The philosopher class

Lately I've been watching this special on Immanuel Kant on NJN2, some Harvard professor named Michael Sandel giving the lecture. Exciting class, kids all look interested, lots of Asian faces. Like my friend and I were talking, you're in Barnes & Noble and there's some hot Asian chicks in the cafe studying who won't even give you the time of day because their parents have used YOU as an example of what not to wind up to be in Life, you're a walking warning in your Dockers and Reeboks stimulating their studies. There's just something about You, you give off the stench of a low-wage job and don't seem confident. You pass a chick in a department store and your eyes wander and then she notices and buttons up that top button, you must be giving off a stalker vibe or something. Interesting stuff as when we are told that Kant thought it always wrong to lie so if a murderer knocks on your front door and asks if your friend is in there you have to tell him the truth, give up your buddy, something to do with you can't make exceptions to the categorical imperative. Philosophy usually takes weird turns every now and then like when I was in Catholic high school our professor talked about solipsism a Greek word which basically means there's no objective reality outside of your own mind which means that nothing else exists, you just imagined it all which if true then why the hell did I get up to go to work these past 25 years? You can't blame it all on the acid, that didn't come until 1938 but you did have your morning glory seeds, the heavenly blues so don't know if some of the Thinkers accidentally ever swallowed some. I was thinking about the nature of dreams the other day, what are they exactly? Now we all know that dreams ain't real but they do exist on some level otherwise you wouldn't have dreamt. Put another way a dream happened somewhere, it took place in your mind, your imagination which has its own existence so if it makes you feel any better maybe Kim Cattrall really did kiss you au naturel in the kitchen. Arthur Schopenhauer, said to lead the philosophical school of thought known as Pessimism. What I wanna know is did the philosphers ever work a day in their lives? hold down your typical 9-5's or did they just think all day? We've all heard "if a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody around does it make a noise?" and along these lines what's the deal with this tinnitus-type state? I mean the noise is real to me, what am I nuts? Maybe I'm gonna give my two weeks at work and spend the next few years pondering the finer points of Life but getting back to dreams if you work in your dreams as I do shouldn't you get paid for it? Maybe we're all dead. BTW Obama ain't real folks, get over it!!

The Plowman Cometh

Having been through two blizzards so far this winter, second one worse than the first what happens is you shovel all day, clear your space out so you can just glide on out early the next morning for work and just as you're done for the day all proud of your achievement and go in for a hot toddy HE comes. But he already came once or twice already but NOW you have an embankment of snow to deal with, the third or fourth embankment so far this day as you already cleared away the first two and you'd better get to it now 'cause in a day or two that baby's gonna be rock hard. We need a meeting of the minds here and folks generally fall into one of two camps:

I clearly belong to the second camp. Once the plows have been through the side roads twice that's enough, any rational citizenry would say we'll deal with the rest and we will. Get that snow out into the road which apparently you're not supposed to do anymore and the traffic will take care of the rest. This can't be though because of the first group, larger and more influential and these yahoos will raise holy hell, write letters to the editor and call their representatives if the plows don't come through their street in a timely fashion. Yes they have a point, your tax dollars at work should help your streets get clear but how much plowing is too much? Are they overcompensating for fear of the yentas?

I have no easy answers. All I knows is my body is sore and all for naught.

Faith systems

Along the lines of Patrick M's recent musings on faith, what faith system coincides most with our own personal belief system this is a tricky one indeed. I would go so far as to say all the official faith systems of the world don't do it and fall short for a good many of us. Born and raised a Catholic, still am, theologically very in sync but there are problems. Just to choose four issues out of a hat:

Birth control: Tried understanding the Church's position on the matter time and again, damn I tried but I think what it all boils down to is this - Sex is a fairly animalistic act when you get right down to it and the Church is trying to ennoble it, pleasure for pleasure's sake even to express love become issues so have the act be open to the transmission of human life at all times even if it means winding up with ten kids if you're the sensual type...anyway don't recall the subject even popping up in the Bible per se so I'm very Sola Scriptura on this one you could say. It's a blue moon moment, me and the Rev. Pat Robertson see eye to eye on this one.

Confession: Probably my biggest difference right now as the oldtimers accept it without question but never got the logic here - Jesus or God won't forgive you and you'll wind up eternally damned even if you're sorry as hell unless you explain in morbid detail to the priest your most personal sins and then some. Makes me instinctively uncomfortable, is there some kind of prurient interest at work here and you have to question any person or institution that says thou shalt not use your mind, put reason away and obey blindly. The priest will point to the confessional, you'll feel like a million dollars afterwards, my thing is why do you need to know?

Transubstantiation: The doctrine that when the priest at Mass consecrates the bread and wine they literally turn into the Body and Blood of our Savior. Not buying it and it has cannibalistic overtones, why can't it just be symbolic? Literalism can get you in trouble but they insist so again it's not a perfect fit.

Priestly celibacy (and hell why don't we throw in nuns too?): Doesn't seem nat'chal to me at all, why can't a woman or man bring you closer to God? Of course you could be a layman and practice what I call involuntary celibacy but I don't want to get into that right now. Valentine's Day is hard for lots of folks but at least we have it as a goal, for them the goal is illegal.

So call me a cafeteria Catholic if you want, it seems to be the only way. Soapie HAS TO have some thoughts.

Obama has plumbed new depths

Now at first blush this is gonna sound grossly unfair to President Obama, you can just picture Bill Moyers using it to illustrate classic right-wing hate in the blogosphere on his Friday night journalfest. Well let me first link up Malcontent's excellent commentary today on the matter:

http://malcontentralphie.blogspot.com/2010/02/this-is-not-joke.html

Glenn Beck talked about it this morning on his radio program and I'm gonna predict this is gonna be a HOT TOPIC in the conservative blogosphere and why shouldn't it be? There was a DNC fundraiser last night in where else? Washington DC and Obama made the point that a national health-care system is still dear to his heart worth fighting for and then he talked about a letter he received concerning a young woman, 41 years old, who worked for his campaign while fighting breast cancer for four years and finally succumbed as he put it. You see she had no health insurance, couldn't afford the tests that could have saved her life but here's the kicker and I'm quoting Obama here: "and she insisted she's going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt."

Malcontent's point, she worked for his campaign so as a campaign worker why didn't they pay for her health insurance thus saving this poor woman's life? Now here's my dark thought and I'm not afraid to express it though I usually don't go down this road: they wanted this young woman to die, hell they could've gotten one of their Hollywood buddies like George Clooney to pick up the tab. It's a kind of variation of Rahm Emanuel's let no crisis go to waste, let no death be in vain when it can be used for political purposes. Does this seem harsh to you my judgement here?? not when you consider that some people deliberately use a moral calculus of let someone or a few people die for the Greater Good, think of all the future lives that could be saved. It's utilitarianism with a Machiavellian spin. It's only one life and think of the tremendous political gain to be reaped!

It's creepy, it's perverted, it's evil but it doesn't surprise in the least. Imagine if Ronald Reagan had said "she's going to be buried in a Ronald Reagan t-shirt", it would have diminished the man and it goes without saying that the liberals would have had a field day. Obama has corrupted rational political discourse in this country which in itself is a feat, the whole thing is shocking in its banality and predictability. It's far worse than anything Bill Clinton ever did while in office imo and that's saying something so shame on the Obama Administration!!!

How much should you criticize your own side?

First off I have to admit I do it on a fairly regular basis myself but then again they make it easy. I mean when you have Savage the other night saying Toyota's current problems were caused by some kind of corporate conspiracy, a sort of war games to do in a competitor something has to be said. Ditto for Rush who had to spin the Haiti relief effort around to it's gonna show Obama to be compassionate and humanitarian and will help him even more among African-Americans. What does this have to do with the price of onions? it'll only get the Oxy talk going again. Then you have your simmering tensions between the SC's and the FC's usually over abortion with the FC's taking offense at the SC's always waving a dead fetus around in everyone's faces but I don't know how you can discuss it otherwise in the end, it'd be kinda like talking about gay marriage and leaving out the anus (oh I know it's so much more but just being a little Aristotelian here). FC's tend to lump all SC's together but there are varying gradations of social conservatism. I myself find gay marriage to be unpleasant whereas I find abortion to be repugnant, a violated sphincter is preferable to a, ok no getting around it, a dead fetus and so...When Judie Brown of the American Life League said that studies show that married couples who once had premarital sex with each other have higher divorce rates than those who didn't well I don't navigate those waters. Same thing when James Dobson of Focus on the Family interviewed Ted Bundy only to "prove" the point that porn makes men into this so I really don't wanna get that far away from land ya know? There is much in the conservative movement not to like and I can't totally refrain from criticism of my own side, that'd be hard. It's like waking up with a woody, you have to go with the moment. The links I've chosen show the full range of conservatism which is why I chose them, agreement not being a prerequisite as it is at alot of blogs to get a link going (Opus Dei - sheesh!). So really the Question Before the Board today is when should we criticize our own side? but also how much is too much? It's not an easy answer or issue for me, there be those who be team players and those who don't even like to be on the same team. For me it has to do with those uncharted waters again. Now all of us are perfectly capable of a brain fart every now and then and if you think you're not believe me we're gonna find something but Pat Robertson has a string of 'em so it makes you wonder. There are uber versions of both Left and Right and everything in between so take it away.

The Avatar Phenomenon

Haven't seen it yet. My friend did, he's really into this kind of stuff but if anything they come out on DVD so fast now I'll probably see it then at my leisure. Yeah my friend thought it was great and all, definitely a watchable flick but this James Cameron guy saying he had this concept of the blue humanoids since he was a kid, trying to give it that old artiste edge, the creative genius who had to wait literally years for IT to all come together like it's the greatest opus of all time or something. Yeah right!! my friend said he probably had some weird acid trip and just wrote it all down afterwards. Highest grossing film of all time surpassing even his previous work Titanic and I'm sure when the DVD finally does come out it'll be chock loaded with Extra Features including that annoying option of watching the movie with the acclaimed director's commentary throughout. They always have those extra 10 unedited minutes too like I hear Mel Gibson has an extended version of The Passion where you can see Jesus getting scourged for a few extra minutes or so. Anyway wha'd'ya think?

& then there's Racial Matters

Having had a long and varied career, I always seemed to choose the career path of The Whatever, didn't matter what job I had this theme ALWAYS came up and for the record I never brought it up, others said it to me:

Ya got yourself a real slacker who happens to be black and he's getting away with it whereas the white person always has to bring in a doctor's note when he or she gets sick, gets chided for arriving at work ten minutes late, didn't complete the workload that day and it's like wha'happened? you know the deal but the black worker seems to be getting away with it. In fact NOTHING ever happens, never written up and so someone makes the off-the-cuff remark that it's because he's black. Now stop right there, is it really this simple?

Boss: "Moussa's late again but I'm not gonna say anything because he's black."

Is it really that conscious of a decision? I'm not saying it's not or can't be but if it is that's a truly sad one. Then again my brother worked for years with a self-avowed lesbian who regularly told customers off, even dropped a few f-bombs and nothing ever happened to her but still I have a hard time making this calculation.

I was mugged when I was twenty and long story short I'm riding around with two white cops and they start making racial comments. Now I'd never do this, didn't condone what they said but a part of me understood. They deal with this crap day in and day out. Wanna reduce white racism reduce black crime since the one drives the other. Folks don't wake up and decide to be bigots, have a Jew in a yarmulke rob a Sunoco station for a change. The Oscar-winner of a few years back Crash dealt with matters of race honestly which surprised alot of folks and the racist white cop played by Matt Dillon turns out to be a little more complicated after all by the end of the movie but the other thing is conservatives who in matters of police brutality against blacks routinely and as a matter of course always side with law enforcement. Hit the nigger on the head and they'll come up with an excuse. Funny but you used to be able to joke about STUFF like when I worked in a flower shop in the Bronx and one florist was gay and the van driver and he got on the Abner Louima case (for those of you out West he had a plunger rammed up his ass) and so the van driver goes to the gay guy "you'd like that wouldn't you?" and nobody got offended or threatened to sue but that was back in the day.

You'll often hear that those who use crack cocaine (mostly black) are dealt with more severely than white hedge fund managers who snort coke but as a correctional guy I was talking to once at a party said "ya wanna know something? don't do drugs." Then there's the high % of blacks in prison, much to-do has been made of this by Jesse Jackson but the only injustice here would be if most of them were innocent and railroaded and so choose a different career path like Thomas Sowell or Bill Cosby did.

Howard Stern has probably said far more racially insensitive things (insensitive to whom?) than Don Imus but Stern has wisely made the decision to never apologize and so they forget about him after like a day or two and Rumor Has It that's he's poised to replace Simon on American Idol. Now how did this happen? It's because there's nothing the racial pimps love more then when you grovel and when I saw the I-man do this I was like will you cut it out you big pussy!! that only fuels them on more and how can you prove that one of the girls on that team wasn't a ho anyway? all of a sudden everyone's a spokesperson for Focus on the Family signing chastity pledges. It's wrong to stereotype of course but how come in porn you always see some big black buck with a twelve inch dick (don't they come any smaller?) plowing some 18-year old black girl who looks scared like they just plucked her out of some CVS and she has a baby to support? the thing is more like an anaconda looking for its hapless prey & btw how come Jews and other groups don't address each other by their respective slurs? "how's it hangin' kike?" "tell the spic, he'll get the job done."

Worked with a white meatwrapper once (or is that meatrapper?) and so she got pissed one day because she had to unload some U-boat and I'm just walking past: "fucking motherfucker!" she said but what's with the adjective? Isn't it superfluous? I mean isn't motherfucker strong enough to stand on its own and why do they always have man hands these women meatpackers? imagine them caressing your organ after a hard day's work but I'm gonna cap it right here...

Motherfucker!

A serious aside for a moment - the anti-smoking and pro-marijuana movements

The commercials against smoking are getting more and more ghoulish. The latest has some black woman who lost her fingers to the stuff (???) and another one that claims smoking can cause irreversible blindness. Now I'd have to say this is pure propaganda, dubious at best but to refute it would take the better part of a blog so on to the larger point. While the anti-smoking movement has taken on new heights, new passion in public-advocacy zealotry at the very same time the pro-medical marijuana movement is picking up steam, has made some inroads of late such as in the Garden State where then outgoing governor of NJ Jon Corzine just signed it into law. The smoking evil/pot good formula seems a very contradictory public health message at best, seems to me the only two logical options would be either smoking bad/pot bad or smoking good/pot good. In my experience and this is purely anecdotal as I always stress but people I have known who were regular pot users did not become more mellow over time. In fact it was quite the opposite, their personalities seemed to change for the worse, harder to get along with although when I drop comments like this at other blogs where the subject comes up the pot legalizers always deny this. Then there is the rather common practice of dealers adding more dangerous ingredients like PCP to the mix unbeknowst to the pot user. In fact judging from a workplace situation I've been blogging about recently angel dust and ANGER are inextricably intertwined and the person under its influence will often develop an angry and paranoiac view of the world, major anxiety on an existential level (the downplayers will chalk this up to alcohol but alcohol doesn't have those effects, not all in tandem that is), these people over here are enemies see? they need to be dealt with. The person sinks into a weird depression, he or she may go to work in the morning with a strong sense of impending doom, becomes detached from his environment, detached from himself (ego-death) and detached from reality, enters a dissociative fugue state.

So to cap it off a young person absorbing all this like a sponge might form the not unexpected conclusion to not smoke but that it might be preferable to light up a joint every now and then especially when you have a medical condition (geez you'd think modern medicine was lacking in the pain management department). The other thing the pot legalizers will often throw at you is that you want to throw their sorry asses in jail. I don't, I'm half-libertarian on the issue but I have the right to opinions, impressions formed over the years by social interactions with these people and on balance I find them more annoying than your traditional drunk. In that case the effects wear off by morning whereas imho pot somehow alters the chemistry of the brain, how we think and it's been said marijuana is like a low-dosage of a psychoactive like LSD, it's mind-altering at least to some extent and in my observations not in a positive direction.

Potheads should be free and contributing members to society, just thought I'd offer a few thoughts counter to the pro-pot trend .

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......