Catcher in the Rye - some thoughts

He died this past Wednesday on January the 27th at the ripe old age of 91 (LSD founder Albert Hoffman had him beat by a few years) so Catcher's in the news again. The novel has passed the test of time although I had an English professor in college once who said it was ok but he didn't know what all the fuss was about. Since we've been talking about it since 1951 when it was first published clearly author J.D. Salinger tapped into something but WHAT exactly? something in the existential ether. Clearly when even the psychos liked your work you've struck a chord (Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley were said to have carried copies to their missions) which is another thing, what to do when psychos enjoy reading your work and get something out of it? ain't exactly the best blurbs to put on your jacket. In fact if the novel were written or updated for today's world it'd be not just everyone's a f*n phony but everyone's a psycho like lately I've noticed that anybody who disagrees with me in my day-to-day is just a wee bit too serious. Take today at work, the bakery guy goes don't take my trays, you have your own which in and of itself is a perfectly valid point but it's the way he said it, getting in your face until like my friend says you're looking for something to defend yourself with should the need arise, can I throw flour in his face? But anyway any resemblances with my blog to Holden Caulfield is purely coincidental. You want your themes of angst and alienation, the occasional existential meltdown it's all here so where's my literary validation?? It's been said the protagonist is a cynical outcast, that's what my library display memorializing Salinger's passing tells me but that'd be ME. I hate social obligations: as soon as I go to a wake I want to leave. It's nothing personal but I saw the dead guy already and I'm sure he'd want me to leave too. Observations on Society: like it's often the women who are the most sexual, who show the most cleavage who are most likely to call the cops should the wrong guy pursue. It's not the tits for God's sake, it's the phoniness ("madam your melons are falling off the table"). Take organized religion: the confessional is an invasion of my privacy. Why does the priest have to know what my left hand did last night? do I ask him how to make altar boy pudding? My blog comes from the heart (or the gut). I am ANGRY folks and it's everything, I can't go through a whole day without some vibe in my being getting plucked the wrong way like when you hear your boss say so-and-so doesn't like to work which is a totally wrong framing of the issue. Getting up and going to work everyday is a form of discipline, nobody except your boss insists you have to like it as long as you show up for work every day and do what's required. I don't ask the tolltaker on I-87 if he likes his job or not, it's irrelevant. There are other things...

Yes I am HE.

Introspection on abortion

Usually when I'm debating with a pro-choicer at some forum or blog, when things get to the boiling point and I'm driving my point home, when things get a tad too personal the opposition will throw the pejorative "self-righteous" in my face which they like to say characterizes the social right. OK I'm speaking only for myself here, can't speak for Sarah Palin, for the Rev. James Dobson, Randall Terry, Jeb Bush, just little old me. In my day to day I consider myself so far from the holy, for the bulk of my life I've never even remotely felt myself approaching sainthood and yet at the same time I've reached the conclusion that many pro-abortion folks are utterly heartless but it's not self-righteousness that spawns this evaluation as I've none of it to begin with. I think many pro-choicers are dark people and while I consider myself to be your rank-and-file sinner, I fully expect a lengthy stay in Purgatory at the least I don't want to take that final step over to the dark side (I hear BB cogitating a response) and the reader will note I was careful to use the word "many" here, didn't say "majority", "most" or "all" but candor compels me to admit for instance that many characters in the Terri Schiavo saga were downright creepy, I know a few liberals who feel the same way and again this is only a conclusion drawn from a sinner who is so far from the mark but draws the line at killing. As dear old Anonymous once noted "morality consists in drawing the line somewhere", you don't have to twist my arm if Beyonce and Britney, Eva Mendes and Jessica Alba are playing nude volleyball on the beach but I don't like to see dead fetuses in garbage pails. I guess the latter makes you a right-wing extremist, a fringe guy or gal these days at least according to polemical rules as defined by liberals who seem to feel that flexibility in one or more areas should guarantee your pro-choicedom. The other pejorative they'll frequently throw in my face is "Mr. Religious Fanatic" which for me is, as Mike Tyson would put it ludikwis since I've never gone out on a theological limb in any discussion or forum or blog with my latest calculations of who's in Hades these days, quite the opposite. Just an autobiographical note here SO GET IT STRAIGHT!!!

Cancer detectives

We covered alot of ground in our phone conversation last night Beth and I and so I wanted to explore further a theme about cancer I brought up and it's this: just how old is cancer? when did it first appear on the scene? when exactly did people start dying from it? Even as a kid there is something about the cancer problem that has always struck me, something unusual, we act like it's an old disease, ancient in fact but is it? I've read alot in my life, reading lists we had in high school and then just for the pure enjoyment of it later on and I said I don't even remember cancer being a topic of conversation let alone people dying from it during the Middle Ages, in the colonial period, even during the Abe Lincoln era. Did Shakespeare ever remark "the Queen just died from cancer?" So we mulled this over and Beth said maybe cancer existed back then but people didn't know what it was but I lean more towards it didn't really exist until modern times and by modern times I mean at least the framework of the 1900's. I'm now looking at cancer historically, in the context of History. It's the timeline that interests me the most and as we all know that Nazi doctor Dr. Josef Mengele became infamous for conducting medical experiments on human subjects including dwarves but what kind of experiments were they exactly? specifically what was he looking to do and what kind of work was he really doing for the Hitler regime and why? Does cancer disproportionately affect people of certain races? Does cancer have something to do with the explosion of modern technology and were we all better off in the days when we lived a more natural life as Beth seems to feel?

You know one of the most beautiful things about blogging is you get to exercise total creative control over your work, I'm happy with it and if you don't like it just move on and so what I try to do here is to come up with an Original Thought or two every now and then. Just heard on the news this morning that Obama has appointed some type of Cyber Czar to monitor people's online habits so where are all the liberals on this one? Frightening! but at any rate they're more than welcome to read this.

I don't have all the answers, I only pose the questions. BTW my sitemeter crashed the other day, it's apparently broken like some odometer that goes back to zero so pay no attention. I'll be off tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday of course since that's the schedule of most public libraries in my area around this 4th of July weekend. Make it a safe one and enjoy and see you back on Monday.

What is the next big news story?

I was thinking of a transformative and positive event that transcends politics, that when everybody went in to work the next day they'd be a little less consumed by the daily grind and go "how about that?" An end to abortion? doubt it, there's seems to be a kink in our culture right now, seems we have to have a little Hoover action from time to time, we could have a thousand methods of birth control tomorrow, wouldn't matter, I don't get it. The cure for cancer? 'twould be nice, we're about due as I keep saying but somehow it never seems to come. World peace? in what lifetime? The capture of OBL? Bush should've wrapped this up and no Mark Levin Fan, this is not some liberal talking point. Abolishing the IRS? that's self-evident but the continued existence of the IRS is why we only have two major political parties and they both remain in power. Madonna becomes a nun? she's back to swinging from the trees again.

Obama as the nation's first African-American president? Many, even a majority might go with this as being the transformative and positive event I'm talking about. Even many conservatives would go along with this, I call this the Peggy Noonan School of Thought, no matter he's a liberal who's sinking our country deeper into debt the important thing is that it happened, mull this over with your brandy at night and get that happy feeling, that mentally orgasmic reverie but for me and Beth and soapie it doesn't satisfy, it's formula food and doesn't fulfill, it doesn't sit in your gut and give you that contented feeling. As a blogger I need to sink my teeth into something. Porkulus, an important but dry subject and I can't blog about Obama for the next four years, it's too depressing and you get that feeling of putting your heart and soul into a blog but where's the influence? where's that Jon Stewart pull? that "did you hear what Z-man just said?" It has to get worse before it gets better as they say. Beth taking a sabbatical from her blogging and yes it is a sabbatical is perfectly understandable, if Nancy Pelosi doesn't follow her own Pope what does that make us?

The culture's in a rut these days. Movies suck although some people feel they still have to go. Pop music, it ain't exactly the '80s and even a recent "House" had an episode about a guy who grows pot in his apartment and got sick from some rat piss, at least FRINGE knows to take a break every once in a while. You'd be surprised at the number of 40-something men seriously browsing through comic book stores, porn is so yesterday. There's no talent out there, people don't know how to make the workplace jazzy and interesting anymore, we're all into our 9-5 little gulags. Come on guys, give us the Big Story!!

I don't like being boxed in like this

Danny has a recurring theme over at Right Minds and that is his concern that the conservative movement not become irrational as the liberal movement has been in the past if I can give a capsule review here. He says the growing conservative charge that Obama is a socialist or has socialist leanings is evidence of the movement becoming unhinged. Libs did this with Bush and it became known as BDS or Bush Derangement Syndrome but here's another option: what if the libs were right about Bush and the conservatives are right about Obama? I was thinking about the late William F. Buckley Jr. the other day and one of his legacies was he almost single-handedly purged the John Birchites from the mainstream conservative movement. Now if you ask me if I agree with the Birchers I would say in large part NO but I still want to hear what they have to say just like I want to hear Rosie O'Donnell's theories on why steel can't melt. Throw it ALL into the mix and while Danny is a smart fella, imo he's a rising star but the reality of it is this whole country right now is the top of the blender having come off and the shake going all over the place. You hear this you hear that and pretty much you can't control it anymore, it is what it is and maybe that's a good thing after all. Savage said last night a very profound thing, when the day comes when you can't hear these things, when everyone says the same thing our country is gone, no longer a democracy. Gotta say something about those embryos in the next blog.....

They doth protest too much

Daniel has made the decision to moderate the commenters over at his blog and has closed off his most recent pro-life thread "An End to Abortion." I can understand his decision so I will address those commenters like collins directly right here. I was discussing this with someone yesterday and she said people have abortions and they do this and they do that and no wonder everyone's so unhappy these days. I don't know anything about these people's personal lives nor care to but I think what drives alot of heat on the pro-choice side these days, the almost exorcistic rantings is guilt, they doth protest too much, it's personal Beth. As the woman I was talking to said "imagine you did something like this, how would you feel?" I also sense that some of the bloggers at Daniel's and elsewhere may be working for the abortion lobby, the lines are straight out of the Planned Parenthood playbook. With the notable exception of Erik who is genuinely pro-choice in my book Bob, Myself, TR and the rest of the gang reek of pro-abortionism which is their right of course but they're not really honest about it. Mention religion and they go into some kind of epileptic seizure thing, it's amazing those well into adulthood can still talk this way and it's indeed very tempting to make a personal judgement against them and the rest of the pro-abortion movement but I'll refrain, as they say it ain't Christian. None of my points were addressed AT ALL and if you said you'd pray for them they'd get even more unhinged. Also, regarding this issue and others like it civility is overrated, needed of course and you should try but a civil presentation of your views will not convince them, they're really not looking for a better tone although they may say so, they really hate you. If anything I think pro-lifers have been way too civil for way too long and should kind of man up about it and jab back if need be. It's been too often said imo that debates about abortion give off more heat than light, I say so be it it's not the light they're after anyway. And btw when you're a guest at somebody's house and have to use the facilities flush after you're done and wipe the rim, put the seat back down and leave it as you came in, you're a guest after all. Tell the owner you had a nice meal and a good time and go home. So that's that.

Now playing - Abortion

Back by popular demand. Pro-lifers have always borne the brunt of social criticism, criticism of the pro-choice side is scant to nonexistent. This is unfair and unwarranted like the worker who always gets yelled at while the others are doing far worse. It's always been this way as Pro-Choice is seen as the rational, the genteel position to take. It has all the courage of a non-position and when one calls themselves "pro-choice" it really doesn't tell you much at all. Simply repeating the mantra of CHOICE doesn't make one pro-choice of course just like if I recite some ancient Hebrew texts that doesn't automatically make me a Kabbalist. Choicers reflexively oppose any and all informed-consent legislation making them paradoxically into a bunch of anti-informed choicers when they should have been the ones who proposed these things in the first place. Man as a rational creature cannot knowingly fight for something evil hence those hardcore pro-choicers who can't even imagine a world without recourse to legal abortion MUST see at least some positive social good in it after all every other social movement in history from abolition to woman's suffrage to civil rights was based on fighting the good fight so the only philosophically correct description here is pro-abortion. Erik, commenting over at Daniel's latest blog about abortion comes closest in my book to being a bona-fide pro-choicer but he's in the definite minority. It's also rather ironic that it's the choicers themselves who are so obsessed with insinuating theological issues into the debate by constantly ascribing them to the lifers when the majority of them give a very logical and non-religious approach in the public square. What is philosophically so disturbing about the so-called pro-choice mentality is that it can lead to things like Nazism, chances are it won't but theoretically it can since its main premise is the scientific issue of when human life begins is no longer relevant to abortion policy or the Woman's Decision. Even Harry Blackmun, chief architect of Roe acknowledged in a footnote that should science ever prove the humanity of the unborn then of course the abortion case collapses. This is a paradigm shift in our moral thinking and it's no wonder that euthanasia is always a close cousin to abortion, it's the exact same philosophical underpinnings at work. Abortion, people deep down know it's wrong but spend all their lives trying to justify their decisions. It's an unacknowledged moral tension against Self, an erroneous mathematical formula that undermines the logic of its own premises and that's why even those choicers who chide us lifers for talking way too much about the issue talk about nothing else themselves judging by which blogs get the most hits. No matter what side we take on this controversial and troubling issue the worm of conscience brings us back to it time and again, it's the house of dark shadows and we ignore the hobgoblin in the attic making noise aka what we know in our hearts to be true. Carry on.

From a purely practical standpoint

for those of you who keep harping on why do we blog about abortion so much it certainly seems to get the most hits, the most comments going compared to some other topics and so pragmatically speaking what's wrong with it? We can blog all day about all and sundry topics especially the non-political but if abortion is what keeps the blogosphere all afire makes sense to me. Daniel hits on the theme of social conservatives, now most people equate social conservatives with opposition to abortion and so BINGO you have yourself a hot thread. Looking at my rather meager hitmeter I am almost forced to go with the topic, it's probably the only subject here that gets tao all excited. David999 recently put us all down as being stuck on stupid and that life doesn't revolve around abortion so where's his thoughts on pets, bad bosses, recipes, music, movies and blogging in general? No Dave we all know everything in life doesn't revolve around abortion but I think you like it when we discuss it anyway. If it's "oh not again!" then seems to me the best course of action would be not to leave any comments anyway on the abortion blogs, we'll see all the goose eggs and get the message.

Ya know?

Make yourself at home

So I was at least 45 minutes delayed masturblogging today 'cos some computer user at the library leaves his station to go outside for a smoke, goes back to the computer, strike that, his computer, continues vegetating in front of YouTube all the while chatting on his cell, he has something in his ear with a wire, he thinks he's Jack Bauer...would you like a Corona and a bowl of party mix w/that?...another guy, the 30-something unemployed male live-at-home slug sitting next to him, also vegetating in front of YouTube...seems the days of staying at home circle-jerking to badly produced porn are a quaint relic from the Past, we seem to have evolved beyond this amoeba stage, now we take our act into the library -- SOLUTION: install software that cuts people off after a one-hour session let's say -- I'll buy you a computer, I'll take you to Circuit City myself in my 2005 Honda Civic, just get the hell off the computer already!!!

Memo to John Stossel, they're still pervs

"20/20" is slated tonight to have a special expose of Chris Hansen and his NBC Dateline series "To Catch a Predator." Now early on in my blogging I did raise questions about the aggressive nature of this show, what if somebody is later found innocent? what about entrapment? but by and large those e-mails are pretty straightforward and, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud sometimes a perv is just a perv.

Libertarian Stossel needs to go easy, every once in a while, every blue moon or so people do care what other people do in their bedrooms.

I know I'm supposed to blog about Scooter Libby

this is what some talking head said last night on "The Jim Lehrer Newshour", that the blogosphere would be going wild, rightie bloggers and liberal bloggers shootout at the OK Corral, but I'm an independent blogger, ok? Bush did the right thing by commuting Libby's 2 1/2 year prison sentence and so let's put it to bed. If this is the sexiest thing the blogosphere can come up with these days then I'll go elsewhere for my kicks. I really think Bob Novak rocks though.

Here's the deal. If electing a woman president is so important why don't the other male Democratic candidates get out of the race altogether, and that includes you Barack, and throw their weight and resources behind Hillary? No primary, ok, just achieve the last crowning achievement of the women's rights movement and put her in the Oval Office already or maybe this is just paying lip service to feminism. It's like step aside guys and put into practice what you've been saying all these years. Why does Hillary even have any male competition? This is so sexist. It's like Barack saying he's all for a "woman's right to choose" even to the point of partial-birth and then he picks up the abortion instruments and says "I can't do this, you're killing me."

How 'bout the Republicans putting up Condi Rice and making the race a real catfight? Rudy's face looks like that skull and crossbones emblem you used to see on the bottle of rat poison under your Mom's sink that used to scare you as a kid. We can do better than this and we must. Jungle fever, make it a chick thing is all I'm saying.

George Will

I can imagine George Will as a shrink, a man sits on his couch and goes over his problems and his life,

Will: "I know what your problem is, you have a malignant case of solipsistic narcissism, all you do is talk about yourself." (see footnote)

Will doesn't like you bloggers and has issues with TIME magazine choosing you, yes you, as its "person" of the year. I agree with him about the mindlessless of YouTube and MySpace but that's where we part company. He doesn't like bloggers making themselves the subject of their blogs but blogging means different things to different people, for many it may be cathartic and I don't think talking about your life experiences automatically means you are overly in love with yourself. I myself am my own harshest critic but I just love to blog about EVERYTHING, including George Will.

(footnote - solipsistic narcissism, to be distinguished from narcissistic solipsism)People who masturbate your mind