No, It's Not the Same, Not At All

When I call someone retarded it is meant to convey that they are behaving as if they have much less than a full range of mental acuity available to them.  You got a better word?

Eat the rich.

Keep It In Perspective

Someone said that to me today.  The back of my chair had fallen out and I had blundered backwards.  The entire room swiveled to gape at me, mouth-breathing maws wide open.  In the process of encouraging them to return to their business and right myself an errant elbow knocked over a can of soda, prompting a string of obscenities to fly from me.  The elder statesman quipped that I should watch my mouth.  When I replied how massively irrelevant "proper" language is, the "try to keep it in perspective" comment was received.

Keep what in motherfucking perspective?  The goddamn Buddhists have it right: this is all pain, all suffering.  That is the nature of human existence.  I tried Buddhism once, briefly.  While the tenants seem phenomenally adroit at soothing a rampaging psyche, the lifestyle leaves little room for any sort of enjoyment.

I am so ungodly sick of trying to convince myself that any of this bullshit is worth a good goddamn.  You can have it, assholes.  Go get your shovels and cram some more shit into your over-stuffed mouths.

There is no meaning.  And I'm the one they say is crazy.

Fuck off.

Here, Please, Take My Money

I hate insurance companies.  For the moment, however, let's leave my personal feeling that all types of insurance are akin to a Mafia protection racket.  Instead, let's examine how the insurance industry is a nearly perfect analog for practical (not theoretical) socialism.  Now, Americans generally dislike socialism, choosing instead to hitch their shiny horses to the star of almighty capitalism.  Part of the American Dream is that if you work hard enough, then you will be rewarded with riches compensatory to such work.  The dirty underwear of this is obviously greed.  Americans feel that it's their money and that it would be sacrilegious to divvy any out to those of lesser economic means, because, obviously, they are simply lazy.  There is also the prevailing theory that only material rewards engender innovation, although I would say that new ground is continually broken in the highly socialized fields of law enforcement and fire fighting.  Still, Americans rail against the very notion of any program or idea that smells even vaguely like the big S.

If, then, socialism is so distasteful on an academic level, then why is it so blindly accepted in practice?  A portion of the above thinking is rooted in the basic assumption that human beings are self-serving.  Sure.  This quality has manifested as corruption in many a socialist state leading to an eventual downfall.  In a nutshell, those in power give preferential treatment to a select few and embezzle their fat asses off.  This, my friends, is exactly how the insurance industry works, except that it is perfectly legal.

We can break this down into 3 distinct components - (1) The Redistribution of Wealth.  At zero, everyone pays the same amount of money into an insurance pool.  This gives the agency the funds to pay for the claims of those "in need."  Let's look at health insurance.  Everyone pays in so that insurer can cover the medical bills of the ill.  That is, the allocation of wealth is based on need, classic socialism.  (2) Cronyism.  Eventually, if any one individual places too many claims, his insurance premiums will rise.  The tacit rationale for this is to maintain some sense of equality, to create a nominal distance from what is described in point #1.  The actuality is that the insurers simply want to give preferential treatment to those that allow them to reap a larger profit.  By raising the rates of the sick, the insurers both lessen the relative burden on the healthy and weaken the already frail ability of the enfeebled to regain their health.  It's all about the King Harolds, which brings us to... (3) Government Sponsored Embezzlement.  So, we have the vast majority of the population paying into a pool that is used primarily to maximize the income of the insurer.  So, where does that money go?  Of course, there is overhead and, for all publicly held companies, the payouts to shareholders.  Still, the biggest piece of the pie goes to (drumroll, please) the corporate CEOs.  I won't bore you with the numbers (go here if you would like to see some), but suffice to say that 8 figure salaries could be used to lessen the burden on the entire set of insured.  If this were a socialist state and those in power were hoarding the wealth instead of distributing it to the masses, we would call that corruption.  Instead, in the great old US of A, we call it living the dream.

Yep, capitalism is much better.

Cheers.
Eat the Rich.

That's Right Ya Freakin' Prudes

So, like, sometimes I present the purely philosophical argument that the 16 to 18 year old ages of consent across the US are just a touch puritanical.  In fact, I wrote a bit on the subject awhile back.  Today, we briefly examine Europe...

Note that I did not create these memes and that I searched them out based on visual stimulation rather than wit and wisdom.  Anyway, let's get started.  Ohio's age of consent is 16 (again, why did no one tell me this until 2011!) as is that of England.  The whole friggin' country.  Jolly Ho!

How's about France?  I visited once, totally unaware that l'âge du consentement is a perky 15. 

We're not nearly finished.  In Germany, the frauleins are free at 14.  The same is true in my Hungarian homeland.  I feel a trip to the fatherland coming on.

And our magical mystery tour comes to a close on the Iberian peninsula where the Spaniards allow their joven out to play at the quasi-fantastical age of 13.  Me encanta España!

Was all of this a thinly veiled excuse to post this series of pictures to stir up the conservatives and pep up my compatriots?  Well....  yeah, but the info is interesting regardless.

Cheers and happy fuckin' belated 2012 bitches.

Arbitrary Rules Of Nonsense

You see, even though Victoria Justice is all over Nickelodeon and Dakota Fanning makes real movies, the Vicky pic is totally cool because she's a stone cold adult (18), while the Dakota ad gets banned because she is, at 17, clearly an exploited child.  Thank god, civilized society has been saved.  Now, none of you will burn in Hell.  Just me. ;-j

Tru Dat, Dawg

I watched exactly 0 plays on Sunday.

So Fucking What

So, sometimes I take the 22 minutes to let John Stewart draw a chuckle out of me.  He and his Daily Show writing staff have a phenomenal ability to make me laugh at how important the leaders of the free world consider themselves to be.

For a moment, we shall disregard how fundamentally flawed the two party system is and how the securing of votes for the next cycle is best achieved by shrouding the adversary in failure than by ever truly accomplishing anything.  It is true that we, as Americans, have drawn a lot much longer and of much sterner stuff than the vast majority of our fellows.  It is true that a nation that prides itself on providing a ocean of opportunity to each of its citizens has allowed the systematic enacting of policy that inarguably favors those who have already amassed their fortunes, rather than the notion that we might all be able to live in comfort and joy.

It seems odd that the first great recession of the information age has affected you and me rather than say, Tom Cruise and Alex Rodriguez.  This is not to say that our entertainers have not invested well, but the salience is easily discerned.  Maybe we would all have an easier time keeping our homes or paying our medical bills if, maybe, Justin Bieber was playing to half full (or even half empty) arenas or if we told both sides of the NBA that they can take their ball and go to hell. 

I spent about 20 years waiting for a cause, for some sort of grassroots uprising that would engender the cacophonous cry of the informed and not just the the foolhardy rantings of the ignorant.  It turns out that neo-conservatives can be morons too.  Just like all of the actors and athletes, just like the politicians and pundits, they can just as well accomplish nothing.  With all of my angst and apathy lingering above like a cloud of righteous indignation gone stale I can still see the wailing, still taste the Peace Wall burn and still hear all 99 degrade with their cries for homogeneity.

One more time kids, until we are ready to examine unpalatable options, until we are willing to take a step back to accommodate a leap forward, we will simply burgeon to explosion.  Recognize that the health care plan, the party affiliation of the Senate majority, your paycheck and, yes, even this blog will be rendered uttlerly irrelevant when we have peeled the last band-aid and bled out into oblivion.

There are too many of us, kids.  Before anything truly gets solved, a bunch of people and I mean buh-illions are going to need to die.  Yeah, really.  And until we can all get on board with that, there is no reason for you to do what you want me to, regardless of who you are.

#SFW

Hand me a drink.  Cheers.

INTJ

INTP: "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. They are good at logic and math and make good philosophers and theoretical scientists. 1% of the total population.

There are 99 people of every 100 to do the rest.  I'm just gonna do me.

The bit you have to get is that it's not about just doing it, it's about believing it, believing yourself.

Also, it's step 1.

Cheers. 

Jade Bile

The hazy shade is the deepest hue that confronts me, while the words remain unintelligible.  Every pool of water is slick with poison, another arsenic gumdrop teetering off of the never-ending ledge.  I can no longer smell the sunshine, only the deep decay of a thousand still-born aspirations.  The more houses fall, the more severe their concrete children rise.

Once upon a grey moon, all of this seemed entirely too convenient.  All of my wishes granted in the most horrible manner possible.  "Be careful," I was always told.  The bright curtains burned, sheer blue-green flames of artificial nightmare.  I got it, more what I asked than what we all deserved.  To deny the entirety of existence, to refute the everything of everyone and to do so without impaling one's own self, is to invite a lifetime of agony.  While bones may not break and organs may not fail, the absolute absence of commonality is beyond all conception of despair.

Take a memo: "Fuck off.  I don't care."

Dictated, but not read.

Jade Bile

I wonder if anyone else will ever truly understand the final straw.  Since nothing has innate value and only those things to which we ascribe worth hold any meaning, the details of my particular stalk of wheat are irrelevant.  Let's say your priority was making money and you worked for Enron or you value child-rearing and your first born will no longer speak to you.  Imagine if you were the last person to honestly believe that the world was flat.  None of these would destroy you, but each would fundamentally alter your view of the world. 

After an arduous agony of attempting to attune with the status quo (that is, playing by the rules), for the dismal and rejection to be so public and intentional demands that the course be reverted.  I had been told to change my ways often enough that it lost all meaning.  Having actually committed to integrating myself and having so colossally failed, I can only do what I should have since minute one: trust myself. 

Get ready, it's gonna be a helluva ride.

Jade Bile

The night is hot and sticky; it reminds me of my youth.  There is a foreign town and a pretty girl and all of the wonderment attained rather than denied.  I see things that I cannot remember, hear things that I will never forget.  The rest is a blur, but I can still feel the warm rush of anticipation running through me.  Now, forever distant, it would seem that I must alter my wishes, evolve my desires.  I neither want to, nor intend to.  If it is irrational to deign a set of values as worthy and staunchly adhere to them, then please be man enough to lock me up.  In a world of naught but concession and rationalization, I reject their necessity.  The only dead dreams are those that I might strangle with my hot, bare hands.  While many might lay comatose, struggling to breathe, the proverbial plugs have not yet been pulled.  Deny compromise.  Ignore the demands of an irrelevant society.  On to find unique order in a sea of cookie cutter chaos.  Don't like it?  Fuck you.  Moving on.

Jade Bile

I wrestle with the concept of a soul.   Being the staunch agnostic that I am, I cannot accept the soul as the ethereal image that ascends to heaven or plummets to Hell.  Still, there must be something that accounts for individuality.  Identical twins with identical DNA (raised is the same home, going to the same school and so on) can grown to lead dramatically different lives.  Perhaps there is a biological explanation, lost in the 4/5 of our brain that is not in active use.  Maybe the lightning that dances across our synapses carries some lingering residual of its journey from the big bang to our bodies.  We simply have yet to develop a method of discerning such a thing.  Regardless, human beings are as the proverbial snowflakes: no two have ever been the same, nor shall ever two be.  This is how I envision the soul and I have simply given too much of mine away.  Whether it was to make a dollar, spare a feeling or obey the rules as written; the grains of myself have slid carelessly from my hand in the desert of modern life.  Do I possess certain utterly useless skills as a result?  Indubitably.  I can make small talk with idiots and show respect to cretins.  For the most part, I am able to hold in my cries of anguish and rage.  Only now, with such a threadbare blanket of myself remaining, do I recognize that not one among us has any duty to world at large.  If I do not make my unique values, my happiness paramount, then no one will.  We must all do what we must do.  Society will respond however it may, yet always, to quote the bard, to thine own self be true.  Having little to show for an adulthood spent in truth to others, this course on which I must embark will be in the certain veracity of self.  Damn me, if you will.

Jade Bile

I never really thought about concepts like love or friendship or the soul.  I assumed that, since they had been defined, I would eventually discover how they related to my life.  This was a mistake, one that I realized far too late in the game.  I had always thought that love existed and I simply had to find the person with which I was meant to be, my soul-mate.  As if all of this had been preordained, I wandered about in a vain search for all of the grace that was to be my destiny.  It took me far too long to understand that the words did not create the reality, rather the reality created the words.  All of these labels were constructed so that there could be a commonly understandable term, not because they held any innate meaning themselves.  I had spent my life looking for that which was love, that which was friendship.  How foolish.  I should have simply led the best life that I could and allowed the history books to describe the relationships however they saw fit.  Everything is not for everyone.  Life is not a checklist of success, love, children, 22 friends and landmarks seen.  Life is only an expression.  It is the cause and effect of each of us upon the rest.  There is no should.  There is no expectation.  At this late date, I find it unlikely that I might affect such a fundamental change of philosophy upon the practice of my life.  Another change seems much more pragmatic.  Perhaps if I light the fires just right, I can burn away the wool of others without forever blinding their eyes.

Jade Bile

I think that it changed for me when I realized that I no longer held any dreams or aspirations.  One day I found that I disliked hope, that I was all but afraid of it.  How could it come to this?  Every song that I hear conjures the sensation of a monumental mistake.  Every opportunity is another to squander.  Every breath is new disappointment and each step another jagged pain.  When left without any possibility of joy or fulfillment, no goals for tomorrow or beyond, you begin to search for a path or plan.  When the insurmountable burden of expectation has eradicated every glimmer of glee, you begin to question the very concept of happiness.  Someone once told me that the United States is wonderful because we have the freedom to do whatever we want.  No person is constrained from following his true heart's desire to its ultimate fruition.  If my role is not inspire the exhibition of human achievement, perhaps my purpose is more subtle.  They say ignorance is bliss.  I shall abolish both.

Jade Bile

Did you ever read comic books as a kid?  The nature of melodrama is to describe an adversarial encounter, the dichotomy between good and evil.  After the Hitler/Nazi propaganda of WWII, comics needed something more satisfying than Batman punching purse pilfering thugs or Superman saving a defenestrated Lois Lane.  These bad guys could not be in any way sympathetic to the reader.  The Joker was psychotic.  Lex Luthor was a mad scientist, driven to wild means by the end of knowledge.  Since the plot is designed for the villain to lose every time, they needed to be such abominable bastards that the readers would continue to buy the book just to witness evil's inevitable defeated time and again.  Years went by and the characters evolved to appeal to a more sophisticated audience, yet the dynamic changed little.  The Joker got crazier.  Lex Luthor became an immoral businessman who directed his xenophobia at the alien Superman.  As Hollywood pumped millions of dollars into film franchises, it became imperative that the antagonists remain unquestionably despicable.  The viewer is meant to be left appalled, unable to comprehend how any human being could commit such atrocities.  None were intended to identify with such scoundrels.  I'm the guy who did.

To Err Is Human?

I've stated before that the key to co-existing is to accept the idiosyncrasies of our fellows as they accept ours.  In practice, this is an outstanding method, yet, in the philosophical context human endeavor, it is simply a the coach and the bag of potato chips.  Whether the other person (friend, parent, wife, whatever) doesn't return messages, fails to fulfill commitments, cannot make use of logic or runs his mouth when he's had a few, allowing these tendencies to continue just encourages each of us to expect less of everyone.  As I grew, I held myself to very high standards and applied the same standard to those around me.  These days, having experienced so much disappointment from those around me, I find myself unable to hold myself to any level of excellence whatsoever.  With each forgiveness that I gave, each flaw that I shrugged off, I became less and less worthwhile.  Now, I forgive everything.  Bobby won't give me a straight answer to any question?  That's fine.  He has other redeeming qualities.  That's something that I would never do, but I have other imperfections.  It doesn't matter.  It all balances out in the end.  The boundaries have become indistinct.  If, when I get up in the morning, I don't do what I am supposed to, don't contribute in the ways that I am expected to, I don't hold it against myself.  I feel no guilt.  It's just part of the human condition.  Whatever I do is ok.  I'm not killing anyone or mistreating a child, so who the fuck cares?  How do I make myself care about any of this shit?  I'd like to sit here and reject everything about the world around me.  A wise man once told me to stop whining about the unwashed masses around me, suggesting that I do something about them instead.  Unfortunately, I can't talk to them.  We do not speak the same language.  I cannot lead them, they desire slovenly idiocy for their respect.  I cannot ignore them, they permeate every instant of my life.  I cannot serve them, they don't deserve it and I am simply too tired to want to.  There are plenty of morons to do that.  Does this mean they won?  Sure, fine, take it.  I'm going to play a different game.  We'll see how that goes.  As of right now, I am letting go.  If anyone out there needs me to do anything, let me know.  I can do pretty much anything.  Except care about petty, banal bullshit.

Maybe Kurt said it best...



Cheers

A Madman's Work

Those are corpses on the Norwegian island of Utoya after a gunman, also suspected in yesterday's bombing in downtown Oslo, shot and killed 84 people.  The attacker dressed as a policeman and beckoned those on the island retreat to come close to him before producing the first gun from a bag.  Eye witness statements indicate that several of the victims initially pretended to be dead, in attempt to survive, but that the gunman proceeded to shoot many victims a second time.  These secondary shots are said to have been to the head with a shotgun.  Norwegian authorities have a suspect in custody.  I have never seen a press photo of mass murder before.  Click the photo to see in full size.

What I Learned Today

 

 "I think it is becoming plainly obvious to pretty much everyone that terrestrial radio is an outdated medium for delivering music. Between mobile phones, iPods, satellite radio and services like Spotify, Pandora, Slacker, you just don’t need it much anymore.  This isn’t even to mention the new cloud services that Google, Apple and Amazon have out now." (WFNY)

The five man rotation is the Dodgers' fault.  It does not keep pitchers healthier.  And it sucks.


We know that Grady Sizemore is out 4-6 weeks after sports hernia surgery.  But, what is a sports hernia?  For a well articulated explanation, go here.  Otherwise, just understand that Grady has endured a tremendous amount of pain in the abdomen/groin region, including the... testicles.  Ouch.

Cheers.

Closer Committees And Confused Colloquialisms

Wow.  This all started out because I have Ryan Madson on my fantasy baseball team.  For those of you who do not know, Madson emerged from a pack of relievers to be crowned the Phillies' closer early on in the season.  More recently he did a stint on the disabled list, from which he has just returned.  In his absence I had added Antonio Bastardo (real name) who handled the Fightin' Phils' closing duties with aplomb whilst Madson healed.  Now that both are healthy, the well wizened Charlie Manuel (wasn't he senile when he was in Cleveland?) has suggested that the NL East leaders will use the dreaded "closer by committee."  This spawned the question, "Has the closer by committee ever been used successfully?"

As I dug for the answer to this question, I felt the need to refine my query.  I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, to discover if teammates had ever posted 20 saves.  Some might argue that this is too limited a standard, that teams like the '85 Cardinals or 1990 Reds should apply.  I do not buy it.  A successful closer-by-committee implies that there was consistent and equitable success.  One guy with 30 saves and one with 10 is irrelevant.  Two dudes with 13 means the team sucked. 

Now, baseball-reference.com has a great tool to discover exactly such situations.  Unfortunately, they want me to pay for the privilege of using it.  F that.  After much Googling, it seems that a team has had two relievers with 20 saves or more exactly once: the 1986 New York Mets.

The '86 Mets won the World Series (What up, Bill Buckner?), so this is pretty fantastic success.  As Roger McDowell (22 saves) and Jesse Orosco (21) split closing duties, the Mets piled up 108 regular season wins.  Now, if I contend, as I do, that relief pitchers need defined roles (i.e. only one person can be the closer), how do I account for this?

Feeling the need to avoid both a deeply statistical argument (the insignificance of a single event in a sea of seasons) and no argument at all, the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" popped into my head.  A-ha.  The '86 Mets would be said exception.  But wait, that phrase does not make any sense.  So, I looked it up.  Turns out that the saying has its roots in a Latin legal precept, "exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis" ("the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted").  It is the second clause that provides the oft ignored nuance.  Most take the colloquialism to mean that every rule needs an exception in order to be valid.  Rather it should be interpreted that in order for there to be an exception, there must first be a rule.  In other words, I cannot say that closer-by-committee does not work because of the 1986 Mets.  Instead, if I state "the only time the closer-by-committee was successful was with the 1986 Mets," it can then be assumed that the close-by-committee does not work except with the Mets in 1986.  You see the exception (the only time it worked was '86) proves the rule (the closer-by-committee does not work).

All that being understood, I am baffled why no less than five teams (Nationals, Cardinals, White Sox, Mets, Phillies) have been in multiple closer situations this season.  It happens in every season.  It fails in every season (who remembers the '04 Indians?).  It never lasts.  Inevitably one man commands the role.  There is a reason that the arrangement is always temporary.  It does not work.  Except for the '86 Mets.

Don't Forget To Turn Off the Light At the End Of the Tunell

Sometimes the truth is impossible to discern (Verbal Kint was Kaiser Soze?).  At other times it is painfully obvious (Insert Scooby-Doo mystery).  Often it is nothing but nonsensical blather (Paging Night.  Paging M. Night.)  But, when that wave crests just as the sun rises over the mountain top, truth can be both nuanced and all-important (The 1st rule is...).

When I see war, I see this...



The Vietnam war and the social movement surrounding it were clear.  There were hawks and doves, hippies and squares, those looking forward and those looking back.  It was a seminal time (get your mind out of the gutter) in American history.  A throng of well educated idealists led a charge against imperialism and neo-manifest destiny, a bold cultural cacophony that fed both the heart and the mind.  The best and the brightest fought for a nation that might allow the vision of the world's greatest country to endure.  Against a backdrop of teenagers' blood a massive groundswell poured to life with the battle as crystalline as Swavorski.

The enemy we struggle against today is not nearly so well-defined.  He has lurked for longer than we care to remember, reveling in our failures and betraying the worst in us into a way of life.  For a population born with every advantage possible, with gifts and magics that our forefathers could scarcely imagine, we choose to wallow in the ostentatious mire of ignorance and sloth.  The enemy is the mud on the mirror, the anger or denial that you might feel at accepting this.  We are failures.  We are babbling, incoherent fools.  We have lost sight of any sort of human values and degraded into pigs at the trough.  Wow, that was a terrific episode of Ice Loves Coco, another miracle of modern musicianship from Big Time Rush, and, OMG, what an incisive tweet from @KhloeKardashian.  My favorite nugget of radiant intellect --

I had a nip slip and I loved it! But my twat is fine! 

Khloe had the classless audacity to post these photos of her 13 and 15 year old half-sisters (and some friends).  Notice her watermark if you think I'm kidding.

If we were actually doing anything, I might entertain the concept.  Half intense production needs the balance of half debauchery.

Meet me at Galt's Gulch.  Bring some liquor... And Kate Upton.

Cheers.