Just a spritz of paranoia

Woman and I were discussing this. When we grow up we're taught to trust each other, that people are basically good but that paranoia or suspicion or what have you is a bad thing but you may be at a disadvantage later on in life. She brought up crime writer Ann Rule's books and one intro in particular where Rule says the people who are most often prey are the honest as being honest they think everyone else is. People who lie and do so skillfully, the honest never even suspect they're being had. These are very apropos insights especially in light of the Bernard Madoff scandal and now this Stanford guy. IF it doesn't add up it's not always paranoia at work, it could be your sixth sense or what Lista calls that still small inner voice. Shakespeare knew it, in King Lear the virtuous Edgar has no idea his evil brother Edmund is scheming for his land. There's been events in my own life that don't always add up, bad characters who for some strange reason remain popular whom everybody else trusts but you can see right through them. It always amazes me that these Madoff guys can get away with this stuff for years before the truth finally surfaces, maybe it has to do with the way we're brought up? Politicians we know are corrupt but we still elect them. Perhaps we need to apply a bit of the soapster's wisdom here who once said he tends to think the worst of people until they prove themselves otherwise. I might add ESPECIALLY when $$$$$$ is involved.

Moral Instruction

I've read in different Catholic Church bulletins that when a couple want to use the sacrament of marriage they usually have to inform the parish at least one year in advance. Struck me as way too long a wait, what if they want a small affair and not all the hoopla and they want to do it three months from now? What if there's already a bun in the oven? Basically a large part of the wait has to do with the requirement of those Pre-Cana classes, marriage preparation courses designed to strengthen their future conjugal life together. I found myself being alternately annoyed and offended by this, it's my libertarian streak coming through I guess and doesn't the Church already have too many rules and regulations to begin with (be sorry for your sins but don't confess them to a priest and you go to Hell, your basic control issue)? So I came up with the root of my displeasure here and it's this: you either believe in the sanctity of marriage, the seriousness of the marriage covenant or you don't, it's not teachable, it's not trainable. Now moral education makes perfect sense, is even necessary when raising kids. At such an impressionable age they're perfectly amenable to notions of Right and Wrong, well some of them anyway but when dealing with adults...it'd be like if your Dad came over your apartment, you're 37 now and found a porno under your bed and yelled at you about it. Dad might be perfectly right about the bad nature of the stuff but...regarding morality you either have it or you don't, it is what it is. Now to tie together two of my recurring themes here, abortion and drugs - since the fetus is human it should be protected by law, since drugs pose a public-safety issue that's the primary reason they should be illegal. Going over some of my most recent blogs on these two matters it's become obvious moral instruction doesn't work, moral education is a waste of time. I've articulated the old tried-and-true reasons for being against abortion and threw in some new and original points I hope on the matter. Same deal with drugs especially as relates to the psychedelics but it's almost as if people don't read the stuff or read it but don't absorb it. They're passionately for abortion or at least pro-choice as they say and the folks who are for narcotics seem to be really for them, the scare tactics only make them more curious and aggresive in their defense of them. So perhaps the pedagogic (or teaching) aspect of my blogging is coming to an end now, gave it my best shot and the thought occured to me if I feel this way about Pre-Cana why not the rest? In a morally relative universe to say you have all the answers or at least some of them, we prefer to revel in our ambiguity, our ambivalence and we've made the quest of not knowing or not striving to know a gospel. In the olde days Truth was our beacon, today truth is controversial. I still hold the same positions I've always did, I'm simply giving the chalk and the eraser and the pointer a rest for now.

A philosophy of work

Here's the common thread of what's wrong with so many jobs these days, there's no reward system in place, no forward progress. It could be as simple as you've been at the same place for ten years and can't even get the shift or hours you want. The reward system would say you deserve some accomodation based on your length of service but I've seen the same people doing the exact same thing they were doing when they started the job. I've also seen many people whose true talents aren't being utilized in the right way. The category is most often referred to as soul-sucking jobs or dead-end jobs but it doesn't have to be this way. Problem is at far too many places there's no organization, no philosophy, WHAT'S THE PLAN HERE? Maybe that's why our economy is hurting, nobody knows how to make money anymore. It's all mundane, no imagination, where's the pride? People in the know have told me think tanks come up with this stuff, to keep the average worker behind the 8-ball and when you do feel hopeful at times that's a false optimism. Working, since we all have to do it it could be so much better in this country, not so much a mandatory component of your whole life experience but something you actually enjoy. It ain't so much the stimulus it's what are we doing?

thoughts on a cold winter's night

musing while under the influence

They say you need to get that piece of paper to make it in Life but the real problem with Higher Education is not liberal college professors indoctrinating their class in the ways of radical leftism, WGAF?, the eggheads have a right to think and talk but the real issue is the typical liberal arts curriculum is so impractical. IMO you can't force someone to like the Bard or learn calculus and I've as yet to use higher math in my day-to-day affairs. You need to hone in and zone in on what truly interests you and that's where your trade or technical school is far better. Two years of college was enough for me, I now know who Jean-Paul Sartre was so I can now drop it in my blogging and impress everybody, yip-tee-doo! Like my chef friend says in France someone who knows how to cook is revered, over here you're kind of considered a failure, you're not up there on the same par with a clinical psychologist with a built-in pool in his backyard and a tennis court. People like you, oh you can cook? but like THAT'S IT??

Thoughts during Catholic worship. Nowadays practically 95% of the congregation goes up to Communion. Me? maybe half the time, the other half I don't feel worthy, there's something about the slime of sin, nothing major mind you but these folks who go up every Sunday without fail, are they that good?? I'm not buying it. Now the ones who sit it out, the few in the back who stick out like sore thumbs, the 40-something guy in the rear, you can't help but wonder what he did. It's none of my business but I think it involves a porno.

I have a beautiful view from my window during those bone-chilling winter nights. I can see downtown Yonkers and parts of Manhattan and there's just a gorgeous view of the GW Bridge. Life is good but I don't know why.

Seems to me they should have a system in place, some kind of heating cables under our roads right now so driving in January and February would be a breeze. Futuristic you say? well we found time to put a man on the Moon but we're like supposed to be some advanced civilization no? Of course this would cut into bailout money but you know at least have a theory in place by now.

Reminds me I have to get some eggnog, special blend later.

Before I blog about OTHER things

some final thoughts on the issue (for now). Reading through the latest rantings of the choicers it's become fairly obvious to me at least that the issue of when human life begins is not a part of their moral calculus. No this is not being uncivil just an analysis on my part and so for them the value of choice trumps the value of life, in other words it is vastly more important to exercise your liberty in the form of choice even if that choice may involve the snuffing out of a nascent human life. For the RTLers life of course is the overriding concern and it is this very stark simplicity that most offends the choice crowd. They seem to revel in ambiguity and moral ambivalence, to say the issue is complex is to show one's mental sophistication and to oversimplify the issue in their view shows the mind of a social Neanderthal. Theirs is the intellect and ours is the narrow mind even after a lifetime of thinking to yourself you happen in the end to come to the pro-life conclusion. Abortion will for the foreseeable future be a tremendously polarizing issue simply because for the choicers it is factors other than pure reason that decides the issue for them (e.g. the woman's financial straits, is she really in love with him? can they make a go of it? etc).

Now there are some choicers, they may be in the minority, but you can say they're pro-life in the latter stages of the pregnancy and so if they don't find fault with the pro-life position here why is it problematic in the beginning unless to provide the woman with some sort of "window of opportunity"? So with these people you might say choice is not the overriding principle or it is at least tempered with other considerations. The abortion lobby and Obama's 100% rating from them is unique in being so outside the mainstream by adopting the mantra of choice throughout the pregnancy or most of it so why should fiscal conservatives adopt the same position at least in terms of the political strategy of never talking about the issue (but I'm repeating myself here ain't I)?

A final thought, speaking totally candidly here for the moment I honestly don't respect their position so why should I expect them to respect mine? As Joe once said abortion is a non-compromisable issue and I would add once an issue, any issue becomes debateable at least in terms of its underlying philosophical concepts it's only a matter of time before the act in question becomes morally approveable, we don't discuss the pros and cons of rape after all. For me civility means you're polite to other people as human beings although you can take issue with their positions. We're talking over each other as is often said because we adhere to different philosophical principles, for me I can't imagine believing the fetus is a member of the human species and then advocate for its destruction or at least the liberty to do so, the value of choice loses its luster for me at that moment. Post what you will but try to address the points (I know I know, I'm a comedian).

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.

Waiting

My pastor gave an interesting sermon this past Sunday part of which had to do with waiting. Somehow it tied in with the readings and he said when you stop to think about it most of our life is about waiting. You're waiting for a show to begin, for Mass to start, for work to let out, for someone to come out of the restroom, for your friend. In a way it's like being stuck in traffic, much of your life is consumed by it. You may be waiting for small things or for big things, waiting for something to happen even if you don't know what it is. Sometimes what we're waiting for takes a long time in coming or it never comes at all (success, true romance, justice). People who voted for McCain may have to wait four years or even eight. We're waiting for a pro-life culture, we're waiting for social equality, we're waiting for world peace, we're waiting for this and we're waiting for that.

The theme song to Mahogany asks "do you know where you're going to?" The drifter in Two Moon Junction says "I don't know where I'm going but I'm in a hurry to get there." Some of us wait all our lives. "I can feel it coming in the air tonight. I've been waiting for this moment all my life, oh lord!" but what's Phil Collins waiting for? It's like waiting gives Life its meaning, after all we are waiting for something and this gives us a kind of goal, a destination, a framework of anticipation. Then again some of us just scrap through our day not thinking of the Bigger Questions.

Right now I'm just waiting for some of my blogging friends to get home from work. Later.

True forgiveness means

there's nothing more to talk about.

Flippin' through some quotes

The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (389-286BC) was one of the earliest interpreters of the religion of taoism. Googled some quotes and here's a gem: "Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness." Here's another one for Bill Maher: "Men honor what lies within their sphere of knowledge but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it." But perhaps my favorite is this:

"To say that something is chance is to deny a principle at work."

Every now and then I look back at chapters in my own life, often the odder or more enigmatic events stand out, chance meetings, funny characters, mysterious chains-of-events, the unexplained meanings of things. Worked with a guy once and maybe it's because he's of a spiritual bent but he said to me one day he almost wound up at another job but felt he's at this one for a reason. Beth feels there's a significance in us forming an online friendship and I agree, it's as if it were destined to happen. We're living in a kind of agnostic existential vacuum right now where many place no more meaning on Life's little events than accidentally kicking a pebble while walking but quotes like this fascinate me. It then becomes this - since there are physical laws in place governing matter and the universe might not there be another operative set of laws that a philosopher can discern, a kind of spiritual physics? There is something vaguely optimistic in Tzu's quote even if we can't explain why we got four years of Jimmy Carter or the Dinkins Administration in New York. Hamlet said "there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew (prepare for) them how we will." So enjoy this little fortune cookie. Now if someone could just explain David Lynch's Inland Empire.

Shades of Gray

From a recent blog of napqueen's at http://www.napqueenspress.blogspot.com/ under "Are Conservatives Stupid? "Liberals can see the gray areas of an issue while conservatives see only black and white and are too stupid (emphasis mine) to see the gray."

Ah yes! I've been patiently waiting for this moment of ultimate clarity. It's the Peter Principle applied to moral philosophy and the result is moral relativism or agnosticism, a marked inability to come to final moral conclusions about things. We've reached our level of incompetence, our Final Placement, we can' t figure out Right from Wrong and we're never to be promoted...and we're happy about it! It's a Cohiba moment.

Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal

A rather potent force in politics, in Life in general and here's how it works. A typical conservative will say something like liberals are pro-abortion or in favor of destroying the unborn. The lib says "oh no that's not us. We're not really for abortion, in fact nobody is, in what universe?" It also works the other way. A typical liberal will say conservatives don' t care at all about the poor and the poor conservative will reply "yeah but we give more." So criticism, especially political criticism, by its very nature exerts a powerful inward pull towards the direction of the position of the critic. So the law of criticism or negative appraisal is for the target to deny the point and then to move gradually towards the critic's stance so all I have to do is make a critical point and look what power I have! Liberals may be from Mars and conservatives from Venus but we take each other's points personally, to heart. This is why Obama has of late made great strides at least towards the political center in his rhetoric, it's all that name-calling in the past that he's a hardcore lib. Of course the exception to Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal are all the left-wing bloggers out there who live in a universe all their own who can't understand one of their own being subject to the same laws of political gravity as the rest of us.

I'm grateful for the little things

having a good night's rest, a family that helps you, a kindly phrase or gesture, a well-turned gam, finding some spare quarters in some pay phone, a girl who will give you the time of day, going to Wendy's during a lull period and five minutes later it gets busy, parking at a meter with alot of leftover time that somebody didn't use, going north on the parkway when the southbound lane is clogged for some reason, driving during July and August without school buses, going to Barnes & Noble with your magazine and actually finding a nice comfy chair without a duff in it and going through a whole day without skid marks.

Some homey sayings

They say this in the kitchen alot: "If you have time to lean you have time to clean."

Saw this one in a restroom once: "If you sprinkle while you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat."

On an edgy t-shirt: "It's funny until somebody gets hurt, then it's hilarious." (hmmm...don't know about that one)

"I used up all my sick time, now I'm calling in dead."

"Don't hate, participate" (we've covered that), "people who live inside your head" (like that poor man's Kennedy neighbor we all have, he's strictly middle-class but has clout, knows some bigshots and can park on the street cleaning side w/o getting a ticket), "people who masturbate your mind" (like what Obama is doing right now with practically everybody except a few lonely bloggers)

"the great mental flush" like when you dream all night about practically everything, your mind's way of going through your mental dumpster, didn't think that job of so many years ago could still haunt your dreams huh?

"I'm not afraid of dead people, I'm afraid of live people" (very apropos in this day & age) and finally,

"It's a great life if you don't weaken."

Hey brother, can you spare a couple of hundred?

Now I didn't know this but they were talking about panhandlers on the radio the other day and apparently alot of them are raking in the big bucks, sometimes $300 in a single day! Now I'm not overly judgemental about the homeless, there but for the grace of God. I know Sean and Rush take the position one should never be without a place to live, that they don't want to work. Wanting to work, that's a poor framing of the issue. Like Beth and I were talking the other day and we both agreed who exactly loves to work anyway? ain't the issue but they may have a point that they've stretched to an overgeneralization. You never really read or hear about some homeless guy having to be talked down from a bridge 'cause he's been out of a job for a couple years, maybe that's Sean's point, as long as they have a soup kitchen to go to and a place to sleep maybe they prefer it to your 9-5, dunno but I don't want to lose my compassionate conservative edge either...

Karma and the Christian faith

Daniel Ruwe's excellent blog about religion got me thinking about faith in general. Pope Benedict said once about mainly the Eastern religions, I believe this was when he was still a cardinal, that the Christian faith is naturally and far superior to these systems based on good and bad karma. You see if I'm a Christian and have wronged somebody else or they have wronged me we can simply ask for each other's forgiveness and move on with our lives, we don't have to get stuck in that karmic rut. Beth and I once had this debate, maybe it started at some forum, I forget, but it was about forgiving and forgetting. My position, simply forgive and forget, her position you can forgive someone without forgetting. I think I understand her point better, it's like if a husband strays and his wife forgives him she will always remember the fact, the original act, if she had moral "amnesia" about it all this would hardly keep him in line. At any rate no karma to deal with, ain't that a bargain?

Thoughts on money

Had a debate once about you can't take it with you with an older person, said why not spend it while you can and have a good time and she made the point that bequeathing it is more important on down the line so I got to thinking let's put this into practice,

the children have been left their fortune by Mom and Dad, sharing the same guiding philosophy as they did they hardly spend it either so they grow old and make out their will and the succeeding generation does the same thing and so on for 5 generations but it just sits there, meanwhile Iran now has the nukes and Putin's successors have teamed up with China and they're threatening the West so yes, it IS important to have a nice nest egg,

"the money's there, don't worry but you can't touch it"
"why is it there?"
"I really don't know but it's important that it's there and it stays there"
"Can I take some out?"
"Of course but just a little bit at a time"
"Is that a mushroom cloud I see?"

A common male attitude

You'll often hear a married man or just one who has a steady girlfriend say this among the boys:

"Going to a strip club and getting a lap dance or two is not really cheating."

In a strictly legal sense, ok, if you define cheating as having intercourse (my my, how Billy Boy has corrupted the country, you asked for a legacy pal, you got it, thanx brotherman!), but in z's book it's cheating in a spiritual sense and anyway

if you really dug her you wouldn't be going there.

What Confucius didn't tell you

Even if your life is not all that you'd like it to be, it's a failure in artistic terms, everybody is at least able to do one thing well and this gives some purpose to your life. For some people it's gardening, for others it's mechanical ability, some have an artistic bent and paint. No matter how my life is going I like to be known as the guy you go to if you want to make quiche. Confucius said "if you enjoy what you do you'll never work another day in your life." I was on a recent visit to the famed Culinary Institute of America (CIA for short) in New Hyde Park, New York just past Poughkeepsie and there was an energy in the air, young students in various classes learning the finer aspects of the gustatory arts. There is even a portrait of Paris Hilton's grandfather in the lobby, granddad must be proud up there. What Confucius didn't tell anyone is that in a few years time these aspiring chefs will be working some very long shifts, 12-14 hours a day for 6 days a week on average in some very hot kitchens where civility is not the norm. The flip side to Confucius' maxim is that you can quickly hate what you used to love to do.

There is a line near the end of the movie Wild at Heart where the fairy godmother in a vision of some sort tells the Nicolas Cage character, Sailor, "if you're truly wild at heart you'll fight for your dreams. Don't turn away from love." These are really some profound words, it's my whole philosophy of Life and even if you fail at your dreams you put up the good fight and it ain't over 'til your friends finally send you off with that cold-cut platter fringed with the olive loaf and the mortadella (no wonder this country is so fat, we're fixated on eating even while we're in mourning). Fight for your dreams even if others don't agree or put roadblocks on the path to your Happiness. Boredom is the bane of existence or, as the final line in the mystical poem "Manhunt in the Desert" says "take life by the root."

For the love of work

Some people love the work experience, me? I love the leisure experience and here's where I differ most markedly with most conservatives these days, I haven't made a fetish out of work yet. I do believe in the hammock. Some people just love the adrenaline rush. I worked with a chef once in a supermarket and he went back to the restaurant scene, probably got bored with the somewhat more leisurely pace of a food retail outlet. For them they have to keep producing something, work for them is like what the Big O is for others, me? I like cogitating and meditating and mast, masturblogging. The workaholics, when they die are your poltergeists, restless spirits who can't stay six feet under. The chef ones have to knock the peppermill off the shelf when you're cooking, see, you should be using that. People who have lockers at work, isn't that getting a little too into it? which leads me into my latest dream sequence:

I'm on an old familiar bus route and I'm rapping with the oldsters on board but in the back of my mind is I drive a car so why am I taking the bus? There's some anxiety in the dream 'cause I have to transfer to another bus to get home and then I have to walk up a hill. My interpretation, I will most likely retire with just SS to live on since I get tired of working for the same company after a few years. I get frustrated with the overworkload, the corporate culture, the sameness of it all, the whatever so in my dream that's why I'm riding the bus, no pension to pay things like car insurance.

That new fall series about the Geico Cavemen, who said this would be a good idea? critics have seen early releases and panned the thing. They worked better in commercials. I say instead of a failed TV series do more ads and then compile them all on DVD.

Many times when a person says so-and-so is doing well they're not doing well at all. This happens often when someone leaves a job abruptly or moves out of the neighborhood and everyone starts inquiring how he or she is doing. A co-worker who is friends with the person who left will say "oh, I hear she's doing really great" even though she got tired of her family life and quit her job with no Plan B and left for another state and is living in an apartment with her girlfriend supporting her. Oh, she's doing great? What as, a prostitute? Like the guy I know who works two full-time jobs and boasts he always has time for a little "tapping." Gay.

I'm the Sea Captain of my porno ship

Christopher Hitchens is all the rage right now with his atheist chic called God is Not Great but he doesn't offer a workable alternative to the world's faith systems maybe because there is none. The religion of Man teaches that Work is the main purpose of Life, the true Christian would say you were not born to be a drone. This is why it disturbs me that conservatives are ballyhooing the election of French President Nicholas Sarkozy with his promise to abolish the 35-hour workweek, the cons, if they haven't forgotten their social conservative roots, would say a work state is a godless state. Man, as well, has not be able to cure the Big One yet, cancer, and so Hitchens' philosophy of secular humanism doesn't work for me, why would I put on a pedestal a creature that overworks his fellow creatures and has stopped curing the ailments that afflict them? He's entitled to his opinions, it's just a poor substitute is all.

The work state leads to that tempting voice of nihilism, that shadowy figure on a sunny day that whispers in your ear until you agree that life's a bitch and then you die. So how do atheists like Hitch give meaning to it all? The grand theme of my blog - life is to be enjoyed and not just endured - is, in this sinner's humble view, more to be fulfilled in a balanced Christian life than in any secular system. I would submit that a person who enjoys sex more than he works understands the Meaning of it All better than some executive who works late and then has perfunctory sex when he goes home. These corporations have meetings - "ok, put him in charge of cheese" - and then you're like a mouse in a maze, "go find the cheese." Tantra or Kama-Sutra doesn't interest them, how can it if you don't have time to read or watch your kid's Little League game?

I was driving through the country the other day and noticed a little cultural trendoid, porn shops sprouting up next to places of worship, schools and parks where mothers take their kids. Used to be you had to put on a raincoat and head towards the wharf past the opium dens for your jollies but there he was, the big young blond manager of his very own porn emporium, the Proud Captain, a product of a system endorsed by Hitch that shows no deference whatsoever to Christian sensibilities.

The Sea Captain, standing tall, standing proud.

Today's blog

Sometimes I wish I were a recluse with money.

People who don't go to the doctors all the time only when they really really really have to have quietly accepted their mortality and come to terms. It is the secular humanists who have to protect their health at all costs, after all after this life what is there? There was once a book called The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker which had as its working thesis that practically everything we do in our culture is a denial of this very brute fact of our existence. People who die young because of bad habits like smoking and heavy drinking, is this tragic or merely unfortunate? Depends on how you view eternity I guess.

Mental disorders, are they always bad? Yes, judging by all those corny health textbooks we had to read in high school but I submit a person with OCD is a better and more efficient worker and if he runs any kind of food establishment and the health inspector is due the next day the chances are very high his business will pass. I know a chef who admits he's been hyper with ADHD ever since he was a kid and he says it helps him in the kitchen. Mental aberrations, make them work for you (caveat - though not in the Pugach sense!).

The National Review, every time some left-leaning literary figure dies they always seem to underrate his work (or is this just my overly active imagination?). Happened with the late playwright Arthur Miller of Death of a Salesman fame, he was no better than a high-school playwright at best according to an NR contributor, and now with the passing of novelist Kurt Vonnegut. I guess according to NR you can't be a great writer if you lean too far to the left so what are we to have, only right-wing lit? Don't bash greed, better to write about nothing, certainly not your own passionate convictions.

Young male Spanish deli managers - they're on top of you, they're behind you, they're humping you, you're taking a dump and they're paging you. Is this how they are in bed?

RE Today's Blog, to quote Dennis Miller, "of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" (it's a blog after all).