would have worked if it was not for the collapse of America's financial system, an event that sort of emphasizes the wisdom of electing a smart guy as our president this time around. Ignore the obvious at your peril.
September 19, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 174
Humans are the only sort of beings we know of that have obsessions. Some of us are even obsessed with other people's obsessions and spend their lives prying into their minds, as fruitless as that seems to be judging from the results. So, if you're a bit of a nut, well, you're in good and plentiful company. Embrace your madness, but don't let it define you. It's just another part of you, just like your wisdom, your goodness and your sense of humor. Take a good look around you. You're not alone. There's over 6 billion of us.
THERE IS A BETTER WAY
If you want to know how somebody feels when something terrible happens to them or is done to them, just remember how you felt when bad things happened to you. That's how they feel. They might seem different to you, maybe they're the opposite sex, maybe their skin tone is different, or the clothes they wear seem odd to you or they practice a different religion than the ones you're used to. Maybe they live in a nation far away and seemingly completely very different from the place where you live. How can you possibly know how such a person would feel?
Simple. People are people, and they haven't introduced any new models lately. What you feel, they feel. What you want, they want. How you would react in any given situation, they react the same. In many respects they are just like you. The differences between any set of human beings anywhere are minimal, our similarities far greater. When we forget that, then it is easy to hurt others or to do nothing when they are suffering. That is how we justify war and that is how it came to be on this bountiful planet that 36,000 people die every single day from starvation.
Every 2.4 seconds somebody somewhere on this earth succumbs to starvation, a slow and agonizingly painful death. By contrast, the brutal act of warfare is merciful, death coming swiftly and without prolonged suffering. Yet when we wail and gnash our teeth about man's inhumanity to man, it is almost always warfare we are talking about. While war is a horrible state of affairs, there has never been one in all of our history that has killed 36,000 people every single day, not even World War 2 with its forty million killed in six years. At 36,000 a day, in six years 80 million perish, without a single army mobilized, one bomb dropped or a shot being fired in anger and rage. This is passive warfare, and the death toll is 1,414,000 per year forever if we do nothing about it.
How can this change? Do the huge numbers involved numb our senses to this disaster? Are we somewhere in the back of our minds convinced that the people who are dying are somehow "different" and thus not worth saving? Well, you and I are different too, from somebody. Does that mean you're not worth saving? Most starvation victims are children under the age of 5. How different are they from our own children? Don't they like to run around and play and tease each other like other kids? Don't they look to their parents for love and protection? Don't their eyes light up at every new discovery in this fascinating world like children everywhere? Isn't the death of even one of our magical children a tragedy beyond words? To allow it to happen 36,000 times a day is far beyond cruel, it is simply monstrous.
And yet we are not monsters, we are people, the great majority of us good and decent and loving people who would never intentionally do harm to another human being, nor would we stand idly by while one among us withers and dies for lack of food. And in America, that simply never happens anymore. It used to, though. Before President Lyndon Johnson introduced Food Stamps and other social programs to help our nation's poor, there actually were starvation deaths in the United States of America, as hard as that is to fathom in a nation so blessed with nature's bounty. But before we could share this bounty with our poor people, we had to change our perceptions of who they are. It turned out they were us; our brothers, our sisters, our precious children. We changed our hearts and changed lives.
So one way to change the fate of the world's starving masses is to change our attitude towards them. They are our brothers and sisters and children no less than our immediate neighbors. And we have, and many other nations have, plenty of food to go around. But America has to lead by example, start sending in the Peace Corp instead of the Marine Corps to troubled lands. Huge swaths of Africa is the American Midwest waiting to happen when it comes to farming. They have the climate, the water and the fertile land. The Peace Corps can teach them how to farm that land and feed their people, this year and every year.
In India and China, where half the world's starvation victims live, the same help should be offered, no matter how repellent we consider their governments. Trade with these nations should be tied to the how well they treat our fellow humans within their borders. They have the resources to feed them, but their governments have other priorities. Both of these nations export food while millions of their citizens starve until they die horribly.
When a government puts other priorities above their own starving children, they are no government at all, merely a power structure in place to benefit the powerful few. The international community needs to recognize this and treat those governments accordingly. If everyone is considered a citizen of the world who just happens to be living in one nation or another, that changes our perception of who those people are and forces us to insist that their governments take proper care of "our" people. There should be no "internal matters" or inviolate sovereignty when it comes to nations killing their own citizens either actively or passively.
The United Nations needs to stop breaking the balls of Western Democracies and instead start picking their brains. It's no accident that Western nations have no starving people in them. It took hard work, planning, insight and caring deeply about the welfare of their citizens to build societies that don't bury a large percentage of their populations every single day because no one would feed them. These are the nations that must show the staving countries generosity, not only with food but with education, expertise and training. There's wisdom in the cliche: "Feed a man a fish, feed him once. Teach him to fish, feed him for life."
Donate to one of the thousands of charities who fight starvation and its root causes. Investigate their track record for effectiveness first, of course, so you're not throwing your money away on a fraudulent charity. Go to www.CharityNaqvigator.org to see which ones do what they say they will do. Also, let our American government know that America needs to do more to end this passive genocide. We need to fight no more wars, gain no territory or global advantages. America is in good shape food and money wise, even with all the failures of the past 8 years. We are still America, and we still stand for something good and beautiful in this world. And if anyone can understand "different" peoples, it is Americans, since our nation was built on people from every other nation. If we want to lead the world again, let it be in an area everyone can respect; feeding the starving, giving life where there has been so much death and defending the defenseless. Let's feed those hungry kids and let their smiles and their wonder-filled eyes be our reward.
Simple. People are people, and they haven't introduced any new models lately. What you feel, they feel. What you want, they want. How you would react in any given situation, they react the same. In many respects they are just like you. The differences between any set of human beings anywhere are minimal, our similarities far greater. When we forget that, then it is easy to hurt others or to do nothing when they are suffering. That is how we justify war and that is how it came to be on this bountiful planet that 36,000 people die every single day from starvation.
Every 2.4 seconds somebody somewhere on this earth succumbs to starvation, a slow and agonizingly painful death. By contrast, the brutal act of warfare is merciful, death coming swiftly and without prolonged suffering. Yet when we wail and gnash our teeth about man's inhumanity to man, it is almost always warfare we are talking about. While war is a horrible state of affairs, there has never been one in all of our history that has killed 36,000 people every single day, not even World War 2 with its forty million killed in six years. At 36,000 a day, in six years 80 million perish, without a single army mobilized, one bomb dropped or a shot being fired in anger and rage. This is passive warfare, and the death toll is 1,414,000 per year forever if we do nothing about it.
How can this change? Do the huge numbers involved numb our senses to this disaster? Are we somewhere in the back of our minds convinced that the people who are dying are somehow "different" and thus not worth saving? Well, you and I are different too, from somebody. Does that mean you're not worth saving? Most starvation victims are children under the age of 5. How different are they from our own children? Don't they like to run around and play and tease each other like other kids? Don't they look to their parents for love and protection? Don't their eyes light up at every new discovery in this fascinating world like children everywhere? Isn't the death of even one of our magical children a tragedy beyond words? To allow it to happen 36,000 times a day is far beyond cruel, it is simply monstrous.
And yet we are not monsters, we are people, the great majority of us good and decent and loving people who would never intentionally do harm to another human being, nor would we stand idly by while one among us withers and dies for lack of food. And in America, that simply never happens anymore. It used to, though. Before President Lyndon Johnson introduced Food Stamps and other social programs to help our nation's poor, there actually were starvation deaths in the United States of America, as hard as that is to fathom in a nation so blessed with nature's bounty. But before we could share this bounty with our poor people, we had to change our perceptions of who they are. It turned out they were us; our brothers, our sisters, our precious children. We changed our hearts and changed lives.
So one way to change the fate of the world's starving masses is to change our attitude towards them. They are our brothers and sisters and children no less than our immediate neighbors. And we have, and many other nations have, plenty of food to go around. But America has to lead by example, start sending in the Peace Corp instead of the Marine Corps to troubled lands. Huge swaths of Africa is the American Midwest waiting to happen when it comes to farming. They have the climate, the water and the fertile land. The Peace Corps can teach them how to farm that land and feed their people, this year and every year.
In India and China, where half the world's starvation victims live, the same help should be offered, no matter how repellent we consider their governments. Trade with these nations should be tied to the how well they treat our fellow humans within their borders. They have the resources to feed them, but their governments have other priorities. Both of these nations export food while millions of their citizens starve until they die horribly.
When a government puts other priorities above their own starving children, they are no government at all, merely a power structure in place to benefit the powerful few. The international community needs to recognize this and treat those governments accordingly. If everyone is considered a citizen of the world who just happens to be living in one nation or another, that changes our perception of who those people are and forces us to insist that their governments take proper care of "our" people. There should be no "internal matters" or inviolate sovereignty when it comes to nations killing their own citizens either actively or passively.
The United Nations needs to stop breaking the balls of Western Democracies and instead start picking their brains. It's no accident that Western nations have no starving people in them. It took hard work, planning, insight and caring deeply about the welfare of their citizens to build societies that don't bury a large percentage of their populations every single day because no one would feed them. These are the nations that must show the staving countries generosity, not only with food but with education, expertise and training. There's wisdom in the cliche: "Feed a man a fish, feed him once. Teach him to fish, feed him for life."
Donate to one of the thousands of charities who fight starvation and its root causes. Investigate their track record for effectiveness first, of course, so you're not throwing your money away on a fraudulent charity. Go to www.CharityNaqvigator.org to see which ones do what they say they will do. Also, let our American government know that America needs to do more to end this passive genocide. We need to fight no more wars, gain no territory or global advantages. America is in good shape food and money wise, even with all the failures of the past 8 years. We are still America, and we still stand for something good and beautiful in this world. And if anyone can understand "different" peoples, it is Americans, since our nation was built on people from every other nation. If we want to lead the world again, let it be in an area everyone can respect; feeding the starving, giving life where there has been so much death and defending the defenseless. Let's feed those hungry kids and let their smiles and their wonder-filled eyes be our reward.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 173
When the day's news is all bad, immediately check your freezer. Locate the ice cream, eat some and you will soon feel much better. For severe mental trauma, apply chocolate syrup. A regular check on these emergency provisions is essential. Be prepared.
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH THE TASH BROTHERS BAND
Come see the irony of all ironies, The Tash Brothers Band performing for the Walk For Mental Health. Who says mental health professionals don't have a sense of humor? This Sunday, September 21st at 2 in the afternoon, in Heckscher Park in Huntington, Long Island, New York, the mighty mighty Tash Brothers Band will put that park on the sonic map and perhaps raise awareness of mental health.
Or perhaps not. Mental health has never been a huge priority with The Tash Brothers Band. And what exactly is The Walk For Mental Health? You'll have to ask somebody else, maybe the organizers of the event. Sounds sort of fishy to this Tash Brother, but perhaps it's a worthy cause. Truth is, we're just not sure. What we do know, though, is that if you show up Sunday to hear the Tash Brothers Band roar and wail, you will witness a show you won't forget. Check your sanity at the gate and let the Tash Brothers take you on a wild rock and blues roller coaster ride. Then you can go on that Walk For Mental Health to recover from our show. Or you just might come around to our way of thinking and forget all about mental stability.
In the Tash Brothers' universe, music is everything and music is raw and immediate and in your face. Music will tear down your walls, build you up, open your eyes as well as your heart and set your spirit free. Music will haunt your dreams and your waking hours, music will be in your soul forever. That's what a Tash Brothers Band concert will do for you. Or you can just stay home and live your regular life, wondering what might have been. It's your call. But if you want to change your life and stop worrying about your mental health like a little sissy, come to:
Heckscher Park
Chapin Rainbow Stage
MAIN STREET
HUNTINGTON, LONG ISLAND, NY 11743
call for info: (631) 35-4681
Sunday, September 21st, at 2 PM.
Tash Brothers Band Concert
(We're unsure what the Walk For Mental Health donation is, but it's probably better to give them what they ask to avoid an unpleasant scene. Tread lightly with mental health professionals, they're way nuttier than any of their patients and cry at the smallest provocation. Try to reassure them when the Tash brothers take the stage.)
Or perhaps not. Mental health has never been a huge priority with The Tash Brothers Band. And what exactly is The Walk For Mental Health? You'll have to ask somebody else, maybe the organizers of the event. Sounds sort of fishy to this Tash Brother, but perhaps it's a worthy cause. Truth is, we're just not sure. What we do know, though, is that if you show up Sunday to hear the Tash Brothers Band roar and wail, you will witness a show you won't forget. Check your sanity at the gate and let the Tash Brothers take you on a wild rock and blues roller coaster ride. Then you can go on that Walk For Mental Health to recover from our show. Or you just might come around to our way of thinking and forget all about mental stability.
In the Tash Brothers' universe, music is everything and music is raw and immediate and in your face. Music will tear down your walls, build you up, open your eyes as well as your heart and set your spirit free. Music will haunt your dreams and your waking hours, music will be in your soul forever. That's what a Tash Brothers Band concert will do for you. Or you can just stay home and live your regular life, wondering what might have been. It's your call. But if you want to change your life and stop worrying about your mental health like a little sissy, come to:
Heckscher Park
Chapin Rainbow Stage
MAIN STREET
HUNTINGTON, LONG ISLAND, NY 11743
call for info: (631) 35-4681
Sunday, September 21st, at 2 PM.
Tash Brothers Band Concert
(We're unsure what the Walk For Mental Health donation is, but it's probably better to give them what they ask to avoid an unpleasant scene. Tread lightly with mental health professionals, they're way nuttier than any of their patients and cry at the smallest provocation. Try to reassure them when the Tash brothers take the stage.)
September 17, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 172
When a beautiful, sexy young woman marries a very old man, there has never been such a marriage in all history where the wrinkly old dude was poor. Which is not to say that it can't be true love, hers for his money and his for her body. Usually neither one can keep their hands off the objects of their desire, but unfortunately are not capable of doing much with them. Such is life sometimes. Wish your wishes wisely.
AT THE UNEMPLOYMENT OFFICE
"Full name?"
"August Dumont Chucklebottom, the 4th."
"Three other guys had that name? Jeeze..."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry. Former Occupation?"
"CEO, Megabank Worldstraddle."
"Weekly salary?"
"Weekly? How quaint. Let me see... hmm... approximately three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, exclusive of bonus and stock options."
"I said weekly, not the whole time you worked there."
"My dear sir, my compensation package was over $18 million per annum."
"Per annum?"
"Per year."
"And you're applying for unemployment insurance?"
"I am currently unemployed, sir. Isn't that what one does at times like these?"
"Yes, they do. But not guys who made 350K a week, pal."
"We are not pals, sir, and why not someone in my position?"
"We don't get a lot of calls for CEO jobs here, Mr. Chuckleface."
"It's Chucklebottom, and I didn't expect you to. I'm here to claim my insurance payments to tide me over until something comes up. I understand it will be three quarters of my salary, a tight squeeze, but I'll just have to tighten the old belt buckle..."
"Three quarters of your pay? Yeah, it sure is, up to a maximum of people making $600 bucks a week."
"Nobody makes $600 dollars a week!"
"Some make less..."
"Impossible! Do you mean to tell me that I'll be allowed only 400 dollars a week?"
"No, I didn't say that. You haven't qualified yet. If you quit your job it's a no-go. You had to have been fired or laid off, and not for just cause, either. Did you leave your position voluntarily?"
"Hardly, sir. One doesn't voluntarily leave the CEO position of a company such as Mega..."
"So you were fired, then?"
"Fired is a very strong word, sir. The company was heading in a different direction, you see..."
"I'll just put down fired. These forms have only so much space per category. Hey, wait a minute... ain't you the guy that the Feds kicked out after you almost put your company into bankruptcy and they bailed you out?"
"That certainly was not my fault! I was only there for six years..."
"Six years? If I screwed up for 6 years you think I'd still have this lousy job?"
"... you have to understand, sir, there were market forces at work here, unforeseen risk factors..."
"I'll just put down 'fired' and let you explain all that to job interviewers."
"Excuse me? Job interviewers?"
"Job interviewers. In order to qualify for your 400 bucks a week you have to prove you've been interviewing. I have here a couple of prospects for managerial positions you might want to check out..."
"What's the compensation package? Length of contract? Options? How big a parachute?"
"Here's one for a Burger King manager..."
"The chair of Burger King is open? That's exciting..."
"Yeah, the chair at the Jackson Heights Branch, $17.47 an hour to start, no benefits until after 6 months, night shift, midnight to eight in the morning. Don't know how exciting it is, but it's a job..."
"Impossible!"
"Well, after that hatchet job you did on your bank, you may be right. Let's see... maybe I have something less challenging here.."
"I mean the whole idea of me interviewing for jobs that pay less than eight figures..."
"Listen, pal, the payroll of everybody in this office doesn't add up to eight figures! Besides, no interviews, no unemployment check. Also, you might want to consider a retraining program, for workers whose jobs are obsolete, or people like yourself who have no prospects of a job in their own field."
"Absurd!"
"What, retraining? I can get you into a computer tech class, and that would extend your benefits until you graduate."
"Computer tech? A man of my experience?"
"Okay, maybe you're right. You'd probably be in over your head. You any good with tools? There's some handyman classes open...."
"I don't think you know who you're dealing with, sir!"
"Can't say as I do, but with so many people losing their jobs it's kind of hard to get to know everybody personally. Maybe you want to come back another day when you decide whether or not you're going to go with the program here. There's a lot of people on line behind you, and it looks like some of them recognize you. The security guard is having a heck of a time calming them down."
"Oh, so they blame me?"
"I would if I was them. The guy who I interviewed before you worked for your bank. Lost his pension, too."
"If he'd have done his job properly maybe none of this would have happened."
"So now it's your employees' fault? That guy worked there 30 years, impeccable record. Now he's on the street, no health insurance, no job, and his pension gone. That's okay by you?"
"We were trying to save the company, you see. Those pension funds could have tided us over until..."
"Those pension funds were not your money to play with, Chucklehead."
"It's Chucklebottom, and what could you possibly know about the world of high finance?"
"Not much, pal, I only deal with the casualties. Seems like you've left a whole lot of them in your wake. Did you lose your pension?"
"No, well, that is to say, my IRA and my 401k plans are thankfully intact, and that's really none of your business."
"You're the one applying for benefits, Chuckleface, not me."
"It's Chucklebottom! How dare you speak to me this way?"
"About time somebody did. I'm just going to put you down as 'fired for just cause' and turn you down flat. You can appeal my decision if you like."
"That's not fair!"
"Welcome back to reality, sir. And good day to you"
"Have you nothing else to say?"
"Sure do. Next!"
"I'll have your job, sir!"
"What, so you can screw up the Unemployment Office too, Chucklewart?"
"It's Chucklebottom, and I'm not going anywhere until I get my benefits. What do you say to that, sir?"
" Security!Security! Please escort this man to the curb. He ought to be used to it by now. Next!"
"August Dumont Chucklebottom, the 4th."
"Three other guys had that name? Jeeze..."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry. Former Occupation?"
"CEO, Megabank Worldstraddle."
"Weekly salary?"
"Weekly? How quaint. Let me see... hmm... approximately three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, exclusive of bonus and stock options."
"I said weekly, not the whole time you worked there."
"My dear sir, my compensation package was over $18 million per annum."
"Per annum?"
"Per year."
"And you're applying for unemployment insurance?"
"I am currently unemployed, sir. Isn't that what one does at times like these?"
"Yes, they do. But not guys who made 350K a week, pal."
"We are not pals, sir, and why not someone in my position?"
"We don't get a lot of calls for CEO jobs here, Mr. Chuckleface."
"It's Chucklebottom, and I didn't expect you to. I'm here to claim my insurance payments to tide me over until something comes up. I understand it will be three quarters of my salary, a tight squeeze, but I'll just have to tighten the old belt buckle..."
"Three quarters of your pay? Yeah, it sure is, up to a maximum of people making $600 bucks a week."
"Nobody makes $600 dollars a week!"
"Some make less..."
"Impossible! Do you mean to tell me that I'll be allowed only 400 dollars a week?"
"No, I didn't say that. You haven't qualified yet. If you quit your job it's a no-go. You had to have been fired or laid off, and not for just cause, either. Did you leave your position voluntarily?"
"Hardly, sir. One doesn't voluntarily leave the CEO position of a company such as Mega..."
"So you were fired, then?"
"Fired is a very strong word, sir. The company was heading in a different direction, you see..."
"I'll just put down fired. These forms have only so much space per category. Hey, wait a minute... ain't you the guy that the Feds kicked out after you almost put your company into bankruptcy and they bailed you out?"
"That certainly was not my fault! I was only there for six years..."
"Six years? If I screwed up for 6 years you think I'd still have this lousy job?"
"... you have to understand, sir, there were market forces at work here, unforeseen risk factors..."
"I'll just put down 'fired' and let you explain all that to job interviewers."
"Excuse me? Job interviewers?"
"Job interviewers. In order to qualify for your 400 bucks a week you have to prove you've been interviewing. I have here a couple of prospects for managerial positions you might want to check out..."
"What's the compensation package? Length of contract? Options? How big a parachute?"
"Here's one for a Burger King manager..."
"The chair of Burger King is open? That's exciting..."
"Yeah, the chair at the Jackson Heights Branch, $17.47 an hour to start, no benefits until after 6 months, night shift, midnight to eight in the morning. Don't know how exciting it is, but it's a job..."
"Impossible!"
"Well, after that hatchet job you did on your bank, you may be right. Let's see... maybe I have something less challenging here.."
"I mean the whole idea of me interviewing for jobs that pay less than eight figures..."
"Listen, pal, the payroll of everybody in this office doesn't add up to eight figures! Besides, no interviews, no unemployment check. Also, you might want to consider a retraining program, for workers whose jobs are obsolete, or people like yourself who have no prospects of a job in their own field."
"Absurd!"
"What, retraining? I can get you into a computer tech class, and that would extend your benefits until you graduate."
"Computer tech? A man of my experience?"
"Okay, maybe you're right. You'd probably be in over your head. You any good with tools? There's some handyman classes open...."
"I don't think you know who you're dealing with, sir!"
"Can't say as I do, but with so many people losing their jobs it's kind of hard to get to know everybody personally. Maybe you want to come back another day when you decide whether or not you're going to go with the program here. There's a lot of people on line behind you, and it looks like some of them recognize you. The security guard is having a heck of a time calming them down."
"Oh, so they blame me?"
"I would if I was them. The guy who I interviewed before you worked for your bank. Lost his pension, too."
"If he'd have done his job properly maybe none of this would have happened."
"So now it's your employees' fault? That guy worked there 30 years, impeccable record. Now he's on the street, no health insurance, no job, and his pension gone. That's okay by you?"
"We were trying to save the company, you see. Those pension funds could have tided us over until..."
"Those pension funds were not your money to play with, Chucklehead."
"It's Chucklebottom, and what could you possibly know about the world of high finance?"
"Not much, pal, I only deal with the casualties. Seems like you've left a whole lot of them in your wake. Did you lose your pension?"
"No, well, that is to say, my IRA and my 401k plans are thankfully intact, and that's really none of your business."
"You're the one applying for benefits, Chuckleface, not me."
"It's Chucklebottom! How dare you speak to me this way?"
"About time somebody did. I'm just going to put you down as 'fired for just cause' and turn you down flat. You can appeal my decision if you like."
"That's not fair!"
"Welcome back to reality, sir. And good day to you"
"Have you nothing else to say?"
"Sure do. Next!"
"I'll have your job, sir!"
"What, so you can screw up the Unemployment Office too, Chucklewart?"
"It's Chucklebottom, and I'm not going anywhere until I get my benefits. What do you say to that, sir?"
" Security!Security! Please escort this man to the curb. He ought to be used to it by now. Next!"
September 16, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 171
You can figure out every part of life except the parts where you have to deal with people. That's where it really gets unpredictable. And you thought nature was dicey? Storms eventually let up. People never do.
BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?
A couple of thirties guy were hanging around the park discussing the latest financial news. As far as I could tell their names were Bud and Mack. Here is their conversation:
"It's those Wall Street swells again, Bud, playing fast and loose with other people's dough, I tell ya! Turn your back for eight years on those jokers and they pull a fast one. Playin' us all for chumps, see, just like back in '29."
"Tell me somethin' I don't know, Mack. They oughta haul those palookas down to the station and give 'em the third degree, sweat 'em good."
"What good would that do? They already blew everybody's dough!"
"Find out who's Mr. Big in this caper. How could they knock off so many banks all at once, Bud? There's got to be a mastermind behind this setup!"
"Whattya mean, Mack, like a mastermind who hatches a cockamamie scheme where everybody loses? Sounds fishy. What's the angle there?"
"There's gotta be an angle, Bud. If so many people lost so much money, well, don't it stand to reason that somebody else found that dough?"
"I think I get your drift here, Mack, but it don't hold water, see. When a company's stock takes a swan dive, that money just evaporates."
"That don't sound too kosher, Bud. You mean to tell me that a company can be worth 80 billion simoleans one day and then the next day with everything the exact same about that company it can be worth only 6 billion?"
"That's about the size of it, Mack."
"So, it was only 80 billion because people said it was 80 billion, and now it's 6 billion because now they say it's only worth 6? That's crazy. It seems to me that now somebody can get to buy an 80 billion dollar company for only 6 billion. Who's that guy, Bud? That's the guy who's Mr. Big."
"I never thought of it that way, Mack. It seems like some other bank always steps in and bails those broke banks out. Sometimes the Feds pick up the lion's share of the tab too, and that's pretty sweet, collecting from Uncle Sam to the tune of a lotta free taxpayer billions. But who gets the bargain here, Mack, if all those small investors got wiped out?"
"It's always the little guy who takes in the neck, Joe, don't we know that! It's those rich swells who make out like Rockefeller when times get hard, buying up cheap what working stiffs slaved their whole lives for. And even if the $80 billion figure was out of line, wishful thinking maybe, you gotta figure it's worth a lot more that the 6 billion the new guy pays for it. If he's a smart cookie he hangs on to it until the smoke clears and people say it's worth big dough again, then he unloads it for a tidy profit! Tell me that ain't a scam!"
"Amen, brother. And they're kicking a lotta people outta their homes again, Mack, just like back in the 30's. You think those people walk away with any dough for all their years of paying that big mortgage? Not on your life!"
"Good thing we're retired, Joe. I'd hate to be a working stiff again, not with all these scam artists runnin' the show."
"Well, we ain't too old to fight back, Mack."
"How do you figure, Bud?"
"We can still, vote, can't we? Votes count for something."
"Too bad FDR ain't still kickin', Mack, he'd bash these bankers in the teeth but good!"
"Sure would, too. Toss all those Republican fat boys out on their ears!"
"A good stretch in the slammer might do 'em some good."
"Wouldn't do the rest of us no harm, either, Bud."
"Heck, no! Put 'em on ice for awhile so that regular Joes can fix what they busted up."
"And we should fix it so the cookie jar ain't so easy to empty anymore, if you catch my drift, maybe put a few mousetraps around it."
"Maybe some bear traps, Mack, really give 'em something to think about next time they're feeling frisky."
"I'd like to knock a coupla heads together myself, Bud..."
"Amen again, brother. Just the same, Mack, I think I'll volunteer to help out when the soup kitchens open up again."
"Looks like old times again, Joe..."
"Except for one thing, Mack."
"How's that, Joe?"
"These new skyscrapers, Mack, they don' have ledges and open windows so these rich guys can jump out the window like in '29."
"You gotta be kiddin, Joe! These mugs don't have the decency to even say they're sorry, never mind gettin' overcome with guilt. They still think they didn't do nothing wrong!"
"Makes you wonder who raised these jokers, Mack, it really does...."
"Wolves, Joe... musta been wolves..."
"It's those Wall Street swells again, Bud, playing fast and loose with other people's dough, I tell ya! Turn your back for eight years on those jokers and they pull a fast one. Playin' us all for chumps, see, just like back in '29."
"Tell me somethin' I don't know, Mack. They oughta haul those palookas down to the station and give 'em the third degree, sweat 'em good."
"What good would that do? They already blew everybody's dough!"
"Find out who's Mr. Big in this caper. How could they knock off so many banks all at once, Bud? There's got to be a mastermind behind this setup!"
"Whattya mean, Mack, like a mastermind who hatches a cockamamie scheme where everybody loses? Sounds fishy. What's the angle there?"
"There's gotta be an angle, Bud. If so many people lost so much money, well, don't it stand to reason that somebody else found that dough?"
"I think I get your drift here, Mack, but it don't hold water, see. When a company's stock takes a swan dive, that money just evaporates."
"That don't sound too kosher, Bud. You mean to tell me that a company can be worth 80 billion simoleans one day and then the next day with everything the exact same about that company it can be worth only 6 billion?"
"That's about the size of it, Mack."
"So, it was only 80 billion because people said it was 80 billion, and now it's 6 billion because now they say it's only worth 6? That's crazy. It seems to me that now somebody can get to buy an 80 billion dollar company for only 6 billion. Who's that guy, Bud? That's the guy who's Mr. Big."
"I never thought of it that way, Mack. It seems like some other bank always steps in and bails those broke banks out. Sometimes the Feds pick up the lion's share of the tab too, and that's pretty sweet, collecting from Uncle Sam to the tune of a lotta free taxpayer billions. But who gets the bargain here, Mack, if all those small investors got wiped out?"
"It's always the little guy who takes in the neck, Joe, don't we know that! It's those rich swells who make out like Rockefeller when times get hard, buying up cheap what working stiffs slaved their whole lives for. And even if the $80 billion figure was out of line, wishful thinking maybe, you gotta figure it's worth a lot more that the 6 billion the new guy pays for it. If he's a smart cookie he hangs on to it until the smoke clears and people say it's worth big dough again, then he unloads it for a tidy profit! Tell me that ain't a scam!"
"Amen, brother. And they're kicking a lotta people outta their homes again, Mack, just like back in the 30's. You think those people walk away with any dough for all their years of paying that big mortgage? Not on your life!"
"Good thing we're retired, Joe. I'd hate to be a working stiff again, not with all these scam artists runnin' the show."
"Well, we ain't too old to fight back, Mack."
"How do you figure, Bud?"
"We can still, vote, can't we? Votes count for something."
"Too bad FDR ain't still kickin', Mack, he'd bash these bankers in the teeth but good!"
"Sure would, too. Toss all those Republican fat boys out on their ears!"
"A good stretch in the slammer might do 'em some good."
"Wouldn't do the rest of us no harm, either, Bud."
"Heck, no! Put 'em on ice for awhile so that regular Joes can fix what they busted up."
"And we should fix it so the cookie jar ain't so easy to empty anymore, if you catch my drift, maybe put a few mousetraps around it."
"Maybe some bear traps, Mack, really give 'em something to think about next time they're feeling frisky."
"I'd like to knock a coupla heads together myself, Bud..."
"Amen again, brother. Just the same, Mack, I think I'll volunteer to help out when the soup kitchens open up again."
"Looks like old times again, Joe..."
"Except for one thing, Mack."
"How's that, Joe?"
"These new skyscrapers, Mack, they don' have ledges and open windows so these rich guys can jump out the window like in '29."
"You gotta be kiddin, Joe! These mugs don't have the decency to even say they're sorry, never mind gettin' overcome with guilt. They still think they didn't do nothing wrong!"
"Makes you wonder who raised these jokers, Mack, it really does...."
"Wolves, Joe... musta been wolves..."
September 15, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 170
Until somebody comes up with a better idea, looks like we're stuck with poodles. Perhaps a different haircut might ease the pain until a solution is found.
GIVE US ALL SCIENCE GRANTS!
Do you know things that everybody else does? Of course you do! We all do. Want to turn your storehouse of the readily obvious into big money? Become a scientist! If that sounds like an awful lot of hard work and many years of post-graduate work, well, guess again! Check out the science pages lately and some of the studies being released by "eminent scientists and medical researchers." We see all sorts of mundane observations being published as if they were revelations and the reaction here is this: How can I get in on this action?
Check out the one in the New York Times recently pointing out the fact that even in this modern world of unprecedented participation across a broad spectrum of the work force by women, that men and women are still different from each other. Who would have known? Pretty much everybody, Einstein, but that's not the point. They even had some bozo calling himself, and get this one, an "Evolutionary Psychologist" to add academic weight to a report that basically mirrors the casual observations of men, women and children ever since Adam and Eve started noodging each other. A what? No, no one else has ever heard of an Evolutionary Psychologist either, but who's to say there is no such thing if you paint it in gold letters on your office door and print it in a scientific report? And who can deny that men and women differ substantially? Well, no shit, Galileo! But it is a beautiful scam, no?
So, it's time to get busy and cash in on this extreme lowering of the scientific limbo bar. The subject need not be earth shattering, like the whole Big Bang conjecture business where you have to invent a new branch of mathematics to explain yourself, although that might help when people disagree and then you can say they didn't understand your advanced equations. But that's too much trouble when you can simply write a paper about being left-handed in a predominantly right-handed world. Just call yourself an Investigative Forensic Digitologist or a Theoretical Leftician and you're halfway home. Then you just trot out the old saw horses about scissors, baseball gloves and learning to write and you're a scientist, pronouncing the universally known as if it were the Holy Grail.
You might want to stick your nose onto the "science" of politics too, call yourself an Investigative Demographologist and sell your services to one political party or the other, doesn't really matter, they've both got lots of dough to throw at a "study" that agrees with them or disagrees with their opponents. You could write a paper on how being "sassy" and "naive" and "living near Russia" translates into potentially Lincolnesque statesmanship. You'd be sitting pretty until November. Or you could point out the obvious that one of the candidates happens to be a really smart black guy, just in case that's escaped anyone's notice. There's no point to make there, but anything having to do with race seems to be a big-ticket item, attracting a lot of competition, too, denying your made up facts with their own fantasies. Mention the other guy's advanced age and incipient Alzheimer's and you've got yourself a bidding war for your services!
Me, I'm steering clear of political controversy and doing an exhaustive study of why some people prefer chocolate ice cream and some like vanilla. Well, just because they do, you say? Exactly! But as an Experimental Tastebudologist, I will apply to the government and major foundations for large research grants to explain exactly why some people prefer one over the other. Then I'll make stuff up, maybe even attribute ice cream preferences to specific personality traits and start a scientific controversy like that whole dead dinosaur deal. There's a bunch of jokers that have been making a living off that one for their entire careers, and there's no way to check their theories either! Controversy spells money, so be sure to include something really stupid in your research to give other wanna-be scientists an opening to start an academic war within your chosen (or invented) field of study.
See, it really doesn't matter if you just made up your scientific discipline. I figure that within weeks of my vanilla/chocolate manifesto, competing studies will pop up like ants on an ice cream cone that hits the sidewalk that will challenge my findings, forcing me to apply for bigger grants to "prove" my theories. Naturally I'll pocket most of the dough and simply throw an ice cream party, invite a bunch of children, hire a clown and a balloon animal guy and we'll all have a real good time. Nothing not to love there. After all, it is only ice cream and everyone knows some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla for no particular reason. Why waste money on a lab and research assistants when you know the outcome already? Take it from a Doctor of Theoretical Vanillistics. Competing theories welcome. Line forms to the left, behind that laughing and smiling kid with the freckles and the balloon and ice cream on his shirt.
Check out the one in the New York Times recently pointing out the fact that even in this modern world of unprecedented participation across a broad spectrum of the work force by women, that men and women are still different from each other. Who would have known? Pretty much everybody, Einstein, but that's not the point. They even had some bozo calling himself, and get this one, an "Evolutionary Psychologist" to add academic weight to a report that basically mirrors the casual observations of men, women and children ever since Adam and Eve started noodging each other. A what? No, no one else has ever heard of an Evolutionary Psychologist either, but who's to say there is no such thing if you paint it in gold letters on your office door and print it in a scientific report? And who can deny that men and women differ substantially? Well, no shit, Galileo! But it is a beautiful scam, no?
So, it's time to get busy and cash in on this extreme lowering of the scientific limbo bar. The subject need not be earth shattering, like the whole Big Bang conjecture business where you have to invent a new branch of mathematics to explain yourself, although that might help when people disagree and then you can say they didn't understand your advanced equations. But that's too much trouble when you can simply write a paper about being left-handed in a predominantly right-handed world. Just call yourself an Investigative Forensic Digitologist or a Theoretical Leftician and you're halfway home. Then you just trot out the old saw horses about scissors, baseball gloves and learning to write and you're a scientist, pronouncing the universally known as if it were the Holy Grail.
You might want to stick your nose onto the "science" of politics too, call yourself an Investigative Demographologist and sell your services to one political party or the other, doesn't really matter, they've both got lots of dough to throw at a "study" that agrees with them or disagrees with their opponents. You could write a paper on how being "sassy" and "naive" and "living near Russia" translates into potentially Lincolnesque statesmanship. You'd be sitting pretty until November. Or you could point out the obvious that one of the candidates happens to be a really smart black guy, just in case that's escaped anyone's notice. There's no point to make there, but anything having to do with race seems to be a big-ticket item, attracting a lot of competition, too, denying your made up facts with their own fantasies. Mention the other guy's advanced age and incipient Alzheimer's and you've got yourself a bidding war for your services!
Me, I'm steering clear of political controversy and doing an exhaustive study of why some people prefer chocolate ice cream and some like vanilla. Well, just because they do, you say? Exactly! But as an Experimental Tastebudologist, I will apply to the government and major foundations for large research grants to explain exactly why some people prefer one over the other. Then I'll make stuff up, maybe even attribute ice cream preferences to specific personality traits and start a scientific controversy like that whole dead dinosaur deal. There's a bunch of jokers that have been making a living off that one for their entire careers, and there's no way to check their theories either! Controversy spells money, so be sure to include something really stupid in your research to give other wanna-be scientists an opening to start an academic war within your chosen (or invented) field of study.
See, it really doesn't matter if you just made up your scientific discipline. I figure that within weeks of my vanilla/chocolate manifesto, competing studies will pop up like ants on an ice cream cone that hits the sidewalk that will challenge my findings, forcing me to apply for bigger grants to "prove" my theories. Naturally I'll pocket most of the dough and simply throw an ice cream party, invite a bunch of children, hire a clown and a balloon animal guy and we'll all have a real good time. Nothing not to love there. After all, it is only ice cream and everyone knows some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla for no particular reason. Why waste money on a lab and research assistants when you know the outcome already? Take it from a Doctor of Theoretical Vanillistics. Competing theories welcome. Line forms to the left, behind that laughing and smiling kid with the freckles and the balloon and ice cream on his shirt.
September 14, 2008
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. SORT OF.
If you don't like answers, don't ask questions. This way your whacky theory on life can remain intact without any pesky facts interfering. If, on the other hand, you're curious, then by all means ask questions. Just don't complain when the answers aren't pleasing or don't fit into your world view. If your political view consists of "My country, right or wrong," odds are you're a moron. The complete quote would be "My country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong, to be set right."
Inherent in that quote is the ability of a nation to be wrong and the duty of its citizens to correct its mistakes. So when you say " My country, right or wrong," you're telling people that being wrong is fine, just as long as it's "My country" being stupid. So, "My country, Wrong!" would serve you just as well and is probably a more honest assessment of your politics. Be you left, right or smack dab in the middle, you have to ask questions, at least once in a while, and never settle for being wrong. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Many say the nature of right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder. Bullshit. People for the most part learn right from wrong before they go to school, before they can read or add or tie their own shoes. We don't always like it, since sometimes the right thing thing to do is not in our own selfish interests, as any five year-old can attest to or any parent teaching that five year-old right from wrong. But whether we like it or not, there is right and there is wrong and wrong acts cannot be explained away by national interest, cultural peculiarities or selfish expediency.
Nations can make grievous errors, and keep on making them until somebody tells them to cut it out. A responsible parent doesn't give into that five year old because they throw a tantrum. Picture this on a national level: "But Mommy, I want slaves! Daddy has them!" Now Mommy has to get Daddy to free his slaves so that junior learns right from wrong. In a perfect world, this moral lesson would not have caused a bloody civil war, but it did, and America learned not to be wrong about slaves anymore. It took another hundred years for us petulant children to give the former slaves full rights as fellow children of America, and it's taking forever to do the same for the 5% of us who are homosexuals.
Oh, we let the gays vote alright, take their taxes and wear the clothes they design for us and enjoy their musical theater and whatever other stereotypical things we think gay people do, we even let them die on the field of battle so long as they don't die as openly gay people (don't ask, don't tell), but we just don't let them marry the ones they love. We tell ourselves they these people are "wrong" to be born the way they were born, much like black people were once wrong to be born with skin dark enough to qualify for ownership. People cite their Bibles and various other dubious morality codes, neglecting to mention that slavery was pretty okay in the Bible, even laying down some guidelines on how to treat your slaves.
And that whole anti-gay thing in the Bible? Sounds like somebody doth protest to much. Consider where it was written and for whom; in the Middle East, for Semitic peoples for whom sodomy has been forever a popular and at the same time a taboo pastime, sort of an in-house scandal that has led to things like women being wrapped in potato sacks and placed under house arrest while their husbands buy presents for their teenage boyfriends. As it is with most religious instruction manuals, sexuality has always been closely associated with shame, beginning with God telling Eve to put some damned clothes on already. So you have to ask yourself what kind of sex issues did the authors of the Bible have, on the one hand praising God as perfect and on the other hand implying that he made a whole lot of mistakes making people the way he made them, what with our rampant sexual desires and all.
So, one supposes that "My Bible, right or wrong," isn't as absolute a dictum as all that. Can we decide which Bible teachings are right and which are wrong? Hell yeah, it's as obvious as the noses on our faces. We've done away with that whole "eye for an eye" business by banning cruel and unusual punishment and establishing courts of law to decide on appropriate penalties for poking somebody's eye out. We don't stone anybody to death for trivial matters, we don't give a rat's ass which Gods, false or otherwise, anybody worships and we don't condone genocide, which the Bible does. Check out that supposed order from God to "slay them down to the last man, woman and child, and take their lands and inhabit their cities."
Which is not to say that the Bible is worthless as a moral guide, but only that you have to ask yourself if it is completely accurate, which is where a lot of uncomfortable questions and answers arise. There's always that perfect gem of worldly advice, "love thy neighbor as thyself" to guide us, so just maybe we can stop penalizing people who are born different. Apply that to our nation, a country that was founded to treat people right, and ask whether our country is right or wrong to discriminate against people who make them feel uncomfortable. Hell, we let lawyers have their freedom, and who makes us more uncomfortable them them? And unlike gays, they don't free up a lot of members of the opposite sex for the rest of us. Let's set our country right.
Inherent in that quote is the ability of a nation to be wrong and the duty of its citizens to correct its mistakes. So when you say " My country, right or wrong," you're telling people that being wrong is fine, just as long as it's "My country" being stupid. So, "My country, Wrong!" would serve you just as well and is probably a more honest assessment of your politics. Be you left, right or smack dab in the middle, you have to ask questions, at least once in a while, and never settle for being wrong. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Many say the nature of right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder. Bullshit. People for the most part learn right from wrong before they go to school, before they can read or add or tie their own shoes. We don't always like it, since sometimes the right thing thing to do is not in our own selfish interests, as any five year-old can attest to or any parent teaching that five year-old right from wrong. But whether we like it or not, there is right and there is wrong and wrong acts cannot be explained away by national interest, cultural peculiarities or selfish expediency.
Nations can make grievous errors, and keep on making them until somebody tells them to cut it out. A responsible parent doesn't give into that five year old because they throw a tantrum. Picture this on a national level: "But Mommy, I want slaves! Daddy has them!" Now Mommy has to get Daddy to free his slaves so that junior learns right from wrong. In a perfect world, this moral lesson would not have caused a bloody civil war, but it did, and America learned not to be wrong about slaves anymore. It took another hundred years for us petulant children to give the former slaves full rights as fellow children of America, and it's taking forever to do the same for the 5% of us who are homosexuals.
Oh, we let the gays vote alright, take their taxes and wear the clothes they design for us and enjoy their musical theater and whatever other stereotypical things we think gay people do, we even let them die on the field of battle so long as they don't die as openly gay people (don't ask, don't tell), but we just don't let them marry the ones they love. We tell ourselves they these people are "wrong" to be born the way they were born, much like black people were once wrong to be born with skin dark enough to qualify for ownership. People cite their Bibles and various other dubious morality codes, neglecting to mention that slavery was pretty okay in the Bible, even laying down some guidelines on how to treat your slaves.
And that whole anti-gay thing in the Bible? Sounds like somebody doth protest to much. Consider where it was written and for whom; in the Middle East, for Semitic peoples for whom sodomy has been forever a popular and at the same time a taboo pastime, sort of an in-house scandal that has led to things like women being wrapped in potato sacks and placed under house arrest while their husbands buy presents for their teenage boyfriends. As it is with most religious instruction manuals, sexuality has always been closely associated with shame, beginning with God telling Eve to put some damned clothes on already. So you have to ask yourself what kind of sex issues did the authors of the Bible have, on the one hand praising God as perfect and on the other hand implying that he made a whole lot of mistakes making people the way he made them, what with our rampant sexual desires and all.
So, one supposes that "My Bible, right or wrong," isn't as absolute a dictum as all that. Can we decide which Bible teachings are right and which are wrong? Hell yeah, it's as obvious as the noses on our faces. We've done away with that whole "eye for an eye" business by banning cruel and unusual punishment and establishing courts of law to decide on appropriate penalties for poking somebody's eye out. We don't stone anybody to death for trivial matters, we don't give a rat's ass which Gods, false or otherwise, anybody worships and we don't condone genocide, which the Bible does. Check out that supposed order from God to "slay them down to the last man, woman and child, and take their lands and inhabit their cities."
Which is not to say that the Bible is worthless as a moral guide, but only that you have to ask yourself if it is completely accurate, which is where a lot of uncomfortable questions and answers arise. There's always that perfect gem of worldly advice, "love thy neighbor as thyself" to guide us, so just maybe we can stop penalizing people who are born different. Apply that to our nation, a country that was founded to treat people right, and ask whether our country is right or wrong to discriminate against people who make them feel uncomfortable. Hell, we let lawyers have their freedom, and who makes us more uncomfortable them them? And unlike gays, they don't free up a lot of members of the opposite sex for the rest of us. Let's set our country right.
September 12, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 168
Being poor in America is like being the only kid at the party who didn't get a balloon.
HOW DUMB DO HAVE TO BE?
Imagine someone gives you a million dollars. No strings, no taxes, just a whole bunch of free money for you to do anything you want. Sweet, no? How dumb would you have to be to screw that up? Maybe lose it on the bus, set fire to it playing with matches or some equally idiotic thing. There are those among us that stupid, maybe more than we originally figured. Not much to be done about that. So, the best approach to those people is not to give them that million dollars, or trust them with your own million.
Which brings us to people who screw things up that you'd think were impossible to screw up. Take our giant financial institutions, those multi-billion dollar enterprises that line the canyons of Wall Street and the broad boulevards of America's major cities. These companies have been, for the most part, in business for a very long time, and have been making money hand over fist, creating and managing vast wealth and fueling our huge economy. And within these corporations there are certain sound business practices to follow that will ensure the continuation of making profits for the shareholders of these publicly held companies.
So you go to work for one of these places, learn the ropes, apply yourself and climb the corporate ladder. And every step of the way is a learning process, with skilled and wise teachers sharing the benefits of their experience and insight with you so that you know what's what as you advance. You heed their sage advice, work hard and someday you find yourself in a corner office with your name on the door in gold letters, proclaiming that you are the boss. Top of the corporate food chain, the CEO of Megamoney, Incorporated. Pretty heady stuff indeed, but a humbling task as well.
You are entrusted with many billions of dollars of other people's money, responsible for a large workforce and are now one of the caretakers of America's economy. This is no time to start acting like a sailor in Times Square with a month's pay in his pocket. You know better, you were trained well and you have a lot of people relying on you. And, truth be told, the company almost runs itself from long standing successful practices already in place. You're there to make sure these practices continue. You are being paid magnificently to do so. You are not being asked to invent a damned thing, the blueprints are right in front of you at all times and there's trained experts at your beck and call to help you out. It's almost impossible to screw up in this controlled environment.
But not completely impossible. You can be a real dumb son of a bitch and burn down the candy store so that not only you, but countless other people are screwed. You can be so dumb to do the nearly impossible, taking everybody's candy away, and you can be dumber still and try to blame somebody else, forgetting those gold letters on the door spelling out your name and not somebody else's. Okay, so now it's been revealed you're dumb as a fence post, you probably just go away quietly and hope the next guy can straighten out the mess you've made.
Unless you're super-dumb. That's when you remind the company that they owe you $20 million dollars more in severance pay, your Golden Parachute. Never mind that you signed a contract promising effective performance and reasonable success and promptly violated that oath, you want your go-away money, at which point the Board of Directors starts going over your contract with a fine-tooth comb and perhaps the Federal and State District Attorneys start doing the same with your business records, finding all sorts of broken laws and now you're wearing shiny new bracelets and doing a perp-walk for the cameras. It is at this point that the height of your stupidity is revealed, and you have attained Uber Dumb, the very zenith of idiocy, the Nirvana of Numbskullery.
But don't feel too bad, Mr. Felon CEO, you're in good company these days, with many a CEO of previously solid firms getting arrested, sued and imprisoned. And as a shining example you have Bush The Younger, President of America, a candy store the likes of which the world has never seen before, a playground of unprecedented freedom, opportunity and success. Yet for 8 years the Numbskull-in-Chief has been earnestly playing with matches, trying to burn it down while the rest of the world marvels at his supreme idiocy, wondering exactly how you can screw up something as golden as America. But Bush the Younger presses on in his quest to do the impossible, pulling off blunder after blunder to impress those who said it couldn't be done.
So far America has proven to be Bush-proof, but only barely. There are some among us who would like to see how far we can push the envelope, dumb-wise, and would like to give John McCain a shot to continue Bush The Younger's destructive policies for 4 more years to see if the Republic can stand it. While that may be an interesting academic field test of how idiot-proof is our nation, some feel that enough is enough and maybe we ought to go back to electing smart guys as our leaders. How dumb do you have to be?
Which brings us to people who screw things up that you'd think were impossible to screw up. Take our giant financial institutions, those multi-billion dollar enterprises that line the canyons of Wall Street and the broad boulevards of America's major cities. These companies have been, for the most part, in business for a very long time, and have been making money hand over fist, creating and managing vast wealth and fueling our huge economy. And within these corporations there are certain sound business practices to follow that will ensure the continuation of making profits for the shareholders of these publicly held companies.
So you go to work for one of these places, learn the ropes, apply yourself and climb the corporate ladder. And every step of the way is a learning process, with skilled and wise teachers sharing the benefits of their experience and insight with you so that you know what's what as you advance. You heed their sage advice, work hard and someday you find yourself in a corner office with your name on the door in gold letters, proclaiming that you are the boss. Top of the corporate food chain, the CEO of Megamoney, Incorporated. Pretty heady stuff indeed, but a humbling task as well.
You are entrusted with many billions of dollars of other people's money, responsible for a large workforce and are now one of the caretakers of America's economy. This is no time to start acting like a sailor in Times Square with a month's pay in his pocket. You know better, you were trained well and you have a lot of people relying on you. And, truth be told, the company almost runs itself from long standing successful practices already in place. You're there to make sure these practices continue. You are being paid magnificently to do so. You are not being asked to invent a damned thing, the blueprints are right in front of you at all times and there's trained experts at your beck and call to help you out. It's almost impossible to screw up in this controlled environment.
But not completely impossible. You can be a real dumb son of a bitch and burn down the candy store so that not only you, but countless other people are screwed. You can be so dumb to do the nearly impossible, taking everybody's candy away, and you can be dumber still and try to blame somebody else, forgetting those gold letters on the door spelling out your name and not somebody else's. Okay, so now it's been revealed you're dumb as a fence post, you probably just go away quietly and hope the next guy can straighten out the mess you've made.
Unless you're super-dumb. That's when you remind the company that they owe you $20 million dollars more in severance pay, your Golden Parachute. Never mind that you signed a contract promising effective performance and reasonable success and promptly violated that oath, you want your go-away money, at which point the Board of Directors starts going over your contract with a fine-tooth comb and perhaps the Federal and State District Attorneys start doing the same with your business records, finding all sorts of broken laws and now you're wearing shiny new bracelets and doing a perp-walk for the cameras. It is at this point that the height of your stupidity is revealed, and you have attained Uber Dumb, the very zenith of idiocy, the Nirvana of Numbskullery.
But don't feel too bad, Mr. Felon CEO, you're in good company these days, with many a CEO of previously solid firms getting arrested, sued and imprisoned. And as a shining example you have Bush The Younger, President of America, a candy store the likes of which the world has never seen before, a playground of unprecedented freedom, opportunity and success. Yet for 8 years the Numbskull-in-Chief has been earnestly playing with matches, trying to burn it down while the rest of the world marvels at his supreme idiocy, wondering exactly how you can screw up something as golden as America. But Bush the Younger presses on in his quest to do the impossible, pulling off blunder after blunder to impress those who said it couldn't be done.
So far America has proven to be Bush-proof, but only barely. There are some among us who would like to see how far we can push the envelope, dumb-wise, and would like to give John McCain a shot to continue Bush The Younger's destructive policies for 4 more years to see if the Republic can stand it. While that may be an interesting academic field test of how idiot-proof is our nation, some feel that enough is enough and maybe we ought to go back to electing smart guys as our leaders. How dumb do you have to be?
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 167
Some things that people do seem odd to us, but if it harms no one else, well, so what? Their hobbies are not mandatory for you. Mind your own damned business and hope nobody tries to keep you from the oddball stuff you like to do.
WHO CARES, REVISITED
There's a lot going on these days to be sure, stuff you can't help being concerned about. There's hurricanes drowning the South, gasoline eating your money, home foreclosures, global warming, war, recession, a stupid president and the Yankees' season is going nowhere. That's plenty enough n our plates right there. So a lot of stuff that come down the media pike that is presented as some crisis or another is really just a bunch of nonsense spewing from the mouths of cranky assholes and clueless hairdos in suits designed to distract us from our real problems, and all you can say to this Shit Parade is: Who cares?
Take this whole Sarah Palin deal. Who cares? She's the Vice Presidential candidate, running for an office that has the power to break tie votes in the U.S. Senate, period. And if this political and intellectual lightweight has jump-started John McCain's bid for the presidency, well that pretty much tells you all you need to know about John McCain's substance. And who cares that her daughter got knocked up by some redneck punk? It's not your family facing this crisis, it's the Palin family. They'll speak to the kids, maybe in tongues, and figure it out for themselves. Doesn't change the fact that Sarah Palin is a lying sack of shit who has no idea what she's gotten herself into. She looks like nothing so much as a home attendant for a doddering geezer who has a crush on her. Political Phenomenon, my ass. Small fish in a big pond is more like it. And when she gets gobbled up, well, again, who cares? Such is life in politics. She'll go back to Alaska and continue to be their problem.
And what about McCain's maverick image? Maverick? When? Where? How? That's just invented bullshit because the guy has a nasty temper. He was never a reformer or an independent thinker in all his years in Washington. Not for 5 minutes. So, because he's an angry old man, that makes him a maverick reformer? Only in the minds of his public relations people, and who gives a rat's ass about spin doctors? Look at how he voted as a Senator these past 8 years (95% of the time with our worst president ever) and the policies he's proposing (more of the same as the past 8 years) and you get the picture of McCain.
And look at how quickly and easily he sheds his political skin, changing positions faster than an agile porn star. That makes him a chameleon of convenience, not a rebel of any sort. The only thing he firmly believes from week to week is that he should be president so he can be the Grumpy Old Man In Chief. So do Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, two more grumpy old men who gets on people's nerves. No reason to vote for them either, or to care what becomes of their misguided political aspirations.
You might as well get yourself into a tizzy about Scientology or Kabbalah, two flavor-of-the-month religions among nitwit celebrities. Scientology is a religion invented by a science fiction writer while Kabbalah is a similar bunch of hooey centered on Jewish mysticism, neither of which is practiced by any serious people. Who gives a crap what crosses the minds of marginally intelligent media stars? Like that latest branch of Christianity, War Fascists For Jesus, or whatever the hell those born-again-and-again right wing clowns are calling themselves these days, they don't matter. This is America and people have the inalienable right to turn themselves into complete fools, and the rest of us have the right to ignore them.
Is there a more boring issue than adult pornography? Who cares if people like to screw in front of cameras and millions and millions of others enjoy watching? Nobody's forcing anyone to participate on either end of the camera. While the real obscenity of whether or not a surge of violence in an unprovoked war was a "success," people try to get us to care about the human fascination with sex. The same fascination with which our minds and bodies are indelibly programmed from birth to death. Now we're expected to critique the finer details a crime of monumental proportions like the Iraq war as if it was anything other than an oil grab by our neo-Roman Legions?
Who cares whether the surge is working or not? That's like asking whether or not the bank robbers had their ski masks on straight when they shot up the place and stole all the money. People just want to bring our troops home from that dusty cauldron where everybody hates everybody else because their parents did. Besides, we need them here to keep America safe for pornographers, Scientologists, Kabbalah people and other harmless souls as they fall under attack by the War Fascists For Jesus.
Take this whole Sarah Palin deal. Who cares? She's the Vice Presidential candidate, running for an office that has the power to break tie votes in the U.S. Senate, period. And if this political and intellectual lightweight has jump-started John McCain's bid for the presidency, well that pretty much tells you all you need to know about John McCain's substance. And who cares that her daughter got knocked up by some redneck punk? It's not your family facing this crisis, it's the Palin family. They'll speak to the kids, maybe in tongues, and figure it out for themselves. Doesn't change the fact that Sarah Palin is a lying sack of shit who has no idea what she's gotten herself into. She looks like nothing so much as a home attendant for a doddering geezer who has a crush on her. Political Phenomenon, my ass. Small fish in a big pond is more like it. And when she gets gobbled up, well, again, who cares? Such is life in politics. She'll go back to Alaska and continue to be their problem.
And what about McCain's maverick image? Maverick? When? Where? How? That's just invented bullshit because the guy has a nasty temper. He was never a reformer or an independent thinker in all his years in Washington. Not for 5 minutes. So, because he's an angry old man, that makes him a maverick reformer? Only in the minds of his public relations people, and who gives a rat's ass about spin doctors? Look at how he voted as a Senator these past 8 years (95% of the time with our worst president ever) and the policies he's proposing (more of the same as the past 8 years) and you get the picture of McCain.
And look at how quickly and easily he sheds his political skin, changing positions faster than an agile porn star. That makes him a chameleon of convenience, not a rebel of any sort. The only thing he firmly believes from week to week is that he should be president so he can be the Grumpy Old Man In Chief. So do Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, two more grumpy old men who gets on people's nerves. No reason to vote for them either, or to care what becomes of their misguided political aspirations.
You might as well get yourself into a tizzy about Scientology or Kabbalah, two flavor-of-the-month religions among nitwit celebrities. Scientology is a religion invented by a science fiction writer while Kabbalah is a similar bunch of hooey centered on Jewish mysticism, neither of which is practiced by any serious people. Who gives a crap what crosses the minds of marginally intelligent media stars? Like that latest branch of Christianity, War Fascists For Jesus, or whatever the hell those born-again-and-again right wing clowns are calling themselves these days, they don't matter. This is America and people have the inalienable right to turn themselves into complete fools, and the rest of us have the right to ignore them.
Is there a more boring issue than adult pornography? Who cares if people like to screw in front of cameras and millions and millions of others enjoy watching? Nobody's forcing anyone to participate on either end of the camera. While the real obscenity of whether or not a surge of violence in an unprovoked war was a "success," people try to get us to care about the human fascination with sex. The same fascination with which our minds and bodies are indelibly programmed from birth to death. Now we're expected to critique the finer details a crime of monumental proportions like the Iraq war as if it was anything other than an oil grab by our neo-Roman Legions?
Who cares whether the surge is working or not? That's like asking whether or not the bank robbers had their ski masks on straight when they shot up the place and stole all the money. People just want to bring our troops home from that dusty cauldron where everybody hates everybody else because their parents did. Besides, we need them here to keep America safe for pornographers, Scientologists, Kabbalah people and other harmless souls as they fall under attack by the War Fascists For Jesus.
September 10, 2008
9/11/08
OUR LOST BROTHERS AND SISTERS
7 YEARS GONE
STILL YESTERDAY
STILL MISS YOU
STILL ACHE
STILL SEE YOU
STILL LOVE YOU
WE WON'T FORGET YOU
EVER
7 YEARS GONE
STILL YESTERDAY
STILL MISS YOU
STILL ACHE
STILL SEE YOU
STILL LOVE YOU
WE WON'T FORGET YOU
EVER
September 9, 2008
VISIT bobcrespo.com - THE SECOND BEST WEBSITE IN THE WORLD
Visit the second best website in the world, bobcrespo.com, owned and operated by the second best singer and songwriter, who also happens to be the second best storyteller and blogger, yours truly, Bob Crespo. The website was designed by my son Rob, the second best web designer on the planet. So click on the SONGS menu for the second best songs in the world or the STORIES AND ESSAYS bar for the second best short stories, or enjoy the second best blogs right here. You can even hit the CONTACT bar and send me your second best e-mail ever. When you're done here on the world's 3rd best website, Bob Crespo Speaks, visit bobcrespo.com every day for the second best experience of your life. Better yet, visit twice. We're # 2!
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LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 166
Know your limitations but don't let others tell you what they are. That's for you to find out on your own. Don't cheat yourself.
THERE'S A REASON FOR THESE THINGS
Nature in its wisdom has given humans the ability to communicate but more importantly, the ability not to. There's a reason we can't read each others' minds and that is that if we could we'd be a each other's throats even more than usual. Think how many women men would offend if they could know right off the bat that the first thing we think of when meeting them for the first time is our chances of seeing them naked. So, it's a good thing that there's a filter between our brains and our mouths. Think of how many men would have their fragile egos crushed with an honest answer.
The non-mind reading thing also comes in handy when a woman asks a man what he's thinking. The truth would very often be "nothing at all" but you have a moment or two to come up with an answer you figure will please her so that you can have sex with her again real soon. Usually something about how good she looks or about curtains will suffice, so long as it's nothing about football. Women have notoriously low tolerance levels for football, but plenty of brain space for compliments and interior decorating. And that goes for even the most accomplished and sophisticated of women. Our educations never completely erase our basic natures. A new pair of shoes excites a woman neurosurgeon just as much as a cashier in a convenience store.
There's reasons for everything if you think about it. The clothing worn by Arabs in the desert, for example, those long flowing robes and turbans. They say it keeps them cool in that horrific heat but that doesn't make a lick of sense. No, those are spare tents for when company comes over at the oasis. And those body sacks they insist their women wear to hide everything but their eyes? No, that's not to keep them chaste like they claim, but great gimmicks for shoplifting. Those things are lined with deep pockets. Who's to tell which lumpy bundle of humanity is boosting goat steaks and which is just a dumpy broad? There's reasons for these things.
How about golf? There's a reason for that, too. It gives fat white guys the impression they are taking part in a sport, something to talk about other than stock options. At least the ones who can afford it. The poorer fat white guys have to settle for bowling. Most golfers hate Tiger Woods, since the participation of an actual athlete in this silly game naturally allows him to win almost all the time, making him far richer than most of the fat white guys who wouldn't have let Mr. Woods into their country clubs thirty years ago. He's closing in on a billion dollars in earnings very soon.
Bowlers now live in fear of a real athlete dominating their game too, winning all the tournaments and taking home all those hideous trophies. So there's a reason for Tiger Woods too, as sort of a human reality check. Now if someone could fix golf so it was actually a sport with real physical exertion, maybe some defense, running and strategy involved, there'd be some reason to pay attention to it. We're not there yet.
There's a reason why people hate lawyers, but not any of the obvious ones, you know, that whole greed thing, their assumption that they are smarter than regular people and their monopolizing of so many aspects of life that would be fairly routine without their annoying presence. It's their odor. Those people smell like rotten fish for the most part, sweating like fat guys in a sauna, and their breath would stop a pit bull attack. Nobody likes that. Nothing personal.
There's even a reason for religious whack jobs, that breed of men and women who take fairly simple ideas like peace, love and understanding and expand them to unrecognizably complex doctrines incorporating hatred, murder and intolerance. They exist to remind the rest of us that there but for the Grace of God go we. When your definition of loving your brother includes slaughtering him for not agreeing with you, maybe it's time to review the basic principles of your faith and see exactly where you went off the rails in a spectacular fiery crash. There's good reasons why people cross the street to avoid your irritating ass.
The non-mind reading thing also comes in handy when a woman asks a man what he's thinking. The truth would very often be "nothing at all" but you have a moment or two to come up with an answer you figure will please her so that you can have sex with her again real soon. Usually something about how good she looks or about curtains will suffice, so long as it's nothing about football. Women have notoriously low tolerance levels for football, but plenty of brain space for compliments and interior decorating. And that goes for even the most accomplished and sophisticated of women. Our educations never completely erase our basic natures. A new pair of shoes excites a woman neurosurgeon just as much as a cashier in a convenience store.
There's reasons for everything if you think about it. The clothing worn by Arabs in the desert, for example, those long flowing robes and turbans. They say it keeps them cool in that horrific heat but that doesn't make a lick of sense. No, those are spare tents for when company comes over at the oasis. And those body sacks they insist their women wear to hide everything but their eyes? No, that's not to keep them chaste like they claim, but great gimmicks for shoplifting. Those things are lined with deep pockets. Who's to tell which lumpy bundle of humanity is boosting goat steaks and which is just a dumpy broad? There's reasons for these things.
How about golf? There's a reason for that, too. It gives fat white guys the impression they are taking part in a sport, something to talk about other than stock options. At least the ones who can afford it. The poorer fat white guys have to settle for bowling. Most golfers hate Tiger Woods, since the participation of an actual athlete in this silly game naturally allows him to win almost all the time, making him far richer than most of the fat white guys who wouldn't have let Mr. Woods into their country clubs thirty years ago. He's closing in on a billion dollars in earnings very soon.
Bowlers now live in fear of a real athlete dominating their game too, winning all the tournaments and taking home all those hideous trophies. So there's a reason for Tiger Woods too, as sort of a human reality check. Now if someone could fix golf so it was actually a sport with real physical exertion, maybe some defense, running and strategy involved, there'd be some reason to pay attention to it. We're not there yet.
There's a reason why people hate lawyers, but not any of the obvious ones, you know, that whole greed thing, their assumption that they are smarter than regular people and their monopolizing of so many aspects of life that would be fairly routine without their annoying presence. It's their odor. Those people smell like rotten fish for the most part, sweating like fat guys in a sauna, and their breath would stop a pit bull attack. Nobody likes that. Nothing personal.
There's even a reason for religious whack jobs, that breed of men and women who take fairly simple ideas like peace, love and understanding and expand them to unrecognizably complex doctrines incorporating hatred, murder and intolerance. They exist to remind the rest of us that there but for the Grace of God go we. When your definition of loving your brother includes slaughtering him for not agreeing with you, maybe it's time to review the basic principles of your faith and see exactly where you went off the rails in a spectacular fiery crash. There's good reasons why people cross the street to avoid your irritating ass.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 165
There's nothing like a strange and vivid dream to remind us there's more to life than meets the eye. There's a lot going on that we can't see except in fleeting glimpses, always just beyond the reach of our limited senses. Our broad imaginations are no accident, our attempts to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown, an aching hope that the unknown is not unknowable.
I COULD BE WRONG...
Some things you read in the paper or see on the tube just sort of jump out at you. So you react, you form an opinion. I do it all the time. Some things leave an impression. And of course I could be wrong about a lot of things. I'm no genius, just a working guy trying to muddle my way through, but odds are I'm right about some stuff. Like they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I'll settle for twice a day. Here's some quick impressions from recent weeks:
I could be wrong, but the wealthy young Republicans prancing around their recent convention resemble nothing so much as nineteenth century royal court weenies, minus the swords, the powdered wigs and the sense of honor. More the "Let them eat cake" variety.
I could be wrong but some of the older Republicans resemble Nazis without the fancy duds. They've even got their own Minister of Propaganda, Bill O'Really? the TV comedian, who'd look right at home in full SS uniform. Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Richard Nixon, George Romney, Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirkson or John Foster Dulles could never be accepted by this new Republican fascist theocracy.
I'm not an engineer but it seems the situation in New Orleans looked pretty dicey for a storm that missed the city by a hundred miles. Looking at the footage of some of the levees spilling over, you sort of say of yourself they need thicker, higher walls to keep the ocean out. Much higher. Either that or start calling it "The Venice of the South" and hire some gondoliers.
I could be wrong but when Sarah Palin stated about certain people she figured were bent on destroying America that "reading them their rights" was not a priority she was not referring to wealthy white people who steal from their own companies and the Federal Treasury and ship your jobs overseas. Just a hunch. I mean, a lot of those people were in the audience cheering.
I could be overreacting, but maybe some of the Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae mortgage guys who lied to the government about the amount of capital they had should be read their rights. It's costing you and I billions and billions of our tax dollars. Seems like that calls for more than getting fired and collecting many millions in your Golden Parachute severance package. At least a swift kick in the ass on the way out the door.
Maybe I'm off base here, but it seems like Shotgun Dick Cheney shouldn't be guaranteeing anything to anybody in The Republic of Georgia. That would be the President's and the Congress' call, no? Aren't Vice Presidents supposed to just shoot guys in the face on hunting trips and leave the governing and policy-making to the people legally allowed to do so? Or maybe he figures with just a few months to go he's not even bothering to hide the fact that he's always been the real boss in this administration.
Maybe I'm wrong, but as a lifelong Yankee fan I don't really have any complaint with them having an off-year this season. I hate to hear Yankee fans crying like life as we know it is over because for the first time in 14 years they won't make the playoffs. How many other baseball teams have given their fans 39 Pennants and 26 Championships? Zero. The runner up, the St. Louis Cardinals, has 17 Pennants and 10 World Series titles. The Yankees have given their fans enough great baseball, thrills, drama and memories for 10 baseball teams. Eight years without a title? Tell that to Cubs fan, 99 years and counting. Stop whining and hope for next year like other team's fans.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that peace in the Middle East is not attainable by anybody but the people who actually live in that godforsaken dust bowl. People who are pigheaded enough to live in a sweltering sandbox earnestly hating their neighbors are pretty immune to the rest of the world telling them to make nice. Anybody who would send their children on suicide/murder missions or lob artillery shells and rockets at residential neighborhoods are not what you might call enlightened and nobody you'd want to vouch for in any negotiations. If it wasn't for petroleum they'd be Darfur and Rwanda, primitive tribal backwaters unable to control their murderous hatred. Which is what they are, even with the oil, and can't claim otherwise until they prove it. When your heart is so poisoned, money changes nothing but the kind of house you live in. Let them figure it out on their own and get back to us.
I could be wrong, but the wealthy young Republicans prancing around their recent convention resemble nothing so much as nineteenth century royal court weenies, minus the swords, the powdered wigs and the sense of honor. More the "Let them eat cake" variety.
I could be wrong but some of the older Republicans resemble Nazis without the fancy duds. They've even got their own Minister of Propaganda, Bill O'Really? the TV comedian, who'd look right at home in full SS uniform. Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Richard Nixon, George Romney, Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirkson or John Foster Dulles could never be accepted by this new Republican fascist theocracy.
I'm not an engineer but it seems the situation in New Orleans looked pretty dicey for a storm that missed the city by a hundred miles. Looking at the footage of some of the levees spilling over, you sort of say of yourself they need thicker, higher walls to keep the ocean out. Much higher. Either that or start calling it "The Venice of the South" and hire some gondoliers.
I could be wrong but when Sarah Palin stated about certain people she figured were bent on destroying America that "reading them their rights" was not a priority she was not referring to wealthy white people who steal from their own companies and the Federal Treasury and ship your jobs overseas. Just a hunch. I mean, a lot of those people were in the audience cheering.
I could be overreacting, but maybe some of the Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae mortgage guys who lied to the government about the amount of capital they had should be read their rights. It's costing you and I billions and billions of our tax dollars. Seems like that calls for more than getting fired and collecting many millions in your Golden Parachute severance package. At least a swift kick in the ass on the way out the door.
Maybe I'm off base here, but it seems like Shotgun Dick Cheney shouldn't be guaranteeing anything to anybody in The Republic of Georgia. That would be the President's and the Congress' call, no? Aren't Vice Presidents supposed to just shoot guys in the face on hunting trips and leave the governing and policy-making to the people legally allowed to do so? Or maybe he figures with just a few months to go he's not even bothering to hide the fact that he's always been the real boss in this administration.
Maybe I'm wrong, but as a lifelong Yankee fan I don't really have any complaint with them having an off-year this season. I hate to hear Yankee fans crying like life as we know it is over because for the first time in 14 years they won't make the playoffs. How many other baseball teams have given their fans 39 Pennants and 26 Championships? Zero. The runner up, the St. Louis Cardinals, has 17 Pennants and 10 World Series titles. The Yankees have given their fans enough great baseball, thrills, drama and memories for 10 baseball teams. Eight years without a title? Tell that to Cubs fan, 99 years and counting. Stop whining and hope for next year like other team's fans.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that peace in the Middle East is not attainable by anybody but the people who actually live in that godforsaken dust bowl. People who are pigheaded enough to live in a sweltering sandbox earnestly hating their neighbors are pretty immune to the rest of the world telling them to make nice. Anybody who would send their children on suicide/murder missions or lob artillery shells and rockets at residential neighborhoods are not what you might call enlightened and nobody you'd want to vouch for in any negotiations. If it wasn't for petroleum they'd be Darfur and Rwanda, primitive tribal backwaters unable to control their murderous hatred. Which is what they are, even with the oil, and can't claim otherwise until they prove it. When your heart is so poisoned, money changes nothing but the kind of house you live in. Let them figure it out on their own and get back to us.
September 7, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 164
Dogs bark, babies cry and assholes spout a lot of shit. There's nothing you can do about any of that. No sense wasting your time.
NAGGING QUESTIONS
Sometimes the old brain just won't shut up. Questions, questions, and more questions:
What exactly was the problem with peace again? What, was it boring or something? Not enough "glory" for some people? Well, what's more glorious than peace? Honorable, too.
Exactly who's idea was the color code for Department of Homeland Security alerts? Was there something wrong with quickly understood terms like high, medium and low? And why exactly do we need fear-inducing status reports at all times? Can't we give these people something else to do, like doing the paperwork for real law enforcement groups?
Why does the electoral college still exist?
For my share of the taxpayer bailout of the giant mortgage companies, could I at least get a Fannie May pen or something, maybe a calendar?
Do the chief executives who are getting pushed out of these mortgage companies still get to open their golden parachutes? Last year the Fannie May guy got paid $12.2 million while the Freddy Mac man got $19.8 million even though his company's stock lost half its value. Seems like plenty enough for doing a horrible job, especially considering that they lied about how much capital they had. Why not lie to them and tell them their huge severance checks are in the mail? When was the last time you got fired for screwing up big time and got rewarded with millions of dollars?
Remind me again, exactly why do we torture prisoners of war? It's not like the valuable intelligence gained from it has produced any results other than gratification for sadists and knocking America's reputation all to hell. Seems like Osama is still in the evil mastermind business too.
Would Blackwater Guards fight against the United States if someone made them a better offer? There's plenty of oil rich dictatorships and monarchies who could afford to give them more than the fifteen hundred bucks a day they earn now for being on our side. Maybe even Russia with its new-found wealth. And if we fired them, would they just go away quietly?
And speaking of mercenaries, why are they guarding American diplomats? Seems like the United States Marines always did an excellent job of that with no questions about where their loyalty lies.
Does anybody seriously think that Iraq will live happily ever after when we leave, no matter when that might be? The beacon of democracy and stability in the Middle East doesn't seem to be materializing. Might as well declare victory and get the hell out ASAP. Who knew that Sunni-Shiite-Kurd hatred thing was permanent? Actually, a whole lot of people did but Bush The Younger wasn't one of them. For a guy who can't find his own ass with both hands he sure got ambitious when he tried to find the Iraqi's hearts and minds with heat-seeking missiles.
When Dick Cheney is out of office will he still be allowed to shoot guys in the face with his shotgun?
What exactly was the problem with peace again? What, was it boring or something? Not enough "glory" for some people? Well, what's more glorious than peace? Honorable, too.
Exactly who's idea was the color code for Department of Homeland Security alerts? Was there something wrong with quickly understood terms like high, medium and low? And why exactly do we need fear-inducing status reports at all times? Can't we give these people something else to do, like doing the paperwork for real law enforcement groups?
Why does the electoral college still exist?
For my share of the taxpayer bailout of the giant mortgage companies, could I at least get a Fannie May pen or something, maybe a calendar?
Do the chief executives who are getting pushed out of these mortgage companies still get to open their golden parachutes? Last year the Fannie May guy got paid $12.2 million while the Freddy Mac man got $19.8 million even though his company's stock lost half its value. Seems like plenty enough for doing a horrible job, especially considering that they lied about how much capital they had. Why not lie to them and tell them their huge severance checks are in the mail? When was the last time you got fired for screwing up big time and got rewarded with millions of dollars?
Remind me again, exactly why do we torture prisoners of war? It's not like the valuable intelligence gained from it has produced any results other than gratification for sadists and knocking America's reputation all to hell. Seems like Osama is still in the evil mastermind business too.
Would Blackwater Guards fight against the United States if someone made them a better offer? There's plenty of oil rich dictatorships and monarchies who could afford to give them more than the fifteen hundred bucks a day they earn now for being on our side. Maybe even Russia with its new-found wealth. And if we fired them, would they just go away quietly?
And speaking of mercenaries, why are they guarding American diplomats? Seems like the United States Marines always did an excellent job of that with no questions about where their loyalty lies.
Does anybody seriously think that Iraq will live happily ever after when we leave, no matter when that might be? The beacon of democracy and stability in the Middle East doesn't seem to be materializing. Might as well declare victory and get the hell out ASAP. Who knew that Sunni-Shiite-Kurd hatred thing was permanent? Actually, a whole lot of people did but Bush The Younger wasn't one of them. For a guy who can't find his own ass with both hands he sure got ambitious when he tried to find the Iraqi's hearts and minds with heat-seeking missiles.
When Dick Cheney is out of office will he still be allowed to shoot guys in the face with his shotgun?
September 6, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 163
The continued use of the term "horsepower" to measure the strength of our engines lets us know we still have one foot planted firmly in the past.
GOOD NEWS FOR POT HEADS AND OTHER SCIENCE UPDATES
Scientists have discovered that the active ingredient in Marijuana, THC, is an effective antibacterial agent. Put this one right up there with red wine being a valuable source of anti-oxidants (Whatever they are, and who cares?) and you've got a brand new justification for getting comfortably numb. Researchers point out that THC is effective against drug-resistant strains of bacteria, but more study is needed to evaluate the long-term benefits. Since making this announcement they have been beating back the volunteers from their laboratory doors.
Word on the scientific street is that wind power is the wave of the future, to which Holland replied: Hellloooo!
It has been announced that land on the Moon and on Mars can be offered for sale. Act now and they'll throw in the Brooklyn Bridge and set of stainless steel steak knives.
Scientists have announced as a revelation what everybody else always knew: that "clean coal" is a contradiction in terms. That's understandable, since scientists tend not to have been English majors in school. However, the whole idea of burying the Co2 emissions in the ground through gas-capturing technology makes it more expensive than burning fifty-dollar bills as a source of energy. Maybe a minor in economics wouldn't have hurt.
Ms. Heidi B. Hammel has made it her mission in life to learn all she can about the icy planets Neptune and Uranus and to share those findings with the rest of us. Which sort of makes you glad that someone's on the ball with that. Someone else, that is.
In more self-justification science news the word is that cheating husbands can now blame their DNA. A gene variant, or allele, is present in 2 out of 5 men and makes them more prone to marital discord, infidelity and divorce. Researchers are working feverishly to come up with a scientific excuse for the other 3 out 5.
Scientists have discovered that a robot can learn to fly a helicopter better than a human. Big deal. Get back to us when you have a robot who can do the housework and figure out income tax returns.
Space observers have noted that some galaxies have evicted their black holes, those star and planet-eating voids weighing millions of times more than our sun and creating a greater gravitational pull than a bar room floor to the town drunk. So now these black holes roam open space in search of a meal. Other scientists have proposed sending earth's huge poodle and celebrity surplus to these black holes for a win-win solution for both parties.
Great. Now some science guys in Vienna want an internet with Quantum physics codes to protect our privacy. Most of us would rather face identity theft than be forced to learn Quantum mathematics.
Still other scientists in America have detected a profound disturbance in The Force. Oh, wait, that would be the Sci-fi geeks with large collections of light sabers and Chewbacca masks but no girlfriends.
Word on the scientific street is that wind power is the wave of the future, to which Holland replied: Hellloooo!
It has been announced that land on the Moon and on Mars can be offered for sale. Act now and they'll throw in the Brooklyn Bridge and set of stainless steel steak knives.
Scientists have announced as a revelation what everybody else always knew: that "clean coal" is a contradiction in terms. That's understandable, since scientists tend not to have been English majors in school. However, the whole idea of burying the Co2 emissions in the ground through gas-capturing technology makes it more expensive than burning fifty-dollar bills as a source of energy. Maybe a minor in economics wouldn't have hurt.
Ms. Heidi B. Hammel has made it her mission in life to learn all she can about the icy planets Neptune and Uranus and to share those findings with the rest of us. Which sort of makes you glad that someone's on the ball with that. Someone else, that is.
In more self-justification science news the word is that cheating husbands can now blame their DNA. A gene variant, or allele, is present in 2 out of 5 men and makes them more prone to marital discord, infidelity and divorce. Researchers are working feverishly to come up with a scientific excuse for the other 3 out 5.
Scientists have discovered that a robot can learn to fly a helicopter better than a human. Big deal. Get back to us when you have a robot who can do the housework and figure out income tax returns.
Space observers have noted that some galaxies have evicted their black holes, those star and planet-eating voids weighing millions of times more than our sun and creating a greater gravitational pull than a bar room floor to the town drunk. So now these black holes roam open space in search of a meal. Other scientists have proposed sending earth's huge poodle and celebrity surplus to these black holes for a win-win solution for both parties.
Great. Now some science guys in Vienna want an internet with Quantum physics codes to protect our privacy. Most of us would rather face identity theft than be forced to learn Quantum mathematics.
Still other scientists in America have detected a profound disturbance in The Force. Oh, wait, that would be the Sci-fi geeks with large collections of light sabers and Chewbacca masks but no girlfriends.
September 5, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 162
You can travel to the farthest corners of the earth and find the same thing: people. If you want to see a sample of some of each kind in one place, visit Brooklyn. Save a lot of air travel time and get to see Coney Island too. We'll keep a whole bunch of lights on for you.
I MEANT WHAT I SAID UNTIL I DIDN'T ANYMORE
You've got to love Bill O'Really? the entertainer. He gives John Stewart of "The Daily Show" a run for the money when it comes to fake comedy TV news. Take teen pregnancy. Recently when the unwed teenage sister of Britney Spears got pregnant old Bill mounted his high horse and condemned her parents as "pinheads" for their failue to supervise and educate their daughter. Then the same thing happens to the Vice Presidential candidate's daughter and Mr. O'Really? decides he doesn't want to repeat the same jokes and so announces that this time, it's a private family matter and none of our business as long as the child won't be subsidized by taxpayers.
Never mind that the Spears family is a lot wealthier than the Palins and their grandchild won't be on welfare anytime soon. Good comedy need not be consistent in its message. After all, it's just entertainment. Ask Ms. Palin, who in her rousing speech at the Republican National Convention neglected to mention that she once supported the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before she didn't support it. She also forgot to mention that she sought the support of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that advocates secession from the United States, the same nation she now loves so much she wants to be its Vice President. Perhaps she figured British Petroleum, the company that sponsored her gubernatorial inauguration, would sponsor her as President of The Christian Republic of Alaska.
She wants Creationism taught in schools and has referred to the Iraq war as "God's task," a time honored faux-Christian ploy going back to the Crusader Popes. Pretty amusing unless you're the one on the wrong end of God's artillery. Sarah Palin also happens to collect assault riles, an odd hobby for a born again Christian, unless maybe she figures to battle the devil alongside Jesus when the Rapture comes any day now. Hard to say what goes through the minds of these numbskull born-agains.
One also wonders if she still opposes sex education in school. Governor Palin wanted abstinence-only taught to students, which sort of didn't work out for her own kid, so look for a turnaround there, too. And maybe she'll come up with a snappy comeback for those who ask her about her attempt to ban "certain books" from the public library (just the one in that bustling city of 9,000) when she was the Mayor of Wasilia, Alaska, even threatening to fire the librarian who thought that idea was nuts. Maybe she'll go with "Just kidding!"
But Sarah Palin's in good company with John McCain when it comes to firmly believing what they didn't used to. McCain used to hate Karl Rove, but now he has a bunch of his proteges working for him. He used to call the Christian right wing facists a bunch of meddlesome lightweight dopes, but now he can't kiss enough of their asses. He hated the president but now praises him. He also swears he's the real candidate for change, even though he voted with Bush The Younger over 90% of the time, maybe figuring 10% maverick is plenty enough. After all, 72 year-old full-blown mavericks are sort of sad.
But just maybe his strategy to get people to pay any attention to him is to keep changing policies, thinking voters will be intrigued enough to tune in and see what he steadfastly stands for this week. Again, it's hard to say what goes on in the mind of a guy facing the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Like Minister of Propaganda O'Really? says and then un-says, the criteria for picking Presidential Candidates and Vice Presidential candidates should be long and hard experience in Washington and that powerful oratory is no substitute for leadership skills, with the exception of gun-toting Governors of Alaska who toy with the idea of seceding from the Union. McCain thinks he's pretty sure he agrees with that for the time being. Maybe. At least for now. Tune in next week for another episode of "How The Mind Wanders." You just might find a policy you like.
Never mind that the Spears family is a lot wealthier than the Palins and their grandchild won't be on welfare anytime soon. Good comedy need not be consistent in its message. After all, it's just entertainment. Ask Ms. Palin, who in her rousing speech at the Republican National Convention neglected to mention that she once supported the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before she didn't support it. She also forgot to mention that she sought the support of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that advocates secession from the United States, the same nation she now loves so much she wants to be its Vice President. Perhaps she figured British Petroleum, the company that sponsored her gubernatorial inauguration, would sponsor her as President of The Christian Republic of Alaska.
She wants Creationism taught in schools and has referred to the Iraq war as "God's task," a time honored faux-Christian ploy going back to the Crusader Popes. Pretty amusing unless you're the one on the wrong end of God's artillery. Sarah Palin also happens to collect assault riles, an odd hobby for a born again Christian, unless maybe she figures to battle the devil alongside Jesus when the Rapture comes any day now. Hard to say what goes through the minds of these numbskull born-agains.
One also wonders if she still opposes sex education in school. Governor Palin wanted abstinence-only taught to students, which sort of didn't work out for her own kid, so look for a turnaround there, too. And maybe she'll come up with a snappy comeback for those who ask her about her attempt to ban "certain books" from the public library (just the one in that bustling city of 9,000) when she was the Mayor of Wasilia, Alaska, even threatening to fire the librarian who thought that idea was nuts. Maybe she'll go with "Just kidding!"
But Sarah Palin's in good company with John McCain when it comes to firmly believing what they didn't used to. McCain used to hate Karl Rove, but now he has a bunch of his proteges working for him. He used to call the Christian right wing facists a bunch of meddlesome lightweight dopes, but now he can't kiss enough of their asses. He hated the president but now praises him. He also swears he's the real candidate for change, even though he voted with Bush The Younger over 90% of the time, maybe figuring 10% maverick is plenty enough. After all, 72 year-old full-blown mavericks are sort of sad.
But just maybe his strategy to get people to pay any attention to him is to keep changing policies, thinking voters will be intrigued enough to tune in and see what he steadfastly stands for this week. Again, it's hard to say what goes on in the mind of a guy facing the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Like Minister of Propaganda O'Really? says and then un-says, the criteria for picking Presidential Candidates and Vice Presidential candidates should be long and hard experience in Washington and that powerful oratory is no substitute for leadership skills, with the exception of gun-toting Governors of Alaska who toy with the idea of seceding from the Union. McCain thinks he's pretty sure he agrees with that for the time being. Maybe. At least for now. Tune in next week for another episode of "How The Mind Wanders." You just might find a policy you like.
September 4, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 161
If you are in the TV news business, and you only appear on camera in the middle of a raging hurricane or beside an erupting volcano, bellowing into your mike to be heard above nature's fury in reply to idiotic questions from somebody seated behind a desk half a continent away, odds are you're not very high on the totem pole. In other words: Expendable.
scalawags@somalicoastpirates.arrgghh
Pirates are back! Avast ye mateys, shiver me timbers! Scalawags are once again plying the high seas, seizing booty and ships and holding French people for ransom. Wallace Beery and Errol Flynn would be proud. Pirates are operating in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Southeast Pacific, the Caribbean and most heavily in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia, that nation without a government of any sort. They take oil tankers, yachts, cruise ships and pretty much anything sailing that's worth reselling or holding for ransom.
Modern pirates are a little light in the romance and heavy on technology. There doesn't seem to be any former dukes or viscounts or disgruntled naval captains with an axe to grind against one imperial government or another, but instead just a bunch of thieves and murderers in it for the money. Which is precisely what pirates have always been, and all that romance and honorable political outcast stuff was nonsense. But what these guys lack is panache, style, a sense of being larger than life. Hell, there's not one famous guy among them!
Back in the heyday of Piracy, the Golden Age of Buccaneering, if you will, news took the better part of a year to travel from continent to continent, and yet a lot of these guys were huge, world famous. Captain Blood, Long John Silver, Blackbeard, Redbeard, Blue(!)beard, to name but a handful. They fought with cutlasses and braces of pistols, guzzled rum, enjoyed the company of many a wench and buried their treasure on remote islands. They gathered in seaports of ill-repute and raised hell when they weren't plying the seas in search of a prize in the form of a British Man O' War, a Spanish Galleon laden with gold or a French dreadnought bristling with cannon, laughing their chilling pirate laugh all the while.
In this day and age of real-time news and instant celebrity there's not even one pirate that's a household name. Not one! Clearly these guys are not trying. They use high-tech radar and global positioning devices to locate their prey and computers to hack into shipping databases to learn what ship holds what cargo. Hell, they probably even have their own websites like some pirate eBay to resell their booty, like scalawags@somalicoastpirates.arrggh. They storm unarmed ships with powerful speed boats and automatic weapons, take the crew hostage and sail it some port and either sell the cargo and the ship or simply ransom it, no yo-ho-ho-and-a-barrel-of-rum, no arrgghhs, no parrots on their shoulders, no peg-legs or hooks, no eye patches, and no swinging from the rigging with daggers in their teeth to board vessels. Less ambitious pirate gangs merely relieve cargo vessels of the cash they carry for payroll and port fees. Some pirates they are!
Every so often they run into a naval vessel disguised as a vulnerable merchant ship and the minute they get shot at they turn and run. So much for laughing in the teeth of danger. French commandos, the one effective arm of the French military, have already dismantled several piracy rings and brought the pirates they didn't kill to justice. Indonesia is cracking down on piracy with some success, as are other Pacific nations, easily capturing and killing these no-so-formidable buccaneers and seizing their Privateers, decidedly unromantic speed boats with no captain's quarters, no yardarms, and no planks to walk. And none of these vessels are flying the Jolly Roger! Didn't these guys ever go to movies? How can you be a pirate when you don't have a black skull and crossbones flag? Perhaps it's best that Wallace Beery and Errol Flynn didn't live to see this sad spectacle. To Davey Jones' locker with all of them!
Modern pirates are a little light in the romance and heavy on technology. There doesn't seem to be any former dukes or viscounts or disgruntled naval captains with an axe to grind against one imperial government or another, but instead just a bunch of thieves and murderers in it for the money. Which is precisely what pirates have always been, and all that romance and honorable political outcast stuff was nonsense. But what these guys lack is panache, style, a sense of being larger than life. Hell, there's not one famous guy among them!
Back in the heyday of Piracy, the Golden Age of Buccaneering, if you will, news took the better part of a year to travel from continent to continent, and yet a lot of these guys were huge, world famous. Captain Blood, Long John Silver, Blackbeard, Redbeard, Blue(!)beard, to name but a handful. They fought with cutlasses and braces of pistols, guzzled rum, enjoyed the company of many a wench and buried their treasure on remote islands. They gathered in seaports of ill-repute and raised hell when they weren't plying the seas in search of a prize in the form of a British Man O' War, a Spanish Galleon laden with gold or a French dreadnought bristling with cannon, laughing their chilling pirate laugh all the while.
In this day and age of real-time news and instant celebrity there's not even one pirate that's a household name. Not one! Clearly these guys are not trying. They use high-tech radar and global positioning devices to locate their prey and computers to hack into shipping databases to learn what ship holds what cargo. Hell, they probably even have their own websites like some pirate eBay to resell their booty, like scalawags@somalicoastpirates.arrggh. They storm unarmed ships with powerful speed boats and automatic weapons, take the crew hostage and sail it some port and either sell the cargo and the ship or simply ransom it, no yo-ho-ho-and-a-barrel-of-rum, no arrgghhs, no parrots on their shoulders, no peg-legs or hooks, no eye patches, and no swinging from the rigging with daggers in their teeth to board vessels. Less ambitious pirate gangs merely relieve cargo vessels of the cash they carry for payroll and port fees. Some pirates they are!
Every so often they run into a naval vessel disguised as a vulnerable merchant ship and the minute they get shot at they turn and run. So much for laughing in the teeth of danger. French commandos, the one effective arm of the French military, have already dismantled several piracy rings and brought the pirates they didn't kill to justice. Indonesia is cracking down on piracy with some success, as are other Pacific nations, easily capturing and killing these no-so-formidable buccaneers and seizing their Privateers, decidedly unromantic speed boats with no captain's quarters, no yardarms, and no planks to walk. And none of these vessels are flying the Jolly Roger! Didn't these guys ever go to movies? How can you be a pirate when you don't have a black skull and crossbones flag? Perhaps it's best that Wallace Beery and Errol Flynn didn't live to see this sad spectacle. To Davey Jones' locker with all of them!
September 3, 2008
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 160
There's no reasonable explanation for music, red balloons, party hats, roller coasters, somersaults, cotton candy, jelly beans, giggling or snowballs. And no one really demands sound reasons for their existence either. Good thing, too, since these are some of life's most indispensable experiences.
LET'S PRETEND IT DOESN'T MATTER
If only life would mirror our grand illusions! How happy we'd be, how fulfilled. Of course, that would be at the expense of other people who don't share our delusions, but so what? Let them get their own damned fantasy life. If we want to proclaim the war in Iraq a success, well, who's to deny it? Our army beat their army and we hung their boss by the neck until dead, right? We won, we won! Pay no attention to that puny little man behind the curtain, we are the Great and Powerful Oz! We won and we were right! Right?
Well, if it's right to invade nations with whom we had no quarrel, then okay. If it's right to disable every oil gauge so that no one knows how much crude is being stolen every day, well, sure. If it's right to lie to the American people about dire threats from a 3rd rate military power, then by golly we were right as rain to go in and steal their oil and kill untold thousands of their people and dismantle their government. Hell, wasn't it "right" to own slaves here in America until it wasn't right anymore? Youbetcha! So until we decide it's wrong to be the new Roman Empire we're right and we're winning and we're going to keep it up!
And this is how the Republicans are running their campaign to get daffy old John McCain in the White House, another clueless bumbler who picked an intellectual and political featherweight for his running mate. They're probably figuring that will ensure at least four more years of Corporatocracy, with the president deep in the pocket of business interests. This in effect gives corporations their own army, navy, air force and if need be, a nuclear arsenal. Who needs sound business practices when you can call in the Marines? And when all that stolen oil flows, you can still raise the price like there was some sort of shortage! What's not to love?
Well, that's where this fantasy reality conflicts with the rest of the nation and the entire world's reality, a reality grounded in, well... reality. We've had eight years of this Wizard of Oz crap and it's time to ground the flying monkeys. The results? An America despised and scorned, a working class under direct attack by a ruling elite, a major city drowned and abandoned, the tinder box that is the Middle East up in flames, home foreclosures approaching the levels of The Great Depression, an education system leaving all kinds of children behind, the million and change homeless being joined by 200,000 homeless war veterans forgotten by their country, corporate princes looting the pubic treasury to add to their already obscene wealth, the Bill of Rights being under constant attack from those who swore a scared oath to uphold it, American spies exposed by American government officials and the continued freedom and flourishing video career of our only avowed enemy, Bush The Younger's former business colleague Osama bin Laden.
Damn those facts! They are sad! They are negative! They are disgraceful! These are not Fun Facts and they are spoiling our fancy party! Best to ignore them. Good strategy, eh? And while we're ignoring facts, let's put the blame on the opposition party for all these disasters and call them unpatriotic to boot! It's worked before, with a little leg up from election fraud, so why not trot out that old horse again? The American people really are a bunch of decent, amiable dunces, God love 'em. They'll dance to our tune again, right? Right?
Well, let's not put the cart in front of that dead horse here, boys. The rest of the nation has it's own version of fantasy reality, one that involves honest government living up the the U.S. Constitution, working hard to solve the nation's problems and not starting any wars just for the hell of it. Maybe making the big kids share the toys with the rest of us, things like that. Nothing major, really, since this is America, a place that you'd think would be awfully hard to screw up had you not just witnessed it with your own eyes for eight bizarre years. When you think about it, it's really hard to blow it in a great place like this. You really have to be trying, shoveling the shit with both hands.
So have your party, blow up your balloons and your egos and pat each other on the back for a job not-so-well-done. Tell us all how great you are and all you've done for us. When you tell us how the economy is growing, maybe you could sort of point out where that money is going, 'cause we're not feeling the love here, fellas, if you catch the drift. Not too many crumbs trickling down from the banquet table, boys, and we dogs are starving down here. If we're missing something, please, show us the error our thoughts. Remind us again how great if would be if we gave you four more years to screw the pooch. Tell us that America is strong, tell us that it can easily withstand the severe beating you've been giving it like it was a rented mule. Soon the party will be over and you'll have to explain yourselves to the voters. Think it over and get back to us.
Well, if it's right to invade nations with whom we had no quarrel, then okay. If it's right to disable every oil gauge so that no one knows how much crude is being stolen every day, well, sure. If it's right to lie to the American people about dire threats from a 3rd rate military power, then by golly we were right as rain to go in and steal their oil and kill untold thousands of their people and dismantle their government. Hell, wasn't it "right" to own slaves here in America until it wasn't right anymore? Youbetcha! So until we decide it's wrong to be the new Roman Empire we're right and we're winning and we're going to keep it up!
And this is how the Republicans are running their campaign to get daffy old John McCain in the White House, another clueless bumbler who picked an intellectual and political featherweight for his running mate. They're probably figuring that will ensure at least four more years of Corporatocracy, with the president deep in the pocket of business interests. This in effect gives corporations their own army, navy, air force and if need be, a nuclear arsenal. Who needs sound business practices when you can call in the Marines? And when all that stolen oil flows, you can still raise the price like there was some sort of shortage! What's not to love?
Well, that's where this fantasy reality conflicts with the rest of the nation and the entire world's reality, a reality grounded in, well... reality. We've had eight years of this Wizard of Oz crap and it's time to ground the flying monkeys. The results? An America despised and scorned, a working class under direct attack by a ruling elite, a major city drowned and abandoned, the tinder box that is the Middle East up in flames, home foreclosures approaching the levels of The Great Depression, an education system leaving all kinds of children behind, the million and change homeless being joined by 200,000 homeless war veterans forgotten by their country, corporate princes looting the pubic treasury to add to their already obscene wealth, the Bill of Rights being under constant attack from those who swore a scared oath to uphold it, American spies exposed by American government officials and the continued freedom and flourishing video career of our only avowed enemy, Bush The Younger's former business colleague Osama bin Laden.
Damn those facts! They are sad! They are negative! They are disgraceful! These are not Fun Facts and they are spoiling our fancy party! Best to ignore them. Good strategy, eh? And while we're ignoring facts, let's put the blame on the opposition party for all these disasters and call them unpatriotic to boot! It's worked before, with a little leg up from election fraud, so why not trot out that old horse again? The American people really are a bunch of decent, amiable dunces, God love 'em. They'll dance to our tune again, right? Right?
Well, let's not put the cart in front of that dead horse here, boys. The rest of the nation has it's own version of fantasy reality, one that involves honest government living up the the U.S. Constitution, working hard to solve the nation's problems and not starting any wars just for the hell of it. Maybe making the big kids share the toys with the rest of us, things like that. Nothing major, really, since this is America, a place that you'd think would be awfully hard to screw up had you not just witnessed it with your own eyes for eight bizarre years. When you think about it, it's really hard to blow it in a great place like this. You really have to be trying, shoveling the shit with both hands.
So have your party, blow up your balloons and your egos and pat each other on the back for a job not-so-well-done. Tell us all how great you are and all you've done for us. When you tell us how the economy is growing, maybe you could sort of point out where that money is going, 'cause we're not feeling the love here, fellas, if you catch the drift. Not too many crumbs trickling down from the banquet table, boys, and we dogs are starving down here. If we're missing something, please, show us the error our thoughts. Remind us again how great if would be if we gave you four more years to screw the pooch. Tell us that America is strong, tell us that it can easily withstand the severe beating you've been giving it like it was a rented mule. Soon the party will be over and you'll have to explain yourselves to the voters. Think it over and get back to us.
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