Romney's Song

I was irritated by Mitt Romney's craven politically motivated comments regarding the attacks on our embassy and our president. So I wrote a song. It's to the tune of "Wake Up Little Suzy" by the Everly Brothers. It's called "Shut Up Mitt Romney." Here it is;

Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!

You're completely full of shit!
You're such a stupid git!

You opened your mouth!
And the bull came out!

And that bull is full of shit!

Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!

You're such a stupid ass!
You really have no class!

You're campaign went south!
So you opened your mouth!

And you really showed your ass!

Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!

Why don't you just shut up?!



Russell

My Dharma

I've been trying to enlarge my spiritual life. Some times I am not even sure what that means. Here is the deal, I have found that I sometimes act like a jerk. Actually it may not be an act! Whatever! is the reality I want to change it. I want to be a much better person than I am. I have tried on my own for years but never really seemed to get anywhere. A lot of people have suggested asking a god of my understanding (they said God as if it was somebody's name but I know it's not) for help. This is tough to do when you have no god of your understanding. I have always figured any god I could understand wouldn't really be anything like a real god. If I understand it, it is not God, in other words. So you see that makes me pretty much an agnostic. It sucks, I want to be a better person, but consistently fail on my own. I can ask a god I understand to help me but I do not have one. And I know that if I did have one it would not really be God! So there!

I used to say I was an atheist. That was based on the fact that I have no theology. I thought atheist was short for a-theological you know, without a theology an a-theist. I am definitely not a theist. Apparently being non theist is not being atheist, who knew? I sure as hell didn't! Oh that's something else I do not believe in either, hell. Hell, from my infidel viewpoint, seems more important to most true believers than heaven. They seem to dwell on it more. The Devil seems pretty popular with the true believers too. (That's probably not a nice thing to say but, damn it it's true!) I have to admit I do admire Lucifer as portrayed in Milton's "Paradise Lost." God has devastated the rebel angels and Lucifer is literally flat on his back in a lake of fire (I hate it when that happens!) but instead of whining and crying he defiantly states, "better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven!" Man what a stud! I digress, enough sympathy for the Devil, that's not the main thing. The thing is how theology gets so complicated. A lot of these Christians (maybe Jews too) are not monotheists they really have two gods, God and the Devil, and they believe in both. I definitely do not believe in the Devil. I am iffy about God.

I turned non believer as a child. I asked for evidence and of course there is none so I quit believing in God. I got interested in spiritual matters after trying LSD. I had a buddy who was into Alan Watts (a translator of eastern spiritual traditions for westerners) and I read "The Book" by Alan Watts, it was awesome! I really got turned on to Zen concepts. (Zen practice not so much!) These eastern traditions seemed more organic, they have spirituality inhabiting everything. Western traditions seem to posit two planes one is the sacred plane, the other one, this plane we live on, is profane. Eastern traditions seem to posit only one plane, this one, which is either sacred or profane depending on your level of awareness. I like the eastern (as I see it) paradigm. The thing is this viewpoint does not include the supernatural. There is no separate reality where God the creator lives. There is just reality and it's either holy or not depending on how you see it. Sometimes I see it holy and those times God is everything, a lot of the time I don't, and these times God is nothing.

It must be so comforting to "know" that the almighty creator has your back 24, seven and that he loves you and all that sort of stuff. I tell you though and it is true, there is no act of faith more profound than praying to a god you doubt even exists! I am not bragging! I think really believing is a mental luxury I will never get to experience and in a way, I am kind of jealous I guess.

The reason I decided to expand my spiritual life was not the pursuit of mental luxury. It is because it seems to help me act like a better person than I naturally am. So I started attending and reading "A Course In Miracles." Now I won't even touch the premise of the course, it's quite bizarre. I don't care about that since I just want the karma not the dogma. Let the karma run over the dogma as they say. So there I was reading the text which is written in very dense logical extrapolations which are deliberate mind benders and I start wondering if the authors were on LSD when they wrote it. The sentences sounded like the stuff people say when they are using psychedelics for philosophical purposes and they're tripping their brains out! Spirituality is tough for guys like me.



Russell

Quit Being A Loser

The stuff that we think is important isn't and the stuff we take for granted or even ignore is all that actually matters. If I just listed these it might come off as insipid or sanctimonious and I hate insipid and sanctimonious so I won't do that. A bunch of years ago we used to play cards with friends. This was back when I was married. I tend toward competitiveness and I always wanted to win. Actually I got obsessed with winning. I understand simple games and can make myself recall which cards have been played. I would concentrate on who had played which cards and did my best to be a fierce competitor. When my partner made an error in play or things just went wrong due to erratic play by another I got pissed! To me the point of playing was to win and the seeming incompetence of others ruined the game. The truth of course was that I ruined the game!

I thought the point of the game was to win! I was wrong of course. The point of the game was to enjoy the company of my ex and our friends! When I was a kid I got really upset when my older sister beat me at Monopoly! I was sure she cheated (I was probably right!) and it was totally frustrating to play against her, as I, being honest, had no chance. At age six I probably couldn't understand that the real objective of the game was not bankrupting my cheating sister but enjoying her company. I cannot blame my six-year-old self for this sort of confusion. The same sort of confusion is not limited to games. It seems to me this sort of confusion is pervasive and shows up in most areas of our lives. At one time it may have been mostly an American phenomenon but nowadays the rat race has gone global.

There is a certain cynical satisfaction in seeing billions of people worldwide exchanging any prospect of true happiness for the pursuit of happiness. I remember as a teen my dad once telling me that he earned a salary and owned a house in order to give us a good life. He said he would be fine living in a cabin and fishing all day. My response of course was we should do that, live in a cabin and fish all day. He told me I needed to grow up. The truth is circumstances whether they be a suburban tract house or a cabin in the woods are ultimately irrelevant! Now I do like clean sheets and comfortable shoes. I don't want to be exploited or mistreated. The point is, mistreaters and exploiters do that shit in order to win! They are bad sports, they are cheating at Monopoly or throwing the board in the air and accusing others of cheating, they are counting cards and missing the point of playing in the first place. The only real joy comes from how well you play with others.

Does this mean we should be insipid and sanctimonious? Hell no! Who enjoys any game that doesn't involve any challenge at all? Adults don't play Candy Land with other adults, it's a game for small children and no adult dreams of beating the shit out of their kid at Candy Land. Competition is good when it's fair and friendly but the win at any cost credo is really for losers. Fair play on a level playing field with the goal of appreciating and enjoying other players is the only way to win at life, in other words to be happy. Until we come around to realizing this simple truth we will remain victims and bullies, neither of whom is happy, both of whom are losers.

The good news is, all we need to do in order to bring about true happiness, is recognize what we really want and need. Nobody can prevent you from finding happiness in the pleasure of others and working toward that end.



Russell

The Denny's Test For Politicians

I can't decide if the political campaign season is too dirty or not nearly dirty enough. I didn't mind Joe Biden's remarks about Mitt Romney wanting to "put y'all back in chains." I did mind the official explanation that it was just an innocent gaff, that even though the audience was mostly African American it was not a reference to slavery. I figure that if you reference slavery you should own it. They should have said, "Romney has a secret plan to re-institute slavery" or, "Romney is going to essentially re-institute slavery" or at least, "y'all going to be virtual slaves!" If you say something mean it! And then Romney starts joking around about birth certificates but says he didn't mean anything by it. That's pretty chicken too! He should have just said what he meant like, "President Obama is in fact a bastard!" or, "who knows where this bastard in the White House comes from?"

The Republicans call Obama a socialist, I guess that's pretty negative. Then again Helen Keller was a socialist. They should just say he is the son of Joseph Stalin, that would play into the birther thing too. Democrats could say that not only did Romney strap the family pets to the roof his station wagon he tied their black servants up there too! We could really get this campaign stuff going maybe. It is too bad that Newt Gingrich is out because the Democrats could start their own birther issue by suggesting he is the bastard son of the Michelin Man! Sorry about that but it is hard to come up with really entertaining insults about two such colorless candidates as Obama and Romney (color as in personality not race).

How did we manage to select such drab candidates. Maybe they are both actually genetic experiments. Some mad scientist was trying to come up with the perfect candidate. Maybe they identified a gene associated with personality and managed to eliminate it. Personalities are offensive but the lack of a personality can also be disconcerting. They say that we don't just vote with our heads (IE. for the candidate that is most likely to do things which will benefit us) but also with our hearts (IE. for the candidate we might actually want to hang out with). Hmm... would I rather hang out with Romney or Obama? I suppose I would choose Obama since I can't imagine hanging out with anyone who reminds of Romney. But then again I don't think Obama would be that much fun either.

I might like hanging out with Joe Biden, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Ralph Nader and maybe Sarah Palin. I know it sounds crazy but imagine you're having coffee at Denny's, (a place which requires interesting company to be tolerated) who would you want to be there? Sitting listening to Obama and Romney would be so boring I'd probably turn suicidal! But listening Joe Biden and Ron Paul giving Sarah Palin a hard time for not knowing anything at all might be fun. Of course the truth is I might not want to hang with politicians at all but if I had to hang with politicians I would like to hang out with interesting ones (or at least entertaining ones).

So maybe Mitt and Barack can duke it out over who's least boring. Mitt could say that Obama is so boring that nobody bothered recording his birth. Barack could say Romney is so dull that his dog wouldn't even ride with him, preferring to be strapped precariously to the car's roof. The Democrats could say that even though the last four years have been boring that electing Romney would actually induce a political coma. Republicans could say that the last 12 years of Obama... what it's only four? It certainly has seemed like 12! How long was Gerald Ford the President? Too long! It's the same with either of these guys.




Russell

Is Truth Dead?

So everybody is upset about Tod Akin's ignoramus remarks about what he called legitimate rape cases. The politicians are embarrassed and pretty much everyone else is awe struck by his shocking stupidity. But should we be? I don't think so. Our culture has been anti intellectual for decades. Now it has become anti intelligence. We have become so stupid that we don't even understand the idea of facts. We think there are just competing beliefs and any one of them is as valid as any other.

Today there is something called "creation science" or "intelligent design" and people want it taught as a science! What has happened? How did we get so stupid? It's not the fault of the religious fundamentalist nut jobs. They have always been there. We used to ignore them the way you ignore your wack-job uncle or your crazy aunt who routinely channels her dead cat fluffy. Now as a culture we have decided that channeling dead cats is a valid scientific endeavor. A lot of this is the result of politically avaricious exploitation of these benighted boobs. And some of it is just a craven sort of codependency. We are so afraid of offending people! Now don't get me wrong I'm not in favor of rudeness. But shit, people need to know they are dumb-asses, when they are trying to indoctrinate others into some dumb-ass "theory."

I was watching another episode of "Ancient Aliens" on the History Channel (guilty pleasure). There is this crazy guy on there that refers to himself as an "ancient alien theorist!" I mean it's funny but these people use the word  theory and theorist when they should use the words fantasy and crackpot! I cracked up when this bizarre individual in an ascot and and a purple suit with his hair combed straight up, started talking about some UFOs which had been "breaking every single law of physics." How do you break every law of physics? Once it's broken is it still a law? These guys obviously do not know anything about physics or science or archaeology. At least one may be on the cutting edge of fashion! But not science.

People lump religious mythology and wacko pseudo-science baloney in with physics, chemistry and biology and give them all equal validity. Idiots believe they can dismiss evolution because it is a theory just like ancient aliens or creationism. I wonder what keeps them on the planet, after all gravity is just another theory! It is funny until these fools gain political sway, then it's dangerous. Welcome to the new dark ages!

I work as a counselor and I'm sorry but it's more art than science. Nowadays they have something new in social "sciences" it's called "evidence based practices." It's our way of pretending to be a science. It's based in  politics. Politicians want to fund scientific counseling. So some professor conducts an experiment and has evidence his or her methodology is effective. People set out to carry out the same methodology in their practices because politicians require them to conduct evidence based practice. When it doesn't work out the practitioner is held at fault for failing to adhere closely enough to the methodology. That's not science! When physicists were unable to achieve cold fusion by following the methodology of some researchers claiming to have achieved cold fusion they were not criticized! The researchers retracted their claims they admitted their error! That's science!

Today science and the scientific method are beyond most people's comprehension, there are no facts, everything is just a matter of opinion and all opinions are to be considered equal. I like yoga but I don't think it has much to do with quantum mechanics but I'm sure some cosmically conscious guru can explain how they are essentially the same. Nowadays children are forced to learn lies like creationism because craven politicians lust after the money and votes of insecure true believers with minds of small dogs. Government funded counseling centers carry out so-called evidence based practices and manipulate their outcomes to conform with expected results rather than relying on the skill of clinicians.

The truth is dead! I for one mourn it's passing.





Russell

The Least Interesting Man In The World

Can you imagine just how boring the next President is going to be? Remember how exciting Obama seemed to be last time? Now you realize just how boring he actually is! I'm not sure but I bet Mitt Romney is even less interesting. The only fascinating thing about either of these guys are their names. Barack is a pretty weird name, too bad it belongs to a guy who could be more accurately named  Ho Hum. Ho Hum Obama is still a pretty weird name though. Mitt? Really! Who gets a name like Mitt? Actually it's a nickname his real moniker is Willard! Now that fits him! Willard Romney amateur philatelist wants to be your president. Because Willard was too fitting for him Willard decided to name himself after a baseball glove. Who does that? Suppose Mitt was already taken what would he have called himself? Golf Tee Romney? Helmet Romney? Jock Strap Romney? You know who was accurately named? Newt Gingrich! Sounds like some sort of skin disease afflicting salamanders. Too bad he's no longer a candidate. Fortunately he's still a media whore. The next four years we are probably going to have the least interesting man ever in the Oval Office.

Outside of politics I think those Tuttle guys on "American Chopper" are not interesting at all. I mean a show based on a father and son who yell at each other! Who's brainchild was that? I do like the bikes. But the fact that they're built by a temperamental old grouch and his whiner son is not fascinating at all! I have a suggestion, they should have Ben Stein narrate all the dialogue on "American Chopper." Now that would be interesting! Until that happens The Paul Sr. and Jr. will remain the least interesting men on a reality show.

You know who else is pretty fucking worthless? Tosh point O, or is it  Tosh Zero? It should be zero because he is zero funny. Seinfeld was supposed to be about nothing. Tosh is nothing. I admit he does know how to be offensive and maybe that is something. I don't mind offensive if there's a point to it. I agree with John Cleese who famously said that "some people need to be offended." It is good to offend those people. People who watch Tosh Zero are those people. They should stick to gawking at traffic accidents, ogling maggots, lighting farts and shopping at Spencer's Gifts so that the airwaves an be free of stupid buffoons like Tosh Zero. He's the world's least interesting comedian.

George Will hasn't had an original thought since 1980, Rush Limbaugh is a big fat boor! George Stephanopoulos has nothing to say, Robin McNeil is dead. I could go on but why? All the TV talking heads except Stephen Colbert and John Stewart are absolutely uninteresting. Do you really need to listen to Ed Shultz or Bill O'Reilly to know exactly what they think about anything? If you do, you're either five years old and should stick to Sponge Bob, or you are Sponge Bob. All these people are in a dead heat for being the least interesting commentators on TV.

I'm bored with most sports personalities too. Have you ever listened to Mike Tyson? You will never get that time back! It's gone forever, utterly wasted! But don't feel too bad you would have wasted just as much time listening to any sports figure. I know some people really like listening to sports talk (they will never read this) they even like quoting sports figures. They use sports metaphors in conversation. These people are truly the least interesting people in the world.

I don't drink beer anymore but if I did it would be a whole lot of beer. Drink life and stay thirsty my friends.





Russell

"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn" - Jim Morrison

Why is some murder punished and other murder rewarded? It makes absolutely no sense at all. We say we believe in law and order, that we are a country of laws but, that's a lie! We talk about America as a country of fairness under the law, again a lie. There are crimes we punish and crimes we reward. The crimes we reward are far worse than the ones we punish! We are essentially a criminal organization run for the benefit of the biggest criminals. We punish the petty criminals to keep the sheep in line.

The above may sound crazy like some lunatic raving but the facts bear it out. Take a mild example, say "mountain top removal." If you were some kind of a jerk wad vandal and went around "tagging" other people's property, well that would be a crime. And if you were caught you would be rightly punished. Now say you are some mega fucking corporation and instead of defacing some merchant's store front, you're flat out leveling one of the wonders of nature, murdering countless wildlife, poisoning the air and dumping your shit into pristine mountain streams, well you get a big fucking reward for that crime! If destroying mountains isn't a sin then nothing is! Yet we persist in punishing other lesser crimes.

Scientists recently confirmed that the BP oil spill is responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of sea mammals, as well as birds, fish and probably turtles. BP has responded by sponsoring a public relations campaign for the coastal states they poisoned. The campaign is designed to white wash the disaster they created. Meanwhile your neighborhood association can foreclose on you if fail to maintain your lawn adequately.

Do you know that the Coca Cola Company has a goal of buying all the water rights in developing countries? They  want to sell water to victims of drought. Monsanto has virtually taken over agriculture in India. Through their genetic modification scheme they are the soul source of seed for Indian farmers. Their prices are so high that subsistence farmers cannot afford them. The farmers have become so distraught that suicide has become an epidemic in rural India. Thank you Monsanto, thank you Coca Cola. Coca Cola wants the world to sing in perfect harmony but only for the pleasure of their corporate overlords.

Bob Dylan said "money doesn't talk it swears." Shit he said that decades before corporate feudalism was secretly installed as our actual political and economic system. This system rewarded the corporations that ruined our economy. The Wall Street criminals that pedaled bogus securities based on fraudulent mortgages were rewarded. Their victims lost their homes. If you write a hot check you can be arrested, you will pay fees and fines and maybe get a criminal record. If your bank writes a hot check they'll get a bail out and their CEO will get a bonus, but only if they are a big ass bank!

What can you do? We may not have passed the point where some form of peaceful reform can take place but, we are headed for that point at break neck speed. The amoral philosophy of unfettered corporate greed has turned into some kind of hell bound juggernaut! "Casey Jones you better watch your speed."



Russell