The Kilroy instinct

What is the fascination people have for sharing information, posting blogs, pictures, facebook, myspace?   Posting mundane information, current and relevant information, instant information, illegal information, pirated music and movies.   We post everywhere and we have posted since the dawn of time, cavemen’s posts are studied to this day from France to Australia. As you walk through Pompeii there are countless modern names etched into the ancient walls.  These modern graffiti mix with ancient political campaigns and well wishes and poems on the same walls. As you visit Egyptian monuments, more of the same. People posting their presence in places they know are inappropriate.  People post pirated movies, music, software online with full knowledge of the illegality of their actions. These aren’t exceptions, they are the norm! The post medium has changed over time, but the desire to post remains the same. There are enough pirate posts online to change the course of entire industries.  Why do we do it, what’s in it for the one posting that he would defy convention and laws? We are compelled to do it.  Why?

We cannot exist alone and remain completely sane, millions of years of evolution have made us social creatures, it’s innate, and it’s part of our genetic make-up, our DNA: we are social creatures.  We are also self aware, we understand that we exist as individuals.  The combination of those two traits, society and self awareness, over millions of years has created in us an instinct for which we have no name.  It’s a basic instinct to have our existence verified by others.  It is not enough to live in society, and it is not enough to be self aware, we must have witnesses to our existence.  It’s instinctive.

The combination of social animal and self awareness evolved into an instinct that creates a desire that our society be aware of us. Self awareness alone apparently doesn’t do it for us, neither does being in society if no one is aware of us. We have evolved what I will call the Kilroy instinct, we need others to witness our existence. Something that says to others “I was here.” It’s instinctive because it is a self contained aspect of our common condition like vanity, pride, creativity, reproduction and survival, it is an instinctive aspect that is an essential component of all those conditions. The Kilroy instinct mixes the social creature with the self aware creature who then expects an awareness of the self from society. It wants to say “I’m here”.

It’s not pride, it’s not ambition, it’s not ego, but it is an element in each of those things. Without this instinct we would not have pride, ambition or egos, it is an essential ingredient to human aspiration. Consider pride without an aspect that thirsts for witnesses, for social awareness.  Consider vanity without an aspect that thirsts to make the statement “I am here, be aware of me”.  It’s instinctive, like breathing, it’s self preservation, but it’s not the self preservation that keeps you from jumping out of an office building window, it’s the self preservation what hungers to have that building named after you. But it’s not ambition, it’s an ingredient of ambition. Ambition, in its many facets, says “I want more”, the Kilroy instinct is right beneath that surface saying “I want more because I will gain witnesses to my existence”.  It’s an ingredient in all of human aspirations, but not the aspiration itself, so it has no name.

We communicate to gain recognition, to be noticed, to have our existence in the world acknowledged.  It’s not the self actualization on the top of Maslow’s pyramid, a starving person, or one who is living in unstable and unsafe conditions still has this instinct.  It’s a component of every suicide note. It screams “I was here. Now you know that I was here”.  Since everyone shares this instinct we don’t stop to try to understand, we simply accept it as a natural part of who we are.  Why do jumpers leave their shoes on the bridge? Mostly because of this unnamed instinct.  Existence without some sort of validation is a depressing thing, it violates our very nature. 

The Kilroy instinct is a way to ensure continuity, an immortality of sorts.  It’s why we procreate, it’s why write books, paint, and hunger for fame, beauty and youthfulness that is noticed.  We want witnesses.  We call it art, we call it vanity, pride, ambition, gregariousness, creativity, we have many descriptions for aspects of the human condition that depend on this instinct.  But none for the essential ingredient in each of those conditions. We create art for many reasons, but each of those reasons includes an aspect of “I was here and you saw me”.  We wear makeup and the latest fashions for many reasons, but each includes that same ingredient, a need for witnesses to our existence.

We call it acceptance, we long to be accepted by our peers, our parents, our mentors, our friends.  We need people to acknowledge our existence, everyone who reads “Leonardo” on the Ramesseum wall, everyone who downloads a pirated movie, everyone who reads a tweet, a blog post, a book is acknowledging the existence of the person who posted, is witnessing his existence in action. It says “I was here, and you saw it”.

It’s the reason social networks have boomed, it’s part of the reason we write blogs, it’s an ingredient in the pride we take in a job well done when it’s recognized.  It’s not pride, it’s a component of pride. It’s a component in the reason we erect tombstones on graves, it’s an ingredient in why we find the desecration of that same tombstone offensive:  it goes against our Kilroy instinct. The tombstone says “I was here” to deface that goes against our instinct.  It’s not an instinct to preserve the memory of the dead, but it is one of its elements. It’s a component of friendships, a friend is a constant witness to one’s existence as is a husband or wife or a child. It is even involved in our need to create gods.  If we have no other reliable witness to our existence, if there is nothing we can do ourselves to gain verification of our existence, if there is no wall upon which to etch our names, then god suffices.  No one else may know I exist, but “God loves me”.

It’s part of the reason we admire people who have become famous, it’s the part of the reason we buy gossip magazine.  Our instinct for recognition and witnesses to our existence see the celebrities’ complete recognition by society and is drawn in, it wants more, it basks in the reflection. It’s a bit like staring at a picture of a pitcher of ice-tea when one is thirsty.

This thirst, this biological need for acknowledgment of our existence, this desperate desire to have our existence recognized doesn’t have a name.  It’s not “ego”, though Freud skirted the concept with his id/ego routine, but he addressed human aspirations, not the components of those aspirations. - By the way, he also lost all credibility with the whole ‘penis envy’ concept.  Seriously ‘penis envy’? Sheesh!

So it doesn’t have a name, I called it the Kilroy instinct, you may call it whatever you like.  It is the unsung hero or villain of the human condition. Whether it is good or evil, it is part of us and unless we give up being social beings or self aware, it will continue to be a part of us and it will keep us posting on cave walls, and on the internet until the end of our days.

Offensive language for offensive intentions

So Mark Twain’s classic story of a boy growing up in the American south during slavery is being rewritten… The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is being expurgated.  All the nasty offensive bits are being removed so it is more palatable to today’s more politically correct audience.  It will no longer offend our delicate sensibilities. Electing Bush twice and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in two illegal wars is palatable; the N-word in a classic work of literature however, is more than we can take.  To the 40% of the Americans who don’t believe in evolution history is a malleable thing. If they don’t like it, change it, it’s that simple.  

My problems with this idea are too numerous to mention, but they can be classified into two categories, literary and historical:
Literary:

1. You didn’t write it assholes! It’s not yours to change!
2. You don’t like it…. don’t fucking read it! No one is forcing you.
3. Oh, it’s required reading at your kid’s school so you are in fact being forced to read it, you say…That’s because it’s a classic work of literature, written by a brilliant man, depicting a time in history where such vocabulary and actions were the norm and your child will benefit enormously from the knowledge. And here is a novel concept for you… let your child make up his own mind about the book, he’s in high school and even though you are a limited troll-like creature with the IQ of a Texas School Board member, there might still be some hope for your child, who knows.
4. First amendment, free speech, freedom of expression… ring a bell?
5. Censorship is a bad thing, accept that as a fact, it’s true. Repeat after me “Freedom of expression….goood. Censorship…. baaad.”

Mark Twain was never politically correct, he was brilliant freethinker who questioned the government, society and his peers.  Through his brilliant body of work he gained worldwide fame, his works have been translated and admired around the world, he is an icon of American culture.  Which begs the question of the people who are expurgating his work: Who the fuck are YOU?

Historical:
The time and place of the story could never be politically correct by our standards, there were in fact slaves in the south and the N word was used in reference to them.  That cannot be changed. It already happened. It’s done. It can no more be changed than the US’s economy and international credibility can be restored after GWB.  It’s gone and cannot be altered.

Now as to the N word that is so offensive: it’s just a word, a specific group of letters to which a meaning is assigned. That group of letters can only be as offensive as the meaning that is assigned to it.  The only reason the N word is offensive is that it carries its historic connotation.  It is offensive because slavery and the demeaning subjugation of an entire population is offensive to us.  If historically it had been used to refer to puppies today we would probably think it’s a cute word. The group of letters alone is not offensive, the context and the history associated to that group of letters, on the other hand, is extremely offensive. So by removing the N word from its historic context, by expurgating The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn we are actually removing the characteristic that makes the word offensive, its association with slavery in the south. Remove slavery, subjugation, subservience, imprisonment, and the horrors of that social condition from the word and it will no longer be offensive. Similarly, remove the offensive word from the context of slavery and the context itself will be less offensive. Therefore any attempt to sanitize works like Huckleberry Finn is in fact an attempt to assuage the horrors of a slave past, and doing so is offensive to the memories and histories of the people who had to endure those horrors.  It happened! People lived through that humiliation and social depravity for centuries. And now these assholes come along with some whitewash to make it seem less than it really was.  No! The N word is offensive because its history is offensive, you cannot remove it from that context without making the context itself less offensive, and to do so is to spit in the face of millions of people who suffered and still suffer with the injustices of slavery.

It has been said that if we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.  In this case it seems to me that some assholes are trying to sanitize the history of slavery in America to make it more palatable to the younger generation.  What exactly are their intentions?

Is Twitter a stage (re-edited)

The stage has always been part of human civilizations. We have always had a need to tell stories. Take a caveman painting a hunting scene on a wall, this was not the action of a lonely artist sitting in a cave by himself, it was a social occasion. We can just see the largest and bravest caveman being taunted by his fellow hunters with innuendos about size of his spear. The rules for theater etiquette started being evolving in those gatherings.

The ancient Romans had a strict social hierarchy in their theater seating arrangements, at first only the elite got to sit, later everyone sat but the elite sat in the first few rows. The rules of etiquette in a Roman theater audience were few, when blood sports are on the stage few restrictions are placed on the behavior of the audience. In the Globe the elite would actually sit on the stage. From those cave days to today we have developed a complex set of rules for behavior on and around a stage.

A few rules of etiquette are common sense and widely understood, you should arrive on time. Recently a veteran Brazilian actress managed to pass a law preventing people who arrive late from entering the theater during the performance. You should refrain from talking, especially to the actors on stage, and on your cell phone. But there is a lesser-known theater rule of etiquette that was never posted in the lobby: don't pinch the actor’s butt. Once in an off-Broadway theater I was on an aisle seat of a Frank Langella play in which the sword fight could not be contained to the stage and in a lunge motion Mr. Langella's butt was inches from my shoulder. My mother, who has always been a bad influence, whispered to me "pinch it". Even though the no-butt-pinching rule is not explicit, if I had pinched the butt of the most gorgeous man to walk the earth, I would have been kicked out of the theater and probably banned from Broadway. Heckling is a few notches below butt pinching, but still unacceptable. Throwing things on stage, unwrapping noisy candy, kicking the chair in front of you, wearing tall hats, etc. are all against etiquette.

So is Twitter a stage? Do the rules of etiquette apply to Twitter interactions? When I follow a celebrity on Twitter is he or she on a stage and am I in the audience? Is Twitter just another technological advancement of the stage, like trap doors and pulley systems or better lighting, or is it a brave new world? Am I heckling an actor on a stage if I post 140 characters that irk him, am I disrupting the audience if I post a lame story in his audience's timeline, or tweet him incessantly with mundane comments?

Twitter allows celebrities and brands to interact directly with the public, to have specific and personal conversations with the audience, so it is not a stage.  At the same time the information in such cases flows in one direction: one celebrity communicates to thousands or millions of followers in the audience, so it is a stage. But there is no script, no direction and no actual stage, so it can’t be a stage.  What the hell is it?

Recently Setephen Fry threatened to walk off Twitter because someone in his audience commented that his tweets are boring.  "I admire and adore Fry, but his tweets a bit... boring... (sorry Stephen).”  So is that the equivalent of a bad review on the NY post? Is it enough to shut down production, turn off the lights and send the caterer home?  Apparently to Stephen Fry it almost was.  Open praise and criticism is part of the communication in Twitter, but was Fry heckled on stage? Did someone throw an egg and some tomatoes onto his Twitter stage?  Brent Spiner on the other hand takes a completely different approach.  Instead of walking off Twitter when hecklers spit venom at him he adds them in his list of favorites.  Twitter provides a separate space for people to save their favorite tweets and Mr. Spiner’s is filled with the most evil and vile comments lobbed at him from the orchestra seats. He takes back control of his Twitter by turning the spot light on the troublemaker.

So is Twitter a stage? Twitter is a conversation, a stage, a seat in a lecture auditorium, crowd of strangers, a bunch of friends over for a barbecue, a news channel, graffiti on a wall, a short story, a poem, a star trek convention, an art gallery, a hug and a slap on the face all at the same time and in the same place. Suddenly the rules we spent millions of years perfecting don't apply. It's a brave new world and we are starting from scratch.  New rules must be developed, the problem is that new etiquette rules take hundreds of years to evolve and gain acceptance, but the technology that creates the necessity for those new rules evolves in a matter of months.  By the time we come up with some sort of Twitter etiquette we will be wondering if it’s rude to use the new telepathy gadget to get some racy images out of George Clooney’s girlfriend’s head.

(invisible) Mountain climbing cats

(update) I have since been back with a decent camera and here is a new video where the cats described below are actually no longer invisible.


I'm staying at my uncle's in Rio. The apartment has a view of Aterro do Flamengo from the living room and of the Morro da Viuva (widow's mountain/peak/hill) from the back bedrooms. I've been working out of one of the back bedrooms for a few days now and Morro da Viuva has kept me company just outside the window while I worked. It's a great rock!  To my surprise I have discovered that there are cats living on this rock. I've seen between 6 to 8 cats roaming around the rock face.  My window is on the 15th floor plus two levels of garage and a playground, so technically it's the 18th floor. Cats roam around the at rock window level!!  I don't have a video camera with me, so the video below is horrible, but in the center of the shot there is a yellow cat who had been napping on a ledge just outside my window and decided to climb down. It's hard to see, actually it's almost impossible to see, sorry.  You'll have to take my word for it that there is a cat in the shot.

Here is another impossible to see cat, this one is black also mid-shot, there is a little more contrast because he's black.  He's the black spot on the right. Next time I'll bring a video camera....

This one gives you a better sense of the size of this rock and where these cats live. Yes I said cats! There were cats in these videos... really there were, trust me.

Brazilian Christmas is out to get me

Brazil is a tropical country.  Always has been. Christmas in Brazil is smack dab in the middle of summer, a tropical summer.  Temperatures hover around 32C and 38C (89-100F), needless to say there is not one single solitary flake of snow anywhere in the country.  It’s a large country but you can look on the highest mountain top and the lowest valley, you’re not going to find snow. Not one spec of it.  Brazil also has a varied culture based on African and European ancestries and Brazilians in general are proud of their heritages and traditions.  So explain something to me, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.  Why is this the Christmas decoration in every single shopping center in the country?

Why does Santa wear a long winter coat and warm winter hat while dripping with perspiration and cursing Christmas, his damned job and probably every child who sits on his lap? There are no candy canes here people! There is no candy cane tradition, Brazilians have never seen an actual candy cane.

Somewhere along the way American and European shopping centers discovered that Christmas decorations increase sales.  Brazilian shopping centers imported the concept along with the temperature and country inappropriate decorations and presto.  Here we are. 

Personally I’m convinced it’s a plot to annoy me.  Yes, me personally.  I’m the only one who seems to mind the ice skating polar bears and snow sleds, everyone else thinks they are great.  Don’t you just hate it when an entire holiday conspires to annoy you personally?  Well I’ll just show it!  Next year I’m going somewhere with snow and Brazilians can photograph their dancing penguin decorations and watch their culture sell-out and deteriorate in the name of higher shopping center sales. There are those who say I should simply not care and enjoy the holiday, obviously those are just crazy people who don’t understand that the Brazilian Christmas is out to get me. Next year I'm going to get a snow shovel, just like Mel Edison in Prisoner of Second Avenue and I'll show them. I'll show them all, bwa ha ha.

glitz and glamour

I’m bored! You probably look at me and think my life is all glamour and beauty…Ha! Let me tell you something, it ain’t!  Sure I look great, sure I cost a pretty penny and everyone is always so careful around me.  Apparently I break.  I watched a plate break the other day, horrible. So now I’m bored and afraid someone might bump the table and break me. Bored and afraid that’s my life.  Not to mention this ridiculous pose I have to hold - get this - for the rest of my freaking life!  Bored, bored bored. 

The phone’s never bored, but what a gossip… besides there are four of them in the house… I’m unique.  Unique, bored and afraid, yep that’s me.  Hand-painted, yesiree bob, every inch of me. Every time they reach for that stupid gossipy phone I think they’re going to knock me down. 

Take it from me, glitz and glamour are not all they seem to be. Most of the time you’re just bored and afraid.

Porto Alegre

My mailing address has only read "Porto Alegre" three years, two years during high school for one year recently. All of the rest of my four decades my mailing address has been elsewhere in the world. So it’s surprising that every time an airplane takes off from Porto Alegre, ripping me out of the city as it climbs, there are tears in my eyes.  It never fails, as I watch Salgado Filho airport out of the plane’s window and the plane takes flight, as it distances itself from the ground, it rends my soul.  There is a bit of my soul that must remain behind because it can exist nowhere else. It's childhood memories and a hundred years of buried ancestors, it's long summer days of now faded vacations and the lesson that a loving carefree childhood must give way to whatever this is that I take on the plane with me. The soul that is mine today rips apart from the bit that must remain behind and comes with me on the airplane, and I cry. The soul I leave behind sits there, rooted to that spot on earth and whimpers, calling me to return. Over the decades I have learned to live without that piece of soul, over the years I have heard it call to me and I have felt the pain of a soul wanting to be whole again. But humans learn to live with pain and this was no different, I could almost forget I was in constant pain. And when I've answered the call and returned, my soul reunited with that bit of soul that remained rooted, whimpering and malnourished in the Porto Alegre soil and the pain subsided.

Now I know that leaving Porto Alegre will kill me some day.  Not a quick instant death, but rather a slow prolonged wearying of the soul that drains the life out of a person. And I understand more of a self destructive nature that plans to someday leave this place.

The founder of WikiLeaks is under arrest for having sex without a condom

Here is what CNN is not saying or stressing. American media is censoring the story to the extreme extent that Twitter will not trend #wikileaks and CNN accuses Assange of 'rape' without qualifying the charges in any way.  The implication is that Assange is guilty of  'rape' as defined by the American legal system which is always an extremely violent crime involving non-consequential sex. By accusing Assange of 'rape' without qualifying the story, CNN and other American Media are painting him with the same brush as violent criminals that are little more than animals. That is not the case. That CNN chooses to paint such a picture shows the extent of the decline of the American press.  Unbiased and free press no longer exists!!! DON'T KID YOURSELF THAT IT DOES.   Here is what the international media is qualifying the story, information that is not readily available to mainstream American audience.

The founder of WikiLeaks is under arrest for having sex without a condom
Swedish law considers unprotected sex a type of sexual violence.
For having had sexual relations with two Swedish women without a condom, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now faces sexual violence and rape charges and awaits for possible deportation to Sweden where the charges were filed.

The case spurred public curiosity not only because it involves a famous defendant, who is hated by many powerful people, but also for involving a complex system of laws.

Assange’s actions, based on testimony from the his two ex-lovers, were interpreted by the legal system as "rape, sexual abuse and illegal coercion", as stated by the Swedish prosecution.  Both he and the women state, however, that sex was consensual.  The only problem was the absence of the preservative, which would have been requested by both women, but denied by the Australian.

Having unprotected sex in Sweden is punishable by a minimum of two years in prison for rape.  According to Assange’s lawyer, in a declaration made in August when the accusations were made, the term used to classify the crime is a "target for mockery” and “dramatically” damages the reputation of the accused.  All of this under a legal system that is a benchmark of modernity.

In both relationships, Assange had problems wearing a condom.

Criticism aside, one of the Swedish women with whom Assange was involved says that the condom broke during the relations, according to the British newspaper Daily Mail.  In this case, under the laws of the country, consensual sex that starts with a condom and ends without it become a type of non-consensual sex.

The other lover alleges that twice she had relations with the founder of WikiLeaks, once with a condom and once without.  That time she requested the use of a condom, but Assange would have refused.  Again the law is on the woman’s side.

The lawyer for the women denies a political ploy.

For the Australian, his arrest is part of a political ploy designed to prevent the publication of secret documents by WikiLeaks.  The lawyer for the women, Claes Borgstrom, states that his clients are not involved in any sort of conspiracy against Assange.

Borgstrom also said that the Swedish women’s statement is plausible and that there is a great chance that Swedish justice will accuse Assange, if he is extradited and heard in testimony in the country.

Assange surrendered to the police in London and should be under arrest until December 14, when he will again be deposed.  He stated that he will fight his extradition.

Translation of a news article published by R7 Notícias Brazilian online newspaper on 12/09/2010
 

Brazilian oil and the 1967 Palestinian border

Well if you live in the world and occasionally read the news you might have heard that yesterday (Dec 3) Lula, the Brazilian president, declared that Brazil recognizes the Palestinian state respecting the 1967 borders. Specifically [translated]:

“The recognition of the Palestinian state is part of the Brazilian conviction that a negotiation process resulting in two States that live in peace and security is the best path to peace in the Middle East (…) Brazil will always be ready to assist as necessary.”

Furthermore, the Brazilian government stressed that the announcement will not damage its relations with Israel, which have never been so strong.

You probably think I’m going to comment on the wisdom of this decision and saturate this post with impassioned personal opinions and convictions… wrong. This issue has nothing to do with ideologies, peace, or even the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Nothing at all. It has everything to do with oil, Brazilian oil.

A few years back Brazil discovered billions of barrels of offshore oil, it is called the Pre-salt layer.  Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company was state owned until a few administrations ago when a large portion was privatized. Now the Pre-Salt oil belongs to Brazil and a few international oil companies like Shell, BP etc, but still Brazil stands to change its fortune with the discovery.  Recently another phenomenal reserve was found, in even deeper waters, and these reserves had not been earmarked or negotiated to any other country or company, they belong entirely to Brazil. Jackpot. So how is Palestine’s 1967 borders and deep water Brazilian oil related? Simple: Iran.

How you may ask.  Consider several factors:

• Lula’s 8 year administration has sought to move the Brazilian economy forward and away from the historically tight grasp of the United States. 
• Brazil does not have the technology to explore deep water oil, and it would take years to develop such technologies.
• The US is not willing to provide the technology unless it is once again invited to sit at feast.

Brazil’s problem then is how to acquire this technology without once again kowtowing to the US?

Brazil had to find a partner for the technology it needs, a partner that is not simply a mouthpiece for the US.  Countries like United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, occupied Iraq, etc, could not be relied upon for a partnership that excluded the US.  A moment of thought and you will see that the choices are very few.  Recently Brazil has been grooming its relationship with Iran.  Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery was publicly offered asylum by the Brazilian government.  That is, until Iran thanked Lula for his concern and told him to butt out.  There have been other signs of a relationship between the countries, a relationship groomed to acquire Iranian technologies to explore the Pre Salt layer.  The latest indication is the recognition of the Palestinian state.

Today Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority. 

“(…)and lobby the United Nations to recognize Palestinian statehood, bypassing negotiations entirely. "I cannot accept to remain the president of an authority that doesn't exist."

Why did he Abbas make such a statement? did you guess ‘oil’? Here is how the dots connect:  If Brazil now recognizes the Palestinian state in the UN, it will have more power to pass. Brazil recognized the Palestinian state because it was pressured to do so by Iran, so that Iran will provide Brazil with the technology to explore the pre-salt layer which contains… yes OIL.

Oil baby.  It’s all about the oil. It has nothing to do with peace in the region, political and religious ideologies, history or any such thing. Only oil. But when you watch the interviews and the news they will all tell you that it’s in pursuit of peace in the region and the well being of the world’s population, saving the environment, stopping global warming, leaving a better legacy for our children and saving the whales. So maybe it actually is all about the bullshit…  I’m off to put some cow manure in my tank and see how far I can drive.  You can draw your own conclusions!

Bats! Bats everywhere

As I mentioned in a previous post Everyone's gonne batty, there are bats downtown Porto Alegre.  It's against the law to kill them.  These are insect eating bats, no chance of mosquitoes tonight, and this was shot out my kitchen window.  Anything you see moving in this shot is a bat, don't just focus on the foreground, look at the hundreds of bats in the sky in the background.  This goes on for hours and they make a high pitched chirping noise that can be heard through closed windows.  And you thought I was exaggerating. 

bridging the gap

... Sometimes I wonder if I deserve a dog...

BTW she wanted a fly buzzing on the window

Great victory for the 9/11 terrorists

What was the ultimate goal of the 9/11 terrorists? To cause fear, to make Americans feel unsafe in their very homes.  Well they were incredibly successful weren’t they?  The latest proof comes in the form of body scanners and sexual molestation by TSA employees. If you are an American traveler you now have three choices 1. subject yourself to the humiliation of a revealing x-ray of your body, along with all the health risks x-rays may entail; if you refuse your next choice is 2. an extremely intrusive pat down by a TSA employee, the sort of molestation you would report as a sexual assault under any other circumstances; or if you refuse that 3. face legal charges for maintaining your dignity.

Well it seems to me that the 9/11 terrorists were victorious. Americans have given up their liberty, privacy and even their right to peaceful assembly due to the actions of those men.  If that’s not a victory I don’t know what is.

By giving up our dignity, liberty, privacy and blindly kowtowing to the demands implemented without thought or planning by a government that boldfaced lied in order to go to war, we have in fact surrendered before the terrorists.

I’m guessing the Taliban somewhere now have an altar where they daily praise the TSA.



If these days strip searching a five year old boy doesn't cross the line or offend our sensibilities ask yourself who won? Each time we forfeit our liberties without a second thought, the terrorists have won. And by the way think about this: Anywhere else in our society a man running his hand up and down the inner thigh of a half naked five year old boy would be regarded as child abuse, but here it's perfectly acceptable. It's not abuse and it's not terror against the father of the child who had no choice but stand there and watch his son be molested. If that boy ever runs into a pedophile, all the animal will have to say is "it's just like at the airport son" to get full cooperation from his victim. But they are keeping us safe from terrorists... who exactly are the terrorists?

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither. ....  Benjamin Franklin

the pope's twisted logic

According to the church the only occasion sex is not sinful is between a man and a woman, who were married in the catholic church having gone through some of the holy sacraments which include baptism, confirmation, confession and then marriage. Furthermore, the married couple can only have sex with the intent of procreating; any other reason for having sex is immoral, sinful and irresponsible. Working from the assumption that the entire world follows those edicts, the church has never condoned any sort of birth control. Until now. As you may have read recently the pope had the following to say:

"There could be single cases that can be justified, for instance when a prostitute uses a condom, and this can be a first step towards a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, to develop again the awareness of the fact that not all is allowed and that one cannot do everything one wants," Benedict says in the book, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times."

If in this man’s fucked-up logic condom use is justified when it will assist the user to develop a “first assumption of responsibility, develop again the awareness of the fact that not all is allowed and that one cannot do everything one wants” then it is reasonable to conclude that those conditions will exist whenever two or more people are having sex that does not comply with the restrictions stipulated by the church. According to the pope anyone having sex outside a strictly compliant catholic marriage with the intent of procreating must therefore use a condom in order to develop a “first assumption of responsibility, develop again the awareness of the fact that not all is allowed and that one cannot do everything one wants”

But if you’re in a strictly compliant catholic marriage and not trying to have another baby, you’re just shit out of luck, sorry.

Have you ever wanted something you could almost taste it?

Saskia wants a fly that's trying to get out of the window.



have you ever wanted something this much? well apparently whining, wagging and growling will not work, try something different.

i didn't mean to call Bush a lying piece of shit...

I love the internet. I love it has made the world a tiny little place. Occasionally I look at the statistics from my blog just to see where in the world readers are and I’m fascinated by the fact that people around the world somehow find my blog. People from places I’ve been and places I have yet to see, all read my blog.

Yesterday, for the first time someone from Washington D.C. accessed my blog. My Twitter account links directly to my blog and it just so happens that yesterday on Twitter I called George W. Bush a “lying piece of shit”. More precisely, this was the tweet:

Bush lying, says ex-German leader – politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/10/ex-… < Bush lying? the piece of shit has been lying since birth, how is this news CNN?

Now I’m flattering myself that some governmental institution monitors such comments and accessed my blog to ascertain whether I am some kind of threat or not. Of course it’s just speculation on my part, but just in case it’s true I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight:

Dear CIA, I didn’t really mean that George W. Bush is a lying piece of shit, I'm sorry if I gave that impression. What I meant is: George W. Bush is an enormous pile of steaming runny dog shit on a hot sidewalk and  that he lies constantly and has the IQ of a lobotomized fruit fly!

That’s all I really meant. Just to set the record straight... I would hate to be misunderstood