I am not sure who said this, I think I heard it was Mark Twain, but I cannot confirm, but I love this saying:
It is my patriotic duty to criticize my government.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Perfect Christmas
While going over the river and through the woods to the Out-Laws house for Turkey Day, my wife and I shared our dreams for the perfect Christmas. Here is mine.
We park the car on a dead end street in the middle of a darkening wood. After loading up our needs in our backpacks we cross country ski a flat mile or so to a rustic cabin or yurt overlooking a small lake and fields in the forest. After I get the fire started we share a simple yet elegant meal and several glasses of wine and other libations. We play light classical music, perhaps I play my backpacker guitar. Lynn sings Carols. After our meal has digested, we go for a midnight ski around the lake. It is cold and dark, but invigorating, with a bright full moon lighting up the wintery landscape. In the distance, I can see the glowing cabin and the smoke rising from the chimney; the only non-natural things visible.
The next morning we share presents after rising late. It’s cold out so we stay in for most of the day reading, enjoying each others company, and listening to soft music. In the afternoon we go for a short walk or ski and collect pine bows to make wreaths and we decorate the cabin. We pass another evening much like the one prior. Perhaps friends drop by the next day, also skiing in. They bring several bottles of great wine and we play games. There is no TV, there is no electricity. At night, we have gas lamps and candles.
We pass one more day and night this way and on the fourth day we ski back out and home.
Lynn’s dream was similar to this one, except snowmobiles took the place of skiing.
Ah, if only…………..
We park the car on a dead end street in the middle of a darkening wood. After loading up our needs in our backpacks we cross country ski a flat mile or so to a rustic cabin or yurt overlooking a small lake and fields in the forest. After I get the fire started we share a simple yet elegant meal and several glasses of wine and other libations. We play light classical music, perhaps I play my backpacker guitar. Lynn sings Carols. After our meal has digested, we go for a midnight ski around the lake. It is cold and dark, but invigorating, with a bright full moon lighting up the wintery landscape. In the distance, I can see the glowing cabin and the smoke rising from the chimney; the only non-natural things visible.
The next morning we share presents after rising late. It’s cold out so we stay in for most of the day reading, enjoying each others company, and listening to soft music. In the afternoon we go for a short walk or ski and collect pine bows to make wreaths and we decorate the cabin. We pass another evening much like the one prior. Perhaps friends drop by the next day, also skiing in. They bring several bottles of great wine and we play games. There is no TV, there is no electricity. At night, we have gas lamps and candles.
We pass one more day and night this way and on the fourth day we ski back out and home.
Lynn’s dream was similar to this one, except snowmobiles took the place of skiing.
Ah, if only…………..
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Buffalo, Beer and Survivial of the Fittest
A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive drinking of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that is why you always feel smarter after a few beers."
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Happy Gluttony Day
I don’t mean to be so negative here, but unfortunately this time of year inspires the negative in me, and thus, that’s what you get from me. I will probably get worse before I get better. Sorry.
I have to say, for me, Thanksgiving is probably one of the worst holidays. Yeah, I know, it should be about being thankful and about our shared national history, but I don’t need a special day for these things. Instead, the message is, “I’m thankful, so let’s be as disgustingly, sickeningly, gluttonous as possible. Maybe it’s because I’m not a big cook, and I am certainly no fan of cleaning up. Maybe, it’s because turkey a few times per year is enough for me. Maybe it’s because I’m English and Thanksgiving was never a big deal in my house. Whatever it is, whenever I see that sea of food, I cant help but think of the all the poor people around the world who would be happy with just 1/10th of the calories we are going to consume on that day. I imagine all those eyes upon me as I tuck into my mountain of turkey and my gallon of gravy and I imagine them saying, shame on you, shame on you for being so driven by consumption and so wasteful. Perhaps, I will fast this year and then, when I eat on 11/23, then I will be thankful. I should, but alas, I probably won’t. The pressure to partake is just too great. It would be like trying to opt out of Christmas. People just won’t let you get away with it. Oh, well, pass the candied yams, will ya?
I have to say, for me, Thanksgiving is probably one of the worst holidays. Yeah, I know, it should be about being thankful and about our shared national history, but I don’t need a special day for these things. Instead, the message is, “I’m thankful, so let’s be as disgustingly, sickeningly, gluttonous as possible. Maybe it’s because I’m not a big cook, and I am certainly no fan of cleaning up. Maybe, it’s because turkey a few times per year is enough for me. Maybe it’s because I’m English and Thanksgiving was never a big deal in my house. Whatever it is, whenever I see that sea of food, I cant help but think of the all the poor people around the world who would be happy with just 1/10th of the calories we are going to consume on that day. I imagine all those eyes upon me as I tuck into my mountain of turkey and my gallon of gravy and I imagine them saying, shame on you, shame on you for being so driven by consumption and so wasteful. Perhaps, I will fast this year and then, when I eat on 11/23, then I will be thankful. I should, but alas, I probably won’t. The pressure to partake is just too great. It would be like trying to opt out of Christmas. People just won’t let you get away with it. Oh, well, pass the candied yams, will ya?
Monday, November 19, 2007
Systemic Dysfunction
In America most businesses are either manufacturing-retail, they make and/or sell something, or service oriented, they do things for you, like companies that mow your lawn for instance. Even governmental functions can be so organized, for example the government can either build a road ( manufacturing ) or audit your taxes ( service ) Among the service businesses are a particularly pernicious group which I call “systemic” organizations.
In a manufacturing or retail establishment there is a product and a process with a definitive beginning and end; usually the “end” is when the product is made and/or sold. The buyer then pays. In system oriented business the focus is not on an end result, but on the process, because there is no product. You are the product and the business gets paid along the way. Thus many of the activities engaged in by these system oriented organizations are designed to keep you in the system because without you, the product, the business ceases to have an income and ceases to be.
Examples of system oriented businesses are hospitals, courts and insurance companies. Have you ever noticed that if you go to the Doctor they always find some other test or other thing that you have going wrong? Get a blood test and the Dr is likely to say your “levels are elevated”. What the heck does that mean? Insurance companies are set up to take money from you, they make it so easy you can even pay on line, or have the money directly taken from your account. But file a claim! Then you find that the insurance company didn’t get your check, didn’t send the right form or lost what you sent them.
Bureaucracies are especially effective at this charade and DMV is probably the best example. You almost always have to go back to DMV two, three or even more times. You never have the right form or it wasn’t signed by the right person in the right spot. And ask yourself, what does DMV do for you? It’s nothing more than a glorified way of collecting taxes. They don’t make it easy for you to get what you need taken care of, like they should, no, in fact they make it more complicated. Even when you have done nothing wrong you feel guilty. You walk on egg shells. You don’t want to get in trouble with the “man”.
Once entrapped in such a system it can sometimes be nearly impossible to extricate yourself. The judicial system is the best example here. Get into trouble with the law, even for a minor infraction, and you can expect months of going to court, paying bills etc. If you get into deep enough trouble you may go to jail, be on probation or parole. In this way you are almost guaranteed to be in the system for years.
“Oh”, you may say, “you can avoid these systems by staying on the straight and narrow path. Just don’t get into trouble”. Ah, but the system makers have thought of this. They create so many rules and make things so confusing that it is easy to fall into their trap and then WHAMO, your in their system. Look at how many rules there are in our society. You can’t do this, and you can’t do that. When there are too many laws, then everyone is a potential criminal. It used to be that the lawmakers in Washington were part time politicians with full time jobs elsewhere, not anymore. They sit all day in their plush offices with their leather chairs creating more and more systems. This is why simple forms no longer have names, they now have numbers instead, things like W2, the 1040, the I-9; guaranteed to confuse.
This too explains why the government is against abortion or personal recreational drug use, because we don’t want to make things easy on people do we? We want to control what people do and what people say. We want them to be in the system. It’s much like the movie the Matrix. In the movie machines live off the life energy given off by humans. In the real world systems do the same thing. Or to quote another movie, “I keep getting out, but they keep pulling me back in again”.
Most people have 6th grade level educations. I have a master’s degree and can barely figure out how all this works, never mind an 80 years old addlepated grandmother for whom English is a second language. That’s why America imprisons more people than any other country in the world! Land of the free? Ha, we put more people in prison than the USSR ever did. Nothing is free in this country. It’s the land of the expensive because those systems need to be fed.
Now that you are aware of this, pay attention, you will be surprised how many of these systems there are. Stand up to the systems!
Plug in, turn off and shut up.
In a manufacturing or retail establishment there is a product and a process with a definitive beginning and end; usually the “end” is when the product is made and/or sold. The buyer then pays. In system oriented business the focus is not on an end result, but on the process, because there is no product. You are the product and the business gets paid along the way. Thus many of the activities engaged in by these system oriented organizations are designed to keep you in the system because without you, the product, the business ceases to have an income and ceases to be.
Examples of system oriented businesses are hospitals, courts and insurance companies. Have you ever noticed that if you go to the Doctor they always find some other test or other thing that you have going wrong? Get a blood test and the Dr is likely to say your “levels are elevated”. What the heck does that mean? Insurance companies are set up to take money from you, they make it so easy you can even pay on line, or have the money directly taken from your account. But file a claim! Then you find that the insurance company didn’t get your check, didn’t send the right form or lost what you sent them.
Bureaucracies are especially effective at this charade and DMV is probably the best example. You almost always have to go back to DMV two, three or even more times. You never have the right form or it wasn’t signed by the right person in the right spot. And ask yourself, what does DMV do for you? It’s nothing more than a glorified way of collecting taxes. They don’t make it easy for you to get what you need taken care of, like they should, no, in fact they make it more complicated. Even when you have done nothing wrong you feel guilty. You walk on egg shells. You don’t want to get in trouble with the “man”.
Once entrapped in such a system it can sometimes be nearly impossible to extricate yourself. The judicial system is the best example here. Get into trouble with the law, even for a minor infraction, and you can expect months of going to court, paying bills etc. If you get into deep enough trouble you may go to jail, be on probation or parole. In this way you are almost guaranteed to be in the system for years.
“Oh”, you may say, “you can avoid these systems by staying on the straight and narrow path. Just don’t get into trouble”. Ah, but the system makers have thought of this. They create so many rules and make things so confusing that it is easy to fall into their trap and then WHAMO, your in their system. Look at how many rules there are in our society. You can’t do this, and you can’t do that. When there are too many laws, then everyone is a potential criminal. It used to be that the lawmakers in Washington were part time politicians with full time jobs elsewhere, not anymore. They sit all day in their plush offices with their leather chairs creating more and more systems. This is why simple forms no longer have names, they now have numbers instead, things like W2, the 1040, the I-9; guaranteed to confuse.
This too explains why the government is against abortion or personal recreational drug use, because we don’t want to make things easy on people do we? We want to control what people do and what people say. We want them to be in the system. It’s much like the movie the Matrix. In the movie machines live off the life energy given off by humans. In the real world systems do the same thing. Or to quote another movie, “I keep getting out, but they keep pulling me back in again”.
Most people have 6th grade level educations. I have a master’s degree and can barely figure out how all this works, never mind an 80 years old addlepated grandmother for whom English is a second language. That’s why America imprisons more people than any other country in the world! Land of the free? Ha, we put more people in prison than the USSR ever did. Nothing is free in this country. It’s the land of the expensive because those systems need to be fed.
Now that you are aware of this, pay attention, you will be surprised how many of these systems there are. Stand up to the systems!
Plug in, turn off and shut up.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Really F'd Up!
A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.
The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.
"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."
The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.
"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."
The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Land of the Free, Home of the Imprisoned
Connecticut Correctional Officers are concerned that since Governor Rell decreed prisoners arrested for violent crimes need to do their full sentences that prisons in Connecticut are overcrowded. Their solution: hire more guards or build more prisons. I have a 3rd option, how about we arrest less people? I don’t believe that our founding fathers intended that legislators be full time law makers.; sitting around 40 hours per week with nothing better to do than create law after law. They call America the land of the free, but we incarcerate more people than any other country on earth; more than the Soviet Union ever did at the height of their idiocy. The way I figure it, the more laws you have, the more criminals you have, until such time that we are all criminals. Perhaps that’s the idea as corrections is a multi-billion dollar business. And what is clogging up our system? Drug arrests! If you added up all the people in prison nationwide for possession of marijuana you could populate a large metropolitan city; its millions of people. The way I figure it, what someone wants to do with their body is their damn business. If a consenting adult in his or her right mind wants to ingest a wild weed, I kinda don’t see how that’s anyone else’s concern. Isn’t that why our founding fathers came to America, to get away from such rigid tyranny? Where we going to go now? Canada is looking better everyday.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Green War
With everyone being more considerate of the environment and the term “green” showing up everywhere these days, I figured it wouldn’t be long before some folks began to think about how to make the war on terror more “green friendly”, so I thought that I would weigh in on the subject first. Here is my plan.
Everyone knows wars are awful and that the killing of innocent civilians is a tragic consequence, but that’s because heretofore wars have been fought with weapons. On the other hand, we here in the US have a burgeoning problem with garbage, its pilling up in the cities and fouling the countryside, thus, I believe we need to fight the war with garbage, rather than the war of garbage. This way we kill 2 birds with one stone, er, so to speak ( sorry Peta people ).
Since we are flying over terrorist infested lands anyway, we fill up the planes with trash and dump it out along the way. This is less likely to kill people, but at the same time I believe it would have a tremendously demoralizing effect upon the enemy, especially if the trash was full of shoes and dead pig products which we know are historic anathema of the radical Islamic practitioner.
It wouldn’t be too long before the streets of Terrorland were full of old newspapers, rotting banana peels, and discarded electronic equipment. Some might argue that this is just moving the trash problem from one place to another, but I say, have you seen these places? If there exists a better place to create a landfill, I have yet to find it. We can also do them the favor, since they believe we are simply after their oil, by sending the oil back to them when we are all done with it. Let them figure out a way to recycle it.
I believe my plan could end this war on terror in a matter of weeks, maybe less, then we could finally focus on the really important matters, like what Brittany Spears is up to these days. I am afraid she has had to take a back seat to all this war hoopla.
Everyone knows wars are awful and that the killing of innocent civilians is a tragic consequence, but that’s because heretofore wars have been fought with weapons. On the other hand, we here in the US have a burgeoning problem with garbage, its pilling up in the cities and fouling the countryside, thus, I believe we need to fight the war with garbage, rather than the war of garbage. This way we kill 2 birds with one stone, er, so to speak ( sorry Peta people ).
Since we are flying over terrorist infested lands anyway, we fill up the planes with trash and dump it out along the way. This is less likely to kill people, but at the same time I believe it would have a tremendously demoralizing effect upon the enemy, especially if the trash was full of shoes and dead pig products which we know are historic anathema of the radical Islamic practitioner.
It wouldn’t be too long before the streets of Terrorland were full of old newspapers, rotting banana peels, and discarded electronic equipment. Some might argue that this is just moving the trash problem from one place to another, but I say, have you seen these places? If there exists a better place to create a landfill, I have yet to find it. We can also do them the favor, since they believe we are simply after their oil, by sending the oil back to them when we are all done with it. Let them figure out a way to recycle it.
I believe my plan could end this war on terror in a matter of weeks, maybe less, then we could finally focus on the really important matters, like what Brittany Spears is up to these days. I am afraid she has had to take a back seat to all this war hoopla.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Top 10 Reasons Why I Hate Christmas
1 It starts in #$%^& October now!
2 Every retail establishment becomes a mecca for possible shopping. Who the hell buys those stupid Hess trucks anyway?
3 Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols
4 Hearing the phrase “Holiday Season” 147 trillion times
5 The Christmas Character of the year, Betty Bop, Elmo, Shrek. Give me a #$%^& break, will ya!
6 Getting stuck at the post office behind the elderly shut in who only ventures out three times per year, this being one of them, who has to complain to anyone in earshot how stamps used to be 4 cents. Then she pays with a check!
7 Having to spend Christmas day with my brother-in law’s family friends golfing buddy because their kids play hockey together when I last saw my own family in 1996.
8 Having to find that perfect Christmas present for my father-n-law who has more money than me, everything he ever wanted, his hobby is sleeping and he has never liked or used anything you have ever bought him.
9 Todays Christmas movies suck!
10 Putting up the Christmas tree requires a degree in engineering and marriage counseling.
2 Every retail establishment becomes a mecca for possible shopping. Who the hell buys those stupid Hess trucks anyway?
3 Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carols
4 Hearing the phrase “Holiday Season” 147 trillion times
5 The Christmas Character of the year, Betty Bop, Elmo, Shrek. Give me a #$%^& break, will ya!
6 Getting stuck at the post office behind the elderly shut in who only ventures out three times per year, this being one of them, who has to complain to anyone in earshot how stamps used to be 4 cents. Then she pays with a check!
7 Having to spend Christmas day with my brother-in law’s family friends golfing buddy because their kids play hockey together when I last saw my own family in 1996.
8 Having to find that perfect Christmas present for my father-n-law who has more money than me, everything he ever wanted, his hobby is sleeping and he has never liked or used anything you have ever bought him.
9 Todays Christmas movies suck!
10 Putting up the Christmas tree requires a degree in engineering and marriage counseling.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
We Live For This
We live for this, being
here and now. Where
the lines converge
in this special moment.
We leave the shadows
behind and return
from the effloresce of twilight
to the embers of day.
In this Elysian light
we are radiant with the sun.
Reflecting splendor
like all the myriad facets
of icicles in the eves.
At our feet lay sequins fallen
from the hems of angels passing.
We may find the cache
of heavens earthly promise
but it may prove
temporal and elusive.
The shades of night still
descend. They reach
out to us through the trees
with their long fingers.
It is time to go,
but this is why
we are here.
here and now. Where
the lines converge
in this special moment.
We leave the shadows
behind and return
from the effloresce of twilight
to the embers of day.
In this Elysian light
we are radiant with the sun.
Reflecting splendor
like all the myriad facets
of icicles in the eves.
At our feet lay sequins fallen
from the hems of angels passing.
We may find the cache
of heavens earthly promise
but it may prove
temporal and elusive.
The shades of night still
descend. They reach
out to us through the trees
with their long fingers.
It is time to go,
but this is why
we are here.
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