Some years ago, I had it explained that the barbarians and lunatics down south of the border refer to the region of their country clustered around the Great Lakes as the “Mid-West.” This immediately rang false for me, looking at a map of their country; the entire region was plainly in the eastern half of the country, albeit somewhat bumping up against the mid-point of the country, in such a way as to come as close to the west as one could come without actually BEING west in any meaningful way.
I offered up the observation that, being in the eastern part of the middle of the country, it could reasonably be called the “Middle east”, or “Mid-East”, if you prefer. Indeed, a case could be made that in that it’s on the far western edge of the eastern half of the country, I would even accept the idea of it being called the “Western-East”. Though I acknowledge that doing so brings with it a certain amount of confusion, at least it is a confusion which could be dispelled with a reasonable explanation, in which sense it has a leg up on the current “Mid-West” fiasco.
Not to be entirely culturally elitist, I must admit that this is a problem which exists even in my own country, and nowhere more glaringly than in the apocalyptic wasteland of the mind which is Alberta (or “Cold Texas” as I like to call it). There’s a conversation I’ve had a number of times with various Albertans which has had only minor variations from person to person, which can best be characterized by one particular instance from a couple of years ago:
I had ordered a couple of small pizzas at work, and one of which was of a type with three tangible toppings and one intangible topping, each of which are vital to the appeal of the dish. The tangible toppings were and are green pepper, feta cheese and shrimp. The intangible one is spite. This came about as something of an unexpected surprise; some years earlier, I had been forced to spend time with an appalling toad of a man named Alex, who claimed to be allergic to all sea foods. I came up with what I thought would be a deliberately disgusting combination of toppings which I had planned to eat with exaggerated relish in front of him in an effort to offend his sensibilities. To my considerable surprise, the pizza was conspicuously awesome. I credit this, as earlier-implied, at least in part to that fourth intangible topping, but the merit of the first three cannot be under-sold either. I’ve introduced a great many people to this combination since then, going about it with a sort of missionary zeal, and it was on one such an occasion that I attempted to get an Albertan to eat some.
“Naw, I don’t eat anything that comes out of the water. I guess my tastes are too Western”, he droned. The capitalization of the word western here is deliberate; it plainly couldn’t have been a reference to a direction so much as a named culture, for reasons which I articulated thus: “If you go far west enough, you know where you end up? In the OCEAN. Seafood is thus the most definitively and inarguably WESTERN food there is! If your issue is one of ‘western identity’, then I can assure you that you stand no risk of betraying it by eating sea food!”
He would have none of it, though; to him, as to many Albertans “Western” had nothing to do with concepts as concrete as longitude or geography. It was just something they felt, somewhere deep in their skulls, where the brain would in any other case be located. It was a brand name, a label, a state of mind. The Albertans had long ago claimed for themselves the identity of “Western Canada”, and fuck anyone who claimed to be more western than them based upon evidence as flimsy as a compas’s wavering needle. To be more western was to be more definitively Albertan, which meant among other things being more closed-minded to ideas such as that “west” was an indication of direction which was relative to the actual spot where you happened to be standing.
He ultimately refused to taste my cockpunchingly awesome pizza, and in retrospect, there’s a part of me that’s glad; I’m not sure I would have wanted to share it with someone whose concept of direction was as arbitrary as a man standing at the north pole’s might be. I feel it would have sullied my awesome Spite Pizza in some way, and then it would have been cursed with the presumably-less-delicious second intangible topping of dismay. And I know for a fact I wouldn’t pay for a Dismay Pizza. The very thought of it fills me with a certain nameless sense of agitation, alarm, anxiety, apprehension, and so-forth on down through the alphabet.
tl;dr: Stupid people shouldn’t get to name regions in ways which involve directions without first consulting a map of the landmass they’re standing on and a geography teacher capable of explaining the concept of longitude to them.
“Cockpunchingly” is a conjugation of the word “cockpunch”, which I have employed in a novel fashion here. Whereas the word has been employed and defined in a literal sense before (such as in the definition at urbandictionary.com, which in part reads “A closed fist hitting of the male genitalia, meant to evoke surprise and/or pain.”), I wish and endeavour to expand upon this rather pedestrian definition, and in so doing stride boldly into the realm of neologism.
We are all familiar, of course, with the term “kickass”, which is used in order to express strong approval for a given person, object or phenomenon, such as in the sentence “That was a pretty kickass cockpunch you gave that guy, buddy!” And indeed, this term is not without its merits, in that it evokes an action which is both aggressive and contemptuous, thus demonstrating both a decisive and entitled position.
However, it occurs to me that to kick one in the ass also carries with it a connotation of cowardice; coming up to one’s foe from behind, skulking and craven. And a kick? A kick is delivered by a foot. And do you honestly mean to tell me that a foot is ever as awesome as a fist? If you do, then I decry you as a liar and/or a fool.
A punch to the cock, then, to me, is the next step beyond a kick to the ass, and excelling in ways which a mere kick to the ass can never excel. Braver, more forthright, and above all, more fisty. On that grounds, I would like to put forth “cockpunch” as a word which can be understood to mean “Like kickass, only better.”
In the coming days, weeks, and even months, I expect and intend to make use of this term frequently, both in service of purposes of demonstration and description. It is my sincere hope that you will all come to see the merit of this term and take up its torch, then use it as it is intended; to set fire to the very culture of the english language itself, that your very conversations themselves may be a vast, cockpunchingly great sacrificial pyre to the greatness of this new term.
As anyone who knows me knows, I dress exclusively in black, about 99% of the time. This is not a question of slavery to some external trend or movement; I’ve never considered myself a goth, for instance; I realized in high school that, as much as I liked the way that goths dress, it’s mostly about a music style which doesn’t speak to me in the slightest, and that in any case the idea of suborning my own sense of style to anyone else’s expectations of what I ought to look like or present myself was just sort of fundamentally ridiculous and loathsome to me.
Similarly, anyone who has known me for more than ten years – which is admittedly a vanishingly small list at this point – knows that this has not always been the case; my later days in high school were a process of experimentation for me, as they were for many people. In my case, I worked very aggressively to define myself along very personal lines so as to prevent anyone from being able to sort me into any group or clique at the time. One day I would show up in a suit and tie, wearing leather loafers and a briefcase. The next day, I would be dressed head to toe in bright green, including an elabourate facepaint design (which would come to be the foundation upon which my body painting skills would later be built). The day after that, a blue housecoat, tattered jeans, orange reflective safety vest and floppy brown leather hat. It was only very gradually that I fell into a single style which I felt comfortable with and which I felt represented me well to the world, and this is a style which to one extent or another I’ve stuck with ever since.
I’ve had any number of people attempt to dissuade me from this course, of which the most laughable was a horrendous little cretin named Jason Engel, who worked day and night to conform to every “goth” stereotype he could, and was among the most superficial adults I’ve ever met. He viewed my dressing exclusively in black as a sort of trespass into “his” territory, and one I wasn’t entitled to. He attempted to get me to dress more colourfully in the service of his own vanity. I laughed in his face and remained steadfast.
Today, I’ve had a friend attempt to get me to wear colourful t-shirts and bluejeans so as to make myself more superficially appealing to women. The thought was utterly repulsive to me; being told that in order to find that right woman, the thing to do was to toss aside my own individuality and sense of visual identity in favour of a sort of generic mediocrity; blending in with the anonymous and faceless crowd. I don’t deny that this might be effective if my intent was to find some woman who were attracted to the bland and the generic, and I needed some camouflage or disguise in order to deceive her into believing that I was one such person, but I daresay that this illusion, and the feelings built thereupon would be shattered quite swiftly the moment that I began to discuss virtually any topic with her. Besides which, what use would I have for such a woman? It would be a trying ordeal for me to be involved with such a lady, I fear, and a trying ordeal of a relationship, startling as it may sound, is not actually something I’m actively seeking out.
Besides which, there are practical concerns, ranging from the physiological to the psychological. My legs are twin pillars of rippling muscle, bulging against the world with seething power. There is a terrible cost to this, however; they also bulge against one another in a manner which is fairly destructive; as my thighs press against one another, the friction caused ends up destroying the inner thighs of any pants which I wear. Even this, though, is preferable to the fate which awaits me if I were to wear more durable pants; a pair of blue jeans would rub against my legs no less than my preferred slacks, but whereas slacks would give way, the heavy weave of jeans would cause my flesh to be worn away, leaving a pair of oozing blisters in their wake. Not only is the agony of this sensation – which is all too well-known to me – a significant disincentive to following this advice, there is the question of how attractive oozing and infected sores on my inner thighs would be to that prospective Miss Right.
Then there’s the psychological, and here I cite no less an authority than one Mr. Albert Einstein. Einsten decided early on in his life what fashion was comfortable and serviceable to him, and he stuck by it. So consistent was he, in fact, that he came upon a startlingly utilitarian approach: He simply bought dozens of identical suits, and they formed the entirety of his wardrobe. Every morning, he could simply pick any shirt, any pair of pants, any jacket, and not waste so much as a single moment, a single spare thought on the topic; there was no question of what mood he was in, what went well together or what the occasion was. This was a guy who had bigger fish to fry with his brain than a question of what to wear. “But Dave”, you may ask, “What about the ladies? What about making a good impression with the ladies? Don’t they demand of their suitors a sort of blind adherence to an arbitrary sense of style chosen for them, against their will, by the mindless pressures of the society around them? How could a man of even Einstein’s towering intellect possibly be a role model for you in this regard, given that he must logically have been a romantic failure in light of his decision to be happy with his own appearance, rather than abandoning his own principles in an effort to satisfy the mindless shrieking demands of the collective unconscious?”
Well let me tell you a little about that. Albert Einstein married his cousin Elsa. Most women would be like “Ick, no! I will not grant you access to my vagina! Incest is disgusting and wrong!” But Einstein, being the cockpunchingly pimpin’ guy that he was, was able to brush that shit aside and be all like “Shit, bitch! I’m Albert motherfucking Einstein! You gonna let a little thing like THAT get in the way of you gettin’ with my fuckin’ same-suited, no-haircut-gettin’, not-shavin’-my-moustachin’ self?” And she was all like “Aw, what the fuck.” Cause you know why? Because chicks dig confidence, that’s why. And a guy like that, as confident as he was of the way he looked and dressed and groomed himself had a lot going on in that regard.
I’m not trying to put myself in Einstein’s bitch-gettin’ league or anything here; he plainly had a great deal else going on that I could only ever asprire to. Why, he once had a three word conversation with William Golding!* What have I done that can compare to shit like that, right? But as far as role models go, I figure I could do a lot worse.
* This conversation, retold in Golding’s essay “Thinking as a Hobby”, took place atop a bridge over a small river at a time when Golding knew about one word of German, and Einstein knew about no words of english. As a fish swam under them, Golding remarked “Fisch”, thus expending the bulk of his german vocabulary. “Ja, fisch”, Einstein responded, entirely accurately (one presumes; in fairness I’m actually giving the two of them the benefit of the doubt here; they could have as easily mistaken a bit of garbage for a fish, in that neither of them are known to have been marine biologists of any repute).
Last night, my friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wronske came over to my place to hang out, and we decided at one point to go through Craigslist's local "Adult Gigs" section for shits and giggles. In spite of her own fairly extensive knowledge of Craigslist, she had somehow failed to notice that this often hilarious section even existed. For my own part, I had discovered it while trying to discern which section I ought to post a want ad for body painting models in (and quickly discovering this was not the one), and every so often, I poke my head in just to see what wonderful "adult" things people are looking to pay one another for.
Presented for your consideration, then, are the fruits of our labour: The best of the craziest from the past week or so (with my commentary in italics).
***
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
Looking for an offpring (Burnaby)
I have a place to live, it's newer, the Child will be taken care of. I have some equipment that needs some up
keep and working on other things, and don't have time for much else.
- Location: Burnaby
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: have a place to live and stuff like that, and money too
This is actually one of the best ones of all. The fact that he doesn't specificy what kind of equipment he has, what it has to do with the "offpring" in question, and what "other things" he vaguely alludes to is, altogether, a pretty good indication that this guy will be a pretty good father.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
wanted: obedient, submissive sex slave (vancouver)
looking for obedient, submissive sex slave to satisfy my voracious sexual appetite. I am a powerful supergenius ascending to a higher state of humanity. I must be worshipped through sexual celebration of Life. Do you deserve to serve Me? tell Me why ...
- Location: vancouver
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: no
What I find most interesting here is that this doesn't even look like a paid gig per se; more like a barter type of arrangement in which you would be exchanging sexual favours in return for sexual favours. But perish the thought that this is just some kind of crazy personal ad posted in the wrong section. This is a business deal, plain and simple!
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
What I Can Do For You?!?! (everywhere)
Hi;
I'm selling my used panties, dvds & photo cds of myself. Will consider custom dvds & pics. Also offering phone sex at $1 a minute.
- Location: everywhere
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: pay
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
p*Y 2 pL*Y SUGAR BABY! (VANCOUVER)
I LUV DRESSES..... CARS.... PERFUMES.... & JEWELS..
I LUV.............MONEY....... POWER!.......
AND I LUV MY S - X !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Location: VANCOUVER
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation:
I don't have a lot to say about this one except that - as hilariously ambiguous as this one is (it doesn't even indicate if this is a man or a woman, nor yet what he or she is offering PER SE) - it's about a hundred times funnier if you read it out loud as a sort of breathy and full-throated shout, with all of the pauses indicated by the "..."'s intact.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
ladies are you exhibitionist at heart please read even if not (lowermainland)
every night on my ride home from work I stop for a bite or coffee and find myself looking for entertainment and people watching. especially this time of year as i have a thing for womens feet, well more than a thing a full blown fetish. all the sandles and heals with shorts and skirts at this time of year lol , I find myself stareing at the loveley girl across the resturaunt dangling her mules of her toes seeing those lovley arches. I am looking to stage something i would like to have someone there to tease me at a location on purpose. if you are a non pro and cute and think you can tease me from across the room with your feet get intouch. mabey you and a friend. or ultimate fantisy you catch me and as if i like what i see discretely of course then say come show me where we retire to my car and you have me massage and lick them ok far fetched i know. i am also interested in worn socks you just pealed off. please send pic for details i am serious and looking for tonite finish work at 11pm who knows could be great for us both not wanting sex i repeat no sex
- Location: lowermainland
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: to be discussed
"Mules?"
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
Looking for a baby factory (Burnaby)
I've been told by god to knock some one up so that he or she can help save the world. I think
thats the best way to describe it. I have other plans.
I have a place to live, and help for this child to be taken care of.
Anyone interested can send a picture would be nice? Any one want to be taken care of, kinda ?
I'll try to be around.
I prefer hot blondes, but I'm willing to take a look.
- Location: Burnaby
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: no pay
Logically, this is probably the same fellow from the above entry, but I actually like to imagine that they're two COMPETING guys, both with their own agenda. One needs a baby in order to operate his special equipment (with sinister goals), and the other one has been instructed by his god to produce a child to help the world by stopping the sinister first baby from wreaking destruction by means of that equipment.
Also, my guess is that his god likes hot blondes especially.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
MAN FOR HIRE (VANCOUVER)
DO YOU NEED A MAN - HIRE ME
- Location: VANCOUVER
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: $$$
By all means, good sir. I will gladly pay you three dollar signs to have a man come over and scrub my floors. That IS what you had in mind, isn't it? You left is so vague, I was forced to guess what it was I was hiring you for...
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/adg/11
Need temporary girlfriend for a day (van)
i need temporary girlfriend for my family reunion tomorrow for two hour .no sex involve just probably kiss lips or cheek. and if there would be sex involve we could settle in a agreement on how much you'll charge me.I'm 25yrs old.looking for age 19-30 pls send pic and how much you'll charging me
- Location: van
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
- Compensation: compensate
I love the fact that he's prepared to compensate you with "compensate". It occured to me that a man as obviously incoherent as this poor chap is likely to have a tough time selling this ruse to his family on such short notice.
So the other day, I had my first encounter with a Mormon. Mormons are pretty rare here in BC, and for most British Columbians, our main exposure to them is reading about that Mormon splinter group that lives up in the mountains and still practices polygamy, and so I’ve sort of wanted to have a chance to play with one of them for some time now. Predictably enough, it didn't go so well for him.
Some years ago, my friend Paul was visiting Vancouver, and he and I found ourselves at my best friend BJ's place. We were having a fairly weighty discussion about morality and government, revolving around whether a government ought to have a greater responsibility to its people or to the cause of justice as a whole, and what, ultimately, one ought to expect out of a government in this arena. BJ, who had in large part been quiet and a little disengaged up to this point, tossed in his two cents, which derailed the conversation, but in this very act spawned a much more interesting conversation. It's been long enough that I'll have to be just a little creative in re-creating the conversation from memory, and indeed after a certain point I remember the flow of the conversation better than which contribution was made by which specific person, and so I might be slightly inaccurate in my attribution.
"Just to bring this conversation down to my level, you know what I think society knows? Every community ought to have, like, a guy with a dolphin in the place of his head to make moral judgements over the community. Dolphin Judges."
Me: "An entire dolphin? Not just a dolphin's head, but like a reverse-centaur sort of arrangement, where it's a complete human body up to the neck, and then from that point up it's an entire dolphin, minus the tail or something?"
BJ: "Something like that, yeah! Dolphins, you know, they have a much simpler and less-complicated view of the world, but they know right from wrong, and they could communicate this through clicks and whistles and stuff."
Me: "You know what I think would be even better? An old village wise man who has a machine affixed to their head, with a big LCD display screen on it, and they hear peoples' grievances, and then the device on their head measures the relative morality of one path or another and then reads out and displays a numerical rating for them. Like a... a 'Moralometer'. And that way, if someone has a problem with a ruling, you can be like 'Hey, listen, man, one option has a morality rating of 4.3, and yours only has a 2.7. You want to tell me 4.3 ISN'T higher than 2.7? You go get me a calculator and I'll show you, buddy."
Paul: "But then someone says 'Oh, these moralometers are all well and good, but where's the HEART? Bring back the dolphin judges, I say!'"
Me: "Why, they have TWO hearts! One in the dolphin torso, and one in the man-torso! You want to tell me two isn't larger than one? Go get a calculator! And the old men with the moralometers are all desperately pointing out that bringing back the Dolphin Judges has a much lower morality rating than keeping the Moralometer Judges, but nobody is paying attention, and anyways they're drowned out by the delighted clicks and whistles of the Dolphin Judges, who are being brought back in from the wilderness after their long years of exile."
I'm sure that many of
you have heard, recently, about the recent resolution passed by representatives of various countries dominated by the ridiculous bullshit religion of Islam, within the United Nations Council on Human Rights, that any criticism of their ridiculous and laughable faith be considered a violation of the human rights of those who believe in their inane and nonsensical fairy tales.Naturally, I think this is a marvelous and well-founded idea. Those primitive-minded half-wits deserve all of the protection they can possibly receive from having the obvious fact that they're living their lives in the manner of deluded children who cannot separate fantasy from reality pointed out to them or spoken aloud, and anyone who plainly articulates the fact that one would have to have the mind of a retarded cave-man to ever believe any of the laughable rubbish they've dedicated their lives to ought to be treated as the beasts and criminals that they are for doing so.
It is with this in mind that I should like to see certain other obviously dangerous and/or horrible behaviours enshrined and protected by law using similar language, so that we should all have the protection that these deluded cretins seek to enjoy, and to this end, I have prepared the following thorough though non-exhaustive list.
1) The United Nations does hereby prohibit the criticism or questioning, by law-enforcement officers or others, of the act of drunken driving. The driving of a vehicle while inebriated is a precious and sacred activity for an entire class of irresponsible morons the world over, and the criticism of that activity constitutes a persecution by the sober and responsible majority of the home countries of these peoples, which no civilized person can ethically justify. The United Nations therefore condemns any individual or body of individuals who would seek to caution against this activity, question the judgement of those who partake in it or seek legal action against or compensation from damages or death arising from such actions.
2) The United Nations does hereby condemn those whose actions since the dawn of nautical history constitute a systematic and deliberate persecution of piracy. Those who live the pirate lifestyle are entirely entitled to their chosen lifestyle, and yet at all times and at all places, they have been treated as criminals and worse by those who attempt to stop them from hijacking their ships. This sort of victimization of pirates by those who would prevent said pirates from stealing the cargo of their ships and/or take part in the murder and/or enslavement of the passengers and/or crews of these ships is a clear and gross violation of the pirates' human rights, and a premeditated and systematic attempt to eradicate their lifestyle from the Earth. It is therefore resolved that those who attempt to prevent pirates from these and related acts of piracy are to be treated as criminals, and the various coastal nations of the world are encouraged to draft laws to prosecute those who would thus persecute these practitioners of this ancient and time-honoured sea-faring lifestyle.
3) The United Nations does hereby condemn those women whose actions and/or omission of actions vis a vis withholding of sexual favours constitute a persecution of obnoxious assholes crudely propositioning them in public places. Throughout the world, men are routinely denigrated, marginalized and denied the opportunity to "give women what they really need" based upon nothing more than their chosen and personally cherished activities vis a vis shouting at, groping and verbally abusing women with aggressive sexual innuendo. As these actions serve the purpose of preventing them from the basic human right of reproduction, it is therefore to be considered tantamount to forced sterilization and indeed genocide. This blatant violation of their human rights is therefore held to be unethical, and all member-states of the UN are encouraged in the strongest of terms to draft laws which would see women who refuse to indulge these advances prosecuted and sentenced to public service and/or prison terms in men's penitentiaries, where they may pay their debt to society.
4) The United Nations does hereby condemn those who criticize idiots, jackasses and morons of all stripes. Though idiots constitute large and in many cases majority populations throughout the world, they are routinely made to feel like fools by those more intelligent, better-informed and more thoughtful than themselves. This constitutes a gross violation of their human rights, as does any disagreement with or refusal to act upon any idiotic ideas which they might offer up or decide to act upon. It is therefore resolved that all nations are strongly encouraged to draft laws which dictate criminal charges be brought against those who disagree with or offer any meaningful critique of any idiotic person or idea, including, but not limited to, the drafting of said laws.
(Note that this last acts as something of a catch-all for the previous three, and indeed for the criticism of Islam, and to the same extent, all other religions.)
I expect to see these resolutions passed in brisk order.
For the benefit of any Muslim readers who may be offended by the false impression that I am comparing their insipid religion to drunk driving, piracy and verbal abuse of women, I wish it to be known that I am comparing them ONLY in terms of the fact that - like the practice of their asinine religion - these are bad and destructive ideas which the world would do better without, and that no other offense or slight is intended against their basic human rights.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched a fantastic documentary from Nova called "The Bible's Buried Secrets". As people who know me are well aware, this sort of thing is like crack to me. It essentially looks at the very early history of the Israelite people by means of a combination of approaches and creating a synthesis which is very compelling to me. They seek to disentangle the actual history of these people from the various strands of mythology which you find in the bible. And it does treat this book as mythology, and moreover, a sort of Frankensteineian hodge-podge of four DIFFERENT mythological traditions which were spliced, over the course of centuries, into the early books of the Torah (or "Old Testament" as the Christians somewhat condescendingly call it). It doesn't do so in an unfriendly or hostile way at all; it approaches the early history of this people as an engaging historical saga which has been obscured and confused by a series of myths which nevertheless served various useful purposes to the culture of this struggling people. It goes into a number of different corroborating sources for different elements of the story being told, many drawn from archaeological digs performed in the area over the last sixty years or so, mainly by Israeli archaeologists who have a vested interest in discerning the truth of their own early history.
I've shown this film to a number of friends, who have all enjoyed it tremendously, and I suspect many of you will as well. I know I fully plan on buying the DVD when it becomes available for sale in February.
For the time being, the entire thing can be viewed for free by Americans at Nova's page for the film here: http://www.pbs.org/nova/bible
For those outside of the US, there are a number of opportunities. For example, some helpful soul has broken it up into 12 parts and posted them on YouTube, the first of which I post here:
If that's not to your tastes (as Youtube video quality can be a little on the weak side), there's always the torrent option : http://www.mininova.org/tor/2030190
Hey, all. Or, more particularly, all in and around Vancouver (of which I know there are a few).
A few years ago, I got roped into voulenteering at a homeless shelter up in Vancouver; a program called "Out of the Cold." It was run out of the Grandview Calvary Baptist Church, and this was, for certain (and I think obvious) reasons a little uncomfortable in that sense. Still, I had friends I was voulenteering with, and this made the experience survivable at first. Not only did I have people I was comfortable with, but I feel like there was a certain "Safety in numbers" deal going on, which kept the christians from proselytizing to me.
As time went on, and weeks turned into months, the christians there, I think, came to accept me and warmed up to me. I was a hard worker, I was polite, and I was doing good work. And you know, it was a good experience for me. Really good. I felt like I was living up to my moral standards in a very tangible way.
I always say, "We all have this one life, this one chance, this one world, and afterwards, nothing. It's up to us, and only us, to make sure it's as good experience for all of us as we can. We're all in this thing together." Having the chance to really put that philosophy to action was an enormously satisfying experience.
The next winter, though, when the program started up again, I was working thursday nights. And the next. And the next. And so on. I kept wanting to get back to it, but I never quite found the time.
These last few days, as I'm sure it's escaped nobody's notice, have been terribly, bitterly cold. It put me in mind of that program, and I realized "Hey, I have thursday nights free". I did some checking, and it seems the program is still going. Even better, the guy who was running it at the time I was there - a fellow named Karl - is still around. Karl, more than anyone there, I remember fondly. As the winter program was coming to an end that year, I remember him giving me a card (and I wish I could find it now! I'm sure I didn't throw it away!), telling me about how I had changed his mind about atheists, and showed him it's possible to be moral for entirely altruistic reasons, without any desire or need to get into heaven. It touched me rather deeply.
So, I'm going back there. This thursday, most likely, and I expect on subsequent thursdays as well. This having been said... I find that I would prefer to go there along with a kindred spirit or two, for the same reasons as I enumerated above. I don't know if any of you folks have thursday late afternoon/early evening free, but if you do, I would be glad of the company. Besides which, it's a worthy cause and the feeling of genuine satisfaction which springs from that is one which you would do well not to deny yourselves.
One way or the other, I'll be there. Perhaps I'll have a story or two to share when I get back.
Rejoice and be merry! Less than a month after the release of Luck be an Empty Vessel for my Poisonous, Flesh-Destroying Seed Tonight, comes the Newdog15's most politically-charged thriller of all time...
For this masterwork, I am joined by a dear friend, one Doctor Ultimo, who I have for some eight years now hoped to collaborate with creatively. Alas, for all his towering intellect and sparkling wit, never has his genius been committed to text in this form before. Frankly, I suspect that his never-ending one man war on his hated enemy, the wicked King of Portugal, has dominated so much of his time that such pursuits have been frankly impossible. With the completion of this work, however, he has tasted the sweet juice of the fruit of success and found it pleasing. Already he speaks of our next collaboration. I can only hope the oppressed people of Portugal can afford to go without their living folk hero for another few days in the near future.
Now, without further ado...
( Click, dear readers, and hear a tale of sinister foreign powers and the brave men who stand against them! )
It bears pointing out, it seems to me, in the interests of prudence, that the above link perhaps ought not to be clicked upon whilst at your workplace, as some of the images in the tale woven therein have some faintly sexual undertones, which - depending upon your employer - may not reflect favourably upon your place in the workforce.
Preamble: For those of you unfamilliar with the workings of the Canadian government, much of this will be, shall we say, somewhat foreign to you. Suffice it to say that the Governor-General of Canada - the Queen's representative in Canada - has granted our loathesome right-wing thug of a Prime Minister's request to shut down the government for two months, because said Prime Minister realized that the next vote taken by the government would result in his losing power, and he couldn't stand to see this happen. This is one of the only powers actually open to the Governor General, and I've never heard of it being abused in this manner before.
I've never been a fan of the monarchy, but I've always before been able to shrug it off as a quaint and faintly embarrassing relic; an irrelevant anachronism and nothing more. Today, though, I am angry about it as I never have been before.
The Governor-General - an unelected figure who is unanswerable to anyone or anything save for an elderly foreign aristocrat - has decided that she has the right to stand in the way of the lawful operations of the parliament and suspend the workings of our elected government. And as disgusted as I am by the fact that this appendix in the anatomy of our government has decided to become inflamed and in need of removal, I am no less disgusted by Harper's decision to incite her to do so.
And Harper himself. I am paralyzed by indecision. Such a wealth of invectives I could aim at him. Where does one begin?
They say that all bullies are at their core cowards, and Harper has definitely demonstrated that where he is concerned, this is true. Not merely a bully, but also an idiot, he decided to pick a fight with a group who over-powered and out-numbered him. And then, when to his utter shock and horror, they decided to fight back, he ran screaming to mommy, begging her to make the bad democracy go away and leave him alone.
It has been said before by wiser and more well-informed people than I that Harper rules as a tyrant when given the opportunity, and certainly he has proven this true this past week. While his surrogates are out there scare mongering and shouting his hateful, partisan talking points from the rooftops, accusing the other parties of attempting to make a power grab born entirely out of greed, Harper himself has decided that if he cannot lead the country, then nobody can. He would rather shut down the parliament for TWO MONTHS in a time of crisis than see somebody else lead it. The stench of projection hanging about these conservatives bleating about the leaders of the other parties being desperate for power is thick and suffocating.
Short weeks ago, I was actually DEFENDING the man as a necessary evil. "The pendulum needs to swing both left and right in order for a democracy to function healthily. At the moment, it's swung somewhat rightwards. All things in their time", I said. But now, upon seeing the pendulum begin its leftward swing, he seized it in his hands and broke it off entirely, preventing the flow of power from taking its natural course, thus demonstrating his fundamental contempt for the democratic practices of our country.
I freely acknowledge that a majority of Canadians object to the notion of a coalition government as it is currently being proposed, but I also know that nearly two thirds of Canadians entrusted members of Parliament of parties other than the Conservatives to make the choices they thought best for the country, and so they were doing before the agent of a foreign power prevented them from doing so. I feel it is necessary to point out that given the constant stream of invectives and scary language that Harper and his cronies have been delivering from their bully pulpit, I wonder how much of that objection on the part of the Canadian people is born out of an informed opinion and how much out of the irrational fear which our esteemed leader has worked so hard to inculcate in his program of gutter politics this past week.
If I take any comfort in this prorogation of parliament, it's that the leaders of the parties who the majority of the population voted for will have this time to inform the population of the facts of the situation and perhaps beat back the flames of fear which the Conservatives are and will be so frantically fanning in the mean time.
Cross-posted to NDP
For those of you who have no interest in Canadian politics, you might want to skip over this one. For those who are interested in principle but don't know anything about the functioning of the Canadian federal government, a super-quick primer:
( a quick primer under the cut )
A point which I haven't heard pointed out very much during this discussion is that in a very real sense, the majority of Canadians voted AGAINST Harper's Conservatives. They voted for one of three (well, four, but you know.) other parties, and Harper made it clear that he was not going to work with those other parties, in essence declaring that he didn't care about the will of the majority of Canadian voters. A Coalition government made up of the other three parties would by definition represent the interests of the majority of voters, and what's more, it would REQUIRE cooperation between them, ensuring that a variety of interests would be reflected in a way that could never, ever happen under the leadership of an autocrat like Harper.
On a personal note, I'm reasonably happy with the prospect of NDP MPs getting a quarter of the available cabinet positions. It seems the very least the Liberals could make available, in light of the fact that the NDP actually got about twice as many total votes as the Liberals, even if the unfortunate distribution of those votes saw us getting less than half the seats in Parliament that the liberals now enjoy. The fact of the matter is that this represents more power than the NDP has had at any point in my memory, which I would very much like to see parlayed into a greater appearance of legitimacy on the national stage in the next election; showing that the NDP can effectively govern even in this limited capacity on a national level can only help our electoral chances.
On a broader note, I also feel this would be very, very good for the country as a whole in terms of peoples' engagement with politics. The most recent election had a DREADFUL turnout, thanks mostly to the conviction on most voters' parts that the election would basically net us a result of "more of the same" (which it did), and more to the point, more failure to reflect the will of the electorate. With this dramatic turn, suddenly, not only do we not see more of the same, we see the direct inverse of the pre-election results, and a result where every party in some measure matters. This can only be good for getting people more excited and engaged than they have been in YEARS. This is always a good thing for a healthy democracy.
We'll see how things go on Monday, where - unless Harper decides to be super-obstructionist and the Governor General decides to indulge him in his petulance - we'll see this re-arrangement of Parliament take place. For the first time in a long time, I wish I had a TV, so I could watch it happen. Maybe I'll go over to a friend's place. If I can think of a friend who has a TV. Hm.
- Mood:
curious
I've always had a problem with the enthusiasm of christians of colour, if you will, in the United States. And not merely the same problems that I have with christians of other races down there, though those certainly apply as well. No, my problem is one of a certain logical disconnect. One stemming from their point of origin, one might say. And here I refer primarily to those who are descended from slaves; though I'm quite aware that there are many black christians down in the states who either immigrated on their own or whose ancestors did, my quandary with them is a different one.
When I think about those blacks descended from slaves and who are now vigorous and impassioned christians, it outrages my sensibilities a little bit when I think about how christianity was introduced to their people. Their ancestors, who were kidnapped, tortured, and pressed into invoulentary service (or, if you will, "enslaved") by white christians were brought to the United States, and there told that they were to abandon their old cultural and religious beliefs and embrace those of their captors. I imagine myself in this situation, and I imagine myself saying "Yes, of course. You people who kidnap us, torture us, enslave us, rape us and murder us plainly have a pretty good handle on this 'morality' thing. Your god, who apparently condones and dictates the terms by which we're stripped of our humanity and treated as less than beasts is obviously a fine dispenser of virtue and morality. You guys totally deserve to be emulated, and your god is obviously the one we should be looking to for ethical behaviour. Oh, wait, no. You and your entire culture sicken me, your god, if indeed he exists is plainly a monster unworthy of my attention or adulation if he permits this behaviour among his followers, and your religion makes me sick to my stomach."
And then, I suppose I would be publicly and horribly murdered by these followers of christ for failing to see the innate goodness and superiority of their moral creed, so as to make an example to anyone else who got the idea in their heads that American christians are anything less than paragons of love, mercy, and virtue.
And I suppose it's insufferably smug of me to try to project myself into this situation; I've had terrible times in my life that nearly broke and ruined me, and the very worst days I had during these days can't possibly compare with the very best days that these slaves must have had, especially in those early days before they had "settled in" to their nightmarish new lives. How can I presume to know how I would react in that sort of situation, much less judge those who were there? But even so...
I wonder if part of it is that the most dissenting and proud among them were killed off, leaving only the most meek and compliant. I wonder if there was a certain horrible natural selection going on here, where the only ones who survived long enough to breed were the ones who had the good sense or lack of pride necessary to hang their heads and obediently repeat the empty platitudes required of them until their own children were old enough to never have lived in a time when they remembered any other religious views being observed?
I've heard tales of groups of black slaves in that time and place who cunningly disguised their own cultural beliefs by pretending they were worshiping christian saints and angels when instead they were continuing to revere their old tribal gods and spirits. While I have no less contempt for such practices than I do for christianity as a whole, in that day and age, one must have seemed as plausible as the other, and I admit to a certain admiration for their guile and nerve in pulling off such a ruse on their credulous "masters" until such a time as they were able to once again become the masters of their own destiny. It is in this way that practices like Voodoo (or vodun, if you prefer) first came into existence.
But today, in this day and age, in an age of rationality and readily-available science and historical perspective, the continued enthusiasm of black American christians offends my sensibilities. I realize that these are people who were raised in this faith. I realize that the church has long served as a centre of community from which they have drawn strength of unity as a peoples in very hard times. But even so... The very fact that this religion was pushed upon their people by the monstrous and savage culture of the southern United States, and is in a very real and ongoing sense a yoke around their collective cultural neck which was placed there by their oppressors, and which they don't seem to have the strength of character to cast off just kind of baffles me. For a people so demonstrably eager to be free in so many other ways, how can they be so eager to maintain their servitude and servility to the white man's god?
Even the emergence of groups like the so-called Nation of Islam, which seem to exist purely as a reaction against this history only partially address this historical inequity, in that they simply move their bondage to the irrational from one source to another. And these people remain a vanishingly small minority among the population. Upon consideration (and here I know I tread on very delicate ground indeed), I wonder if the poverty and poor educational opportunities which are all-too-often afforded them as a people is in part to blame for this? Both poverty and poor education have a statistical correlation with religiosity, and all three are well-represented within the American black population.
I don't claim any special insight or personal experience here, but I would like to learn more. Is anyone in a position to shed some further light on the matter?
cross-posted to the atheism community
Edited to add: The discussion in the above-linked community is actually really good and heated in places. Worth checking out if you're interested in this post.
America, I am just blown away today.
Living in a border town like Vancouver, and having bothe friends and family living in the United States - not least of all my brother in Arizona - I take what is perhaps an inordinate interest in the goings-on down south of the border. For essentially all of my adult life, this interest has yielded a combination of horror, consternation, outrage and extreme disappointment. For the past eight years, I have seen the American people fall victim to those who appeal to the very worst in their natures: Hatred, cynicism, xenophobia, greed, and terror. For such a long time, I have thought that the very best of America was merely apathetic towards evil, and the rest were active if unwitting participants.
But yesterday, by gum, you proved me wrong. And I have seldom been so very, very happy to be proven wrong.
At long last, you embraced hope, and peace, and love and joy instead of fear and anger and chauvinism and rage. At long last, you showed - in vast, overwhelming numbers, that when you are given a genuine and clear choice between the two, you made the right choice. You lived up to your highest ideals instead of giving in to your worst vices. You chose to embrace muticulturalism instead of sneering with contempt at the rest of the world. You chose no longer to be the villains that the political establishment you've had for the past thirty years or so have tried to make you; you chose to actually, genuinely be the good people that you always hoped and wanted to be.
You have no idea how my heart soars at it. There are and have been such powerful, well-placed and deeply-entrenched forces who have worked so hard to make you nothing but indifferent creatures of the military-industrial complex that you were warned about by your president Eisenhower. They have deployed such tactics of fear and agression and ego-stroking and distraction to keep you where they wanted you. And it would have been SO easy for you to just keep letting them make you what they needed you to be. But this time, you guys looked hard at these people, and what they wanted you to be, and you said "No. No more. That's not who we are. That's not who we choose to be." I had wondered if you even had it in you anymore, but this - this SWEEPING repudiation of the past eight years - shows me that, YES, you do. And I just love you for it.
You folks have so much to be proud of today. I'm sure that you've heard about the celebrations which have broken out across the world, and know that we are celebrating all of YOU as much as - if not more than - President-Elect Obama.
Congratulations, America. And from the very bottom of my heart, thank you for proving me wrong.
(cross-posted to atheistofftopic)
- Mood:
ecstatic
While not ordinarily the sort of thing that I feel the need to post about, I do feel as though the merchandise I acquired earlier today was worth commenting upon.
( More, better, larger, and more in-context photos here )
Cthulhu is just such an amazing figure. The genius of HP Lovecraft was that he was able to create this elder god of the universe without much in the way of reference of existing mythologies (I suppose that the presence of the somewhat bat-like wings being an exception) in order to do so. So many people are trapped in their familliarity to judaeo-christian mythology that they need to go there in order to craft some malign demonic entity. Lovecraft didn't need to go there. He didn't need some childish dread of bronze-age middle-eastern boogiemen. No, Lovecraft was terrified of fish and all things aquatic, and THAT was all he needed in order to design an incomprehensible primordial evil.
Or else, perhaps, he was inspired by something that he experienced somewhere out there in the deepest, most remote reaches of the ocean, where, indeed, the sea does conceal wonders and horros which neither modern science nor the evidence of our eyes can seem to discern the truth of, but which our nightmarish speculations provide ample explanation for. Certainly, if Cthulhu is real, this fact provides some support for my long-standing speculation as to the origins and motivating force behind modern Japanese culture.
At any event, the Cthulhu mythology presents us with a refreshingly simple, straightforwards and earnest apocalypse myth, which has been amply and hillariously been illustrated here. And while it lacks the "everybody wins" element which I would LIKE to see incorporated into an end-of-the-world myth (such as the onewhich I have presented here, and which I'm outraged has not yet been embraced by all the peoples of the world), at least it makes hard and fast promises which are easily tested when the time comes. This, as with so much to do with the Cthulhu mythos, pleases me greatly.
Edit:
Cruising around the Wikipedia entry I linked-to above, I've greatly enjoyed the article on the topic of Cultural references to the Cthulhu Mythos . I just love to see all the people who have similarly felt so fascinated by the Cthulhu mythos that they've felt the need to incorporate it into their own works in some way. This sort of returns to my first point, as to the genius of Lovecraft's creation; he's created something so innovative, but which seems so authentically ancient and universal that such a large number of genuinely creative people have embraced it as an element of their own personal mythology. That, my friends, is a rare feat indeed.
And now for my American friends and readers:
I have an unhealthy fixation upon American politics. It fascinates me. The spectacle of it. And besides which, there's a wealth of engaging and entertaining political talk radio down south of the border.
A few years past, there was a radio show called "Morning Sedition", which I listened to each and every weekday morning when I got home from work. It was a three hour block of my daily life which brought me profound pleasure and joy, not least of all because it was hosted by stand-up comedian Marc Maron. He has this sort of furious, desperate earnestness which I find pleasing on such a personal level that I cannot fully articulate fully without gesticulating about with my hands and shouting excitedly.
Well. He's got a new show.
it's available in audio or video, and when it's not live, it continuously streams reruns of recent material. I suggest that those of you who have an interest in American politics and those funny jew comedians, go have a look.
The show co-stars Sam Seder, who is also great, and though he is less completely hillarious to me, he is, it must be said, more informed and more informative. More professional, you know? A good anchor to the whirling tornado of wit and rage which is Marc Maron.
Yesterday, I went down to the Superior Court, answering a summons for Jury Duty. It was an interesting experience, but one which was somewhat futile and frustrating in that I spent about eight hours there and didn't actually get selected for any of the three trials they had me attend the Jury panels for.
This is kind of disappointing; I had actually gotten kind of excited about it. It seemed like an exciting change of pace from my actual job (and would pay slightly better, once the trial hit the 50 day mark). Especially disappointing (and potentially interesting0 was the third one.
This third one started very strangely. The Jury Panel I was with (about 100 people who had also been summoned on the same day) were all brought into a large, strange courtroom with all this super-high-tech equipment (I would later learn there's more than 3 kilometers of electronic cables in that one room), bullet-proof barricades, and about a half-dozen desks within the court.
We were then asked if any of us felt like taking part in a nine-month trial. If not, we were free to leave immediately. All but twelve of us did, and I was one of the few to hang around. I thought to myself, "Hey, it'll be a great story to tell once the trial is over, it'll be meaningful work, and I get to call my bosses and tell them 'Hey, guess what? I need nine or ten months off. Yeah, no. You're legally required to give it to me and keep my job available to me for when I get back".
We're all then taken aside again and told that all but one space on the jury has already been taken up, and they need just one more, of which one of the twelve of us is going to be chosen. We were led, shortly later, back into the courtroom, where we listened to a lengthy, lengthy list of charges. Twenty-three counts, involving extortion, death threats, conspiracy, possession of massive, massive piles of grenades, pistols, automatic rifles and the like. The defendants?
Four members of the Hells Angels.
We were taken out of the courtroom again, and told we would be led into the courtroom in a random order, and questioned by the judge to see how qualified we might be for this position. I got picked second. My heart was racing. Though I realized that there was an element of personal risk involved in a trial involving a heavily-armed organized crime ring such as this, I also realized that, rationally speaking, very few jurors in such cases ever actually face personal harm as a consequence of their roll. I was all for it. This was going to be an adventure.
The judge asked me about my personal biases and such, and I was able to truthfully answer that while I was of course aware of the Hell's Angels, I was never interested in them enough to read enough to personally bias me. Finally, the various lawyers involved, one after another, said "No objections", "We find this one acceptable", etc. , until finally we came to the one accused who had bizarrely decided to represent himself. "Challenge, your honour", he said. This is essentially court-speak for "I don't want this guy on my jury". It was the final hurdle for me to overcome, and unfortunately, I did not clear it. I was on my way home.
In perfect honesty, I can't say I resent the outing too much. It certainly was an interesting and enlightening experience, and I had never actually been inside of the courthouse before, which was a grand sight to behold. All the same, I do wish I hadn't walked away disappointed. I was all for it. Ah. well.
So, this morning I saw posted in one of the many communities I'm a member of a link to a goofy christian site:
http://www.goodpersontest.com/
It's pretty familliar material; I've seen it enough times before, in only very slightly different forms (such as in this extremely grating video by the human embodiment of the concept of smarminess; VenomFangX). I've long found it to be pretty vacuous stuff, and I've long considered writing up my response to it, but I knew that doing so would be a lengthy and not particularly rewarding experience. Fortunately, the medium of audioblogging provides me an alternative!
Listen, enjoy, comment at will.
Profile
- dave_littler
- dave_littler
- Dave Littler's New Deal
Syndicate
