Hang up and drive asshole!!!

Recently an ad warning teenagers of the dangers of texting while driving came out that is notable for it's graphic content. I find it interesting that the author of this article was critical of the way the message it was conveyed. Even more interesting among all the articles, commentary and warnings about texting/talking on cell phones there has not been one warning to use these devices responsibly FROM CELL PHONES COMPANIES. Not a fucking peep from these greedy mother fuckers.

"No, please keep using our product without regard for your or other peoples safety."

I never will own one of these devices of the devil. I prefer to cause an accident with the time old tradition of idle day dreaming instead.

What time is it?

My day - hour by hour.

7 am Too early to get up since I have no regular job. Continue sleeping in hopes of a fabulous inspiring dream that will jump start my dormant writing.

8 am Awkened by dreams of toilets, waterfalls and running water. I get up for the morning pee, return to warm bed.

9 am Have yet another boring dream involving mindless rambling, dull scenery and stupid strangers. Where’s a good wet dream when you need one?

10 am Awakened from sound sleep yet again, by a fire truck siren. There’s a training facility a couple of blocks away. What are they doing practicing or an emergency donut run? Either that or it’s a noisy crow or neighbor. When I decide to get up the noise stops. Unbelievable.

11-12 am I have morning tea, breakfast. Stare at wall wondering why I got out of bed since I have no purpose in life or a job.

1-2 pm If it’s Thursday or Friday I go to the library for 3 hours of work cleaning CD/DVD discs, while trading bon mots with the G-man. Otherwise I run endless little errands that need to get done.

3 pm Jean Paul Sartre said “3 pm is either too early or too late in the day to start anything.”

4 pm Oprah’s on!

5 pm News. I yell at the stupid reporters onTV until I see the weather report.

6 pm Open refrigerator in hopes the random food in various states of freshness and/or decay will magically turn into dinner. Get a beer instead.

7 pm Watch Jeopardy! and hypothetically win thousands. I rock on this show. If it’s Tuesday or Thursday I rock in aikido class.

8 pm Time for more beer. Decide on either waste time watching TV, or crusing the internet. Once again avoiding writing or do something creative and productive. Get another beer.

9-11 pm TV sucks so I spend two hours on the internet. Not an improvement.

Midnight Last beer gone so I go to bed.

American Railroad Fantasies

I have this fantasy of living near railroad tracks to indulge in some performance art. Not just any kind of performance mind you. When the daily passenger train goes by I would stage some entertainment in full view of those looking out the window until Amtrak calls me to “cut it out.”

“We really insist Ms McLaughlin that you desist from staging mock executions, strangling your neighbor or slaughtering a cow with a chainsaw. These disturbing stunts must stop. Passengers are complaining and some have been traumatized by your antics.” they would plead.

Their pleas will fall on deaf ears. I love riding trains, I think it is the coolest way to go. Much better than airplanes. No long check in lines, no stripping to get through security. They have food- not half bad- on most trips. The seats are fairly roomy, you can walk around and watch people, a movie or the scenery. However we are one of the few industrialized, rich countries that doesn’t have efficient, extensive passenger rail service and I hate that. Some form of protest of this poor state of affairs must go on until things improve.

“Hey, when you burecratic niwits figure out how to improve the lousy, expensive train service in this country then I’ll stop with the Quentin Tarnatino hour.”

While politicians wail about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, we build more roads and Amtrak has to go begging every year to get any subsidy. Mind you we have been subsidizing airlines for decades, we bail them out constantly. Meanwhile Amtrak’s on time service sucks because the train has to pull over for freight that share the tracks (Don’t even get me started on Union Pacific’s “screw you” attitude toward their customers and Amtrak ).

The current adminstration has pledged money to upgrade tracks and bring high speed service to some national corridors. Hmmpf, rail enthusiasts have heard that before. The Pacific Northwest has been trying to get a fast train line from Eugene Oregon to vancouver BC for more than ten years. Daily trains from Portland to Seattle are often sold out.

Instead of doing the same song and dance about helping the enviroment, changing our way of driving, blah, blah, blah let’s get on the fast train to the future like France, Germany and Japan have done.

Now who lives near some train tracks and will join me in the quest for better passenger rail service?

Those Homos are Everywhere.

Amid all the talk about same -sex marriage ( yeah that’s still going on) and how all those gays are shoving their disgusting lifestyles down our throat and threaten the children, something occurred to me. How many people are we talking about bringing ruination to our society? Less than ten percent- that’s right, less than ten percent of a population of 300 million.Wow, how is it that such a small group has a paralyzing and fearsome grip on the masses? Because some very frightened and ignorant people would have you think they do. 

The rise in homophobia has more to do with visibility than numbers. There seems to be more gays because they are noticed more as a result of media coverage. In reality there are no more gays now then forty years ago when the Stonewall riot occurred. We just didn’t talk about them then.

Bigoted whites were afraid of the blacks threatening society during the civil rights movement because there seemed to be so many of them. Gasp. No, blacks were simply noticed more because of their demand for equality. Even with black mayors, governors, supreme court judges, and a president -blacks are still a minority despite what a frightened majority may think.

Conservative gay Andrew Sullivan writes on his blog  “What  social conservatives have to grapple with is that openly gay people are not going away... They want to create a shadow class of people operating somehow in a cultural and social limbo. That strategy may have worked as long as gay people cooperated- by staying in the closet, keeping their heads down, playing the euphemism  game. But the cooperation is over.” Substitute the word black for gay and one can see this is old formula played by the dominant culture.

Would you like organic or the genetically modified?

Enough with the subterfuge about performance enhancing substances used by athletes who then lie through their teeth before congress that they never used steroids. 

Let’s be honest here. Legalize the damn stuff. Then players will use them safely with medical supervision instead of some greedy trainer/coach/ team owner injecting them in the ass with God knows what. All athletes would be labeled as organic (no drugs) or enhanced. Such labeling would discourage drug use for enhancement purposes because everyone would plainly see where the quality of performance comes from and prefer the athlete “au natural”. People will understand that steroids are also used to maintain an athlete through an injury. 

Instead of listening to lawyers “categorically deny any such accusation against their client” we can get back to enjoying the game and the skill of real athletes.

At the movies

In Roger Ebert’s review of the new movie ”District 9”  He notes the film’s “Seamless merger of mockumentry and special effects.” As an aside, this is one of the things I find most disturbing about it is the too close for comfort blend of fiction and reality. This was done in “Contact” as well as using real life news commentators from CNN. The fiction was discredited, of course, but  it shows how easy it is to pass off doctored images as real. How can we tell the difference anymore?  

 

Ebert found the third act “disappointing, involving standard shoot out action with no attempt to resolve the situation.” Not surprising since the film is aimed at teenagers who spend endless hours playing video games where there is no resolution only a reset button.

We used to model movies after real life now we model real life after movies. So we send in the Marines to Iraq or Afghanistan, shoot the bad guys and everything will be ok. Except it doesn’t work that way.

Wouldn’t it be nice if movies could show a new  productive, realistic way to conflict resolution  instead of outdated imperialistic bombast? But that doesn’t sell movie tickets does it?

This is your country on drugs

The war of drugs isn't working. prohibition doesn't work. More and more people are in prisons for being a drug user at considerable cost. But you know the war on drugs isn't working and we need a change when even the cops say enough already with some very good reasons to legalize.

I think hemp needs to be legalized and taxed  and I'm not the only one). While the controversy and mythical fears rage on- "heavens we can't do that it would encourage more drug use" blah, blah drug dealers are making money, killing civilians and cops and generally wrecking havoc on society.

Discuss.

You're still sick and no, you can't go to Canada

I generally don't get in involved with politics, it causes ulcers and I yell at the TV but this is one issue that has gotten way out of control. In Canada health care coverage works, take it from a Canadian. But don't believe them, our health care system is SO much better than theirs, really.

you're sick alright

I could say lots of things about the current controversy over health care but this article says it all.

This is happening in a country ranked 37th in health care and 50th in life expectancy. Enuff said.

It's in the Cards

This year I decided to put fifteen years of study and learning to practical use. I am reading Tarot at the Saturday Market. For those who don’t know, the Saturday Market is a 40 year institution in Eugene where local artists, craftspersons ( there’s a clunky word) and merchants sell their wares directly to the public. 

You may be wondering -Tarot, isn’t it new age woo-woo stuff or like evil?  No, you have been misinformed. That’s a myth, thanks to religious propaganda that discredited personal divination in favor of clergy being the sole dispensers of divine knowledge. Divination goes back to ancient times, and modern readers know the cards are merely a tool for understanding and connecting with the inner self and the divine. The tarot does not predict the future however, that’s prophecy and shouldn’t be dabbled in. The tarot is about possibilities based on the current situation and (standard disclaimer) subject to change without notice.

So the tarot is ancient and shrouded in mystery huh? Tarot as a form of divination may have been around a long time but was not mentioned until the 14th century when it appeared in medieval Europe, via Islam c. 1375.  The trumps or tarocchi in Italian, were lavishly painted decks of playing cards for the rich. Because of religious censorship and persecution  (all playing cards were banned by the church as a form of gambling ) very little is known about tarot before this time. 

The modern Tarot deck is composed of 78 cards, ace to ten of four suits ( pentacles, cups, wands, and swords). The court cards: the pages, knights, queens and kings which make up the minor arcana. The major arcana consist of 22 cards from 0 to 21 (or 1 to 22 depending on the deck). The imagery in tarot borrows from numerology, astrology, Kabbala and Christian iconography i.e., the tower (the tower of Babel) the lovers ( Adam and Eve in Eden), the heirophant or pope card and so on. The popular standard deck , “Rider-Waite” created in 1909 by A.E. Waite, is a fusion of these many different ideas. 

Where did you learn tarot? Do you wear a turban and use a crystal ball? Years ago I took classes from two expert readers have been honing my skill with privates readings and meditation since then. And no I don’t wear a turban or use props, sorry. My approach is pretty straight forward. 

When I started reading I was afraid I would be off  base or just plain wrong because I didn’t have all the meanings of all the cards memorized. That’s where the surprise came in. I discovered that when I laid out the cards their meaning was immediately clear. A total stranger sits down, doesn’t tell me their question and the answer is as plain as day. Wow, I am amazed and astonished at the results. 

I am also exhausted by the end of the day. It may seem easy to sit and talk to people over a couple of cards with pretty pictures but it takes a lot of psychic energy to do this. It’s similar to the feeling I have after an intense ki-aikido class.  

I also discovered that most people ask about one of three things. Work, money or relationships. Once in a while someone will get squeamish about imagery on a card. “No that card doesn’t mean  death”  I’m tempted to say  “That one means death.” but so far I have restrained myself. By the way there is not a single reputable tarotist who would ever predict this to a client except under the most unusual of circumstances. When The death card is seen in movies it is for dramatic effect because of it’s connotation and vivid imagery. The card is in fact a positive symbol in many instances. 

So the next time you are in Eugene on a Saturday come down to the market for a reading. I’d love to find out what the cards have to say to you.