My God Kicked Your God's Ass!

YES!

All of the freaking Christian fanatics were praying for a miracle. They were rubbing rosaries, clasping hands, wasting time on candlelight ceremonies. Yet Terri did not miraculously rise and do the Watusi out of the hospice. The courts didn't budge and the right-wing Christian kooks in Government told everyone to screw off. Bascially, their prayers were unanswered. They lost.

I didn't pray, but I did hope for Terri to pass along and end the suffering for those that loved her so dearly. Either their god doesn't like them, perhaps even their god listened to me! I win!

Or perhaps her expiration was just the consequence of humans using the law and courts to starve a brain-dead human being. That's what happened without the spin and sugar coating.

Once again another event furthers the rift between those that trust rational thought and those that rely on belief and faith. Rules and law won. Faith, God and the multi-billion dollar industry that supports them lost.

Finally, a little thinking finally prevailed, and ironically, it took a woman without a brain to start it.

Don't Pray, Nobody's Listening.

Once again the religious are resorting to the one-size-fits-all umbrella of god. Now all of the sudden in the Terri Schaivo case science is good, doctors and scientists and medical intervention are coveted, except when they disagree with the family's medical assessment. People are protesting to have science reinvigorate a person with no brain. However, the same people don’t believe in stem cell research, they don’t believe in evolution, they don’t believe in objective science. Can they really have it both ways?

If you are against stem cell research (ironically, the one technology that if developed may have saved Terri’s life), then you are against science and medicine and you have no latitude to even request extreme life saving measures. Sure, you want it if it saves YOU; but screw everyone else on their choice of therapy! It is perfect religious hypocrisy at its finest.

Nobody is listening to your prayers. God struck Terri down with a near-fatal heart attack at 26. Now for 15 years she’s been staring at a ceiling with a skull full of mush, unable to synthesize external inputs let alone respond. God must really hate her! God must really hate all of those that are praying for her! God must love her husband because he’s been living just fine. Shouldn’t you follow what are clearly God’s wishes?

Of course, each and every one of those protesters has a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker and supported the wholesale killing of civilians in Iraq. There, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Terri Schaivos, children of parents with brothers and sisters, never had the luxury of a feeding tube or medical intervention. The bomb went off, leaving them dead or dismembered. Where’s your protest now? Aren’t these God’s children too?

I guess I just don’t understand how people can believe in something abstract, like a god, then trust it over what are clear, tangible, real facts. As a nation we kill people every day for political motives. Why do the religious support that? Show me the asterisk on “Thou Shalt Not Kill!”

More Thinking About Terri Schiavo

Yesterday I realized that they have been psychologically torturing this poor soul for the last 15 years by keeping her hooked up to a feeding tube.

She was bolemic! A feeding tube to a bolemic is like covering an arachnophobe with spiders! It's like giving an alchy a tequila drip!

More to come soon. I've been fishing, not thinking, and it has been wonderful.

Jesus' Bogus Friday

Schmootize's Living Will

Maybe you've seen me on CNN. I've been down at Terri Schaivo's hospice holding up the sign that says "Pull My Tube". I had to see it all first hand. Now that all of the do-gooding Floridiot Ned Flanders types are praying by Terri's place (you see what good that's done) it is primo time to get an unharrassed abortion, so have at it ladies!

All of this time among the rosary rubbers and candle holders gave me time to reconsider this living will issue. I need to get this down in explicit detail here in this legally-binding-irrevocable BLOG format. My ghoul parents will have my body taxedermied and paraded around for weeks then mummified if they get their way. Imagine what they'll do after I'm dead! The wife knows my post-mortem wishes, but you see how well this worked out for Ol' Brainstem down there.

Here are my wishes, I mean, demands. simply put:

1. You may pull my feeding tube at any time, but DO NOT touch the drinking tube.

2. Post-mortem, please donate my body. Not to science, but to the Salvation Army. Put me into the box late at night, but be sure to get a receipt for tax purposes.

3. Most of all, I don't want to be a burden on Roxy or my family. If found anywhere near persistently vegetative, or even the troublesome side of inconvenient, if my illness causes me to consume more than I produce or if I smell bad or grow fungus on me while "alive":

YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO KILL ME. Don't just pull the plug, pull the plug and beat me with the cord, then stick the downstream side of my penile catheter tube into the vacant outlet.

I also demand that everyone move along quickly and forge a new relationship in the hole I left. Life is about living. Once you can't do it and your lack of life drains the life resources of others, it is important to not be a selfish prick and move along. Think about the others. Hail Kevorkian!

More Right-Wing Hypocrisy

Conservative lawmakers and religious folk remind us that allowing homosexuals to marry clearly desecrates the sanctity of the marital bond. They say marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman. They say it is the basis for the family, an institution that represents a unique relationship between one man and one woman. They say marriage transcends all other human bonds, and that the relationship between husband and wife should be protected and enforced.

Why do the same people not recognize the marital bond between Terri and Michael Schaivo? They were married, they shared the allegedly sacred, holy, blessed union. Under this covenant they made life promises, forged marital agreements that would be respected in the unfortunate event of tragedy. These were agreements of a marriage, allegedly endorsed by God. "Let no man come between them, 'til death do us part", isn't that how it's said?

Now the same people that demand that marriage is a sacred institution that is to be preserved are the first to put politics, feelings and beliefs ahead of an agreement between a husband and wife. So much for the sanctity of the marital bond.

You don't have to look hard to see that here the "sacrosanct bond of marriage" is being desecrated, manipulated and distorted to fit personal agendas and political motivations. Those that feel that the marital bond is a sacred, anointed, holy covenant between a man and woman that is to be protected, should support Terri and Michael’s marital decisions. They should respect his authority as her voice. Remember all that "two become one" stuff? She didn't forge the holy bond with a judge, a governor or her parents. She freely and willingly developed a relationship with her husband and his decisions should be respected as her surrogate.

Of course, that would be intellectually consistent and not hypocritical. I don't think we can expect that from conservative lawmakers and religious people.

Caption Contest!

I received this from X24 this Christmas and it makes me laugh every day.



Even though I knew that I posted this and spit coffee all over my monitor when the page loaded! There's something about seeing something on the internet that gives it some legitimacy.

Due to my lack of creative juice this morning, can I suggest we make this a caption contest? Please submit your caption under "comments".

The Drifter's Horn of Plenty

Roxanne and I were cleaning out the house, putting together the annual box to send to Salvation Army so I can go buy it all back in a few months. After all was totaled and compiled, I had two major items left, a handful of old beers and a Mexican porno movie.

The beers were holdovers from a New Year’s Eve 2003-2004 when friends brought beers of choice. I only like cheap beer (Old Mil, PBR) and microbrews, and tend to loathe the middle of the road stuff. I had in my possession three Honey Brown Lagers, two Rolling Rock “Green Lights” and two Heinekens. I don’t like any of these and they sat in the cooler until March until they were migrated to my garage where they sat in the Florida heat for a year.

The Mexican porno was an oral sex flick received as a gag gift (insert pun here) from a grab bag (insert another pun here) at a Christmas party a few years back. I never watched it. Okay, I started to watch it once and when I realized that I didn’t get English subtitles I stopped it because I could never follow a plot line in Spanish. Plus, the cover suggests it is likely evil, freaky, disturbing porn. It sat for two years on my bookshelf waiting for me to be killed in an accident so survivors could find it and infer that I was a completely freaky pervert.

Despite their intrinsic value to someone, charitable organizations shun such donations, especially when I demand a sizeable receipt for tax deduction. So I sat akimbo with the pile of stuff… what to do?

I decided to make someone’s day. We placed the items into a box. We were going to leave it by East Palatka high school, as stumbling upon a box of beer and porno as a tormented hillbilly teen is kind of like finding a zillion-dollar bill or a case of Moon Pies. A clever high school suitor could get his babe good and sauced with the crappy beer and then get her turned on with his international smut exhibit. However, discretion won, and we figured we’d get caught and go to jail, and then be labeled as sex offenders wherever we moved forever.



We decided it was a better idea to pass this gift along to those that have none; so we offered the box to the drifters, the ne'er-do-wells and cretins sequestered about the overpass by I-95. Under the cover of night, we placed the box of stuff by the overpass and slipped off into the night.

The next morning the box had predictably vanished. I didn't know for sure, but inside I knew that somewhere up in the weeds there was a guy passed out, surrounded by seven empty bottles, with one hand down his pants, the other hand clutching the porno box, and a smut-filled videocassette under his greasy locks as a pillow. Lord knows if Norman Rockwell was alive he’d be preserving the moment on canvas. It was a fine moment for me and Roxy, the right way to gift our unwanted items unfit for charitable donation to someone that would ultimately appreciate them.

Rearranging the Murder-Suicide Progression

Lately there has been a spate of murder-suicides. As the scenario unfolds, a disgruntled first party takes the lives of one or more others, usually with a firearm, before turning the weapon on himself. I say “himself” because perpetrators are predominantly males in their 30’s or 40’s.

Simply put, these guys are gutless pussies that want to inflict pain on others/their families, yet are too weak to face the consequences. Once they get the job done, they usually spatter their own grey matter to avoid prosecution, and also capitalize on the punctuation mark of not allowing others to gain any sense of retribution or closure.

Perhaps it is time to rethink this process and just endorse suicide for disgruntled sociopaths. Instead of murder-suicide, reverse the process and work with the suicide-murder. Usually you don’t get to Pass Go and collect the other life once you have done yourself in. To the would-be victim, this is likely a stone from around his/her neck, as a potential perp taking a dirt nap can’t make the late-night breathing-in-the-phone calls. There’s no stalking, no threats, just a dead pain in the ass.

For those that choose not to engage in the reverse stategery, I challenge all in the murderer-suicider population to commit the murder-suicide with something other than a gun. This takes ingenuity and a bowling ball bag for a sack. Somehow you have to now find another way to kill someone and then use the same treatment on yourself. Poison? Stabbing? Chainsaw? Hanging? None are as seamless as the bullet through the brain, and it takes a certain degree of planning and cunning.

In conclusion, the murder-suicide usually is conducted by some worthless scumbag taking the lives of useful people. It is time to rethink this popular method of departure.

His and Her Headache!

HELP! I need all of you to help me with a customer service issue. I need you to make a phone call on my behalf... please read on.

Roxanne purchased an item from His and Her Hair Goods of Los Angeles. She spends hundreds of dollars with them each month for salon supplies. She received an item, but it was not what was ordered. In fact, it was a duplicate of a previous order. His and Her Hair Goods would not generate a refund because “It is our policy, as stated on our website and receipt".

Are they high?

A second phone call earned us “store credit after the 7% restocking charge”. We have to pay them to restock their mistake?

Are they out of their minds?

Today I discussed the issue with Jill, a manager at His and Her Hair Goods. She politely returned my call and described their “no returns” policy. She then restated their generous offer to give credit and a 7% restocking charge. (The restocking charge is only $1.80, but I refuse to pay it on principle.)

I asked her, “If you order a Cadillac from me and I deliver a Hyundai to you, do you have to keep it and have no recourse?”.

She mumbled something, and I followed (angrily) with, “Why do you want to piss off a good customer for $1.80?”

She then ranted on and on at me about how she was “offended”. I told her that she should be offended because any manager that would turn away a customer over a tiny amount of money is out of her mind! I told her that I would not give her company my business and would encourage my associates to not do business with them either.

She said, “Good, we don’t want customers like you anyway.”

I was ready to explode. Here was a “customer service” MANAGER telling a customer to not spend money with her company! I asked for the owner or her supervisor and she said, “They are not available” before hanging up on me.

Here’s where I need your help. Please call 1-800-421-4417 and tell Jill, or anyone who will listen, that you are an associate of Roxanne’s and you will NEVER order from them again! Let’s give these customer no-service bastards an earful!

I NEVER have had interaction with such inept customer service in my life. They don’t deserve to be in business. I’m doing my best to present this story on-line in a truthful and honest way so everyone will know how badly they treated us. We'll pursue a refund through a credit card dispute. I hope everyone in the salon, hair color and hair extention, hair extensions business stops spending money with these idiots. I know we will!

Thanks!

Schmootzie

Keyword list for search engine retreival: His and Her Hair Goods, www.hisandher.com , extensions, hair extentions, hair extension, relaxer, relaxers, salon, color, hair color, hair, supplies.

Only In America...

Only in America could a poor black boy grow up to be a rich, white woman.

Only in America could a man accused of molesting a child cancer victim be met at the courtroom with throngs of cheering fans.

Only in America can parents put their kids into dangerous situations and then not be held accountable when their kids realize the danger.

Only in America could a family of misfits, spouse abusers and tweakers be accepted as royalty and become amazingly wealthy.

Only in America could someone pay a medical doctor large amounts of money to become disfigured.

Victory Tour my ass.

God Drops Ball, Clown Saves Day

Ugh, the God rant goes on, and this pisses me off to the highest degree.

Molly is an acquaintance. She may best be labeled "co-worker" but we do our thing in very different places and occasionally borrow stuff from each other. She is really good at what she does, has been doing it for a decade, and we share productive ideas here and there.

I was sad to find out that her work visa was expiring and that she could no longer work in the USA. She was going to have to move back to Canada, even though she was doing well here. Worse yet, she found herself with the news of pregnancy, good news for sure, just with the worst possible timing. Molly carries a pretty specific tool box. She has exceptional skills in a finite area. A job for her does not grow on trees, especially in Canada, and she was facing the specter of challenging times ahead, possibly in telemarketing. It was really sad.

While on a work-related trip to Toledo I noticed my host had the facilities and personnel that would mesh well with Molly's expertise. I asked him if he could use any help. He told me that he had a funding line availale and took an interest in Molly. I explained that her work visa was expiring and he told me that he could work with the local congressman to get her resident alien status resolved. After I explained her qualifications, he became extremely interested and encouraged me to twist her arm into an interview.

So I did. I shared his enthusiasm with her, and told her to write her own package from salary to vacation, define the parameters of her dream job. I helped her assemble a seminar to present and coached her on the content. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as her husband would still be a Canadian citizen and could work in Windsor, only a short drive away. It was perfect for them, and a great situation to start a new life with a new baby.

She interviewed. He asked me for a formal referral and I gave her a glowing, honest review. She was offered the position at her terms.

When I heard the news I sent her an email that said, "What a great coincidence that I happened to be in Toledo that day, I could not imagine a more perfect scenario for you". I then smiled, put my feet up on my desk and waited for the fruit basket to arrive.

I checked my email messages to find a note from Molly. She replied, "Yes, God works in funny ways and I owe him greatly for this gift. It has really helped us at a bad time."

Whaaaaaaaa? If I get this right it was "god" that dropped the ball on her. He didn't come up with a work visa resolution, he made her old situation expire at the worst time, he got her knocked up when all of this was hitting the fan. "God" did nothing, except get her INTO the unfavorable situation.

Enter some two-bit part-time clown named Schmootzie. HE asked the questions, HE wrote referrals, HE coached seminars, HE carried on supportive conversations with the prospective employer that steered him to a generous offer. Don't thank your god, thank Schmootzie! HE is your freakin' savior! That fetus should have the name "Schmootzie" all over it, at least as a middle name. St. Schmootzie, the patron saint of grease paint.

---------

Wouldn't it be a great world if we all noticed who really was making things happen? It is us, ourselves. WE make the decisions, ask the questions, put our asses on the line. Shouldn't we thank each other? Shouldn't we at least notice that circumstance, nature, coincidence, god, etc give us situations that WE have to navigate?

Thank God? No, thank Schmootzie. If it was not for the Clown of Science you'd be back in the Great White North rubbing a rosary while your Wendy's uniform was in the dryer. Let's make sure we properly assign our gratitude and acknowledge the gifts we all bring to each other.

Schmootzie vs. Einstein

Once again, the generic punching bag for the Christian Right is a victim again. Here, in a widely circulated email I received, the familiar "university professor" spars philosophically with a student. According to the author, the professor takes quite a beating, as you will read. Of course, those circulating this fable smile and say "Ah-HA! Gotcha, you no-good professors, you!".

A little higher analysis reveals the scourge of hypochristianestesia again. They again villify an educator to perpetuate a feel-good episode of non-thinking and lack of critical analysis. Please read the italicized passage, followed by Schmootzie's rebuttal to the sender...

Does God exist?
A university professor challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, He did!" "God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes, sir," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists. And according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil." The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself, and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the faith in God is a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question, professor?" "Of course," replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied, "In fact, sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is, in reality, the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. All matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded, "Of course it does." The student replied, "Once again you are wrong, sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is, in reality, the absence of light. We can study light, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally, the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold -- a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."Dejected and speechless, the professor sat down. The young student's name -- Albert Einstein.

Here's what I wrote:

...as for the Einstein/God thing, it only takes a quick look at the inquisition, the 9-11 attacks and a million other examples to see that you can in fact have God and evil existing side-by-side, actually causally in concert. The towers would have never been attacked if it were not for fanatical Islam. Humans have used God as a reason to kill, punish, exclude and prejudge for ages, essentially perpetrating evil in His name! Einstein’s theory falls flat. Here, evil is not the absence of God, to the contrary, without God the evil act is not attempted. You have to have God to have an Inquisition, 9-11, suicide bombers etc. Oops. Clearly, if Einstein was in my class he’d crawl into a ball and go back to the patent office after thinking about this a bit. Good thing for all of us that that story included his philisophical sparring with a rather flimsy professor! Of course, assuming the story is true. My guess is that he was having the conversation with a priest or some other non-challenging agreeable person.

What do you think?

Not MY 10 Commandments!

Last week I posted my 12 commandments. Within days the high courts of this land have again been rumbling about protecting the display of The 10 Commandments in courtrooms.

Why do the 10 Commandments not belong in courtrooms? Simple. They aren't MY 10 commandments, but they are MY courts. Keep them out. Courts should be a place of evidence and facts, not beliefs. Decisions need to be handed down on concrete proof and not at all based on what someone thinks about innocence or guilt. Most of all, decisions certainly should not be made based on myths and ancient stories handed down from an invisible man in the clouds. That's so 1200.

If God was doing his job he'd be stopping crime before there was a victim and/or doling out appropriate punishment on his own. Why should people be hurt, die or suffer loss because of crimes HE could prevent? He obviously doesn't care, why should we display the flimsy rules even he decides not to enforce? Witnesses perjure themselves daily after putting a hand on a bible and stating "so help me God". God ain't always helping! If he doesn't care, why should we?

God himself doesn't belive in the 10 Commandments. If you think otherwise then I've got some beach property in Thailand to sell you. If you think he made the earth then he made a defective rock that makes big waves that kill 0.1 million people. I smell a class-action negligence suit!

On the face the 10C's are a reasonable blueprint for civilization, but why promote them as the basis of law when politicians themselves can't adhere to? The 10C's are the "steadfast cornerstone of our judiciary, based on the unwavering commands of God to the Jews" but also come with a complete set of asterisks that may be attached for convenience as presidents, politicians and holy people see fit. Thou Shall Not Kill seems like a good idea on paper, but there's all those evil doers out there that need a good ass whoopin' and jails full of criminals that need to be put to sleep.

Furthermore, I don't think too many people are being convicted of not remembering the sabbath, so maybe we should just post nine. In my mind when I forget the sabbath it means I just play the Ozzy solo stuff.

We could argue "church and state" as long as the day is, but the best reason to not post them is that the proponents of display can't honestly say that they live within their direction. It is a classic case of hypocristianestesia, the want to impose one's beliefs so badly that they don't even realize that they don't live by the same rules. But as important, a courtroom, judge and jury should only be subject to one brand of discussion, factual dialogue based on evidence and experimentation, NOT what a president, hillbillies, CEOs and right-wing goons believe.

Where Did the Drunken Stupor Go?

What is the deal? I work really hard, usually to the point of collapse, seven days a week, and a giant highball each night is the only thing that separates me from insanity. By 8 pm each night I have a stiff neck and throbbing brain. When I get home I, before I remove my coat or let the dog out, I put 14 ice cubes into my big plastic tumbler, add 3/4 VO and 1/4 mixer of convenience. In order of favorite-- diet generic ginger ale, fresca, diet generic lemon lime, then anything else.

This is seriously 4-5 shots of booze and it used to make me completely loopy. Now I can put down 3-5 of these and still get very little effect. No fuzzy brain, no stupor, no hangover. Nothing. It is enough booze to kill a small horse and it does nothing. I am not drunk, but my blood alcohol content has to be through the roof, so I can't drive anywhere. I'm a victim of a chemical prison and an efficient liver.

The sad part is, I switched to cocktails because I couldn't drink beer fast enough to get an effect. I was getting really fat from drinking a 12 pack that didn't really work.

What is defective, the alcohol or me? Did John Ashcroft quit his job to secretly yank the alcohol from alcoholic beverages? Have I been drinking placebo? Have I just developed a tolerance for alcohol? Did anyone else notice this? How can I become alcohol intolerant again without quitting?