Wright, Shut the Fuck up!

You haven’t heard, which wouldn’t be surprising due to the amazing silence of the majority of media outlets, Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, recently said, “God damn America.” Now I am not going to chastise the guy (amazing, I know!) for that comment as I believe each and every person in this nation has a right to say whatever they wish. Freedom of speech is a glorious thing which has allowed us as a nation to advance as far as we have in science, civil rights, and the arts (though we’re regressing on that last point). But, as I believe in freedom of speech, thus I am going to exercise it to dispute the rather short-sighted, ridiculous claims made by a demagogue in Christ’s raiment.

There are those saying that Wright's words were taken out of context. That he was not blatantly damning the whole of America but racist views which have held his people back (the man is black), made them into criminals, and attempts to extinguish them as a culture. The pastor related various incidents leading up to his condemnation of our country. He spoke of his days as a Marine, returning from war, and being told he couldn’t eat at certain restaurants or go to certain areas because of the color of his skin despite the fact that he fought for this country. He railed against blacks being relegated to the lowest rung of the economic order, being forced into criminal acts to survive, being locked up because of a system which prevents them from rising up to middle class status. I call bullshit on his entire argument and I am going to tell you why.

The pastor complained about public segregation. That complaint is near forty years too late as all forms of segregation, whether in schools, water fountains, bathrooms, restaurants, etc. ended a long time ago. The last time I checked, no restaurant turned away a customer based on the color of their skin.

On the economic order of things, blacks were not the first people to suffer through economic misery. There were Irish immigrants, German immigrants, Italian immigrants, Jewish immigrants, and even the new wave of Hispanic immigrants who all came to this nation without money or education, had no political power, and had to suffer through privations until they rose up and took their place alongside the citizenry of this nation. Political theory has shown that any group can, and will, eventually attain equality unless there is true discrimination going on. Through hard work, a group attains money. Through money, a group attains stature. Through stature and economic value, the group attains political voice. Through this political voice, the group attains power and thus becomes a part of the system. The average amount of time this system takes is usually forty years. Not counting from the point of slavery’s abolition, but instead from the end of the civil rights movement in the 60s, blacks have had the prerequisite amount of time to have completed the system and to have the equality they seek. The problem is they do not want it.

Listen to the average black politician. They will consistently play up black urban plight, the repressive system that holds blacks back, the difficult economic situation of African-American culture which forces a disproportionate number of their young in the criminal system. Yet black culture glorifies urban culture. The majority consistently complain about how they are “owed” something. The problem with black culture, and you may call me racist for being so blunt, is that blacks want things given to them rather than to earn them. Where this view originated I can’t really tell you. The Civil Rights movement was made up of men and women who fought against the system that kept them and their children back from a host of possibilities. They faced brutal repression to give future generations a chance. Once they had the door opened, perhaps it was the way they were invited into the political system which warped their style of politics. The nation bent over backwards to give blacks a chance. There was desegregation of schools, the creation of public housing, the establishment of quotas, and more which not only leveled the playing field but outright gave blacks advantages over other groups. In other words, government “gave” blacks what they wanted rather than made them “earn” it. By that, I mean we did more than strip away racist laws; we created laws which discriminated others and forced people to step aside that blacks may become a favored class. Whenever someone steps forward and complains about preferential treatment, and to state a quota of any sort is based on merit rather than on skin color, then they are labeled racist and politicians back off for fear of the backlash. Why not call it what it is? Blacks are racists who believe they are entitled, partially due to government’s pandering to them reinforcing such behavior, and they do not want to give up that status. The blacks have virtually become like the whites of the early twentieth century: too stubborn to allow merit, over skin color or flawed thinking, to determine what is best.

Government policies have ruined black communities. These policies are entitlement programs. What incentive is there to work if welfare exists? From the cradle to the grave, that program alone destroys any drive a person may have. And it has become generational. Then there is desegregation of schools. Through busing, kids are taken out of their neighborhoods and put in other communities’ schools in order to “force” diversity. Yet there has been no real improvement in black economic or educational growth. This program has helped to ruin inner city schools. Whenever a school fails, the parents blame educators and want their kids shipped to more affluent areas for better education. Education is not simply teachers in the classroom. Education also happens at home. How can teachers teach if parents are setting bad examples, failing to discipline their children, and refusing to help their kids through their studies? It is the family unit, not the schools, that has failed blacks in America.

Over 70% of black children are born illegitimate. 70%! Children grow up without a father and that leads to all sorts of problems. Daughters seek out that missing male in their life, taken advantage of by sons who have never been taught what it means to be a man. Single mothers have to take two or more jobs to support their children (if they work) and thus are not available to supervise their children who get into things they shouldn’t. Children feel lost and alone and thus attach themselves to peer groups in the shape of gangs who give them that first true feeling of belonging they never had. Black children grow up angry and upset because their community had failed them. Rather than own up to their failure, the black community plays the race card (like Nazis with Jews) and take all their problems and embody them in white repression. They focus all their anger and frustration at whites to direct it away from the real problem because they simply don’t want to deal with it.

Black culture glorifies gangstas and athletes, sexuality and bling, violence and drugs. There is no talk of education, activism, or sacrifice. Blacks want the easy way because it is the simpler way. Whites helped to pave that path. Blacks refuse to deviate from it.

I’m sorry if this rant has insulted some. To me, this is the truth. Someone had to say it. Might as well be the quiet guy who can’t shut up anymore.

Me

I am not expecting anyone to understand the complexity that is me. Neither I, nor my ex-wife, ever understood what I am. I am a miasma of so many emotions; a conflicting series of wants, needs, and desires. Sometimes I wish I were in a different time. A simpler time. I feel so out of place.

I know you don't know what I mean. Maybe you do. I pressed myself so hard in my youth. I had to achieve the impossible as soon as possible. There was not ime to waste. I had to be the prodigy. I had to change the world. When I failed, I faced depression beyond belief. I wanted to be so much more than I am. Then reality finally came and I began to see I am only human. That is an amazing thing.

I loathe those who strive for perfection. Man was never meant to be perfect. We all have flaws. No one will ever be perfect. No one can ever achieve the impossible. I believe that is part of my hatred for Christianity. That faith lashes one for their inablity to live up to a standard; a standard of a man who liekly never existed, and if he did, he did not exist in the form that he did.

The human condition is one of learning. It is a lifetime of stumbling, of discovery, of self-assertion. There are those who do not understand this or who refuse to. I do not hate any race, any sexuality, any view. I realize we are all diffrent. We are all unique. For anyone to hate a person becuase of who they are is short sighted, shallow, and ill-informed. We are all special in our own way.

I know I may be rambling. I am quite intoxicated as it is, but I felt it important to share my views. So many people fail to understand those strangers just a few feet away; fail to hear what it is they wish to express. We are all human beings who speak a shared language, yet are incapable of understanding what we mean.

I'm a solitary man; a lonely man. I wish there were those who understood me. But I have come to realize mine is a lonely path of discovery. I envy you, those who have those to join them on their path of discovery. Learn from these precious moments given to you as I struggle forward hoping to understand why I am and what I was meant to be.

What I've Been Up To (Shudder)

The past few days I've been putting together the beginnings of an alternate history surrounding World War II. I know. This has been done to death by hundreds of thousands before me. But I need something to keep the mental gears fluid and rolling, and I definitely need some time off my second novel. I only have fourteen more pages left to edit/re-write and then I'm officially done with it, but still: I'm a procrastinator and need something new to do after six months of that novel. If you want to watch my "history" unfold, just click away.

Bono is an idiot and this is why!

Bono is on a crusade to end poverty around the globe. I am not going to bash him for his idealism, though I'm a realist. You see, realists see idealists as fanatics far out of touch with reality. They won't let something such as facts or common sense get in the way of their attempts to give substance to insubstantial wonderings on how the world should be even though if the world were meant to be that way wouldn't it have naturally evolved in that direction? Have I lost you yet?

Anyway, Bono has been shaming governments into forgiving debts of third world countries, pleading with westerners to donate massive amounts of cash to these poverty stricken nations, and to uplift our poor brothers. I love the irony that this man lashes us to give all we can while he himself has not contributed a dime to his cause. We wouldn't want this to seem a vanity project!

Poverty is not the illness aflicting third world countries nor the cause of homelessness and joblessness in our own country. Poverty is a symptom of the overall economy. If the economic system of a community is maladaptive, corrupt, or just plain not working, then money dries up, jobs disappear, opportunity lessens, and people become poor. Donating cash, such as welfare and Bono's plan, does not solve the overall problem. It only masks the symptom. If we do not assault the actual problem, the poor economic systems within these communities, then these peoples will remain poor forever. Africa is suffering through poverty because of corrupt governments, poor educational systems, a lack of infrastructure, and no entrepreneurship. To solve their problems, first these nations need to stop breeding at intense rates (their flimsy economies have no room for them let alone twelve kids). A shabby economy can only further breakdown under the stress of a large population. Second, improve their educational background that these peoples may become competetive. Most importantly, though, is the need for transparent, effective government. Corrupt governance is what is holding Africa and its people in poverty, not the West and unfair business practices. Financial capital is funneled into the hands of the few, government officials sign deals detrimental to the long term well being of their nations, and the cycle persists.

There is so much more I want to say on this but I would really just get into a rambling diatribe. Suffice it to say, if Bono wants to solve the economic problems of Africa, he should be trying to reform the governments on the continent. Until that is done, you'll see chaos such as Zimbabwe and Kenya where even meager and/or impressive economic gains are again and again wiped out by tyrants and corrupt government. All Bono wants to do is create international welfare. If these African nations do not learn the value of cash (by earning it, not by debt forgiveness and donations) nor find a way to keep it out of corrupt governmental coffers, then Bono will solve nothing.

Man and the Urinal

Despite wanting to forget some of the things I've discovered in public restrooms (and there has been a lot I wish I had never seen), I have noticed an interesting bit of behavior when it comes to men and the urinal. Through naturalistic observation, I have seen man's strange behavioral patterns surrounding the urinal:

• The ashamed type: one who chooses to use the enclosed toilet, safely emptying his bladder behind obscuring partitions despite the readily available urinals for his use because of a fear of someone either a) seeing they pee like the rest of the human race or b) they are terrified at the possibility someone might make a "comparison" between his equipment and theirs if even for mild curiosity versus actual phallic competition. There is also the rare c) the fear someone might ask to touch it, though few are willing to admit to this due to the belief even an inkling of such thinking makes them "gay".

• The social type: one who chooses to occupy the urinal right next to you despite there being urinals a much more comfortable distance away. They may sometimes try to initiate conversation. May induce similar fears as those suffered by the ashamed type (see (b) and (c) under said type)

• The obsessive type: one who refuses to use the toilet or any other urinal save for the one you are using. They will stand there breathing down your neck until you finish. The irony is such behavior tends to force the individual using the urinal to take longer because of the pee-freezing anxiety caused by someone trying to make them hurry up.

• The amnesiac: the one who forgets to flush the urinal immediately after finishing. They usually exhibit the trait of very strong, pungent urine.

• The sprayer: one who manages to get urine everywhere save in the urinal itself. May sometimes even spray their neighbors leading to fears of (b) or (c) under the ashamed type because they were too busy watching their neighbors.

• The staller: one who stands in front of a urinal for extended periods of time doing nothing. Also known as suffering from pee-fright, urinary performance in a public setting.

• The eroto-maniac: one who derives intense pleasure from using the urinal to the point of moaning, smiling, and repeatedly uttering, "Oh, yeah," while in the act of urination.

Gilligan in Purgatory

Yes, I hit the professor's man-made transmitter with my fist just as a plane was about to fly directly overhead. Sure I stuffed my lucky rabbits foot inside the NASA robot, rendering it inert and useless, and I made those other NASA guys think we were Martians after I accidentally spilled glue and feathers all over everybody. And I know it was me who inadvertently moved the stick in the lagoon that the professor was using to measure the water's depth, sending everyone into a doomsday panic.


But really—is this necessary? This ceaseless, open-ended expiation of my guilt? This limbo-like state of godless suffering?


I mean, I don't even think I really believe in this place anyway. Or at the very least, I thought it was for Catholics only. I could see a good Catholic sitting in my place, thinking about the time he handcuffed the briefcase full of important government documents to his wrist, or that time when he backed up over the burning logs that spelled out SOS making them instead spell out SOL, the name of the pilot that was flying his plane directly overhead, and feeling like this might be what he deserved. That maybe through this mandatory time of final purification he may actually gain the grace needed to be worthy of heaven.


But not me. I lean more toward the Scriptural revelation that all the demands of divine justice for things like eating Mary Ann's last coconut cream pie were completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That time I took over the island and overzealously locked everyone in a bamboo jail just as a plane was flying directly overhead? Totally purchased back by Christ on the tree. Penance? Atonement? Accomplished!


And please don't bother throwing Romans 5:3-5 in my face either. Yes, sanctification involves suffering, but didn't I suffer enough when the professor turned me invisible, or when he hypnotized me into thinking I was Mary Ann, or when Mr. Howell sold me those worthless oil wells, jilting me out of $3 million in well-deserved golf winnings?


And if you want to talk about who deserves forced reparation of wrongs applied, look no further than my boss, his nibs The Skipper, for hitting me on the head with his hat to mark every hour of every day for three years. There's your uncleanness that shall not enter the presence of God in heaven!


Go ahead and jury-rig Hebrews 12:14 into an argument that I have to reclaim a self-lost holiness, a holiness "without which no one will see the Lord." But I would cite the many, many times my unbelievable ineptness was countered by an act of goodness so sheer and selfless that the flames in which I now sit would be quenched forever: like when I fed those cannibalistic headhunters the magic berries I found that made them see upside down, or when I dressed up as a tiki god to lift that evil curse off The Skipper or when I saved us all from certain death at the hands of that crazy Japanese sailor. But all these paled in light of the time I actually crawled up inside a live bomb to defuse it because I was the only one that wasn't fat, self-righteous or vain. Inglorious ingratitude!


I know, I know. 2 Thessalonians 2:13. Right. Right. Sanctification's not an option, blah, blah, blah. You know what? I've heard about enough, sir. Now, if you'll excuse me, I guess I've got some evil to purge...

TELEVANGELISTS DECRY LACK OF B-LIST CELEBRITIES

At a recent episode of The 700 Club, a number of televangelists complained publicly over the growing shortage of lower-level show business conversions.


"It used to be back in the 1970s, every week there was a new TV star or Top 40 one-hit-wonder convert," said Jackson "Jack" Hayferd of Clear HDTV Ministry, a television-based outreach. "Now all we can get is real people."


The evangelists, including Paul Crouch, Pat Robertson, and Benny Hinn, in a five-minute segment, showed film clips of famous new Christians from 1970-1988: The Golden Off B-Media Conversions, a documentary that chronicled the fervent—if sometimes brief—Hollywood/recording industry conversions of such accoladed celebrities as Kerry Livgren of the rock group Kansas, Gavin McLeod, captain on The Love Boat, B.J. Thomas, Kirk Cameron, and adult filmmaker Larry Flynt, who, in the words of the soundtrack, "was a Christian for a ten-day period in 1977."


There were also clips of more famous glitteratti like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, "who may or may not have been converts, since it is difficult to know from the incoherence of their lyrics."


The public statements seem to be related to the appearance in the once-relevant magazine Christianity Today of an article "Do We Need More Celebrity Preaching?", which questioned the utility of celebrity testimony at the present time "because Baby Boomers are aging and other generations may be less susceptible to media-worship." The opinion piece also expressed a wistful yearning "for the days when Paul and Jan Crouch's show was made less tedious and boring by the nostalgic scheduling of an old character from Hogan's Heroes. But whatever the cause, there is undeniably a current lack of B-List celebrities."


Serious scholars also have recently questioned the efficacy of "evangelical celebrity-ism."


"Just because someone witnesses about being saved from depression attendant on losing out for a role on his favorite sitcom doesn't mean it will automatically be relevant to the average person's needs," said Lloyd Harold, a Professor of Popular Culture at UCLA's John Wayne College of Movie Star Studies.


No causes were assigned by any of the sources for the lack of these conversions, save for one media-watcher's reference to the "Culture Wars" and to "the fact that the Boomers appear to be moving on to other forms of narcissism, like health-worship and so-called organic foods."