just can't figure out. And when we do get it, I don't think we're gonna like it.~~ back to table of contents
THUG JESUS
I'm standing in the line at Blockbuster and renting "Ella Enchanted" and right in front of me, tattooed on some woman's back, is Thug Jesus. I can't believe my eyes. But I know Jesus when I see him and this is definitely Our Lord and Savior, except he looks like a long term meth user. His cheeks are all sunken and his eyes are set so far back in his head that his eye sockets look hollow. And the expression on his face, I never realized before how much Jesus and Charles Manson look alike.
The woman reaches the counter and starts shaking and nodding her head as she talks to the cashier. As she moves about, poor old Thug Jesus' face is contorting as though he's also trying to speak, but it's like he's possessed and the demons won't let him open him mouth, which is only a serpentine line writhing beneath the scraggly beard. I want to touch him, but I can't touch him without assaulting her.
And it occurs to me that that’s how it always is. You can't reach out to Jesus without getting slapped down or getting the law called on you. Better to look away and pretend you don't know he's there.
Jesus looks likes he's had a rough two thousand years. I don't like seeing him like this. I will to go to church where, in exchange for not paying taxes, they keep Jesus stuck up on a pole so that he can't move. Perhaps in church I can forget the desperation in those sunken eyes.~~ back to table of contents
PASS THIS ON
There are five categories of cyber scum that I find particularly despicable: child pornographers, identity thieves, Virus writers, spammers, and chain mailers. If you’re in one of the first four categories listed, you already know you’re maggot manna and you’re probably OK with it. There’s no point in haranguing you here. If you’re in the last category, you probably think of yourself as a sweet, Christian spreader of love and well wishes around the world. But I still consider what you send garbage and it is to you that this rant is directed. I’m especially angry at people who send on chain mail letters because some of you are friends of mine and I know you know better.
Of course sometimes people really believe in this chain mail voodoo. I have a friend like that and he always getting himself into trouble by forwarding chain mail email garbage on to me. The email will sometimes contain a hokey prayer. He views sending them on as participating in a form of group prayer. Ha! They usually start with a prologue about how many times this particular piece of swill has been around the world. Next we get the story of how some unnamed person from some wild and inaccessible place like Ouagadougou or the Galapagos Islands or downtown Cleveland either benefited from forwarding the trash on or paid dearly for breaking the chain. Generally the spiel is something like:: Send this to 12 other people and good fortune will come your way. A woman in Ouagadougou sent this to 12 other people (by camel, no less) and she was overlooked while standing in the line for female genital mutilation. But misfortune may come your way if you break the chain. A man in Cleveland broke the chain and he was hit by a bus while reading a telegram from his girlfriend in Ouagadougou.
My friend is an idiot because he insists on forwarding this nonsense to me. I’ve told him a dozen times that I’m only going to break the chain. I’ve learned from past experience that if I delete, something bad happens to my friend and not to me. You’d think he would have figured it out by now. Technically, he broke the chain when he sent it to me because I always break the chain, no matter what kind of chain it is. It can be a chain mail letter, the chains of slavery, or a conga line. I don’t care. Years ago, Aretha Franklin had a hit single, CHAIN OF FOOLS. I bought the 45, listened to it once, and then broke it.
I think there are many otherwise rational and intelligent people who click into one of these nutty emails and then fear that by breaking the chain, they will make God mad. I talk to God everyday. Trust me, he doesn’t mind.~~ back to table of contents
CENSORSHIP
If you value the free and unencumbered exchange of ideas and you are willing to accept the social turmoil that invariably comes with the free and unencumbered exchange of ideas, then censorship is an abomination. Period.
If you value "the old ways" and want to preserve them above all else; or if you have an agenda to promote, such as getting taxpayers to ante up for more government spending on programs of dubious value, then censorship is not only acceptable, it is necessary.
In the USA, lots of people say they don't like censorship because we're supposed to be all about freedom, but they really want censorship. Hence support for an amendment to The Constitution to ban burning the flag. I support some censorship and in the areas where I support it, I think we need a lot more. Unfortunately, it is very difficult.
I think, for example, that there is too much ridiculous sex and violence on TV. I have nothing against explicit sex and violence, just gratuitous sex and violence. Same thing with profanity. Bleeping out the F word doesn't change the fact that everybody knows that the character just said "fuck", so why bother. If "fuck" is appropriate, it should be left in. If it is not appropriate, it should fall to the censor. And therein lies the problem. Who gets to define appropriate?
For me, the amount of discomfort, caused by the interactions that take place within a social unit, that one can tolerate before something becomes inappropriate is what in truth defines the difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. A liberal being willing to let a lot more pass than a conservative. In the privacy of my home, I am a staunch conservative. When it comes to public affairs, I am an unapologetic liberal. That's why I have no problem with allowing flag burning and at the same time, I despise the parents of poorly disciplined and manner less children. I see no conflict there.
A society has the right to set some common standards and values. Otherwise, what is the point in having a society? The mores of a society need to be maintained. The real question is about what your values are. Unless we're anarchists, we all want to censor, we just don't want to be censored. Whether in the home or the public arena, whoever is in power gets to define what is appropriate. The winners get to censor and gloat. The rest of us just have to say "Fuck!"--under our breaths of course--and wait our turn.~~ back to table of contents
THE DEAD
Why is it so hard for people to say that somebody who has just died is dead? It has become good manners to refer to the recently deceased as being something other than dead. As a result, dead people go a lot of places:: He went to his reward... He went to heaven... She went to a better place. Dead people also cross over, which would, of course, make a near death experience a double cross.
Sometimes where dead people go is just left up to the imagination of the listener:: He's left us or she's gone. Wherever they go, they move really fast because they do a lot of passing:: She passed away... He passed on... or simply… He passed, which sounds like something a kidney stone does.
There are humorous ways to say somebody died:: kicked the bucket or bit the dust. Kicking the bucket makes no sense at all to me, but biting the dust is not a bad euphemism for dying.
I think that people don't want to say "dead" because dead sounds so final. People talk about life after death, but that is a big contradiction. If there were life after death, the dead would only be sort of taking a short break, just a catching a little well-deserved power nap maybe. Perhaps that’s why the newly deceased also rest or sleep.
After someone has been dead a long time, it's OK to refer to them as dead. There must be some statute of limitations that has to expire before one can acknowledge that a dead person may not be in a temporary state? That attitude is kind of disrespectful to the dead. It's like walking up to a black person or a white person in the United States and calling them "colored".
There’s no reason to treat “dead” like it’s some dirty four-letter word. Being dead probably isn't all that bad, and even if being dead is all that bad, what are you going to do?~~ back to table of contents
IN THE BAG
My sweetie,
The Bombastic Brit, just achieved a significant birthday milestone, which I shall, of course, not reveal to the entire world. In any case, I gave her jewelry, even though I object, with the exception of a wedding band, to buying portable property for any woman. And even then, I don’t believe in going beyond a simple gold band, sort of the-hamburger-and-a-coke-is-enough principle applied to tying the knot. The Bombastic Brit is, however, a good woman, so I figured what the hell. Just this once shouldn’t hurt anything.
I went to a jewelry store in the mall, something people who buy jewelry on a regular basis say you should never do. But I figured what the hell. Just this once shouldn’t hurt anything.
I should have known I was in over my head when there wasn’t a price tag to be seen, but you see a lot of that no price business even in grocery stores these days, so I went ahead and looked around. They gotta tell you what this crap—and that’s all jewelry is as far as I’m concerned, a bunch of sparkly crap—costs before you pay for it, don’t they?
The only thing more boring than looking at diamonds is listening to somebody who owns one talk about how cheap they got it. I walked right through all that glitter without anything catching my eye until, in a case near the exit; I saw these