Faithlessness is the new black.

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The fastest growing religion in the US:

None.

From 1990 to 2001, people who have no religion/are atheists/are agnostic grew 6.6 percent, from 8.4 to 15.0 percent of all Americans. The number of these people increased 105.7 percent.

This is according to the American Religious Identification Survey performed by the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. For the survey people were asked only: "What is your religion, if any?"

The survey found that "the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001."

Note: This post cites ARIS (despite my desire for more current data) because "statistics on religious adherence are difficult to gather and often contradictory; statistics for the change of religious adherence are even more so, requiring multiple surveys separated by many years using the same data gathering rules. This has only been achieved in rare cases, and then only for a particular country, such as the American Religious Identification Survey in the USA." (Wikipedia)

Which is to say (write): I used ARIS because it's the only reliable source available.
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George Will: un-smart. (Dec 25 edition)

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I've been neglecting George Will for quite a time now, but will give a quick run through his most recent Last Word column in Newsweek: "2008: Rod, Eliot, Yuck."

Will, second para.: If you pay taxes, you'll "probably" have bought a used car company, in effect.

This seems to be putting down the bailout-ish action the government has/will take re the Big Three auto companies. The use of "probably" means what he wrote is at least somewhat unlikely, making it a straw-man argument. Also, if you make what most people do, what you pay in taxes couldn't get you a dealership anyway.

Will: "Cuba being politically primitive..." Primitive as shown by its universal health care system, by a population that has a longer life expectancy than the US's, by having higher literacy rates than in the US, by its surveillance of whoever it wants to watch and/or listen to, by its use of torture (as performed in its US-held Guantanamo Bay), by its government that appoints whoever it wants for political reasons.

That last gets to Will's ill-considered point: Castro ceded power to his brother. Cuba is Communist. The person who will take over H. Clinton's Senate seat will be appointed for political reasons as well. Sarcastically, Will says the latter will happen "because this is a democracy."

The US is a Republic. The Pledge of Allegiance goes something like this "...and to the republic for which it [the flag] stands: One nation, under God..." Fitting that "under God" was added to the Pledge in 1954 because America is not a nation of godless Commies and, seen above, behaves nothing like them.

Then a litany of news items, the likes of which Conservatives love, and which make them angry. Nine out of ten of these items involve small towns, extremely few people, and whatever "wrong" (according to Conservatives) committed, having been either completely fabricated, embellished, or an embellished fabrication. Plus, the "wrongs" committed, nine of ten times, have been rectified by the time a Conservative writes about it. (When this last bit is mentioned to one he/she insists these news items are emblematic of what is happening everywhere.)

What's worst about Will wasting space with non-news in this particular column is that he cares about them, and writes about them at a time when our nation is fighting multiple wars and in its next Great Depression.

Example: In Hayward, California, "a teacher asked her kindergartners to sign cards pledging 'not to use anti-LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered] language or slurs'"

Asked. The kids weren't even forced.

Will gives no context regarding this incident. Readers are obviously supposed to be enraged, no matter the circumstances, that children had been asked to be nice to people who are LGBT.

I bet the teacher (should she actually exist and have done what she did) would even want her kids not to use slurs against an animatronic, homophobic colostomy bag, like Will, that looks human enough on television (though stops seeming so once he speaks).

Near the end of the column, Will mentions a court ruling and, in that context, writes that the slave trade interfered with God's plan.

Which likely means Will is yet another Christian who hasn't read the Bible. Slavery is endorsed by God. God personally, in his own voice, gives his people at least one hundred laws pertaining to slavery. God micromanaged the institution of slavery.

Earlier in this column, Will mentions that Californians (with a push from a biblical flood of cash from Mormons who don't live there) "voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman."

George: Get the Bible on tape. Have an intern read it to you. Get a vague sense for your religion.

Religion is between one man and as many wives as he can afford. California's law is an abomination.
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A Free Credit Report saved my life.

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I apologize, but today's post is going to be a bit personal.

I feel completely off. Something is wrong, and has been for so long I can't remember when something was right.

But I'm getting out of my funk. I was watching TiVo-less TV at a friend's place and, therefore, also watching commercials. Many of the ads were for different services that offered the same thing.

A Free Credit Report.

Yesterday I went to the advertised Web site the biking-rapping-slacker-pirate told me to. I used my Mac -- which very rarely is targeted by viruses and the like because e-malefactors can get a lot more malefaction done by going after Windows, which more than 90 percent of people use.

With my computer encrypting its contents on the fly from behind a firewall and my bank and credit card balances memorized from years of near-daily balance-checks, I entered all my personal data on a site I hadn't heard of until this week.

Soon I'll have a Free Credit Report, which can only be the very thing that has been missing from my life since the importance of getting one was made so clear by the incredible volume of commercials for one.

My life is about to change. And it only cost me $14.95.
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Bailout babble.

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Financial-services firms are getting taxpayers' money to the tune of $700 billion. And then they're going to get more.

Why? Because some people took out mortgages that were designed, by the banks that supplied them, to be, eventually, unaffordable and ended up being unable to afford them. Stupid poor people with their American Dream.

Banks were hemorrhaging money. To get the red ink off their books they, in very basic terms, sold these "bad" or "toxic" mortgages (in the parlance of our times) to financial-services firms. When these firms' books started gushing red like the elevator in "The Shining," they created an entirely new financial instrument that allowed them to sell bits and pieces of mortgages and on into things I won't discuss because I can't understand them.

Everything fell apart. So the Bush Administration and Congress acted with the speed of Hurricane Katrina to pass the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) -- $700 billion for the financial sector.

...And?

We're in Great Depression II. TARP provides the best example yet that for a half-century the US economic system has been subsidized capitalism. Incompetence will be rewarded or punished based on a person or business's wealth. The less-fortunate must rely on governments that pass special laws to make charging 400 percent interest legal (payday loans).

To survive, 99.9 percent of us will have to work a lot harder, longer, and smarter at jobs we'll consider ourselves lucky to have or manage to get. These jobs will pay, adjusting for inflation, less than they did in 1980.

0.1 percent of Americans, their real wages having grown 497 percent in the past decades to an average of $1.7 million, will continue to invent new ways to screw the other 99.9 percent, cheek-to-cheek with a government as immoral and unethical as they are.
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The good news of Judas Iscariot.

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I was watching a program on the Gospel of Judas. In response to whether this noncanonical gospel is important, a priest/reverend responded with this (paraphrase): I can't imagine anyone wanting or needing more than Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. He made it seem preposterous that a noncanonical gospel would have any value or worth.

(Further detail: This priest/reverend -- whatever he's called depending on how his religious hammer hangs -- holds televised Mass or whatever you call it, and has been doing so for what seems like decades. He has full, gray hair, a not-overdone tanning-booth complexion, and great teeth... His native habitat must be a PoliGrip commercial.)

About one hundred gospels and other texts regarding Jesus (that we know of) were created in the second, third and fourth centuries. All were made for the purposes of preserving, in writing, what Jesus taught.

Aside: The stories, teachings, etc. that eventually comprised individual gospels and other texts were taught, spread, and popularized orally before they were committed to papyri. Which is to say that all gospels/other texts included in and excluded from the New Testament were guaranteed to have errors, embellishments and the like.

A game of telephone with twenty people can't pass one sentence intact.

Back to it: The reason we have MML&J in the New Testament instead of or alongside the Gospel of Thomas, Mary Magdelene and/or many others is that the Catholic Council of Hippo circa 390 chose what books, from then on, made up the New Testament. The gospels of MML&J were included, and at least twenty (gospels) were excluded.

In the program I watched a scholar stated that MML&J are the narrative gospels. They are stories: Jesus did this, did that, was crucified and resurrected. As such, the scholar noted (most likely with a British accent -- the possession of which increases one's credibility at least twofold), they are the gospels that are most easily understood.

However, MML&J contradict one another and differ in extremely important ways on extremely important things. Noncanonical texts could, possibly, help explain these contradictions and differences.

(Long example of the canonical gospels differing: Only Matthew and Luke wrote that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth. And Matt's and Luke's gospels differ in many ways many times regarding Jesus's birth.

Still, Matt and Luke began their gospels with Jesus's birth, so it makes sense that they would discuss the birth's circumstances. Mark and John began their writings with Jesus's baptism, and so don't mention Jesus's birth. Didn't bother to shoehorn in a mention of the only virgin conception and birth that ever occurred. To dedicate even one verse to something that cannot and has not been done, except in the case of Jesus and Mary, not just for humans, but virtually all multicelled organisms.)

Many of the noncanonical gospels deal mostly or wholly only with what Jesus said. The Gospel of Thomas is a perfect example: It's structure is: "Jesus said: yadda yadda yadda. Jesus said: yadda yadda yadda." Again and again, then abrupt end.

Many of these gospels do not mention Jesus's crucifixion. Far more gospels aren't concerned with Jesus's death than are. (Christianity being based largely on MML&J is, in part, why Christians celebrate Jesus the miracle man-god and freely disregard the fact that Jesus only cared about poor people and was a radical pacifist. The US's outgoing president is considered one of the most religious POTUS-es in history. Obviously: Following Jesus's example, W. got the US into a war on pretenses he knew to be false, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, is bailing out financial-services firms with billions of dollars -- and those firms currently are giving employees billions of dollars in Christmas bonuses -- while allowing these firms' victims, the poor, to lose their homes -- and torturing people in violation of US and international law. Et cetera et cetera etc.)

At least one noncanonical text deals with Jesus's "missing years": the time in Jesus's life between his birth and crucifixion. Thirty years.

All of the above makes me wonder how a person like The PoliGrip Preacher possibly be satisfied only with MML&J? These four gospels disagree, contradict one another, don't account for almost all of Jesus's life, and on and on.

A priest/reverend is supposed to be an expert on Jesus's life. If a historian chooses to become an expert on Abraham Lincoln, it seems PoliGrip Preacher would suggest the historian only take into account Abe's birth and the year up to and including his death. Wanting more information would be just just plain silly.
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The Legend of Zelda and the damage done.

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My posting has been sporadic lately, and will continue to be so until I make it through Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Why? Eg: I'm ending this post now to get back to playing it.
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Abortion facts.

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* In 2007, The Center for American Progress reviewed the American public's support of abortion:
-- 49 percent of Americans consider themselves pro-choice, and a plurality or majority (save one tie) has identified as such since 1995, when data began being collected. Forty-five percent consider themselves pro-life.
-- "59 percent of the public either believes abortion laws should remain as they are (36 percent) or be made less strict (23 percent)." ... "Every Gallup poll since 2003 has returned either 59 percent or 60 percent support on this question."
-- 30 percent want to make abortion legal in all circumstances. This position has been held by an average of 26 percent through the last five years.
-- "Just 13 percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances."

* "In medical terms, the word abortion refers to any pregnancy that does not end in a live birth and therefore can refer to a miscarriage or a premature birth of someone that does not result in a live infant. Such events are often called spontaneous abortions if they occur before 20 weeks of gestation." (Wikipedia)

* "[F]etuses likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy, when they are about 28 weeks old." In fact: "Offering fetal pain relief in the fifth or sixth month, when brains are too immature to feel pain, is misguided and might result in unacceptable health risks to women." (MSNBC.com, from 2005, reporting on an article in the Journal of the American Medial Association) (Italics mine.)

* "Forty states and the District of Columbia already ban third-trimester abortions except when the life or health of the woman is at stake." (Planned Parenthood)

* According to the Centers for Disease Control (2002):
-- 59.3 percent of (non-miscarriage) abortions were carried out when the embryo was eight
weeks or less gestational age. Only after eight weeks is the womb-dweller called a fetus.
-- 18 percent of abortions performed nine to ten weeks GA (gest. age).
-- 9.4 percent 11 to 12 weeks GA.
-- 5.9 percent 13 to 15 weeks.
-- 4 percent 16 to 20.
-- 1.4 percent more than 20 weeks GA. (Handy graph of this on Wikipedia)

* Therefore, in 2002, 86.7 percent of abortions were performed in the first trimester.

* "Labour resulting in live birth before the 37th week of pregnancy is termed 'premature birth,' even if the infant dies shortly afterward. The limit of viability at which 50% of fetus/infants survive longterm is around 24 weeks, with moderate or major neurological disability dropping to 50% only by 26 weeks." The fetus has been carried to term at 37 weeks. (Wikipedia)

* "Nationwide, there are now fewer abortion providers in the U.S. than at any time since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 -- 87 percent of U.S. counties don't have one." (FRONTLINE, "The Last Abortion Clinic")

* "In October 2002, the Bush administration issued final regulations specifically making fetuses—but not pregnant women—eligible for health care coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program." (National Organization of Women)
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Incendiary ammunition is legal.

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Incendiary rounds are designed to penetrate things like body armor, then explode. The bullets have explosive charges and are available to the general public.

Why do we need these? (Note: I'm not asking why the bloody hell they're legal.)

I found the best answer from someone calling him-/herself Despoiler, who lives in "The Occupied Territory of California," on a gunandgame.com forum:

"I hunt squirrels with the stuff that way I don't have to bother cooking them later."

USA! USA! USA!
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Such a little thing.

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Often, when I'm driving around a parking lot looking for an open space, I notice people driving vehicles with handicap plates or rear-view-mirror hangers doing the same.

I've driven behind such people at least five times, and watched them pass up spaces as close to the store's entrance as were available. One person passed by a space next to a reserved space. When I saw this particular person leave his car after finding an open, reserved space two rows over, he wasn't in a wheelchair or using a device or devices that would have made a reserved space necessary. He didn't need the extra space between cars reserved spaces provide.

A certain portion of people who are able to park in reserved spaces seem to do so even when closer, non-reserved spaces are available.

Do they do this simply because they can? Are they determined to use reserved spaces because it's one of the very few things our society provides for them -- one tangible benefit, easily obtained on a regular basis?

I wonder if I'll start parking only in reserved spaces when I get my handicap plates.

If I do, I'll update the blog to let you know why.




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Family values.

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[This post was inspired by Lisa Miller's recent Newsweek cover article.]

The Biblical patriarchs had as many wives and concubines as they could afford. In fact, polygamy was (and I daresay is) the ideal for People of the Book (and having multiple wives, technically, is polygyny -- "The More You Know"!). Poor people tended toward monogamy solely because they couldn't afford more bitches. (And I use "bitches" in this post only because the Bible treats women on par with female dogs: as a male's property. Hell, only a handful of women in the entire Bible are even bothered to be named. You get maybe a thousand male names from all the chapters/verses regarding all the begetting and begetting and begetting, but essentially no female names. And the begetting was a lot tougher on them.)

I fervently believe traditional marriage must be restored. Still, I'm a modern guy. I bend with the times. I don't think we have to go back to making women chattel. Also, I don't get money mixed up in my relationships. Especially now that I, personally, don't have any to speak of.

Tacks (brass): I want ten wives (starters) who pay for anything and everything I want to do/to have/need/merely want.

But that's me. A real traditionalist.

But I know a lot of people out there are fighting for traditional marriage as taught by Jesus: a union of one man and one woman.

The problem being that Jesus never said, never gave any indication, that this is what marriage is supposed to be.

Jesus believed the end of the world was at hand. By example, he taught celibacy. He did so, in part, likely because in a nonexistent world a family doesn't need kids to ensure its prosperity. As part of this apocalyptic view, Jesus encouraged people to leave their families to follow him and, generally, not to care about these families because they were earthly things, soon to be rendered unimportant by God's appearance on earth, which he did often say was at hand (as in during his lifetime or shortly thereafter).

So Christians who follow Jesus's actual teaching should desert their families, if they have them, (but not get divorced). And if they don't have families, they shouldn't marry at all.

The family values Christianity currently teaches are the exact opposite of those Jesus taught (in essence: the family has no value whatsoever). Preachers go on and on about the family being the bedrock of civilization.

Such preaching couldn't be more anti-Christian.

If Christian preachers get what they want -- Jesus's family values imposed on America -- the result will be the annihilation of our concept of family.

Personally, I don't need nor want that. I'd be fine, simply, with ten ten wives.

At least for starters.
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Statistics: Pro-McCain states are 'stupid.'

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This post will be a series of factual statements from which the reader can draw his/her own conclusions, because giving my own -- as I did in the headline -- would be inflammatory.

Morgan Quinto Press publishes, yearly, Smartest State Awards. The most recent, free, results are here, and for 2006 to 2007. My statistics come from this page.

Quinto uses 21 factors processed through a formula (details of which can be found here) to assign a numerical value to each state. That value shows how "smart" the state is compared to the national average.

For example: Vermont was the smartest state in '06-'07, with a "Smart Rating" of 18.57. Arizona was the least "smart" state, and rated -17.61.

I printed a map of the US that showed which states' electoral votes were awarded to Obama in the 2008 election, and which states went to McCain. I used the map and Quinto's Smart Rating numbers to make the following calculations:

*The 27 states that went to Obama had a total Smart Rating of 43.45.

*The 23 states that voted for McCain had a total Smart Rating of -65.27.

*States that went to Obama had an average Smart Rating of 1.609.

*States that went to McCain had an average Smart Rating of -2.838.

I also think it's important to note that eight of the ten "smartest" states voted for Obama.
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One mystery of pyramids, explained.

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Pyramids were made by various cultures at various times, despite these cultures having had no contact with or knowledge of one another, simply because when they were built the pyramidal form was the most intelligent way to create a tall, stable structure.

...I mean, it's that or aliens.
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George Will: un-smart. (Edition 2)

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This post discusses Will's column "Free Ride for the Campus Left."

Will, like all good conservatives, hates higher education -- colleges, universities and the like.

And, like the majority of education-loathing conservatives, Will spent a lot of time becoming educated at the places he hates. He also spent a lot of time teaching at such places -- including Harvard, which Will cannot deride enough.

To wit: "Will graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and attended Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut (B.A.). He subsequently read PPE at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in politics from Princeton University. His 1968 Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society.

"Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998."

Will is a damned hypocrite. Like the vast majority of education-hating conservatives.

Also, Will may have daddy-issues, since his father was a professor of philosophy at the university of Illinois. Father Will specialized in epistemology, which "primarily addresses the following questions: 'What is knowledge?', 'How is knowledge acquired?', 'What do people know?', 'How do we know what we know?'" (Wikipedia)

Will's body of work strongly suggests his answers to these questions are: Knowledge is what is espoused in conservative talking points, is acquired through reading them, and that we know what we know through having read these talking points.

On to a few choice cuts of this column:

"Fish's advocacy of a banal proscription -- of explicit political preaching in classrooms -- may have made him anathema to academia's infantile left."

It is infantile to use unsupported ad hominem attacks.

Quoting Fish, Will writes: "'the fact of a predominantly liberal faculty says nothing necessarily about what the faculty teaches.' Note Fish's obfuscating 'necessarily.'"

Note that Fish is correct. How many university faculty are members of certain religions, agnostics, or atheists? Do they teach their religion (or lack thereof), even in religion classes? Et cetera.

Will writes: "Genuflecting before today's academic altar, [Fish] asserts what no one denies: Race and gender are 'worthy of serious study.'"

Which is odd, because just before writing that sentence, Will wrote of "the proliferation of race and gender courses, programs and even departments..."

He went on to assert that "the political nature of such curricula [race and gender studies] is why they often are set apart from established, and more academically rigorous, departments of sociology, history, etc."

Note the use of the loaded term "proliferation." What modern reader can imagine this term without also imagining nuclear non-proliferation efforts? Google "proliferation" and six of the first ten results have to do with keeping dangerous weapons from becoming more widespread.

And Will flat-out states that race and gender studies lack academic rigor.

The sum of these parts equal Will stating: Race and gender studies departments and courses grow and spread like nuclear weapons and are unimportant when compared to other topics.

Having stated the above -- his true feelings -- he feebly semi-disowns them by writing the opposite: that race and gender studies are important. So important that no one would deny the fact that they are.

Even if they just have, I suppose.

Will ends with: "People who tell you they are brave usually are not."

And people who tell you bullshit for a living usually are un-smart.
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Old news, new question.

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Does Fenway (home of the Red Sox) still play, and the stadium sing along with, "Sweet Caroline" (by Neil Diamond) before the bottom of the eighth inning?

If so, I thought they would have stopped doing so when it was revealed, by Diamond, that he wrote the lyrics when he was 26, and that he wrote the lyrics in an hour (such was his fevered inspiration) after seeing a picture of a 10-year-old Caroline Kennedy.

Diamond: "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to her nines in her riding gear next to her pony. It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt a song was there." --Songfacts.com.

Apparently, the picture also made Diamond feel incredibly horny. ...The picture of a 10-year-old made a 26-year-old hot enough to write in a single hour:

Where it began, I can't begin to know when
But then I know it's growing strong
Oh, wasn't the spring, whooo
And spring became the summer
Who'd believe you'd come along

Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
I've been inclined to believe it never would

And now I, I look at the night, whooo
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two, oh
And when I hurt
Hurting runs off my shoulder
How can I hurt when holding you

Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
Oh I've been inclined to believe it never would

Ohhh, sweet Caroline, good times never seem so good

(Lyrics provided by lyricsdomain.com.)

If the song is still a staple at Fenway, I can't imagine wanting to sing it.

I can't imagine listening to it without massive discomfort.
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Christianity teaches moral relativism.

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The code of moral behavior for women and men is different. Therefore, churches do not teach, nor believe in, an absolute morality.
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Cold or hot, our next war is with Pakistan.

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I just wanted that on the record.

Called it.
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Equal rights for one.

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Abraham Lincoln is mentioned almost every time the media discusses Obama because it's whites' coded way of congratulating themselves for electing a black man and their having made it possible.

Every newsboy and newsgirl feels the need to say/write, at least, and very often apropos of nothing, that Lincoln is Obama's favorite president.

Notably: Obama is considered by the US media and the vast majority of its white people to be black and not white because -- apparently and terribly -- the One-Drop Rule still applies: "A person with any trace of African ancestry is considered black." Obama's mother was white and of Northwestern European ancestry. Obama's father was a black Kenyan, of black Kenyan ancestry. Therefore, Obama's ancestry makes him exactly -- to continue to speak very crudely -- half white and half black.

But we call him black.

Obama, like all bi- or multiracial people, is considered black, instinctively, by white people and white institutions because his skin color doesn't match his own mother's. The One-Drop Rule is embedded in white Americans' thinking.

Which means whites have a lot more discriminating to do:

"Genetic evidence appears to support the Out of Africa hypothesis. In the western half of Eurasia and in Africa, this hypothesis also seems the better explanation, particularly for the apparent replacement of Neanderthals by modern populations." (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History -- scroll to/run a Find for "A Compromise Hypothesis.")

So Europeans and Africans, if not all people, share a common ancestor. A black one. Which means we're all black, according to One-Drop, the rule the US still applies.

Our genes also show that there is more genetic variance within "races" than between them. And that "race" is a stupid social construct (much more here) that has and is and will continue to be used to evil ends.

Skin color, despite science, remains a handy dividing line between an Us and a Them, and a handy indicator of who to hate, even if it's ourselves.

And let's hope Obama funds scientific research and gets it into public schools to begin the end of America's intense stupidity.
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The US still does not have universal health care.

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And it's a good thing we don't.

If we did, we could end up like every single other Westernized, wealthy, suit-and-tie country.

And we see how that's worked for them.

...Oh. Hey stupid Americans: Demand universal health care.

And here's a reason that isn't "not doing so advertises your idiocy":

We hate the French right? Let's make health care accessible to everyone just so we can be at least as good as the country that birthed Maginot.
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George Will: un-smart. (Edition 1)

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(This is the first post in a series that will deal with the writings and general thoughts George Will is un-smart enough to make public.)

Re: Newsweek's "Last Word," December 1, 2008 edition:

Will states that "the doctrine of 'nondelegation'"... is "a necessary concomitant of the Constitution's separation of powers, [and] usually concerns improper delegation of legislative powers to the executive branch."

Yet Will did not, and does not, believe nondelegation to be important concerning the "improper delegation of legislative powers to the executive branch." He has never had a problem with what has come to be called W.'s Imperial Presidency.

Will only is concerned with the unconstitutionality of the recent bailouts, and supports his view with an idea he lauds in this instance, and shuns in most others.

Onward: TARP "has made Treasury Department bureaucrats into legislators; or perhaps it has made Secretary Hank Paulson the fourth branch of government."

No. Congress still is the only branch of government that can create and pass legislation, even if it is the kind of legislation Paulson and the Treasury explicitly desired.

And the bailout measure was full of enticements that bought representatives' pro-votes.

These weren't in Paulson's plan. They got there because the bailout had to go through Congress' colon.

So I'm still only counting three branches of government.

Will spouts nonsense for a bit, then this: "Socialism is not merely susceptible to corruption; it is corruption—the allocation of wealth and opportunity by political favoritism. Under democratic socialism, such favoritism is then rewarded by financial support, by those favored, of the dispensers of favors."

Will's point must be that W. ran a socialist regime. W. made his friends and supporters rich and filled his government with them, from Heckuva Job Brownie to Halliburton to giving any and every government job to Republicans (being a Repub. was a prerequisite for service, with Dems being weeded out by design in application processes).

The column's second-to-last paragraph is this:

"It serves the left's agenda of expanding the scope of politics by multiplying the forms of dependency on government. Hence liberalism's enthusiasm for enriching the menu of entitlements; hence liberalism's promotion of equality by making more groups and entities equally dependent on government."

All of this is opinion (fine in an opinion piece) unsubstantiated by any facts. It's simply the warped way Will views "liberalism."

Liberalism is (m-w.com):

1: the quality or state of being liberal2 aoften capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity b: a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard c: a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties d: capitalized: the principles and policies of a Liberal party.

And Will believes liberalism to be self-evidently evil.

Which allows one to argue rather easily that Will, rather, is evil. And also shows that he doesn't have a proper conception of what he writes about (since he believes the US is a Christian nation and loves nothing more than to profess his adoration for individual freedom, free competition, and especially the self-regulating market).
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Statistics: Black people had nothing to do with Calif. Prop 8's passage.

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Well: very, very little to do with it.

Fox News and other media outlets have been harping on the fact that 70 percent of black voters voted in favor of California's Prop 8 (which bans gay marriage).

This stat is used to claim that black people, therefore, are responsible for Prop 8's passage.

In CA on November 4, black people comprised less than 7 percent of voters because black people make up less than seven percent of the CA population. Also, roughly half of the people in the US vote.

So maybe 70 percent of 5 percent of a certain demographic of voters were pro-8.

And this meager percentage was responsible for Proposition Bigot's passage?

Why was something so moronic as the above allowed on the air (teevee news) and in newspapers?

I can understand Fox News running with this: Their audience hates facts like they hate canker sores. And, likely, gays and blacks just as much.

But supposedly legit media broadcasting this guano?

...Did there have to be "another side" to the story so people wouldn't think nor care as much about the evil meddling the Mormon Church perpetrated in CA?

I want to hear the excuses for the media running with this story so I can die a bit more inside.

...And I suggest everyone Google "Mormon marriage." It's far scarier than gay marriage.
>

You saved for a bass guitar

>
[words by Camera Obscura]

Fresh as the paint
Friendship can die young

Life will be the death of you
I'm ready to be heartbroken

--Such a fragile thing
I can't believe

I got myself some bowling shoes
and they're all that I can see

All alone in a room following lines on maps.
>

Be courageous.

>
[words by Broken Social Scene]

Library cards

Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash
Under my window

Sleep on the floor
Dream about me

--They lost their lives in backyards.

Park that car
Drop that phone

These people drinking lovers' spit
--It's time we grow old.

I like it all
that way:

Library cards
Rented faces

--They lost their lives.
>

My madness deepens:

>
The song stuck on repeat in my inner ear insists "big girls don't cry."

Please. Everyone cries when they hear this song's vocal harmonies.
>

Cold fusion is possible. No one bothered to tell me.

>
A breakthrough like that, and I had to hear about it from a teevee show instead of from a family member, a friend, or even a newspaper. For years, fusion reactors have been up and running.

Fusion.

Humans can create energy the same way stars do.

If humanity can hang on through World War Three, aka Crusade IX, fusion reactors will provide the world's electricity. That's right: Hang on to your Christianity, because eventually sea water-powered fusion reactors will be supplying our zapping juice.

Of course, the Western World will enjoy fusion's benefits first and be an asshole about sharing with the other kids. Humans will be fusing atoms, but not getting rid of massive-scale poverty, hunger, and disease. The cherry on the sundae: The world will use the whole fusion-thing as an excuse:

"Yeah, we still haven't gotten around to the 'ending world hunger' thing. 'Next year,' we always say!

"But come on now: Fucking. Fusion. The world [the speaker knows the audience will understand the "world" to be only the countries on it with strong, interdependent, economies] makes energy the same way the god damned stars do! This city -- this country -- is running on the energy provided by a cup of freaking sea water!"

Of course, for fusion to be viable, it will have to be cheaper than other means of creating electricity, which is likely to make it the juice-generator of last resort.

Still, given enough time, humans will be using plasma power. And these generators' worst byproducts will be nonradioactive only three hundred years after their creation.

...We may be in another ice age by then.
>

I want a panda-monkey.

>
Fuck it. Let's make a clone that gives the world a panda-monkey.

I'm gonna be brutally honest and say (write) that I'm damned curious to see what the fuck it would look like, what its internal structure would be (in a post-natural death autopsy, of course), and how the hell such a thing would, in general, live.

...Wait. That's insane. We have shitloads of trouble cloning cows right now.

Gonna have to wait a while for that panda-monkey.
>

A day at the beach.

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I can swim. I choose not to.
>

There can only be one.

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I am invincible.

I haven't been sick -- with a cold, the flu, the anything -- throughout the past four-plus years.

It seems no virus or bacteria can affect me. And if I'm keeping these insidious creatures from harming me, it seems probable that I'm taking care of cancer (or will be able to, should I have to) and all other death-dealers too. I also get to brag that I can prevent and/or cure the common cold, while medical science never will be able to.

Currently, no one knows what causes fibro. There are a few theories, and all of them are amazingly stupid. And, therefore, so is the way fibro is treated by all but a few doctors. Dr ML&S has it right, for example.

I think fibro may be an autoimmune disease. Such diseases cause the body to attack normal, healthy body structures in their hyperactive Doberman-eagerness to protect the body. A brutal assault by the body on the body certainly would be capable of causing fibromyalgians' all-encompassing pain, tender points, chronic fatigue (whose cousin narcolepsy is suspected of being autoimmune), etc etc et cetera.

My gene pool is a a rich habitat for autoimmune diseases. Those in my family who have such diseases also cannot get sick. This inability to get sick is the only -- symptom? -- shared by people with diverse (and genetic, not communicable) autoimmune diseases and/or disorders.

Unfortunately, this means I have family who are fellow immortals, and I am destined to attempt to kill them, and they me. There can only be one.

The current state of fibro misdiagnosis, however, ensures that people who can get sick end up being labeled fibromyalgians. People with extremely cruel iterations of Celiac, chronic fatigue (unaccompanied by body-wide pain and esp. tender points), crippling depression, etc etc et cetera get lumped in with true fibros by doctors who haven't run enough tests.

Which keeps fibro from being understood and from being cured. (See various posts at my other blog for more rants dealing with the above paragraph's subject matter.)

Perhaps: If you've been diagnosed with fibro and have had a cold since then, you need a new doctor and a new diagnosis. I hope you find you have something else... It will keep you from having to worry about being hunted by sword-wielding gimps bent on decapitating you.

(I will seem crazy -- well, crazier -- if you don't know about The Highlander.)
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Planned obsolescence.

>
The majority of Americans are against publicly funding embryonic stem cell research. The larger part of the populace is against laws that would fund such research even when this research is allowed to be performed only on embryos that would be discarded. That is to say (write): incinerated. Burned as though in hellfire itself.

Someone I know who has multiple sclerosis is against using taxpayers' money to fund the above, even with the stipulation mentioned above. And he (according to scientists) likely could benefit the most!

Americans can choose to use stem cells from embryos or choose not to. Either way, the embryos end up destroyed. Throwing them in an incinerator is one way to get rid of them. Another way is to involve them in research that could cure or benefit people who have MS, Parkinson's, nerve damage (including paralysis) and on, on, on.

Choice one: the one hundred percent guarantee that no good comes from the destruction of embryos. Many people holier than me, who claim to care about these embryos and human life more than I do, take this position. Which is a touch like saying "I care about waste management so much that I refuse to support recycling." (Awful simile.)

Choice two: the likelihood that the destruction of embryos eventually will lead to the easing and eventually curing of some of the worst ailments humans can have.

America prefers door number one. An incinerator door. The majority of US-ians believe it is morally correct that no good come from embryos bound for distruction. ...It is better that embryos be destroyed by fire than by beneficial research.

And that is nucking futs.

...The US is about to have new leadership. Leadership is about a lot of things -- and Americans have heard every cliche that supposedly defines it during the presidential campaign.

Here's a specific example of leadership: Issuing an executive order to correct the wrongheaded policies against stem cell research.

PS: This isn't meant to be a blog about politics or political issues. I'll try to write something smutty very soon to cleanse our palates.
>

Sarah Palin: complete, utter, hopeless, idiotic moron.

>
The following is reprinted from HuffingtonPost.com. Click the title of this post to see the article I quote below:

Nicholas Graham

"According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked 'a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency,' in part because she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, and she 'didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself.'

"Palin was apparently a nightmare for her campaign staff to deal with. She refused preparation help for her interview with Katie Couric and then blamed her staff, specifically Nicole Wallace, when the interview was panned as a disaster. After the Couric interview, Fox News reported, Palin turned nasty with her staff and began to accuse them of mishandling her. Palin would view press clippings of herself in the morning and throw 'tantrums' over the negative coverage. There were times when she would be so nasty and angry that her staff was reduced to tears.

"Cameron also reports, along with CNN, that McCain's senior foreign policy adviser was fired a week before the election for attacking, in defense of Sarah Palin, various McCain aides who he felt were undermining Palin."

Me again:

Watch the video below, which is the interview Nicholas Graham at HuffingtonPost referenced in the above article. I was going to post bullet points from the interview, but found myself transcribing everything Cameron said. Watch the video. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hope Palin stays the fuck in Alaska for the rest of her life.

And oh my freaking gods the apologism O'Reilly engages in is so so so pathetic.

Best. Video. Ever.




>

Killing an Arab.

>
It's as likely as not that bin Laden is dead, and has been for maybe a year or two.

However, his life as a dead person will be as long as Elvis's because if the West isn't fighting Osama and his ideas, then we're killing Arabs for the purpose of maintaining military bases and embassies in oil-rich countries.

And the US wouldn't have cause to creep into Pakistan.

And Americans would have to think about the fact that our real war is with hundreds of groups or Muslim radicals who want to kill Westerners -- hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, in every country.

We would get very bad headaches as we thought about that. And we would be even more terror-filled. And I would need a MacBook Pro more than ever.

So it's preferable for the West to have a single face to hate. It prevents headaches and, quite likely, hate crimes against Muslims from becoming as common as blinking.




>

I boycott zoos.

>
A friend kept a chameleon as a pet. It lived in an aquarium that didn't have water but did have a stick he snapped off a tree outside his dorm.

I had read that for a chameleon to come in contact with a human was/is a very stressful experience for the animal, and that the stress was/is such that chameleons kept as pets don't/won't live long.

So when I hung out in my friend's room, we got stoned and drunk and tortured a chameleon by forcing it to be near us.
>

Obama!

>
I don't want diminish this moment for anyone, so this is all I'll write today.
>

I will say:

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That I wrote that the Republican Party is now the party by of and for ignorant whites and rich assholes.
>

To reduce cognitive dissonance all of us will say:

>
At least X and/or Y passed/didn't pass!

PS: I didn't use "cognitive dissonance" in a wholly proper way. OCD wanted to let you know that I know.
>

Pat Buchanan will say:

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Something somehow regarding Israel that reminds us he hates Jews but loves their real estate.
>

Conservative/Republican pundits will say:

>
Certainly it can't be denied that the W. Administration's current handling of the Existential* War On Terror made it easier for Obama to win because, had there been a terrorist attack -- especially in the US -- voters would have been more inclined to vote for McCain. That there wasn't is a credit to the current president, who we haven't talked about for months and has done a lot of important things for the country when we weren't paying attention.

(Person making comment, and likely the host or anchor of whatever show this is said on, takes it as no-need-to-even-speak-about-it-obvious that United States-ians vote for Republicans when they're scared.)

*Existential: (1) Of, relating to, or affirming existence. (2) a: Grounded in existence or the experience of existence: empirical. b: Having being in time and space. (3) [translation of Danish eksistentiel & German existential] : existentialist.

Existentialism: A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.

Calling the War On Terror "Existential": "Existential" is a hard word to understand, and does OK in the speeches it is made to be part of. And calling terrorism an existential threat, strictly, is true: Terrorism exists and it is a threat.

But I don't think Republicans in DC and governors' mansions go in for the "analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad."

Existentialism recognizes moral relativism, and the GOP mocks moral relativism.

All of which makes everything perfect: The Bush Administration's Existential War On Terror is entirely contradictory.

Which is icing when your war is against terror: a state of intense fear. An idea! A feeling! A state of mind!

--Back on track (well, back to the one I switched to after the first paragraph): No matter what we call whatever conflict we're in, if we are, it must be won.

How?

Since universal health care was an idea cooked up by socialists and would help all US citizens and not only corporations (though it would help them immensely) or people who have so much money that they hire other people to tell them how to spend it, I will not ask for universal health care. Instead, I would like the government to know that my state of terror -- intense fear -- would almost entirely be eradicated if I was bought a new MacBook.

This war is about winning hearts and minds. The above is how to write me off as a big Mission Accomplished.

Well... Since the US is spending $5,000 per second waging its Existential War On Terror for Hearts and Minds, I'm going to get greedy and ask for a completely geeked-out MacBook Pro. Still cheaper than a second in Iraq.

...But shit. I'm already on our side. No heart or mind to win.

(In retrospect, it's nice to have written the above -- and for it to be the truth -- since the PATRIOT Act -- which was made law for the purpose of Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism -- has taken away at least one of my liberties: the freedom to know what freedoms have been taken away by acts of Congress and the White House.)

So, then, here's how to win our existential war existentially: Let's get our soldiers out of Iraq, where it is very easy for them to get very hurt and/or very dead, let Iraq take care of its own shit with, in part, its budget surplus--

Aside: How many times does Iraq's government have to implore us to remove our soldiers, and how many times do we have to steadfastly, resolutely, rebuke them? We have an easy out we refuse to take because, in part, idiocy has become a virtue and the White House sets the standard. And damned high.

--and give the soldiers kick-ass MacBooks?

Throw in new iPhones too.

Which would be cool but, of course, still too little. But at minimum (which it would be close to) it would be a nice addition to what our returned soldiers have received since 2002: the denial of proper health care, horrible pay, horrible name it.

Christ. Let's teach the world to sing al-fucking-ready.

(This post: with thanks to m-w.com.)
>

I have to mow the lawn tomorrow, too.

>
The kind of people who look forward to watching Meet the Press every Sunday know that, by all calculations, the only possible outcome of tomorrow's election is Obama's victory. Some of these people will use this knowledge to justify not voting tomorrow.

I'm already doing it.
>

Don't hope for the best.

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Socialism, as constructed by Marx and Engels, never can work because it holds that, if people live in conditions under which they are truly equal and also free from need and want, they will finally be able to exercise their basic, and primary, inclination to treat all others as they would treat their own self in all others' situation.

To put part of that another way: Keeping any form of government running (which all citizens -- all others -- are constantly engaged in) keeps people from being able to be good to one another. To be fair.

And it is in people's nature to be.

That it, in fact and practice, is not, made socialism the perfect tool for some people who hated humanity and could admit to themselves that all others did too. Marx and Engels created a system so perfect that knowing its fundamental flaw allowed for unimaginable atrocities.

Including a world in which David Brooks writes a column for the New York Times.
>

It's crazy, but it's true.

The song that is ceaselessly playing in my head should address itself to people "when [they] get caught between the moon and New York City" because the use of "if" instead of "when" suggests it's possible not to get caught there.

*Copyright acknowledged to the douchebag(s) who wrote and/or own the rights to this song.

Knocking doesn't entitle you to come in.

They can be anyone from police to parents, but when you're in the middle of sex and they suddenly come in your room, fifty-one percent of you wishes you lived in a world in which the others and the girl you're with would simply give you just five more minutes.

I know you.

I watched an elephant brain be dissected on a television show about elephants. The brain was being chopped up to further support that elephants have good memories. Their ability to know a lot about the places they go, the things they see, and the elephants they roam around with is very important to their society.

This made me wonder -- a bit tangentially -- if, maybe, memory is vital to the creation of emotions in beings. Do emotional attachments naturally spring from deep understandings of things and beings?

Is to know, know, know him, truly, to love, love, love him?

Today I think that familiarity with a thing needn't breed opinions and feelings for that thing. ...Familiarity doesn't, necessarily, cause value judgments to be made.

But I think they are in most cases.

(But I'm quite likely to think the opposite tomorrow.)

*Addition, November 2: Insects are the most successful animals of this age, and they must intimately understand their surroundings, places in social hierarchies, etc, but they exhibit no emotional attachments.

I'm now calling this one as: Mammals tend to form emotional ties and opinions of things because their brains are constructed in such a way as to make forming them likely.

New one: Do emotions make a species more or less fit for its environment (for survival, long-term) due to the display of emotions being a something mammals do simply to attract mates?

--But first: Do emotional displays attract mates? Is that what they're for?

("Obviously not" is my immediate reaction. ...More attention will be given to this in a future post. This post is likely to start out with me writing that the two questions I asked in the above paragraph were stupid.)

Bailout

Corporate bailout: 700 billion dollars.

Population of the United States: 301,139,947 (July 2007 estimate).

Seven hundred billion (dollars) divided by the population of the US = $2,324.50.

Elect "I'm Stupid" in '08!

Class warfare and socialism.

Republicans maintain that raising taxes on those that can afford tax increases is class warfare. A sort of warfare designed to "spread the wealth." Which is, according to those that know nothing of socialism, the larger part of the definition of socialism.

The smaller and smaller crowds McCain and Palin draw boo and hiss and sometimes call for Obama's murder when "spreading the wealth" is mentioned as something Obama supposedly desires. (Weather he does or does not -- and, if so, would attempt to do so -- is something to write about another time.)

I was running some errands, and passed by a trailer park as I did so. The entrance was a field of McCain/Palin signs.

These not-wealthy people overwhelmingly seem to support a campaign that has made it crystal clear they will give tax cuts to big corporations and the wealthy, on top of keeping W.'s tax cuts, which overwhelmingly favored the wealthy, permanent.

Many, I would guess, are so-called values voters. Many will vote in direct opposition to their economic interests because Republicans don't favor abortion.

Which is obvious. Because in W.'s first term, when the GOP

(which stands for Grand Old Party, which is synonymous with "Republican," and good to know if your local/state reps. and or senators list themselves on your ballot next Tuesday as members of the GOP to distance themselves from the Republican political philosophy the same way they would Aristotelian philosophy, which is a worldview just as wrong as their own)

had a veto-proof majority in the House, owned the Senate and the executive branch, they passed a law that made abortion illegal.

...Wait...

They didn't.

They didn't fight for any of the values the values voters put them in place for -- and they didn't do it because if they did they would have been voted out of office because their values are extremely unpopular.

Fine then. I'll end on this note, half-made points and all, because I don't feel like writing (but promised to do so in a post last week):

If you're going to vote McCain/Palin against your interests (beyond the economic ones, even) because of "values" promises that are sure to be not-kept, I reserve the right to call you a goddam idiot.

You goddam idiot. Your vote is as well thought-out as this essay.

Old and White? Experience Not-Voting This Year!

If you make less than $250,000 per year and plan to vote/will vote/voted for McCain/Palin please leave a comment that details how bad your head injury remains.

It could be the first step toward the help you need.

Fine then.

Bandini

PROGRAMMING NOTE:

This blog will be used primarily for weekly essays. I am giving myself a Wednesday, midnight deadline, so there will always be something here Thursdays for you to read. Have Kleenex handy, because each post, be assured, will move you to tears. You're sure to be moved that much.*

Think of these weekly posts as newspaper columns. But columns that will be on whatever topic I find handy that week, and that are peppered with swear words and blasphemies.

So: Column/essays on Thursdays.

Plus: (And aren't you lucky!) This blog will feature the occasional commentary on my life (like the post below this one).

Must go. XSU or bust and all that.

I'm also trying to think of a sign-off for my posts... For some reason. I haven't settled on anything, and don't have time to create one right now. So, until next time:

God is dead!**

*Not a guarantee. Author cannot know if reader is even capable of crying. Perhaps reader has Chronic Dry Eye and cannot properly express reader's emotions because reader needs a prescription for Restasis. At least according to commercials that feature the woman costar from Northern Exposure, in her first role (as far as I know) since leaving the show. Kinda a step down... Especially if it's been all these years since she's been on TV...

**Nietzsche.

News You Can Use

Today I leave for the weekend, to be spent, at least in part, visiting my alma mater, designated XSU. I haven't been since I left the summer after graduating too many years ago.

Finally finally finally. I am so so so goddam excited. Despite the fact that, of course, it's going to rain all fucking weekend and all I want to do is grab a fifth of vodka to sip while I visit every single place I ever set foot upon during my higher education/best skating years.

Time is a factor, and XSU has a huge campus. And I have memories for every building, botanical garden, rail, bar, bench, sidewalk square -- every freaking blade of grass, every squirrel whose kids I'll see today. A friend is making my trip possible -- I don't drive -- so I have to work around her schedule. I can only hope we can cover quite a few miles in a very few hours.

I love today.

The Cure

[The below was written in about a half-hour. While I had a headache. ...These are excuses for the below being choppy and pretty stupid.]

Right now -- no matter when you're reading this -- a very large number of humans are making excuses not to have sex with their boyfriends or girlfriends.

Buddhists know that life is suffering. Millions of them turning down sex.

Without Hinduism the Western world would would be stuck in the missionary position and sex wouldn't be the highest art. Still, millions of Hindus saying "not right now honey."

Married Jews, Christians, Muslims, obligated by their respective gods (can we be adults and admit the Abrahamic religions worship different things?) to procreate, have the go ahead from on high to fuck without rubbers or the pill -- completely unencumbered -- but millions of them are too tired.

Agnostics, atheists, Wiccans, Satanists, Other: Millions of these people have headaches or other sudden, as nonexistent as atheists consider gods, ailments that preclude them from taking a moment's pleasure. (But at least a half-hour when done correctly.)

Millions of people in this world have easy access to the very reason humans exist: to procreate, and so to perform the act that can result in procreation. And millions are ensuring that they not do it.

And you're not off the hook either gays, lesbians, transgendered people, etc. Not when you're the perfect segue into my next point.

Evolution has taken millions of years to ensure that sex is its own reward. That it feels good. And millions (billions?) don't drink or take drugs, so an orgasm is the best thing they're going to feel. (Well, an orgasm is the best thing anyone will feel whether they're into drink and/or drugs. But coming while on pure Ex is -- I'm getting off track.)

Still: So many people in this world have spent a lot of today's thought on a reason or even a full-blown plan that will get them out of "having" to fuck tonight.

The human race has something deeply wrong with it.

We are commanded by religions, by gods, by greedy genes, by the pleasure principle, by what seems to be common sense, ad infinitum, to fuck each other. But we don't want to. (But will tomorrow dear. Promise.)

Millions of us genuinely do feel too tired, too stressed, too overwhelmed, too depressed, too anxious, too fill in the blank to have sex right now.

But even the above, seemingly valid, "reasons" to skip sex are incredibly stupid.

Millions (billions?) of people wake up in the morning, have to be somewhere (work, for instance), so they drink the caffeinated beverage of their choice. It makes them feel more awake.

And sex makes people feel less tired, less stressed, less overwhelmed, less depressed, less anxious, less fill in the blank. It's proven beyond all doubt.

But millions of people deny themselves and their lover something guaranteed by their own humanity to make them feel good. Or at least better than they had pre-coitus.

Millions of people are turning each other down right now because their guy or gal angered them in some way at some point (maybe just today, or maybe repeatedly). So sex is withheld for the purpose of denying the other person momentary happiness.

Millions of wives/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends/other aren't fucking the person next to them in bed because that person didn't do a chore they were supposed to take care of today.

Which puts sex on the level of a chore and relationships on the way to their demise.

So fucking what (pun intended, and intended to induce a groan since it very well may be the only one you make today) if someone forgot to pick up something on the way home despite the fact you reminded someone more than once. So fucking what if someone should have washed the dishes since you cooked and, furthermore, clattered around in the sink as loudly as you could to remind someone that someone was being an asshole?

So fucking what so fucking what so fucking what?

Your response is to deny both of you the best thing either of you can experience? Especially when angry sex is the best sex people in long-term relationships can have?

To deprive your someone you're depriving yourself. You're taking the exact kind of shit in the middle of your bed resentment best mushrooms from.

Too stressed to fuck? Fucking will relieve your tension. Pissed off? Punch your someone in the guts then fuck your someone's brains out.

Millions: Stop making excuses, stop denying yourselves the best thing you have in your lives and drop trou already.

Gun Control

She got home to find me sipping syrah and watching television.

"How was work?"

She tossed her keys onto the small table by the window where we used to eat dinner together, stopped for a moment to glare at me, then went into the kitchen.

Almost immediately she was back, purposely standing in front of the TV, with a half-full garbage bag in her hand. She raised it shoulder-high and let it drop.

"What is this?"

"It's a garbage bag that could use more refuse before it makes sense to discard it."

"What did I ask you to do before I left this morning?"

"To empty the garbage from the kitchen. But when I saw what I was dealing with I thought we should throw away more garbage than the plastic that contains it."

We stared at each other.

"Sweetness, it's Double Jeopardy now and you're kind of in the way."

She pressed the Power button on the TV set.

I pressed the Power button on the remote.

She pulled the TV's cord from the electrical outlet.

"You had all day. I asked you to do only one thing."

"And I thought that one thing was ridiculous."

Her eyes were huge for her face and, terribly, all the more gorgeous and absorbing when she was in a fury...

"Get the fuck out of my house."

"I love you" -- I stood, stating a fact I had to reiterate so often it had come to insult both of us -- "I'll take the bag out."

"No. Get the fuck out of my house."

"I'M TAKING OUT THE GOD DAMNED TRASH JESUS GODDAMNED CHRIST!"

As I went for the bag she went for the telephone in the hall.

"And I'm calling my Dad. He'll be here in twenty minutes."

I knew she kept a loaded gun in the bedroom closet, the location of which she never told me in our months of living together.

"Fucking fine. Tell your Dad I said hello and that his fucking daughter needs to get back on her fucking meds."

"I'm dialing."

I yanked the door open and slammed it behind me.

The trash remained in the middle of the room.

Yesterday

Skating sucked yesterday... In the outdoor section, all the (wooden) ramps at the skate park were warped from the winter, and dropping in was like picking my way through a minefield... "OK I'll drop in here, have to miss those nails and that indentation (on the vertical part of the ramp, no less), then deal with the crack right before the fun box (at some parks not-so-aptly named), then immediately get my feet together for a 180 -- but have to jump before the exposed screw at the top of the box -- then land and navigate fakie (backwards) between the water puddles."

After only two hours of dealing with the not-so-fun boxes and treacherous ramps I ended up going to Lummox University. The place is even more of a skate park now than it was when I was a teenager, learning everything I know now. I was totally blown away: the perfect street course. Rails of all lengths and gradations of steepness, a huge gap to 180 over that allowed you to choose, by picking your launch spot, how far you needed to jump and how far you wanted to drop, and on and on.

And all within an area the size of a football field.

Why did I even go to the park? I already had jammed my left shoulder by misjudging my speed when launching to a disaster soul... I had no idea I would be going as fast as I was, since I hadn't dropped in on the ramp I used until that trick, and so I seemed to hang in the air after my jump, waiting to come down to earth so my skates could catch the ledge. My back skate did, but by then my front foot didn't know what to do with itself. I had almost launched the entire fun box, and I was straightening my skate out to land on the flat just when it caught the last half-foot of the ledge.

This made my front foot wash over the top of the ledge. which led to my entire body spinning ninety degrees atop the ledge, then to me taking the two-foot drop (from ledge to ground -- five feet for my shoulder) on my shoulder. At speed.

Back to the university:

I decided to give it a go at my favorite rail of all time -- an aluminum tube made smooth by thousands of previous grinds, hundreds of them my own -- long enough to make you proud you could actually lock in and ride out your grind for that long, but not long enough that if you fell you would be going too fast and hurt yourself (the rail runs down eleven steps).

I had a porn star (grind -- my balance mostly on the soul of my front skate, my back skate on the rail between my second and third wheels) locked in on my fourth try, but was a little off balance when I came off the rail fakie, my preferred may to dismount rails (the best-looking), with my left wheels not quite level with the ground. My boot was almost sliding along the concrete -- and all my weight was on that skate. This caused me to bend my knees until my ass almost touched the ground and my arms to spin like windmill blades as I attempted to get my balance onto my right skate.

Suddenly my left foot gave out entirely. My left skate's ankle strap exploded which, I soon found out, carved scrapes into my lower leg as it buckled into the skate. The scrapes on my lower leg, together, look like a shark bite.

(From pseudo-landing the grind to buckle explosion took only about two seconds, in which I covered a distance of about five feet.)

Naturally, I immediately removed the broken skate and heaved it into a wall while yelling FUCK! as loud as I could. I had almost proved to myself that I was perhaps three-fourths as good a skater as I had been almost a decade ago.

...My behavior is not kid-friendly in that it is completely childish, I thought as some parents who walked by gave me reproachful looks, holding their kid's head between them as though trying to insulate his mind from the word I had yelled. They turned away from me the moment I looked at them, vehement, likely afraid that my anger at botching the landing could be turned on them...

I calmed down an iota as I thought the situation over, seething while examining my skate: that's what the ankle strap is for: to break in a situation that would otherwise break your ankle. So I suppose I can't complain too much.

I should definitely use the broken-skate-thing as a reason/excuse to finally quit skating... But my christ it's harder to give up than smoking...

It's About Suppression

A girl moved in two doors down, and was the first friendly neighbor I had had in four years of living in my apartment complex in Downtown/Logan/Dupont DC.

We went out for a drink the first Wednesday we met. In the following weeks I would stop at her place to borrow her blow-dryer, which I used as a makeshift-iron when I needed to look decent (which wasn't too often). She called me whenever she had a spider or roach crawling up her wall.

The first time she called me I went over simply to tell her that, as a rule, I do not kill things. That, whenever an insect makes its presence known in my apartment I simply scoop it up with newspaper and let it our the door.

"And that's why this place is infested!"

Sure, she was right, but I don't like the thoughts that go through my head just before I kill anything sentient.

The thoughts I have before I eat anything (formerly) sentient are all about my taste buds' alacrity... But I don't kill things myself. I let others do it in massive murder factories, which makes me somewhat morally superior to those who do not, of course...

"Are you done already?"

I should have been. I rolled up the newspaper as I stared at the bug, asked its forgiveness (which I'm sure I did not get) and killed it simply because she wanted it dead.

She and I had a drink and a bug-killing session (not on the same days... We didn't toast the insects' extinction) about once a week until one night when she called me, frantic.

A roach.

I looked everywhere in her studio and couldn't see anything. Then I moved to her dressing room/bathroom and asked

"What should I do? It's gone."

"Check everywhere!"

"Uh... Should I open your medicine chest and all that shit too?"

"Do whatever!" she yelled from a perch on a stool.

I immediately went to her medicine chest, recalling when I had seen a cockroach climbing on my own toothbrush (immediately discarded -- with everything else that was in its vicinity) in my own medicine chest, and also recalling my days as a drug addict. On what had become instinct, I immediately went for where I knew pills would be.

I found a single brown bottle, the label facing away from me, more than half-full. Saliva flooded my mouth as I checked over my shoulder and, to make sure she was still in the other room, yelled

"I don't see the thing here!"

"Look harder!" Her voice came from the same spot in the same room where I'd last seen her.

I turned the bottle around and the label shouted VALTREX.

She had herpes.

I never had been afraid of catching an STD, even when I was fucking the sluttiest girl in Whatever State University without a condom every weekday, while cheating on her and being cheated on on the weekends (and sure neither of us was using condoms then, either). (I was in the running for sluttiest guy on campus.)

But fear got me then, cold and irrational.

I came quickly out of the dressing/bathroom.

"Look, roaches can go anywhere. The one you saw is on the sixth floor by now" (we lived on the eighth).

"Stick around for a while. I have some rum... And I can't stand the thought of..." She went on and I wasn't listening.

She thought she was more attractive than she was and interesting by virtue of being younger than me. I hadn't tried to fool around with her, however, because her face was pockmarked and she was a horrible tipper. And now the bottle...

"Look, I'm not killing anything anyway."

"Big Man!"

I was closing the door behind me:

"Naturally, I realize how my inability to find and kill an insect means I have a Tic-Tac dick.

"...Sleep well."

I went to my apartment and, still irrational, took a very hot, very long shower.

The Sporting Life

"Fuck. If we don't turn off we're getting mugged."

"Calvin? CALVIN, COME ON!"

V had already crossed to the other side of the street, which I wanted to avoid because there were two teenagers leaning on Section Eight fences at 3:30 a.m. there.

"V, come here" I seethed through my teeth and across the road... But he already had resumed walking.

"Goddam you forever V -- stay close to me."

I crossed the road at a run to wrap his sleeve around my hand, trying to keep him close while he tried to control his legs and walk the straight line of the sidewalk.

I let go of him for one second as I hopped across the gutter, just after we passed the two kids ("What's up?" "What's up."). Then one of the kids was in front of me.

"Gimme your wallet."

I was straddling the yellow lines in the middle of the road.

Where the fuck was a car, even at 3:30?

Oh yeah, not in this neighborhood. Not even a cop car.

"I'm sorry -- What?"

The kid couldn't have been more than fifteen. He shoved a box-cutter (if fucking terrorists caused 9/11 with them, it stands to reason someone will fork over a simple wallet when faced with one) into my stomach, only enough to press in the skin around it.

My eyes, of course, immediately examined the tool, and I immediately saw that the possible cause of my death -- the blade -- was rusty and dull.

If I was to die it would be from infection... Possibly sepsis... The medics would have hours to put Humpty together again.

But fuck -- what did the other guy have... What was he threatening V with... How could I have let him go for that one goddam moment...

"Gimme your damn wallet man."

He wasn't acting calmly enough -- and was too young -- to convince me he had the balls to slit my throat. Only my stomach was in danger... Then again, maybe everyone who dies choking on their own blood in the middle of DC roads thinks this a few spoken sentences before their windpipe feels the wind...

"Look, that's not gonna work out."

"The fuck did your say?"

He pressed the box-cutter harder into me. At that point it still wasn't even cutting the cotton I was wearing.

...Still... What does the other guy have on V? What is my stalling accom--

"CALVIN!"

V came rushing across the street, oblivious to what was going on with me and the kid. He bear-hugged me across the street to the other sidewalk.

It was over. The kids made no effort to follow as I dragged V by his collar as fast as I could.

I made us walk a few blocks out of our way before we came to V's English basement, while trying to explain to him the danger we had been in. When he asked "What?" in utter incomprehension for the fifth time I knew his drunkenness saved both our asses.

I talked to V after I woke on the sofa and he came out of bed. I was happy to discover that he didn't recall anything that had happened past one o'clock of what was technically the same day.

It reminded me of the relief and surprise I felt when, as we shared a bottle of Shiraz before passing out after our encounter, the wine glass didn't shake in my hand.

Bitches

I had to go to the second-floor's bathroom because the first-floor's was completely mobbed. After waiting on the stairs for about five guys to come out I was able to go in.

I went to the one open urinal and started to think of when I was ten years old and the family went on vacation to Niagara. My stage fright was just abating when a guy stood at the urinal next to me and put a beer in a plastic cup atop the stained porcelain, directly beneath the pipes where the effluent water flooded down when you depressed the handle... And I could see the pipes sweat just above his drink...

My dick shrank until it was nothing but an oversized clitoris.

"Fucking bitches. I mean, man, you bring them out, you buy them drinks and then the bitches are like (he puts a childish expression on his face and speaks faux-apologetically): 'I'm kinda seeing someone.'

"Fucking fuck you bitch! Tell me that before I buy you five drinks!

"...I mean bitches, right?"

I was still trying to convince myself that I had heard what I had heard, which prevented me from responding.

"You've been there man. Watch out some bitch could be doing it to you right now."

He flushed, and with the sound of flowing water my dick reappeared and I pissed.

...If anyone would've taken the bet, my life was on whatever girl he came with not being the slightest bit involved with anyone...

I came out of the bathroom after washing my hands. The line for the women's went down the stairs.

I stood on a landing: "My friend just came out of here to go find us a table -- anyone have any idea where he went?" I asked, effectively, every girl on the stairs.

The girl standing right in front of me said

"Yeah, he went through there."

"Thanks so much."

I went through the door-frame-without-a-door and to the second floor's bar. I thought about how all my friends were downstairs... Christ, two of them had come all the way from the other coast just to see me...

But in my mind that schmuck was still pouring out bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

I sat on a barstool, turned it away from the bar, and spotted the fucker quickly. He was sitting on a couch, which was across from another couch (both running parallel to my line of sight) on which other guys dressed exactly like him sat (khakis, undershirts that clashed with their long-sleeve, pinstripe, button-up Polos, anyplace-brown shoes). And there were girls with them -- one apiece. The "bitches."

Every one of the guys was more muscular than me -- accomplishing a feat fit for a ten-year-old. But I had skill and speed... But not enough to take down three guys who, when I punched them, would end up less damaged than my own knuckles.

I turned my barstool around and ordered a Stoli on the rocks.

I exhaled from the bottom of my lungs, then turned around with the tumbler in my hand.

I was amazed to see the guy who had previously shit from his mouth leave suddenly to piss again... Or maybe to stumble around for a "bitch" who would appreciate his sensitive nature.

His presence on the couch had hid his leather bomber jacket from my view. It was draped on the couch's back.

I drained my drink and immediately began walking... slow, calm.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but found myself doing this:

I grabbed bathroom-boy's jacket by its collar and slung it over my shoulder, mid-stride.

"Don't worry about it guys," I said to the males (I would kill myself for calling them "men") on the couch, not looking directly at them, not looking away.

As I made my way to the stairs, down to the first floor and out to the insanity of Eighteenth Street Washington DC on a Friday night I didn't hurry, didn't complain when I was held up for a few minutes in the entryway by a girl who had lost her shoe on the stairs. I didn't look behind me.

I was either going to get the shit knocked out of me or I wasn't. I thought of the best position to take to cover my head and internal organs once they had me on the ground.

But I got outside and to the sidewalk to my amazement, and immediately crossed the street. I spun the jacket around my arm like cotton candy around a stick and held it close to my stomach so it couldn't be seen from behind.

Then I walked the mile downhill, home, never looking behind me.

When I got into my apartment, with the locks clacked behind me, I finally took a deep inhale and let out a long exhale.

Why was what I had just done so important to me? Why, from the word "bitch," did I have to harm that piece of shit in some way?

I tried on his jacket. Finding that it fit was an unexpected bonus...

I'm sure the douchebag chalked up his loss to a mindless act of theft...

But it's not about him and never was. It's come to be about the fact that every time I wear that jacket my shoulders go back and my chin comes up and I remember that I can overcome rational fear to do the irrational: what I believe is fair.

And She Was

It had not been a good evening. She wanted to stay in the apartment, I desperately wanted to be the fuck out of there on a Friday night like a normal goddam twenty-five-year-old.

We lived together in Tacoma Park, an ex-urb so close to DC you would smell the Potomac if your stood in the right spot.

She gave in and decided to drive us to a bar she had been to on Connecticut Avenue.

"Why are you taking this way? We're going around half the freaking Beltway. ...We should've just parked and taken the Metro, like I said before."

"This is the only way I know how to go where we're going -- and we're already driving, so just be quiet."

I was getting the shakes. And I couldn't let her see that. ...The alcohol withdrawal drove an impatience that bordered on insanity...

Still, who the fuck drives slower than the speed limit?

I held my tongue and wrenched my hands all the way to The Four Provinces, a not-so Irish bar. It took us forty-five minutes to get there when it should have taken fifteen. ...Or would have, if I had driven.

But she drove because both of us knew I was going to get loaded... I physically needed to at that point.

She parked her Beetle on the street a few blocks away from the bar. We walked, picking our way along curbs and jaywalking across four-lane streets, never touching.

We got a table for two once we were inside. I immediately ordered a Guinness plus one because the place was so busy I knew it would be a while before we saw our waitress again.

"Did you know Guinness has less alcohol in it that Busch Light?"

Her stare answered: How could you possibly think I would care?

She stared off and twirled the stem of her wine glass in her fingers.

God I wished she would just get drunk so we could fucking forget about everything...

I finished my first glass in three gulps and held up a hand to the waitress for a third.

I finally felt not-sick.

I calmed. Everything around me stopped being an assault on my senses.

I sat back in my chair and looked at her: her thin top gathered by a string that was knotted loosely around her champagne-flute neck; her witch-black hair so long it almost touched the ground; her eyes large orbs of undisturbed water on a night full of clouds, glistening.

I had never told her that I loved her. I wanted to, then.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that? ...You can't be drunk already."

"No, I'm not. It's just...

"...You look good tonight.

"You always look good."

"I like the band that's playing."

"So do I."

I cupped the hand she had around the wine glass and bent over the table. I kissed her on one of her cheeks, which felt delicate as paper-thin glass to my lips. Then we pressed our heads together, side by side.

When I sat back both of us were smiling.