They're Eating the Dogs...

Original image source unknown

"They're eating the dogs!"

"They're eating the cats!"
Exclaimed the Orange Grinch,

 who

   was

     crazy

Like the shit of a bat.

He shouted it far

He shouted it wide

Though Hooey the Parrot

  had 

    already

      said,

"I might could have lied."

"But it's okay to lie

If attention you crave,"

Said Hooey sheepishly,

  with a

    straight

      face

In his own weirdly way.

But the Mayor of Whoville

Was not so impressed,

When the Orange Grinch

  kept 

    on

      going

And his town was distressed

But the people of Whoville

Knew it all wasn't true

And with every new lie,

  they

    saw

      red

And they all turned to blue.

On The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney: An Open Letter to Pierre Poilievre

Dear Pierre,

Out of respect, I waited to write this until after the funeral of the late Right Honourable Brian Mulroney.

Respect. It's something that Brian Mulroney showed to everyone he interacted with, whether he agreed with them or not. That was one of the things I respected and admired about him. I disagreed with almost all of his policies at the time, but I knew that this was someone who was able to agree to disagree without making it personal. I knew that given the opportunity to discuss issues with him, he would listen to me with respect even if he disagreed with everything I said.

Even in his most fiery political oratory he always showed respect towards his opponents. One example that stands out in my mind is that iconic moment when he pointed a finger at his opponent, looked him in the eye and said “You had an option, sir.”

"Sir." Merriam Webster defines it as "a title of respect used in addressing a man without using his name." Brian Mulroney used that respectful form of address many times in that debate, as he did throughout his political career - whether addressing political friend or foe, and he did it without diminishing by one iota the force of his oratory or his ability to get his point across. No matter how politically aggressive he might have been or how vigorously he attacked his opponents' ideas or positions, he never ever made it personal.

Things like that made "the right honourable" more than just an official title for Brian Mulroney; for him, it is an accurate description as well. He was truly "the right honourable" in the same sense that some Canadians might say today that there has been only one truly right honourable Prime Minister Trudeau - the one who showed that same sense of respect and ability to agree to disagree without ever making it personal.

When I compare today's party leaders with your respective right honourable predecessors, I do not see anything even remotely resembling those qualities. Every public interaction between you comes off like a playground scrap, replete with insults and personal attacks. This Hour Has 22 Minutes was not too far off from reality in their depiction last fall of debate between you in the House of Commons as an 'air punch' match from across the aisle.

Pierre, you might want to ask yourself what sort of character legacy (i.e. how you are remembered for your personal qualities) you want to leave. Do you want to be remembered as someone who focused on substance and left the personal attacks to those less mature, or would you really prefer to be remembered as one of those less mature playground scrappers?

To put it another way, if you do get elected Prime Minister, do you want "the right honourable" to be nothing more than a formal title, or an accurate description as well?

Sincerely,

A Canadian looking for a grown-up in the room.

A Message For The NRA

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

Text of a voice message left for the NRA on February 15, 2018. (You can leave a message for them at 1-800-672-3888, then choose options 6, 2, 3)

I would just like to congratulate you - score another 17 for your side. 17 fewer mouths to feed, 17 fewer spaces taking up tax dollars in public education, 17 fewer future voters for gun control.

Every one of you who works there, and every one of your members, can take credit for this - you must be so proud. I can only hope that those of you with children in school, from elementary right up to grad school, get to wake up every morning wondering if today will be the day that you get to experience the joy of your child proudly making the ultimate sacrifice to protect the right of civilians to maximum firepower.

You stand tall, firm, and proud of what you have wrought in your great nation - something no other developed nation can boast about. You stick to your guns, literally and figuratively, and keep insisting on an absolutist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Never compromise on that. Stand firm in your belief that the only choices are a 2nd Amendment with no reasonable safeguards or limits, or no 2nd Amendment at all.

"...it could have been perfect."

There is no excuse for this. Everybody who was involved should be shot. And drawn & quartered, whatever that is. And made to watch it over and over until their heads explode.

For the almost 30 years since I first read it, it has been one of my favourite books. Ever. When I first heard talk of a movie, I waited anxiously for further news. And waited. And waited.

While I was waiting, I came up with a fantasy cast - Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas (because I don't like him, so he would have been perfect for the role), Patrick Swayze (he was alive then), Antonio Banderas, Courtney Love (as the train wreck), William Shatner, John Cryer, and more (I had the whole cast lined up) and yeah, Brad Pitt, because everybody knows who he is.

Then, while I was waiting some more. I used the characters in my greatest (and as yet unpublished) scambait ever, replacing my fantasy cast with pictures of the cast of one of the best t.v. shows ever. (I still cry at the final scene of the series finale, but that's another story, which I just told.)

While I was still waiting, I googled a bit and discovered that it had been in development hell pretty much since the book was published, various attempts to bring it to the big screen (and the small one) having failed for one spurious reason or another, such as Fred Silverman or the Time-Warner merger. But the dream lived on, and now there was talk of Angelina Jolie and, yeah, Brad Pitt. And then there was no more talk, again.

Then I got busy with brown-eyed girls and such, and forgot all about it for a while, until sometime last winter, I heard or read or imagined that the first part had been released, largely unnoticed by anyone, by which I mean me. Eventually, I got around to googling, and found out that not only was it true, but the second part had also been released. Then I forgot about it again.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was looking for something to pick up at the local video store, and thought to enquire about it, which they didn't have, nor ever heard of. Then, earlier this evening, after finally getting around to watching Black Snake Moan (because Kim Richards was in it) online, I thought to look for it.

I found it. I wish I hadn't. I could have lived the rest of my life imagining what a great movie it would have been with my fantasy cast, or even my substitute cast. To paraphrase Art Garfunkel in Bad Timing, "It they don't make it, there's always the possibility it could have been perfect."

But they did make it. Well, two-thirds of it, anyways. And I found it. And I started watching it. And I decided that it was the worst casting ever. The actors weren't all that bad, but they were playing the wrong roles, as if they were matched by picking names out of a hat. And then I stopped watching it, because the script was almost as bad as the casting.

While I was waiting to eventually decide if I would watch it or not, I IMDBed it and discovered something truly bizarre, even for Hollywood. Parts one and two have entirely different casts. And by "entirely" I mean "entirely". And then I discovered that the cast for part three, which is slated for release next year, has yet to be announced, which seems to imply that its cast will be entirely different again.

Seriously? Really? WTF? Are you f-ing kidding me? [Your favourite internet cliche signifying incredulity]? But really, and seriously, they made seven Harry Potter movies (including one in two parts) and managed to keep all the same people playing all the same characters throughout (except for Dumbledore, but that's understandable under the circumstances).

But this, it's like they watched a few episodes of 'Til Death and said, "That's cool what they did with the daughter, let's do that with all the characters." Because, of course, what works for an irreverent sitcom should work for a movie based on a book that didn't have a single funny line. And much like everything else in the universe, I doubt that the author, god rest her soul, would find anything funny about this.

At least I now understand why every previous attempt to make this movie (and/or miniseries) failed, and why they failed for relatively unrelated reasons like a new network whiz kid, a corporate merger, or an actress getting pregnant. It was the universe saying "Don't. Just don't." Now the universe is saying "I told you so."

At least I have one-up on all of the professional critics who unanimously panned this travesty - I didn't have to suffer through the whole thing to know how bad it is. I might yet watch it someday, if I get drunk enough to not remember any of it the next day so as not to ruin the book for me, More likely, I'll just pretend it never happened and go with what Art said.

An open letter to Carmen Ortiz

An open letter to Carmen Ortiz, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. (A hard copy has been mailed to her office.)

Carmen Ortiz
US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts

January 14, 2013

Ms.Ortiz:

I do not know what kind of person you are in your private life, nor whether you have had any trouble sleeping at night lately.

I only know what I have read about your professional life and actions, the most predominant of which is now your prosecution of a young man and his subsequent death; a prosecution to which the alleged victim of the supposed crime was opposed. I am sure you are aware of the relevant ruling of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. What I am not sure of is why you chose not only to ignore that ruling, but also to neglect to ask for a review of that ruling by the Supreme Court.

The only reason I can think of is that the ruling was inconvenient to your purposes, and a potential confirmation of it that would have been binding in your state would have been even more inconvenient. It seems clear from all that I have read about this case that your purpose was gaining a conviction, not administering justice.

You are not directly responsible for the death of that young man; suicide is a tragedy that has its roots in the psyche of the victim and his or her incapacity to cope with the challenges that life sometimes poses. But I would not sleep well knowing that I had imposed some of those challenges on another human being unjustly, for the sake of my own ambition.

I do not know what kind of person you are in your private life, nor whether you have had any trouble sleeping at night lately. I do know that from what I have read about your professional life and actions, you are the most despicable kind of lawyer - the one that seeks to make a name for herself whatever the cost, justice be damned.

Congratulations Ms. Ortiz, you have succeeded in making a name for yourself. Too bad it will forever be linked to that of Aaron Swartz.

Legacy

Amanda Todd

But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually...

Mark Zuckerberg was referring to Facebook's predecessor, Facemash, but he might as well have been talking about the multi-billion dollar corporation that has become the largest stalking mechanism in human history. And both components of his statement are probably true - that he is a jerk, and that someone would have done it anyways.

The rest, as they say, is history (and if you don't know it, google it or watch the damn movie), so let's fast-forward to last Wednesday, October 10, 2012, the day a British Columbia teen named Amanda Todd committed suicide, a month and a few days after she posted a video on YouTube to tell her story, along with a comment that ended, ironically, with "...you just gotta pull through. I'm still here aren't I ?"

So what does Amanda's death have to do with Mark's creation? According to the wiki article, "Amanda Michelle Todd... was a 15-year-old Canadian teenager who committed suicide attributed to cyber-bullying through the social networking website Facebook." Yes, teens made innocent mistakes before the internet. Yes, bullying existed before the internet. Yes, teens committed suicide before the internet. But this particular tragedy had its roots on the internet, and the bottom line is that Amanda Todd is dead because of something that started and grew on the internet.

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand...

Eric Schmidt's words might be the understatement of the century. When the social side of the internet first became a significant part of my life as I knew it a few years ago, I marvelled at its potential. The free exchange of information, the unifying effect on the global village, the ability to bare my soul behind the shield of anonymity, all of these showed me that the internet could be, and indeed was, so much more than a convenient way to conduct financial transactions, communicate with clients, and buy stuff.

Now it's starting to scare the hell out of me.

Exactly one week before Amanda Todd ended her life over the fallout from a picture of her breasts on Facebook, someone very close to me woke up to find that his ex-wife had posted topless pictures of their 16-year-old daughter on, yep, Facebook. The girl had taken the pictures of herself in private and saved them on her mother's computer with a reasonable expectation of privacy. Eventually, her mother came across the pictures. Suffice it to say that the mother is not well, and there you have it.

The police were called and an officer was dispatched to take the complaint and collect the evidence in the form of screenshots and page downloads, but father and daughter were informed that local police had no way to contact Facebook directly to have the photos removed, and were advised to flag the images to Facebook themselves. They did so, along with a few close friends who had already seen the page, and prayed that the photos wouldn't spread too far during the 48 hours within which Facebook would do its best to review them.

Fortunately, the photos were removed by the end of the school day (and so far there is no evidence to suggest that they went anywhere further, but you can never be completely sure on the internet), but not by Facebook. According to the information on the Support Dashboards of those who flagged the images, the photos were removed by the mother (or someone with access to her account) before being reviewed.

Had this not been the case, it's anybody's guess how long it might have taken for Facebook to remove them (or even if they would have done so), how far they might have spread in the interim, and consequently, how much harm this might have caused to the young lady in question. Kinda makes you wonder not if, but when, we will hear about the next Amanda Todd.

It could also make you wonder how many more Amanda Todds we will hear about before Facebook takes steps to protect a huge segment of its users - children. Google+ (which appeals to a more mature market) has a Child Safety section in its content policy that stipulates: Do not distribute content that exploits children, such as child pornography (including cartoon child porn) or content that presents children in a sexual manner (which, presumably, would include topless photos). Facebook has nothing of the sort.

In fact, Facebook took several weeks to remove a page titled "Pedophiles are people too," having first simply tagged it with a "controversial humour" flag, citing freedom of expression, and finally taking it down (coincidentally) the day after Amanda Todd's suicide. (The page had prompted several pages critical of Facebook's initial decision, some of which where themselves taken down first, and at least one parody aimed at Zuckerberg.)

It is important to note that Facebook is not responsible for what bullies did to Amanda Todd, nor is it their fault a sick individual posted semi-nude photos of her daughter on Facebook. That said, it is incomprehensible that this multi-billion dollar corporation refuses to commit any but the most minimal of resources to dealing with these situations when they fester on its platform, and Facebook has come under increasing criticism for its head-in-the-sand approach to the online safety of its young users.

Can Facebook afford to hire more people in order to process abuse reports more quickly? Yes. Can Facebook afford to set up hotlines available to local law enforcement 24/7? Yes. Can Facebook afford to work with school systems to promote internet safety awareness among children? Yes. Is Facebook legally obligated to do any of these things? No, nor should they be. Should that stop the world's largest social network from assuming these social responsibilities?

Mark Zuckerberg did not kill Amanda Todd  He did nothing to hurt the young lady with the sick mother. But he also did nothing to help either one of them, as CEO of a corporation whose current policies can and do contribute to tragedies like Amanda's, and to the nightmares of a father who may have been spared such a tragedy by a stroke of good luck, no thanks to Facebook.

Is Mark Zuckeberg a good man? I have no idea, but if he is, he might start paying attention to what's happening on his creation, as well as to the words of Edmund Burke:

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

So long, Jack

I campaigned for Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) as a teenager, in the riding then held by Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Our big breakthrough was getting slightly more than 2% of the vote.

Over the years, my political orientation shifted to the right, but I always had a special place in my heart for the party whose members once sported buttons that said "My heart is on the left." Earlier this year, I even voted for them for the first time in 27 years, and I did so primarily because of the party's charismatic leader, Jack Layton. Hell, I didn't even know the name of the local candidate until I saw it on the ballot, and promptly forgot it until she was declared elected.

Jack Layton accomplished two things in that election that nobody expected. The party that had been struggling for a breakthrough in Quebec for decades took 59 of 75 parliamentary seats in the province, sending the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which had dominated federal politics in Quebec for two decades, to oblivion.

Largely because of that accomplishment, the NDP became the Official Opposition for the first time in its history. The future was brighter than it had ever been for the NDP and the man who had become the most popular politician in Canada.

Then, earlier this summer, he confidently told Canadians that he would be back when he stepped down from the party's leadership to battle cancer (which he had beaten once before), and few doubted that he would be.

Jack Layton died this morning.

As far as I can see, Jack may have been the last of his kind in Canadian politics; that is, leaders who are in it not for the money or the prestige or the favours they can hand out, but for what they believe in and the hope of achieving a brighter future. In my lifetime, I can think of only three others who merit membership in this club: Pierre Trudeau, Rene Levesque, and the NDP's own Ed Broadbent.

Today, my condolences go out not only to Jack's family and friends, but to all Canadians - regardless of our political leanings, we have all lost a national treasure today.

So long, Jack. We will miss you.

Two days before his death, Jack Layton wrote this letter to Canadians.

Going Postal - Canadian Style

For those who haven't noticed, there is no mail in Canada. It is not a strike, but a lockout. That's right, the post office closed itself down. For those who wonder how this could happen, I should point out that Canada Post does not use the slogan "Neither rain nor sleet..." or whatever it is. In fact, if Canada Post had a slogan, it would be, "What do you expect for 59 cents?" But I digress.

They are fighting over the usual suspects - wages, working conditions, benefits, and history. History, because the company wants to roll all of those back to the days of the early industrial revolution. I should point out here that I am not generally pro-union; I applauded WalMart when they closed their first ever store to have been unionized. However, these are exceptional times that call for exceptional opinions.

The union, in a rare stroke of brilliant strategy, started with rotating strikes, wherein various urban centres would lose mail delivery for one day at a time. This had the double benefit of not terribly inconveniencing the mail-receiving public at the same time as causing Canada Post major administrative headaches.

This (a public service union going after its employer without holding the public hostage) would not do, of course. So Canada Post did the only thing it could (other than actually taking steps to reach a negotiated settlement) - it attempted to provoke a full strike by announcing that mail would only be delivered three days a week.

When the union didn't bite, the company complained that its reduced service was costing it too much in lost revenue, so it did the logical thing and shut down altogether, because no revenue is better than some revenue, apparently.

In any case, the point of all of this has become clear to me. The current government has hinted at its desire to privatize the post office, an idea that has generally been met with a mix of raised eyebrows and instinctive disdain. By running itself into the ground, Canada Post will become a drain on the public purse, and thus a fair target to be a sacrificial lamb in some future round of budget cuts - the public will be less likely to oppose the sale of a money-losing crown corporation.

As a side-effect, this situation may turn out to be the best thing that little Stevie Harper has ever done for the environment - the vast majority of folks who will now use the internet to get around the lockout (for example, switching to online billing and payments) will not come back to snail mail, and this permanent drop in Canada Post's market will save countless forests.

My favourite part of the whole mess, though, has been the laughs, like the one I had when the company's CEO announced the lockout/shutdown at the same time as telling employees that he hopes they will come back to work soon. You can't pay for that kind of slapstick.

Oh wait, I guess we are paying for it.

Elections, eh?

I'm sure that to most Americans, the only thing more boring than Canada is Canadian elections, and that's quite understandable. While Americans took the great step forward of electing their first black president in the last presidential election, we Canucks now have the opportunity of taking the great step sideways of re-electing a man with all the charisma of a piece of wood, or replacing him with another man with all the charisma of a piece of wood.

This differs from the last election in that we had a different another man with all the charisma of a piece of wood, and the previous one in that we had yet another different another man with all the charisma of a piece of wood. Of course we do have two major parties with radically different platforms - one, if re-elected, will take our money to benefit their friends in big oil, while the other, if elected, will take our money to benefit their friends in, well, just their friends.

Where Americans had to decide based upon the great issues of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, public health care, and saving millions of people's homes from foreclosure, we have to decide based upon the great issues of whether we will pay more taxes or pay more taxes, whether a major urban bridge should fall down sooner or later, and saving some members of Parliament (what we call Congress) from receiving a lifetime pension after only two years in office.

Americans get to see their politicians caught (literally) with their pants down in things like the blue dress scandal; the most exciting thing that has happened in the personal life of Canadian politicians in the last ten years was when a poor little rich girl dumped both her boyfriend and her party to accept a cabinet post from the other party, in what can only be termed the pinstripe slumber. Ironically, she lost her seat (if not her pants) in the next election when her new party went down to defeat, which is the only kind of going down that happens in Canadian politics.

Our good neighbours have presidential elections every four years that last for two years; we have federal elections every two years that last for about a month, which most of us find way too long. The longest-serving party leader is still known primarily for how silly he once looked in a hairnet while visiting a cheese factory, some 14 years after it happened.

American presidential candidates have included war heroes, movie stars, activists, lawyers, peanut farmers, and more; our Prime Ministerial candidates have included lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, and more lawyers. No wonder we keep getting screwed. And overbilled.

I guess these contrasts are what you get when you compare a country based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with one based on peace, order, and good government. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad.

Cardboard Jesus

The ladies with Cardboard Jesus

I don't know if you've read Leon's, My Holy Land Experience Redux, or not, but I'd recommend it. For a Christian pastor, he has a certain sardonic flare that makes the heathenish contrarian in me stand up and shout, “Hell yeah, brother, preach on!”

And please forgive the ironic flippancy in my use of the phrase, “Hell yeah!” It's a Southern thang.

His pictorial exposé of the Orlando, Florida amusement park, I dare say, is potentially more enjoyable than an actual visit to the park itself. I haven't personally been, but my wife and daughter visited recently, on a school field trip, and they led me to believe it's not necessarily amusing. I came to that conclusion when my daughter told me, “It was alright, but I was glad when we left.” Not a glowing endorsement.

Leon and his son with a real life Jesus impersonator.

Like Leon, they took pictures, and like Leon, got a picture with Jesus, the only difference being Leon's Jesus was three-dimensional, while the ladies was only two-dimensional.  Egads!  Leon does a great job of pointing out the over commercialization that's rampant in Christianity today, and the obvious hypocrisy of making Jesus a marketable commodity on his blog, but at least he got a full bodied Jesus impersonator while the ladies only got a cardboard cut out!  What gives!

I did see a certain irony in their pictures of Jesus, one I could relate to personally. The contrast of Leon's Jesus to my wife and daughter's cardboard Jesus made me think about my own perception of him, and how it's changed over the years.

Like many Southern children, I attended Sunday School. We were taught Bible stories, like; Jonah and the whale, Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus' resurrection. We sang songs, recited Bible verses, ate cookies and candy. We also got the hell scared out of us, leading us to repent of our plethora of sins and hoping to get our Get out of Hell cards, because Hell seemed really bad to us. I have to admit, I never really got much more out of church beyond that back then. It seemed Christianity was only about avoiding hell in those days.

It wasn't until I was an apostate adult that Jesus started to make more sense to me. When I actually read the Bible – and not just listened to someone else's rendering of it - and read the words ascribed to be Jesus', I became interested. The Jesus of the Gospels was a freakin' revolutionary radical that turned the religious establishment on its ear! He challenged the predominantly Pharisaical Judaism of the day, even going so far as to suggest he was the fulfillment of their religious laws! The idea that one was to love sacrificially appealed to me, as did the concept that that all people were equally loved by God. The more I read, the more I studied, the more I liked this Jesus. He was so different from the Jesus I'd heard about in Sunday School. Back then, I was taught to fear Jesus, but I realized I didn't need to fear him after all. I actually came to love him.

My family and I started to attend church in order to worship and follow Jesus. It seemed the natural thing to do. My wife and I both had conservative Christian backgrounds, so we gravitated towards that type of church. In hindsight, I know that was a mistake. It's amazing what happened to the Jesus I'd come to love once he was put through the grinder of conservative, fundamentalist Christianity. Once again, he became a Jesus to fear, as doctrine and dogma sucked the life right out of him. Unfortunately, I'd fallen into a world where evolution is considered pseudo-science, despite the fact that seven day creationism can't be supported scientifically, that the Bible is inerrant, even though that notion can be dispelled with a cursory reading, and that today's evangelical brand of Christianity is the only way to heaven, regardless of the fact that it's a relatively new religion that ignored history and it's own two thousand year evolution. I'd fallen into a world of myopic ritual and self-inflicted ignorance.

I have to tell you, fear is a great motivator, and it took me several years to completely reject that belief system, but I'm glad I was finally able to. Sadly, my religious life relegated Jesus to resemble the cardboard cutout in my wife and daughter's picture; flat and without depth, and utterly lifeless. Gone was the Jesus I read about in my Bible; he'd become the Pharisee to me. He was condemnation and conviction, not love; he was the establishment, not the revolutionary. I have to tell you, that realization sucked for me. Still does.

I'd like to get back to the Jesus I admired some twenty years ago, the one I read about, the one before religion took him away. He wasn't some supernatural entity that was beyond my ability to comprehend, like the one I'd come to learned about as a child, the one my church espoused. I like the revolutionary Jesus, the Jesus that loved everybody. I don't like Cardboard Jesus.

Well, that seems a lot to get from a couple of pictures, but there you go.  Christopher Hitchens says religion poisons everything, and while I might not necessarily accept that fully, I anecdotally understand it.  Religion certainly poisoned my perception of Jesus.  Still, I have hope I'll see him as I did once, unencumbered by religion.  And maybe I'll even admire him again.

How Does The Universe Work?

The Universe, it is said, works in mysterious ways. But does it? I'm not so sure anymore.

I used to believe that the Universe was entirely random, much like the googleverse, but I'm not so sure about that anymore either. I had a theory that so many things happened that by pure chance, some would seem eerily coincidental. The laws of probability suggest that every now and then, coincidences would converge to seem entirely uncoincidental, but this too, said my theory, was also random.

At some point, though, enough is enough, and maybe even too much. Sure, sit an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of Macbooks and they will eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare, but who can afford an infinite number of Macbooks? Not to mention that before they produce the entire works of Shakespeare, they are more likely to produce all the scripts from Hello Larry, the full repertoire of Journey, and the complete code for Windows ME. Okay, maybe that last one will only require half an infinite number of monkeys, and could probably work with baboons at that.

I should probably stop insulting monkeys before the good folks from PETA get on my case, so let's get back on topic here. Is there a point at which so many coincidences converge that it becomes unlikely that they are purely coincidental? Despite my earlier theory, I am inclined to think so. Without going into detail, which would just make me seem weird, I humbly suggest that the Universe is not quite as dumb as it seems, and this despite It having allowed a scenario where Sarah Palin is seriously considered as a presidential candidate.

I guess I'm going to have to go into some detail. By accident, I ended up somewhere that led me to random interactions that eventually inspired me to embark on an unlikely excursion that included an unpredictable series of events that later influenced me to follow an uncharacteristic course of action that brought me to an  improbable set of circumstances that resulted in something completely unexpected. If that's not a clear indication that the Universe has Its hand in things, I don't know what is.

The point is that the odds of all this happening the way it did are as unlikely as, well, monkeys writing Shakespeare. Yet it did, while the monkeys are still designing the next version of Internet Explorer. Add to all of those details some downright bizarre "coincidences" that relate to seemingly unrelated events and circumstances from the past, and even an infinite number of monkeys squared couldn't have possibly scripted something that obvious.

Does all this mean that the Universe has everything planned out for us? Of course not - then what would be the point? What it means is that the Universe gives us possibilities, and signs by which to recognize them. When we ignore the signs, we end up like the guy on his roof in a flood who asked, "Lord, I refused help because I had faith in you to save me; why have you left me to drown?" To which the Lord replied, "I sent you a ladder truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?"

When we see the signs, we are able to follow the path the Universe has made possible for us, and once we're on our way, every now and then it throws in another sign just to let us know we are headed in the right direction. That's right, the Universe speaks to us in subtext. Meanwhile, back at the lab, the monkeys are still pounding away at their Macbooks, spewing forth a new Panic At The Disco song from time to time, but still no Shakespeare.

My Holy Land Experience Redux

This is a reprint of a blog post I made on my blog last year.  Enjoy!

I went to the Holy Land Experience yesterday with my youngest son, who happens to be five going on forty.  It was my first visit to the Christian-based Orlando theme park since the Trinity Broadcasting Network bought it some years ago.  I went, quite frankly, because my wife and older son went on a 15 day trip that included several days in the real Holy Land, and I promised my little guy we would one-up them.  Our mission was not to merely experience the Holy Land Experience as a means of one-uppance. We knew that wouldn't cut it.  Our mode of one-uppance was going to come when we got our picture taken with Jesus, which we were certain we would be able to do. The brochures and television ads clearly showed Jesus walking around greeting people in the park.  We decided that a photo op with Jesus himself would pretty much trump any ancient ruins that the other two members of our family visited.  In a moment of kindness I will include you on my little photo safari through the land of near-ancient Israel where the Crouch's are king, T.D. Jakes is THE MAN and an aging Dino still gets to play piano and make the old bee-hive hair-doe'd Pentecostal ladies swoon---Liberace style. 

The Holy Land Experience claims to be the one place in Orlando where you can literally go back in time and experience what it was like in ancient Israel.  I snapped the pic to the right at the entrance to the "Smile of a Child" area of the Holy Land Experience.  I am just spitballing here, but I am guessing that ancient Israel didn't have randomly placed trees filled with parrots and butterfly park benches guarded by grouchy Roman soldiers... or did they?

And this pic also begs the question, "Why place this rather imposing and scary resin statue at the entrance to the kids area?"  Is it a reminder that they should behave, refrain from naughty words and mind their teacher---who also happens to be their mom since they are homeschooled?

I wasn't feeling the random statue love.

Take this one for example, which was also discovered in the kids zone of the park.  I know that the good folks at TBN had the right idea---you know, the whole lion lying down with the lamb thing.  But why utilize what looks like a serious, regal prop from a Narnia exhibit when it comes to the lion and then bust out with a sheep from the Wallace and Grommit movies (or Serta commercials, whichever your prefer) to stand opposite him?

And what does the sheep seem to be saying here with his sideways glance?  "I know that things are supposed to be different now that we're lying down with lions, but I still don't trust the bloody thing."  

I guess that's the best way to describe much of what my kid and I experienced in the Holy Land Experience:  random.

Take a look at this pic on the right.  I snapped it in the kids zone along with the others.  It's Zaccheus up a tree.  But inexplicably there is this kangaroo right below him.

First, kangaroos are not indigenous to Gaililee.  Anyone knows that.  Second, why place it randomly in the Zaccheus story?  Is there more to the Zaccheus story than we saw at first blush?  Could this be Vince the Kangaroo, who was cut from the first draft of the story we find in the Gospels?  Maybe Zaccheus climbed the tree because he had sold Vince a sub prime mortgage and Vince was going to open up a can of kangaroo style whoop ass on him in retaliation.

Does anyone else but me think this is messed up?

This was the bean bag toss in the bizarre castle-themed area of the kids zone.  Yes.  It's the Devil.  You get more points for throwing the been bag through the whole where his heart should have been. 

I am seriously not making this stuff up.

The people at TBN have lots of money from all of those Carmen DVDs they sell on TV.  They should be able to afford something a little more interesting than this for kids to play with at their amusement park.

"Okay, Johnny, you've got three tries to make your beanbag go through the Devil's holes!  Miss more than once and you're damned to eternal retribution!  Ready, set, Go!"  

This is the Jonah in the belly of the whale exhibit.  There is a talking clam in the foreground.  You can't see it in the pic, but there is also a large octopus, a star fish and some sort of grouper.  All of them talk.  The octopus sounds like he was voiced by a white man trying to tell a Chris Rock joke and doing his best Chris Rock voice to do it.  Yeah, it was that racist.
At any rate, the little sea creatures are carrying on an endless dialogue about Jonah being in the belly of the whale.  Jonah occasionally will spout off Scripture in the King James version of the Bible in a cavernous, deep voice.

This is a straight-up Chuck Heston/Moses statue parting the Red Sea that is inhabited by happy little fish and dolphins.

Chuck makes a good statue.

You walk between the walls of water by the way.

It's pretty cool.

At least my five year old thought it was.

Okay, so did I.

Come on... it's Chuck Heston, for crying out loud.

Communion is celebrated every 15 minutes at this spot.

Jesus shows up to talk you through it.

They used grape juice.

People would get their early so that they could get a good seat.

Just like John did.

The suck up.

I found this door in the empty Garden Tomb.

It was next to the spot that the TBN people set up to look like where Jesus had been.

Theologically this door messes up a bunch of your belief system if you ponder it for a while.

I pointed it out to my kid, who is--as stated--five going on forty.  I said, "Look at that door in the back of Jesus' Tomb." he looks at it sort of nonplussed and says,  "That's where they store stuff."

Touche.

My five year old took this picture to the right using my iPhone.  I was proud of him.

This is a photo site that was set up by the TBN people so that you can have your picture taken next to Jesus to look like you are walking on water like Peter.

If I look like I am calm, it's just because I am fully at peace in the presence of the Resin Christ.

Oh don't hate me because you ain't me.  It was too good of a pun to pass up.

And yes, these damn butterfly benches were everywhere. 

If you look really closely in the background of this photo you can see two mannequins that have branches and flowers in their hair like druids.

Yep. That's Adam and Eve.

They are hiding back there, looking all stoic.

But their ashamed.

Oh yeah.

A lot.
 

The picture on the right is of a statue of two monkeys sitting on a butterfly bench.  I don't know why they were on the butterfly bench.  I don't know what sort of Biblical or Holy Land type of purpose they served. 

They look sort of cute, though.

Or frightened. 

Or pretty dang creepy. 

Come to think of it there were lots of creepier things than these monkeys in the Holy Land Experience.  Like the maintenance guy who leered at us with blackened misshapen teeth when he told us directions to the restroom.  And then sort of followed us in there. 

And the video of Benny Hinn playing in the bookstore.

Okay, so the day wasn't a total loss.

We got our picture with Jesus. 

And some kind people from Jamaica took it for us.

I couldn't help but overhear Jesus tell the man who took our picture that "if there were more people like you in America, it wouldn't be in the shape it is right now." 

I bet it seemed weird for the Jamaican guy to hear that from Jesus. 

Especially since he looked like Loggins and/or Messina. 

Who cares.  Me and my kid got our picture taken with the man himself. 

Top that.

Related articles

• Holy Land Experience theme park: Crucifixion, even on Christmas (gadling.com)
• Holy Land a theme park of biblical proportions (msnbc.msn.com)

Troubleshooting in Arizona

Click here, then read.

Last week I went to my beauty spa for a 3:45 appointment, only to discover that I was a whole day early. Organized as usual. Luckily the laser hair-removal technician was able to work me in because somebody else hadn’t shown up. I was lying back on the table getting my mustache burned off when the technician said, “Did you know you only got this appointment because the girl who was supposed to be here is being held hostage at the Chandler Mall? Yeah, there’s this crazy guy shooting a gun off inside. She called on her cell and said she wouldn’t be able to make it because the whole place is on lockdown.”

I couldn’t react with much more than a groan because my entire upper lip was slathered with cold gel and the technician was electrocuting my hair follicles. I made a mental note to avoid the mall area—four miles from my home—until the gun-slinging hostage-taker was caught.

I prayed that a slaughter wasn't going on.

A few days later, I was eating lunch at my desk when news started coming in over Facebook that an Arizona congresswoman had been killed, along with several other people, in a shooting down in Tucson. What? It’s hard to process that information when you’re in the middle of grading another crappy essay from another badly educated teenager raised in Arizona. I hoped that the information trickling in was exaggerated or wrong; I hoped that people were just injured, not dead.

Throughout these days—as the Chandler shooter was arrested before he killed anybody, and the Tucson shooter was arrested after shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords through the head, killing six others and injuring many more—my own daily work continued. It had to, just like shop owners have to keep their doors open and firemen have to keep putting out fires. In my world, editors and other writers kept up their own work too, hammering me with unsolicited advice: “You use the word ‘I’ too much. Stop focusing on yourself so much; try including your readers more by giving them advice. That way it’s not always about you.”

Okay then. In an effort to cut down on my use of “I” and to provide some words of wisdom, hear this:

Arizona needs to stage a Move-Out. This could be likened to John and Yoko’s Bed-Ins, but would require all Arizona residents…legal and not…to move out of the state. Take your illnesses and try again in a place that doesn’t make organ transplants impossible for people who need them but can’t afford them, where the hospitals have nurses who won’t talk about you like you’re already dead. Find a state where children are actually educated and not just pushed through, so they don’t grow up to resent their college instructors who fail them because they can’t write or do math. Pack up and search for a place where entire families and established communities are not chased across our nation’s border, back into poverty and a drug war. Take your small businesses—your loyalty to local sports teams…your scholarship and expertise, your club memberships and season tickets and love for live music in public venues—and start fresh where there are metal detectors in the right places. Let’s move back to the states we came from, where we used to feel safe and more hopeful.

Or, we can stay here and try to do better.

Get organized. Take an interest in our awful news and push for change in your area, whatever change you think would improve the shameful condition and reputation of this state. Write to your local members of congress and tell them that you’re unhappy, if they’re not in the hospital with a life-threatening head wound. Don't just sit around, complaining and blaming. Get moving and do something...without a weapon.

And if you live in Gabrielle Giffords’ district and lost a loved one last Saturday, or you're sitting in the hospital with an injured family member, or if you're just plain frightened, know for certain that the rest of Arizona and the entire nation is pulling for you. You are on our minds and in our hearts.

They're Canadian?

Image via Wikipedia

I've recently been thinking about that vast mass of frozen tundra that lays north of the U.S. border, sometimes called The Great White North, formally named Canada. The reason I have is because I've found myself interacting with several Canadians online as of late, and I've been impressed with their knowledge of American politics and culture. By contrast, I have to admit that I know practically nothing about Canada. I would go so far as to say that my woeful ignorance is embarrassing! I seem to remember from history lessons in my formative years about the French colonizing much of the Canadian territory during colonial times, that a war we gauche Americans refer to as The French and Indian War led to British control of the territory, and ...well...that's about it. Other than Canadian stereotypes - calling people hosers and drinking lots of beer – I had to admit my ignorance was quite profound. Therefore, I felt it prudent to scour the Googleverse for knowledge about Canada, you know, just in case I'm ever goaded into a discussion pertaining to our northern neighbors, in hopes that I won't sound like a complete idiot. So far, I have to admit...I'm a complete idiot.

Cover of Strange Brew

Before embarking on my studies, I asked myself if I knew any famous and important Canucks. Sadly, the first people that came to mind were Bob and Doug McKenzie, from the movie Strange Brew. They were played by Rick Moranis, before he became famous in the Ghostbusters and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movies, and Dave Thomas, before...well, the only thing I can recall seeing him in is the recent movie Rat Race, which is hilarious despite the drubbing it took from movie critics. I then thought of The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, the other Great One, John Candy, and the Inuit, of whom I've subsequently read do not like to be called Eskimos.

Do you think Inuit Pies would have been as popular as Eskimo Pies? Doesn't quite have the same ring, but I digress.

Soon a slew of Canadian actors and musicians filled my brain, and I had to admit that I didn't know any Canadians other than entertainers. That's sad. So, after reading up on some Canadian history and politics (Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy?), I endeavored to find some Canadians famous for something other than their contributions to celluloid and vinyl (or, whatever material a CD is made out of). I have to admit, I was surprised by some of the people I found that hail from The Great White North. Although not a comprehensive list, I thought I'd mention a few that I found interesting.

Image via Wikipedia

Alexander Graham Bell

Though the inventor of the telephone was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Bell spent most of his adult life in Canada. He would have the telephone patented in the U.S., but all the inventing took place at his home in Ontario. He became a naturalized citizen of the U.S., and Scotland and the U.K. claim him as a citizen as well, but it would appear Mr. Bell's heart was in Canada.

I found it interesting that he wouldn't allow a telephone in his study, as he found it distracting. I wonder if I told my daughter that, she might be motivated not to spend every waking hour talking on her cell? Probably not.

Jack Warner

The Hollywood movie mogul and co-founder of Warner Bros. Studios was born in London, Ontario. Jack Warner was the main man at Warner Bros. Studios and is responsible for procuring the technology for the first “talkies”, or talking films.

By extension, one might blame him for the degradation of modern culture due to the immorality and depravity depicted in movies today. Not that I would! I'm just sayin'!

Image via Wikipedia

Peter Jennings

Born in Toronto, Peter Jennings cut his journalistic teeth on Canadian television before becoming the news anchor for ABC's World News Tonight in the U.S. Of the “big three” news anchors, with Tom Brokaw at NBC and Dan Rather at CBS, Jennings was the anchor I watched. You see, before the time of a billion cable channels and around-the-clock news coverage as we have it today, a person typically got their news from one of the big three anchors on one of the big three networks. My, how times have changed.

James Naismith

I grew up with a basketball in my hands. It was the sport I loved to play the most, and if my parents didn't know where I was, it was a safe bet they would find me at the basketball court down the street. Well, until I was in high school, then there was a 50/50 chance. I guess I have James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, to thank for all those twisted ankles and failed slam dunk attempts of my youth. Thanks, man!

Mr. Naismith was born in Almonte,Ontario, but it was in Massachusetts where he'd invent basketball. He would later move to Kansas where he was athletic director and head couch of the basketball team at the University of Kansas.

Leslie Nielson

I know, I know, he's an entertainer, but I didn't know he was Canadian until I did this research! I simply assumed someone that funny had to be American!

Leslie Nielson was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, a Canadian province I had to look for on a map in order to know where it is. I grew up with Airplane and The Naked Gun series, so imagine my surprise when I saw him in The Forbidden Planet. I didn't know the man that “would do anything for a laugh” made serious movies. He's one of my all time favorite funny men. I laugh just thinking about his work.

So, I guess Canada's number one export isn't actors and musicians after all. I don't know if you were surprised by the Canadians I've listed here, but I surely was, and pleasantly so. I think that we Americans can be a bit myopic when it comes to culture and country. We don't always see beyond our own proverbial noses at times, and miss out on a diverse panoply of interesting people, places and things that may lay just over the border. Perhaps the next time I chat with my Canadian friends I'll be a bit more appreciative and understanding. And maybe I won't sound like an idiot.

But, then again...

Don't Mess With Me

Click here first, then read.

Popular names when I was a kid, when I was growing up, were names like Missy, Eric, Michelle, Laurie, and Jeff. I lived in Minnesota back then, so I guess you could say those names were popular in Minnesota during the 70’s and 80’s. Andrew, too. And Denise.

Now I’m 42 and teach college courses in Phoenix, Arizona. The names of female students become just a little edgier every year, a little weirder, more and more misspelled. A glance at recent online rosters reveal Kelsie, Mimi, Ariel, Chyna, Cadence, and Sunny. Thankfully for the young gentlemen, their parents have been more traditional: we have Michael, Adam, Phillip, Justin, and Paul.

There was, however, one young man in one of my on-campus classes a few years back whose name gave me pause. His name was Blair. He looked like a witch project coming straight for you, anybody would've agreed. He had one perfect feature—bright blue eyes—but other than that, he was all scary movie: acne, greasy hair slicked into a shark fin Mohawk, clothes right out of the dirty laundry, dumpy fat, just a Pigpen of a guy with fangs.

Blair never talked much, but one day he had to do some talking because when I passed back graded essays, I noticed that I didn’t have one for him. “Blair,” I said. “Do I have an essay from you?” He shook his head and said, “No, I didn’t do that one. I couldn’t think of a good topic.”

I looked at him like he’d just told me he had to change his last name because people didn’t like the sound of “Dahmer”.

“What?” I said. “You didn’t do it? You can’t just not do it. You can’t just skip a unit.” I spit out those last words: skip a unit. Skip a unit. Lick dirty feet. What the hell kind of a world did he think he lived in? Skip a unit. Eat dirty poop.

“Well you said we only have to complete three out of four units, and I didn’t like this one, so I didn’t do it.”

Didn’t like it? Didn’t do it? Smelly poopy pants.

At this point I’m sure I was looking at him like he was pissing on my feet. I was Linda Blair in a face-off with the Blair I Didn’t Do My Witch Project. Everything was fecal and rank and wrong, retarded and Siamese evil, evil.

“I didn’t say you could just skip a unit,” I said, measuring my words. “I said if you fail three units, you can’t pass the class. That doesn’t mean you can skip one.” Rotten smelly fart. Shit finger. “You’re going to have to speak with me after class!”

And I was going to have to go home and take a shower. Skip a unit my ass.

A Thimble of Difference?

In response to Leon's, America (pronounced "Ah-mur-ri-cah") 

So, the Republicans have kicked some Democrat butt by taking control of the House of Representatives and closing the deficit in the Senate.  Obama referred to the Republican gains in these mid-term election as a shellacking.  John Boehner will take over as Speaker of the House after Americans effectively fired Nancy Pelosi, changing not only the leadership of the House of Representatives, but changing the political playing field altogether as conservatives will surely challenge Obama's policies and both past and future legislation.  And why am I couching this in such competitive terms?  Because I'm watching the Dolphins lose to the Ravens.  Dang.

One thing I'm sure you've noticed about American politics is that it is very competitive.  I don't just mean between the politicians either, but between every American that follows politics. We're not just liberals, conservatives, moderates, libertarians, socialists (what, you didn't think there were socialists in the U.S.?) or whatever you like to call your political persuasion, we're also fans of a political party; Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist (and yeah, there is a Socialist Party) or whatever political party you like to party with.  And the smack talk?  What you might hear at your local sports bar pales in comparison to the smack you hear around the water cooler during an election cycle. Yeah, one could consider politics a sport, and full contact, at that.

That's too bad, too.  When I look back over the last decade in politics, I can't seem to find a whole lot of difference between the teams.  George W. grew the government by adding new federal agencies and expanding old ones.  He couldn't seem to say no to deficit spending and thought nothing of increasing entitlements.  When it comes down to it, W. wasn't much of a conservative, by most conservative's standards.  And then there's Obama who spends money much like...well...W.

Outside of the party's rhetoric, is there a thimble of difference between the two major parties?  I mean, there's a notable difference between the Tea Party and the Socialist Party (OK, I'm becoming redundant), but when you look back at the last decade can you tell a notable difference between the Republican and Democratic parties?  They both spend oodles of money and grow government.  The only difference that I can see is that Republicans spend a little less and grow government a little slower.  I guess Democrats are just more determined. 

I hope that the politicians do listen to the Americans that elected them, as Leon suggests in his aforementioned piece.  Will they?  Heck know!  They're politicians!  I hate to be so cynical, but after witnessing the past decade I expect more of the same.

Now, just a bit of a disclaimer; I'm expecting the worse, but hoping for the best.  I think the reason why our politicians pander the way they do to the voter is because, like their constituents, they think of politics as a competition, too.  It's about winning and losing, not about what's best for the nation.  Maybe this time things will be different.  It seems politicians understand that Americans don't like out-of-control spending and government expansion.  Maybe this time it won't be about who won the majority and more about actually representing the American people.  Maybe.

And as a side note; the Dolphins lost.  Dang.

America (pronounced "Ah-mur-ri-cah")

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi learned a valuable lesson: 

For good or ill (depending upon your social worldview) the Democratically-controlled Congress threw it's considerable weight behind President Obama's legislative agenda and paid the price for it.

Somewhere George W. Bush is laughing that weird laugh of his and singing the praises of his fellow "Ah-mur-ri-cahns" who fired Nancy Pelosi from her Speaker of the House gig and handed a bunch of Democrats their pink slips period. 

To whit, Nancy Pelosi's lesson:  Don't mess with average "Ah-mur-ri-cahns." 

The average American (I'll assume you have the correct pronunciation down now) is not amused when they are talked down to by a politician. 

The average American can't stand arrogance in their leaders. 

And the average American isn't thrilled with the idea that they have to live within their means or the "take-back-man" will come repo their crap, but the federal government can just spend like there's no tomorrow.  

When Nancy Pelosi was asked what her agenda was when Obama became President, she asserted the following hardcore liberal items:  strengthen the economy, end the Iraq war, expand health care, create jobs. 

Honestly, each one of those sounds pretty damn good to me.

Unfortunately, the Democrats fell prey to the very thing that they decried in the Republicans who ran everything when W was in the Big House:  Pride.

Memo to politicians...  Just because you happen to win an election doesn't give you the right to assume you have a corner on the market when it comes to what the average American is thinking.  In order to know that you have to actually listen. 

Pelosi & Co. at Obama's behest moved with lightning speed when it came to a health care reform bill that is now proving to be not what it was purported to be in the first place.  They moved with the speed of mud when it came to ending the war in Iraq. 

They didn't listen to former President Clinton who had some really good ideas on how to get the economy moving and instead landed us deeper in debt and farther in the hole.  The only jobs they created were government jobs because they forgot that the government can't really create jobs... the marketplace creates jobs and the only way for the marketplace to create jobs is when things like small businesses are growing and expanding because they are free from exorbitant taxes and mountains of regulation and because banks were encouraged to lend to them. 


And the entire time they were doing this, average Americans were telling them that they were screwing it up.  But because they had a "mandate" Pelosi & Co. ignored them. 


And now they are crying in their beer.  And cursing the average American for being too stupid to know what's good for them.  And vowing like Senator Harry Reid (who basically had to cash in every favor he'd ever earned from NV union bosses to keep his seat) to keep "fighting."


So here's my message to the Republicans who seem to have ridden that wave and who also seem to be taking way too much credit where credit isn't due... 


Listen to the average American, my friend.  Or the average American will rise up and kick your a--

Related articles

• Nancy Pelosi: Speaker of the House No More (freedomeden.blogspot.com)
• Is This the End of Nancy Pelosi? (newser.com)
• Nancy Pelosi probably deserved better than this (salon.com)