Medical Miracles

We began dismissing people from the Arena of Ideas years ago. It doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. But hope springs eternal. As it turns out, there are medical facilities adjacent to the arena that may be able to help. Please pay attention, as this may be your only hope for continued participation.

If you believe that one major political party governs by hope, and the other by fear, please report to the medical tent, where your ears will be checked. Your left, or possibly your right ear is obviously blocked to the point of not hearing both parties make that ridiculous statement. The party shills who make such statements don't even believe themselves. Then again, it might not be your hearing. If you believe there is more than a cosmetic difference between the current ruling camps, then a parasite may have actually eaten away half of your brain. If the procedure to remove the parasite isn't destructively invasive, you may be allowed back into the arena after the requisite bed rest and antibiotics.

Similar procedures will be necessary for everyone who thinks that the news media they like isn't biased, and that the media they don't like is politically partisan. Sadly, a preponderance of people in this category will never be allowed to re-enter, whereas the medical issue has less to do with hearing or cranial parasites, and more to do with the fact that doctors have yet to perfect a technique for removing the head from the anus. Recent studies have shown very little post-operative brain activity. Some doctors claim we cannot blame the procedure, postulating that there was not measurable activity prior to extraction. Either way, admittance to the arena of ideas is revoked for individuals in this category for the foreseeable future.

Specialists are now claiming they can help people who have been banned from the arena based on their insane, unhistorical belief that radical islamists can be negotiated with, or that victims of terrorism are in any way to blame, or that they will like us more or less depending on who the president is, or who or what he/she does, or worse, that the current president is any less of a mismanaging war monger than the last one. As it turns out, a recently invented scanning technique is able to detect the pink cotton candy that has grown like padding around your heart, migrated north and corrupted the channels of logic and historical analysis in your brain. Copious doses of antibiotic reality are showing results that give the victims of this disorder hope of returning to the debate.

There remain large, idea-deficient demographics who cannot yet be helped by medical science. Those who have been removed from the arena based on their insidious use of the term "FREE universal health care," individuals who think they can blame economic woes on the people they disagree with morally, double standard bearers who think that freedom of expression only applies to the people they like (i.e. people who fret about a hick burning the Koran and never batted an eye when the virgin mary was ensconced in elephant dung) and 100% of the people who stopped "protesting" the war when the current administration began prosecuting it, are drinking such a unique brand of especially poisonous kool-aid that doctors and researchers have nearly given up hope of finding an antidote. These groups must be excluded from the Arena of Ideas until a cure is found, lest their idiocy prove contagious and contaminate the idea pool.

To those of you on the outside looking in, hoping for a medical miracle, please understand that you have our deepest sympathies. We trust, as always, that science will prevail.

O.C.D.

Everyone has it. Just a little. Or so says the literature on the subject. To some degree, everyone obsesses compulsively about something. Even you fall somewhere on the scale, from insisting on a certain brand of raisin bran, to being utterly paralyzed by a perceived need to keep flushing the toilet until the toilet paper roll is spent. Maybe you function normally until confronted with a cheesecake, the deliciousness of which you are deprived by your morbid fear of its "texture." Or perhaps you carry hand sanitizer in your purse. Obsessive Compulsive traits of one kind or another are universal. It unites us as a race.

Hence, rather than be ashamed of myself, I can rejoice in the O.C.D tendencies that may in fact constitute my only common ground with humans being.

Like you, I am unable to concentrate in my house if there is any kind of mess of any kind. Kind of kooky, huh? Like how we grab for the Windex when there's a fingerprint on the fridge? The daily vacuuming? The bleaching of the tub calking? Clean is better than dirty. Clean is better than dirty. And poor as we are, our houses might not be luxurious, per se, but they can at least look and smell decent. It's nice that we have that in common.

And I'm with you on the car foibles as well. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has almost crashed his car as he tried to pick up a napkin on the floor of the passenger side. Spots on the window. Spots on the window. Don't touch the glass, why do people insist on touching the glass? Is there a possible reason on God's green earth why people need to touch the glass? I think a lot of you may feel an obsessive compulsion to sully a beautifully clean and transparent substance with your bodily oils. Obviously, you have a problem. But nothing we can't handle together. This is about solidarity. Just keep your damn grubby hands off the windows and, hey, no problem!

You're probably going to be relieved to know that you're not the only one who feels a compulsion to tuck people's tags back into their shirts when they are flouted. Flagrantly or negligently isn't the issue. Tags belong on the inside. Perhaps we can commiserate about that time we followed the pretty girl around the store, but didn't dare say, "miss, your tag is sticking out" for fear that she might think we're flirting? It warms my heart to share with you the joy one can only feel when the scissors we carry for this purpose are called into action.

There may be a couple of people out there who don't understand the drinking fountain problem, but they are the few. So let them drink from the tall side and pass blithely on. We'll understand with relish the majority's desire to drink from tall side, then small, then tall again, and then--walk away--no--small again--finish where you started--tall one, followed naturally by small, back again--go now while you can--tall, tall again to break the pattern--go--but wait, the small one--no--walk--forget it if you can--run--run away--ETC. Luckily, they're usually porcelain or stainless steel, which are pretty good about concealing fingerprints and the like. I knew you were thinking that. We're not so different, you and I.

There are so many other little innocent quirks we could bond over, even celebrate. Of course, there are people who don't understand. Filthy, lazy people, who need help. Thankfully, they are in the minority. The research seems to say so. For now. But who cares? Just knowing how many of you there are out there, and how much we have in common, is life affirming. This solidarity goes beyond mere statistics. It binds souls together.

I don't want to overstate it.

Suffice it to say, it makes me feel better about the inevitable day when we can really join hands, and hearts, and rise up against the brazen, brutish heathen hoards polluting the planet and exterminate them once and for all.

That's all.

Let's Pop!

[Having taken time off to care for the Wife, who has been cured by the world class surgeons at Stanford, we can now return--to anything but politics.]

We hereby nominate Kesha, sorry, Ke$ha, for the title of "World's Worst Person."

That's right. She beats out Olberman, Cheney, Hannity, Michael Moore, and that cretinous, anti-semitic old lady in the white house press corps. Given the competition, it wasn't easy, but our girl won us over.

And before handing her the award at the World's Worst Person Awards ceremony [dubbed the "worpies" by the pop culture mags] here's what the vapid celebrity presenter will read from the cue card:

As if making the "S" in her name into a dollar sign wasn't enough, the recipient of this year's award has earned it with every unspeakable line of her inane songs, and the mindless videos that punctuate them. For flaunting her disregard for the most basic elements of hygiene--yes, you can actually smell her boot-feet stank through the internet--for the lyrical conceit that tricked a million 13 year old girls into thinking that waking up in a stranger's tub and substituting whiskey for toothpaste was in ANY way less than ABSOLUTELY VILE--for holding up Mick Jagger as a standard of desirability for the sake of a vacuous attempt at rhyme--and finally, for driving it all home with a catchy tune that poisons the mind for weeks after hearing it--we are proud to present Kesha--sorry, Ke$ha--with the 2010 World's Worst Person Award!

Music will kick up as a disappointed Iranian dictator nudges the head a drunk-out-of-her-mind Ke$ha from his shoulder. Hearing her song, she'll kick into party mode and skank up to the podium. Unaware of what she has just won, she'll shout "AFTER PARTY AT THE NEAREST CLUB!!!!!!! PICK ME UP AROUND BACK!!!!!! Wooohoooo!!!"

We'd apologize to her fans for insulting her, and through her, them. But someday, she'll treasure this award as the only proof of her career. So, rather than apologies we offer our sincerest congratulations.

In Reductio

Someone is going to have to explain this to me. But let me warn you: Oscar Wilde couldn't do it. Karl Marx couldn't do it. My own brilliant brother couldn't do it. So you're up against some tough company before you even start. Which doesn't mean I don't sincerely want you to try.

But Socialism doesn't make sense to me. I get the idea, which is noble in the same way that a perfect world would be delightful. I understand the concept, which is simple on the face of it. What I want to understand is where you get the idea that it works. What I don't get is how you can look past the utopian side of it and see anything but the purest evil.

I read Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" before going to Canada (well, Quebec). He had me for a second. Then I saw generations of people whose soul had been sucked dry and spit out by socialism. People for whom life's grand ambition was to turn 18 and be grandfathered into the public dole, which allows them to spend other people's money on beer and cigarettes so they have the time to enoble the world by watching TV. I saw a medical system that was so inept that people put up coffee cans in grocery stores with the message: "Please donate. If I can get to the states, the doctors there can help!" (I even LIVED this scenario with a friend, who went to every doctor in the province for months and suffered. He was totally cured in two weeks upon his return to the states. Stories like this didn't make it into the Michael Moore propaganda, but they happen with regularity.) I asked around. What do you like about it? "It's free" was the only positive. "It isn't free. Other people are being forced to pay for it. Where the hell did you get the idea that this is free?" "Well, I don't pay anything." Neither would I, if all my clinics looked like yours.

I read the communist manifesto. But it was too late: I'd already seen too much of the real history that followed its publication. 70 million dead in China. The killing fields. Stalin out-murdering Hitler. The former Eastern Block's outrageous pollution of the environment. A noble young woman who cannot talk about the horrors of communism in Romania without crying. These are the undeniable fruits of communism, no matter what the intellectual roots claim. If you can look at them and still espouse the idea, then you are either too stupid to participate in the debate, or you know something I don't about why all this is OK.

Recent events in Greece tore down your argument even further--and you haven't even made it yet. The socialist nations are broke and the shiftless masses are angry. Ever lived in public housing, or been to a county clinic? These are the undeniably ugly places to which socialism wants us all to go.

But forget all that. You have to get me with philosophy. Because the bare bones is where the final die is cast. And here they are:

Wanting to help people is good. Wanting people to help each other is noble. Forcing to people to help each other is Satanic. There is little (if any) nobility in a system that takes money from one person at gun point and gives it to another. Especially when the recipient's only job is to spend what you just gave him. There is no such thing as "free universal health care." There is no such thing as something for nothing. There is no system in Nature that rewards zero effort behavior. Hence, at the moment your belief that we should help each other turns into "we should have a system that forces us to help each other," it cease to be noble, or even natural, and makes you a fascist--no different from anyone who seeks to force their views upon their neighbors.

To sum up: It has never worked in practice; it has never led to prosperity; it has never ended poverty. The consolidation of power it requires has lead to millions of people being murdered, tortured, and oppressed in its name. It is philosphically repugnant, a belief system for fascists and tyrants.

I am nevertheless open to your ideas. Mostly because I am uncomfortable with the implications of how widespread socialistic ideas have become--especially if the only explanation is: "people are just that selfish, lazy, and dumb." Which is pretty much what I'm left with at the moment.

If that argument fails to grab you, I also have never understood hundreds of other widespread atrocities, any of which I'd love to "get," if you're willing to help. For instance:

Classic rock, for the most part, eludes me. Anything having to do with the hippy movement is a mystery. How anyone derives any pleasure from Monopoly is beyond me. As well as Hootie and the Blowfish, the Paris Hilton enigma, people who think we didn't land on the moon, people who eat at McDonald's, why smokers don't categorize their vile cigarette butts as litter, parents who let their kids drink 40 ounce energy drinks, and time travel.

Facist, or Ignoramus? [the new Rock vs. Hard Place]

Here are some simple facts, the mere listing of which will either make you think I have some kind of insight, because you have preconceived ideas about various issues that cloud your judgement, or fill you with pious rage, because you have deep seated preconceptions on sundry topics that cloud your judgement.

But please keep in mind: these are facts. Mere facts.

In 2010, a border state that had long suffered undeniable ill effects due to an abundance of illegal immigration, passed a law, supported by a vast majority of its citizens. The law was short, 10 to 18 pages, depending upon the printing format. It stipulated simply that it would enforce existing federal statutes. Before it was finalized, language was added--an attempt to prevent racial profiling. A mandate for the training of officers in the prevention of discrimination was included in the bill.

Remember, the state in question made no new policy. It simply offered to enforce existing federal policy.

In the days subsequent to the passage of the bill, protests were mounted by groups all over the country. They called the state racist and said they would boycott the place. They appeared to be really, really angry. When asked if they had read the bill, 99.999% of the angry protesters had NOT read the bill. They had a right to be angry about the bill. They decided to forgo that right, and instead get incensed by a vague idea they created themselves based on heresay.

The Attorney General of the United States said disparaging things about the bill, and threatened to take the state to court. In an embarassing exchange, he later admitted to not ever reading the bill.

The Head of Homeland Security called the bill discriminatory, among other things. In an embarassing exchange, SHE later admitted to having never read the bill.

Commentators lined up to trash a bill, passed in a state where they do not live, by a majority of the people who live there, supported by at least 60% of the nation (depending on the poll). They said it was similar to measures passed in Nazi Germany. Most of them had not read the bill.

Weeks later, in a press conference with the President of Mexico, our president called the bill misguided. He said his administration (most of which were now on record as having not read the bill) was looking into it. He said we need new laws to accomplish noble objectives. For every objective he stated, there is ALREADY a law on the books. So, in essence, he said we should be enforcing existing federal law.

Which is exactly what the "misguided" bill stipulates.

He said immigrants should learn English. He said people here illegally should not be allowed to work. He said they should pay a fine and go to the back of the line.

Almost everything he said has been previously stated by right wing talk show hosts. When stated by said talk show hosts, the sentiments were called racist and xenophobic and discriminatory, and nazi-esque.

I'm not on either side here. Really. These are facts. They do not change according to our preconceived notions. There are certainly other facts we could use to bolster our ideas. Is this about our opinion, or about which facts we choose to accept and/or ignore? I personally don't think my opinion is valuable to your interpretation of the facts.

But if I was to voice an opinion, it would look something like this: I'm glad Arizona passed that law. I don't care what it says, I may not agree with what it says, but I've read it, and it seems to have put a point on a debate that needed a point. I'm amused by all the ignorant ranting on both sides. But at least one side can claim to have read the bill. I'm embarassed by the way the Obama administration jumped out and blathered without being informed. I had hoped that such practices would stop. (If you're not embarassed by it, you are something worse than ill-informed. Wait, that's a fact--this is the opinion part. Sorry.) I'm embarassed by the way the loyal political opposition revels in an administration's embarassment. I resent the way said opposition acts like they ever did anything about this problem.

If Mexicorp had worked (click on it!), this would be a non-issue. Sadly, this is only the beginning.

So here we are, stuck between the facts and a hard road ahead. And now that I look at the facts, I somehow don't feel any better informed, or validated. Or hopeful.

Warning: Fatigue Has Set In

I get tired.

Tired of people saying how busy they are. Tired of teenagers claiming they didn't have time to do this or that. Or adults with no kids, or parents with competent partners, claiming they are strapped for time.

In essence, I am tired of people claiming to be tired. It generates a disdain in my heart that would be indecorous to elucidate.

Because I can trump your claim. I can beat your hand by showing only half my cards. I am loathe to do so, because it is so pitiful, and so pitifully personal. So most of the time the lips remain zipped and ignore the bile that rises in my gorge.

But every once in a while, I crack. I was at a meeting of people involved in my son's scout troop. Someone had the nerve to forgive another parent for their lack of involvement, citing their busy schedule. Remaining calm, I heard myself say: "I work 80 hours a week. Night and day. Two jobs. I do all the house work, all the yard work, all the paper work. My wife is too sick to even cook for herself. I do all the cooking. I do all the parenting. Not to mention getting my wife to the doctor, which is sometimes as far away as San Francisco, and picking up all her meds. Anyone and everyone with less to do than that can shove it."

It was not well received. But neither was it met with disdain. The worst part is people thinking that I'm looking for pity. I'm not. I just want people to appreciate the time on their hands. Stop pretending you're busy. You have plenty of time.