Reminder
Nothing is sacred at the Fish Wrap. I’ve found that sacred cows make the tastiest feast and I like to eat them in public. I will not shy away from things like religion, politics, sex, public icons or even death. Speaking of which, I think it would be a great humanitarian gesture and public relations coup if suicide bombers donated their organs to science before leaving for their missions.
Drawers Down
Surely, you’re not surprised by the recent news of Hewlett Packard spying on its board members. In the electronic age, everything you do as an employee can be monitored. Company cell phone records, stored information on your PC and Internet surfing are all available to your employers. 1984 has come and gone and no one noticed how much business intrudes upon our daily lives. Using a company cell phone? Your calls can be legally monitored. Hanky-panky calls could end up in a divorce court battle. Most Internet surfing to porn sites happens between 9 am and 5 pm. Every time you go to the Internet for anything, you leave a trail. Wise up! Don’t give these companies the ammunition they need to fire you. Do your nasty surfing at home and call your illicit lovers from a pay phone—it’s the American way.
Kill Them All
As voting citizens we are all subject to jury duty. In the past 12 months, I’ve been called five times, but I think my name is about to be dropped from the list. The last time I was called for jury duty, I made it clear that I supported capital punishment for jaywalking and ditching school. Of course, I was out of the courthouse before you could say writ of habeas corpus, but then I started thinking about it. We all know the death penalty doesn’t deter crime, but it could be used to clear up some recurrent problems like unemployment, divorce, low graduation rates and uninsured motorists. Be scared! Be very scared! I’m thinking about running on the law and order ticket next year.
The Cost of Victory
Three years ago, President George W. Bush made a dramatic landing on an aircraft carrier bearing the sign “Mission Accomplished,” to declare victory in Iraq. Unfortunately, since that declaration, military casualties now total 2,670 dead and 22,000 wounded. Through it all, most soldiers have remained resolute in serving their country despite the recall of some for a fourth tour of duty. Semper Fi
A Hockey Game Broke Out
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I decided to go out and do a little dancing. We spent plenty of time on the floor dancing to rhythm tracks and sampled sound bytes mixed with tunes that used to top the Soul Music charts. We had a good time and needed the exercise, but even the unconscious mind tires of hearing about sexual exploits, bitches, hoes, pimps and playas after awhile. We were about to leave when we heard it. Something went drastically wrong. People started moving away from the speakers in fear as—a song broke out. We danced to that song and then high-tailed it out of there while we were still on the good foot.
Let Them Have Dope!
Let professional athletes ingest all the dope they desire. It is time to quit policing performance and do the American thing—make money from it. As a reality show, “Athletes on Drugs” would top the Nielsen Ratings. Pitchers throwing 200 miles per hour fastballs and outfielders able to leap six feet in the air to snag a titanic blast from some 300-pound behemoth would be awesome. There’s an even bigger opportunity on the betting line where we could wager which player is most likely die on the field because of drugs. Now this is good clean American fun.
Look at the possibilities for breaking records. I'd like to see an 8.5 hundred meter dash or a two-minute mile. We'd always have new champions after last year's champions gonads shrank to the size of grape nuts. It's not as if these folks are real people. Come on, these are gladiators. They get paid to entertain us and we should be entertained without restrictions. Dammit, we want to see records broken. If a batter is too stoned to get out of the way of a 200 mph fastball then we can watch the funeral on television as another reality show. Let them have drugs. We'll say we're sorry that someone died, but we'll look at the money we made and be prepared to sign the latest sports hero. Hey, it's only sports.
Growing Older and Wiser?
Time reminds me I am growing older and I don’t give a rat’s ass. Yes, I have gained much wisdom along the way to my ultimate demise (how’s that for a euphemism?), but if I had a chance to change my life—I wouldn’t. I don’t want a second chance to correct my wrongs, that'd take too much time. I need more time to indulge my sins.
Commercially Speaking
What’s up with these women carrying an entire carton of douche in their purse? I’m watching some movie on the “Chick Channel,” when a woman comes on the screen complaining about having that “not so fresh feeling.” For a minute, I thought she might have chewed up some old gym socks, but I couldn’t have been that lucky. Suddenly, the other woman sitting with her reaches into her purse and whips out and entire box of Summer’s Eve douche. How damn convenient! When the commercial ended, I put the remains of my sandwich in the refrigerator and immediately went to Home Depot to cleanse myself.
I always put my serious thoughts at the end so you can skip past it and close the page. Nevertheless, I put them here because I believe it is good to put these kind of thought in public to let others know that someone cares about something—DB.
On Thinking
Thinking is important as breathing. Without thinking, deaths awaits as surely as if we stopped breathing. Too often we accept blindly, but inconvenience is no excuse for not seeking the truth. Searching hones the mind and opens new pathways to thought. We cannot take things literally or on the word of someone else; occasionally, it is important that we veer off course and explore the world of truth for our selves. It is too convenient and comforting to believe without thinking when blunt reality tells us conceptions are as varied as grains of sand and just as numerous. Literal thinking is the refuge of the unchallenged mind willing to accept without listening to realty’s call. It is a form of intellectual dishonesty to ignore the world’s reality and substitute fiction in order to have a comfortable mind.
Sometimes the degree of difference in fact and fiction is infinitesimally small as the proverbial mustard seed but as the mustard seed grows, so does the chasm of difference in reality from individual to individual. Unwillingness to honestly assess an opinion or belief different from ours is mental in-breeding that prevents accumulation of knowledge and thus, ultimately, the gaining of wisdom. Simply, wisdom is nothing more than understanding that every story has a beginning, a middle and end; and, that every story has a perspective that is dependent upon who is telling the story, who is listening and how the story is understood. If understood, excuses for narrow-mindedness, bigotry and intolerance become void and is solely the choice of those receiving the message who often alter its intent to fit their needs and biases.
If we are to understand, then we must listen. Understanding is an active process. It requires activity from those who wish to be understood. It also requires attention from those who wish to understand. Those who do not seek to understand by necessity are ignorant, intolerant and superficial, as well as cowardly, depthless and dangerous. Condemnation without understanding is tyranny. Perfection is the only true measure of man, anything less is not a true instrument. Though it may be an unachievable goal, the quest must be undertaken to live in truth and strive toward perfection through knowledge. Searching and understanding opens the world for people. Too often, the search for truth raises the ire of the status quo, especially when that search leads to frontiers reaching far away from what one has been taught. However, that doesn’t make that knowledge invalid; instead, it should make the searcher curious and more willing to go further into the question to refute erroneous and misleading information; otherwise, an argument based on sand is an argument that will not hold water.
Each day we are fed misinformation by the very leaders that we love and trust. It is not out of hostility they do this, rather, it is misunderstanding and their own unwillingness to test the waters of reality. It is easy to deceive ourselves, especially when we have no experience, contact or knowledge of anything other than our own closed environments; making us the equivalent of blind men trying to describe the tiger’s stripe through our sense of touch. Not only is it impossible to do, any attempt is premeditated dishonesty and intellectual avoidance of reality. For many, the mere thought of intellectual activity is frightening and often considered subversive. Intellectuals frighten people because they have the temerity to ask why, but we were all intellectuals at one time. When we were children, “why” was a favorite word in our young vocabularies. We wanted to know everything. Instinctively, we knew if the answer was not apparent then we must ask “why?”
Some say we are not meant to know everything but that is ignorance speaking and more of a medieval excuse that avoids honest assessment and the search for knowledge. It is no reason not to seek an answer to a valid question motivating one to seek the truth. I search because I am always seeking answers. Sometimes my search is disheartening and futile and other times it is enlightening and instructive. I believe that you should never take answers as they are; find the truth for yourself and the answer will greet reality. Searching is fuel that powers thinking, and thinking brings knowledge and through knowledge we gain wisdom, which is the ultimate reality.
Doctor Bodacious
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