Clean Up On Aisle Three

I don't mind blue jeans with holes in them or even paint from my palette knife smeared on them. Some people have even thought I bought them that way. I do have this thing about socks and underwear. The other day I noticed elastic showing on my underwear and I cannot  handle that. My underwear have to be intact and pristine! They don't have to be expensive though. In fact my favorite brand is only available at Wal-Mart. Normally I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart but I had no idea it could be suicidal until I saw the news.

Who would have thought that pepper spray was a shopping aid? Apparently it is. Before using your pepper spray on another shopper you should first ascertain that this action is justified. For instance it is justified to pepper spray another Wal-Mart shopper if they have more than the allotted number of items in the express lane.

There are other guidelines for shopping at Wal-Mart. For instance, tackling is okay in the Sporting Goods section but not in Electronics. You should also be careful using your Taser in Electronics as it may damage circuitry. It would be shame to leave another shopper convulsing on the floor only to get home and find out your Taser also fried your Plasma TV. Fortunately Wal-Mart has a fairly liberal return policy.

Another precaution when using your Taser on other shoppers is to try and avoid zapping folks with pace makers. I know those greeters at the entrance can be annoying but please don't fry them! A lot of them probably have pace makers and it would be a shame to litter the entrance with their elderly corpses! Unless of course you are trying to create a diversion so you can home in on a bargain unmolested by other Wal-Mart shoppers.

You know you have done a good job of tasing when you hear an announcement of "clean up on aisle three" and you have just left several other shoppers twitching on aisle three. So anyway I decided not to go shopping for new underwear on "Black Friday" lest I become just another Wal-Martyr!


Russell

Threats More Than Existential (Now That's Some Kind Of Scary)

Believe it or not I watched the Republican debates the other nite (well more than half of it, I stopped watching for a few minutes once to do something useful). I have been writing about anger a lot recently but kind of took a break. These candidates reminded me of why I had been doing that. With the notable exception of Ron Paul these folks are extremely bellicose. The subject was foreign policy and these guys pretty much advocate bullying the rest of the world around until they fall in line with us.

I think the stupid quote of the nite has to go to Michelle Bachmann who described the threat posed by Al-Qaeda as "more than existential." I wonder what are they going to do, kill us then follow us into the afterlife and kill us again? Just how does a threat become more than existential? But hey, she was not the only fear monger up there. All of them but Ron Paul seem to have a hankering to attack Iran. They are already building their grudges. I didn't hear the Hitler comparison yet but it cannot be far away.

They did engage in various fantasy scenarios of just how dangerous Iran is. Governor Perry wants to start a no fly zone over Syria. That's a sneaky way of saying he wants to start an air war over Syria. That's what we do to places we intend to invade. The Governor and the rest of them seemed to be on some kind of testosterone binge, even Ms. Bachmann felt the need to show gargantuan her testicles are.

Stirring up fear and talking up violent fantasies and then bragging about how awesomely powerful our military is. It just seems crazy to me! I don't think the Democrats are any better unfortunately. They say pretty much the same shit.

We are winding down supposedly, from the longest war in our history. But we have swarms of flying robots all over the world ready to kill at the touch of a button. Our military budget is not only the largest in the world its larger than the rest of the world's combined! Meanwhile our leaders seem to have a vision of perpetual war, fueled by never ending fantasies about threats that are "more than existential."


Russell

Lets Get Cosmic!

I cannot believe the holidays are coming again! When it comes to Christmas I think we should go on Martian time or something. I mean their year is twice as long as ours. So if you decide you are no longer an Earthling and instead a Martian you instantly become half as old as you used to be! This sounds really cool to me. I'm not sure how fast Mars spins so I don't know how long their day is. Maybe we could use Jupiter for days. Days on Jupiter last 10 of our hours I think. We would have to divide their day up into 24 shorter hours. What I have in mind is maybe working an eight hour Jupiterian day! That should mean the work day would last about three hours and 20 minutes! (Earth hours and minutes).

See we need to be more cosmic in our thinking, cosmic consciousness is what we need! We will have a Jupiterian work day and Martian years. Its going to be great! First we have to convince people that Earth bound thinking is somehow prejudiced. You know it really is too. I'm liking this more and more. By casting off our limited and biased puny Earthling point of view we not only become younger, and work half as long, we also get a whole bunch more time between having to "celebrate" the holidays.

But until everybody else gets as cosmic conscious as we are, we just gotta face it; Christmas is coming and there's not a damn thing we can do about it!


Russell

Hell's Geezers On Wheels

It's "Bike Week" on the island. So the town is full of AARP members. It's good I guess, but after awhile the constant revving of Harley Davidsons does get a tad gawdamned annoying, if you catch my drift. I went to one end of the island and found an empty beach to stretch out on. Listening to nothing but the ocean was great. Harleys really do sound like they have a problem with flatulence. The rice burning bikes are no better just different. I hope that term is not offensive to aficionados of Japanese motorcycles, but it probably is.

It is so easy to offend people these days. I am not an especially big admirer of the easily offended. I remember hearing an interview with John Cleese when he was asked whether it concerned him that the movie "Life Of Brian" might offend some people. He responded that he hoped it did. Cleese said he felt some people needed to be offended. Apparently some periodical in France recently published cartoons offensive to some Muslims. Their office was fire bombed (no proof it was by Muslims).

I know that in prewar (WW II) Germany antisemitic cartoons were published in so called humor magazines. I think what matters is intention or maybe attitude. I think it's cool to make fun of people who are too full of themselves but totally uncool to pick on the downtrodden. That's why I don't feel bad at all for making fun of people who are in love with their motorcycles. To me it's just another way people trying to be free and unencumbered wind up being slaves to their possessions. I also think it's okay to make fun of people's conceptions of God. Only people who believe their concept is somehow holy can get offended by this. I have faith but, I know that any concept I have of God is not accurate. How the hell could it be?

I don't believe in my concept of God and I don't believe in yours or anybody elses either! The nicest thing you can do for someone is to help them to quit believing in false idols right? So no matter what it is they have on a pedestal it's probably good to knock it off. But don't be mean about it! Make fun of their car, their Harley, their house, their wardrobe, their God but only if they have it on a pedestal. It's totally classless to disrespect the humble. But it's good to bring down the prideful.

Russell

Standing Up For Our Misunderstood Overlords

How can people be so insensitive? I heard today that once again a minority has become demonized by callous members of the majority population. Apparently there are some jerks out there without any sense of social consciousness. You would think that now that we understand the evils of racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia we would have overcome our pejorative attitudes toward minority groups. But no, here we go again stomping all over the sensibilities of another minority group!

Why are we so insensitive to the super rich? I hear these folks are feeling emotionally wounded by the castigating remarks of their economic inferiors. Can you imagine the angst of a billionaire seeing these occupy Wall Street bigots swarming around their work place? Just imagine their fear as their chauffeurs drive them home to their penthouses and mansions, while they scrunch down in the back of bullet proof Mercedes limousines drinking 25 year old scotch to steady their nerves. It just breaks my heart. I would love to comfort these poor plutocrats! Unfortunately I'm not allowed into their gated communities.

Still there might be something we can do to ease the hurt feelings of the ruling class. We could send them sympathy cards. Off hand I'm not exactly sure how to express the true depth of my concern for the emotional devastation of the obscenely rich. I guess I would say something like; "Dear ridiculously rich person, I know this has been a really tough time for you, what with all us uppity peons occupying Wall Street and such. I am sorry that you have to see such a disturbing sight. I know how terrible it must be too even have to consider that people of our icky ilk even exist! So please settle into your best over stuffed chair, light up a cigar with a one hundred dollar bill, sip on some antique brandy and realize that poor people don't really count. I bet you are feeling better already! So sleep well economic Czarist sleep well."

I'm not sure if I would include any smoochy marks on the letter. The rich probably have them embossed huh?

Russell