Friday, October 22, 2010

Things I don't get


The mysterious liquid in a bottle

Guy came in last night and talked about his wife who we used to work with and who being a heavy drinker has entered The Program and gone 109 days without a drop. The liquid in the bottle on the top shelf with the nice auburn color as the sun hits it, seems like it's a big Either/Or Proposition for alot of folks. Many people either overdrink it to excess or make the decision in Life to not have it at all. We have mystified it to the point where

Maybe worrying is bad for your health

Guy in White Plains is suing Bumble Bee tuna for mercury poisoning. He and his workout buddy were eating great amounts of tuna every day for two years and as any fishmonger knows the predator fish at the top of the food chain, fish like shark, swordfish and tuna have a mercury issue but this guy was on a freaky tuna diet to begin with. I'll grill a tuna steak maybe every three weeks or so, maybe and it's like I've made the decision to cut down on my soda intake but that doesn't mean I'll never have a Mountain Dew or a Dr. Pepper for the REST OF MY LIFE. I've often wondered when people like John Tesh go to meet the Lord whether He says to them "I see here that you didn't enjoy Life that much, we're gonna have to send you back" (The Devil in John Tesh) but it's like

The Idiot's Guide to Oral Sex

Just because Something exists does there have to be an Idiot's Guide about it? The Idiot's Guide to Anal Sports, The Idiot's Guide to Nipple Clamps, The Idiot's Guide to Sucking Your Big Toe. I want my Idiot Guides to be about cooking or taxes or changing the oil in your car, leave the esoterica to the fetish market. Is there an oral exam at the end although Advanced Oral is kind of intruiging -- OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yahoo Trending

Which at least has one positive, it shows our country is in trouble, deep trouble. Consider that just yesterday, Thursday October the 21st at a certain time of the day Eva Longoria was apparently the number one subject people were looking up, yes your fellow American. Now consider you have a very valuable block of computer time every day in between your two jobs and your food shopping and your laundry but you don't look up cancer or the war crimes trial of former African despot Charles Taylor or even the mercury content of tuna but EVA LONGORIA and not only this but to make it the #1 Yahoo Trend for that day enough like-minded Americans have to be searching for her AT THE EXACT SAME TIME and I have to say listening to my stupid music station in the morning and their stupid gabble I know more about her then I need to know, yeah I'm sure she knows how to grelm a cock and then the next day it's KIM KARDASHIAN whom if memory serves Vivid Entertainment made a household name and so you go to work and use a couple of big words and say you read a book and people think you're Einstein. Have to mention though that guy at work that came in talking with my still very pro-Obama co-worker and the guy goes I thought Obama was gonna change all this ("this" apparently being a very general term meaning Anything Negative in My Life, the Cosmos) and the other guy goes even he can't change everything at once, it takes time and I'm like when is this Messiah shit gonna end already? Now THAT one I really don't get!!!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Z Theory of Business

We've all had various workplace experiences and so the Personal motivates my blogging to a larger degree perhaps than other bloggers. I've had positive experiences, negative ones and everything in between (these days I'd just settle for the in between) but here's a main reason why I vastly prefer a totally free market capitalistic system to government controls (socialism in my book) and it's this: some places deserve to go out of business. Maybe they don't treat the worker right, maybe the workplace environment is conducive to bad health, maybe they shaft the customer, whatever. Call this natural selection in the business and economic world, a kind of business karma if you will and so government controls and bailouts, the "too big to fail" philosophy interferes with all this. Simply and harshly put failure is necessary and a bad workplace closing may even save your life in the long run (stress and other negative factors). Unions, if you notice in unionized stores there are higher prices for customers, just the Cost of Doing Business. Company people, they remind me of zombies after a while ("ok now stand on your head and twirl around"). Some workplace environments, it's not so much major negative criticisms just a never-ending series it seems of more minor niggling negativity and it's like your uncle who stamps his foot down to scare the cat, you go in every morning with what did I do wrong yesterday? Mystery Shoppers, a total waste of Time these hardup spies and it's funny how companies with bad budgets somehow find the funds for this. This has become part and parcel of Conventional Wisdom in Marketing, that the worker drones need to chat up the customer base more ("see the game last night?") but personally I and many other folks find we don't need overly solicitous stores clerks to shop. I could free-range rant on this stuff all day so let's just say let the System work. I don't have anything resembling a Middle Ground on this one, just let our capitalistic system (I know in theory) separate the wheat from the chaff. We need more failure, don't be scared. Darwin and Business, it's a beautiful thing.

Monday, October 18, 2010

With conservative papers like this who needs the liberal media?

The New York Post endorses Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York. It's not really surprising though, you knew something was up with its heavily skewed reporting in the gubernatorial race led by State Editor Fred Dicker. The Post goes against the Tea Party in the person of Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino which only proves yet again the old Z-maxim that everything tends towards liberalism in the end. I love New York but politically it's an absolutely depressing state to live in and when the only purportedly conservative paper in town so heartily endorses a liberal Democrat for Governor you have to just block your mind off to it and enter the voting booth. More and more on a daily basis I agree with the soapster that there really is not one whit of difference between (name a typical mainstream conservative and liberal) and I'm gonna apply this to the media here. Conservative media, what's that?

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Overregulators don't see themselves as having a problem

I've been running this through my head yesterday and decided to use it as an analogy of what's been bothering me about this group of benevolent nanny-staters who are pretty much regulating or trying to regulate every area of our lives right now. It's the example I love to use of the Hannityland political forums with its myriad rules and regulations and I'll get to the Crux of the Problem in a minute. Lista has been commenting on blogs that move too fast and she ain't seen nothin' yet. At say the Hannity Forum on Politics let's say you're a little slow or have been away and you see an older thread you think you could constructively contribute to that'll move the topic back to the front page and everyone gets annoyed and complains to a mod there (dunno how many they have at this point but they keep recruiting more) and it becomes a Violation. You see the front page moves so fast that you post a new thread and check in on it after two or three hours and it's already on page two or three. So in our example which is a perfect one btw (not like some Carvel shit) here's the reason why things never get better over there like some overregulated workplace where nobody has any fun anymore.

They don't know they have a problem, that they're overregulating.

It's done with benevolent intentions of course, it's necessary. They can theoretically see that overregulating can be a problem and they'll agree with you but that's just theoretical, they themselves are not overregulating. So you don't want people to buy sugary drinks with food stamps, that's not overregulating (although I have a problem with the original welfare and that's an even bigger crux of a deeper problem but for another day.) No liberal thinks of himself or herself as an overregulator, just perfectly reasonable rules and laws being codified here. It's like Saty sees herself as a socialist but not the kind who wants to run your life for you so it's like a nice positive twist to an old definition that nobody likes anyway (cake/eating it too). If you support drug testing in order to become a deli clerk or a cashier for God's sake that's not overregulation just having a reasonable policy in place because we want to see what people are doing and want to hire the Best. A bicycle helmut is for Your Own Good, it's a reg but not an overreg until we pass the next reg and We Will but that too would not be an overreg...geez what is an overreg anyway? and it's like Pink says, "you're just like a Pill, instead of making me better you're making me ill." It's like alcoholism and denial, we can never become what we're criticized to be. It's like how much masturbation is too much masturbation? One dude masturbates 2X a day and another guy masturbates 5X a day, who is one to criticize the other? If you go to the top Overregulator if there is such a thing he'll just tell you to accept your confinement, it's a perspective thing anyway and what one person views as a cage another will see as a mansion. In short a Liberal can never actually become a Liberal, that's just a dirty word anyway.

In short the moral of our little story is that it's not the Mods at Hannityland who are the Problem, it's YOU. The problem ain't LEE, he's just keeping YOU guys in check. You just have a bad attitude.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Some miner points

Nobody cared about Politics in that Chilean mine. We are human first and liberals or conservatives second. Should the liberal miners have been the last ones to get in that capsule?

Next time you have trouble sticking to your diet consider that these brave souls were rationed two spoonfuls of tuna, half a glass of milk and a couple crackers every 48 hours at the beginning of their ordeal which as ABC's 20/20 told us last night was not enough for nourishment but to prevent the body from going into withdrawal and shock. This has inspired me to not see only one main meal every 24 hours as that big a deal. Had some Muscle Milk this morning, banana creme flavor. Tasted more like paint but I'm not complaining.

Si es Goya tiene que ser bueno.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Oh God, now we have to relive the social issues with another Cuomo?

Background: NY GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino as you may have heard spoke to a Brooklyn Hasidic congregation the other day and said some things. Kids should not be "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn't." They'd "be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family." Emphasized that he chose not to march in New York's Gay Pride Parade whereas his Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo did. Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said his speech was "stunning homophobia and a glaring disregard for basic equality. These comments, along with other views he has espoused, make it clear that he is way out of the mainstream and is unfit to represent New York." The Paladino spokesman shot back that Cuomo should discuss with his pastor his support for partial-birth abortion.

Deconstruction: Kids are being brainwashed into thinking -- Well that really is undeniable when you consider the thrust of modern-day sex education.
Kids would be better off and more successful getting married -- Not quite true if you're looking at it from purely the financial angle. Seems alot of gay men are rather affluent, cultured and successful in their own right. Going down the old poop shoot and having a respectable bank account do not seem interrelated or maybe they are.
Stunning homophobia -- There's that word again. Eye of the beholder stuff but hey it's a buzzword to appeal to a certain base. You have four urinals at a rest stop along the Interstate and two guys naturally space themselves apart. Are they homophobes? who worries about this stuff?
Glaring disregard for basic equality -- Has Paladino advocated discrimination against gays in the workplace? reinstating anti-sodomy laws? seems he's just voicing a POV at odds with, well liberalism. Cuomo should stop talking smack.
Way out of the mainstream -- It is clear Paladino is appealing to the social conservative base part of which is the Hasidim. If the social conservative base in this country were that tiny and out of the mainstream he wouldn't waste his time appealing to it. Remember he is campaigning for a high political office and if his views were really that far outside the mainstream he wouldn't have said it. Makes no sense.
Unfit to hold public office -- In what way? because he has politically incorrect viewpoints? What about Charlie Rangel? Cuomo was last seen hobnobbing at the Harlem Congressman's 80th birthday bash and this guy wants to clean up Albany?
Partial-birth abortion -- My thing is I don't want to go through another Cuomo explaining the Social Issues. It's grueling, the sophistry and obfuscation is a slow form of torture and Once Is Enough. It's like Gaga replicating Madonna, do we deserve this?
& finally a word about societal mores: Be that as it may there will always be some residual cultural distaste for rectal activity among the boys. Combined with the civic virtue of tolerance this amounts to at worst being mildly anti-gay. That's a social more, always has been and so Paladino, agree or disagree with him here is not outside the mainstream. Liberals have a problem with social mores, always have and if Cuomo were say carpetbagging and campaigning in Ohio or Wisconsin would he be saying these things? Should Paladino have gone here? who knows but there was Meredith Vieira interviewing Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann this morning about basically her views on all this even though her thing ain't New York and as I said it really is a tempest in a teapot. You should be able to raise your kids any way you want. They're not wards of the State after all and this really is the libertarian position here.

probably has a wide stance.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

@ the Movies


Since movie critics judging by their mostly critical reviews know how movies should be made - symbolism, metaphor, allegory, juxtaposition, atmosphere, casting, character development, plot twists, plausibility etc. - here's a theoretical question. Let's get five of the country's top film critics and have them write and direct and produce five movies - romantic comedy, action/adventure, horror/thriller, drama, mystery - so we should have ourselves some pretty good flicks no? Excellent in fact, superb, mindblowing, perfect Oscar-worthy material but something tells me NO. Does anyone know why?

So basically I want five movies from Roger Ebert, Kyle Smith, Elvis Mitchell, Richard Schickel and Rex Reed. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone doesn't count, he likes everything.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

daytripping

Went up the line yesterday and stopped at the Military Museum of Southern New England in Danbury CT. This place should be a required class trip and then some as it really breaks down WW2 in all its stages. There are tanks outside in the yard, British, American and Soviet models and all kinds of military artifacts in the museum itself. Of course some Nazi memorabilia is displayed but it's in historical context and you really get a sense of the tragedy of war here and the sacrifices men made for our freedom. That cyberslut over at Duke should really come here, get some perspective on Life and then we hit the Danbury Fair Mall. In the car my friend started doing Shock the Monkey in an Irish brogue ("cover me when I sleep...") and so how are you giving back? Saw a road banner in the big YO, St. John the Baptist Casino Night. Why not just have a Whorehouse too to benefit the school and church? So we're on Rte. 6 coming from Danbury heading into Brewster and the road is sparse, lonely and desolate with a few scattered businesses and dwellings here and there and it's like a UFO would land somewhere here at 3 in the morning (State Trooper: "Holy Shit!!!"). My friend goes this place is nice but weird like you'd have a longtime married couple here without any kids and so you heard of the Bigfoot Belt, there's a Porno Belt here. Starting just past the Danbury border ya got one and when you head on into the Village of Brewster itself there's another one. A real hole in the wall place, some claustrophobic dump with the usual generic porn and there's like some exhaust fan here or maybe that's the Mexican deli next door, you're thinking bedbugs. This is the squalor part of Town but then you got your more upscale Giggles ("Why not?") in Carmel, Wappingers Falls and Hyde Park just past Po'town, things the weary traveler needs to know. Just because it's the Country doesn't mean it doesn't have an Underbelly, some David Lynchian cavern where some guy with an apple in his mouth just crapped in a diaper. These food courts in the malls, heavy on the Asian cuisine and Southwestern grilled fare. He pigged out, I held off. The Diet you know. Dunno what it is but malls get me depressed after a while, must be that existential vibe you got as a kid when your Mom and Dad were parking in the waffle-ceilinged parking garage at the Galleria and then later on you saw some gay-oriented graffiti in the Men's Room ("watch the monkey get hot, monkey"). The historically-minded traveler, the porno venturer, the spiritual-seeker, the cultural researcher, the consumerist, it's all here. Did you know Sears actually sells jeans already with rips in them? back in the day you would've thrown them out. Hey it's another Travelblog!

Life is short.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Pro-choice and pro-abortion

Re Pro-Lifers
Soapie: "...they demonize Pro-Choice advocates (even calling them pro-abortion in some instances)..."
Satyavati: "It's proCHOICE Beth. Can you stop with the hyperinflammatory rhetoric now? Please?"

It's not demonizing or hyperinflammatory. If we called them pro-death it would be but pro-abortion in most cases is simply accurate and objective. Let's break it down:

IF you say you're personally opposed to abortion but support abortion rights you are by proper definition pro-choice and not pro-abortion. People who work for Planned Parenthood are not personally opposed to abortion otherwise they wouldn't be working there. To say they are pro-abortion is not a pejorative simply that they have no moral objections to the act otherwise again they would be doing something else with their lives. Planned Parenthood is known for pushing abortion but let's say they didn't, just presented all the options. Then they would be pro-choice but would also at the same time be pro-abortion because, let's face it that's what they do. If you're not against abortion then you're something else. If you present neutrality on the act then that makes you morally indifferent to the act and in a roundabout way makes you pro-abortion. You can be against porn but be for Free Speech. You can also be for porn and obviously for free speech. You can be indifferent to porn and be for free speech in which case you're not against porn. If you work in a porn shop you cannot in any way be said to not be pro-porn. ONLY in the first case though can it accurately be said you're not pro-porn. If you do not in some sense oppose something then you are for it. In all his years of journalism I've never heard Bill Moyers voice a personal qualm about the act of abortion so it's fair to conclude he doesn't oppose it in even a personal way. That's not demonizing or hyperrhetoric just a fair verdict. I have not yet called Saty with her preternatural compartmentalization pro-abortion because in the past anyway she made it clear she feels killing any living creature is wrong and carries with it bad karma. That's a clarification or important nuance most pro-choicers never make but for Beth and me we just find her fascinating as well as perplexing. It's interesting and curious why the very label "pro-abortion" conjures up such feelings since there would seem to be something wrong with the act itself if one shies away from the label. I'm very pro-heart surgery and pro-appendectomy ya know? Trouble is Pro-Choice doesn't tell me much and can run the gamut from personally opposed as I said to gungho. It's the safest thing to say at a Manhattan cocktail party and you don't have to go out on a limb, it's like some safe box you check off on some questionnaire. In my labelling system though I call them pro-choice and pro-life and that works. Perhaps anti-anti-abortion?

Sunday, October 03, 2010

A man is about to jump off the Tappan Zee Bridge

Soapie is driving across the bridge at the time. There is a crowd gathering but the soapster is closest and in the best position to talk the guy down. Does he talk about Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative that no matter how bad and miserable your life may be you have the moral duty to trudge on or does he go with "if one isn't content with living any longer they may cease doing so. It is after all their life." You see this is the problem I have with soapie and Saty's views on abortion and suicide and related issues, I understand their positions, they're well stated but the defense of a negative cannot be inspirational. I like to be inspired and at church this morning a nun from the Sisters of Life spoke at the end of the Mass about their pro-life work and there were two young Asian nuns from the same group sitting in the pew in front of me. I felt the presence of angels, it was uplifting but getting back to the pro-choice views on the Life Issues what bothers is there is a vacuum of something positive. I more than understand them believe me but lift me up here guys. Where is the positive? The presence of those pro-life sisters and their pro-life message resonated in my being, plucked a few of my spiritual chords and I'm a cynical bastard by nature. Here's the challenge: INSPIRE.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

The latest chapter in why we really don't have free speech in this country

As you well know by now CNN host Rick Sanchez, a Cuban-American has been axed for comments he made this past Thursday on the satellite radio show "Stand Up! with Pete Dominick." He called Comedy Central pundit I guess you could call him Jon Stewart a bigot who has "a white liberal establishment point-of-view" and said the media in general is filled with "elite Northeast liberals" but here's the kicker. He pointed out that Jews like Stewart don't face the same discrimination as Mexicans and implied that CNN and the msm are being run by Jews and elitists who look down on Hispanics. OK so deconstructing and soapie can help me out here:

Jon Stewart is a bigot - anybody's opinion
who has a white liberal establishment point-of-view - obvious
msm filled with elite Northeast liberals - the sky is blue and the earth is round
Jews don't face the same discrimination as Mexicans - would seem to be true although for some reason you can't say this
CNN and the msm are run by Jews - you'd really have to do a complete ethnic breakdown of news producers and directors and presidents of news divisions here. Anyone wanna do this? Saty?
and elitists who look down on Hispanics - entirely subjective but hey it's the man's opinion and last I checked

About the only place you can talk freely these days is in your living room but be careful of your cable guy, he might report you. Some elements of truth, overall it wasn't great, kind of icky but I've heard worse. For me it's a Free Speech thing and basically Rants are covered. What do you think?