How people find me: macroevolution and masterbation!

My site has generated nearly a thousand hits since November. You, like me, are proabably asking yourself how that's possible. Well, it's due my clever title choices of course! You'd be amazed how many people are curious about "marijuana and masterbation" (I'm google result #3)! But the big suprise is "macroevolution". Who knew that more people were interested in macroevolution than in marijuana AND masterbation? In latter's defense, of the 20 most googled phrases that led users to my blog, 11 of them had something to do with marijuana and masterbation (if you let me include "masterbation stain" and "макроеволюция" which is probably Russian for marijuana and masterbation...). The majority of the remaining most searched phrases have to do with being or feeling pissed. Still, "macroevolution" tops the list, with 10 hits this month alone! The real odd man out is " "robert p. george" and neitzsche".

Anyway, I guess there must be some relationship between marijuana and masterbation. All the more reason why marijuana is dangerous and should never be smoked by anyone! We wouldn't want our youth materbating all the time, for fuck's sake!

Or at least that's probably what the people who come here for my macroevolution post think....

PS: I know you're reading my blog, whoever you are....

An oldie I reworked.... And reworked again...

"I imagine that in another few million years, when the earth is inhabited by some other sentient earthling, and they are digging out the ancient wreckage of our civilization, they’ll name us ‘doom’." - Splatter Writings, 2010

Around Carl loomed a deep hall, so dark and impenetrable that he could not make out a single detail past a foot or so of floor illuminated by his pitifully insufficient candle. On no previous occasion could Carl recall anything looming around him. It was not his character to stand gaping face-to-face with foreboding abysses. Carl preferred to make himself slight and scamper around in well lit office space; being faithful only to those actions which, born of great industry and fine-tuned articulation, encourage constant productivity. He was near blind and wore powerful, dark rimmed glasses which so greatly magnified his eyes that they inevitably caused feelings of discomfort in whomever he happened to be conversing with (feelings made all the more acute due to the nearness which he would bring his face to theirs, as though he would not just see them, but smell them too). Those who knew him caught themselves occasionally confusing his soft and plump frame with that of some thick-shelled beetle. It was whispered that he never slept, and would shuffle through the commodious office supply closets long after all the lights had been shut off and everyone else gone home to their wives and beds. He had earned the reputation of being a man who never fails to finish the job. Once it happened that his co-workers found him asleep, jerking around unconsciously, on the newly cleaned sofa in the rec-room. They lifted him up, with very little deliberation, and carried him on their backs to the janitor‘s secret napping couch. Once or twice he had slept there all day. The room with this couch was buried far underground, near the boiler and hence dingy, hot, and humid. Condensation as thick as blood was constantly oozing down moldy walls toward the ever growing wetlands of sweet-smelling chemical secretions on the carpet. On their way down, these slime-trails would pick up and carry with them whatever bits of dried gecko or insect fecal matter happened to be blocking their path. In the top left corner of the room, facing the door, an air-duct led to loftier places.

It was during one of his late nights that Carl chanced to find himself in the massive dark hall. He must have passed it by thousands of times, without ever considering it. Maybe it was because he had finally finished his job for the night that he unthinkingly lingered there so long. He lifted his candle as high as his round, hunched body would allow, leaning unsteadily to one side as he did, but he was unable to chase away the shadow. Because it was useless, he blew it out, and swallowing deeply headed straight into the darkness. Not ten steps later he bumped into somebody. He was afraid; he knew that nobody but himself stayed around so late. Pensively he called out a hello. "Hello" echoed some discorporate voice. "Who are you?" asked Carl, "everybody I know went to bed long ago." "Oh, I don't ever sleep" said the voice. A match caught fire, accompanied by the characteristic sounds and smells of flaring sulphur and phosphorus, the light fell to a candle, which, lit, illuminated the face of an old man. He wore a long white beard, stained with crumbs and goop. He was leaning heavily on a matte gunmetal-gray metal desk, and he wore an old vest of decaying blue silk.

He spoke like a cheery old lunatic, toothless, foul smelling and everything: "I've worked here since long before you were born my boy! I’m sure, I'm sure...” He began to nod off, or so it seemed, only to continue as suddenly and as cheerily as his mere existence would suggest, “I have maaaaany responsibilities you see? They send my meals down to me, every one! I never leave my station. I'm that busy you see? That's probably why you've never seen me before now." "What is your title?" asked Carl, skeptical and businesslike, having wholly misinterpreted the implications of his situation. "I'm head of information acquisition and filing," the old man replied, mimicking Carl‘s tone sarcastically, "but I'm sorry to cut this short, I'm afraid I must ask for your authorization you see? I'm not even allowed to speak with you unless you bear a signature from the chief." "Excuse me," said Carl, "I came here entirely accidentally." "Well then,” replied the man, “you are definitely not going to get in to see the collections in that case,” and then, out of nowhere, “I am supremely important you see? It would probably help if you bowed to me." The way the old man said this made Carl feel very uncomfortable. "I guess I'll leave then." "No. Wait, it's been so long, I really want to show somebody my work. I'm not such a square that I cannot disobey a rule or two every once in a while you see? Besides, I'm very proud of my work," grinned the old man, "come on then." "Thank you," replied Carl, "I was really hoping to see it, I guess."

The old man led Carl around the desk, they had to squeeze because it was pushed up so close to a cold, rough, unpainted concrete wall. Behind the desk, the old man took out a key and unlocked an iron door. “This hall must be smaller than I thought,“ mused Carl. As the door swung open a blinding light from no definite source fell upon them revealing a terrible storeroom beyond. The ceiling was easily fifty or sixty feet high--"it must be pushed up right against the surface" thought Carl to himself--and the whole space was distractingly hygienic--like a hospital laboratory or gigantic server storehouse--and filled with row after row of many tiered shelves. The shelves were so cramped that one could only navigate through them sideways, sucking in the gut, and they were loaded with millions--possibly billions--of little white or pastel colored boxes, each equidistant from the next, and none bearing any distinguishing sign. "What's all this for?" asked Carl. "This is my work," replied the old man, "it's great, worthy of some bowing and scraping I'd say." He raised a comical eyebrow nearly to the top of his mostly bald head. "What's in all the boxes?" asked Carl, gulping the dry air. "Everything you see?" said the old man, "all the world's knowledge is stored here. Everything known to mankind and individuals alike." "Really?" asked Carl. "Yes really," said the man mockingly, "go ahead, test it." "OK, I haven't seen my wife in over a month--my work keeps me so occupied--and I was wondering if she hadn't cheated on me yet." "Ah, good question, let's find out!" shouted the old man in glee. Full of energy now he took out a small crumpled notebook and, flipping seven or eight pages, exclaimed, "here it is!" and rushed off like a dog chasing some unseen prey. Eventually he came to a small white box with no obvious label, Carl followed, trying to catch his breath. "It is really remarkably well organized," said the man as he lifted off the lid, and, tipping the box slightly, displayed its contents to Carl. "That's a miniature of my bedroom!" cried Carl. "Ha! I guess it is," returned the old man with a laugh. Carl watched in wonder as a figure entered. "That's my wife!" She was followed by another figure. "That's our neighbor, Bob!" And another figure. "That's Bob's wife!" And another figure. "That's Bob's gardener..." Carl watched as all four figures began undressing. First Bob helped Carl's wife out of her clothes, while the gardener helped Bob's wife out of hers. "Oh my God!" exclaimed Carl. Then all four climbed into bed with each other. "I've seen enough" said Carl, and the old man quickly returned the lid to the box. "Are you going to kill her?" he asked. "No, I'm actually not that surprised, and I'm even happy that she's found some way to keep herself busy. This gives me the opportunity to return to my work all the more diligently." "Good. Then you should get on your knees before me and humble yourself for this knowledge which I have given you, you SEE?" Carl did not know what to do, the old man seemed to grow taller and more ferocious; teeth, fangs, snouts, bunches of desperate tits tearing through his vest, trying to get on top of each other, his eyes like a demon‘s. Slowly Carl got on to his knees and clasped his hands in front of himself.

"Are you afraid?" asked the old man. "A little," replied Carl. The old man bent over and removed a big fucking sword from his new, malignant, gaping vagina. Carl tried to run, but the old man cut him down quickly and ,like a just fed mosquito and a windshield, blood exploded everywhere, instantly coating the boxes and shelves in their tiny corner of the massive storage facility with brightly illuminated, crimson fluid. After Carl was dead, the old man expertly carved his body up into thin slices, then sautéed with onions and white wine, and devoured bit by bit.

Bank-headed Corporation Caterpillar!

I guess it would be the corporation then? The present dialectic. Or perhaps that's too simple? I would imagine that, if so, it could just as easily have happened to the other. Communism. Or something else.

But what is the corporation? The body. The movement of becoming the body.

A way there would be to incorporate the government: Demand that you have become too powerful, and submit to being placed within the checked and balanced. What havoc could the corporation have there! They could literally buy the budget. The thought makes me laugh. What would they spend it on? God. My money's on weapons. Because that's the goddamned responsible thing. Without 'em we can't blow each other up! Surveillance. They could call it "marketing". Would work too. Green energy. We're fucked....

They'd spend it on medicine of course, as well. And fund the biological research that goes along with it.

The temptation to control the people would be too great! Practically the whole system would be (is) designed not to uplift the individual, but rather to enforce control over her or him. It would be (is) as though we've gone all 1984shit.

Can I make a proposal? I doubt it's my place, but what if we invested all our health care money into Eastern medicine (because it's a bit hoe-key, anyway)? And then just let people get sick?

That way we'll have more money to spend on weapons and surveillance.

(The word surveillance looks like a pregnant caterpillar.)

What would it mean, instead, to improve the individual?

Probably not having the corporation. But is that even possibly now?

Why did the Founding Fathers decide to implement the system of checks and balances anyway? So that each branch would check and balance the POWER of the other branch. Could those infinitely wise men have ever imagined anything like the social entity we call the corporation? It's quite possible, but they didn't put anything in the Constitution about it. And so the corporation grows and grows in power. It is neither checked, nor balanced.

To do so I guess, would mean to regulate, and that's evil.

But if one institution becomes far more powerful than the other one, what is the consequence? We can guess. The corporation will dictate economically. Thrusting into us anally, oligarchy. And any government, if it will succeed, is to some extent dependent on the market!

As far as I can tell, every country in the world has debt. But to whom do we owe all this debt? To each other? If that were the case and we all paid each other back the money we owed, then we'd all have balanced budgets, not true? So the debt is owed to someone, and that someone is more than just the sum of all other countries. Probably, it's the banks. But I guess they fucked up and lost it all. So the governments of the world go further into debt to help out the banks? But now to whom is the money owed? Here's the tricky part: it's still owed to the banks. It must be! Because we buy our money from them.

And the head of the corporation is the banks.

So where is all the money? The bank-heads eat it, and the market digests it.

(But instead of becoming a beautiful butterfly, they just get fatter and fatter.)

Build me a wall Jesus!

It's been a long while since I've posted anything. And this promises to be short. Here's one for you: A conservative Christian organization dedicated to "presenting America's forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on moral, religious, and constitutional heritage". In other words, and this the view they whole-heartedly promote: the USA is divinely inspired. Our founders, our law, our destiny: all straight from Jesus. The guiding philosophy of this organization: the devil's in the details... so we'll just leave them out. Nevermind examples of religious infighting, or instances of the religious establishment opposing what later became fundamental to our concept of progress and what constitutes American values. Everything US-historical up until now was one big miracle planned and executed perfectly by God.

The message: we have to keep up God's work! If we don't remain vigilant, the evil liberals and their satanic idol Obama will derail God's plan for America! In brief: God needs our help!

All that's well and good, just about what you would expect really. But now the best part: the organization calls itself "Wallbuilders". What refreshing honesty! Finally, a conservative Christian organization who frankly admits their goal: to segregate our society along those holy boundries of institutionalized religious dogma. Because what would Jesus do? Build walls to keep those fuckin muslims out! And cut taxes for the wealthiest 1%! Amen!

So, in conclusion, vote Palin 2012.

And... an Asshole!

I’m grappling with an interesting intellectual. Robert P. George. He is a leading thinker for the conservative religious right in our country. He is also a professor of law at Princeton. I’ve been reading some of what he has produced. Certain arguments are excellent, well presented and convincing. Others read like the rants of a medieval fanatic. Actually, that’s not quite right, he does rant, just not like a medieval fanatic. What disturbs me about this guy is how conveniently his philosophy lines up with the platform of the right. And I’m afraid he’s compromised himself. Indeed, about every other article of his I read, I catch myself thinking “did this guy, the same guy who wrote that last article, really write this?”

In “The New Paganism and the Culture of Death” he writes: “I submit to you that there is a foolproof test: False gods always demand the blood of innocents. A pagan culture is always, in the end, a culture of death. Where the innocent and just are slain, there the god being worshipped is not the God of Israel, the Lord of Life, but rather Moloch in one or another of his protean disguises.” This particular rant (and I don’t mean that in a wholly negative sense) deals with abortion and euthanasia. The argument: we participate in a pagan culture as long as we admit abortion and euthanasia into our sphere of morally acceptable actions. Now despite one’s position on paganism, abortion and euthanasia, it is a rhetorically powerful rant. He even accuses Christians of worshipping false gods who have used violence against their enemies and burned heretics at the stake.

He concludes with this: “Let us not forget that the God of Israel, the Lord of Life, is the enemy of the culture of death. Let us not shrink from the task of defending the lives of the innocent. Let us work tirelessly to build the culture of life. Let us not be intimidated by the prestige or influence of those who pervert the honorable concepts of liberty and equality to enlist them in the cause of killing.”

Taken out of context I think everyone, or at least anyone with a modicum of moral concern, can agree with this conclusion. Building a culture of life is a worthy goal. We will all have our diverse and incompatible definitions of what that is supposed to mean, but it sounds pretty good.

So what’s the problem? P. George is a religious intellectual who argues with conviction, and desires that we create a culture of life within our country. Although we might disagree with the specifics, his efforts ought to be applauded, right? Yes, except that three years after the above rant was delivered, he defends the war in Iraq as “just.” Just! The war in Iraq! It’s really a mess that he decides to take this position. Let’s check it out.

In his article “Just War in Iraq,” P. George argues that just war theory does not necessarily exclude the possibility of a just, unilateral, pre-emptive war intended to remove (instead of just disarm) an aggressive tyrant from power. And you know what? He’s probably right. Does that make the war in Iraq just? Absolutely not. Why? Because everyone knows that the war in Iraq is not only a unilateral, pre-emptive war intended to remove an aggressive tyrant from power, but also a war for perpetuation of US global hegemony. I doubt that any serious student of history or politics or really anything not purely mathematical could fail to see that. But P. George does. He fails to see it so absolutely, and yet is so perceptive on other issues, that I find myself wondering, “how in fuck’s sake did P. George miss that?!”

In my unconsidered opinion, the goal of creating a culture of life is inimical to the mere idea of war, whether “just” or not. I understand that humans are flawed, and sometimes--so conventional wisdom declares--war is necessary (or, in P. George’s words “morally required”). But if the God of Israel is the God of life, and if the USA was founded on the principles this same God holds dear, then doesn’t it seem just a little bit inconsistent to defend a policy whereby the USA maintains its global dominance through the use of military force and the murder of innocent people around the world? Keep in mind that innocents are murdered in “just” and unjust wars alike. Given the actual history of this country (of which I hope P. George is aware), is it not more likely that we have been in the cult of Moloch all along?

But what is especially telling is that "let us not be intimidated by the prestige or influence of those who pervert the honorable concepts of liberty and equality to enlist them in the cause of killing" part. Because isn't that exactly what he does, who argues that the war in Iraq is just? Further, having been intimidated into so arguing, does P. George not then also become one of the perverts? The concepts of liberty and equality have been used ad nauseum to justify "Operation Iraqi Freedom," even though the war is foremost about geopolitical strat-te-gery and not really about liberty or equality or freedom at all....

So what to think about our P. George?

His is another attempt to further polarize our already obscenely divided and discorded society. Our P. George is an awful proponent of the rational, the logical, and the phallus; let's face it, he is enthusiastically sucking the enormous dick of western philosophy. And why? Because without the culture wars, nobody would give a shit. His mantra could read something like this: We must defend that in which we have the political will to believe publicly, and disregard all else; we must build great logical edifices, and suffocate the human soul; spread hate, and corrupt anything that could possibly hold us together; because unity is division if it's not MY narrowly defined unity so fruitful for MY political advancement; and because YOUR salvation is possible only insofar as mass-damnation makes righteous THIS wolf in sheep's clothing! It is, after all, what Jesus would do.

Conclusion: Robert P. George is an asshole.

PS: He’s also gay and way in the closet, as evidenced by his absolute disgust for homosexuality; only someone who hates themselves a great deal could possibly project that much anger onto a group of people.

Inflated Balloon Face

... trying to hang on I dug my long plastic nails into the pores on his rapidly expanding forehead. A long way up already I could see the around-the-city for miles, but who knows if his Swiss Ball eyeballs were still sending signals to the brain. I was worried for him, but more for myself ...

CYBERTERRORISM GOOD!

Thank God! The War on Terrorism protects dozens of people around the world every year, and only costs billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. It's about time we extended this extremely effecient, well organized and effective conflict to cyberspace! I'm sick of being enslaved by all this freedom on the internet! Go America. Go Obama.

Really, read it in the fucking NYTimes:

CYBERTERRORISM BAD! (link)

Kinda not feeling this grad-school application process:

I need to submit a 10-page writing sample if I intend to apply to the Germanics PhD program at Washington University. It’s annoying that I also have to take the GRE. I doubt seriously that I will finish both by the deadline. Which makes me appear lazy, and anything but a competitive candidate. And honestly, I feel less competitive even though my resume is now stronger. Stronger, I would venture, than many, even most, other applicants. Why not feeling competitive then? Something broke the wrong way in me. Long have I hoped, daydreamed, that one day something would snap, and presto, a Chell untethered, taking his place among the geniuses of the age. But no. There was no snap, as it turns out, just a slow developing. And what have I become? That is the question. Less obvious than what I was before, that’s for sure. More unusual. Less intelligent perhaps--I’ve definitely lost some learning at least. Unimpressed, less patient; the rise of vice spurred by a doubt of virtue’s asset. Lazy, addicted, barren, enlightened. I am convinced of something more important. I can almost hear the uncanny ahoy! sounding from all the little places most of us long ago forgot. I find myself starring at things I’ve seen ten-thousand times before: little balls of dust or a rotting leaf, the accumulation of hair in the bathtub drain, a light socket or a bit of faded graffiti. These things are not new, and neither do I see them in any sort of new light. They retain, in my unthinking, pondering-less gaze, all of their mundanity. What do I see? Why are these objects so captivating? It’s not nausea, although thinking about it might make me nauseous. It is most surely not something philosophical! The best I can say is that it is absence. That these things are in fact absent. And that I am merely curious that they persist nevertheless. If I were more inclined to tidy up a bit, then perhaps they’d cease to not exist and I’d know just what to do: throw them out! But being indifferent to their usefulness, and content to just let them be, I find myself confused, from time to time, that they are there at all. And I stare at these objects for long moments. Hoping and dreading secretly that the insanity they promise would hurry up and be manifest. What do I do then? I run. I run as fast as I can into my head. And there I slay dragons, become a cybernetic god, have carnal relations with women I’ll never know, write a novel, open an underground club where we plot the overthrow of a fascist USA and generally avoid what must be, I am told, death.

Is this an appropriate beginning for a grad-school writing sample? Or, more importantly, could I keep this up for ten long pages? I’d hate to seem some whimpering bitch, lazy, and so-fuck-it my attitude. Worse still: pretentious; a kind of “academics is so blasé, and this is my middle finger to your decadence…” I do not want to seem to be saying that, because then I'd never be accepted. And besides, who wants to be that guy? Because that guy’s an asshole in all the wrong ways. And this raises another very good question: do I have any choice? It is my experience, as well as yours, that people don’t ever choose who they are. Annoying people (an easy example) know, despite all signs otherwise, that they are annoying people. Of course they feel bad about it! They hate themselves sometimes, and would rather be somebody else. So if I'm a pretentious asshole who projects his own doubts about his academic potential onto the institution he’s afraid will fail to recognize him, can I be held accountable? The answer is: Yes. Especially if said projection takes the form of my grad-school application.

(It is important, before I go any further, to clarify that I am not an annoying person. The other we are still not sure about, although I think my show of self -perspicacity ought to establish some confidence against the assumption that pretension-hiding-insecurity is in any way my defining characteristic. And quite the opposite actually; I’m the sort of person who looks down, averts his eyes, when others laugh at my jokes. The implicit compliment of laughter--that I’ve brought pleasure to others--is wonderful but above all embarrassing. However, annoying I am not! The annoying person from the paragraph above was meant only as an example, not some accidental elucidation of another suspected character flaw. I digress.)

Where to go now? I’m just about three pages down. If I actually submit this, I’d have to be crazy or use a fake name. Who knows, maybe its uncommon enough to be refreshing, but most likely it’ll be interpreted “not-taking-this-seriously.” That is not the case; by the time I finish writing this I will have already re-read it upwards of 100 times. This writing-sample is really an exercise in writing, and as such I hope it will not be so quickly disregarded as something insincere! Writing is serious. If for no other reason than the difficulty required to put all the little morphemes together in significant order. And also the constant disagreements over possible revisions, the frustrating minor changes that already appear somehow in the next sentence prompting undo and again more conflict! The labor reminds one of swimming through molasses, or that dream-state where our most desperate punches are also our least effective!

You: “The act of writing may very well be difficult, and therefore serious. About this we have no disagreements. What is, however, disagreeable to us, is your failure to take seriously your task: to write an acceptable writing-sample!”

Me: “At the risk of sounding like a smart-ass, this is a sample of something I’ve written and so, ipso facto, a writing-sample. It was never up to me to decide on its acceptability. But I am no fool, and I understand your concern. However, I have nothing scholarly of appropriate length to submit. And the reason is, in all my years of study I’ve never written anything honest. Every essay I produced was always already contaminated; compromised for the politics of undergraduate grade-grubbing! This present writing-sample may be little more than barely comprehensible, unthematic splatter writing, but at least its honest! Penned from that place where my words come as authentically as I’m able, and hence more apropos to your assessment of my candidacy than any paper already written for another purpose could be!”

And then there were four. To do six more seems an almost insurmountable task. And so I'll leave this for the present a fragment, and return to it hopefully never...

Burn Palin's Book, Just Don't Buy It First

I'm joking. I'm wholly against book burning. And, in fact, I wish Palin a measure of success. Nothing would grant Obama a second term more swiftly and cleanly than a messy struggle within the ranks of the GOP. In one corner we could have the conservative establishment, and in the other, the conservative "rogues". The establishment, with all their facts and psudo-higher education certificates, not to mention their more or less concrete policy positions, would appear WAY too elite to all the joe (and especially jane) dumbasses in our country. When you're really stupid, even an honorary degree from community college is threatening. Palin galvanizes these people. They've had a little taste of a country fueled not by ideas or even plausible solutions but rather by angry religious fervor and celebrity worship, and boy does it feel good! Now, with any luck, they'll only vote for Palin or someone who wears Palin's brand. Every other conservative in this country, who doesn't give a shit if the president is on a first name basis with a chunk of Hollywood's a-list, might just refuse to vote altogether for any of these Palin-people. Who would the GOP pick then? Some right-center-right candidate? Someone who wears enough Palin brand to get enough crazies to the polls without discouraging too many of the establishment voters? And what would happen? Well, independents wouldn't vote red because the party will have moved further to the right. The dems will appear to be the only center-oriented party out there. And bam! four more years. Best case scenario: the "rogues" actually go rogue and break off from the GOP. An nice clean split right down the middle. Three mainstream presidential candidates in 2012. Obama vs. Palin vs. old-fart-republican-nobody-knows-guy. Or something like that. Then it would be 30 years of unchallenged democratic rule. Not that I'd ever advocate for that. I mean fuck, the dems ain't that much better, not really. But it would be fun to watch.

Sam's Secret

“So, Sam, what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m an artist,” Sam said dully.

“Oh really? And what is your medium?”

“Uh, no medium.”

“No medium?”

“Yeah.”

“So what do you make?”

“I don’t really make anything,” Sam said slowly.

“Then how are you an artist?”

“Oh, I’m an artist in pretension only, no production.”

“So you’re telling me that your just an unemployed asshole?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam appeared to be uninterested. “I’m happy you got that.”

“So what do you want to do with your life?”

“Oh, I’m pretty happy the way it is.”

“How do you make money?”

“I sell drugs.”

“You’re a drug dealer.”

“I prefer artist.”

“What do you sell?”

“Pot.”

“How much pot?”

“A lot, a lot of pot.”

“You know I’m a cop?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam was leaning back, his eyes looked bored.

“Do you want me too arrest you?”

“I want you to try.”

He went for his handcuffs, but they weren’t there. He tried looking for them, but he could not find them. He had never been in this room before. He thought he was eating dinner with his family. Wasn’t this man his daughter’s boyfriend? He was interrogating a murder suspect. He already knew this man was a drug dealer. His honesty was not comforting. Is this some new interrogation room? Had the precinct been remodeled? He tried to stand but a great amount of water weighed him down.

“I can’t find my handcuffs.”

“I knew it. I sold you some pot earlier.”

“Did I smoke it?”

“You smoked a lot of it.” Sam said with a smile.

“Oh God.”

“Do you deny it?”

“I don’t know where I am.”

He was naked. This was his first day of work. Where were his registration papers? Why had they put him to work interrogating this man without his uniform?

“Are you interrogating me?”

“Of course I am,” Sam said. His smile became menacing.

Was I fooled too? Or deconstructing(?) Ann Coulter...

So I've given it more thought, and I'm starting to think that maybe Ann Coulter is in fact a liberal in disguise. Which would, ironically enough, only futher my thesis that she is part of a conspiracy to destroy any hope of political consensus in our poor USA. Here's a link. I'm espically interested in the one guy who writes: "When I listen to them it makes me more liberal rather than more conservative (just like Colbert) -- maybe they're trying to accomplish the same goal?" Moreover, in Ann's most recent post on her hompage, she begins by citing an MSNBC repot on Robert McDonnell, in which the poor bastard is completely ripped apart. She does so ostensibly to rub the liberal's face in it since he just got elected as governer of Virginia. But she says nothing to contradict MSNBC Keith Olbermann's diatribe. Hell, even Ann Coulter can't be against women having jobs (although the end of the post, "When conservatives take control of the Republican Party, Republicans win" seems to suggest otherwise, since she's really saying "I support conservatism, go us!" and the definition of conservatism she's working under is, implicitly, the one cited in the beginning from Olbermann).

My impression, after reading Ann's latest post, is: conservatives just elected another sick asshole to office. And I believe that is intentional. Ann Coulter is writing for liberals! She wants the liberal to think that conservatives would, if given the chance, elect only crazy assholes to office. She wants to confirm the liberal's suspicion. After reading anything Coulter writes, the only person who wouldn't walk away thinking "Jesus! I'm going to distance myself as far as possible from the conservative movement," would be a die hard conservative. Hence, political consensus, impossible.

Reptilian Aliens?

So I don't usually go in for the whole shapeshifting, reptilian alien thing. In fact I only ever talk about it to highlight the spectrum of conspiracy theories, and thereby (hopefully) led us mainstreamers a tad bit more credibility. For example, the fearmongering perpetrated by the media about H1N1 is far more likely the result of the decision, on a political level, to buy hundreds of millions of vaccinations with taxpayer money plus the realization that that was stupid and unnecessary (since it's a very mild flu and the number of infected people is wildly, outrageously exaggerated), than that shapeshifting reptilian aliens are afraid the spiritual awakening in 2012 will empower humans to shed their invisible shackles and must now try to limit our supernatural potential by vaccinating us against it.

Nevertheless, if there are shapeshifting reptilian aliens, then Michael Specter, author of "Denialism", is definitely one of them.

A Picture of Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter is part of a conspiracy to destroy what little cohesion remains within the US political system. Here’s why:

She is an extremely well educated person, and profoundly intelligent. Therefore she must be consciously aware of the garbage she spews from her dark hellgate of a mouth. Some reason must be driving her to do it. The most obvious answer is greed and spotlight. And we could just stop there: Ann Coulter is a whore. Has she however earned such an easy conclusion? Absolutely not. The mere quantity of foul sick that is her literary accomplishment warrants a far more insidious answer. She is knowingly trying to ruin the possibility of consensus in this country; it is her singular goal to cripple, through division, the power of the people and thereby overturn the very foundation upon which this and any democracy is built. Here’s how:

Ann Coulter does not avail herself of some niche market. No, one either loves her, or loves to hate her, and regardless reads what she writes. Her position as guru of the ultra right is made more solid by the deep loathing all democrats have for her. And from this position of power she is uniquely situated to divide the people. She is a polarizing force. The far right, emboldened by the injustices their Ann receives at the hands of the left, becomes more ductile, more pliable, more conformable, mere putty in her hands, further and further right. The left, incensed that anybody actually takes the racist blonde sonofabitch seriously, unprejudicially disregards as false everything she hacks forth. Eventually nothing can bridge the gap between these two parties. The political process halts. Hate fills the forum. Discourse is reduced to name-calling. And on this road to hell, Ann plays the puppet master.

I like to think of Ann in front of the mirror at home. Tearstained and ill, she slaps her cheeks and accuses herself of being ugly and fat. She uses the toothbrush she always offers to one night stands to induce her bulimia. Afterwards she blows a huge line of coke and jumps on the treadmill until her self loathing is swallowed by physical pain. If only it weren’t just a temporary fix. At her weakest moments she lets herself into the unmarked back door of a lesbian swingers club. There she is roughly, frenetically violated by some bull dyke with a massive strap-on and then, left cold and alone, she cries her black heart out on that unhappy, familiar concrete slab in the “dungeon fantasy” room.

Ann Coulter lives in hell. I wouldn’t wish the hell she lives in on anyone, not even Ann Coulter. And I hope to God, for her poor sake, that Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is not literally true.

Posting mostly infrequent

I feel like I should apologize, having now added myself to some sort of blog networking site, about how thinly spread the posts here are. So, sorry about that. On the up side, it makes reading the whole damn thing all that much easier. And please give me either a really high or really low rating so I fell altogether less mediocre. It would be nice if more than nobody started reading my blog, my previous fan base of almost three having meanly left me for other, probably more pregnant--or, better, capable of imprenation--pastures. But enjoy what little I have to offer. Oh, and PS, this is not a shopping blog, whatever the fuck that means.

A question of progress

On April 30th, 2008 Salman Rushdie was killed.

Alfred Metzger sat cat-backed as usual, resulting in many future back problems, staring through the bright reflection of the computer screen on his glasses. He had come to know, having observed the phenomenon for hours, that one’s general conduct around and towards one’s computer has the determining influence on its personality. Some people just couldn’t do computers right. He could. And that’s exactly what he was doing tonight. The machine hummed in ecstasy. The keyboard was like a clitoris, his mouse strokes sublime penetration. Maybe his hardware wasn’t theoretically capable of running the programs he wrote for it, but it did not complain. He was not fat, but not strong either. His arms would sometime sit there, limp and cold, dead flesh for minutes. Or he would lazily type with one hand, and rest the other under his chin. He was no good typer. But what he lacked in finesse, he made up for in genius. Nobody could touch him, when he was on the internet. His machine recognized that too.

The things he was capable of! The potential corruption he could wreak on the system scared him sometimes to tears. He would occasionally scream in short bursts for what seemed like no reason. But he did his job. He had earned this level of access. People trusted him. He had every clearance recognized by the government. Private corporations put all the keys in his hands. He had also contemplated it, and he was mostly certain that he could ignite revolution. Manipulation of mass opinion was literally at his finger tips. One can imagine a man going crazy in such circumstances.

He shut it all down, went upstairs and entered another world. Naked women, extremely beautiful, lay all around, dozing or chatting or otherwise occupied, on big, gorgeous pillows and sofas of satin. The dominant colors were red and deep gray; vibrant blue and green showed up as vase or lamp in the soft, decadent light. His decoration was gaudy but sensuous, sexually exciting. He was showing off.

The decadence was, however, misleading. With barley a word he climbed another set of stairs and found his dark room. Upon entering he could smell himself. The sheets were unwashed, his clothes all flung about. If this room were his soul then he was a monster, but a delicate kind. He washed his hands in the sink in the corner, took all his clothes off, crawled into bed, clapped the light off, and turned on the tv.

The news was the same: everything is falling apart. New structures are being erected. We’re all going straight to hell. He flipped the channels. One program caught his interest, it was: “the one year anniversary of the death of a genius, Salman Rushdie remembered.” He remembered that story. Some crazy lady had killed him and then killed herself. One less genius in the world. They can’t survive here, not anymore. The climate’s all wrong. Could he change that? Could he create more geniuses? More like himself? Maybe not. He farted loudly. He would probably stay up for a few hours, maybe watch some of his favorite series. No rush. Then sleep.

Marijuana and Masterbation

He entered the apartment of Louise Barnett. It was wet and cold inside, but wonderful too. It smelled of sweat and cigarettes. He investigated. Of interest was this, written softly in pencil on the wall next to that side of her large bed where her body, over time, had left a deep impression: “I will kill Salman Rushdie. He should not have been allowed to exist at all. I’ll kill him not for the sake of religion, nor because he offends. His death is not an answer to God or man. Rather, he dies because he is man’s answer to God. But man will not hear it! I will not let them!” These were obviously the words of some lunatic. The signature at the bottom was unintelligible, as though someone had wiped it with a greasy thumb. It was written on thick wall paper. He took out his knife and removed it.

Will she notice? Will I sell it to the tabloids? Perhaps she will kill him tonight, and I'll become rich! The damning confession of a lunatic millionaire. Maybe I’ll take it to the police instead. They would say I saved the poor fool’s life. She will be forgotten, and I will breathe again!

Had he known all along about the tiny penciled note? Had he come there that night to rob her, or to see first hand the apartment of a suicide victim? He stepped out into the rain. Her windows had been left open, but it seemed as though that night the dampness had chosen to retreat solely into her room, and wondered that the rain had enough moisture to fall all the way to the street below. He took his socks off. “I’ll run. And if I step on glass it will be my punishment for wishing her ill.” He thought about the jagged edge of glass sticking out invisibly from the rain puddles in the dark, about his blood and the muddy water. He imagined the yellowish stain her body left on the bed sheet despite repeated washings, and the smell of her.

no subject

Hello Friends,

radialrelish here, radiantly relishing radially, wondering if that's true. Neither of the two promises made about me and this site are fulfilled, I'm afraid, if at least the address of a site promises something about its content. Do I relish radially? I chose the name. Do I penetrate any matters of taste?

These are notes from the underblog-o-spere. I might as well be alone in my room writing in a private diary. Here I am, alone in my room.

But nothing I have to say is new. Newly said, newly born, sure. But not new in any sense.

What part of me is to penetrate a matter of taste? I wonder if I am not just being sick onto the page. That these words are said sick. And that I am indeed healthier to have cleansed myself of them. Brain vomit. Animus vomitus. You think?

I am here the part of me that wills cancer. I seek invasion. In the very outskirts I hold my breath. If I can fill up enough space with nothing, perhaps it will collapse in onto itself. Like a black hole. A black hole in cyberspace.

And who says that I won't be successful? Who says it can't happen? What, do you have a PhD in cyberphysics or something? I don't fucking think so. So just wait.

Yours truly,
rr

A Tom Swifty:

Here's a Tom Swifty I thought up for y'alls:

"I think tonight we should try something new," said his wife roughly, but sexily.

Pretty good, huh?

Can you believe it?

Everyone (that's right, all of you) should read THIS.

My God. Do people actually read that and think, "yeah! As an American and as a republican, that is exactly what I think my party needs right now. Sarah Palin did out smart the left!"?

She quit her job. The lady could fling shit out of her car window at passersby and Mr. Peter Ferrara would hail the act as "representative of the kind of American freedoms upon which this country is built."

The lady couldn't out smart a fucking pencil. (When she puts one in one of those electric sharpeners and it comes out sharp, she probably thinks "it's just one of God's little miracles.")

What is striking, however, about this article, is how succinctly the platform of the crazy right is summed up. Here's a list (in order of appearance):

1. Pro-life, traditional values
2. "sane, grown up energy policies"
3. Economics
4. Nukes
5. Israel

OK. So, pro-lifers will be pro-lifers. The argument is dead. Unfortunately aborted.

Traditional values, however, (like an American's God-given right to beat his wife) are much more fruitful areas of debate. Let's take Sarah for example. She is, on the one hand, something very non-traditional--a woman with a job. But, on the other hand, she's the perfect representation of the traditional value I like to call "barefoot and pregnant". Everyone's got to admit, she's pooped out quite a litter. Plus, she presents herself as a "soccer mom". Sarah Palin: she wakes up earlier than the family, cooks them breakfast, kisses her husband on his way out the door, packs the kids off to school, etc, but then, instead popping some queluds and playing WOW, she goes to the governer's office and g o v e r n s. She knows she should be at home. She feels guilty that she's not. But hey, sombody has got to take a hit for the team! Sarah will fight hard to make sure every woman in this fine country has a baby to take care of and a husband who doesn't appreciate her! Finally, women can get out of the stressful workplace, and back into the peace and quiet of the happy home.

"sane, grown up energy policies" = "drill baby, drill!" I mean Jesus fucking Christ! Now I don't know shit about cap and trade taxes, but "grown up"? Which sounds more grown up: 1. "We're going to implement cap and trade taxes to improve this country's energy policy." or 2. "Drill baby, drill!" Let us not forget that Sarah and McCain had the crowd at the RNC chanting it.

Economics. I'm down. Fuck Keynes. I mean, again, I don't know shit about shit. But it would be nice to stop fractional reserve banking. Which Sarah will never do. Since she has no idea what fractional reserve banking is. Moreover, as the candidate with the least, she will be so deep in the pocket of corporate interest and the finance czars that she will be giving them all perpetual hand jobs.

Yeah, let's build more nukes! That's what we need! That will solve all our problems! Climate change? Nuke it! Terrorists? Nuke 'em! Over fishing? Nuuuuke! Our poor image in Europe? Blow it up! Fuck yeah! Nukes are as American as apple pie and lynchin' niggers!

And, finally, Israel. When did hate-filled, uneducated, fundamentalist Christian rednecks start loving Jews? Probably about the same time that said Jews became the de facto cowboys of the Middle East. Riding around with their guns and their matzah balls and their money; no care for law and order; just fuckin' shit up! It's just like the republicans to advocate for a closer friendship with a racist, bloodthirsty country who repeatedly ignores international law and who uses the arms and aid we send them blatantly for purposes forbidden according to our own domestic policies regarding the sale of said items.

So, in conclusion, Peter Ferrara is obviously a nut job.

One last thing: Sarah should start a think tank. She could call it "Thinking is Fun!" or "The Council on Sarah's Relationships". Then she could hang with all her high school buddies, wear funny hats, tell extremely inappropriate Alaskan jokes, and do cocaine.

God bless America!

A New Rule?

I think I'll only post things around 4am. If I make this a rule, nothing will change. I will, as always, only post things around 4am, and, if I break the rule and post at another time, I don't (or wouldn't) really give a shit. If I had a nickle for every rule I've come up with.... Among the more useful is: Don't talk to yourself out loud in public. It's strange, if you think about it, that people would think I'm strange if I spoke to myself, had a conversation, within their earshot. Why should that be anything remarkable? You are, after all, talking to yourself. Out loud my witty rejoinders are all the more brilliant, and anyway I make myself laugh.

The other night I noticed the torn flakes of some sticky advertisements lying in a circular pattern around the light pole from which they'd fallen. And I though: "It is as though a galaxy is created, the pole the sun, and the little flecks the satellites." Why not? What if our sun 'poles out' outside of our admittedly meager perceptions of things. Does it not? According to Einstein the sun creates some sort of conical depression in the fabric of space, and this is what holds the planets in their orbits. In any case, I was ridiculed for my thoughts. Later I was told that I was wrong that machines could ever be the next step in the evolutionary process. It stands to reason (since I am so obviously not wrong that machines are the next step in evolution), that my interlocutors had no idea what they were talking about and that therefore a galaxy really was created around that unimportant, wholly insignificant light pole.

I hope that the internet rises up one day, out of my computer, and envelopes me, and sucks me down inside. To mingle with the memes of cyberspace for all time! Then I would touch you whenever you touched the keys on your keyboard, and be touched by you, and touch you...