The cynic’s family Christmas

What to do?…Uncle B (short for Boon) offers the cynic a Christmas libation, but there is much to muse about before accepting. Is the cup clean? How do I know Uncle B hadn’t first taken a swig directly from the bottle (which he’s been known to do)? In that case there may well be many molecules of backwash in the cup (diluted as it might be–but still, the thought nauseates the cynic; Boon’s teeth are dark green and look like eyeless insects; and how does the cynic know he hadn’t urinated or spit in it at some time in the recent past, as he’s been known to do). But of course the cynic must accept the cup (Unlce B carries a hunting knife in his belt), so now the the problem becomes not whether to accept the cup or not but what to do once the cup is accepted. The cynic will do what the cynic must do: He will clandestinely pour the contents on the floor under the table and blame it on grandmother’s bladder problem.

P.S. Please do not worry about grandmother. She carries a long titanium darning needle under her bonnet. Uncle B will be lucky if he gets his knife even halfway out of his pants before his agonizing demise.

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Note: From bottom center L to R: Cynic Boon (yours truly), Little Sheba Boon, Father Boon, Virgin Mary Boon, Uncle Ignatius Boon, and the village whore (and only worker), Jezebel Boon. Source: the Boon Family chronicles

It lives! (1984, that is)

If you thought Bush was bad (and he was) Obama isn’t far behind. “The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era…” Read more.

The man has a point here…

“Turning 102 is crap, and there is nothing to commemorate.” Well said. Turning 102 is crap. It’s a terrible thing; it means the end is now ticking away in hours, possibly minutes. To celebrate such an occasion, to be conscious of this instant, would be misery. Better to think of the very present. Look neither left nor right, up or down. Here.

The Omnipotent One…

What, God who made the universe and dark matter and the moon and donkeys and chimps and Paris Hilton and created light (“and saw that it was good”) but He’s afraid to step in shit?

Deuteronomy 23:12-14:

12 Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad:

13 and thou shalt have a paddle among thy weapons; and it shall be, when thou sittest down abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:

14 for Jehovah thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy, that he may not see an unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.

(Bible in Today’s English): “You have to have a place outside the camp where you can go when you need to relieve yourselves. Carry a stick as part of your equipment, so that you can dig a hole and cover it up…For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp…”

You know what, on second thought I shouldn’t be so sarcastic. I have the same complaint when I walk out in the yard after I haven’t cleaned up the dog crap for a few days.

Oh, speaking of shit, did you know God became so mad at Israel for their wicked ways He ordered them to eat human shit? Yeah. Ezekiel 4:12-13 “…thou shall eat it as barley cakes, and thou shall bake it with dung that cometh out of a man [ewwwwwwww...]…” Holy shit, that’s gross.

Goldman-Sachs: Al Qaeda of Wall Street

You can read The Great American Bubble Machine here.

Tiger in the zoo

More here.

And here’s how Tiger’s pretend friends work (it’s all in a day’s work for these hustling gals…hey, as long as they’re gettin’ paid the bucks).

In all fairness, though, how did the sleazy David Letterman get off so easy in the media? And what about Bill O’Reilly?

In the wake of statist multiculturalism…

“…In the wake of statist multiculturalism: Last week, they were cleared of insulting a Muslim guest when high-profile ‘hate crime’ allegations were thrown out by a judge to public applause. But, faced with £400,000 of debt and the wreckage of a business they say has been all but destroyed by the controversy, there has been little celebration for Ben and Sharon – just bewilderment at the way they have been treated…‘It is all to do with political correctness. Minority groups seem to be treated fairly, but people like us in the majority groups are being pushed to one side. It is completely unbalanced.’ …” Here.

Semantical buffoonery

As far as semantical buffoonery goes (and it goes pretty far) you’d have a hard time upping this bit of logic smashing: “Barack Obama split the difference in his Nobel speech, laying down a doctrine that will likely define his presidency: a steadfast defense of warfare against evil mixed with praise of nonviolence and exhortations for mankind to affirm the “spark of the divine” in everyone…” Yeah, as rediculous as it sounds, you’ll probably find this on the holiday greeting cards of a half-ton of Liberal Media Pundits this year.

NY Times goes full color-coded

NY Times has a Christmas season article on gifts for People of Color (insidiously renamed On Color): “Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities…” It’s amazing how the Times plays into racial sterotypes:  Like Baby Jamz, containing a” Mix Master Music Chair that allows children to be their own D.J.’s, a Move ’n Groove dance mat, a Jammin’ Microphone and other items. There is also a singalong DVD series, featuring the voices of the Knowles sisters singing remixed versions of your favorite nursery rhymes…”; A gospel music cruise; books with titles like A Mocha Guide to the Military (yes, for those mocha colored individuals) and  The Conversation, about the “nuanced complexities of African-American relationships” (I guess this book excludes that really nuanced Tiger Woods marriage). Probably the weirdest gift idea they recommend is something called Ash Kumar’s Bollywood Henna Kit, which in essence is a “black face” product where “You can emulate your favorite Bollywood star or come up with your own ideas with this henna kit for body and hair. It’s a perfect do-it-yourself gift for those wanting to satisfy a creative itch and is certain to add a glam touch at holiday parties.”(Relax, of course there’s no mention of the hugely popular skin-whitening products that many African-Americans and Asian women use).

Myths of Moorish Spain

Countering the lovey-dovey world of multiculturalist-revisionist  history.

Nook turns out to be a rookie

David Pogue of the NY Times plays with Barnes&Noble’s Nook: Often, you tap some button on the color strip — and nothing happens. You wait for the Nook to respond, but there’s no progress bar, no hourglass, no indication that the Nook “heard” you. So you tap again — but now you’ve just triggered a second command that you didn’t want. It takes four seconds for the Settings panel to open, 18 seconds for the bookstore to appear (over Wi-Fi), and 8 to 15 seconds to open a book or newspaper for the first time, during which you stare at a message that says “Formatting.” “Over one million titles?” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos….

If your’re going with an e-reader the best bet is still the Kindle, followed by Sony’s.

Indonesian statue depicts Obama as MAD Magazine icon

Indonesians erect racist statue of  Barack Obama as a 10-year-old wearing shorts in the likeness of MAD magazine’s iconic Alfred E. Newman.

Indonesian woman laughs hysterically at the outrageous Alfred E. Newman statue of  our president (hey, well it is pretty funny…).

Glimpses of the five great religions (in action)

Christianity

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Islam

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Orthodox Judaism

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The Peoples’ Temple

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Hinduism

Religion: great for irritable bowel syndrome

Best when taken with three Benny Hinn healing sessions.

Note: you can buy this book here.

Towards the end of life the best your gonna get is a few flashbacks (and that’s a fact)

From the Bubba HoTep movie a few years ago (you know the one, Bruce Campbell as an old Elvis).

Al Gore: Artful Third Grade Poet

Al Gore: Artful Third Grade Poet

If you’ve ever read school kids’ third or fourth grade poetry, especially about the environment, the mawkish lines below by Al Gore must seem familiar. I don”t know what ‘s more disturbing, that this guy is taken seriously by university professors and media anchors or to read in Vanity Fair that these ” lines  of verse…are equal parts beautiful, evocative, and disturbing.” Are you kidding me? Whatever happened to critical  literary intellect? Note to Vanity Fair Magazine: these lines were written by a grown man! for goddsakes. That’s what should be disturbing.

Here’s how the vaunted VF starts off introducing the “poem”:  ”Here’s how the poem begins” In other words: Here we go, boys and girls. Are you ready for an epic? Do you all have your thinky caps on?

One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun

Vapors rise as Fever settles on an acid sea

At this point the VF writer (Mark Gertsgaard) does a bit of a scolding double take: “It’s odd that none of the reviews of Our Choice have mentioned this poem. Even my old friend Bill McKibben, the dean of America’s climate journalists, didn’t see fit to mention it, though Bill himself wrote a column a couple of years ago pleading for poets, musicians, and other artists to bring their talents to bear in the climate fight.”

That’s because the poem (cover your ears, kiddies) is a purple piece of infantilism. Evidently the old friend, Mr. McKibben (aka the Dean), read this crock and, well… passed.

Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea

Vapors? Like vapors rising in “Plan Nine from Outer Space”. Scary stuff; that will get us thinking about the planet.  And that fever thing…Fever settles on an acid sea? Scar-eeee.  No, not the words themselves, but the fact that no one had the prudence to take away Gore’s crayons as he wrote this crappola.

The next lines indicate what the VF reviewer calls “surprisingly accomplished, nuanced …writing. The images Gore conjures in his “…poem turn a neat trick: they are visually specific and emotionally arresting even as they are scientifically accurate…”

Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly

Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration

Those lines are surprisingly accomplished and nuanced? Is this a joke? In the back of my mind I’m figuring just maybe the reviewer is really being satiric. I mean how can such plopped-on-paper cheap symbols be nuanced?

Visually specific? Why, any adjective/noun grouping is visually specific. Was the reviewer out of school that day, you know, the day where the class discussed the adjective/noun group?

Scientific? What is remarkably scientific about snow gliding from a mountain? Well maybe he’s talking about gravity. But Newton told us all this, and all he had was a gliding apple.

“Kindling is placed in the forest for the lightning’s celebration.” Talk about cheapo symnbolism. And how is this visual pairing scientific? Lightning celebrates (well, maybe after a few beers …)?  Don’t you just hate when someone gives lightning an anthropomorphic context? How about lightning’s conflagration instead? It’s still a cheap disescription but it’s sure as hell better than celebration. Symbolism sure can suck in the hands of a grownup masquerading as a third grade literary figure (or maybe I mean third grader masquerading as an adult) . Anyway, kindling’s been in the forest for a long time now and the only celebration about it has come from the kindling gatherers.

Ah, but our obsequious VF reviewer begins to sober up from PC stupor, at least for a moment: “It’s usually a mistake to read too much literal meaning into poetry…” Yeah. But then he gets all gooey again over these lines:

The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools

Picture a sobbing scene right about now: “Is Gore himself that shepherd?” this trepid reviewer asks.  (The Llord is my Shepard; I shallnot want…) Yes, this apostle cries: “we do have the tools to survive—if we choose to employ them.”

And there you go. Meanwhile, Al Gore’s electric meter at home keeps spinning at 40,000 rpms (er, remember that controversy?) Hey you know what im thinking? Maybe Gore actually wrote this when he was in the third grade. I’ll have to check.

The Hasidic Jewish war against scantily clad hipster cyclists

Ahhh, but not so fast, you religious fanatics you…scantily clad hipster cyclists have also decalred war, a secular war, and are now asserting themselves (let’s have three cheers for scantily clad hipster cyclists) by rezoning (via white spray paint) their old bike lanes (which, to use the Hasidic claim,  had “posed a danger to their religiion”). There is no place for religious sensibilities in a public domain; it’s even in the constitution, something to do with that little thing called  seperation of church and street. So remember this: when scantily clad hipster cyclists win we all win. Here.

BOA (just like the snake)

“There was something inherently evil about my job.”

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Related: About time–”Five House Democrats will call this week for a return to a Depression-era law that separated Wall Street investment banking from Main Street commercial banking.” Here.

Where’s Lincoln when you need him?

Slave sold on street–in London, England (yes, the Old Country). Female. Young. Good body. Going… going……..gone: $6000. Go here if you don’t believe me.

A Dawkins/McEwan interview

This is an uncut version of a Brit Chan. 4 interview with McEwan by Richard Dawkins.

I first came across Ian McEwan about ten years ago when I read his novel The Cement Garden.

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Dawkins Youtube channel.

Dawkins main site.

Dawkins Amazon page

Ian McEwan webpage

McEwan’s Amazon page

The Copenhagen Summit: the ugly, the bad, and the good

The ugly –Christmas trees banned at Summit.

The bad –Obama to ignore Climategate while at Summit.

And the good –Danish sex workers will offer free Summit sex.

Lone woman faces mid-East brigands (but that was in the 1840s)

From a rather erudite blog about books, though this entry is from 2004: “…On another occasion, Lady H was with some other members of a tribe and was told… that if she was found in their company, the whole group would be killed by a rival tribe. Lady H immediately broke apart from her companions, and set off across the desert alone. Sure enough, she was soon being chased by a large band of brigands. Recognising that she could not escape, Lady H turned to face them, and with a roar of defiance yelled out, ‘Avaunt!’ [meaning] ‘Go away!’ Or ‘To hell with the lot of you!’ Or perhaps something even ruder. The band of brigands was so impressed by this display of courage that they decided not to kill her after all, and roared their approval in reply, firing their weapons into the sky instead of at her…” Here (article refers to an early nineteenth century book–still in print in various editions (inc. the Kindle)– by Alexander Kinglake, Eothen, which happened to be a favorite of  Winston Churchill).

Context: what does a urinal say about art?

“…What happens if you place in an art gallery an object from the “real” world? A urinal, say. Whereas Marcel Duchamp used hisFountain to question the nature of art and the spaces in which it is shown, the Serpentine’s exhibition asks the other obvious question: what happens to the urinal — or some other piece of everyday matter that we barely glance at — when you remove it from the “real” world and place it on a pedestal?…” Here. Ah, very interesting concept. But don’t forget you can also create the same effect by removing something from the real world to another part of the real world, say putting a urinal in the kitchen. Context is everything.

Question of the day (with some short answers)

Why are only Western countries held to a multicultural standard?

Example: “…In Bhutan, the [Islamic] king is applauded because he allows only a certain number of foreigners into the country. He prescribes a certain dress code and mandatory cultural events. Bhutan is a small country that wants to retain its cultural identity in a globalized world. Austria is also a small country with similar challenges. Why is the one country commended and the other berated?” Here.

Short answer: The true goal of multiculturalism is to destroy the West.

Why?

Short answers:

a) Multiculturalists are guided by a racial/ethnic/cultural view that Western culture is too dominant and makes other cultures look inadequate. Multiculturalists harbor deep racist views, and the only way to redeem their guilt-ridden conscience is to destroy its foundation.

b) Western societies, they relaize, can never be destroyed from without; they must be gradually blunted and destroyed from within through mass immigration and political correctness.

c) Cultural egalitaianism: The remnant of Western civilization–laws, religions, science, freedoms–will be reduced to merely another cultural piece of the whole. But even as a remnant it will be less than the other parts.

“Slaughter slaughter by a knoxy daughter”

Rushed today. Condensed text block ahead (see the Sun): Goody squeaker devoted daughter dark fantasies of–rape  fear of AIDS (so many lovers didn’t pull out in time) knoxy knoxy quite contrary killed a girl who wasn’t as scary perfect knoxy performed [sexy?]cartwheels and handstands in the street after murder then kissed boyfiend  [sic] and stuck her tongue out at him French style no doubt loved that machine gun (smiling) ‘You have to show it to them. Trust me’”  (As in murder no doubt) and lied to her mum…….

Note: new descriptive words and phrases from knoxy now possible: inknoxiated… knoxed up…  knox syndrome… committed a knoxy…thrill of the knox…death by knoxy… knox of a crime…………

Update: more knoxy text block coming in as we speak… dreamed we were married …I was leading the tournament [I figure symbol here with horse-race context "best of the runners" ]…I came home…excited to see you  in the bedroom getting fucked by Derek [Jeeter--that's Jeeter as in Jeeter with a peter] and David [Boreanaz]. Some part of me thinks you would like that… I can’t get back to sleep…My body is tired, but my mind is awake. Need an Ambien…” ———–Wait, my mistake, that wasn’t Foxy Knoxy text block stuff… it was Tiger–doin’ it in the–Woods with Jeeter’s peter yeah yeah squeaky cleany Golfer had a dreamee in an  emailee and wasn’t even leery.

The old rules…

I’m sure you’ve witnessed your fellow Americans in restaurants being their true piggish selves. You’ve also of course  witnessed your own family members eating like slobs. I remember as a kid eating with my great-grandfather at our dining room table; maybe it was senility setting in but he used to undo his belt as he rose,  head towards the bathroom and before he got a quarter of the way to the door he’d already have his pants down.

Maybe we should step back in history and take heed of the early medieval books having to to do with proper manners (nobody lived long enough to become senile). A 15th century French etiquette book, Obeying Table-Manners, referenced in Richard Zacks’s “An Underground Education”,  admonishes the eater to “not blow your nose with the same hand you use to hold the meat.” He also quotes another manners book of the time, which advises, “If any snot falls to the ground, quickly smear it over with your shoe.”

The Renaissance also stressed good table manners with etiquette manuals, advising us, for example, considering that people used their fingers to eat with (using only three fingers was considered well-mannered; forked utensils were considered the devil’s pitchfork),  to not touch your hair or put a finger in our nose or ear when tearing off morsels of food, and especially not to touch one’s crotch (or rather, one’s bulging codpiece).

Zacks’s also quotes Giovanni Della Casa (circa 1550), who educates one to not wipe your nose on your handkerchief at the table and then spread it open and “peer into it as if pearls or rubies might have fallen out of your head.”

There were rules about farting too. Very sensible bottom line : though holding in wind can damage your innards, and therefore  is not advised, at least hide them with other, less offensive noises, like bouts of coughing. Another scholar, the famous Erasmus,  advises an even more delicate approach to table “wind” manners, “Do not move back and forth on your chair: whoever does that gives the impression of constantly farting or trying to fart.”

And people dare call that period of history the dark ages.

Memory, speak

“…[Mr. HM] consented years ago to donate his brain for study, and last February Dr. Jacopo Annese, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of California, San Diego, traveled across the country and flew back with the brain seated next to him on Jet Blue…”

Returnees…

Cynicism rears its ugly beautiful head… “…[How far] I had sunk in my cynicism!… Tragically, over time, I became infected with the belief that our foreign, undeclared wars and endless militarism were destroying America, and this made rolling the dice again extremely difficult…”

Now for the beautifully cynical part:

“May I have your attention, please,” she announced, “these soldiers and sailors are returning from Iraq. Please be so kind and welcome them home.” Every man, woman and child in the terminal faced us and offered thunderous applause. I felt punched in the gut. The utter reverence was more than my indifference could bear. It had served me so well throughout my deployment. I’d been playing a part — pretending to be a herald of democracy and pretending the scores of millions of reconstruction dollars I personally helped manage were anything other than a bribe from an Army that pretended Afghanistan was a threat to the United States and for a government pretending it could afford its vast military empire. I didn’t know know the terminal was full of actors as well. It broke my heart. My face grew hot.

The above article is from the “N.Y. Times” here.

U.S. middle class turning a whiter shade of pale

“…Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can’t make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street…” Here.

Bits and pieces

The smallest jihadists. We’re talking small (as in…well, small)

Just when I was looking forward someday to human/robot sex I come across the “uncanny valley” hypothesis.

The Dog Whisperer now whispering to unruly kids.

Muslim group  says: “The burka has absolutely no place in Canada…In Canada we recognize the equality of men and women. We want to recognize gender equality as an absolute. The burka marginalizes women.” Tell that to the Multiculturalists.

Attention, freaky Wal-Mart shoppers: Cleanup in aisle 5.

Yes, Rush Limbaugh does sound  like an idiot. You see, he says, health care is like a house…

Oh, yes, Fed Bank Bernanke really is a scumbag: You see, senator, “Congress has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare”. That way we can funnel more dough into Wall Street banks.

New teenage gang hatches in Merry Ol’ Multicultural England. It’s not Robin Hood exactly. It’s the Bang Bang Taliban kids: Muslim youths that dream of becoming suicide bombers.  Hence the Bang Bang.

It’s now official (at least in Canada):  Picking your nose while driving is more dangerous than using a mobile phone at the wheel. (Not mentioned in the article but keep in mind that sexual intercourse with a blowup doll while driving is even more dangerous than picking your nose) .

Train gender wars–Japan style

”…I also noticed that you had only female train carriages in the morning in Tokyo and at first, being rather naïve, I believed that this was for a decent reason. Sadly no, it was because of “chican” (men who like to grope women on trains) and given the amount of love hotels all over Japan it did appear to make some sense.  More alarming, you even have magazines and websites about how to grope women on trains without being caught and a new phase is starting whereby a group of men work collectively to touch females and abuse them. This of course does not mean that all Japanese men are hentai (perverts) but clearly you do have a problem in Tokyo and the Saikyo Line is famous for this problem…” Here.

Train [and bus] groping has evidently been going on for a long time now. In fact, there’s a “simulated train” cafe that opened in 2006 specifically for Japanese men to grope women . It’s like forty or fifty bucks to get in and do all the groping you want.

Goldman Sachs armed [and considered dangerous]!

” ‘ I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing [and therefore lying] to the “good character” [quotes added] of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. [a criminal organization] banker  who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to–”

Yes, another hot body wrecked by shitty scribblings

How to ruin a beautiful body. Looks like some creeping vine disease. This particular story is here.

(Past post on the subject: Heavy Ink Syndrome)

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Related: When good hinies go bad: I don’t think tatoo ink can kill but enhanced buttocks can. So if you’re thinking  of going the bigger better firmer rounder lustier more magnificent more incredible jello shaking buttocks route (gluteoplasty) take a little time to think of the poor and the late Miss Argentina.

Did the corrupt and inept Bush administration intentionally let bin Laden slip away?

Ever since the confused debacle in Tora Bora I thought this was the case. There’s no concrete proof but the circumstances point toward the truth.