Ridiculous Corporate Sound-Bite Sloganeering

The good one this morning was some gigantic corporate sponsor of the particular NPR program I was listening to. They had their 15 seconds to tout themselves as a sponsor, and spooled off some hollow crap about their commitment to and love of, then concluded with something like, "Committed to our consuming passion for the art of accounting!" And that was with deep feeling and emotion and real-live intensity, too! Yeah, accounting, nothing like some ledger entry to get the blood pumping, eh?

What is it about these companies and their need to encapsulate their identities in a 3-second sound bite? Is this the current endstate of Sound Bite America, where everything is reduced to something that can be spit out in five seconds or less? Yeah, most likely. No one has got the time or the energy or the attention span to listen to three or four coherent sentences which describe an organization, its structure, purpose, and philosophy. Goddamn, that might take like a minute or two. No time for that, dude, gotta watch the latest AOL/SI sports clips on my video phone on the way to Blockbuster to rent the latest video game glop for my ADD kid. No time to listen to something comprehensive; I've got other things to do in my Dodge Grand Caravan with its DVD player in the cockpit, along with the MP3 player jack and my dual phone cradles, y'know, for me and the wife.

So the end result is a boiled-down snippet of non-information that conveys spirit and impression rather than fact and information. You get an accounting company that spouts crap--however genuinely earnest they may actually be--that has "passion" and "accounting" in the same phrase. You get emotion-laden and highly evocative rhetoric that can and does elicit a powerful core, visceral reaction, but for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. It's hollow hyperbole, designed to place and keep a message at the top of the long, long list of personal things to remember, but it's meaningless crap.

Then there's the typical hyper-mega-conglomerate slogan that has got "passion" in it. Me, I think about the tango when I hear the word "passion." I think about frenzied, breathless lovemaking in a dusty garret, sweeping the dishes off the dining room table. I think about a depth of emotion and intensity that in many ways displaces common sense and propriety. "Passion" to me is about personal emotion, maybe shared with one or two other people, and that's it. Passion is not a public emotion, nor should it be. Passion most certainly is not an attribute of a corporation. This is a misuse of the term, an intentional distortion of what passion is all about. I can't conceive of a multinational having any passion, let alone attributing to any commercial business interest the human/emotional foundations that would get me to a concept of them having passion. It just doesn't work.

I was in a major hospital a few years back, and they'd spend hundreds, probably thousands of dollars promoting their new dumbass institutional slogan. It was on gigantic banners at all of the entrances, on every piece of letterhead in the place, at the top of every announcement, and at the top of all of the announcement boards. I was wondering why they didn't announce it on the PA every 15 minutes. And their groundbreaking statement? "Doing the right things the right way for the right reasons, because it's the right thing to do." I mean, how stupid is that? What overpaid administrator thought that up, and what overpaid executive liked it enough to approve it? It's absolutely ridiculous, and despite the excellent medical care I always received there, that's how I've thought of that institution of medical care ever since then, shallow and vapid, struggling for a way to articulate what they do, instead of just doing their jobs.

Then there's the phone slogan that goes something like, "Working hard every day for you." Yeah, right, do they expect for one single minute for me to really believe that they are working for ME, for my desires and benefit? Give me a break. The corporate bottom line--and whatever this company is, they're publicly traded--is profit for the shareholders. The slogan should be, and in all realilty is: "Working hard every day to maximize company performance in order to exceed expectations and analysis in order to pass profits along to shareholders." THAT's the mission statement, so don't tell me about working so hard to help me out; that's just a lie, a plain and clear lie.

And then there are the slogans incorporating "driven." This is like the "passion" ones, with this one key word setting a tone that's supposed to impress me and make me think about how hard they do whatever they do. Take the incredibly hollow "Driven to succeed." Again, I don't consider a corporation capable of being driven, not in the sense of this usage. What I see when I hear a corporation talking about being driven is a CEO in a torn dress shirt, his tie tight around his head, with a whip and a chair, rampaging from the board room meeting with shreds of quarterly reports in his teeth, into the steno pool, screaming like an insane pirate and thrashing every single employee with whom he comes into contact, driving them mercilessly as a huge, sweaty, shaved-head Mongo wearing nothing but a tattered leather thong beats out the grinding corporate tattoo. Now that's driven.

I think about people being driven. Maybe it's an overbearing father, a pushy mom, intense peer competition, fear of failure, any number of circumstances and situations which could and do lead a person to literally be driven to do a particular thing, such as being driven to succeed. We've all seen these folks, and have worked with them, too. My experience is that they're not a lot of fun to be around. They're moving too fast, are too serious, and can't just stop and relax a bit. They're always going and going, always focused. Sure, there's merit in mission focus, but there's also a time to stop, relax, and decompress a bit. Why is it that the ones who are driven are the ones dying at age 53 from heart attacks and strokes? Is this the image that the "driven" corporations want me to conjure when they trot out their stupid corporate slogan? Probably not, but that's what they're getting.

And of course, there's all of the "forward" ones. I think Toyota's is something like "Moving you forward." Yeah, duh, Toyota, you make cars, and they primarily move forward. You're stating the obvious, which seems to me to be a little silly, given your corporate huge-ness n' all. Naturally, it's the figurative "forward" they're pushing, implying that just absolutely everything in my life will be moving forward when I align myself with Toyota and its family of products. My skin will move forward and clear up. My love life will move forward and the girlfriend will let me touch her down there. My job prospects will move forward and I can move up from scraping up the asphalt paver leavings to placing cones at the work site. Just every little thing will be better once I start moving forward.

Heard another company slogan the other day, another "forward" one, except theirs was "Moving you forward." Now, that's a bit personal, actually placing me right there in the middle of it. You're taking me and moving ME forward. What, can't I do it myself? You are so great and smart and corporately powerful and wise that you'll do it for me, instead of the two of us together? That's a bit condescending, isn't it?

And the revisionist take on the "forward" corporate slogans is that it's not a helpful slogan, but a barked imperative. Toyota isn't saying a happy, cheerful, smiling and helpful "move forward" as a figurative hand out to me, it's a forceful Japanese imperial edict to vacate my current position and move to their speed and rhythm. It's an order to get up and do something, get with the program, with their program. It implies sloth and lack of pace and vision and drive on my part, and tends to turn me off to the entire Toyota experience.

But Ignorant America loves it, just loves it all, eats it right on up like macaroni and cheez with li'l chunks of Spam and ranch dressing all over the top. These are the dumbasses who hear a slogan like "Our passion is being empowered forward to be driven to extreme success!" and they think they're hooking up with an A Number One winner, something exclusive and positive and both protective and empowering. They can't stop to think of the actual meaning of what they're hearing. They can't stop to realize that it's not about them doing something, it's about something being done to them, manipulation and message placement. Ignorant America just goes with the cool words and the Hollywood-movie-set construct of what they're being fed, all front and flash and pretty colors, but no depth whatsoever.

And this is the publicity and image and message machine that is employed by political candidates. This is where their images and slogans and definitive sound bites are created. And we wonder about how and why a dolt like George W. Bush gets to be president? Give me a break.

Up The Funky Skirt

Hoo, boy, today it was another one of those serendipitous little things that life throws at you. No way to plan for them, no way to make them happen, just gotta sit back, keep your eyes and ears open, and be open to the possibiity that they'll happen. Gotta be ready, and be receptive, and just pay attention to what's going on around you.

Lunchtime in the big Sodexho cafeteria, content with my Diet Cherry Coke and a burrito combo with some cheez and onions on the top. Fifteen minutes to relax, read over some of my pre-lunch notes to get my head around the afternoon, and also to just watch all of the thousands of folks drift by at this big central feeding center. Always good people watching, what with all of the seriously intelligent professional women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and colors, a rainbow of pleasing scenery, always changing.

It was a good nine or ten weeks ago that I'd gotten it here the first time. Unexpected then, but there it was. Sitting in the surprisingly uncomfortable metal mesh bench seats, I glanced up to see what was around. My upward arc of view took me right to the 40-something MILF sitting across from me with her buddy, and the incredibly large view of her lilac panties between her careless splayed legs. The rest of lunch was fun as I kept stealing glances up her skirt. Not particularly arousing, and nothing else to see, really, just that titillation and thrill of seeing something usually hidden, the glimpse behind the curtain.

And now I was sitting against the opposite wall, on the same breezy seats, and the woman across from me, this time a rather large contestant, had her legs open like a Romanian hockey player. And man, did I have a clear shot at the goal. She'd hiked up her heels a bit, on tip-toe as she sat, and her legs were just gaping. Her shortish skirt, with the slit up the front, just opened up like a theater curtain, and there was her reproductive glory, for just about all to take in.

This view was much more intense than the last encounter, with her bulging white panties stretched tight over her vulva. Full camel toe in evidence, with curiously mesmerizing shifts and contours of the cloth as she moved slightly. I thought of the words to describe it, and "funky" came to mind. Defintely not arousing, and not quite to the level of titillating. Not disturbing or strange, just kind of funky, really.

Man, she was close to me, all of six feet away in the bustle of the cafeteria. Wasn't she aware of her posture? Then it hit me: was this a come-on? Was I being offered something? That thought was a shock, and it was quickly apparent from the context of the situation that this was not the case. Unlike my experience as an undergrad, when as a sophomore I had gotten a 90-minute flash from a senior. I was too shy, too unsure, and in retrospect too goddamn dumb to even explore the possibility that it had been intentional, and had lost out big-time. It HAD been intentional, I later discovered, as this Machiavellian young lady was looking to seduce me so she could assume a lucrative on-campus beer distributor representative job that I'd had for some time. Her approach didn't work on me--from her point of view--so she simply seduced my boss, and the job was hers shortly thereafter.

But this wasn't the case now. Panty Woman and her buddy finished their lunches, and were up and out. Seeing her trundle on out was more than enough to confirm that "arousing," "exciting," or "hot" were not the right vocab choices to use in this case. She reminded me of the squatty-body evil sister in James and the Giant Peach, low-slung, built for stability, not necessarily for speed.

That Intriguing Rectal T-Shirt

Sitting at a traffic light on the way home yesterday, a guy walked past. Nothing spectacular there, except for his dark blue t-shirt. Nothing noteworthy in that, a typical heavyweight t-shirt in dark blue, with the standard block white text in two lines. A company or something, so no big deal. But then I read the words on the back of his t-shirt: "RECTAL ENGINEERING." Okay, now he had my attention.

So, what exactly is this guy putting out? Is he a contractor, working for some kind of company that actually does engineering of some sort of rectally-related, ah, sites? Is this a physical engineering firm, with rebar and concrete, aggregate and mortar, doing heavy lifting? If so, does somebody like Joey Rectal own the company? Yeah, I guess that's possible, but I'd think that if my last name were rectal, that I'd have already changed it, or would hope that my ancestors would've been smart enough to do that before I came along. Or maybe it was an immigration officer's idead of a really, really good laugh while punching the clock at Ellis Island back in 1903, to give that dopey Hungarian orphan the American name of Jerry Rectal, instead of Rostovlanis Cxqylanqan. And hey, family pride being what it can be, I guess little Rostov/Jerry opted to keep his given name as his own private statement of his dedication to assimilation, his statement of loyalty to his adopted and adoptive country.

So, in a short time--still at the light--I'd come to one conclusion that this guy was a laborer for a very proud American family business. Sure, that's possible.

Or maybe he's an equipment guy for a medical firm, with the admittedly improbably name of Rectal Engineering. Maybe they do reconstructive surgery, resections, deal with sepsis and other unpleasant conditions and injuries to the very lower portions of the gastrointestinal passageway. Yeah, that's possible, although I'd think that they guy wouldn't be some schlub walking down the street, that maybe he'd be in his own vehicle, on the way to the lab, the operating theater, the rectal engineering facility, that kind of thing. Who knows.

The other explanation I came up with was that maybe this was just a joke t-shirt, like your college intramural basketball standard of Dick and the Four Skins, Fubar Men, Crafty Bastards, the kind of thing. It's totally plausible that someone sat sagging with a beer perched on his chest in the dorm one night and came up with their team sponsor as Rectal Engineering. And now it's a unique, five- or maybe ten-of-a-kind t-shirt that needs to be kept and worn as a statement of what was, a better time, good times, being young(er), having less reponsibilities and burdens. Sure, that's plausible, too.

And that's about when the light went green and it was time for me to move on home. I've done a quick net search and have found no trace of "Rectal Engineering." I've filed it away, for future cross-referencing, but don't really expect to see or hear of this again. Although, I'd like to figure out the mystery.

More Ignorant America

It's everywhere I go, inescapable. The facets of Ignorant America (IA) are everywhere, sparkling beacons of mediocrity, stupidity and foolishness on every corner, at every turn.

Ignorant America is a Fox sitcom made flesh.

IA wants to be a Fox sitcom, ideally "Married With Children."

IA actually has in-depth discussions of the pros and cons of some grotesquely thin starlet's $10,000 designer gown witnessed in disturbing detail at the previous evening's meaningless award show.

IA cries watching "Extreme Makeover Home Edition," never thinking to ask why the lucky lucky lucky 'winners' were such slothful, filthy, go-nowhere losers to begin with, or thinking ahead to what this dream house will look like given another 18 months.

IA is completely unaware that there is a TV show called "Nova."

IA doesn't save, and complains about working into retirement age.

IA medicates their children rather than parenting them.

IA expects teachers to be parents to their children.

IA has no concept of parental sacrifice.

IA has no problem with the extreme close-up depictions of disturbingly gory violence and bodily injury on CSI, but cannot even begin to grasp the concept of nudity.

IA doesn't know what frottage or coprophilia mean.

Ignorant Female America buys a bra that's one or two cup sizes too small, for whatever non-sensical reason, so that her ample bosom blossoms up and over the top and right on out, creating a stunningly stupid physical appearance, some kind of bulging ridge thing, betraying a distinct lack of attention to personal appearance.

IA expresses themselves public through the bumper sticker and vanity license plate.

IA avoids documentaries as a dangerous waste of time.

Squirmy Iraq

Yeah, Iraq is a big subject, with lots of folks commenting. This morning's drive brought a whole new torrent of bad Iraq news, what with Katrina all completely and totally taken care of and squared away and put aside and diligently solved and funded with Dubya's $200 billion on the way and trucks full of goodies being taken by state and city workers for themselves. But I digress.

Problems in Basra, with the Brits in combat with both the local populace and the local police. Shiites killing each other, and then briefly teaming up to have it out with the Brits and other occupiers. Tall Afar all a mess with the more and more bad guys infiltrating and setting up insurgent-terrorist housekeeping in the dusty towns way out there, and the US forces admitting that they have no way to monitor the flow, and no way to stop it.

And the press just keep getting killed. And those Iraqis brave (and stupid) enough to volunteer for service positions in their viciously re-arranged country just keep getting killed, singly and in surprisingly large groups.

And the terrorists just keep slaughtering the innocents, in swaths that number in the hundreds.

And the brainwashed, suicide-minded martyrs just keep showing up, drawn by the magnet of easy targets, great training, the best jihad environment since Soviet Afghanistan 20-odd years ago. Dubya and his cabal talk about Iraq and terrorism, and yeah, the two now are inextricably linked, with this being Jihad Central, the Disney World of violent Islamic extremism. The Republicans have succeeded in taking a terrorism backwater--don't for a second believe the bullshit they're trying so desparately to feed the USofA about al Qaida planning 9/11 in Iraq and that crap--and in turning it into the greatest martyr magnet there has ever been. The US has given a struggling, flagging, isolated, repugnantly extremist and largely mainstream--rejected terrorism movement, and have turned it into a viable, enduring concern. The US adventure in Iraq has succeeded in cementing violent Islamic extremism as a threat to modern life and culture, and has given it a home. Thanks, George W. Bush, brave and fearless leader. Time for another vacation now, eh, you callous, cynical, uncaring brat. We were all better off when you were just a dead-end, self-destructive, spoiled rich boy.

And US troops just keep getting killed. We'll top 2000 by the end of the year. That's no Vietnam, for sure, but 2000 US soldiers dead? Isn't anyone upset by this? What about the 20,000-odd who've lost eyes and feet and hands, like my buddy from a few years back? What about him, all medically retired now and shipped right on out of the Army?

What exactly is the point of this Iraq war again? Regime change? No, that wasn't the stated reason, only what was provided after the fact. WMD? Yeah, that was the reason going in, to protect the USofA from Iraqi ICBMs which were going to rain down on the country from Iraq. Yeah, right. That was a crock, and was proven so soon enough. Anyone who believes for an instant that the administration was 'fooled' or 'misled' or 'duped' by inaccurate intelligence and analysis is an absolute fool. I'm more than tangentially involved in this line of work, and I can assure you that the administration knew exactly what it was doing at every single step. Just like an intellectually maturing child, they rationalized that it would be easier to ask for forgiveness after the fact than it would be to ask for permission beforehand.

And here we are after the fact, and of course there is no request for forgiveness, no apology, no admission of missteps or bad assumptions. This is complete denial, a simple close-minded approach to conducting business that shuts off all discussion, all commentary, and accepts nothing but the praise and accolades which are both less and less in frequency and increasingly hollow and meaningless. Day by day, more and more people see that the emperor has no clothes.

The Stupid, Heedless, and Ill-Informed Return to New Orleans

It was just too good on the radio this morning, as one of the first residents stumbled her way back into her destroyed parish. A radio reporter asked her what she thought of waiting a few more days for the official FEMA permission to return, for the pronouncement of all-clear and all-safe, and she offered the equivalent of, "Well, I don't think too much of what FEMA is saying because it's not what I want to hear, so I'm not listening to them."

It was just too rich, too ironic, a sound bite of scintillating irony. Yup, she didn't like the message because it conflicted with what she wanted to do, so she was just going to ignore it. I wanted so badly for the radio guy to ask her, "And is this how you reacted to the emergency declarations and evacuation orders at the end of August?" Why didn't he press her on that?

Of course, the answer almost certainly for her would have been yes. The idiots who are so used to watching the prime TV coverage of the redneck idiots staying in their apartments for an alcohol-fueled hurricane party stayed as well. No independent thoughts about evacuation, safety, the rational exercise of "well, what exactly might happen in this case? . . ." Nope, none of that. "I don't want to leave my house, so I'm going to stay right here." And now you've got nothing left, if you're even alive at all.

And I as a tax payer am going to have to shell out how much--upwards of $200 billion, in addition to the $100 billion the Iraq was has already cost--to put these moronically self-destructive, ignorant fools right back into rebuilt homes in a rebuitl city so this can happen again in another 5 or 20 or 50 years? Is anyone paying attention here? Why is any government agency spending any money at all on a city that's 20 feet below sea level? Why don't we spend $200 billion on building homes and schools and clinics for the poor in Appalachia, the rust belt, inner cities? Why don't we spend $200 billion on alternative fuels and wind famrs?

If New Orleans wants to rebuild, sure, by all means, go right ahead. If the locals want to do it, knock yourselves out, cher. But I don't want my well-earned and diligently contributed tax dollars to be thrown into a sodden money pit. Spending money to rebuild New Orleans is big, big politics, but it's also foolish and financially irresponsible. Helping those bombed out by the storm and flood? Hell, yeah, that's what we pay taxes for, and that's what government and FEMA and all of the angencies involved are for, just exactly what they're doing, food and clothing and shelter for folks who've been pushed out. I'm happy to pay taxes for that kind of relief. But spend money to rebuild that city? That's a stupid proposition, plain and simple.

Let the market sort it out. If the city is needed to be rebuilt, private contributions and capital and industry will make it happen. The market will choose the best replacement for Old New Orlenas. That might be a New New Orleans, right where the old one used to be, or the New New Orleans may just end up being Baton Rouge, just a little bit farther up the river. The market will make that determination on infrastructure, roads, housing, port facilities, transportation connectivity, all of those factors. And the market will make that decision and run with it faster than the government ever possibly could. The market will not wait for EPA assessments and appraisals, and the market won't wait for any individuals or groups. The market will go where it needs to go, and it'll go there fast and directly.

Let the market determine the fate of New Orlenas. And if the idiots get flooded out again, which WILL happen, sooner or later, then we can deal with their foolish circumstances as needed.

Follow The Rules, Pedro

It was soccer practice with the girls yesterday, and we were just finishing up. Beautiful late summer day in the large county park by the river, crystal clear sunshine, just warm enough, and a breeze to take the heat away. The first practice had gone pretty well, and our season was off to a good start.

Just as we were finishing up, a group of about 15 guys rolled up in four or five cars and headed to the volleyball pit on the other side of the play meadow. Everyone was speaking Spanish, so I made the assumption, looking at their cars and such, that they likely were a group of immigrants. Illegal or not, no way to tell, and I didn't really care about that (at least not for the purposes of discussion in this post, anyways). They got organized, and were having a great time playing soon enough. Good on them.

And as I loaded up my truck with balls and cones and gear, up rolls some guy in his totally tricked-out Chevy pick-up. Huge chrome wheels, with spinners. All jacked up, huge chrome roll bar, with 8 spots all lined up on the top. Chrome step rungs, and a gigantic "Bolivia" painted in the back window. Latin music just blaring from the open windows; hell, that's how I noticed him, you couldn't miss this guy and his ride with that goddamn noise--and it was so loud it was noise, not music--blaring from his mobile platform.

In the cab with him, a little brother, maybe a son. Who could tell.

And as I stood in the parking lot, all of 140 yards from the field and the volleyball pit, the same parking lot where all of the other guys had parked their cars and from where they'd walked over, this guy just rolled on down the maintenance path. There's a little sign there that says "Park vehicles only," but no rope, no chain, no kind of barrier at all. It runs up to a point maybe 80 yards from the volleyball pit.

So this shitbird just rolled up the curb, onto the path, and drove his truck down to a point right in front of the picnic shed, in front of the playground, in front of the play meadow, and all of 80 yards from the volleyball pit. Too goo to park with everyone else, for whatever reason he felt he didn't have to follow the rules.

You know, I've been to about 50 foreign countries in my life. And when I leave the USA and go to another country, I'm always careful to follow the rules. I watch and listen and observe, and I try to do as the locals do, because I don't want to look like a fool. I also don't want to offend, and I don't want to look like some kind of arrogant jerkoff. I behave because I'm a representative of my place of origin, and also because I want to show respect for my current place, that I know that I'm a guest, or that I'm new and paying attention to the way things are done locally.

Well, Pedro (or Diego or Pepe or Juan or Julio, whatever) apparently doesn't have any similar kind of concerns. Here's what I observed, and the conclusions that I came to:

He doesn't feel the need to follow the rules. There is no barrier, no chains or bollards to block the way, so that means he CAN drive up there, even though there is a sign that says he is not authorized to do so. Maybe he didn't see the sign; that makes him unobservant of his surroundings, when he shoudl be. Maybe he doesn't read English too well; that makes him not culturally fluent enough to take these kinds of bold steps, especially when there's public parking lot he's driving through to get to the park-employee-only access way. All of the other cars were parked in the parking lot, and indeed, there is a huge parking which is clearly for park users. The place where he parked his truck is quite obviously not for that purpose. But he drove on up there and did it anyway. All of his buddies were in the parking lot, but he chose not to put his truck there with them.

And this is the delicate part: if you're in a foreign country, whether legal or illegal, it's a pretty good idea to blend in. It's a good idea to observe and follow the common rules of the culture and the society in which you have situated yourself. This guy didn't do that, although all of the clues were there. He chose to act upon his native culture, a me-first outlook in which you take advantages whenever and wherever you can, before someone else gets to them. You do what you can until you're ordered not to, usually by a person in a position of serious authority. This case had implied and absent authority. Everyone present made a conscious decision to maintain the tranquility and safety and orderliness of the situation, including all of his volleyball buddies (whom I assume also to be fellow immigrants). But he decided that he didn't have to play by the posted and implied rules. He broke the rules, and he got away with it.

Next time, follow the rules, Recent Arrival Guy. You'll be helping yourself and your entire immigrant class, in many ways. You follow the rules, and you earn respect from those of us native to this culture and society, those of us who pay very close attention to how you and all of your compatriots comport yourselves. When you follow the rules, you show you want to be a part of your adopted location, and you are intentionally leaving the flawed and failed and illegal attitudes of your point of origin behind. So, wake up and smell the situation, and follow the rules.

Designed Intelligently?

No, I don't think so. Look around and you don't see an intricate, interbalanced puzzle of infinite complexity, which could have been cobbled together only by some unseen, all-powerful intelligence or force. That's absolutely ridiculous on its very face, without even making the most shallow of observations. But the Christian Right wants it that way. What better way to use a secular system of law and government against itself than to come up with a faux secular, apparently scientific approach to use to shove their religious agenda down the throat of everyone who is not like them. It's not good enough just to be a Christian; you've got to go out and force everyone else to be one, too.

Let's just look at humans, just people. If we're designed intelligently, then I've got a few questions:

Why is there cancer? Is this part of a larger plan, and if so, what exactly is that plan? Why is it built in to some, and not others? Is the following argument then to be that cancer victims have been chosen, that they are to blame, or are being punished? Or that maybe cancer is some kind of wonderful divine invitation to end your time on earth and come on up to the Celestial Main House? Intelligent design says that there's something other than random organic chemical replication and inevitable molecular error and mutation going on here, that there is both awareness and purpose behind these things. So why do babies and children and grandparents get cancer? Why is there horrible, degrading, dehumanizing pain and suffering with cancer? What's the intelligently designed purpose for that?

What is the purpose of the appendix?

Why do men have nipples?

Why do humans have body hair? An evolution-oriented person might be able to easily see how a few hundred thousand years ago a coat of long, thick hair would be a great defense against both weather and predators, but over time the need for it and consequently its characteristics have altered, no wait, have evolved. What is the intelligently designed purpose for back hair and armpit hair. What does God have in mind for pubic hair?

If there is an intelligent designer out there, then what are spitting cobras for? What are poisonous frogs and toads and spiders and snakes all about? What is their purpose in the grand scheme? Why are there flesh-eating viruses and Ebola and Marburg?

If the overall Intelligent Design argument is that things are so complex that only a conscious effort could have made them that way, then what does it say about the consciousness that put forth that effort? Things are needlessly complex, incredibly sophisticated for no apparent reason. If we are/were intelligently designed, then why aren't we and everything else so much more simple and easy to understand? Why is it that one drug which helps you, when combined with another drug that will help you, turns them both toxic? If we're designed intelligently, why can't we drink seawater, since that's what covers most of the planet?

Sit through The Hitchikier's Guide to the Galaxy, and you'll see just my kind of intelligent design. Manufacturing, now that's plausible to me. We do it now with cloning and gene manipulation, in vitro fertilization and genetic tools to achieve scientific and product ends. Intelligent manufacturing is perfectly plausible to me: at some point way back a-when, the Creator or Creators whipped us all up, got us constituted and formed, and then set our reality into motion. But where are they now? There is no clear sign of them at hand, and I haven't heard any talk from Intelligent Design on where the hand of the infinitely complex Creator is right now, and how it is manipulating our realities and our conditions. If this is so, then we've been left on our own. We were created/made, and that was that. We've been toddling along on our own since then, whether it was 6000-odd years ago, or 13-15 billion. Either way, that sort of gap has to allow for some time to adaptation to the environment, to the challenges of just being in the world around. And that would lead us to physical, genetic, identifiable and traceable changes in who and what we are based on responses to the surroundings, right? And that just leads us right back to evolution.

The Doonesbury piece from December 18th was quite good, where the old, white, probably respected, learned, educated guy was asked which tuberculosis vaccine he'd rather have, the new or the old one. After all, the old one wouldn't deal with the changes the organism had undergone since the introduction of drugs to combat its presence. The new drug is for the new version of the threat, the disease that has EVOLVED in response to the threat to its own existence and ability to reproduce itself. So which one do you go with: the new treatement option and without saying it impugn your entire creationist dogma, or the old drugs and suffer quietly, maybe even die, knowing that you're standing up for something important and maybe actually correct? You choose wisely, eh?

Jim! Jim! No, It's Dave.

I was in the poshy mall across the street from my office building the other day at lunch when I hear a voice to my left rear saying insistently, "Jim! Hey! Jim!" Not being Jim, I kept on a-walking down the mall to the drugstore to buy a soda. Again, there it was, a little louder and a little closer, "Hey! Jim!!" And then even closer, the guy obviously now pursuing someone, closing, "Jim!!! Hey!!" The voice was right behind me.

And then I felt the hand on my shoulder. It wasn't a gentle touch, but it wasn't a slap or a shove. It was insistent. Not quite a slap, but not an easy "excuse me" either. I knew immediately it was the Hey Jim Guy, but that was about as far as I could see into this suddenly strange situation.

I turned, and immediately recognized my backyard neighbor, Duncan. He'ds bought his house behind our shed about a year after we moved in, and we'd talked a number of times out by the woodpile. We get along pretty well, but aren't close neighbors. I smiled and said, "Hey, Duncan, what's up?"

He was a little out of breath from the pursuit, "Man, Jim, I was screaming and screaming your name, but I guess you didn't hear me, huh?"

I smiled, trying to be gentle, and then just dropped it, "Dude, my name is Dave."

His face dropped a bit, the brow furrowed ever so slightly in confusion, but right away he was back up, moving forward. He changed the subject instantly, and I mean in the space of a heartbeat, to my pile of firewood out back and the tree house I'm building for the kids. He was deep into it, talking fast to keep me quiet. I had to wonder if he even heard me, but his insistence on yapping told me more than enough. Man, I thought, I'm terrible at names myself, but if I'd been caught in this kind of direct, no-shit, undeniable, one-on-one, face-to-face kind of flub, at least I'd have a laugh about it, admit it, and just come clean. But not Duncan, apparently. That was just something he couldn't roger up to, making that kind of admission.

I've seen him since a couple of times, and have noticed he hasn't called me by my name once. I wonder if I've fundamentally shaken his confidence in his name retention skills. Maybe he thinks I'm intentionally fucking with him, and the next time we meet I'll tell him my name is Sebastiani. Whatever.

What was really weird, what put the icing on this karmic cake was that no less than five hours later, as I was driving home, the following took place: I was listening to my favorite gonzo drive-time show, and there was a caller. The hosts punched him onto the line and said, "Hello, Dave." No answer. Now they had my direct attention, since they'd called my name out. Again, they tried to reach him, "Hey, Dave, talk to us, you're on the air," met only with radio-call-in-dumbass silence. One last time they tried, "Hey, Dave, are you there? Speak to us," and the guy answers, "No, guys, I'm Jim."

Pretty freaky, sure. Now the only thing I can't figure out is what the cosmic significance of this is. Am I being given a communication here, and if so, who's it from, and what is it about? Is it a message for me, Dave, or a message for Jim? And what exactly is the message? Does this make Duncan some kind of prophet, or just a hollow vessel?

Strange.

Dubya Utters, "I am 'a'mis-ah-ronsible . . ."

And with this forced, choked, mumbled non-apology, America is supposed to let forth a massive sigh of relief. We're supposed to let go of the seething anger and disgust at the pathetic attempt at leadership shown by our national and state elected and appointed morons. We're supposed to see how human Dubya really is, what a great and grand and gracious leader he really is, how big a man he is to so directly admit his fault in front of a waiting nation.

What an absolutel load of shit. Absolutely bullshit, in its most pure, most potent, and most deadly form.

When did Dubya say the words "apology/apologize," "mistake," "fail/failure," "misstep," "wrong," "late," "slow," "unorganized," "unprepared," "unresponsive," anything that would actually put true responsiblity in his mouth? He didn't. He mumbled some kind of feigned bullshit about how "I'm responsible," and that was that. And Ignorant America seems to think it's all better now. We've pressured him, he's admitted his mistake(s), and now we can all move forward in mutual unconditional love.

Wrong. He admitted nothing. All he did was state the nature of his office and his duties, that HE IS RESPONSIBLE. Yeah, fucking duh. He's the President of the United States, of course he's responsible. That's his goddamn job, every freeking day of the week, even during the seven dozen days of vacations he takes every year. So Bush has fed us a line, which in reality simply is his mission statement. He's told us what his job is, that's all. He hasn't apologized to the homeless and the families of the dead for letting them get that way under his administration, or finding themselves that way in the past two weeks due to his inaction and lack of common foresight. He didn't enumerate one single concrete, distinct, tangible failing for which he was taking responsiblity. He didn't describe one single episode or decision he made in all of this Katrinastrophe that was late or wrong or ill-informed. He said abolutely nothing at all about any of this, absolutely nothing. And yet Ignorant America thinks we've had some kind of cathartic breakthrough. Not so, not in the least. Brilliant move, Mr. Rove, so sublimely simple . . .

So the lame duck sez he's responsible. Yeah, and? What's going to change? What's going to happen as a result of this? The FEMA director has already been canned a full ten days after it became clear to anyone watching the news that it should have been done. Minister of Homeland Security Chertoff seems to have escaped any blame in this. Did Dubya apologize for appointing Brown as the FEMA director? Did he apologize for that, take responsibility for nominating and then seeking approval for an underqualified political appointee to this expert position? Nope, he sure as hell didn't take any responsibility for that. That would have been one of the more concrete and noble things he could have done, taken responsibility for a bad personnel decision. But nope, he didn't do that.

And Ignorant America seems to think that something important has happened here.

That Silly, Delicate Dick Dance

It was a long day. I was up, not too early, but had to drive 100 miles to work, and then back down to Grandma and Grandpa's weekend home to hook up with the family, to take the kids fishing as I promised. Long, shitty day at work, when I should have been taking it easy on a 3-day weekend with my family.

And somewhere in all of this I'm thinking how nice it would be to get laid. More precisely, how wonderful it would be to lie down in a soft bed in the dark or in the light with my wife and give and receive pleasure. It's been a full 6 and one-half days now, so yeah, I'm ready. I've been thinking about it for the last day or so, and I'm ready. And I was thinking that maybe I'd be successful this evening.

Now I don't initiate anymore. I get way too horny too often, and have been shut down and rejected, quite coldly sometimes, way too many times to make it worth my while to attempt to initiate sex with the wife. So I just plain don't anymore. If horny, I just JO on my own. It's easier for all involved, and a lot less painful. But I still can't help but get a little pissed off, a lot more than I should, at how long it takes the wife to get up the urge or whatever, to actually initiate sex.

I look for all of the little signs, and I try to make things move toward the goal, but I just never know. Today when I got back from work, I went straight to eat so I could get the kids down to the dock before it got dark. I got a pretty nice welcome from the wife--not a hug or a kiss, mind you--but a pretty solid expression of sympathy for me having to go to work, for being so tired, and for being a good dad for heading out with the kids right away.

Okay, no problem. We'll see how things go. I do the fishing, and the kids are finally clean and in bed by about 10:30. I tell my daughter to mention to Mommy that I'm showering, an indirect communiction that I will be clean, therefore physically acceptable for physical coupling. That's my little seed that I plant.

And then nothing. I watch a little college foo'ball on the goggle box, then it's time for bed. I come in to the bedroom and play a bit of computer. Then the wife comes in. I notice that she closes teh bedroom door behind her; that's a big positive. Then she goes into the adjoining bathroom and goes potty, another big positive. Then she lies down on the bed opposite the computer desk. That's another positive.

And that's that. I'm paying attention to this, but at no time is she saying anything about sex. Nothing at all. She's still got her clothes on, so there's no visual invitation. She doesn't say anything at all about sex, no invitation in the least, whether subtle or raunchy. I'm waiting for something like, "Why don't you leave the PC and come over here," or maybe "Wouldn't you rather lie down here with me instead of play that game?" You know, anything like that I cold sign up for. Or, she could just strip down, spread her legs and clear her throat to get my attention--that would be very nice indeed (although, sadly, wildly out of character). Where's a set of that sexy lingerie I've spent so many hundreds of dollars on, that I keep saying that I'd like to see and never do?

So I keep playing the game. There is no invitation from her, nothing at all. And she just goes to sleep. Well, if she was horny, then it must not have been that strong, right? If she came to me for sex, I guess then she just didn't have that great a need. So I have to wonder if she just came down to comfort me, to console me. If so, the desire to do even that clearly wasn't too strong. She'd rather just go to sleep, as is the case most of the time.

A good 30 minutes later she wakes up. I tell her she ought to go to bed if she's so tired. She agrees and says something snippy about me playing a computer game. I play dumb, wanting to tell her that if she's offering sex, then just get off your ass and fucking offer it! She makes another stupid comment about how she I'd "clearly rather play on the computer." Okay, instead of what? What exactly was the alternative? It was never offered, so I didn't make any move to accept.

She goes off to bed in another room, and I sit here and write a bit about it. Strangely enough, I'm not missing it too much. Was really horny earlier today, hoping she'd come to me in the morning as she has done before. Nope, none of that. So when I went up to town for work I stopped in at home and had a lovely quick JO at home, in the delightful quiet and utter solitude of an empty house. Problem solved, and physical need met. No big deal. She's the one who missed out this evening. She needs to make clear statements, and if she's seducing, then she needs to issue a clear, unequivocal seduction.

Okay, time to go to sleep.

"Daddy, What Do You Think About A Lot?"

It's 9:30 on a spectacular beautiful September evening, out on the dock on the river, under a blanket of stars, with the slightest cool breeze coming to us over the water, and this is what my 9 year-old daughter asks me. We'd been talking the start of school, cool songs, all kinds of fishing stories and tricks, and she comes up with this one. Man, this is what parenting is all about.

So I ask back to her the exact same question, since it's clear she's thinking a lot, and I think she wants to tell me something as well. She tells me about wondering about how many stars there are, how big the galaxy is ("at least a thousand miles!"), and how does the river flow into the sea when it doesn't seem to be moving. I want to hear her just think, to think through things and explore ideas and concepts, but she comes back to me with her original question. I treasure the moment: she really wants to hear what I think.

I pause, and I plunge in with the Biggest Question of Them All: Is God really out there? I think about this, Princess, and yeah, I think about it a lot. My "God Isn't" post, still in draft as of this writing, explores this in as much depth as I can muster. It's mostly questions, questions for which there have never been satisfying or direct answers. Overall, I wonder why it is, if there truly is a God, why he doesn't make himself clearly and unequivocally known to me, to us? I wonder why God, if he really is up there/out there watching over all of us, allows tsunamis and hurricanes and cancer and serial murderers and child molesters and rape and birth defects and Nazis and genocide and torture and adultery and incest and pain. If this is the world God made just for us, why is it so painful and ugly and dangerous and coarse and random and unwelcoming? If God is all-knowing and all-loving and is our father and protector, why are children kidnapped and raped and murdered? Why do children die in the trunk of a car or a refrigerator on a hot day? Why is there muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis and sickle cell anemia? If God is watching over us, why do good people die in horrible ways far before their time?

And at the center of it all is the question, why am I here? This assumes purpose, that any of us are actually here for a reason. The irony is that there is no reason. There never has been a reason, and there never will be, other than that we are organic organisms with a built-in urge to reproduce. We are tiny, insignificant, miniscule, nano-specks on the face of all of physical reality, one we can't even define or bound yet, so the screaming human need for context and scope and above all relevance creates the need for God. God is the reaction to the inevitability of death, for the sudden and irreversible end to our fragile, chemical existence. Religion and God and all of the rest is a massively complex and centuries-old act of denial, reacting to the fear of death and the loss of all meaning and relevance to our existence on the planet. It is a vain reaction, to assume that we are so special, and so unique that we absolutely can't just end, that we have to leave something behind, that something of ME must live on!

And I just don't believe that. We are tiny and insignificant in a universe so incredibly hostile that we are only now beginning to come to grips with how lucky we all are. Our existence is a miracle of odds, not a miracle of divine intelligence or interference. Our entire existence can and most likely will end in a blinding flash in the blink of the cosmic eye, next week, next year, or 17 billion years in the future. Who knows? Well, certainly not us, that's for sure. We are small and alone, and that is the reality. It's sobering and painful, but that's the real truth. I've accepted it, and that's that. When I die, that will be that, no more. It's the same with everyone that's ever lived--there is no way out. So what does that leave me to hold on to? It leaves me my wife and my two children, my parents, and the friends I allow close to me. That's all there is, because that is the only place most of us will live on when we're done. Live now, because death is coming, sooner or later. Do not live for a life-after future, because there is none. And to me, a life lived in anticipation of a life after, is a life completely and totally wasted, a life thrown away for a hollow promise, for a lie. You live for a few decades, then you're done, and that's all there is, literally. Maximize it while you're here, because that's all you'll ever get.

These are some of the questions and thoughts I shared with my daughter this evening. She listened very well, and asked a lot of questions. I looked up to the stars and asked God to come on down and show himself to me and my daughter, to help us through the dilemma and the questions, to give us direction and meaning and relevance, and to give us the good word on Life. Nothing but the breeze across the river and the lapping of the tide on the dock. No lights, no noises, no flashes, nothing that could be interpreted in the slightest way as a sign from the Big Guy Up There, nothing at all. But of course.

I finished by telling my lovely daughter, who'll be 10 in March that her spiritual life is her own, and that she has to choose her own path. What is important is for everyone to make their own choices, and make their own way in life. Be yourself, and you can be anything you want. Be true to yourself, and make yourself happy. And do not tolerate for one second anyone who cannot accept you as you are, or who wants to change you into someone else. Do not trust them, and get as far away from them as possible.

And up to the house we went for a late dessert of grandma's fantastic blackberry dumplings, six catfish later.

Angry Holiday Sunday

Just taking a few minutes out of my busy Labor Day 3-day holiday weekend Sunday afternoon to share a few thoughts about how pissed off I am. Corporate mismanagement, combined with incompetence and mismanagement on the part of our contract customer have come together in delicious synergy to fuck me out of the last 3-day weekend of the summer of 2005. The weather outsdie is stunning, cool and slightly breezy, crystal clear, with dazzling sunshine. Everyone is out, on foot, on their bikes, in the pool. It's a beautiful day, absolutely magnificent, and I'm stuck here in the office. And there's another day like today coming tomorrow, another day in the office to look forward to, editing and correcting the work of others which should have been done over a month ago.

I will never get this time back, and that pisses me off, a lot. The nature of the contract also will keep me from getting paid for the work I'm doing now. That, and asking just for the time off that I've expended here will make me look like a non-team player with the boss. He'll wonder why I don't just suck it up and make the best of it. So do I ask for next Monday off? Hell, he's not here today, and won't be tomorrow. I don't know yet.

Added to the pain was the fact that I had to drive 2 hours to get here, up from the family vacation house. And I have to go back down there this evening, with gas at about $3.20/gallon. No, I'm not getting paid for the mileage either.

Drove up here through Ignorant America Behind The Wheel. Up through a locally renowned county speedway, a 4-lane divided highway with a posted speed limit of 55mph where the flow of traffic is at 70mph. And the motorcylcle groups and clubs weave in and out at 80+mph. And the dumbass in his stupid tricked-out rice rocket, with the cheezy wing in the back and all of the extra dials on the dash, ripping in and out of traffic, incredibly dangerous to himself and others, all the while talking on his phone. And then who's too busy yapping on the phone at the stoplight to even notice that it's changed, and who gets mad at the driver behind him when that driver finally toots the horn just a bit to get his attention. This is the kind of crap going on all around us, every day. And it just saps my strength, little by little.

But it all got better, so much better on a brief stop at a local grocery store to buy some fruit and soda to have to eat in the office as I toil through the illustrious day. As I navigate the aisles, there's a middle-aged woman, maybe mid-40's, apparently come from Sunday church. Her face looks okay, but not really attractive. Tall and in-shape, blond hair, about mid-length. She could be attractive, I guess, but she just looks tired. Looks frazzled, but not just recently frazzled, but she looks like she's had a lifetime of frazzle, just a life full of surprises and rushing and deadlines and stresses, and not taking it easy. She looks beaten down, a little too wide-eyed, a little too skittish in her movements, older and worn out before her time. Not wrinkles, but just like she's been used too much, has done too much too fast.

But her body is nice, tall and well-proportioned. She looks pretty good, actually, And she's wearing a very nice pair of tightish white slacks . . . with her black lace thong showing so absolutely magnificently through. Not the skanky look of a thong riding up the hips and out of low-riding pants, but just a clear vision of them right through her very nice slacks. What an absolutely wonderful sight, and it made my shitty, angry holiday Sunday at work just a little bit better. No, this vision made it a lot better.

She looked lost in the supermarket (I can hear the Clash singing right now), holding some product and apparently unsure if she wanted it, maybe even wondering how it got into her hand. I just hung by the cut meats, watching her move a bit, watching her delightfully outfitted ass. She went down an aisle, and I followed at a discreet distance, just to watch that thong, with its plain-to-see scalloped lace edges and black lace detailing, move so wonderfully inside her slacks. I was in a bit of a hurry, but not so much so that I'd pass up an opportunity to indulge in two minutes of thong-watching. I followed her up the aisle, walked past, then followed her back down and then finished my shopping and headed out.

So, as always, I wondered: has she put these on for someone, or did she just do it on her own? Either way, I approve. If she did it for a man--or for a woman, for that matter--good on her, and I wish every woman in the world were that way, that confident, that imaginative, that sexy, and that considerate. And I envy the lucky person at home for whom that thong is worn. She may look frazzled for life, but just that act is enough to endear me to her.

And if she wore it just for herself, just to reduce her panty line, well that's okay, too. Any ladies reading this, take note: wearing a thong or a g-string doesn't reduce or eliminate your panty line, it only moves it to a different location. Even if she hadn't been wearing the black underneath white, the outline of the thong stood out plainly. Instead of the panty line around the cheek of the ass, it's simply moved right on up into the delightful vee of the ass. So, the panty line has gotten even more sexy and provocative with a thong over a traditional panty. If that's the intent--fantastic. If not, then I'll just take the happy coincidence.

But if she just wore it for herself, I again congratulate her on her confidence and her sexiness, even if no one notices and even if she goes home alone to her cat, Mr. Twinkies. I noticed, and I thought it looked wonderful. The fact that she went out and bought it, in black, and in scalloped lace, that's saying something positive right there. And she took it out of the drawer this morning and put it on, that's saying something in addition. I applaud both actions, most sincerely.

And did she just come from church? Who knows, but it's a distinct possibility. So what does God think of a woman putting on a black thong for church? And under white slacks, no less. Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart and the self-appointed hypocritical arbiters of morals and taste and governance would rail and scream and rant over this, in public. In private they'd pump up their sanctified erections (credit to Frank Zappa) to JO themselves into a froth over the randy, dirty, nasty little churchgoer they're encountering and want so, so badly to defile. If God allowed the thong to be invented, He created it, right? And why would He create it if not then to be worn? So she was just carrying out God's will in putting on some wicked-sexy underwear to go and to praise God in. Hell, if I were God I'd be a happy Guy about it all. How could He not be?

So I headed off to work with my apples and oranges and bananas a rejuvenated guy, still pissed off that I've got to work today, but reinvigorated by the confirmation that out there are 40-something women who still know how to get their sexy on, even on a Sunday morning.

Now if I can only get my wife to tune into this vibe.

The Mother-In-Law

My current mother-in-law (MIL) is a winner. Don't know why, but she actually likes me. She's a good shit, all around, understanding, normal, and as much of a jerk I'll come across by saying this, she knows her place. That is, her place in our in-law relationship. Her house is hers, and I know and respect that. And my (and my wife's) house is mine, and she respects that. She loves her two grandkids just the way a Grandma ought to, and spoils them with their favorite foods and desserts. She sews their scout stuff for them, and plays games with them. She's just about perfect, in just about all ways. In fact, I can't think of one way that she could better.

Other than being a totally hot, Raquel Welch-looking nymphomaniac, that is. But then I'd have the unpleasant ethical and moral challenge of wanting to hook up with my MIL. Probably wouldn't, but can't be sure, just can't be too sure that I'd be so noble and honest to turn that kind of thing away, especially if she were offering. I'm sure glad that I don't face that challenge, though. She's no uber-hag, mind you, but doesn't make the hot-o-meter flag, sorry.

That being said, this is an older, 60-something woman who likes her sex. Very up front about it, very open and very normal about it, if you ask me.

The first MIL was something quite a bit different. She was a relatively famous female race car driver, a true pioneer and the first in her field in a number of achievments. She was wicked smart, too, which surprised me when I first met her. Not a tobacky-chewing Nascar-wench, she was a very highly educated, hard-science Masters degree-toting brainiac, actually. Very precise, very thorough, and very anal in many things, especially her house. Her vehicle? I thought it would be a Jag or a Maserati, a Ferrari, something exciting and sexy. Nope, not even close. Given the moutainous area in which she'd chose to live, she went totally utilitarian on that, with an ancient International Harvester wagon, a 4-wheel-drive tank. Not very glamorous, but it'd drive through just about anything.

She was fun, and intelligent, but not very, uh, earthy. I remember the look of horror and disgust she gave me one evening after I returned from a trip to the grocery store and said that I'd bought some "asswipe" to replenish the stocks in the bathroom. Whoa, that made me feel small and coarse, and all I was trying to do was be a little light and fun. Damn, like she'd never heard that kind of talk around the track before?

But I digress.

The good MIL, the current one, in place for a good 13 years now, she's surprised me a few times. The first was after the first time her daughter (the wife) and I made licky-sticky in the wife's then basement apartment, beneath Mom and Dad's house. Right out of a bad comedy, we managed to break the bed, the whole thing collapsing through the frame and pitching us onto the floor. We laughed, regrouped, and finished the task at hand. The next morning, over a glorious breakfast of sausage and pancakes and made-from-scratch syrup and eggs and gravy and biscuits, with hot sauce available, no less, she knocked me out when she asked me directly yet clearly jokingly what exactly I'd been doing "to" her daughter to do that to the bed. My opinion of her jumped appreciably, right then and there. Her attitude was and is right, and she's never been uptight about it, not one bit. In fact, when she and the father-in-law conduct their own bid'ness in their own private little space, it makes the efforts of my wife and me seem like a whisper in a sound booth, compared to the caterwauling that emerges from that action. Man, I'm tellin' ya.

So, the wife and I spend some overnights at their house while they're away traveling, and my wife shows me their little private stash of porn. Nothing spectacular, except I see that Mom-In-Law has "borrowed" a couple of magazines from my own beloved stash of porn. Okay. No big deal, but there are some facts to confront: 1. MIL has gotten into the porn drawer; 2. MIL has gone through the porn; 3. MIL digs a couple of them enough to basically steal them and take them home. Okay, again I'm not pissed, and my attitude toward the MIL actually goes up a bit, especially that the two titles she took were basically Totally Wicked Amateur Lesbian Snatch-Lappers, or something to that effect. Okay, so the MIL likes, at the very least, to watch pussy get some pussy. Again, more cool points.

And then my wife shows me the one that just knocked me out. Now, I'm no sexual gladiator, but I've been around enough to have seen and done enough things. I've seen my share of large appliances, but my wife proceeded to pull out the single largest beige plastic vibrator I've ever seen in my life. This was the traditional, intercontinental ballistic missile-shaped deal, smooth about 1/3 of the way, and longitudinally ridged the rest of the way down, with the speed dial down at the end. Basically, an economy model, except that it was a good 20" long. And so thick that I couldn't close my hand around its circumfrence. It was a massive thing, with six count 'em six D batteries inside.

Naturally, we turned the thing on, and it hummed like a Rolls Royce aircraft engine. It made the entire bed shake. It was industrial self-abuse, no doubt about it.

And of course, the MIL sticks that thing up there. Man, what a visal. I couldn't help but wonder how far it would go. Yeah, men think like this.

And that's my tale of my mother-in-law. She's good to go, without a doubt.

Who's Who

I got my call this morning from a very direct and professional Jeff from the Who's Who of Executives and Professionals, or some title to that effect. I'd gotten a card in the mail a week or two ago, filled it out and mailed it off. And now Jeff was following up for a "direct confirmation" of my "status" so that he could make "an immediate determination" if I were the kind of high-speed, low-drag, up and coming professional that his organization would allow into their hihgly valuable and important reference document.

I smelled a sales pitch.

So we talked a bit about my professional history and qualifications, my degrees and other educational bits, publications, memberships, awards and recommendations. Throughout, Jeff was highly congratulatory, very impressed.

Of course he was. Then he congratulated me, because, based on his "careful review" of the "highly qualifying information" that I had just provided him, he was offering to me and only me the "highly exclusive" privilege of joining his estemmed publication. You know, after all, that they screen somewhere on the order of 250,000 possible candidates each year, and each year less than 10,000 actually make the cut. So, some quick math told me that I was one in 25. Not bad. Being a member of Mensa, I'm already 1 in 50, so I wasn't quite as impressed as I guess I should've been, but that's another matter.

I was waiting for the conversation to move to the point where he would start quoting prices, and I would be asked to pay one of them. I'll give Jeff this much, he was polished and very good. He'd done this before, and a lot. He was rehearsed and smooth, delivering what was quite obviously to me completely doctrinal and standardized sales pitch dialog, but he was measured and patient, the words memorized and coming easily to him.

At the Super Premium Double-Secret Executive Platinum Exclusive level I could get a big book with my tiny name in it, an online access and some other stuff, including a very impressive plaque with "piano lacquer" telling all viewers that I'd been accepted into their book. I could get all of this for, and here came the part I was waiting for, the part that the previous ten minutes had been leading up to . . . (me, I was thinking something like $119.95, maybe $125) . . . $770.75.

God damn! Almost $800 for all of this? Jeff was still talking smoothly, now describing the Not Qute As Platinum And Likely Zinc-Plating level for all of $550 and change. I had already switched off, just being polite rather than just hanging up. Sure, it all makes sense. This is a networking book, and a massive vanity piece, so I guess they have all kinds of guys lining up to pay their hundreds of dollars to get their names and references and pictures and profiles into their "highly impressive hardback green leatherette library binding with golf-leaf priting" book, their very own copies, to put into their dopey pressboard bookcases next to the tacky lacquer plaque saying the very same thing.

The online database intrigued me, as a possible networking tool, something to use to find and acquire consultants as requirements might arise. I asked about that, and the best that Jeff could do for me was $135, this at the Mediocre Minor Executive and Implied Cheap Bastard Club Level. And my book entry would be relegated to "way in the back," and I'd still have to pay "a modest fee" for any updates to profile in outyears. Yeah, I could do that, but it wouldn't really serve my professional interests very well, now, would it?

So I mumbled some niceties, communicating subtly that I wasn't interested. Jeff has done this enough, he should know all of the noises and voice inflections by now. But he, in his graciousness and showing his largesse as a guy sitting in an office on "Wall Street, in New York City" told me he'd put me on a 24-hour hold. I have until close of business on 6 Sep to contact him to guarantee my spot in the 2006 issue. You know, of course, that they can't just wait around for answers from the over 10,000 selectees they acquire each year, so you'll have to act quickly.

Yeah, whatever, I'll get right on that. I've already got it in Outlook to remind me with a fluorish of little electronic trumpets. Yeah, whatever. Thanks, Jeff, and better luck with the next needy executive or professional.

Katrinastrophe

Why has it taken the LA governor four days to declare a shoot-to-kill order for looting? Why wasn't this order issued last Saturday night, ahead of the disaster? Where is the dusk-to-dawn curfew order? The reports just keep on coming about murders, rapes, robberies, gangs of armed thugs systematically robbing and looting homes and business, bodies in the streets, etc. So when is the elected leadership going to stop making controlled speeches, get up off their sad-sack asses and lead? Why haven't they instituted drastic measures for a drastic situation?

The shoot-to-kill order should have been issued last Saturday, prior to the hurricane arriving. It's very simple: anyone seen not in military or police uniform in the possession of a weapon will be shot on sight. Shoot a few looters and thugs, and the problem will not become the regional anarchy that only now is beginning to be addressed by public authorities.

(If anything, this proves to me the advantage of private firearm ownership, and keeping a healthy stock of ammunition. I'm no bunker-building, NRA-ranting gun nut, but any looter or looters thinking of paying a visit to my house would be dead with that first step over the threshold. Warning shots are just a waste of ammunition.)

And then there's the issue of disaster preparedness and emergency management. You just wait, the recriminations and finger-pointing have only just begun. I loved the New Orleans' mayor's direct rant on the radio yesterday. Why hasn't he been talking this way for the past week? Why do things have to get to this point for this politician to stop mincing his words and speak directly?

For years those poorly paid, civil-servant emergency planners and disaster mitigation professionals, the selfless planners working with the sub-standard equipment in the shittiest basement and off-site offices, have been talking about how bad it would be for a direct-strike Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama hurricane. This is not a shocker. This is not a surprise. So now that it's happened, why is everyone freaking out? That's because nothing was done, and now thousands are paying for it, and paying dearly.

Why weren't the warnings heeded? Politics and money. Money and politics. To buy the backup generators and to put them in protected locations and to maintain them costs a lot of money. Improved levees and flood walls, and their maintenance cost money. More and better pumps for New Orleans cost money. Redundant emergency communications systems cost money. Buying a contingency fleet of state or parish flat-bottom boats and then maintaining and storing them, and training crews to man them all costs money.

All of this stuff costs money, and no one is going to pay for this but the taxpayer. Private industry isn't going to foot this bill, at least for the public. They're smart and wise, and they'll invest to protect their assets. They'll have the pumps and boats and comms and the maintenance and the training, and they'll do just fine, because they realize that investment now will provide protection and stability in the future. They're spending money now to save money later, a common and common-sensical approach.

But govt can't do that. They can't spend money now to save it later. The dumbass American public can't abide by that. "Why are we spending a zillion dollars to tear down an earthen levee and replace it with reinforced flood walls when there's no storm, and there hasn't even been one for 100-some years?" Ignorant American hasn't got the brains or patience to see this. They can think only of lowering their tax bills, and voting for the candidate who will give them the biggest rebate and cut their taxes the most. Just look at George Bush, spending more than any president in history while handing out rebates AND cutting taxes. That's why Ignorant America thinks he's so great. But is he managing our money well? No. Is he collecting and husbanding American resources for great times of crisis? No. What about the $10.5 billion that's just been approved for disaster relief? Yeah, that's deficit spending baby, along with the $200 billion already out the door for Iraq, with hundreds of billions more to come.

Ignorant America will not vote to increase their taxes, and any politician who even whispers such a move will never be elected, or re-elected. That's political suicide. So guess what? Taxes don't go up. Municipal bond and levy issues routinely fail, for services like EMT and fire. School levies fail routinely. When was the last time YOU voted actively for an increase in your taxes? I've done it, and will do it again, because that's how the government funds the things that make all of our lives better.

So what it comes down to is: who's to blame for the Katrinastrophe? For me it comes down to every single taxpayer in the areas affected. They didn't want to spend the money when it needed to be spent, whether on flood control, disaster preparation, emergency services, all of that. They've had fifty years to set up a proper public funds collection scheme and programs for the proper and wise use of the collected revenue, but it hasn't happened. Also to blame: the politicians for not telling the public the truth about needing to raise taxes and make solid commitments to disaster preparedness. A leader tells the truth, even when it's unpleasant. That's their job, the foundation of their authority, the duty to tell the unflinching truth about bad things, directly and without mitigation. But the elected officials didn't do that. They didn't tell their people to shut up and take a higher tax burden--of what? maybe another 2%, if that. But if they'd done it, the moron constituency would have voted them right on out of office. Look at George Bush The Senior. Yeah, he pledged "no nex taxes," and even though I didn't vote for the guy, I took that as a solemn promise in which he believed. But you know what, the guy was a Leader, with a capital "L," and at least in this instance he was a man of character and honor, because he got right up in front of the American people and said, 'I'm sorry, but I've got to raise taxes. I said I wouldn't, but national priorities and my duty as the Chief Executive have made me go back on my promise. I'm sorry, but I have to do this.' He leveled with America, directly and without sugar-coating, and he was rewarded by being voted out of office. Ignorant America opted away from the guy with the ethics and the bad news, and opted for the smiling, lying sack of shit that Clinton proved to be (and I voted for this liar, too, both times!)

And flood and hurricane insurance for those private citizens in possible danger? Hoo, buddy, that costs money. Sure, Ignorant America will throw down $50 a week on that Powerball lotto ticket, but paying $60/month for flood insurance, no, that's far too expensive. "That's a gamble I'm willing to take," sez the Nascar dumbass down at the Gulp n' Drive. So now, many have taken that gamble, and lost the farm. And that's that, a mighty tough lesson to be taught. Maybe next time you'll realize the wisdom of paying for that kind of eventuality. Or maybe you will opt away from that trendy and sexy and look-at-me lifestyle of coastal living.

I tell my kids constantly that there are two ways to learn: the easy way and the hard way. Too many folks in this case have opted for the hard way, learning very painfully in the space of the last week what they could have learned so much more easily and less painfully in the decades preceding if they'd just thought through the possibilities a little bit.

But hey! LSU has offered the use of their stadium for the Saints. Now that's compassion! I feel better about the tragedy already. Thanks, LSU, you sure are great folks up there. Me, I'd think that offering your stadium as a refugee center might be a good idea, but then again, that's just me talking. Thanks, LSU, no, really, thanks.

Cool Destination

If you can afford it, visit Switzerland. Probably one of the most expensive places I've ever spent time (Denmark ranks well up there), but well worth the time and money invested.

In Luzern I saw the most moving physical memorial I've ever seen. I've been to Verdun, 9/11 ground zero, the Punchbowl cemetery and the USS Arizona memorial in Hawaii, the US Vietnam memorial, and tons of other places of honor and veneration around the world, but nothing has ever hit me and stayed with me like this monument to the Swiss mercenaries who died defending the Tuileries in 1792. It is incredibly simple, yet enormously moving.

Tried to go to the Montreux Jazz Festival (http://www.montreuxjazz.com/index_fr.aspx) in July 1988. Just hopped in the car in central Germany after getting a week off, and drove south toward the Austrian frontier at Mittenwald. Stopped along the way for a few nights of cold hefeweizen and outstanding Bavarian cuisine, and some rampant sex with the first wife. Then on to the heart of the Alps and Montreux. Got there about noon, and hit the tourist bureau for help with a place to stay. Everything was booked up, but I'll give it to their municipal tourist folks, they eventually hooked us up with this outstanding little pension about 3000 feet up on the shoulder of a massive mountain looking straight down at the city and the lake. It was about a 45-minute drive to and from where we were staying into town, but the view during the day and the nights was worth it, as was the incredible Alpine solitude up there. Great place to stay.

Naturally, we completely struck out on festival tickets. I've bought my share of scalped tickets, but have never completely failed like this before. Nothing to be had, at any price, for any show. Completely, absolutely, totally sold out. So we hung around town, had some great food, went to see every single bit of the local color, and then headed slowly back into Germany from there. Great trip, even without the music.

Saw On Her Majesty's Secret Service the other night, and the brief shots of Bern reminded me of many visits. I know the Baerengraben is a sacred symbol of the city, but it left me cold and depressed and ashamed to be a human, watching the way those bears were penned, down in a stone hole, reduced to begging for peanuts and other scraps thrown by insensitive tourists, idiots who thought it was the best entertainment they'd ever seen. I always loved to walk to the Barengraben across the main bridge there, after walking up and down the old city streets with all of those great shops. Great place to visit, absolutely stunning.

Loved all of the high mountain passes in the summertime, way up there at 10,000+ feet, with no guardrail, seeing the roadside memorials, and the rusting hulks of the cars, way, way down there on the slopes. Gotta admit, though, that my favorite Alpine pass was the Timmelsjoch from Austria into Italy, up from the lovely Oetztal in Austria and that fantastic descent into northern Italy. Loved the tunnels, like the Simplon.

Really enjoyed the lake region at Locarno, Lago di Como and Maggiore. If I'm not mistaken, this is where Lucas filmed a lot of the on-the-ground Naboo scenes in the latest Star Wars flick. Magnificent, unaffordable real estate.

Really liked Interlaken, and had some of the best cuisine in a number of restaurants there. Visited Zermatt on a crystal-clear day, with the Matterhorn showing magnificently all day long. Absolutely stunning. This is the only mountain I've ever seen where immediately, without me even thinking of it intentionally, the thought popped into my head, "That pinnacle must be achieved." I'm no mountain climber, not in the least, but that human desire to conquer leapt to the fore as I gazed upon the Matterhorn.

On the road up to the train station into Zermatt, stopped at a roadside pull-off to take some photos and to take in the incredible scenery. A good 100' down the incredibly steep and dangerous 2000' slope was lodged a silver dairy cannister. No way I was going to climb down to retrieve it, and anyway, what the hell am I going to do with a used Swiss dairy cannister? Return it to the Greater Swiss Dairy Council for a reward? Fill it up myself? Nah. So I grabbed a fist-sized rock and gave it a gentle toss. I pegged the cannister on the very first try, and it began to tumble down the scree slope. It fell forever, a good five minutes, getting smaller and smaller, the sun glinting off it as it fell. Not a sound came up from the ravine. Finaly it hit the massive boulder at the bottom, and with the most spectacular, spinning, tumbling movement, went right into the raging alpine river way down at the bottom. My dad and I watched as long as we could as the thing floated away, on its way to whatever lake and/or river lay ahead. I'd like to think it made it to the Rhine and the North Sea some day, but I very much doubt that.

Driving on a beautifully forested road north of Winterthur, I heard on the radio that Bob Crane had been found dead in LA. Fly, thee, to thy rest, Hogan.

I Really, Really Want . . .

A light saber. A blaster is handy and useful, sure, but a light sabre, now that's a weapon for a warrior. Elegant, simple, and requiring mastery.

A ride into space.

A ride in a high-performance military jet aircraft, like an A-10 Thunderbolt II, or an F-15 Eagle.

To be invisible.

To be able to fly.

To be able to read minds.

To be completely free of fear and anxiety of any sort. This one is very, very hard, probably even more impossible than any of those listd above or below. So many things to be worried, so many unknowns and possibilities. So much danger, and life is so fragile.

Psychokinetic powers. My dream is to make the transmission fall out of inconsiderate drivers.

A BMW M6.

The knowledge of time travel.

The knowledge of teleportation. I could fix a lot of the world's problems with teleportation. And make some nice money, too.

A real laser weapon.

To be able to fold space.

A cool little hat with a tassle, like the one that old guy had in The Road to Wellville.

A fully integrated, whole-house audio/video/computer/lighting control smart-house system.

To know the real truth about earth and the aliens and UFOs.

A wife who really, really knew the true power and majesty of the female form in sexy lingerie, and who'd act accordingly.

A nice little surprise, every day.

To know if there is a God, and what he's really all about.

To live a good long time, at least 90 years (assuming I stay healthy).

To find and read more books that I truly enjoy; there are so few.

To understand what in the holy hell my parents are all about; to understand what it is exactly they think of me, and why that is.

To see more, many more people throughout the world educated, properly educated. The ignorant and uninformed are easily led and swayed, while the educated tend to ask more questions, tend to have a bit more skepticism, tend to see through the bullshit that the manipulative political or religious or economic elite may try to use. The educated tend to think for themselves more, to seek their own solutions to evey manner of problem and question, rather than rely on those same manipulative jerks to provide their answers for them.

To see those who intentionally harm or abuse children suffer in horrible, horrible ways. That's former clergy, too, especially them.

To get the goddamn paper boy--no, that's inaccurate . . . the goddamn Eritrean immigrant paper guy--to get the newspaper each morning into my driveway and not into the middle of the puddle.

To see more tolerance for nudity and the consensual physical expression of attraction and love between adults. I'm not talking prime-time XXX showings, but something reasonable.

To put the same level of censorship and derision upon those who scream so loudly for it.

To find a way to publicly expose all of the hypocrisy that I see every day.

My own personal game room, with old-school arcade games, a nice pool table, a bar, other cool stuff, like an operating room light over the pool table.

To have a better memory for names, quotations, addresses and phone numbers, that kind of thing.

Thoughts on the Unfolding Hurricane Difficulties

This morning I heard the world "squalor" used to describe the Superdome. Ouch.

The good one in the past few days was some dumbass elected official who declared sternly, "This is our tsunami."

No, dipshit, no. Apples and oranges. That's a pathetic attempt to gain attention and sympathy. You deserve both, but not even remotely on the scale of last December's catastrophe. The only similarity is that both were natural disasters.

The hurricane was recognized and known; we all saw it coming. It can be argued that the loss of life--not property, though--is due to a lack of preparation, a failure to heed the warnings and evacuation orders, and a plain lack of common sense. The tsunami victims never had a chance. No one gave them a warning.

Physical destruction? Yeah, sure, and unlike the tsunami, which was primarily a coastal event, the hurricane damage extends inland considerably.

But let's compare somewhere on the order of 160,000 people dead in a half-dozen Asian countries to, according to current wild estimates, maybe 1000 dead in this case. That's only about 159,000 victims short, just a few orders of magnitude. Property destruction? Yeah, we've got them Asians beat, but that's because the USofA is the greatest consumer society in the history of the world, and we define ourselves according to our belongings. We acquire more, so we've got that much more to lose. More beachfront vacation homes destroyed. More pleasure craft destroyed, more valuable stuff blown into the fields and trees, that kind of thing. With them there Asians, it was just a massive loss of human life, that's all. And their ridiculous mud and tin shacks all got washed out, but that's no big deal because they can always just slap up another one, right?

So, to compare this to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is ridiculous, and quite honestly trivializes the deaths of so many thousands in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc. It smacks of a whiny "The Asians got hit bad, sure, but look at poor us here in Mi'thippi" attitude. It reeks of over-the-top attention-seeking and crisis-driven neediness. It's a naked "look at me!" call, and highly inappropriate, even insulting to the tsunami victims. This preening politician (is there any other kind?) is probably the same kind of person who'd compare a local murder to the Nazi holocaust.

And then we have the "leadership" of our Idiot-in-Chief, Dubya Bush. Again, the press is missing the boat on how he "cut short" is month-long vacation--when was the last time any one of us had a month-long vacation?!--to return to DC to take charge of the situation. When is the press going to ask him why it took him two full days AFTER the hurricane to make this bold leadership decision? When is the press going to ask him why he didn't move two days BEFORE the hurricane? His actions don't speak of leadership; they highlight the lack of attention to the welfare of the US public by a president who told us all as he left DC for his multi-hundred-acre ranch there in Crawford, "Hey I've got a life I have to live." Yeah, I guess, and that whole bit about an oath of office as the highest elected leader in the country doesn't carry much weight, I guess. His actions this week show his flip, reactionary approach to any situation, waiting to see what comes next and then muddling through a disorganized, poorly thought-out approach to a crisis that should have had management before it became a crisis. Kind of reminds me of the national strategy with regards to Iraq.

A leader thinks ahead, and I'm not seeing any of this out of Bush or his brain trust in the White House.

Oh, but he directed the Air Force One to swoop low over the Gulf Coast so he could see for himself! Wow! NPR reported this morning that AF1 flew "as low as 1700 feet" over New Orleans, and he saw the Superdome for himself, at the port side windows for all of 35 minutes. Wow! And this is supposed to impress me how? How much domestic air traffic disruption did this publicity stunt cause? And why isn't the press reporting on this? What did he really see from AF1 that he couldn't see from watching the news? What sort of change did he effect by doing this? None. What sort of impact did it have on the folks down there in the shit-laden flood waters? None.

And now he's going to visit the area later this week. No, that won't disrupt things at all. Me, I've been involved in the excruciating preparations for a Presidential visit, and the disruption to normal activities is off the scale. It's clear enough to me from watching coverage of this catastrophe that the search, rescue, and relief efforts are only now, a good four days after the event, beginning to come togther in terms of overarching command and control, solid coordination across all manner of local, state, and regional jurisdictions, and the simple realization of who exactly is doing what and where, and who is in charge. Things are just starting to coalesce into a coherent, effective effort, and The Idiot-in-Chief is going to waltz in for a massive photo op, and just make it that much harder to get the job done. If gun battles are breaking out between looters in New Orleans, and if the mayor has ordered 1800 police off search and rescue operations to restore order, take a guess how many of those 1800 are going to be pulling security for the President's visit. How does that demonstrate the President's concern for the public safety and welfare of the affected citizenry. A noble and selfless leader would tell the LA governor and the New Orlenas mayor, "You've got problems enough without me getting in there and making it harder for you and your heroes to do get things done, so I'll stay out of your way. Here's my number. You come to me with your requirements, and I'll make sure they get taken care of. Let me know how I can help you, and I'm all over it." But strangely enough I haven't seen any kind of leadership like that from this White House. Go figure.

If Bush had any respect for the folks in the disaster area, and their relief leadership, he'd stay away. He'd visit the affected state capitals to confer with the regional/local leaders, ask them how he could help, then he'd go away and get to helping, swinging that Presidential Hammer in the seat of power, making things happen in his own unique way. Bringing the White House circus right down into the disaster zone isn't going to help anyone, except for the White House media machine. How many homeowners are going to drown, or die of dehydration, or be killed by armed looters while he enjoys his crucial visit? Take that, national press, and run with it.