The Marlboro Marine...
Recent photograph in local papers featuring a Marine in Fallujah, taking a break after a hard day's fighting, and lighting one up. Well deserved smoke break, I say.

However, the people out there who still want to be everyoe's Mommy and Daddy (and you know who the fuck you are) have been flooding newspapers that carried the photo with letters abotu what a bad example it sets to our youngsters to see a Marine with a cigarette.

See, some people still don't get it.

Regardless of whether a cigarette is visible in the photo, the point was to convey to the public just how difficult our troops have it over there, how tired and dirty they are, and how tough and courageous they are. It's pure chance that the Marine in question happened to be smoking when the picture was taken. That photograph is still poignant, regardless of whether that Marine had a cigarette or a cup of tea and a lady finger. It sends a message: thiese guys are hard men doing a very hard job.

But of course, there's that cigarette. Cigarettes, as you know, are the greatest evil ever perpetrated against mankind according to the Mommy/Daddy-permanently-panty-bunched crowd (but don't you dare criticize the American Indian, from whom the habit was acquired. That's not politically correct, you know). Well, I have news for these jerks: this is America, and if people want to smoke, they have the right to do so. If a Marine in combat wants to smoke, he has more of a right to do so than the rest of us, if you ask me, because he's fighting for my freedom to light up.

But of course, this never occurs to the self-appointed guardians of polite society, the safety nazis of the suburbs. Never minid that men are dying over there to keep them safe, they can only see the trees and not the forest, or in this case, the cigarette, whle the larger scene eludes them. Now you know why John Kerry lost on November 2nd -- these are the people who more than likely voted for him.

Fucking idiots.

Taking Out the Trash...
Yasser Arafat was buried yesterday amidst a riot. Why Arabs feel it to be necessary to fire guns randomly into the air is a question I have not been able to find a satisfactory answer to, and there was plenty of that yesterday. Too much, in fact.

If you looked real close at the television screen, you would have noticed that (by my count) it seemd that every fifth or sixth person present had some form of weapon. These were not soldiers or police officers, these were the common folk. Imagine what kind of screwed up place you would have to live in where people didn't have jobs, hospitals, schools or enough to eat, yet everyone was armed to the teeth. I'd place a wager that states that, per capita, Palestinians have more guns than any Second-amendment-fearing State here. I wonder where all the anti-gun nuts are?

Anyway, about the funeral.

John Lennon was murdered and at his funeral, no one went around in masks firing indiscriminately. Albert Einstein died and there was no foreign military honors rendered to him. I'm sure no head of state arrived in time for Beethoven's funeral, and I'd bet the ranch that not one person at Lincoln's funeral attempted to waylay the casket. All this, and more, happened at Arafat's funeral. Final analysis: Europeans still suck, and Palestinians are animals.

It leads one to wonder; with all them guns, all that raw emotion and nothing resembling self-control, can Palestinians make themselves a state one of these days and have it last longer than a stick of Juicy Fruit? If that kind of mayhem occurs at a state funeral, I rather doubt it.

It's made me change my mind about what todo with Arabs and Muslims in general. I had once advocated genocide, and then relented, because I thought my view was being clouded by the events of 9/11. After what's happened in Iraq, and now this disgusting scene, I've returned to the conclusion that Arabs are little better than animals.

Europe and Terrorism...
Just read this morning about the first confirmed murder of a Muslim linked to the death of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. The correspondant who wrote the story included a quote about the diffeence between America's response to terrorism and that of the Dutch, in which he states that he's awed that there wasn't more backlash against the Arab community in America after 9/11, but that there seems to be quite a bit of it in Holland. He wonders, pray tell, where all that lovely European tolerance has gone to?

This is not the first murder fo this type in Holland, nor will it be the last. A few years ago, a conservative minister of the Dutch Parliament, Pim Fortuyn, was murdered by a muslim lunatic who saw his homosexuality as an abomination before God. The Van Gigh mudrer included a lovely little note (stuck to the victim with a knife) indicating that there are others on the list: an Arab minister in the Dutch government, for example.

Van Gogh was making a film about the systematic abuse of women in the Middle East. Along the way, he just had to have come across other disgusting aspects of Muslim life, and since these things are an affront to Allah (i.e. Infidels making films that question the will of God), Van Gogh had to, well, go. Can't have the rest of the world learning the truth about the "religion of peace".

In France, the government, in a brilliant display of unity and tolerance, passed a law in which Muslim women are denied the right to wear the headscarf in public. Beari nmind thatthere are places in France where policemen fear to tread without a tank (the heavily Muslim areas, btw), and that many North African Muslims hold dual citizenship and live in france, and I can't see just how this was a good idea. The French explain it away by saying that wearing a headscarf is a display of religion and that it is somehow inimical to an "inclusive" society.

In Britain, roving packs of Pakistani boys roam the streets looking for fights, when they aren't busy running fish and chip stands. In Italy, hundreds of thousands of Albanians line the alleyways seeking fresh victims for muggings and selling drugs. In Germany, a regular Al Qeada Underground Railroad exists in Hamburg, allowing terrorists free access to the air routes of the West.

Where did all these Muslims come from? Guest worker programs, dual citizenship initiatives and political asylum seekers, of course.

You see, Europe is trapped between a rock and a hard place; you;re typical Frog likes working a 30 hours week, retiring at 40 and having a government-subsidized maid. The problem is how to pay for it. If you stop working at 40 and don't have any children, then someone has to do the work and pay the taxes, and since Europeans won't do either, they have resorted to importing foreign labor. This labor comes, in large part, from the Middle East -- Algerians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Turks, Syrians, etc. They go to Europe and do the jobs that Europeans won't do: clean the sewers, pick up the garbage, drive trucks, pick produce, etc., and without which, European life, as it now stands, would come to a screeching halt.

In the process, Europeans have managed to create a new underclass in their midst, one that that they depend on to maintain their own standards of government largesse. This is the main reason why most European governments have not lifted a finger to fight terrorism. The terrorists are already in their own backyards, and no self-respecting Frenchman will go after them if it means the maid can't come by to vaccuum once a week.

The attitude is slowly changing. In Denmark a few years ago, there was a law passed to limit immigration from Islamic lands. Danish life was under assault by foreigners and the voters saw it --- and blanched from it. Spain had a government toppled by people wearing kaffiyahs, and 200 people had to die dor that to happen. When the next 200 die, I wonder if Spanish voters will vote the other way?

There is a disconnect that needs to be reconciled: Europeans can either continue to have their cake and eat it too, or they can wake up to the realization that they have a ticking time bomb in their midst. Based on history, Europeans love to let time bombs tick; Hitler, Franco, Stalin, Napoleon, Mussolini, Torquemada, etc, are all fine examples.

Job Hunting...
I have been seeking employment as of late. It's kinda tough, too. If I had to pick a bunch of resaons for it, I would say that being in Charlotte is a point against me. For while Charlotte is a wonderful city, it is dominated by a single industry (banking) and the population (around 600,000) makes for limited opportunities.

If I was back in New York, I might have had upwards of half a dozen nibbles after a few days, I'm sure. However, that's another thing you trade away when you decide to leave the Big City for the relative calm of a smaller place. No complaints, just a statement of fact.

Then again, if I had to pinpoint a spcific reason as to why I haven't heard a thing in two weeks, I would point to what passes for personnel agencies in this city.

The "employment speciliasts" that I have spoken to in recent days haven't a clue as to what I did in my former life (they know what a systems programmer is, they just can't understand the concept of an automation systems programmer). What they often miss is that there is a wide range of skills that goes into making an automation programmer and thus, they limit their searches to automation jobs and ignore the rest of the skill set. I also get the impression that that the people I'm dealing with also have a very flimsy gasp of my field in general. I'm just betting that somewhere, someone has listed a set of requirements for a job, and that my "employment specialist" is busy comparing what's on my resume to what's on the list, point-by-point. This has a certain, insane logic to it, to be sure. However, not being familiar with the field as a whole, I believe this is a very sorry way to run a business. I might be missing an exact match, but I may also have experience with a related product or job, and due to incomplete knowledge the agent is missing it.

It didn't used to be this way.

There was a time when the people who ran personnel companies actually knew something about the businesses they were supplying candidates for. Now it's been reduced to comparing a bunch of lists. There is no longer a need, I guess, to actually ask a candidate questions (I have one 'employment specialist" who has had my resume for almost three weeks, and has not called once. When I finally got through to her, she told me she had not found a "match" for me, and if she couldn't, she would pass it on to a "senior employment specialist" --- in other words, she's just pushing square pegs into square holes. The guy who could pound a round peg into a square hole doesn't even know I exist). Had she at least askd a few questions, perhaps we could save her a bunch of headaches and me some anxiety. I have even offered to voluntarilky submit to questioning, but I was informed "that's not the way we work here". She has a "database" and she searches it (just how she cannot explain), and when she's exhausted all (possibly three) ways of searching, she sits there dumbfounded.

I have the feeling that something will break soon, but that I might have to do some more to make it break my way.

Still Critically Dead...
Debka (www.debkafile.com) is reporting, for the fourth time in 10 days, that Yassir Arafat is dead. I'm reminded of Chevy Chase and Francisco Franco.

Talking in Circles...
I know I said that I would not continue to talk about the election now that it's over, but I can't help it. Just like Michael Corleone, everytime I try to get out, they reel me back in.
There are some people out there, from both political parties, that still do not get it. George Bush won re-election not because of evangelical Christians, Karl Rove, the gay marriage issue or even the Easter Bunny. John Kerry did not lose the election because he was savaged by Bush, "the base" didn't come out, provisional ballots were not counted or bad exit polls.

Bush won for a very simple reason: the majority of people knew waht he was talking about without the need to read between the lines, to discern nuances or to consult a crystal ball. Many may not have agreed with what he said, but they could at leats understand it, and that makes all the difference in the world.

For all I know, John Kerry is an infinitely wonderful human being who has the best intentions, who means well and who genuinely believes his is the better world view. Perhaps it is, to be fair. However, when you listened to Kerry try to explain himself he got lost in the deatils. Consequently, he lost us in the details. Or to be more precise, forgot to mention the important details.

Perhaps a President Kerry would have fought the war differently, we don't know because while Kerry told he would fight it differently, he never exactly told you how he would fight it. Maybe John Kerry did have better ideas on economics, medical care, social security, etc, but we'll never know because he never got past bloviating and politics long enough to put them into black and white.

Perhaps if Kerry had spoken to a reporter or done an interview of substance for the last three months of the campaign and made an effort to explpain, perhaps he might have changed some minds. I doubt it, but it's entirely possible.

The fact is that when asked a direct question, Kerry never gave a direct answer. When asked a softball question that even your pet airdale could answer, Kerry resorted to Washington crapspeak.

Most people in the country speak English, not Senatorese.

Then again, there were some personal things about Kerry that turned a lot of people off. I've heard of rapists being scared into celibacy by being forced to watch a Kerry speech for several hours. Then there was the Mary Cheney incident, perpetrated by both Kerry and Edwards (one of them would have been an accident, both of them doing it was a conscious conspiracy). I'm not sure how many people knew beforehand that Mary Cheney was gay (I did), and I'm not sure how many were shocked to find out. What I can tell you is that most people found it disgusting that a presidential candidate (and his veep) would try to make an issue of someone's personal life.

I know what you're about to say: we made an issue out for Bill Clinton's personal life for eight years, Matt. Let's be serious. Clinton's foibles cannot possibly be considered "personal" when there are allegations of sexual harrassment and rape. It's not personal when State Troopers are instructed to hermetically seal the room while one forces himself upon an unwilling sexual partner (or even a willing one, for that matter). It's definitely not personal when the President of the United States, who takes an oath to uphold the law, commits perjury in a court of law to cover the whole thing up. That Kerry and Edwards did that kind of thing to Mary Cheney was not bad strategy, it wasn't a mistake and it wasn't inadvertant. It was slimy.

What happened to the democrats on Nov. 2 was very simple: people were offered a choice between a straght-talking, well-meaning man with a record of leadership, and bloviator in expensive clothes offering nothing but automatic rejection of his opponent's performance without once giing a clear indication of what he would have done differently. One man had a track record which included revitalizing a moribund economy, finally doing something sensible about public education and a steady hand during a very trying national crisis. The other had a 20 year record with three laws to his name and a penchant for investigations rather than legislating. Bush has charisma, Kerry has the ability to bore you to death. To paraphrase Mr. Kerry, he was "the wrong candidate, in the wrong race, at the wrong time."

Perhaps if we were at peace, with a down economy and with nothing better to worry about, John Kerry might have been President. That's how Bill Clinton got elected, after all. Unfortunately, for Kerry, we're not at peace, the ecomony is humming and we do have more important things to worry about, and so, we elected George Bush. We liked Bush so much, in fact, that we also elected four more republican senators and 6 more republican congresscritters.

And therein is the lesson --- people are pretty satisfied with what they have, and relatively certain of what they're going to get, and won't change just because the other side says they should. "Because I said so" is not the way a presidential candidate goes about persuading the voters. He has to offer information. He has to offer a vision. He MUST offer explanations. Kerry did none of these, and so he lost. The pointy heads can debate all they want about exit polls, internal numbers, voter turnout and 527's all they want. It doesn't change the fact that the American public did not want a candidate that offered opinions without backup.

I SWEAR this is the last time I'll write about election 2004...

I Must Chime In...
The new conventional wisdom is that GW Bush won the election because he stood for "moral values" which jibe with the thinking of most Americans. This of course, also explains Barak Obama over Alan Keyes, but I digress. Before the remaining six democrats become Born Again in an effort to save their sorry hides, I really must protest.

Yes, Bush is a man of his word, steeped in faith, and honest to a fault. Yes, these character traits are very attractive in a man who leads the most powerful country on the planet (as an aside, remember GHW Bush's remarks about character vis-a-vis Bill Clinton, and you'll see why it's important). However, from what I remember hearing in all the nonsense leading up to the election, one thing stands out clear:

"Black Americans care very deeply about the issue of gay marriage. Bush might make some hay out of this." Or words to that effect. One example of how a social/morality issue may have affected the election. I believe I heard this from 220 republican talking heads and Dick Morris.

On election day, Blacks still voted for Kerry 89% to 11%. Apparently, Bush's moral standing had nothing to do with their choice. Hispanics still went 55%-45% for Kerry, which is a net gain for Bush over 2000, but that probably had more to do with immigration issues than it did morals.
However, because gay marriage amendments in 11 states won by Bush coincidentally all failed, one makes the hasty conclusion that morality was a factor in his victory, and therefore, there is this huge evangelical movement out there waiting for payback.

I beg to differ.

The reason Kerry lost was because he was a rotten candidate. He never explained anything. He never presented any facts. He picked a toad as his running mate. His wife had conveniently misplaced her swastika, but continued to talk like a Nazi anyway. He offered only gainsaying and no new options. He offered everyone free everything and simply forgot the part about how to pay for it ( he remembered --- "I will raise your taxes" is what killed Mondale). His demeanor was such that one got the idea that he was a dour, but kindly headmaster, having a go with the kids becausae he was obligated to. Add to the mix his treason, his lack of accomplishment in 20 years in the Senate, his inability to seem human (except in his concession speech), and one can only reach the following conclusion: Genghis Khan with a bad rash would have still beaten Kerry.

Kerry was Gore without the theatrics or hysteria. A cigar-store wooden indian with arrogance.

So yes, there were an awful lot of people who thought morals counted, and certainly a goodly number of them were christians, but, the crux of the matter is that Kerry gave ordinary people the creeps and in the end, could only pander to them. He pandered to the blacks, to the feminists, to the Deaniacs, to the commies in the party, to the French and to Osama bin Laden. He hit every constituency group and forgot the rest of us, except to call us names or lie about us. A rotten candidate with no plan but a good line of bullshit is not going to win very often. Bill Clinton (twice) was an anomoly --- Ross Perot made him and he should never forget it.

Still, Kerry pulled in 54 million votes and that should tell us all something. It tells me there are still vast masses of people in this country that are ripe for the picking. If they bought Kerry, there's no telling what else they might buy. So I'm gonna start me an internet real-estate scheme to sell beachfront property in the Slovak Republic. I'll probably get Heinz-Kerry rich, too.

But one can see the lines being conveniently drawn already: rabid left-wingers vs. Christians. I would remind Terry McAuliffe (if he still has a job as of this writing) that Rome too set itself up against a religion and it lost as well. That was not because of Rome's inherent weakness but rather because it misjudged the simple appeal of the faith and it's creed. But, if you're content to reflexively and uncritically find a scapegoat, rather than do the hard thing and look at yourself and your own beliefs, that's fine with me. You'll continue to go down to defeat and I'll continue to laugh.

The issue wasn't morailty. The issue was you stuck the wrong man up there.

The Issue?
I really must cross swords with Andrew Sullivan (www.andrewsullivan.com) over his insistence that Americans are a bunch of intolerant Bible-thumpers who kick puppies and throw lawn darts at kittens, solely because they do not agree with him on the issue of Gay Marriage.

Mr. Sullivan is a homosexual, and a Conservative, and on this issue especially, he finds it difficult to reconcile these two facts. At any other time, Mr. Sullivan would most definitely agree, as a Conservative, that religion does in fact have an important role to play in society, and that society has the right to define morality. In this instance, though, Mr. Sullivan (understandably) has let his personal feelings trump his ideology. Not a problem there, it happens to everyone now and again.

Andy has his panties in a bunch over the issue of Gay Marriage. He's not alone, as a lot of gays and straights do as well. Where Mr. Sullivan falls flat on his face, however, is when he insists that anyone who doesn't believe that gay marriage is a civil rights issue and the right thing to support, that the rest of us must be bigots and deserving of contempt.

He's incorrect and for a slew of reasons.

First, he assumes that most people are opposed to homosexual unions on the basis of religious belief. True, many of us are, but they do not represent the full spectrum of views on the topic. There are those amongst us that wouldn't care if Andrew married a cocker spaniel, although we might look at him funny if he did. Because the issue to legalize gay unions was put on 11 state ballots (and lost in all 11 states), he assumes that this defeat was the result of a sinister backlash by religious puritans every bit as evil as the Taliban. He easily dismisses a whole lot of other arguments against expanding tyhe definition of marriage.

For a start, many of us who aren't gay, aren't religious, and who aren't the least bit prejudiced towards or offended by homosexuals still find the concept of homosexuality nutty, and often, disgusting. The thought of penetrating another man's anus makes me sick, for example. But, I live in a world that says "whatever floats your boat" and then goes on with my own life. I don;t judge the individual by his proclivities, I judge the individual on the basis of his personality and character. If this makes me bigoted in Andrew's eyes, I can't see how I can change his mind.

Secondly, there are many of us who do see the logical reasoning in the argument for gay unions in strictly ideological and legal terms, but that doesn't mean we believe that it should be acceptable when the majority is dead set against it. We can make the circular argument that at one time the majority in this country was for slavery or Jim Crow or no sufferage for women, and true, those were wrongheaded ideas to be sure. But this is not the same as denying someone the right to exist because of the color of his skin. This is nowhere near the idea that "seperate-but-equal-as-long-as-equal-for-the-other-means-inferior". Applying this type of argumentation merely shows how desperate the proponents of gay marriage are to make the case -- they are appealing to emotion and guilt instead of reason.

Finally, the major reason for my own personal opposition to gay marriage, and probably a great many other's too, is that we're sick of hearing about the whole thing. I don't particularly care who choses to sleep with who, but I do get tired of being lectured about how I SHOULD care. It gets tiresome, it gets old and stale and boring and at the end of the day, you've numbed me with your whining and lost me. What this is really all about is not equal rights. It's not about evening a score. It's about people who engage in activity that society considers abhorrant to have that behavior normalized for the sake of their own personal selfishness. In other words, it's a fucking temper tantrum.

You know, Andrew, gays in this country have it pretty good. They are not being dragged out and beheaded and stoned to death like they are in Iran. They are not denied the right to earn a living, screw who they want to, appear on television, write books or run websites. Lynch mobs are not roaming the streets with the tacit approval of government or community, rounding up the fags and finding themselves the tallest tree in the county. In fact, I'll bet 90% of the people in this country don't really give a damn who's gay, who's not, or even care what gay means, they have lives to live and they just want to be left to it.

Yes Andrew, you lost. Yes, I can understand how upsetting it is for you. But did it ever occur to you that perhaps there are reasons why people don't want this kind of stuff to happen? Or was it easier, in your grief, to strike out at a bunch of "religious nuts" like the dumbocrats are doing at the moment?

Gay marriage was an issue in this election, Mr. Sullivan, and the people decided what they wanted. You are not bound to agree with the results, but you are bound to abide by them. Civil society demands this.

Election Wrap up...
Now that the dreadful spectre of a Kerry Presidency is truly dead and buried, and with trepidation as I contemplate the beatification of Hilary (starting today, already!), I feel that I must, absolutely MUST, present a complete Election wrap up. However, I'm dreadfully tired after having done the Snoopy Dance for two days now, and I'm not quite sure I'm up to weighing and sifting the flotsam and jetsom of the past 18 months. I'm litterally exhausted by the thought of politics for the moment. I will, however, provide a bunch of links to a bunch of other people who are certainly smarter than I, and definitely more eloquent.

The Esteemed Mark Steyn: http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=25
The God of Wordsmiths, Mr. James Lileks: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.html
The Indomitable Mr. John Derbyshire: http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200411030232.asp
The Master Cerebellum, George Will: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/gw20041104.shtml
The Regal Mr. Thomas Sowell: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041104.shtml

That should explain Election 2004 far better than I could ever hope to.

A Fringe Lunatic No More...
When I first started writing this nonsense I used to post essays on various websites under the monicker of "The Fringe Lunatic". For the most part, it was a cry in the wilderness. A kind of futile wail against what I thought to be the de-volution of the society around me. I was angry,. I felt alienated. I felt very much oppressed, because I could not for the life of me figure out why the rest of the world just didn't seem to see things the same way I did.

It was slightly irrational, I agree. But this past election day, I got a glimmer of hope. THERE ARE people who see the world the same way I do, and though I might never meet a whole lot of them, I suddently felt a whole lot less lonely. There are other decent human beings in the United States and they came out and did the right thing on Nov. 2, 2004: they spoke up and were heard.

So, as sort of a purging of the soul, I present to you one of my first essays, entitled: "What is A Fringe Lunatic?". Enjoy:

Teddy Roosevelt once railed against the "lunatic fringe" which existed upon the periphery of American life and politics. He was referring to the anarchist assassins who were responsible for killing his predecessor, President McKinley, and those that supported them. The appearance of this "lunatic fringe", if I read Teddy’s commentary correctly, was interpreted as a danger to the Constitutional Republic and hence, a very real threat to the American way of life. This "fringe" was considered to have consisted of foreigners, with little in the way of political sophistication, and that violence was their only method of discourse. Maybe Teddy was right, maybe not, and I’m not enough of a historian or a political scientist to definitively say which. Suffice to say, Teddy was giving rein to his feelings, which not coincidentally were shared by many in the great American Republic at large. There are many among us today that still feel the same way, and their point of view is not altogether dismissed in the light of the events of September 11th, 2001. Think Pat Buchannan.

I have adopted the epithet of "fringe lunatic", even though I am no foreigner, nor an anarchist, but like many words or phrases (like "everybody does it", "let’s just move on", etc) that evolve to suit the needs of the moment, I will claim this one on the basis of necessity. I lay claim to the title of "fringe lunatic" on the basis that as time goes by, and American society evolves (devolves, in my opinion), people such as myself are being increasingly marginalized and pushed to the fringes of American life by forces beyond the control of most private citizens.
How are people like me being marginalized? Let me count the ways!

To begin with, I’m 35 years old. This makes me too young to be a ‘baby boomer’, the next generation of crybabies and hungry, useless mouths on the horizon, and it also makes me too old to be part of "Generation X", the next wave of spoiled, overindulged idiots who will someday run the country while I’m in my old age. I shudder with fear when I imagine the claims that will be made upon me by my parent’s generation of spoiled brats, and the potential authority of the new generation of spoiled idiots. This puts me in the unenviable position of not being able to sympathize, empathize or communicate well with either my immediate elders or my immediate juniors, both of whom which will live comfortably on the sweat of my brow (between Social Security, Medicaid, school taxes and college loans), and leave me no say about it. I can’t connect with the feeling of entitlement my parent’s people will claim, nor can I see my way clear to address the "issues that affect today’s youth".

I come from a blue-collar background (parents: police officer and secretary, grandparents an auto mechanic and a seamstress) and grew up in the same house with members of my extended family present. Here I learned the life lessons of my grandparent’s day; hard work, responsibility, sacrifice on behalf of the family, and the mantra of my parent’s day; do whatever makes you happy and what "feels" right. If asked, I would say that curriculum of life lessons is somewhat confusing when it comes to moral issues. However, I’ve made my choice as to which lifestyle "feels" right to me, and that is my grandparent’s way of life. I do not need excess, I do not want to be misled by moral relativism, and I do not want to be defined as an aimless, shiftless bastard, qualities which both the Baby Boomers and the Gen X’ers display in massive quantities. This makes me old-fashioned, square, out-of-it, whichever euphemism catches your fancy.

I am a white male, which in the opinion of other demographics makes me; wealthy, sexist, racist, homophobic, power-hungry, repressive and personally responsible for every evil and atrocity ever committed by a white guy at any time since the beginning of recorded history, and maybe even before. This simple fact makes me socially, morally, financially and spiritually responsible for; the oppression of others, racial discrimination, the despoiliation of entire continents, the enslavement of entire races, the Hustle, Jimmy Carter and the pet rock. I’m also the guy that foisted Englebert Humperdink on the world. I can honestly say, with a clear conscience, that I have never oppressed, plundered, raped, victimized, marginalized, exploited, rejected, imprisoned, enslaved, harassed or conquered anyone. As for Englebert I gave him up for Lent ten years ago. Seriously, to today’s "liberal" mindset and political agenda, I am held personally responsible, across time, space and generations, for a whole litany of "historic wrongs" for which I must be maligned, punished, over-taxed, ostracized, and held to account for. After all, I have all the power and money, which I selfishly stole while others built and earned it, others whom I tricked or bullied into creating this society and wealth, and I’m keeping it from everyone else, don’t you know. Queue sinister music.

I am a computer programmer and have reached this modest pinnacle of success due to intelligence and hard effort, without the dubious benefit of a formal college education or degree from an institution of "higher learning". Because I don’t have a piece of paper that established the fact that I was able to parrot whatever some over-educated moron (read: Professor, that is one deputized and endowed with the forms of education but none of the substance), this gives my employer the right to underpay me and keep me from the higher echelons of management in corporate America. This piece of paper is referred to as a "qualification", but what it qualifies one for is beyond my imagination. I have met and worked with plenty of people who have such a device, and I would swear under oath that most of them couldn’t find their own posteriors with both hands and a road map. I wonder just what, if anything, they were ever "qualified" for. Apparently, one cannot learn anything of value by one’s self – knowledge and skill can only be considered "learned" or "useful" if accompanied by a piece of parchment hardly worth, in more than the financial sense, the paper and ink used to print it.

I also have no concern whatsoever for "the environment", "animal rights", failed Third World economies and the political rights of those who live with their consequences, AIDS victims or any other cause that does not directly affect my life or invade my personal space. Yes, I want clean air, water and tress. I like breathing, drinking and admiring a mighty redwood, only an idiot doesn’t, but not at the cost of my home. And besides, cut a tree down and you can always plant another. Sure, I want inexpensive commodities and energy that won’t pollute or hurt any living creature, but not at the cost of my job. Certainly I should eat healthier, and indulge in more grains and vegetables, but damn it, steak, fish, chicken, lamb and pork taste good. I can’t help some poor peasant in Africa overthrow his oppressive regime when he won’t even make the effort to do so, which assumes he’s even aware he’s oppressed. I can’t remove land mines in Cambodia since I don’t know where they are or even how to find them. I can see the logic of some of the concerns people express on these topics, but I don’t believe rioting at meetings of capitalists will solve any of them. I don’t think the all-or-nothing creed of some of the most committed anti-globalists solves, or even attempts to mitigate, the effects of oppression, poverty, disease, food supplies or nature. I require some sort of logical and rational approach to these problems. This makes me a "hater" and an "exploiter". I think those who resort to name calling and throwing bricks at police officers need to look at their own actions and motives before they call mine into question.

I also attended Catholic schools for the whole length of my "educational process", and this had several adverse affects upon me; I was taught to read and write properly, how to properly use mathematic formulae. I learned how to apply logic, and my schooling reinforced some of the nasty standards of the past such as conventional morality, ethics, a belief in social and religious justice, and how to evaluate what is right and what is wrong, in the empirical, ecumenical and sociological senses. These things make me bigoted and judgmental. Well, one can only be rightly bigoted and truly judgmental when one has some standard of evaluation based upon rational methods of measurement. I have these things, so I guess that makes me bigoted and judgmental, but bigoted and judgmental of those who don’t. Some call this a sense of superiority or arrogance; I call it choosing my associates and activities wisely (most of the time). Doesn’t matter though because those who do not have these qualities in their own character will demonize me for having them anyway.

To sum it all up, I’m the type of guy that everybody loves to hate, but without whom the world would come to a screeching halt. People like me are vital to the survival of any society in which we reside, yet my fellow travelers (we’ll call them the "Great Unwashed, Greedy, Ignorant Rabble") can’t get themselves to acknowledge it. To them, we’re something like an ATM machine; a handy device for dispensing cash. Sometimes were looked upon as something resembling a crash test dummy, which they use to test the limits of our tolerance while they push the envelope on issues such as employment, politics, moral relativism and sloth. We haven’t failed and fallen apart yet, because our patience is infinite, our steel-hard construction intact, but that day might come sometime. But not yet, for even as our rights are trampled in the name of "justice" and "equality" by others who scream loudly for the "respect" they are due, and which they haven’t earned, they expect people like us to sit still, pay for it, and indulge their every destructive whim. We are made of sterner stuff.

My breed of people make concrete contributions to our society and country everyday with simple acts of quiet bravery and responsibility such as, oh, going to work and paying our taxes to support the lazy, useless, lame, halt and crippled. We lead our lives in the traditional American sense, with a respect for the law and the rights of others. You don’t see us destroying property, neighborhoods and businesses and then crying about how we can’t find a job. You don’t see us making excuses for failure and demanding symbolic remedies that haven’t even the scent of a pretense of correcting the underlying reasons for it, while we scratch our heads in disbelief or shake our fists in rage, when further failure was the inevitable, and foreseeable, result.
We are increasingly the victims of others; race hustlers, feminists, revisionist historians, "academics", politicians, "liberals", who seek to advance their version of what is right, what is just, and what is workable, against our will and in the face of a system, built by people like us, that has been proven to work. I am reminded of the adage that if you tried to teach a chimp to write, he will eventually get frustrated and stick the pen in your eye – I feel like the chimp’s instructor. Since I believe that most of the people around me in my little world are just like, or rapidly becoming, that illiterate chimp, this is what makes me a fringe lunatic, the one island of sanity in a sea of stupidity, vulgarity and savagery.

I’m damned proud to be a fringe lunatic, and if you’re one too, so should you. We fight a (sometimes) frustrating battle against those that demand rights and respect without being able to define either. We climb uphill against the increasing burden of other people’s flawed, Utopian agendas and find the strength to continue in faith and our intrinsic feeling that we are on the right path to a personal paradise within our own tiny, personal fiefdoms. We deal with the here and now of kids, bills, work, love and reality while they delude themselves with visions of what never was and what can never be. It’s been my experience that as I have grown older, and my idealism has been somewhat dulled, that I have come to gradually form the kind of opinions that make me a fringe lunatic. It has also taught me that given time, even our chimp will stop sucking the ink out of the pen when he finds it an unpleasant experience and move on to something more useful to his here and now, like peeling and eating bananas.

People are the same way. They eventually learn to stop their harmful and idiotic patterns of behavior and to start doing the right thing, or most of them do, anyway. It’s a quality that God programmed into a human being, and which only waits for some event to turn it on – it’s called self-interest. The poor become the rich, the failed become the successful and the lazy become the productive all because they’ve eventually reached a stage where it’s in their self-interest to do so. In the end, that makes us all Fringe Lunatics, but it’s frustrating as all Hell waiting for the chimps to evolve into Men. Until then, let’s stand tall, be proud and secretly snicker to ourselves that we know a secret that they don’t.