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.

WOW!! Nuclear power plants & offshore drilling

There was enough last night in President Obama's first State of the Union address to warm the cockles of any Republican heart but I wanted to hear more about his mysterious jobs bill that he wants on his desk without delay (are we allowed to ponder it or just accept the omniscient wisdom of Our Leader?). He rapped on about clean energy, climate change, even gays in the military but the thing was JOBS JOBS JOBS in 2010. He got into regulatory reform of the financial markets a little, said he doesn't want to punish the banks (codespeech - "I'm not a Marxist you know") and really touted all the tax cuts he's signed, small business, capital gains, the works and it was said a couple of Republicans got that Chris Matthews tingle in the leg area but won't admit it (oh is that a semen stain?). About 33 minutes (or was that 31?) into the speech as the ever-helpful pundits pointed out afterwards he finally brought up health-care and said part of the problem was he didn't explain it better - oh no buddy we heard you loud and clear. At this point about 60% through the 71-minute speech the Jim Beam Sour Mash was jerking me in and out of consciousness so I had to catch some recaps afterwards. I always skip the counterspeech from the Opposing Party later, what's the point? it's an anticlimax. The Speech? it was a'ight, he struck some of the right Reaganesque notes early on, despite our hardships he was hopeful about our country's future.

So there was Biden on the Today Show this morning, first thing he said was he expects unemployment to grow this spring until Meredith ever the helpful msm'er corrected him ("you mean employment") but if I were doing the interview I would have just let the guy rap for the sheer fun of it, the line would have gone down into our ever-growing list of Bidenisms. So the prez and Biden are heading down to Florida to give an $8 million federal grant for some light rail project, that'd be good.

My favorite State of the Union of all time? When Gerry Ford got up in front of the nation and said "the State of the Union is...not good." I'm sure the Malcontent will correct me on some of my points.

right-wing schtick

Actor Danny Glover says climate change caused the earthquake in Haiti, something to do with Copenhagen, didn't know in addition to his acting credentials he had skills in geophysics. Savage was talking about this last night and noted that Haiti is only 100 miles from the Florida coast and so they're gonna come here in droves for the welfare. Upon first seeing the news footage of the devastation 'twasn't the initial thought that immediately came to my mind but leave it to Savage to boldly explore territory that Beck won't even venture into. Trudging along the frozen tundra in his parka with frozen snot and a chafed a-hole give him a Viking helmut and a harpoon and maybe he can shoot a polar bear on an ice floe. The new quarter, Savage on one side, Danny Glover on the other, you flip it on the table and it just pings differently. Hey there's a political lining to any tragedy, Glover must be bored with no Lethal Weapon movies to do. Patrick M is right I think, Savage's thing is Anger but excuse me I have to go check my Drudge Report.

Free Speech, it's all good.

Maybe money really does grow on Trees after all

President Obama has pledged $100 mil to help the Haitian earthquake victims. I've no problem with the sum, with its necessity BUT we don't even have the funds for health-care "reform" and the rest, we're running at a deficit and a massive one at that. You know the way your Mom told you to save money when you were growing up? imagine if the government did that! they'd have $$$$ left over for a rainy day.

Phantom menaces

It's when Glenn and Rush are always saying things like "they're trying to silence us", well you're still talkin' ain't ya? Pornmakers pull this too, will often tag on some ad for the Free Speech Coalition, "if you're a fan of XXX-rated entertainment here's what you do" but you're still makin' porn aint you? In one case the threat is supposed to come from the uber-Left, in the latter social conservatives I guess. Rush has been saying the same thing, this conspiracy against him for how many years now and I can't remember the last time he wasn't on the dial barring vacations of course or the last time there was an obscenity prosecution in this country. Did some large vat of LSD somehow make its way into our water supply?

The overimportance of education

Friend said to me the other day "what about going back to school to get a better job?" but folks often miss the mark. You have higher-level bosses with business degrees who sorely lack the common sense and besides basic fairness should apply across-the-board in any workplace low or high, has nothing to do with advanced degrees.

People who say that's besides the point

When engaged in debate or argument or discussion with someone I like to rotate the issue just like a globe, rotation of the issue, spin it around and flip it back to them and that's where your "that's besides the point" comes in. They resent you're showing them another side or angle to the issue. Joe Biden and Harry Reid, if you combine their two past statements on Race (I know I know, keep the two separate, you're fudging the mathematical equation) are really saying that the clean and articulate African-American without the Negro dialect is really not the norm but that's besides the point.

Conan has a right to be pissed

Why can't HE just retire or something? I remember I worked in a civil-service job once and one by one the older workers would begin to retire, they'd throw retirement parties for them and sure enough they'd all come back one by one on a part-time basis, get in the way, use the computer you wanted to use etc. So I was the bad guy when I kinda made some comments about this but I never fit in there anyway...Conan has every right, he uprooted his family after all and moved them all to the Left Coast, time for his day in the sun. Now I like Leno alot but c'mon dude, let's go gracefully but a part of me can't help entertaining a little conspiracy theory: all this happened after Glenn Beck appeared on his show recently (hmmmmmm). So move Jay to 11:35 his old time slot for what? a 1/2 hour monologue and throw the whole early morning scene into chaos? I'd give him an Asswipe Award actually, people aren't happy with his asswipery. Guy's got a collection of classic cars and old bikes, tinker with them the way my retired Dad putters around the house.

BTW The Simpsons have been on for 20 years. Back in the day you had shows like The Odd Couple and it surprised me to learn a few weeks back that that show hung it up after only five years and while they had some great episodes maybe they figured they mined all the humor they could. Retire Homer (& SNL for that matter). Get the Food Network back on, Bobby Flay can rock a kitchen. Ah the White House Executive Chef position, what a thing to have on your resume!! I'd bet Bill Clinton was real easy to cook for -- "just a cheeseburger and a hot dog with some fries and a cold one and I'm good."

Liberal charity

I blogged about this back in the day but I wanna toss it around again. There was a time many years back I was really down on my luck, reached the bottom and I was looking back the other night (the spirits will do that t'ya every once in a while) and I concluded that the conservative people I knew and came across helped me out far more than my liberal brethren. Now this is purely anecdotal, it hardly passes the rigors of a scientific study but the only reason I bring it up is because these liberals that I knew proudly advertised themselves as liberals, would say things like all the money they spend to produce music videos could be put to better use like to help the homeless.

Zman (down on his luck calling a liberal he once knew): "Yeah hi (yada yada yada), I'm in a tough spot right now, any jobs in your area?"
Liberal: "I'll let you know. I have to go now, bye." (click/dial-tone)

Needless to say he never called back. The one time I was betrayed in Life involved a couple liberal people (not that most liberals betray but they're constantly tooting their own horns about how much more virtuous they are than conservatives). Some conclusions: maybe we are not the Sum Total of our political philosophies. TAO said something similar at his own blog the other day that maybe it doesn't really matter who's in the White House the Ship of State always seems to steer the same course, libs and conservatives once in office are kinda the same deal and I really didn't have a response at the time because I somewhat agree. The other conclusion: maybe conservatives take the Biblical mandates more seriously and the most recent study seems to bear this out, says they give to charity far more than liberals do. These libs I'm talking about strongly, passionately believed in the Welfare State yet when push came to shove wouldn't even loan you a twenty. My feelings: liberals are by now so well known for being caring, compassionate, sharing human beings that they no longer have to prove it. These lib associates of mine who never helped out, I never called them on it of course but if one were to they'd probably proudly point to their voting records when in reality they were really living the Creed of Ayn Rand.

OR maybe they don't help out conservatives down on their luck, dunno. I only mention my anecdote because it doesn't fit the usual liberal/conservative paradigm.

Back in the day

Guy and I were talking at work today, rapped about this and rapped about that and then he told me the story of this woman who worked in a supermarket chain who slept, strike that, sucked her way to the top, well not quite the top but let me continue. She blew all her managers and co-managers and wound up with the top prize of Front-End Manager. In the olde days you had women who were willing to sleep with their bosses to get what they wanted of course but here's the key, in them days intercourse sufficed, 'twas more than enough but in these modern times the price of admission just went up:

You have to give head,

I mean it's Mandatory, we're no longer talking satin sheets, Johnny Mathis and just that thinnest veneer of social respectability just guzzle it down like a milk shake you fucking slut so she played the skin flute of about, oh I don't know pick a number out of a hat, 5 co-managers and 2 or 3 managers (were these separate deals or did they simply form a circle holding hands singing Kumbaya?) and everyone knew it too. She'd sip her coffee in the morning proud as a peacock and strut around all day giving orders like she was the manager of the store or something but she's older now and settled as they say. BTW sounds like the guys got the better end of THAT deal

but that was back in the day,

and you did crazy things, that's just the way things were

back in the day. You might be older now, have a nice husband and kids, a Jack Russell Terrier and a nice office job and checking account and keep respectable company and play SpongeBob for the kids in your minivan on the way home after grocery shopping

but that was back in the day. Maybe Gary hung upside down with a corn cob up his ass in a weird masturbation experiment and somehow cut off his oxygen supply and had a stroke and had to be rehabilitated at some nursing home at the prime age of 34. You can all laugh about it now,

that was back in the day.

"Back in the day I was a freak."

Glenn Beck and Apocalyptic Conservatism

Now some conservative bloggers like Patrick M say he's crazy and that's cool, everyone's entitled but there's no denying much of conservatism these days seems concerned with the advent of a Manchurian Candidate, not if but when and for many they have found their man. In Apocalyptic Conservatism the issues are more sharply defined, the stakes are higher and there's more of a sense of political Destiny than say the comfortable conservatism of a David Brooks whose prime tenet seems to be Do Not Offend, split the difference and have tea at the end of the day with liberals who always mean well after all (a little too Melba-toastish for me). Perhaps Rush had an acute case of Glenn Beckitis, he saw his blip getting near the end of the radar screen and had to get his name back up in lights (those phantom pains, I've gotten them every now and then in Life and usually just chalk it up to agita, I don't have my agent call the msm). El Rushbo (pretty cornball in this the Age of Lady Gaga) merely calls Obama a polarizing figure (BORING) whereas the new kid on the block is much more blunt, has more of a Scenario in place and so in Apocalyptic Conservatism you truly have a Clash of Opposites, how could it be otherwise? It might be extreme or radical but it stands for Something and after all Fatima was always more exciting than the Second Vatican Council anyway, the only thing missing is the cyborgs. Apocalyptic Conservatism, it's like Extreme Hardcore, why do you want a vase in the way or men on screen without genitals?

hey it's early:)

...drugs...

People don't drive right, customers don't act right, co-workers do things that don't make sense, it explains some happenings in the blogosphere, you can throw in politics, the crap that passes for entertainment these days, Life in general. Yep, I'm talking about a little substance abuse action and I have become convinced over time that drugs alter the mind, the way we think, change the chemistry of our brains in some way and I'm including ALL illegal drugs from pot to the psychoactive class. Some drugs make you feel invincible, all-powerful and self-important and I'm half libertarian on the issue in the sense that drug users should never see the inside of a prison cell. However having said that these people are annoying as hell to deal with, the lack of a lucid grasp of a situation, the running roughshod over the normal course of human behavior, civilized modes, the paranoia, anxiety, lack of initiative, egomania and I am also convinced that 1/2 the population be on something, wouldn't be the lucrative business it is if people weren't.

It's not the war on drugs that's all wrong, it's the war on our minds.

Napolitano

She reminds me of that boss you work with and everyone has one, he or she is clearly incompetent, the living embodiment of the Peter Principle and yet upper management likes 'em:

"Hey Janet, how's it going?"
"Where's Janet?" "She's on vacation." "Good for her."

& the bosses over her will go out of their way for her, bend over backwards and as workers you could never understand it, you scratch your heads on a daily basis until one of you gets up the gonads and asks the relevant question: "whose dick did she suck?" Well you're the one who's gonna get written up but the handwriting was on the wall once she put Savage on that DHS list. That cockbomber on that Christmas plane, basically what she said was nothing to worry about, the system worked just fine. Basically she's Nuts. Even her boss was more angry about the sit'chation but she gets to keep her job, must know where the bodies are buried I guess.

You know about this racial profiling, my friend and I were talking the other day if you have a company chain with branches in different states and this company is just teeming with Italians, most of the honchos are Italian you can't tell me a very small percentage are not affiliated with the Mob in some way, involved in criminality and so you have your Arab lawyers/groups who are pissed off about the situation but we are dealing with a very serious situation here and that is radical assholeism. Now we've dealt with Fascism and Communism in the past, the Cold War and the whole terror movement used to be primarily politically motivated (think Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army) but today it seems mainly motivated and inspired by religion so at what point when they're strapping explosives in your undies do you not get that weird feeling (hell I get that weird feeling with some of the people I work with), so at what point in time do you not get that creepy feeling like these folks are not right in the head and my other thought would be why doesn't the Almighty Leader, this OBL guy follow suit and lead by example and hop on a plane himself and hang upside down with a nuclearized corn cob up his ass in some kind of weird masturbation experiment? If you were this guy with a name I can't pronounce let alone spell you'd swear you were being punk'd no??

Yup, better to worry about the Beckster.

Tiger Woods on hiatus

Well if anything we'll learn the names of some of the other golfers now. If every other scandal-tarred athlete were to remove himself from the game in order to be better husbands/fathers/people we'd have no sports, what do you think? (A-Rod never even seemed to feign remorse, maybe that's the way to go). Guy at work the other day regarding why Tiger would stray so often on his supermodel wife: "you even get tired of filet mignon" - I guess......(ok I was waiting for my session to be extended for 15 more minutes, there you go). Lady Gaga doesn't do it for me, she's trying to be like Madonna but there's only one Madonna and you might say when Madonna wasn't being controversial she had a little bit of talent. Oprah's White House Christmas Special, that's a I-have-to-have-a-gun-pointed-at-my-head-to-watch-it kind of deal (is Brian Williams gonna be an elf?).

Now I'm gonna go get hammered.

The West Point address

I DID watch the bulk of it until the Sobieski kind of took the upper hand and haven't read the other blogs on the matter yet but I have to say the thought occured that Obama is somewhat better at foreign policy than domestic policy. I watched it basically because it was West Point and wanted to see the cadets. There was the element of pathos there, you'd look in the audience and realize that many of them are going to be deployed to Afghanistan and a certain percentage of them are never coming home. I also feel the war in Afghanistan is far more germane and relevant to the War on Terror, to crushing Al-qaeda than the campaign in Iraq was and is and there was a kind of inversion of priorities under Bush when we saw Saddam Hussein swinging from the gallows instead of Osama bin Laden though for the record I oppose the death penalty. The President will send 30,000 more troops over there, many by Christmas and the rest by next summer in a kind of two-step surge and the withdrawal date is set for sometime in 2011. What's a conservative to argue with? the speech was okay unless you like eternal warfare but it's hard to believe we're still at war with a bunch of cavedwellers who haven't been rocked back to the Stone Age yet. Bush kind of led us to believe the Taliban was crushed once and for all and all the action was in Iraq if you wanna be honest about it. I pray for those young men and women we saw last night, lives so full of promise and hope but Obama did well in laying out why they're going over there. Now to the other blogs......

keeping it psycho: those White House party crashers

We finally got our exclusive! There they were on The Today Show this morning talking to Matt Lauer. We're talking about the Salahis of course, Tareq and Michaele and Tareq was saying how the media have it all wrong, how they were devastated and their lives practically ruined over this. So it's all our fault, it's that old theme again. They can't talk in detail now but that day's coming and they insist they were invited. Seems they once crashed a Congressional Black Caucus dinner and they were politely escorted out and when Matt brought this up they just called it a gossipy rumor. OK no need to recap all this you know this stuff already but here's why technically they're not lying, they're telling the truth which is not to say the msm is engaged in a conspiracy against them (why for heaven's sake?), the msm do have their facts straight so how can both of them be right??? Very simple,

they're nuts

they ARE telling the truth as it exists in their own heads just like O.J. didn't murder those two people and UMA sent love signals to Jack Jordan. Now the Salahis are not Charlie Manson insane, they're what is known in the trade as being functionally insane. Worked with a woman like this once and you don't catch on right away until the stories they tell, the things they say don't make sense, don't add up. They can hold down jobs perfectly well, tie their shoelaces in the morning, brew their coffee, pay their bills on time and chat with their neighbors. They make it through the day just fine but they're still major bonkers. Even THEY don't know they're nuts.

it's awesome!:)

Tiger Woods

I'm no legal expert so correct me if I'm wrong but I thought when something happens that may be in the purview of copland and they call you down to the precinct or come to your house to talk to you you pretty much have to, I mean Joe Schmoe just can't slam the door in their face and say he's had a hard day at work, he's tired. Yeah I'm talking about The Accident. I remember about a year or two ago when Tiger's game was suffering, he'd miss a few putts here and there, he was a little off his game, just a tad and my brother said "that's because he's still thinking about her sitting on his face last night" but that was then, apparently the shine may be off the conjugal apple. Now sure his Swedish supermodel of a wife was probably tempted early on, he's another one like Simon Cowell who can wipe his ass with money AND single-handedly fund health-care reform but a smart gal with a good head on her shoulders would have easily saw down the road and seen the signpost marked TEMPTATION, turn around. You know it's a pretty big story when it's the second lead story on the national news over the weekend even bigger than those White House party crashers and the prevailing theory right now at least among the women is that he had an affair and she wanted to wrap a golf club around his neck, just sayin'.

Tiger Woods, I always thought he had a 'tude.

How do you define a conservative Utopia?

Let's say in our futuristic theoretical scenario conservatives got every victory under the Sun they ever fantasized about

except One,

and anyway the FC's have always had a problem with this one issue. They say the SC's are way too concerned and focused on It and it would do the party well to give it the old heave-ho since we agree on so many other things. OK so let's say in our hypothetical here liberalism is a total thing of the past, a fossil, don't gotta even worry about it anymore and so we have our conservative society, our conservative world but without Pro-Life. We got everything else just not that one thing. The libertarian wing got their wish big-time and so the everything else includes the usual: leaner government, vastly lower income taxes (or none at all), a strong and stable military (very Reaganesque), labor unions gone, a better educational system that got rid of tenure, geez terrorism you don't even have to worry about anymore even at a shopping mall in Israel, free speech and then some, tort reform

the whole gamut,

except that not only is abortion-on-demand still the law of the land but the country hasn't even been pulled in a pro-life direction, in short there's no pro-life influence even. The FC/libertarians would naturally be perfectly fine with all of this but it would still be a spiritually empty victory. Take away the moral tension on any issue and you leave yourself a vacuum, there is a part of us that likes to be reminded of Right and Wrong though we may bristle at it on the surface. Even the FC's themselves who no longer hide their irritation at the SC's, take away the SC's would they still miss us? We need that moral voice even if we disagree with it, if anything it may lead us to calibrate our own views, many times they need calibrating anyway. If abortion ceased being on the political radar screen, if every pro-life voice vanished overnight it'd be like your Dad buying you a Hustler and a bong, you'd be taken aback and would lose the sense of sin. Many of you may hate the SC's the way Barry Goldwater did in his dotage but do you really want us to go away? Can't we on some psychological level represent Conscience at least in some rudimentary, vague and primeval way, serve some type of existential purpose? Tension, moral tension always serves a purpose and liberals can serve this purpose as well. We will always oppose the Welfare State but the moral calibration here caused by liberals force us to give more charitably, at least that's my theory and studies bear this out, conservatives are not at all stingy when it comes to the collection plate. Take away every single moral voice which you hate be it liberal or conservative and what have you got? Many FC's say Rand had the perfect blueprint for a perfect society but for me for all of her great ideas and she had a few it would still leave me spiritually empty. We NEED other voices!

How do YOU define a conservative Utopia?

Idol without Paula

She's been on since the show's founding and I ain't the president of the Paula Abdul Fan Club or something but it's like when a regular worker leaves for all their faults you still miss them. Ellen the newest judge, no musical expertise or connection to the music world that I know of. Drifted in and out of Idol all last season and what we got was Adam "It's Because I'm a Gay Man" Lambert. Paula has had two careers, as a pop singer and larger imo as a judge on AI. We have treated her zaniness as a threat to the Republic ("oh did you see?") when the more important issue is the government running the country into the ground (Bush government or Obama government, doesn't really matter). Anyway I ain't watching this time 'round. It's not a kind of fervored protest on my part just a show that doesn't know what to do with itself. Did they want to get rid of her all along?

Our Earth Goddess has made a prophecy

OPRAH has announced her last show will be sometime in 2011 - "25 years feels right in my bones" (it does to me too) - and this was promulgated with the utmost gravity. The way it was announced though I thought her last episode was just two weeks away. It's apparently as important as a predicted astronomical event and one can expect a new understanding of Time itself: there was BC, AD and now AO for After-Oprah. So why can't SNL, the Simpsons and the Tonight Show with any host follow suit?

Knew a Jamaican chef once who said he couldn't put his finger on it but he just doesn't like her. "I know she's done good things with her Book Club and all but I just don't like her." Her beneficent and fruitful Womb has spawned Dr. Phil and now Dr. OZ. If she and Obama ever have sex we could have ourselves a new Creation Myth in about 2,000 years hence, the Renewal of the Earth and archaeologists will be unearthing the bones of Republicans and conservatives in the Gobi Desert.

Phil Donahue was big back in the day but not like this. He'd have on say a very sexually active grandmother and raise her hand and say "God bless you Mama!" with cheers from the audience but he kind of resembled a big channel catfish near the end foraging in the muddy river for chicken guts and doughballs the kind a good ole Southern boy night noodle or grapple with. He was a liberal who knew his time was up.

Somewhere in the cold winter nighttime sky between Orion the Hunter and the Twins lies the as yet to be discovered Oprah constellation, future beacon to navigators and seafarers alike and when she passes she will be mummified in a sarcophagus, lines will form around the Globe and Mankind will finally know Peace.

Ah-men.

Does being pro-choice mean you have to be pro-Roe?

Is this constant percolating tension between the social conservatives (SC's) and the fiscal conservatives (FC's) within the party a false one? Can one be pro-choice and anti-Roe vs. Wade? Soapie has said in the past abortion should be a states' rights issue though he is personally very much pro-choice but he seems one of the very few fiscal or libertarian conservatives to actually say this. Put it this way I could (though there are alot of other factors involved here) support someone for political office who is pro-choice but anti-Roe and I would say the majority of pro-lifers these days are not purists on the issue. The Human Life Amendment is pie-in-the-sky stuff except for folks like Judie Brown of the American Life League. If Giuliani had adopted this federalist approach even a few years ago he well might have been the GOP standard-bearer instead of McCain by default. I've never understood it, this internecine political rift between the SC's and the FC's when there is so much potential common ground here. Roe was wrong on so many levels that would be a separate blog unto itself, I'd probably have to break it down into 3 threads at least.

FC's do the same thing with Terri Schiavo, it's always the Congress shouldn't have gotten involved but I've talked to a couple of pro-choice people who saw it from other angles. When that case was living news a chef friend of mine whom I worked with at the time first said he wouldn't want to live like that (DUH, who would?) but then framed it as the husband was suspicious (no mention of Congress' involvement) point being can't the FC's look at pro-life issues from any other perspectives? My chef friend though I disagree with his politics (he's a liberal) generally thinks of things the right way, goes through the correct thought processes and I don't see alot of objectivity out there. Again he and I both had a common ground here about why not just let Terri's family take care of her and so you can't tell me there can never be any thoughts that coincide on the life issues between SC's and FC's or even between conservatives and liberals in general.

George Will once concluded that the abortion issue is stale, maybe that's because he prefers it that way. You take any issue under the sun and I can find new hues, other nuances, perspectives, shades of meaning. Maybe the problem is our limited imaginations.

Conservatism at its most primeval

I like every single conservative on the planet oppose the Welfare State but I come at it from a more visceral, more personal angle. Sure I oppose folks sitting on their duff getting a check for the usual reasons, fosters dependence on government yada yada yada but where I differ from most conservatives is when they say work automatically ennobles a person. Occasionally yes but more often no, let's face it work sucks for most of us so the main reason I oppose welfare is if I have to suffer then so do you pal. Not exactly high Newt Gingrich philosophy, won't make the GOP platform but there you have it. I oppose the beatnik philosophy of getting up whenever the hell you want to and doing whatever for the rest of the day because I can't do it. My brand of conservatism is you could say off-kilter, it goes all the way back to the Id. The Id has a few things to say about race too but I'll leave that for another day, well no let's do it here. Folks who are racist are that way because of black crime, not like they wake up one morning and decide to become a bigot. Obama bending over for the Japanese Emperor on his Asian trip, now this Emperor had a father once who was also Emperor by the name of Hirohito I believe who okay'd the attack on our sleeping soldiers at Pearl Harbor. Now I GET the criticism that we conservatives are just looking for stuff, the guy can't do anything right (your basic Shaw Kenawe position) but he's making it too easy. It's times like these when I believe you should be allowed to say without a peep from Keith Olbermann or Bill Moyers the guy's a FUCKING ASSHOLE!

I can't believe I'm living.

Sarah Palin Week & other thoughts you hear seldom expressed (if at all)

Yeah Sarah Palin Week is coming up. I know if you're a lib you're supposed to hate her and if you're a conservative you're supposed to love her but mine is a non-position just like I'm not for or against Dancing with the Stars because I don't watch it. I'm not into Sarah Palin, there's just something existential about it. I'm at the point in my life where I'm bored with alot of stuff but seems to me

we should have cured cancer first instead of impotence. Impotence is not a tragedy, it's a misfortune and folks often confuse the two. Cancer on the other hand...put it this way, how can you enjoy Sex if you're dead?? Our cultural priorities don't seem very logical but then again it'd give everyone something to talk about if you're lying there in the casket with a boner.

Can or should the act of onanism land you in Hell? Posed this once at a religion forum where I was deemed somewhat controversial but seems to me if you're gonna be damned for all Eternity you should at least have done IT with another party. I don't get Catholic theology on this one, not advocating for or against but just seeing the existential absurdity of it all. God doesn't want you, the Devil doesn't want you (you're not depraved enough) and so there must be some kind of Limbo out there for folks like porno pete.

Re Love % Romance I have alot of thoughts. Now what are the odds exactly of two people feeling exactly the same way about each other? No I'm not talking about being compatible, you both like bowling and hate Obama, you both ipod to Pink, you're both against the oral but the whole Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor, Antony and Cleopatra thing, a love for the ages -- "Elaine!! Elaine!!." Can you grow to love somebody? seems in most cases we have no choice, Life ain't that poetic or doesn't cooperate or whatever which if you go back in my blogging archives is one of my recurring complaints, a romantic peeve of mine. Here's the paradox although we won't admit it, the stalker's view of the universe is the correct one, it's the way Life is supposed to be, but his or her actions are wrong of course, after all as bloggers well know it's the hardest thing trying to convince someone else of your own POV although we sure as hell try. Most folks are against the happy ending, "reunited and it feels so good", and we seem to want to trudge through Life with our bad memories. Goes a long way in explaining
our divorce culture,

It's November the 15th and here in the Northeast it's balmy again. Wondering how long it will take before the rest of my conservative brethren admit maybe the Goracle just may have the smidgeon of a point, a sliver of the total picture. I don't know how to dress in the morning anymore, it's chilly at 6AM but then I find I overdressed around 2 in the afternoon. Wasn't this way in the past when this time of year was autumnal but that was in the era before global warming and the climate change stuff. We shouldn't disagree on this one anymore only question is why do we care so much? if it's 65 degrees out in January why the massive cause for alarm? Enjoy the day, I mean if you don't have cancer.