Apologies to all the inmates. I've been away for far too long.
However, Life sometimes conspires to keep us from the things we really wish to do, and I have fallen victim to this dictum (that fucking rhymed!). Between (paying) work, Tess' health problems, and general apathy, the Asylum has been left to languish in the Internet version of Limbo for a while.
But no more!
Coming soon: a new design, more insanity, more caustic bullshit from the fevered imagination of Your's Truly.
Fasten your seat belts; it's about to get all sorts of crazy up in here.
Showing posts with label Bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bullshit. Show all posts
Friday, January 02, 2015
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Fifteen Biggest Bullshitters In America Today...
I believe it was the late George Carlin who once said, paraphrasing, that the biggest industry in America was the production, packaging, marketing and distribution of Bullshit.
Sometimes, when you look at the blasted heath that was once the landscape of this Great Nation, and you think about how it all devolved to deposit us at our current state of affairs, it's difficult not to agree with that cynical sentiment. You need look no further than the corridors of power in America for proof of this maxim:
President Obama is a bullshit artist.
Most members of Congress are bullshit artists.
Local governments are overflowing with bullshit artists, from the execrable personage of Mayor Michael Bloomdouche...errr...Bloomberg...of my great city of New York, to the "Honorable" Jerry Brown, governor of a bankrupt California which is rapidly becoming Mexico, only with indoor plumbing and food.
Sometimes, when you look at the blasted heath that was once the landscape of this Great Nation, and you think about how it all devolved to deposit us at our current state of affairs, it's difficult not to agree with that cynical sentiment. You need look no further than the corridors of power in America for proof of this maxim:
President Obama is a bullshit artist.
Most members of Congress are bullshit artists.
Local governments are overflowing with bullshit artists, from the execrable personage of Mayor Michael Bloomdouche...errr...Bloomberg...of my great city of New York, to the "Honorable" Jerry Brown, governor of a bankrupt California which is rapidly becoming Mexico, only with indoor plumbing and food.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Exclusive! The Lunatic's Asylum Gets Advance Copy of Tonight's Obama Speech!
In a major journalistic coup, the Lunatic's Asylum has obtained an advance copy of the speech that President Marriott-Suites will be giving before a joint session of Congress this very evening. Lefty the Asylum Elf, after intense negotiations with Barack Obama's Teleprompter, snagged a snippet of the speech which we have been told we may publicize here at the Asylum.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Cat: The Other White Meat...
I hate cats. With a passion.
If it were up to me, your typical tabby housecat would be on the Endangered Species List and we'd be able to undertake an effort at Mass Extinction that would guarantee that the only place you'd ever be able to know there was ever any such animal would be a visit to the Museum of Natural History, where little plaster replicas of feline skeletons would be on display, like those of the dinosaurs and three-toed-giant ground sloths.
If there's anything more useless than a housecat, I can't figure out just what that might be. Yeah, yeah, I know, they keep the vermin out of the house, and they provide love (cats don't love; they simply attach themselves to whoever feeds them regularly) and companionship, and give complete retards an opportunity to waste money and emotional energy on cute little cat outfits, kitty litter, saccharine, vomit-inducing calendars and YouTube videos, and Cat Fancy magazine, but is it all really worth it?
I mean, a dog -- at least a great big one -- serves a useful purpose and can at least scare off potential burglars, rapists, and serial killers who invade your property, if not chew such degenerates to shreds. I'm definitely a Dog Person, and not those little yapping rats on leashes wearing little cardigans, either. A chihuahua is almost as useless as a cat, if you ask me. Give me a great, frightening German Shepherd, the wolf-like Malamute, or a saddle-ready Great Dane any day of the week,.
What has prompted this little diatribe against certain members of the Genus Felix has been the behavior and activities of the neighborhood cats.
For some reason I have yet to discern, the little Kitty Gangstas in this neighborhood have taken to my front lawn, treating it as if it were their own private Disneyland. My evenings are replete with the sounds of cat fights, cat orgies, and the chorus of singing and meowing housepets set loose for the night. These activities invariably seem to take place right below my bedroom window.
I would hazard to guess that the abundant shrubbery and flower beds tend to give horny cats those safe-and-secluded retreats they require for their noisy fuck sessions, much like humans use those seedy, out-of-the-way No-Tell-Motels out by the airport, where they charge short-stay rates and extra for clean sheets, and every Civil War-era bathroom you wouldn't use without the full panoply of inoculations against tropical diseases has it's own second-rate, your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine condom dispenser, just in case you forgot.
Nary an evening goes by, and it's gotten worse since summer is here; when I'm not chasing kitties out of the flowerbeds, or I'm not awakened by the sound of cats doing it doggie-style, sometimes in groups. Cleaning cat crap off the front lawn is a disturbing chore, and this is only occasionally made more interesting by the surprise discovery of the dead squirrels, birds, small rodents, and large insects scattered about the property, stalked and murdered by the thoughtless little cretins, and left to rot, fester and smell in the heat.
They don't even TRY to eat them, or drag them home to their owners. Hell, one of them actually dragged a squirrel that had been hit by a car out of the street on onto my front lawn, probably as a love offering to one of his fuckmates.
But last night was the Absolute Last Straw.
I had just stepped out onto the front stoop for a smoke, when my nostrils were assaulted by the most offensive odor imaginable. It was worse than the rancid aroma of New Jersey at low tide. It was a scent that would make a Pakistani Incontinent Leper ward smell like a perfume factory. It's a smell that affronts: it is not only an attack upon the old olfactory sense, but it'll actually make your eyes water and your stomach churn. I know this effluvium all too well.having once had a girlfriend with an abundance of male cats in her full-of-fur-urine-turds-and-stink home.
One of the neighborhood tabbies has been spraying (marking his territory) near my front door, the little bastard, and I had just caught him in the act.
I wish I had had a deadly weapon at that very moment, and screw the idea that this may be some child's pet. This animal needed killin', as they say in the South.
Even more aggravating is the fact that the stupid animal had the audacity to stare at me as if I had invaded it's territory. This must be the little brute who's been dragging and stashing dead squirrel carcasses (I've lifted three out of my flowerbeds in the last fortnight, and the first indication they're present is always the stench) all over the property. This must be the Feline Lothario who's been keeping me awake with his raucous lovemaking in the wee hours. This must be the four-legged lunatic who's dug holes all over the front lawn seeking beetles. This is the reason six or so other cats congregate outside my window on a near-nightly basis.
If I ever get the opportunity to kill this little fucktard, he's a goner.
Which brings me to the sheer inconsiderate behavior of my neighbors. I've left signs all over the neighborhood asking people to keep tabs on their tabbies, to no avail. I don't see the need to keep a pet which, frankly, believes it owns you, and which -- probably because it's an annoying little douchebag -- requires you to let it out every night so that you can get some sleep, and fuck everyone else's sleep requirements.
That's not a pet; it's another petulant child that you're raising.
Another notice will go out; I don't want your cats fucking, shitting, meowing, congregating, pissing, spraying, or even breathing beneath my bedroom window anymore. I'm keeping my Wrist Rocket, baseball bat, and a Super Soaker full of salt water infused with a generous touch of ammonia and chlorine bleach handy in order to defend the old Homestead against this invasion of pesky and destructive little four-footed buggers.
I have half a mind to sell the pelts, and give the meat to the local Chinese and turn the entire enterprise into a lucrative work-from-home opportunity, and if you come to complain with your crying kids in tow, I'll tell you to fuck off. This situation has gotten seriously irritating, and asking Cat Owners to exercise a little restraint with their pets is apparently like asking a democrat to work for a living; it's something they consider outside the realm of normal probabilities.
I've heard the expression "It's like herding cats..." before, and I think whoever coined that phrase was never acquainted with the cats in my neighborhood, who seem to be extremely social to the point of having formed some little kitty street gang dedicated to destroying my landscaping (which costs a pretty penny every month, thank you. Despite what some may say, Mexicans certainly DO NOT work cheap when they can manage it). There's an entire herd of them in my yard every night.
Which should make it extremely easy to help the little bastards shuffle off this mortal coil in numbers that make the effort worthwhile.
Then I might be able to get some sleep and not have my front porch smell like cat's ass.
If it were up to me, your typical tabby housecat would be on the Endangered Species List and we'd be able to undertake an effort at Mass Extinction that would guarantee that the only place you'd ever be able to know there was ever any such animal would be a visit to the Museum of Natural History, where little plaster replicas of feline skeletons would be on display, like those of the dinosaurs and three-toed-giant ground sloths.
If there's anything more useless than a housecat, I can't figure out just what that might be. Yeah, yeah, I know, they keep the vermin out of the house, and they provide love (cats don't love; they simply attach themselves to whoever feeds them regularly) and companionship, and give complete retards an opportunity to waste money and emotional energy on cute little cat outfits, kitty litter, saccharine, vomit-inducing calendars and YouTube videos, and Cat Fancy magazine, but is it all really worth it?
I mean, a dog -- at least a great big one -- serves a useful purpose and can at least scare off potential burglars, rapists, and serial killers who invade your property, if not chew such degenerates to shreds. I'm definitely a Dog Person, and not those little yapping rats on leashes wearing little cardigans, either. A chihuahua is almost as useless as a cat, if you ask me. Give me a great, frightening German Shepherd, the wolf-like Malamute, or a saddle-ready Great Dane any day of the week,.
What has prompted this little diatribe against certain members of the Genus Felix has been the behavior and activities of the neighborhood cats.
For some reason I have yet to discern, the little Kitty Gangstas in this neighborhood have taken to my front lawn, treating it as if it were their own private Disneyland. My evenings are replete with the sounds of cat fights, cat orgies, and the chorus of singing and meowing housepets set loose for the night. These activities invariably seem to take place right below my bedroom window.
I would hazard to guess that the abundant shrubbery and flower beds tend to give horny cats those safe-and-secluded retreats they require for their noisy fuck sessions, much like humans use those seedy, out-of-the-way No-Tell-Motels out by the airport, where they charge short-stay rates and extra for clean sheets, and every Civil War-era bathroom you wouldn't use without the full panoply of inoculations against tropical diseases has it's own second-rate, your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine condom dispenser, just in case you forgot.
Nary an evening goes by, and it's gotten worse since summer is here; when I'm not chasing kitties out of the flowerbeds, or I'm not awakened by the sound of cats doing it doggie-style, sometimes in groups. Cleaning cat crap off the front lawn is a disturbing chore, and this is only occasionally made more interesting by the surprise discovery of the dead squirrels, birds, small rodents, and large insects scattered about the property, stalked and murdered by the thoughtless little cretins, and left to rot, fester and smell in the heat.
They don't even TRY to eat them, or drag them home to their owners. Hell, one of them actually dragged a squirrel that had been hit by a car out of the street on onto my front lawn, probably as a love offering to one of his fuckmates.
But last night was the Absolute Last Straw.
I had just stepped out onto the front stoop for a smoke, when my nostrils were assaulted by the most offensive odor imaginable. It was worse than the rancid aroma of New Jersey at low tide. It was a scent that would make a Pakistani Incontinent Leper ward smell like a perfume factory. It's a smell that affronts: it is not only an attack upon the old olfactory sense, but it'll actually make your eyes water and your stomach churn. I know this effluvium all too well.having once had a girlfriend with an abundance of male cats in her full-of-fur-urine-turds-and-stink home.
One of the neighborhood tabbies has been spraying (marking his territory) near my front door, the little bastard, and I had just caught him in the act.
I wish I had had a deadly weapon at that very moment, and screw the idea that this may be some child's pet. This animal needed killin', as they say in the South.
Even more aggravating is the fact that the stupid animal had the audacity to stare at me as if I had invaded it's territory. This must be the little brute who's been dragging and stashing dead squirrel carcasses (I've lifted three out of my flowerbeds in the last fortnight, and the first indication they're present is always the stench) all over the property. This must be the Feline Lothario who's been keeping me awake with his raucous lovemaking in the wee hours. This must be the four-legged lunatic who's dug holes all over the front lawn seeking beetles. This is the reason six or so other cats congregate outside my window on a near-nightly basis.
If I ever get the opportunity to kill this little fucktard, he's a goner.
Which brings me to the sheer inconsiderate behavior of my neighbors. I've left signs all over the neighborhood asking people to keep tabs on their tabbies, to no avail. I don't see the need to keep a pet which, frankly, believes it owns you, and which -- probably because it's an annoying little douchebag -- requires you to let it out every night so that you can get some sleep, and fuck everyone else's sleep requirements.
That's not a pet; it's another petulant child that you're raising.
Another notice will go out; I don't want your cats fucking, shitting, meowing, congregating, pissing, spraying, or even breathing beneath my bedroom window anymore. I'm keeping my Wrist Rocket, baseball bat, and a Super Soaker full of salt water infused with a generous touch of ammonia and chlorine bleach handy in order to defend the old Homestead against this invasion of pesky and destructive little four-footed buggers.
I have half a mind to sell the pelts, and give the meat to the local Chinese and turn the entire enterprise into a lucrative work-from-home opportunity, and if you come to complain with your crying kids in tow, I'll tell you to fuck off. This situation has gotten seriously irritating, and asking Cat Owners to exercise a little restraint with their pets is apparently like asking a democrat to work for a living; it's something they consider outside the realm of normal probabilities.
I've heard the expression "It's like herding cats..." before, and I think whoever coined that phrase was never acquainted with the cats in my neighborhood, who seem to be extremely social to the point of having formed some little kitty street gang dedicated to destroying my landscaping (which costs a pretty penny every month, thank you. Despite what some may say, Mexicans certainly DO NOT work cheap when they can manage it). There's an entire herd of them in my yard every night.
Which should make it extremely easy to help the little bastards shuffle off this mortal coil in numbers that make the effort worthwhile.
Then I might be able to get some sleep and not have my front porch smell like cat's ass.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
You're Not Special; You're Just Crazy...
Andrea Peyser in the New York Post on Self-mutilation as the ultimate attention getter.
You know you're in trouble when the GLAAD people, in so many backhanded-and-catty words, call you 'fat' and 'insane'.
I don't know Chaz Bono, and don't really care to, so I'm going to make some generalized observations about his/her case. I'm also not a psychiatrist -- I only play one on the Internet, and psychiatry is mostly bullshit, anyway -- so the only way to try to explain this is by applying logic, which already puts me on shaky ground before I even begin.
1. Chaz Bono grew up with famous parents, who were Hippies, and so they were certain to have raised HeShe with some rather strange ideas, most of which probably involved indulging any stupidity Chaz wanted or got involved with. This, you know, builds 'self-esteem', which was all the rage with parents of the time (it was a codeword for 'whatever the kid wants, the kid gets, if it means I'm 'a cool Mom/Dad' -- and keeps the little bastard out of my hair) and which, as a concept, has expanded to become a fucking pox upon Modern Society. We're knee deep in everyones Self-Esteem, but it never seems to occur to anyone who cries about not having any that it's usually earned through achievement, and not granted as a right because you sat through the 30 minute 3rd-grade-level-lecture-and-certificate-ritual at a public school.
Having famous parents, I would imagine, is no picnic. Everyone wants their attention and caters to them, so I wonder if at some point, Chaz felt less like a child, or even a human being, and more like an accessory.
2. Over-indulged children who have retarded/disinterested parents who 'encourage' them to pursue rank stupidity for fear of criticizing or disciplining the little buggers (and thus crushing their fragile self-esteem) become spoiled adults who expect to receive similar treatment from everyone they meet in their adult lives. Because the parents didn't set any boundaries, didn't cater to the child's feelings, and imposed no values upon their little genetic mess, the little bastard soon
a. figures out that it can do whatever the fuck it pleases, and
b. quickly becomes bored with the usual litany of childhood stupidity, and thus, must seek ever more exotic and complicated stupidity as it grows older. The more dramatic and complicated the stupidity, the greater the attraction.
3. Over-indulged children, bereft of values, boundaries, and interested/attentive parents, soon find their way into trouble as a means of getting attention. Often negative attention, because the worse the activity the greater the response from the uninvolved parents. It's all about provoking a response...any response. At heart, all people who fall into this category of insanity are always seeking both the approval and the guidance of, or more accurately a rescue effort by, Mommy and Daddy Dearest.
4. The mollycoddled-yet-still-clamoring-for-parental-attention child soon runs the gamut of anti-social behavior in it's teenaged years, usually starting with smoking, and then progressing to promiscuity, defiance, rebellion, casual use of foul language, a Gothic/Punk stage, body-piercings, perhaps vandalism and petty crime, tattoos, drug and alcohol abuse, and perhaps even several (unserious) suicide attempts, and usually a mixture of All of the Above.. When this fails to bring the attention they truly crave (which is for their parents to start acting like fucking parents and provide some guidance), the activity must become ever more severe, and an even-greater rejection of traditional values which is intended to shock the sensibilities; homosexuality, sexual fetishes, cross-dressing, perhaps a string of abusive relationships (either as bully or victim), and finally, the ultimate shocker: Surgically-aided Self-mutilation with that added bonus of the rejection/warping of traditional gender norms.
Chaz Bono is simply someone who has been crying out for her parents HisHer entire life, probably, and never got the response HeShe desperately craved, and maybe never ever gave voice to. After all, she was most likely handed everything in life, and expected her parents to mystically divine what was in her head; it's how this Game Gets Played, you know. Had Chaz ever come right out and say what HeShe had wanted, and expected, from It's parents, it would have either stopped the gravy-train of over-indulgence dead in it's tracks, or it would have fallen upon deaf ears. HeShe has now entered the Penultimate phase in the attempt to get some attention. Even negative attention. The very last step is a massive overdose and/or a nosedive out a 50th floor window, with a shotgun wound to the head, just for good measure.
And then the Media, because it too, is a collection of mentally-deranged morons, will lead the Nation in the obligatory contrived orgy of manufactured and insincere grief for what amounts to a non-entity who's never accomplished a thing in HisHer life. Three days later, because the public's attention span is shorter than a dwarf at a urinal, we will forget the entire thing. Why does anyone really care, when even HisHer parents didn't, after all? Besides, the new season of Jersey Shore begins tonight.
Until Cher -- predictably -- uses the tragedy to re-launch her career, of course.
I don't pity Chaz Bono and I don't find HimHer even slightly interesting in the least. I regard this sick lump of humanity in the same way one might regard an enema; an unpleasant experience you hope ends rather quickly, with as little stench left behind as possible. I'd rather watch my fingernails grow, or count the blades of grass on my front lawn than to watch It on television. I'm not fascinated by Chaz's orgy of extreme Look-at-Me-ism, and resent the idea that some idiot in television believes that I might be. The one thing I certainly never want to hear is the constant whining of someone who mutilates their body, rejects all the standards of contemporary society, and engages in behavior that is disturbing. destructive and disgusting, cry about 'how hard it is to be Me..."
Especially when the Whiner is the scion of stupid-rich 'entertainers' and ersatz 'cultural icons' of questionable talent, taste, and intelligence, given every advantage in life, and who will, naturally, expect to be held up as some sort of role model by people even dumber than they are.
Before I get the usual round of accusations of being a 'homophobe' and a 'hater, I don't hate people for 'being gay'; I hate people for being stupid and selfish. I've known quite a number of gay people in my lifetime and they all seem to possess the same, often-distasteful, qualities: an insatiable thirst for constant attention and reassurance, and a mistaken belief that 'no one understands me.' You weren't 'born this way', and you're not expressing a 'preference', nor making a 'lifestyle choice'; you're basically telling the rest of us that since we don't recognize your self-professed Greatness that you will shit all over our cherished beliefs and sensibilities as a means of revenge....and getting attention. So fuck off with your nasty e-mails. I've heard it all already.
You know you're in trouble when the GLAAD people, in so many backhanded-and-catty words, call you 'fat' and 'insane'.
I don't know Chaz Bono, and don't really care to, so I'm going to make some generalized observations about his/her case. I'm also not a psychiatrist -- I only play one on the Internet, and psychiatry is mostly bullshit, anyway -- so the only way to try to explain this is by applying logic, which already puts me on shaky ground before I even begin.
1. Chaz Bono grew up with famous parents, who were Hippies, and so they were certain to have raised HeShe with some rather strange ideas, most of which probably involved indulging any stupidity Chaz wanted or got involved with. This, you know, builds 'self-esteem', which was all the rage with parents of the time (it was a codeword for 'whatever the kid wants, the kid gets, if it means I'm 'a cool Mom/Dad' -- and keeps the little bastard out of my hair) and which, as a concept, has expanded to become a fucking pox upon Modern Society. We're knee deep in everyones Self-Esteem, but it never seems to occur to anyone who cries about not having any that it's usually earned through achievement, and not granted as a right because you sat through the 30 minute 3rd-grade-level-lecture-and-certificate-ritual at a public school.
Having famous parents, I would imagine, is no picnic. Everyone wants their attention and caters to them, so I wonder if at some point, Chaz felt less like a child, or even a human being, and more like an accessory.
2. Over-indulged children who have retarded/disinterested parents who 'encourage' them to pursue rank stupidity for fear of criticizing or disciplining the little buggers (and thus crushing their fragile self-esteem) become spoiled adults who expect to receive similar treatment from everyone they meet in their adult lives. Because the parents didn't set any boundaries, didn't cater to the child's feelings, and imposed no values upon their little genetic mess, the little bastard soon
a. figures out that it can do whatever the fuck it pleases, and
b. quickly becomes bored with the usual litany of childhood stupidity, and thus, must seek ever more exotic and complicated stupidity as it grows older. The more dramatic and complicated the stupidity, the greater the attraction.
3. Over-indulged children, bereft of values, boundaries, and interested/attentive parents, soon find their way into trouble as a means of getting attention. Often negative attention, because the worse the activity the greater the response from the uninvolved parents. It's all about provoking a response...any response. At heart, all people who fall into this category of insanity are always seeking both the approval and the guidance of, or more accurately a rescue effort by, Mommy and Daddy Dearest.
4. The mollycoddled-yet-still-clamoring-for-parental-attention child soon runs the gamut of anti-social behavior in it's teenaged years, usually starting with smoking, and then progressing to promiscuity, defiance, rebellion, casual use of foul language, a Gothic/Punk stage, body-piercings, perhaps vandalism and petty crime, tattoos, drug and alcohol abuse, and perhaps even several (unserious) suicide attempts, and usually a mixture of All of the Above.. When this fails to bring the attention they truly crave (which is for their parents to start acting like fucking parents and provide some guidance), the activity must become ever more severe, and an even-greater rejection of traditional values which is intended to shock the sensibilities; homosexuality, sexual fetishes, cross-dressing, perhaps a string of abusive relationships (either as bully or victim), and finally, the ultimate shocker: Surgically-aided Self-mutilation with that added bonus of the rejection/warping of traditional gender norms.
Chaz Bono is simply someone who has been crying out for her parents HisHer entire life, probably, and never got the response HeShe desperately craved, and maybe never ever gave voice to. After all, she was most likely handed everything in life, and expected her parents to mystically divine what was in her head; it's how this Game Gets Played, you know. Had Chaz ever come right out and say what HeShe had wanted, and expected, from It's parents, it would have either stopped the gravy-train of over-indulgence dead in it's tracks, or it would have fallen upon deaf ears. HeShe has now entered the Penultimate phase in the attempt to get some attention. Even negative attention. The very last step is a massive overdose and/or a nosedive out a 50th floor window, with a shotgun wound to the head, just for good measure.
And then the Media, because it too, is a collection of mentally-deranged morons, will lead the Nation in the obligatory contrived orgy of manufactured and insincere grief for what amounts to a non-entity who's never accomplished a thing in HisHer life. Three days later, because the public's attention span is shorter than a dwarf at a urinal, we will forget the entire thing. Why does anyone really care, when even HisHer parents didn't, after all? Besides, the new season of Jersey Shore begins tonight.
Until Cher -- predictably -- uses the tragedy to re-launch her career, of course.
I don't pity Chaz Bono and I don't find HimHer even slightly interesting in the least. I regard this sick lump of humanity in the same way one might regard an enema; an unpleasant experience you hope ends rather quickly, with as little stench left behind as possible. I'd rather watch my fingernails grow, or count the blades of grass on my front lawn than to watch It on television. I'm not fascinated by Chaz's orgy of extreme Look-at-Me-ism, and resent the idea that some idiot in television believes that I might be. The one thing I certainly never want to hear is the constant whining of someone who mutilates their body, rejects all the standards of contemporary society, and engages in behavior that is disturbing. destructive and disgusting, cry about 'how hard it is to be Me..."
Especially when the Whiner is the scion of stupid-rich 'entertainers' and ersatz 'cultural icons' of questionable talent, taste, and intelligence, given every advantage in life, and who will, naturally, expect to be held up as some sort of role model by people even dumber than they are.
Before I get the usual round of accusations of being a 'homophobe' and a 'hater, I don't hate people for 'being gay'; I hate people for being stupid and selfish. I've known quite a number of gay people in my lifetime and they all seem to possess the same, often-distasteful, qualities: an insatiable thirst for constant attention and reassurance, and a mistaken belief that 'no one understands me.' You weren't 'born this way', and you're not expressing a 'preference', nor making a 'lifestyle choice'; you're basically telling the rest of us that since we don't recognize your self-professed Greatness that you will shit all over our cherished beliefs and sensibilities as a means of revenge....and getting attention. So fuck off with your nasty e-mails. I've heard it all already.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
When Religion and Insanity Collide...
..it could cost you $140,000.
Man bets life savings that world will end on May 21, 2011.
I wrote about stuff like this earlier this week, too. It practically writes itself, really.
I have to really question the motivation and mental state of anyone who gets involved in any religious organization for the express purpose of 'saving' themselves when the world comes to an end. Many do this, it seems, not for love of God, or not because they want to become a better person in some way, but because they are so fucking disgustingly selfish that their personal salvation -- whether here or in The Great Beyond -- becomes the driving force in their lives. In fact, it often becomes the only thing in their lives, this pre-occupation with the Next Life and Their Place In It, and this makes them susceptible to all sorts of douchebags ready to take advantage of them.
Like a doofus (who calls himself an Evangelist) who mixes 'numerology' and religion to predict the end of the world...every few years. I wonder how one squares this sort of 'prophecy' with the Bible's prohibitions against witchcraft and false prophets and so forth, but then again, there I go applying logic to 'matters of faith'.
Prophecy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's a load of bullshit. If you don't believe me, consider this: how many self-professed Nostradamus scholars do you know that became Billionaires utilizing his prophecies, rather than by selling books about their opinions on Nostradamus? Do you think Warren Buffet gets up in the morning and starts pouring over the Book of Isiah looking for stock tips? What do you reckon is the percentage chance on any given day when a prediction given to you by a medium you called on your telephone and paid $1.99 a minute to turns out to be correct? How often does your horoscope make any fucking sense, let alone give you any useful information?
Why is it that no prophecy ever seems to make sense until AFTER something has happened?
Giving Prophecy it's one prop, it is this: given enough time and the vagaries of history and circumstance, literally any prediction can come true. When Jesus says of the Temple in Jerusalem "not one stone will stand upon another..." it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that his real meaning is that "nothing is permanent".
Today's 'prophecy' is tomorrow's eventuality, sometimes, but the Prophet's defense when his prediction proves false is always "God doesn't take orders from me...". Yeah, but some idiot with cash to burn is.
Having said these things, some may ask "But Matt, isn't this dope spending his life savings in order to save and warn other people; Isn't that evidence of a selfless motivation?"
And my response would be: Nope, he really isn't. What he is doing is stroking his own ego. He's attempting to score Brownie Points in Heaven. His religion tells him that he has been selected (the key phrase is the bit in the article about how God has 'appointed watchmen') for some important job, and it's that thought that drives him, because he believes it. He needs to believe it because otherwise his Life would be small, threadbare and pitiful, probably. Taken at first glance, I'm certain there's really nothing extraordinary about Mr. Fitzpatrick (not that I can make any claim to superlative accomplishment, myself), but he needs to think there is, because deep down he probably doesn't feel himself special. Religion -- especially extreme variants -- preys upon people like this the same way lions prey on crippled wildebeests.
The fact that he's managed to find a special brand of stupidity that mixes religion, prophecy, and numerology tells me that this is someone who has spent his entire life searching for...something...anything...that takes him out of his preoccupation with his crappy life. He's quite probably bounced around from one philosophy or discipline to another, and never showed any sort of constancy in his lifetime until someone came along and consolidated the disparate threads of his thinking and personal philosophies (if he ever developed any), and wove them into a tapestry that would guide him through the rest of his (soon to be over, if he's correct) Life. I know plenty of people like this, scattershot thinkers with no self-esteem, absorbed by astrology, numerology, and "the healing properties of crystals", and they almost, invariably, always wind up in a Church somewhere.
Now, whether they wind up there because religion makes some sort of sense to them, or because they have no place left to go, is open to debate. I just know that religions, historically, are very good at identifying the lost, the slow, and the stupid, and manipulating them. These people find no comfort or satisfaction in Life, and so they become pre-occupied with the Afterlife, and religion makes it easy for them to do so by telling them that all they have to do to gain their just reward is to follow the nonsense shouted at them from Scripture.
No one seems to realize that you first have to be dead in order to receive that reward, and that when it's described to you, it's always in allusions to the esoteric. At least Islam says there's 72 Virgins: Christianity either spins out a tale of a certain-to-be boring eternity of sitting upon clouds playing harps, or it describes the Afterlife in purely emotional terms, i.e. a state of continual bliss in the All-Encompassing Love of God.
Sorry,but I never saw Bob Barker give that away on the Price is Right.
The fact that it's Jerusalem which appears in the center of Mr. Fitzpatrick's apocalyptic poster tells you all you need to know. Not London, Not New York, Ankara, Beijing, or Wheeling, only Jerusalem. Even when these ultra-Evangelical douchebags support Israel, it's only because Israel is a necessary ingredient in the formula that will bring about the Rapture. So, support of Israel is, conversely, something the religious doofus only professes for the sake his own personal salvation. Once Christ returns, these idiots will tell you -- often with great glee -- the Jews won't be saved, anyway. Their only purpose is to, ultimately, be the rungs on the ladder of Christian Salvation.
Under different circumstances, Mr. Fitzpatrick would have probably become a suicide bomber, or would have poured gasoline over his head and ignited it on a public sidewalk. If he had tits, he would have become a 'Feminist Scholar'. Fifty years ago, this sort of soft-headed mindset and single-mindedness of purpose would have made Mr. Fitzpatrick the perfect Leftist Revolutionary. Instead, his religion just tells him to waste his money, which I guess makes him harmless enough.
At least his money didn't go to another one of those destructive douchebags that society pays far too much attention to: the psychiatrist. Somewhere there's a pill-pushing defective with an M.D. who's pissed off that he won't be able to get the leather upholstery in the new BMW this year.
And on the remote, slight, lottery-like, off-chance that Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist just happen to be right, I'll be happy to apologize to him. I just hope I can find the right cloud in all the ruckus.
I expect to get a shitload of e-mail from the I-don't-take-a-dump-without-permission-from-my-Pastor Crowd, and it's entirely predictable what it will say; I can't prove that God doesn't exist, I can't prove that the Rapture won't happen, and I can't prove that Evangelical Numerology is an invalid predictor of the End of Times. You're right, but then again, your argument for these things is no better; you can't prove that any of these things actually do exist, or will happen, either, and simply believe that you don't have to. They're "matters of faith" (and credulity), after all, and it never ceases to amaze me that people who will argue for concrete proof of my assertions and beliefs, insist that I take everything they say seriously without them ever having to offer any of their own, secure in the smugness-bordering-on-arrogance-of-the-bulletproof-stupid hypocritical belief that they don't need to offer any.
P.S. I wonder how many people will leave this brand of stupidity in absolute disgust if Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist turn out to be wrong? I'm guessing the actual number will be really small, because in the end this isn't about reality or truth, it's about people's feelings.
Man bets life savings that world will end on May 21, 2011.
I wrote about stuff like this earlier this week, too. It practically writes itself, really.
I have to really question the motivation and mental state of anyone who gets involved in any religious organization for the express purpose of 'saving' themselves when the world comes to an end. Many do this, it seems, not for love of God, or not because they want to become a better person in some way, but because they are so fucking disgustingly selfish that their personal salvation -- whether here or in The Great Beyond -- becomes the driving force in their lives. In fact, it often becomes the only thing in their lives, this pre-occupation with the Next Life and Their Place In It, and this makes them susceptible to all sorts of douchebags ready to take advantage of them.
Like a doofus (who calls himself an Evangelist) who mixes 'numerology' and religion to predict the end of the world...every few years. I wonder how one squares this sort of 'prophecy' with the Bible's prohibitions against witchcraft and false prophets and so forth, but then again, there I go applying logic to 'matters of faith'.
Prophecy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's a load of bullshit. If you don't believe me, consider this: how many self-professed Nostradamus scholars do you know that became Billionaires utilizing his prophecies, rather than by selling books about their opinions on Nostradamus? Do you think Warren Buffet gets up in the morning and starts pouring over the Book of Isiah looking for stock tips? What do you reckon is the percentage chance on any given day when a prediction given to you by a medium you called on your telephone and paid $1.99 a minute to turns out to be correct? How often does your horoscope make any fucking sense, let alone give you any useful information?
Why is it that no prophecy ever seems to make sense until AFTER something has happened?
Giving Prophecy it's one prop, it is this: given enough time and the vagaries of history and circumstance, literally any prediction can come true. When Jesus says of the Temple in Jerusalem "not one stone will stand upon another..." it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that his real meaning is that "nothing is permanent".
Today's 'prophecy' is tomorrow's eventuality, sometimes, but the Prophet's defense when his prediction proves false is always "God doesn't take orders from me...". Yeah, but some idiot with cash to burn is.
Having said these things, some may ask "But Matt, isn't this dope spending his life savings in order to save and warn other people; Isn't that evidence of a selfless motivation?"
And my response would be: Nope, he really isn't. What he is doing is stroking his own ego. He's attempting to score Brownie Points in Heaven. His religion tells him that he has been selected (the key phrase is the bit in the article about how God has 'appointed watchmen') for some important job, and it's that thought that drives him, because he believes it. He needs to believe it because otherwise his Life would be small, threadbare and pitiful, probably. Taken at first glance, I'm certain there's really nothing extraordinary about Mr. Fitzpatrick (not that I can make any claim to superlative accomplishment, myself), but he needs to think there is, because deep down he probably doesn't feel himself special. Religion -- especially extreme variants -- preys upon people like this the same way lions prey on crippled wildebeests.
The fact that he's managed to find a special brand of stupidity that mixes religion, prophecy, and numerology tells me that this is someone who has spent his entire life searching for...something...anything...that takes him out of his preoccupation with his crappy life. He's quite probably bounced around from one philosophy or discipline to another, and never showed any sort of constancy in his lifetime until someone came along and consolidated the disparate threads of his thinking and personal philosophies (if he ever developed any), and wove them into a tapestry that would guide him through the rest of his (soon to be over, if he's correct) Life. I know plenty of people like this, scattershot thinkers with no self-esteem, absorbed by astrology, numerology, and "the healing properties of crystals", and they almost, invariably, always wind up in a Church somewhere.
Now, whether they wind up there because religion makes some sort of sense to them, or because they have no place left to go, is open to debate. I just know that religions, historically, are very good at identifying the lost, the slow, and the stupid, and manipulating them. These people find no comfort or satisfaction in Life, and so they become pre-occupied with the Afterlife, and religion makes it easy for them to do so by telling them that all they have to do to gain their just reward is to follow the nonsense shouted at them from Scripture.
No one seems to realize that you first have to be dead in order to receive that reward, and that when it's described to you, it's always in allusions to the esoteric. At least Islam says there's 72 Virgins: Christianity either spins out a tale of a certain-to-be boring eternity of sitting upon clouds playing harps, or it describes the Afterlife in purely emotional terms, i.e. a state of continual bliss in the All-Encompassing Love of God.
Sorry,but I never saw Bob Barker give that away on the Price is Right.
The fact that it's Jerusalem which appears in the center of Mr. Fitzpatrick's apocalyptic poster tells you all you need to know. Not London, Not New York, Ankara, Beijing, or Wheeling, only Jerusalem. Even when these ultra-Evangelical douchebags support Israel, it's only because Israel is a necessary ingredient in the formula that will bring about the Rapture. So, support of Israel is, conversely, something the religious doofus only professes for the sake his own personal salvation. Once Christ returns, these idiots will tell you -- often with great glee -- the Jews won't be saved, anyway. Their only purpose is to, ultimately, be the rungs on the ladder of Christian Salvation.
Under different circumstances, Mr. Fitzpatrick would have probably become a suicide bomber, or would have poured gasoline over his head and ignited it on a public sidewalk. If he had tits, he would have become a 'Feminist Scholar'. Fifty years ago, this sort of soft-headed mindset and single-mindedness of purpose would have made Mr. Fitzpatrick the perfect Leftist Revolutionary. Instead, his religion just tells him to waste his money, which I guess makes him harmless enough.
At least his money didn't go to another one of those destructive douchebags that society pays far too much attention to: the psychiatrist. Somewhere there's a pill-pushing defective with an M.D. who's pissed off that he won't be able to get the leather upholstery in the new BMW this year.
And on the remote, slight, lottery-like, off-chance that Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist just happen to be right, I'll be happy to apologize to him. I just hope I can find the right cloud in all the ruckus.
I expect to get a shitload of e-mail from the I-don't-take-a-dump-without-permission-from-my-Pastor Crowd, and it's entirely predictable what it will say; I can't prove that God doesn't exist, I can't prove that the Rapture won't happen, and I can't prove that Evangelical Numerology is an invalid predictor of the End of Times. You're right, but then again, your argument for these things is no better; you can't prove that any of these things actually do exist, or will happen, either, and simply believe that you don't have to. They're "matters of faith" (and credulity), after all, and it never ceases to amaze me that people who will argue for concrete proof of my assertions and beliefs, insist that I take everything they say seriously without them ever having to offer any of their own, secure in the smugness-bordering-on-arrogance-of-the-bulletproof-stupid hypocritical belief that they don't need to offer any.
P.S. I wonder how many people will leave this brand of stupidity in absolute disgust if Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist turn out to be wrong? I'm guessing the actual number will be really small, because in the end this isn't about reality or truth, it's about people's feelings.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
The World is Coming to An End: Film at 11...
I was talking to my friend Mike the other day, and he told me about something that was so uproariously stupid that I feel compelled to write about it, and share it with you all. It's what we do here at the Asylum; point out the stupidity of others and laugh our asses off over it.
Mike, it turns out, has been listening to Evangelical Christian radio. Not because he fears for his immortal soul, or because he believes in an Invisible Man in the Sky Who's All-Knowing and All-Powerful, yet somehow managed to create violent, irrational human beings, the platypus, the camel, and ABBA, but because he finds it so funny.
He was telling me about one of these radio Evangelists (you will not get his name here, because this is a seriously dangerous douchebag) who has told his retarded audience that the World Will End by May 31, 2011. I guess if you have any hope of being Raptured to the Right Hand of the Father, you'd best start packing now. Anyways, it appears as if people call this idiot for last-minute advice on all manner of things; people ask if they should take new jobs (the answer: No, dispshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), should they still go ahead with that June wedding they had planned (answer: No dipshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), and, naturally, How Do I Save Myself When the World Explodes in A Couple of Weeks? (answer: Go pray a lot...and send me money, Dipshit).
Now, apart from the obvious stupidity of people seeking life-altering guidance from someone who makes his living telling them they'll all be dead unless they pray real hard, the real stupidity lies in the premise that when the World Explodes that anyone is going to be 'saved'.
Mankind, in case no one ever told you, is ultimately doomed. Thousands, maybe millions even, of other life forms that have inhabited this planet have all gone extinct at some point in history,and there is no reason not to think that we too, in our turn, will also go the way of the Wooly Mammoth, the Triceratops, or the Dodo Bird. One of the consequences of Life is the Possibility of Extinction. How we ultimately meet our final fate, I think, matters not: the planet could be hit by a comet or asteroid, the Earth's crust might burst asunder under the strain of volcanism or tectonic forces, some minor flu will evolve into a super-strain that kills us all, we'll extinguish life with nuclear war, or our Sun will go nova and bake this tiny planet in an instant. There is little that we can do to stop these things. Our science and our intelligence only takes us so far, and short of Men making the great leap across the Universe to other worlds, we're going to be extinct, and little to no trace of us will be left.
If it makes you feel better to believe that your soul, spirit, ghost, essence, chakra, ki, whatever, will persist after death, then by all means, be my guest. Far be it from me to tell you that I have all the answers, or that you shouldn't believe what you want to believe, but it seems that nowadays everyone is obsessed with the End of Everything.
It's gotten so bad that the History Channel now produces a show called Life After People, which is all about what happens to the world after mankind disappears, which is pretty stupid if you think about it: the History Channel is running a show about a time when History --as we perceive it --comes to an End. Go figure. Then again, it's probably better -- and more topical -- than Ice Road Truckers, or Swamp People. It's certainly more interesting.
Apocalyptic Christianity has become a big business, and is mostly a scam, in my opinion. It's purpose is to frighten people into the fold, and in the process, pry their cash from them. I'm certain when Pastor Asshole- on-the-Radio's prediction fails to come true on June 1st, he'll still be on the air, if only because people are truly dopey, and he has a ready-made excuse for why what he said will happen didn't; God will destroy the World Only When God Sees Fit To, and he cannot be prodded into it before he's ready to by Man, or, he was really just trying to get people to repent and make their peace with God before God really does Her thing with his Chicken Little routine. Or my personal favorite, the one that's supposed to end all debate or stop all questions; God Works in Mysterious Ways. No matter; the Ends justify the Means, especially if the Ends were several million bucks in donations and commercial fees and a higher public profile for Pastor Dickhead, and a few more fannies in the pews. I'm sure that will comfort the people who called off their weddings, or didn't take that lucrative job offer on his advice, to no end.
What people tend to forget is that the Bible was written by people -- and it might not be the best thing to take literally -- because as is often the case, people make mistakes, they misinterpret things, they let their biases creep onto the page, or they have agendas that they're pushing. Lately, there's been much talk about 'Bible Codes' in which it is said that there are coded messages hidden within the text of the biblical passages that can foretell future events, but I believe this about as much as I believe in my Lucky Astrology Mood Watch. The Bible is not the Word of God (beings that do not exist do not leave Words behind); it is a history --and a heavily-biased one, at that -- of the Hebrews and early Christians which seeks to provide a divine justification for what they have done. Mostly that was to kill and disposses Caananites and Phillestines and all the rest, because God 'promised' the land to them. You would think that an All-Powerful, All-Knowing God would just promise them an uninhabited place to live in, seeing as She (if there is a God, it must be a She) had just told them five minutes ago in the desert that Thou Shall Not Kill, Steal, Lie or Covet Your Neighbor's Goods (wouldn't that mean his land, too?), and all that.
The New Testament, as we know it today, is very much a political document; it was supposed to authenticate and legitimize Christianity, and thus, give it's great champion, Constantine, the divine cover he needed to explain his otherwise treasonous activities, i.e. leading a civil war and usurping the power of the Emperor of Rome. It had to be compiled and rewritten in such a way as to ensure that Christ could always be seen as the ultimate expression of ancient Hebrew prohpecy concerning a Messiah. The fact that the Christ myth as we know it seems an awful lot like the Roman adaptation and worship of the Persian god Mithras is conveniently forgotten... or mostly unknown.
If you're going to depend upon an ancient document, full of 'prophecy' as your guide to the End of theWorld, you could at least pick an ancient document that hasn't been (mis-)translated four billion times from seven thousand languages, and which has not been subjected to the requirements of political and cultural propaganda, I would think. The Bible as predictive tool is useless, in my opinion, because it has been so-obviously manipulated.
Another Apocalyptic theme that has gained much popular attention these days is the Mayan Prophecy, in which it is said that the ancient Mayans of Mexico have pinpointed the exact date of the End of the World, supposedly sometime in December of 2012. Which would really suck if a Republican managed to beat Barack Odumbass in November. The 'proof' that theMayan Prophecy will come true is that the Mayan Calendar comes to a complete halt in December 2012. Now, there could be a number of reasons why this should be so that don't necesarily mean Apocalypse; perhaps the astrologers/mathemeticians engaged in the project saw no need to go any further. Perhaps they were tired of making calculations. Maybe, there's another Mayan Calendar that picks up where the last one left off that we haven't found yet?
All I know is that people who suposedly had the smarts and the capabilities to accurately predict the future in such fashion should, logically, have been able to foresee their own demise; you would think they would have predicted the arrival of the Spanish...and smallpox. You have to wonder just how accurate and efficacious their predictive powers were if they couldn't even use them to save themselves.
Then there's the Nostradamus Idiots who constantly tell us that their hero has predicted every major event in modern history. The problem with Nostradamus, however, is that we never seem to hear of his 'predictions' until after something has happened. If Nostradamus was of any use, you figure someone would be able to tell you about it beforehand. So, we're told that Nostradamus 'predicted' the rise of Hitler (a claim long since disproven as Nazi propganada), the assassination of JFK, and 9/11, but always the announcement that Nostradamus 'predicted' this, that or the other comes only after the fact. Some prophet. Nostradamus is about as useful as a broken condom, or those Astrologers in your local newspaper. The Champions of Nostradamus will tell you this is because if they told people about one of these traumatic events beforehand, no one would believe them, but this is pure horseshit; I can say to you today that one day someone will have monkeys fly out of their rectum, and it's quite possible, given the vageries of time and history, that it might actually happen. Will I be celebrated as visionary prophet when that day comes? I rather doubt it.
This, incidentally, is one of the problems with some modern scientific methods, too, like the Theory of Evolution; given a time scale of billions of years, and pure random chance, literally anything is possible. It doesn't make it true.
Still, I find it fascinating to watch people knowingly worry themselves stupid about something they have absolutely no control over. If the world comes to an End (as it surely must) just what, if anything, do you, the individual, expect to be able to do about it? Will you, personally, deflect that asteroid headed our way? Will you be able to keep the Earth's magnetic poles from shifting? Can you identify and find a cure for that Super-Virus that's out there waiting to kill us all? Probably not. And your government will probably be unable to do much of anything, either, and certainly not your Church; religions usually get people to do things which only benefit the religion, as an institution.
As for me, I keep a six-pack of Heineken's in the fridge, so that when the fateful day finally arrives, I can sit on the front porch with my Holocaust Heinies, and watch the fireworks, secure in the knowledge that when it's all over, one way or another, I will at least not have to pay another goddamned credit card bill, or scratch an income tax check, or sit through another Barack Obama use-lots-of-words-to-say-absolutely-nothing speech.
The Apocalypse, you see, isn't all bad news.
Mike, it turns out, has been listening to Evangelical Christian radio. Not because he fears for his immortal soul, or because he believes in an Invisible Man in the Sky Who's All-Knowing and All-Powerful, yet somehow managed to create violent, irrational human beings, the platypus, the camel, and ABBA, but because he finds it so funny.
He was telling me about one of these radio Evangelists (you will not get his name here, because this is a seriously dangerous douchebag) who has told his retarded audience that the World Will End by May 31, 2011. I guess if you have any hope of being Raptured to the Right Hand of the Father, you'd best start packing now. Anyways, it appears as if people call this idiot for last-minute advice on all manner of things; people ask if they should take new jobs (the answer: No, dispshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), should they still go ahead with that June wedding they had planned (answer: No dipshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), and, naturally, How Do I Save Myself When the World Explodes in A Couple of Weeks? (answer: Go pray a lot...and send me money, Dipshit).
Now, apart from the obvious stupidity of people seeking life-altering guidance from someone who makes his living telling them they'll all be dead unless they pray real hard, the real stupidity lies in the premise that when the World Explodes that anyone is going to be 'saved'.
Mankind, in case no one ever told you, is ultimately doomed. Thousands, maybe millions even, of other life forms that have inhabited this planet have all gone extinct at some point in history,and there is no reason not to think that we too, in our turn, will also go the way of the Wooly Mammoth, the Triceratops, or the Dodo Bird. One of the consequences of Life is the Possibility of Extinction. How we ultimately meet our final fate, I think, matters not: the planet could be hit by a comet or asteroid, the Earth's crust might burst asunder under the strain of volcanism or tectonic forces, some minor flu will evolve into a super-strain that kills us all, we'll extinguish life with nuclear war, or our Sun will go nova and bake this tiny planet in an instant. There is little that we can do to stop these things. Our science and our intelligence only takes us so far, and short of Men making the great leap across the Universe to other worlds, we're going to be extinct, and little to no trace of us will be left.
If it makes you feel better to believe that your soul, spirit, ghost, essence, chakra, ki, whatever, will persist after death, then by all means, be my guest. Far be it from me to tell you that I have all the answers, or that you shouldn't believe what you want to believe, but it seems that nowadays everyone is obsessed with the End of Everything.
It's gotten so bad that the History Channel now produces a show called Life After People, which is all about what happens to the world after mankind disappears, which is pretty stupid if you think about it: the History Channel is running a show about a time when History --as we perceive it --comes to an End. Go figure. Then again, it's probably better -- and more topical -- than Ice Road Truckers, or Swamp People. It's certainly more interesting.
Apocalyptic Christianity has become a big business, and is mostly a scam, in my opinion. It's purpose is to frighten people into the fold, and in the process, pry their cash from them. I'm certain when Pastor Asshole- on-the-Radio's prediction fails to come true on June 1st, he'll still be on the air, if only because people are truly dopey, and he has a ready-made excuse for why what he said will happen didn't; God will destroy the World Only When God Sees Fit To, and he cannot be prodded into it before he's ready to by Man, or, he was really just trying to get people to repent and make their peace with God before God really does Her thing with his Chicken Little routine. Or my personal favorite, the one that's supposed to end all debate or stop all questions; God Works in Mysterious Ways. No matter; the Ends justify the Means, especially if the Ends were several million bucks in donations and commercial fees and a higher public profile for Pastor Dickhead, and a few more fannies in the pews. I'm sure that will comfort the people who called off their weddings, or didn't take that lucrative job offer on his advice, to no end.
What people tend to forget is that the Bible was written by people -- and it might not be the best thing to take literally -- because as is often the case, people make mistakes, they misinterpret things, they let their biases creep onto the page, or they have agendas that they're pushing. Lately, there's been much talk about 'Bible Codes' in which it is said that there are coded messages hidden within the text of the biblical passages that can foretell future events, but I believe this about as much as I believe in my Lucky Astrology Mood Watch. The Bible is not the Word of God (beings that do not exist do not leave Words behind); it is a history --and a heavily-biased one, at that -- of the Hebrews and early Christians which seeks to provide a divine justification for what they have done. Mostly that was to kill and disposses Caananites and Phillestines and all the rest, because God 'promised' the land to them. You would think that an All-Powerful, All-Knowing God would just promise them an uninhabited place to live in, seeing as She (if there is a God, it must be a She) had just told them five minutes ago in the desert that Thou Shall Not Kill, Steal, Lie or Covet Your Neighbor's Goods (wouldn't that mean his land, too?), and all that.
The New Testament, as we know it today, is very much a political document; it was supposed to authenticate and legitimize Christianity, and thus, give it's great champion, Constantine, the divine cover he needed to explain his otherwise treasonous activities, i.e. leading a civil war and usurping the power of the Emperor of Rome. It had to be compiled and rewritten in such a way as to ensure that Christ could always be seen as the ultimate expression of ancient Hebrew prohpecy concerning a Messiah. The fact that the Christ myth as we know it seems an awful lot like the Roman adaptation and worship of the Persian god Mithras is conveniently forgotten... or mostly unknown.
If you're going to depend upon an ancient document, full of 'prophecy' as your guide to the End of theWorld, you could at least pick an ancient document that hasn't been (mis-)translated four billion times from seven thousand languages, and which has not been subjected to the requirements of political and cultural propaganda, I would think. The Bible as predictive tool is useless, in my opinion, because it has been so-obviously manipulated.
Another Apocalyptic theme that has gained much popular attention these days is the Mayan Prophecy, in which it is said that the ancient Mayans of Mexico have pinpointed the exact date of the End of the World, supposedly sometime in December of 2012. Which would really suck if a Republican managed to beat Barack Odumbass in November. The 'proof' that theMayan Prophecy will come true is that the Mayan Calendar comes to a complete halt in December 2012. Now, there could be a number of reasons why this should be so that don't necesarily mean Apocalypse; perhaps the astrologers/mathemeticians engaged in the project saw no need to go any further. Perhaps they were tired of making calculations. Maybe, there's another Mayan Calendar that picks up where the last one left off that we haven't found yet?
All I know is that people who suposedly had the smarts and the capabilities to accurately predict the future in such fashion should, logically, have been able to foresee their own demise; you would think they would have predicted the arrival of the Spanish...and smallpox. You have to wonder just how accurate and efficacious their predictive powers were if they couldn't even use them to save themselves.
Then there's the Nostradamus Idiots who constantly tell us that their hero has predicted every major event in modern history. The problem with Nostradamus, however, is that we never seem to hear of his 'predictions' until after something has happened. If Nostradamus was of any use, you figure someone would be able to tell you about it beforehand. So, we're told that Nostradamus 'predicted' the rise of Hitler (a claim long since disproven as Nazi propganada), the assassination of JFK, and 9/11, but always the announcement that Nostradamus 'predicted' this, that or the other comes only after the fact. Some prophet. Nostradamus is about as useful as a broken condom, or those Astrologers in your local newspaper. The Champions of Nostradamus will tell you this is because if they told people about one of these traumatic events beforehand, no one would believe them, but this is pure horseshit; I can say to you today that one day someone will have monkeys fly out of their rectum, and it's quite possible, given the vageries of time and history, that it might actually happen. Will I be celebrated as visionary prophet when that day comes? I rather doubt it.
This, incidentally, is one of the problems with some modern scientific methods, too, like the Theory of Evolution; given a time scale of billions of years, and pure random chance, literally anything is possible. It doesn't make it true.
Still, I find it fascinating to watch people knowingly worry themselves stupid about something they have absolutely no control over. If the world comes to an End (as it surely must) just what, if anything, do you, the individual, expect to be able to do about it? Will you, personally, deflect that asteroid headed our way? Will you be able to keep the Earth's magnetic poles from shifting? Can you identify and find a cure for that Super-Virus that's out there waiting to kill us all? Probably not. And your government will probably be unable to do much of anything, either, and certainly not your Church; religions usually get people to do things which only benefit the religion, as an institution.
As for me, I keep a six-pack of Heineken's in the fridge, so that when the fateful day finally arrives, I can sit on the front porch with my Holocaust Heinies, and watch the fireworks, secure in the knowledge that when it's all over, one way or another, I will at least not have to pay another goddamned credit card bill, or scratch an income tax check, or sit through another Barack Obama use-lots-of-words-to-say-absolutely-nothing speech.
The Apocalypse, you see, isn't all bad news.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
From the "Psychiatry is Bullshit" Files...
Yesterday, as is my wont, I was watching television, when there happened to be a little program on the Learning Channel entitled Searching for Sanity. The premise of the show was that 10 strangers, five with diagnosed mental disorders, could be forced to live together for a week or something, given a bunch of onerous tasks to be completed as a team, all the while under the observation of a team of "psychiatric experts" who are kept in the dark about all the stranger's mental conditions.
The challenge was for the Psych Team to be able to pick out the head cases based on their activities and reactions. The Pshrinks were being tested to see if they could accurately distinguish the Moon-Howlers from the 'Normal' folks, and if they could make a diagnosis which was in line with the disorders on view. In addition, they were also being tested to see if they could distinguish between characteristics which are more accurately described as personality traits as opposed to full-blown mental diseases. And guess what happened?
The Pshrinks -- a Psychiatric Nurse, a Renown Psychiatrist, and a Professor of Psychiatry --were wrong about 60% of the time. They managed to tag members of the 'Control Group' as mentally ill when they weren't, and missed some of the insanity of the Rubber Room Brigade entirely.
All that clinical training, all that education, all that experience, and they had the same results you would expect as if they had simply guessed at Who's the Loony, or had a chicken peck at the Dingbats completely at random. Might as well have been blindfolded for the entire week. Before I completely destroy the Mental Health Profession for such dismal results, we need to take two things into consideration:
1. The test took place in England, where the Socialized Medical system has probably resulted in doctors who really don't give a shit. They're basically better-paid factory workers or trash collectors, who can't be sued for malpractice, and who have operated for years under a mess of government guidelines that are probably both contradictory and convoluted, and so there's bound to be some apathy, some bad work habits, and a lot of complacency within them.
2. Some of the Mental Patients had been undergoing therapy for many years, or were on medications which masked their symptoms during the test. But the results were astounding, and reinforced, in my mind, something I've been saying for a very long time: Modern Psychology is complete and utter bullshit, very often practiced by individuals who only initially took psychiatry up in school so as to discover what was wrong with themselves.
After a near-decade on the couch myself, I've come to the conclusion that a Psychiatrist is merely someone who is often in a position to offer you some common-sense advice, but refrains from doing so because they like the $400, 45-minute hour too much. Only with a prescription pad. They substitute whatever cancer is eating away at your brain --Mommy didn't love me, the Little Green Men live under my bed, the World is out to Get Me -- with the super-addictive drugs of sympathy and empathy. That they're faking both doesn't occur to you. That sympathy and empathy is what keeps you coming back, like the heroin addict to the Spike, and allows Dr. Douche to get the leather and wood interior in the new Beemer this year.
And speaking of prescription pads, the Mental-Diseases-are-the-result-of-chemical-imbalances- in-the-brain school of psychiatry probably does more harm than good, dispensing a variety of meds that:
1. No one knows exactly how or why they work, and sometimes, even if they will.
2. Probably have no long-lasting therapeutic value.
3. Can be addictive.
4. Produce other health risks when used for extended periods of time.
Because giving you some drugs is a lot easier than having to listen to your bullshit, and then having to offer you some decent advice. Besides, it's covered by insurance, ain't it?
The challenge was for the Psych Team to be able to pick out the head cases based on their activities and reactions. The Pshrinks were being tested to see if they could accurately distinguish the Moon-Howlers from the 'Normal' folks, and if they could make a diagnosis which was in line with the disorders on view. In addition, they were also being tested to see if they could distinguish between characteristics which are more accurately described as personality traits as opposed to full-blown mental diseases. And guess what happened?
The Pshrinks -- a Psychiatric Nurse, a Renown Psychiatrist, and a Professor of Psychiatry --were wrong about 60% of the time. They managed to tag members of the 'Control Group' as mentally ill when they weren't, and missed some of the insanity of the Rubber Room Brigade entirely.
All that clinical training, all that education, all that experience, and they had the same results you would expect as if they had simply guessed at Who's the Loony, or had a chicken peck at the Dingbats completely at random. Might as well have been blindfolded for the entire week. Before I completely destroy the Mental Health Profession for such dismal results, we need to take two things into consideration:
1. The test took place in England, where the Socialized Medical system has probably resulted in doctors who really don't give a shit. They're basically better-paid factory workers or trash collectors, who can't be sued for malpractice, and who have operated for years under a mess of government guidelines that are probably both contradictory and convoluted, and so there's bound to be some apathy, some bad work habits, and a lot of complacency within them.
2. Some of the Mental Patients had been undergoing therapy for many years, or were on medications which masked their symptoms during the test. But the results were astounding, and reinforced, in my mind, something I've been saying for a very long time: Modern Psychology is complete and utter bullshit, very often practiced by individuals who only initially took psychiatry up in school so as to discover what was wrong with themselves.
After a near-decade on the couch myself, I've come to the conclusion that a Psychiatrist is merely someone who is often in a position to offer you some common-sense advice, but refrains from doing so because they like the $400, 45-minute hour too much. Only with a prescription pad. They substitute whatever cancer is eating away at your brain --Mommy didn't love me, the Little Green Men live under my bed, the World is out to Get Me -- with the super-addictive drugs of sympathy and empathy. That they're faking both doesn't occur to you. That sympathy and empathy is what keeps you coming back, like the heroin addict to the Spike, and allows Dr. Douche to get the leather and wood interior in the new Beemer this year.
And speaking of prescription pads, the Mental-Diseases-are-the-result-of-chemical-imbalances- in-the-brain school of psychiatry probably does more harm than good, dispensing a variety of meds that:
1. No one knows exactly how or why they work, and sometimes, even if they will.
2. Probably have no long-lasting therapeutic value.
3. Can be addictive.
4. Produce other health risks when used for extended periods of time.
Because giving you some drugs is a lot easier than having to listen to your bullshit, and then having to offer you some decent advice. Besides, it's covered by insurance, ain't it?
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Still Think Communism Is a Good Idea, Only Poorly Executed?
One would think that if there was anything a Communist wouldn't be short of, it would be a healthy supply of bullshit.
Acute fertilizer shortage in North Korea.
You know you live in a...ahem...shithole...when the trade in human excrement becomes the next "get-rich-quick" scheme, and a positive economic boon.
Why, it appears that North Korean Scientific Socialism worked so gosh-darn well, that it couldn't even produce enough bullshit for it's own needs, and so had to import the stuff.
"The lack of fertiliser has become acute since South Korea stopped annual shipments of rice and fertiliser to North Korea in 2008, amid worsening relations."
I see an opportunity for President Obama to erase the deficit here. Get him and his teleprompter on Air Force One right now, destination: Pyongyang. One Obama Tour-de-Force-of-Bullshit speech ought to have North Koreans bogged down in all the fertilizer their black little hearts could desire. Send Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over, as well, and we'd corner the market.
On the list of things North Korea is Also Short Of (after Democracy, Human Rights, Medicine, Food, Toilet Paper, Clean Water), we find some rather strange commodities: skinny jeans, porn, and who woulda thunk it; fucking Ramen Noodles. I smell economic opportunities a-plenty here! Or was that just the aroma of the first shipment from my brand-new North Korean fertilizer factory...the place we used to call "the Bathroom"?
Here's an idea: as an exercise in goodwill this Holiday Season, I would like every American to take a copious dump in an envelope, and mail it to your nearest North Korean Embassy. No diarrhea, please, just solid waste. Consider it your contribution to World Peace. Perhaps we could even tie this voluntary donation of Good Ol' American Scatological Matter to North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons? A Turds for Nukes Program?
We could send Jimmy Carter over there to work out the details. With any luck, he'll stay.
Acute fertilizer shortage in North Korea.
You know you live in a...ahem...shithole...when the trade in human excrement becomes the next "get-rich-quick" scheme, and a positive economic boon.
Why, it appears that North Korean Scientific Socialism worked so gosh-darn well, that it couldn't even produce enough bullshit for it's own needs, and so had to import the stuff.
"The lack of fertiliser has become acute since South Korea stopped annual shipments of rice and fertiliser to North Korea in 2008, amid worsening relations."
I see an opportunity for President Obama to erase the deficit here. Get him and his teleprompter on Air Force One right now, destination: Pyongyang. One Obama Tour-de-Force-of-Bullshit speech ought to have North Koreans bogged down in all the fertilizer their black little hearts could desire. Send Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over, as well, and we'd corner the market.
On the list of things North Korea is Also Short Of (after Democracy, Human Rights, Medicine, Food, Toilet Paper, Clean Water), we find some rather strange commodities: skinny jeans, porn, and who woulda thunk it; fucking Ramen Noodles. I smell economic opportunities a-plenty here! Or was that just the aroma of the first shipment from my brand-new North Korean fertilizer factory...the place we used to call "the Bathroom"?
Here's an idea: as an exercise in goodwill this Holiday Season, I would like every American to take a copious dump in an envelope, and mail it to your nearest North Korean Embassy. No diarrhea, please, just solid waste. Consider it your contribution to World Peace. Perhaps we could even tie this voluntary donation of Good Ol' American Scatological Matter to North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons? A Turds for Nukes Program?
We could send Jimmy Carter over there to work out the details. With any luck, he'll stay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)