March 31, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 355
Spies work in obscurity, never get any credit for what they do and nobody ever knows their names. It's sort of like being the Prime Minister of Canada.
DOPOTO REPORTS: A WASTE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO MIND
The Department of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has, as always, been monitoring the news and general trends in America and the greater world beyond. It seems that being an incompetent executive is a safe career path only if you are in charge of gigantic banks. If you mess with the nation's cars, however, the president puts out a hit on your career. This is, after all, America, and we've always been all about the cars. The banks? Not so much. This is not the first time American bankers have brought our economy down in flames. The suggestion here is that the president bring in some members of the Rothschild family to straighten things out in the banking industry. They've been doing the international banking thing for centuries pretty effectively.
In sewage treatment news (there is such a thing), it seems that some enterprising scientists are trying to make clean auto fuel from human sewage. DOPOTO applauds this brilliant idea for this plentiful and ever-renewable resource and expresses our gratitude that we are not the ones who have to deal with it. Sewage treatment is not for the faint of heart. It seems that the methane we humans produce in great amounts is a cleaner-burning gas than most and in just a few chemical steps our body wastes can be made to run cars and trucks. Which leads one to wonder what the new emission standards will be. For cars, that is.
In psychology news, a new study indicates that arguing in front of one's children isn't as harmful as once thought so long as knives, pistols and heavy blunt objects are not involved. This news comes as a relief to everybody everywhere who has ever raised any children, ridden with guilt that their incessant bickering has scarred their kids for life. Popular wisdom used to be that this sort of behavior was wrong and that parents should adopt a united and calm front for the sake of their children. For years our television shows reflected this Stepford Parent approach, showing perfect, well-adjusted parents who never let a cross word pass between them in front of the tykes.
Well, it seems this fantasy only led most of the child stars of such shows to lives of substance abuse and crime, and these were only fictional families. So imagine every parent's relief when it was revealed that their ordinary human natures were a better role model than the TV automatons! It seems that kids learn from watching their parents resolve conflicts, but the psychologists warn that only fair fighting is allowed, which just goes to show that they are still not in tune with reality. Maybe if people were preparing their little ones to enter a perfect world this would hold true, but DOPOTO's own independent research has shown that it's best for kids to learn about human treachery, duplicitousness and underhanded tactics at home. No sense sending naive fools into a world that will chew them up and spit them out.
In weather news, the Northern Plains States are considering a class action suit against Al Gore to make him cease and desist in his efforts to halt global warming. After two early Spring blizzards dumped about 4 feet of snow on them and caused the near-flooding of several cities and farming communities, their thinking is that a couple of degrees warmer next winter sounds pretty good. When told that the price of doing nothing about the melting polar ice caps would lead to a rise in sea levels that would turn Florida into an extension of the Gulf of Mexico, western residents responded that 49 states is plenty enough for any country. Some of the more enterprising among them even got busy with a new flag design.
In New York State, the governor and legislature have been busy trying to wrest back their title as the Most Corrupt State from Illinois. After the headlines involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attempting to sell the president's old Senate seat to the highest bidder and getting himself impeached for his trouble, New York legislators have responded admirably in a series of back room deals and public malfeasance that have only added to the state's considerable problems and solved nothing. In a refutation of President Obama's theory that government should be on the level, New York politicians have gone on record as being the lowest of the low, the most self-serving and the least concerned about the public good. The thinking in Albany is that fair and open dealing is for wimps. They don't want change, they want folding money, and lots of it. When told that Obama is using his own money to redecorate the White House, several prominent State Senators and members of the House wondered where he stole all that dough and if they could get in on the action. So, the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious gives this week's Not Getting It Award to the Government of The State of New York.
In sewage treatment news (there is such a thing), it seems that some enterprising scientists are trying to make clean auto fuel from human sewage. DOPOTO applauds this brilliant idea for this plentiful and ever-renewable resource and expresses our gratitude that we are not the ones who have to deal with it. Sewage treatment is not for the faint of heart. It seems that the methane we humans produce in great amounts is a cleaner-burning gas than most and in just a few chemical steps our body wastes can be made to run cars and trucks. Which leads one to wonder what the new emission standards will be. For cars, that is.
In psychology news, a new study indicates that arguing in front of one's children isn't as harmful as once thought so long as knives, pistols and heavy blunt objects are not involved. This news comes as a relief to everybody everywhere who has ever raised any children, ridden with guilt that their incessant bickering has scarred their kids for life. Popular wisdom used to be that this sort of behavior was wrong and that parents should adopt a united and calm front for the sake of their children. For years our television shows reflected this Stepford Parent approach, showing perfect, well-adjusted parents who never let a cross word pass between them in front of the tykes.
Well, it seems this fantasy only led most of the child stars of such shows to lives of substance abuse and crime, and these were only fictional families. So imagine every parent's relief when it was revealed that their ordinary human natures were a better role model than the TV automatons! It seems that kids learn from watching their parents resolve conflicts, but the psychologists warn that only fair fighting is allowed, which just goes to show that they are still not in tune with reality. Maybe if people were preparing their little ones to enter a perfect world this would hold true, but DOPOTO's own independent research has shown that it's best for kids to learn about human treachery, duplicitousness and underhanded tactics at home. No sense sending naive fools into a world that will chew them up and spit them out.
In weather news, the Northern Plains States are considering a class action suit against Al Gore to make him cease and desist in his efforts to halt global warming. After two early Spring blizzards dumped about 4 feet of snow on them and caused the near-flooding of several cities and farming communities, their thinking is that a couple of degrees warmer next winter sounds pretty good. When told that the price of doing nothing about the melting polar ice caps would lead to a rise in sea levels that would turn Florida into an extension of the Gulf of Mexico, western residents responded that 49 states is plenty enough for any country. Some of the more enterprising among them even got busy with a new flag design.
In New York State, the governor and legislature have been busy trying to wrest back their title as the Most Corrupt State from Illinois. After the headlines involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attempting to sell the president's old Senate seat to the highest bidder and getting himself impeached for his trouble, New York legislators have responded admirably in a series of back room deals and public malfeasance that have only added to the state's considerable problems and solved nothing. In a refutation of President Obama's theory that government should be on the level, New York politicians have gone on record as being the lowest of the low, the most self-serving and the least concerned about the public good. The thinking in Albany is that fair and open dealing is for wimps. They don't want change, they want folding money, and lots of it. When told that Obama is using his own money to redecorate the White House, several prominent State Senators and members of the House wondered where he stole all that dough and if they could get in on the action. So, the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious gives this week's Not Getting It Award to the Government of The State of New York.
March 30, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 354
The most devout preachers are Atheists. They burn with their faith and try to spread it at every opportunity.
IF YOU INSIST ON BEING A SCIENTIST, MIGHT AS WELL BE A MAD ONE
Well, it's official, the War on Science is over with the departure of Bush The Younger and Shotgun Dick Cheney. They can now get busy on stem cells, alternative energy and trying to figure out ways to grow enough food to feed a population scheduled to hit 9 billion by the middle of this century. So there you go, Joe Dimaggio, a planet turns its lonely eyes to you, Mr. and Ms. Scientist. You people up for it? Or will you continue to not come up with anything exciting, not cure any damned diseases and not stop worrying about little Billy's attention span? Here's a flash for you white-coated wonders: our attention spans will increase geometrically with an increase of interesting scientific developments. So get busy.
And if you want to be a scientist worth your salt, be a Mad Scientist! We love those kind, the deranged types with the crazy hair and their glasses on practically sideways, clothes all mismatched and rumpled and with that wild look in their eyes, all fired up about something that makes no sense at all to the average human being. How about looking to correct the flaws in solar power by coming up with cloud power or rain power? Or maybe having those electric cars recharge themselves by the act of driving, like the cars we have now do? Driving a car at 60 miles per hour produces a hell of a lot of unused energy that could be used to recharge the batteries, just like the alternator on a regular car does when we leave the lights on all night and need a boost to get them started. All you do after that is run the engine for a bit and Bingo!, the battery is recharged! So what's with all this 200 to 300 mile limit to your proposed electric cars? And what's with the $100,000 price tags when some guy in India is producing a $2,500 car that a ton of people will buy and burn a ton more gas driving? Can't you compete with Indian technology, where most people still travel on foot and farm the same way they did 1,000 years ago?
But that's a matter of practicality and not a concern to a true Mad Scientist. A Mad Scientist comes up with the whacky ideas and leaves it the bean-counters and the engineers to make them practical. Take that Hadron Super-Collider they just built in Europe, the one where scientists hope to create mini-black holes, and where other scientists warn that this kind of thing could suck the whole earth into it for a little blink-of-an-eye oblivion. These spoil sports say that even mini-black holes have a way of expanding into star-eating chasms in a nanosecond. But the Super Collider Mad Scientists insist they can control the time of the holes' existence to just a hair under a nanosecond and manage to avoid total oblivion. Over and over and over again. Really? Lucky for us the thing doesn't work. Maybe somebody should super collide these people's heads together and knock some damned sense into them.
Why would they attempt something like this? Simple. Because they can! And if killing us all and our entire Solar System by creating a black hole that lasts longer than a nanosecond is what it takes to prove them right, well, so be it, that's the price of science. The rest of us are sort of grateful that this stupid multi-billion dollar toy doesn't work and hope they never get the kinks worked out. But that's just us, the non-scientists, who display a maddening insistence on not getting sucked into a black hole if we can possibly avoid it. But don't mind us, science guys and gals, we're just rubes in the peanut gallery counting on James Bond to come in with an awesome babe and wreck the whole complex in the nick of time. Mad Scientists hate James Bond.
What else can science do these days? There's always AIDS research, or that pesky cancer cure that seems to elude your scientific prowess. All you guys have come up with is toasting us from the inside out with radiation and poisoning the crap out of us with chemotherapy and cutting us into little pieces. Future generations of doctors and scientists will look back on this approach like we do to the Barber Surgeons of the MIddle Ages blithely bleeding and amputating their way through humanity trying to rid us of our Ill Vapors. And how about diabetes? Anybody on the ball with that, or is the research dough still pouring into the people inventing some bogus attention-related syndrome that can be cured by expensive placebos?
Anybody doing anything about global warming other than holding another conference about it? The conferencing part has been pretty well covered at this point, so just maybe a little lab work is in order here, maybe come up with something like the Super-Collider that cools the planet a drop instead of making black holes. Is it too late to convert that thing to something useful? We all realize that for 8 years the Mad Scientists have been shoved aside so maybe they're out of practice at providing us with cool stuff like space ships, plastics, penicillin, fiber-optics and Double-Stuff Oreos. But now the War on Science is over and our expectations are high. Whether that's fair or not, the challenges are there. It was your idea to become a scientist in the first place, so don't complain when the rest of us ask you to actually put those expensive educations to some practical use. And if you can possibly manage to be a whacky Mad Scientist for added entertainment value, so much the better.
And if you want to be a scientist worth your salt, be a Mad Scientist! We love those kind, the deranged types with the crazy hair and their glasses on practically sideways, clothes all mismatched and rumpled and with that wild look in their eyes, all fired up about something that makes no sense at all to the average human being. How about looking to correct the flaws in solar power by coming up with cloud power or rain power? Or maybe having those electric cars recharge themselves by the act of driving, like the cars we have now do? Driving a car at 60 miles per hour produces a hell of a lot of unused energy that could be used to recharge the batteries, just like the alternator on a regular car does when we leave the lights on all night and need a boost to get them started. All you do after that is run the engine for a bit and Bingo!, the battery is recharged! So what's with all this 200 to 300 mile limit to your proposed electric cars? And what's with the $100,000 price tags when some guy in India is producing a $2,500 car that a ton of people will buy and burn a ton more gas driving? Can't you compete with Indian technology, where most people still travel on foot and farm the same way they did 1,000 years ago?
But that's a matter of practicality and not a concern to a true Mad Scientist. A Mad Scientist comes up with the whacky ideas and leaves it the bean-counters and the engineers to make them practical. Take that Hadron Super-Collider they just built in Europe, the one where scientists hope to create mini-black holes, and where other scientists warn that this kind of thing could suck the whole earth into it for a little blink-of-an-eye oblivion. These spoil sports say that even mini-black holes have a way of expanding into star-eating chasms in a nanosecond. But the Super Collider Mad Scientists insist they can control the time of the holes' existence to just a hair under a nanosecond and manage to avoid total oblivion. Over and over and over again. Really? Lucky for us the thing doesn't work. Maybe somebody should super collide these people's heads together and knock some damned sense into them.
Why would they attempt something like this? Simple. Because they can! And if killing us all and our entire Solar System by creating a black hole that lasts longer than a nanosecond is what it takes to prove them right, well, so be it, that's the price of science. The rest of us are sort of grateful that this stupid multi-billion dollar toy doesn't work and hope they never get the kinks worked out. But that's just us, the non-scientists, who display a maddening insistence on not getting sucked into a black hole if we can possibly avoid it. But don't mind us, science guys and gals, we're just rubes in the peanut gallery counting on James Bond to come in with an awesome babe and wreck the whole complex in the nick of time. Mad Scientists hate James Bond.
What else can science do these days? There's always AIDS research, or that pesky cancer cure that seems to elude your scientific prowess. All you guys have come up with is toasting us from the inside out with radiation and poisoning the crap out of us with chemotherapy and cutting us into little pieces. Future generations of doctors and scientists will look back on this approach like we do to the Barber Surgeons of the MIddle Ages blithely bleeding and amputating their way through humanity trying to rid us of our Ill Vapors. And how about diabetes? Anybody on the ball with that, or is the research dough still pouring into the people inventing some bogus attention-related syndrome that can be cured by expensive placebos?
Anybody doing anything about global warming other than holding another conference about it? The conferencing part has been pretty well covered at this point, so just maybe a little lab work is in order here, maybe come up with something like the Super-Collider that cools the planet a drop instead of making black holes. Is it too late to convert that thing to something useful? We all realize that for 8 years the Mad Scientists have been shoved aside so maybe they're out of practice at providing us with cool stuff like space ships, plastics, penicillin, fiber-optics and Double-Stuff Oreos. But now the War on Science is over and our expectations are high. Whether that's fair or not, the challenges are there. It was your idea to become a scientist in the first place, so don't complain when the rest of us ask you to actually put those expensive educations to some practical use. And if you can possibly manage to be a whacky Mad Scientist for added entertainment value, so much the better.
March 29, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 353
What gifts you have been given are meant to be shared. Except, of course, if your gift is being a pain in the balls. Keep that one to yourself.
MAKING NEW MUSIC AGAIN
Today's tale is about making music. I've been in the recording studio again with a new song, this time with two new partners in crime, a fellow named Dave Forman, and Michael Crespo, my son. Dave is a talented drummer and singer I met when we were both teenagers back in the Bronze Age, when hair was long and amplifiers the size of refrigerators. He and I were in different neighborhood bands, young kids learning our craft and having some serious fun. The years passed and we went our separate ways, surprisingly enough never getting to work together except for a recording session 25 or so years ago. The Brooklyn music scene, while not exactly small, is one both of us have been hanging around for a long time and know a lot of the same people so you'd figure we would hook up sooner or later.
Turns out it was much later. I was delighted when my old friend Gary Kroman the great guitarist put together a gig with Dave on Valentine's Day of last month and it came off quite well with just a few rehearsals. With Gary, our buddy Ian (the vowel-challenged) Zdatny on bass and Dave on drums we knocked them out. Then Dave invited me to record in his home studio and I jumped at the chance. It's a small room wired for sound, a hybrid analog/digital set-up that Dave has fingertip command over. He can get any sound you describe, and pronto. Working in a studio with him is fast and seamless. He also surprised me by providing piano and bass tracks for the song. This guy has even more talent than I realized.
We recorded a simple, country flavored rocker of mine, called "Jenny Take A Ride," sung by me and my son Mike. Now, Mike I know quite a while too, what with him being my son and all. He's quite a guy, if I do say so myself, and I sure as hell do. Anyway, the song is being mixed by Dave and will be put up on bobcrespo.com very soon. I haven't prevailed on Dave to sing yet, but hope to in the future. What I also hope to do is play more often with the man on live gigs. He's a pro's pro, and adds exactly what the song needs, no more, no less. We'll be playing next on April 26th at D.J. Ryder's Rhythm & Brews in Oceanside, Long Island at a benefit show to help fight breast cancer. I've got Mike on board too, who's threatening to make me the second-best singer in the family, the big rat. I'd spank him, but he's 190 pounds of grown man muscle. Oh well, at least I can still write the songs.
I've learned in the music scene to not take anything for granted so I'm very grateful to have finally hooked up with Dave Forman, even if "Jenny Take A Ride" turns out to be our only collaboration. When you're a musician you find people here and there who just seem to get you and you get them and you can work together real smooth, a pleasure within the privilege of making music. Often recording sessions are stressful and tense, but not this time. Not that stress and tension are always a bad thing, depending on the piece of music, but in general your best work comes out of good vibes.
Dave being the man at the helm of all the dials and switches and generally directing the action, the good vibes flowed and the music shows it. The man has it all; a ton of talent, great instincts, complete command of his equipment and a great personality. Great ears too, and I learned quick to ask him if he's hearing something I'm not. When he hears something the song might need or something it has but doesn't need (equally important), he speaks up and he's right on the money. He knows what I know, that the song tells you what it needs, not the other way around. That's how it is with a fresh piece of music. I wish I'd have worked more with him over the years, but for this guitar slinger and songwriter, the wait was well worth it.
Keep your eyes on this space for upcoming live gigs and on the MUSIC section of bobcrespo.com for new Crespo songs. Hopefully, Dave, Gary, Mike and I can get a good thing going with the songs and some good live gigs. I've got a whole bunch of songs I'm dying to record and share, and more to write. Guys like me, Gary and Dave have a lot of rock & roll shows left in us. Mike, he's no beginner but compared to the rest of us he's just getting started. He's got one hell of a voice, so hopefully something good is shaping up here. Bands being bands, I don't want to jinx anything by wanting it too much, but all I know is that music is exciting and new again even if I'm only dreaming out loud. I can think of worse things to do with myself.
And I sure have done worse things, abusing myself and making all the boneheaded mistakes I possibly could, went down in flames a few times and got back up and did it again. For a long time I was pretty thorough with that. Life's been an adventure, no doubt. But I'm also really, really good at music and picking great people, so wish us luck. And if it blows up in my face again, well, that's rock & roll, and sometimes that's pretty damned glorious too. Come see us walk the razor's edge on April 26, a beautiful Sunday afternoon to catch some expert rock & roll and help some women who are terribly ill. I guarantee a great show you won't soon forget and the good feeling that comes from helping people who are hurting bad, like we would hope for if it was us in pain. See the ad at the top of this page for the details. We'll be working hard since we don't know any other way. Like the man said: Hey Kids, rock & roll, rock on..."
Turns out it was much later. I was delighted when my old friend Gary Kroman the great guitarist put together a gig with Dave on Valentine's Day of last month and it came off quite well with just a few rehearsals. With Gary, our buddy Ian (the vowel-challenged) Zdatny on bass and Dave on drums we knocked them out. Then Dave invited me to record in his home studio and I jumped at the chance. It's a small room wired for sound, a hybrid analog/digital set-up that Dave has fingertip command over. He can get any sound you describe, and pronto. Working in a studio with him is fast and seamless. He also surprised me by providing piano and bass tracks for the song. This guy has even more talent than I realized.
We recorded a simple, country flavored rocker of mine, called "Jenny Take A Ride," sung by me and my son Mike. Now, Mike I know quite a while too, what with him being my son and all. He's quite a guy, if I do say so myself, and I sure as hell do. Anyway, the song is being mixed by Dave and will be put up on bobcrespo.com very soon. I haven't prevailed on Dave to sing yet, but hope to in the future. What I also hope to do is play more often with the man on live gigs. He's a pro's pro, and adds exactly what the song needs, no more, no less. We'll be playing next on April 26th at D.J. Ryder's Rhythm & Brews in Oceanside, Long Island at a benefit show to help fight breast cancer. I've got Mike on board too, who's threatening to make me the second-best singer in the family, the big rat. I'd spank him, but he's 190 pounds of grown man muscle. Oh well, at least I can still write the songs.
I've learned in the music scene to not take anything for granted so I'm very grateful to have finally hooked up with Dave Forman, even if "Jenny Take A Ride" turns out to be our only collaboration. When you're a musician you find people here and there who just seem to get you and you get them and you can work together real smooth, a pleasure within the privilege of making music. Often recording sessions are stressful and tense, but not this time. Not that stress and tension are always a bad thing, depending on the piece of music, but in general your best work comes out of good vibes.
Dave being the man at the helm of all the dials and switches and generally directing the action, the good vibes flowed and the music shows it. The man has it all; a ton of talent, great instincts, complete command of his equipment and a great personality. Great ears too, and I learned quick to ask him if he's hearing something I'm not. When he hears something the song might need or something it has but doesn't need (equally important), he speaks up and he's right on the money. He knows what I know, that the song tells you what it needs, not the other way around. That's how it is with a fresh piece of music. I wish I'd have worked more with him over the years, but for this guitar slinger and songwriter, the wait was well worth it.
Keep your eyes on this space for upcoming live gigs and on the MUSIC section of bobcrespo.com for new Crespo songs. Hopefully, Dave, Gary, Mike and I can get a good thing going with the songs and some good live gigs. I've got a whole bunch of songs I'm dying to record and share, and more to write. Guys like me, Gary and Dave have a lot of rock & roll shows left in us. Mike, he's no beginner but compared to the rest of us he's just getting started. He's got one hell of a voice, so hopefully something good is shaping up here. Bands being bands, I don't want to jinx anything by wanting it too much, but all I know is that music is exciting and new again even if I'm only dreaming out loud. I can think of worse things to do with myself.
And I sure have done worse things, abusing myself and making all the boneheaded mistakes I possibly could, went down in flames a few times and got back up and did it again. For a long time I was pretty thorough with that. Life's been an adventure, no doubt. But I'm also really, really good at music and picking great people, so wish us luck. And if it blows up in my face again, well, that's rock & roll, and sometimes that's pretty damned glorious too. Come see us walk the razor's edge on April 26, a beautiful Sunday afternoon to catch some expert rock & roll and help some women who are terribly ill. I guarantee a great show you won't soon forget and the good feeling that comes from helping people who are hurting bad, like we would hope for if it was us in pain. See the ad at the top of this page for the details. We'll be working hard since we don't know any other way. Like the man said: Hey Kids, rock & roll, rock on..."
March 28, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 352
When history gives someone the nickname "The Great," odds are that person was only great at killing people and stealing their stuff. It sure doesn't refer to them being great company.
IRONY
The latest high-profile kidnapping in Mexico? A renowned kidnapping consultant. Wonder who will consult on his case?
A large number of sour grapes Republicans have attacked President Obama for using a teleprompter in public speeches. They held press conferences on this urgent matter, where they read their carefully prepared statements from a teleprompter.
One of the leading advocates for sexual abstinence education is Sarah Palin, she of the 18 year-old daughter with a baby and a Baby Daddy.
In other sex and celibacy news, Pope Benedict stated erroneously while in AIDS-stricken Africa that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. And who would know better than an 81 year-old lifelong celibate with no medical training?
The Federal Government, in an effort to curb cigarette smoking, raised the tax on each pack of cigarettes by sixty two cents, thus making the Federal Government the largest single profit-maker from cigarettes by far. No word yet on their legal liability stemming from the many wrongful death suits lodged against tobacco profiteers.
Though this news is a few years old, the irony of the death of the Crocodile Hunter by a sting from a sting ray still blows crocodiles' minds. They're still kicking themselves over missed opportunities.
Irony in disguise is the record low prices of gasoline at a time when the world threatened to go into scientific overdrive to invent its replacement. The only irony there is that some people think this is a coincidence.
The approximately 300 Chinese people who signed "Charter '08," a list of demands calling for greater democracy in China, have been cited as being among the most influential people in the world. Outside of China, that is, where news of their existence is practically non-existent.
Speaking of China, it looks like they're stuck with a trillion and a half dollars worth of U.S. Treasury notes, thus having as big an interest in the economic recovery of the United States as anybody. Time to double down on the Walmart sweat shops and copyright piracy.
Former President Bush The Younger has signed a seven million dollar deal to write a book about his 12 toughest decisions while in office. Most of them involve him working up the nerve to ask permission of his boss Shotgun Dick Cheney to be allowed to attend meetings, while one or two deal with deciding which part of his ranch to clear of brush first.
There is a campaign called Earth Hour where households are being urged to turn off their lights for one hour to highlight the worldwide energy crisis. First up was Sydney, Australia. The cost of promoting this campaign has been millions of dollars in both currency and non-renewable energy resources. To say nothing of missing American Ido
A large number of sour grapes Republicans have attacked President Obama for using a teleprompter in public speeches. They held press conferences on this urgent matter, where they read their carefully prepared statements from a teleprompter.
One of the leading advocates for sexual abstinence education is Sarah Palin, she of the 18 year-old daughter with a baby and a Baby Daddy.
In other sex and celibacy news, Pope Benedict stated erroneously while in AIDS-stricken Africa that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. And who would know better than an 81 year-old lifelong celibate with no medical training?
The Federal Government, in an effort to curb cigarette smoking, raised the tax on each pack of cigarettes by sixty two cents, thus making the Federal Government the largest single profit-maker from cigarettes by far. No word yet on their legal liability stemming from the many wrongful death suits lodged against tobacco profiteers.
Though this news is a few years old, the irony of the death of the Crocodile Hunter by a sting from a sting ray still blows crocodiles' minds. They're still kicking themselves over missed opportunities.
Irony in disguise is the record low prices of gasoline at a time when the world threatened to go into scientific overdrive to invent its replacement. The only irony there is that some people think this is a coincidence.
The approximately 300 Chinese people who signed "Charter '08," a list of demands calling for greater democracy in China, have been cited as being among the most influential people in the world. Outside of China, that is, where news of their existence is practically non-existent.
Speaking of China, it looks like they're stuck with a trillion and a half dollars worth of U.S. Treasury notes, thus having as big an interest in the economic recovery of the United States as anybody. Time to double down on the Walmart sweat shops and copyright piracy.
Former President Bush The Younger has signed a seven million dollar deal to write a book about his 12 toughest decisions while in office. Most of them involve him working up the nerve to ask permission of his boss Shotgun Dick Cheney to be allowed to attend meetings, while one or two deal with deciding which part of his ranch to clear of brush first.
There is a campaign called Earth Hour where households are being urged to turn off their lights for one hour to highlight the worldwide energy crisis. First up was Sydney, Australia. The cost of promoting this campaign has been millions of dollars in both currency and non-renewable energy resources. To say nothing of missing American Ido
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 351
You can be either a rose or a thorn. Just remember that thorns last a whole lot longer than roses. It takes courage to be a rose.
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
You want to balance the United States budget, create universal healthcare and cut back drastically on poverty and unemployment? Well, who doesn't? Here's some suggestions that nobody seems to be thinking about:
Abandon the Empire: The United States has over a half million troops stationed in 150 countries throughout out the world. Why? There's only 192 countries in existence. Are we looking to make it unanimous? Is it safe yet to end the occupation of Germany and Japan 64 years after their unconditional surrender in World War 2? At least those two nations were ones we actually conquered. The others? Who knows what the hell we're doing there? We have no business being a damned empire when we didn't conquer the world like the Romans and the British did. What's in it for us besides a huge expense? At least the Romans and British called a spade a spade and stole everything they possibly could from their empires. So if we are an empire, we're the lamest one that ever was, since ours costs us money! We should quit that expensive racket.
Declare war on war: Make it against the law to go to war. It won't work any better than the war on drugs, but at least it will identify war as an illegal activity. None of them ever work out, even the ones we win. If we cut our military by 25%, that will save us trillions annually and we will still be spending more on our military than the next 20 nations combined. As it stands now we spend more than the entire rest of the world combined! That's ridiculous. And the hell with Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the crazier wars in that most insane area of human endeavor. Put some politicians and generals in jail and see how fast the next guy decides there's a pressing reason to get a bunch more of us killed.
End the war on drugs: Another war we lost before it began. People like drugs and will obtain them under any circumstances. The prisons are full of the proof of that statement. If it were a moral issue then alcohol would be banned too but it is not even though alcohol addicts far outnumber drug addicts. The fact is that 10% of the population is addictive, and there would not be one extra drug addict tomorrow if drugs were legal, any more than there is a single extra alcoholic because booze is legal. And like alcohol, drugs are cheap to make and will bring in incredible amounts of taxes to the treasury, as well as the agricultural jobs and benefits to states whose climates are suited to growing the plants that produce drugs.
The prison system expenses will be more than halved and the drugs can be monitored to ensure they are made in a clean environment, just like the government inspects whiskey distilleries. Who are we kidding, when we demonize one vice and legally sanction another? To legalize drugs is not to condone their use, anymore than anyone condones cigarette smoking. Cigarettes, by the way, produce more income for governments through taxation than is earned by all the tobacco companies combined. Or do we continue to send these potential tax billions to Columbia and Afghanistan and continue to have drug problems anyway? End The 30 Years War.
Legalize prostitution: See above. See Scandinavia. And what's wrong with one of the strongest natural urges we humans possess? Might as well outlaw getting hungry or breathing for all the good it will do. Neither prostitutes nor their patrons are doing anything wrong, and like using drugs, no one will be forced to participate in this activity.
Tax corporations: In the 1930s, during the height of The Great Depression, corporate taxes made up over 30% of Federal tax revenues. Today that figure is less than 10%, even though the United States economy since then has grown into the largest the world has ever seen. What's the deal there? Corporate welfare has far outstripped welfare payments for the needy. There are instances of profitable multi-billion dollar corporations legally paying no income tax at all. There's something wrong when a bus driver pays more income taxes than the corporation that manufactured the bus.
Abandon the Empire: The United States has over a half million troops stationed in 150 countries throughout out the world. Why? There's only 192 countries in existence. Are we looking to make it unanimous? Is it safe yet to end the occupation of Germany and Japan 64 years after their unconditional surrender in World War 2? At least those two nations were ones we actually conquered. The others? Who knows what the hell we're doing there? We have no business being a damned empire when we didn't conquer the world like the Romans and the British did. What's in it for us besides a huge expense? At least the Romans and British called a spade a spade and stole everything they possibly could from their empires. So if we are an empire, we're the lamest one that ever was, since ours costs us money! We should quit that expensive racket.
Declare war on war: Make it against the law to go to war. It won't work any better than the war on drugs, but at least it will identify war as an illegal activity. None of them ever work out, even the ones we win. If we cut our military by 25%, that will save us trillions annually and we will still be spending more on our military than the next 20 nations combined. As it stands now we spend more than the entire rest of the world combined! That's ridiculous. And the hell with Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the crazier wars in that most insane area of human endeavor. Put some politicians and generals in jail and see how fast the next guy decides there's a pressing reason to get a bunch more of us killed.
End the war on drugs: Another war we lost before it began. People like drugs and will obtain them under any circumstances. The prisons are full of the proof of that statement. If it were a moral issue then alcohol would be banned too but it is not even though alcohol addicts far outnumber drug addicts. The fact is that 10% of the population is addictive, and there would not be one extra drug addict tomorrow if drugs were legal, any more than there is a single extra alcoholic because booze is legal. And like alcohol, drugs are cheap to make and will bring in incredible amounts of taxes to the treasury, as well as the agricultural jobs and benefits to states whose climates are suited to growing the plants that produce drugs.
The prison system expenses will be more than halved and the drugs can be monitored to ensure they are made in a clean environment, just like the government inspects whiskey distilleries. Who are we kidding, when we demonize one vice and legally sanction another? To legalize drugs is not to condone their use, anymore than anyone condones cigarette smoking. Cigarettes, by the way, produce more income for governments through taxation than is earned by all the tobacco companies combined. Or do we continue to send these potential tax billions to Columbia and Afghanistan and continue to have drug problems anyway? End The 30 Years War.
Legalize prostitution: See above. See Scandinavia. And what's wrong with one of the strongest natural urges we humans possess? Might as well outlaw getting hungry or breathing for all the good it will do. Neither prostitutes nor their patrons are doing anything wrong, and like using drugs, no one will be forced to participate in this activity.
Tax corporations: In the 1930s, during the height of The Great Depression, corporate taxes made up over 30% of Federal tax revenues. Today that figure is less than 10%, even though the United States economy since then has grown into the largest the world has ever seen. What's the deal there? Corporate welfare has far outstripped welfare payments for the needy. There are instances of profitable multi-billion dollar corporations legally paying no income tax at all. There's something wrong when a bus driver pays more income taxes than the corporation that manufactured the bus.
March 26, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 350
Once you've gone on record as being a serial killer, nobody remembers the good things you've done in your life except for your neighbors, who always seem to tell reporters what a nice and polite person you were. So if you insist on being a serial killer, don't practice your craft on the neighbors. You never know when you might need a character witness.
FACTS FROM THE TOO MUCH INFORMATION AGE THAT DON'T HELP ANYONE
Ah, the Information Age. It really is a remarkable thing and an interesting time to be alive. Anyone on earth can now have the greatest research library ever assembled right at their fingertips. Why speculate about anything anymore when you can Google it and find out? The capital of Cameroon? Bam, it's Yaounde, population 1,430,000! Who gets the most rainfall? Bam, Mount Waialelale,with a whopping 460 inches per year! The least? Piece of angel food! It's the Atacama desert in Chile, with zero rainfall for the past 400 years. Cross those two bad boys off the vacation destination list. Practically anything you want to know is available on the internet, plus plenty you don't need to know. In many ways, this current day can be called the "Too Much Information Age." Consider these facts:
An American develops Alzheimer's disease every 70 seconds. If you are one of them, this knowledge won't help you at all, you'll just forget it in about 30 seconds. You will, however, remember what you had for breakfast the day you entered grammar school, which, again, won't help the situation a bit.
Bernie Madoff even stole money from members of his own family. Does that make anyone feel any better? Well, maybe some.
According to sworn testimony, former President Clinton's erect penis has a distinctive curve to it. How's that for too much information?
Warren Buffet's net worth slipped from $65 billion to $40 billion during the recent financial collapse. He has had to drastically cut back on nothing at all.
The total amount of man hours wasted playing Halo 3, just one dumb-ass video game, adds up to over 1,536,000 hours. That's 64,000 years nobody can ever get back and do something else, maybe even something useful.
A trillion is a one followed by a dozen zeros, which still doesn't describe it any better than "a whole shitload."
Adolph Hitler loved children. Other people's, that is, since he didn't have any of his own, a good break for any potential Hitler heirs. Nobody could possibly want to go through life as Hitler, Junior. And a break for the rest of us.
Speaking of grand-scale murderers, Joseph Stalin kept a piece of what he thought was Hitler's skull on his desk for years. It turns out it wasn't authentic when the Soviet equivalent of the Antiques Road Show guys told him it was worthless as anything other than an ashtray. Which was quite a coincidence, since Stalin was using the skull as his "good luck ashtray" once the eye sockets broke apart from being used to open his beer bottles, when he called it his "good luck beer bottle opener."
There are over 162 million websites on the internet. This is one of them.
As it turns out, angels never congregate on the heads of pins, so no accurate measurement of how many of them can dance on one has been possible. However, four out of five dentists agree that the correct answer would be seventeen. The fifth dentist never agrees with anyone anyway, so who cares what he thinks?
And speaking of best guesses, entries in the online dictionary Wikipedia can be changed by anyone who feels like it, which doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in its accuracy. Most of us are sort of sticklers for encyclopedia entries being written by people who know what the hell they're talking about.
Approximately 6% of all people ever born are alive right now. That's pretty meaningless, no? Plus, that's another one of those best-guess propositions, so that figure isn't exactly etched in stone.
The world's most popular first name is Mohammed. Second most popular? A surprise there: Butch.
There are 44 kings and queens in the world today, all claiming to be ordained by God, as good an explanation as any for the fact that their subjects haven't risen as one and tossed their high-living asses out in the street.
In 2007, the last year for which these statistics are available, airlines throughout the world misplaced 40 million pieces of luggage, 10 million more than the previous year. Out of the 40 million, 1 million were never recovered. Which sort of makes you wonder where a pile of 1 million suitcases could possibly be hidden. Less puzzling is the fact that airlines drag their feet when it comes to reporting these statistics.
People in Canada actually think that being Canadian is on the level even though the rest of the world knows Canada is really America-Lite. Most people are too kind to point out the truth, just like they do for the people of France-Lite, the "nation" of Belgium.
The longest running drama on American television was the western Gunsmoke, with 633 episodes from 1955 to 1975, all of which had the same cast of James Arness as Marshall Matt Dillon, Milburn Stone as Doc, Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty, the owner of the Long Branch Saloon who dressed like an Old West bar whore (and looked exactly the same after 20 years) and Clem Fuller as (what else?) Clem the big beefy bartender, with the exception of the whacky imbecile sidekick deputy role, with Ken Curtis as Festus Hagin replacing Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode after a few years. The show was as comfortable and predictable as an old beat-up shoe, which every member of the cast except Miss Kitty started to resemble after a while. Odds are you probably won't watch it on the Nickelodeon reruns, or even like it much if you do, but this is the Information Age and this is more information you don't need and really won't remember all that well but that you can't delete completely. No sense fighting it. That would be like living in the Bronze Age and avoiding bronze.
An American develops Alzheimer's disease every 70 seconds. If you are one of them, this knowledge won't help you at all, you'll just forget it in about 30 seconds. You will, however, remember what you had for breakfast the day you entered grammar school, which, again, won't help the situation a bit.
Bernie Madoff even stole money from members of his own family. Does that make anyone feel any better? Well, maybe some.
According to sworn testimony, former President Clinton's erect penis has a distinctive curve to it. How's that for too much information?
Warren Buffet's net worth slipped from $65 billion to $40 billion during the recent financial collapse. He has had to drastically cut back on nothing at all.
The total amount of man hours wasted playing Halo 3, just one dumb-ass video game, adds up to over 1,536,000 hours. That's 64,000 years nobody can ever get back and do something else, maybe even something useful.
A trillion is a one followed by a dozen zeros, which still doesn't describe it any better than "a whole shitload."
Adolph Hitler loved children. Other people's, that is, since he didn't have any of his own, a good break for any potential Hitler heirs. Nobody could possibly want to go through life as Hitler, Junior. And a break for the rest of us.
Speaking of grand-scale murderers, Joseph Stalin kept a piece of what he thought was Hitler's skull on his desk for years. It turns out it wasn't authentic when the Soviet equivalent of the Antiques Road Show guys told him it was worthless as anything other than an ashtray. Which was quite a coincidence, since Stalin was using the skull as his "good luck ashtray" once the eye sockets broke apart from being used to open his beer bottles, when he called it his "good luck beer bottle opener."
There are over 162 million websites on the internet. This is one of them.
As it turns out, angels never congregate on the heads of pins, so no accurate measurement of how many of them can dance on one has been possible. However, four out of five dentists agree that the correct answer would be seventeen. The fifth dentist never agrees with anyone anyway, so who cares what he thinks?
And speaking of best guesses, entries in the online dictionary Wikipedia can be changed by anyone who feels like it, which doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in its accuracy. Most of us are sort of sticklers for encyclopedia entries being written by people who know what the hell they're talking about.
Approximately 6% of all people ever born are alive right now. That's pretty meaningless, no? Plus, that's another one of those best-guess propositions, so that figure isn't exactly etched in stone.
The world's most popular first name is Mohammed. Second most popular? A surprise there: Butch.
There are 44 kings and queens in the world today, all claiming to be ordained by God, as good an explanation as any for the fact that their subjects haven't risen as one and tossed their high-living asses out in the street.
In 2007, the last year for which these statistics are available, airlines throughout the world misplaced 40 million pieces of luggage, 10 million more than the previous year. Out of the 40 million, 1 million were never recovered. Which sort of makes you wonder where a pile of 1 million suitcases could possibly be hidden. Less puzzling is the fact that airlines drag their feet when it comes to reporting these statistics.
People in Canada actually think that being Canadian is on the level even though the rest of the world knows Canada is really America-Lite. Most people are too kind to point out the truth, just like they do for the people of France-Lite, the "nation" of Belgium.
The longest running drama on American television was the western Gunsmoke, with 633 episodes from 1955 to 1975, all of which had the same cast of James Arness as Marshall Matt Dillon, Milburn Stone as Doc, Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty, the owner of the Long Branch Saloon who dressed like an Old West bar whore (and looked exactly the same after 20 years) and Clem Fuller as (what else?) Clem the big beefy bartender, with the exception of the whacky imbecile sidekick deputy role, with Ken Curtis as Festus Hagin replacing Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode after a few years. The show was as comfortable and predictable as an old beat-up shoe, which every member of the cast except Miss Kitty started to resemble after a while. Odds are you probably won't watch it on the Nickelodeon reruns, or even like it much if you do, but this is the Information Age and this is more information you don't need and really won't remember all that well but that you can't delete completely. No sense fighting it. That would be like living in the Bronze Age and avoiding bronze.
March 24, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 349
Few hookers actually have a heart of gold, which is not a professional handicap since that's not the organ she's selling.
THE PRESIDENT'S GOT THEM MEAN OLD BULLFROG BLUES
So, the president laughed on TV and that's big news, or at least a big topic of conversation about his sensitivity or perceived lack of it towards the plight of many working people who are suffering in this bleak economic climate. Well, to some of us it looks like a simple case of the Bullfrog Blues. The what, you say? The Bullfrog Blues, where the lyrics describe a situation where "you got to wake up laughing, laughing just to keep from crying." First recorded by its author blues man William Harris in 1928 and widely popularized by the great blues/rock band Canned Heat in the late 1960's, "Bullfrog Blues" describes having "one woman on your mind" that presumably doesn't have you on her mind anymore, but can be used to describe any situation that's so frustrating you've got to laugh to keep from crying.
And crying is what a lot people would be tempted to do if they got to be the President of The United States and and found out that the guy who had the job before them screwed up the place in more ways than you would think humanly possible. Well, it seems the breathtakingly inept Bush The Younger spent eight years with an unblemished record, having never made a correct decision about anything. He inherited a balanced budget, a financial surplus, a booming economy and peace and all he was expected to do was not screw things up too badly. Well, a quick glance at his previous life reveals that Bush The Younger screwed up everything he ever touched; the oil business (possibly the only man in history to ever lose money in the oil business), a baseball team (the lousy Texas Rangers) and the governorship of Texas, where he set records for both incompetence and retarded teenagers executed.
His crowning anti-achievement, however, was being the worst American President ever and into any possible future. He left the joint broke, with two unresolved wars, a Bill of Rights under attack (from him, no less, who swore to uphold the Constitution twice), a drowned New Orleans and an economy headed toward the Second Great Depression. So how do you follow an act like that? Is there a broom wide enough or a bottle of disinfectant strong enough to clean up after this man? The only people sorry to see him leave office were comedians and the super rich, the only two groups of people to prosper under his watch, and now even they are suffering. You know you've screwed up Big Time when even the very rich are losing money, something that hasn't happened since 1929.
So let's hope Mr. Obama can keep laughing. The guy's been busier than than a one-armed juggler since he took office, trying desperately to get the economy jump started so that the country can afford to fix the many other vexing problems we face in a lot of areas. The olive branch he sent to the Republicans has been sent back to him wrapped with a dead fish and the right wing media has been going into mouth-foaming overdrive to discredit his policies, even though the guy has only been on the job for two months. Then there's the desperate morons bringing up his birth certificate, a non-issue already disposed of during the campaign. Even evil old Shotgun Dick Cheney, the guy who decided to bring back the Spanish Inquisition, has gotten in on the act, bitching and moaning that his policy of torturing people just for the fun of it is being discarded. And still Obama maintains an eerie calm in the face of all this, and can even laugh at the irony of it all. That's just what we need right now. When you've got the Bullfrog Blues, that's the only thing to do in order to keep on keeping on.
And crying is what a lot people would be tempted to do if they got to be the President of The United States and and found out that the guy who had the job before them screwed up the place in more ways than you would think humanly possible. Well, it seems the breathtakingly inept Bush The Younger spent eight years with an unblemished record, having never made a correct decision about anything. He inherited a balanced budget, a financial surplus, a booming economy and peace and all he was expected to do was not screw things up too badly. Well, a quick glance at his previous life reveals that Bush The Younger screwed up everything he ever touched; the oil business (possibly the only man in history to ever lose money in the oil business), a baseball team (the lousy Texas Rangers) and the governorship of Texas, where he set records for both incompetence and retarded teenagers executed.
His crowning anti-achievement, however, was being the worst American President ever and into any possible future. He left the joint broke, with two unresolved wars, a Bill of Rights under attack (from him, no less, who swore to uphold the Constitution twice), a drowned New Orleans and an economy headed toward the Second Great Depression. So how do you follow an act like that? Is there a broom wide enough or a bottle of disinfectant strong enough to clean up after this man? The only people sorry to see him leave office were comedians and the super rich, the only two groups of people to prosper under his watch, and now even they are suffering. You know you've screwed up Big Time when even the very rich are losing money, something that hasn't happened since 1929.
So let's hope Mr. Obama can keep laughing. The guy's been busier than than a one-armed juggler since he took office, trying desperately to get the economy jump started so that the country can afford to fix the many other vexing problems we face in a lot of areas. The olive branch he sent to the Republicans has been sent back to him wrapped with a dead fish and the right wing media has been going into mouth-foaming overdrive to discredit his policies, even though the guy has only been on the job for two months. Then there's the desperate morons bringing up his birth certificate, a non-issue already disposed of during the campaign. Even evil old Shotgun Dick Cheney, the guy who decided to bring back the Spanish Inquisition, has gotten in on the act, bitching and moaning that his policy of torturing people just for the fun of it is being discarded. And still Obama maintains an eerie calm in the face of all this, and can even laugh at the irony of it all. That's just what we need right now. When you've got the Bullfrog Blues, that's the only thing to do in order to keep on keeping on.
March 23, 2009
DEFINITIONS
Good old language, that wonderful, uniquely human form of communication. Language is what we use to describe pretty much everything, from our inner thoughts and feelings to dump trucks. Used properly, it is a sublime form of communication, removing all barriers to understanding and even, in the form of poetry, elevating our souls. The flip side to mastering language is using it to deceive. Not necessarily out and out lying, since that's an art in itself, but misappropriating words to give them other meanings, sort of making it an anti-communication device. Take the word gay, for example, once a very descriptive and fun word describing an especially giddy and playful sort of happiness. Gay is now lost to us since it is used exclusively to identify homosexuals. Are all gays gay? All the time? That would be hard to imagine and they'd be a pretty annoying and shallow sub-set of humanity if they were.
Happily, that's not the case, and gay people seem to run the full gamut of human personalities. Another word is parent. Once it was a noun but like many other words (like party and mentor) it is being forced into double duty as a verb. Then there's combinations of words that negate the meaning of both of them, like "alternate reality" or "elastic definition." Those phases mean nothing, or anything you want them to, and that's the opposite of the aim of language. Language should not be ambiguous. It's a form of communication and description, and the more precise our language, the better we have communicated. We need not surrender to either duplicity or stupidity when it comes to our language, in this case English, but the suspicion here is that the trend towards appropriating language for purposes other than communication is universal. Here's some English words that we are letting get away from us:
Organic: Pretty much everything that is not a stone, an inert gas or water is organic, with our dictionary assuring us it means: "of, relating to, or derived from living matter." So you have all sorts of people marketing the food they produce as "organic" and you have to say to yourself, "well, I would hope so," organic being a pretty minimal standard to be met to qualify as food. And when the word organic is coupled with the words "all natural," count on the price to triple, but not necessarily the taste or nutritional benefits. There's a lot of foods being labeled as organic and a lot of fools buy it without asking the question "Organic what?" Shit is organic, too, and very natural.So is uranium, so maybe using some more accurate words like healthy or wholesome to describe the ingredients in your food products just might give us a better idea of what they are worth.
Natural: Like organic, the definition of the word natural is being rendered meaningless. The fact is, so far nothing has ever occurred that is outside of nature, not even once since the beginning of time. Something man-made is not unnatural, otherwise people themselves have to be considered not a part of nature. And if we are not part of nature then what are we doing here? Are we something we dreamt up? (Now there's a can of worms!) So the claim "all natural ingredients" has a pretty broad definition. For something to be truly unnatural, it would have to violate the immutable laws of nature, and so far nothing has. Stones don't roll uphill on their own, light hasn't sped up or slowed down and water still boils at precisely 212 degrees Farenheit. Monosodium glutamate is just as natural as a beaver dam, something that was put together from different existing materials by living creatures, all said creatures a part of nature as we know it. While MSG is not such a great thing, neither are beaver dams if you don't happen to be a beaver.
Neo-Conservative: There's nothing "neo" about being conservative. Either you are or you aren't and if you are, you haven't invented anything new to warrant the neo label. Had the Neo-Con movement produced any new ideas, on the other hand, then they would be welcome to their neo, but that wasn't the case. The word "conservative" implies the avoidance of innovation, to conserve what has always been. Here's the dictionary definition: "holding to traditional values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." As a noun, conservative is defined: " a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes." So that whole "Conservative revolution" back in the 1990's was a contradiction in terms. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about conservatism.
Liberal: Defined as "open to new behavior and willing to discard traditional values," or in politics: "favoring maximum individual liberty in political or social reform," the term liberal does not always mean these things lately. Many liberals follow what is by now old and traditional policies and ideas, often ignoring the rights and liberties of others to disagree with them. Truly liberal ideas like granting homosexuals equal rights under the law meet with a lot of resistance from a lot of liberals. Maybe if homosexuals offer to give the word gay back to us, liberals might change their tune and stop being so repressive and, well, conservative.
Text: Like parent and mentor, the word text has been pressed into double duty, this time not by linguistic laziness but by an invention. When you are using this recent invention, you are not "texting," but are sending a text message, just as when you are writing or mailing a letter you are not "lettering." Any other use of the word would be stupiding.
Spinning: This word can mean many things, but none of them have to do with the truth or actual facts. You can spin the truth until you're dizzy and the sky will still be just as blue as it was before you started lying your ass off by misusing the medium of language. What is, is, period, amen, and no amount of spin doctoring, public relations, taking quotes out of context or "alternate explanations" can change that.And admitting a "misstatement" doesn't mean much either. We already have plenty of synonyms for that: lie, prevarication, falsehood, and so on.
These are just a few of the words we misuse in our lazy pursuit of anti-language and the cynical practice of non-communication. While languages constantly evolve, expand and change with the times, the idea is always to give us more and better options to express ourselves with as much clarity as we possibly can. In today's English language we have at our disposal more that 10 times the vocabulary that existed when William Shakespeare was writing. He did okay conveying his ideas, some of them quite complex and elliptical. The least we can do with our expanded arsenal is to speak and write plainly and clearly and to add to the joy and power of language, not detract from it. All we have is each other, so let's treat the way we communicate with the same respect and love that we feel for others. Barring that, if you hate everybody, at least have the nerve to make it crystal clear.
Happily, that's not the case, and gay people seem to run the full gamut of human personalities. Another word is parent. Once it was a noun but like many other words (like party and mentor) it is being forced into double duty as a verb. Then there's combinations of words that negate the meaning of both of them, like "alternate reality" or "elastic definition." Those phases mean nothing, or anything you want them to, and that's the opposite of the aim of language. Language should not be ambiguous. It's a form of communication and description, and the more precise our language, the better we have communicated. We need not surrender to either duplicity or stupidity when it comes to our language, in this case English, but the suspicion here is that the trend towards appropriating language for purposes other than communication is universal. Here's some English words that we are letting get away from us:
Organic: Pretty much everything that is not a stone, an inert gas or water is organic, with our dictionary assuring us it means: "of, relating to, or derived from living matter." So you have all sorts of people marketing the food they produce as "organic" and you have to say to yourself, "well, I would hope so," organic being a pretty minimal standard to be met to qualify as food. And when the word organic is coupled with the words "all natural," count on the price to triple, but not necessarily the taste or nutritional benefits. There's a lot of foods being labeled as organic and a lot of fools buy it without asking the question "Organic what?" Shit is organic, too, and very natural.So is uranium, so maybe using some more accurate words like healthy or wholesome to describe the ingredients in your food products just might give us a better idea of what they are worth.
Natural: Like organic, the definition of the word natural is being rendered meaningless. The fact is, so far nothing has ever occurred that is outside of nature, not even once since the beginning of time. Something man-made is not unnatural, otherwise people themselves have to be considered not a part of nature. And if we are not part of nature then what are we doing here? Are we something we dreamt up? (Now there's a can of worms!) So the claim "all natural ingredients" has a pretty broad definition. For something to be truly unnatural, it would have to violate the immutable laws of nature, and so far nothing has. Stones don't roll uphill on their own, light hasn't sped up or slowed down and water still boils at precisely 212 degrees Farenheit. Monosodium glutamate is just as natural as a beaver dam, something that was put together from different existing materials by living creatures, all said creatures a part of nature as we know it. While MSG is not such a great thing, neither are beaver dams if you don't happen to be a beaver.
Neo-Conservative: There's nothing "neo" about being conservative. Either you are or you aren't and if you are, you haven't invented anything new to warrant the neo label. Had the Neo-Con movement produced any new ideas, on the other hand, then they would be welcome to their neo, but that wasn't the case. The word "conservative" implies the avoidance of innovation, to conserve what has always been. Here's the dictionary definition: "holding to traditional values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." As a noun, conservative is defined: " a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes." So that whole "Conservative revolution" back in the 1990's was a contradiction in terms. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about conservatism.
Liberal: Defined as "open to new behavior and willing to discard traditional values," or in politics: "favoring maximum individual liberty in political or social reform," the term liberal does not always mean these things lately. Many liberals follow what is by now old and traditional policies and ideas, often ignoring the rights and liberties of others to disagree with them. Truly liberal ideas like granting homosexuals equal rights under the law meet with a lot of resistance from a lot of liberals. Maybe if homosexuals offer to give the word gay back to us, liberals might change their tune and stop being so repressive and, well, conservative.
Text: Like parent and mentor, the word text has been pressed into double duty, this time not by linguistic laziness but by an invention. When you are using this recent invention, you are not "texting," but are sending a text message, just as when you are writing or mailing a letter you are not "lettering." Any other use of the word would be stupiding.
Spinning: This word can mean many things, but none of them have to do with the truth or actual facts. You can spin the truth until you're dizzy and the sky will still be just as blue as it was before you started lying your ass off by misusing the medium of language. What is, is, period, amen, and no amount of spin doctoring, public relations, taking quotes out of context or "alternate explanations" can change that.And admitting a "misstatement" doesn't mean much either. We already have plenty of synonyms for that: lie, prevarication, falsehood, and so on.
These are just a few of the words we misuse in our lazy pursuit of anti-language and the cynical practice of non-communication. While languages constantly evolve, expand and change with the times, the idea is always to give us more and better options to express ourselves with as much clarity as we possibly can. In today's English language we have at our disposal more that 10 times the vocabulary that existed when William Shakespeare was writing. He did okay conveying his ideas, some of them quite complex and elliptical. The least we can do with our expanded arsenal is to speak and write plainly and clearly and to add to the joy and power of language, not detract from it. All we have is each other, so let's treat the way we communicate with the same respect and love that we feel for others. Barring that, if you hate everybody, at least have the nerve to make it crystal clear.
March 21, 2009
GUEST BLOGGER: ED THE POLAR BEAR WEIGHS IN
My name is Ed and I'm a Polar bear. The people at Bob Crespo Speaks have been kind enough to allow me this forum to address a lot of discussions about me and my fellow Polar Bears that has been going on in human society. We bears know people are pretty fascinated with us, what with all the camera crews you people send up north to film us and those tourist buses on tractor treads that drive right into our damned living rooms, so to speak. Frankly, its been kind of annoying. I can't tell you how many hunts you people have ruined for me, and I'm only one bear. You think maybe you can tell the announcer to shut the fuck up next time and just dub in his lame comments later in the studio? I'm a Polar Bear and even I know about voiceovers, dammit! When the seals hear one of you pompous clowns using his dopey "serious narrator" voice they know immediately there's a hungry bear ready to pounce and they beat it pronto. Thanks for nothing!
Plus there's all that hardware involved in filming TV shows; the cameras and the trucks and snowmobiles, the wires and all the klieg lights, to say nothing of that roaring generator you need to produce the electricity for all that crap, plus heaters, your coffee pots, microwave ovens and your damned computers and screechy televisions and radios. There's not exactly a whole lot of electric outlets handy up here in Antarctica, so you bring a mini-version of your own environment with you and then pretend you're braving the elements. Do you assholes think all that stuff is silent and invisible? Maybe to your TV audiences it is, who only get to see what's on one side of the camera. We bears know better, and that jefkoff with the parka and the goggles perched jauntily on his forehead where they don't do him any good can't get into the trailer fast enough to get naked with the make-up lady in the heated jacuzzi when he's finished droning his idiotic lines and squinting into the camera like he's Daniel Boone out conquering the untamed wilderness all by his lonesome. Oh, he's a real he-man all right, protected by 5 big guys with hunting rifles the viewer doesn't get to see either.
At least the Eskimos we used to deal with didn't have anything but their coats, kayaks and spears, and lived in ice igloos that didn't require tearing up the entire Antarctic to build. Then they met the rest of you, and the hunting encounters between us and them became pretty one-sided. At least when they were hunting us before, there was an even chance that we would be enjoying some raw Eskimo, not quite as tasty and fatty as seal meat, but a pretty decent meal if you ate two of them. Then all of a sudden they all had high powered rifles and snowmobiles and went to town hunting Polar Bears and selling our skins so rich people could make love on us in their ski lodges. We don't mind so much getting killed and eaten, that's the way of the world up here for all of us eventually, but there's something wrong with being left out there to freeze uneaten while your hide is a thousand miles away getting stained with love juices from some fat, sweaty lawyer and his mistress.
So now we get word that all the countries that border our territory got together and decided they wanted to protect us Polar Bears. Great, now we're really in for some interference in our seal hunts. Not only that, they've sent teams of idiots up here to study our love lives! How would like me and a couple of my buddies to watch you puny hairless monkeys doing the wild thing? That can be arranged, you know. We've had a few meetings of our own in Polar Bear Land, and guess what? We've decided we've had enough of your protection and your damned interference so we've put you on our endangered species list, with us doing the endangering! That's right, Peeping Toms, we've issued orders to eat on sight regarding humans with cameras. For your information, Polar Bears adapted once to changing climate conditions and we will do it again if we have to, with you or without you. You people tend to screw up everything you touch so we'll thank you to look after your own heinies and not ours, unless you want to risk one of us chomping on your ample butt. This is Ed the Polar Bear casting my vote to muddle through whatever comes without your input.
Plus there's all that hardware involved in filming TV shows; the cameras and the trucks and snowmobiles, the wires and all the klieg lights, to say nothing of that roaring generator you need to produce the electricity for all that crap, plus heaters, your coffee pots, microwave ovens and your damned computers and screechy televisions and radios. There's not exactly a whole lot of electric outlets handy up here in Antarctica, so you bring a mini-version of your own environment with you and then pretend you're braving the elements. Do you assholes think all that stuff is silent and invisible? Maybe to your TV audiences it is, who only get to see what's on one side of the camera. We bears know better, and that jefkoff with the parka and the goggles perched jauntily on his forehead where they don't do him any good can't get into the trailer fast enough to get naked with the make-up lady in the heated jacuzzi when he's finished droning his idiotic lines and squinting into the camera like he's Daniel Boone out conquering the untamed wilderness all by his lonesome. Oh, he's a real he-man all right, protected by 5 big guys with hunting rifles the viewer doesn't get to see either.
At least the Eskimos we used to deal with didn't have anything but their coats, kayaks and spears, and lived in ice igloos that didn't require tearing up the entire Antarctic to build. Then they met the rest of you, and the hunting encounters between us and them became pretty one-sided. At least when they were hunting us before, there was an even chance that we would be enjoying some raw Eskimo, not quite as tasty and fatty as seal meat, but a pretty decent meal if you ate two of them. Then all of a sudden they all had high powered rifles and snowmobiles and went to town hunting Polar Bears and selling our skins so rich people could make love on us in their ski lodges. We don't mind so much getting killed and eaten, that's the way of the world up here for all of us eventually, but there's something wrong with being left out there to freeze uneaten while your hide is a thousand miles away getting stained with love juices from some fat, sweaty lawyer and his mistress.
So now we get word that all the countries that border our territory got together and decided they wanted to protect us Polar Bears. Great, now we're really in for some interference in our seal hunts. Not only that, they've sent teams of idiots up here to study our love lives! How would like me and a couple of my buddies to watch you puny hairless monkeys doing the wild thing? That can be arranged, you know. We've had a few meetings of our own in Polar Bear Land, and guess what? We've decided we've had enough of your protection and your damned interference so we've put you on our endangered species list, with us doing the endangering! That's right, Peeping Toms, we've issued orders to eat on sight regarding humans with cameras. For your information, Polar Bears adapted once to changing climate conditions and we will do it again if we have to, with you or without you. You people tend to screw up everything you touch so we'll thank you to look after your own heinies and not ours, unless you want to risk one of us chomping on your ample butt. This is Ed the Polar Bear casting my vote to muddle through whatever comes without your input.
DOPOTO REPORTS: NOT EVERYONE IS ON THE SAME PAGE
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been following the news diligently, which is what we do around here, seeking signs that our nation is coming together to solve a very vexing set of problems. So far there's not a huge body of evidence suggesting a unified effort. In the financial sector, outside of throwing mad money around and demonizing a certain few executives, it seems that the industry-wide chaos that led to the current financial meltdown still reigns. Research here at The Department seems to indicate that the only thing preventing a rain of banker and stockbroker suicides from the gleaming towers of Wall Street is the fact that modern skyscrapers don't have windows that can be opened.
Studies further indicate that this architectural feature, coupled with general inertia, is inhibiting a healthy changing of the guard at the highest corporate levels. The fact that the leadership in most of the troubled banks, investment houses and insurance firms has remained the same is only contributing to the problem and the economic recovery is being stalled by the many dimwits who have somehow found themselves in charge of these institutions. The recommendation here is to fire everybody who lost money running a bank, an accomplishment that a few years ago would be hard to imagine. They are, after all, banks, and banks are designed to do only one thing, to earn money. Does anyone open a bakery and not bake bread?
On the political front, there is much ballyhoo over global warming and alternative energy. In California, where there is a giant desert called the Mojave, many people have proposed installing solar energy collectors, the thinking being that this is a desert where the sun shines mercilessly all the time. "Not so fast," says California Senator Diane Feinstein, there is the beauty of the desert to be considered, and the large tortoise population. DOPOTO will have to take her word for it on that beauty-of-the-desert idea since we have no one at The Department willing to go to a desert and check it out. None of us here is a tortoise able to withstand life in a barren wasteland. No word on where Senator Feinstein would prefer to place the solar power facilities, but one of California's nicknames is "The Sunshine State" so presumably she's got a backup plan to place them outside of the 25,000 square miles of ideal terrain for solar power that is the Mojave Desert. The Department eagerly awaits her ideas and proposals.
On a similar note, no volunteers were available to visit the Arctic to check out the Polar Bear problem, what with it being 40 below zero half the time and human beings being about the same size as seals, the Polar Bears' go-to meal of choice. So, once again DOPOTO is dependent upon the numerous reports of impending climate change emanating from governments, scientists and corporations. It seems that there is no exact agreement on this global warming premise as far as its severity, the timing of the apocalypse and whether or not we can do anything about it except make documentaries and write reports. What we do here is write a whole lot of reports so the hope is that we're doing our part to prevent catastrophic climate change.
In more political news, it seems that the President of Iran is really not the President of Iran. America's new president, Barack Obama, made peaceful overtures to the nation of Iran, figuring their government would respond to it one way or another. But in Iran, there's a creepy guy in a funny hat and black robes that has authority over their president, and it's not the Iranian Supreme Court. It is instead someone called their "Supreme Leader," a powerful religious guy sort of like Popes of previous centuries that wielded enormous political clout. This guy, being really old and in no danger of actually having to fight himself, has ruled out peace as something he'd like to talk about.
To be fair, The Supreme Leader of Iran is simply following a human custom as old as civilization itself: old guys wanting even more money and power firing up young guys to go fight and die in pursuit of the the old guys' objectives. It is a system that works. Not very well, unfortunately, but it does work. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has studied numerous wars and it seems that no leader of any nation has actually picked up a weapon in many centuries, when kings realized that going into battle themselves only results in one of them getting his head cut off as a trophy for the other king. The thinking among world leaders, Supreme or otherwise, is that there are a whole lot of expendable heads available to do the dirty work.
And so in all areas of human endeavor, the squabbles continue, waiting for someone to come up with a good idea so that it can be alternately praised or condemned. Research indicates, however, that good ideas seem to win out eventually in spite of any objections. A good case in point is the world of medicine, where doctors no longer think there is any such thing as "ill humors," bleeding sick people doesn't help their situation all that much and simple sanitation saves more lives than a thousand medicines. Of course this realization took centuries to sink in, with many a hapless patient dying at the hands of filthy quacks, but that is the nature of the human beast, as hard-headed a creature as any. The word "ignoramus" was not invented to describe any other creature but man. This has been a report from DOPOTO, where pointing out the obvious is our only skill.
Studies further indicate that this architectural feature, coupled with general inertia, is inhibiting a healthy changing of the guard at the highest corporate levels. The fact that the leadership in most of the troubled banks, investment houses and insurance firms has remained the same is only contributing to the problem and the economic recovery is being stalled by the many dimwits who have somehow found themselves in charge of these institutions. The recommendation here is to fire everybody who lost money running a bank, an accomplishment that a few years ago would be hard to imagine. They are, after all, banks, and banks are designed to do only one thing, to earn money. Does anyone open a bakery and not bake bread?
On the political front, there is much ballyhoo over global warming and alternative energy. In California, where there is a giant desert called the Mojave, many people have proposed installing solar energy collectors, the thinking being that this is a desert where the sun shines mercilessly all the time. "Not so fast," says California Senator Diane Feinstein, there is the beauty of the desert to be considered, and the large tortoise population. DOPOTO will have to take her word for it on that beauty-of-the-desert idea since we have no one at The Department willing to go to a desert and check it out. None of us here is a tortoise able to withstand life in a barren wasteland. No word on where Senator Feinstein would prefer to place the solar power facilities, but one of California's nicknames is "The Sunshine State" so presumably she's got a backup plan to place them outside of the 25,000 square miles of ideal terrain for solar power that is the Mojave Desert. The Department eagerly awaits her ideas and proposals.
On a similar note, no volunteers were available to visit the Arctic to check out the Polar Bear problem, what with it being 40 below zero half the time and human beings being about the same size as seals, the Polar Bears' go-to meal of choice. So, once again DOPOTO is dependent upon the numerous reports of impending climate change emanating from governments, scientists and corporations. It seems that there is no exact agreement on this global warming premise as far as its severity, the timing of the apocalypse and whether or not we can do anything about it except make documentaries and write reports. What we do here is write a whole lot of reports so the hope is that we're doing our part to prevent catastrophic climate change.
In more political news, it seems that the President of Iran is really not the President of Iran. America's new president, Barack Obama, made peaceful overtures to the nation of Iran, figuring their government would respond to it one way or another. But in Iran, there's a creepy guy in a funny hat and black robes that has authority over their president, and it's not the Iranian Supreme Court. It is instead someone called their "Supreme Leader," a powerful religious guy sort of like Popes of previous centuries that wielded enormous political clout. This guy, being really old and in no danger of actually having to fight himself, has ruled out peace as something he'd like to talk about.
To be fair, The Supreme Leader of Iran is simply following a human custom as old as civilization itself: old guys wanting even more money and power firing up young guys to go fight and die in pursuit of the the old guys' objectives. It is a system that works. Not very well, unfortunately, but it does work. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has studied numerous wars and it seems that no leader of any nation has actually picked up a weapon in many centuries, when kings realized that going into battle themselves only results in one of them getting his head cut off as a trophy for the other king. The thinking among world leaders, Supreme or otherwise, is that there are a whole lot of expendable heads available to do the dirty work.
And so in all areas of human endeavor, the squabbles continue, waiting for someone to come up with a good idea so that it can be alternately praised or condemned. Research indicates, however, that good ideas seem to win out eventually in spite of any objections. A good case in point is the world of medicine, where doctors no longer think there is any such thing as "ill humors," bleeding sick people doesn't help their situation all that much and simple sanitation saves more lives than a thousand medicines. Of course this realization took centuries to sink in, with many a hapless patient dying at the hands of filthy quacks, but that is the nature of the human beast, as hard-headed a creature as any. The word "ignoramus" was not invented to describe any other creature but man. This has been a report from DOPOTO, where pointing out the obvious is our only skill.
March 20, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 345
If you think numbers have a mystical significance, here's one for you: Zero.
INTRODUCING SHITHEAD: THAT'S MISTER SHITHEAD TO YOU!
Shithead here. That's what my friends call me, but to you it's Mister Shithead. I have been invited to be the guest blogger here at bobcrespo.com, and it's about friggin' time! You're probably asking yourself, why Mister Shithead? Well, because I'm Mister Shithead and you're not, you lame bozo! I represent a significant portion of humanity, and give voice to the Shitheads of this world. Got a problem with that? The clowns here at bobcrespo.com finally realized that this website desperately needs some new blood, and Mister Shithead was available cheap so here we are.
What to talk about? Usually, that would be myself, since Shitheads can't seem to get enough of that subject, but not today. Today I bitch and moan about the lack of respect given my brethren and sistren. What the hell would you fools talk about with all the Shitheads out there, without whom you would be nothing? From Donald Trump to Madonna, and all the Shitheads in between, you can't seem to get enough of our kind. Just because our main man Bush The Younger went away doesn't mean we all have. At least he didn't get killed by some lame stingray like the Crocodile Hunting Shithead did. No, Dumbya is out there courting arrest by intentional military tribunals, letting the whole world know that he still doesn't get it! And why should he? He's one of us, a real Shithead and proud of it.
Oh, that bothers you, does it? Too friggin' bad! You want it to be all about you, then you go out and do something incredibly stupid! How about his ex-boss, Shotgun Dick Cheney? Now there's a Hall of Fame Shithead if ever there was one. I get goose bumps when he goes on TV and defends torture and the repeal of The Bill of Rights. He's my hero. He even has his own fan club, called Fox News.That's an organization we Shitheads can relate to! If you want some real foam-at-the-mouth phony outrage and made-up facts, Fox News is your go-to place on the dial, as reliable as the sunrise. Tell me Bill O'Really and Glen Blecch aren't the biggest Shitheads on TV!
And if you like those guys you'll love Lush Limburger, the fat drug addict radio guy who just got promoted to being the boss of all bosses of the Republican Party, beating out his two main female rivals for the title, Anne Coltish and Sarah Impaler. Take that, Feminazis! This Shithead says it's about damned time someone rescued the GOP from the margins of power and brought the rest of the Shitheads into the fold. Good Old Lush is getting even richer by becoming a traitor, wishing his president and therefore his country to fail! It's a beautiful thing. That ought to keep him in Hillbilly Heroin for at least a decade.
You like entertainment news? Who doesn't? How about that Amy Winehouse, eh? Instead of bothering with that whole long-productive-career-flushed-down-the-toilet crap, she cut right to the chase and went into train wreck mode right off the bat. A true Shithead knows which side of the bread gets the most butter. She's reached a bigger audience than any 10 non-shithead artists in no time at all! And how can I forget world class Shitheads like Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson? These guys are out there working it! And how about Doctor Phil? What a guy! His personal life is something out of Jerry Springer Land and yet he has millions listening to his jerkoff advice. What's not to love?
Then you have your business tycoon Shitheads, no shortage of those guys out there lately. It seems they felt they weren't getting their fair share of publicity and had to do something dramatic to call attention to themselves. Did they ever! Nothing says "I'm a Shithead" like stealing all the money. Is there anybody on the planet who hasn't heard of Bernie Madoff by now? Well, he's famous and you're not, and the rest of the Shithead tycoons are getting more ink than Brad and Angelina these days. Oh, they took a lot of taxpayer dough in bonuses? Well, exactly who expected anything different? Bad enough they couldn't buy a new jet this year, they had to steal something! Like the punch line to that old joke about the lady and the snake says: "I never said I wasn't a snake!"
So, the rest of you, get the hell over it! It's a Shithead's World, and you just live in it. It's all about us, all the time. We like to call it "The Audacity of Dopes." We're the cloud in the silver lining, the thorn on the rose and the fly in your soup and you can't get enough of us. The woods are thick with Shitheads and I am their spokesman. I am Mister Shithead and I'm telling you fools that we're here to stay. Deal with it.
What to talk about? Usually, that would be myself, since Shitheads can't seem to get enough of that subject, but not today. Today I bitch and moan about the lack of respect given my brethren and sistren. What the hell would you fools talk about with all the Shitheads out there, without whom you would be nothing? From Donald Trump to Madonna, and all the Shitheads in between, you can't seem to get enough of our kind. Just because our main man Bush The Younger went away doesn't mean we all have. At least he didn't get killed by some lame stingray like the Crocodile Hunting Shithead did. No, Dumbya is out there courting arrest by intentional military tribunals, letting the whole world know that he still doesn't get it! And why should he? He's one of us, a real Shithead and proud of it.
Oh, that bothers you, does it? Too friggin' bad! You want it to be all about you, then you go out and do something incredibly stupid! How about his ex-boss, Shotgun Dick Cheney? Now there's a Hall of Fame Shithead if ever there was one. I get goose bumps when he goes on TV and defends torture and the repeal of The Bill of Rights. He's my hero. He even has his own fan club, called Fox News.That's an organization we Shitheads can relate to! If you want some real foam-at-the-mouth phony outrage and made-up facts, Fox News is your go-to place on the dial, as reliable as the sunrise. Tell me Bill O'Really and Glen Blecch aren't the biggest Shitheads on TV!
And if you like those guys you'll love Lush Limburger, the fat drug addict radio guy who just got promoted to being the boss of all bosses of the Republican Party, beating out his two main female rivals for the title, Anne Coltish and Sarah Impaler. Take that, Feminazis! This Shithead says it's about damned time someone rescued the GOP from the margins of power and brought the rest of the Shitheads into the fold. Good Old Lush is getting even richer by becoming a traitor, wishing his president and therefore his country to fail! It's a beautiful thing. That ought to keep him in Hillbilly Heroin for at least a decade.
You like entertainment news? Who doesn't? How about that Amy Winehouse, eh? Instead of bothering with that whole long-productive-career-flushed-down-the-toilet crap, she cut right to the chase and went into train wreck mode right off the bat. A true Shithead knows which side of the bread gets the most butter. She's reached a bigger audience than any 10 non-shithead artists in no time at all! And how can I forget world class Shitheads like Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson? These guys are out there working it! And how about Doctor Phil? What a guy! His personal life is something out of Jerry Springer Land and yet he has millions listening to his jerkoff advice. What's not to love?
Then you have your business tycoon Shitheads, no shortage of those guys out there lately. It seems they felt they weren't getting their fair share of publicity and had to do something dramatic to call attention to themselves. Did they ever! Nothing says "I'm a Shithead" like stealing all the money. Is there anybody on the planet who hasn't heard of Bernie Madoff by now? Well, he's famous and you're not, and the rest of the Shithead tycoons are getting more ink than Brad and Angelina these days. Oh, they took a lot of taxpayer dough in bonuses? Well, exactly who expected anything different? Bad enough they couldn't buy a new jet this year, they had to steal something! Like the punch line to that old joke about the lady and the snake says: "I never said I wasn't a snake!"
So, the rest of you, get the hell over it! It's a Shithead's World, and you just live in it. It's all about us, all the time. We like to call it "The Audacity of Dopes." We're the cloud in the silver lining, the thorn on the rose and the fly in your soup and you can't get enough of us. The woods are thick with Shitheads and I am their spokesman. I am Mister Shithead and I'm telling you fools that we're here to stay. Deal with it.
March 19, 2009
HARD TIMES? IT COULD BE WORSE
Things are getting harder around here. Money's tight, jobs are disappearing and the nobody seems to know when the recession will lift or if it will spiral out of control to become the Second Great Depression. But, it could be worse. You could be living in a Third World Country, one of those places where there's been a Great Depression for centuries. In a lot of these nations, motor transport is a rare sight, as is electricity, literacy, clean water and food. So be grateful you're an American, and be grateful you are not:
Glen Beck: One of the strangest individuals out there in TV land, this Fox Cable News political talking head is even stupider and crazier than Bill O'Really, no small achievement. And he cries a lot. Very creepy.
The President: How'd you like Barack Obama's job? He's got the unenviable task of cleaning up after our worst president ever and into the future. There is no area of government not left in a shambles by Bush The Younger and Shotgun Dick Cheney, co-consuls more off-the-wall than even the nuttiest Roman emperor.
A Saudi woman: Now there's an example of outrageous bad fortune, being born into a country that won't let you drive or vote or speak unless spoken to, places you under house arrest, covers you in a sack from head to toe and stones you to death when you get raped because you "asked for it" by leaving the house in your come-hither formless sack. And on top of all that, you've got a king in dress running the show and the whole country is a sweltering sandbox.
Donald Trump: On the face of it, the guy lives a charmed life; worth billions of dollars, has a whole bunch of giant buildings with his name on them in colossal letters, a string of sexy wives and girlfriends and his own TV show. But still, the man has to be Donald Trump for his whole life, and for that we must pity the man.
An AIG executive: The giant insurance company that nobody ever heard of before one of their 13 divisions went crazy with financial scams and nearly ruined the whole company, which then had to be bailed out by the U.S. government not once but three time to the tune of 170 billion dollars. So, there you were working for a super successful but fairly anonymous corporate giant one day, earning your great salary as well as big bonuses and nobody's the wiser, nor would they care one way or another, and you wake up one day as public enemy #1 with the whole country demanding you forfeit your multi-million dollar bonus. It's enough to make you want to weigh yourself down with gold bars and drown in your marble jacuzzi.
An economist: Is there a worse profession to be practicing these days? People didn't realize until it was too late that the title "economist" is pretty much a self-bestowed honor. When times are good, people look up to you like you are at least partly responsible for the general prosperity, and you get to feel real smart and important. Of course, what didn't occur to a lot of these people is that the rest of us sort of expect them to be able to understand the economy, what with them being economists and all. Turns out they were even more clueless than high school sophomores and predicted exactly none of the financial catastrophes that have occurred lately.
Homeless: If there's an area of endeavor in the United States suffering from a lot of new competition, it is being homeless. There's a whole lot of new blood entering the field, and the competition for cardboard boxes, warm grates, spare change and dumpster rights is growing fierce. The new jacks, especially all those snotty former economists, are horning in on long-established territories and throwing the industry into chaos.
Working at Wal Mart: Oh, you already do? Sorry about that. Here's hoping your life improves shortly and you don't get trampled to death by rabid shoppers before that day comes.
In jail: The influx of bankers and stockbrokers is making the misery of being in prison even worse. Already the price of cigarettes and heroin is skyrocketing thanks to these swindlers trying to corner the market on these jail house staples. They are even forming their own gangs in our penitentiaries, calling themselves The Money Boyz, forcing all the other formerly rival gangs to band together to beat up the Money Boyz on a regular basis. Prison Guards have their hands full looking the other way.
A Republican: The political party most responsible for the deregulation that led to corporate larceny on a huge scale and transferring trillions and trillions of dollars from the middle class to the super-wealthy which they then proceeded to blow, the Republican Party has been reduced to foaming at the mouth at every effort to correct their bonehead mistakes. At one time the GOP was the voice of fiscal conservatism and restraint, smart and reasonable people who loved their country, maybe a tad conservative for a lot of people, but earnest and well-meaning. No more.These days it resembles nothing more than the Flat Earth Society denouncing Galileo and calling for heretics to be burned at the stake. Having long since driven out all the smart and reasonable people from their ranks, it looks like it's Whig Party time for Republicans. Wonder what their replacement as the other political party will call themselves?
Canadian: You could be an anonymous Canadian, having no national identity outside of ice hockey and red-suited mounties and watching all your talented people emigrate to America. Sorry, Canucks, but being America-Lite and mispronouncing the word "about" does not a national identity make.
Glen Beck: One of the strangest individuals out there in TV land, this Fox Cable News political talking head is even stupider and crazier than Bill O'Really, no small achievement. And he cries a lot. Very creepy.
The President: How'd you like Barack Obama's job? He's got the unenviable task of cleaning up after our worst president ever and into the future. There is no area of government not left in a shambles by Bush The Younger and Shotgun Dick Cheney, co-consuls more off-the-wall than even the nuttiest Roman emperor.
A Saudi woman: Now there's an example of outrageous bad fortune, being born into a country that won't let you drive or vote or speak unless spoken to, places you under house arrest, covers you in a sack from head to toe and stones you to death when you get raped because you "asked for it" by leaving the house in your come-hither formless sack. And on top of all that, you've got a king in dress running the show and the whole country is a sweltering sandbox.
Donald Trump: On the face of it, the guy lives a charmed life; worth billions of dollars, has a whole bunch of giant buildings with his name on them in colossal letters, a string of sexy wives and girlfriends and his own TV show. But still, the man has to be Donald Trump for his whole life, and for that we must pity the man.
An AIG executive: The giant insurance company that nobody ever heard of before one of their 13 divisions went crazy with financial scams and nearly ruined the whole company, which then had to be bailed out by the U.S. government not once but three time to the tune of 170 billion dollars. So, there you were working for a super successful but fairly anonymous corporate giant one day, earning your great salary as well as big bonuses and nobody's the wiser, nor would they care one way or another, and you wake up one day as public enemy #1 with the whole country demanding you forfeit your multi-million dollar bonus. It's enough to make you want to weigh yourself down with gold bars and drown in your marble jacuzzi.
An economist: Is there a worse profession to be practicing these days? People didn't realize until it was too late that the title "economist" is pretty much a self-bestowed honor. When times are good, people look up to you like you are at least partly responsible for the general prosperity, and you get to feel real smart and important. Of course, what didn't occur to a lot of these people is that the rest of us sort of expect them to be able to understand the economy, what with them being economists and all. Turns out they were even more clueless than high school sophomores and predicted exactly none of the financial catastrophes that have occurred lately.
Homeless: If there's an area of endeavor in the United States suffering from a lot of new competition, it is being homeless. There's a whole lot of new blood entering the field, and the competition for cardboard boxes, warm grates, spare change and dumpster rights is growing fierce. The new jacks, especially all those snotty former economists, are horning in on long-established territories and throwing the industry into chaos.
Working at Wal Mart: Oh, you already do? Sorry about that. Here's hoping your life improves shortly and you don't get trampled to death by rabid shoppers before that day comes.
In jail: The influx of bankers and stockbrokers is making the misery of being in prison even worse. Already the price of cigarettes and heroin is skyrocketing thanks to these swindlers trying to corner the market on these jail house staples. They are even forming their own gangs in our penitentiaries, calling themselves The Money Boyz, forcing all the other formerly rival gangs to band together to beat up the Money Boyz on a regular basis. Prison Guards have their hands full looking the other way.
A Republican: The political party most responsible for the deregulation that led to corporate larceny on a huge scale and transferring trillions and trillions of dollars from the middle class to the super-wealthy which they then proceeded to blow, the Republican Party has been reduced to foaming at the mouth at every effort to correct their bonehead mistakes. At one time the GOP was the voice of fiscal conservatism and restraint, smart and reasonable people who loved their country, maybe a tad conservative for a lot of people, but earnest and well-meaning. No more.These days it resembles nothing more than the Flat Earth Society denouncing Galileo and calling for heretics to be burned at the stake. Having long since driven out all the smart and reasonable people from their ranks, it looks like it's Whig Party time for Republicans. Wonder what their replacement as the other political party will call themselves?
Canadian: You could be an anonymous Canadian, having no national identity outside of ice hockey and red-suited mounties and watching all your talented people emigrate to America. Sorry, Canucks, but being America-Lite and mispronouncing the word "about" does not a national identity make.
March 18, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 343
It's okay to make fun of the Amish on the internet. They'll never find out.
WHO SHOULD WE BE MAD AT TODAY?
Here's an idea: Let's all hate Bernie Madoff even though he never did anything to us! Feel better now? The guy didn't kill anybody, didn't start a war, isn't a child molester and didn't sell meth-amphetamine. What he did is do this country a favor and expose a corrupted system and a lot of corrupt people, himself included. He's a con man, possibly the best one who ever lived. What he did was offer rich people unrealistically high returns on their investments, returns even a moron knows could have only been gotten illegally. Like all pyramid schemes, the early investors collected their 30% returns on their money like clockwork and never dreamed of alerting the authorities about what was obviously a scam. They were getting theirs and that's all that mattered, figuring this heroin dealer-type of profit margin was their due as patricians. And like all pyramid schemes the thing eventually blew up in everyone's face and their money went poof.
Well, these formerly rich people sure have a lot to say now, don't they? And they would like you and I to hate Bernie Madoff like he was the second coming of Hitler or something. Bullshit! The guy simply followed the con man's credo as laid down by W.C. Fields: "It's a sin to let a sucker keep any of his money." And this consummate con man also knew what every con man knows, that you cannot cheat an honest man. And if you had millions or billions in the first place, why would an honest man play it anything but safe with all that dough? Even the best of the best of Madoff's competitors couldn't promise half that amount of profit.
So what did that tell the greedy? That Madoff was "The Wizard of Wall Street." Yeah, right, and John Dillinger was the Baron of Banking. So this country got a 50 billion dollar lesson on what can happen when Wall Street regulation is nonexistent. Not that we needed it on top of the $10 trillion plus that the nation's banks, investment houses and insurance firms also made disappear, but it is an opportunity to examine the real motivations of America's super wealthy people. Turns out that it's greed, pure and simple. People that were already very wealthy and set for life thought it would be great if they could have more and more and more and more and fuck everybody else!
None of these fools thought of the sustainability of the great engines of our economy, their continuance for future generations. They even sabotaged the futures of their own children, for a century educated and groomed to join them in the lucrative financial service industries. Such is their greed that they screwed even their own children! And they join the chorus of boos directed at Bernie Madoff, who was at least an honest thief who did not claim otherwise when he got caught. These other guys want to hide behind a lot of misdirected phony anger and try to distance themselves from Madoff. Nice try, boneheads, but nobody's buying what you're selling anymore. Bernie only stole a mere 50 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to the sums these guys looted.
The Bush The Younger Administration took trillions out of the pockets of the middle classes and gave it directly to the super wealthy in the form of massive tax cuts for the rich, the largest peaceful transfer of wealth in human history. The lie is that this was done to generate investments and jobs. The truth is that they wanted it and took it because they could, period. There was no political philosophy other than greed, and the jobs and investments never materialized. The money went into jets, art collections, wine cellars, fabulous mansions and phony scams on a far greater scale that Madoff's. Think of Nero building himself a colossal palace on an island in a huge man-made lake in the middle of Rome with the proceeds from looting Solomon's temple. How'd that work out for the average Roman? Not so good, and not good for Nero either, who committed suicide at age 30, one step ahead of his approaching executioners.
Wages and jobs were cut and no provisions made for ensuring that even their own industries had a future. And just like Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the whole economy blew up in all our faces. Trillions were siphoned out of the marketplace without the production of any goods or services. Money was being bundled in toxic packages and tossed around in a game of hot potato. The thinking was that they could get away with this indefinitely, like they were jugglers who never needed sleep. Who the fuck did they think they were kidding? And who do they think they are kidding now with their lame ass excuses and open extortion of government billions which they continue to mismanage and steal? Bernie needs some company in jail, and lots of it.
Not only that, but the guys who inherit the jobs of these pirates need to have their asses as closely regulated as the Marines. Nobody rises to the top ranks in the financial world without becoming rich, that's always been the case. But there were were limits; legal, ethical and practical. You don't slaughter the golden goose, you feed the damned thing and take good care of it to make sure it stays alive to keep laying those golden eggs. The founding fathers of big time American capitalism, people like J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller may not have been the most appealing of human beings, but when they died they left behind thriving industries providing jobs and wealth to millions. These guys knew what capitalism was all about, that it is not a today thing, but an ongoing enterprise, a system designed to continue, to grow and to provide.
Ford paid significantly higher wages to his workers than his competitors with his reasoning being that he wanted a good product made by diligent, satisfied workers. He also wanted those workers to join the middle class and be able to buy the cars they were producing. Carnegie gave away the great steel fortune he accumulated, possibly worth more than Bill Gates' fortune when you factor in inflation, and sold his steel business to others who kept it going and thriving. These guys were not MBA's schooled in naked greed, but smart businessmen that realized they are mortal but their businesses did not have to die with them, providing jobs, goods and services to succeeding generations, and continued wealth to their own families.
This sense of responsibility is considered quaint by today's corporate princes, who would rather steal then earn, would rather tear down than build, who see no tomorrow or next year or even next week. The bitch is, that they knew better but did what they did anyway and didn't give a rat's ass who they hurt so long as they accumulated obscene wealth. Madoff was no isolated case. In the world of high finance, he was even a small timer in comparison to the hijacking of America's wealth by the few, the unproud, the greedy. Line them all up, cuff them and put them in orange jumpsuits. Release the inmates whose main crime was being poor and make room for the wealthy ones. And put a big snarling watchdog on Wall Street to remind everybody that we're all in this together, rich, poor and middle class. Don't fuck with us again. And if it's okay with everybody, we'll decide who we're angry at today, and if it's not who we are instructed to vilify, well, so be it. Our eyes are open and the emperor's new clothes are not a pretty sight.
Well, these formerly rich people sure have a lot to say now, don't they? And they would like you and I to hate Bernie Madoff like he was the second coming of Hitler or something. Bullshit! The guy simply followed the con man's credo as laid down by W.C. Fields: "It's a sin to let a sucker keep any of his money." And this consummate con man also knew what every con man knows, that you cannot cheat an honest man. And if you had millions or billions in the first place, why would an honest man play it anything but safe with all that dough? Even the best of the best of Madoff's competitors couldn't promise half that amount of profit.
So what did that tell the greedy? That Madoff was "The Wizard of Wall Street." Yeah, right, and John Dillinger was the Baron of Banking. So this country got a 50 billion dollar lesson on what can happen when Wall Street regulation is nonexistent. Not that we needed it on top of the $10 trillion plus that the nation's banks, investment houses and insurance firms also made disappear, but it is an opportunity to examine the real motivations of America's super wealthy people. Turns out that it's greed, pure and simple. People that were already very wealthy and set for life thought it would be great if they could have more and more and more and more and fuck everybody else!
None of these fools thought of the sustainability of the great engines of our economy, their continuance for future generations. They even sabotaged the futures of their own children, for a century educated and groomed to join them in the lucrative financial service industries. Such is their greed that they screwed even their own children! And they join the chorus of boos directed at Bernie Madoff, who was at least an honest thief who did not claim otherwise when he got caught. These other guys want to hide behind a lot of misdirected phony anger and try to distance themselves from Madoff. Nice try, boneheads, but nobody's buying what you're selling anymore. Bernie only stole a mere 50 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to the sums these guys looted.
The Bush The Younger Administration took trillions out of the pockets of the middle classes and gave it directly to the super wealthy in the form of massive tax cuts for the rich, the largest peaceful transfer of wealth in human history. The lie is that this was done to generate investments and jobs. The truth is that they wanted it and took it because they could, period. There was no political philosophy other than greed, and the jobs and investments never materialized. The money went into jets, art collections, wine cellars, fabulous mansions and phony scams on a far greater scale that Madoff's. Think of Nero building himself a colossal palace on an island in a huge man-made lake in the middle of Rome with the proceeds from looting Solomon's temple. How'd that work out for the average Roman? Not so good, and not good for Nero either, who committed suicide at age 30, one step ahead of his approaching executioners.
Wages and jobs were cut and no provisions made for ensuring that even their own industries had a future. And just like Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the whole economy blew up in all our faces. Trillions were siphoned out of the marketplace without the production of any goods or services. Money was being bundled in toxic packages and tossed around in a game of hot potato. The thinking was that they could get away with this indefinitely, like they were jugglers who never needed sleep. Who the fuck did they think they were kidding? And who do they think they are kidding now with their lame ass excuses and open extortion of government billions which they continue to mismanage and steal? Bernie needs some company in jail, and lots of it.
Not only that, but the guys who inherit the jobs of these pirates need to have their asses as closely regulated as the Marines. Nobody rises to the top ranks in the financial world without becoming rich, that's always been the case. But there were were limits; legal, ethical and practical. You don't slaughter the golden goose, you feed the damned thing and take good care of it to make sure it stays alive to keep laying those golden eggs. The founding fathers of big time American capitalism, people like J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller may not have been the most appealing of human beings, but when they died they left behind thriving industries providing jobs and wealth to millions. These guys knew what capitalism was all about, that it is not a today thing, but an ongoing enterprise, a system designed to continue, to grow and to provide.
Ford paid significantly higher wages to his workers than his competitors with his reasoning being that he wanted a good product made by diligent, satisfied workers. He also wanted those workers to join the middle class and be able to buy the cars they were producing. Carnegie gave away the great steel fortune he accumulated, possibly worth more than Bill Gates' fortune when you factor in inflation, and sold his steel business to others who kept it going and thriving. These guys were not MBA's schooled in naked greed, but smart businessmen that realized they are mortal but their businesses did not have to die with them, providing jobs, goods and services to succeeding generations, and continued wealth to their own families.
This sense of responsibility is considered quaint by today's corporate princes, who would rather steal then earn, would rather tear down than build, who see no tomorrow or next year or even next week. The bitch is, that they knew better but did what they did anyway and didn't give a rat's ass who they hurt so long as they accumulated obscene wealth. Madoff was no isolated case. In the world of high finance, he was even a small timer in comparison to the hijacking of America's wealth by the few, the unproud, the greedy. Line them all up, cuff them and put them in orange jumpsuits. Release the inmates whose main crime was being poor and make room for the wealthy ones. And put a big snarling watchdog on Wall Street to remind everybody that we're all in this together, rich, poor and middle class. Don't fuck with us again. And if it's okay with everybody, we'll decide who we're angry at today, and if it's not who we are instructed to vilify, well, so be it. Our eyes are open and the emperor's new clothes are not a pretty sight.
March 17, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 342
You can make your dreams come true. Just make sure it isn't the one where you are on the subway wearing only underpants and dress shoes and trying to act casual about it while striking up a conversation with Teddy Roosevelt and and his companion Jimmy the Talking Beaver. That might be pretty awkward.
IT'S A GREAT DAY FOR THE QUARTER IRISH!
Well, it's St. Patrick's Day and the one-quarter Irish blood in my veins is flowing green. Courtesy of my sainted granny, born Bridget Moffet on a bleak farm hard by the Atlantic coast of Ireland, I am one-quarter irish. Truth be told, I feel more Irish than than anything else, I suppose because of my mother Mary who raised the four if us, and the woman who raised her that lived right upstairs and was a profound influence on all our lives. Plus, of the other three quarters of my ancestry, there weren't many people in Brooklyn who came from Spain or French Canada, so there wasn't what you would call a lot of interaction and role-modeling going on there. My father Ray, who's parents came from Spain, didn't even speak any Spanish, and my mother's father, Arthur Prunier, the Lake-Placid-born French Canadian, spoke only French until he went to school and only English afterwards. There were and are, however, no shortage of irish Americans in Brooklyn, as much a part of the place as Coney Island or Prospect Park, and a powerful presence.
Both men in our lives deferred to the ladies in the house when it came to rearing the four boisterous kids, so at least this American mutt feels the tug of my Irish ancestry more than any of the other parts. I can't speak for my brother John and sisters Beth and Nancee, but I do know that my brother has been known to dye his beard green and go on the Key West St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl, as bizarre a way as any to celebrate one's Irish Heritage, I suppose. And St. Patrick's Day is quite often about bizarre celebrations, probably having very little to do with being Irish. After all, he wasn't Irish either. By most accounts, Patrick was an Roman-Briton missionary, a former slave who escaped, got religion and went back to Ireland to spread Christianity.
My Grandmother the farm girl assured me he didn't drive all the snakes from Ireland and history assures us very little about the man except that he existed. One supposes he's as good a Patron Saint as any other, their lives being best shrouded in mystery and mystical lore. But the celebration of St. Patrick's Day does serve to remind us all of the great Irishness of the whole world, whether or not you're lucky enough to have any Irish blood in you. The Irish Diaspora has resulted in 80 million people so far (around 14% of everybody alive) with irish blood in them spread all over the world, pretty impressive for an Island nation of less than 6 million. And the Irish have left their mark on countless nations and have been part and parcel of the history of a lot of places besides Ireland.
Here's a few names of displaced Irish or part Irish: John F. Kennedy, George Washington, William Howard Taft, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush (okay, they can't all be hot stuff), Jefferson Davis, Henry Ford, Audie Murphy, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Diamond Jim Brady, John L. Sullivan, Ed Sullivan, Michael Moore, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John Huston., Harrison Ford, Georgia O'Keefe, Rosemary Clooney, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Philip Barry, Jean Kerr, Frank McCourt, Mickey Spillane, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, Regis Philbin, James Hetfield, Bing Crosby, The Dorsey Brothers, the McGuire Sisters, Billy Corgan, Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Gerry Mulligan and Jack Dempsey.
Those names are only the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and that's without even mentioning the Irish gangsters who played as big a part in history as many politicians and artists. And that's only the American Irish or part Irish. How about a couple of decent Irish-English songwriters you may have heard of, working class kids out of Liverpool named John Lennon and Paul McCartney? They didn't do so bad for themselves and the rest of us. Or a mixed blood kid out of Jamaica with an Irish name, one Bob Marley? There's also Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, many nations of the Caribbean and South America and all over Europe and the far East where the Irish have spread their poetry, their hard work, their humor, their infectious spirit and their stubborn determination to have their say.
Well, the Irish have had their say and continue to do so and the world is a better place for it. So strike up the band and let the parade begin. Hear the bagpipes screech and watch the cheerleaders brave the cold on 5th Avenue's St Patrick's Day Parade. Everyone's Irish today and this part-Irish American remembers Bridget Moffet with pride and still learns from her so many years after she's gone. She gave me love, laughter, patience and the benefit of her simple but profound wisdom, which I often ignored to my own peril before realizing I had the answers I needed when I was a child at her knee. But being part Irish, I had to bang my head on a few walls just to be sure they were as hard as I was told they were. Luckily, when I came back down to earth it was into the loving arms of the teachings of an Irish Granny. Here's to you, Bridget, and all the love you passed down to so many of us. You live on in a hundred descendants. Happy Paddy's Day, and may the wind be ever at your back.
Both men in our lives deferred to the ladies in the house when it came to rearing the four boisterous kids, so at least this American mutt feels the tug of my Irish ancestry more than any of the other parts. I can't speak for my brother John and sisters Beth and Nancee, but I do know that my brother has been known to dye his beard green and go on the Key West St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl, as bizarre a way as any to celebrate one's Irish Heritage, I suppose. And St. Patrick's Day is quite often about bizarre celebrations, probably having very little to do with being Irish. After all, he wasn't Irish either. By most accounts, Patrick was an Roman-Briton missionary, a former slave who escaped, got religion and went back to Ireland to spread Christianity.
My Grandmother the farm girl assured me he didn't drive all the snakes from Ireland and history assures us very little about the man except that he existed. One supposes he's as good a Patron Saint as any other, their lives being best shrouded in mystery and mystical lore. But the celebration of St. Patrick's Day does serve to remind us all of the great Irishness of the whole world, whether or not you're lucky enough to have any Irish blood in you. The Irish Diaspora has resulted in 80 million people so far (around 14% of everybody alive) with irish blood in them spread all over the world, pretty impressive for an Island nation of less than 6 million. And the Irish have left their mark on countless nations and have been part and parcel of the history of a lot of places besides Ireland.
Here's a few names of displaced Irish or part Irish: John F. Kennedy, George Washington, William Howard Taft, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush (okay, they can't all be hot stuff), Jefferson Davis, Henry Ford, Audie Murphy, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Diamond Jim Brady, John L. Sullivan, Ed Sullivan, Michael Moore, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John Huston., Harrison Ford, Georgia O'Keefe, Rosemary Clooney, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Philip Barry, Jean Kerr, Frank McCourt, Mickey Spillane, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, Regis Philbin, James Hetfield, Bing Crosby, The Dorsey Brothers, the McGuire Sisters, Billy Corgan, Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Gerry Mulligan and Jack Dempsey.
Those names are only the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and that's without even mentioning the Irish gangsters who played as big a part in history as many politicians and artists. And that's only the American Irish or part Irish. How about a couple of decent Irish-English songwriters you may have heard of, working class kids out of Liverpool named John Lennon and Paul McCartney? They didn't do so bad for themselves and the rest of us. Or a mixed blood kid out of Jamaica with an Irish name, one Bob Marley? There's also Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, many nations of the Caribbean and South America and all over Europe and the far East where the Irish have spread their poetry, their hard work, their humor, their infectious spirit and their stubborn determination to have their say.
Well, the Irish have had their say and continue to do so and the world is a better place for it. So strike up the band and let the parade begin. Hear the bagpipes screech and watch the cheerleaders brave the cold on 5th Avenue's St Patrick's Day Parade. Everyone's Irish today and this part-Irish American remembers Bridget Moffet with pride and still learns from her so many years after she's gone. She gave me love, laughter, patience and the benefit of her simple but profound wisdom, which I often ignored to my own peril before realizing I had the answers I needed when I was a child at her knee. But being part Irish, I had to bang my head on a few walls just to be sure they were as hard as I was told they were. Luckily, when I came back down to earth it was into the loving arms of the teachings of an Irish Granny. Here's to you, Bridget, and all the love you passed down to so many of us. You live on in a hundred descendants. Happy Paddy's Day, and may the wind be ever at your back.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 341
Give a man a fish and you feed him once. Teach a man to fish and you can visit his wife every weekend.
THINGS THAT ARE NOT SURPRISING
Some things in life come as a surprise, even some events we should have seen coming, like the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, and the fall of the entire world's economy last year. Of course, after the fact, "experts" crawl out of the wood work pointing out the signs that were there all along that showed what would happen. Which sort of makes us wonder how they got the title of "expert" in the first place and wonder why they don't just shut the fuck up now that the horse is out of the barn and halfway across the county. Where was their expertise and their big mouths when it could have made a difference? The rest of us have always relied on experts in their various fields to keep us informed on things we're not so sure about.
That's what doctors are all about, no? While they can't cure every single disease, you sure as hell don't expect them to be surprised when you get gravely ill or drop dead. It's sort of their job to keep abreast of things that will harm or kill us. It's not a perfect system but it works better than most arrangements we have with experts. Take lawyers, for example. Most of us come away from our experiences with lawyers feeling not so good about them, which, to be fair to them, is often the result of our behaving so poorly that we need a lawyer to get us out of trouble. Maybe it's not only their reptilian personalities that contribute to their general disrepute. So we shouldn't be surprised when some things happen, whatever the experts say afterwards. Some examples:
Death of The Crocodile Hunter: Steve Irwin's self-invented title was not "The Canary Hunter" or "The Lamb Hunter" or "The Poodle Hunter." No, this guy made his living annoying the crap out of gigantic man-eating crocodiles! Why was anyone shocked that he got himself killed? The only surprise is that he lived as long as he did. The bigger surprise, however, is that is wasn't a crocodile that killed him. No, this time for a change of pace he was annoying the crap out of a sting ray, and so it stung him. Case closed.
Twittering: Not so surprising is the fact that nitwits enjoy the practice of constant twittering. A twitter is basically an e-mail containing no more than 140 letters, and yet another example of people turning an effective and efficient form of communication into an annoying compulsion. Nobody gives a rat's ass about what you had for lunch or how you feel about the events on some dumb-ass reality show. Twitterers are like cell phone addicts who call you up for no reason at all. These people ever hear of private thoughts? Or maybe shutting the fuck up and leaving us alone? Surprise us all and cut that stupid shit out.
The fall of the Republican Party: Given their recent track record, a real no-brainer. The Republican Party started going downhill around the time of Ronald Reagan when all the Jesus freaks started getting involved. The demise of that party comes as no surprise to anyone who remembers when Jesus freaks were considered harmless but irritating nuts. Well, they're still irritating as hell but the last 8 years showed that idiots are not harmless when they're in charge of governments and armies, and promptly forget what Jesus actually stood for, you know, all that peace and love and tolerance stuff. Somehow they got themselves politically organized and hijacked a political party that used to have a lot smart guys in it. No more. These new bozos were the people that figured they could export democracy at the point of a gun, couldn't catch a 6 foot 6 Arab who lives in a cave, thought the Bill of Rights was for sissies, threw New Orleans a barbell when it was drowning and figured they'd hand everybody's money over to the super wealthy and hope they don't blow it all. How did any of that work out for America? To make matter worse, now they have Rush Limbaugh calling their shots, sort of the buffoon's buffoon. How sad is that? Maybe the Whig Party can make a comeback to fill the second party vacuum.
Stem cells won't make us immortal: Now that it's okay to do scientific research on stem cells, that doesn't mean cures for all our diseases overnight or anti-aging concoctions to keep us forever young. No surprise there either. There are no magic pills or fountains of youth. Work like this takes decades, maybe a lot of them, to produce results. All the Bush ban did was postpone the day when stem cells can be useful to us. Until then, looks like we're stuck with facelifts, Botox injections, hair plugs, bow-flex machines, plastic tits, quack medicines, insane diets and kidding ourselves.
Lots of athletes took steroids: What a shock! The shock is that more of them didn't take them. By definition professional athletes are very competitive people. Who would pay to watch them if they weren't? And speaking of pay, you tell a guy from a working glass background that he can earn well over a hundred million dollars in the course of his 15 year career if he takes steroids and his ass will be a pincushion in no time. How many of us could pass up that temptation? And all that stuff about it causing damage in your old age? What, more damage than playing football? And isn't old age pretty much all about the damage anyway? Everything aches when you get old, steroids or no steroids. Maybe they figure the hundred million and a super model wife might counter the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune just a tad better than a social security pension. You think?
That's what doctors are all about, no? While they can't cure every single disease, you sure as hell don't expect them to be surprised when you get gravely ill or drop dead. It's sort of their job to keep abreast of things that will harm or kill us. It's not a perfect system but it works better than most arrangements we have with experts. Take lawyers, for example. Most of us come away from our experiences with lawyers feeling not so good about them, which, to be fair to them, is often the result of our behaving so poorly that we need a lawyer to get us out of trouble. Maybe it's not only their reptilian personalities that contribute to their general disrepute. So we shouldn't be surprised when some things happen, whatever the experts say afterwards. Some examples:
Death of The Crocodile Hunter: Steve Irwin's self-invented title was not "The Canary Hunter" or "The Lamb Hunter" or "The Poodle Hunter." No, this guy made his living annoying the crap out of gigantic man-eating crocodiles! Why was anyone shocked that he got himself killed? The only surprise is that he lived as long as he did. The bigger surprise, however, is that is wasn't a crocodile that killed him. No, this time for a change of pace he was annoying the crap out of a sting ray, and so it stung him. Case closed.
Twittering: Not so surprising is the fact that nitwits enjoy the practice of constant twittering. A twitter is basically an e-mail containing no more than 140 letters, and yet another example of people turning an effective and efficient form of communication into an annoying compulsion. Nobody gives a rat's ass about what you had for lunch or how you feel about the events on some dumb-ass reality show. Twitterers are like cell phone addicts who call you up for no reason at all. These people ever hear of private thoughts? Or maybe shutting the fuck up and leaving us alone? Surprise us all and cut that stupid shit out.
The fall of the Republican Party: Given their recent track record, a real no-brainer. The Republican Party started going downhill around the time of Ronald Reagan when all the Jesus freaks started getting involved. The demise of that party comes as no surprise to anyone who remembers when Jesus freaks were considered harmless but irritating nuts. Well, they're still irritating as hell but the last 8 years showed that idiots are not harmless when they're in charge of governments and armies, and promptly forget what Jesus actually stood for, you know, all that peace and love and tolerance stuff. Somehow they got themselves politically organized and hijacked a political party that used to have a lot smart guys in it. No more. These new bozos were the people that figured they could export democracy at the point of a gun, couldn't catch a 6 foot 6 Arab who lives in a cave, thought the Bill of Rights was for sissies, threw New Orleans a barbell when it was drowning and figured they'd hand everybody's money over to the super wealthy and hope they don't blow it all. How did any of that work out for America? To make matter worse, now they have Rush Limbaugh calling their shots, sort of the buffoon's buffoon. How sad is that? Maybe the Whig Party can make a comeback to fill the second party vacuum.
Stem cells won't make us immortal: Now that it's okay to do scientific research on stem cells, that doesn't mean cures for all our diseases overnight or anti-aging concoctions to keep us forever young. No surprise there either. There are no magic pills or fountains of youth. Work like this takes decades, maybe a lot of them, to produce results. All the Bush ban did was postpone the day when stem cells can be useful to us. Until then, looks like we're stuck with facelifts, Botox injections, hair plugs, bow-flex machines, plastic tits, quack medicines, insane diets and kidding ourselves.
Lots of athletes took steroids: What a shock! The shock is that more of them didn't take them. By definition professional athletes are very competitive people. Who would pay to watch them if they weren't? And speaking of pay, you tell a guy from a working glass background that he can earn well over a hundred million dollars in the course of his 15 year career if he takes steroids and his ass will be a pincushion in no time. How many of us could pass up that temptation? And all that stuff about it causing damage in your old age? What, more damage than playing football? And isn't old age pretty much all about the damage anyway? Everything aches when you get old, steroids or no steroids. Maybe they figure the hundred million and a super model wife might counter the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune just a tad better than a social security pension. You think?
March 14, 2009
STUFF NO ONE CARES ABOUT
Headlines, shmeadlines. Who really gives a rat's ass about Bernie Madoff? Is he really the most hated man in America? Only if you are one of the 5,000 people who he robbed, promising you ridiculously high returns on your money unavailable elsewhere. Why were they unavailable elsewhere? Because it was scam and completely illegal. Con men have no customers without the greedy looking for an easy score. If you had the kind of big dough required to invest with Madoff, you knew full well what the available options were and the kind of returns you can expect for your money. The guy wasn't a carnival barker scamming unsophisticated rubes. Not only should his victims have known better, but they did know better, and cheated anyway.
So now Madoff goes to jail for life and they're still broke because they chased a free lunch when they could afford to buy their own lunch. What, we should feel sorry for these people and buy them lunch now? Like the government is doing with Bernie's colleagues in the banking, investment, insurance and automotive industries? Those guys did more damage to America than Bernie Maddoff ever did. They made over 10 trillion dollars of our collective wealth disappear. To these people, Madoff is the most loved man in America since his dog-and-pony show serves as a neat distraction to their greed and their gross incompetence.
While not may people argue about the need to bail out our core industries, nobody cares a good crap about the fate of the CEOs who ruined everything for everybody. They wouldn't mind seeing a lot of these guys lining up at an arraignment hearing like Bernie Madoff instead in front of a Congressional Committee explaining why they need another 55 billion or our bucks. At the very least they should be charged with Aggravated Stupidity and Greed in the First Degree. Wall Street always made the people who work there rich, just the way it has always operated, but that wasn't enough for this new breed of fools who somehow got elevated to running the show.
When rich isn't enough, what is? Well, nothing is ever enough when you start down that path, not even hanging a Renoir in the bathroom of your private jet. And nobody cares that others were doing it so you thought that made it okay. Wasn't that the rationale for every stupid thing mankind has done? That's how Inquisitions and Nehru suits get their start. That's how we wind up with high school girls with tattoos and tongue piercings, throwing a monkey wrench into the age-old apparatus of identifying the 'hos. When something works, it's best to leave it well enough alone. Nobody cares if you have a better idea when that idea is only to make yourself richer than Bill Gates without going to the trouble of inventing anything revolutionary that is in great demand.
Say what you want about Bill Gates, but he made his $40 billion selling a product people can't seem to get enough of without stealing everything from Post-it notes to pensions funds from his company. And becoming the richest guy around hasn't changed the fact that he still has to be Bill Gates, a dubious fate at best. Ask Bernie Madoff whether the billions he stole made him anything other than a creepy old Scrooge anyone in their right mind would cross the street to avoid. Most of us would rather while away an afternoon with a cat burglar or a high school gym teacher than spend a minute with Bill Gates or Bernie Madoff.
So why should we care all that much if the government takes over the banks for a while? That doesn't make us Cuba or the Soviet Union. Maybe they can fire all the inept greedheads who ran these perfectly good businesses into the ground. They certainly could not do any worse, and besides, the government has long experience in handling a lot more money that any one bank ever has, and doing it fairly well. Can any bank match the efficiency of the Post Office, the Social Security Administration or the military?
Big Government is only a bad thing when it is Stupid Government, and America just decided to do away with that dubious experiment by voting out the Republicans with their bewildering assortment of Christian Fascists, failed corporate princes and aging reactionaries. What they did with the smart guys who used run their party is anyone's guess, but they're all gone and only the angry fools remain. And what are they so angry about when they are the ones who screwed things up so royally? Again, who cares? They did so much damage to America that maybe they ought to just go away. These guys are lucky some of them aren't going to jail for trying to repeal the Bill of Rights, attacking the wrong country for no reason at all, drowning New Orleans, transferring trillions of dollars from the middle class to the super wealthy (who proceeded to blow it, which the middle class would never have done) and for being complete idiots, which should be a bigger crime than it is.
So, go ahead and hate Bernie Madoff if you like wasting good anger on trifles. He's only a symptom of what went wrong with Corporate America. Corporations need their power stripped, or at least pared back to where it should properly be, in production and the marketplace and out of politics. Nobody would be complaining about the assholes who get rich running our corporations if they didn't screw up so badly, and when they screw up, they screw things up for millions of workers. If they want to get back to their former anonymity, the solution is simple: stop stealing and earn the dough you are paid just like everyone else.
The system is already in place and had been for quite awhile before the current leadership started going all Bernie Madoff on everyone. The young turks who replace these goons, hopefully sooner than later, should realize there's a good life to be had in the corporate boardrooms without the scams. Then nobody will care about your boring asses and you can be rich captains of industry once again. If not, expect the villagers to begin surrounding your mansions with torches and pitchforks the next time you plough through their pension funds to buy yourself a new yacht.
So now Madoff goes to jail for life and they're still broke because they chased a free lunch when they could afford to buy their own lunch. What, we should feel sorry for these people and buy them lunch now? Like the government is doing with Bernie's colleagues in the banking, investment, insurance and automotive industries? Those guys did more damage to America than Bernie Maddoff ever did. They made over 10 trillion dollars of our collective wealth disappear. To these people, Madoff is the most loved man in America since his dog-and-pony show serves as a neat distraction to their greed and their gross incompetence.
While not may people argue about the need to bail out our core industries, nobody cares a good crap about the fate of the CEOs who ruined everything for everybody. They wouldn't mind seeing a lot of these guys lining up at an arraignment hearing like Bernie Madoff instead in front of a Congressional Committee explaining why they need another 55 billion or our bucks. At the very least they should be charged with Aggravated Stupidity and Greed in the First Degree. Wall Street always made the people who work there rich, just the way it has always operated, but that wasn't enough for this new breed of fools who somehow got elevated to running the show.
When rich isn't enough, what is? Well, nothing is ever enough when you start down that path, not even hanging a Renoir in the bathroom of your private jet. And nobody cares that others were doing it so you thought that made it okay. Wasn't that the rationale for every stupid thing mankind has done? That's how Inquisitions and Nehru suits get their start. That's how we wind up with high school girls with tattoos and tongue piercings, throwing a monkey wrench into the age-old apparatus of identifying the 'hos. When something works, it's best to leave it well enough alone. Nobody cares if you have a better idea when that idea is only to make yourself richer than Bill Gates without going to the trouble of inventing anything revolutionary that is in great demand.
Say what you want about Bill Gates, but he made his $40 billion selling a product people can't seem to get enough of without stealing everything from Post-it notes to pensions funds from his company. And becoming the richest guy around hasn't changed the fact that he still has to be Bill Gates, a dubious fate at best. Ask Bernie Madoff whether the billions he stole made him anything other than a creepy old Scrooge anyone in their right mind would cross the street to avoid. Most of us would rather while away an afternoon with a cat burglar or a high school gym teacher than spend a minute with Bill Gates or Bernie Madoff.
So why should we care all that much if the government takes over the banks for a while? That doesn't make us Cuba or the Soviet Union. Maybe they can fire all the inept greedheads who ran these perfectly good businesses into the ground. They certainly could not do any worse, and besides, the government has long experience in handling a lot more money that any one bank ever has, and doing it fairly well. Can any bank match the efficiency of the Post Office, the Social Security Administration or the military?
Big Government is only a bad thing when it is Stupid Government, and America just decided to do away with that dubious experiment by voting out the Republicans with their bewildering assortment of Christian Fascists, failed corporate princes and aging reactionaries. What they did with the smart guys who used run their party is anyone's guess, but they're all gone and only the angry fools remain. And what are they so angry about when they are the ones who screwed things up so royally? Again, who cares? They did so much damage to America that maybe they ought to just go away. These guys are lucky some of them aren't going to jail for trying to repeal the Bill of Rights, attacking the wrong country for no reason at all, drowning New Orleans, transferring trillions of dollars from the middle class to the super wealthy (who proceeded to blow it, which the middle class would never have done) and for being complete idiots, which should be a bigger crime than it is.
So, go ahead and hate Bernie Madoff if you like wasting good anger on trifles. He's only a symptom of what went wrong with Corporate America. Corporations need their power stripped, or at least pared back to where it should properly be, in production and the marketplace and out of politics. Nobody would be complaining about the assholes who get rich running our corporations if they didn't screw up so badly, and when they screw up, they screw things up for millions of workers. If they want to get back to their former anonymity, the solution is simple: stop stealing and earn the dough you are paid just like everyone else.
The system is already in place and had been for quite awhile before the current leadership started going all Bernie Madoff on everyone. The young turks who replace these goons, hopefully sooner than later, should realize there's a good life to be had in the corporate boardrooms without the scams. Then nobody will care about your boring asses and you can be rich captains of industry once again. If not, expect the villagers to begin surrounding your mansions with torches and pitchforks the next time you plough through their pension funds to buy yourself a new yacht.
March 13, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 339
There is no need to apologize for good manners, good grooming or superior skill with weapons, especially the latter.
MODERN RULES FOR GENTLEMEN, PART 5
The role of the gentleman in society is an ever-evolving one. The days of top hats, horse-drawn cabs and dainty damsels are long gone, but the need for a standard of acceptable behavior persists even in the changing realities of the times. Bobcrespo.com is pleased to add to our previous entries in the Modern Rules For Gentleman category. Consider:
A gentleman resists all temptation to go on a deadly shooting rampage, no matter how dull the people in his hometown.
A gentleman never lets the question of his paternity go unanswered for so long that it gets settled on The Maury Povich Show.
When on line at the soup kitchen, a gentleman doesn't brag about the job he used to have at the bank.
When in charge of a giant corporation that goes broke and loses even its employees' pension money, a gentleman does not complain that his Golden Parachute is too small when he gets fired. He shuts up and makes do with the 12 million dollars.
When in the presence of one's wife a gentleman never sends text messages to his lover.
A gentleman doesn't reveal the names of the covert operatives on his personal assassination squad so as not to embarrass their families.
When one's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme is uncovered, a gentleman always has a phony passport, an offshore account and a home in a country with no extradition treaty prepared. A true gentleman always has a Plan B.
If a gentleman's Plan B goes awry, he does his time with good grace and does not under any circumstances get a jail house tattoo. Those things are dead giveaways when a gentleman effects his escape.
When a gentleman orders a mail-order bride from abroad, he treats her like a lady and does not threaten to have her deported when she falls behind with the roof repairs and home remodeling he has assigned her.
If a gentleman should find himself working as a pimp, he need not dress like a refugee from the 1970's. A minimum of bling should suffice to establish one's position, and gold teeth with embedded diamonds are considered gauche.
A gentleman who leaves office in disgrace after having brought his country to the brink of ruin doesn't brag about it on a lecture tour.
The mark of a true gentleman is his ability to resist the temptation to appear on reality television shows.
A gentleman resists all temptation to go on a deadly shooting rampage, no matter how dull the people in his hometown.
A gentleman never lets the question of his paternity go unanswered for so long that it gets settled on The Maury Povich Show.
When on line at the soup kitchen, a gentleman doesn't brag about the job he used to have at the bank.
When in charge of a giant corporation that goes broke and loses even its employees' pension money, a gentleman does not complain that his Golden Parachute is too small when he gets fired. He shuts up and makes do with the 12 million dollars.
When in the presence of one's wife a gentleman never sends text messages to his lover.
A gentleman doesn't reveal the names of the covert operatives on his personal assassination squad so as not to embarrass their families.
When one's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme is uncovered, a gentleman always has a phony passport, an offshore account and a home in a country with no extradition treaty prepared. A true gentleman always has a Plan B.
If a gentleman's Plan B goes awry, he does his time with good grace and does not under any circumstances get a jail house tattoo. Those things are dead giveaways when a gentleman effects his escape.
When a gentleman orders a mail-order bride from abroad, he treats her like a lady and does not threaten to have her deported when she falls behind with the roof repairs and home remodeling he has assigned her.
If a gentleman should find himself working as a pimp, he need not dress like a refugee from the 1970's. A minimum of bling should suffice to establish one's position, and gold teeth with embedded diamonds are considered gauche.
A gentleman who leaves office in disgrace after having brought his country to the brink of ruin doesn't brag about it on a lecture tour.
The mark of a true gentleman is his ability to resist the temptation to appear on reality television shows.
March 12, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 338
Some advice to the young ladies: keep away from guys whose most accurate description is any of these: "troubled drifter," "moody loner" or "angry sociopath." Those guys tend not to be optimum boyfriend material. To put it mildly, they've got what people politely refer to as issues. Big time issues.
CHARACTER JUDGES
Has there ever been one of those multiple homicide guys who was not remembered as "the nicest guy in the world?" You never hear anybody telling reporters: "He was are a real psycho, a ticking time bomb. I knew he'd do something horrible! Why didn't anybody stop him before he killed the whole town?" Seems we're not the judges of character we fancy ourselves. Look at this Bernie Madoff guy who stole 65 billion dollars. His nickname was "The Wizard of Wall Street" and his reputation was as good as gold. Literally.
What's up with us? When did we lose a grip on figuring people out before it's too late? Look at our last damned president, who we elected twice! Once you can understand as a mistake, a big one to be sure, but one easily corrected at the next election. Electing a venal buffoon twice means we really weren't paying attention and the damage done to our nation by him and his gang of thugs and thieves has been quit extensive.
And the Republicans still haven't snapped out of it. Look at the people they admire most: Lush Limberger, Bill O'Really, Anne Coltish, Sarah Impaler and Newt Grinwitch, to name but a few of their low-rent heros, most of whom have had a well-publicized public scandal revealing them to be several notches below pond scum when it comes to character. Since their ouster from power, Republicans have not spent 20 seconds wondering what they did wrong but instead went immediately into attack-dog mode and called for the good old days of Bush The Younger that got the country into this huge mess to begin with. You have to figure that beats looking in the mirror.
But still,we all should spend a little time wondering exactly how we have come to misread the character of our fellow man so consistently. Did it start with television and the death of conversation? The rise of fast food and recreational drugs that promise instant gratification for every whim? Or maybe all those dopey disconnecting video games we buy our children so we don't have to deal with them and they don't have to deal with reality? Or just maybe it's a combination of all these things that have reduced our attention spans to 10 second sound bytes that substitute for thinking things through.
And what are the results? Pouty, disconnected and maladjusted children with access to automatic weapons. Grown men with perceived grievances against individuals and humanity in general killing everyone in the neighborhood before dying in a hail of police bullets. Corporate leaders forgetting their duties and obligations and earnestly looting all the wealth they possibly can by any means necessary. Political leaders in the pocket of corporate princes siphoning of public funds for themselves. Wars of aggression for the sole purpose of monetary gain for the few at the expense of the many (Okay, that's always been the case, but now we've even stopped pretending otherwise.). The middle and lower classes under attack by a ravenously greedy wealthy elite who have now nearly succeeded in ruining things for everybody.
And all of these things can be traced to our poor character judgement and our taking the easy way out when it comes to interacting with our fellow human beings, beginning with our own families. Who is more shocked than the parents of these mini-monsters who shoot up their schools and sleepy little suburban towns? My precious little Junior? Yes, your precious little incommunicative nitwit that you never bothered to get to know, never mind lifting a mental finger to shape his character, and with access to your extensive private arsenal, you lazy assholes! And so the worthless little prick snuffed out a couple of dozen lives and then people come out of the woodwork pointing to all the warning signs the kid left all over the internet, and in school and in his own home. We sure are whizzes at hindsight, no?
Maybe we ought to spend a little time actually conversing with one another, and more than 10 seconds to decide who to vote for. This is, after all, the Information Age, with no shortage of information available on anything or anybody. Use the technology to your advantage. Every candidate has a website with a lot of personal and political information on it. Almost every child in America has a Facebook or MySpace page. What's on your kid's pages? Here's a clue: if it's Hitler, Charles Manson or Satan, the kid might have a problem. Check out the dopey computer games they play. A lot of virtual mutilation and killing going on there? Maybe those things are not as harmless as you think.
And most importantly, talk to the damned people in your life. There's no substitute for human contact. The last thing you want to hear about your kid is some neighbor telling a reporter that he seemed like a normal kid. That usually only happens after he has done something unspeakable. So speak already, and tell the kid what's what. There's plenty of other voices out there that will gladly take your place if you abdicate your responsibilities, and they don't have anybody's best interests in mind but their own. Speak up.
What's up with us? When did we lose a grip on figuring people out before it's too late? Look at our last damned president, who we elected twice! Once you can understand as a mistake, a big one to be sure, but one easily corrected at the next election. Electing a venal buffoon twice means we really weren't paying attention and the damage done to our nation by him and his gang of thugs and thieves has been quit extensive.
And the Republicans still haven't snapped out of it. Look at the people they admire most: Lush Limberger, Bill O'Really, Anne Coltish, Sarah Impaler and Newt Grinwitch, to name but a few of their low-rent heros, most of whom have had a well-publicized public scandal revealing them to be several notches below pond scum when it comes to character. Since their ouster from power, Republicans have not spent 20 seconds wondering what they did wrong but instead went immediately into attack-dog mode and called for the good old days of Bush The Younger that got the country into this huge mess to begin with. You have to figure that beats looking in the mirror.
But still,we all should spend a little time wondering exactly how we have come to misread the character of our fellow man so consistently. Did it start with television and the death of conversation? The rise of fast food and recreational drugs that promise instant gratification for every whim? Or maybe all those dopey disconnecting video games we buy our children so we don't have to deal with them and they don't have to deal with reality? Or just maybe it's a combination of all these things that have reduced our attention spans to 10 second sound bytes that substitute for thinking things through.
And what are the results? Pouty, disconnected and maladjusted children with access to automatic weapons. Grown men with perceived grievances against individuals and humanity in general killing everyone in the neighborhood before dying in a hail of police bullets. Corporate leaders forgetting their duties and obligations and earnestly looting all the wealth they possibly can by any means necessary. Political leaders in the pocket of corporate princes siphoning of public funds for themselves. Wars of aggression for the sole purpose of monetary gain for the few at the expense of the many (Okay, that's always been the case, but now we've even stopped pretending otherwise.). The middle and lower classes under attack by a ravenously greedy wealthy elite who have now nearly succeeded in ruining things for everybody.
And all of these things can be traced to our poor character judgement and our taking the easy way out when it comes to interacting with our fellow human beings, beginning with our own families. Who is more shocked than the parents of these mini-monsters who shoot up their schools and sleepy little suburban towns? My precious little Junior? Yes, your precious little incommunicative nitwit that you never bothered to get to know, never mind lifting a mental finger to shape his character, and with access to your extensive private arsenal, you lazy assholes! And so the worthless little prick snuffed out a couple of dozen lives and then people come out of the woodwork pointing to all the warning signs the kid left all over the internet, and in school and in his own home. We sure are whizzes at hindsight, no?
Maybe we ought to spend a little time actually conversing with one another, and more than 10 seconds to decide who to vote for. This is, after all, the Information Age, with no shortage of information available on anything or anybody. Use the technology to your advantage. Every candidate has a website with a lot of personal and political information on it. Almost every child in America has a Facebook or MySpace page. What's on your kid's pages? Here's a clue: if it's Hitler, Charles Manson or Satan, the kid might have a problem. Check out the dopey computer games they play. A lot of virtual mutilation and killing going on there? Maybe those things are not as harmless as you think.
And most importantly, talk to the damned people in your life. There's no substitute for human contact. The last thing you want to hear about your kid is some neighbor telling a reporter that he seemed like a normal kid. That usually only happens after he has done something unspeakable. So speak already, and tell the kid what's what. There's plenty of other voices out there that will gladly take your place if you abdicate your responsibilities, and they don't have anybody's best interests in mind but their own. Speak up.
March 11, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 337
We may be only grains of sand in this vast universe, but some of these grains of sand can wiggle our ears. Try that, other galaxies!
KILLERS
Well, it's official, we're the biggest killers of any species on this planet. Human beings and house cats are the only creatures on Earth who kill for no reason at all, and the suspicion is that house cats learned it from us. Lions don't do that stupid shit, they know it's a waste of precious food to kill a zebra and then not eat it. Then again, lions don't have the ready access to automatic weapons like so many humans have. In places where people are eating straw and clay to try to survive one more day, everybody and his crazed brother seems to own an AK-47.
So today in Germany and in Alabama you have reports of morons going on a rampage and killing people in double figures just because they can. Not much of a reason, but since when did deranged killers have a logical explanation for their actions? And if they did have a complex reason, why would anybody care? It sure makes no difference to the dead people, who remain dead forever while the rest of us try to figure out the motivations of a maniac. That never seems to prevent these things from happening again.
What shocks us about these two killing sprees is that they were undertaken in peaceful towns. What happened in these two places was probably repeated a dozen times since then in some war-torn place or another on this globe and nobody really noticed. Plenty of civilians get killed in our wars and it's no comfort to them that they were killed in a war instead of by some deranged loner. Their deaths many be lamented as "collateral damage" or some sort of military error, but what the hell do they care? Dead is dead and there's no witty reply to be heard from the the victims.
So we satisfy ourselves with wringing our hands over these two psychopaths in Germany and Alabama, shocked at their behavior. Shocked because they weren't wearing a military uniform, maybe? Would that have been okay if Alabama and Germany were war zones? Wouldn't be the first time for either place. Maybe okay for the rest of us, but not for those whose lives were snuffed out. The behavior of these psychos is not all that far removed from the many wars we killers fight. We tell ourselves there's good reasons for our wars, God is on our side and the enemy is only worth slaughtering since they are subhuman dogs.
You can't have one mindset without opening the door to the other. If killing is just fine in certain situations, then the feeble minded among us will always take that theory one step further and start shooting up our schools and peaceful little towns just because they feel like it. That behavior is not as isolated as we'd like to believe. Humans are killers, and until we stop killing in sanctioned warfare we can expect more Columbines, Stuttgarts and Alabama killing sprees. This is what we as a people have created, a mindset that killing has its proper place. It does not. And keep the automatic weapons out of the hands of house cats and troubled loners.
So today in Germany and in Alabama you have reports of morons going on a rampage and killing people in double figures just because they can. Not much of a reason, but since when did deranged killers have a logical explanation for their actions? And if they did have a complex reason, why would anybody care? It sure makes no difference to the dead people, who remain dead forever while the rest of us try to figure out the motivations of a maniac. That never seems to prevent these things from happening again.
What shocks us about these two killing sprees is that they were undertaken in peaceful towns. What happened in these two places was probably repeated a dozen times since then in some war-torn place or another on this globe and nobody really noticed. Plenty of civilians get killed in our wars and it's no comfort to them that they were killed in a war instead of by some deranged loner. Their deaths many be lamented as "collateral damage" or some sort of military error, but what the hell do they care? Dead is dead and there's no witty reply to be heard from the the victims.
So we satisfy ourselves with wringing our hands over these two psychopaths in Germany and Alabama, shocked at their behavior. Shocked because they weren't wearing a military uniform, maybe? Would that have been okay if Alabama and Germany were war zones? Wouldn't be the first time for either place. Maybe okay for the rest of us, but not for those whose lives were snuffed out. The behavior of these psychos is not all that far removed from the many wars we killers fight. We tell ourselves there's good reasons for our wars, God is on our side and the enemy is only worth slaughtering since they are subhuman dogs.
You can't have one mindset without opening the door to the other. If killing is just fine in certain situations, then the feeble minded among us will always take that theory one step further and start shooting up our schools and peaceful little towns just because they feel like it. That behavior is not as isolated as we'd like to believe. Humans are killers, and until we stop killing in sanctioned warfare we can expect more Columbines, Stuttgarts and Alabama killing sprees. This is what we as a people have created, a mindset that killing has its proper place. It does not. And keep the automatic weapons out of the hands of house cats and troubled loners.
March 10, 2009
NO BIG DEAL
If you're gay, you're not automatically fascinating. Sorry, gay brothers and sisters, but you're not courageous or unique for simply being born. It wasn't your idea to be gay, just the cards you were dealt. Being gay, Black, Asian, left-handed, freckle-faced or tall isn't any reason for others to make a fuss over you like you invented something. That would require an engaging personality, some unique ability or an exceptional character. While there's plenty of you that are plenty fascinating and engaging, it's by no means universal, just like any other subset of humanity. And of course you all deserve equal rights, again just like anybody else; the outstanding, the mediocre, the barely tolerable and the annoying. By this time in human history it should be No Big Deal, but somehow it still is.
By all means, fight for your right for everything that others take for granted; marriage, divorce, pain-in-the-ass kids, alimony, getting killed in combat, the whole nine. It's not all peaches and cream being equal. Just don't get insulted if some of us consider your sexual orientation to be No Big Deal. Maybe you should wish more people, like the nation's voters and grandstanding politicians, also thought it was No Big Deal. As for those of us who want you to settle for some lame "civil union" or a confusing "don't ask, don't tell" policy, well, ask them how they'd like that treatment, along with the implied shame about the way they were born and encouragement to be "in the closet" about who they really are.
How did all those Jim Crow laws work out for America's Black citizens for the hundred years between the Civil War that set them free from slavery and the Civil Rights legislation that confirmed their equality? In short, not so good. Just like being gay, being Black is not contagious and is generally No Big Deal, that is, until laws are passed making you, if not exactly a criminal, a second class citizen. Unlike being black, though, being gay is a crime in many parts of this nation and in almost every state gays are legally prohibited from marriage. The odd thing, though, is that even today Black people are jailed at the highest rate of all our citizens, the direct result of their perceived inequality and the very real lack of opportunity. It's difficult to be in the closet about your skin color.
Sure, we've got our first Black President, but too many Black Americans are still locked in a cycle of inequality that leaves too many of them in poverty, ignorance and life on the margins of society. It's a true and shameful fact that is far too slow in changing. When the Civil Rights laws were enacted, no one insisted that bigots or active oppressors give up any of their rights as the cost of acting rotten for so long. How long will gays be persecuted? While gays don't suffer from excessive incarceration, they are being denied equal civil rights in the poster boy nation for civil rights, the United States of America, and that is a sort of prison in and of itself. That's like being the only kid at the party who doesn't get any ice cream. Try not to resent that.
Gay people's struggle for equal rights, like Blacks before them, is not asking for anything not guaranteed to every American in our Constitution. America was started with the statement "all men are created equal" in our letter of intent, the Declaration of Independence. In none of the provisions of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is there a qualification that reads: "Except for homosexuals." The fact that many people obsess over homosexuals says more about themselves than it does about homosexuals. What the hell do they care? No one's forcing them to participate, or even pay attention, so what's really behind their obsession?
Do gay people need to be ashamed of themselves to make others more comfortable? Ashamed of what? Being the way they were born? And how will their shame help anybody? If you don't like them or you fear them or are repelled by them, keep on walking, that's your prerogative. Just don't think you can discriminate against them. That's not up to you. There may be people who dislike, fear and are repelled by you. Which of your civil rights will you be willing to give up because of that?
How ashamed will you be compelled to feel about yourself? How pleasant will you be when you are told you are less of a human being than others? Or would you insist that you too are one of God's children, worthy of the same consideration and enjoying the same rights and privileges as any other person and allowed to live your live as you see fit as long as you are not harming anyone else? Odds are you would do just that. Do no less for your brothers and sisters, no matter how you feel about musical theater or women in plaid shirts and work boots. In America, human rights are supposed to be universal and No Big Deal. The Big Deal is when they are denied to anyone for any reason.
By all means, fight for your right for everything that others take for granted; marriage, divorce, pain-in-the-ass kids, alimony, getting killed in combat, the whole nine. It's not all peaches and cream being equal. Just don't get insulted if some of us consider your sexual orientation to be No Big Deal. Maybe you should wish more people, like the nation's voters and grandstanding politicians, also thought it was No Big Deal. As for those of us who want you to settle for some lame "civil union" or a confusing "don't ask, don't tell" policy, well, ask them how they'd like that treatment, along with the implied shame about the way they were born and encouragement to be "in the closet" about who they really are.
How did all those Jim Crow laws work out for America's Black citizens for the hundred years between the Civil War that set them free from slavery and the Civil Rights legislation that confirmed their equality? In short, not so good. Just like being gay, being Black is not contagious and is generally No Big Deal, that is, until laws are passed making you, if not exactly a criminal, a second class citizen. Unlike being black, though, being gay is a crime in many parts of this nation and in almost every state gays are legally prohibited from marriage. The odd thing, though, is that even today Black people are jailed at the highest rate of all our citizens, the direct result of their perceived inequality and the very real lack of opportunity. It's difficult to be in the closet about your skin color.
Sure, we've got our first Black President, but too many Black Americans are still locked in a cycle of inequality that leaves too many of them in poverty, ignorance and life on the margins of society. It's a true and shameful fact that is far too slow in changing. When the Civil Rights laws were enacted, no one insisted that bigots or active oppressors give up any of their rights as the cost of acting rotten for so long. How long will gays be persecuted? While gays don't suffer from excessive incarceration, they are being denied equal civil rights in the poster boy nation for civil rights, the United States of America, and that is a sort of prison in and of itself. That's like being the only kid at the party who doesn't get any ice cream. Try not to resent that.
Gay people's struggle for equal rights, like Blacks before them, is not asking for anything not guaranteed to every American in our Constitution. America was started with the statement "all men are created equal" in our letter of intent, the Declaration of Independence. In none of the provisions of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is there a qualification that reads: "Except for homosexuals." The fact that many people obsess over homosexuals says more about themselves than it does about homosexuals. What the hell do they care? No one's forcing them to participate, or even pay attention, so what's really behind their obsession?
Do gay people need to be ashamed of themselves to make others more comfortable? Ashamed of what? Being the way they were born? And how will their shame help anybody? If you don't like them or you fear them or are repelled by them, keep on walking, that's your prerogative. Just don't think you can discriminate against them. That's not up to you. There may be people who dislike, fear and are repelled by you. Which of your civil rights will you be willing to give up because of that?
How ashamed will you be compelled to feel about yourself? How pleasant will you be when you are told you are less of a human being than others? Or would you insist that you too are one of God's children, worthy of the same consideration and enjoying the same rights and privileges as any other person and allowed to live your live as you see fit as long as you are not harming anyone else? Odds are you would do just that. Do no less for your brothers and sisters, no matter how you feel about musical theater or women in plaid shirts and work boots. In America, human rights are supposed to be universal and No Big Deal. The Big Deal is when they are denied to anyone for any reason.
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