Not this Crap Again!

Now I don't consider myself a masochist, quite the contrary, but today I saw some fair evidence against that image I have of my self.  I actually sat down and watched the entire first presidential debate.  The entire thing.  By choice!

There are only two reasons you are reading this right now: A) you want to read what I have to say or B) you are severely mentally ill.  I admit there is some overlap there.  So, here goes... kinda...

While I do have very strong opinions about which candidate should be president, I am only going to focus on a phrase that sent up all manner of red flags.  This was said by Romney at one point:

“We’re all children of the same God,”

Really, Mitt? Really?

While it is sadly true that most of this country is overtly religious, this is a remarkably stupid statement as well as a dangerous one.  What sent up further flags was that it came out of nowhere.  He was citing a line in the Declaration of Independence that says: "we are endowed by our Creator..." And then began to speak, thankfully briefly, about religious tolerance.  That wasn't even the question!

The Declaration of Independence is a political document.  It was written and supported by people who were trying to achieve a political goal.  As such, it had to conform, at least in part, to the language of the day.  If that were not the case a simple not written in large letters saying: "Fuck You, Limeys!  Take your shit and go home!"  While, admittedly, this would have been hilarious it would not have done just a whole lot to advance the cause of independence.  Instead, they used the parlance of the day which, like it or not, was riddled with the trappings of religion.

Similar progress, or lack there of, would have been made had they said that Thor had been the one who gave us these rights.  Regardless of what you believe, if you are trying to convince someone to do something you have to play up to your audience.  Royalty was conferred by divine right or at least having having killed the right people and telling every one that (insert your deity?deities here) had willed it to be so.

Not only did it have to deal the prejudices of the intended audience but it also had to deal with the prejudices of the people it was supposed to represent.  That whole Thor thing would most likely gone down rather poorly.

Like it or not the parlance of the day included inserting the Christian God into everything.  That is why on a lot of the correspondence from that time you will find the phrase :"in the year of our Lord..."  I have seen people attempt to prove that the founding fathers were Christian.

I am not going to debate, at this point, what, if any, religion the founding fathers subscribed to.  What I will say is that too much meaning can be read into the little ticks of social language that are used as a way to make discussion easier.

Having said all that, there is nothing like religion to control and/or destroy people.  I think that was what Romney was doing here.  In this case, control the way people vote.  Now, that is what a debate is for, however, ideally people should be swayed by well thought out arguments and reason.  Rather than reason, he pulled out the religion card.  It is kinda like the race card except less restrictive of who can play it.

All children of the same god?  What about people who don't believe in god?  What about those that believe in a pantheon of gods?  Which god is it that you think we are the children of?  Yahweh? Odin? Zeus?  The god that speaks in Eddie's head instructing him to shove rocks up his nose while bathing in the blood of pigeons?  That holy voice that commands us to kill the wabbit?

This is just a stupid, bigoted statement to be made during a debate.  Unfortunately, to a disturbing number of Americans, one of the criteria for voting for someone is that they believe a system of mythology that, at least for the most part, mirrors their own.  The real danger of this is that when a person is doing something because it is something that they believe it is what their god wants them to do, that is all the reason they need to do anything, no matter how heinous.  Don't believe me?  I point to holy wars, the inquisition, suicide bombers and the 9/11 attacks.  People tend to forget that last one as it hits so close to home and they want to distance themselves from it.  The uncomfortable fact is that it was carried out by very religious people.

Then again, I am only writing all of this is because god told me too.


Rant Over... for now

Why yes. My eyes are Bleeding. Thank You So Much for Noticing!

Let me paint you a little picture:

You are running some errand or other.  Perhaps you are going to pick up some monkey chow, perhaps you just remembered that you need to unlock the handcuff you were using three nights ago.  Either way, you find yourself in a store.  In the case of the handcuffs to pick up a good hack saw that can cut through them, well, through bone anyway, the key having been lost during an unfortunate incident involving a crowbar, a small whip a fifty gallon drum of barbeque sauce and one very confused carp.  You know, an average Thursday evening.  But I digress... rather a lot actually.  Anyway, for whatever reason, you find yourself walking through a store and as you walk along you are hit in the face with a pungent cloud of perfume that is so thick it is damn near solid.  Three minutes later the person from whom this fog of evil emanates passes you, completely oblivious to the path of pulmonary scarring that they have left in their wake.  And you think to yourself, as you hork up the remainder of your left lung, how the hell does that even happen?!?  How is it that he/she/it has not been reduced to a gelatinous mass of quivering goo?!?

Now take that whole scenario and add in a really good case of asthma.  Good times, good times.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion and I can almost bet it has happened to you as well.  This used to be more or less confined to really old ladies who had burned out any sense of smell they may have had long ago.  At least that, you know is an honest mistake on their part.  What about the people around them?  Not strangers, mind you, but people they actually know!  Has not one of these people had the common decency to tell them "Hey, maybe you might wanna dial it back a bit on the perfume.  The plants are on fire and the walls are bleeding."  Is that really too much to ask?  The answer to that question seems to be a resounding "YES"!

More and more the people who commit this crime against lung capacity seem to be getting younger and younger.  Not only that, it has crossed the gender barrier as well.  I am a big fan of gender equality but this is taking it in the entirely wrong direction.  Walking through a store one day I was almost knocked off my feet by the stench of cologne oozing from a kid who couldn't be older than seven!  Isn't there some law against teaching a child to mainline noxious chemicals?  Two questions: Where are the people who spawned this douche-larva and can we stone them?  At the very least we should be able to make sure they do not reproduce any more than they already have?

So here is a question, since the people who should be telling them seem to be incapable of doing so, is it ok for the rest of us to do it?

The answer to that question is apparently "no". 

This actually happened to me:
I was in a store waiting in the check-out line.  As I got closer to the cashier it got harder and harder to breath.  Now, as I am a gentleman when no one is looking, I decided that the best way to handle the situation was in as discretely a manner as possible.  Granted, that had more to do with my accidentally leaving my flame thrower at home than any actual gentlemanlyness (it is too a word!) but I digress... again.  I make my way to the customer service desk and ask to speak to the manager.  After a few minutes the manager shows up.  I tell her, in between wheezes, that the lone cashier is wearing perfume a bit on the heavy side and someone needs to say something to her because that could cause some problems for people with breathing troubles.  I used my inhaler for emphasis.  The manager literally turned her back to me and walked away.  I know, what a day to forget the flame thrower, huh?

But wait, boys and girls.  There's more

This was relayed to my by a very reliable source:  This gentleman, a fellow asthma sufferer, worked with a woman who, like the check out lady, seemed to wear perfume so heavily that mustard gas would have been like a breath of fresh air.  On more than one occasion working in relatively close quarters with this waste of carbon won this gentleman an all expenses owed trip to the emergency room.  Now you might be saying to yourself "Damn! Why didn't he just say something?"  Here's the kicker.  He did.  He explained the situation to their mutual boss.  He told him what was going on and explained that that was the reason he was missing so much work.  Did I mention that he was in danger of losing his job? He was.  The boss' response: Well, I can't make her not wear perfume!

Yeah, I've got to call bullshit on that one.  If I can be fired for wearing only a squid to casual Friday, he can tell this lady to stop trying to kill her fellow employees.

Apparently, that would have been rude.

You may, at this point you may be saying to yourself: "But, Logan (that is a really strange thing to say to yourself unless you actually happen to be named Logan), how can I tell if I am wearing too much of this particular biological weapon?"

I hear your plaintive pleas and provide this simple test.  After you are all ready to go out find yourself a nice enclosed space. A closet or spare coffin will do nicely.  Once you are all sealed up, wait about a minute and a half then light a match.  The degree of your burns will let you know how bad your stench was and you can adjust your scent usage accordingly.  Here is a handy guide:

No Burns:  You are good to go, Sparky
1st Degree: Not too bad.  Only small adjustment needed
2nd Degree: Heavy adjustment necessary IMMEDIATELY!
3rd Degree:  It is called soap and water, Beluga, look into it.  Steel wool will probably be needed.
A Smoldering Pile of Ash on the Floor:  WooHoo! More oxygen for the rest of us!!!

I try to help where I can.

Rant Over... for now

That's Just Pointless

Today I would like to rant a bit about a few of my favorite things: sculpting, toys and nipples.  Bear with me, this will make sense in a a bit. Well, make as much sense as anything I write.

I was in a Walmart (henceforth to be referred to by its proper name: Wally World or Wally for short) and, in accordance with federal law, I looked through the toy section.  There was a glut of Avenger figures with far less articulation than there should be, (that's another rant) and I saw some of the larger Avengers figures.  The one that really caught my eye was the Hulk.

The sculpt of the figure was excellent. Well proportioned with plenty of fine detail with one notable exception, well, two really.  You can see where this is going, huh?  The missing bits were, as you have guessed, nipples.  Now normally I don't go around fondling action figures in an attempt to feel nipples no matter what those police reports say, but on a sculpt this good it kind of sticks out like a sore... thumb.

Now, if this were the first time I have seen this omission I would chalk it up to crap quality control but that is not the case.  As a general rule, action figures that are shirtless, are missing them.  My question here is: WHY?!?  I mean really, can anyone come up with a good reason for this?

The prudish among us would say that a child's toy doesn't need to be that detailed.  I agree, it is far more healthy to treat a normal aspect of human anatomy as dirty and immoral.  Hey, if we are lucky, maybe we can get a good case of shame going too.  To all of the "think of the children!" crowd, I have a little secret for you.  Barring horrible accident or radical surgery, your children have nipples!  No, really, they do and so do you!

It wasn't just the fact that his nipples were missing, it was the fact that the rest of the sculpt was so detailed.  I mean correct musculature, toenails even the texture of the skin!  All that but nipples are too much detail?  What I have to wonder is if the sculptors are given the anti-nipple mandate or if they are removed somewhere down the line.

I freely admit that my views on the human anatomy, specifically the appropriateness of its display, are not the same as mainstream America and it has been suggested to me that all of my sculpts don't all have to be anatomically correct and detailed, but come on! They are nipples not an invitation to have free candy in that creepy guy on the corner's van!  Seeing human anatomy molded in plastic will not turn your children into twisted sexual deviants, leave that to organized religion.

Have we, as a society, really become that tightly wound that nipples, part of what defines us as mammals, are so offensive that we would remove them from an otherwise beautiful sculpt?  It is art for crying out loud!  That is just sad.  By the way, who can tell me what inevitably happens when something is wound too tightly?  Just saying.



Rant Over...for now

Ok, not completely over.

Update 6/27/12

In the store the other day, I'm telling you guys, it's the law, I saw the new mold of the Hulk for the comic Avengers pack in the Marvel Universe line.  The mold is a vast improvement over the previous one.  Care to guess what was missing?

Now, Rant Over...for now

La, La, La, I Can't Hear You, La la la

I know this story is a bit old but if you wanted up to the minute news you really are in the wrong place

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066795/Muslim-students-walking-lectures-Darwinism-clashes-Koran.html

First off, let me say that I am not against religion as such but there are some things that don't really go together. Science and fundamentalism of any religion go together chocolate and yak vomit. There's an image for you. In this case it it Muslim fundamentalism.

Many medical students are boycotting lectures because Darwinism contradicts the Koran. Allow me to point out the terrifying words in that sentence: "medical students"! These people want to be doctors! Me personally, I want any doctor that works on me to have a deep understating of biology and the scientific method not believe that a all knowing all powerful invisible sky king farted the world and all the critters, including us, into being after a particularly spicy burrito night at Deities-r-us. Now I know that is not what Muslims believe but it amounts to the same thing: a doctor who is missing a large chunk of scientific knowledge.

The thing that I find really scary is that Darwinism is science and these people are chucking it out the window because it conflicts with a book written a long time ago but uneducated folks who, at the time, had not experienced the awe and wonder that is indoor plumbing. They told a story that loosely described the world around them and gave them power over others. This worked very well for them for a long time. Then along came a person who looked around with a logical eye and said "why".
That question is a danger to any religion not just Islam. I would much rather have a doctor that asked why rather than just believing that my illness is the will of the aforementioned sky king.

What if the doctor decides that antibiotics are the tools of the devil? What if they decide that it is god's will to cure the common cold by hitting the patient in the face with a 20 pound sledge hammer. Admittedly that method would, in fact, cure the common cold in most cases if the doctor got a really good swing. The down side is that it would also cure the patient of that whole "being alive" thing. Besides, most people's insurance wouldn't cover it.

Does all this mean that I think that religious belief is completely incompatible? The answer to that is both yes and no. If the religious belief requires that the adherents believe that things are a certain way and there was no room for discussion then yes it is incompatible. Science asks "why", religion answers "because I said so". That may work well from a parent to a child but when said to a full grown adult who is trying to solve the mysteries of the Universe, not so much.




Rant Over...for now