Saturday, February 28, 2009

People Really Like To Say Fuck

Oh, did I say that?
I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe that people still talk like that. I mean, I’ve been counting, and the word ‘Fuck’ has been used, to date, 357 trillion, 452 billion, 617 million, 732 thousand, 5 hundred and 14 times. And that’s not even counting me using it in the title of this blog, or in this sentence. At what point does a word just get used up? I mean, the word is as meaningless these days as the word ‘bi-partisan’, but everybody still keeps using it. ‘Damn’ has more impact now than ‘Fuck’ does, basically because you never hear the word ‘Damn’ anymore. Too moderate. And actually, ‘Damn you’ has a more permanent implication than ‘Fuck you’ ever did. ‘God damn you’ is the ultimate curse really. But we don’t hear that either.

Kids say ‘Fuck’ to check other people’s reaction, and to help determine their own parent’s boundaries. Teens say it to act savvy, experienced, in the know, to express their independence, or just to get attention. Parents say it so their kids will think they’re cool. But the kids don’t think they’re cool, the kids think they’re idiots. The kids think the parents are stealing their words. Funny, the parents don’t want the kids using those ‘adult’ words, and the kids don’t want their parents using those ‘kid’ words. Females seem to use it as a sign of their personal liberation. Liberation from what? Decency?

Many movies consist of nothing more than contrived intensity and the word ‘Fuck’. Makes them gritty, cutting edge, ‘real’. The more people you have saying ‘Fuck’ in the movie, the more realistic it’s considered to be. Some movies just have one guy saying it, but he says it a lot, all the time really. He says it every way the word can be said. I often wonder if the director is expounding intellectually upon the writers original script, or if the scriptwriter had just run out of language. I don’t know, maybe the actor forgets his lines, and the director says “Listen, if you forget a line, just say ‘Fuck’.” Who would know?

Hey, I think it’s time to move on. We’ve been stuck on ‘Fuck’ for way too long. I think we should throw a ‘sayonara’ party, an international event to put the word to rest. We could co-ordinate it over the inter-net. We could encourage everybody in the world to, at a certain time on a specific day, in unison, and in every different language, stand up from what we’re doing and just say “Fuck”.
Twice if we need to.

And be done with it.

Then we could move on to more important words,
like ‘ranunculaceous’.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The God Column

* Are socialites, bored trophy-wives, and Deepak and Wayne Dyer wannabe’s still claiming to be spiritual just because they light candles in their spacious meditation rooms, and drink their Chablis barefooted on woven bamboo mats on hardwood floors?

* Ever notice how poor people never claim to be spiritual? Can’t afford the books and dvd’s, I guess. Oh yeah, and their meditation room? Probably filled with the actual necessities of living.

* Is God really alive today? Must have resurrected himself again. I remember when the word was out that ‘God is dead’. Actually, I think we just morphed him into an image of ourselves, gave him a yoga mat, and suggested he ‘go sit over there on the floor’. God must have a pretty good identity crises of his own going these days.

* But there’s really nothing wrong with God that our leaving him alone wouldn’t fix. We’ve already done a damn good job of soiling his reputation.

* Most people recognize God when they need something from him, like teen-agers begging dad to use the car. But how many of those same teen-agers even acknowledge the existence of parents when they don’t want something from them?

* John Lennon said, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”. But I think John got it wrong. I think pain is a concept by which we measure our God. I’ve said that before, but hey, this is a ‘God column’, so it bears repeating.

* The first Commandment (of the abbreviated Ten) says “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me.” However, the problem is that everybody tends to think “If I can’t have any other gods, then OK, there is NO god.” In other words, “If we can’t play by MY rules, then I’ll take my ball and go home”. Maybe God could have phrased the commandment a little better to accommodate everybody. Something like “Hey people, you and I both know that I’m God, but while you’re growing up you can have all the little paper gods you want. Get that out of your system, and after you become an adult, well, then I’d like a little more respect. If you don’t mind, of course.” You know, a suggestion, rather than a commandment. In fact that’d work better for everybody. Yeah, The Ten Suggestions. I like the sound of that.

* The bible says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. . . . . . . , and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Question: So, if I don’t have any neighbors I can’t really do that second part. Then does that mean I don’t have to do the first part either?
Answer: Huh?

* Another Question: “If there’s a God, then why does he let war and disease and death, and bad things like that happen to good people?”
Good question. If you’re five.

* Ever hear somebody say “The god in me loves the god in you, brother”?
Translation: “I hate your ass, and it’s a good thing that my god loves your god or else you’d be one messed up mother f***er right now.”
Don’t you just love the spiritual heights to which we climb?

* Cleanliness is next to Godliness. If that were true, everybody using anti-bacterial soaps, shampoos and lotions would be saints. And of course, conversely, ditch diggers, soldiers, cowboys, and mud wrestlers would be children of the devil. Well, mud wrestlers. . . . . . maybe! But it’d be fun to wrestle with the devil’s kids if that were the case.

* You know all those devotional candles in the Catholic Church that you can go in and light, as a prayer, or as a remembrance of somebody? Do ya think you should really have to pay to light those candles? Just asking.

* God helps those who help themselves. Oh really? Seems like they don’t need any help. I’d like to think God helps those incapable of helping themselves. But that’s just me.

* Ever notice how ‘God Dammit’ and ‘Jesus Christ’ seems to be pretty common language for many Atheists when expressing anger, frustration, or indignation at the suggestion of a God?

* God cannot be mocked. Those claiming to represent him can be mocked. But mocking God? Fool’s gonna lose that battle every time.
God’s always gonna have the last word, ya know!

* Ever hear it said, “The devil’s in the details?” Could be the best definition of religion that I’ve ever heard.

* There’s really nothing wrong with religion that a religious pyromaniac couldn’t fix.

* A lot of people say they know God. A lot of people say they know their neighbor too, but they’ve never had him over for dinner. They just wave once in a while when backing the car out of the driveway.

* Jesus Saves. And if, as a nation, we’d followed his example and saved a little bit ourselves, we might not be in the financial mess that we find ourselves in today.

* God has a plan for your life.
Oh, sorry, my mistake, that was Obama with the plan for your life.

Ah, C’mon friends, get a sense of humor!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Wolf In Somebody

A friend of mine told me about a woman who used to work with him. She was about thirty-nine or forty years old. He’d mentored the woman for a couple of years, gave her room to fully integrate on the job, and with the other staff, shared his responsibilities with her, enabled situations that allowed the establishment of her own identity in the work environment, and gave her the kind of respect that empowered her development.

On a very regular basis the woman brought my friend (and his wife) bags of fruits and vegetables from her garden, she baked breads, cakes, and cookies for them, and told him how much she enjoyed working with him. She told my friend’s boss what a great situation she had with him, how much she loved her job, and how she didn’t ever want to work anywhere else.

And then there arose cause for moderation of her social behavior on the job. My friend’s boss suggested that he talk to her about it, which he did. The woman denied the need for any change, suggested she didn’t even know what he was talking about, cried, and then pouted for a couple of weeks. It had become very clear to him that she was incapable of accepting any correction. She said her feelings were hurt.

Feelings: The preferred weapon of the weak.
Feelings are what the woman used to effectively transform the idea of ‘correction’, in her mind, into the word ‘criticism’, and then ‘Criticism’ into ‘CRITICISM’, internalizing the situation so that it became about her feelings rather than about the need for change. Criticism is much easier to deal with than correction because correction implies the need to take responsibility for a particular action or behavior. As long as one can fall back on hurt feelings, one can maintain the defensive, and protective, posture of having been the victim. Those who embrace victim-hood wield feelings as a very powerful weapon. But feelings, as I have said before, are the weapon of the weak. They are the domain of the adolescent, the kingdom of those not yet come of age, or too afraid to grow up. She embraced her feelings, imposed them on my friend, and used them to avoid personal accountability, and to put off actually dealing with the situation with the courage and honesty required to effectuate a solution.

She reinforced within herself the power of tears, and the manipulative strength of her feelings. But as my friend suggested to me about his situation, “just because she cried, it does not necessarily mean that he ‘made’ her cry”. And particularly when the vast, and overwhelming, majority of adults would not cry in such a situation. Most children wouldn’t. Says more about the recipient (victim) of the correction than it does about the messenger. “I ask myself”, he said, “would the man have cried if the woman approached him in like manner, and with the same correction? Of course not, and if he did, the woman would certainly not have been accused of ‘making’ him cry. He would be considered ‘fragile’, unstable. A double standard, to say the least. Sexism at work in the work place.”

Now, I told my friend that the woman should not be judged for her weakness, nor should he think less of her for wielding her feelings as a weapon. It’s unlikely that she intended to. It’s more likely that it was just the most comfortable, and familiar, place for her, the place she has always gone when she has felt threatened. People have a lot of pain in their lives, from a myriad of circumstances, much of which has been beyond their own control. And I am smart enough to know that the weapon, more often than not, actually chooses the individual. The individual becomes compromised to the point where whichever weapon most naturally, and comfortably, fits their grip is the one that will settle into their hand. It is more a ‘Pavlov’s Dog’ response than of a malicious, or retributory intent. I told him that it’s what she does with her feelings after that, that matters.

My friend agreed with me about the dynamic, but said, “it gets worse”, then went on to explain that at about the same time it was all happening, it was also beginning to become clear that between the two of their jobs, one of them was likely going to be eliminated. Ultimately, one person would need to be moved into another position at the company in order to make room for the addition of a more senior position. The woman was terrified of change, scared to death, and knew my friend had both stature, and seniority, by many years, so she began soliciting sympathy for her ‘he made me cry’ posture. It grew from there to a long list of all of my friend’s ‘inappropriate’ behaviors, all the things that made her ‘afraid’ of him, twisting every good and supportive action of his over the previous two years into a threatening and intimidating mine field for her to have had to navigate. He said his situation began to remind him of the old axiom “No good deed goes unpunished”.

She spread the accusations and innuendo among the same group of co-workers that my friend had always enjoyed a kind, and mutually supportive, relationship with. And she brought the lies to his boss. Engaging in a vicious, and calculated, attempt to undermine him in order to take his job, but with little to no possibility of succeeding, she made the ultimate accusation against my friend, the one thing that she thought would assure her of coming out on top of the situation. She accused my friend of ‘sexual harassment’. Of course, she said it happened a year ago, and that she couldn’t remember what he’d actually said to her, but nevertheless, it was sexual harassment.
My friend was told of the accusation, and questioned about it, by his boss. His response was that he would not dignify the accusation. He would not submit to a review, go before a panel, or a board of inquisitors (judges), and that she could tell them exactly that. My friend told me that if anyone was going to submit to a review, it was going to be the forty year-old woman who proved to have the psychological/emotional makeup of a desperate adolescent.
"What the woman didn't know", my friend said, is that "I was planning on leaving the job in about six weeks, with the intent of her inheriting the position. I had always mentored her towards that end."

As I learned from my friend, the woman has, for many years, been indulging in a steady diet of nightly ‘Slasher/Horror’ movies (dvd’s), accompanied by weekly doses of Survivor. As I have always said, and as I told him again, “What you’re filled with is, inevitably, what spills out when you’re tilted.”
She got tilted.
Her hostility, vindictiveness, and aggression were mixed to perfection.
They spilled out like toxic waste.

According to my friend, the woman was ultimately transferred to a different situation, where she will, most likely, bring bags of fruits and vegetables from her garden, and begin baking breads, cakes, and cookies for whoever has stature, and seniority, over her there.

In thinking about my friend’s ordeal I am reminded that we used to have children’s stories to prepare us for many of these real-life situations.

Little Red Riding Hood, the story of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, comes to mind.
It’s funny, but as humans, we don’t ever really want to see the wolf in somebody.
We prefer to see the lamb, but unfortunately, it enables the proliferation of wolves.

I don’t know if parents still read those kinds of stories to their kids.
But I hope they do.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Organizing The World

Somebody once said “technology is mans way of organizing the world so that he never actually has to experience it.”

It is becoming increasingly possible to live in that world. We have the technology now to insulate ourselves from anything actually experiential. We only need immerse ourselves in life if we choose to do so. Most of us can just dip a foot in the water periodically to enable the sensation of being among the living. There should be no blame assigned to living such a cocoon existence. Life has become overwhelming for many, with overcrowded cities and towns, the accompanying congestion of the roads, public gathering places, even the parks and hiking trails. When getting around, and getting in and out of places of business becomes a chore, rather than a matter-of-fact accommodation of our needs, when it becomes a burden, rather than a pleasure, it is no wonder that we tend to organize our lives to avoid such involvements, or confrontations as it were, as much as possible. We have the wherewithal to do so, and we avail ourselves of the convenience at every opportunity. We can choose when, and where, to actually interact with other human beings.

We do our banking online to avoid the banks. We pay our bills online to avoid the Post Office. We subscribe to Netflix, or premium movie channels, for the convenience of avoiding crowds, and the expense, of the Theater. We email, text, or Tweet people rather than calling, or visiting them. We don’t ever have to stop and ask directions of another person if we’re going somewhere because we have our Map Quest print-outs, or our global positioning navigation in the car. We drive-thru for our food, and sit in our cars to eat. Whole families even, when the kids would much rather be eating in the park. There’s a DVD screen in the back seat to keep the kids engaged during lunch, insulating the parent from the kids.

I’ve noticed that we not only avoid the association of other humans much more than we used to, but we also avoid connection to the natural elements whenever possible. I was observing today, and have been for quite some time, that people don’t even drive with their windows down any more, or their sunroofs open like they used to, even in moderate weather. It was a beautiful day today, and I had the windows down in my Jeep. It occurred to me to count the number of drivers I saw with their windows down. In the forty-five minutes I was in the car I counted one. Me. There were no others. There literally were no others. I was enjoying the smell of the fresh air, the sound of the wind, the feel of the different temperature changes on my arms and face, and the sounds of life around me. The barking of a dog, the voices of kids on the playground of the school I drove by, a man calling his wife to come outside and see the clouds laying low on the hillside above the valley. I heard birds, the rushing of the different creeks I drove by, or over, and I heard a couple of goats making animal sounds at the fence on a nice ½ acre parcel of land in a quaint little neighborhood. I heard a lot of different sounds that I would not have been privy to with my windows up.

We have successfully insulated ourselves from many aspects of the world around us. I understand why we do it, and I do it myself more often than not. Who wants to hear the sound of traffic, motors racing, horns honking, stereos blaring from other cars, or people in a hurry who just cannot contain their own anxiety? We roll up our windows, turn up our own sounds, and turn on the climate control. Enables us to control our environment when we can control so little else of what goes on around us these days. It’s good to have this kind of control, but we’re really missing something along the way.

“Technology is mans way of organizing the world so that he never actually has to experience it.”

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I Know, I Promised

I know, I promised ‘no more politics’. And I’m sorry, but. . . . . .

David Axelrod, the President’s Senior Advisor says that “Shovel-ready projects are the key to the stimulus package”.

OK, we’re going to flood the nation with construction jobs, getting the infrastructure built back up to par and putting people back to work. That would be a good thing.
But let’s see now, when the construction jobs dried up with our economic crash, the illegal immigrants who were actually working those jobs fled back home to Mexico. So now that money is going to be made available again for construction jobs, I guess that means they’ll be flooding back into the United States to take these jobs so they can resume sending the wages back to their families in Mexico.
And exactly how does that benefit the American people?

Oh, I get it, the President will make them all American citizens.
Yes, and that would also assure that they, and their families, vote ‘Democratic’ for the next several generations. Of course.

But hey, that’s better than actually buying votes, don’t you think?
I’m really growing to love this Country. We’re getting so clever.

Of course, some of my readers will consider me racist, or even worse in their eyes, Republican, for suggesting such a thing. But I have this funny habit of ‘seeing what is there’, rather than ‘seeing what I wish were there’. Can’t help it.

And, have you noticed how Nancy Pelosi, and the Secretary of the Treasury, and a lot of those guys are in Europe trying to ‘fix’ (their word, not mine) the ‘Global’ Economy? Fix is right, folks. The fix is in.
(finger to lips) Sssshhhh.

Now, as I’ve always said. . . . . . . “No more politics”.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Who Said That?

Speaking in opposition to the proposed construction of a Retirement Community in the Santa Rosa, California area,
it was said:
“The project, if approved, would be built over the top of blades of grass, stones, and such that perhaps used to be people. There are many cultures that believe that their ancestors come back as a tree, they come back as a grain of sand, they come back as a part of nature, and that you are walking with those all the time.”

OK, here’s the fun part. Asked to comment on the proposed construction project, the above statement was made by:

A. A student in a California kindergarten class?
B. A UC Berkeley Philosophy Professor?
C. A stoned thirteen-year-old sitting with friends on the sidewalk in front of a cafe?
D. A street corner Sage?
E. Woody Harrelson?
F. A member of the ‘Leaves for Jesus’ Enviro-religious cult?
G. A resident of Napa State Hospital (mental institution)?
H. Swami Origami?
I. All of the above?
J. None of the above?

Just take a few minutes now, this is a hard one.

All right, I’ll help you out. If you guessed ‘A’ thru ‘H’, you’re way wrong, although any one of them might have said the same thing if asked.

If you guessed ‘I’, you could have been right, but again, they were never asked.

But if you guessed ‘J’ you’re smart enough to get elected to the Santa Rosa City Council.

Yes, that’s correct folks, the statement was made by Marsha Vas Dupre, the Vice-Mayor of the City of Santa Rosa, California. The statement was given as her reason for voting against the proposed construction of a new Retirement Community.
“. . . . . . The project, if approved, would be built over the top of blades of grass, stones, and such that perhaps used to be people.”

Like I have always said, “AAAARRRRHHHH!”
God help us all. These people are managing our communities, and our tax dollars!

Just kill me now.

Friday, February 13, 2009

My Last Thoughts On Politics

You might want to Google ‘Mars warming’, ‘Jupiter warming’, ‘Pluto warming’, or any other planet in our Solar System. Maybe even ‘Solar cycle’ or ‘Solar activity’. Google ‘Historical global warming’ if you dare.

Have you begun noticing yet how many different ways they have been finding to take your money under the auspices of ''global warming' or even better, 'Green'?

Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an Academy Award, a Grammy award, an Emmy award, the NAACP Chairman award, the Freedom award (likening his global warming BS to the African Americans struggle for freedom), and a myriad of other awards too numerous to mention, just because the poor little spoiled rich kid didn’t get to be president. I’ve never witnessed such crap in my lifetime. I think whoever handed out these awards needs to be made ‘a ward’ of the State. They are obviously incapable of separating idolatry, and ideology, from reality. When are we finally going to reject these paper gods, this fraud, deceit, foolishness and greed in favor of, oh, I don’t know . . . . . . . honesty and accountability?

My last words on social politics. It’s become too corrupt, and too filthy, to even pay attention to anymore. From now on, with my blogs, I’ll be commenting on that which is true, and that which is honorable, like. . . . . oh. . . . . uh. . . . . ummm. . . . . . . hmmm. . . . . . let me see. . . . . . . . . damn, there must be something!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Speaking Of Thinking

Has anybody ever voted for someone, or joined a cause, because they saw a name, or cliché, on a bumper sticker on the back of someone else’s car? I fear so, but I hope not.

Speaking of cars, with the new lowered price of fuel getting us all back into our cars, the price of gas has begun creeping up again daily. Is anybody really surprised by that? Just wondering.

Speaking of gas, did anybody see Al Gore ‘beet-red and sweating like a pig’ while discussing his carbon-credits business, I mean his man-made global warming initiative with Congress?
Funny, I remember when turning red and sweating was a sign of saying something that you didn’t really believe. I think they used to call it lying, but that’s kind of a dirty word today, now, isn’t it?
Hmm, you’d think Al, old politico that he is, would be more comfortable discussing his thoughts with other old time politicos, especially since they were there just to kiss his ring. But what do I know?

Speaking of rings, I’ve been getting a lot of requests for cell phone ring-tones of my music. But I’ve decided to go in a different direction. I’m going to be releasing ‘doorbell ring-tones’ for download to encourage people to visit one another, rather than calling, texting, or Tweeting.

Speaking of calling, I see where Obama will soon be calling for the decriminalization of marijuana use. That would mean that smoking dope would no longer be illegal in this country. It’s about time. I am, and have always been, a staunch supporter of an individual’s right to make his own bad choices. And I’ve always believed that criminal behavior, rather than the need to alter ones reality, should be the criteria for incarceration.

Speaking of incarceration, if the people ever opened up all the secret drawers in the halls, and offices, of Congress, or the cupboards of the new Cabinet members, we’d have to build another Federal Penitentiary just to hold the politicians. Kind of scary, don’t you think?

Speaking of cabinets, have you ever gone through your house and garage and opened all the drawers, and the doors of all the cabinets, and left them open for a little while just to see how much stuff you actually have? Me either, but it’s not a bad idea.

Speaking of ideas, ever notice how often good ideas are voted down for bad ideas that are less threatening? What does that say about us?

Speaking of threats, do the Muslim extremists still want to kill us and destroy our country, or are they finally confident that the politicians will do it for them?

Speaking of confidence, does the Government Bailout Initiative inspire any confidence in you? Seems to me that for every dollar they want to inject into the economy they have to take a dollar from us to do so. Can you say ‘new taxes’ (I mean ‘fees and regulations’)?
But I’m not an expert, so I probably have that figured out all wrong.

Speaking of regulations, can you think of one thing left in your life that has not somehow become government regulated? If so, do not even whisper it because if they hear about it they’ll pass a law to either tax it, or disallow it.

Speaking of whispering, have you noticed how nobody expresses an opinion anymore? I’m not talking about writers. I’m talking about people. I’ve seen some of the people I’ve most respected silenced by political correctness, resulting in faux social acceptance, but in personal, internal, isolation. Some of you, my readers, isolate me for my opinions. I know that, but you continue to read what I have to say. If it gives you the courage to examine your own positions, I’m comfortable with that.

Speaking of readers, can I suggest that if we’re ‘watching’ more hours per day than we are ‘reading’ that we are being molded and manipulated by the corporate-media-mind-control at about double the rate of our own ability to discern ‘what is my own thinking, and what is theirs?’ I know we don’t actually want to believe that. And hey, we don’t have to. Just putting it out there for consideration.

Speaking of thinking, does anybody take the TIME to think anymore? I mean like sitting under a tree and considering a problem, or a situation. Or being quiet in a chair, reflective, contemplative? Or do we do all of our thinking on the run now, or in front of the TV?

I don’t know, I’ll have to think about that.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A Confluence Of Forces

It hadn’t rained in awhile, before the other day. Been raining in other ways though. A confluence of forces has been pummeling many good people, and their good intentions. Those who have only wanted to raise their families, live in harmony with life, and leave a positive imprint on this earth before finding their solitary way down the road. The hammer of politics, the social engineering, corporate greed, and the personal ambition of ruthless people have been working together to cripple the lives of the honest, of the innocent. As it has always been, really. As it has always been. But never, in my lifetime, like today. I have not yet been personally, directly affected, with a loss of job or home, or healthcare. I have been fortunate in that way. I do, however, feel the terrible anxiety, the fear even, of others who have been affected, and of those who expect to be, or just don’t know. It has touched me, in that very real sense, but indirectly. Directly, more so by the higher cost of goods and services, reminding me, as it has everyone, that the dollar does not go as far as it once did.

The general climate in our country (world) has been undermining the hope that once existed among ordinary people, who now understand that their ability to even eke out a living is becoming greatly compromised. The well-to-do face, what they consider to be, catastrophic decline of their own. Their 130 million has suddenly become worth about 100 million, and how can one ever expect them to live on that? But hey, they’ll be alright, they are, like the politicians, all connected to each other, and they share the password to the vault among themselves.

What you and I can do is to stop energizing the corruption that landed us in this jungle. Stop relying on incompetent, and corrupt, politicians to fix the mess we’re in. They have squandered our taxes, stolen our hope, and are rapidly creating our dependence on government, a system so corrupt that it can not even sustain itself, let alone us. We all know, and have known, that government is in collusion with the International Corporate Cartels. We all know that deals are made between politicians, mega-companies, foreign governments and the wealthy.

We must find ways to support one another, rather than to support the ‘system’. We must begin to think for ourselves once again, to act independently of the ‘leaders’. We must never trust them for our wellbeing. To do so would be foolish, and reckless. They don’t care about us. They talk out of both sides of their mouths, they rob Peter to pay Paul, and then they come back and rob Paul. They manipulate their own images like a hooker putting on her wig, pumps and makeup before hitting the street. They care about sustaining their careers, and profiting from them however possible.

My God people, Hillary Clinton is our Secretary of State, the person who represents the U.S to other nations around the world, a woman whose husband has lined their off-shore bank accounts with untold millions of dollars from foreign governments, corporations and wealthy individuals. Does that sound like the definition of a Public Servant? I’ll say it again folks, Hillary Clinton is our Secretary of State. She was almost President. Does anybody get that? What is wrong with us? We must say no to government as it exists today. We must no longer participate in this kind of charade. We must turn our backs on them, shun them, let them wallow in their own corruption, and in their own conceit. Let them die on their own vine, of their own vanity and greed.
The audacity of hope? Please! Let the President vet, and scrutinize, his own cabinet appointments, and his motivation for appointing them, and then talk to me of hope.

“A confluence of forces has been pummeling many good people, and their good intentions. Those who have only wanted to raise their families, live in harmony with life, and leave a positive imprint on this earth before finding their solitary way down the road.”

Is anybody listening?

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Feelings

I have a fundamental opposition to talent contests, whether they are Olympic gymnastics or Country Fair sing-and-dance competitions, whatever. I’m not in opposition to competition. In fact I think competition is a necessary, and healthy form of expression. Competition that can achieve measurable results, that is. Who can run the fastest, jump the highest, throw the farthest, score the most points etc. But I do not think it right, or fair, to pass judgment on someone’s creative talent, to declare a winner, and a whole bunch of losers, based on politics or a judges bias, their taste in art, music, or performance. Even by a panel of judges. It’s for these reasons that I do not generally watch American Idol, arguably the most popular program on television. However, as a lifelong observer of human behavior, I must admit I am compelled to watch the first episode of each season, the first couple of episodes even, depending on when they have sorted out all the ‘good’ contestants from the ‘bad’. When all the ‘legitimate’ competitors have been chosen, that’s when I stop watching.

On the first episode this year I was struck by the number of men (boys?) who came to the competition expecting to win based solely on their feelings, never mind that they couldn’t sing. I was also appalled. Some felt they were pre-ordained to win, because after all, they had these really deep feelings, and that should count for something. Others felt they deserved to become the next American Idol, not necessarily because they were good singers, but because they traveled all the way from the east coast and waited up all night in line. It just felt fair that they should win. Life should be fair, hurts their feelings when it’s not. Many could even cry, before, during, or after the performance to prove how much they wanted, and deserved, it. Having feelings, and what’s more, being sensitive enough to show them, should qualify one to win, make one deserving of winning, right? Huh?

Males were crying all over the place, wearing tears and feelings like badges of entitlement, like signs of their humanity, like the sensitive little boys some mothers, prima-donna fathers, and society, had hoped they would grow up to become. Males (not men) ruled by feelings, males who would be no threat to the status quo, or to women, males who could be controlled. Otherwise unarmed males, having not been armed with confidence, honesty or courage, now armed only with feelings, the weapon of the weak. Oh yes, and the accompanying anger that can be wielded when their feelings don’t get them what they want, or think that they deserve.
I’m sorry, but how did things get so twisted? How is it that our males have become so emasculated in such a brief time in our history? Well, I could probably sort it all out for everybody, but no sense in making all of my readers angry with me.

Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings. Feelings of love.
Sigh.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Implants

Alright, I’m not talking about breast implants, chest implants, cheeks, lips, calves, pecks, or behinds. I’m talking about micro-chips. You know it’s where things are going, just like you knew that cameras were going to be everywhere once we let them install that first one on the stoplight, or in the mall, or in the downtown area for ‘security’. We all stood around and held our tongues, too comfortable to protest the government intrusion into our privacy. Now look where we are, camera’s taking pictures of us taking pictures of pigeons in the park, or whatever we do on our vacations. Cameras watching us pump our gas, pick up our fast food, or drive through our own neighborhood. Cameras blinking at the entry of every building, school, parking lot, park, or playground. Cameras winking at you while you get your money from the local ATM, while you sit in the waiting room of your doctor’s office, and while you check in at an out-of-town hotel. You also see the cameras in the hotel hallways, but does anybody out there NOT wonder if there’s a camera in the room also? Sure you do. And if the hotel management didn’t put one there, some bored night shift guy probably did. There are cameras in some cars now to monitor the behavior of teen-age drivers. Gee, I wonder where it goes from there. Maybe I need monitoring while I drive too.

But hey, this is not about cameras, the proliferation of cameras is just really about preparing all of us for implants. That’s right, implants. Just as the inundation of cameras began with ‘security’, making us all scared of terrorists, and of shadows, and of the dark, and of muggers, and Mother F***ers trying to kidnap or molest our kids, the implant thing has begun it’s fear campaign as well. It started off with animals. Don’t want to lose your dog, do you? You’ll need an identity implant, comes with the license and vaccinations. People are stealing dogs, y’know? Or what if it gets lost and can’t find it’s own way home? Moved on to children. That’s right, don’t want to lose your kid, do you? Wander away at the mall, get taken from your house, or car, or get lost on his own? Better get him ‘identity implanted’ so we can locate him, and get him back to you if you lose him. Kids will need to get implants to get into school, or to get medical care, or to be claimed as dependents on your taxes. It’s already begun happening folks. Congress is already discussing moving to a medical-record implant for people so that ‘in case of an accident’ the hospital can quickly access your medical history. Oh, they’ll give you all kinds of logical reasons why it’s a good thing. Fear again. And they’re going to sell us on it. They ARE going to sell us on it. It will begin as voluntary, as it already has with the animals and kids, and it will quickly move to mandatory. Within a very short time we’ll need to be implanted to access our bank accounts, receive social security payments, get paychecks, tax refunds, drivers licenses, insurance, medical attention, and on and on and on. The requirement will probably be instituted on the back of some larger ‘National Security’ thing, like identifying citizens from illegals, or we’ll be convinced to participate in it in order to embrace the new ‘global economy’ (to be able to buy or sell stuff). We’ll allow it because it will seem like the prudent thing to do. I know what I’m talking about friends. I sat in on the International Corporate Board meetings for Visa (the credit card company) back in the late 70’s. Even back then, they were having serious discussions about moving away from plastic (credit cards), and using Laser (invisible) Tattoos to be scanned to access bank accounts, and to exchange money for goods. It was all very hush-hush while the tattoos were being tested on some employees in the Visa system. Today we are scanning credit cards at check-out, but very soon, because of fraud/security ‘issues’ we will move to the implants. It will be a way for the government to fully control even your own access to your own life.

This is not alarmist thinking, friends, these things are happening. Are you good with the government having that much control? How have they done so far with your trust, and with your money?

We’ve got to stand up to the insanity.
Don’t get too comfortable. Please.