PN:
What’s Buggin’ You?
No one likes to be told the same story repeatedly. At the risk of boring anyone, this tale must be told over and over. There are people (I’m giving them latitude here – benefit of the doubt) who find conspiracy in every aspect of life. Perhaps with a barely plausible rationale, most often out of ignorance, stupidity, or meanness. The number of parents refusing to let their children be vaccinated is increasing. These folks are playing a dangerous game with someone else’s life – it borders on child abuse. “Religion”. religious fervour, and the “holy scriptures” of faith DO NOT TRUMP THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL. The old adage of “I brought you into this world and I will take you out” is a ridiculous vacuous and malicious statement, best uttered when stone drunk, enabling total denial in a more sober thoughtful moment. I and Joe are old enough to have seen life BEFORE immunization and wonder drugs, before the miracle of vaccination. At the age of 7 years I contracted pneumonia and was bed ridden for almost 6 months – there were no “miracle drugs” available to the average Torontonian at that time, or perhaps my parents couldn’t afford them. I remember horrible fever dreams, breathing problems, a steamer constantly running in my room. Vicks Vaporub and I were best pals, and my loving mother hovering around me was the only angel between my frail existence and the grim reaper. There were tense moments where my life and future health was in jeopardy. Sulphur drugs were the order of the day. If I succumb to pneumonia today, the cure would be much quicker, much less traumatic. I remember, as a child, visiting a relative about my own age. He was frail and lived most of his life in a crib – he had polio. There was no cure, there was no vaccine. Those things are well in the past in Canada because of the hard work and heavy investment of brilliant people, people of vision, and good old capitalists looking to make a profit. Here is a table that details the progress made since the last century –
Do doctors and modern medicine know all the answers? Of course not. Could your little Johnny or Clarice be the one in a million or one in a zillion who dies from the “cure”? It is possible. Unless you have scientific data or evidence indicating your precious offspring will be in danger by following the medical community’s recommendation, I suggest no amount of fervent kneeling grovelling supplicantery to your “faith” will bring you a cogent solution or tenable position. Besides, your obstinacy based on “belief” in the face of science will be of little comfort should the unthinkable result. As a parent you have a duty to take the best care of your young until such time as they can provide for themselves. They are your charges, not your property. Stop using your children as weapons or pawns in your political campaign!
Stop abusing your childs (Ebonically friendly for the language handicapped).
It doesn’t take much imagination to connect the dots from the above caricature to strapping bombs on your babies.
Jesus purportedly said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” in whatever language it was spoken and / or written. Sounds good until you parse it: then it is more sinister than benign. Unless, of course, it means my fantasy world is beyond your reach. He also is credited with another expression which contains the words “suffer the little children……”
Joe says “Let the children be in their childhood as children, safe and free from the projected ambitions and inadequacies of maligned adults.” Not so poetic, but in English for all to see, then comprehend.
Mewzak
Walking through the Safeway in search of tomato stewed zucchini (a Del Monte treasure), minding my own business. Joe says hey, hear that? I says what? Joe says listen! I says well, ho-lee-shit, that’s the Led Zepplin! Joe says, what else? I says, ho-lee-shit, it ISN’T Stairway to Heaven. Joe says, God damn the marketing mans……
Never did find the zucchini.
The old expression “caveat emptor” (buyer beware) is as pertinent as ever it was. Most folks interpret that expression as meaning watch out for shabby product and exorbitant cost. That is always true. But there are many other dimensions a purchaser might consider before parting with hard earned (or easily gained) filthy lucre. Peer pressure is one common dimension of false persuasion. What parent hasn’t been pestered to the border of dementia by relentless cajoling for those items or privileges “Suzy has….” Sorry to any Suzy within eyeshot. Or drooling over a friend’s new possession. These are “emotional logic” arguments, where objective rationale flies out all the windows.
Another type of “emotional logic” is mood setting: framing the environment in such a way as to presuppose or guarantee a specific response.
Joe and I shop for groceries almost exclusively at the “Wholesale Club” (no membership), which is an arm of the Superstore / Lawblaws / President’s Choice group of companies. The Wholesale Club don’t need no stinkin’ mewzak. Industrial looking, no fancy frills or uniforms, the staff most definitely DO NOT moonlight as fashion models or movie stars, Pallets of goods arranged on the floor, large quantity / volume packaging, special pricing for multiples. The sounds you hear are those produced by humankind: human-like beings moving and sneezing and breathing and farting and doing what humanity does.
Unlike Safeway, which has an entirely different look – the displays, the decoration, the Mewzak, the people in sharp uniforms. This is ambiance, and you pay more for it.
Which led me to ponder…… what other music might be used to put people “in the mood” to purchase what they wouldn’t, more than they should, and be oblivious? Jimi Hendrix Montovani style was also on the Safeway soundtrack. What if they used the real thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymv3YHZEawY
Can you imagine what sort of items you’d buy listening to what starts at 9:35…… Joe says not to worry until the day Frank Zappa is loud and clear in the produce aisle. Time then to bug out (Joe’s Garage):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1TS6ce9Ve8
Intellectual Froglegs
Joe Dan Gorman is the author of a bi-monthly polemic video. As he says, he hates politics but doesn’t want to be caught unaware. You can see his work here. The latest is called “Implausible Deniability”:
Joe Dan uses humour, video clips, music, and the immense power of juxtaposition to make his points. As he says, “I thought getting old would take longer“. Joe and I agree, and add the words of H.L. Menken “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”
CANADA
The complaints about the Harper / Conservative government I hear from certain friends and acquaintances fall on deaf ears. Not only are Joe and I fans of the Harper conservatives, the leadership and policy decisions since they were elected has served Canadians well – stand alone – but especially when compared to other countries. Here is a graph from the World Bank charting the deficit of various countries as a % of GDP –
Read the graph. Canada is outperforming every country. Yes, the “debt” has risen, there is no argument. In comparative terms, Canada weathered the latest series of “adjustments” better than the rest. Read the entire report here.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
What with Hillarious, Obambi, and Lurch (John Kerry) carroming off one another making fools of themselves, the Dimocrats, and the Refuseicans, while endangering the entire world most especially the Middle East, it is very appropriate to quote one of the better respected presidents from earlier days –
“The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labour, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.”
– President Theodore Roosevelt
They don’t call them “Dim-o-crats” without reason. It is precisely that they exhibit no ability to reason in terms of budget, foreign affairs, race, whatever you can imagine. My favourite foreign country is in deep trouble. Surely the honest hard working citizenry wouldn’t consider a Dimocrat next election, no matter how many illegal “immigrants”, convicts, dead people, and mentally challenged a-holes they manage to “incite to vote”. The latest iteration of the GOP is no alternative. Time for a third party to return the country to the tenants of the constitution – a country of law, liberty, and equal opportunity.
ISRAEL
As of Wednesday it seems Bibi Netanyahu and the Leka Party have managed to be re-elected.
Obambi didn’t take the news too well –
I’m surprised a girly-man could kick down a door. Musta been open…. What remains to be revealed is how complicit is this administration amidst charges of funding campaigns in opposition to Mr. Netanyahu and his party. Meanwhile, the facts of the matter haven’t changed –
Barack Obambi and his minions have got to be the most impeachable administration in the history of that great country. I weep for my brother countrymen. They could use a Harper or Tony Abbott…. Or a Richard Nixon or Ronald Regan or ANYBODY but a lefcom…..
POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOUR, STUPID
Meanwhile, in Brazil –
THE CULTURE (THERE IS ONLY ONE)
Gavin McInnes has an interesting perspective on the fashion world. What would it be like if dudes ran fashion?:
GUNS, GUNNERS, GUNNERY
SUNDAY SERMON
Daniel Dennett gives today’s sermon from a TED talk in 2007 – his response to Rick Warren. A repetition of ideas he has presented here before:
WEATHER (OR NOT)
Spring is finally here! The grass is riz, the birds are yelling, the buds are popping, the daffodildos will bloom in one or two more days. Hail yesterday with big rain – a mud bog in the yard. A tiny spot of rain today (Sunday). Life and weather are good. The Spring (spring?) has returned to my step, and Joe is seething with ideas to complete projects, to start projects, and to celebrate completed projects. Winter is almost bearable in retrospect. Outside working in a tee shirt all day. Getting vitamin D (“D” for damn time you got here!). It’s not just perspective, it’s REALLY getting milder!
Joe (Renewed) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez has perspective (from the pages of Investor’s Business Daily)
