Randal's Rambles

Second Amendment Remedies

2011-01-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

I've heard a lot over the last week about the shootings in Arizona. Fox claims the shooter was a leftist, MSNBC that he was a brainwashed right-winger. Some say that we need to use this as an opportunity to tone our political rhetoric down, some to say that free speech is more important in the aftermath of this shooting than ever.

The thing that really pisses me off, though, is when I hear someone say that political rhetoric on BOTH sides is EQUALLY responsible for extremist behavior like this.

I'm sorry (not really) but that is utter bullshit.

Last year, the media made such a huge deal out of a comment by a politician in a neighboring state to Arizona, and now we seem to have forgotten it utterly. And the connection between this person's comments and the recent shootings is DIRECT. And yes, this politician was not only a republican, but a person that I consider a right-wing extremist.

Last year, during her run against Harry Reid, Sharron Angle said "You know, our founding fathers, they put that second amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government." Then she talked about Jefferson's comment about having a revolution every twenty years, and said "… if this Congress keeps going the way that it is, people are really looking forward to those second amendment remedies…"

Let's be utterly clear here.

First off, the second amendment, the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, was put into place for SEVERAL reasons. Yes, one was to protect themselves against government incursion into their lives. Another was because the founders didn't want us to have a standing army, for fear that an army would RESULT in government tyranny. Instead, they wanted every adult male to stand in a state militia, and have their own guns to defend their state and their home. So why aren't nut jobs like Angle arguing that we need to dismantle the army and go back to state militias in order to prevent governmental tyranny? Also, we have to remember that when the right to bear arms was ratified in 1791, we had to protect ourselves not only from a theoretical tyrannical government, but from very real marauders, Indians and bears. There were also no easily accessible grocery stores. If you wanted meat, you had to kill it.

Secondly, armed insurrection is NEVER the answer. What results is worse tyranny than that which the insurrectionists are trying to overthrow. It is the strong bullying the weak at gun point.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Reading List 2010

2011-01-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested, here's my reading list for the year just passed. I read or listened to a total of 48 books this year, all of them first time reads. 30 of them were non-fiction, 18 fiction.

The End of Food
My War
Last Night In Twisted River
Shock Doctrine
Shutter Island
South of Broad
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Consipiracies
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
God's Problem
Mere Christianity
I Killed
Man's Search for Meaning
The Problem of Pain
The Conscience of a Liberal
Reconcilliation
American Conspiricies
Jesus, Interrupted
Freethinkers
The N Word
The Lovely Bones
Pygmy
Comeback America
Wingnuts
Tales for a Stormy Night
How To Win A Fight With A Conservative
Idiot America
Storm Prey
Failures of the Presidents
The Gun Seller
Dead Until Dark
The Burning Wire
Game Change
Just How Stupid Are We?
Dirty Sexy Politics
When Religion Becomes Evil
Dexter Is Delicious
Earth: The Book
Living Dead in Dallas
Packing for Mars
Full Dark, No Stars
The End of the Free Market
Homer's Odyssey
The Bible According to Mark Twain
The Hunger Games
Damage Control: How to Stop Making Jesus Look Bad
Holiday Classics
The Reason for Christmas
The Confession

I Am No Longer Non-Partisan

2010-12-18T20:57:00.001-08:00

When I registered to vote, I registered as an independent. I think that this was largely because my parents were independent. Looking back on it, I consider myself a liberal republican. For most of my adult life, I have considered myself an utterly non-partisan independent.

This has changed.

With the blockage of the health care bill for 9/11 first providers, the republicans have gone from being a good party to being a bought-and-paid for party to being an EVIL party.

They blocked this health care bill simply to muscle through the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Even if they pass this when they come back into session, it will be too late. People will suffer because of their blockage of this bill. People will crumble financially because of their blockage of this bill. People will DIE because of their blockage of this bill.

I will never again support the republican party or a republican candidate until I start hearing some sincere repentance for this, and I urge all of my brothers and sisters of conscience to do the same.

The republican party should be ashamed of itself. Republican politicians should be ashamed of themselves for associating with this diseased party. Anyone who voted republican in the last election should be ashamed of themselves for voting for this diseased party.

I usually end these things with "peace", but I… I just CAN'T this time. Republican candidates have been using 9/11 to scare people into voting for them since 2002… George W. Bush even used images from the 9/11 attacks in his 2004 reelection ads. This is pathetic enough. But now that they had the opportunity to do something positive for 9/11, they refused so that they could enrich themselves and their rich rat-bastard friends.

It's time to kill the American republican party until it gets it's head out of Phil Knight's ass.

Randal

The More Things Change....

2010-11-29T07:13:00.001-08:00

Found myself in a conversation yesterday with a woman about a garment made in Mexico. Her comment was that maybe that would keep THEM there instead of coming here. (THEM, presumably, being Mexicans.) My first problem with this is that if we don't figure out that there is no THEM, but only US, and right quick, our world is going to become a more unpleasant place to live pretty damned soon.

I told her that since my father's people had immigrated here that I couldn't say that immigration is a bad thing. She responded that America NEEDED immigrants when my father's people came here.

I hate to burst her bubble, and yours if you believe that, but there has ALWAYS been an anti-immigration sentiment in the US. At least, let's say, since the time of the founding fathers. What changes is the group that is suffering the bias. For instance, at the time of the founding fathers, it was Eastern Europeans and Germans that Americans wanted to keep out. This can also be read as "Jews". Up until probably fifty or seventy-five years ago, if you said that someone was a "Russian" or "Polish", what you meant was "Jewish".

What really pissed her off, though, was my observation that, when my father's people came here a century and a half or so, the bias was against the Irish. Anti-Irish laws, similar to later Jim Crow laws, or the anti-Mexican law that Arizona tried to pass recently, were being passed in several cities. This was during "Black 47". I don't know if you know this or not, but Ireland is actually the only country in the world whose population has decreased. This is because the British were forcing the Irish to ship out all of the food that they grew to England except for the potatoes, which the English hadn't really developed a taste for at that time. So the Irish had potatoes and a few scraps of other foods. In 1847 (Black 47), a blight attacked the potato crop, wiping out more than 75% of the Irish potato crop. This is what we now incorrectly call the "Potato Famine". As a result, a huge percent of Ireland's population left the country, many of them coming to America.

And again, the backlash against the Irish was largely religious. Many of the Irish who came to America were both poor and Catholic, and so the good Protestant Americans didn't want the "Shanty Papist Irish" here.

She coldly responded that SHE was Irish and stalked off. So the truth is that 150 years ago, her ancestors were in the same position that the Mexicans are now, and I think that didn't sit very well with her.

Think about it.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

It's Still Wrong...

2010-11-27T16:17:00.001-08:00

It really bothers me that not doing anything wrong has become associated with not getting caught in America today. With all of the talk since the Clinton administration about America's "morals" it really bothers me that we've lost our moral center so badly that we've turned into a nation of Bart Simpsons. "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything."

Wrong… is STILL wrong. Regardless if anyone saw you doing it. It's still wrong. What the hell ever happened to doing right simply BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT?

I write this, because I saw a film clip the other day of Kathy Lee Gifford when she "discovered" (yeah… right…) that her branded line of clothes at K-mart was being manufactured by children in Chinese sweatshops for pennies a day. The nation was outraged… so she was sorry. Boo fucking hoo. It is my belief that she was NOT sorry that children were being enslaved to line her pockets…. I'm pretty sure that she KNEW about that and was okay with it. It is my belief that she is sorry that she GOT CAUGHT.

And now, think about us. Think about the buying American public. We were collectively outraged that Kathy Lee Gifford's clothes were being made by child slaves. How dare they. You can't buy Kathy Lee Gifford clothes anymore, because that wicked witch was profiting from the enslavement of children.

So why do we tolerate all of the other junk that's made by Chinese slave children? BECAUSE THE COMPANIES HAVEN'T GOTTEN CAUGHT. We willingly close our eyes to this so that we can have our cheap shit. Which means, as near as I can tell, that we are economically willing to smilingly slit our own throats en masse to insure that a few Americans remain very, very rich while the rest of us struggle to get paycheck to paycheck and live off the sweat of enslaved Chinese children.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

DVD Review: Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam

2010-11-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

I was REALLY looking forward to this DVD. I mean REALLY. Like I'm looking forward to Harry Potter and Green Lantern really.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I was finally able to watch this train wreck.

Let me start by talking about Captain Marvel. (And yes - the hero's name is Captain Marvel - NOT Shazam.) Cap first appeared in Fawcett Publications "Whiz Comics # 2" in February, 1940. In 1953, DC forced Fawcett to stop publishing Captain Marvel, claiming that it was a copyright infringement - they claimed that the character was an infringement of Superman. Personally, I think that has always been a miscarriage of justice, because aside from some surface and power similarities, the two characters are almost nothing alike. In 1972, DC was able to gain the rights to the Marvel family, and has tried several times to revive them, including the unfortunate way that most people know Captain Marvel - from the campy, 1970's TV series.

DC Showcase was a (now-defunct) comic book series that DC used to spotlight new and minor characters starting in 1956. Probably best known for introducing the most famous incarnation of The Flash in issue # 4 and ushering in the "silver age" of comics, the title was cancelled in 1970, and then enjoyed another brief run from 1977 to 1978. DC is now reviving this as a series of shorts on their DVD's. Each episode focuses on one DC hero (except for this one which features both Cap and Superman). Each is around 20 minutes long, about the same length as any given episode of one of their animated series. The first four have focused on Jonah Hex, Green Arrow, The Specter and now Cap and Superman. All four of these are featured on this DVD.

I have always been a DC guy. Batman and Superman are my boys. Lately, Captain Marvel has joined them as they have allowed the character to become a little darker and more complex. Let's just say that this short DOESN'T highlight the new depth for the character, although he's not quite as goofy as he was in the 1970's TV show.

One terrific thing that DC is doing with all of its animated features on DVD is to include selected episodes from their TV series that are related in some way to the feature. This one includes an episode from the Batman animated series featuring Jonah Hex, an episode from Batman: The Brave and the Bold featuring The Specter, and two episodes of Justice League Unlimited focusing on Green Arrow and Captain Marvel. (The last of these, by the way, is a vastly superior Superman/Cap story to the feature.)

THE GOOD: Seeing Black Adam. Adam is a rich, complex character who was used to terrific effect in the DC comics miniseries 52. This series featured a year without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. The series focused about equally on Booster Gold, The Question and Black Adam.

Adam is another to whom the wizard Shazam gave the powers of the gods to be protector of the Earth. The powers went to his head, however, and he decided that rather than just be ruler of his little nation of Khandak, he should be ruler of the world. Because of this, Shazam sent him to the far side of the galaxy, from which it took Adam five thousand years to return to Earth. For some reason that I've never been able to figure out, the artists always show him with pointed ears like Spock.

My one real problem with the way that the character is portrayed here is that several times he is seen standing on the ground, which Adam, in his arrogance, never does. He's always shown flying or hovering a few inches above the ground.

THE BAD: The story. It sucks. It's basically Superman and Captain Marvel beating the crap out of Black Adam for twenty minutes. Also, the physics are wonky, but I'm used to that in superhero films. About the only one to get them even half-right was Hancock.

THE UGLY: The animation in this short isn't great, but the biggest problem is Fawcett city. It's empty. In the aerial shots of the city, there are no cars and no pedestrians. Aside from some empty cars that Black Adam chucks at Captain Marvel, we don't see a car until about 3/4 of the way through the film.

Also, I wish that they hadn't revived Talky Tawney, Captain Marvel's talking tiger sidekick. At least they had the good taste to simply call him "Tawney" and have him be a REAL tiger instead of walking on two legs and wearing clothes.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Election Post-Mortem

2010-11-12T08:14:00.001-08:00

Okay, so we gave the republicans the wheel back. So where do we go from here?

I've got to tell you quite honestly, I don't really give that much of a crap about which party is in control. I think that they're both corrupt… with the dems maybe having proven themselves slightly less corrupted than the republicans.

I do have to tell you, though… anyone who think that putting the republicans in power is going to do anything about our budget mess is in for a somewhat rude awakening. We've been sinking between one and one and a quarter trillion dollars in the hole since 2003, and I'll bet my whole allowance that it'll continue for the next two years. Especially since it seems almost a given that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans will continue unabated. You know why I say that the debt problem will continue? Because we haven't done anything to address the core issues. We blindly replaced one party with the other without bothering to think about WHY we're digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole, let alone trying to fix it. In this respect, Americans kind of remind me of Alaskans. Alaskans get this thing called a "Permanent Fund Dividend Check". Every Alaskan gets one based on the state's oil revenue. You know… Sarah Palin took credit for it, even though it's been going on since she and I were trying to figure out high school (her in Wasilla, me in Chugiak just up the street). After we had received these checks for several years, Alaska (which has no income tax) found itself in something of a budget crunch. So two proposals went before the Alaska legislature: kill the Permanent Fund Dividend, or institute an income tax. One of the local news agencies did a man-on-the-street type segment on this, and the answer of one woman really stuck with me. She said "I don't really want an income tax… but I don't really want to lose my Permanent Fund check either." No. She just wants things to get better all by themselves.

I'm not even saying that things are that bad nationally. We just have to be more involved in what our government is doing to help cut the fat. Giving the president a line-item veto or eliminating earmarks altogether would be good. Calling our troops home from Germany, Japan and Korea and closing the bases in those countries would help. Legalizing and taxing pot. Not only would that give us additional revenue, but how much would that save us in incarceration costs? Instituting all of John Boehner's Social Security reforms (except privatization) would help.

I do have a fear with the republicans back in power, though. I am afraid that we're going to return to the late nineties. You remember the late nineties? When the republicans spent 700 million of our money persecuting the president for no reason and to no end? I think that's going to happen again.

Why?

Because Darrell Issa, whom I usually like, said that he wants to see a hearing every day on the actions of the Obama administration. How much is THAT going to cost? And lets face it, you may not like what Obama's done, but, just like President Clinton, he hasn't committed an impeachable offense.

And Mitch McConnell, speaking to the Heritage Foundation, said that he wanted the republican's primary focus over the next two years to be to insure that the president doesn't have a second term.

Really, folks. Honest to God. Don't we have more important things to worry about right now?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Veteran's Day 2010

2010-11-11T08:02:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or do people intentionally misunderstand each other simply for the purpose of being pissed off about something?

I saw a cake yesterday that said "Happy Veterans Day!" and asked the person buying the cake if it wouldn't be better to honor veterans EVERY day, instead of picking one day out of the year that most people really don't give much of a crap about. She got all huffed off, of course. I mean, what fun would life be if you couldn't be someone's victim? But let's face it… to most Americans that work in places that are closed on federal holidays, it's an extra day off… to most of the rest of America, it's a day without mail.

Veteran's Day is, to me, like Valentine's day. It's a day that we pick out of the year to treat an important person as if they really WERE important, so that we don't have to be bothered with it through the rest of the year. Like with Valentine's day… if you don't treat your lover like that all year, then you don't really deserve them.

So I wanted to take a look at Veteran's day, starting with this idiotic "Happy Veteran's Day!" cake. Way to reduce national service to a greeting card sentiment. A lot of vets that I know AREN'T happy, and there are reasons for that. We generally don't treat them very well. Of course, that's one of the reasons for "Happy Veteran's Day!" So that we don't have to address the very serious problems with the ways that we treat our vets. Kind of like the Bush administration shrilling "SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" every time that they opened their mouths, while at the same time cutting veteran health care at every turn, throwing them into a pointless, unnecessary war and significantly undersupplying them in the field.

That's another problem that I have with this… using our veterans and service people as a shield to cover the wrong-doings of the previous administration. Questioning the war or questioning Bush's motivation was equated with questioning or not supporting the troops. This went to the point where, when Viet Nam Veterans for Peace was formed, right-wing mouthpiece and Bush apologist Rush Limbaugh referred to the vets in the organization as "phony" vets. (For the record, Mr. Limbaugh did not serve. He was listed 4-F because of a "pilonidal cyst"… a cyst on his ass.)

Also, for the record, I did not serve in the military. I was in R. O. T. C. for four years and then denied military service for health issues. When I tried to join, the military doctor listened to my heart four separate times (everyone else only once). He finally denied me service, claiming it was because I sometimes walked in my sleep as a child. Years later, a sonogram was done on my heart revealing a leaking ventricle. I realized then that the military doctor had heard something that he didn't like in my heart, but didn't have the proper tools at his disposal to diagnose it.

Also in the interest of full discosure, here is my family's military pedigree, as far as I know…

My grandfather was in the Pacific with the Navy in WWII.

An uncle was in Korea.

My father was in the Air Force between Korea and Viet Nam. He was in Bermuda during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Two uncles were in Viet Nam, one didn't return. (Another uncle, who is a gung-ho Bush and Iraq war supporter, didn't serve. Why does this seem to be such a common thread?)

My older brother was in the Army.

A nephew was stationed in Kuwait during the current Iraq operation.

I, as a said, was in Naval R. O. T. C. for four years and then denied military service.

Support the troops, people. Yeah, they're not all heroes. They're not even all worthwhile human beings. Some of them are complete shits. But honor their SERVICE. Honor the fact that they had the guts to join the military, where their lives may have been put in danger, whether they actually WERE or not.

That means don't make them go die for oil. Give them housing and health care. Some areas give vets tax exemptions. What a great idea. Instead of giving tax cuts to men and women who inherited wealth, how about we give them to the men and women who served their country instead?

And most importantly, if you meet someone who served, shake their hand and thank them for their service. Regardless of how you feel about any particular campaign that the government threw them in to, let them know how much you appreciate the fact that they served and protected you.

Let EVERY day be Veteran's day.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Democrats are Going to Lose

2010-10-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing it. From the democrats, from the republicans, from Faux news, The Daily Show and Real Time With Bill Maher.

Why? Why are the democrats going to lose?

Personally, I think that they stand a pretty good chance, especially in areas where crazies are on the republican ticket, like Delaware. I think that sane republican voters are either going to have to go democrat or go home.

And I'm not saying this out of any great love of the democrats. They've proven over the last two years what craven pussies they are when it comes to pushing their agenda. And the way that they're backing away from the few good things that they've managed to do over the last two years in order to pander to crazy voters really bothers me.

But.

Because Americans are so brainwashed into thinking that they have let a political party do their thinking for them, the so-called "third party movement" (there are really about a hundred political parties in the US) is, at the moment, dead in the water. So really, as much as I hate to say it, it really does come down to a "lesser of two evils" situation.

But you've really gotta admire the audacity of what the fuck that the republicans are pulling. With ad campaigns like "What? You guys haven't managed to fix in less than two years what it took us six to eight years to fuck up? Let us back in. After all, we broke it… who know better how to fix it?" Hand to God, America, if you put these pinheads back in office, I'm losing what little faith I have in you.

I'm going to the polls Tuesday and, as much as it pains me to admit it, simply voting a straight democratic ticket. I hate to do that, but the republicans have lost their way so badly that I feel I have no other choice. The dems at least TALK a good liberal game, even if they are unable or unwilling to back it up. Not one democrat out there is talking about legalizing pot, legalizing gay marriage, aggressively going after "don't ask, don't tell", or strengthening women's abortion rights.

Oh, and on another note. About the deficit. It has gone up a trillion dollars per year since 2003 roughly. Guess what? Next year it's expected to go up about another trillion dollars. You know why? BECAUSE ONCE YOU START A BOULDER ROLLING, IT'S HARD TO STOP, LET ALONE REVERSE. If we had president Sarah Palin and every seat in both chambers filled with wig-wearing tea party crazies, it would STILL go up about a trillion dollars next year. IT'S GOING TO TAKE TIME TO CHANGE IT! And I hate to get on the bandwagon of "anyone who doesn't support Obama is a racist", but why else are you guys suddenly pissed about this when it's been going on for eight years? The only other reason that I can think of is because he's a democrat and honestly… I'd prefer to think that you're racist. At least THAT requires some individual thought.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Buy My E-Book!

2010-10-28T11:16:00.001-07:00

Probably the most exciting thing in my life right now is that one of my books has been published by Barnes and Noble at www.bn.com as an e-book. It is the first of my young adult novels called "Strange Middle School # 1: The New Kids" and can be purchased here http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940011813344/?itm=60&USRI=new+kids
to be read on your Ipod Touch, Ipad, Android device, e-reader or PC. Hopefully this will help my goal of making my living with my writing.

Peace

Rev. Randal

Movie Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

2010-10-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Let me start this review by saying that i am against remakes and sequels in general. With few exceptions, there are few or no reasons to do this. There are exceptions, such as Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong and Tron: Legacy. With the Jackson film, he had the opportunity to bring the Kong story to life in a way that those of us who grew up loving the original film could only imagine, and with the leaps in computer technology over the last thirty years, a sequel to Tron was inevitable.

So when i heard about a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, a horror film that i love and that legitimately gave me nightmares after the first time that i saw it, i shuddered... and not in a good way. Especially after the terrible remakes of House of Wax and Friday the Thirteenth.

THEN i heard that Jackie Earle Hayley, who played Rorschak to perfection in Watchmen, was going to play Freddy Krueger. I thought that if anyone could pull it off, Hayley could. And did.

THE GOOD: Hayley's performance, to start. He's probably the only actor who could have picked Freddy Krueger up and run with him, given his own performance without consciously or unconsciously aping Robert Englund.

They also stayed amazingly true to the original story. This time around Freddy is a child molester instead of a child murderer, which, if anything, makes the story even creepier. But they were smart enough not to mess with a good thing too much. Some of the lines from the original film ("I'm your boyfriend now...") made it through.

THE BAD: I don't usually use sports metaphors because i don't like sports or watch a lot of them, but i'm going to do it here. Imagine watching a football game where one team was comprised of Peyton Manning and a really good high school football team. That's kind of what it was like watching this. Hayley's performance as Freddy was so above and beyond any of the supporting performances that it overshadowed them. When Freddy's off the screen, you are just dying for him to get back on. Although the kids' performances are okay, you kind of start feeling like they're whining after a while, and honestly can't wait for Freddy to off them.

THE UGLY: Or, really, the potential ugly. The sequels. As the original franchise makers discovered, there's really only so much that you can do with this story. The sequels got progressively worse until the last film of the original franchise, The New Nightmare. In that one, Freddy started killing people on the set of a new Nightmare movie, and he was eight feet tall and scary as hell. If you haven't seen that one, watch it. It's really good. And i fear the same for this franchise. A movie makes a gajillion dollars and sequels are inevitable. I only hope that the filmmakers here are smart enough to do MAYBE two and then end it well, before they are reduced to Freddy doing knock-knock jokes like the first franchise.

Speaking of sequels, the cinematic genius/whore who made the first film, Wes Craven, is in the process of releasing Scream 4. I wonder if they're ever going to get tired of beating money out of that particular dead horse.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Waste

2010-10-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

I think that we can all agree that we want our government to stop wasting money, right? Agreed?

Here's the problem...

What YOU consider waste, I may not consider waste. What I consider waste, YOU may not consider waste.

For instance, when Bill Clinton closed military bases that were redundant or useless, all that i heard from the right was how Clinton was weak on defense. Same refrain when someone talks about taking our troops out of Germany and Korea and Japan. I considered that cutting waste.

When i hear "universal health care for Americans", i hear an idea that will strengthen America. The right wing hears "waste" and "giving to those who won't work" and "welfare".

Look at it another way. Let's say that you hear about a government program that costs 2 million dollars per year, the objective of which is to set a clock in a government office. It gets off by one second per year, and it costs us two million dollars per year to have someone reset that clock by one second per year. Waste, right? Except then you discover that this program provides fifty jobs to your community. Is it still waste?

I think that what we need to do is to depoliticize this idea of waste before we can start cutting it.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

2010 Vacation Day Three: Bozeman, MT to Rapid City, SD

2010-10-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the Rainbow Motel's continental breakfast turned out to be donuts and coffee.

Not a bad little place, all in all. Beds are pretty comfortable, and it's quiet.

On the road again.

Let me tell you a quick something about me and this truck. I am six feet two inches tall and around 200 lbs, depending on what day you weigh me on. Lately I've pretty consistently been between 200 and 205. Mostly legs.

The truck that I rented from budget has a seat that is scooted almost all the way forward and cannot be scooted back, because if you do scoot it back, it runs into the front wall of the cargo unit. The upshot? Cramped legs.

After a couple of hours on the road today, the combination of cramped legs, squinting into the sun for several hours and a long road with no change of scenery or of speed limit or even any CURVES for hours on end started taking its toll and I started nodding off.

I HATE when that happens.

So finally, when I reached a rest stop, I got out and did a couple laps around the truck. This seems to have done the trick, and made the rest of the drive okay.

We made it to Rapid City, SD and got checked into our hotel by about six. Debated going to Wall Drug or one of the monuments tonight, but decided to just eat and rest and do them tomorrow.

My plan is to do that stuff tomorrow, then drive for five or six hours before getting off the road for the night. Then, on Thursday, home after about nine and a half hour's driving time (really ten hours or so on the road).

Our hotel tonight is the Foothills Inn for the amazing price of $39 for one night. Seems pretty nice. They have the standard continental breakfast, but they also gave us coupons for free sausage egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, so that'll be cool.

Tomorrow – Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and possibly Wall Drug.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

2010 Vacation, Day two: Cle Elum, WA to Bozeman, MT via Tokio, Moscow and Amsterdam

2010-10-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Tokio (WA), Moscow (ID) and Amsterdam (MT) that is.

Got up this morning feeling much more well-rested than I went to bed. Since i'm an insomniac, this is not always the case.

Stayed at Stewart Lodge in Cle Elum. Nice, older little motel. Help was friendly, Wifi had a good strong signal. The continental breakfast included donuts, muffins, biscuits, cereal and waffles. They also had coffee, cocoa, tea or two types of juice to choose from.

Had a little trouble finding the entrance to the eastbound freeway (it was about two miles from the westbound freeway), but once we got on the road all was well.

The biggest problem that I had on this journey was discovering how much it's going to cost to keep this beast of a truck rolling. $75 per tank! So today I put $150 in the tank.

Saw the aftermath of an accident in the westbound lanes of the freeway today involving at least three passenger vehicles and a semi. From the looks of one of the vehicles, i'm betting that it was a fatality accident.

Spending the night tonight at the Rainbow Motel in Bozeman. So far, the upside is that it's an old motel with cinder block walls, so no noise penetrates at all. The downsides include a miserably weak wi-fi connection, and a heater that doesn't really so much HEAT as WARM. It's more of a warmer.

Okay, going to bed.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

2010 Vacation, Day One: Fort Smith, AR to Seattle, WA; Seattle, WA to Cle Elum, WA

2010-10-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

So, here's vacation...

Fly from Arkansas to Seatac, drive Budget rent a truck from Seattle to Arkansas via Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. For those who don't know, my dad died from Emphysema last April. My mom has always wanted to see these two things, so I figured that I'd bring her with and she could see them for the first time in her life.

So... my younger brother was bringing me to the airport this morning. We had to be there at ten to five to get our six twenty flight. Problem? Getting up at 3:30. Didn't get to bed until about 11 last night, and then slept badly all night... unfamiliar room, unfamiliar bed and the neighbor's pet WOLF howling on and off all night (I am not kidding).

So, after a good solid two hours or so of sleep, my alarm went off, and I got up more or less bright eyed and kind of bushy tailed. Excited to fly again (first time in nine years), excited to be back in Washington. My kid brother... not so much. He slept until a little after four and still looked like he could use another several hours. I also realized that I had forgotten to write down the address of the rent-a-car place. No prob, I thought. I'll Google them on my cell phone at the airport and get the address.

So we get to the airport, brother drops us off, we go in and I scope out the check-in procedure. Went back to my mom and discovered that she had forgotten the letter from her doc that would allow her to carry medicine and oxygen concentrator on the plane. So my poor, tired bro had to turn around and come back. Fortunately, he hadn't gotten far. He brings it back, obviously anxious to get back to bed.

Check-in goes smoothly, 35 minute flight to Memphis goes smoothly. Guy meets us at the gate at Memphis airport with a wheelchair and takes us straight to the gate for our connecting flight. Check in goes smoothly, flight was... simply amazing, for someone who loves to fly but hates what the government has done to it. We flew so close to Mount Rainier (highest peak in contiguous United States) that it pretty much filled my window.

When I was a kid, and I tried to smile, I would wrinkle up my eyes. Felt like a smile, but apprently didn't LOOK like a smile to anyone else, who would always ask why I never smiled. So I watched other people smile and practiced it in the mirror until I developed one that didn't creep people out. Not too much, anyway. So I smile my good fake smile when I'm happy so people know that I am.

I realized, as I saw Mount Rainier and knew that I was home again... I was smiling for real. And I couldn't stop.

When we got on the ground in Washington, things went a little wonky for a bit.

All was going smoothly until my mom ran out of air when we tried to walk from luggage to the cab stand. It took them about a half an hour to find a wheelchair and someone to push it for us. Then, I found not one but THREE Budget rent-a-trucks in Renton. The telephone numbers for all three turned out to be disconnected. So as we're in the cab on our way to none of us really knew where, I finally got Budget's 800 number and got the address.

Then things went smoothly again. Went to the Costco location that I worked at locally before moving to Missouri, and was heartened by how many people not only remembered me, but expressed warm affection. Got to introduce my mom to some of the guys that love and consider some of my best friends there. My mom got comments ranging from “Randal's a good guy” to my favorite, from my friend Sean, who said “You've raised an interesting man there.” Backatcha, Sean. I miss talking to you. Got a case of water so we don't have to worry about finding any on the road, and Cattle Drive Chili con Carne, which we don't sell in the midwest. Delicious stuff. If your local Costco doesn't carry it, request it. It rocks.

Took my mom past the last apartment that I lived in here to show to her, and then headed for the storage unit. Only took me about 30 minutes to load up the truck, but, I'm sad to say, I lost a treasured possession. About nine years ago my friend Tami gave a neon sculpture of the Space Needle to me. Over the years, and through many moves, I struggled to keep it in one piece and succeeded. Today, as I moved a box, my neon Space Needle crashed to the concrete floor. It will be missed.

So we got on the road, me still feeling full of piss and vinegar. I figured four or five hours on the road and we'd be in Spokane, where we'd spend the night.

That was, of course, until the lack of sleep and long day caught up with me. So as I type this, we are at the Stewart Lodge in Cle Elum, Washington.

Peace.

Rev Randal

Strengthening America

2010-10-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

The right wing gets pissed amazingly off when one of the left-leaning pundits dares to suggest that Americans are dumb. I personally tend to believe that we are not dumb, but rather breathtakingly, staggeringly ignorant and apathetic.

But, by the same token, with each generation being more pampered and privileged than the last, we are becoming intellectually weaker. With that comes in a drop in consideration for others that is amazingly dangerous for us as a society. I'm not proud of the fact that my generation is less intelligent and wise than my parent's generation, but I will admit. And the generation that now rules the world, the young people in their twenties and thirties, is even LESS intelligent and less wise. This is a troubling trend.

Think of it this way... and I don't apply this simply to my children's generation, but to my generation as well. A lot of this applies.

When it comes to food, we want the best and the healthiest and we want to pay as close to nothing as possible for it, and lose weight while we're eating it without doing any exercise.

We want the best schools, the best libraries, the best police force and firefighters and the best military on the planet, and we want it without paying any taxes.

We want to be able to text or talk on our cellphones wherever we want, including while driving, at the library, at the movies, in public restrooms, at restaurants and during sex, without anyone else getting pissed off about it or commenting on our conversation, which has also become (against their will) THEIR conversation.

We want America to be a strong nation, but want to do it without adequately educating our kids or providing food, housing or medical care to the less fortunate among us.

We have to change this trend, brothers and sisters. Mr. Bush, in one of his state of the union addresses, posed the question “Will we end well...?” Personally, I hope that we WON'T end, but we also can't survive and continue in the direction that we're going.

My parents worked hard to insure that I didn't inherit the prejudices that burdened them. I struggled not to pass on any bad attitudes that I had to my kids.

Educate yourselves. Educate your kids. Open your hearts, your minds and your wallets to help strengthen America, politically, physically, intellectually and emotionally.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Book Review: Dirty Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain

2010-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is Meghan McCain's account of what it was to follow her father John on the campaign trail in 2008. The majority of it takes place between the time that Sarah Palin is picked as his running mate and a few days after the election. It's not very dirty. It's also not very sexy.

THE GOOD: I like Meghan McCain, and, up until Karl Rove stole her father's brain in 2008, I liked him. I realize that, as a liberal, I'm not supposed to admit to liking conservatives, but I do. (For the record, I also like Ben Stein and P J O'Rourke.) I like to watch her interviews. I think that she's intelligent, forthright and cute as a bug. Not to mention a little sexy.

She also takes the republican party to task for its changes. Here are a couple of quotes from late in the book, when she addresses the changes in the party of both she and her father.

“The bedrock of the republican party is freedom of the individual. Not groupthink. Not hatred. Not moral codes that we are supposed to live up to.”

She talks about the republican party's belief that each individual should be able to decide for themselves. Not, as she puts it, “... not their party, not their government, not a religious movement or an angry radio host.”

On the last page of the book, she says “... when a political party starts to put itself in a box, it's not a box... it's a coffin.”

THE BAD: I like Meghan McCain, but she doesn't use the tools of the writer's trade very well. Her sentence structure is sometimes odd, and her turns of phrase are sometimes off.

Her biggest struggle seems to be with commas. God knows I have my own issues with commas, but can usually overcome them with a careful edit. Meghan seems to have aimed a fully-loaded comma gun at her book and pulled the trigger. So you wind up with sentences like “Just seeing him, like that, made me cry”, or “He is a grill master, and loves feeding people”.

I would recommend to Meghan that she either take a little more care with her tools if she rights another book, or pay a professional editor to do it for her. I enjoyed her book, but found it a little frustrating to read for this reason.

THE UGLY: I like Meghan McCain, but she seems to (perhaps understandably) be incapable of viewing her father as a man, rather than an icon. She points out how narrow the republican party has become without acknowledging the narrow stances that her father took in 2008 in order to gain their support. She talks about how badly Sarah Palin disrupted things, but refuses to give her father any blame for Palin's presence or for allowing her to take center stage from the time she joined the race onward.

I like you, Meghan. But your dad fucked things up in 2008. As Arianna Huffington put it during the presidential race, “We all have to come to the realization that the John McCain that we all loved in 2000 is dead.” Your dad SHOULD have been the republican nominee in 2000. Were he, I would have voted for him, he would have become president and, I think, the world would be a better place. Especially our little corner of it, America. If he had stuck by his moderate roots in 2008, been the same candidate that he was in 2000, instead of taking that weird, disturbing lurch to the right, had picked a moderate running mate, I think that he would have given Barack Obama a run for his money.

Sadly, he didn't.

Overall, I recommend the book. It's an easy, short read (less than 200 pages) and a lot of fun. Hopefully, republicans will read this book and return to its traditional values of individual freedom and limited government before it lets the narrowness of the religious right and tea party movement tear it apart.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Negative Campaigning and Attacks

2010-09-29T09:40:00.001-07:00

With yet another election upon us, I wanted to take a second to talk about negative campaigning.

In the 2008 presidential election, my mom said that one of the reasons that she didn't like either McCain or Obama was because they both used negative campaigning against their opponents. I was never clear on what she meant, and she was never able to articulate it beyond a “feeling” that Obama was going negative.

I think, in reviewing campaign ads and such, that I've figured out what she's interpreting as negative.

Obama did run ads saying that John McCain wanted to keep us in Iraq for a hundred years. He also ran ads saying that McCain was endorsed by Bush and voted with Bush 80% of the time.

These are not negative, although someone who dislikes Bush like my mom does would probably view them as such. These are simply making McCain run on his record.

When McCain called Obama a socialist, or questioned his birth in Hawaii... THIS is negative advertising.

Personally, I like an ad that's being run locally by one of our democratic senators seeking reelection. She's using a largely unedited piece from Faux News of all places, to show that her opponent takes money from lobbyists and was called (I think it was) the “Bail-out king” during the Bush bail-outs. Again, not negative advertising, just using his own honest record against him.

I'm also hearing a lot of noise from the right about how the media is “smearing” Christine O'Donnell, making her look stupid. You know how they're doing this? BY USING HER OWN WORDS. If you said it on the record then yes, it's going to come back to haunt you. If you say that masturbation equals adultery, but admit to “dabbling” in Satanism, then yes, that can be held against you. If you are campaigning for high office in a country that already has a SERIOUS science deficit, and are on the record saying that if evolution is true, you can't figure out why MONKEYS AREN'T STILL EVOLVING INTO HUMANS, that can be held against you.

(For the record... monkeys NEVER evolved “into” humans. Humans and monkeys share common ancestors. Also, you cannot observe this type of evolution. It takes at least thousands of years. We can observe the evolution of certain types of plants, viruses and animals because they have a much shorter life span than human beings, so we can see generations of these things. Including, but not limited to, the repeated evolution of the flu virus so that it can continue kicking our asses.)

Also, I just finished watching last week's episode of Bill Maher. Usually, he tries to have one liberal, one conservative, and one moderate. For some reason, last week he had one liberal and two conservatives. They repeatedly attacked the health care initiative and several other things, and he just sat there and took it like a bullied little girl, except for the occasional “that must be bullshit”. All that I can figure is that he must be sick or something because he's usually a fighter. So, for the record, let me fight back on his behalf.

To begin with, several weeks ago, he agreed to stop using the term “tea-baggers” and started using the more respectful “members of the tea party movement” or “tea partiers”. And yet, he just sat there while the conservatives referred to the health care initiative as “Obamacare”, without demanding the same respect.

Also, one of the conservatives brought up the case of one town hall meeting where a right-winger was physically assaulted. You know what? There are bad apples in every group. What about the video that shows a guy with MS in a wheelchair who supported the health care bill getting the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of right-wingers?

They also kept talking about supporters of the health care bill “shutting down” debate about the health care initiative. What about the right-wingers who CONSISTANTLY shut down town hall meetings by insisting on talking about non-existent “death panels”? Or by accusing Barney Frank and Obama of supporting “nazi” policies? I'm not going to say that it DIDN'T happen, only that this is a little like the pot calling the kettle a pot.

They also fell back on Faux news polls that show that seventy percent of “Americans” oppose health care. Funny how, when they were confronted with polls that showed that seventy percent of “Americans” opposed the mess in Iraq, their comment was that “polls don't matter”. Isn't it funny that when there's a republican president polls don't matter, but when there's a democratic president they suddenly do?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Capitalism - Problems and Praise

2010-09-26T17:08:00.001-07:00

I think that anyone who thinks that unfettered capitalism is a good thing has a very short memory and/or knowledge of history.

NO unfettered financial system works. We saw Russia fall to unfettered communism fifteen years ago, and now we're seeing America fall to unfettered capitalism.

You see, up until about 1980, capitalism was good for both American business and the American people. It worked well. The American dream was alive and well, people could make a living, even if one of them decided to be a house-spouse, and people got rich. Of course, at the time, “millionaire” was still something to brag about.

And yes... we had regulation.

Up until the first twenty years of this century, we tried our first experiment with unfettered capitalism, and it failed miserably for everyone but a few. We had child labor, sweatshops and unsafe working conditions. A few people got very, very rich and everyone else was plunged into a depression.

Over the years between the twenties and the mid seventies, we started seeing the government regulate business. Child labor laws, health and safety regulations, reasonable working hours and overtime laws. Under President Nixon, we saw anti-pollution laws enacted to protect the environment from corporate robber-barons. Under Ford and Carter, we saw a slew of anti-monopoly laws that broke up, among many others, A T & T, who we called “ma bell”. It was the only phone service available, so they could basically charge anything that they wanted.

For the men that valued money above all else, these was apparently the last straws.

Some believe that the election of Ronald Reagan was engineered by big business. I won't say one way or the other, because I don't know. But I will say that big business profited from the Reagan years while almost no one else did. They started overturning the anti-monopoly laws and the environmental laws. Because Joe Lunchbox had little real knowledge of these things, and couldn't see an immediate effect on THEM, there was no uproar. When they tried to change the labor laws that DID effect these people directly, there WAS an uproar, and the labor laws were barely scratched. So instead, behind our backs, laws were passed that made it profitable for companies to outsource jobs more than they ever had before.

Since then, we have seen one corporate-sponsored president after another trample our economy like Godzilla did Tokyo. In less than thirty years, we watched the results of this capitalism Godzilla completely destroy everything that we had built over the previous fifty.

Don't get me wrong on any of this. I'm not a communist and don't have more than a little leaning toward socialism. Again, just like capitalism, it really only works if it is tightly regulated and allows people to make money.

I like money. I have two books that I'm shopping around to agents right now and I hope that they sell and sell well, so that I can quit my day job and still live comfortably. Part of what I want to do with that money is buy apartment complexes and start some manufacturing businesses that will employ Americans fairly, so that they have THEIR shot at resurrecting the American dream. And yes, I will want a fair profit from these.

But that's part of the problem in modern-day America... a fair profit is no longer enough. Millionaire or even billionaires are no longer considered REALLY rich... we now heap our praise only on trillionaires. We oooh and aah over someone with a solid gold toilet or a ski-slope in their Arizona home, while many of us struggle to make it from week to week. We consider a politician with ten homes and God only knows how many cars a “regular joe” while we deride a college teacher and community organizer who made his first million two years before he was elected president as a snobbish elitist. And these mega-rich people have no compunction about putting a couple of million dollars into political campaigns to convince us that it's bad for America if we do anything that might reduce their annual income from eight billion dollars a year to (God forbid) five or even four billion. We're still struggling with health care reform which largely benefits the poor in our society. We're now, for some insane reason, debating whether or not we should extend Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, or allow them to go back to a maximum cap of 39%. (For the record... during the period that many conservatives consider our “golden era”, the 1950's, the maximum tax rate was 91%.)

Brothers and sisters, we have to stop this. Stop buying items that are made in China unless it's something that you really need. Learn to live with less, unless you're willing to spend more to get these luxuries made in America and supporting our economy. This Christmas, for instance, live with the Christmas decorations that you have or buy only American-made decorations. You can find some every year at madeinusaforever.com.

After all, what would Jesus do? (He IS the reason for the season, remember.) I kind of think that I know what he WOULDN'T. He wouldn't support the mass enslavement of a culture in order to fulfill our own fetish for the gaudy.

Peace.

D69

TV Review: Bored to Death

2010-09-25T16:07:00.001-07:00

Bored to Death is a self-indulgent and occasionally humorous comedy show on HBO. Jonathan Schwartzman plays Jonathan Ames (named after the show's creator, producer and co-writer), who's girlfriend dumps him prior to the show's beginning. So he does what every guy does in this situation: he takes out an ad on Craigslist... offering his services as a private eye. Theoretical hilarity ensues. I say “self-indulgent” because Ames is obviously the fantasy version of the show's creator. For instance, every woman he meets wants to sleep with him (despite being kind of a nebisshy, irritating little New Yorker.

THE GOOD: When the show is funny, it is very funny. It's exactly the kind of wry, dry humor that Schwartzman does so well. Zack Galifanakis as his unhappy, whiny cartoonist friend and Ted Danson as his perpetually stoned, up for anything boss also shine.

The real stand-out here, though is Olivia Thirlby as Ames' ex-girlfriend, Suzanne. She is beautiful and believable, and you really feel for her wanting to get back with Ames, who perpetually fucks it up.

THE BAD: Monologuing by Ames. When he's talking to someone, he comes up with these almost random monologues that have little or nothing to do with the plot at hand. This got much better toward the end of the first season, but I fear its recurrence. Imagine a detective novel written by Woody Allen on an off-day.

There are also plot elements that come in to play and then simply disappear with never another mention. For instance, in the first episode, a detective acquainted with Ames warns him that he'd better not hear of Ames doing this detective stuff anymore, and then simply vanishes, despite Ames being arrested in a later episode. Also, the next-to-the-last episode of the season concerns him trying to track down two lesbians who took his friend's sperm under the pretense of having a baby, and then selling the sperm to other lesbian couples. The episode ends with a "to be continued", but the story ISN'T continued. Instead, the final episode focuses on a fight between the magazine that he works for and representatives of the magazine GQ.

THE UGLY: Utterly unbelievable plots. Ames constantly gets himself in ridiculous situations that he wouldn't survive in real life. Yes, I know that it's “just” a TV show, but for my money, the believability of a TV show isn't based on how the plot would work in real life, but rather how the plot works within the context of the show. And the context of this show is apparently New York City in our world. And in that context, the plots on this show simply don't work.

Compared to most of the rest of the fare of pay-cable series, this is definitely near the bottom of the barrell. If Dexter or True Blood or The United States of Tara are Seinfeld, then Bored to Death is 1000 Ways to Die. Not bad, occasionally amusing, but not something that you really miss if you don't see an episode.

The second season of Bored To Death premiers on Sunday the 26th of September on HBO.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Video Game Add-on Review: Resident Evil 5: Lost in Nightmare

2010-09-24T11:45:00.001-07:00

For those unfamiliar, the first Resident Evil game came out in 1996 for the Playstation, and created a phenomenon among gamers, both for it's complex (if occasionally incomprehensible) story line and its graphic violence. It was followed by what I consider to be the best game of the series, Resident Evil 2. Then came Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Resident Evil: Survivor (adapted from a Japenese Arcade game), Resident Evil: Dead Aim, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica. In 2002, the series went to the GameCube, with a prequel called Resident Evil 0 and a graphically-intensive remake of the original game.

For my money, that was the end of the series. At that point, it pretty much jumped from survival horror to action/adventure with Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5, followed by the Wii rail-shooters Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles.

There have also been a series of (so far) four movies, with the first one being okay, the second being excellent, the third being pretty good and the fourth sucking rocks.

The basic plot of both the games and the movies is the battle of a handful of freedom fighters opposing the multi-national conglomerate The Umbrella Corporation. Gotta love that name for a conglomerate. While doing experiments in bio-weaponry for the US government, the corporation discovered the T virus which, among other things, turns people into flesh-craving zombies.

Lost In Nightmare is add-on content for Resident Evil 5. It can be downloaded from Xbox live for $4 or the Playstation 3 for $4.99. Because Playstation uses Blu-ray as its disc format, which has a storage capacity of 60 gigs, the “Gold” edition of Resident Evil 5 includes this add-on, as well as one other on the disc. Since Xbox uses standard DVD, with a storage capacity of less than 10 gigs, they can't do that.

It takes the original pair from Resident Evil, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, and puts them in a spooky mansion inhabited by monsters and filled with puzzles.

THE GOOD: For fans of survival horror, this is a breath of fresh air, returning the series to its survival horror roots. It is scary, and filled with spooky locations and situations.

THE BAD: A severe monster drought. There are a handful of zombies, several new monsters called “Guardians” from the main Resident Evil 5, who made it into the fourth Resident Evil movie for about five minutes, and the consistent villain from both the games and the movies, Albert Wesker.

Also, the game is SHORT. I played through it in about 50 minutes, with a total of about two and a half hours of play time, including dying and restarting from checkpoints.

THE UGLY: No saves. Although if you die, you restart from a checkpoint, of which there are many in the game, you cannot save and come back later. Once you start the game, you are committed to finishing it, unless you want to restart the game from the beginning. Trust me, after I had been killed for the third or forth time by the same monster in the same place, I started to really think that this sucked.

All in all, well worth the four or five dollars that it costs, especially for fans of the survival horror genre.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Taking the Wheel

2010-09-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

Democrats are worried. Republicans are worried? Why? Because the new American TEA PARTY is coming for you. GRRRRRRRR!

Frankly, I'm not worried. You know why? Because we have worked so hard over the last thirty years to fuck up our political system that I have absolutely no doubt that, if we DO put these people into office, they will be every bit as much a waste of expensive office furniture as the people that they're replacing.

Who are the most important cogs in our political machine? The president and vice president? The Congress? The Senate? Nope. It's WE THE PEOPLE, people. We drive this car. If it goes into the ditch (as it clearly did in 2008), it's our stewardship that did it. Or lack thereof.

So I, as a centrist, would like to address some things here for my fellow frustrated centrists, and to the people who are finally waking up to the fact that our political process is broken and are trying to act on that new knowledge by running right out and joining their neighborhood tea party.

First off, I want to call bullshit on some statements that I've heard over the years.

“I don't vote because it doesn't matter WHO I vote for.” Bullshit. I've said it before, I feel doomed to say it again... in the 2000 presidential fiasco, only 52% of eligible Americans voted in the presidential race, and that vote split pretty evenly between Bush and Gore (Gore actually got about half a million more votes than Bush did in the end). If the other 48% of Americans... or hell, even 60% of that number had gone to the polls and voted for Ralph Nader, he would have beaten the other two guys to a pulp in the polls.

“I don't have the time to follow politics.” Bullshit. If you have ANY leisure time at all (and most Americans have at least SOME leisure time now), then dedicate an hour a day... hell, an hour every OTHER day to keeping up with what's happening in our government. An easy way to do this (for me anyway, being a liberal) is to watch Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher. I'm not saying that I accept what these guys say at face value... I tend not to accept anything that ANYONE says at face value... but it does entertain me and keep me abreast of what's going on politically. Of course it helps that I recognize that these men are biased, and am able to take that into account when I go out and research this stuff.

“I don't follow politics because it's too depressing.” Bullshit. How depressing would it be if your doctor told you that you had terminal cancer with less than a year to live? Pretty depressing, huh? Would you rather your doctor NOT tell you that if it's true? Sometimes the truth isn't simply a hard pill to swallow... sometimes it's a three-inch horse pill lined with salt-covered spikes. But even then, sometimes we have to swallow it. It sucks. It hurts. But we have to do it.

“I don't follow politics because it's boring.” Bullshit. And so what? I mean, it's not that politics ISN'T boring... a lot of times it is... the excuse is bullshit. Politics, like the news and the stuff that you have to learn to do your job, and sometimes actually LISTENING when someone else is talking instead of just waiting for your turn while you tune them out isn't MEANT to be entertaining. It's meant to be informative. And many times, trying to add entertainment value serves no purpose except to dilute the message. If the president gave the state of the union address while riding a unicycle and juggling chainsaws, it would be more entertaining, but the information in the message would be lost.

I hear a lot of bitching right now, especially from people on the right, about how our government is bankrupting us. You know what? That's absolutely, positively correct. My problem with it? This didn't start with the Obama administration, and it won't end by replacing the democrats with tea partiers. This problem started a long, long time ago. In my opinion, it really started in the mid-fifties when the government started “borrowing” (read as “stealing” from social security for other programs. There was a surplus there because there's SUPPOSED to be a surplus there, and they swiped it for their pet programs.

This organized bankrupting of our country REALLY started with a vengeance in the 1980's, the so-called “greed” decade. Almost everything bad that's happening to our country now can be traced to the Reagan administration.

You had changes in the trade and labor laws that allowed American companies to start outsourcing our jobs wholesale, basically devastating the midwest and the south.

You have subsidies started, like those to the corn and oil industries, costing us millions of tax dollars per year.

You have a wrong-headed tax revolt begun to keep rich people rich and prevent the rest of us from ever getting rich, except by a fluke.

And you have the real birth of political apathy among the American people.

So how do we fix it? It's hard, guys. For starters, stop voting AGAINST and start voting FOR. The tea partiers are happy to point out the problems in our system without suggesting anything REAL that we might do to fix these problems. Start researching candidates... ALL of the candidates, not just the Dems and Repubs... instead of voting for whomever had enough money to buy the most compelling or the prettiest campaign ads.

It's our car, folks and it's time for us to take the wheel, instead of letting someone else drive and then bitching about what a lousy job they're doing.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Movie Review: Batman: Under the Red Hood

2010-09-22T19:10:00.001-07:00

First off, get this cast: Bruce Greenwood (Capt. Pike in the new Star Trek film) as the voice of Batman; Jensen Ackles (Smallville) as Red Hood; John DiMaggio (Futurama) as the Joker; Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter films) as Ra's Al Ghul; and Neil Patrick Harris (the voice of Spiderman in the newest animated series and video games.... oh, who am I kidding? It's Doogie Houser) as Nightwing.

The movie opens with the brutal murder of Jason Todd, the second Robin, at the hands of the Joker.

In reality, it was the readers of the Batman comics who determined that Jason Todd must die in 1988, via 50 cent per call 900 numbers. Out of ten thousand votes cast, less than a hundred more cast votes for his death than for his continued survival.

It then picks up five years later when a violent new vigilante, calling himself The Red Hood (the name used by the Joker before his chemical bath) appears on the scene, and Batman must solve the mystery of who is “Under the Red Hood”.

Normally, I try to list the good, the bad and the ugly in a film, but I'm abandoning that for this review because this was a genuinely excellent film.

For years, DC devotees like myself have watched as Marvel rolled out one excellent direct-to-DVD animated features, while DC wallowed in crap like Superman: Doomsday. This changed with the outstanding Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and Batman: Gotham Knight. Now ALL of the DC Universe animated films are outstanding.

The animation here is probably the best that I've ever seen on a direct-to-DVD release. The story and the voice acting are outstanding.

On the Blu-ray release, which is the one that I watched, there are a TON of special features, including two 25 minute long documentaries dedicated to the histories of the first and second Robins, a sneak peek of the new animated film Batman/Superman: Apocolypse, and four episodes of Batman animated TV series.

If you're a fan of excellent animation, or of Batman, watch this film. You won't regret it.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Self Check

2010-09-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

I don't usually talk about where I work at my day job on this blog, at least not by name, because the views that I express here are MY views and do not, as far as I know, represent them.

Today I'm naming names.

For the last nineteen years I have worked in various capacities for Costco. Why do I work for Costco? Because they're the good guys. They treat us well, they are as environmentally friendly as such a big-footprint company can be, and they value their customers.

So... why am I naming names today? Here's why...

In the last couple of years (and about five years behind other retailers,) Costco introduced the self-check out lane. The reason, I think, that it took so long is that Mr. Sinegal (our CEO, for those not in the know) wanted to make sure that they could come up with a way to do this without negatively impacting either his employees or his customers.

So what's my beef? Well, when I talk to our customers about using self-check, I hear one thing above all others. “I don't want to take away anyone's job.” Thanks for looking out for me. But I've been with the company for nineteen years. IF THIS THREATENED MY JOB, DO YOU THINK THAT I'D BE PROMOTING IT? Do you people think that I have NO sense of self-preservation at all?

So let's look at the varying level of error here.

First off, anyone familiar with how Costco does business will know that Mr. Sinegal is not your typical CEO. Last year, for instance, we had to close stores that we called “Costco Home”. These were high-end furniture stores that simply weren't profitable anymore after the economic crash of 2008. To most CEO's, this would be an opportunity to close the stores, “down-size” the payroll, and put more money in his pocket. Mr. Sinegal's mandate? Find a spot for every one of those people at area stores. NO jobs were lost in the closing of those stores. Mr. Sinegal is the same as other CEO's in the same way that a kangaroo rat is the same as an African elephant. They have certain things in common... but not much.

Another thing to realize that is Costco doesn't have express lanes. We tried it, didn't work, as far as I know we'll never do it again. There simply aren't enough people that come to Costco for a handful of items. But we still get the question quite frequently.... “Why don't you have express lanes?” So this was Mr. Sinegal's answer. If you're coming in to the store for a few items and you're paying with debit or Amex, here's your express lane. Rock it.

The other thing that these people need to realize is that EVERY innovation will ultimately result in a job loss somewhere, from the invention of the hammer on. Everything. Whether that's the intention or not. It happens. It has happened. It will continue happening.

Here's probably the most important thing. If you're really concerned about Americans losing their jobs, THEN STOP BUYING CHINESE SHIT THAT YOU DON'T NEED! I joke with people that I am absolutely the worst person to be in retail during the holidays? Why? Because I don't understand rampant consumerism. It makes me angry. It makes me sick. But do yourself a favor this holiday season, if you're really concerned about American jobs. DON'T BUY ANYTHING MADE IN CHINA THAT YOU DON'T NEED. No lights. No artificial tree. No tons of Chinese-made toys that your kids are probably just going to lose interest in in a week anyway. No Ipods, please God, no Ipods. If you really want an insight into the working and living conditions of these people who make our Ipods, go to Google and search Ipod Foxconn Suicide. Foxconn, the company that manufactures Apple products in China had 11 suicides in the first four months of this year. If we had a company in America where two employees per month were killing themselves, what kind of outrage do you think that there'd be? But because it's in China, we don't even hear about it.

That's the kind of thing that makes me sick.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Percentage of American Idiots

2010-08-24T15:26:00.001-07:00

I hate how the media is breathlessly reporting that EIGHTEEN PERCENT of Americans now believe that the president is a Muslim.

First off, I realize that the same eighteen percent... plus about eighty per cent more... don't know what's in our Constitution and can't be forced to read it, but it says that NO office holder shall be subjected to a religious test. In other words, even if the president WERE a Muslim, which he's clearly not, it wouldn't matter.

Second off...

Eight percent of Americans... or almost half as many as believe the president's a Muslim... believe that Elvis is alive.

Twenty-two percent of Americans believe in Ghosts.

As many as thirty-six percent believe that Mr. Bush orchestrated 9/11. Seriously overestimating the man, in my opinion.

Thirty-four percent of Americans “believe” in UFO's. I qualify that because the term “UFO” has lost all of it's real meaning. If you see something flying that you can't identify, it is, BY DEFINITION, a UFO. They clearly exist. That's like asking if people believe in rocks. I interpret this as meaning that thirty-four percent of Americans believe that the Earth is routinely being visited by extra-terrestrial craft.

Six percent of Americans believe that the moon landing was faked. Bear in mind, as you read that statistic, that, if you have a powerful enough telescope, you can actually SEE the crap that we left up there.

Thirty-nine percent of Americans “believe” in evolution. I qualify that again, this time because you cannot believe or disbelieve a scientific theory – you can either accept or reject the proofs. So I have to assume that correct wording for this would be “thirty-nine percent of Americans reject the proofs of Darwinian evolution”.

A whopping forty-four percent of Americans believe that the Biblical creation story... as impossible as it is... is literally true.

Twenty percent of Americans... can't locate America on a map. How sad is that. (I remember a related poll that I saw while living in Alaska taken among graduates of some college... eight percent of them thought that Alaska was another planet.)

Twenty percent of Americans don't know WHO we declared independence from in 1776.

The same percentage... probably the same PEOPLE... think that Bush was a “great” president.

Twenty percent of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the Earth.

Twenty percent of Americans... probably twenty percent of human beings in any age... believe that “the apocalypse” will happen in their lifetime. Also note that the definition of “the apocalypse” has changed over the ages. Currently it is the apocalypse as spelled out in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation to Saint John the Divine.

Twenty percent of Americans believe that marijuana is more harmful than alcohol. I can't help but wonder how many of these people actually KNOW someone who has been harmed by pot? I know a handful... versus hundreds that I know or THOUSANDS that I know OF who have been harmed by alcohol or its effects.

Twenty percent of Americans believe that the lottery, despite its odds of one in MILLIONS, is a sound financial “investment”.

Do you get what I'm saying here? One in five Americans will believe any idiotic thing that you tell them. That doesn't make it true, and it DEFINITELY doesn't make it NEWS.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Stop Beating Up My Language!

2010-08-20T07:38:00.001-07:00

I just need to rant here for a second, okay? This isn't political, and is only tangentially about society. If you want to skip it, my feelings won't be hurt.

I've encountered what I consider to be some rather egregious misuses of the language lately and wanted to address them here.

If you work in food service, your smallest size is a small, okay? Regardless of WHAT your marketing department tells you to call them, you DO have a small – it is your smallest size. Years ago, marketing departments decided that “small” had negative connotations, so they started to tell their people to call their sizes something like “large, extra-large and jumbo”. It's still small, medium and large. Even if they say “call them jumbo, huge and GIGANTASAUR”, it's still small... medium... and large.

I also think that it's idiotic, and says something bad about us as a culture that our smallest size soda at most fountains is now enough soda to float a supertanker in.

If you have a really bad headache, you do NOT have a migraine unless you frequently get headaches so bad that they prevent you from functioning. You DO have a really bad headache. Take an aspirin.

If you have trouble sleeping sometimes, you do not necessarily have insomnia. You probably drink too much caffeine. Insomnia is a very specific syndrome that prevents you from getting restful sleep.

Use the language correctly, please.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Mosque Madness

2010-08-17T10:50:00.001-07:00

Okay, there are so many facets to this particular issue, let me just tackle them one at a time.

First off, the first amendment to our Constitution guarantees religious freedom. The first LINE of the first amendment. And that includes, as our founders knew them, Mohamatans. If the owner of a private lot wants to sell or lease it to a group of Muslims for a community center and mosque, WHO CARES?

As far as “ground zero” being hallowed ground goes, that's something that SERIOUSLY needs to be evaluated in this country. It's kind of like the word “terrorism”... we don't really want to TREAT ground zero as hallowed ground, we just want to SAY that it is so that when we can use it for political ends, we can. I mean, we've now had nine years to do SOMETHING with that spot, and what we have today is what we've had for at least eight... a big fucking hole in the middle of lower Manhattan. So if it's going to be a grave, let's treat it as a grave. Let's put a big marker on the spot that no one is allowed to walk on (last time I checked it was considered bad form to walk on a grave), and leave it at that. If we're NOT going to treat it as a grave, then put up a new building there, one that people can use, with maybe a nice atrium with a small, tasteful memorial to the men and women who died there.

And exactly who is this “hallowed ground” hallowed for? Christians? I'm betting that since it was New York, there were probably about as many Jews at work in thos buildings as Christians. So is it hallowed for the Jews? What about our Atheistic and Agnostic brothers and sisters? There had to be a fair number of them working there. Hindus? This is NEW YORK, people. The very crucible of the American melting pot. You could almost name a modern religious credo at random, and I bet that there was an adherent working in WTC... including Muslims. So why not let them honor this “hallowed”, hollowed ground by putting up a community center someplace near where they can mourn their dead?

But, speaking of Muslims, let me address my Mohamatan brothers and sisters for a second here. Guys... is this really the best battle that you can choose to fight right now? I know that it's been tough for you guys. You've been prevented from building Mosques... well... pretty much everywhere in America since 9/11, and I agree that it sucks. As evidenced from the above, I'll fight for your right to put your Mosque anywhere you want. But seriously... is there no room for compromise here? You had to know that the fundamentalists were going to throw their usual fit over this. So is there no room for you to meet with these people and find out if there's an acceptable ratio for them? If there's not... then fuck 'em. But if there is, then you can avoid a huge fight and ultimate black eye over this, win or lose.

One final point. One that I would like to deliver to President Obama. Mr. President... FOCUS. You don't need to put a dog in this particular fight. It's the Skip Gates beer party thing all over again. FOCUS. There are more important things for you to spend your time on. I agree with what you said, both that the Muslims are guaranteed their right to worship when and where they want like everyone else, and that you weren't going to comment on the “wisdom” of building a Mosque there, but for God's own sweet sake. There are still a lot of leaks in our ship of state left by the previous “Captain”. I mean, let's face it... if Bush was captain of our ship of state, he was pretty much Joseph Hazelwood. Even before gays in the military (an issue that I support you on), I would work on patching some of those holes. Like Bush's decree that presidential papers be sealed IN PERPETUITY. That's some shit that happens in a third-world communist banana republic. NOT the United States of America. FIX IT! Get together with the other democrats and ram a jobs bill down the throats of the republicans. (I took that turn of phrase from the republicans when they were speaking of the health care bill – isn't it amazing how often their metaphors have homosexual overtones?) Mr. President, I voted for you because I thought that you were going to be the kind of radical politician that America needs right now, and you've let me down on that. But for God's sake, quit letting yourself get distracted by the pretty sideshows and get on the with main event, would you please?

Thanks.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Let Them Go

2010-08-12T10:23:00.001-07:00

Let me start this by defining two terms that some people use interchangably, and, I think, that average American doesn't know the difference between: debt and deficit.

The debt is how much we owe as a country. The total of the money that we've borrowed plus the interest, as well as outstanding liabilities such as medicade and medicare. Just like if you were to figure your personal debt load, you'd add the amount that you owe on your car to the amount that you owe on your house to the amount that you owe on your credit cards, etc.

The deficit, on the other hand, is the difference between what we will owe this year (our annual debt, as opposed to the total debt) minus what we'll be taking in this year, largely through taxation.

The other term that I'd like to define is Gross Domestic Product, GDP. The GDP is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced domestically by a country. It includes income earned domestically by foreigners, but does not include income earned by domestic residents on foreign ground.

The reason that I'm providing these definitions is because I'm about to talk about letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and there's a lot of bad information out there about these things.

To start with, let's see where we started.

The top tax rate... the absolute MOST that the government could take from anyone for their income was 50%. This was through the so-called “golden years” of the fifties, up until 1986. In 1986, President Reagan lowered the top tax rate from 50% to 28%, the largest tax cut in history. What was the effect of this? In 1980, our federal debt was around 900 billion. By 1990, we owed over three TRILLION, while the budget deficit remained between 3 and 5 percent of our gross domestic product. Over the next decade and a half, the top tax rate slowly rose again, but only to about 39%. In 2001, Mr. Bush reduced the top tax rate to 35%, and the capital gains tax (taxes on interest and dividends received... where most of the wealthy make most of their money) to 15%, down from about 25%. During the subsequent decade, our debt went from around 6 trillion to over 12 trillion, more than doubled in other words. At the same time, the federal deficit increased from around -2 percent of our GDP (a budget surplus) to almost 10 percent of our GDP, a twelve percent increase.

If we allow these tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, the top income tax rate goes back up to 39%, and the capital gains tax goes to 20%. At the same time, the amended bill will allow people under $25000 per year to stay at the same tax rates.

There is a lot of rather pointless debate over how letting these tax cuts expire will effect the deficit, but the fact is that somewhere around 50% of the rise in our deficit between 2000 and 2010 was due to these tax cuts. Isn't it a funny coincidence that around 50% of our tax income comes from the richest Americans?

Look, I think that it's fair that the higher your income is, the more you pay. I pay more in taxes than someone who makes Big Macs for a living, and less than someone who manages a bank and I think that's fair.

The biggest argument FOR these tax cuts is the same as it has been since the Reagan administration: it will allow these people to reinvest that money in the United States and reduce unemployment. Good for them, good for everyone, in other words.

The problem with that argument is fairly simple to understand. Between 2000 and 2010, our unemployment rate went from about 5% to about 9%.

So it's time to let these tax cuts go. It's abvious that they haven't helped our unemployment numbers, and it would probably help to reduce the federal deficit. If my taxes have to go up 3% as part of that, I'm okay with that.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

"I Don't Keep Up With The News..."

2010-08-11T09:23:00.001-07:00

It always disturbs me when I hear people say this. Partly, I think, it's because I'm a recovering news junkie, and know how depressing it can be, so can kind of understand it. Funny thing... I noticed that when I started to moderate my news watching, my suicidal tendencies went away completely.

This kind of reached a head yesterday when I was at my day job. Headline News was on in the breakroom, and they were talking about the terrible flooding in Pakistan, and none of my co-workers seemed to know that it was happening until that moment. This flooding has been going on for over a WEEK. There are 1500 known to be dead, and it is affecting millions. And they hadn't heard. This was followed by a “news story” about a girl who lost her cool at a McDonald's drive-through because she couldn't get McNuggets, and broke the window and attacked the window girl. They ALL seemed to know about this. Old news to them.

Which of these stories is the more important, you think? Personally, I think that only one of these stories BELONGED on the national news, and here's a hint as to which one... no McNuggets were involved.

I understand that the news is depressing, people, but it's important to remain INFORMED. If you don't know what the hell is going on, and you pass a group of teabaggers carrying signs about how Obama is putting our children and grandchildren in debt, you think “Oh my God, that's terrible.” But if you're informed, you realize that the vast majority of our debt problem came from the Bush administration, and that, in 2003, when Bush wanted to pass this massive package of tax cuts for the wealthy, Cheney said “Deficits don't matter.” I agree that this deficit mess is a problem, but blindly replacing one party with the other won't help... they're BOTH corrupt. But I will give you that Obama isn't doing a lot of the things that I hoped he would.

GET INFORMED, PEOPLE!

So how do you do this without watching news basically 24 hours per day, like I used to?

One way is to use the internet. Check to see what the top news stories of the moment are, and then look to see what several news sources are saying about them. And allow yourself to go out of the sphere of American, corporate-driven news. Check the BBC. Check the Swiss News Agency. Check Al Jazeera. Get a variety of viewpoints, even and ESPECIALLY those that disagree with you.

My main source for news is the PBS Newshour. There are no pretty, exciting graphics and they aren't afraid to air negative stories about their corporate underwriters. They focus on four or five big stories, and then spend about ten minutes in the middle of their show hitting other news stories.

For the sake of our country, people, get informed.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Why lie?

2010-07-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

I will never understand, to my dying day, why parents allow... let alone ENCOURAGE their kids to lie.

Let me say that I don't consider myself a naif, either. I understand that in 21st century America, “Ethical Behavior” has been replaced with “Situationally Ethical Behavior”, and the truth has become whatever people believe. But still, what can I say? I have this thing for the truth, and still find myself a little shocked when people don't tell it.

Case in point... this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but I go to the library once per week. Same library. At about the same time. Taking the same route. EVERY WEEK. Okay?

So, day before yesterday, I'm on my weekly pilgrimage to the library. I am headed north on a road with two lanes in each direction, and a center turn lane. I need to turn west. A car goes by in the turn lane, so I slip into the turn lane behind it. There's a break in the southbound traffic. I will confess that I didn't see the young man who's about to smash in my car door because, frankly, I have the right of way. I don't HAVE to look out for him... HE has to look out for ME. So I turn into the library. And he turns out, northbound, looking solidly left. I start honking and yelling (even though I know that the yelling won't do me any good) and he smacks into my driver's side door.

I pull into the library parking lot. Obviously the kid's first accident, because he just sits there, where he backed up at the stop sign, functionally blocking the intersection. I wait for him for a moment, to see if he's going to clear the intersection so that we can exchange information, and when he doesn't, I walk to his car and tell him to pull into the library parking lot so that he's not blocking traffic.

When he got there, he told me that he didn't see me. No shit. HE WASN'T LOOKING. Okay, no prob. He screwed up. It happens. I call the cops.

Shortly after that, his mommy arrives. So I figure that he must have spent the time sitting there to call her. “Oh no, mommy! I cwashed a car! Help me!”

So, mommy arrives and the first words out of her mouth are “See? You should be driving a bigger car like mom.” Mom drives an SUV. I explained to her that if he HAD been driving a larger car or (God forbid) an SUV, he may have seriously injured or killed me. No answer. Ah, I thought... mom is scheming. Trying to figure out a way to prevent this from being her widdle baby boy's fault.

So the cops arrive, we give our statements, I go about my business. My car still runs okay, I just can't open the driver's side door, and my front end is fairly seriously knocked out of alignment.

Sitting in my car waiting for someone that I wanted to see, I call Allstate, his insurance agency. The person who answers the phone, once I explain the situation to her, seems ready to wrap the whole thing up. She's talking about setting me up with one of their preferred body shops to get the repair done and oh, Mr. Schaffer, let's get you a rental car for while your car is in the shop. I tell her that I'd rather set all that up with their adjuster, so that I can check my schedule and the nearness of the body shops to my apartment. So I get the name and phone number of their adjuster.

Then everything stops.

When I get home that day, as I'm pulling into my parking space, MY insurance company, Geico, calls me. Apparently, HE'S filing a claim against ME. So then everything's on hold while they get recorded statements from both of us, blah blah blah.

I call Allstate's adjuster yesterday and give her my recorded statement. I call Geico's adjuster this morning and give her my statement. Then she drops the bombshell... the little brat is telling the insurance companies that I turned not from the turn lane, but from the traffic lane!

Is it just me or does that sound like something that mommy came up with to protect her widdle boy?

Let me make a suggestion to you, lady. If you EVER want your little boy to be a man and a productive member of society, instead of encouraging him to lie and pass the buck, why not just thank God that neither of us were seriously hurt, and use this as an object lesson to him about paying attention to his driving? It's what my parents would have done. Hell, it's what they DID do when I caused an accident as a teenager.

The biggest problem with lying is that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The obnoxious thing about the truth is that, no matter how much you examine it, or pick at it, it remains whole. Lies start to come apart immediately under scrutiny. For instance, let's look at this lie. They boy says that he saw me turning from the traffic lane. That begs the question why didn't he STOP? If you someone doing something stupid, you stop to protect your own car, right? Failing that, if he saw me turning and didn't stop, then he rammed me intentionally, and it's STILL his fault. AND he's on the hook for reckless endangerment.

Now that I've started picking this lie apart, let's finish dismantling it with evidence. In police work, there are three types of evidence.

The first is physical evidence. In this case, the condition of the cars is the only physical evidence, and it's a wash. It supports both stories.

The second is direct evidence. This is eyewitness testimony, video tapes, pictures, etc. There is none of this as far as I know. So another wash.

The third is circumstantial. Although this is, by and large, the least reliable, being made entirely out of deduction and supposition, but it's also what most cases are built on. So let's look at the circumstantial evidence.

1) He's a young driver with two... maybe three years of driving experience. I'm a former cab driver with almost thirty years of driving experience and a clean driving record. So which one of us is more likely to make this kind of catastrophic fuck-up?
2) Every month, I drive seven hours each way to Arkansas and back, and either six hours each way to Kansas and back, or fourteen hours each way to Houston, TX and back. If I were this careless of a driver, how can I drive that much and still have a clean record and no accidents?
3) By lying, he profits. He gets out of a ticket and his mommy avoids having her insurance rates raised. By lying, I gain NO profit. I didn't get a ticket, and the worst that can happen to my insurance is that it comes out a wash – he collects from his, I collect from mine. They may raise my rates based on that, but they may raise my rates anyway, simply BECAUSE I was in an accident. Insurance companies are capricious.
4) Logic argues AGAINST his lie. Occam's Razor applies here, I think. Occam's Razor says that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is often the correct one. If you hear about this accident, with no statements from either of us, your first thought is that he turned in to me. This is the simplest explanation and, thank you Occam, the correct one.
So parents, don't teach your kids to lie, okay? It sucks.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Republican Crybabies

2010-07-14T06:05:00.001-07:00

Honestly, I don't know what bug got up my butt that prompted me to write this right now.

I will say this... I rarely sleep deeply enough to have any kind of coherent dreams that I can actually remember, but last night I did. I dreamed that I was at some kind of function featuring George W. Bush. For some dream-reason, this event was being held at a huge ice rink. When the function broke up for lunch, I suddenly found myself alone in the lounge area with Mr. Bush. So I did what I've wanted to do since the 2000 election... I demanded some answers from him. I won't relate his answers here, because they weren't “his”, they came from my own subconscious.

When I woke up, an hour before my alarm went off, this piece was in my mind. All of it. And I tend not to question my muse when she wants me to write something down, I tend to just do it. So here it is.

I'm tired of listening to republicans whine. TIRED of it. So I'm going to list four of, in my opinion, the whiniest and address their crybabyness.

SARAH PALIN

The queen of the crybabies. I get so tired of the fact that her followers take everything that she says as gospel, using the media as her platform, while all the while whining that she can't get a fair break from the media.

First off, Sarah, are you really God-rottedly STUPID enough that you didn't realize that as soon as you stepped onto that stage at the republican national convention you would become a celebrity? Or have you somehow missed the fact that our media treats celebrities (at best) like freak-shows or (at worst) like dog shit? That it treats celebrities as a commodity to get ratings, and makes them look however they it needs to in order to feed its own never-sated wallet?

Also, I hate to break it to you, but compared to how the media treated Hillary Clinton when she was first lady or Condoleeza Rice, you're getting a freaking pass. These two women, who are each worth five of you got ROASTED by the media. And they both handled it much better than you are. When Ms. Clinton saw that whining wasn't going to help, she just quit it and started letting all the media crap roll off her back. And Ms. Rice did the really sane thing – she got the hell out of the public spotlight. You could do the same, you know, and then “the media” would leave you alone.

Oh, and one other thing? The deep-water oil drilling ISN'T the result of environmentalists refusing to let oil companies drill in ANWR. If we opened ANWR, they would have been drilling there AND on the ocean floor. But I'll make you a deal. You get the oil companies to agree to closing all of their deep-water wells if I can get the government to agree to let them drill in ANWR, and we'll make it happen. Frankly, I don't think that it'll even be that hard to get that deal, because even though we environmentalists would miss the natural beauty of ANWR, we'd ultimately get the better part of that deal.

JOHN MCCAIN

John, I used to have huge admiration for you. Back when the 2008 primary season first started, I used a site called Unity America to make a bumper sticker that said “Obama/McCain 2008: my dream ticket”. But over the course of that election, and the years following, I lost all admiration and respect for you.

This loss of respect reached a nadir when, after the health care bill passed, you got on national TV and said “We're not gonna play with youse guys no mores!” You know what, you big crybaby? YOU WEREN'T PLAYING BEFORE! You and your republican cronies have been doing everything that you can to obstruct EVERYTHING!

John, please... instead of spending the rest of your life demanding respect for the hero that you WERE in Viet Nam, how about you get your head out of Rush Limbaugh's fat ass and be a hero NOW?

FOX NEWS

I listened to you crybabies demand that we respect the president for eight years. Of course, now that a president that you DON'T like is in office, all bets are off, right? You vilified the fringe left for comparing Bush to Hitler, but now you're perfectly okay with the fringe right comparing Obama to Hitler or Marx. That makes you not only crybabies, but hypocrites.

And Bill O'Reilly – as far as your nasty, barely-veiled threats against Al Franken go, I think that you're just jealous that he as an entertainer, got elected to the senate while you, as an “entertainer” couldn't get elected to the sewage commission.

THE TEA-PARTIERS

First off, learn your damned history. The tea parties were about taxation without representation. If you take a good hard look at your tax returns for the last ten years, you'll discover that most of you paid less in taxes last year than you have in a long, long time. You don't like paying taxes? Fine. I don't either. But if we're going to have things like a military, they're a necessary evil.

You guys claim to be non-partisan, but where the hell were you during the Bush years, when all of these fires that Obama has failed to put out were lit. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that most of you were right there calling those of us who were trying to prevent them from being lit to begin with “traitors”.

The hard part is that we need to sacrifice here to get our country back on track. I saw John Boehner, king of the republican crybabies on TV about a week ago, and, God help me, I agreed with what he said. He proposed raising social security taxes ON ME and cutting MY future social security benefits to try to help our country out, and I thought that they sounded like great ideas.

So how about it, you republican crybabies? Are you ready to shut the hell up and quit trying to move our country right and start moving it forward instead?

Seriously.

Rev. Randal

What We're NOT Talking About

2010-06-08T12:15:00.001-07:00

In all of the recent excitement of the health care bill, and the tea parties, and financial reform and all of this other stuff going on, I feel like there are issues that are vital to our well-being as a country that we are just not talking about. So I'd like to take a moment here to address a few of these.

PRISON REFORM. This is something that I've been interested in for a long time. We all know that our prison system is bad. It seems like we've given up on the ideas of reform and rehabilitation, and have just turned the system over to the inmates to punish each other. The result is that, typically, when a moderately bad person goes into prison, they come out REALLY bad. I can't tell you the number of people that I personally have known who went to prison under Reagan's idiotic mandatory sentencing for having a little pot, and come out addicted to much, much worse. Coke a lot of times, sometimes heroin or meth. Or guys with a small streak of misogyny who are themselves abused so badly by other prisoners that when they come out they are determined to be as hard as they can on women just to try to get a little of what was taken from them back.

We have an opportunity to take these people, most of whom are not educated, and teach them and reach them and change them into functioning members of society, for the most part. I'm not talking about all of them here. Some people are just bad and mean and there's nothing that you can do about it. Sad to say, because I personally think that these people COULD have been saved, if that salvation had come earlier, but by the time they reach adulthood, it's just too late. Some things are too broken to be fixed. But I honestly believe that these are the minority.

So how do we fix it? Well, first off, the prison system needs to take control of the prisons back from the prisoners. They need to start being locked in their cells except when they are in class or brief exercise periods. I guess that what I'm suggesting here is that we could treat most prisons like very strict boarding schools. Take away the opportunity for the prisoners to beat and rape and kill each other.

That's another thing… we have to stop finding jokes about prison rape funny and start finding them repulsive. If you make a joke about a woman or a child being raped you get pilloried… why isn't it the same for a joke about a MAN getting raped? Rape should NOT be a punishment in a country that considers itself not only civilized, but Christian.

Secondly, we need to do away with mandatory sentencing. ALL mandatory sentencing. Period. I know that it's a lot of work, but each case should be considered on its own merits, not rubber-stamped.

Finally, and most egregiously, we need to stop the privatization of prisons. Did you know that prisons are being run for profit in this country? Including payouts to judges for sending people into this crime-for-profit system? No one… no corporation…. should be able to make money off of incarcerated Americans, period. And a lot of these prisons are being used as call centers for telephone solicitation. Think about it… any information that you give to a telephone solicitor may be going to someone in prison for rape or murder.

TOXIC MANUFACTURING PLANTS. I know that even SUGGESTING government regulation of business is, to some Americans in the twenty-first century, tantamount to defending the rape of children, but it's a necessary evil. And part of this is that companies that manufacture chemically evil things like paint and plastic have to be regulated to stop them from poisoning the air, soil and water around them. If you look at things like cancer and asthma, the rates for these things go up disproportionately around areas where chemical manufacturing plants are. But we can't stop them because it's so damned hard to show direct causation. Trust me, folks… we have to get to the point where the circumstantial evidence is enough.

Part of the problem is that we as Americans like our cheap plastic shit. And if these companies have to start spending money to make sure that they keep the environment around them clean, the price for this plastic shit is going to go up. And again, I don't mean outsourcing this poisonous shit to India or China. Anywhere that an American corporation does business, it should be required to play by our rules.

GOVERNMENT WASTE. There's been a big hoopla recently about how we can't "afford" health care. Bullshit. There has been absolutely ZERO discussion about how we can get our government to spend our money wisely and stop wasting it.

I saw a news story last year about an airplane that we've been manufacturing since Viet Nam that has NEVER been used in an operation. Why? It's a piece of junk. It can't fly in the rain because the canopy leaks. It's in need of constant repair. And yet, we continue to spend millions or billions of dollars per year on this piece of crap.

And did you know that every former president has secret service protection for twenty years after they leave office? Again, this needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Jimmy Carter didn't need secret service protection until the year 2000. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, who someone DID try to kill while he was in office, needed more protection.

Before we start talking about cutting funding to schools or social programs, we need to talk about stopping the waste.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Obama's (Fill in the Blank)

2010-05-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

When the conservative talking airheads or F-word news refers to something as being "Obama's (fill in the blank of major Bush fuckup here), those of us on the liberal side just tend to shake our head in bemusement. After all, just a few years ago, the same talking airheads were insisting that these things were NOT fuckups.

But what you have to remember is how THEY reported on those things as they happened.

For instance, take their referral to the Gulf Oil spill as "Obama's Katrina". Do they mean, as the majority of the media did at that time, that he was utterly abandoning the people who had been left dead or dying by this disaster, which was worsened by actions of his administration (diverting funds for levy repairs, etc.,). Or do they mean it as F-word news reported Katrina? A noble president doing his best in the fact of both a natural disaster and unfair attacks by the media?

I kind of think that it's not the second one.

So we have to assume the first. Is it "Obama's Katrina"? Well, let's look at the facts. I know that facts are to the far-right as sunlight is to vampires (possibly the most apt simile that I've ever made), but let's do it anyway.

Katrina was a natural disaster made worse by the warming of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. It was during its transit across these waters that it increased from a category three to a category five. Easily linkable to the Bush administration's steadfast refusal to address global climate change. Katrina had massive loss of lives brought about by the breaching of the levies. As I stated earlier, the Bush administration diverted funds that were earmarked for levy repair. It took three days after the hurricane hit for National Guard troops to be dispatched to New Orleans. Bush seemed to take no interest in the idea that this city should be saved, or that future disasters of this magnitude could be averted if he just challenged the far right on a few issues.

The oil spill is a man-made disaster, exacerbated by nothing but human stupidity. For instance, I saw a BP exec being interviewed on TV the other day. He was asked why there was no contingency plan for something like this. His response? "It's never happened before." Right, stupid. That's why it's called a "contingency" plan. This oil rig was also owned and operated by a private corporation, BP. The far right doesn't want the government to interfere with private corporations, do they? Also, I can't help but wonder if this would have happened if we had the same regulations on big business in place that we had in 2000? Aside from the men killed in the explosion, I have no knowledge of any loss of life. The president hasn't dispatched the Guard, but there's really not a lot that they can do here. Volunteers and scientists are doing what they can and BP is doing what it HAS to.

So is this "Obama's Katrina"? Only in the sense that it's a disaster that effects the city of New Orleans. Aside from that, no.

So all I'm asking, brothers and sisters, is that when you hear this, you employ complex thinking beyond the black and white that the media presents.

One place that I DO agree with them, though. When they call Afghanistan "Obama's Iraq", I think that they hit the nail directly on the head. It's a military adventure with no set mission statement or path to victory that's going to drain our treasure, our lives and our ability to defend ourselves.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Unconstitutional Bullshit

2010-05-05T10:39:00.001-07:00

I'm tired as hell of hearing right-wing nutjobs whine that "forcing" people to get health insurance is "unconstitutional".

First off, most Americans will NOT fall into this category. The poorest Americans are already covered under Medicaid and will continue to be until the self-same right-wing nutjobs manage to gut the program completely. Also, under the new health plan, children can stay on their parents insurance now until they are 26. This will eliminate another group that would fall into that category. Also, companies with more than 200 employees will now be forced to provide medical to their employees. So Walmart employees won't be "forced" to buy health insurance, Walmart will be forced to provide it to them.

So are you seeing the same diminishing number of Americans being "forced" to buy health insurance that I am? Excellent. Also understand that one of the stipulations of this bill sets up health insurance "pools" so that these people can buy insurance at a discounted rate, and choose their own coverage level, depending on how much they spend.

And if you're saying that mandatory health insurance is unconstitutional, where are you on mandatory seat belt laws? Being mildly claustrophobic, I've ALWAYS hated those. Or how about mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists? Personally, I won't SIT on a bike without a helmet, but I also don't think that our government should be able to force us to wear them.

And then there's that other thing that we've tolerated for decades now. What is it… oh, yeah… MANDATORY INSURANCE. We've been forced to carry auto insurance since what… the mid-eighties? Under threat of a financial penalty if we don't? Pretty much the exact same thing that they're doing now with health insurance.

Do I like the way that it's being executed? With escalating financial penalties if people don't comply? No. Not especially. Do you have a better suggestion? I'm all ears, and I'm sure that your representative will be, too.

My point, as it has been with so many other things since the Prez took office, is that you can't pick and choose. If you're going to scream "unconstitutional" on this issue, then you have to scream it on all of those other issues, as well. And you have to be prepared to make Mr. Bush accountable for his numerous violations of our Constitution, including suspension of habeus corpus and violations of our rights to privacy and misuse of the war powers act among many others.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

To Set The Record Straight...

2010-04-09T18:07:00.001-07:00

When I tell people that I am a moderate, they approach the idea with disbelief at best. It happened again today. But I really, really am.

Not only that, but I am, by default, distrustful of politics and politicians. Yes, even President Obama, although I feel like he's done better than anyone since Carter. I think that he has a long way to go to get my full support, though. For my money, he's not nearly liberal enough. Our ship of state is starting to hew so far to the right that it's in danger of capsizing, and I'd love to see a true liberal with the balls to try to go so far left that it balances out a little.

Basically, I think that the agenda of ALL politicians in America today is to get you to vote for them instead of the other guy. Democrat, republican, libertarian, whatever Mike Gravel is… ALL Of them. That's it. And that's honestly the only way that I can explain about half of what comes out of John Boehner's mouth. He seems like a smart guy, so I have a hard time believing that he actually BELIEVES it.

This is also why I'm constantly pressing people to get involved. Vote for the guy or gal that you REALLY LIKE… not the one that you think will win. The downside to that, of course, is that most of today's republicans will march to the polls like little robots and vote for whomever the party throws up for them. So they'd probably win a lot of more often until more of them sober up like they did in 2008.

Peace.

Rev Randal

Sociopathic Corporations

2010-04-07T15:32:00.001-07:00

I was watching a news story last night about small, local banks vs. big national banks. One of the interviewees referred to big banks as "sociopathic". The interviewer said that he wouldn't go that far…

But why not?

He didn't really explain why he wouldn't go as far as to say that big banks are sociopathic. So let's really take a look at it.

First off, as idiotic as this is, banks and other corporations have taken to insisting on their "personhood", complete with rights. Most recently, with money standing in for speech, the supreme court granted them the right to spend as much money on political campaigns as they want. Not to do that, the court insisted, would deprive them of their right to free speech.

So if corporations want to be granted the same rights as people, let's really take a look at what defines "sociopathic" in a person and see if it applies to corporations, including the big banks.

1. Glibness and superficial charm. Take a look at the outer face of any corporation… their waiting areas and reception areas, etc… and then at the inner face. The offices where the "grunts" work. Superficially, they are very charming and welcoming. When you get to the cubicles, no charm. So that's a yes.

2. Manipulative and cunning. The DSM-IV defines this as follows: "They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims." Tell me which part of that doesn't apply to corporations. So that's another yes.

3. Grandiose Sense of Self. To a corporation, what is more important than the corporation? Isn't every corporation, by it's own lights, the BEST corporation in the world? I mean, for instance, aren't Ford trucks # 1? I have yet to see a Ford commercial that says "Fords are great, but if you're looking for the best gas mileage, you might start looking at a Honda." So that’s a yes.

4. Pathological lying. Oh my God yes. Or at least pathological warping of the truth. McDonald's has America's favorite fries. So does Burger King. Comcast, Direct TV and Dish Network ALL have the most HD programming. Can all of these statements be true? Of course not, they contradict each other. So this is a yes. (For the record. McDonald's has America's favorite fries based on sales. Burger King has America's favorite fries based on taste tests. Comcast has the most HD programming if you count pay-per-view and on demand. Direct TV has the most full-time HD channels. Dish Network has the most channels that run HD and SD programming combined.)

5) Lack of remorse, shame or guilt. Except for Mr. Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota, have you EVER heard a representative of a corporation apologize for anything? Or admit guilt on anything? And for the record, Toyota is a Japanese company, although they build a huge number of their cars here. So another yes.

6) Shallow emotions. A corporation cannot feel happy or sad or angry. And another yes.

7) Incapacity for love. See above. I'm not sure why this is listed separately, since love is an emotion.

8) Need for stimulation. Aren't corporations always looking for the latest, the best, the most exciting? Yes.

9) Callousness/lack of empathy. The corporation doesn't care about anything except profit. You might argue that they show empathy by providing health clinics and things for their employees, but the simple fact is that a healthy employee is a more profitable employee. So it's a yes.

10) Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature. Again, I'll let the DSM-IV speak for me. "Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others." So another yes.

11) Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency. The DSM-IV says "Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc." What part of that DOESN'T apply to corporations, especially when they're first starting out? So yes.

12) Irresponsibility/Unreliability. The DSM-IV says "Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed." Think about the corporations who have wrecked people's lives. Think about the environmental devastation that they wreak. Think about companies like Wal Mart refusing health care to their employees. I think that has to be a yes.

13) Promiscuous sexual behavior/infidelity. Take a look at the way that they use sex to sell their products. So that's a yes.

14) Lack of realistic life plan/parasitic lifestyle. Again, corporations leech off of others in order to better themselves. The very DEFINITION of parasitic. So yes.

15) Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility. The DSM-IV says "Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily." Speaks for itself. So yes.

I would have to say that, based on these criteria, that corporations are sociopathic. If they want the rights, they should also be prepared to have the responsibilities.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Health Care Bill

2010-03-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

So what's really in this health care bill?

The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level. People receiving subsidies cannot be eligible for Medicare, Medicaid and cannot be covered by an employer. Eligible buyers receive premium credits and there is a cap for how much they have to contribute to their premiums on a sliding scale. This will close the so-called “gap” between people who are welfare-eligible and those who have health coverage.

Separate exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage -- effective 2014. Personally, I would like to have seen huge tax breaks for small businesses as well.

Funding available to states to establish exchanges within one year of enactment and until January 1, 2015.

Closes the Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" by 2020. Seniors who hit the donut hole by 2010 will receive a $250 rebate. In other words, seniors will find it easier to get their prescription drugs.

Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs.

Expands Medicaid to include 133 percent of federal poverty level which is $29,327 for a family of four.

Requires states to expand Medicaid to include childless adults starting in 2014.

Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016.

Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid. Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the exchanges -- even if they pay completely with their own money.

Six months after enactment, insurance companies could no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition.

Insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent's insurance plans until age 26

The bill segregates private insurance premium funds from taxpayer funds. Individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments, private funds would have to be kept in a separate account from federal and taxpayer funds.

No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage. States could pass legislation choosing to opt out of offering abortion coverage through the exchange.

A quick reminder to my conservative friends on both sides of the aisle... ABORTION IS LEGAL!

In 2014, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.

Employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance or pay a fine of $2000 per worker each year if any worker receives federal subsidies to purchase health insurance. Fines applied to entire number of employees minus some allowances. This means that companies like Wal*Mart will have to start providing health care or face a hefty fine.

So there you go. There it is. I didn't include information on paying for this, because, as I stated before, cost should not be the issue.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

An Act of Terrorism

2010-03-30T11:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday a group of religious extremists in Michigan were arrested for conspiracy. They had planned to kill a police officer and then attack his funeral with RPG's and IED's.

This is a terrorist attack, right?

You'd think. Except the religious nuts in question this time aren't Muslim… they are "Christian". (I use the quotes because the conspiracy and their beliefs don't strike me as being particularly Christ-like.) Also, their religious affiliation wasn't mentioned in the indictment.

I have to wonder… is this BECAUSE they are Christians? Or claim Christianity, at any rate? If a Muslim extremist group commits an act of terrorism, aren't they identified as a Muslim extremist group and accused of terrorism? Then why aren't these guys?

They can't even claim that they didn't KNOW the religious affiliation of the group. Take a look at their website http://hutaree.com/. I mean, right at the top of the page is John 15:13 (Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends), about halfway down on the right is group's logo, CCR, and under that is what the acronym stands for (Colonial Christian Republic) and their insignia is the CROSS. You know, guys, when Jesus said that his followers had to take up the cross, I think that this ISN'T what he had in mind.

Also, when you look at the indictment http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/29/stone.pdf, they are named as being members of the organization "CCR" without any explanation as to what the acronym stands for. Creedance Clearwater Revival? Crazy Creeps Reorganized? Granted, I haven't seen a lot of indictments in my time, but when they contain an acronym like this, don't they usually follow it with a parenthetical explanation of what it stands for?

I think that what we're seeing here is an example of what has come to be called "soft racism". My favorite explanation of this was on The Daily Show several years ago. Jon Stewart was presenting a piece on corporate criminals, who are almost uniformly white. He was talking the piece over with the show's "senior black correspondent, Larry Wilmore (meaning he was the only black correspondent on the show at that time), and Stewart said "So what you're saying is that the face of American crime is now white?" And Wilmore, with a smile said "No, not really. But it's good to know that you think that it used to be black."

It also rather forcibly reminds me of the Oklahoma City bombing fifteen years ago. Very little is made of the fact that this terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, was a blond haired, blue-eyed white boy.

This is a terrorist act. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT BEING INDICTED AS TERRORISTS?

I think that part of the problem lies in the fact that we are reticent to define exactly WHAT constitutes terrorism. The reason for this, I believe, is that if we DO define terrorism as something other than "Something that we don't like that brown people do", then we'll have to start prosecuting the war on terror here. Home grown, all-American groups like the KKK will have to start being prosecuted as terrorists.

To my brothers and sisters in Michigan… please DEMAND that your government prosecute these people as terrorists. Don't be blinded by the fact that they claim the same religion as you.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

A Brief History Lesson

2010-03-28T15:20:00.001-07:00

Let me say something real quickly about the non-conservative people who currently call themselves conservative, and they way that they argue. They believe that if they can shout loudly enough and long enough to make everyone else stop arguing with them, then they win the argument. If you define victory in an argument as being the last one talking, then they're right. If you define it by proving your point (which is really the objective of an argument) then they're wrong.

Part of my day job is to ask customers if they would like to include postage stamps with their order. And let me tell you… I am grievously tired of hearing pea-brains right now who feel the necessity of telling me how they "no longer support our government" when I can't really say anything back. I mean eight years of a guy who drove us deeper into debt than any man in the oval office before and pissed all over the Constitution was fine… but you want to give me HEALTH CARE? Fuck you, I'm not playing no more. Morons.

Anyway, I had another of these morons through my line today, and couldn't completely hold my tongue. So I quoted Ben Franklin to him. "A democracy deserves the government that it gets." And trust me, I had to keep this firmly in mind through the Bush years. It was tough for me to accept that we basically allowed our democratic process to be highjacked, but we did. So a co-worker who fancies himself conservative (he's not) came up behind me and shouted "IT'S A GOOD THING THAT WE LIVE IN A REPUBLIC THEN, ISN'T?" Now I know… KNOW in my heart that having intellectual discourse with this guy is a little like trying to talk a rabid pit bull out of biting you, but I said "Technically what we have in America is a democratic republic." He shouted back (because remember - when you don't have facts, volume is the next best thing) "THAT'S A REDUNDANCY, MY FRIEND!" So I stopped. Not the place or the time, and I realized that, even if he didn't.

So I thought the next best thing to trying to replace the rhetorical 8-track perpetually running in his head with facts was to put those facts here for the record.

First off, if I'm speaking a redundancy, then democracy and a republic are the same thing, which they aren't.

Second off, I wonder if there's any way to stop people like this who are not my friend and never will be from calling me their friend? Or worse… another sobriquet that he likes to apply to people… brother. Granted, he has more in common with the other two sons of my parents than I do, but that's beside the point.

Finally… and perhaps most importantly… is this guy trying tell me that Benjamin Franklin… one of the people who CREATED our government is wrong about what he was creating? Man. That statement takes not just stupid, but a very special variety of stupid.

Our founders had the right idea. Republic was good, but it didn't work. Democracy was also good… also didn't work. So they created a fusion of the two systems.

Republic is what they had in ancient Rome that eventually led to empire. In a republic, the people are represented in government. They do not have a direct voice. The question is… how are those representatives appointed? In Rome, the representatives… called Senators… were appointed by the pro-council, or procurator. The last procurator (and first emperor) of Rome, Julius Caesar, figured it out. If HE appoints the senators, then they are all loyal to him. And he can get them to make him emperor. Of course, he was eventually assassinated by his senators, but that's a different kettle of fish, and by then it was too late. The empire was established, and the emperors of Rome were called the Caesars, after him.

In a pure democracy, the people make all of the decisions. The closest thing that we have to a pure democracy in America is California, where the decision making process is so slowed by the process that it effectively doesn't work at all.

So what the founders set up was a process by which our decisions are made by representatives, who are guided by a Constitution and elected by the people. A democratic republic.

I also saw a book come through my line today called "A Patriot's History of America". I read the first paragraph of the back of the book which said something like "Is America a land that was established by Columbus coming here and killing all the Indians and stealing their lands, and then went straight into enforced slavery and Jim Crow…"

The answer, of course, is no. But the questions are amazingly over-simplified. I think that when we ignore the dark parts of our history, we are not only being unpatriotic, but also intellectually dishonest. And I think that we do this at our peril. In point of fact, Columbus dealt fairly with the Indians. The massacres of both Indians and whites didn't really start until the early 1800's. And what was the impetus for this? The whites breaking treaties with the Indians. For instance, by treaty, the Black Hills, sacred to the Sioux Indians, was promised to them as long as the sun shone and the grass grew. Or, as it turned out, until gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Then the cavalry was sent in to force the Sioux off of this land.

All I can say to people like this is get your head out of your ass and learn your history. Read "Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater, who was called "Mr. Conservative" by his peers. He is vilified by modern liberals for opposing the federal civil rights law. In fact, he spearheaded amazingly progressive civil rights legislation in his state, Arizona. He simply didn't feel that the federal government had the right to impose civil rights laws on the states. I'm not saying that he was right or wrong, simply that that's the way that it was.

Learn your history, people. Being the loudest person in the room doesn't make you right… it simply makes you wrong WITH VOLUME.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Health Care FINALLY Part 1

2010-03-26T14:25:00.001-07:00

All right. Now that health care has finally passed (state lawsuits notwithstanding), I want to take a look at the arguments against health care and what's actually IN the bill. I won't be looking at the costs of the bill, as I'll explain in the next paragraph. The CBO says that it'll reduce the deficit, the republicans argue that's wrong, I don't know and really don't care. BECAUSE:

ARGUMENT 1: IT'LL COST TOO MUCH.

This should not be about money. We call ourselves a Christian country. If we're going to do that, then we need NEED to behave as Christians IE doing our best to follow the teachings of Christ. And Christ spoke out uniformly against the gathering of wealth and uniformly for helping the poor. These are the two most common threads in his teachings. "To follow me, sell all that you have and give the money to the poor." "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go through the gates of heaven." "Store up not treasure on Earth where thieves steal and moths corrupt." "That which you do unto the least of these, my brothers, you do also unto me." See what I'm saying?

I was in a cigar room in Houston, TX last weekend and found myself in conversation with a group of very intelligent, very thoughtful people. One of these identified himself by the same non-existent affiliation that I hold: liberal republican. He also made the same lamentation that I have heard from many republicans in this day and age; that he felt abandoned by his party. Like Bob Barr, he didn't leave the republican party, the republican party left him. One thing that he said struck a resonant chord with me. He was a little older than me, fifteen years or so, and he commented that when he was a kid if there was someone in his community who needed help, the community simply HELPED them. They didn't ask how much it would cost, they just did it. I remember, from my own childhood in a small town, my grandmother and others bringing food baskets to a neighbor who had lost his job. And we were pretty poor. Not living on handouts ourselves or anything, but just getting by.

So to me, the cost argument is completely irrelevant. Also, the city of San Francisco HAS a public health care option (much more than our federal bill offers) and they are one of the few cities in California to actually REDUCE their deficit over the last few years.

ARGUMENT 2: IT'LL PUT THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY OUT OF BUSINESS

Well, let me answer that in two parts. The first part is "no it won't" and the second part is "so what if it did?"

I say "no it won't" because part of the bill creates insurance pools that Americans can buy insurance from. From PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES.

The second part of my argument derives from the fact that I view private insurance companies as being unethical and borderline criminal. Insurance companies started off like car insurance. I pay premiums, if I get sick you pay the bills. The mega-profits that private insurance has seen over the last twenty years or so have come from DENIAL of coverage. Seventy percent of your insurance premiums are converted directly to profit, with about thirty percent actually going to coverage. That sucks. Hopefully the requirement in this bill that sixty percent of premiums go to care and forty percent to profits will honest the industry up a little, although I really have no doubt that they'll find some way around it.

ARGUMENT 3: POLLS SHOW THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE OPPOSE HEALTH CARE.

First off, bullshit. The largest numbers that I have seen, on polls sponsored by F-word News is 50%. That's not a vast majority, that's half.

Also, I realize that republicans want to pretend that the Bush years never happened, but they did. And to refresh your memory, polls show that the VAST MAJORITY of the American people (seventy to eighty percent) opposed the war in Iraq. That neither stopped nor slowed the advance to war.

ARGUMENT 4: IT WILL INCREASE THE DEFICIT

I won't belabor this point, I've made it before, but where were you deficit hawks between 2000 and 2008 when our deficit went from five trillion to ten trillion dollars, largely to support the mess in Iraq?

Okay, either later today or early next week I'll post a rundown of what is ACTUALLY in the bill (no death panels), depending on time.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Protecting Children

2010-03-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

I will talk about the health care bill, but at a later time. I want to have time to do my research as I write, so I'll probably do it on Thursday or Friday.

Let me start by saying that religious billboards bug me. When you can reduce your God to the same equation as Pepsi or Coke, there's a problem with your religion. But I seem to see them EVERYWHERE since I moved to the Midwest. The one that bugs me the most, probably, is the one that simply says JESUS! I'd like to buy billboard space right next to this one that says SO?!

Also, despite the fact that I am a Christian, I reject the idea of the judgment. I won't outline my arguments against it at this time. If anyone is interested, drop a comment and I'll put it in a future entry. I think that it is a pretty and logical little argument. Briefly, I think that it is incompatible with the idea of an all-knowing and all-loving God.

Having said that...

I saw a billboard (actually two billboards, one atop the other) as I was driving home from Texas the other day that really BUGGED me. It said, briefly, “When you stand in judgment before God, what will you say when he asks if you protected unborn children?”

First problem: the unborn are, by definition, not children. They are variously zygotes, fetuses, embryos, etc. So let's get our terminology right, shall we?

Also, why does God care about the unborn, and not children themselves. Does God's concern only go from conception to birth (or abortion or miscarriage, or whatever)? I mean, does God love you until you're born and then stop?

I guess that my point is this... if this billboard were put up by someone who truly understands what Christ commanded us to do, it would say “What will you say when he asks if you protected CHILDREN?” And I've gotta tell you, my conservative Christian brothers and sisters, you are doing a really SHITTY JOB of protecting children. You support George W. Bush, who put a sixteen year old CHILD to death in Texas. You oppose health coverage for poor children. You oppose school lunch programs. A “Christian” school somewhere in the Midwest or Texas recently kicked two kids out of school because their mommy and her lover are gay. HOW DOES ANY OF THAT QUALIFY AS PROTECTING CHILDREN YOU SIMPLE, IRRITATING, GREEDY, MONOMANIACAL BASTARDS?!

Er... um... sorry. Let my emotions get the best of me for a minute there. But...for GOD'S sake (literally)... please THINK about these issues. Don't walk around parroting “abortion is bad, abortion is bad” until you actually take some steps to fix the problems that we are not fixing among CHILDREN. Not fetuses, or zygotes or embryos. Living, breathing, playing, starving, suffering CHILDREN.

Any idiot stupid enough to believe that abortion is the biggest problem facing our children is an idiot who proves that abortion CAN be a good thing... after all, it should have been done to THEM. These are people who live in the over-privileged and under-thinking USA. This is a world where a child dies of hunger every five seconds. A CHILD. EVERY FIVE SECONDS. No, it doesn't happen in America. The only place in America where we have to even be confronted with another difficult concept for us (homelessness) is in the cities, and we can pretty much ignore them, right? But I think that the anti-abortion crowd might pick its fights on protecting children a little more carefully if they had to drive or walk down the street and see children starving at the streetside. One child. Every five seconds. So to whomever spent the hundreds or thousands of dollars to put those pointless billboards up, don't you think that God would be better pleased with you if you ever do have to face him in judgment if you had spent that money trying to figure out a way to reduce or eliminate the number of children dying from sheer poverty in this world?

Now. Here is where I have to take a breath when I start getting all het up about these types of things. Here is where, as a Christian, I have to put my money where my mouth is, and help me Lord, for it is difficult.

I keep a phrase forefront in my mind. It has caused many a Christian friend to stomp off in a huff when I pose this question to them. It is a question that any thinking Christian struggles with every day, every conscious moment.

Do all things NOT serve the glory of God?

The answer, to any Christian is, of course all things serve the glory of God. We may not know why or how, but they do. Abortion serves the glory of God, as do your (in my opinion) misguided attempts to stop it. The holocaust served the glory of God, although I have no idea how. Flowers and child pornography and Bart Ehrman and prison rape and joyful singing and Americans putting their money ahead of their fellow Americans... ALL of these things, good and bad, serve the glory of God.

That is why I have to take a breath, my conservative Christian brothers and sisters. Because what you do serves the glory of God just as Roe vs. Wade does.

Just be damned if I know how.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Don't Hate Him Because He's Beautiful

2010-03-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

If you're going to attack president Obama, fine. Just attack him on what he is and is not doing, please. Don't just make shit up and blame it on him. I heard from someone again today blaming the current deficit mess on the President. HE DIDN'T MAKE THE MESS, HE SIMPLY INHERITED IT, OKAY?

After the eight years of the Bush administration, I'm the last one to tell people that they have no right to criticize the president. I am not as happy with President Obama as I had hoped to be. And I am freely criticizing the president for those things that I don't like. But if you find yourself resorting to death panels, or the deficit, or his being born in Kenya or calling him a socialist, then recognize that your argument is weak, and it won't stand.

Let me give you a for instance.

I spent the years from 2000 until... well, it'll probably never stop frankly, criticizing the “presidency” of George W. Bush. When someone resorted to an ad hominem attack on him (he's stupid, he's a puppet, whatever) I would defend him against that, because those are not only in my opinion wrong, but they are also weak arguments. So what DO I criticize him on?

1)Irregularities in the 2000 presidential election. I'm not going to go over them again here (I hear you sigh with relief) but they are there and they are numerous. And instead of doing the honorable thing and insisting that all of these irregularities be ironed out before took office, he sued to stop people from examining the irregularities.
2)Wasting our time, our money and the lives of our young men and women in a war that did nothing to protect America. For my money, this is his biggest crime.
3)Using imagery from the 9/11 attacks in his re-election campaign in 2004. Despite his promise to capture and punish the people who committed the crime, he discovered that these men were more important to him as boogeymen. 9/11 wasn't a victory for George W. Bush, and his using the images from the attack to play on people's emotions for re-election was reprehensible to me.
4)Suspending the rights of people arrested during this time. And this is something that Obama administration is not overturning fast enough to suit me. When people would “defend” him by reminding us that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the civil war, I remind THEM that the Constitution actually ALLOWS the president to suspend this right in two instances: insurrection and invasion. Mr. Bush faced neither of these. President Lincoln faced insurrection.

See how that works?

Yes, it takes time and brainpower to figure these things out. Yes, it would just be easier to say that GWB was an idiotic puppet who was elected because of his name instead of any of his qualities, but it wouldn't be intellectually honest.

Even, honest to God, if the reason that you oppose president Obama is his race... just own that. Have the sheer, unadulterated balls to say that you don't like him because he's black. Personally, I think that's shallow and fatuous, but at least it's intellectually honest.

Let's start by explaining the problems with these arguments when it comes to logical argument. There are several logical flaws that render an argument invalid, and the republicans seem determined to use every one of them.

STRAW MAN: This is where, when you can't argue based on the facts, you build another argument that has nothing to DO with the facts and demolish it. So, for instance, “Obama shouldn't even be president because he was born in Kenya.” As long as we can pay attention that that scarecrow, to that straw man, then the real facts of what he's doing in office can just go to the side.

ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY: Someone who should know told me, so it must be true. For instance, “I don't know what's in the Obama health care bill, but John Boehner says it's a bad bill, and he should know, so I'm against it.”

I can't remember the other logical flaws right now. I'll add them later with examples if I remember.

One last note. For the record. I know that modern republicans won't let what they “know” be swayed by little things like facts or information. But... for the record. According to the US Department of the treasury, in 2000 when Mr. Bush wasn't elected president, the deficit was about 5 and a half trillion dollars. In 2001, the year that he assumed office, it had gone up to about 5.8 trillion. In 2008, the year the President Obama was elected, the deficit was around 10 trillion. In other words, it almost doubled. In President Obama's first year in office, 2009, it increased by another trillion and a half. But honest to God, did anyone expect that somehow in his first year in office the President would manage to to stop and reverse that particular train?

Peace.

Rev Randal

The End of Health Care Nonsense?

2010-03-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

I heard it again today. "NOBODY in America wants universal health care."

Well, I know that's bullshit, because I'M somebody in America and I want universal health care. As a matter of fact, most people that I've spoken to, whether they self-identify as liberal or conservative, would like to see all Americans receive adequate health care, even if it takes a government mandate to do it.

So what's the problem?

To begin with, the two main political parties in America are corrupted by corporate money. BOTH of them are beholden to the insurance industry for at least part of their election. Bought and paid for. And who REALLY doesn't want a public health care option? Big insurance. The CEO of Aetna makes in the neighborhood of 20 million dollars per year, give or take a million. The CEO of Blue Cross made a much more… um… "reasonable"… 4 million, which included a bonus of more than 3 million dollars. Bear in mind as you read those figures that these earnings come from denying YOU medical care, and making sure that YOUR illnesses are not cured, merely treated so that they can go on vacuuming money out of you forever. I ask again… as I asked in an earlier post… am I the ONLY one in this country who's pissed off about this? REALLY? We pay our teachers somewhere between 40 and 50 THOUSAND dollars per year (in other words, I, working at my day job riding a cash register, make MORE on average than a TEACHER) and we're okay with that, while these guys make MILLIONS denying us the care that our doctors want us to have.

Another problem is fear. Especially among older Americans (who, I will remind you, comprise a much larger voter block than younger Americans). Even into my generation, we had a fear of "socialism" pounded into us. It still astounds me when I talk to people who think that socialism is the opposite of democracy, when it is, in fact, the opposite of capitalism. And I have no problem with making money. Heck, if my books get publishd and sell millions of copies each you BET that I'll enjoy that money. But I also don't have a problem with the fact that a lot of it, through charities and taxes to support government programs, will go to help those less fortunate than me. But as long as our corporate-funded elected officials can keep you afraid of death panels, and socialism, and whatever else, that you will continue funneling money to their rich buddies. My mom, a wonderful and intelligent woman who struggles to pay for her prescriptions, is afraid that her medical benefits will be slashed and her taxes will go up… neither of which would happen under "Obamacare". And by the way… Obamacare includes NO DEATH PANELS. I say again that there is NO SUCH THING AS DEATH PANELS. Would they make decisions over coverage, including when it should stop? Sure they will. THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. The difference is, right now it's insurance companies who make these decisions.

I applaud president Obama and the democrats for finally taking a tough stance on this. It seems like the president spent his first year in office genuinely trying to work with republicans, but has finally realized that no matter what he does, the republicans are going to try to block it.

Below is a video that I found that shows the republicans in congress at work.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Another E-mail Forward

2010-03-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

I received this e-mail forward recently, and wanted to address it.

One thing to bear in mind as you're reading this is that the person who forwarded it to me once referred to middle easterners as “sand niggers” in conversation with me, so I think that I see the general drift here... white people okay, non-white people not okay.

So i'll start with the text of the e-mail:

A Real Eye Opener

WHY is the USA BANKRUPT?

Informative, and mind boggling!

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:

Boy, was I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us.

I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.

I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts...

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US .

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt..01.HTML

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries.. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the US from the Southern border.

Verify at: Homeland Security Report: (actual link is http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt..01.HTML%3E)

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'

Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/PDF/deportation.PDF

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.

Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14.. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .'

Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR AND IF YOU'RE LIKE ME HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS $338,300,000,000.00 WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY.

Are we THAT stupid? YES, FOR LETTING THOSE IN THE U.S.CONGRESS GET AWAY WITH LETTING THIS HAPPEN YEAR AFTER YEAR!!!!!

If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the United States AND PLEASE REMEMBER IT AT THE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!

End of e-mail.

Okay, let me start with the verification links. Most of them do not work. I have discovered several formatting errors with them (extra spaces, too many dots, etc.,) and have tried to fix them as much as possible. But I STILL cannot get most of them to work, and I received the e-mail a week ago.

So let's look at the links that DO work. The first one is from an outfit called FAIR (The Federation for American Immigration Reform), which states in its "about us" section " FAIR advocates a temporary moratorium on all immigration except spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and a limited number of refugees." Yeah. I wish that my mom's native ancestors had put a "temporary moratorium" on immigrants - we wouldn't be having this conversation now. Not really, but you get my point. Anyone living here who doesn’t have some Mexican or native blood in them is here, one way or the other, through the result of illegal possession of land because the all land in America was taken BY FORCE from the Mexicans or the native people. At any rate, this is clearly a website biased against immigrants.

The next two links are to the Center for Immigration studies, whose website maintains " The data collected by the Center during the past quarter-century has led many of our researchers to conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker." Right. What else can we blame on immigrants? I'm sure that American corporations have had no hand in the destruction of our environment and low wages. So, again, clearly a biased website.

The next nine links do not work. And the ninth one, to the National Policy Institute, has to be kind of a joke anyway. The NPI's line seems to be "We're not anti anyone else, we're just pro-white". The Klan uses the same line. Any "data" coming from this place would be highly questionable.

The idea of the next link being used as actual informative data would be funny if it weren't so scary. It comes from www.rense.com, the website of general nutball Jeff Rense. This is a guy who celebrates the release of holocaust-deniers from prison and says things like the Chilean and Japanese earthquakes recently were caused by a US "earthquake weapon". The specific blog entry cited here contains lines like these: "Those who follow the Koran expect to kill Jewish and Christian nations. The Koran states it emphatically." and " If all 535 candidates for Congress were Muslims, and became U.S. senators and House members-- they would dismantle our Constitution in a heartbeat and install Sharia Law." It also refers to a "movie" written by Rod Serling called "To Serve Man" with Lloyd Bochner. This "movie" is actually a classic Twilight Zone episode.

The last link not only WORKS, but I would recommend a review of the articles on that page. They are thought-provoking and interesting, and include articles about sex crimes committed AGAINST illegal immigrants and many articles on the dangers of radical Islamic beliefs. Personally, I think that ANY radical religious beliefs, including radical Christianity are bad. Any time someone takes a religious text and says "Oh, that means it's okay to kill", it's a problem.

Is illegal immigration a problem in the US? Of course it is. But you must bear in mind that most of these "statistics" are citing ABUSES of programs that were set up to benefit Americans. No one intends for illegal immigrants to take advantage of our welfare systems. And as far as the sex crimes stats go, I wonder how many sex crimes are committed each year by American citizens and legal immigrants? Or by America's co-owner (with China), Saudi Arabia, which sends rape VICTIMS to jail and allows girls to burn to death in a school because they couldn't get their coverings on quickly enough?

But let's pretend, just for a second, that we fix these problems tomorrow. Fine. Done. Does that make the money that we're pissing away in Iraq okay? As near as I can tell, the Iraq war was instigated the benefit the rich, and for no other reason. And this, unlike the billions being wasted for illegal immigration CAN be controlled.

As far as the question of our elected officials wasting money goes, that IS something that every American should consider on EVERY election day. I spend some time every day pondering the question of how we can keep our elected officials from wasting money, and can't see an easy answer.

Just like with all e-mail forwards, all that I ask is that you consider the source and consider the larger problems that the "information" in this e-mail addresses.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

I Think That I'm A Socialist

2010-02-19T15:29:00.001-08:00

Seriously. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

I saw a car today with a "bumper" sticker oddly placed in the center of their back windshield that said "Don't blame me… I didn't vote for socialism" with an Obama "O" in socialism. First off, old dude - you're an idiot. Obama is a capitalist, just like you. Second off, so what? Who cares WHO you voted for? Trust me - those of us with a socialist bent who voted for Obama aren't jumping for joy with him right now either. (You know… those of us who were called "fucking retards" by Rahm Emmanuel.)

I would love to see a socialist takeover of health care to the extent that every man, woman and child in America has good, basic heath services. Personally, I think that the private insurance companies would do fine with people who would like MORE than basic health services. Especially if they wised up and started covering things like plastic surgery and Viagra.

But I'd like to go a step further… I'd like to see the government take a hand in housing as well. I think that it's pathetic that the richest nation on earth… a place that would seriously support a man for president who owns so many houses that he had to have a fucking ASSISTANT count them for him… has anyone who is homeless. Again, every man, woman and child in America should have some kind of basic housing. Studio for a single person or a couple with no kids, two bedroom for a couple or person with a child and a three bedroom for a couple or person with a child of each sex. And I'm not talking about the rat and roach infested slums that pass for public housing now. I mean good, basic apartments.

While we're at it, why is anyone in America starving? Why can't we socialize food to the point that everyone is guaranteed enough to eat every day? I'm not talking about steak and lobster here, either. I'm talking about beans and rice and veggies. Seriously, do you think that any American who didn't HAVE to rely on that WOULD? I certainly wouldn't. I like beans and rice and veggies, but I also love pizza and hamburgers and an occasional steak. Who would that hurt?

And hey - while we're actually taking care of Americans here, even if it IS only in fantasy land… why are our oil and energy needs being left up to private greed? I think that household energy needs should be taken care of for people under a certain income level, and that the government should start providing basic, additive-free gasoline at a reduced rate. I'm pretty sure that we could do that pretty easily just from our own oil reserves. So what about the oil companies? First off… who cares? Second off, I think that they'd be fine providing unleaded gas with their magical additives (my car, for instance, gets much better mileage on Shell gas than anything else) and premium gas. Or, if you wanted to base it on income, then a gas card would be issued for… say… $100 worth of gas to all people and families that fall under a certain income level. That should be more than enough to get someone from home to work and/or daycare and back every day.

So let me ask you now… moderate socialist to rabid capitalist… who would these changes hurt? They would make America a better place to live, and all of these industries would still have a place. Granted, oil companies and health insurance companies would no longer be able to book the almost unlimited profits that they've been pocketing for the last decade or two, but again… who cares? As a proponent of a reasonably free market (which may exclude me from being a socialist, now that I think of it) I think that the competition from the government would even make these companies step up their games a little bit. Start offering a little more for a little less to increase their profits. Don't you?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

How Can I Help?

2010-02-17T12:16:00.001-08:00

I attended a first time home buyers seminar last night. One of the other participants and I (as so often happens) got into a discussion about politics. She started saying the same things that so many people do. "The government" this and "the Bush administration" that and "congress" the other thing. I told her the same thing that I tell everyone who falls into that trap… WE ALLOWED. You have to preface all of these statements with "WE ALLOWED", because WE are the government. Remember? We are Barack Obama's boss. We were George W. Bush's boss.

So she ended up by asking what she could do to help improve things, talking about both the state of the economy and the state of the nation. The first response that always comes to my mind when someone asks that is "Fuck if I know" because I feel like I'm doing everything that I think that I can without money, and it seems to be doing little good. Of course, if LOTS of people did these things, maybe it would. So here goes.

I know that I've said it before, and I'll say it again… VOTE VOTE VOTE! And serve jury duty. And research the candidates, damn it. Don't just watch the TV commercials and vote for the richest democrat or republican. Vote a "third" party (although that is a misnomer because there are currently more than 20 political parties in America). Vote for the candidate that best reflects your view. As a matter of fact, I'd say let's kick the republicans and democrats out of office entirely. I think that the two big parties have become so hopeless corrupt that we may not be able to fix them without booting them out of office entirely.

Volunteer. Especially if you're supporting a third party candidate. They need all the help that they can get. I remember years ago I was watching Robert Reich, who worked in the Clinton administration, give a speech. One of the people in the audience said "How can an average Joe like me help John Kerry win the election?" Reich thought for a second, and then said "Give up ten hours of TV time per week to volunteer on the campaign." The audience groaned like he had just run over their collective puppy. He shrugged as if to say "Well, you asked!" Yes, it takes time. So does researching the candidates. You want to change things? DO IT.

Don't shop at Walmart. Their low prices and huge profits are the results of screwing the American workforce. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but there it is. And don't buy the "lowest prices" brainwashing. Yes, they have SLIGHTLY lower prices than a company that treats their employees well like, say, Target, but it's pennies on the dollar folks. For instance, in April I'm going to dump Sprint and go with a pre-paid cell plan. Walmart has one for $45 per month with unlimited everything. A little research showed me, though, that Radio Shack has one that's just as good for $50 per month. Guess who gets my business?

Take a look at where your merchandise is coming from. If you can get a Chinese-made piece of shit for $10 and one that's made ANYWHERE ELSE for $11, spend the extra money. If you can get an American-made one for $15, do it! It's worth the extra five bucks to support America's economy.

PAY ATTENTION, DAMNIT! Turn off Fox news and MSNBC and CNN and all of the other corporate media and look into this stuff yourself. Again, it's time, but it's time well spent. For instance, Americans, in my opinion, are not nearly scared or pissed off enough about the recent supreme court decision to allow corporations to spend basically an unlimited amount of money on campaign ads. That's a shortcut to the end of democracy in America.

You know that little check box on your 1040 that says "Do you want to donate $3 to public financing of campaigns"? CHECK IT. It won't cost you anything, and it helps.

That's how.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

It All Makes Sense Now

2010-02-11T07:08:00.001-08:00

I never could figure out why people in the midwest and midsouth spend so much of their time pissed at the federal government. Now that I live down here, I understand. YOU PEOPLE ARE GETTING SCREWED BY YOUR STATES!

No wonder you're suspicious of government! But the problem is that it's not the federales that are doing it to you. You need to take action against your state government.

I come from Washington state, which is the bluest of the "blue" states. Several times in Washington, greedy politicians have tried to institute a grocery tax, and it always went down in flames. Here there's a 4% grocery tax. So on a hundred dollars worth of meat and potatoes and mac and cheese and flour and sugar, you pay a four dollar tax! Taxing necessities is absolutely insane!

Also, in Washington, there is no state income tax. Here, there is.

I've also discovered that there are almost no consumer protections in place here against bill collectors, credit card companies and loan companies. If you default on a bill, all of the power is given to the collectors.

Right now, I consider my residence a temporary situation, although because of the situation, I'm not rushing it. But you can bet that if I'm still here in two years, I'm going to start fighting the moronic amount of taxes that I have to pay to live here. In the meantime, I encourage you guys to FIGHT BACK! Abandon the tea parties and all of this other noise about the feds and concentrate on fixing your state governments first. Take back some of your power!

Peace.

Rev. Randal

The Root of All Evil

2010-02-10T06:36:00.001-08:00

Money is the bane of my existence and has been for a long time. I sometimes believe that the reason that I'm living this particular life at this particular time is to learn to understand money. If that's the case, then I feel like I'm doomed to repeat it… because I just ain't getting it.

I wrote a while back about how I struggle with the whole time/money thing. I honestly can't figure out how middle class people manage to find both the time to do the things that they want AND time to make the money to do them. It's a puzzle.

In the meantime, I can't help but wonder… am I the only person pissed off at CEO's in this country? Really? We don’t seem to mind too much that these guys will have a hundred of us making ten dollars an hour fired as a "cost-cutting" measure so that they don't have to give up their solid gold, Cristal-filled toilet. Our economy is being screwed by these guys, but them and their shills, the republican party, have us so brainwashed that if we say anything about it we feel guilty of "class warfare".

Class warfare? You bet. But we didn't declare it - they did. We just have to fight back.

I mean right now what we've got is less class warfare - since they aren't taking any casualties - and more class genocide. The middle class and the poor are being wiped out, and we… the members of these classes… are doing nothing to stop it.

I was watching one of my favorite TV shows, House, the other day and something in it really struck a chord with me. Doctor Lisa Cuddy, was fighting to get a higher reimbursement rate for her hospital from an insurance company. She stormed in on the CEO eating lunch somewhere and made her case. Later, one of the characters commented to her that the CEO could be fired for malfeasance, but his termination package would be more than most of us make in our lifetimes.

Look, I'm not advocating that no one should be rich. Hell, I aspire to richness myself if I can ever get my damned books published or screenplays produced. What I advocate is that if these people's riches come at the cost of your job or my job or some little Chinese girl making ten dollars per day to work in a dangerous sweatshop, then they shouldn't be allowed to do it, God damn it!

Last year's health care debacle is the perfect example. How many of us feel that it's okay for one person to profit from the misery of another? A few? No one? Not more than a handful, I bet. And yet we've allowed these people to bully us into believing that if we don't allow the CEO's of insurance companies to do exactly that then we are not really Americans.

How stupid and backward is that? We're cutting our own throats, smiling all the while, so that these people can drink our blood.

And think for a second about this financial mess that we've been in for a couple of years. Guess who it's a financial mess for? Us. Why? Because some rich CEO would rather close stores and lay off employees than to take a personal pay cut from 1.4 billion dollars per year to only 1 billion. That's bullshit.

Sorry, I can't bless us with peace at the end of this one. All that I can say, is that if they want it, they should have it, but it's up to US to give it to them.

War.

Rev. Randal

Three Little Words

2010-02-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

THREE LITTLE WORDS

Here's a little game that you can play with yourself in this world of self-help... come up with three words to describe you. The essential you. The unvarying, basic you. Three little words. Not phrases, just words.

Okay, got 'em? Don't think too hard about them, just make them the first three words that come to your mind.

Mine are now... and have been for years... intelligent, kind and funny.

Now, look at those words. The first thing to check for is this... are they all positive words? Because the way that you define yourself is the way that you will be. You will work hard to make that a reality. When I asked a former girlfriend of mine to do this once, one of the words that she used was “addicted”. Last I heard, she had kicked drugs, so I wonder if she still feels that that describes her. So if you define yourself by a negative phrase, you will do whatever you can to live up to that definition.

So do yourself a favor. Make them positive words, and make sure that they don't just describe you today. Make sure that they describe you as you are in your unwavering soul.

Okay, got the three now?

Now take a look at those three words, and see if any of them are going to change. For instance, one lady that I knew used the word “mom”. Well, that's terrific... as long as you have a baby or a child. Once your kids grow up, the definition of mom should change dramatically. You'll always be a mother, but the idea of “mom” should change in your child's vocabulary from meaning (roughly) “God” to a being much more distant... much less necessary to his or her day to day existence. So what happens to mom then? Whatever part of her life was dedicated to being “mom” is now... well, I hate to sound negative about it... but a void. And the women who still try to remain a day-to-day part of their adult son or daughter's existence tend to become nuisances to their child. Mom, if you do your job right when the kids are little, then they will no longer rely on you in the same way when they are big.

I know that all of that sounds harsh, but it's really not. And I'm not just picking on moms here, either. The same goes for dads, it just happens that my example was a mom. As a parent, you have one job and that is to raise your child into a responsible adult. Then let them go off and be a responsible adult, while you go on to whatever is next in your life.

So what is that?

This is why I would personally recommend against using something basically transient like “mom” or “dad” or “accountant” in your description. There's no preparation for that to change. And if you decide to, be prepared for that part of your description to become null after a while, and realize that SOMETHING else will fill it. Either you'll be prepared for that and it'll be something good, or you won't... and it WON'T necessarily be something good.

So... do you now have your three words? Your three little words that describe the infinite, unalterable you?

Now think about which one of those words is the most important in your life.

For me, it is the word “kind”. If I am not kind above all else, then the other two descriptors simply don't matter. I am not saying that I am kind every time that I act. I am saying that I try to be. I have been told by people that I have not been kind to them. When this happens, I do not make excuses and I do not shuff it off. These are the times that wear on my conscience.

So think about whichever of these words is the most important. When you visualize these three little words, which one is it that is printed in neon, in all capital letters with fireworks going off around it? Now, check and make sure that this word represents something that you WANT to be dominant in your life. For instance, if the word is RUNNER, what happens if you lose a limb? What happens if arthritis sets in? What happens, in short, if something comes up that makes you no longer a runner?

In summation, these words fall into three catagories… have, do and are. You may lose what you have. What you do may change. What you are… ah, that doesn't change.

Back to the idea of negative words here, someone may argue that what they ARE is a loser. I would disagree. I would say that what they are DOING is being a loser. And what you do may change.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Love it Or Leave It

2010-02-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

I heard it again today from one of these limited intellect so-called “conservatives” when we discussing the rightness or wrongness of America continuing to support Israel.

“If you don't love America, why don't you just use the mechanisms that the founders set up to go somewhere else?”

In other words, “Love it, or leave it.”

I have some problems with this argument.

The first is that it is so arrogant. It assumes that your stance is absolutely, unquestionably right, while mine is absolutely, unquestionably wrong. Yours is absolutely correct, world without end, amen. The problem is that we are all just people, doing our best to muddle through this experiment called “capitalistic democracy”.

I mean, if I WANTED to, I think that I could make a pretty strong argument that MY view is right, based on what the founders wanted, by reminding this person that George Washington... kind of THE founder... counseled that America should retain trade ties with every nation and political ties with none. And the parts of our relationship with Israel that aren't religious are political.

(PS – a quick note to my Jewish friends... if you're a big fan of America's support of Israel, you should know that the only reason that it's there is because the religious nuts believe that Jesus can't return until you rebuild the temple at Israel. After that, according to them, you can and WILL go to Hell.)

My second problem with this is that it indicates a weak argument. It says to me “I don't have an argument strong enough to logically rebut what you're saying, so instead, I just want you to go away so that I won't have to be confronted with your argument anymore.” If I close my eyes, the scary thing will go away in other words.

My final problem with this is that it is an absolute conversation stopper. Of COURSE I love America. America, to me, is a rich and complex structure that can evolve and change over time without weakening what it is. So, for instance, if the religious nuts ever DO let go of our government, and we're able to figure out a different way to proceed with Israel that won't cost us billions of our treasure every year and poison the minds and hearts of half the planet against us, that won't end America. Or if we reign in capitalism a little bit to... say... make health care available for everyone instead of allowing people to profit from the misfortunes and sickness of others, that won't end America.

What I love about America is that this guy is free to make an argument in favor our continuing to support Israel and I can make an argument against it. Nothing that either of us says will change America's policy, but we might each be able to influence the way that the other thinks of it.

That is, as long as neither one of us puts forward a stopper like “Love it or leave it”.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

On Reid, Negro, McGwire and Apologies

2010-01-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

(Note from Randal... I actually wrote this blog entry about a week ago, but have been lazy about posting it. Although the media has moved on, I still feel that these are important topics.)

The country has been reeling for the last week from the fact that Harry Reid apparently said that Barack Obama was electable because he was light-skinned and spoke with no “negro dialect” unless he wants to.

Let's be clear about what Mr. Reid was saying without the politically-correct veneer, shall we? Before the election, I was telling people that I thought that Obama would be our first black president because he is non-threatening to whites, which is, at his heart, the same thing that Mr. Reid was saying. Jesse Jackson, as much as I liked him, was non-electable because insecure whites see him as a threat. Al Sharpton is not electable for the same reason.

I think that the main issue here, though, is Reid's use of the unfortunate phrase “negro dialect”. Specifically, his use of the word “negro”.

Negro, please.

I realize that there are a lot of people out there... younger people especially... who don't realize that, up until about thirty years ago, “negro” was the politically correct way to refer to the sons and daughters of Africa and the Carribean islands. So at the very WORST, I think that makes Mr. Reid out of touch, but not a racist. I mean, the term “negro” is not racist. In Spanish, the word simply means “black”. It is old-fashioned, but not derogatory in any way. So his his comment about “negro dialect” racist? Again, I would argue that it is not. Many African-Americans use a particular dialect when they speak. A few years ago, this was given the name “ebonics”, which I, frankly, find MASSIVELY racist.

I also noticed that a lot of the talking heads who have been harping on this are the same ones who defended Glenn Beck when he said that Obama's not a racist, he simply doesn't like white people, and that idiot Senator from last year who called the Obamas “uppity”. THOSE were racist comments, people. What Senator Reid said was not.

While we're on the subject of words, let's talk about Mark McGuire for a second. For the record, as I've already stated, I don't give a good crap if athletes use steroids, and I think that it's vaguely unamerican that we try to prevent them from self-determination. They know the risks. Let them alone.

Having said that, as I was leaving for work this morning, I caught of clip of Mr. McGuire saying that he was sorry that he used steroids.

Caucasian, please.

He's NOT sorry that he used steroids, and I think that it's idiotic of us to expect it, demand it, or accept it. He's sorry that he got CAUGHT using steroids. There's a world of difference here, folks.

There are tons of things that I've never been caught for doing that I am deeply sorry for. I try to make amends for these things as I stagger blindly through life, doing as little additional damage as possible. By the same token, there are things that I was caught and punished for that I am not sorry at ALL about. I mean, I'm sorry that I got punished, but not for what I did that got me into trouble. Why? Because at the time it was the right thing.

McGuire, please have the sheer 'roid-shrunken balls to not bullshit us with your snowjob apology, okay? You're not sorry... there's no reason that you should BE sorry for using them. You played magnificent baseball while you were on them, and THAT'S what we pay you for. Instead of this teary-eyed apology, trying to pity your way into a hall of fame spot, why don't you defend your use of steroids, and the use of all the other players that you KNOW are juicing?

I repeat in the open spaces that THEY MAKE YOU PLAY BETTER BASEBALL, AND THAT'S WHAT WE'RE PAYING YOU FOR.

For the record, this blog was written without the assistance of any performance-enhancers, because I am good enough at what I do without them.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

On Donations

2010-01-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, i support my writing habit by working a retail job during the day. Like a lot of places, we've been taking donations for Haiti recently, and i wanted to take a second to talk about the acceptable ways to respond to "would you like to make a donation?" There are two... yes and no. That's it.

It took me a long while to understand why people feel it necessary to justify themselves to me when they say no. For instance, i ask for a donation and get "Oh, i've already done it." Yeah? So? Wanna do it again? That's not an answer. Or "I give other ways." Okay. So give THIS way, too... or don't. Just give me a straight damned answer. My (least) favorite is "I give through my church." I DON'T THINK THAT GOD WOULD MIND!

People, you don't have to justify yourself to me. Why do you care if i think that you're cheap? (By the way... if you won't swing a dollar for some worthy cause as you're in the process of buying $200 worth of shit that you don't need... YOU'RE CHEAP!) I'm just some cashier that you see occasionally when you hit my line. WHO CARES. Just... say... no.

One customer the other day repeated several times that she gives "a lot". Obviously waiting for me to... i don't know... absolve her? Tell her that it's okay that she's not giving to help the people of Haiti? I didn't. So she repeated it. And repeated it. And repeated it.

And i didn't absolve her.

Either give or don't. But ultimately, if you're not going to, just say "No". Don't waste my time trying to get me to ease your conscience.

Peace

Rev. Randal

The War On Christmas (Carols)

2009-12-20T15:24:00.001-08:00

I am frequently accused of being a Scrooge, a Grinch, choose your insult because I tend to celebrate Christmas in my own fashion instead of just blindly thinking that what everyone else thinks is cool is.

And yes, I do say "Happy Holidays", get over it. The fact is, despite Christian egocentrism, that some people do NOT celebrate Christmas. And, yes, my Christian friends, your Jewish/Athiest/Agnostic/Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu friends really DO mind you wishing them Merry Christmas. The only reason that you think that they don't is because they smile and thank you so as not to hurt your sensitive feelings. It is only your insensitivity that allows you to force Merry Christmas on people that you know damned WELL don't celebrate.

One thing that I don't understand about modern Christmas is why are polar bears and penguins suddenly symbols of Christmas? All right, okay, I BUY if not AGREE WITH polar bears because they are at the north pole, where Santa is, but penguins live on entirely the wrong side of the Earth.

On to "Christmas Carols". I love Christmas music, especially spiritual music. Away In A Manger, Silent Night… these are great songs.

But there are some songs that are NOT Christmas songs that we only hear at Christmas time, passed off as Christmas carols. Frosty The Snowman is NOT a Christmas carol, nor is My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music. Sleigh Ride isn't a Christmas song, nor is Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow. Why not? Because they don't mention Christmas, Santa, the Nativity or Christ. To me, this renders them NOT Christmas songs. Good King Wencaslas is not a Christmas song. It says "Good King Wencaslas looked out on the FEAST OF STEPHEN." Saint Stephen's feast day is December 26th, not Christmas.

And one that's always kind of bugged me is a lyric from "Do You Hear What I Hear?" I can't help but think that this song was originally in another language, and got either mistranslated or intentionally re-translated to make it flow better. That's the line that says "A child, a child, shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold." First off, NONE of the wise men brought silver to Jesus. They brought gold, incense and myrrh. Second off, if a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him a freaking blanket or a puppy or a teddy bear or something that will keep him warm and stop him shivering, right?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Identity Theft 101

2009-12-15T11:37:00.001-08:00

Whenever I hear an entertainer like Bill Maher or Michael Moore refer to Americans as "stupid", I feel the need to defend us. I mean… I like both of these entertainers, but the implication is that the rest of America is somehow dumber than them. Or at least the people who disagree with them are dumber than them.

I think that it's not a matter of intelligence, but a matter of choice. "I don't know what I don't know, and you are BY GOD not going to make me know it!" I think that, instead of stupidity, it is a dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance. (And no… please do not fall into the trap of equating ignorance with stupidity. An ignorant person can be educated if they choose… a stupid person cannot.)

What has specifically brought this to mind for me is the number of people that I have seen using someone else's credit card. We are FREAKING OUT about identity theft. Almost every bank and insurance company now has an "identity protection" arm, and there are also several private companies that do nothing BUT identity protection.

At the same time, we piss and moan if a clerk asks to see our ID for a credit card, or refuses to let us use someone else's card. By the way… if a clerk refuses to let you use daddy's credit card, don't get pissed at them, it's not the store policy. IT IS FEDERAL LAW. It is a federal CRIME to present someone else's card… it's called fraud, because you are presenting yourself as that person when you're not. And then, if you sign their name to the credit slip, you're also guilty of forgery.

And then let's not forget speed pass and speed pay and swipe machines and all of the other things that we insist on for "convenience" that make credit card fraud amazingly easy.

So, we insist that we have all of these "conveniences". Then we lose our card. We don't notice right away. Someone charges a couple hundred dollars worth of crap on it using speed pay, we see the charges, realize that our card is gone. Do we accept this as the price of the conveniences that we insist on? No. We demand that the credit card company or the bank eat the loss. They then turn around and report it to their insurance company and get reimbursed. And then we bitch about how much insurance costs…

So here are my ideas to resolve this…

1) We go back to the old days of credit card presentation. If you present your card… no matter how small the purchase is… we are required to show a photo ID and sign a slip of paper. PERIOD.

2) For online purchases, a pin or password is required for all credit card transactions. You establish the pin with your bank or credit card company, and then that would be used in place of the utterly useless "card security code", which is, insanely, printed on the card.

3) A tip for your own cards. The only time that I have ever lost a credit or debit card was when I lost my entire wallet. A girlfriend of mine would constantly "lose" (read as: forget) her credit and debit cards places. The solution? When you take out your credit or debit card, keep your wallet in your hand until it's returned.

4) Make the merchants responsible for DOUBLE any illegal credit card transactions. They would have to eat the cost of the transaction, and then pay a fine equal to the amount.

If we enacted these things, identity theft would almost become a thing of the past.

But we won't.

Is it because we're stupid? I think not. Lazy, maybe…

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Obama and Afghanistan

2009-12-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

First off, I would like to say that any liberal Obama supporters out there who are pissing and moaning about the increased troop commitment in Afghanistan just need to shut the hell up. When he was campaigning for this job in 2008 and he SAID that he would increase the troop commitment in Afghanistan, were you not paying attention, or were you just so busy hoping for change that you didn't hear him?

You have to pay attention.

In his acceptance speech at the convention, he talked about how he argued for more troops in Afghanistan and said " I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan." In the first presidential debate, when asked if we needed more troops in Afghanistan, Obama clearly said "yes" while McCain rambled about not repeating the mistakes of the past. You know, like voting republican.

For the record, I oppose the mess in Afghanistan almost as strongly as I do the mess in Iraq. The big difference is that there WAS a time for us to go into Afghanistan militarily… and that was eight years ago when we had a snowball's chance in hell of catching Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice. I believe that chance is gone, and that we don’t belong in there.

All that I'm saying is "don't allow your own wishful thinking to change what the man said". He's not BREAKING a campaign promise, he's KEEPING one.

Also, can we please stop giving the right-wing mediacrocy crap about giving HIM crap for everything that he does? That's their job… that's how they keep their rifle-toting, Bible-thumping, shut-in viewers. The message was, is and shall remain "be afraid of the black guy". It's not going to change. And if you expect fairness from the likes of Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, then you're betting on a lame horse.

Mailing List

2009-11-30T10:58:00.001-08:00

Hello.

If you'd like to be on a mailing list to be notified when this blog is updated, please send the request to dragonfoureyes@gmail.com

Thanks

Rev. Randal

Earmarking Taxes

2009-11-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

A week ago yesterday, I sent the following letter to my representatives - two republican, one democrat. I have yet to hear back from any of them.

My name is Randal Schaffer, and i am a recent transfer to Missouri from Washington State, and i have a question.

With the recent spate of people screaming that they don't want to pay taxes to support "socialized medicine" (but apparently have no problem paying taxes to fund wars for oil) i was wondering if there would be a way to "earmark" our taxes.

By this, i mean to make a space on our tax forms to allocate a certain percentage of our taxes for different non-essential government programs. Health care, the wars, government grants such as art, education, etc. I realize that a certain percentage would have to be set aside for basic government operations... after all, if we were given a choice i think that NONE of us would opt to pay the salaries of IRS auditors. But aside from that, why can't we allocate our other taxes? I can't think of a surer way for you, as our representative to TRULY understand what your constituents do and do not support.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

One of my loved ones who serves as an excellent sounding board for me (he is a moderate conservative, as I am a moderate liberal) observed that they wouldn't necessarily know what we, as their constituency did and didn't support because the amount that we pay in taxes is confidential. So I explained that I was thinking more on a district-by-district or state-by-state level than on an individual basis. After all, if 60% of the taxes from a representative's district were earmarked for health care BY HIS CONSTIUENCY, wouldn't it be difficult for him to argue that the people in his district don't want health care?

Maybe that's why they haven't responded to me. This scheme could wind up being very, very bad for corporate donations from… say… insurance companies. Or if no one wanted to continue funding the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan, well, there goes any donation from GE or Boeing or the other companies that make so many millions of dollars off of the death and destruction of war.

I've gotta tell you that I'm relatively sick of the "tea parties". The first thing that I think is that these people's knowledge of American history at large and the Boston Tea Party in specific is a little hazy. The second thing is to wonder, if these people are concerned about their taxes being levied with no return, where were they six years ago when Bush wanted to start dumping billions into removing a foreign leader who never attacked us?

But… to my brothers and sisters who support the tea parties as well as the rest of you, I offer an olive branch in the form of an idea that will bring about tax reform that is both TRUE and RADICAL. Write to your representatives and let them know that you want to direct them on how to spend your taxes. Heck, feel free to use the letter that I wrote if you want, I don't mind. Just sign your own name so that they know that it's coming from their constituent.

And no, it won't mean more work on your taxes, beyond simply checking a box. Well, and staying informed on the issues but no more than you would on ANYTHING that you spend your money on. And if you don't even want to do THAT much extra work, that's fine too. There would be a box to mark to allow the government to continue deciding how to spend your money. Or waste it. Or whatever.

But none of us want that.

Do we?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Political Blindness

2009-11-26T16:35:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

Why do we have such a hard time seeing our politicians for who and what they are?

Before I start this, full disclosure… I AM going to focus on the two politicians who made up the republican presidential ticket last year, because they are the two who have recently come to my mind. And before any of you start whining that I'm as blind about Barack Obama as any republican is about McCain or Palin, I will remind you that in this blog I have taken President Obama to task for not keeping his campaign promises. One in particular, while I'm thinking about it, is his promise to close the tax loophole that allows American corporate entities to profit by outsourcing our jobs. Get on it, Obama. You've only got eight years.

Now then. Let's start with Mr. McCain. I was watching a documentary recently called Poliwood, which is about a group of "movie people"; actors, producers, writers and directors who traveled to the democratic and republican primaries last year. In one scene, a group of actors (led by Tim Daly) sat down with a group of who I will assume for the sake of argument were "REAL AMERICANS" and not set dressing planted there by the republican party. One of these women got very upset about (not quoting here, quotes only to indicate dialogue) "How dare these hollywood types get up and think that they speak for the American people? How could someone who makes millions of dollars per year and own eight houses think that they can represent the American people?" All the while wearing a pin bearing the name of John McCain… a man who makes millions of dollars per year… and owns eight houses… and who SHE apparently thinks can represent her. Tim Daly was very nice to her. Personally, as a REAL AMERICAN, I can't help but wonder if she was dropped on her head. RECENTLY. I would also remind this lady that every actor who has ever run for or been elected to a federal post (Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fred What's-his-name from Law and Order, Gopher from the Love Boat) have all been elected by REPUBLICANS. Personally, I can't think of a single democrat who has served in the house, the senate or the white house that used to be an actor. Even Clint Eastwood, who served for a while as Mayor of Carmel, California is a libertarian, which is a republican who smokes pot. Personally, although I call myself independent, the libertarians have more of my heart than EITHER of the two major parties.

The other one that came to mind recently is Sarah Palin. At my day job, I was ringing a customer up, thought that I had finished with her, and then, as her cart was rolling past me, I noticed that "Going Rogue" had gotten folded up into the child seat. I have a really difficult time calling this "Sarah Palin's Book" since she admits that she didn't write it. Anyway, I got the book out, and the customer said "I wonder how she got there?" I said, joking of course, "Probably hiding from the media." The smile vanished from the customer's face as she said "That's not likely." I said "I was just making a joke about the fact that she claims that the media's stalking her, and then every time that they stop paying attention to her, she does something to get them to pay attention to her again so that she can claim that they're stalking her." The customer's reponse? "Oh, you must be a democrat." You guessed that, right? I said "Actually, ma'am, I'm an independent. Forty years ago, when such a strange creature existed, I would have been called a "liberal republican"." She didn't know how to respond to that. But her initial response amused me. Like the statement that I made is true for democrats and false for republicans. The truth is the truth, people. Learn it, live it. This is not my opinion, just as saying that McCain makes millions of dollars and owns eight houses is not my opinion. It is simply the WAY THAT THINGS ARE. If Sarah Palin didn't want press attention, she wouldn't have been Miss Palmer. Or run for governor. Or run for vice-president. Or resign her governorship after less than six months into her new term. Or been on SNL. Or written a book. Or gone on the talk-show circuit to hawk it. THE WOMAN IS A MEDIA WHORE. And just like any whore, she finds it easier to sleep at night when she can blame her troubles on the source of her income rather than herself.

See them for who they are, people.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Cheap Wordplay

2009-11-21T20:29:00.001-08:00

Periodically, with my love of words, I like to write about words that have either changed meaning or lost their meaning in our society. For instance, some years ago, I wrote about the word “extreme”, which is so overused in our culture to mean absolutely nothing. Everything is “extreme”. Therefore, according to the rules of logic, nothing is.

The word that I would like to tackle today is “cheap”. A customer at my day job referred to some product or other that we were carrying as “cheap”, and I, as I always do, said “We use the term “inexpensive”, sir... we don't sell “cheap”.” Which is true. The customer got mad at me, unfortunately, but let's face it... cheap is a loaded word. If it EVER meant “inexpensive”, then it hasn't for as long as I can remember. I never heard my dad refer to anything of quality as “cheap”. The only time that I ever heard him use the word to my recollection, it was always followed by “piece of shit”. He wasn't a man to spend extra money on style, but he would for substance.

Which makes me think of another point. If you look at the price of a product on the shelf and think “Wow, that's really cheap”, you're probably right. Talk to the store clerks and, if you have to, the manager, and if they can't justify an amazingly low price to you, don't buy the product. Or, if you do, don't bitch when it turns out to be a cheap piece of... well... you know.

As a for instance... I moved recently. Because I basically put what I couldn't fit into my car but didn't want to part with (memorabilia, my dragon collection, stuff that my kids made when they were little) into storage, crammed what I could into my car and sold the rest, I'm pretty much starting over with stuff. One of the things that I had to buy when I got here was a microwave. (Well, let's face it. I didn't HAVE to buy one, but I sure wanted one.) So I set out, expecting to get something... yes... you know it... CHEAP for under $50. Some cheap POS that I could get my fifty bucks worth out of before it blew up. I came across a store that we didn't have up north called “Ultimate Electronics”, and thought well, if they're like Fry's, then they will have microwaves and decent prices.

First thing that I see when I walk through the door? Hotpoint microwaves for $19.95. I was reassured that they were Hotpoint, a brand that I'm familiar with and not “Lucky Dragon” or something. So I asked the clerk about the deal. He said that they were actually a model from two generations ago that someone at Hotpoint had discovered mouldering away in a warehouse somewhere, and offered to Ultimate at a killer deal just to clear up the space.

See how that works? Now, had it been a “Lucky Dragon” microwave (not a real brand, as far as I know) for $19.95, I would have been immediately suspicious. Then, had I asked the clerk why they were such a screamin deal and he said “Oh, I don't know. That's just the price that they sell at.” Then the first thought through my brain would be “cheap”. The second would be “Piece of shit”. The third would be “I'm not buying this.”

So, from this day forward, can we please leave “cheap” to mean only an inexpensive product of dubious quality, and not use it to describe a low price? Because, let's face it, when you HEAR the word “cheap”, what do you think? Junk, right? CHEAP PIECE OF SHIT, yeah?

Okay.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Flying the Flag

2009-11-10T15:10:00.001-08:00

There are times when it's appropriate to fly the flag halfway down the flagpole. In the Army, Air Force, Marines and civilian world, this is called flying the flag at half-staff; in the navy it is half-mast. These times are times of national tragedy. An attack on our homeland, such as 9/11. The death of a statesman or nationally revered figure.

To my way of thinking, the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 weren't a cause to fly the flag at half-staff, although many did.

Neither, in my opinion, are the shootings at Fort Hood. The army… maybe the entire military should fly their flags at half-staff… it is an institutional tragedy. The people who lost loved ones, or who were personally effected by the shootings should… it is a personal tragedy.

It is NOT a national tragedy, and should not be a national day of mourning. Should we start flying the flag at half-staff every time some nutjob goes berzerk and shoots a bunch of people? I rather think not.

So why then are so many flags flying at half-staff? I think that I know. I think that it is people who want their piece of the pity pie. It's like when a cop was shot in Washington state several years ago and more than 300 cars joined his funeral procession. Most of these people had never heard of this cop before he got shot. When a news reporter asked one of these people why they joined, she put a simpering look on her face and tone in her voice and said "I just felt like I should… it was so sad." Bullshit. You just wanted your piece of that pity pie. And you got to be ON TV! SCORE! Leave these people to their private mourning, would you please, you inconsiderate pricks?

On a related note, I'm not sure why we're surprised when a soldier kills someone. Isn't that what they're trained to do? Like John Rambo said in First Blood (the only one of the series worth watching), "They taught us how to kill and put a rifle in our hands. No one ever taught us how to stop."

We no longer train warriors… we now train soldiers. For instance, for the current engagement in Iraq, soldiers are being taught to run kids over with tanks using paper cut-outs. Why? Because you never know when a kid is carrying an IED. I read a heart-breaking letter from the sister of a soldier who had a nervous breakdown during this particular training. See that little old lady over there who looks like your gramma? KILL HER! SHE MIGHT BE CARRYING A BOMB! Don't think, just SHOOT!

No, I am not raving against our men and women in uniform here. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows that I come from a military family, and have four years of ROTC (medical stuff kept me out of the military myself). To me, this is just another indicator that we shouldn't be involved in this mess in Iraq. It is a dishonorable, pointless war.

And our national hysteria over terrorism has led us to question whether or not the soldier, a Muslim named Nidal Malik Hasan is actually a TERRORIST! Come on, people. A question like that is a very short walk from imprisoning American Muslims just like the hysteria following the Pearl Harbor attacks led us to unjustly imprison countless Japanese-Americans in WWII.

We can't let that happen again.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Repulican Rape Hypocrisy

2009-11-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your patience, readers, and I'm sorry that I've been gone for so long. I moved in October from Washington State to Missouri, and am finally settling in enough to feel comfortable.

Seantor Al Franken recently won his first victory in the Senate, but to me it is a victory that highlights both the trouble with partisanship in our system, and the hypocrisy
inherent in the current incarnation of the republican party.

Franken's bill, the first that he introduced in the Senate, would prevent the government from awarding contracts to companies that “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” This is largely based on a 2005 case of a woman working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad who was raped by several male co-workers. When she tried to report this, she was locked in a shipping container for 24 hours with no food, drink or bed and then told that, if she left Baghdad, she would be out of a job. When she tried to sue Halliburton for this, a stipulation in her contract was pointed out that stated that she couldn't… instead she had to resolve it through mediation. Franken's bill passed 68-30.

Why would 30 senators vote against such a common-sense seeming piece of legislation? I'll answer that with a simple statement… all thirty were republicans. There are, as near as I can tell, two possible reasons for this. One is that they voted against it simply because it was introduced by a high-profile democrat, which is bullshit. The other is that, if they voted for this, it would piss off their corporate overlords, which is BULLSHIT!

One senator gave, as his reasoning, that the government should not base granting of contracts on alleged malfeasance. You know, like how the republicans are trying to get Acorn's contract pulled because a fake hooker and her fake pimp got advice from an Acorn worker on how to fake-break the law. Oops.

Another said that the government shouldn't interfere in how a private company treats its employees. First off, the government interferes in how private companies treat their employees ALL THE TIME! Child labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, overtime laws, the five-day work week… you name it. When I was a cab driver, I had a stack of government-mandated laws that I had to follow, and not one of these laws interfered with my ability to make a living. Secondly, this is not a case of government interfering with how Halliburton treats its employees, it is simply a statement that, if they continue in this fashion, they won't be able to get any more government contracts.

In an attempt at balance here, I went out to find comments by republican apologists on this issue, and I'd like to address what I found here.

The primary argument was that perhaps the bill was loaded with pork or worded in such a way to achieve some other nefarious goal, like the vote in Seattle several years ago that purported to ban smoking within 25 feet of public doorways, but actually banned smoking inside any public building such as bars and restaurants. Sadly, I was unable to find the text of the bill online. If anyone else can, please post it in comments. All I can say is that, until the republicans quit blocking democratic attempts to limit or eliminate pork spending in laws, that is going to be a fact of our system. And I have yet to find anyone who can state with certainty that this is the case. Also, NO senators who voted against this bill gave this as their reason.

For the record, for those who wish to use this vote as the basis for THEIR future votes, here are the thirty senators who voted against this bill. Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Gregg (R-NH), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA), Wicker (R-MS). I recognize several of these as the partisan republican "usual suspects", including Brownback, Cornyn, Ensign, Graham, Inhofe, McCain, Sessions and Wicker.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Medical Malpractice

2009-09-21T17:54:00.001-07:00

Let's talk for a second about medical malpractice reform. The republicans are right that this needs to be addressed in ANY health care reform, but I rather think that my version of malpractice reform will be somewhat more generous than the corporate-minded republicans would be.

Part of the problem with medical malpractice... indeed, with ANY litigation in America today is that Americans tend to view a settlement or judgment the same way that we view winning the lottery – an easy way to big bucks. And who decides on the judgment amount? Americans. So they award their fellow American a ridiculous amount of money in the hopes that someone will do the same for them someday.

So let's start by nailing down the definitions of damages a little more closely. “Damages” in general describes the money paid out to remunerate the injured party for their injuries. These fall into two categories: actual damages and punitive damages.

Actual damages refer to compensation to cover actual monetary losses. If you have to miss work because of the malpractice, or are deprived of your ability to earn future income.

Punitive damages are moneys paid to... as the name suggests... PUNISH the person that you're suing. Personally, I think that doctors shouldn't be liable for punitive damages except in cases of GROSS negligence. If the doctor just screwed up... it's sad, but you know what? It happens. Now, if the doctor was high or drunk, ill, suffering insomnia or something else that should really prevent him from practicing and THAT is what caused the malpractice, well, that's different. Hurt the hell out of that sucker.

Some states place “caps” on medical malpractice, amounts that the awards can't exceed. I think that this is what the republicans would like to see on a federal level. I CAN agree with that, but only if the caps are not set dollar amounts, but sliding amounts based on a scale.

For instance... and this is going to sound cold... if a child dies due to malpractice, the child should be worth less in monetary award than a spouse. The reason? The typical parent has no expectation of the child EVER being a wage earner in their household. So actual damages should be extremely low, although money for counseling for the parents should be included as actual damage. To those who find that unfair, let me ask you a question... is there ANY amount of money that will replace your child? If you get a new car, or a boat, will that make the loss of your child any easier? I know that in my case, it would not. Some parents can't survive the loss of a child no matter HOW much money they get, and some parents like John Walsh and his wife recover from the loss of a child with NO money and come back to do amazing things.

Now, it's different if you have a child who is rendered incapable of taking care of themselves. Say brain damage. I think that in those cases, a child's award should EXCEED that of an adult. It should be calculated depending on the age of the child, life expectancy, the years that the person will need care (and all of those years should be paid) as well as future earnings. Not entirely sure how you would calculate future earnings for a child in grade school or high school, but I'm sure that there MUST be.

Now do you get an idea why this isn't addressed in the health care bill? No matter how vital I think that it is, or YOU think that it is, it is a deep, complex issue with no easy solution. And when you DO apply an easy solution (such as the states that cap malpractice judgments at a set dollar amount) you wind up not treating each person as an individual, giving some people far more than they should be awarded and others far less.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Let Me Get This Straight...

2009-09-19T16:00:00.001-07:00

I watched Republican leader John Boehner on the Newshour on PBS last night rant and rave about how frightened Americans are of trillion dollar deficits.

Um... Mr. Boehner? I realize that you're one of the history-revising republicans who thinks that this decade went 1999, 2009 with nothing in between, I feel compelled to remind you that the trillion dollar deficits had nothing to do with President Obama's health care plan and very little to do with the stimulus and rescue packages passed under EITHER President Obama or he-who-must-not-be-named. The trillion dollar deficits come from the mess in Iraq that was rammed down America's throat by YOU, Mr. Boehner, your fellow republicans and the last man to sit in the oval office. (Even the republicans seem to not want to hear his name these days.)

Which reminds me, I owe the sitting President an apology. Mr. President, I am dreadfully sorry for saying that you weren't getting us out of Iraq fast enough. In my impatience, I forgot that we are on a timetable requested by the Iraqi people to keep our troops there to help them rebuild through the end of 2011. My error.

Now.

To put this as politely as I can.

Any politician... especially any REPUBLICAN politician... who voted for the war and yet wants to say that health care isn't feasible because of America's trillion dollar deficit needs to SHUT THE FUCK UP! IT'S YOUR FAULT!

Universal health care is a good thing... it is a necessary thing... and it is a MORAL thing. The mess in Iraq that squanders our treasure and human lives is NONE of these things.

You know, whenever I hear republicans talk about this sort of thing, all that I can hear is “Why aren't you cleaning our mess up faster?”

SHUT

UP

It amazes me that ANY Americans still listen to you guys, let alone take you seriously. Like the death panel bullshit. From the first time that I heard that, I thought “Surely Americans are not dumb enough to take that seriously.” Way to prove me WRONG, America.

Rep. Boehner also said, regarding the “tea parties” and the town halls, that he liked to see Americans “involved in the system”. These people are not involved in the system any more than the kids who protested the Iraq war without bothering to vote were. They're either A) being paid by the insurance industry to block progress or B) simply hoping that they can shout loudly enough or be obnoxious enough to make one of the news shows. Which, by the way, need to stop giving these people air time.

Let me get one more thing straight while I'm at it...

The republicans have been harping since the beginning of the primaries that THEY are the ones who are going to protect your second amendment rights, and that Obama was going to send goon squads into your house to take your hunting rifles away. REEEEAAALLLY.

When someone wore a T-SHIRT protesting he-who-must-not-be-named to one of his appearances, he relegated them to “free speech zones” miles away “for his safety”. Can you imagine what would have happened to one of these people who turned up WITH A GUN? Whereas President Obama HAS armed protestors turning up at his appearances and makes no attempt whatsoever to remove them.

So let's get this straight... WHO'S protecting your second amendment rights?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Memo to the President RE: Afghanistan

2009-09-17T17:57:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. President,

I'd like to take a moment to address the issue of Afghanistan, since you seem open to considering alternative viewpoints to your own on this issue, unlike your predecessor.

I have grave concerns about further military action in Afghanistan. You ran (at least partly) on a platform of getting us the HELL out of Iraq, which you seem to show little interest in doing. Instead, you seem at least willing to send MORE of our young men and women to die in a foreign land in a struggle that is, ultimately, not ours.

I would also like to ask the questions of you on this issue that I asked your predecessor on Iraq...

1)What is our objective? If we engage in a military action without an objective, then there will be no end.
2)Corollary to that, what constitutes “victory” in Afghanistan? How do we know when we've “won” so that we can go home. You're an intelligent man... if you believe that there is a military solution to terrorism, i'd like to hear your argument.

Afghanistan is a war that SHOULD have been fought eight years ago, Mr. President, when the stated objective was to capture and punish Osama Bin Laden. They failed. Our window of opportunity for that has passed.

Mr. President, I understand and sympathize with your desire for bipartisanship. It is an admirable goal, and one that I share. The problem is that the Republican party has drifted so far into never-never land that you're not making compromises to any kind of intelligent middle-right... instead you are having to drift to the FAR right in order to appease racists who are NEVER going to be appeased by you. No matter HOW far to the right you go, it will never be enough to please them, unless you turn into another George W. Bush.

And I and the other people who voted for you do not want that.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

US and the G8

2009-09-14T21:04:00.001-07:00

I want to talk here for a minute about a group of nations that we belong to called the "G8". What this stands for is "group of eight", and, although it's not politically correct to say it, we are basically the eight nations that rule the world. In alphabetical order, the G8 is Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US. China is not represented there, and frankly I think that they should be. They kind of hold us by the short and curlies and we've given them so much money and power that we've basically turned them into a very, very scary world power. 21st century technology and money in hands controlled by a sixteenth century mindset.

Be that as it may, I got to wondering how well we actually fit with this group of enlightened nations.

So let's start with health care. ALL of the G8 provides health care for it's citizens… except us. A L L of them.

So that means that they spend more on health care than us, right? Wrong. Canada comes closest, but even they only spend half as much money on a per capita basis than we do. We're spending more money and STILL not covering everyone? Something's seriously wrong there, folks.

So what about life expectancy? Well, let me start by saying that the WORLD'S average life expectancy is 67 right now and we're WAY above that. So that's okay. But what about the rest of the G8? Well, if you're Japanese, you're living to about 82 right now. Of course, that may change with the vengeance with which they've adopted McDonald's over the last decade. If you're Canadian, you're living to about 81, eh? Just over 81 in Canada, just under it for the French. If you're Italian, you're going to about 80 and about 79 for the Germans. Take it from a half-German… that's only because they're too damned stubborn to die! Frankly, I can't help but wonder that they're not higher on the list. If you're British, you're going to about 79 as well. And the states? 78. The only one of the G8 that we beat is Russia. If you're Russian, it's 66.

Okay, what about infant mortality? Our combination of veneration of our children, hatred for abortion and THE FINEST FUCKING HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD means that we should have no infant mortality to speak of, right? Well, let's see… Well, the Japanese are at the top of that list, too. They lose about 3 infants per 1000 live births. Then us, right? Well, no. Then France. They lose about 4. Then us? Wrong again. next comes Germany who loses about 4 and then the UK who loses about 5. God, tell me that we're doing better than Russia, at least. Well, Canada and Italy each lose about 5 per 1000 live births, and then… YES! US! We lose about six babies out of every 1000 live births - more than twice as many as Japan. Slovenia, Singapore and Czechoslovakia all have lower infant mortality rates than us. So let's see, that's 7. Again, we do better than Russia, where they lose about 16 babies per 1000 live births. Compared to Russia, WE ROCK! But since when have we set our goals as being "We're not as bad as Russia"?

The final point that I'd like to make, and the only one NOT associated with the health care debate is this one…

Out of this group of nations, this group that I think most of us would consider among the most civilized and advanced of the nations on the Earth right now, only the United States of America ritually puts people to death. Even Russia has outlawed capital punishment.

Jesus, how can we even consider that we're worthy to sit at the big-kids table with this group?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

On Van Jones' Resignation

2009-09-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

Van Jones, President Obama's “Green Energy Czar” resigned today after that asshole republican Glen Beck revealed some of his checkered past. These included calling republicans “assholes” (oops), signing a petition to blame the Bush administration for 9/11 and claiming that white people are polluting black neighborhoods. You know what? I kind of buy that last one. He's been called a racist for making that statement, but let's face it... America, especially white America, especially white RICH America, tends to use the rest of the world and the people who aren't rich white Americans as their personal toilets. I mean, for how long have we been dumping our physical and toxic waste on underprivileged countries, and opening prisons, halfway houses and dumps in poor neighborhoods? So you know what, Van? I'm with you on that last one.

As far as the Bush administration orchestrating 9/11 goes... sorry, Van. I just don't think that they had the collective intelligence or ability to keep secrets necessary for that. Cheney might have pulled it off if he were alone, but he would have had to have relied on way too many other people. So I just don't buy it.

As far as calling republicans “assholes” goes... look, I love republicans. I have some dear republican friends. My best friend is a republican. But lets face it, in public, such as F-word news and your elected representatives, YOU GUYS ACT LIKE A BUNCHA ASSHOLES! Still, if he aspired to a political office he shouldn't have said it. And the President should have screened him better.

So Van took a well-deserved resignation. Good. I wish that he'd quit whining about how he was “smeared”. Van, buddy, you said it, you SHOULDN'T have said it, it's done. Let it go.

But I can't help but wonder...

What about the republican representative who called the Obamas “uppity”? Or the one who said that defeating health care was a golden opportunity to “take down” the president? Or the men who were involved in “leaking” Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent? Yeah, I know that they scapegoated Scooter Libby for that, but even he was pardoned by Bush. What about the republican (and democrat) representatives who foisted this mess in Iraq and the “USA PATRIOT” act on us? Why don't any of THESE people resign?

Don't get me wrong. I think that Van was wrong for what he said. And I think that he's downright CRAZY to believe that the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11. But as the right rejoices in his resignation, why aren't they calling for the heads of the rest of these people? We need to get beyond the partisanship that caused Van to call republicans “assholes”, but also the partisanship that causes republicans to protect the rest of these... well... assholes.

Peace.

Randal

Let's Get Our Terms Straight...

2009-09-03T18:36:00.001-07:00

I realize that many Americans are vague at best on their social studies skills, but let's try to get some terminology straight, shall we?

To begin with, socialism is NOT the antonym (opposite) of democracy. Socialism, along with communism and capitalism are ECONOMIC systems. Democracy, along with fascism and anarchism are POLITICAL systems. It is possible to be, for instance, a fascist, capitalist society. Or an anarchic communist system. We claim to have a democratic capitalist system here, although I think that the two are hostile to one another and I'll explain why at the end of this post.

So let's begin by defining the economic systems that I've listed above.

Socialism is a political philosophy that supports social and economic equality, collective decision-making, and public control of productive capital and natural resources. So imagine... if president Obama WERE actually a socialist, WE'D get to decide where our oil went instead of private corporations profiting off of it. Wouldn't that be nice? Now bear in mind that we DO have a lot of socialist programs in the United States, including education, libraries and medicare/medicaid.

Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Bear in mind that this is the same root word as “community”, which everyone agrees is good. As one wit put it, communism means what's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine. The problem with it? As George Carlin said, “People like to own shit.”

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned. Examples of capitalist societies are the United States and Saudi Arabia. Good company that we keep, huh?

Now for the political systems.

Democracy is a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. Examples of democracies include the United States and Iran. Again, great company.

Just for shits and giggles, since we're actually a “democratic republic”, let's define a republic. A republic is a state or country that is not led by a hereditary monarch.

Fascism is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology. In other words, if you apply this to an economic system, you have a government run by corporations. Sound familiar?

Anarchism is equal rule by all people. Impossible, in other words. In practical application, it becomes rule by the strongest.

So why do I say that democracy and capitalism are at odds? Because when the wealthy have more access to government leaders than the poor, like we have in the US, the poor become politically powerless.

So before we start bandying these terms about, let's start being sure of what they mean, okay guys?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

"The Journey"

2009-08-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hello.

I wanted to let everyone know that i'm starting a second blog that will contain a work of fiction called "The Journey". It can be found here.

This is a copyrighted work, so although i want people to read and enjoy it, and share the URL with their friends, please bear in mind that it may not be used by anyone other than me for any reason without my express and written permission.

Thanks and enjoy.

Rev. Randal

Stop Criticizing Criticizing Obama

2009-08-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

The democrats of 2009 are turning into the republicans of 2004 and it's really starting to bug me.

I've heard several times that the so-called “blue dog” democrats who want changes in the health care bill before they pass it need to just shut up and go along with the President. On Bill Maher's show the other night, he was doing a bit about medications and coming up with non-existent humorous names for medicines (such as “Beau Talks” for women who are having a trouble getting their men to open up). One of these humorous medicines was Growacet (pronounced “grow a set”) for democrats who were having trouble lining up behind Obama's health care plan.

Zieg freakin' Heil, guys. Jeez.

For how many years did we revile the republican “leadership” in congress for bullying moderate republicans into just lining up behind Bush and doing whatever he wanted? That's not what this is about, is it?

Look... I agree that health care is a necessity. We spend more on public health than any other industrialized nation, while being behind ALL of them in actual “public health”. And yes, at first, that spending will increase. The idea is that, over time, this trend will reverse. As we get the sick people healthier, start allowing doctors a little more latitude to help people stop smoking and encourage better nutrition, especially for our kids, things will get better. Me personally, I think that if we don't do something and SOON to improve the overall health of our kids NOW, I don't want to know what public health bills for them are going to like like when they grow up. But, by the same token, I think that there are legitimate questions that need to be answered about the bill. Yes, you can immediately disregard the people who are obviously nothing more than shills for the insurance companies. Yes, you can immediately disregard the people who are screaming that THEY WANT THEIR COUNTRY BACK at town hall meetings. And yes, you can disregard all of the bullshit about “death panels”. But what you CAN'T disregard is Daryl Issa's concern about a lack of malpractice tort reform in the bill. What you CAN'T disregard is that there is almost nothing in there addressing preventive care. For instance, doing something that the republicans have been fighting for years... putting severe restrictions on the way that McDonald's and Hershey's advertises to our kids. Or REQUIRING people on the public health dime to give up smoking, maintain a good weight and have annual checkups.

I guess that what i'm saying, guys, is that we don't all have to stand in line behind President Obama. As a matter of fact, being a fellow intellectual, I think that he doesn't WANT that. His plans are ultimately good for the country (unlike the crap that Bush pushed through with the help of the obedient republicans), so I think that he WANTS a vigorous debate. If we have concerns, we need to state the concerns. RESPECTFULLY, TOWN HALL SHOUTERS! BECAUSE IF IT JUST COMES DOWN TO WHO CAN SHOUT THE LOUDEST, I CAN OUTSHOUT ALL OF Y'ALL! If you're a democratic lawmaker who doesn't think that “Obamacare” is a good bill, then yes, vote against it. Campaign against it. Don't be like most of our lawmakers were, both democrat and republican, when the “USA PATRIOT” act was introduced and just sign it so that you can hang out with the cool kids, okay?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

BREAKING CHINA

2009-08-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

I made a decision on May 13th of this year. I won't call it a resolution, i won't call it a promise to myself, anything like that. Just a decision. That decision is that i would make a conscious effort for one year not to buy anything made in China. The one "out" that i allowed myself is that second-hand goods are okay. I made this "out" because if i buy something locally at a garage sale or Goodwill, i am not only keeping the money in my COUNTRY, but also in my COMMUNITY, and a lot of times in my NEIGHBORHOOD.

Why did i make this decision? Because i'm pissed. I'm pissed that, after the problems over the last couple of years with melamine in milk and lead paint in kid's toys and poisonous drywall, our net imports from China actually INCREASED. I'm pissed because we now pay Chinese kids a pittance to make shit that we don't need instead of paying American workers a living wage to make quality products that... let's face it... we don't really need. I'm pissed that more Americans aren't pissed... that they can't make the connection between our failing economy and all of the Chinese-made crap in their homes. Also, i don't like the way that our companies encourage Chinese sweat shop owners to act. I feel that American companies should be forced to play by our rules wherever they do business.

At my day job, on September 12th, 2001... like a lot of companies... we started selling American flags. Now first off, i always felt that if you didn't fly a flag on September 10th, 2001, then you shouldn't fly one on the 12th. Second off, as the hundredth or two-hundredth flag came through my line, i noticed something. These flags were made in China. AMERICAN FLAGS MADE IN CHINA! BEING FLOWN BY PEOPLE TO PROVE HOW "PATRIOTIC" THEY ARE! How pathetic is that? And when i pointed it out to one of my proudly conservative managers, he completely didn't see the problem. I am proud to say that my company has pretty much not stopped carrying flags since then, but the flags that we carry now are made in the USA. I hope that my input had something to do with that.

I also want to be really clear that this is not a "protest". A protest is something designed to change the behavior of someone else. This is strictly a personal decision. As an example, i don't fly... haven't since October, 2001. I LOVE flying, but hate what the government has done to it in the illusion of "safety". What should be a joy is now an endurance trial to no good end. When i went on vacation a few years back, a friend asked me if i was flying. I explained that i was driving because i didn't like what the government had done to flying. She, rather sniffily, said "Well, I don't feel the need to protest." It's not a protest. I'm not trying to change the way that the government handles flying... i'm simply not going to play. (Of course, if more of us stopped flying, ultimately the airlines would put pressure on the government to loosen the regulations and things might change... but that is not my goal.) Same thing with trying not to buy stuff that's made in China. Or driving my hybrid. I do that not for the environmental issues... although those are important issues for me... but to try to do what i can to get our oil supply out from under the control of CRAZY PEOPLE!

So here are some things that i have learned since i started this trek three months ago.

1) Get in the habit of looking. This is hard. I bought a toy for my cat a few days back ("guilt gift" after taking her in for a shot), and didn't think to look at the country of origin until i got home. And then, after examining the tag, discovered that it doesn't list the country of origin. I HAVE discovered through tag-checking that at least SOME Champion socks and Patriot computer ram are made in the USA.

2) Beware of mail-order. Before you order, check. This is hard. If you can't get an answer, live without it. Let's face it... like i said before... a lot of the crap made in China is stuff that we can live perfectly well without. I did discover this online store, though, that sells only American-made goods.

3) Continuing that thought... learn to live without stuff. Americans have become such a spoiled country that we actually view luxuries as necessary. At a previous day job, i collected child support from our employees and paid it to the custodial parents. I referred to these custodial parents as "my ex-wives", even though several of them were male. Anyway, one of my ex-wives' checks had become lost in the mail, and i had to cut and mail a new check to her. She was in financial crisis, apparently due to the late payment. Couldn't afford diapers, etc. She asked if i could express-mail her check to her. I told her that my boss probably wouldn't approve of that, but i'd have to check and call her back. (Now bear in mind that this was around 1997, so cell phones were still a mole on America's ass, not the full-fledged cancer that they have become today.) She said "Okay, if you can't reach me at home, here's my cell phone number and if you can't reach me there, here's my pager number..." See what i mean? She couldn't afford diapers if her child support was late, but had a cell phone and pager payment every month. PRIORITIES, PEOPLE!

4) Talk. Listen. Repeat. You'd be amazed how many people first ridiculed me for this idea, and are now thinking of getting on the bandwagon or already there, and now wanting to share their stories with me. Like my funniest story. Being a Star Trek geek, i was happy bordering on ecstatic when i discovered that Burger King was going to offer glasses tied to the new Star Trek film... MADE OF REAL GLASS! So i did what i thought was due diligence and discovered that the glasses are, in fact, made in the good old USA. Hoorah. So i get the glasses home, and i'm opening each box to check my new prizes for defects. One of the boxes happened to be in the bag upside-down, and that was how i discovered the legend "Glass made in USA... BOX PRINTED IN CHINA"! True story. Amazingly, amazingly stupid. But true.

5) Don't fixate on "made in USA" at first. It's nice, but just try to avoid "made in China". I have this funny/not funny joke that i tell people when they ask if a product is made in America... no, because the only things that we manufacture in the US anymore is Hondas and Toyotas. Not ENTIRELY true, but not miles off the mark, either. It's HARD to buy stuff made in the USA, but you can boy stuff that's NOT made in China.

And who knows. Maybe by not protesting in this way, we can all eventually turn America back into the economic powerhouse that we once were and desperately wish that we could be again.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Taxation Without Representation

2009-08-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about taxes.

The republicans want to present the question of taxation as a debate between the parties. They say the democrats are “tax and spend”.

The fact is that there is no real debate about taxation itself. Neither party likes to pay taxes. No American... I would say that no HUMAN BEING likes paying taxes. And as far as “tax and spend” goes, both parties spend. So if republicans don't tax, then how do they raise the revenue that they're spending? The billions of dollars that the Bush administration committed to pissing away in Iraq... where, exactly is that coming from?

So what is the debate? The debate is over who pays and how much.

The simple fact is that the middle class and the poor are bearing a much more disproportional part of the tax burden than the wealthy. What I mean by that is that if a person who earns a million dollars per year has to pay... say... a hundred thousand of that in taxes, it effects their way of life much less than if a person who earns... say.... thirty thousand per year has to pay three thousand of that in taxes.

For me, though, this entire debate misses a vital point, and that is that the tax code needs to be changed FUNDAMENTALLY. Not simply in who pays and how much, but in it's very NATURE.

For instance, one of my favorite miscarriages of justice is what happened to Al Capone. Thanks to “The Untouchables”, everyone knows about Capone's arch nemesis, Elliot Ness, the brave Federal Agent who brought him down. What's less well known is that Elliot Ness was not an FBI agent, or a secret service agent... he was an IRS agent! That's right, folks. They couldn't convict Capone for any of the hundreds or thousands of robberies and murders he had committed, couldn't bring him down for his numerous violations of prohibition, so they brought him down for not paying his taxes. Personally, that never seemed like a victory to me. It feels more like a failure on the part of our federal government.

And think about this... the federal government can and will incarcerate you for failing to pay your taxes. Personally, that seems like nothing short of extorting money from us to me.

So I think that the first thing that needs to happen with the tax code is that the IRS lose most of it's teeth. They are our employees, and they need to start treating us like their bosses instead of like miscreants.

The second thing is that the tax code needs to be simplified MASSIVELY. And like with gun laws, I think that instead of piling new laws on top of the old bad ones to try to simplify it, they simply need to set an expiration date on the existing tax laws and task congress with passing a new MASSIVELY SIMPLIFIED tax code before they expire.

The next thing is that the government has to stop trying to engineer society through tax law. A married homeowner with kids pays WAY less taxes than I do. We need to stop that. Why should the federal government care that I'm not married, don't own a house, and don't have any kids claimed on my W-2? This is nothing more or less than the government trying to force an outdated moral code on me.

Another thing that needs to happen... and bear in mind that I am, even as I write this, trying to establish my church... is that churches need to lose their tax exempt status. The founders made the church's tax exempt to try to prevent them from meddling in affairs of government. IT HASN'T WORKED. I've seen videos from 2000 and 2004 of ministers telling their flocks that God wanted them to vote for George W. Bush... and that brainwashing WORKED! Modern churches are NOT staying out of government affairs, so they need to pay their taxes like the rest of us. On a separate note, I also think that the confessional seal needs to be subject to subpoena, but that's another argument for another time.

So, idiotic “tax day tea parties” aside, I think that taxation is necessary for our government to operate. Taxes pay for our military. They pay for our schools, our libraries, our prisons, our police and fire departments. They pay for our public welfare system, which includes medicare, medicaid and care for our elderly. Sadly, when we DO succeed in getting the government to cut spending instead of raising taxes, it is schools, libraries and public welfare... the things that should be cut LAST... that are cut first. That needs to change, as well.

What we have in the twenty-first century, folks, is a classic case of taxation without representation. Reasonable tax laws will not be passed as long as the wealthy have access to our lawmakers while the poor do not. Reasonable gun laws will not be passed as long as our elected officials live in gated, guarded communities and work surrounded by guards and metal detectors. Reasonable public education will not exist while they send their kids to private schools. Reasonable public health care will not exist as long as they do not have to worry about it.

Just remember, brothers and sisters... WE are the government. The only way that they will be answerable to us on these issues is if we get involved and MAKE them answerable.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

I LOVE BARNEY FRANK!

2009-08-19T14:48:00.001-07:00

Dear Massachusetts,

After watching the news today, I have an offer for you. I would like to offer any... or ALL... of our Washington state representatives in exchange for Barney Frank. I LOVE Barney Frank. Whereas our guys... well... I don't want to say that they lack BALLS or anything, but... you know. They're all democrats, like Mr. Frank, so you're not changing teams. And my thought is that you guys did such a great job producing Mr. Frank that you might actually be able to instill some guts into these guys.

Thank you.

I saw Barney Frank at a town hall meeting on the news today. One of these (I'm sure) insurance company shills stood up and... bear in mind that she's speaking to a GAY JEW, asked Barney Frank why he persists in pursuing a NAZI POLICY! I assume that she's talking about the public health care option, since Mr. Frank is, like me, a liberal. Mr. Frank responded “Let me go back into my heritage for a second and answer that question with a question... what planet do you spend most of your time on?” I love that. And then, when she asked if he was going to engage in conversation with her... after basically calling him a Nazi in her opening statement, he said “I get the feeling that it would be like conversing with a kitchen table.” GOD, I LOVE THIS MAN!

Incredibly offensive stupidity aside, I would like to know where exactly modern republicans... the people who put Herr Bush into office TWICE... get off referring to President Obama as a Nazi. I just don't understand it. Whenever a liberal compared Bush to Hitler I insisted that they defend that. If they couldn't, I told them to shut up. I did it, but I have a number of parallels that I can present in defense of the statement. If anyone would like them, I'd be happy to post them here. They are numerous. So to any of my republican brothers and sisters out there who want to compare Obama to Hitler, please let me know your rationale, because I honestly don't understand it.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Some Questions...

2009-08-17T21:42:00.001-07:00

Questions are both the pleasure and the curse of my life. Although they won't LEAVE ME ALONE, and i sometimes feel that my life would be much happier if i had more questions than answers, instead of the other way round, they are also what prompts me to learn new things, which is one of my greatest joys.

So these are some questions that have been bugging me between the beginning of the Obama administration and now...

Why is it, that when Bush started the whole bail-out thing it was good capitalism, but when Obama continued it, it was socialism. Can anyone answer that question for me?

How can we possibly call ourselves a Christian nation when we give tax breaks to the rich to buy more shit while when we have the inevitable budget cuts they wind up affecting the poorest of us and those most in need? You know... the ones that Christ SPECIFICALLY TOLD US TO TAKE CARE OF.

And the big one occurred to me today. Listening to these morons argue against "socialized medicine", meaning medical care for the poor... the so-called "public option"... leads me to wonder. When these people get old, as they invariably will, and lose their health insurance either because of loss of a job or because they can't afford it anymore... are they going to turn down medicare? That's socialized medicine, you know. So you people... you IDIOTS who speak without thinking... are you going to pass on medicare because you're so against socialized medicine? And i don't want to see you at my libraries anymore, either. That's socialized information, which you obviously want no part of. And forget calling my socialized assistance organizations when you're getting robbed or raped or your house is burning down (that's the police and fire department, in case you're wondering.)

And related to that. All of this nonsense that i've heard about Obama's "death panels". Do you honestly think that your insurance company doesn't have a panel to decide who's worth care and who's not? THAT'S ESSENTIALLY A DEATH PANEL, MY IGNORANT, IDIOTIC BROTHERS AND SISTERS, for Christ's own sweet sake.

Oh, FYI... the reason that your republican representatives have absolutely NO QUALMS about tricking you and lying to you about the "public" health care option so that you don't support it is because THEY HAVE SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! Our tax dollars pay for every bit of their health care. Funny how none of them are turning down their OWN version of socialized medicine, isn't it? The same reason that they cut funds to public schools (their kids all go private) and they feel perfectly okay pandering to the NRA at the cost of our lives and the lives of our kids (they all live in guarded, gated communities and work in buildings surrounded by guards and metal detectors). Please, my brothers and sisters, get your proverbial heads out of your collective asses and STOP ALLOWING THESE PEOPLE TO TRICK YOU!

Please.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Banana-Eating Jungle Monkeys 2

2009-08-10T17:27:00.001-07:00

First, a note of clarification for Bigmark... Justin Barrett, the officer who referred to professor Gates as a “Banana-Eating jungle monkey” wasn't the arresting officer. He was another officer on the Boston police force who referred to Professor Gates that way in a mass e-mail to other officers and to the Boston Globe. An article about his suspension can be found here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/07/30/2009-07-30_boston_cop_jason_barrett_suspended_for_calling_henry_louis_gates_a_jungle_monkey.html

He was apparently not only suspended (with pay, I stress again, kind of like a vacation) from his job as a police officer, but relieved of military duties by his National Guard unit.

Two more points that i'd like to add here that I realize that I forgot last night.

The first is an open note to all police officers that I may encounter. If you ever arrest me... IN MY HOME... after I have proven that it's MY HOME... the behavior of a banana-eating jungle monkey is just about the BEST behavior that you'll be able to expect from me. I think that we give police officers WAY too much power and leeway to use it in our culture. It's almost like cop worship. Of course, since I am largely white, I think that no matter how unruly I got, I would just get an apology from the officer for the misunderstanding. It sucks, but that's the way that it is. I think that if professor Gates had been white, he probably would have gotten an apology instead of cuffed and fingerprinted.

I also want to say that I think that President Obama behaved stupidly... er... I mean... I think that he could have handled that situation differently.

First off, Mr. Obama, I can't speak for the arresting officer, but in my lexicon of “bad” words, “stupid” is about the worst of them. You call me stupid and you're just asking for a fight. You want to say that I acted inappropriately, okay. It's been known to happen. You want to say that I behaved without thinking, okay. That, too. But “stupidly”? Come on, now.

Also, I am more than a little frustrated that he allowed himself to be sidelined by this incident and question when he SHOULD have been concentrating on pushing health care through. The republicans, on behalf of their rich friends in the Insurance business, managed to sideline the Clintons in the nineties, health care never got done, and look how much worse the situation is now than it was then. Mr. Obama, you CANNOT allow yourself to be distracted here. FOCUS. You are working out to be much more moderate than I thought that you were going to be when I voted for you, but this could be your LEGACY. No more beer for you until you finish your homework!

And, on a quick side-note, let me just explain to anyone out there who's been watching F-word news... Obama's health care plan does NOT mean that he's going to let your granny die. Rationing of health care does NOT mean that people will be told that they are too ill to care for. As a matter of fact, that's what your buddies in the insurance business are doing NOW. What it DOES mean that, if you're on the public plan, and you go running into the ER with a hangnail screaming “EMERGENCY!” that you've gotta WAIT. Okay? Just to clarify.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Banana-eating Jungle Monkeys

2009-08-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

I wanted to talk a little tonight about Justin Barrett, the Boston cop who referred to Henry Lewis Gates in an e-mail as a "banana-eating jungle monkey".

After making this odd and racially-charged statement, he then said "but i'm not a racist".

First off, let's say that the ONLY way that this statement is NOT racist, is if he would apply the same term to a white suspect, which i doubt. I mean, the term in and of itself is a combination of two racist terms - jungle bunny and porch monkey. Officer Barrett... YOU'RE A RACIST!

And now... get this... he's actually SUING over his PAID suspension from the police department over this. His attorney said that he didn't mean to characterize professor Gates as a banana-eating jungle money with this statement. Oh, really? Then why the hell did he say it?

Look, if i'm in an argument with someone of another race, the LAST thing that would occur to me would be to spout some racial epithet. I may question whether the person's parents were brother and sister. I may imply that he has sexual relations with his mother. I will DEFINITELY question his intelligence. But i will not call him a racist name.

After all, there are so many BETTER reasons not to like someone than their race.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

And Another Thing...

2009-08-05T18:44:00.001-07:00

I don't believe in gravity anymore, and I think that it should stop being taught in our schools. I mean it. The so-called “laws” of gravity are really nothing more than an attempt to steer our children away from God and into a random universe where things happen according to some arbitrary “law”, and not because God made them happen.

What brought on this change of heart? In reading the Old Testament, you discover that Joshua “stopped the moon and the sun” for one full day, dead in the sky. Now we know, of course, from observable phenomenon that the sun does not ACTUALLY move through the sky, but instead the Earth revolves on it's axis and rotates around the sun. So what this is ACTUALLY saying is that, in answer to a prayer from Joshua, God stopped the Earth from both revolving and rotating for a full day. Now, the so-called “laws” of gravity tell us that if this were to happen, everything, including our atmosphere, would go flying off of the Earth if this were to happen, and what would be left would be a lifeless rock floating through space. And that OBVIOUSLY didn't happen. Therefore, since the Bible is literal and unchallengable, it must be the so-called “laws” of gravity that are wrong. So there.

…

See how stupid that sounds, anti-evolutionists?

Peace.

Rev. Randal
Universal Life Church

Furthermore...

2009-08-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Furthering the theme that I touched on yesterday...

I was just listening to a song by Woody Guthrie called “Jesus Christ”. The first verse of the song is “Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land, a hard-working man and brave. He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor," so they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.” The song ends with the line “If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee, they would lay poor Jesus in His grave.”

I would like to ask all of my Christian friends who love money, and who would deny shelter, food and health care to poor people to do a little serious self-examination. If a man were to arise today who said the same things that Jesus said 2000 years ago, what would you do? Would you accept what the man said, sell all that you have and give them money to the poor and follow him, or would you be the first in line calling for his blood? If you answer the former, then I have to ask... what's stopping you? He told us to do this all those years ago, so what's stopping you? You know what he demanded of his followers (Christians), so why aren't you doing it?

Another song by another artist who is vilified by the modern “Christian” right, Jim Croce, called “Which Way Are You Going?” includes the lines “One hand on the Bible and the other on a gun” and “You say you love the baby, then you crucify the man.” Jesus himself spoke poorly of people who pay honor to God with their mouths while not doing good works with their hands.

So I have to wonder... what the hell is wrong with you people?

Peace.

Randal

Bleeding Heart

2009-08-01T20:37:00.001-07:00

A conservative Catholic friend of mine the other day referred to me as a "bleeding heart" for saying that ALL Americans should be guaranteed health care. For any of you so-called "Christians" out there who think that it takes a bleeding heart to want that, i wanted to offer you a quick reminder of who the original "bleeding heart" was.

Peace.

Randal

PAY ATTENTION, DAMMIT!

2009-07-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

The current tug-of-war over health care is exactly the kind of case where I stress to non-involved Americans that they have to PAY ATTENTION!

Yes, it’s hard. But anything worthwhile is hard. No, it’s not always exciting. But again – anything worthwhile is not always exciting. The republican movement seems to be “Anything that the president wants, we automatically oppose.” So when you see an ad about healthcare saying that the Obama plan will make you change your doctor to some kid who got his doctorate at Dope U. in Tijuana or whatever, look beyond the ad and find out what the truth is.

The most important aspect of this attention-paying is that you need to develop your own idea of what American health care should look like, or if we should have it AT ALL, and make sure that our representatives are doing that. If they’re not, vote against them next time.

For instance, my idea of American health care is that A) all Americans should have some kind of health care, including basic services that are not now covered by welfare such as annual check-ups and well-child checks, B) large employers should be REQUIRED to provide affordable health care for their employees, and C) small employers who DO provide affordable health care for their employees get massive tax breaks. President Obama’s plan seems to be similar to this. In four years, if either we don’t have health care, or if we do and it’s not satisfactory to me, then I’m going to see what my representatives and the president did or did not do on this issue and vote accordingly.

Peace.

Randal

Consistency

2009-07-14T19:04:00.001-07:00

Something happened at my day job recently that made me realize that the word “consistency” is going the way of “extreme” and “normal” and “regular”. It is losing the meaning that it SHOULD have.

I was disciplined at work for an accident, “consistently” (according to the store manager) with someone who had done the same thing purposefully.

Let's be really clear here. I tried to explain this to the manager, and then to a regional director, but neither got it.

Actions cannot and SHOULD NOT be “consistent”. Anyone who keeps doing the same thing in the same way either lacks courage, imagination or intelligence. RESULTS should be consistent, the actions taken to achieve that consistency should vary from situation to situation. Always, though, consistency of the end result should be the goal.

For instance, the consistent goal of business, time immemorial, has been to bring in as much money as possible with as little outflow as possible. The ways that we have achieved this through the years have changed significantly and need to keep changing. I always love it when some American says to me that something is the right way to do something because it's “always been done that way”. Really what this means is that it's always been done this way as far as you know, because, being an American, history for you began the day that you were born and will end the day that you die. Anything that happened before your birth is inconsequential... anything after your death is irrelevant. I think that this is the attitude that leads us to ignore global climate change so as not to inconvenience ourselves. We're seeing really minor changes in the weather and temperature. No big deal. We can live with it, right? The problem is that it's just going to keep getting nastier and nastier... more and more extreme. But hell, that'll be the KID'S problem, right?

So you see how our consistent actions are resulting in an outcome that is not consistent with what we claim in this country? We need to be FLEXIBLE in our actions if we want the same better world for our kids that our parents claimed to have wanted for us.

It's the same with business. Any business that does the same thing... in the same way... every single time... regardless of variables... will not last. Of course, just like with the global climate change issue, who cares what happens to the company in twenty years, right? If I aim at the short-term only (and remember anything that happens after me is irrelevant) then “staying the course” regardless of icebergs can be beneficial. Makes the books look really good for today and tomorrow. And that's all that matters. If my “consistency” causes the business to go bankrupt in twenty years because no one decent will work for them anymore out of fear of unjust “discipline”... well... that's simply not my problem.

Which brings something else about “consistent” to mind. Consistent is a relative term. Nothing can be, in and of itself, consistent. It can only be consistent with something else. So if your actions are “consistent” with your actions, then they're consistent with nothing. Doing the same thing in the same way is idiotic... I think, though, that people have a hard time saying “I'm going to do this the same way every time because I'm too (unimaginative/stupid/lazy) to look at the variables of each individual situation.

Which is inconsistent with the idea of long-term success and growth of a company.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who could say almost ANYTHING better than I can, said “Consistency is the hobgoblin of the little mind.”

See how that works?

Peace.

Randal

Some Thoughts on Marriage

2009-07-08T17:58:00.001-07:00

I recently advised a young friend of mine who commented that she wasn't sure if she should get married not to. Her response was that, just because I had a bad experience, I shouldn't assume that everyone will. Which... as happens with MOST things... got me thinking.

It is true that I had a bad experience with marriage. I had a really excellent three year marriage. The problem is that it was spread out over a twelve-year period. A day here, a day there, it adds up. It is also true that 95% of the marriages that I know that are more than ten years old are no longer truly love relationships. They are now more like two buddies cohabiting. Or, in some cases, two rivals staying together only for the thrill of outliving each other.

But neither of these are the reasons that I proffered this advice. I just think that marriage is something that needs to be entered into with as clear of a head and as much reasonable thought as is possible. If you marry for passion, within a year you'll be struggling to remember why you got married in the first place.

Once upon a time, marriage was a necessity. Children could not be legitimized without marriage, you couldn't even have SEX without getting married first. Even after premarital sex became somewhat acceptable in the sixties and seventies, marriage was necessary to insure that both partners enjoyed each others work benefits, etc. That was really the reason that my ex and I married. We had planned on just living happily together forever, but the only way that I could cover she and my step-daughter on my health insurance was to get married. Now, with domestic partner insurance almost universally available, even THAT is no longer a requirement. So the question remains... why get married?

The first is the idea that you have some kind of religious thing that prevents you from having sex without marrying. This is not the case even among some pretty serious religious people these days, but it does still remain in some cases. Fine.

Barring that, why else? Because you love that person? That's fine, too. But I think that most of us know that love and passion don't typically last. There's an old saw about how, if you put a penny in a jar for every time that you have sex in the first year, and then take a penny out every time after that you'll never empty the jar. I know ONE couple for whom this is not true, but they're both hotties. I have a hard time figuring out how these two people ever manage to get out of bed. And I can honestly say that every woman that I've ever loved... including my ex-wife... I STILL love. But in each case that love has transmuted. So again I ask... why marry?

Do you expect marriage to change nothing between you? Then why marry? As my old dad says, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it works, don't monkey with it.

Do you expect marriage to change things between you? Presumably for the better? What if it doesn't? What if all of the things that drive you crazy about the other person that you expect marriage to fix STILL drive you crazy after five years of marriage? If you feel like things need to be changed (read as: fixed) in your relationship, shouldn't you fix these things BEFORE you get married? Another old saw has it that a man marries expecting the woman to remain the same and a woman marries expecting the man to change. My experience is that it's more accurate to say that a woman marries a man thinking that she can change (read as: fix) him.

I realize that it's not “romantic” to think logically of marriage before you do it. Personally, I think that if half the planning and thought went into the marriage as does the wedding that most people wouldn't get married. I mean, most people give more thought to a five-year contract to buy a car then they do to a LIFETIME contract of marriage.

Trust me, folks. I'm a romantic. But part of that is that, if I'm going to be in a relationship with someone, I want the passion and romance that I feel for that person on the first day to remain for the extent of the relationship. That's why I'm a proponent of contract marriages. Draw up a contract that you'll remain together for a year, or three years, or five years. No more than ten at a time. Include in that contract disposition of possessions and children at the end of the contract. If things are still going good at the end of the contract, renew it for another group of years. What is modern marriage, after all, but a contract? The difference is that it's a LIFETIME contract with only one out: divorce. And personally, I think that if contract marriages were put into place, you'd see our national divorce rate drop to zero.

Just a thought.

Peace.

Randal

Health Care Conundrum

2009-07-07T21:40:00.001-07:00

Honestly, I’ve spent the day trying to figure out what the hell is so hard about national health care. Why does this present such a problem that we have to spend more than a decade and millions of dollars talking about it without actually DOING anything.

The argument presented by the corporate-run right is that a “public” health care option will pose a threat to private insurance companies. What I can’t figure out is that they actually say this as if it’s a BAD thing. But, okay. Let’s say that’s true. It’s not, by the way. Both England and Canada have both a public health care system and thriving private insurers.

So here’s the way that I think that it should go, if anyone’s interested.

At your basic tier, you have the public health care option. This is BASIC health care, provided to every American, free of charge PERIOD. On this health care plan there would be no voluntary procedures, such as plastic surgery, Viagra, anti-smoking pills or anti-fat pills. Yes, yes, howl socialism all that you want. I view it as more of a Christian imperative. Christ demanded that we care for one another, and frankly we’re doing a piss-poor job of it. Think of this first tier as a parachute. You’d much rather be riding in the airplane, but… failing that… it can save your life.

On top of that would be the tier that we now know. This is where the private insurers fit in. The argument is that, if a public health care option is available, people who currently have private insurance will give it up to suckle from the government teat. I can tell you, folks, that as far as I’m concerned that’s about as far from true as it can get. If there were a severely stripped and compromised public health care option available, or I could keep my Aetna coverage for what I pay for it every month, I’m keeping Aetna. I may have had my disagreements and run-ins with them over the years, but basically they’ve been pretty good to me. A little nuts – for instance, my diabetes lancets cost around $8.50 off the shelf, but the insurance co-pay on them is $10 – but basically pretty good to me.

Another aspect of this would be that businesses over a certain size would be REQUIRED to provide decent health insurance to their employees. And no, I’m not talking about burdening small business with this. That’s why you place a certain size restriction on it. If you have more than… to give a random figure… 5000 employees, you cease being a “small” business and have to start providing good health insurance. And what about small businesses? Any small business that voluntarily provided good health insurance to their employees would be showered with tax exemptions. Not the big guys. Wal*Mart will be fine without the billions of dollars in corporate hand-outs that they receive every year. They’ll still be around. Like a cockroach. But small, upstart businesses, like Sam Walton’s little five and dime was when it started, will be given the advantages that they need to succeed. One friend of mine argued that this would prevent small businesses owners from wanting to “grow” their business. Really? So I’m going to keep myself from accruing wealth at some point simply because I have to provide health insurance to my employees? I don’t bloody well think so.

Oh, on a side note… I also think that American businesses doing business overseas would have to play by OUR rules. They are American, after all. They would have to pay American minimum wage to their employees WHEREVER they are. They would be required to provide health insurance. Our pollution laws would apply to them, so they couldn’t enslave Chinese kids or poison the Yangtzee river anymore than they could enslave AMERICAN kids or poison the MISSISSIPPI river.

So can someone please tell me what’s so God-damned HARD about this before I go CRAZIER trying to figure it out?

Peace.

Randal

Michael Jackson Remains Dead

2009-07-05T16:26:00.001-07:00

As the media feeding frenzy around the death of Michael Jackson continues, I have only one wish... I wish that they would use it as an opportunity to open SUBSTANTIVE discourse on something instead of simply “did ya love him, did ya hate him, what's your favorite song, what's your favorite video”? (My answers, by the way, are that I thought that he was an excellent musical artist, but a severely flawed personality and my favorite video and song both are “Smooth Criminal”.)

For instance, in 2005, as most of us remember, Jackson was accused (again) of molesting little boys at his Neverland Ranch. At the time, the big question that everyone was asking was “Do you think that he did it or not?” To me, even at the time, the bigger question was “How on Earth is this man expected to get a fair trial?” You would have to move the trial to darkest New Guinea to get a jury of twelve who not only hadn't heard the case, but didn't already have their minds made up about it. Americans have a very screwed up idea of what “fair” means in this context, though. I was watching an episode of the TV show “The Practice” recently and they were doing voir dire for a trial for a man who was accused of murdering his wife with an axe. One potential juror, when asked if she had heard of the case said “Yes, but I think that every American deserves a fair trial – even men who kill their wives with an axe.” She didn't seem to realize that if she already believed that he did it, she could AUTOMATICALLY not give him a fair trial. But the 24/7 news coverage of this stuff makes a fair trial, especially for a celebrity, in this country impossible. (My personal opinion, if you're interested, by the way, is that he did it. After all, one of the little boys fairly exactly described the discolored patches on Jackson's penis. Kind of hard to do if you haven't been up close and personal with it. Which leads me to my next point.)

The other thing that we could do here, is use this as an opportunity to open a discourse about the way that we treat child molesters in this country. I think that one of the reasons that MJ HAD to be acquitted is because we're taught to treat ALL child molesters in this country equally – as irredeemably scummy bastards. And love him or hate him, it's really hard to think of MJ as an irredeemably scummy bastard. Therefore, by that logic, he cannot be a child molester.

So let me open this dialogue.

I'd like to start with the idea that all child molesters and pedophiles are NOT created equal and should not be treated the same under the law. There are three types of people out there who harm children sexually. The first is a pedophile. A pedophile is a person who has a sexual attraction to children. And contrary to what the religious right says, the VAST majority of pedophiles are not homosexual. There are homosexual male pedophiles who are attracted to little boys, homosexual female pedophiles who are attracted to little girls, but the majority are heterosexual pedophiles attracted to the opposite sex.

A pedophile, by definition, has not acted on this attraction. They have never touched a child. These people CAN be helped, and I think that, as a society, it is our responsibility to help them. Although many people find this distasteful, I think that one way to do that is to provide them with fantasy materials. Illustrations and stories, in other words. Things that do NOT harm a real child in their production. Also, we need to end the law that requires therapists to report ANYONE who comes to them admitting a sexual attraction to children to the police. This doesn't reduce predation on children, it simply prevents these people from coming forward while they still CAN be helped.

Once a pedophile has acted on this attraction, he or she becomes a child molester. This is where MJ fits in, and, I think, the majority of Catholic priests who have been busted for touching a child. I think that, because of his own screwed-up childhood, he had an attraction to children that his adult mind translated as sexual. Jail time IS appropriate for a child molester. However, I do think that the sentence has to be dependent upon the action, rather than mandatory sentencing. For instance, a guy who touches a little girl's breast should get less of a jail sentence than a woman who performs oral sex on a little boy, who should get less of a sentence than a man who penetrates a little girl or boy with his penis. See? Degrees of severity. And no, people, I am not speaking from a depth of ignorance here – I was molested by an older relative when I was a kid, so I have some basis for what I'm saying here. (And no, please do not append notes of condolence – most of my memories of this are lost to time (I was about eight at the time, thirty-five years ago) but that few that I retain are not unpleasant. Ask a woman who was penetrated as a little girl if that's an accurate description of how badly SHE was traumatized.)

The third category, the irredeemable bastard category, is the predator. The predator is not necessarily a pedophile, even if he or she harms a child sexually. The predator is simply drawn to weakness or perceived weakness. Vulnerability or perceived vulnerability. Serial killers fit into this category, as do rapists. Their actions are rarely if ever prompted by sexual desire as we know it. They are turned on not by the other person, but by the vulnerability of the other person. Although these people are frequently damaged personalities, they are beyond help or redemption. The damage has simply gone too far. As opposed as I am personally to the death penalty, I cannot help but think that all that we can do with a person like this is jail them for life or execute them. We cannot allow them back into society, period. Some people believe that the answer to this is physical or chemical castration. The problem with physical castration is that as long as the predator retains hands or a mouth, they retain the ability to prey sexually on another person. The problem with chemical castration is that there has to be some way to make sure that the person remains on their regimen of castrative drugs. This may well work with many child molesters, as many of them are racked with guilt by their desires, and will continue taking the drugs simply to be free of that guilt. Most predators will not.

I base my statement on child molesters on a friend of mine. He went to jail for sexually interfering with a twelve year old girl. When he got out of prison, he was determined not to do it again, so he would introduce himself by explaining that he was a pedophile and could not be alone with children. EVER. A female acquaintance of his, believing, I guess, that this determination made him safe, asked him to babysit her kids. My friend, in a moment of weakness or stupidity accepted. He molested all three kids. He never went to jail for this because, before he could be arrested, he hanged himself in grief.

Folks, if we truly wish to stop this evil, we have to start addressing the issue as responsible adults, not as scared kids.

Peace.

Randal

The 2008 Election is Finally Over

2009-07-01T08:58:00.001-07:00

Al Franken was finally declared the winner of the senatorial race in Minnesota, seven months after the election. This election, more than anything, makes me wish that the Gore campaign had fought harder in 2000. It was a tough fight, but finally the people of Minnesota received justice, which the people of Florida never did.

Really, though, the thing that struck me the most about this was the response of both candidates. I, for one, am so sick of the bitter, vitriolic partisan politics that’s been… not a PART of our political landscape, but our ENTIRE political landscape… since 1996, that I found myself letting out an audible sigh of relief when Norm Coleman bowed down like a gentleman, and Al Franken admitted that that he barely won.

Franken, especially, demonstrated the kind of humility that you never see in politics anymore. “I won by 312 votes (out of three million)… a lot of people didn’t vote for me. I have a lot to prove to the people of Minnesota.”

One thing that people have said is that a comedian has no part in government. Well, let’s see… comics… at least lasting comics like Franklin and not flashes in the pan like Andrew Clay… tend to be intelligent, thoughtful, clever and creative. These people are right, I guess. There’s no place for people like that in modern U S government.

Peace.

Randal

RIP Michael Jackson Jokes

2009-06-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

STURGEON GENITAL'S WARNING: THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG ENTRY IS TO OFFEND. I AM SETTING OUT HERE TO OFFEND EVERYONE AT LEAST ONCE, SOMETIMES SEVERAL TIMES. SO IF YOUR DELICATE SENSIBILITIES CAN'T TAKE BEING OFFENDED, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY CLOSE THIS BROWSER WINDOW... NOW. THANK YOU.

I have several topics that I want to cover today, and they all involve the title, so bear with me if you want.

I have a day job. Because I have not yet been able to convince anyone to pay me for my writing, and none of my friends or relatives love me enough to shelter and feed my lazy ass while I try to make a living off of either of the TWO things that I do well, I have a day job. By the way... if anyone reading this is an agent or publisher who can help me make a living as a writer, PLEASE contact me. I am ten times the writer that Dan Brown is, only with the integrity to prevent me from shamelessly stealing someone else's work and making a gagjillion dollars off of it like he did.

I don't know for how much longer I can stand to have a day job. A friend once commented that I need to develop a higher tolerance for stupidity. It's not working. As a matter of fact, my tolerance for stupidity seems to be getting lower and lower. I made a joke at my day job today, and was hauled in to the office to be reminded that any statement that can offend ANYONE (which means ANY joke) is grounds for termination in the modern bullshit corporate mentality. I'll tell you what it was in a sec. Again, close the browser if you're an inbred pea-brained idiot who looks for reasons to take offense at shit, okay? At that point in history, I almost just walked out, fed up with the whole thing. I'm almost there. I'm almost ready to let the finance company take my car, sell all my shit and move into a cardboard box. My personality is incompatible with corporate life, and it's only getting worse the longer that I try to do it. I only play well with others WHO ARE WILLING TO PLAY.

So here's what I said... for those who don't yet know, Michael Jackson, who has spent the last thirty years turning himself into a parody of a human being, died today. On CNN today, they showed side-by-side pictures of MJ from his days in the Jackson 5 and how he looked recently. Here's the offensive comment. This joke, by the way, is so old as to be almost venerable. I want to say that Jay Leno started it about fifteen years ago. I said that at some point Michael Jackson went from being a cute black kid to being a weird looking old white lady. Someone told on me. Damned good thing that they didn't hear my earlier comment that pedophiles the world over would now have to stop touching kids for a day of mourning at the death of one of their patron saints. (I know who told on me, by the way, and I think that it has more to do with the fact that this person doesn't like me than anything.)

I do not understand people. Human beings. They puzzle me almost to insanity. I am reassured that I am, in fact, a human being myself, but if that were the case it seems like I would have more in common with them. The things that entertain them would entertain me. The things that offend them would offend me. I would desire the things that they desire, but none of this is the case.

Of course, I can understand this offense... if there's one thing that we need a hell of a lot LESS of... especially at difficult times... it's humor.

So now, I am intentionally going to set out to offend everyone. If you belong to a group that I somehow manage to miss, I apologize. I don't mean to offend you be leaving you out of the offensive jokes, it was an accident.

And for the record, I myself am a half German, half American Indian middle aged heterosexual white guy. So I'm going to start with a white guy joke... and trust me... those are HARD to find.

What do you call a bunch of white guys sitting on a bench? The NBA.

An Indian guy walks up to his friend and says “Running Bear, how do we get our names?” And his friend says “We're named after the first thing that our mother sees when we're born... why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?”

Do you know why Germans build such high-quality products? So that they don't have to go around being nice while they fix them.

(Don't know if this qualifies as a heterosexual joke or not, but it's the only one that I could find.) How many heterosexual male hairdressers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Both of them.

How do you stop black kids from jumping on the bed? Put velcro on the ceiling.

How do Chinese couples name their kids? They roll a metal garbage can downstairs and name the kid the first three sounds that it makes.

Three gay guys are sitting in a hot tub. One notices some cum floating on the surface and says “Okay... who farted?”

Jewish guy is having sex with his wife. He says “I'm sorry, did I hurt you?” She says “No, why do ask?” He says “You moved.”

Why do women prove that there's no such thing as intelligent design? Because no intelligent designer would put the snack bar that close to outhouse.

Why do men prove that there's no such thing as intelligent design? Because only an idiot would give something both a brain and a dick and only blood enough to operate one at a time.

What do you call a Japanese failure? A survivor of Pearl Harbor.

What do you call a priest with no little boys in his congregation? Celibate.

Okay, that's all that I can think of at the moment, and my spleen is well vented. Anyone who wants to add any, please feel free, with the only stipulation being that they MUST BE FUNNY, and not just to you.

And also – to any of my loved ones out there in the corporate world – please, if a co-worker says something that offends you, do everyone a favor – go to them and say “That's not cool, man.” Don't go run and tell like a little kid who gets pushed over at the playground, okay?

Peace.

Randal

Health Care Hullaballoo

2009-06-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

We need a national health care program. It is a disgrace that we are the only industrialized nation in the world that not only has citizens with no health care, but allows our health care system to be run by a profit motive.

The republicans, who are anti-anything-Barack Obama-says, have launched a series of ads asking people if they want the GOVERNMENT (insert ominous music here) making their medical decisions for them. Of course not. We want to make our OWN medical decisions, with the advice of our doctors. Which is the way it is now, right?

Right?

Well, wrong actually. Right now INSURANCE companies get to make your medical decisions for you. If you, like me, are one of the unfortunates caught in an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization), then your insurance company can even decide which doctor you see. You get a prescription from your doctor, you get it filled and your insurance company covers it, though, right?

Right?

Well, wrong actually. Your doctor, with years of training in medical arts, can be overridden by some insurance company beaurocrat simply because they don’t want to pay for it. Same for physical therapy. Your doctor prescribes a years’ worth of physical therapy for some ailment? Too bad. If the insurance company doesn’t want to pay for it, they don’t. They’ll pay for fifteen sessions. That’s it. After that, if you’re not better, well that’s just too damned bad, isn’t it?

So might a government-run health care plan be better than this? Maybe. Could it be worse? Hard to imagine.

So why am I blaming this divisiveness on the republicans? Surely the democrats are out there swinging, too. True enough. But the republicans have gotten so far up corporate ass over the last thirty years that the democrats can only DREAM of it.

For instance, one republican senator, arguing against further regulation of tobacco, recently said that if you roll up a lettuce leaf and smoke it, you’ll suffer the same ill effects as if you smoked a cigarette. It is not nicotine, he points out, that harms your health. No, stupid. It is nicotine that keeps you ADDICTED so that you have to keep smoking. And would smoking lettuce leaves cause cancer and emphysema? I’m not sure. As far as I know, smoking lettuce would not leave the tar deposits in your lungs that tobacco does.

And then republican mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh attacked democrats because the FDA has pulled the cold remedy Zycam off the shelf. (Zycam is one of the sponsors of his show, by the way.) Zycam is causing people to lose their sense of smell. THAT’S why it was pulled off the market. I don’t know where the insane idea that democrats are against business came from, but it’s the worst kind of bullshit that I’ve ever heard.

So what do the republicans want? They want us to start funneling our tax dollars to private insurance companies so that we can continue having the same kind of lousy coverage that we have now, while these insurance companies continue growing richer and richer off of our illnesses.

And, by the way, to head off the screams of PARTISAN that I can already here in neo-con throats out there, President Obama seems on board with that nonsense. I WANT THE PRESIDENT THAT I VOTED FOR, and so far, Obama AIN’T IT.

Bill Maher summed it up beautifully on his show last week. He said that we voted for Obama because of the Audacity of Hope… now we’re just HOPING for a little AUDACITY.

Peace.

Randal

On Recalls, Regulations, Beef Tatare and What the Hell Are We Doing to Food?

2009-06-20T21:53:00.001-07:00

Let me start off tonight with a confession. It’s only fair.

I eat raw cookie dough. LOVE IT. Can’t get enough since I was a kid. Probably why I’m diabetic.

Now that I’ve got THAT off my chest, let me get on with things.

Nestle has recalled some of its frozen raw cookie dough due to an e-coli outbreak, presumably in the raw eggs, although I didn’t know that eggs could carry e-coli. As I was watching the news story about this, they decided to do an idiot-on-the-street interview. The lady that they spoke to smugly intoned that there needed to be “more safety regulations”.

Really.

What the hell do you want, lady? Someone from the FDA living in your kitchen to slap the raw cookie dough out of your hand before you put it in your mouth? WHO OUT THERE DOESN’T KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT RAW COOKIE DOUGH? I think that we all know that in this day and age. And those of us who still continue to do it recognize that we’re rolling the dice with every mouthful. Safety regulations would not, for instance, stop me from eating raw cookie dough. As a matter of fact, on my way home I stopped at the store to see if I could get some of the recalled cookie dough just so that I could eat it, but no success.

But then that got me thinking… what the hell are we doing to food?

For instance, think back twenty years ago. Fifteen years ago. Hell, TEN years ago. How many people did you know at that time who had fatal, anaphylactic peanut allergies? Ten? Five? None? NOW how many do you know? I’ve got to tell you, before about ten years ago, I can’t remember EVER hearing about ANYONE with a fatal peanut allergy, and now all of a sudden I can’t count the number of people that I know do on both hands. What the hell did we do to the inoffensive little peanut to make it want to kill us like this? A lot of these people can’t even touch peanut shells, inhale the dust from a cracked shell, or eat food that’s been processed in the same place as peanuts without dying. What have we done? Is it pesticides? Some sort of natural defense of the peanut TO pesticides?

And what about eggs? When I was a kid, I remember being thoroughly grossed out watching Rocky drink a glass full of raw egg for the pure protein in them. My older brother, who fancied himself a bodybuilder used to drink raw eggs. Today, that would be a DEATH wish. Any mother who saw her teenage son drink a raw egg today would FREAK OUT. When did eggs become little time bombs, just waiting to go off and kill us?

And does anyone but me remember a dish called Beef Tartare? It’s basically raw hamburger with spices and onion served on rye bread to absorb all that good BLOOD and occasionally… get this… WITH A RAW EGG ON TOP! Now you can’t even get your freaking steak rare because we’ve made beef into a deadly weapon! If you order beef tatare in a restaurant now, especially with the raw egg on top, you’re required by law to write a suicide note first.

I don’t have answers to any of this stuff, loved ones. Just something that I’ve been pondering for a while that all came to head today. I don’t have enough of a scientific mind to answer these questions, but I tell you… SOMEBODY better…. Because between poisonous eggs, beef and peanuts and all the bees dying off, we’re gonna be on Soylent Green real fucking quick here, and I love my parents too much for that.

Peace.

Randal

Iranian Election and E-mail

2009-06-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

First off, just a couple of quick thoughts on the kerfuffle over the Iranian elections.

What are the chances that we are behind the protests? I don’t have any evidence that we are, but let’s face it – you look at the number of times that America has been involved in “protests” over legitimate elections that wind up putting an illegitimate leader in place… Iran in 1941, Cuba in 1958, Florida in 2000… we’re not above engineering elections to get what we consider in our own near-sighted myopic way to be a favorable outcome. Of course, the results of the three aforementioned elections (the Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro and George W. Bush) show that what is favorable in the short-term is not always a good thing in the long-term.

Okay, now on to the e-mail. I’ve said before (and I’m apparently doomed to say again) that if you forward a brainless e-mail to me, I will pick it apart with a crab fork. So…

A friend of mine whom I consider a “borderline neo-con”, meaning that he really WANTS to be a neo-con when he grows up but can’t quite bring himself to fully handle the snakes and drink the Kool-aid sent this e-mail to me call the Bill of “non-rights”. Let me make absolutely clear that this is separate from the “bill of responsibilities” that the sane among us advocate to get Americans to grow up. So let’s look at each of these “non-rights”.

You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

Good start. I like it. This idea of entitlement is part of what’s gotten us into the financial mess that we’re in right now. It’s like when I see these TV commercials talking about how this or that outfit can help you stop your credit card debt. Want to stop your credit card debt? CUT UP THE BLOODY CREDIT CARDS! Get rid of them! With the possible exception of a house or a car, go back to living the way that people used to: if you can’t afford to pay cash for it, you CAN’T AFFORD IT! So let’s look at the next one.

You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc. but the world is full of dummies and probably always will be.

I agree. I’ve seen this phrased different ways at different times and I always agree with it. This idea that somehow the way that I think that YOU should live is the correct way always confuses and bugs me. For instance, on Bill Maher’s show a few weeks back, he had a former republican lawmaker named Heather Wilson. With only seconds remaining in the show before he started his final segment, New Rules, he inexplicably asked Ms. Wilson about gay marriage. She put on that holier-than-thou, simpering face that I’ve grown so sick of and said the words that always presage trouble for free thinkers “Well, I’m a Christian…” I gotta tell you, Ms. Wilson, that… AS A CHRISTIAN… not all of us agree with what you’re about to whine. As a matter of fact, some of us take Jesus’ admonition not to judge to heart. At any rate, she continued that with “I was raised to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Bully for you. What gives you the right to impose that belief on others? Ms. Wilson, on the off-chance that you’re reading this, I challenge you to a debate on the Biblical view of marriage and it’s application or non-application today, and I can almost guarantee you that if we have impartial judges, you’ll lose. But in the meantime, all that the fact that you think that marriage should be between a man and a woman means is that YOU should marry a MAN if you haven’t already. It doesn’t mean that you get to decide who I marry. On to the next one…

You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found and will gladly help anyone in need. But we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

Here’s where this e-mail starts to fall apart for me. I have to ask… why not? Our founding fathers spoke glowingly of our right to the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence. How on Earth can you pursue happiness if you are hungry and living in a cardboard box? I see absolutely no reason or justification, aside from greed, why every American shouldn’t be guaranteed basic shelter and sustenance. I’m not talking about caviar and a mansion. I’m talking about a studio apartment and bread, milk and beans. You want to kill two birds with one stones? Hire the unemployed in cities to renovate buildings for these “professional couch potatoes” and then to maintain and manage them. Use failing small family farms in America to provide the bread, milk and beans for these folks.

I also take exception to the idea that Americans are the most charitable people to be found. Beg pardon? Statistically, on a private basis, Americans give the LEAST to charity of any industrialized nation. Heck, MUSLIM countries give more in charity than we do. A conservative friend of mine a while back commented when we discussing the idea of a flat sales tax in place of the income tax that closing the deduction for charitable contributions would be a DIS-INCENTIVE for people to donate! WHAT? I THOUGHT THAT WE WERE THE MOST CHARITABLE PEOPLE TO BE FOUND! No, my friend… we are the most “what’s in it for me” people to be found. And the next?

You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

Again, why not? We are the only industrialized nation that allows corporations to profit off of the pain and suffering of others and we need to quit it.

You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised
if the rest of us want to see you get the blue juice.

Um… excuse me… but if by “blue juice” you mean lethal injection, then aren’t you physically harming that person? I mean, shouldn’t this apply to our government as well as us? A little later in this e-mail, the author espouses the mistaken but oft-repeated idea that America was founded to be a Christian country. Wasn’t Christ clear enough about the taking of life? Christ said that if someone strikes your left cheek, turn your right to them also. He said to love and forgive your enemies. Not put them to death. But it’s much harder to do that than to simply be a hypocrite, yeah? And the next…

You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

True. And wittily phrased.

You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

Again, why the heck not? And also, awkwardly phrased. As an amateur compositionist, I give it a C-. Why shouldn’t every American be guaranteed the right to some sort of employment? Even if it’s something simple and non-corporate. In downtown Seattle, whenever I see someone shining shoes or playing an instrument or singing, or just generally doing something creative or entertaining when their hat out, I try to drop them a buck or two. I think that this should be changed to “You have the right to employment, but do not necessarily have the right to receive this employment from someone else. You may have to go out and create it on your own.” Next:

You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

I freely admit to being too dumb to understand this one altogether. Wasn’t the author rejoicing over our laws in previous passages? Oh, wait… maybe he’s referring to those of us who are “confused” by second amendment, and insist on taking it literally where it says a “WELL-REGULATED militia being necessary, the rights of the people to bear arms should not be infringed.” Just a guess, but when one of these nutjobs starts ranting about the bill of rights, they are very rarely talking about editorial freedom or freedom of religion or speech, which they couldn’t really give a crap about, but the right to bear arms. Now for one that I agree with, although it has nothing to do with rights.

This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you came from . . . English is our language. Learn it!

I can never express clearly enough to my liberal friends how important this is to a peaceful nation. A former girlfriend of mine once actually commented that it was incumbent upon retail clerks to learn the language of their customers instead of upon the customers to learn English. In one day I may have native speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Tagalong and Swahili. Seems like a hell of an education necessary for selling a TV to a customer. All that I can say is that if I moved to a non-English speaking country, I would learn the language of the land FOR MY OWN CONVENIENCE. In my home and in my neighborhood (presumably called “America Town” or “Little America”) I would speak English. If I left my little cocoon, I would speak the native language just to make my life easier.

By the same token, I would like to share something that happened to me years ago as a cashier. As I was wrapping up with customer A, I greeted customer B, whom I then realized was speaking in Russian on his cell phone. Customer A, in a kind of snide, superior tone of voice sniped “Probably doesn’t speak English.” After this jerk left, and customer B ended his cell phone call so that he and I could transact (something that most ENGLISH-SPEAKING AMERICANS don’t have the courtesy to do, I might add), his wife told him in English what the jerk had said. The Russian dude looked after the other customer and said IN PERFECTLY CLEAR ENGLISH “I speak seven languages. I wonder how many HE speaks?” It turns out that the man, a Russian immigrant, was on the phone to Russia making funeral arrangements for his mom. To put it another way, here’s a joke that I heard from an emergency-room orderly one time. I forget where he was from… I do remember that he speaks four languages. What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual. What do you call someone who speaks ONE language? American. So even though I agree that people who immigrate to this country should learn the language, I also think that we need to get off of our high horses about this somewhat until we start making more of an effort to learn other languages ourselves. And finally…

You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history. Sorry if you are uncomfortable with it.

(Whispering) Uh… dude? By insisting that America was founded on the belief in one true God… presumably you mean THE one true God as Christians and Jews refer to “him” and not Allah or the Buddha Dharma or any of the other “one true God’s” out there… you are changing our country’s history AND heritage.

Look at the documents, people. Our country was founded on FREEDOMS bounded by LAWS. The founders, very few of whom are what F-word news would consider “Christian”, never mentioned the “one true God” in the documents for a good reason. The closest that they come is to say “creator”, which is a logical statement rather than a religious one. If we are here then we were, by the laws of logic, created. Whatever is created has a creator. They do not speculate as to what that force may have been.

Also, “in God we trust” has only been a part of our “history and heritage” for a relatively short time. It was not around at the time of the creators. It really came into being after the civil war as an attempt to give the north and south something to pull together around since they had been so recently pulled apart.

In a related note, “so help me God” as part of the presidential oath of office is what we call a TRADITION. It is not written into the oath, nor should it be. Granted, it is a long and venerable tradition, having been started by George Washington at the first inaugural and carried forward by every president every since. But it is still a TRADITION. If our next president chooses not to say it, he or she will get crap from the media and their peers, but they will still be receiving the oath AS WRITTEN.

And, although this “controversy” seems to have died down some, “one nation, under God” was only added to the flag oath in the fifties. It was originally “one nation, indivisible”. And for those who think that the flag oath can’t be changed, I’ll ask you to watch a film of kids taking the oath prior to about 1940. The tradition at that time was to hold your hand over your heart while you said “I pledge allegiance”, and then to thrust your arm out rigid at a forty-five degree angle, fingers pointing toward the flag as you finished the oath. For some reason, after the rise of Hitler in Germany, this practice was stopped. Hmmm… I wonder why?

I ask again, folks. Think about these things and research them before you forward them. To quote the eminent sage George Carlin, “It’s all bullshit and it’s all bad for ya.”

PS - I signed up for Google ads as way to try to make some extra money... you will see them appear to the left of this column. I would like to issue the disclaimer that I have no control over the ads placed there, they are based on keywords from my posts. As a matter of fact, sometimes, like when they are ads for "vote pro-life merchandise for sale", i find them to be utterly repulsive.

Peace.

Randal

Military Integration

2009-06-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

I think that I figured out how we can change the discussion over gays in the military. By changing the terminology… starting to call it what it REALLY is… military integration. And if we need to have a segregated military first… a military with gay battalions and straight battalions, so be it.

I’ve always been aware that many of the arguments against homosexuals being able to marry are the same arguments that were once used against interracial marriage. Now I’ve discovered, by reading a book on the Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first black military fliers, that many of the arguments against homosexual integration into our military are the same as the arguments presented once upon a time against racial integration.

For instance, how about this… “This policy has been proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparations for national defense.” Although that sounds like someone defending “don’t ask, don’t tell”, it’s actually part of a memo from Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson to President Roosevelt in 1940.

And on both issues, integrating the military and allowing homosexuals to marry, I think that President Truman (then SENATOR Truman’s) comment to a black soldier who wasn’t being allowed to fly says it all. “Are you a citizen? Do you pay taxes?” Truman’s argument was that if both of these things are true, then nothing should stop them from enjoying all the benefits of citizenship. It’s just not right that they are not able to.

Peace.

Randal

In Memorium Dr. George Tiller

2009-05-31T22:09:00.001-07:00

I am going to do two things tonight that I don’t usually use this space to do… a second blog entry in a single night, and an absolute, unquestioned rant.

A note of explanation before the rant.

The reason that I’m doing a second entry tonight is because I read something in the news after my earlier entry that shocked, appalled and angered me. I have been simmering about it all evening. It is about the cold-blooded murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller. As the evening progressed, I became angrier and angrier. When a loved one in Kansas, in an entirely innocent, inoffensive fashion referred to the suspect, Scott Roeder as “pro-life”, I flipped my lid. I need to rant, or my head is going to explode. If you decide to hang around for it, thanks. Does my heart good. If you don’t… if, for instance, you are (with all due respect) one of the simple-minded, knuckle-dragging, idiotic, murderous, moronic amoeba-brained CHICKENSHITS who sees no problem in referring to yourself as pro-life when you can justify the murder of a HUMAN BEING in your mind, then you may not want to read anymore. What I say is just going to MAKE YOU FUCKING THINK, AND WE CAN’T HAVE THAT, CAN WE YOU COWARD?!

Rant follows…

First off, for the keyboard monkey who wrote this piece for the AP, ROXANA HEGEMAN (I copied this idiots name so that I could be sure to get it right)… Dr. Tiller was not, as you idiotically referred to him in the headline of your piece, an “abortion doc”. Sounds fucking slimy, doesn’t it? Sounds like some dude named “Slick” that woman would visit in a back-alley in 1948 when she found herself knocked up, who was chased out of the medical profession for fondling little girl patients. This guy was not some sleazy “abortion doctor”, okay lady? Get your fucking terminology straight. I FUCKING WRITE BETTER THAN YOU, AND YOU SOMEHOW MANAGED TO FIND YOUR WAY INTO A PAID WRITING POSITION WHEN I CAN’T? He was a DOCTOR who worked at a WOMEN’S CLINIC. One of the tasks that he performed, along with hysterectomies, prescribing birth control, and women’s pelvic health exams was ABORTIONS. Instead of the sleazy, innuendo-filled “ABORTION DOC”, why not say “Doctor who performed abortions”? Oh, I know. Not as many IDIOTS would read your piece unless you used the loaded phrase, right? Well, FUCK YOU LADY! You gonna be a reporter? Then get your own personal SLANT out of it and fucking REPORT!

Next, although I don’t know this for sure, I’d be willing to bet a week’s pay against a week old copy of whatever news agency is stupid enough to pay Ms. Hegeman for her slanted, biased writing that Scott Roeder considers himself “pro-life”. NO ONE WHO KILLS ANOTHER PERSON CAN BE CALLED PRO-LIFE YOU FUCKING IGNORAMUS! PRO LIFE MEANS “IN FAVOR OF LIFE”! You think that God is going to be happy with you for murdering another person? Especially in a FUCKING CHURCH?! YOU IDIOT?! “I’m pro-life. Except for him. Oh, and condemned prisoners on death row. Kill those bastards. What? One of the kids that I saved from being aborted by Dr. Tiller grew up to be a doctor at a women’s clinic who performs abortions? See? I’m pro-life.”

Oh, and another thing? The Bible never condemns the modern medical procedure called an “abortion”. There was absolutely no analog in Biblical days. AND WHO DO YOU THINK GAVE US THE KNOWLEDGE TO PERFORM A SAFE AND CLEAN ABORTION, YOU MORONS? God! Why? Maybe to save his daughters a lot of grief and heartache? Yes, yes, I know the slaughter of the innocents and all of that other crap, but that is all very, very loose interpretation. YES, INTERPRETATION. And if any of you idiotic “literalists” want to take me up on my use of the word, DO IT! I KNOW THE BIBLE BETTER THAN ANY OF YOU LAME-BRAINS! I’m going to say it right here and now… if you think that the Bible can be taken literally then you have the approximate IQ (and probably personality) of a pile of diseased, maggot-infested DOG SHIT! I tell you one thing that the Bible does say… over and over again… very clearly… THOU SHALT NOT KILL! HUMAN BEINGS! And no, stupid, a fetus, as wonderful and precious as it is, is NOT A HUMAN BEING.

Also, I realize that so-called “late-stage” abortions, which is one of the many procedures that Dr. Tiller performed are controversial. I’m not crazy about it myself, except when the health of the mother or the child is in danger. But you can be damned sure that I won’t kill anyone over it.

On a final note, I would like to take a calmer moment to express deepest sympathy to the widow, children and grandchildren of Dr. Tiller. By all reports that I can find, your husband, father and grandfather was a fine man, and pathetic actions like that taken by Roeder make me want to shake the name of “Christian” off in shame, as I did years ago because of actions like this and endless rants against homosexuality by “Christians”. But I refuse. As a CHRISTIAN, you and your family will be in my prayers tonight. God go with you and bring you peace. And, although it sounds a little stupid, since I have utterly failed to do this in this blog entry, please remember that Christ commands us to love and forgive one another. I figure that I’ll have my own Karmic reckoning with God over the hatred and bile that I have vented here tonight, but trust me… I feel no better for it, much as I wanted to. And Roeder, if you’re reading this on a prison computer somewhere, you will be in my prayers tonight too… but only a prayer that you can see the error of your ways, and maybe realize and preach to others that pro-life means PRO-LIFE. Not “pro whatever I want and I get to kill whoever disagrees with me”.

Okay. Done. Feel like shit. Didn’t help with anger. Gotta pray.

Peace.

Randal

American Jurisprudence

2009-05-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

Let me start this off by saying something about my loved ones. I tend to surround myself with people that I perceive as being as intelligent as or more intelligent than I. If I spend my time with you, you're smart in other words. I don't waste my time with dummies.

Here's why the preface... I was speaking to one of these loved ones the other day... someone that I love and admire... about the Guantanamo Bay situation, and he said the same thing that so many others have said. “We can't release these TERRORISTS in the U. S.”

I was a little shocked to hear him say this, and reminded him that the people in Git-mo are not terrorists, because, under American law, they are innocent until proven guilty. None of them have had trials, so none of them are guilty of a crime. Also, the majority of them were not even ACCUSED of a crime before they were imprisoned. Most of them were simply turned in for a bounty. Strangely enough, when America went to the middle east and started offering thousands of dollars in rewards... in some of the POOREST economies of the world... suddenly we had a flood of accused terrorists. One taxi driver in Afghanistan turned in ten or fifteen completely innocent people before we caught on to him.

Now I know the argument offered by the Bush administration apologists that we don't have to treat these people according to US law because A) they are not American citizens and B) Git-mo itself is not on American soil. I find these arguments fallacious... which, if I'm interpreting it correctly, means that the propagators of this argument can BLOW ME!

How many times do I have to say that WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUYS! If we start making excuses not to play by OUR OWN RULES, how do we maintain a high moral ground? Don't we lose the ability to say “We rock and you suck” if we start doing the same things that the sucky people do?

So, a quick review of American jurisprudence, since our justice system seems to have gotten so far out of whack.

1) PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE. Innocent until PROVEN guilty. One thing that I hear frequently that bugs me on this is “Well, if the person was arrested then they HAD to have done SOMETHING.” Wrong. Innocent people get arrested sometimes. It sucks, but it happens. Our founding fathers said that it was better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to imprison ONE innocent man. None of the people in Git-mo have been convicted of a crime, therefore they are ALL innocent.

2) TRIAL BY JURY. Everyone in America is guaranteed a trial by a jury of their peers. Preferably an impartial jury. And I remind all Americans that you have two sacred duties that you MUST perform in order to be a true patriot – you must vote and you must serve jury duty when called upon to do so. Now the idea of a trial by an impartial jury is in deep trouble in the United States, thanks to a sensationalistic and corporatized media. I do not believe that the media as a whole has a liberal bias or a conservative bias... I believe that they have a “getting as much money out of their sponsors and viewers as they can” bias. Part of that is keeping your ass glued to your couch and your eyes glued to their news. For instance, who among us can truly be said to have NOT made up their mind about Michael Jackson before his trial even commenced? To me, whether he did what he was accused of or not is secondary to the question of “did he get a fair trial”? The answer, in my opinion, is “No, he did not. COULD not in America.” And one of the worst enemies of both trial by jury AND the presumption of innocence in this country is... oh, what's her name... on CNN... face of the Wicked Witch of the west... voice of a hyena... brain of Hammy the squirrel from “Over the Hedge”? Oh yeah, Nancy Grace. With her constant, shrill screaming about everyone's guilt who's arrested for ANYTHING, she contaminates our jury pool like raw sewage dumped into a reservoir contaminates our drinking water.

President Obama has stated that he is going to hold some of the prisoners indefinitely, without a trial. You know, kind of the SAME CRAP THAT WE HATED ABOUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!

His reasoning? He's concerned that the manner of their arrests and detainment, along with the fact that so many of them were tortured may “contaminate” legal proceedings. You know what, Mr. President? TOO DAMNED BAD. If you arrest someone with dubious evidence and then coerce a confession out of them, you don't say “Oh, well now we have to keep you in jail forever without a trial”, you apologize and release them.

WHAT? RELEASE THESE HORRIBLE TERRORISTS? Yes. What I said under Mr. Bush hasn't changed under President Obama... they are being held illegally and we need to try them or release them. Let them stay in America with a healthy settlement for their illegal treatment if they want, or a free ticket back to wherever they came from if they don't. And as for you whiners who say that you don't want them in your state, shut up. There's an apartment behind mine that's coming open at the end of June, stick one or two of them there. But only if they speak English. So that I can visit them and convince them that not ALL Americans are immediately ready to presume them guilty and torture them. Maybe then they won't hate America anymore.

Well, at least no more than I do when we do this stupid shit, anyway.

Peace.

Randal

Voting on Rights

2009-05-28T18:44:00.001-07:00

I will never understand, to my dying day, why people feel that the civil rights of homoamorous people should be left up to the voters. America has NEVER let civil rights depend on the good will of the voters. Why? Because if we did, no one would ever gets rights except for the people who already have them.

Think of this... in 1863 if Abe Lincoln had said “I think that the slaves should be free... why don't we vote on it, north and south”, what do you think that the outcome of this vote would be? Even in states like Massachusetts and New York, which were among the first to outlaw slavery, there were laws limiting the number of “free negroes” who could live in each area. I think that it wouldn't have happened.

And what about women's sufferage? Bear in mind that the only people who could legally vote at that time were WHITE MALE LANDOWNERS. Do you think that, out of the goodness of their hearts, these white men would vote women (granted, only WHITE women at this time, but women nonetheless) part of their power? I think not.

And then the same thing when the civil rights bills were passed, first giving African-Americans the right to vote, and then equal protection under the law. To this DAY, there are people who resist this. Would the voters at large have EVER given equal coverage to black people?

One universal constant is that people in power tend to hold on to that power with all of their might, and only give it up unwillingly. This is why these issues need to be left up to the federal government and NOT the voters at large.

Which begs another question... why don't homoamorous people vote? I mean as a block. I hate to use blanket terms like that, but... as far as blanket terms go... it's more or less true.

Less homoamorous people vote than heteroamorous people, less poor people vote than well-off people, less black people vote than white people, less women vote then men, less young people vote than older people. Of course, the 2000 presidential election changed (although did not overturn) several of those, thank you Barack Obama. What does that leave? Old, heteroamorous, mostly well-off white male voters.

This is an issue that has ALWAYS confused me. Why do the people who would benefit the most from NOT having yet another hidebound old heteroamorous rich white man in the white house leave that decision up to me and my fellow old heteroamorous white men? (Not all of us are hidebound or rich.) I realize that I seem to be drifting afield of the point here, but what would have happened in the election of November, 2008 if the homoamorous people of California had turned out in DROVES (and, if they preferred, in drag) to vote on prop 8? I think that it would have gone down FLAMING (pardon the quite intentional pun).

This is why we have a representative government, folks. I hate to sound like an old-school, big-government democrat here, and I really DO hate the concept of a “daddy” government, but this is why we have a government. To make those tough decisions for us, and yes, sometimes to force change on an unwilling nation. I use the upcoming digital transition as an example. If left to our own devices, we would have been perfectly happy to remain on the analog standard forever, constantly bitching about dropped cell phone calls and lousy internet availability, and not being able to have enough good stuff to watch on our five hundred channels of cable. But wiser heads in our government saw how badly we were starving for bandwidth, saw how much the digital standard improved countries like Japan and said “Okay, let's do it.” As a people, we whined, we bitched, we moaned, we complained. There were proposed lawsuits to stop it. Conspiracy theorists went nuts talking about how this was all a conspiracy between government and big business to FORCE us to pay for new TV's. (This strikes me as the funniest, considering the millions of dollars that TV manufacturers and broadcasters had to go out-of-pocket to upgrade their manufacturing facilities and equipment.) And then, after all that bitching and moaning, the average American with a 32 inch analog TV is not satisfied with a perfectly good $399 32 inch HDTV, but they want a 58 inch monster that swallows their family room.

Get over yourselves, folks. Civil rights have NEVER been decided by popular election. They should never BE decided by popular elections. And, like it or not... I've said it before and I feel doomed to say it again... AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION!

Which reminds me of another point.

I have recently become aware of fringe groups out there who want to “return” America to being a nation whose legal code is based on the laws of the Old Testament, similar to Sharia law in Muslim nations. Please allow me to say that America's legal code was NEVER based on Old Testament law, and never should be. Also, these groups want to make it so that only “Christians” can hold public office and even VOTE.

So now, let us for one insane, irrational moment pretend that this happens, okay? For a few years, the fundamentalists are happy. Prayer is reinstated in public schools, the “ten” commandments are posted on every available surface in public offices, and people who are either non-Christian or athiest are forced to take a pledge of Christianity at the polling place. Then a question arises... WHOSE interpretation of Christianity holds sway? My guess is that protestantism, being the largest sect in America, would hold sway. So Catholic kids would be forced to say the protestant version of, say, the Lord's Prayer in school. Then someone like Mitt Romney would not only not be allowed to run for office, he would be denied his right to vote. After all, very few mainstream protestants consider Mormons “real” Christians. Then we have women. Yes, a woman's right to choose a safe and clean abortion would be gone, but so would a woman's right to vote, to petition for divorce, to own property, and to attend church, all per the Old Testament. Yes, the death penalty would be put in place for homoamorous people, but also for football players (touching the flesh of a pig on the sabbath) and people like me who love shellfish. And if your child rejected Christianity (or, if you want to REALLY go according to the Old Testament, Judiasm), then not only would your child be put to death by stoning, but you would have to throw the first stone. It's there, folks. If you don't believe me, go look it up in your Bible. I'll wait.

…

Photography and film would be illegal according to the second commandment. Good God, taking the Lord's name in vain would be punishable by death! Women on their periods would be required BY LAW to remove themselves to the wilderness until their cycle passed.

Do you see the utter insanity that I'm talking about here, folks? So please... once and for all.... can we get off of our holier-than-thou high horses and just allow these people to marry? Please.

Peace.

Randal

What EVERYONE Knows

2009-05-25T19:32:00.001-07:00

I heard the odious phrase again today… “Well, everyone knows…”

No. Everyone doesn’t know. ANYTHING.

Another one is “Of course, everyone agrees…”

What the meaning of these two phrases are is that if YOU don’t know, or if YOU don’t agree, then you’re obviously the only one and there’s no point in paying you any credence.

This kind of goes back to Sarah Palin’s “real America” bullcrap during the last presidential election. The people in the heartland, the so-called “real” America, consider what they believe to be correct, and everything else to be incorrect. But this is not because that belief is RIGHT, it is because it is all that they know. For instance, the claim is that there are no homoamorous people in the heartland, or very, very few. This is not because there are any less homoamorous people in the heartland, simply that they are less open about it and more spread out. I believe that the statistics say that 30% of Americans are homoamorous. (I have taken to using the terms “homoamorous” and “heteroamorous” because these designations are about love and comfort, not strictly sex.) So if you take, for instance, San Francisco with its roughly 800,000 people, you have roughly 240,000 homosexuals statistically. If, on the other hand, you look at Ames, Iowa with its population of about 50,000, you are stuck with a mere 15,000 homosexuals. And you can bet that none of them are participating in what passes for a “gay pride” parade in Ames. They’re all hiding in their little closets, beating off to gay porn, thanking God for the internet so that they don’t have to risk mail-order. And some of these people have their sexuality so deeply buried that even THEY don’t know that they’re gay. All that they know is that things don’t function as well with their opposite-sex partner as they should, and they usually feel immensely guilty about it.

You can correlate that to drugs, as well. Everyone knows that there are more drug addicts in cities than in small towns, right? I would say that there are as many POTENTIAL drug addicts in small town middle America as there are in Los Angeles, Seattle or New York. But most of these middle American drug addicts have to be satisfied with beer or the skunk-weed that their buddy grows in his basement, because if they want to get meth or coke or something more serious, they have to DRIVE somewhere to get it. That’s right, I believe that the difference between the drug problems in urban areas and the drug problems in rural areas is largely a matter of availability. If you walk down the street in Seattle and don’t look like a straight-edger or a cop, you’re going to have eight people offer you crystal meth. It’s supply and demand, folks. If that same meth dealer were to travel to Lenexa, Kansas he’d probably have to wait three hours in between viable customers instead of three minutes. It’s just not financially feasible.

And, of course, EVERYONE KNOWS that in a small town you can leave your door unlocked, right? Right. Because a random stranger trying doorknobs is going to stick out like a sore thumb in a small town. In a big city, that random stranger is one of hundreds or thousands that you see everyday.

What I’m trying to say here is that “common knowledge” doesn’t really exist. It was, for instance, common knowledge less than a hundred years ago that black people are intellectually inferior to white people, period. If George W. Bush and Barack Obama don’t conclusively disprove that, then I don’t know what will. It was common knowledge a hundred years before that that women were nothing more than receptacles in the reproductive process. Go back a few hundred years before that, and it was common knowledge that the Earth revolved around the sun. It was also common knowledge at about that time that for a man to have sex with another man was nothing more than a viable alternative to having sex with a woman and running the risk of getting her pregnant or catching VD. See how our “common knowledge” and views of things change?

The same thing applies to polls. I always have to grit my teeth, for instance, when a Fox News poll claims that “Forty percent of AMERICANS” whatever. What they mean is “Forty percent of Fox viewers” whatever. Same with CNN. And then you have to add the codicil “… that answer surveys” on to that. There’s a large percentage of Americans out there who would NEVER answer a survey. Me, personally, if I’m asked to answer a survey and it will take less than fifteen minutes, I’m all over it. But to (I would say) many to most Americans, this is nothing more or less than a waste of their valuable time. So do yourself a favor… next time that you hear a statistic on, say, CNN that is based on a survey, add the phrase “…percent of CNN viewers who will answer surveys” to the end of it, and I think that you’ll see that the statistic isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

So, instead of basing what you know on “common knowledge” or what “everyone knows”, why don’t you try learning as much as you can on the subject and knowing what YOU know instead?

Peace.

Randal

Desecration of the Flag

2009-05-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

One of the managers at my day job desecrated a flag yesterday.

I'm sure that he didn't mean to, but he did, just the same. What really gets my goat, I think, is that when I told some of the other managers to try to get it corrected, I got nothing but blank stares in response. Now bear in mind that these are all pro-Bush “If you ain't with us you're with the terrorists never burn a flag in my presence of I'll use my Constitutional right to bear arms to shoot you and if you think that Americans shouldn't be allowed to torture than you're not a real patriot” kind of people.

Obviously, patriotism no longer extends to knowing how to show proper respect to a flag.

I finally found one manager who listened to what I had to say, and he corrected it this morning. I think that what really made an impact on him was when I said that the way that they had the flag displayed “offended” me. I am NOT an easily offended person, so I think that he grokked the seriousness of it.

So, for both my liberal and conservative friends out there, here is how to show proper respect to the flag and how not to. This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it the “official” flag manual. It's simply some guidelines to follow, from what I remember in my days in ROTC.

1)It is not okay... EVER... to pierce the flag with anything. Staples, nails, tacks, all no-no's. If you want to display a flag on a wall, then buy a frame for it. Or, alternately...
2)It IS okay to display a flag banner-style, by putting something through the grommets on the back of the flag and hanging it so that the stripes point down.
3)It is NOT okay to allow the flag to touch the ground. The flags that we're selling at my day job are standard size parade flags, 3 X 5. One customer commented that she wanted a bigger flag. I WANTED to point out to her that your patriotism doesn't reside in the size of your flag, but instead simply pointed out that if she got one larger than five feet, odds are that, when hanging, the tip of the flag would rest on the ground, which is a no-no.
4)It is okay to fly the flag upside down when you are in distress. It is an internationally-recognized signal. This was also used by Viet Nam vets to protest the war... they felt that our nation was in distress.

What I didn't address above, but will quickly is the hot-button topic of the ULTIMATE desecration of the flag... burning. Personally, I could never burn a flag. It's simply not in me. According to the Flag Manual, burning is the only permissible way to destroy a flag. If a flag has been desecrated, or if it's going to be retired, you burn the flag in order to prevent it winding up in a landfill or as litter somewhere. There's a ceremony attached to this and it is not done lightly.

Burning the flag in protest is not something that I agree with. I think that the vet's method of flying the flag upside down is a much more appropriate, not to mention CLEAR protest of our nation's actions. HAVING SAID THAT... I will fight ferociously for your right to burn a flag if you feel that it is your last recourse of protest. I don't like it, but my like or dislike does not altar the fact that the first amendment guarantees your freedom of expression.

Peace.
Randal

Let's Miss Miss USA

2009-05-12T22:02:00.001-07:00

How can we miss her if we don’t let her GO AWAY?!

This woman has been occupying the news for what now… two… three… years?

I’m proceeding from the assumption here that this won’t do any good… it hasn’t so far, but that hasn’t stopped me, so here goes. Let’s see if, after I tackle all these stupid non-issues at once, we can just stop talking about them.

1) The “Gay Marriage” thing. She did not say or do anything wrong. She expressed an opinion… one that I happen to disagree with… in a respectful and courteous manner. She was asked her opinion and gave it politely. Personally, I don’t know why they even expect these girls to talk or behave as if they have a brain AT ALL. The size of their SOMETHING that starts with “B” matters, but it ain’t brains. But we’ll get to those other B items in 2. I realize that they’ve changed the name of these things from “beauty pageants” to “scholarship pageants”, but that don’t make it so. You can rename dog food as “caviar”, but that doesn’t make it anything other than fish brains and pig snouts. I think that she showed the kind of simple-mindedness that a beautiful woman who’s OBVIOUSLY never been asked to think would display. And if you’ve never actually sat down and THOUGHT about the gay marriage issue, it’s easy to parrot what others say, which is exactly what she did. Okay? So what she said wasn’t bad or mean or wrong. It was just a little… well… dumb. And what else do you expect from a contest that has a swimsuit competition, but no solve-the-quadratic-equation competition?

2) Breast implants. IT’S A FREAKING BEAUTY CONTEST, OKAY? Obviously WHOEVER paid for the new boobs didn’t feel like she had what it takes to compete in a swimsuit competition. WHO CARES?!

3) The old naked pics. Okay. We’ve established that this girl is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. We’ve established that she’s pretty enough to compete in a beauty pageant… er… ah… I mean “scholarship pageant”. So what happens when you combine a pretty, kind of dumb girl with some horny dude with a camera? You get naked pics of the girl. And let’s face it, guys… the idea of ANY kind of morals restrictions in a contest where the object is for the girl to basically strut around wearing as little as possible is ridiculous. I mean, I might actually watch the things if they drop the pretense altogether that this is anything other than a “which girl is the prettiest” competition and just have them strut around the stage naked for an hour.

Okay, can we stop talking about her now? Please? She looks like Barbie, which is all that these contest demand. (Even the black and Asian contestants looks like Black Barbies and Asian Barbies.) Please.

Thanks.

Peace.

Randal