Thursday, January 28, 2016

Chopping for God

Welcome friends!

I wanted to get back to the near enemy of American conservatives and their evil clown act this week but then I noticed a peculiar story about some of our far away enemies, the horde of religious fanatics / violent jerks that inhabit the so-called Third World, so I thought maybe I should take another swipe at them.  I know many Americans will dismiss this as shooting fish in a barrel.  We get it.  These people are from another world.  They don’t share our values.  What they think is just and proper is offensive to the good people of our own world.  (And when I say “they” I obviously don’t mean everyone residing in these benighted regions; I mean the religious fanatics / violent jerks that are the focus of this post.)  But trust me; the story I’m talking about had a little twist.  It wasn’t your run of the mill account of Islamic terrorists beheading little kids out in some sweltering desert far far away.  No, the story I’m talking about involved a teenaged boy who was led by a noxious combination of religion, peer pressure, and probably implicit threats of violence to cut off his own hand.  What a world we live in, right?  Really a rather disgusting place if one thinks about it.  And the funny thing is we’ve had millennia to fix it up.  Oh well, I guess just keep trying.  No one ever said it would be easy.  Or is this perhaps the best we can do?  I sure hope not.

The story came out of Pakistan although I suppose it could equally well have involved any of the other countries in that part of the world... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Just Walking the Dead

Welcome friends!

Well, it’s a brand new year.  Always something a little special about this time of year don’t you think?  Like a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen full of promise and hope.  But ugly reality is never far away is it?  And so the good fight goes ever on.  Year after year.  Decade after decade.  But I suppose we all must play our little part. 

I thought for a moment I’d start the new year by just diving right in and talking about the latest batch of outrages perpetrated by our conservative friends.  For example, I thought I might write a little something about the funny story I read in the papers in which a hospital owned by Tenet Healthcare failed to meet State of Florida quality standards for children’s heart surgery.  The firm made a two hundred thousand dollar contribution to Republican Governor Rick Scott and hey presto problem solved; two months after the contribution Florida eliminated the pesky quality standards.  How’s that for shrinking government?  Score one for the conservatives in their battle against incipient socialism.  A group of cardiac doctors raised a stink about it because they felt the decision put children at risk.  Doctors.  What a bunch of cry babies.  The kids can take their chances like everyone else, right?  Or then again I thought I could do a little riff on Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz forgetting to file a mandatory Federal Election Committee report disclosing loans he received from Citibank and Goldman Sachs he used to fund his 2012 Senate campaign.  (His wife works for Goldman Sachs by the way.  Small world, right?)  His campaign manager downplayed the apparent lapse by noting the loans amounted to “less than five hundred thousand dollars” (chump change to the wealthy fat cats that rule here in the USA) and also that “it’s a matter of semantics in terms of listing that that was a loan” (because you know sometimes a “loan” isn’t a loan at all; sometimes it’s a “gift” or a “kickback” or any number of other things).  But then it occurred to me if Republicans win at the polls next November we’re going to be seeing a lot of stories like these.  Quality standards will be dropping like flies.  Money will be changing hands all over the place and no will be able to figure out what to call it.  It’s going to get monotonous. 

No, since I’m feeling a bit reflective just now I thought we could take a short break from our perpetual battle against the two headed monster of international conservatism and talk about something a little more difficult to pin down: time.  (Hey, I finally got to the point!  Three paragraphs in.  Must be some sort of record for me.)

It’s not just the new year that’s put me in this rather funny state of mind but perhaps even more significantly the recent death of the entertainer David Bowie.  Now I should mention I generally find people who make a big fuss when celebrities die somewhat tiresome... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!