Comic book justice.....

There are so many things to write about these days...more of Ron Paul's book, the fact that I just cracked open a copy of John Stuart Mill's "on Liberty" which seems as though it could have just been written five minutes ago. how completely cool and badass Ironman was...etc.
Now, Ironman is a good way to kind of glide into this rant. Remember how villains in comic books had some kind of bizarre plans to control the world or some such? They were obviously villains because they were deformed or at the very least talked funny. Then we got older, and villains became foreigners like Russians or Arabs.
No, The world has never been that clear or that clean, until now. Now there is a real collection of people that need to be hunted down and made examples of. A report done by children international cited numerous sexual abuses of children by U.N. peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. It's not enough that these children had to live through all the hellish things they had endured up to that point, they have to be forced into having sex with these bastards in order to receive the food that we donated to feed them. They are worse than Kipling's lesser breed without the law, lower than the animalistic hordes. They are shells that look like men, but have no souls.

Creative writing.....

I've been looking for another gig to turn a few ducats here and there. Process serving is a drag, because everyone hates you and the gasoline prices are a killer. Grading essays is over, and so I am cast adrift looking for a way to turn a buck where you don't have to clock in like a worker bee.

I saw this one thing on craigslist today, looking for a part-time creative writer for a home decor store. Part of the app is to submit descriptions and images of three things found in your home. I looked at their website and saw that they have stuff like $25.00 place mats and a wall mirror for $250.00. All nice things though, and unique. I felt intimidated, but wrote down descriptions of a big canvas painting done by a friend of mine, a painted cat I bought in Italy, and a cool afghan my sister knitted for me.

This was too fun to stop at just three things, but I need this job so I decided to put some of the fun stuff down on my slog.


1. Old Dog: This venerable canine can be used as a throw rug or a self-starting litter box
cleaner. Ideal for homes with little or no activity, this malodorous cur from the
wastelands of the South will add rustic charm to any home. Comes in yellow,
Off-yellow, and dirty yellow. $10.00

2. Custom Wall Treatment: Add a touch of artistry to any new home decor. Abstract
designs done with found objects and discarded pens turn your expensive home improvements into gardens of expression and provacative new textures.
Shown here, modernized, costly paint surface modified and enhanced by scribbles of magic marker and refried bean paste, entitled "Eddie did it!!" By Libby Love studios. $899.00

3. Hip tunes floor mat: After a thoroughly messy session of sprinkler play and endless games of "Can we fill it with mud?", keep the party going by drying off with this unique towel, floor mat, sofa stainer, and cool vintage punk rock t-shirt that daddy got from his really cool friends in the band. Totally versatile and completely un-goddam-replaceable. (sob) $2.00


I really should open my own store.

WallFly conversation #1

A wallfly conversation is a dramatization of stuff most of us don't get to hear. It's based on all the times you've heard somebody say, " I wish I was a fly on the wall listening to THAT"


President: So, what are we gonna call this new effort in Iraq? How about Iraqi Freedom?
General #1: Uh, we already used that sir. We could use freedom again though.
General #2: Well, back in the old days, we would just generate random word combinations like
"Zebra Knife" or "Burning Drum"....
Pres: Wait those don't make a damn bit of sense. That second one sounds like V.D..
General #2: We would use them as kind of like code so no one could figure out what we were up
to.
General #1: We need something that really pops, like "Freedom Fist" or "Victory Eagle".
Pres: That first sounded kinda porno-ey. But I think you're on the right track.....
General #2: If we're going to come up with flashy names for this, let's try to figure out what
we're really trying to accomplish this time.
Pres: I think...well, you must really hate America to keep on bringing that up.
General #1: It's just as well you're on your way out. You might want to take your retirement
a little sooner.
Pres: I know! we'll call it "Super double kick-ass America up your ass"
General #1: That's great!! But I don't think we should use "Ass" twice in a sentence.
Pres: Well shit, you're the one who went to A&M, go ahead and fine tune it...and I want a
T-shirt with it on there too.
General #2: Hey, I have an idea. How about "Drive around until you get your ass lit up with
no way out for a hundred years?" does that work?

shiny shiny bright bright

Lovely day. This town is one of the best places to live in the U.S...but not for long. The Californiacators are moving in covering the land with shopping centers and big pressboard and vinyl box houses with no distance in between. I'm not from here, but I can tell the locals apart from the new arrivals and I can understand how the locals feel about these assholes with their new cars and their complete inability to say howdy. I took the kids to a discovery science center today and spent damn near six hours there. This is a small town but their science displays put ours to shame. There was an entire room dedicated to electrical devices and a table where kids could put together rudimentary circuits and they could see how much power their little legs could generate on a stationary bicycle. There was a huge informative show on insects and interesting facts about the pleistocene age.
Give it time, and if they aren't careful, they'll be up to their asses in McScience and creationist assholes trying to tell them what to do and say
On a brighter note, I think we are starting to get used to the cold and dry weather. In fact, it beats the living hell out of hot and wet. Plus, there aren't any allergies to speak of here.
Too bad, I don't have any super high tech skills...oh and Texas is the best place in the entire universe, nodal, string, ether, einstienean, or otherwise.

damn

The children are behaving horribly. Everything is expensive and they're predicting snow, even though it's mid may. Of course, we're from Texas and we only packed a couple of sweaters. Awesome. It's still a pretty good place to be. I just feel sorry for the other guests.

Road Trip

Going to Colorado with the fam. One week, two kids and a motel room. If they don't hate Texans by now, they will by the time we leave. I just hope Eddie doesn't hurt anybody too badly. They have a bicycle library in Fort Collins, so I have to try it, because I am a nob like that. I really hope it's all ok.

Cui Bono?

Here's another piece from yet another misguided Ron Paul supporter. I got a copy of The Revolution, a Manifesto by Ron Paul and I have been reading it, growing more determined and more convinced that it's time to start talking with other people about the simple truths that he lays out in its' pages. The first chapter is about foreign policy. It is astounding that we have troops stationed in over 130 countries. More baffling still is the fact that we have had troops in Europe and Asia for over fifty years. Nobody is willing to have a sincere debate over whether or not we should even be bearing the financial burden for all of this. Our military budget is huge and byzantine. Non interventionism is not isolationism. It's just pure common sense. He paraphrases a columnist who states, "We are borrowing from Europe in order to defend Europe. We are borrowing from Japan in order to keep cheap oil flowing into Japan, and we are borrowing from Arab regimes to install "democracy" in Iraq.".
He goes on to say that.."There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It's called Freedom."
The final part of his preface states that "These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America."
It's big talk. It's a simple set of ideas which seem almost quaint given the way things are being run right now, but it's very big medicine as our aboriginal cousins would say.
After being exposed to this book, I can no longer stomach the talk radio anuses that I used to listen to for cheap amusement. That is because I begin to suspect their already shabby motives and I am starting to catch a faint reek of propaganda..the bad kind. After reading this book, I am filled with a sense of outrage, impatience, and resolve mixed with a faint feeling of hope.
We must put ourselves in the position of the quiet, insistent common man who tugs at the sleeves of the powerful and asks plainly, "who benefits from this?..Who will pay for the promises you have made?... and more directly, almost mechanically ask "Why and for whom?"

Why not?

Private health insurance companies are what most of us middle class people depend on to make sure we get health care. As long as you're in good health, and you keep your job, you're OK. The premiums are still big, but manageable. If you lose your job and you have health problems, then you might find your self in deep kimchi pretty quick. Especially if you have to try to make COBRA payments with no income.
Now, I understand the insurance industry. Ignorant people think that you pay your premiums and the money gets pooled together and services are paid for out of the premiums collected. NOT TRUE. Those premiums are invested and insurance companies are known as "institutional investors" like pension funds. Vast amounts of money are shoveled around in an attempt to grow the reserves of the company. It is out of these earnings that claims are paid. Stringent guidelines are set in order to control the claims and limit expenditures. Doctors find themselves answerable to the insurance companies and this will sometimes mean that they have to work without some of the tools they might need to help their patients who are unable or unwilling to pay for additional tests or proceedures.
Case in point, I went to a clinic because I had a very high fever. The doctor asked me about how long it had been going on and if I had trouble breathing sometimes. They gave me a chest X-ray which revealed a possible mass or scar tissue in my lung near my heart. I had to go to my doctor and get her to approve a CT scan. The insurance company told her that they wanted aother set of xrays instead. She told me that she was sending me for the scan, but warned me that the insurance company would probably refuse to pay a large part of it. I ended up paying somewhere around $400.00 or more and some additional money on top of it. I could tell she felt pressured into pushing the xray, but went ahead with the scan recommendation. I can imagine that she might get dropped from their list of PCP's or whatever if she did that sort of thing alot.
I'll have to go in for another one soon, I guess, because catching a hint of cancer now could give me a shot at beating it. It's very possible that it could take decades to develop, but by then, I wouldn't be their problem.
Meanwhile, executives of these companies reap huge bonuses and draw salaries that would make a burmese drug lord blush. They have golden parachutes and stock options. Health insurance is a major profit earning industry. We live in a time where questioning this arrangement puts you in the same category of Marx, Lenin, and carpet chewing liberals.
It does not have to be so.
There is another possibility. The major banks have to contend with credit unions. Credit unions used to be regarded as podunk bastard cousins by the major banks. They catered to poor and working class people. Now we see them making major inroads into the market share of the banking industry. Credit unions have a quaint, intoxicating business model. Account holders are not just customers, sheep waiting to be shorn, they are members of the credit union. They at least titularly have some power within the organization. The people that run them, do so for far less than bank managers and directors and they seem to do a better job of it.
Why not have health care unions or cooperatives and let them be run along the same lines as credit unions? You could call them anything you like, Health Mutuals, Health Co-ops etc. They would insure the members and there would be quarterly reports issued on claims paid and investment earnings and executive salaries. Perhaps a few doctors could be place on the board of directors. Perhaps local partnerships could be formed with clinics and hospitals. Patient complaints could be given more weight. Doctors could actually speak to other doctors regarding policies or even individual cases/claims. We wouldn't need vast government bureacracies besides the same small departments of insurance in each state which are already in place. (we'll have to be careful). Of course, these mom & pop insurance co-ops will have a hard time getting lobbyists and soft money to the right politicians, so maybe this will never happen, but I can dream can't I?

a wide ranging fear, an everpresent hope

(written 2 years ago)

Being clever, doubting God
Being sorrowful, hoping he exists.

Now, of all the mindless bleating
howling and thumping,
parchment mumbo and jumbo
not one tiny atom of evidence,
but this
on a drowsy morning
they played mozart and
my
little one
began to dance
and spin
graceful arms describing flight
dipping and ascending
part clown-ery, and a piece
of sublime
Why would beasts make such sounds?
and why lowly mammal brutes
hold such grace?

Dusty kids

I have been seeing a lot of footage of military folks lately. Under their baggy uniforms and layers of dust and smoke, most of them look like kids. I look at them and they just seem so young as though they are in a high school production of "all quiet on the Western Front" redux and updated with cooler shit and bigger explosions.
This makes me think of my own U.S.A.F. service back in the 80's. I look at pictures of us and also think that we were in an amateur play. Maybe national lampoon's European Vacation. Only in this instance, we were just kids playing at soldiers every now and then in the heart of southern Europe. I remember the superb food, the Adriatic smooth as glass, and the lovely Italians. If there were any moments of terror they were a direct result of our own shennanigans. I look at us in our crappy looking steel helmets and our plastic rifles with Mattel stamped on the stock (which we only took out of the armory once or twice a year.) We would take silly group pictures of us in our condemned chemical protective suits and gas masks shooting the finger, grabbing our dicks, simulating unnatural acts, taking a piss. Hmmmm. I don't think these kids would get the jokes.
I remember the scuba classes, skydiving classes, language courses, martial arts classes etc. that we could take for very little or no money. Shit, I even remember taking a class on "healing touch massage" which could definitely improve your ass chances.. if you know what I mean.
I don't think these kids get that. If they get classes, it's probably the kind that are absolutely no fun.
Understand, I'm not even talking about the kids just in the Army per se. I just think these young ones are getting the purple shaft. B.O.H.I.C. was a military colloquiolism which means "Bend Over, Here It Comes" which is probably something these kids will get.