April 28, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 379
There's a reason why rock & roll has lasted longer than any other dominant form of popular music: It's just a hell of a lot of fun to shake your booty.
KILLING US NOT-SO-SOFTLY
So, what's it going to be that finally ushers us to dinosaur status, that is to say, poor Otis dead and gone. Will it be global warning, some jerkoff who thinks God is giving him instructions getting his hands on nuclear weapons, or the swine flu? There's no shortage of candidates out there for eradicating humanity off the face of the planet. Some scientists even say that with the population scheduled to hit 9 billion by the year 2050, that Mother Nature herself will make some sort of "adjustment" and eliminate 80% of humanity, sort of like what we humans do with our wildlife populations. That adjustment usually involves wholesale slaughter of the targeted species that we figure has overpopulated some tedious suburb of some tedious little city.
How ironic if the entity just above us in the food chain, the earth itself, decides to give itself a tick bath to keep us pesky humans down to manageable levels. We're already helping the cause of eliminating the "excess" humans among us by letting 13 million a year starve to death on a bountiful planet, another 6 or 7 million to die from drinking poisoned water and killing untold millions per year in a never-ending series of wars and genocide campaigns. We also kill ourselves in a thousand other ways; smoking cigarettes, crashing our cars, ingesting chemical additives in our food, getting real fat, not exercising and dropping dead face-first in our food, all sorts of creative ways to kick the bucket before nature takes its course.
And these same scientists for years have been saying that humanity is a hazard to the health of the earth. So, the argument can be made that human death is good for the planet since we've been poisoning it ever since we stood up on two legs. We've also been industriously eliminating our rivals from the animal kingdom, one species after the next. And now they tell us we're heating the joint up and if we don't cut it out the ice caps will melt and turn Disney World in Florida (and the whole state with it) into an underwater theme park for scuba divers, if there are any of them left after the Big Adjustment. It could also be that Space Mountain will become the anchor for a new giant coral reef visited only by the sea life that we are so industriously eliminating just as we have the many land species that got on our nerves.
So, fellow human mammal creatures, pick your poison: devastating plague, nuclear holocaust or being slowly simmered to death by global warming and then having our disintegrated corpse washed away in the ice cap melt floods and consumed as plankton by whales. What's it going to be? It all sounds pretty far fetched, no? Well, here's another wild fantasy: Mankind will start acting responsibly, stop spending so much time killing one another, pay attention to the environment and start being the caretakers of the earth and all the creatures with whom we share it, like a good little dominant species should. Naaah! Now, that one's a real whopper! Let's just keep on partying like it's 1999 and have our fun before natural selection selects somebody else. It was nice being the head honcho while it lasted, though, no?
How ironic if the entity just above us in the food chain, the earth itself, decides to give itself a tick bath to keep us pesky humans down to manageable levels. We're already helping the cause of eliminating the "excess" humans among us by letting 13 million a year starve to death on a bountiful planet, another 6 or 7 million to die from drinking poisoned water and killing untold millions per year in a never-ending series of wars and genocide campaigns. We also kill ourselves in a thousand other ways; smoking cigarettes, crashing our cars, ingesting chemical additives in our food, getting real fat, not exercising and dropping dead face-first in our food, all sorts of creative ways to kick the bucket before nature takes its course.
And these same scientists for years have been saying that humanity is a hazard to the health of the earth. So, the argument can be made that human death is good for the planet since we've been poisoning it ever since we stood up on two legs. We've also been industriously eliminating our rivals from the animal kingdom, one species after the next. And now they tell us we're heating the joint up and if we don't cut it out the ice caps will melt and turn Disney World in Florida (and the whole state with it) into an underwater theme park for scuba divers, if there are any of them left after the Big Adjustment. It could also be that Space Mountain will become the anchor for a new giant coral reef visited only by the sea life that we are so industriously eliminating just as we have the many land species that got on our nerves.
So, fellow human mammal creatures, pick your poison: devastating plague, nuclear holocaust or being slowly simmered to death by global warming and then having our disintegrated corpse washed away in the ice cap melt floods and consumed as plankton by whales. What's it going to be? It all sounds pretty far fetched, no? Well, here's another wild fantasy: Mankind will start acting responsibly, stop spending so much time killing one another, pay attention to the environment and start being the caretakers of the earth and all the creatures with whom we share it, like a good little dominant species should. Naaah! Now, that one's a real whopper! Let's just keep on partying like it's 1999 and have our fun before natural selection selects somebody else. It was nice being the head honcho while it lasted, though, no?
April 27, 2009
A THOUSAND THANKS!
Thank you to all who came out to the BEAT BREAST CANCER CONCERT and those who could not attend but who sent in a donation. The day was a rousing success and on behalf of Bob Crespo & The Big $penders, The Tash Brothers Band and The Fossils we give you our deepest thanks for your loving welcome and your generosity. It is not too late to help some outstanding women who need our help desperately. Send donations to: THE AVON WALK FOR BREAST CANCER, c/o Debra Ielpe, 20 Clent Road, Suite #2-M, Great Neck, New York, 10021.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 377
The pen is mightier than the sword, and love is mightier than the pen. One act of kindness can change the world better than a thousand laws.
LOVE IS STILL THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN
When you boil down any social problem, the root of it is always the absence of love. When you analyze the positive aspects of society, the bottom line is always the abundance of love. It's a simple concept, too often overlooked in the convoluted dealings of man. When you love your brother, you will not do him any harm, either directly or indirectly. When societies are formed, when laws are written and when policies are formulated, they can be of no worth at all without being based upon love. Look around and see what the results of turning away from love have been; war, poverty, corruption and hatred.
We all feel love, a whole lot of it. We love our families, our friends, our nation and we talk about it all the time. We write poems and songs to its glories, and beautiful laments the emptiness we feel inside when love is lost. So it's not like people are unaware of love or that it is an old notion that has gone the way of the horse and buggy. It's just that we apply our love too selectively, and somehow consider that love is not applicable to every aspect of our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. When loves guides every decision and every relationship, every life gains worth, and every act becomes an expression of love. There is no one alive without the capacity to give and receive love, and no area of life that would not be vastly improved by love's guidance. Love does not steal, love does not hate and love does not murder.
What is war but organized murder on a grand scale? Love teaches us not to kill, but the act of war removes the personal liability for the act of killing another human being. No soldier in any army has a personal grudge against any soldier from another army. That man has done him no harm, but having been trained and ordered to kill that man, a soldier does so without hesitation, because that is what armies do, they kill. Who is guilty of that man's death, the man who ordered him killed or the man who's hand took his life? That is a question that would never need to be asked if love was the first consideration in dealings between nations.
Greed is what causes wars, and nothing else. It may be greed for wealth, for glory, for power, for land, for resources or simply greed for ideas; the spreading of your own ideas and the annihilation of the ideas of others. If your idea was all that great to begin with, no war would be necessary to spread it, its merits would spread it throughout the entire world in the space of a year. More likely, your idea is a good idea for you and those who agree with you, but if it is an idea with no basis in love, then few will embrace it and no amount of bloodshed will make it acceptable. There is no vindication in military victory. That only plants the seeds of future wars when the vanquished turn the tables on their conquerors. They will live for the day when they do the killing and the marching in victory parades and the announcing that their loveless ideology will replace your loveless ideology. And more men, women and children will die cruel deaths before their time.
And while it is no sin to grow rich, what is poverty but an absence of love? In too many places in this world, the few have taken the lion's share of the wealth at the expense of the many. Is there any better illustration of this sad fact than a castle surrounded by thatched cottages and malnourished serfs? The legacy of that mental image lives on everywhere, with the rich living privileged lives of shameless excess while the poor literally starve. This year, pretty much like every year for as long as can be remembered, 13 million people will die of starvation, and another 5 to 6 million from drinking contaminated water. The vast majority of these people will be small children, too young to understand why their lives are over so soon, before they had a chance to live or to make their voices heard.
Other than their devastated parents, who loved these children? Certainly no one hated them, but they might as well have. The absence of love is what killed them as much as the absence of nutrition and sanitation; the faceless, benign indifference to the suffering of others. Are these children extra people? Does anybody have spares? Few people lift a finger to help the starving, including the leaders of their own nations. And while there are many wealthy nations in a position to end this benign slaughter of tens of millions of helpless human beings, many countries are speaking instead of giving over millions of acres of life-giving farmland to crops that will produce fuel for cars.
So the cycle of poverty and starvation continues, and from deprivation and desperation arises theft, and the culture of theft, out of which rises corruption. And in this pervasive corrupt culture, the wealthy practice theft on a far grander scale than the poor could ever imagine. In this foul atmosphere of death, theft and corruption it is only a short walk to war. What we are left with is isolated pockets of love, fighting the evil of greed, theft and corruption that kills our brothers and sisters every day. All this because we have left the essential ingredient of life out of the daily equation of living and dealing with others. Love is the answer, love is the only glory, love is our only guide to true civilization, and civilized behavior, where no killer of men earns the nickname "The Great." Love is kindness and bestows dignity on our fellow man. Love is still the only game in town. We ignore it at our own peril. Give love and give life. It is one and the same.
We all feel love, a whole lot of it. We love our families, our friends, our nation and we talk about it all the time. We write poems and songs to its glories, and beautiful laments the emptiness we feel inside when love is lost. So it's not like people are unaware of love or that it is an old notion that has gone the way of the horse and buggy. It's just that we apply our love too selectively, and somehow consider that love is not applicable to every aspect of our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. When loves guides every decision and every relationship, every life gains worth, and every act becomes an expression of love. There is no one alive without the capacity to give and receive love, and no area of life that would not be vastly improved by love's guidance. Love does not steal, love does not hate and love does not murder.
What is war but organized murder on a grand scale? Love teaches us not to kill, but the act of war removes the personal liability for the act of killing another human being. No soldier in any army has a personal grudge against any soldier from another army. That man has done him no harm, but having been trained and ordered to kill that man, a soldier does so without hesitation, because that is what armies do, they kill. Who is guilty of that man's death, the man who ordered him killed or the man who's hand took his life? That is a question that would never need to be asked if love was the first consideration in dealings between nations.
Greed is what causes wars, and nothing else. It may be greed for wealth, for glory, for power, for land, for resources or simply greed for ideas; the spreading of your own ideas and the annihilation of the ideas of others. If your idea was all that great to begin with, no war would be necessary to spread it, its merits would spread it throughout the entire world in the space of a year. More likely, your idea is a good idea for you and those who agree with you, but if it is an idea with no basis in love, then few will embrace it and no amount of bloodshed will make it acceptable. There is no vindication in military victory. That only plants the seeds of future wars when the vanquished turn the tables on their conquerors. They will live for the day when they do the killing and the marching in victory parades and the announcing that their loveless ideology will replace your loveless ideology. And more men, women and children will die cruel deaths before their time.
And while it is no sin to grow rich, what is poverty but an absence of love? In too many places in this world, the few have taken the lion's share of the wealth at the expense of the many. Is there any better illustration of this sad fact than a castle surrounded by thatched cottages and malnourished serfs? The legacy of that mental image lives on everywhere, with the rich living privileged lives of shameless excess while the poor literally starve. This year, pretty much like every year for as long as can be remembered, 13 million people will die of starvation, and another 5 to 6 million from drinking contaminated water. The vast majority of these people will be small children, too young to understand why their lives are over so soon, before they had a chance to live or to make their voices heard.
Other than their devastated parents, who loved these children? Certainly no one hated them, but they might as well have. The absence of love is what killed them as much as the absence of nutrition and sanitation; the faceless, benign indifference to the suffering of others. Are these children extra people? Does anybody have spares? Few people lift a finger to help the starving, including the leaders of their own nations. And while there are many wealthy nations in a position to end this benign slaughter of tens of millions of helpless human beings, many countries are speaking instead of giving over millions of acres of life-giving farmland to crops that will produce fuel for cars.
So the cycle of poverty and starvation continues, and from deprivation and desperation arises theft, and the culture of theft, out of which rises corruption. And in this pervasive corrupt culture, the wealthy practice theft on a far grander scale than the poor could ever imagine. In this foul atmosphere of death, theft and corruption it is only a short walk to war. What we are left with is isolated pockets of love, fighting the evil of greed, theft and corruption that kills our brothers and sisters every day. All this because we have left the essential ingredient of life out of the daily equation of living and dealing with others. Love is the answer, love is the only glory, love is our only guide to true civilization, and civilized behavior, where no killer of men earns the nickname "The Great." Love is kindness and bestows dignity on our fellow man. Love is still the only game in town. We ignore it at our own peril. Give love and give life. It is one and the same.
April 25, 2009
THANKS FOR THE MAMMARIES! BOB CRE$PO & THE BIG $PENDER$ PLAYING LIVE TO FIGHT BREAST CANCER!
Come to the BEAT BREAST CANCER CONCERT at DJ Ryder's Rhythm & Brews, 3297 Long Beach Road, Oceanside, New York, 11572, (516) 992-8174. All proceeds go to the AVON WALK FOR BREAST CANCER. SUNDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 26, 2009, 2:30 PM. Donation: $10 bucks cheap plus FREE FOOD. The Bands: BOB CRE$PO & THE BIG $PENDER$ - THE TASH BROTHERS BAND - THE FOSSILS
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 376
People are just as happy to see each season go as we are to see it arrive. Everything gets on our nerves after a few months, even Springtime.
SUNDAY WE PLAY FOR ELAINA
Sunday afternoon Bob Crespo & The Big Spenders play a live gig, always a joyful time for the band and hopefully for our audience. Sunday, however, will be a very special show. We will be playing for the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer in a benefit to raise money for breast cancer research, treatment, and awareness. Breast cancer is a disease that takes the lives of over 40,000 women every year in the United States out of 185,000 stricken with this disease. Our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our grannies, our cousins and aunts and dear friends. Cancer is a cruel and debilitating disease and everyone reading this has lost somebody to this horrible sickness and known people who have survived it only by going through a special hell.
As for myself, I'm playing for my niece Elaina, a breast cancer survivor, the only child of two of my best and oldest friends and my wife Louise's Goddaughter. Her mother is my wife's sister Susan, who stood by her daughter when she got the news with the fierce love of a mother and the heart of a lioness. Her ex-husband Greg is Elaina's father and she was the light of her Godfather Michael, Greg's younger brother who was lost to us way too young, at only 35. Greg and Susan married as youngsters and like most kid marriages, it didn't work out but what did work out spectacularly was Elaina, one of the liveliest, smartest, strongest and half loony human beings you'd ever be lucky enough to know. She's a walking, talking good time and great company.
A little over 2 years ago she came to New York from where she lives in Florida to say goodbye to her father, who was losing his years-long battle with cancer, battling the demon with laughter and defiance like the joyful madman he always was. Elaina rarely left his side at the hospital for the last few weeks of her father's life, feeding him what he could hold down, washing him, keeping him company, holding his hand, comforting his parents and small stepson. When his time came, she was there, and all during the funeral she was an amazing presence. She insisted on celebrating Greg's life, for he was a lover of life and living. Hundreds of people came to the wake, many flying in from all over the country to say goodbye to a special man.
For two days she greeted and comforted her father's friends and family, then fed them afterward at her grandparents' house, somehow holding herself together right through to his burial. It was during this ordeal that she felt something in her own body, a lump in one of her breasts. So when she got home to Florida she had herself examined, and sure enough, it was The Beast, come to torment her this time. So she flew back to New York and consulted with the doctors in Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital, who assured her that the treatment in Florida was exactly what they would do. She had just gone through this routine with her father and knew exactly what questions to ask, and what were her options.
And so began her own journey into hell. Her options were not good and she began the chemotherapy and radiation that wracked her with pain, cost her her hair, and severely injured her body. All the while she continued to run her restaurant, being a trained chef and a natural people magnet, never showing the world her agony. Her mother would drive her 3 hours to her treatments and she would come back physically devastated, but always bounced back in a day or two. This went on for months and Elaina never flinched, never sought anyone's pity or fell into the "why me?" mode. She fought back hard, laughing in death's face and defying The Beast to change her spirit.
She drew strength from her mother and stepfather, her four grandparents, her many aunts, uncles and cousins. If the phone rang at 2 A.M. in my house, I figured Louise and Elaina to be good to yack until dawn, so I sent my love and got out of the way of the immense healing power of female bonding and went to bed. Love is the best companion to an ailing body and Elaina is lucky enough to have so many people in her life eager to shower her with theirs. And in truth, she had a lot of love in the bank that she herself had generated in her short life, and now it was time to collect. There is a reason for everything in this life it seems, and when she needed it most, the electric, love-inducing burst of life that is Elaina had earned a ton of interest on the love she generated.
And that was all that we could do, pour out our love and support, since we are helpless in the face of cancer. There is an impotent rage that fills us when a loved one is stricken. And so there is all the more reason to fight cancer with all we've got. Elaina is alive and well and whole today,one of the lucky ones, and for a lot of reasons besides her powerful character and all the love and support she was shown. First, she was educated about the disease, and her self-examination detected the lump. Second, she acted swiftly and without hesitation to get the best medical help she possibly could. And thirdly, the doctors today have more and better tools for fighting cancer every year, and the earlier any cancer is detected, the better are one's chances of surviving.
Unfortunately, so very many aren't as lucky as Elaina. The least the rest of us can do is try to give what we can for research, treatment and, just as importantly, education to promote cancer awareness. Knowing the enemy is vital, and knowing your medical options and the inherent risks involved in each of them is important. Knowledge is power. Unfortunately for more than 40,000 women every year, these weapons and our limited knowledge are not enough and we must move towards a cure. Maybe someday those 40,000 deep and wide rivers of love and life and wisdom that are our sisters won't be lost to us forever. Until then, we do what we can. The only thing I have to offer is my music and the ability to make crowds of people aware of women like Elaina. Sunday afternoon, (see the ad above for the details) The Big Spenders will be playing our hearts out for Elaina and thanking God she is still among us, just as beautiful, just an joyful, smart, funny, loving, strong and just as nuts as she always was. Elaina, this show is for you, sweets.
As for myself, I'm playing for my niece Elaina, a breast cancer survivor, the only child of two of my best and oldest friends and my wife Louise's Goddaughter. Her mother is my wife's sister Susan, who stood by her daughter when she got the news with the fierce love of a mother and the heart of a lioness. Her ex-husband Greg is Elaina's father and she was the light of her Godfather Michael, Greg's younger brother who was lost to us way too young, at only 35. Greg and Susan married as youngsters and like most kid marriages, it didn't work out but what did work out spectacularly was Elaina, one of the liveliest, smartest, strongest and half loony human beings you'd ever be lucky enough to know. She's a walking, talking good time and great company.
A little over 2 years ago she came to New York from where she lives in Florida to say goodbye to her father, who was losing his years-long battle with cancer, battling the demon with laughter and defiance like the joyful madman he always was. Elaina rarely left his side at the hospital for the last few weeks of her father's life, feeding him what he could hold down, washing him, keeping him company, holding his hand, comforting his parents and small stepson. When his time came, she was there, and all during the funeral she was an amazing presence. She insisted on celebrating Greg's life, for he was a lover of life and living. Hundreds of people came to the wake, many flying in from all over the country to say goodbye to a special man.
For two days she greeted and comforted her father's friends and family, then fed them afterward at her grandparents' house, somehow holding herself together right through to his burial. It was during this ordeal that she felt something in her own body, a lump in one of her breasts. So when she got home to Florida she had herself examined, and sure enough, it was The Beast, come to torment her this time. So she flew back to New York and consulted with the doctors in Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital, who assured her that the treatment in Florida was exactly what they would do. She had just gone through this routine with her father and knew exactly what questions to ask, and what were her options.
And so began her own journey into hell. Her options were not good and she began the chemotherapy and radiation that wracked her with pain, cost her her hair, and severely injured her body. All the while she continued to run her restaurant, being a trained chef and a natural people magnet, never showing the world her agony. Her mother would drive her 3 hours to her treatments and she would come back physically devastated, but always bounced back in a day or two. This went on for months and Elaina never flinched, never sought anyone's pity or fell into the "why me?" mode. She fought back hard, laughing in death's face and defying The Beast to change her spirit.
She drew strength from her mother and stepfather, her four grandparents, her many aunts, uncles and cousins. If the phone rang at 2 A.M. in my house, I figured Louise and Elaina to be good to yack until dawn, so I sent my love and got out of the way of the immense healing power of female bonding and went to bed. Love is the best companion to an ailing body and Elaina is lucky enough to have so many people in her life eager to shower her with theirs. And in truth, she had a lot of love in the bank that she herself had generated in her short life, and now it was time to collect. There is a reason for everything in this life it seems, and when she needed it most, the electric, love-inducing burst of life that is Elaina had earned a ton of interest on the love she generated.
And that was all that we could do, pour out our love and support, since we are helpless in the face of cancer. There is an impotent rage that fills us when a loved one is stricken. And so there is all the more reason to fight cancer with all we've got. Elaina is alive and well and whole today,one of the lucky ones, and for a lot of reasons besides her powerful character and all the love and support she was shown. First, she was educated about the disease, and her self-examination detected the lump. Second, she acted swiftly and without hesitation to get the best medical help she possibly could. And thirdly, the doctors today have more and better tools for fighting cancer every year, and the earlier any cancer is detected, the better are one's chances of surviving.
Unfortunately, so very many aren't as lucky as Elaina. The least the rest of us can do is try to give what we can for research, treatment and, just as importantly, education to promote cancer awareness. Knowing the enemy is vital, and knowing your medical options and the inherent risks involved in each of them is important. Knowledge is power. Unfortunately for more than 40,000 women every year, these weapons and our limited knowledge are not enough and we must move towards a cure. Maybe someday those 40,000 deep and wide rivers of love and life and wisdom that are our sisters won't be lost to us forever. Until then, we do what we can. The only thing I have to offer is my music and the ability to make crowds of people aware of women like Elaina. Sunday afternoon, (see the ad above for the details) The Big Spenders will be playing our hearts out for Elaina and thanking God she is still among us, just as beautiful, just an joyful, smart, funny, loving, strong and just as nuts as she always was. Elaina, this show is for you, sweets.
April 24, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 375
Being an eldest child is difficult because your parents are new at the job. Their only training was the on-the-job variety, and you were their first major project. Try to be forgiving about the scars and that regrettable electric socket incident. They did their best.
ODDBALL JOBS
Got a call this morning from a tele-marketer from a cemetery, trying to sell me a grave site. At my age, my first reaction was: "What, you know something I don't?" Then I realized that this was just another person performing a job I had no idea existed. Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall any time as a child when I longed to grow up and be a grave salesman. I was too busy daydreaming about becoming the centerfielder for the Yankees, a fireman, a cowboy, a soldier, a cop, a sailor or a movie star to wonder about how people acquired the six-foot deep holes where they got buried. There were precious few astronauts back then in the Analog Age. It was a brand new job and one where the first guys were replacements for space monkeys, not exactly the stuff that little boys' dreams are made of.
No doubt the lady who called me up offering me eternal comfort and tranquility (How would she know? She sounded so convincing!) didn't aspire to her job either. That would be even more odd than yearning to be an accountant, a job everyone knows about. So you start thinking about oddball careers, and what else might people do with themselves that would occur to nobody else. So you do a little research, make some calls, and compile a list. And lo and behold, you find some unusual occupations indeed! Consider doing this every day:
METH-AMPHETAMINE LAB TECHNICIAN: Unlike your colleagues in legal laboratories, you operate in trailer homes, abandoned barns and corrugated tin sheds. You mix some very volatile substances without benefit of a long white lab coat, safety equipment or ordinary sanitation and hope that:
A - You don't get raided by the police
B - You don't get robbed by crazed meth-heads
C - You don't blow yourself and the immediate vicinity to smithereens
D - You don't get tortured and murdered by rival drug gangs
E - All of the above
If you answered "E - All of the above," you've only just glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the drawbacks of this job.
THE GUY WHO COLLECTS ROAD KILL: When you see a dead animal on the highway or your local street, notice that it's not there the next day. And no, those carcasses are not disintegrated into dust by all the cars and trucks that add insult to death by mashing the poor thing as flat and wide as bed sheet. A special guy in a special truck comes along and cleans up this bloody, furry mess and hauls away the squashed remains. A worse job than his? His assistant.
PORNO MOVIE MAKEUP ARTIST: What, you thought all those bodies were smooth and perfect? While they might be very near perfect, in the glare of the Klieg lights required for filming, special makeup is required to make certain body parts, how shall we say... glisten. That's two sets of lips that need careful attention. These jobs are hard to get, since nobody ever quits or retires. They die very happy, though.
OPRAH WINFREY'S WARDROBE PERSON: There's only so many times you can let out a dress or assure somebody that they don't look fat when they are. And when your boss fluctuates in weight from year to year from chubby to Buick-sized, you're likely to be putting in a lot of overtime and scouring the old Roget's Thesaurus for synonyms for "full-figured" and "robust."
HAIR PLUG INSTALLERS: Few doctors dream of using their long and very expensive educations to create an army of silly looking doll-hair men using their pubic hair, but the big dough these insecure baldies lay out is too tempting to actually cure sick people for a living. As an added bonus, there are few emergencies in the middle of the night involving hair plugs, so your weekend golf game and mistress visits are seldom interrupted.
MATTRESS TESTER: This job was not invented by Al Capp, who gave it to his comic creation, Lil' Abner. There are people who's job it is to test mattresses, by (how else?) sleeping on them and reporting to the designers on how comfortable or uncomfortable they are. This job, while not too intellectually challenging, is nonetheless considered a desirable career path. Line forms to the left.
JACK DANIELS BOTTLE CAPPERS: In the Jack Daniels Whiskey distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, tours are given of the place. It is a fascinating education on how corn whiskey is made. It begins with the hand-made and carefully charred oak barrels in which the whiskey is aged, and then moves on to the automated factory process of actually bottling the whiskey, all kinds of tubes, machines, conveyor belts and automated boxing apparatus, until the very end, when the full bottles in open cases are rolled to a half dozen very busy ladies who then screw the caps on by hand. After that, another machine adds the plastic cap wrapper and seals the box. Why this one function of a hundred different operations is done by hand is never explained, but hey, in this economy, a job's a job, right?
MENS' ROOM ATTENDANT: In many a fancy restaurant, catering hall or hotel, you find a men's room attendant. Outside of severely disabled individuals, are there many men who need assistance to relieve themselves? Handing you a paper towel after you wash your hands doesn't seem like such a vital pubic service, and whatever tips these men receive are hard-earned for having to spend their entire workday among some decidedly unpleasant smells and sounds.
PET PSYCHIATRIST: More of a scam than an actual job, these people figure it would just be wrong to refuse big dollars from people with more money than brains. Kudos to them.
BUNGEE CORD MEASURER: While this might on the face of it seem like a frivolous occupation, considerable pains are taken to hire individuals with a good grasp of mathematics, the elasticity of the bungee cord when combined with various body weights, the safety margins required, and completely free of psychotic tendencies.
HISTORY REVISIONISTS: This is a booming business these days, which can only be attributed to the scarcity of real jobs in this depressed economy. Why else would anybody undertake the task of convincing the nation that the Bush Administration was The Golden Age of America? Here's the selling points for Bush The Younger Nostalgia:
The Bill of Rights is overrated
War is its own reward
Letting a city drown is an exercise in market forces
Taxing the super wealthy is a sin
Financial industry regulations are for sissies
Science is for Jesus haters
Being smart and reading a lot is show-offy
It's a challenging job, made even more so by the fact that there's a really smart guy in the White House now who's paying attention to what's going on in America and doesn't have a giant ranch to escape to so he can clear brush for weeks on end while the Vice President runs the country for the benefit of his billionaire buddies. But, undaunted by the magnitude of their task, the History Revisionists are out in force, predicting an end to life as we know it and wishing the president of their nation to fail. Now, if they'd only throw in a set of stainless steel steak knives at no extra cost, maybe they'd make some sales.
No doubt the lady who called me up offering me eternal comfort and tranquility (How would she know? She sounded so convincing!) didn't aspire to her job either. That would be even more odd than yearning to be an accountant, a job everyone knows about. So you start thinking about oddball careers, and what else might people do with themselves that would occur to nobody else. So you do a little research, make some calls, and compile a list. And lo and behold, you find some unusual occupations indeed! Consider doing this every day:
METH-AMPHETAMINE LAB TECHNICIAN: Unlike your colleagues in legal laboratories, you operate in trailer homes, abandoned barns and corrugated tin sheds. You mix some very volatile substances without benefit of a long white lab coat, safety equipment or ordinary sanitation and hope that:
A - You don't get raided by the police
B - You don't get robbed by crazed meth-heads
C - You don't blow yourself and the immediate vicinity to smithereens
D - You don't get tortured and murdered by rival drug gangs
E - All of the above
If you answered "E - All of the above," you've only just glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the drawbacks of this job.
THE GUY WHO COLLECTS ROAD KILL: When you see a dead animal on the highway or your local street, notice that it's not there the next day. And no, those carcasses are not disintegrated into dust by all the cars and trucks that add insult to death by mashing the poor thing as flat and wide as bed sheet. A special guy in a special truck comes along and cleans up this bloody, furry mess and hauls away the squashed remains. A worse job than his? His assistant.
PORNO MOVIE MAKEUP ARTIST: What, you thought all those bodies were smooth and perfect? While they might be very near perfect, in the glare of the Klieg lights required for filming, special makeup is required to make certain body parts, how shall we say... glisten. That's two sets of lips that need careful attention. These jobs are hard to get, since nobody ever quits or retires. They die very happy, though.
OPRAH WINFREY'S WARDROBE PERSON: There's only so many times you can let out a dress or assure somebody that they don't look fat when they are. And when your boss fluctuates in weight from year to year from chubby to Buick-sized, you're likely to be putting in a lot of overtime and scouring the old Roget's Thesaurus for synonyms for "full-figured" and "robust."
HAIR PLUG INSTALLERS: Few doctors dream of using their long and very expensive educations to create an army of silly looking doll-hair men using their pubic hair, but the big dough these insecure baldies lay out is too tempting to actually cure sick people for a living. As an added bonus, there are few emergencies in the middle of the night involving hair plugs, so your weekend golf game and mistress visits are seldom interrupted.
MATTRESS TESTER: This job was not invented by Al Capp, who gave it to his comic creation, Lil' Abner. There are people who's job it is to test mattresses, by (how else?) sleeping on them and reporting to the designers on how comfortable or uncomfortable they are. This job, while not too intellectually challenging, is nonetheless considered a desirable career path. Line forms to the left.
JACK DANIELS BOTTLE CAPPERS: In the Jack Daniels Whiskey distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, tours are given of the place. It is a fascinating education on how corn whiskey is made. It begins with the hand-made and carefully charred oak barrels in which the whiskey is aged, and then moves on to the automated factory process of actually bottling the whiskey, all kinds of tubes, machines, conveyor belts and automated boxing apparatus, until the very end, when the full bottles in open cases are rolled to a half dozen very busy ladies who then screw the caps on by hand. After that, another machine adds the plastic cap wrapper and seals the box. Why this one function of a hundred different operations is done by hand is never explained, but hey, in this economy, a job's a job, right?
MENS' ROOM ATTENDANT: In many a fancy restaurant, catering hall or hotel, you find a men's room attendant. Outside of severely disabled individuals, are there many men who need assistance to relieve themselves? Handing you a paper towel after you wash your hands doesn't seem like such a vital pubic service, and whatever tips these men receive are hard-earned for having to spend their entire workday among some decidedly unpleasant smells and sounds.
PET PSYCHIATRIST: More of a scam than an actual job, these people figure it would just be wrong to refuse big dollars from people with more money than brains. Kudos to them.
BUNGEE CORD MEASURER: While this might on the face of it seem like a frivolous occupation, considerable pains are taken to hire individuals with a good grasp of mathematics, the elasticity of the bungee cord when combined with various body weights, the safety margins required, and completely free of psychotic tendencies.
HISTORY REVISIONISTS: This is a booming business these days, which can only be attributed to the scarcity of real jobs in this depressed economy. Why else would anybody undertake the task of convincing the nation that the Bush Administration was The Golden Age of America? Here's the selling points for Bush The Younger Nostalgia:
The Bill of Rights is overrated
War is its own reward
Letting a city drown is an exercise in market forces
Taxing the super wealthy is a sin
Financial industry regulations are for sissies
Science is for Jesus haters
Being smart and reading a lot is show-offy
It's a challenging job, made even more so by the fact that there's a really smart guy in the White House now who's paying attention to what's going on in America and doesn't have a giant ranch to escape to so he can clear brush for weeks on end while the Vice President runs the country for the benefit of his billionaire buddies. But, undaunted by the magnitude of their task, the History Revisionists are out in force, predicting an end to life as we know it and wishing the president of their nation to fail. Now, if they'd only throw in a set of stainless steel steak knives at no extra cost, maybe they'd make some sales.
April 23, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 374
Don't be be too harsh on fools, drunkards and screw-ups. Somebody's got to make the rest of us look good.
THE IDEAL VERSUS THE REALITY
Ah, ideals! Pink and fluffy, lovely and sweet are our dreams and aspirations. The reality of dreams realized, however, often tells a different story, tales of failure, compromise and uneasy accommodation with harsh reality. And so we keep dreaming and striving, falling flat on our kissers, getting up, dusting ourselves off and gamely continuing to push our boulders up that hill. So, in the wake of Earth Day, that most idealistic of invented holidays, consider:
THE IDEAL: Earth Day
THE REALITY: Love Canal, Lake Erie, Mumbai, Chernobyl, New Jersey, strip mines, vanishing forests, acid rain...
THE IDEAL: Humane behavior
THE REALITY: Human behavior
THE IDEAL: The internet, a worldwide unifying web providing vast amounts of information, instant communication and an understanding between disparate peoples and societies.
THE REALITY: Twitter.
THE IDEAL: The Olympics, an international sporting competition involving the world's top athletes in a showcase of skill, speed, strength and grace.
THE REALITY: Synchronized swimming, skiing while shooting a rifle and athletes of indeterminate gender on steroids.
THE IDEAL: Reality TV, celebrating the lives of ordinary people.
THE REALITY: The waking nightmare that is Reality TV.
THE IDEAL: The United Nations, keeper of world peace, arbiter of international misunderstandings and champion of the world's poor and underprivileged.
THE REALITY: The United Nations, serial rebukers, spineless hand-wringers and squabbling adult children with no power and few good intentions. They have, however, cornered the market on strongly worded proclamations.
THE IDEAL: America
THE REALITY: President Obama with a giant mop and bucket trying to clean up the raw sewage left behind by Bush The Younger, Shotgun Dick Cheney, Rummy Rumsfeld, Brownie and ten thousand thieving corporate princes.
THE IDEAL: Religion, source of spiritual comfort, love, harmony and peace.
THE REALITY: Religion, a handy excuse for hatred and slaughter with an invisible God to blame.
THE IDEAL: Green living.
THE REALITY: Unreliable low-wattage light bulbs filled with mercury, Sports Utility Vehicles with giant V-8 engines, 40% of the world's electricity produced by burning coal.
THE IDEAL: Medical research and the alleviation of mankind's torment from devastating diseases.
THE REALITY: Oxycontin, HMOs and phony attention-related syndromes.
THE IDEAL: The Year of The Child.
THE REALITY: 18 million children dying every year from starvation and unsanitary water-related diseases.
THE IDEAL: The Asian Century
THE REALITY: China and India being divided between educated, prosperous, healthy people and hundreds of millions of wretchedly poor illiterates living in The Bronze Age (see The Year of the Child).
THE IDEAL: A global economy.
THE REALITY: Half the world's 6 billion people still living in extreme poverty.
THE IDEAL: The end of Colonialism.
THE REALITY: Tribalism, corruption, tyranny and genocide.
THE IDEAL: Universal equality.
THE REALITY: Proposition 8, legally denying 5% of American citizens residing in California the right to marry.
THE IDEAL: American Idol.
THE REALITY: Simon The Cruel
And so it goes. Life has a way of letting us know that our ideals and reality rarely match. That gives us plenty to shoot for, and shows us we've got a lot of work to do. Which is just fine since people seem to be made for two things; to dream and to work. The trick we're always trying to figure out is how to get these two functions to work together. As a race of beings, we humans have made a lot of dreams come true and come a very long way, but reality tells us not to get too giddy and get back to work. There's miles to go before we sleep.
THE IDEAL: Earth Day
THE REALITY: Love Canal, Lake Erie, Mumbai, Chernobyl, New Jersey, strip mines, vanishing forests, acid rain...
THE IDEAL: Humane behavior
THE REALITY: Human behavior
THE IDEAL: The internet, a worldwide unifying web providing vast amounts of information, instant communication and an understanding between disparate peoples and societies.
THE REALITY: Twitter.
THE IDEAL: The Olympics, an international sporting competition involving the world's top athletes in a showcase of skill, speed, strength and grace.
THE REALITY: Synchronized swimming, skiing while shooting a rifle and athletes of indeterminate gender on steroids.
THE IDEAL: Reality TV, celebrating the lives of ordinary people.
THE REALITY: The waking nightmare that is Reality TV.
THE IDEAL: The United Nations, keeper of world peace, arbiter of international misunderstandings and champion of the world's poor and underprivileged.
THE REALITY: The United Nations, serial rebukers, spineless hand-wringers and squabbling adult children with no power and few good intentions. They have, however, cornered the market on strongly worded proclamations.
THE IDEAL: America
THE REALITY: President Obama with a giant mop and bucket trying to clean up the raw sewage left behind by Bush The Younger, Shotgun Dick Cheney, Rummy Rumsfeld, Brownie and ten thousand thieving corporate princes.
THE IDEAL: Religion, source of spiritual comfort, love, harmony and peace.
THE REALITY: Religion, a handy excuse for hatred and slaughter with an invisible God to blame.
THE IDEAL: Green living.
THE REALITY: Unreliable low-wattage light bulbs filled with mercury, Sports Utility Vehicles with giant V-8 engines, 40% of the world's electricity produced by burning coal.
THE IDEAL: Medical research and the alleviation of mankind's torment from devastating diseases.
THE REALITY: Oxycontin, HMOs and phony attention-related syndromes.
THE IDEAL: The Year of The Child.
THE REALITY: 18 million children dying every year from starvation and unsanitary water-related diseases.
THE IDEAL: The Asian Century
THE REALITY: China and India being divided between educated, prosperous, healthy people and hundreds of millions of wretchedly poor illiterates living in The Bronze Age (see The Year of the Child).
THE IDEAL: A global economy.
THE REALITY: Half the world's 6 billion people still living in extreme poverty.
THE IDEAL: The end of Colonialism.
THE REALITY: Tribalism, corruption, tyranny and genocide.
THE IDEAL: Universal equality.
THE REALITY: Proposition 8, legally denying 5% of American citizens residing in California the right to marry.
THE IDEAL: American Idol.
THE REALITY: Simon The Cruel
And so it goes. Life has a way of letting us know that our ideals and reality rarely match. That gives us plenty to shoot for, and shows us we've got a lot of work to do. Which is just fine since people seem to be made for two things; to dream and to work. The trick we're always trying to figure out is how to get these two functions to work together. As a race of beings, we humans have made a lot of dreams come true and come a very long way, but reality tells us not to get too giddy and get back to work. There's miles to go before we sleep.
April 22, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 373
Newspapers will never be completely obsolete. People will always save historic headlines for posterity. Also, try lining the old birdcage or wrapping a fish with the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report. It's problematic.
NEVER FORGET? HOW CAN WE WHEN WE KEEP REPEATING THE HOLOCAUST?
The other day was Holocaust Remembrance Day, recalling the time more than 60 years ago when an estimated 6 million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis in extermination camps. Joining the Jews as victims of this mass slaughter were almost 2 million Poles, 200,000 Roma and Sinti, also called Gypsies, a quarter of a million people with disabilities, between 10 and 20 thousand homosexuals and 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. There is no exact body count, and untold numbers of souls died horrible and anonymous deaths, but enough records were kept to reach these accepted death toll figures. As time passes and survivors and eyewitnesses die, slimy Holocaust Deniers crawl from beneath whatever rock where they were spawned to try to rewrite history.
Which is why Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon the discovery of the concentration camps, ordered his troops to take as many films and photographs that they possible could, because he correctly predicted that "the day will come when some son of a bitch will say this never happened." Smart man, that Dwight D. Anti-Semites have been beating that drum for decades now, trying to duplicate the Big Lie theory put forth by the Nazis: "Say some thing loud enough and often enough and it becomes the truth." Well, no. No it does not, Herr Jerkenhoffer, and doesn't convince any reasonable person today. The Human Chihuahua that is president of Iran doesn't qualify as a reasonable or realistic person, or even a person who is in control of the nation he nominally leads. There's even bigger dunces running the show in Iran as the powers behind his tiny throne.
For anyone in doubt, the pictures are there, the films exist, the meticulous records the Germans themselves kept have been preserved in all their cold efficiency. Many of the camps still stand, with nobody willing to build and live where the stench of death and methodical cruelty poisoned the earth itself. Eisenhower's vivid visual records and the corroborated testimony of many thousands of remaining eye witnesses still haven't shamed the Holocaust Deniers into abandoning their agenda of hatred, but they are basically harmless blowhards who everybody with half a brain knows are so full of shit they don't even smell it anymore. More harmful are the Holocaust Emulators, the "ethnic cleansers" of the Balkan States in the 1990's (around 100,000), the slaughterers of Rwanda in 1994 (800,000) and the mass murderers (to the tune of 1.7 million) in Cambodia in the 1970's.
While none of these very recent incidents of genocide have produced the staggering numbers of victims of the Nazi Holocaust, it wasn't for lack of trying. So far none of them have been able to match Hitler or his main rivals in genocide, good old Chairman Mao and Jolting Joe Stalin, good for tens of millions apiece "purged" (murdered). There are many more groups of vicious haters out there who would like nothing more that to murder every last man, woman and child of some target group or another in their beds, but lack either the balls, the brains or the ambition. Others who would practice what they preach in a heartbeat are thankfully short of the the weapons and the opportunity. Unfortunately, there are some who can and will carry out genocide again, and for all we know, someday break Hitler's, Stalin's and Mao's records. There are many hate clubs seeking nuclear weapons, and no shortage of callous scumbags who will help them get their hands on some for a tidy profit. Genocide may yet see its most productive day.
This stuff has been going on since Biblical times, when some bigoted joker with an eye on some other tribe's territory thought it would be a great idea to pretend it was God's direct orders when the so-called Holy Scriptures commanded entire races of people "to be slain down to the last man, woman and child!" To their semi-credit, the Israelites of the Bible tales stopped short of complete annihilation, thus allegedly annoying the crap out of God for leaving a few victims alive. Can a human being ever truly convince themselves that mass murder is God's will? You would think that the actual act of slaying a child would cure that notion pretty quick. Or at least hope that's the case. There is only vengeance and hatred and personal gain involved, in Biblical times and today. Forget the holocaust? How can we? It's not over yet. Like the song says: "How can I miss you when you won't go away?"
Which is why Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon the discovery of the concentration camps, ordered his troops to take as many films and photographs that they possible could, because he correctly predicted that "the day will come when some son of a bitch will say this never happened." Smart man, that Dwight D. Anti-Semites have been beating that drum for decades now, trying to duplicate the Big Lie theory put forth by the Nazis: "Say some thing loud enough and often enough and it becomes the truth." Well, no. No it does not, Herr Jerkenhoffer, and doesn't convince any reasonable person today. The Human Chihuahua that is president of Iran doesn't qualify as a reasonable or realistic person, or even a person who is in control of the nation he nominally leads. There's even bigger dunces running the show in Iran as the powers behind his tiny throne.
For anyone in doubt, the pictures are there, the films exist, the meticulous records the Germans themselves kept have been preserved in all their cold efficiency. Many of the camps still stand, with nobody willing to build and live where the stench of death and methodical cruelty poisoned the earth itself. Eisenhower's vivid visual records and the corroborated testimony of many thousands of remaining eye witnesses still haven't shamed the Holocaust Deniers into abandoning their agenda of hatred, but they are basically harmless blowhards who everybody with half a brain knows are so full of shit they don't even smell it anymore. More harmful are the Holocaust Emulators, the "ethnic cleansers" of the Balkan States in the 1990's (around 100,000), the slaughterers of Rwanda in 1994 (800,000) and the mass murderers (to the tune of 1.7 million) in Cambodia in the 1970's.
While none of these very recent incidents of genocide have produced the staggering numbers of victims of the Nazi Holocaust, it wasn't for lack of trying. So far none of them have been able to match Hitler or his main rivals in genocide, good old Chairman Mao and Jolting Joe Stalin, good for tens of millions apiece "purged" (murdered). There are many more groups of vicious haters out there who would like nothing more that to murder every last man, woman and child of some target group or another in their beds, but lack either the balls, the brains or the ambition. Others who would practice what they preach in a heartbeat are thankfully short of the the weapons and the opportunity. Unfortunately, there are some who can and will carry out genocide again, and for all we know, someday break Hitler's, Stalin's and Mao's records. There are many hate clubs seeking nuclear weapons, and no shortage of callous scumbags who will help them get their hands on some for a tidy profit. Genocide may yet see its most productive day.
This stuff has been going on since Biblical times, when some bigoted joker with an eye on some other tribe's territory thought it would be a great idea to pretend it was God's direct orders when the so-called Holy Scriptures commanded entire races of people "to be slain down to the last man, woman and child!" To their semi-credit, the Israelites of the Bible tales stopped short of complete annihilation, thus allegedly annoying the crap out of God for leaving a few victims alive. Can a human being ever truly convince themselves that mass murder is God's will? You would think that the actual act of slaying a child would cure that notion pretty quick. Or at least hope that's the case. There is only vengeance and hatred and personal gain involved, in Biblical times and today. Forget the holocaust? How can we? It's not over yet. Like the song says: "How can I miss you when you won't go away?"
April 21, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 372
We fear and shun the mad because we are only inches away from being there ourselves. This is as unreasonable as madness itself. At least the mentally afflicted have a reason to be unreasonable. What's our excuse?
IS MONEY REAL? THIS IS NOT A PIPE!
Back in the days before paper money became popular, people were outraged that slips of paper would replace gold, silver and hard, tangible bartered goods. We moderns figured this was a pretty quaint and antiquated notion, but every so often when the economy goes haywire you begin to understand those early fears. Today in Zimbabwe, just as it was in Germany following World War One, the paper currency is practically worthless, with a wheelbarrow full of it not even buying enough food to feed a family for one day. Even stable currencies fluctuate in value and are subject to inflation. Has there ever been a generation of grandparents who bragged at how much more things cost back in their day?
And now you hear economists tell us that in America, 11 trillion dollars worth of wealth has disappeared in the past year and a half. Where did it go? Who's got it? If it was a real commodity, like say, shoes, then you could figure out where all the shoes went, no problem. Just check everybody's closet and see who's joined the Imelda Marcos club. But the money just seems to have vanished into thin air. So, was it ever really there in the first place? Or is money the one item that defies the immutable laws of physics, the ones that tell us that matter can neither be created or destroyed?
But physics also tells us that matter can be transformed, such as wood into ash and smoke, various metals into steel and food into shit. So, was that 11 trillion turned into a pile of shit? No one burned it and there hasn't been a glut of steel on the market, but there seems to be no shortage of bullshit lately when it comes to explaining where the money went. But that can't be, either, since nobody ate the 11 tril. Or maybe it's just that the money never existed in the first place except in our minds. When you have an economy based on what people think something is worth as opposed to what it is actually worth, well, there can never be a hard definition of how much wealth exists.
That 11 trillion had to be air money, wish wealth or whatever else you'd like to call something that can be created and destroyed without any actual physical occurrence. You sure couldn't make 11 trillion pairs of shoes evaporate without one hell of a fire. Shoes are real, we put them on every day and acquire new ones all the time. While they wear out and and lose substance from the friction of walking, no one ever had a pair of shoes they used until they completely vanished, and even if they did, that would take many decades. So how does that happen with 20% of a nation's wealth unless it was never there in the first place? Who built this house of cards?
There is a famous painting by Rene Magritte called "The Treachery of Images." On the canvas is a painting of a tobacco pipe. Beneath the image is the caption saying: "This is not a pipe." This exercise in pointing out the obvious was as usual lost on many people. To them, that painting of a pipe was a pipe, even though you couldn't hold it, put in your pocket, stuff it with tobacco or light it up and puff away. It was an image. Is our money that pipe? It can't be all that illusory, otherwise you wouldn't have rich and poor. If being wealthy merely a matter of having a deeper belief in the illusion of money, then we'd all be ultra-orthodox priests of finance. So, scratch that.
Somewhere between the belief in wealth and the reality of worth we run our world's economies. Exactly where the line is drawn between faith and actuality will never be truly defined, but you have to figure that at least some of the missing 11 trillion dollars never existed. When you buy a house for $200,000, unlike a pair of $50 shoes, you don't have $200,000 dollars handy. And so you borrow a ton of money that you never see or handle from a bank, which they never see or handle either, and pay the house off over a period of 30 years with money you do see and handle, money you have worked hard to earn. It's mysterious but it works. That is, it works when the economy is booming.
When 5 years down the line somebody tells you that your house is now worth $350,000 dollars even though you've done nothing but paint the garage and mow the lawn, you wonder what magic has been wrought. That $50 pair of shoes you bought the same week you got the house are long gone, worn out and worth nothing. But your house, which may also be worn out and looking pretty shoddy, is now worth a small fortune more than what you actually didn't pay for it since you bought it with a promise. But if you sell your house that day for $350,000 you make a real profit of $150,000, money that if you like you can convert into cash and see and feel and handle and smell and cover your bed with and jump into it like a pile of leaves.
Now, if you are the person who buys that house for $350,000, and the economy goes south like it just did, you might find yourself on the hook to pay off $350,000 for a house that is suddenly worth only $200,000 again. So now you've got several problems; the government still taxes you like your house is worth the 350k, you lost your job and now you can't afford to live there anymore. Now the system is still mysterious but it this instance, it does not work. So you either abandon the house or the bank takes it from you forcibly, but either way, that huge loan won't be repaid and the house cannot be sold for what is was guessed to be worth and so the economy is smaller by $150,000.
Multiply that by millions of homes and you start to get a feel for where that 11 trillion bucks went. It went nowhere, because it was never there. Now factor in larceny, fraud and greed at the highest levels of our economic hierarchy, people who were supposed to know better and, more importantly, do better, it becomes clearer still. People who this system made wealthy suddenly as a pack decided they needed to become fabulously wealthy, and so packaged all these countless $150,000 losses into attractively gift-wrapped bundles of bullshit and sold them to one another in a game of financial hot potato, hoping this fraud would last at least until they dropped dead and then it would be somebody else's problem. Well, it didn't and here we are wondering what's real and what's fake. For lack of a better image, let's just say about our economy that it was not a pipe. More of a pipe dream.
And now you hear economists tell us that in America, 11 trillion dollars worth of wealth has disappeared in the past year and a half. Where did it go? Who's got it? If it was a real commodity, like say, shoes, then you could figure out where all the shoes went, no problem. Just check everybody's closet and see who's joined the Imelda Marcos club. But the money just seems to have vanished into thin air. So, was it ever really there in the first place? Or is money the one item that defies the immutable laws of physics, the ones that tell us that matter can neither be created or destroyed?
But physics also tells us that matter can be transformed, such as wood into ash and smoke, various metals into steel and food into shit. So, was that 11 trillion turned into a pile of shit? No one burned it and there hasn't been a glut of steel on the market, but there seems to be no shortage of bullshit lately when it comes to explaining where the money went. But that can't be, either, since nobody ate the 11 tril. Or maybe it's just that the money never existed in the first place except in our minds. When you have an economy based on what people think something is worth as opposed to what it is actually worth, well, there can never be a hard definition of how much wealth exists.
That 11 trillion had to be air money, wish wealth or whatever else you'd like to call something that can be created and destroyed without any actual physical occurrence. You sure couldn't make 11 trillion pairs of shoes evaporate without one hell of a fire. Shoes are real, we put them on every day and acquire new ones all the time. While they wear out and and lose substance from the friction of walking, no one ever had a pair of shoes they used until they completely vanished, and even if they did, that would take many decades. So how does that happen with 20% of a nation's wealth unless it was never there in the first place? Who built this house of cards?
There is a famous painting by Rene Magritte called "The Treachery of Images." On the canvas is a painting of a tobacco pipe. Beneath the image is the caption saying: "This is not a pipe." This exercise in pointing out the obvious was as usual lost on many people. To them, that painting of a pipe was a pipe, even though you couldn't hold it, put in your pocket, stuff it with tobacco or light it up and puff away. It was an image. Is our money that pipe? It can't be all that illusory, otherwise you wouldn't have rich and poor. If being wealthy merely a matter of having a deeper belief in the illusion of money, then we'd all be ultra-orthodox priests of finance. So, scratch that.
Somewhere between the belief in wealth and the reality of worth we run our world's economies. Exactly where the line is drawn between faith and actuality will never be truly defined, but you have to figure that at least some of the missing 11 trillion dollars never existed. When you buy a house for $200,000, unlike a pair of $50 shoes, you don't have $200,000 dollars handy. And so you borrow a ton of money that you never see or handle from a bank, which they never see or handle either, and pay the house off over a period of 30 years with money you do see and handle, money you have worked hard to earn. It's mysterious but it works. That is, it works when the economy is booming.
When 5 years down the line somebody tells you that your house is now worth $350,000 dollars even though you've done nothing but paint the garage and mow the lawn, you wonder what magic has been wrought. That $50 pair of shoes you bought the same week you got the house are long gone, worn out and worth nothing. But your house, which may also be worn out and looking pretty shoddy, is now worth a small fortune more than what you actually didn't pay for it since you bought it with a promise. But if you sell your house that day for $350,000 you make a real profit of $150,000, money that if you like you can convert into cash and see and feel and handle and smell and cover your bed with and jump into it like a pile of leaves.
Now, if you are the person who buys that house for $350,000, and the economy goes south like it just did, you might find yourself on the hook to pay off $350,000 for a house that is suddenly worth only $200,000 again. So now you've got several problems; the government still taxes you like your house is worth the 350k, you lost your job and now you can't afford to live there anymore. Now the system is still mysterious but it this instance, it does not work. So you either abandon the house or the bank takes it from you forcibly, but either way, that huge loan won't be repaid and the house cannot be sold for what is was guessed to be worth and so the economy is smaller by $150,000.
Multiply that by millions of homes and you start to get a feel for where that 11 trillion bucks went. It went nowhere, because it was never there. Now factor in larceny, fraud and greed at the highest levels of our economic hierarchy, people who were supposed to know better and, more importantly, do better, it becomes clearer still. People who this system made wealthy suddenly as a pack decided they needed to become fabulously wealthy, and so packaged all these countless $150,000 losses into attractively gift-wrapped bundles of bullshit and sold them to one another in a game of financial hot potato, hoping this fraud would last at least until they dropped dead and then it would be somebody else's problem. Well, it didn't and here we are wondering what's real and what's fake. For lack of a better image, let's just say about our economy that it was not a pipe. More of a pipe dream.
April 20, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 371
Life has a rhythm and an enduring pattern that must be respected. So men, it is important to take care of your health so you can at least live long enough to be an embarrassment to your teenagers.
MODERN PROVERBS: SO IT IS WRITTEN, SO IT SHALL BE DONE
You've got to love proverbs. Some of of them are really on the money, enduring bits of wisdom that always apply no matter how old they are, things like "Love is blind" and "A man is known by the company he keeps." And then there's some that are kind of quaint and dated, like "A stitch in time saves nine." Who sews anything anymore in this age of $5 Walmart shirts? Still, proverbs are important tools to put our lives in perspective and to illustrate what all people have in common. As a public service, the extensive research department here at bobcrespo.com has been busy digging up proverbs for the modern age, to update the proverb experience for future generations. Consider these:
No man is an island, but some of us fat bastards are getting there.
It takes two to Twitter.
Where there's smoke there's Rastafarians.
There is no honor among hackers.
All is fair in love and war and play station.
The fool wonders, the wise man Googles.
Botox is only skin deep.
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man miss Letterman.
When in doubt, stay there. Learning is a chore.
A Myspace page isn't built in a day.
Diamonds are forever, and don't lose their value when the economy blows up in our faces.
A 401K in the hand is pretty useless.
As ye program, so ye download.
Many are called, but few are worth the minutes.
Honesty is the best policy except when your wife asks if this dress makes her look fat.
You can run but cannot hide from Predator drones.
Water, water everywhere, for $1.50 a bottle.
Home is where your heart is, under whatever bridge that might be after the bank takes your house.
Alpo is only dog food when eaten by a dog. Under the bridge, it is called "hobo stew."
The meek shall inherit the deficits.
Music soothes the savage beast, except for death metal and gangsta rap, which only fuels his insatiable rage.
When the fat lady sings, Simon Cowell barks.
The Lord loves drunkards and fools, but despiseth the repo man.
Facebook does not a true friend make.
You cannot photoshop the face in your mirror.
One picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures of your dog will convince no one it is precious.
Live and learn. Or not.
A job worth doing is worth doing sedated.
Only the good die young, and the rest of us get to take their stuff.
The proof of the pudding is in the chemical additives.
Many hands make light work, except when it comes to making soup.
You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, but if you label it "Grucci" you can sell it on Canal Street.
Curiosity killed the cat, cloning brought it back.
A lot of money makes even Mr. Potato Head handsome and witty.
Never spend your money before you have it, unless you are a giant bank or the government.
Who can deny, a proverb beginning with "who can deny" is annoying?
No man is an island, but some of us fat bastards are getting there.
It takes two to Twitter.
Where there's smoke there's Rastafarians.
There is no honor among hackers.
All is fair in love and war and play station.
The fool wonders, the wise man Googles.
Botox is only skin deep.
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man miss Letterman.
When in doubt, stay there. Learning is a chore.
A Myspace page isn't built in a day.
Diamonds are forever, and don't lose their value when the economy blows up in our faces.
A 401K in the hand is pretty useless.
As ye program, so ye download.
Many are called, but few are worth the minutes.
Honesty is the best policy except when your wife asks if this dress makes her look fat.
You can run but cannot hide from Predator drones.
Water, water everywhere, for $1.50 a bottle.
Home is where your heart is, under whatever bridge that might be after the bank takes your house.
Alpo is only dog food when eaten by a dog. Under the bridge, it is called "hobo stew."
The meek shall inherit the deficits.
Music soothes the savage beast, except for death metal and gangsta rap, which only fuels his insatiable rage.
When the fat lady sings, Simon Cowell barks.
The Lord loves drunkards and fools, but despiseth the repo man.
Facebook does not a true friend make.
You cannot photoshop the face in your mirror.
One picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures of your dog will convince no one it is precious.
Live and learn. Or not.
A job worth doing is worth doing sedated.
Only the good die young, and the rest of us get to take their stuff.
The proof of the pudding is in the chemical additives.
Many hands make light work, except when it comes to making soup.
You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, but if you label it "Grucci" you can sell it on Canal Street.
Curiosity killed the cat, cloning brought it back.
A lot of money makes even Mr. Potato Head handsome and witty.
Never spend your money before you have it, unless you are a giant bank or the government.
Who can deny, a proverb beginning with "who can deny" is annoying?
April 19, 2009
DOPOTO REPORTS: PEOPLE ARE STEALING OUR ACT
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has, as always, been scouring the globe for the readily apparent. Also as usual, the Department has many rivals for pointing out the forest for the trees. The latest DOPOTO impersonator is one Steve Schmidt, the campaign manager for Senator John McCain's failed presidential bid in the 2008 election. While trying to get a grumpy old man elected president is an unenviable task, especially when said grumpy old man picks as his running mate a decidedly bizarre and ignorant bimbo from Alaska, Mr. Schmidt did his best. The man is a professional and a talented political operative who has the misfortune to be working within the framework of a dying political party.
The Republican Party was coming off eight years in power under President Bush The Younger, during which time they failed to make even one correct decision and made a bigger mess of America than was thought to be humanly possible. By the time the 2008 elections rolled around, the American people had their fill and overwhelmingly delivered the White House and both houses of Congress to the Democrats. These things happen from time to time in American politics, and the defeated party retrenches and eventually bounces back. This time, however, the Republican Party is in such disarray that it may split into one or more new political parties, one for the religious right wing, another for the corporate thieves, perhaps yet another for the simply power mad.
Which is where Steve Schmidt entered the business of pointing out the obvious. In a speech before the Log Cabin Republican convention, Mr. Schmidt declared that religion is ruining the Republican Party. He stated that a political party is no place to formulate policies based on religious faith, figuring that people with differing religious beliefs would be driven away, and others reluctant to join. This has been a serious problem for Republicans for many years, but only Steve Schmidt has been willing to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. He reasons that if the party announces itself to be ordained by God, only zealots, professional killjoys and would-be Messiahs will remain in the fold.
And so DOPOTO, being experts in the field of pointing out the obvious, is more than willing to share the results of our research into the matter. It seems that around the time of Ronald Reagan, Jesus Freaks started getting themselves politically organized. Prior to that time, Jesus Freaks were basically mentally imbalanced and very disoriented individuals that others went to great lengths to avoid, so they decided to clean up their acts, band together and go mainstream. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, that is where the Jesus Freaks gravitated. Even more unfortunate, their new status as respectable citizens did not temper their extremely annoying personalities or their odd tendency to condemn most of humanity to the eternal damnation of Hell Fire, as if that was within their power.
At first they organized a local election here, a statewide victory there, and gradually became a national presence, sending Congressman and Senators to Washington and Governors to state capitals. And like any zealots who get a taste of power, theirs went right to their pointy little pin heads. Before long they were announcing that anyone who disagreed with them were in an open alliance with Satan and they finally got one of their fellow dimwits elected president, the aforementioned Bush The Younger, the black sheep of the very wealthy and powerful Bush family. Himself a lifelong failure, a complete idiot and a born-again Christian, he set records as the Governor of Texas for executing retarded teenagers and clearing brush at his ranch, a never-ending obsession in dry and brushy Texas. His presidency not only put America in dire straits, but left the Republican Party in a shambles.
Such is their disarray that the current capo-di-tutti-capo of the Republican Party is now Rush Limbaugh, the ignorant radio buffoon most famous for his addiction to Oxycontin (hillbilly heroin) and wishing failure for his nation's president. A warmonger who never wore a uniform, a self-proclaimed intellectual who failed out of college after two semesters (failing even a ballroom dancing class!) and a serial marrier, Mr. Limbaugh is himself not a religious man but is an expert blowhard adept at pandering to religious weirdos. His only rival for the title of Republican Head Honcho is the disgraced former Speaker of The House, Newt Gingrich, a man who changes religions as often as he changes wives. Newt is best known for obsessing over President Clinton's penis and handing his wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital sick with cancer so he could marry his trophy wife.
So, Mr. Schmidt, the God Squad is only one of your party's problems. The party that in recent times was the home of smart people like Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase-Smith, Everett Dirksen, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, the Republicans haven't had a leader of any political talent or intellectual substance since Richard Nixon, and he was a paranoid crook who resigned in disgrace. While they still proudly call themselves "The Grand Old Party" and "The Party of Lincoln," many people figure it was all downhill after Honest Abe and that the only thing "Grand" about them is larceny.
None of these people would qualify for inclusion in today's GOP, not being anywhere near unreasonable or insane enough, even Nixon. The Christian Fascists currently running the show at the GOP are the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party. Naturally Mr. Schmidt's speech was received about as well as the Captain of The Titanic greeted that news that his unsinkable ship was taking on water faster than Rush Limbaugh washing down a couple of handfuls of Oxy. One or two even banished him to Hades for the sin of describing the emperor's new clothes. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
The Republican Party was coming off eight years in power under President Bush The Younger, during which time they failed to make even one correct decision and made a bigger mess of America than was thought to be humanly possible. By the time the 2008 elections rolled around, the American people had their fill and overwhelmingly delivered the White House and both houses of Congress to the Democrats. These things happen from time to time in American politics, and the defeated party retrenches and eventually bounces back. This time, however, the Republican Party is in such disarray that it may split into one or more new political parties, one for the religious right wing, another for the corporate thieves, perhaps yet another for the simply power mad.
Which is where Steve Schmidt entered the business of pointing out the obvious. In a speech before the Log Cabin Republican convention, Mr. Schmidt declared that religion is ruining the Republican Party. He stated that a political party is no place to formulate policies based on religious faith, figuring that people with differing religious beliefs would be driven away, and others reluctant to join. This has been a serious problem for Republicans for many years, but only Steve Schmidt has been willing to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. He reasons that if the party announces itself to be ordained by God, only zealots, professional killjoys and would-be Messiahs will remain in the fold.
And so DOPOTO, being experts in the field of pointing out the obvious, is more than willing to share the results of our research into the matter. It seems that around the time of Ronald Reagan, Jesus Freaks started getting themselves politically organized. Prior to that time, Jesus Freaks were basically mentally imbalanced and very disoriented individuals that others went to great lengths to avoid, so they decided to clean up their acts, band together and go mainstream. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, that is where the Jesus Freaks gravitated. Even more unfortunate, their new status as respectable citizens did not temper their extremely annoying personalities or their odd tendency to condemn most of humanity to the eternal damnation of Hell Fire, as if that was within their power.
At first they organized a local election here, a statewide victory there, and gradually became a national presence, sending Congressman and Senators to Washington and Governors to state capitals. And like any zealots who get a taste of power, theirs went right to their pointy little pin heads. Before long they were announcing that anyone who disagreed with them were in an open alliance with Satan and they finally got one of their fellow dimwits elected president, the aforementioned Bush The Younger, the black sheep of the very wealthy and powerful Bush family. Himself a lifelong failure, a complete idiot and a born-again Christian, he set records as the Governor of Texas for executing retarded teenagers and clearing brush at his ranch, a never-ending obsession in dry and brushy Texas. His presidency not only put America in dire straits, but left the Republican Party in a shambles.
Such is their disarray that the current capo-di-tutti-capo of the Republican Party is now Rush Limbaugh, the ignorant radio buffoon most famous for his addiction to Oxycontin (hillbilly heroin) and wishing failure for his nation's president. A warmonger who never wore a uniform, a self-proclaimed intellectual who failed out of college after two semesters (failing even a ballroom dancing class!) and a serial marrier, Mr. Limbaugh is himself not a religious man but is an expert blowhard adept at pandering to religious weirdos. His only rival for the title of Republican Head Honcho is the disgraced former Speaker of The House, Newt Gingrich, a man who changes religions as often as he changes wives. Newt is best known for obsessing over President Clinton's penis and handing his wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital sick with cancer so he could marry his trophy wife.
So, Mr. Schmidt, the God Squad is only one of your party's problems. The party that in recent times was the home of smart people like Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase-Smith, Everett Dirksen, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, the Republicans haven't had a leader of any political talent or intellectual substance since Richard Nixon, and he was a paranoid crook who resigned in disgrace. While they still proudly call themselves "The Grand Old Party" and "The Party of Lincoln," many people figure it was all downhill after Honest Abe and that the only thing "Grand" about them is larceny.
None of these people would qualify for inclusion in today's GOP, not being anywhere near unreasonable or insane enough, even Nixon. The Christian Fascists currently running the show at the GOP are the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party. Naturally Mr. Schmidt's speech was received about as well as the Captain of The Titanic greeted that news that his unsinkable ship was taking on water faster than Rush Limbaugh washing down a couple of handfuls of Oxy. One or two even banished him to Hades for the sin of describing the emperor's new clothes. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
April 17, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 369
You don't have to wonder about the capital of Tonga anymore. It's Nuku'alofa. When in doubt, Google it.
RANDOM QUESTIONS ABOUT AMERICA
Why does any news organization print or air the opinions of bankers, economists, banking consultants (whatever the hell they are!) and financial analysts these days? Shouldn't they all be in a corner somewhere for an extended time out? Or at the very least, taking some remedial math courses? Bad enough we have all these out-of-power politicians who brought America to the brink of political and financial bankruptcy this past decade still mouthing off about how they should be running things again, but now we have to listen to guys who couldn't even make money in banking? And frauds and thieves to boot?
No, thanks. The greatest crimes of this sad era was the sordid legacy of spiritual emptiness, zero accountability and casual criminality at the highest levels of society. To quote U.S. Army attorney Joseph Welch, who spoke these words to Senator Joseph McCarthy 55 years ago this June: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" The implied answer, then and now, is: "No, sir. No we do not!"
Now you have to wonder what rhetorical hoops the supporters of the last administration are going to be jumping through in response to the release of the "secret torture memos" emanating from the Bush The Younger White House. Secret torture memos? To quote any American with half a brain and even the slightest sense of what it means to be America and an American: "What the fuck?" When did we get ourselves a Gestapo? Secret prisons, torture, "remanding" suspects to other nations' torture chambers? What ever happened to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? Since when did The Bill of Rights become the Bill of Suggestions?
For over half a century we've been hearing about CIA "black ops," those illegal acts that were carried out in our name to fight the Cold War, undermine legitimate governments or serve American corporate interests at the expense of the lives and well-being of other countries' ciizens. Like anything else that is allowed or condoned even once, these black operations evolved into routine public policy. A government within a government that answers to no one will always by definition go out of control. These policies and the people who implemented them nearly robbed the world of America, and worse, almost robbed America of America.
How can anyone defend their behavior? But oh, they will, no doubt, and they'll try to paint President Obama as some sort of traitor for lifting up the corner of the rug to show all the trash that has been swept under there. The same thing happened to President John F. Kennedy when he put America's apartheid practices on trial for the whole world to see. Well, the Republic survived (although Kennedy didn't). The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed and we became a better and stronger nation for it. Can we do less than to try to redeem our souls once again in the face of today's troubles and be America again? As much as we need America, the world needs America to be America again.
No one ever said it would be easy to be America or to be an American. It is an ideal as much as a nation, a continuing work-in-progress. It was never perfect, but we never flinched from publicly acknowledging and confronting our flaws. Every generation is supposed to be another mile travelled down the road towards universal freedom, dignity, tolerance and shared prosperity. Taking the easy way out was never the idea. The words and ideals upon which this nation was founded are hard to live up to. Does that mean we don't even try anymore? When the president is sworn in, he vows to uphold those words and ideals, The Constitution of The United States of America. He also swears to defend this nation from all enemies foreign and domestic, but that vow does not release him from defending the demanding ideals of our Constitution.
Even in times of peace it is difficult to live up to to the Constitution because it demands we behave better than other nations and treat our citizens better than other nations, even though we are but ordinary people. Having the Constitution and the core idea of America is what challenges us to be better. When our own institutions try to cut corners and break the laws we have made to set us apart from repressive and totalitarian regimes, don't we have an obligation to react swiftly and punish the offenders? Don't we have to continue this journey and grand experiment in liberty and self-governance no matter who is attacking us? When we stop being America, our enemies win.
Do we let the NSA get away with admitting that they "over-harvested" our phone calls and e-mails in direct violation of the Constitution and the law? Do we accept their feeble "extra-legal" explanations? And just what the hell is an "extra-legal act" but a crime? Isn't it extra legal to murder somebody? Sure as hell is! President Obama's administration has gone on record as not seeking criminal charges against those who carried out the torture outlined by the Bush The Younger Gang, possibly having their hands too full just cleaning up the horrible stink his predecessor left in this nation. But shouldn't a huge part of that process be cleaning house at the CIA and the NSA?
There's no reforming Gestapo officers. They need to be gone for good. Jack Bauer may be fun escapist television, but lousy policy for a nation of laws. Closing their secret prisons, ordering a halt to torture in the name of America and naming names when it comes to the authorization of these policies is a good start, but just a start. Because, at long last, the vast majority of Americans do have a sense of decency, deep and wide. It has been under attack by domestic enemies for a long time now. The result has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working classes to the ownership class and an unprecedented power grab by a corporate/executive branch elite (the odious motto: "I've got mine" has ben revised to include "and his and his and his too!"). It's about time we said Enough! Who will be the next Joseph Welch?
No, thanks. The greatest crimes of this sad era was the sordid legacy of spiritual emptiness, zero accountability and casual criminality at the highest levels of society. To quote U.S. Army attorney Joseph Welch, who spoke these words to Senator Joseph McCarthy 55 years ago this June: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" The implied answer, then and now, is: "No, sir. No we do not!"
Now you have to wonder what rhetorical hoops the supporters of the last administration are going to be jumping through in response to the release of the "secret torture memos" emanating from the Bush The Younger White House. Secret torture memos? To quote any American with half a brain and even the slightest sense of what it means to be America and an American: "What the fuck?" When did we get ourselves a Gestapo? Secret prisons, torture, "remanding" suspects to other nations' torture chambers? What ever happened to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? Since when did The Bill of Rights become the Bill of Suggestions?
For over half a century we've been hearing about CIA "black ops," those illegal acts that were carried out in our name to fight the Cold War, undermine legitimate governments or serve American corporate interests at the expense of the lives and well-being of other countries' ciizens. Like anything else that is allowed or condoned even once, these black operations evolved into routine public policy. A government within a government that answers to no one will always by definition go out of control. These policies and the people who implemented them nearly robbed the world of America, and worse, almost robbed America of America.
How can anyone defend their behavior? But oh, they will, no doubt, and they'll try to paint President Obama as some sort of traitor for lifting up the corner of the rug to show all the trash that has been swept under there. The same thing happened to President John F. Kennedy when he put America's apartheid practices on trial for the whole world to see. Well, the Republic survived (although Kennedy didn't). The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed and we became a better and stronger nation for it. Can we do less than to try to redeem our souls once again in the face of today's troubles and be America again? As much as we need America, the world needs America to be America again.
No one ever said it would be easy to be America or to be an American. It is an ideal as much as a nation, a continuing work-in-progress. It was never perfect, but we never flinched from publicly acknowledging and confronting our flaws. Every generation is supposed to be another mile travelled down the road towards universal freedom, dignity, tolerance and shared prosperity. Taking the easy way out was never the idea. The words and ideals upon which this nation was founded are hard to live up to. Does that mean we don't even try anymore? When the president is sworn in, he vows to uphold those words and ideals, The Constitution of The United States of America. He also swears to defend this nation from all enemies foreign and domestic, but that vow does not release him from defending the demanding ideals of our Constitution.
Even in times of peace it is difficult to live up to to the Constitution because it demands we behave better than other nations and treat our citizens better than other nations, even though we are but ordinary people. Having the Constitution and the core idea of America is what challenges us to be better. When our own institutions try to cut corners and break the laws we have made to set us apart from repressive and totalitarian regimes, don't we have an obligation to react swiftly and punish the offenders? Don't we have to continue this journey and grand experiment in liberty and self-governance no matter who is attacking us? When we stop being America, our enemies win.
Do we let the NSA get away with admitting that they "over-harvested" our phone calls and e-mails in direct violation of the Constitution and the law? Do we accept their feeble "extra-legal" explanations? And just what the hell is an "extra-legal act" but a crime? Isn't it extra legal to murder somebody? Sure as hell is! President Obama's administration has gone on record as not seeking criminal charges against those who carried out the torture outlined by the Bush The Younger Gang, possibly having their hands too full just cleaning up the horrible stink his predecessor left in this nation. But shouldn't a huge part of that process be cleaning house at the CIA and the NSA?
There's no reforming Gestapo officers. They need to be gone for good. Jack Bauer may be fun escapist television, but lousy policy for a nation of laws. Closing their secret prisons, ordering a halt to torture in the name of America and naming names when it comes to the authorization of these policies is a good start, but just a start. Because, at long last, the vast majority of Americans do have a sense of decency, deep and wide. It has been under attack by domestic enemies for a long time now. The result has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working classes to the ownership class and an unprecedented power grab by a corporate/executive branch elite (the odious motto: "I've got mine" has ben revised to include "and his and his and his too!"). It's about time we said Enough! Who will be the next Joseph Welch?
THANKS FOR THE MAMMARIES! BOB CRE$PO & THE BIG $PENDER$ PLAYING LIVE TO FIGHT BREAST CANCER
Come to the BEAT BREAST CANCER CONCERT at DJ Ryder's Rhythm & Brews, 3297 Long Beach Road, Oceanside, New York, 11572, (516) 766-9822. All proceeds go to the AVON WALK FOR BREAST CANCER. SUNDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 26, 2009, 2:30 PM;. Donation: $10 bucks cheap plus FREE FOOD. Prizes and drawings too. The Bands: BOB CRE$PO & THE BIG $PENDER$ - THE TASH BROTHERS BAND - THE FOSSILS
WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE AND THE 10% CAMPAIGN
The vast reserves of petroleum in Saudi Arabia will last for centuries, even at the rate of heightened consumption caused by the demands of many emerging economies. That's the good news for the 5,000 or so decadent kings and princes that make up the Saudi royal family. The bad news? The ground water in Saudi Arabia figures to dry up within 50 years. Wonder what Western nations will charge them for a barrel of clean water at that point? Being that the place is basically a giant sand sauna, they'd be well advised not to wait for any monsoons to come their way and maybe invest in some desalinization technology.
But that's just one country. Of the 6 and change billion of us on this planet, almost half of us don't have any clean water to drink or bathe in, resulting in every sort of infection and disease imaginable. The United Nations estimates that if this doesn't change soon, that by the year 2020, 135 million people will die. That's every person in 6 average-sized nations dead as hell. As of right now, a child dies every fifteen seconds from a water-related disease. Dead from something the rest of us take for granted. Something we wash our cars with, water our crabgrass, fill up water balloons with and slide down water slides upon. And something that corporations have figured out how to acquire the rights to and sell back to us for a dollar a bottle, putting a further strain on the available clean water supplies.
And all this on a world more than two-thirds covered in the stuff. But that covering is mostly salt water, poison to us. And equally poison is a lot of the "fresh water" in many nations, resulting in an estimated 2.1 million kids and 1.65 million adults for a grand total of 3.75 million souls a year dying. In a nation like India, where there are more college graduates than any other nation and a growing modern high tech economy, there are hundreds of millions of their people living essentially in the Bronze Age, drinking and bathing in water fouled by domestic animals and doubling as human sewers. China is in the same boat. In Africa there are many locations suffering from this backward lifestyle, and also parts of the Philippines. A full one third of the planet is classified as "water-stressed," with that number expected to rise to two thirds by 2025.
That's a lot of numbers and statistics to swallow without a lot of solutions handy. Water sanitation in water-stressed nations is paramount, but economic development usually precedes this process, and with the world in a financial meltdown that doesn't look too likely to happen any time soon. So it's up to the rest of the world to provide clean water to those without it, not nearly as expensive an undertaking as funding their armies, which developed nations seem to have no problem doing. The secret to good health and increased longevity is no arcane secret, it's basically sanitation. And then there's nutrition of course, with the lack of it (otherwise known as starvation) claiming another 12 to 13 million lives each year. Usually the starvation can be traced to lack of water to raise crops. Combine that with the foul water and you've got mountains of corpses every year from preventable deaths.
So it's back to the 10% Campaign, where all nations of the earth are asked to reduce their military expenditures by 10% and use that money to help feed the starving and provide clean water to the world. The generals and war mongers need not fret, that still leaves them with 90% of their killing toys intact, more than enough to continue laying waste to one another. For the victims of their warfare, who would notice if your house got blown to smithereens and your family butchered by 90 bombs instead of 100? And would 900 soldiers be that much less deadly than 1,000? And the upside for the war mongers is that by feeding everyone and making sure they have clean water, that's tens of millions of people who get to stay alive every year, potential targets for your guns or future soldiers for your armies.
So that 10% savings will pay big dividends right off the bat for our organized killers with all the extra people they'll have around. Sometimes less is more, and 10% fewer weapons will feed and sanitize world. Of course the 10% Campaign doesn't address the regions of the world where people are deliberately starved and deprived of water by the leaders of their own nations, only those places that are willing to do something about this benign genocide. There's always those murderous clowns to deal with, but just maybe a global campaign to provide clean water and food as a basic human right, The Right to Live, will shame them into ceasing their mass slaughter.
In truth the odds are petty slim that shame will do the trick with such monsters, but arms embargoes towards them and a campaign to arm their rivals to the teeth go a long way towards getting even assholes like them to see the light. Even with their enemies at only 90% of their former strength, the guys with the biggest guns always win. Nations and international financiers have been playing this game with warring governments for untold centuries. You don't pay them back or do what is asked of you, they provide your enemies with the means to destroy you. Sound pretty crazy using military money to try to end water related deaths and starvation, but it's not very realistic to pretend we can disarm our militaries. We are, after all, humans, and as such are natural born annihilators of each other, but we can cut down by 10% without too much strain on our most popular sport. And who knows, we just might have something to feel good about other than death and destruction for a pleasant change. If so, there's always the Another 10% Campaign.
But that's just one country. Of the 6 and change billion of us on this planet, almost half of us don't have any clean water to drink or bathe in, resulting in every sort of infection and disease imaginable. The United Nations estimates that if this doesn't change soon, that by the year 2020, 135 million people will die. That's every person in 6 average-sized nations dead as hell. As of right now, a child dies every fifteen seconds from a water-related disease. Dead from something the rest of us take for granted. Something we wash our cars with, water our crabgrass, fill up water balloons with and slide down water slides upon. And something that corporations have figured out how to acquire the rights to and sell back to us for a dollar a bottle, putting a further strain on the available clean water supplies.
And all this on a world more than two-thirds covered in the stuff. But that covering is mostly salt water, poison to us. And equally poison is a lot of the "fresh water" in many nations, resulting in an estimated 2.1 million kids and 1.65 million adults for a grand total of 3.75 million souls a year dying. In a nation like India, where there are more college graduates than any other nation and a growing modern high tech economy, there are hundreds of millions of their people living essentially in the Bronze Age, drinking and bathing in water fouled by domestic animals and doubling as human sewers. China is in the same boat. In Africa there are many locations suffering from this backward lifestyle, and also parts of the Philippines. A full one third of the planet is classified as "water-stressed," with that number expected to rise to two thirds by 2025.
That's a lot of numbers and statistics to swallow without a lot of solutions handy. Water sanitation in water-stressed nations is paramount, but economic development usually precedes this process, and with the world in a financial meltdown that doesn't look too likely to happen any time soon. So it's up to the rest of the world to provide clean water to those without it, not nearly as expensive an undertaking as funding their armies, which developed nations seem to have no problem doing. The secret to good health and increased longevity is no arcane secret, it's basically sanitation. And then there's nutrition of course, with the lack of it (otherwise known as starvation) claiming another 12 to 13 million lives each year. Usually the starvation can be traced to lack of water to raise crops. Combine that with the foul water and you've got mountains of corpses every year from preventable deaths.
So it's back to the 10% Campaign, where all nations of the earth are asked to reduce their military expenditures by 10% and use that money to help feed the starving and provide clean water to the world. The generals and war mongers need not fret, that still leaves them with 90% of their killing toys intact, more than enough to continue laying waste to one another. For the victims of their warfare, who would notice if your house got blown to smithereens and your family butchered by 90 bombs instead of 100? And would 900 soldiers be that much less deadly than 1,000? And the upside for the war mongers is that by feeding everyone and making sure they have clean water, that's tens of millions of people who get to stay alive every year, potential targets for your guns or future soldiers for your armies.
So that 10% savings will pay big dividends right off the bat for our organized killers with all the extra people they'll have around. Sometimes less is more, and 10% fewer weapons will feed and sanitize world. Of course the 10% Campaign doesn't address the regions of the world where people are deliberately starved and deprived of water by the leaders of their own nations, only those places that are willing to do something about this benign genocide. There's always those murderous clowns to deal with, but just maybe a global campaign to provide clean water and food as a basic human right, The Right to Live, will shame them into ceasing their mass slaughter.
In truth the odds are petty slim that shame will do the trick with such monsters, but arms embargoes towards them and a campaign to arm their rivals to the teeth go a long way towards getting even assholes like them to see the light. Even with their enemies at only 90% of their former strength, the guys with the biggest guns always win. Nations and international financiers have been playing this game with warring governments for untold centuries. You don't pay them back or do what is asked of you, they provide your enemies with the means to destroy you. Sound pretty crazy using military money to try to end water related deaths and starvation, but it's not very realistic to pretend we can disarm our militaries. We are, after all, humans, and as such are natural born annihilators of each other, but we can cut down by 10% without too much strain on our most popular sport. And who knows, we just might have something to feel good about other than death and destruction for a pleasant change. If so, there's always the Another 10% Campaign.
April 15, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 367
When a casual acquaintance asks "How are you?", they really don't expect an account of your horrible day or a detailed description of that botched surgery that left you with an infected wound oozing smelly green stuff. Whatever you do, don't hike up your shirt to prove it. The proper reply is "Fine. Yourself?"
A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT
Most of the people who are going to such passionate lengths to get marijuana legalized for "medical purposes" really don't really give a rat's ass about cancer victims or their level of pain and nausea. They want to get high, period, amen. So why not just come out and say so? Hell, whiskey's legal, so is vodka, gin and over-proof rum, far more powerful intoxicants than reefer. Don't be a sneaky pot head, say what you mean! An while you're at it, point out the huge tax revenues and agricultural benefits to be realized by legal marijuana, to say nothing of reducing prison populations and court costs. Pot is harmless and fun, and a potential gold mine for the nation.
The French are getting real busy fighting the Somalian pirates, having just captured a "pirate mother ship," a 30 foot long fishing boat with 11 pirates, a load of guns, ammunition and many barrels of fuel on board. The French haven't been this excited about a military adventure since Napoleon was in charge over there. In other words, the last time they won anything. So much are the French feeling their oats, they want to tackle some other old problems, like The Bubonic Plague and the Huguenot Reformation.
In their own novel approach to combatting piracy, the Chinese have announced that an attempt at seizing one of their ships was thwarted when thousands of dolphins suddenly surfaced between the Somalian pirates' boat and the Chinese vessel, thus preventing an attack and really freaking the pirates out. The Chinese government waited until after the rescue of the American Sea Captain Richard Phillips by U.S. Navy Seals to unveil their trained dolphin strategy. It seems that they thought that Navy Seals were real sea lions trained by the United States as deadly marksmen. It has since been explained that the snipers who killed three pirates simultaneously were actually humans, and now the Chinese are kicking themselves for having revealed their no longer Top-Secret Dolphin Brigade.
In science news, it has been reported that studies of coral reef formations reveal that 121,000 years ago, sea levels rose around 10 feet in the relatively short span of 50 to 100 years due to accelerated polar ice melt. Which gives real estate developers in Florida just enough time to relabel the state as "The American Venice."
Talk about not getting it. The new "democracy" of Afghanistan used their legislative powers to enact a Talibanesque law further restricting the already miniscule rights afforded to women, including a provision allowing marital rape. And so 300 women took to the streets of Kabul and marched to the Parliament building to protest this formalization of slavery. Taking their model from the Third Reich, this law affects only the 10% of the population that are members of the Shiite religious sect. Taking their cue from German citizens of the 1930's, Afghan citizens attacked the protesters and greeted them with cries of "Whores!" Odds are they'll soon find out the price of surrendering the rights of others. Legislators are already preparing to call "Next!"
In further insult-to-injury news, Afghan President Kharzai, the guy who signed the slavery bill, criticized neighboring Pakistan for allowing Sharia law to be enacted in that nation's tribal areas. Or as many Americans put it: yet another pressing reason to completely abandon this backward backwater to its fate.
American news outlets have gone haywire covering the acquisition of a dog by the Obama family. It was either that or another day of Madonna adoption headlines. As far as actual news is concerned, that could be found on the internet, along with stories about mainstream media bosses lamenting that no one pays attention to them anymore. Back to you, Roger!
The Emirate of Dubai, watching helplessly as the world economic collapse has rendered their fantastic towers worthless and vacationers realize there's no good reason to go skiing on slurpee snow in the desert, has turned to cloning camels. When giving away Bentleys and BMWs with every multimillion dollar apartment sold didn't work, the handwriting was on the wall as far as Dubai's robust participation in the 21st century. So, they've decided to go with what's worked for them for a thousand years: camels. As far as Burg Dubai is concerned, the mostly empty 400 story tower they figured would make Dubai City a world capital, well, it has been proposed that it be renamed Camel Hump Mountain and used as a landmark for nomad caravans as they pass by on their way to the Spice Road with their cloned camels while they wonder why their leaders used those trillions and trillions to construct a fairyland rather than build universities and sustainable industries.
The French are getting real busy fighting the Somalian pirates, having just captured a "pirate mother ship," a 30 foot long fishing boat with 11 pirates, a load of guns, ammunition and many barrels of fuel on board. The French haven't been this excited about a military adventure since Napoleon was in charge over there. In other words, the last time they won anything. So much are the French feeling their oats, they want to tackle some other old problems, like The Bubonic Plague and the Huguenot Reformation.
In their own novel approach to combatting piracy, the Chinese have announced that an attempt at seizing one of their ships was thwarted when thousands of dolphins suddenly surfaced between the Somalian pirates' boat and the Chinese vessel, thus preventing an attack and really freaking the pirates out. The Chinese government waited until after the rescue of the American Sea Captain Richard Phillips by U.S. Navy Seals to unveil their trained dolphin strategy. It seems that they thought that Navy Seals were real sea lions trained by the United States as deadly marksmen. It has since been explained that the snipers who killed three pirates simultaneously were actually humans, and now the Chinese are kicking themselves for having revealed their no longer Top-Secret Dolphin Brigade.
In science news, it has been reported that studies of coral reef formations reveal that 121,000 years ago, sea levels rose around 10 feet in the relatively short span of 50 to 100 years due to accelerated polar ice melt. Which gives real estate developers in Florida just enough time to relabel the state as "The American Venice."
Talk about not getting it. The new "democracy" of Afghanistan used their legislative powers to enact a Talibanesque law further restricting the already miniscule rights afforded to women, including a provision allowing marital rape. And so 300 women took to the streets of Kabul and marched to the Parliament building to protest this formalization of slavery. Taking their model from the Third Reich, this law affects only the 10% of the population that are members of the Shiite religious sect. Taking their cue from German citizens of the 1930's, Afghan citizens attacked the protesters and greeted them with cries of "Whores!" Odds are they'll soon find out the price of surrendering the rights of others. Legislators are already preparing to call "Next!"
In further insult-to-injury news, Afghan President Kharzai, the guy who signed the slavery bill, criticized neighboring Pakistan for allowing Sharia law to be enacted in that nation's tribal areas. Or as many Americans put it: yet another pressing reason to completely abandon this backward backwater to its fate.
American news outlets have gone haywire covering the acquisition of a dog by the Obama family. It was either that or another day of Madonna adoption headlines. As far as actual news is concerned, that could be found on the internet, along with stories about mainstream media bosses lamenting that no one pays attention to them anymore. Back to you, Roger!
The Emirate of Dubai, watching helplessly as the world economic collapse has rendered their fantastic towers worthless and vacationers realize there's no good reason to go skiing on slurpee snow in the desert, has turned to cloning camels. When giving away Bentleys and BMWs with every multimillion dollar apartment sold didn't work, the handwriting was on the wall as far as Dubai's robust participation in the 21st century. So, they've decided to go with what's worked for them for a thousand years: camels. As far as Burg Dubai is concerned, the mostly empty 400 story tower they figured would make Dubai City a world capital, well, it has been proposed that it be renamed Camel Hump Mountain and used as a landmark for nomad caravans as they pass by on their way to the Spice Road with their cloned camels while they wonder why their leaders used those trillions and trillions to construct a fairyland rather than build universities and sustainable industries.
April 14, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 366
Walking among us are free thinkers, indistinguishable from ordinary humans, mixing in with society and dating our children. They have been here for a very long time. Don't beware, they're just fine, even if they do have some odd notions.
NO, WE CAN'T ALL JUST GET ALONG, BUT THANKS FOR ASKING
Can't we all just get along? That's a question a lot of people ask when they look at this world and observe all the misunderstanding, distrust and outright hostility that exists between people. And so we wring our hands and lament at how we all share this planet and people basically have the same motivations, wants and needs and ought to love and cherish one another despite our superficial differences. Sounds good on paper, but getting along with everybody requires that we overlook some pretty strange attitudes and heinous behavior. How about people who enslave half their population, the female half? Can we "just get along" with assholes like that?
Oh, but they are Muslims, you say, and that's a cultural difference we should respect? Bullshit! Why would anyone do that? Fuck idiots like that, whatever excuse they use to exonerate themselves from evil. Doesn't it always seem that the worse the offense, the louder one attributes it to "God's will." They're cowards, butchers and monsters and there's no other way to describe their behavior. It used to be a "cultural difference" to own slaves too. Was cutting out that evil crap a mistake? Might as well say that the morons in Tanzania who kill and dismember albinos for good luck potions are simply exercising their cultural prerogatives and that the albinos are a bunch of intolerant whiners for not wanting to get murdered and chopped up by witch doctors.
Muslims certainly don't have a monopoly on hiding the evil they do behind God's skirts. Christians have been doing that for centuries, from Crusaders to Inquisitors to today's Christian Fascists. The Catholic Church has gotten away with even more violent and repressive bullshit than even Islam has, and all the other various Christian denominations have also done themselves proud in the butchery, oppression and intolerance departments. So while it's proper and right to condemn assholes like the Taliban for wanting to ban music, dancing and thinking out loud, don't go thumping your chest about your own religion if you only want to use it to force others to believe and behave like yourself. No one has to get along with your dopey ass either! When it comes to not tolerating people like the Taliban, the issue is not their religion, it's them personally. To say otherwise would be Talibanism.
When people learn to leave each other the hell alone and let the next person live the way they feel like living as long as they're not hurting anybody else, well, then maybe we can all get along. If someone wants to fall on their face and pray five times a day, that's their business, as long as they don't feel like they can force their neighbors to do the same. If they want to whimper about being "born again" and that Jesus only loves people like them well, fine, just so long as they don't seek to make their ideas mandatory. You can be all the fool you want in this world, its your damned life to use or squander as you please. Just don't think about forcing anyone else to play. And don't ask everyone to "just get along" when there's so many people around who make that impossible.
You don't need to justify your way of life by forcing it on others. If it's such a good deal, people will grab in a flash like it was their idea. Good ideas sell themselves. Any belief that needs to be spread at the point of a gun or under the threat of getting whipped, beheaded or socially ostracized doesn't exactly sound like the greatest thing since ice cream. And any idea that can't stand up to the light of open debate is by definition unreasonable nonsense. If the only way to silence your critics is to silence them for good, odds are you're not a good person and your ideas are absurd and serve only yourself. If you can be who you are and not care who goes along with you, then you are a true believer. And if we can all let such a person exist unmolested, then we can all get along. Until then, it's a nice dream and an amusing thing to say..
Oh, but they are Muslims, you say, and that's a cultural difference we should respect? Bullshit! Why would anyone do that? Fuck idiots like that, whatever excuse they use to exonerate themselves from evil. Doesn't it always seem that the worse the offense, the louder one attributes it to "God's will." They're cowards, butchers and monsters and there's no other way to describe their behavior. It used to be a "cultural difference" to own slaves too. Was cutting out that evil crap a mistake? Might as well say that the morons in Tanzania who kill and dismember albinos for good luck potions are simply exercising their cultural prerogatives and that the albinos are a bunch of intolerant whiners for not wanting to get murdered and chopped up by witch doctors.
Muslims certainly don't have a monopoly on hiding the evil they do behind God's skirts. Christians have been doing that for centuries, from Crusaders to Inquisitors to today's Christian Fascists. The Catholic Church has gotten away with even more violent and repressive bullshit than even Islam has, and all the other various Christian denominations have also done themselves proud in the butchery, oppression and intolerance departments. So while it's proper and right to condemn assholes like the Taliban for wanting to ban music, dancing and thinking out loud, don't go thumping your chest about your own religion if you only want to use it to force others to believe and behave like yourself. No one has to get along with your dopey ass either! When it comes to not tolerating people like the Taliban, the issue is not their religion, it's them personally. To say otherwise would be Talibanism.
When people learn to leave each other the hell alone and let the next person live the way they feel like living as long as they're not hurting anybody else, well, then maybe we can all get along. If someone wants to fall on their face and pray five times a day, that's their business, as long as they don't feel like they can force their neighbors to do the same. If they want to whimper about being "born again" and that Jesus only loves people like them well, fine, just so long as they don't seek to make their ideas mandatory. You can be all the fool you want in this world, its your damned life to use or squander as you please. Just don't think about forcing anyone else to play. And don't ask everyone to "just get along" when there's so many people around who make that impossible.
You don't need to justify your way of life by forcing it on others. If it's such a good deal, people will grab in a flash like it was their idea. Good ideas sell themselves. Any belief that needs to be spread at the point of a gun or under the threat of getting whipped, beheaded or socially ostracized doesn't exactly sound like the greatest thing since ice cream. And any idea that can't stand up to the light of open debate is by definition unreasonable nonsense. If the only way to silence your critics is to silence them for good, odds are you're not a good person and your ideas are absurd and serve only yourself. If you can be who you are and not care who goes along with you, then you are a true believer. And if we can all let such a person exist unmolested, then we can all get along. Until then, it's a nice dream and an amusing thing to say..
April 13, 2009
FROM THE HIGHEST YARDARM.
Modern naval ships don't have yardarms or gangplanks, more's the pity. How can one be expected to make an example of captured pirates if you can't hang them from the highest yardarm or make them walk the plank into shark-infested waters? The other day the U.S. Navy rescued the hostage American Merchant Sea Captain Richard Phillips from pirates with some Jack Bauer-like precision, killing the three men surrounding the captain but not hurting him. Odds of a repeat of that performance are pretty slim. More likely they'll go like the previous day's retaking of a yacht by French commandos in which one of the hostages was killed along with some of the pirates.
Of all the problems besetting this world, and there's no shortage of them anywhere, probably the last one world leaders expected to confront is a resurgence of piracy. It's like a time warp, with piracy gaining popularity not only off the east coast of Africa but in the South China Sea and other busy shipping lanes. The only problem is, at least from the entertainment value standpoint, is that none of these pirates are disenfranchised dukes and viscounts fighting against the injustice of an unfair king. It turns out they are your garden variety low-rent thugs armed with AK-47's, the kind of guys who gravitate to drug cartels and criminal gangs. They have very little education or imagination and few skills, interested only in quick easy money obtained by any means necessary.
So far none of them have issued any political demands of any sort, only money. Which is the way it has always been with pirates, but history has a way of romanticizing even the most bloodthirsty of scoundrels. And in the past many of the pirates were entertaining and outsized personalities, you have to give them at least that. You don't hear about any Blackbeards, Long John Silvers, Jean Lafittes, Calico Jacks, Black Barts or Captain Kidds these days. Those guys lived large and killed large, having their own heavily armed ships that were a match for the navel vessels out to capture them. They roamed the Seven Seas in search of booty and were often encouraged to do so by various kings at war with other kings. They were also consummate seamen and military strategists when they weren't engaged in drinking and whoring in some lawless seaport in an out-of-the-way tropical paradise.
Not today's pirates, as anonymous as bank executives used to be, and almost as larcenous. These guys sneak up on merchant vessels in small speedboats, climb over the side with rope ladders and round up the small crews of modern merchant vessels, wait for somebody to drop a couple of million dollar ransom by helicopter and then slip away. No pulling their ship alongside with a brilliant maneuver, swinging onboard with daggers in their teeth and sword fighting with corrupt barons and earls while issuing blood-curdling yells. You don't see pirates with wooden legs, eye-patches or hook hands either, and there's not a one of them who can give you a decent "Aaarrrgghh" or an "Avast, maties!" They don't even have any damned parrots on their shoulders, don't fly the scary black Jolly Roger flag sporting a skull and crossbones and have yet to carry off any women! What kind of feaux pirate crap is this? It's a disgrace to the profession.
So maybe it's time to eliminate these clowns, not for the crime of ship hijacking, but for dishonoring an ancient and revered profession. When Captain Philips locked these guys out of the engine room and offered himself as a hostage, they had no clue of what to do with the ship and even had to make their escape in one of his lifeboats! Can anyone picture Blackbeard being at such a loss for figuring our how to pilot a ship he just captured? And when the lifeboat ran out of gas they drifted along until Jack Bauer shot them all in the head!
If Blackbeard was around today, he'd go after these people himself for conduct unbecoming of a pirate! And within a year, the Somali pirates would either be gone or behaving like proper pirates. But since that's not going to happen, maybe it's time to give our merchant sailors some training with cutlasses and cannons to repel boarders. This new breed of inept pirates won't know how to proceed and they'll be forced to go into another line of dishonest work, like maybe being bank executives, where at least they would fit right in and their glaring lack of seamanship would be no handicap at all.
Of all the problems besetting this world, and there's no shortage of them anywhere, probably the last one world leaders expected to confront is a resurgence of piracy. It's like a time warp, with piracy gaining popularity not only off the east coast of Africa but in the South China Sea and other busy shipping lanes. The only problem is, at least from the entertainment value standpoint, is that none of these pirates are disenfranchised dukes and viscounts fighting against the injustice of an unfair king. It turns out they are your garden variety low-rent thugs armed with AK-47's, the kind of guys who gravitate to drug cartels and criminal gangs. They have very little education or imagination and few skills, interested only in quick easy money obtained by any means necessary.
So far none of them have issued any political demands of any sort, only money. Which is the way it has always been with pirates, but history has a way of romanticizing even the most bloodthirsty of scoundrels. And in the past many of the pirates were entertaining and outsized personalities, you have to give them at least that. You don't hear about any Blackbeards, Long John Silvers, Jean Lafittes, Calico Jacks, Black Barts or Captain Kidds these days. Those guys lived large and killed large, having their own heavily armed ships that were a match for the navel vessels out to capture them. They roamed the Seven Seas in search of booty and were often encouraged to do so by various kings at war with other kings. They were also consummate seamen and military strategists when they weren't engaged in drinking and whoring in some lawless seaport in an out-of-the-way tropical paradise.
Not today's pirates, as anonymous as bank executives used to be, and almost as larcenous. These guys sneak up on merchant vessels in small speedboats, climb over the side with rope ladders and round up the small crews of modern merchant vessels, wait for somebody to drop a couple of million dollar ransom by helicopter and then slip away. No pulling their ship alongside with a brilliant maneuver, swinging onboard with daggers in their teeth and sword fighting with corrupt barons and earls while issuing blood-curdling yells. You don't see pirates with wooden legs, eye-patches or hook hands either, and there's not a one of them who can give you a decent "Aaarrrgghh" or an "Avast, maties!" They don't even have any damned parrots on their shoulders, don't fly the scary black Jolly Roger flag sporting a skull and crossbones and have yet to carry off any women! What kind of feaux pirate crap is this? It's a disgrace to the profession.
So maybe it's time to eliminate these clowns, not for the crime of ship hijacking, but for dishonoring an ancient and revered profession. When Captain Philips locked these guys out of the engine room and offered himself as a hostage, they had no clue of what to do with the ship and even had to make their escape in one of his lifeboats! Can anyone picture Blackbeard being at such a loss for figuring our how to pilot a ship he just captured? And when the lifeboat ran out of gas they drifted along until Jack Bauer shot them all in the head!
If Blackbeard was around today, he'd go after these people himself for conduct unbecoming of a pirate! And within a year, the Somali pirates would either be gone or behaving like proper pirates. But since that's not going to happen, maybe it's time to give our merchant sailors some training with cutlasses and cannons to repel boarders. This new breed of inept pirates won't know how to proceed and they'll be forced to go into another line of dishonest work, like maybe being bank executives, where at least they would fit right in and their glaring lack of seamanship would be no handicap at all.
April 11, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 364
Wearing sweat pants, t-shirts and ratty sneakers all the time isn't dressing casual. It's called being a slob. Get a wardrobe.
DOPOTO REPORTS: CURIOUS THINGS ABOUND
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been as usual observing and reporting on all things great and small in this great nation of ours and beyond. So far 2009 has been a curious year, with a new president taking the reins of a government and an economy in shambles, up to his sizable ears in troubles left over from his predecessor Bush The Younger, possibly the worst president ever of any country anywhere and into the foreseeable future. Our research teams here at DOPOTO have been scouring the record books and it seems that Bush The Younger was even less effective than Idi Amin, no small feat. And yet the public outcry against the Democrat Barack Obama from prominent Republicans started before the man was even sworn in as America's 44th president. It seems they long for a return of the good old days of two and a half months ago when they were in power and their policies were bankrupting the nation and actively attacking the Bill of Rights.
Even Newt Gingrich has been resurrected from the political garbage dump and elevated to a position of Elder Statesman. This is a man who pretty much failed at everything he set out to do for his entire life and has set a sorry moral example even for opportunistic hacks. These days the Republican Party, once the home of smart guys and cautious statesmen, is now being fronted by two fat buffoons with not a single original thought between them, the other one being the famous radio entertainer and drug addict, Rush Limbaugh. Not that being a drug addict is all that bad, but this particular one has gone on record as gloating with glee when other drug addicts died from an overdose (maybe figuring: good, more for me!). He's even repeated over and over again that he wishes the new president, and hence his own nation, will fail.
With leadership like this, DOPOTO expects the Christian Fascist Wing of the Republican Party to form their own party so they can at least go down in ignominious defeat in the next election on their own terms. Names being proposed for this new political movement are "Guns for God Party," "The Jesus Loves Me But Hates You Party," "The Old Testament Party" and "The Real Aryan Nation." That last one is subject to litigation brought by the prison gang of murderous White Supremacists of the same name, claiming their sales of meth-amphetamine will be hurt by this unwanted association with such scary, vile scum.
In other news, pirates from Somalia continue to take ships for ransom off the coast of Africa. In a curious twist on old pirates, these guys don't have formidable warships that fire volleys of cannonballs and grapeshot at their targets and then swing on board with cutlasses in their hands and daggers in their teeth. These Somali pirates basically drive up with a tiny boat like your buddy has for fishing, sneak on board and point submachine guns at everybody until someone hands them a million bucks and then they go away. At least they keep up with some of the old pirate traditions of blowing the dough on drinking, hookers and gaudy jewelry back on land. Then they sober up and go do it again. So far, so good.
All the nations that are up in arms about this have not discouraged these guys and the warships they send over there are pretty much equipped to lay waste to vast swaths of territory, not to find drunken guys in dinky little fishing boats. This just might be a job for the Harbor Police. Issue a few BWI summonses (Boating While Intoxicated), confiscate their beer and maybe make them take a safe boating course. That course of action can't be any less effective than sending battleships after dinghies. Right now the American Navy has surrounded a life boat with four pirates holding an American sea captain hostage with a half a dozen modern dreadnoughts and still the guy is a prisoner. The pirates have been basically mooning the navy, waving their whiskey bottles at them and singing Bruce Springsteen songs. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
Even Newt Gingrich has been resurrected from the political garbage dump and elevated to a position of Elder Statesman. This is a man who pretty much failed at everything he set out to do for his entire life and has set a sorry moral example even for opportunistic hacks. These days the Republican Party, once the home of smart guys and cautious statesmen, is now being fronted by two fat buffoons with not a single original thought between them, the other one being the famous radio entertainer and drug addict, Rush Limbaugh. Not that being a drug addict is all that bad, but this particular one has gone on record as gloating with glee when other drug addicts died from an overdose (maybe figuring: good, more for me!). He's even repeated over and over again that he wishes the new president, and hence his own nation, will fail.
With leadership like this, DOPOTO expects the Christian Fascist Wing of the Republican Party to form their own party so they can at least go down in ignominious defeat in the next election on their own terms. Names being proposed for this new political movement are "Guns for God Party," "The Jesus Loves Me But Hates You Party," "The Old Testament Party" and "The Real Aryan Nation." That last one is subject to litigation brought by the prison gang of murderous White Supremacists of the same name, claiming their sales of meth-amphetamine will be hurt by this unwanted association with such scary, vile scum.
In other news, pirates from Somalia continue to take ships for ransom off the coast of Africa. In a curious twist on old pirates, these guys don't have formidable warships that fire volleys of cannonballs and grapeshot at their targets and then swing on board with cutlasses in their hands and daggers in their teeth. These Somali pirates basically drive up with a tiny boat like your buddy has for fishing, sneak on board and point submachine guns at everybody until someone hands them a million bucks and then they go away. At least they keep up with some of the old pirate traditions of blowing the dough on drinking, hookers and gaudy jewelry back on land. Then they sober up and go do it again. So far, so good.
All the nations that are up in arms about this have not discouraged these guys and the warships they send over there are pretty much equipped to lay waste to vast swaths of territory, not to find drunken guys in dinky little fishing boats. This just might be a job for the Harbor Police. Issue a few BWI summonses (Boating While Intoxicated), confiscate their beer and maybe make them take a safe boating course. That course of action can't be any less effective than sending battleships after dinghies. Right now the American Navy has surrounded a life boat with four pirates holding an American sea captain hostage with a half a dozen modern dreadnoughts and still the guy is a prisoner. The pirates have been basically mooning the navy, waving their whiskey bottles at them and singing Bruce Springsteen songs. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
April 10, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 363
If you fell like like you're not worthy of love, get a dog. They love even the worst of us as long as we feed their dopey asses.
KICKED OUT OF FACE BOOK, THE PLACE THAT WANTS YOU TO GET BREAST CANCER
Public Enemy Number One here. That's right, citizens, beware. You're talking to the infamous Bob Crespo (.com), a man who got kicked out of Face Book. Considered armed and dangerous by the geeks that run Face Book, I am, so back off! My crime? That's for them to know and me to find out, since they won't tell me. They say it's classified for reasons of security (!) and confidentiality. Who's? Certainly not mine, since I feel pretty secure, thank you very much, and I don't give a rat's ass who knows what I write on Face Book. It is, after all, a public forum of sorts, and not exactly a place filled with fascinating secrets, unless you count what so-and-so had for breakfast on their trip to Amish Country. I suspect it is for the heinous crime of trying to send the identical message to all of my Face Book Friends.
This particular message was about a benefit show I'm doing with my band, Bob Crespo & The Big Spenders. The band is donating its time and efforts for the good cause of fighting breast cancer, and the people who come to the show will be helping out in that important battle. Apparently Face Book has a vested interest in the spread of cancer. No wonder their reason for deactivating my account is confidential! These people want you to get cancer and will not tolerate any resistance to their goal. I believe their thinking here is that they have to be incurable geeks for the rest of their lives and want to see the rest of humanity as miserable as they are.
But maybe I'm being too harsh on them. Maybe Bob Crespo &The Big Spenders ought to play some benefit shows to fight terminal creepiness. After all, unlike cancer, there are no foundations dedicated to helping awkward fools with no social skills, no doctors or scientists laboring tirelessly in their research labs to find a cure and no public show of sympathy for those stricken with terminal dweebism. They go through life clinging to their technology skills, play countless hour of video games and endure the taunts of their own mothers about getting a girlfriend one of these decades. That can't be fun. Not much point in having all the latest high-tech gadgets if the only one who's impressed by that are your geek buddies with their collections of Star Trek memorabilia and inflatable "companions."
I used to think here's nothing wrong with these painfully introverted creeps that couldn't be cured by two quick slaps and a couple of hundred bucks spent on booze and hookers, but I've come to realize their problems run far deeper than that. To geeks, the most amazing thing about i-pods is their memory capacity, not any of the beautiful and moving music they can enjoy and enhance their lives. While most of us don't give a giga-shit about the inner workings of our computers, these people are likely to use as a social icebreaker questions about RAM, pixels or processing speed. And then they wonder why they don't get laid! Try bragging about the size of something else, Jason. That's still an obnoxious approach, but at least you're in the ballpark, whereas right now you're not even on the same planet and are viewed as a different species altogether. And lose the Harry Potter T-shirt, dork boy. You're a grown man, dammit! Act like one.
But maybe living in Mom's basement surrounded by electronics and collectible toys is what makes these people happy. Perhaps I should have the same tolerance for Geek-Americans as I do for the rest of humanity. I always embraced the gay community, even wishing there were more gay men around, albeit for a selfish reason (more pussy for me!) and even more lesbians (for fantasy purposes). Perhaps that's the way to go with the geeks. After all, I have no clue how to program a computer or figure out why mine is acting up for no apparent reason. When that happens, I simply call in a geek and he comes by and gives me some condescending attitude and a sobering glimpse into his soulless existence, but at least he figures out the problem and can't wait to demonstrate how easy it is for him.
Of course I duly pretend to be paying attention as his fingers fly across the key board bringing up screens I didn't know existed within my computer, and praise him like I would an obedient child or a good dog, but I retain exactly nothing of the techno-speak. Then I pay him, thank him and dismiss him from my mind until the next time I have a cranky piece of electronics. I'm thinking now, that's just wrong. Maybe I should have asked him what's his favorite episode of "Battlestar Galactica," maybe ask him how many gigabytes of RAM he's got at home, or even about his personal life, or lack of one. Of course that last question might open a can of worms that there's no resealing, but you've got to reach out to people, even those who pretend they are more machine than man.
After all, geeks are people too, or a close enough approximation. It's not their fault they were born with an attraction to machines instead of their fellow human beings. I'm sure that scientists will one day isolate the socially backward gene that creates geeks (At least after they have discovered all the rest of them and there's no other genes to explore. These are geeks we're taking about here.). When and if that happens, count on the geeks to wear their genetic isolation as a badge of pride, one more reason to hide from the often messy business of being human. If only they didn't wish cancer on the rest of us, I might actually warm up to these creeps. As Far as Face Book is concerned, hell, I've been thrown out of classier joints than that!
This particular message was about a benefit show I'm doing with my band, Bob Crespo & The Big Spenders. The band is donating its time and efforts for the good cause of fighting breast cancer, and the people who come to the show will be helping out in that important battle. Apparently Face Book has a vested interest in the spread of cancer. No wonder their reason for deactivating my account is confidential! These people want you to get cancer and will not tolerate any resistance to their goal. I believe their thinking here is that they have to be incurable geeks for the rest of their lives and want to see the rest of humanity as miserable as they are.
But maybe I'm being too harsh on them. Maybe Bob Crespo &The Big Spenders ought to play some benefit shows to fight terminal creepiness. After all, unlike cancer, there are no foundations dedicated to helping awkward fools with no social skills, no doctors or scientists laboring tirelessly in their research labs to find a cure and no public show of sympathy for those stricken with terminal dweebism. They go through life clinging to their technology skills, play countless hour of video games and endure the taunts of their own mothers about getting a girlfriend one of these decades. That can't be fun. Not much point in having all the latest high-tech gadgets if the only one who's impressed by that are your geek buddies with their collections of Star Trek memorabilia and inflatable "companions."
I used to think here's nothing wrong with these painfully introverted creeps that couldn't be cured by two quick slaps and a couple of hundred bucks spent on booze and hookers, but I've come to realize their problems run far deeper than that. To geeks, the most amazing thing about i-pods is their memory capacity, not any of the beautiful and moving music they can enjoy and enhance their lives. While most of us don't give a giga-shit about the inner workings of our computers, these people are likely to use as a social icebreaker questions about RAM, pixels or processing speed. And then they wonder why they don't get laid! Try bragging about the size of something else, Jason. That's still an obnoxious approach, but at least you're in the ballpark, whereas right now you're not even on the same planet and are viewed as a different species altogether. And lose the Harry Potter T-shirt, dork boy. You're a grown man, dammit! Act like one.
But maybe living in Mom's basement surrounded by electronics and collectible toys is what makes these people happy. Perhaps I should have the same tolerance for Geek-Americans as I do for the rest of humanity. I always embraced the gay community, even wishing there were more gay men around, albeit for a selfish reason (more pussy for me!) and even more lesbians (for fantasy purposes). Perhaps that's the way to go with the geeks. After all, I have no clue how to program a computer or figure out why mine is acting up for no apparent reason. When that happens, I simply call in a geek and he comes by and gives me some condescending attitude and a sobering glimpse into his soulless existence, but at least he figures out the problem and can't wait to demonstrate how easy it is for him.
Of course I duly pretend to be paying attention as his fingers fly across the key board bringing up screens I didn't know existed within my computer, and praise him like I would an obedient child or a good dog, but I retain exactly nothing of the techno-speak. Then I pay him, thank him and dismiss him from my mind until the next time I have a cranky piece of electronics. I'm thinking now, that's just wrong. Maybe I should have asked him what's his favorite episode of "Battlestar Galactica," maybe ask him how many gigabytes of RAM he's got at home, or even about his personal life, or lack of one. Of course that last question might open a can of worms that there's no resealing, but you've got to reach out to people, even those who pretend they are more machine than man.
After all, geeks are people too, or a close enough approximation. It's not their fault they were born with an attraction to machines instead of their fellow human beings. I'm sure that scientists will one day isolate the socially backward gene that creates geeks (At least after they have discovered all the rest of them and there's no other genes to explore. These are geeks we're taking about here.). When and if that happens, count on the geeks to wear their genetic isolation as a badge of pride, one more reason to hide from the often messy business of being human. If only they didn't wish cancer on the rest of us, I might actually warm up to these creeps. As Far as Face Book is concerned, hell, I've been thrown out of classier joints than that!
April 9, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 362
If you cheat your way to the top, you're not at the top. Others may not know, but you will, every time you look in the mirror.
MAYOR MIKE THE SCIENCE GUY
So New York City Mayor (For Life?) Michael Bloomberg, the self-made billionaire (is there any other kind?) has undertaken his second science experiment on his subjects, er, that is, citizens. First time around, he banned the use of trans-fats in commercial food preparation in New York City, presumably to get our raging cholesterol counts and escalating body weights under control. That had absolutely no effect on anybody but, undaunted, he has decided we all need to cut our intake of salt by half, even though studies by actual doctors and scientists with long white coats and letters after their names have already conducted studies that suggest this is a worthless goal.
Mayor Mike the Science Guy's spokespeople have gone on public record as saying that this action will lower heath care costs and "prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year." A careful examination of Mayor Mike and his minions reveals no long white lab coats or medical and scientific degrees to their credit. They are, however, masters of pulling smart sounding statistics and bogus facts out of their asses. And they enjoy almost absolute power, with the legislature in New York City consisting of a bunch of corrupt political hacks called the City Council that have as much power as your average meter maid, if that much. Meter maids are to be feared for the potential financial burden they can place on any of us who owns a car. City Council members? Hand them a fifty dollar bill and they'll shut up and go away.
But that's just the way it is in New York City, the only place in America where 8 million people get to be ruled by fiat, with no pesky Constitutional checks and balances to impede orderly government. So what the hell, let's jut go for it and let Mayor Mike do as he pleases. At least he's not as annoying as his predecessor Rudy The Great, who gave himself the nickname "The Great," even though he was the guy who insisted his emergency headquarters should be located in the Twin Towers instead of underground like his advisors wanted. That didn't work out so well one sunny September morning in the beginning of his century. Rudy's science experiments consisted of putting as many people in jail as possible, so Mayor Mike's tinkering with our diets doesn't seem so bad by comparison. Since we the people of New York City are the involuntary lab rats here, let's suggest some other experiments on us that at least don't affect the taste and appeal on our food. For example:
Free Money: To study the effects of widespread prosperity on New Yorkers, Mayor Mike could give away half of his $20 billion fortune to New York's poor people. He could still eke out a fairly adequate living on the other 10 bil, while scientists get to study how having money changes people's lives. If you are among the one hundred thousand poorest New Yorkers, Mike will give you $100,000 tax-free to see if that makes a difference in your life. Unlike the salt and the fat thing, this one will be strictly voluntary. Line forms to the left.
The Good Food Diet: Since Mayor Mike The Science Guy likes tinkering with other people's diets, here's a little experiment that he could try: Letting people eat what they like. What one person likes, another may not, and it's nobody's business what their individual choices might be. So, in a radical departure from the Big Diet Brother Policy, the mayor and his henchmen can propose a separation of Kitchen and State and vow to leave us the hell alone and mind their own damned business. Don't hold your breath waiting for this one. Killjoys are never happy unless they're making someone else miserable.
The Wine and Candy Diet: Most people like a good wine, and everybody likes candy, so why not start giving these things away? The government cheese give-away is boring and old hat anyway. The effects of wine and chocolate on people's moods just might be fairly positive (you think?) and make for a lot of mellow and satisfied citizens. In a contentious and fast-paced place like New York City, a little dose of mellow just might help.
The Legalize Drugs And Prostitution Experiment: This experiment would take the profits and the control away from the gangsters and pimps and reduce the jail population by more than half. There will be not one single extra drug addict or prostitute created by this move, and the tax revenues derived from these activities will fill the treasury. Out of business will be the drug gangs and the violent pimps, replaced by mild-mannered clerks selling these goods and services much like the clerks in liquor stores, a segment of society not noted for their out-of-control behavior. Tax revenues will dwarf the New York City $1.50 per pack of cigarettes that currently reaps billions from a popular vice. Why give away additional potential billions to thugs when people are going to buy drugs and sex no matter what laws are on the books?
The Great Education Experiment: New York City's public schools were once the standard of excellence in this nation. No more. When Mayor Mike the Science Guy first ran for office he announced that his mayoralty would be a failure if he didn't change that. So what did he do? Like any corporate weenie, he engineered a hostile takeover of the Board of Education and renamed it the Department of Education and placed it under his direct control. That's change, right? Well, so far that's the only change in the education of 1 million students and the high school dropout rate has increased while our national ratings have decreased. How about conducting an experiment where we hire the best teachers available and enforce strict rules of conduct and study habits? Of all people, Mayor Mike should know that New York City is not exactly a democracy, so giving students and their parents the option of doing well or slacking off doesn't need to be on the menu. If you can take our fat and salt away, why not eliminate educational incompetence? After all, Mayor Mike the Science Guy was the one who brought it up in the first place, so maybe he needs to be reminded of this.
Mayor Mike the Science Guy's spokespeople have gone on public record as saying that this action will lower heath care costs and "prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year." A careful examination of Mayor Mike and his minions reveals no long white lab coats or medical and scientific degrees to their credit. They are, however, masters of pulling smart sounding statistics and bogus facts out of their asses. And they enjoy almost absolute power, with the legislature in New York City consisting of a bunch of corrupt political hacks called the City Council that have as much power as your average meter maid, if that much. Meter maids are to be feared for the potential financial burden they can place on any of us who owns a car. City Council members? Hand them a fifty dollar bill and they'll shut up and go away.
But that's just the way it is in New York City, the only place in America where 8 million people get to be ruled by fiat, with no pesky Constitutional checks and balances to impede orderly government. So what the hell, let's jut go for it and let Mayor Mike do as he pleases. At least he's not as annoying as his predecessor Rudy The Great, who gave himself the nickname "The Great," even though he was the guy who insisted his emergency headquarters should be located in the Twin Towers instead of underground like his advisors wanted. That didn't work out so well one sunny September morning in the beginning of his century. Rudy's science experiments consisted of putting as many people in jail as possible, so Mayor Mike's tinkering with our diets doesn't seem so bad by comparison. Since we the people of New York City are the involuntary lab rats here, let's suggest some other experiments on us that at least don't affect the taste and appeal on our food. For example:
Free Money: To study the effects of widespread prosperity on New Yorkers, Mayor Mike could give away half of his $20 billion fortune to New York's poor people. He could still eke out a fairly adequate living on the other 10 bil, while scientists get to study how having money changes people's lives. If you are among the one hundred thousand poorest New Yorkers, Mike will give you $100,000 tax-free to see if that makes a difference in your life. Unlike the salt and the fat thing, this one will be strictly voluntary. Line forms to the left.
The Good Food Diet: Since Mayor Mike The Science Guy likes tinkering with other people's diets, here's a little experiment that he could try: Letting people eat what they like. What one person likes, another may not, and it's nobody's business what their individual choices might be. So, in a radical departure from the Big Diet Brother Policy, the mayor and his henchmen can propose a separation of Kitchen and State and vow to leave us the hell alone and mind their own damned business. Don't hold your breath waiting for this one. Killjoys are never happy unless they're making someone else miserable.
The Wine and Candy Diet: Most people like a good wine, and everybody likes candy, so why not start giving these things away? The government cheese give-away is boring and old hat anyway. The effects of wine and chocolate on people's moods just might be fairly positive (you think?) and make for a lot of mellow and satisfied citizens. In a contentious and fast-paced place like New York City, a little dose of mellow just might help.
The Legalize Drugs And Prostitution Experiment: This experiment would take the profits and the control away from the gangsters and pimps and reduce the jail population by more than half. There will be not one single extra drug addict or prostitute created by this move, and the tax revenues derived from these activities will fill the treasury. Out of business will be the drug gangs and the violent pimps, replaced by mild-mannered clerks selling these goods and services much like the clerks in liquor stores, a segment of society not noted for their out-of-control behavior. Tax revenues will dwarf the New York City $1.50 per pack of cigarettes that currently reaps billions from a popular vice. Why give away additional potential billions to thugs when people are going to buy drugs and sex no matter what laws are on the books?
The Great Education Experiment: New York City's public schools were once the standard of excellence in this nation. No more. When Mayor Mike the Science Guy first ran for office he announced that his mayoralty would be a failure if he didn't change that. So what did he do? Like any corporate weenie, he engineered a hostile takeover of the Board of Education and renamed it the Department of Education and placed it under his direct control. That's change, right? Well, so far that's the only change in the education of 1 million students and the high school dropout rate has increased while our national ratings have decreased. How about conducting an experiment where we hire the best teachers available and enforce strict rules of conduct and study habits? Of all people, Mayor Mike should know that New York City is not exactly a democracy, so giving students and their parents the option of doing well or slacking off doesn't need to be on the menu. If you can take our fat and salt away, why not eliminate educational incompetence? After all, Mayor Mike the Science Guy was the one who brought it up in the first place, so maybe he needs to be reminded of this.
April 8, 2009
HOW THINGS REALLY WORK
In this modern and complex world, there are so may things we don't understand. The great depth and breadth of technology makes it impossible for any one man to know how everything works. We are a world of specialists, with each of us relying on one another to hold up their end of the bargain. It wasn't always so. A couple of hundred years ago pretty much everybody knew how the world works and what they had to do to survive. Other than kings and the like, who got other people to do everything for them, people had all the skills they needed; how to chop wood, make a fire, plant crops, raise animals, dig a well, sew clothes, cook meals, hunt and fish, build a house and a barn and all the other tasks that made up a life back then.
There were a few specialists around, like blacksmiths, wainwrights who made the wagons, boat builders, midwives, barber-surgeons(!) and a few doctors, but in a pinch most could fill in at those jobs adequately. Then came the Industrial Revolution and its machines that led in a hurry to all sorts of intricate and interacting technology, rendering us all interdependent. So as a public service, bobcrespo.com has decided to let everyone in on how some things work. You know, just in case the guy who's supposed to be on the ball with something important calls in sick and then we're all screwed, or if you were just wondering what's up with something that seems pretty complicated.
If you were wondering whether or not to buy a new computer, one with all the bells and whistles, well, forget about it. For one thing, you've probably just lost your job and can't afford it, and for another, odds are you are not NASA or IBM and don't need to be on the cutting edge of technology in order to Twitter, Facebook and game your life away. Unless you feel a pressing need to solve the whole array of Quantum equations in a matter of seconds, just buy some new memory chips and install them yourself. They snap in and will give you plenty of memory to install that dopey new computer game all your grown up child friends are babbling about. Or, you can venture out into the world and get a life. Your call.
If you're wondering how the economy works, you're in good company. So are economists. We here at bobcrepo.com aren't so sure either, but it seems that the idea of companies being worth what people think they are worth as opposed to what they are really worth has run out of steam. What happened was that the guys who made all that stuff up died and the new breed of corporate executives didn't have the knack to maintain the illusion. When faced with the prospect of telling themselves that their companies were only worth whatever monetary values they had and not a penny more, they panicked and started stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and claiming that the carpets in their corporate offices were made of spun gold and so the company was worth trillions instead of mere billions.
It was all air money anyway, so it didn't make a difference one way or the next until some mail room clerk pointed out the emperor's new clothes and the whole house of cards collapsed. So now we're back to a toaster being worth 39 bucks, no matter what level of confidence anyone has in that toaster, and whether or not some executive thinks it is worth ten million dollars. We'll keep an eye on any new developments and see if a new fantasy upon which to base our economy is formulated and keep you posted.
In the quest for renewable energy, some people have expressed dismay that the giant oil companies are not jumping on the bandwagon and have gone on record as opposing research into "unproven technologies," just as theirs once was. Why does that shock anyone? Did horse-drawn wagon manufacturers encourage Henry Ford? Looking to the oil companies to help out here is like asking your drug dealer to spot you the money for rehab, or asking King George III if you can use his printing press to run off copies of the Declaration of Independence. In no areas of human endeavor do the powers-that-be seek to become the powers-that-were. Revolutions of any sort are never started by people who think things are just peachy the way they are. We're on our own with this one.
When reporters interview the neighbors of a mass murderer who say what a nice guy he was and the last person you'd expect to commit such a heinous crime, those are not really his neighbors. They are actors who recorded their parts years ago and the stock footage is used again and again since producers figured it would be a waste of money to pay a camera crew to record the same old song and dance for every psycho that comes down the pike with a grudge and an assault rifle. Notice how the camera is always on the grim-faced reporter when the killer's name is mentioned. It's dubbed in by another actor and the reporter is actually in a studio in front of a blue screen and film editors splice the footage together to make it seem real. So, if it turns out that one of your neighbors goes on a killing spree, don't go looking for Eyewitless News to give your your 15 minutes of fame. For that, you'll need to do something really stupid and they'll be there in a flash.
Oh, and one more thing. There is no such thing as cholesterol. That was the brainstorm of a pharmaceutical company executive faced with plummeting sales figures. It was a simple matter of bribing a few doctors, making up some impressive looking charts and manufacturing an expensive placebo to "control" your cholesterol level. Centuries of common sense telling you not to eat too much fatty foods was ingeniously incorporated into the sales gimmick and Bingo!, a new scourge was created! As a bonus, a lot of people worried themselves sick over cholesterol and sales of ulcer medications and anti-depressants shot through the roof, assuring that executive a place in the Huckster Hall of Fame. Thus encouraged, he went on to invent ADD, ADaD and Bipolar disease. He is currently working in a new phony mental syndrome involving sunlight, figuring to include the whole world as prospective victims eligible for "treatment and therapy," available exclusively at is pharmaceutical corporation.
There were a few specialists around, like blacksmiths, wainwrights who made the wagons, boat builders, midwives, barber-surgeons(!) and a few doctors, but in a pinch most could fill in at those jobs adequately. Then came the Industrial Revolution and its machines that led in a hurry to all sorts of intricate and interacting technology, rendering us all interdependent. So as a public service, bobcrespo.com has decided to let everyone in on how some things work. You know, just in case the guy who's supposed to be on the ball with something important calls in sick and then we're all screwed, or if you were just wondering what's up with something that seems pretty complicated.
If you were wondering whether or not to buy a new computer, one with all the bells and whistles, well, forget about it. For one thing, you've probably just lost your job and can't afford it, and for another, odds are you are not NASA or IBM and don't need to be on the cutting edge of technology in order to Twitter, Facebook and game your life away. Unless you feel a pressing need to solve the whole array of Quantum equations in a matter of seconds, just buy some new memory chips and install them yourself. They snap in and will give you plenty of memory to install that dopey new computer game all your grown up child friends are babbling about. Or, you can venture out into the world and get a life. Your call.
If you're wondering how the economy works, you're in good company. So are economists. We here at bobcrepo.com aren't so sure either, but it seems that the idea of companies being worth what people think they are worth as opposed to what they are really worth has run out of steam. What happened was that the guys who made all that stuff up died and the new breed of corporate executives didn't have the knack to maintain the illusion. When faced with the prospect of telling themselves that their companies were only worth whatever monetary values they had and not a penny more, they panicked and started stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and claiming that the carpets in their corporate offices were made of spun gold and so the company was worth trillions instead of mere billions.
It was all air money anyway, so it didn't make a difference one way or the next until some mail room clerk pointed out the emperor's new clothes and the whole house of cards collapsed. So now we're back to a toaster being worth 39 bucks, no matter what level of confidence anyone has in that toaster, and whether or not some executive thinks it is worth ten million dollars. We'll keep an eye on any new developments and see if a new fantasy upon which to base our economy is formulated and keep you posted.
In the quest for renewable energy, some people have expressed dismay that the giant oil companies are not jumping on the bandwagon and have gone on record as opposing research into "unproven technologies," just as theirs once was. Why does that shock anyone? Did horse-drawn wagon manufacturers encourage Henry Ford? Looking to the oil companies to help out here is like asking your drug dealer to spot you the money for rehab, or asking King George III if you can use his printing press to run off copies of the Declaration of Independence. In no areas of human endeavor do the powers-that-be seek to become the powers-that-were. Revolutions of any sort are never started by people who think things are just peachy the way they are. We're on our own with this one.
When reporters interview the neighbors of a mass murderer who say what a nice guy he was and the last person you'd expect to commit such a heinous crime, those are not really his neighbors. They are actors who recorded their parts years ago and the stock footage is used again and again since producers figured it would be a waste of money to pay a camera crew to record the same old song and dance for every psycho that comes down the pike with a grudge and an assault rifle. Notice how the camera is always on the grim-faced reporter when the killer's name is mentioned. It's dubbed in by another actor and the reporter is actually in a studio in front of a blue screen and film editors splice the footage together to make it seem real. So, if it turns out that one of your neighbors goes on a killing spree, don't go looking for Eyewitless News to give your your 15 minutes of fame. For that, you'll need to do something really stupid and they'll be there in a flash.
Oh, and one more thing. There is no such thing as cholesterol. That was the brainstorm of a pharmaceutical company executive faced with plummeting sales figures. It was a simple matter of bribing a few doctors, making up some impressive looking charts and manufacturing an expensive placebo to "control" your cholesterol level. Centuries of common sense telling you not to eat too much fatty foods was ingeniously incorporated into the sales gimmick and Bingo!, a new scourge was created! As a bonus, a lot of people worried themselves sick over cholesterol and sales of ulcer medications and anti-depressants shot through the roof, assuring that executive a place in the Huckster Hall of Fame. Thus encouraged, he went on to invent ADD, ADaD and Bipolar disease. He is currently working in a new phony mental syndrome involving sunlight, figuring to include the whole world as prospective victims eligible for "treatment and therapy," available exclusively at is pharmaceutical corporation.
April 7, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 360
People like their bandits to be colorful and daring, which is why we scorn computer hackers and wealthy banking frauds. These bland, smaller-than-life clowns inhabit a personality-free zone and deserve extra jail time when they are caught for the high crime of aggravated tedium.
THE WAY THE NEWS IS REPORTED
You don't hear the phrase "roving bands of Negro youths" in the news anymore. Not that anyone misses that particular phrase, but at one time it was a staple of crime reporting. But things change. Open a newspaper from the early 1940's and you might see an advertisement for the Boeing Aircraft Company with a picture of a warplane and the caption "Boeing is bad news... for Japs!" That was a real advertisement. You would also find regular news stories denouncing "Krauts," "Heinies," "Slants," and "Yellow Devils." You'd be pretty hard pressed to find a newspaper today that would accept an ad for, say, Apache Attack Helicopters that said "Apache is bad news... for camel jockeys!" Even in wartime we're a little bit more socially evolved than to print that stuff anymore.
But before we pat ourselves on the back for restraining our racist impulses, let's remember that none of that crap was ever acceptable in the first place, no matter how widespread or accepted it was, or against what nation you were fighting a war. Accepted does not mean the same thing as acceptable. For millennia, slavery was accepted. In the more recent past, Nehru suits, Tom Jones shirts, tie-dyed T-shirts and bell bottom trousers were accepted items of apparel. Those of us old enough to have survived those harrowing times now wonder just what the hell we were thinking. So you have to constantly watch yourself so you don't slip back into bad habits like slavery and looking silly. Anyone who ever watches a movie abut the French royal court from the 1700's with their wigs, cosmetics, clown costumes and rapacious oppression ceases to wonder why the French people rose as one to chop their fool heads off.
News reporting was never all that revealing in the first place, with as much left out as is revealed. It makes you wonder what, if any, are the thought processes involved. Like when Bernie Madoff ripped off all those wealthy people by promising them heroin dealer-like profits on their investments, almost no one questioned why anyone would invest big money with a guy like that. They called him greedy and he sure was, but he wouldn't have made a nickel if his investors weren't greedy dicks themselves. People with big dough know exactly what the maximum rate of return on their money is, the legal one, anyway. News reports also overlooked the fact that most of us have to restrain ourselves from dancing with glee when we hear about greedy billionaires going broke. Welcome to the club, Chauncey!
The news is full of odd things. Consider that you hear a lot about "mounting death tolls" on the news when it comes to natural disasters. The only exception was the recent Australian wild fires where the death toll kept getting lower, and you figured that if the fires burned long enough, new human life would have been created spontaneously. It had to have something to do with Australia being on the opposite side of the world, but did any of the reporters catch that? No, no they did not. Sometimes it's the obvious things that are overlooked.
Like in the Iraq war. When things started going bad, all we heard about is how successful the surge was, the "surge" being an escalation of military violence, completely ignoring the fact that there would have been no need for a surge of any sort if we had not attacked that country for no reason at all, wrecked the place, killed a whole bunch of people, disbanded their army and hung their leader. You think there would be a whole lot of "insurgents" and "militants" here in America if that had happened to us? Without a doubt, and most likely the nation who conquered us would respond with a surge of their own, and thus create a whole lot more militants and insurgents, maybe even calling them "roving bands of Great Satans" and "Crusadists."
And what consists of news is something you have to question, too. Why is it reported as news when movie stars go nuts? We're the ones who gave them 20 million bucks to make lousy movies and elevated them to Roman Emperor status, so why is it a shock when they lose touch with reality and start beating their nannies and personal assistants with items of furniture? We're just lucky they don't start ordering people to be drawn and quartered. And why are we shocked when rap stars beat each other up? Hell, their record sales go up when they shoot somebody! Sending them to jail for a year or so only convinces them that their phony "gangsta" persona was a good idea. Haven't these reporters ever met any real gangsters? They're about as lovable as rabid wolves at mealtime and would kill you in a flash if you had something they wanted.
And yet you don't see real gangsters getting media coverage for who they are sleeping with, what they wear and what they have to say. Why not? Maybe "Vinny The Neck" and "Fat Jamal" have interesting love lives and eye-catching wardrobes. They might even have keen observations on the human condition, things like "When in doubt, whack somebody," "It's only yours if I can't take it away from you" or "When a sit-down doesn't do the trick, there's always a drive by." That would at least be honest reporting. And just maybe some ambitious reporter can get to the bottom of that whole weather reporting scandal, where TV talking heads act puzzled about blizzards in the Winter and floods in the Spring. Were these weather people hatched fully grown with no education or experience? Just where are these clone farms and why are they producing human TV robots? Towards what end? Oh, wait, that would be to distract people from what's really going on. Okay. Riddle solved.
But before we pat ourselves on the back for restraining our racist impulses, let's remember that none of that crap was ever acceptable in the first place, no matter how widespread or accepted it was, or against what nation you were fighting a war. Accepted does not mean the same thing as acceptable. For millennia, slavery was accepted. In the more recent past, Nehru suits, Tom Jones shirts, tie-dyed T-shirts and bell bottom trousers were accepted items of apparel. Those of us old enough to have survived those harrowing times now wonder just what the hell we were thinking. So you have to constantly watch yourself so you don't slip back into bad habits like slavery and looking silly. Anyone who ever watches a movie abut the French royal court from the 1700's with their wigs, cosmetics, clown costumes and rapacious oppression ceases to wonder why the French people rose as one to chop their fool heads off.
News reporting was never all that revealing in the first place, with as much left out as is revealed. It makes you wonder what, if any, are the thought processes involved. Like when Bernie Madoff ripped off all those wealthy people by promising them heroin dealer-like profits on their investments, almost no one questioned why anyone would invest big money with a guy like that. They called him greedy and he sure was, but he wouldn't have made a nickel if his investors weren't greedy dicks themselves. People with big dough know exactly what the maximum rate of return on their money is, the legal one, anyway. News reports also overlooked the fact that most of us have to restrain ourselves from dancing with glee when we hear about greedy billionaires going broke. Welcome to the club, Chauncey!
The news is full of odd things. Consider that you hear a lot about "mounting death tolls" on the news when it comes to natural disasters. The only exception was the recent Australian wild fires where the death toll kept getting lower, and you figured that if the fires burned long enough, new human life would have been created spontaneously. It had to have something to do with Australia being on the opposite side of the world, but did any of the reporters catch that? No, no they did not. Sometimes it's the obvious things that are overlooked.
Like in the Iraq war. When things started going bad, all we heard about is how successful the surge was, the "surge" being an escalation of military violence, completely ignoring the fact that there would have been no need for a surge of any sort if we had not attacked that country for no reason at all, wrecked the place, killed a whole bunch of people, disbanded their army and hung their leader. You think there would be a whole lot of "insurgents" and "militants" here in America if that had happened to us? Without a doubt, and most likely the nation who conquered us would respond with a surge of their own, and thus create a whole lot more militants and insurgents, maybe even calling them "roving bands of Great Satans" and "Crusadists."
And what consists of news is something you have to question, too. Why is it reported as news when movie stars go nuts? We're the ones who gave them 20 million bucks to make lousy movies and elevated them to Roman Emperor status, so why is it a shock when they lose touch with reality and start beating their nannies and personal assistants with items of furniture? We're just lucky they don't start ordering people to be drawn and quartered. And why are we shocked when rap stars beat each other up? Hell, their record sales go up when they shoot somebody! Sending them to jail for a year or so only convinces them that their phony "gangsta" persona was a good idea. Haven't these reporters ever met any real gangsters? They're about as lovable as rabid wolves at mealtime and would kill you in a flash if you had something they wanted.
And yet you don't see real gangsters getting media coverage for who they are sleeping with, what they wear and what they have to say. Why not? Maybe "Vinny The Neck" and "Fat Jamal" have interesting love lives and eye-catching wardrobes. They might even have keen observations on the human condition, things like "When in doubt, whack somebody," "It's only yours if I can't take it away from you" or "When a sit-down doesn't do the trick, there's always a drive by." That would at least be honest reporting. And just maybe some ambitious reporter can get to the bottom of that whole weather reporting scandal, where TV talking heads act puzzled about blizzards in the Winter and floods in the Spring. Were these weather people hatched fully grown with no education or experience? Just where are these clone farms and why are they producing human TV robots? Towards what end? Oh, wait, that would be to distract people from what's really going on. Okay. Riddle solved.
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