I'm 44 now. I think I've stumbled upon why old men get grumpy. Patience and tolerance wanes, and often gives way to being unreasonable. I never understood that. I think I do now.
I've reached a point where the culture has diverged far enough from anything I understand as logical and reasonable that I'm really, really tired of having to cater to it. Where I once met opposition to my thinking with spirited debate, I've now had to swear off that, because it's just not healthy for me and gains nothing.
Now, when I run into this stuff, my instinct is to, well, grump. I'm just fed up and tired. I'm literally too old for this crap. I do not see this improving as my life goes on.
My issue is my faith. There's a certain amount of kindness and love I'm to show everyone. Calling them an asshat and other choice words isn't usually listed under 'kindness and love'. Some of this is in my new nature under Christ, in that I feel bad after going off on someone. The rest is just guilt that I'm being a 'bad witness' and generally representing Christ in a lousy light.
I have to tell you, though, I'm just entirely done with some concepts and phrases.
'Privilege'.
'Rape culture'.
'Cultural appropriation'.
'Cis-gendered'.
And the old standby, 'homophobia'.
There are a bunch of others, but those are really jabbing me in the soft and tenders lately.
I'll continue to resist becoming unreasonable. My father was an incredibly unreasonable and illogical man, and I won't fall prey to that. I'll continue to have hard-thought reasoning behind my beliefs.
However, I'm not making any promises about being patient with those who want to inflict this nonsense on me. I'm officially a grumpy old man, and you kids should get the hell off my lawn.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Never question the victim
Something over on Facebook and Twitter has stirred up an old memory. It's not the kind of thing I usually put here, but it just feels like I'd be splashing ancient drama on my Facebook timeline if I put it there.
A long, long time ago I was dating someone I had no business dating. She was substantially younger than me, but I was lonely, stupid, naive, and still pretty young myself. This would best be described as the very early gestational stages of my 'Stupid Years'.
She was decidedly more attractive than any girl who'd ever paid attention to me, and she was paying attention. In spades. Came out of nowhere.
So we dated. Lots of making out. She was aggressive, I was willing, etc.
But, I didn't want to have sex. I still hadn't had sex, and was still under the thinking that I should wait. (I was already engaging in all kinds of sexual activity, but not sex itself, so that seemed like a good thing...did I mention I was stupid?)
We were only together for a few days. During that time, there was a compelling reason not to get involved below the belt.
Once that circumstance cleared itself up, I found her with a reason to spend the night at my house. Turns out it was entirely manufactured, but I trusted her, so she was on the sofa. I lived with my parents at the time, so we didn't exactly have much privacy, and there was no way she was going to be sleeping in my room.
That said, we still fooled around. I kept wanting to go to bed, she'd drag me back. It became clear she wanted to go all the way. I kept dodging. Finally, my dad got up for work and I went to bed, exhausted from pulling an all-nighter canoodling.
Next day comes, she goes home, and there's drama because of that manufactured reason for having to stay with us. She was grounded or whatever, that was that.
Sometime soon after (days, not sure) I find out via mutual friends that she's accused me, to them, of 'trying something sexual' with her in my front yard that night, and it was only when she screamed and woke my dad that I stopped and let her go.
My reaction was to laugh. For one thing, the truth of the night was that she wouldn't leave ME alone, we were in my living room the whole time, and I never forced a thing on anyone in my entire life. At that point I'd only kissed four people, I hadn't exactly had a lot of opportunity to do much of anything.
Also, the story was pathetic. We were outdoors? Why? Against a tree? Huh? And my dad woke up? My dad could have slept through a nuclear explosion, my mom is a very light sleeper. She didn't even know us well enough to know that pretty common information. My mom would have been outside telling us to quiet down if we'd just been talking normally!
So none of the facts of the accusation even passed a basic sniff test. Add to it her history of lying (did I mention I was stupid to be with her at all?) and my history of being, well, a harmless lovable little fuzzball known to be WAY too trusting with women, and you've got a closed case.
But my friends believed her.
I can't remember ever feeling that way before or, thankfully, since. Helplessness, rage...just the embodiment of injustice. It was WRONG.
And they didn't care.
Ended those friendships for a little while, to say the least. Sometime after my accuser finally got what what wanted, we reconnected. Turns out she'd been going from older guy to older guy trying to get knocked up so she'd have a way out of her house and have someone to take care of her. She accomplished that mission with the guy after me, and that was that.
Look, I understand the drive behind the statement 'don't question the victim'. For way too many years, as a culture, we refused to listen to claims of abuse, especially from women and girls. That was a travesty...and it's over now. If it happens now, it's not due to some patriarchal societal prejudice, no matter what modern feminism tells you. If it happens now, it's isolated, and God help the people who ignored the claims if it's later found that they're true. The only people we consider lower than the abuser are those who allow the abuser to continue their dark work out of malice or foolishness.
What we have now is the opposite: it's not, 'never question the victim', it's 'never believe the accused'. As the great Maha Rushie says, it's the seriousness of the charges, not the weight of the evidence.
We cannot continue to exist as a culture unless we adhere to the most basic tenet of justice: innocent until proven guilty by evidence brought forth in open court. It's a sad, simple fact that sexual abuse often leaves absolutely no physical evidence. Because of this, many abusers get away with their crimes.
However, that's not to say that evidence doesn't exist. When it's a 'he said, she said' case you have to look at everything surrounding the accuser and the accused. Their past, testimony of others who have come in contact with them, etc.
Listen to me here: people who force sexual contact on other people do not do it one time and then stop. They do not succeed the first time without continuing. They rarely succeed the first time at all, but rather have several hesitant attempts to work up to what they seek. To force sexual contact on another human being, you have to have a very specific set of mental pathologies. Things wrong with how your brain works that keep you from behaving like everyone else.
This is why we have non-offending pedophiles. They may have the attraction, but they'd never force themselves on other people. That's also why we have sexual offenders against children who aren't pedophiles. Their pathology drives them to force themselves onto others, and it doesn't matter if they're sexually attracted to their victim or not. Ever wonder, as George Carlin did, why you hear about 85-year-old women being raped by young guys? That's why.
Either way, people who force themselves on others simply have things that drive them to do it, to overcome personal morality, cultural norms, societal repercussions, risk of legal punishment, and nature itself. It is no small thing to violate another human sexually. It isn't casual, simple, or easy unless you are profoundly broken. And if you are, it is no small matter to appear normal to everyone in your life.
Because of this, we can corroborate independent accusations of abuse by looking at patterns of behavior, finding previous victims, and seeking psychological evidence of abnormal pathology.
In short: offenders look and act like offenders, even if it is in very subtle ways. And if they don't, if there's no evidence at all, not even circumstantial...a simple accusation just isn't enough. That means sometimes bad guys get away with it. But it means that every time, if it works right, innocent men walk free.
We HAVE to adhere to this. It's the foundation of order in our culture. When we allow emotion and our own prejudices to break down this most basic logical function, we're destroying what allows us to be free. We can look back at witch hunts of the past, and we see them as times of great injustice, ignorance, and tragedy...and yet we're entering a time when the world shouts via social media 'burn the witch' and everyone starts looking for kindling and matches.
I can only encourage you, as someone who has been falsely accused, to THINK. Don't feel, THINK. Examine more than testimony and claims. Look at facts, evidence, and patterns. Apply Occam's Razor at every turn. Ask yourself: what do I have to believe, in order to believe this claim? What do I have to believe to disbelieve it? Critical, analytical thinking, devoid of emotion beyond the passion to do the right thing.
And yes, ALWAYS question the victim. Question the victim, the accuser, and everything surrounding them. Question everything, or the next one accused might be you.
A long, long time ago I was dating someone I had no business dating. She was substantially younger than me, but I was lonely, stupid, naive, and still pretty young myself. This would best be described as the very early gestational stages of my 'Stupid Years'.
She was decidedly more attractive than any girl who'd ever paid attention to me, and she was paying attention. In spades. Came out of nowhere.
So we dated. Lots of making out. She was aggressive, I was willing, etc.
But, I didn't want to have sex. I still hadn't had sex, and was still under the thinking that I should wait. (I was already engaging in all kinds of sexual activity, but not sex itself, so that seemed like a good thing...did I mention I was stupid?)
We were only together for a few days. During that time, there was a compelling reason not to get involved below the belt.
Once that circumstance cleared itself up, I found her with a reason to spend the night at my house. Turns out it was entirely manufactured, but I trusted her, so she was on the sofa. I lived with my parents at the time, so we didn't exactly have much privacy, and there was no way she was going to be sleeping in my room.
That said, we still fooled around. I kept wanting to go to bed, she'd drag me back. It became clear she wanted to go all the way. I kept dodging. Finally, my dad got up for work and I went to bed, exhausted from pulling an all-nighter canoodling.
Next day comes, she goes home, and there's drama because of that manufactured reason for having to stay with us. She was grounded or whatever, that was that.
Sometime soon after (days, not sure) I find out via mutual friends that she's accused me, to them, of 'trying something sexual' with her in my front yard that night, and it was only when she screamed and woke my dad that I stopped and let her go.
My reaction was to laugh. For one thing, the truth of the night was that she wouldn't leave ME alone, we were in my living room the whole time, and I never forced a thing on anyone in my entire life. At that point I'd only kissed four people, I hadn't exactly had a lot of opportunity to do much of anything.
Also, the story was pathetic. We were outdoors? Why? Against a tree? Huh? And my dad woke up? My dad could have slept through a nuclear explosion, my mom is a very light sleeper. She didn't even know us well enough to know that pretty common information. My mom would have been outside telling us to quiet down if we'd just been talking normally!
So none of the facts of the accusation even passed a basic sniff test. Add to it her history of lying (did I mention I was stupid to be with her at all?) and my history of being, well, a harmless lovable little fuzzball known to be WAY too trusting with women, and you've got a closed case.
But my friends believed her.
I can't remember ever feeling that way before or, thankfully, since. Helplessness, rage...just the embodiment of injustice. It was WRONG.
And they didn't care.
Ended those friendships for a little while, to say the least. Sometime after my accuser finally got what what wanted, we reconnected. Turns out she'd been going from older guy to older guy trying to get knocked up so she'd have a way out of her house and have someone to take care of her. She accomplished that mission with the guy after me, and that was that.
Look, I understand the drive behind the statement 'don't question the victim'. For way too many years, as a culture, we refused to listen to claims of abuse, especially from women and girls. That was a travesty...and it's over now. If it happens now, it's not due to some patriarchal societal prejudice, no matter what modern feminism tells you. If it happens now, it's isolated, and God help the people who ignored the claims if it's later found that they're true. The only people we consider lower than the abuser are those who allow the abuser to continue their dark work out of malice or foolishness.
What we have now is the opposite: it's not, 'never question the victim', it's 'never believe the accused'. As the great Maha Rushie says, it's the seriousness of the charges, not the weight of the evidence.
We cannot continue to exist as a culture unless we adhere to the most basic tenet of justice: innocent until proven guilty by evidence brought forth in open court. It's a sad, simple fact that sexual abuse often leaves absolutely no physical evidence. Because of this, many abusers get away with their crimes.
However, that's not to say that evidence doesn't exist. When it's a 'he said, she said' case you have to look at everything surrounding the accuser and the accused. Their past, testimony of others who have come in contact with them, etc.
Listen to me here: people who force sexual contact on other people do not do it one time and then stop. They do not succeed the first time without continuing. They rarely succeed the first time at all, but rather have several hesitant attempts to work up to what they seek. To force sexual contact on another human being, you have to have a very specific set of mental pathologies. Things wrong with how your brain works that keep you from behaving like everyone else.
This is why we have non-offending pedophiles. They may have the attraction, but they'd never force themselves on other people. That's also why we have sexual offenders against children who aren't pedophiles. Their pathology drives them to force themselves onto others, and it doesn't matter if they're sexually attracted to their victim or not. Ever wonder, as George Carlin did, why you hear about 85-year-old women being raped by young guys? That's why.
Either way, people who force themselves on others simply have things that drive them to do it, to overcome personal morality, cultural norms, societal repercussions, risk of legal punishment, and nature itself. It is no small thing to violate another human sexually. It isn't casual, simple, or easy unless you are profoundly broken. And if you are, it is no small matter to appear normal to everyone in your life.
Because of this, we can corroborate independent accusations of abuse by looking at patterns of behavior, finding previous victims, and seeking psychological evidence of abnormal pathology.
In short: offenders look and act like offenders, even if it is in very subtle ways. And if they don't, if there's no evidence at all, not even circumstantial...a simple accusation just isn't enough. That means sometimes bad guys get away with it. But it means that every time, if it works right, innocent men walk free.
We HAVE to adhere to this. It's the foundation of order in our culture. When we allow emotion and our own prejudices to break down this most basic logical function, we're destroying what allows us to be free. We can look back at witch hunts of the past, and we see them as times of great injustice, ignorance, and tragedy...and yet we're entering a time when the world shouts via social media 'burn the witch' and everyone starts looking for kindling and matches.
I can only encourage you, as someone who has been falsely accused, to THINK. Don't feel, THINK. Examine more than testimony and claims. Look at facts, evidence, and patterns. Apply Occam's Razor at every turn. Ask yourself: what do I have to believe, in order to believe this claim? What do I have to believe to disbelieve it? Critical, analytical thinking, devoid of emotion beyond the passion to do the right thing.
And yes, ALWAYS question the victim. Question the victim, the accuser, and everything surrounding them. Question everything, or the next one accused might be you.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
A Paradox
Something hit me today.
Transgenders say that genetics do not define their sexuality.
Homosexuals say that genetics define their sexuality.
I'm a bigot if I disagree with either.
Um...which is it? Can we actually have it both ways?
Transgenders say that genetics do not define their sexuality.
Homosexuals say that genetics define their sexuality.
I'm a bigot if I disagree with either.
Um...which is it? Can we actually have it both ways?
Monday, July 29, 2013
Idle Threats
The world DESPERATELY needs to realize that threats are just that: they aren't actions. The vast majority of threats running around out there are only threats in the perception of the terrified masses who choose to live in fear. Empty threats are just words.
You can track the vast majority of today's problems to people living in fear and reacting to threats that don't warrant any concern at all.
Everything from the TSA (no, nobody has ever even attempted to bomb a plane with a bottle of hand sanitizer BUT WE MUST TAKE THEM ALL BECAUSE OF THE THREAT!) to trash talk over video games (the Carter kid, STILL jailed over a 'lol j/k' FB post, Phil Fish quitting the game industry over 'abuse', the Black Ops backlash over 'nerfing') are suffering this issue.
Folks, I used to joust with the KKK on one of their BBS' back in the day. (Long story how I wound up there. Hint: not because I was looking to join.) I was threatened with everything you could imagine, by people from a group with a history of violence, who had a copy of my photo ID with my name, address, etc. Not 'internet tough guys', these were people who lived within easy driving distance. (My personal favorite: 'I'm gonna rape you with a posthole digger, you n***er-lover!')
What happened?
Nothing.
Cowards make threats. Dangerous people just do things. They don't send you a lovely message detailing what they're about to do, they just show up and do it.
I'm just tired of it. It all falls back to everyone taking everything and themselves just incredibly seriously. If someone threatens to rape and murder my wife over some trifle in a video game, is that okay? Of course not. But should I get all butthurt, call authorities, and buy a handgun? Of course not. People who say such things, by the very act of saying them, announce their impotence and cowardice. Actual rapist/murderers don't get on the internet and threaten it, they just go rape and murder.
If you look at all of the (over) publicized acts of violence in recent days, none of them had any warning. None of the mass shootings had threatened their targets. (ONE guy who basically failed at his mass shooting attempt appears to have gone on 4chan and said, effectively, 'gonna shoot up a mall tomorrow, should be lulz'. The fact that he did this on 4chan should explain why he didn't even manage to kill anyone.)
As far as I can tell, the number of times someone actually tracked a victim down over the internet as part of a rage/threat incident can be counted on one hand.
Is it a problem? Sure, in that we have an ocean of people, mostly young males, who think it's fine to say this stuff behind the wall of anonymity. That's a huge sign of major moral decay in society. People who respect other humans and human life in general don't threaten someone's family over a few milliseconds shaved off the firing time of a rifle in a video game. That's a character flaw of massive proportions.
That being said, our reaction to said threats is a sign of a breakdown on our part. Are we raising a generation of sociopaths? Looks like it. Are we positively reinforcing that behavior by treating it as noteworthy and effective? Absolutely.
So the next time someone says something horrible to you online, blow it off. Realize that the truth is that person is well beneath your notice. Act based on actions, not words.
You can track the vast majority of today's problems to people living in fear and reacting to threats that don't warrant any concern at all.
Everything from the TSA (no, nobody has ever even attempted to bomb a plane with a bottle of hand sanitizer BUT WE MUST TAKE THEM ALL BECAUSE OF THE THREAT!) to trash talk over video games (the Carter kid, STILL jailed over a 'lol j/k' FB post, Phil Fish quitting the game industry over 'abuse', the Black Ops backlash over 'nerfing') are suffering this issue.
Folks, I used to joust with the KKK on one of their BBS' back in the day. (Long story how I wound up there. Hint: not because I was looking to join.) I was threatened with everything you could imagine, by people from a group with a history of violence, who had a copy of my photo ID with my name, address, etc. Not 'internet tough guys', these were people who lived within easy driving distance. (My personal favorite: 'I'm gonna rape you with a posthole digger, you n***er-lover!')
What happened?
Nothing.
Cowards make threats. Dangerous people just do things. They don't send you a lovely message detailing what they're about to do, they just show up and do it.
I'm just tired of it. It all falls back to everyone taking everything and themselves just incredibly seriously. If someone threatens to rape and murder my wife over some trifle in a video game, is that okay? Of course not. But should I get all butthurt, call authorities, and buy a handgun? Of course not. People who say such things, by the very act of saying them, announce their impotence and cowardice. Actual rapist/murderers don't get on the internet and threaten it, they just go rape and murder.
If you look at all of the (over) publicized acts of violence in recent days, none of them had any warning. None of the mass shootings had threatened their targets. (ONE guy who basically failed at his mass shooting attempt appears to have gone on 4chan and said, effectively, 'gonna shoot up a mall tomorrow, should be lulz'. The fact that he did this on 4chan should explain why he didn't even manage to kill anyone.)
As far as I can tell, the number of times someone actually tracked a victim down over the internet as part of a rage/threat incident can be counted on one hand.
Is it a problem? Sure, in that we have an ocean of people, mostly young males, who think it's fine to say this stuff behind the wall of anonymity. That's a huge sign of major moral decay in society. People who respect other humans and human life in general don't threaten someone's family over a few milliseconds shaved off the firing time of a rifle in a video game. That's a character flaw of massive proportions.
That being said, our reaction to said threats is a sign of a breakdown on our part. Are we raising a generation of sociopaths? Looks like it. Are we positively reinforcing that behavior by treating it as noteworthy and effective? Absolutely.
So the next time someone says something horrible to you online, blow it off. Realize that the truth is that person is well beneath your notice. Act based on actions, not words.
Sunday, July 07, 2013
The World Has Moved On
I think I know what King meant when he used that phrase frequently in the Tower saga.
I wonder if what I've been feeling lately happens to all men when they reach certain age, or a stage in life?
I feel like the world has moved on. Things have spiraled completely out of control to the point that they no long make anything resembling sense. Public behavior has become something alien to me. It's easy to write it off as generational, things 'kids these days' do that shocks old fuddy duddy me, but I don't think it's that simple.
I can't think of a word for it outside of 'decay'. Things have decayed. Logic, reason, simple common sense...driven to ground like a hunted animal. Not just ignored, but openly targeted by the forces of ignorance and stupidity. Orwellian stuff: 2+2 doesn't = 4, because someone says so.
Reality is what it is...but more and more I see active, aggressive attempts to redefine it based on perception. Schrodinger's Cat nonsense. (In case you missed the boat on that one, if you put a cat in the box, IT'S STILL IN THE DAMN BOX unless someone took it out...your ability to observe it doesn't change a thing because you're not some all-powerful deity whose sense of sight dictates what does and doesn't exist.)
I'm at a loss as to how to approach such things. I can't abide by them. I mean, I can't pretend to go along with the insanity. Real is still real, logic is still logical, reason still rules the world. But society and culture continue the march of the fool, so what am I to do about it?
I used to think commentating on it would help, but that's been disproved by many years of failure. All platforms available to me to speak my viewpoint and attempt to educate are, effectively, karaoke: everyone comes to sing, nobody comes to listen. I used to think, hey, if I did an audio show, or a video show, or some other media...but I know full well that won't change a thing.
Is this how it always is when you get old and wisdom finally catches up to you? Did my forefathers also look out on their worlds as they aged and see madness? Or is it really, truly getting worse?
I wonder if what I've been feeling lately happens to all men when they reach certain age, or a stage in life?
I feel like the world has moved on. Things have spiraled completely out of control to the point that they no long make anything resembling sense. Public behavior has become something alien to me. It's easy to write it off as generational, things 'kids these days' do that shocks old fuddy duddy me, but I don't think it's that simple.
I can't think of a word for it outside of 'decay'. Things have decayed. Logic, reason, simple common sense...driven to ground like a hunted animal. Not just ignored, but openly targeted by the forces of ignorance and stupidity. Orwellian stuff: 2+2 doesn't = 4, because someone says so.
Reality is what it is...but more and more I see active, aggressive attempts to redefine it based on perception. Schrodinger's Cat nonsense. (In case you missed the boat on that one, if you put a cat in the box, IT'S STILL IN THE DAMN BOX unless someone took it out...your ability to observe it doesn't change a thing because you're not some all-powerful deity whose sense of sight dictates what does and doesn't exist.)
I'm at a loss as to how to approach such things. I can't abide by them. I mean, I can't pretend to go along with the insanity. Real is still real, logic is still logical, reason still rules the world. But society and culture continue the march of the fool, so what am I to do about it?
I used to think commentating on it would help, but that's been disproved by many years of failure. All platforms available to me to speak my viewpoint and attempt to educate are, effectively, karaoke: everyone comes to sing, nobody comes to listen. I used to think, hey, if I did an audio show, or a video show, or some other media...but I know full well that won't change a thing.
Is this how it always is when you get old and wisdom finally catches up to you? Did my forefathers also look out on their worlds as they aged and see madness? Or is it really, truly getting worse?
Friday, June 07, 2013
Another word we're abusing
This has been said elsewhere, but people still refuse to knock it off.
We're beating the crap out of the word 'assault' when used in the phrase 'assault rifle' specifically.
There's no such animal as an 'assault rifle' and there's no such thing as a rifle that's not used for assaults.
People are ignorant. They just don't understand. I get that. Let me help, in the hope that someone who needs to read this actually reads this.
When you think 'assault rifle' you are likely thinking of movies and TV. Black, ugly-looking weapons spitting out bullets. Synonymous with 'machine gun'.
Automatic weapons (the kind that shoot lots of bullets by holding down the trigger) have been illegal to citizens in the US since the early 20th century. If that's what you think of when you think 'assault rifle' you're already off in the weeds and making fools of yourselves when you discuss this issue.
What we have in the US are semi-automatic rifles. You pull the trigger and one bullet comes out.
Now, you'll notice I used a blanket statement there: rifles. Not assault rifles, hunting rifles, etc. Rifles are rifles. If the rifle is made with black metal and plastic, has a pistol grip, and some fancy collapsing stock, that does not make it more dangerous, or specifically designed for killing humans. It makes it lighter, gives it a certain look, and makes it more durable for some uses.
If a rifle has a traditional stock, a traditional grip, and is made of wood...you can absolutely murder the crap out of someone with it. That 'hunting' rifle can kill a human just as efficiently as an 'assault' model.
Guns are guns. They are designed to put holes in things. Living things, in general. They are weapons.
Demonizing specific rifles because of how they look is just completely silly. There is no such thing as an assault rifle ban, because there's no such thing as an assault rifle, outside of the nonsense definition concocted by liberal politicians.
You can say you're against all guns, or none. You really don't have a logical leg to stand on beyond that. I know that annoying old constitution gets in your way and all, but if you think disarming people is a solution, go ahead and try. The guys in Boston used pressure cookers. Evil people will always find a way to accomplish what evil they wish to perform. Always. Nature of the beast.
Just please, stop saying it's the fault of 'assault rifles'. Hell, please stop using the term, because it's a plainly stupid, ignorant thing to say.
Friday, May 17, 2013
A Story and An Explanation
When I was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, I had a friend in the neighborhood. His name was Doug, he was a couple years younger than me. We weren't best friends or anything, he was a neighborhood kid, and we knew each other, played together, etc.
One day, out of nowhere, he comes around on his bike and just starts being incredibly mean to me. Calling me names, taunting me, just really nasty.
After a few minutes of this, he gets off his bike and picks up this really old Sunday newspaper that had been sitting in a neighbor's yard for a long time. It'd been wet many times, dried back up after, till it was a hard, crumbly mess.
He started hitting me with it as he rode past me. If I got out of the way, he'd throw it at me, then pick it up as I was recovering. It hurt, badly.
During all this, I tried to make him stop. I started by reasoning with him, asking him what was wrong, trying to find out why he was acting this way. Then rage took over, but I was fat and he was fast and on a bike, so I couldn't catch him to make him stop.
In the end, I just collapsed on my knees in my neighbor's yard, sobbing uncontrollably. Between the physical pain and the complete, unbridled frustration, I just collapsed inside and out.
I don't even remember what happened from there. How it ended.
Right now, I feel exactly the same way. No matter how much I try to do the right thing, or make things better, or help situations and people, I just keep taking the hits. I'm completely incapable of making it stop. And that's all I want at this point: I just want it to stop. I'm beyond reasoning with it, I'm no longer trying to salvage the relationship (pushing the metaphor to it's limits, but you get the picture) I just want to be left alone in my impotent, helpless misery.
Feeling sorry for myself? Yep. Someone should, may as well be me.
One day, out of nowhere, he comes around on his bike and just starts being incredibly mean to me. Calling me names, taunting me, just really nasty.
After a few minutes of this, he gets off his bike and picks up this really old Sunday newspaper that had been sitting in a neighbor's yard for a long time. It'd been wet many times, dried back up after, till it was a hard, crumbly mess.
He started hitting me with it as he rode past me. If I got out of the way, he'd throw it at me, then pick it up as I was recovering. It hurt, badly.
During all this, I tried to make him stop. I started by reasoning with him, asking him what was wrong, trying to find out why he was acting this way. Then rage took over, but I was fat and he was fast and on a bike, so I couldn't catch him to make him stop.
In the end, I just collapsed on my knees in my neighbor's yard, sobbing uncontrollably. Between the physical pain and the complete, unbridled frustration, I just collapsed inside and out.
I don't even remember what happened from there. How it ended.
Right now, I feel exactly the same way. No matter how much I try to do the right thing, or make things better, or help situations and people, I just keep taking the hits. I'm completely incapable of making it stop. And that's all I want at this point: I just want it to stop. I'm beyond reasoning with it, I'm no longer trying to salvage the relationship (pushing the metaphor to it's limits, but you get the picture) I just want to be left alone in my impotent, helpless misery.
Feeling sorry for myself? Yep. Someone should, may as well be me.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Happy?
If anyone actually wonders things about me (which is a thing to doubt) I imagine many wonder why I'm not happier. I'm funny, but anyone who has ever read or heard the life story of a comedian knows those two things really don't have anything to do with one another. Hell, angst seems to be humor's best fuel.
I have my issues. I have things I have to cope with. I do suffer from depression, although the better things get in my life the less it comes up. (I'm saying it's not always clinical depression...I'm usually at my darkest when life is at it's worst.)
That said, I'm incredibly blessed. I have the most amazing wife in the world, the world's best stinky little dog, good friends, all the necessities of life and more. All that, and yet I'm not one of those sunny, cheery people full of optimism and positive thoughts.
The source of my pseudonym has a bit of the answer that I'll share with you now. If anyone does wonder, this may help with that.
“Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles & smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun & he's guilty. And all men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors & smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others & look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt & sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it & sometimes break in two. I've known a few. You work twice as hard to be a farmer as to be his hog. I suppose it's thinking about trying to be good makes the crack run up the wall one night. A man with high standards, too, the least hair falls on him sometimes wilts his spine. He can't let himself alone, won't let himself off the hook if he falls just a breath from grace.” Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
It's certainly not the whole of it, but it's a part. The weight of your actions, the weight of your temptations.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Gun Control?
I'm sure some people who have read me for years are waiting for me to say something about the gun control issue. I don't really have anything to say because the whole concept is so completely stupid that it shouldn't even warrant conversation. Same people are now saying we need to censor violent video games. Next thing, we'll be back to editing comic books and rock and roll records. It's a continuation of the culture that nobody is ever to blame for what they do, and I have zero interest in engaging anyone who actually thinks banning/controlling -anything- will stop things like Sandy Hook. If you're one of those people, I pity you, and have no idea how you make it through every day life.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Version 2.0
It may be the influenza thinking, but I'm starting this back up. Not as a strictly sociopolitical outlet, but a standard blog. Facebook does a lousy job of meeting that need, as I have much I'd like to say without being engaged by people desperately looking to meet their quota of people argued with on the internet in a given day.
Facebook will be for social networking.
This will be for blogging.
Quite simple, really.
If you read something you don't like here, stop reading. Unlike Facebook it won't just 'appear' on your list, you have to come over here and intentionally read it. Those who like it, cool. Those who don't, I'm sure there are dozens of memes involving cats or Obama or Gangnam Style that you'd just love to rage at, head back to them and work out your yayas.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
The Second-Shortest Commentary Ever
This is becoming a trend, but here we go: the second shortest commentary ever. Again, it does not require any preface.
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! IT’S NOT LIKE HE SHOT AN ENTIRE BUS OF RETARDED SCHOOL CHILDREN! IT’S A GUY HE’S KNOWN FOR 30 YEARS, AND HE’S NOT GOING TO DIE! WHO CARES WHEN HE TOLD US?!? SHUT UP ALREADY, YOU MORONS!
If the press keeps latching onto these non-stories, I swear, I’m never going to have the need to blog much at all again. Not that anyone is actually reading this.
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! IT’S NOT LIKE HE SHOT AN ENTIRE BUS OF RETARDED SCHOOL CHILDREN! IT’S A GUY HE’S KNOWN FOR 30 YEARS, AND HE’S NOT GOING TO DIE! WHO CARES WHEN HE TOLD US?!? SHUT UP ALREADY, YOU MORONS!
If the press keeps latching onto these non-stories, I swear, I’m never going to have the need to blog much at all again. Not that anyone is actually reading this.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
The most concise and direct commentary I'll ever write
I'm known for the length of my writing. Well, here's the most concise commentary I'll ever write.
THEY ARE CARTOONS! GET OVER IT!
I think that says everything that needs to be said here.
THEY ARE CARTOONS! GET OVER IT!
I think that says everything that needs to be said here.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Here we go again
Take…three?
Yeah, yeah, I know, this whole reinvention thing is only really appealing the first couple of times. All I can say is, my life hasn’t exactly been reliably calm and my creative mind has been downright turbulent. Life is good, don’t get me wrong, but what I want and what I’m getting out of this blog have continued to be different things.
I really wanted this to be a creative outlet, a place to write something decidedly different from the standard political blog. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, mostly because being decidedly different takes a lot of time I just don’t have. There’s a reason why 99% of political blogs are made of brief entries commenting on a single news item: bloggers (mostly) work for a living and don’t have three hours a day to write out lengthy, detailed, structured creative works. That certainly describes my life, and so every day I’d pass by several things I’d love to comment on, but ignore them because ‘I’ll wait till I have more time.’
It is my firm conviction that ‘more time’ will come a few minutes after I assume room temperature, and I imagine blogging will be a mite more difficult by then.
I’ve tried to create material that makes it worth people subscribing to the feed, building a readership. I may have succeeded, but only updating once every few months certainly trumps that, and then some.
Once again, we’re back at the point where I set your expectations. And, to some extent, mine.
You’re going to see a lot more traditional blogging. You’ll either enjoy my commentary or you won’t. If you do, hey, hit the site every once in awhile or subscribe to the RSS. Comment, when the mood strikes you. (A reminder to LJ folks: commenting to the LJ feed will likely miss me entirely, as I won’t receive any of those comments in e-mail. Comments need to be here, in the Almanac.)
You will also, on occasion, see a longer piece with more depth and creativity than usual. It won’t happen often, and it may come in spurts, but it will happen. When it does, I’d ask that you’d give those pieces a chance by reading them all the way through, even when I get tedious. That’s a big request, but hey, you’re great people, right?
My Winamp playlist has a great sense of humor, as I’m about to make this last comment, it pulls up ‘Lunatic Fringe’ by Red Rider. Yes, that’s the last thing, you’ll still see a lunatic fringe to all of this. I still love the absurd, the bizarre, and my writing will still take that twist. You’ll see plenty of standard political commentary and analysis, but it may just get a little odd or silly at time. If that’s not up your alley, you’ll have to speak to the penguins, as I’m only doing what I’m told.
Get ready for a lot of frequent, if small, posts here. It may be mirrored in several other blogs, but maybe I’ll say it in a way that amuses you. I hope so, because those penguins are really demanding little bastards.
Yeah, yeah, I know, this whole reinvention thing is only really appealing the first couple of times. All I can say is, my life hasn’t exactly been reliably calm and my creative mind has been downright turbulent. Life is good, don’t get me wrong, but what I want and what I’m getting out of this blog have continued to be different things.
I really wanted this to be a creative outlet, a place to write something decidedly different from the standard political blog. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, mostly because being decidedly different takes a lot of time I just don’t have. There’s a reason why 99% of political blogs are made of brief entries commenting on a single news item: bloggers (mostly) work for a living and don’t have three hours a day to write out lengthy, detailed, structured creative works. That certainly describes my life, and so every day I’d pass by several things I’d love to comment on, but ignore them because ‘I’ll wait till I have more time.’
It is my firm conviction that ‘more time’ will come a few minutes after I assume room temperature, and I imagine blogging will be a mite more difficult by then.
I’ve tried to create material that makes it worth people subscribing to the feed, building a readership. I may have succeeded, but only updating once every few months certainly trumps that, and then some.
Once again, we’re back at the point where I set your expectations. And, to some extent, mine.
You’re going to see a lot more traditional blogging. You’ll either enjoy my commentary or you won’t. If you do, hey, hit the site every once in awhile or subscribe to the RSS. Comment, when the mood strikes you. (A reminder to LJ folks: commenting to the LJ feed will likely miss me entirely, as I won’t receive any of those comments in e-mail. Comments need to be here, in the Almanac.)
You will also, on occasion, see a longer piece with more depth and creativity than usual. It won’t happen often, and it may come in spurts, but it will happen. When it does, I’d ask that you’d give those pieces a chance by reading them all the way through, even when I get tedious. That’s a big request, but hey, you’re great people, right?
My Winamp playlist has a great sense of humor, as I’m about to make this last comment, it pulls up ‘Lunatic Fringe’ by Red Rider. Yes, that’s the last thing, you’ll still see a lunatic fringe to all of this. I still love the absurd, the bizarre, and my writing will still take that twist. You’ll see plenty of standard political commentary and analysis, but it may just get a little odd or silly at time. If that’s not up your alley, you’ll have to speak to the penguins, as I’m only doing what I’m told.
Get ready for a lot of frequent, if small, posts here. It may be mirrored in several other blogs, but maybe I’ll say it in a way that amuses you. I hope so, because those penguins are really demanding little bastards.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Feeding Meiers
Feeding Meiers
It’s been awhile, and I apologize for that. Been waiting to update until I had time to do some technical upgrading, and that’s done.
I assume everyone will be expecting me to talk about Dubya’s extremely weak and disappointing nomination to replace O’Connor on the SCOTUS. You probably expect me to wax eloquently about her lack of experience as anything but a political appointee, and her apparent complete lack of constitutional scholarship that not only places her well below Scalia and Thomas, but also likely below the people that bring Scalia and Thomas their morning coffee in the SCOTUS break room.
No, I’m here to tell you that I finally set up a nifty RSS feed for the Almanac here. I present you with the link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PoorJustinsAlmanac
You can now add me via any RSS reader software. If you’re a LiveJournal user, this feed is syndicated there as poorjustinsalm so feel free to add it to find out when the blog is updated. Due to the length of my entries, the feed just gives you the title, but I’m sure that’s fine with you. Click through, read my hypnotic, mesmerizing words and drift into a soft, gentle sleep where I can brainwash you and turn you into mindless neocon drones.
You’ll also notice that there are Google ads on the site. I am a capitalist, this should be expected. I don’t want them to be intrusive, but if I can make a dime or two, wunderbar. Give ‘em a click every now and then, make an old man happy.
That’s all for now. More to come around 2-3 times a week. Promise.
It’s been awhile, and I apologize for that. Been waiting to update until I had time to do some technical upgrading, and that’s done.
I assume everyone will be expecting me to talk about Dubya’s extremely weak and disappointing nomination to replace O’Connor on the SCOTUS. You probably expect me to wax eloquently about her lack of experience as anything but a political appointee, and her apparent complete lack of constitutional scholarship that not only places her well below Scalia and Thomas, but also likely below the people that bring Scalia and Thomas their morning coffee in the SCOTUS break room.
No, I’m here to tell you that I finally set up a nifty RSS feed for the Almanac here. I present you with the link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PoorJustinsAlmanac
You can now add me via any RSS reader software. If you’re a LiveJournal user, this feed is syndicated there as poorjustinsalm so feel free to add it to find out when the blog is updated. Due to the length of my entries, the feed just gives you the title, but I’m sure that’s fine with you. Click through, read my hypnotic, mesmerizing words and drift into a soft, gentle sleep where I can brainwash you and turn you into mindless neocon drones.
You’ll also notice that there are Google ads on the site. I am a capitalist, this should be expected. I don’t want them to be intrusive, but if I can make a dime or two, wunderbar. Give ‘em a click every now and then, make an old man happy.
That’s all for now. More to come around 2-3 times a week. Promise.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
2,000 Buses?
Not much traction with the abuse�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
That's Washington Times Editor Wesley Pruden on the New Orleans subject. He says TWO THOUSAND buses sit unused in four feet of water in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.
You figure, even if you only cram 50 people on a bus and only make one trip, that's 100,000 people...pretty much the exact count of how many stayed behind. As for the question of who would drive them, in my youth we had a church bus in our tiny town, and a school bus for the tiny Fascist School I attended. (I refuse to call it a Christian school, as Christ had very little to do with it and doesn't deserve the blame.) In both cases, people with no more experience than driving a pickup truck handled the buses just fine on the open road.
The path to rescuing every person left in New Orleans sat at Ray Nagin's feet...and he chose to ignore them, waiting for the feds to bail him out.
That's Washington Times Editor Wesley Pruden on the New Orleans subject. He says TWO THOUSAND buses sit unused in four feet of water in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.
You figure, even if you only cram 50 people on a bus and only make one trip, that's 100,000 people...pretty much the exact count of how many stayed behind. As for the question of who would drive them, in my youth we had a church bus in our tiny town, and a school bus for the tiny Fascist School I attended. (I refuse to call it a Christian school, as Christ had very little to do with it and doesn't deserve the blame.) In both cases, people with no more experience than driving a pickup truck handled the buses just fine on the open road.
The path to rescuing every person left in New Orleans sat at Ray Nagin's feet...and he chose to ignore them, waiting for the feds to bail him out.
Fear & Loathing In New Orleans
Fear & Loathing In New Orleans
They were somewhere around Baton Rouge, on the edge of the swamp…
…hey, wait a second, that’s not how it goes.
But it could, if good old Mayor Ray Nagin gets his way. See, his long-suffering police force is really stressed out. You know, the ones abandoning their posts, looting, etc. To reward them, he’s giving many of them (as well as firefighters and EMTs) five-day vacations to Las Vegas. Effective immediately. As in, today.
I’ll pause while the sheer intellectual weight of that comes to bear on your astonished mind.
It’s all right here, in black and white. Yes, the good Mayor says they’ve been under a lot of stress in the last week, so he wants to ‘cater to them.’ He says there are enough national guard units now that they can take a break.
While I don’t want to malign those civil servants who actually did their jobs in the last week, I think that may be the most repugnant thing I’ve ever read. It’s been a week. One week. Seven days. These men were asked to do their jobs, and only their jobs, under extreme duress for one week, and a big portion of them couldn’t even manage to do that. Current reports have over 500 (that’s something like 1/3) walking off the job. We have the chief of police complaining they had to work in wet shoes, and without proper bathroom facilities.
That chief had this to say on the subject of the trips:
‘His words were seconded by the police superintendent, P. Edwin Compass III, in a separate interview. "When you go through something this devastating and traumatic," Mr. Compass said, "you've got to do something dramatic to jump-start the healing process."
The officials were planning to send 1,500 workers out in two shifts for five days each. They are sending them to Las Vegas because of the availability of hotel rooms and to Atlanta because many of them had relatives there.
They said that they were trying to get the first officers on their way on Monday and that the first stop would be Baton Rouge, about 75 miles from here.’
Jump-start the healing process. Well, it’s good to know the fine city of New Orleans is in such capable hands. I think it’s important that a chief of police knows that his job when his city is in complete civil unrest and a total state of destruction is to make certain his law officers are well rested and ‘healed’ from their trauma.
He’s so sure of this plan, he plans to take a vacation as well! So does the head of Homeland Security for the city, the man in charge of the recovery effort. Check this out, and I defy you to do it without gagging on a sudden rise of bile.
‘Colonel Ebbert, the senior official running the recovery and rescue operation, and Mr. Compass both said that they planned to take a break as well, but probably for less than five days, and that they would continue to direct the recovery by telephone.
Officials said they expected the military, with much greater resources, to expand rescue work, begin cleaning up the city and take the first steps toward reconstruction.’
Well, it’s good to know they won’t take the whole five days. I mean, after all, they’re just leading the rescue and recovery effort of their entire city, I hope that only three or four days of rest and relaxation in Las Vegas will jump-start their personal healing process. We can’t have our vital civic leaders stressed out or unrested! No sir!
Of course, all of this shores up every single thing I’ve been saying. They make it clear with their own words: they fully expect the feds to do EVERYTHING. The military will do the rescue and recovery, they will begin cleaning the city, they’ll police the city, they’ll fight fires and perform medical response service, they’ll even start the reconstruction!
I think the good Mr. Nagin should be forced to spend his five day vacation in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool (name stolen from the brilliant Bill Whittle), personally cleaning and restoring every single one of the reportedly 400-500 busses he failed to use to evacuate his own people, enough to EMPTY the Superdome before it became the Thunderdome minus Mad Max and Tina Turner.
I tell you, my friends, I hope the officials and civil servants of New Orleans enjoy their vacation. As they keep hanging themselves in the press, the word will eventually leak out despite the mainstream media’s attempts to completely ignore their culpability and instead pursue the ‘everything is Bush’s fault’ line of hogwash. Once that word is out there, Ma and Pa Kettle in flyover country will be joined by John and Jackie Liberal in Manhattan as they wholeheartedly cry for the heads of these men to be posted on the outskirts of the city on long poles, as a warning to the others.
They were somewhere around Baton Rouge, on the edge of the swamp…
…hey, wait a second, that’s not how it goes.
But it could, if good old Mayor Ray Nagin gets his way. See, his long-suffering police force is really stressed out. You know, the ones abandoning their posts, looting, etc. To reward them, he’s giving many of them (as well as firefighters and EMTs) five-day vacations to Las Vegas. Effective immediately. As in, today.
I’ll pause while the sheer intellectual weight of that comes to bear on your astonished mind.
It’s all right here, in black and white. Yes, the good Mayor says they’ve been under a lot of stress in the last week, so he wants to ‘cater to them.’ He says there are enough national guard units now that they can take a break.
While I don’t want to malign those civil servants who actually did their jobs in the last week, I think that may be the most repugnant thing I’ve ever read. It’s been a week. One week. Seven days. These men were asked to do their jobs, and only their jobs, under extreme duress for one week, and a big portion of them couldn’t even manage to do that. Current reports have over 500 (that’s something like 1/3) walking off the job. We have the chief of police complaining they had to work in wet shoes, and without proper bathroom facilities.
That chief had this to say on the subject of the trips:
‘His words were seconded by the police superintendent, P. Edwin Compass III, in a separate interview. "When you go through something this devastating and traumatic," Mr. Compass said, "you've got to do something dramatic to jump-start the healing process."
The officials were planning to send 1,500 workers out in two shifts for five days each. They are sending them to Las Vegas because of the availability of hotel rooms and to Atlanta because many of them had relatives there.
They said that they were trying to get the first officers on their way on Monday and that the first stop would be Baton Rouge, about 75 miles from here.’
Jump-start the healing process. Well, it’s good to know the fine city of New Orleans is in such capable hands. I think it’s important that a chief of police knows that his job when his city is in complete civil unrest and a total state of destruction is to make certain his law officers are well rested and ‘healed’ from their trauma.
He’s so sure of this plan, he plans to take a vacation as well! So does the head of Homeland Security for the city, the man in charge of the recovery effort. Check this out, and I defy you to do it without gagging on a sudden rise of bile.
‘Colonel Ebbert, the senior official running the recovery and rescue operation, and Mr. Compass both said that they planned to take a break as well, but probably for less than five days, and that they would continue to direct the recovery by telephone.
Officials said they expected the military, with much greater resources, to expand rescue work, begin cleaning up the city and take the first steps toward reconstruction.’
Well, it’s good to know they won’t take the whole five days. I mean, after all, they’re just leading the rescue and recovery effort of their entire city, I hope that only three or four days of rest and relaxation in Las Vegas will jump-start their personal healing process. We can’t have our vital civic leaders stressed out or unrested! No sir!
Of course, all of this shores up every single thing I’ve been saying. They make it clear with their own words: they fully expect the feds to do EVERYTHING. The military will do the rescue and recovery, they will begin cleaning the city, they’ll police the city, they’ll fight fires and perform medical response service, they’ll even start the reconstruction!
I think the good Mr. Nagin should be forced to spend his five day vacation in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool (name stolen from the brilliant Bill Whittle), personally cleaning and restoring every single one of the reportedly 400-500 busses he failed to use to evacuate his own people, enough to EMPTY the Superdome before it became the Thunderdome minus Mad Max and Tina Turner.
I tell you, my friends, I hope the officials and civil servants of New Orleans enjoy their vacation. As they keep hanging themselves in the press, the word will eventually leak out despite the mainstream media’s attempts to completely ignore their culpability and instead pursue the ‘everything is Bush’s fault’ line of hogwash. Once that word is out there, Ma and Pa Kettle in flyover country will be joined by John and Jackie Liberal in Manhattan as they wholeheartedly cry for the heads of these men to be posted on the outskirts of the city on long poles, as a warning to the others.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Ben Stein's Wisdom
Ben Stein’s Wisdom
Once again, Ben Stein unleashes his gi-normous brain on us and proceeds to out-think most of the country.
In this short piece, he lays out everything I’ve already said and more. I’m telling you people, this is where the event is heading, whether anyone likes it or not. Negligence of a criminal stature was absolutely perpetrated in the days surrounding Katrina, but NOT by the Bush administration.
The media is, big surprise, lying to us. Intentionally glancing over the very, very obvious problems on the ground in Nola before and immediately following the storm while focusing exclusively on any anti-Bush story that comes up, even when the source for that story is someone who has a vested interest in seeing to it that all blame for the problems shifts north to the Feds and doesn’t get anywhere near them.
Read Ben’s piece and chew on it awhile. Even if you’re a staunch Bushitler moveon.org automaton, I defy you to refute the very simple, elegant logic contained in it.
Once again, Ben Stein unleashes his gi-normous brain on us and proceeds to out-think most of the country.
In this short piece, he lays out everything I’ve already said and more. I’m telling you people, this is where the event is heading, whether anyone likes it or not. Negligence of a criminal stature was absolutely perpetrated in the days surrounding Katrina, but NOT by the Bush administration.
The media is, big surprise, lying to us. Intentionally glancing over the very, very obvious problems on the ground in Nola before and immediately following the storm while focusing exclusively on any anti-Bush story that comes up, even when the source for that story is someone who has a vested interest in seeing to it that all blame for the problems shifts north to the Feds and doesn’t get anywhere near them.
Read Ben’s piece and chew on it awhile. Even if you’re a staunch Bushitler moveon.org automaton, I defy you to refute the very simple, elegant logic contained in it.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Lighting Up New Orleans
Lighting Up New Orleans
I realize I haven’t been doing my job with this blog. It appears that one of the primary purposes of blogging is to get people all riled up and irritated. It’s called ‘drama’, from what I’m told, and I’ve been far short of my required amount.
I imagine this little post about the tragedy of New Orleans should bring my controversy-o-meter up to standard blogging levels. If not, hell, maybe there are more people out there with critical thinking brains than I believe.
I’m going to say something here that a lot of people don’t want to hear. It’s the truth, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear it. I’m going to break down the catastrophe from its early warning stages to it’s current state of medieval chaos and mayhem. In doing so, I’m going to drag some stinking, rotting elephant carcasses out from under our proverbial living room rug and wave them in your faces so we can all discuss this in a realistic manner and dismiss the verbal fecal matter flying around regarding it.
New Orleans has something like 500,000 people. Those 500,000 people were warned of the storm a good 48 hours before landfall, which happened in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, the 29th. According to reports on CNN, as early as Saturday the 27th, as many as 100,000 of these people, a full 20%, didn’t have the resources to leave. A woman is quoted as saying ‘if you have no money, you can’t go.’ By Sunday morning, President Bush had declared Louisiana an emergency area. Mayor Nagin was already discussing a ‘mandatory’ evacuation on Saturday, and declared one on Sunday despite the fact that the ‘mandatory’ part was unenforceable.
Now we all know what has happened since. The storm hit. The ‘worst’ didn’t happen, the storm blew well enough east to spare New Orleans the leading edge and the worst wind damage. On Tuesday, the first levee was breached, and the waters began to rise at an alarming rate. This is generally when everything went to hell. It’s been hell since, and I’ll skip past all the sordid tales of chaos and inhumanity for now.
Let’s start back at the beginning. 100,000 people could not leave? Does anyone actually believe that number is anywhere near accurate? Last I checked, people have legs, and if people want to go somewhere, they go. (My apologies to those without legs, but I do assume you have some sort of wheeled device that someone with legs could use to get you to safety.) This is where the lines began to be drawn by many: rich and poor. You see, New Orleans has a poverty level of around 20%, so they’re suggesting here that the city’s poor simply couldn’t afford to leave town and escape the hurricane.
And here we have our first terribly inflammatory statement: I’d say that number and statement, that around 100,000 couldn’t leave, is some of that unmitigated verbal fecal matter I mentioned earlier. That’s right, here we go, boys and girls, down that dark, nasty alley called reality and reason. I would suggest that there were potential routes of escape for the vast majority of those who stayed. However, as early as Saturday, in the midst of this talk of ‘mandatory’ evacuation, we have the vocal, public plan to use the Superdome as a place for those who can’t leave. We aren’t talking bedridden people in hospitals, we’re talking about people able to cross town and get into the stadium…but not out of the city, apparently.
Michelle Malkin was linking to bloggers discussing the sheer stupidity of this idea over the weekend, before the storm hit. How it holds 40,000 people, but only has backup power for lights and no environmental controls, how the bathrooms would be the first casualty of flooding, how there was a complete lack of food and supplies…you get the idea. And yet, here are somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people (depending on what source you heed) showing up with the clothes on their backs.
I’d like to jump in here at this point and let the cat out of the bag a little early. I’m going further on this, but for those who aren’t on board yet, I want to stop the train and allow for easier boarding.
What do we have here? We have a bunch of people who are confident that government will protect them. There’s absolutely no sense of self-preservation here at all. If I’m leaving my house with the knowledge that it will likely not be there when I return, with the knowledge that the city could be underwater in less than 24 hours, I think I’m coming with more than my clothes and my favorite blankey. Let’s press forward, there’s a trail here to follow and we’re just beginning.
The flooding starts, conditions at the Superdome (and everywhere else) deteriorate, looting begins, people start dying by the dozen, the shooting starts, things go thoroughly apocalyptic. Relief isn’t immediate, from what we read and hear. People start going a little mad, trying to hijack helicopters and whatnot. The whole thing starts to look like a Romero movie, but a little darker and more violent. And that brings us to now.
Mayor Nagin, a man who seemed to be handling things well in the beginning, begins to crack. The headlines all report his latest public appearance, a tearful outburst over the lack of federal help. Giuliani, this man is not. Never saw Rudy simpering over public airwaves that those big meanies in Washington weren’t sending stuff down fast enough.
It all seems to solid, doesn’t it? A mayor trying to save his city, a people abandoned in their hour of need, the constant reminder that, apparently, the majority of the stranded are not Caucasian…such terrible, tragic stuff. Bad President, BAD. No donut for you.
Ah, but there’s that alley again, and it’s getting darker by the minute. How about this picture, hosted on Yahoo with absolutely no fanfare, but unearthed by Drudge? That’s about a hundred busses, maybe more. The good Mr. Nagin couldn’t scrape together 100 people capable of driving a school bus to evacuate the Superdome before the storm hit? Or, even in lieu of that, move the busses out of the path of destruction so that they could be used to shuttle people out once the worst passed?
What about city busses? What about police vehicles? What about just about anything other than providing ‘shelters’ that were very, very clearly not shelter at all?
Now we have wonderful folks like Jesse Jackson Jr. and Kanye West proclaiming that this has something to do with the color of the people who are currently stranded in these ‘shelters’. Well, considering the good Mayor Nagin is the same color as those people, I’d say there are some questions to be asked about how seriously Mr. Mandatory Evacuation was taking things in the hours leading up to the storm. His pleas only achieved 80% of the city to leave, at BEST estimates. The 20% that remain are supposedly poor people of his own racial background. We have evidence that not nearly enough was done to help actually get those people out once they made the fatal mistake of ‘riding it out’. To top it all off, he provides ‘shelters’ WITHIN the zone of absolute greatest danger, completely undercutting his own ‘mandatory’ evacuation.
Unfortunately, this is the liberal mindset’s most deadly illustration to date. These people were convinced that Mother Government would save them, provide them shelter, keep them warm and fed. Today we have quotes from people still in the city complaining that they just have cold MRE’s from the National Guard to eat, and not warm meals. We have reports that the Guard was greeted by many who applauded, but some who jeered and said the whole city should be burned down for leaving them behind.
Denied the teat that they were convinced was theirs, they wail like any baby who doesn’t get a bottle when he wants it.
Wow, that’s a harsh thing to say about people who have been living in these conditions, Justin, you’re really just a callous bastard, aren’t you?
No, I’m out here living in reality. The real world. (Well, as close to it as one can come out here in Aztlan.) Everyone seems to want to cling to this fantasy world where some higher human power, some organization paid for by taxpayer dollars, will swoop in and carry them all away to someplace warm and safe.
Guess what, brothers and sisters, I am here today to tell you that storytime is over, the great governmental Prince Charming is not coming to save you, and the only way you will live happily ever after is by God’s good grace and your own diligence and hard work.
You have a liberal Democrat mayor clearly not doing everything logically possible to save his city, then crying on the radio when the feds can’t save it fast enough for him.
You have a small portion of a great city so foolish and blinded by decades of lies that they believe staying in a gigantic punchbowl is a good and safe idea when a gigantic faucet is headed their way.
Bear in mind, only a portion of these potential 100,000 are included here. A number of them stayed very intentionally. They knew the city would be abandoned, and stayed to prey on the empty stores and streets, perpetrating just about every crime you could imagine. These are the people that don’t need rescuing, society needs to be rescued from them.
But I digress. My point here isn’t that these people somehow deserve their fate, but we’re letting their plight sway our entire perception of this event. The reality is, the vast majority of New Orleans had the simple self-preservation instinct to leave before the storm hit. They were willing to do what it took to get themselves and their families out. These people bear the brunt of the tragedy, they left everything they had and sacrificed everything just to keep on living. They have the hope that everything will one day be okay again, and are willing to do whatever it took to protect their lives and those of their loved ones.
There are also a percentage that stayed, and are not suffering greatly. An excellent military blogger pointed out a fantastic blog run by some former military folks who stayed in New Orleans in their office building. They’re relatively self-sufficient, trying to help their fellow man, and above all are NOT sitting around complaining that the government didn’t do enough to get them out once they decided to stay. This proves that, with enough will and hard work, you could even stay and survive. On your own. Without once suckling at government’s teat.
So yes, the majority of New Orleans proved themselves to be smart, tenacious, and willing to do what it took to survive and carry on. What we have on the ground in NO at this point are a small majority very unhappy with how government has treated them. Yes, I know some had valid reasons why they couldn’t get out, but I am firmly convinced that number is very, very small.
All that said, I hope the best for everyone down there trapped in Fallujah West, even those who foolishly believed that their mayor or their president would swoop in, Superman-like, and save them from a catastrophe they all knew was coming. I’m not including the animals currently hunting in the city, for them all I wish is a large-caliber round somewhere vital and a sure, final end.
I do have to say that my limit for those blaming anyone but those who CHOSE to stay behind for their plight has been breached just as thoroughly as those levees. Huffington is hosting people claiming blacks are resorting to cannibalism to survive. Kanye West uses a telethon to benefit the city as a platform for declaring that Bush hates black people and that America is designed to help poor blacks last. RFK Jr. and oh-so-many pundits and armchair pundits are claiming this is, of course, Bushitler’s fault, either by Kyoto, or global warming, or his god-like mutant weather-controlling powers. Michael Moore is even chiming in, still bitching about Iraq, as if the problem here is that we have troops over there so we can’t help anyone here. These people have all, pardon the severe understatement, lost the plot.
I don’t have much of a voice here, but maybe some of you might agree with me and start spreading this line of thought to others, as inflammatory and non-warm-cuddly-fuzzy, to others. Let’s assign responsibility where it belongs: to the individual, not the insane and offensive Moonbat Whackjob Patrol’s list of most popular blame theories.
Most of all, let’s pray for and help those who did what they had to do to survive and left everything, every single thing they had, to make it through this alive. People camping on highways, staying with strangers, seeking shelter in cities thousands of miles away from their homes. The real absolute, total tragedy rests on their shoulders. If anyone will rebuild New Orleans and restore it to what it once was, it will assuredly be these people. Right now, they’re in a place so nightmarish it’s hard to even ponder. The American Dream for them has been simplified a great deal: don’t starve, don’t die, don’t let those around you die. We can help them, we can help the city, but all these smoke and mirrors focusing on a small portion of those who were failed by the pipe dreams of government-as-parent just isn’t fruitful in any way. The Guard is in, supplies are flowing, the dead will be collected and mourned, the water will drain away, everything will slowly start returning to normal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these people we see so much of on the news, the ones who chose to stay based on government’s promises of safety, those people will likely continue on in their delusions. People with that mindset don’t rebuild cities, they wait for government (and the tax money of others) to do it for them. People with that mindset don’t build much of anything, because their sense of entitlement has been inflated to the point of no return.
We must support those who lack that sense, who instead possess another sense: the common variety. Let’s help them work, let’s help them be safe, let’s join together as a nation and heal the gaping wound carved into us by Katrina. My only plea is that we do all that with our heads firmly planted on our shoulders, not chasing after phantom saviors that will never materialize and save the day.
I realize I haven’t been doing my job with this blog. It appears that one of the primary purposes of blogging is to get people all riled up and irritated. It’s called ‘drama’, from what I’m told, and I’ve been far short of my required amount.
I imagine this little post about the tragedy of New Orleans should bring my controversy-o-meter up to standard blogging levels. If not, hell, maybe there are more people out there with critical thinking brains than I believe.
I’m going to say something here that a lot of people don’t want to hear. It’s the truth, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear it. I’m going to break down the catastrophe from its early warning stages to it’s current state of medieval chaos and mayhem. In doing so, I’m going to drag some stinking, rotting elephant carcasses out from under our proverbial living room rug and wave them in your faces so we can all discuss this in a realistic manner and dismiss the verbal fecal matter flying around regarding it.
New Orleans has something like 500,000 people. Those 500,000 people were warned of the storm a good 48 hours before landfall, which happened in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, the 29th. According to reports on CNN, as early as Saturday the 27th, as many as 100,000 of these people, a full 20%, didn’t have the resources to leave. A woman is quoted as saying ‘if you have no money, you can’t go.’ By Sunday morning, President Bush had declared Louisiana an emergency area. Mayor Nagin was already discussing a ‘mandatory’ evacuation on Saturday, and declared one on Sunday despite the fact that the ‘mandatory’ part was unenforceable.
Now we all know what has happened since. The storm hit. The ‘worst’ didn’t happen, the storm blew well enough east to spare New Orleans the leading edge and the worst wind damage. On Tuesday, the first levee was breached, and the waters began to rise at an alarming rate. This is generally when everything went to hell. It’s been hell since, and I’ll skip past all the sordid tales of chaos and inhumanity for now.
Let’s start back at the beginning. 100,000 people could not leave? Does anyone actually believe that number is anywhere near accurate? Last I checked, people have legs, and if people want to go somewhere, they go. (My apologies to those without legs, but I do assume you have some sort of wheeled device that someone with legs could use to get you to safety.) This is where the lines began to be drawn by many: rich and poor. You see, New Orleans has a poverty level of around 20%, so they’re suggesting here that the city’s poor simply couldn’t afford to leave town and escape the hurricane.
And here we have our first terribly inflammatory statement: I’d say that number and statement, that around 100,000 couldn’t leave, is some of that unmitigated verbal fecal matter I mentioned earlier. That’s right, here we go, boys and girls, down that dark, nasty alley called reality and reason. I would suggest that there were potential routes of escape for the vast majority of those who stayed. However, as early as Saturday, in the midst of this talk of ‘mandatory’ evacuation, we have the vocal, public plan to use the Superdome as a place for those who can’t leave. We aren’t talking bedridden people in hospitals, we’re talking about people able to cross town and get into the stadium…but not out of the city, apparently.
Michelle Malkin was linking to bloggers discussing the sheer stupidity of this idea over the weekend, before the storm hit. How it holds 40,000 people, but only has backup power for lights and no environmental controls, how the bathrooms would be the first casualty of flooding, how there was a complete lack of food and supplies…you get the idea. And yet, here are somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people (depending on what source you heed) showing up with the clothes on their backs.
I’d like to jump in here at this point and let the cat out of the bag a little early. I’m going further on this, but for those who aren’t on board yet, I want to stop the train and allow for easier boarding.
What do we have here? We have a bunch of people who are confident that government will protect them. There’s absolutely no sense of self-preservation here at all. If I’m leaving my house with the knowledge that it will likely not be there when I return, with the knowledge that the city could be underwater in less than 24 hours, I think I’m coming with more than my clothes and my favorite blankey. Let’s press forward, there’s a trail here to follow and we’re just beginning.
The flooding starts, conditions at the Superdome (and everywhere else) deteriorate, looting begins, people start dying by the dozen, the shooting starts, things go thoroughly apocalyptic. Relief isn’t immediate, from what we read and hear. People start going a little mad, trying to hijack helicopters and whatnot. The whole thing starts to look like a Romero movie, but a little darker and more violent. And that brings us to now.
Mayor Nagin, a man who seemed to be handling things well in the beginning, begins to crack. The headlines all report his latest public appearance, a tearful outburst over the lack of federal help. Giuliani, this man is not. Never saw Rudy simpering over public airwaves that those big meanies in Washington weren’t sending stuff down fast enough.
It all seems to solid, doesn’t it? A mayor trying to save his city, a people abandoned in their hour of need, the constant reminder that, apparently, the majority of the stranded are not Caucasian…such terrible, tragic stuff. Bad President, BAD. No donut for you.
Ah, but there’s that alley again, and it’s getting darker by the minute. How about this picture, hosted on Yahoo with absolutely no fanfare, but unearthed by Drudge? That’s about a hundred busses, maybe more. The good Mr. Nagin couldn’t scrape together 100 people capable of driving a school bus to evacuate the Superdome before the storm hit? Or, even in lieu of that, move the busses out of the path of destruction so that they could be used to shuttle people out once the worst passed?
What about city busses? What about police vehicles? What about just about anything other than providing ‘shelters’ that were very, very clearly not shelter at all?
Now we have wonderful folks like Jesse Jackson Jr. and Kanye West proclaiming that this has something to do with the color of the people who are currently stranded in these ‘shelters’. Well, considering the good Mayor Nagin is the same color as those people, I’d say there are some questions to be asked about how seriously Mr. Mandatory Evacuation was taking things in the hours leading up to the storm. His pleas only achieved 80% of the city to leave, at BEST estimates. The 20% that remain are supposedly poor people of his own racial background. We have evidence that not nearly enough was done to help actually get those people out once they made the fatal mistake of ‘riding it out’. To top it all off, he provides ‘shelters’ WITHIN the zone of absolute greatest danger, completely undercutting his own ‘mandatory’ evacuation.
Unfortunately, this is the liberal mindset’s most deadly illustration to date. These people were convinced that Mother Government would save them, provide them shelter, keep them warm and fed. Today we have quotes from people still in the city complaining that they just have cold MRE’s from the National Guard to eat, and not warm meals. We have reports that the Guard was greeted by many who applauded, but some who jeered and said the whole city should be burned down for leaving them behind.
Denied the teat that they were convinced was theirs, they wail like any baby who doesn’t get a bottle when he wants it.
Wow, that’s a harsh thing to say about people who have been living in these conditions, Justin, you’re really just a callous bastard, aren’t you?
No, I’m out here living in reality. The real world. (Well, as close to it as one can come out here in Aztlan.) Everyone seems to want to cling to this fantasy world where some higher human power, some organization paid for by taxpayer dollars, will swoop in and carry them all away to someplace warm and safe.
Guess what, brothers and sisters, I am here today to tell you that storytime is over, the great governmental Prince Charming is not coming to save you, and the only way you will live happily ever after is by God’s good grace and your own diligence and hard work.
You have a liberal Democrat mayor clearly not doing everything logically possible to save his city, then crying on the radio when the feds can’t save it fast enough for him.
You have a small portion of a great city so foolish and blinded by decades of lies that they believe staying in a gigantic punchbowl is a good and safe idea when a gigantic faucet is headed their way.
Bear in mind, only a portion of these potential 100,000 are included here. A number of them stayed very intentionally. They knew the city would be abandoned, and stayed to prey on the empty stores and streets, perpetrating just about every crime you could imagine. These are the people that don’t need rescuing, society needs to be rescued from them.
But I digress. My point here isn’t that these people somehow deserve their fate, but we’re letting their plight sway our entire perception of this event. The reality is, the vast majority of New Orleans had the simple self-preservation instinct to leave before the storm hit. They were willing to do what it took to get themselves and their families out. These people bear the brunt of the tragedy, they left everything they had and sacrificed everything just to keep on living. They have the hope that everything will one day be okay again, and are willing to do whatever it took to protect their lives and those of their loved ones.
There are also a percentage that stayed, and are not suffering greatly. An excellent military blogger pointed out a fantastic blog run by some former military folks who stayed in New Orleans in their office building. They’re relatively self-sufficient, trying to help their fellow man, and above all are NOT sitting around complaining that the government didn’t do enough to get them out once they decided to stay. This proves that, with enough will and hard work, you could even stay and survive. On your own. Without once suckling at government’s teat.
So yes, the majority of New Orleans proved themselves to be smart, tenacious, and willing to do what it took to survive and carry on. What we have on the ground in NO at this point are a small majority very unhappy with how government has treated them. Yes, I know some had valid reasons why they couldn’t get out, but I am firmly convinced that number is very, very small.
All that said, I hope the best for everyone down there trapped in Fallujah West, even those who foolishly believed that their mayor or their president would swoop in, Superman-like, and save them from a catastrophe they all knew was coming. I’m not including the animals currently hunting in the city, for them all I wish is a large-caliber round somewhere vital and a sure, final end.
I do have to say that my limit for those blaming anyone but those who CHOSE to stay behind for their plight has been breached just as thoroughly as those levees. Huffington is hosting people claiming blacks are resorting to cannibalism to survive. Kanye West uses a telethon to benefit the city as a platform for declaring that Bush hates black people and that America is designed to help poor blacks last. RFK Jr. and oh-so-many pundits and armchair pundits are claiming this is, of course, Bushitler’s fault, either by Kyoto, or global warming, or his god-like mutant weather-controlling powers. Michael Moore is even chiming in, still bitching about Iraq, as if the problem here is that we have troops over there so we can’t help anyone here. These people have all, pardon the severe understatement, lost the plot.
I don’t have much of a voice here, but maybe some of you might agree with me and start spreading this line of thought to others, as inflammatory and non-warm-cuddly-fuzzy, to others. Let’s assign responsibility where it belongs: to the individual, not the insane and offensive Moonbat Whackjob Patrol’s list of most popular blame theories.
Most of all, let’s pray for and help those who did what they had to do to survive and left everything, every single thing they had, to make it through this alive. People camping on highways, staying with strangers, seeking shelter in cities thousands of miles away from their homes. The real absolute, total tragedy rests on their shoulders. If anyone will rebuild New Orleans and restore it to what it once was, it will assuredly be these people. Right now, they’re in a place so nightmarish it’s hard to even ponder. The American Dream for them has been simplified a great deal: don’t starve, don’t die, don’t let those around you die. We can help them, we can help the city, but all these smoke and mirrors focusing on a small portion of those who were failed by the pipe dreams of government-as-parent just isn’t fruitful in any way. The Guard is in, supplies are flowing, the dead will be collected and mourned, the water will drain away, everything will slowly start returning to normal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these people we see so much of on the news, the ones who chose to stay based on government’s promises of safety, those people will likely continue on in their delusions. People with that mindset don’t rebuild cities, they wait for government (and the tax money of others) to do it for them. People with that mindset don’t build much of anything, because their sense of entitlement has been inflated to the point of no return.
We must support those who lack that sense, who instead possess another sense: the common variety. Let’s help them work, let’s help them be safe, let’s join together as a nation and heal the gaping wound carved into us by Katrina. My only plea is that we do all that with our heads firmly planted on our shoulders, not chasing after phantom saviors that will never materialize and save the day.
Monday, August 29, 2005
P.S.
Allow me a brief caveat, my friends, lest my comment on the impending doom of New Orleans in my last entry be taken the wrong way.
Humor is my way of responding to stress. I’m the fellow at the funeral with a large smile, hugging and shaking everyone’s hand. Quick with a joke and eager to bring smiles to those around me. It’s not due to a lack of compassion or mourning, quite the contrary. I don’t really respond well to such things, so I tend to veer towards inappropriate gallows humor. Nothing unseemly, but it’s safe to say I’d be the fellow on the deck of the Titanic asking the orchestra to play something less depressing than ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and ordering another martini as the ship split down the middle.
During my brief respite in the shower, Art Bell let me down and didn’t serve up his usual buffet of lunatics, damn him. Rather, he’s covering Katrina non-stop, taking calls from those in the effected areas. It’s what I love about Art. Behind the mask of the showman who parades out the weird and bizarre on overnight talk radio sits one of the last remaining true newsmen. Focused on the story and clearly invested in it and the people behind it, he provides the kind of raw, real information that can no longer be found on the ‘regular’ news media.
He mentioned a few minutes ago that an anchor and a reporter (who is onsite) on CNN just engaged in a shouting match over the situation. Ah, if only I could have seen that, I love it when the phoney-baloney veneers of the mainstream media crack and we see that these are people who generally have no clue how to present the news.
But I digress.
Of course, my heart and prayers go out to those in New Orleans, and we certainly do face a catastrophe like none we’ve ever seen in America. Art is currently posing the question, what happens when we lose a major city? Just, lose one? It’s never happened to us before.
My answer, of course, is that there’s no such thing. If Americans decide that the city will come back, it will. It may take time, it may take an amazing amount of effort, but when Americans set their mind to something, it happens. We just do not give up. We refuse to be put down by anyone or anything.
So no, New Orleans isn’t going away. I don’t believe it, anyway. We just don’t work that way. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I believe I’ll be eating those beignets in the French Quarter before I breathe my last.
So here’s to all of you who are in the path of Katrina or those with loved ones in that path.
And here’s to the rest of us, and the harsh reality that within the next few days, our country might be plunged into a crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before: gas that no one can afford, if they can even get any. Go fill your tanks, buy some wonderful Bulldog Root Beer, and get ready for one seriously interesting work week.
Humor is my way of responding to stress. I’m the fellow at the funeral with a large smile, hugging and shaking everyone’s hand. Quick with a joke and eager to bring smiles to those around me. It’s not due to a lack of compassion or mourning, quite the contrary. I don’t really respond well to such things, so I tend to veer towards inappropriate gallows humor. Nothing unseemly, but it’s safe to say I’d be the fellow on the deck of the Titanic asking the orchestra to play something less depressing than ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and ordering another martini as the ship split down the middle.
During my brief respite in the shower, Art Bell let me down and didn’t serve up his usual buffet of lunatics, damn him. Rather, he’s covering Katrina non-stop, taking calls from those in the effected areas. It’s what I love about Art. Behind the mask of the showman who parades out the weird and bizarre on overnight talk radio sits one of the last remaining true newsmen. Focused on the story and clearly invested in it and the people behind it, he provides the kind of raw, real information that can no longer be found on the ‘regular’ news media.
He mentioned a few minutes ago that an anchor and a reporter (who is onsite) on CNN just engaged in a shouting match over the situation. Ah, if only I could have seen that, I love it when the phoney-baloney veneers of the mainstream media crack and we see that these are people who generally have no clue how to present the news.
But I digress.
Of course, my heart and prayers go out to those in New Orleans, and we certainly do face a catastrophe like none we’ve ever seen in America. Art is currently posing the question, what happens when we lose a major city? Just, lose one? It’s never happened to us before.
My answer, of course, is that there’s no such thing. If Americans decide that the city will come back, it will. It may take time, it may take an amazing amount of effort, but when Americans set their mind to something, it happens. We just do not give up. We refuse to be put down by anyone or anything.
So no, New Orleans isn’t going away. I don’t believe it, anyway. We just don’t work that way. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I believe I’ll be eating those beignets in the French Quarter before I breathe my last.
So here’s to all of you who are in the path of Katrina or those with loved ones in that path.
And here’s to the rest of us, and the harsh reality that within the next few days, our country might be plunged into a crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before: gas that no one can afford, if they can even get any. Go fill your tanks, buy some wonderful Bulldog Root Beer, and get ready for one seriously interesting work week.
News Briefs From The Wilds Of Aztlan
Many small things to discuss in the news. I’m settled in with a fresh, handcrafted Bulldog Root Beer, the finest beverage ever created by man, so I’m good to go despite this awful heat. It’s hot out here tonight in Aztlan, an incomprehensible 73 degrees at 12:45 AM. It’s madness, I tell you. I’m thinking all these natives who have come to reclaim the Aztlan region have somehow influenced the weather to make it resemble the jungle wilds their people once ruled in South America. Well, there’s no relief in sight, so let’s pop the cap on this Bulldog and get to it. (I should note that I mean that in the ‘opening the bottle’ way, and not the traditional ebonics way…no bulldogs were harmed in the making of this entry.)
Hurricane Katrina...what a shame. Always wanted to visit New Orleans, and I don't like swimming. I’m prone to ear infections, and I doubt beignets taste very good soaked with sewer water.
Cindy Sheehan is thoroughly screwy, driven right round the bend by the loss of her son. Sad, but please lady, stop whoring out the names of other people's sons, especially after they've publicly said they don't want you to do it. Pleas such as this, based as they are on reason and decency, will certainly have no effect. The latest news has Al ‘Who’s Tawana Brawley?’ Sharpton and Martin ‘I play the president on TV so that makes me important’ Sheen down there kibitzing with Cindy. My mother told me Joan Baez has been lurking about as well. She hasn’t really worked since Vietnam ended, so I guess she sees this as her last chance at making money off the deaths of good Americans. This whole Sheehan ‘Camp Casey’ situation has me terribly concerned. If someone like Michael Moore or Jane Fonda should show up, I fear it could create some sort of ‘liberal whackjob wormhole’ that pierces the space/time continuum and causes all matter to instantly blink into nothingness. We should send Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller down there just to balance out the insanity and keep the material universe safe.
Green Day wins seven awards on the VMA's on MTV. Wow, I guess MTV was in a hurry to drive those nails into that 'relevance' coffin, now weren't they? I love that it was a shocker to some commentators I've read that they beat out Gwen Stefani. If the world of music video excellence is a battle between Green Day and Gwen Stefani, we really need to call the whole thing off and just replay every year of MTV from the beginning, like one big repeat episode. The music will be just as relative, although most people will wonder why there are so many white people on the channel.
My dear muse and imaginary mentor Dr. Hunter Thompson finally got blasted off from his gigantic gonzo fist last week. Sad to see the old boy go, but he went out as only the Doctor of Journalism could. Were I able to drink, I’d toast a glass of rum, straight up, in his honor.
Fred Phelps and his 'God Hates Fags' clan are now protesting at the funerals of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these men are dying because God is mad at us for sheltering gays. Ironically enough, I think Fred is on to something...God MUST be mad at us, because Fred Phelps is still alive. I mean, come on...if there was a popular vote on who to kill, I think Phelps would be a prime candidate for the #1 spot, with the only possible competition being that guy who screams YOU'RE KILLING ME LARRY on those damn Sit N Sleep commercials. I say, use a high caliber weapon and have them stand single-file. We could even have Larry do it, just so that obnoxious bastard could be right, for once.
The Sunnis rejected the Iraqi constitution that's just been ratified by their government. One of the reasons is that the constitution bans the reformation of Saddam's Ba'ath party. Yeah, you -really- want that to happen, good plan guys. I know it was your locus of power in the past, but Saddam is future worm food, his days of power are over, and you really, really need to wake up and smell the hummus. Someone needs to sit down with these yahoos and explain the math. You're only 20% of the nation. The other 80% all hate you and want you dead. You sat out of the first national vote and now they own the vast majority of the national government. Sit down, shut up, be very very friendly, and offer cheap goods and services. Otherwise, well, let's just say I really need to invest in a funeral home near Sunni country, because business is going to be booming. It's going to be coffins a go-go, and there won't be much anyone can do to stop it.
The Bulldog is gone and the heat continues. I’m going to hit the shower, use very little hot water, and listen to Art Bell’s show. I think I need to listen to a little quackery and conspiracy lunacy to relax my overtaxed mind.
Hurricane Katrina...what a shame. Always wanted to visit New Orleans, and I don't like swimming. I’m prone to ear infections, and I doubt beignets taste very good soaked with sewer water.
Cindy Sheehan is thoroughly screwy, driven right round the bend by the loss of her son. Sad, but please lady, stop whoring out the names of other people's sons, especially after they've publicly said they don't want you to do it. Pleas such as this, based as they are on reason and decency, will certainly have no effect. The latest news has Al ‘Who’s Tawana Brawley?’ Sharpton and Martin ‘I play the president on TV so that makes me important’ Sheen down there kibitzing with Cindy. My mother told me Joan Baez has been lurking about as well. She hasn’t really worked since Vietnam ended, so I guess she sees this as her last chance at making money off the deaths of good Americans. This whole Sheehan ‘Camp Casey’ situation has me terribly concerned. If someone like Michael Moore or Jane Fonda should show up, I fear it could create some sort of ‘liberal whackjob wormhole’ that pierces the space/time continuum and causes all matter to instantly blink into nothingness. We should send Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller down there just to balance out the insanity and keep the material universe safe.
Green Day wins seven awards on the VMA's on MTV. Wow, I guess MTV was in a hurry to drive those nails into that 'relevance' coffin, now weren't they? I love that it was a shocker to some commentators I've read that they beat out Gwen Stefani. If the world of music video excellence is a battle between Green Day and Gwen Stefani, we really need to call the whole thing off and just replay every year of MTV from the beginning, like one big repeat episode. The music will be just as relative, although most people will wonder why there are so many white people on the channel.
My dear muse and imaginary mentor Dr. Hunter Thompson finally got blasted off from his gigantic gonzo fist last week. Sad to see the old boy go, but he went out as only the Doctor of Journalism could. Were I able to drink, I’d toast a glass of rum, straight up, in his honor.
Fred Phelps and his 'God Hates Fags' clan are now protesting at the funerals of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these men are dying because God is mad at us for sheltering gays. Ironically enough, I think Fred is on to something...God MUST be mad at us, because Fred Phelps is still alive. I mean, come on...if there was a popular vote on who to kill, I think Phelps would be a prime candidate for the #1 spot, with the only possible competition being that guy who screams YOU'RE KILLING ME LARRY on those damn Sit N Sleep commercials. I say, use a high caliber weapon and have them stand single-file. We could even have Larry do it, just so that obnoxious bastard could be right, for once.
The Sunnis rejected the Iraqi constitution that's just been ratified by their government. One of the reasons is that the constitution bans the reformation of Saddam's Ba'ath party. Yeah, you -really- want that to happen, good plan guys. I know it was your locus of power in the past, but Saddam is future worm food, his days of power are over, and you really, really need to wake up and smell the hummus. Someone needs to sit down with these yahoos and explain the math. You're only 20% of the nation. The other 80% all hate you and want you dead. You sat out of the first national vote and now they own the vast majority of the national government. Sit down, shut up, be very very friendly, and offer cheap goods and services. Otherwise, well, let's just say I really need to invest in a funeral home near Sunni country, because business is going to be booming. It's going to be coffins a go-go, and there won't be much anyone can do to stop it.
The Bulldog is gone and the heat continues. I’m going to hit the shower, use very little hot water, and listen to Art Bell’s show. I think I need to listen to a little quackery and conspiracy lunacy to relax my overtaxed mind.
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