LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 735
If anyone doubts that there have gays in the military forever, just take a gander at some of the Generals’ and Admirals’ uniforms throughout history. Those frilly ensembles didn’t design themselves.
THE ANSWER MAN IS READY!
Hello folks, it’s ANSWER MAN TIME again! Here’s how it works: you send me you questions, and I answer them. It’s just that simple! Now remember, The Answer Man only replies to questions, so think Jeopardy here. Okay, let’s go.
Dear Answer Man: Who’s dumber, Palin or Beck? – Al Depantzyu
Dear Al Depantzyu: Which Palin; Todd, Sarah or Bristol? And which Beck? Can’t be the rock star, he’s pretty sharp. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Sarah and Glen. – Al Depantzyu
Dear Al Depantzyu: I’m sorry, but you didn’t submit this in question form, so there’s no question for Answer Man to answer. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Are you making fun of my disabled son Trout? – Sarah from Alaska
Dear Sarah from Alaska: Looks like you just did the Answer Man’s job for him, Sarah. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Me smarter than her be! – Glen from Mount Vernon
Dear Glen from Mount Vernon: Is this too difficult a concept for you, Glen? You ask a question, I answer it, period! Maybe tic-tac-toe is more your game than linguistics. Next!
Dear Answer Man: What is the atomic weight of cadmium? – Danny The Dancing Bear
Dear Danny The Dancing Bear: 112.411. Next!
Dear Answer Man: What’s your opinion of Israel? – Mort Goldsteinmanowitzberg
Dear Mort Goldsteinmanowitzberg: Kudos for not shortening your name. Others I’ve known go with Mo instead of Mort. Anyway, Israel is a small foreign country bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the Middle East, population approximately 7,600,000. It’s bigger than Liechtenstein but smaller than New Jersey. Other than that, The Answer Man doesn’t think much about the place. Why, is there anything interesting going on there? Next!
Dear Answer Man: You can’t be that out of touch! – Mort Goldsteinmanowitzberg
Dear Mort Goldsteinmanowitzberg: Again, there’s no question here, so Answer Man can’t help you. How can Answer Man be expected to provide answers when there is no question? Next!
Dear Answer Man: Geez, Answer Man, what’s with that Mort guy? – Bee Mynhus
Dear Bee Mynhus: Probably some geography nut trying to stump The Answer Man. Not going to happen. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Who’s hotter, Madonna or Lady Gaga? – Justin Beaver
Dear Justin Beaver: Lady Gaga. Next
Dear Answer Man: Are you kidding? – Justin Beaver
Dear Justin Beaver: No. Next!
Dear Answer Man: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound, and if so, what sort of sound? – Puddin’ Head Wilson.
Dear Puddin’ Head Wilson: Of course it makes a sound, the same sound as when you bump your wooden head on reality. Next!
Dear Answer Man: But how can you be sure? – Puddin’ Head Wilson.
Dear Puddin’ Head Wilson: The laws of physics don’t change when Puddin’ Head Wilson’s not around to supervise nature. That’s like saying the things that blind people cannot see do not exist. Next!
Dear Answer Man: That’s telling him, Answer Man! Now, for my question: What is God’s real name? – Manny Tymzover
Dear Manny Tymzover: Slappy Jones. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Is the Mayan calendar correct in predicting that the world will end in 2012? – Tim Eisenmyseid
Dear Tim Eisenmyseid: The world ended a long time ago for the Mayans. If they were any good at predicting the future they’d have known about the Spaniards going all Apacalypto on them, maybe prepared themselves and lived to see 2012. So, the answer is no. Next!
Dear Answer Man: Do you know the secret to life? – Bill Fould
Dear Bill Fould: Yes, yes I do know the secret to life. Next!
Dear Answer Man: You didn’t tell me what it is!
Dear Bill Fould: Sorry, Bill, not in the form of a question. Can’t help you, pal. Well, folks, that it for The Answer Man for now. Until next time!
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 734
Few men enjoy opera, ballet or sappy romantic comedies, but endure them for their women. Don’t go hog wild with the praise or she’ll know you’re full of shit and there goes football season. Just go with the program.
100,000 IDIOTS ON AMERICA’S LAWN
So, Glen Beck had his faux civil rights rally, gathering the faithful on America’s Lawn on the promenade in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. 1000,000 Tea Party and Glen Beck fans showed up. In other words, 100,000 morons. On the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream” speech held in the exact spot, no less.
Doctor King’s speech was a watershed moment in American history, while Beck’s was more of an irritating sweat stain on our collective armpits. Glen even claimed to be King’s “brother.” If so, then he has to be the Fredo of the King brothers
Beck and the Tea Party were never people with ideas, instead content to be angry all the time and attack other people and their ideas. Now Beck and his Tea Party fans finally come up with an idea, this rally, called “A Rededication of America,” a golden opportunity to showcase whatever policies they were able to come up with, and guess what, the only thing they could think of was a violation of the United States Constitution and the laws of the land.
Normally, the prudent course of events would be to formulate some serious ideas and policies, and then hold your rally. Even if it’s only one big idea, something to stir things up socially and politically, that would be fine too.
Their big idea? Turning America into Iran, Christian Fascist style. Beck put it like this: “America today turns back to God.” Oh, really? If he’s talking about the same country the rest of us live in, The United States of America, he was calling for a return to a special time in American history that… never happened! From its very beginnings in the late 1700s, America put religion in its proper place, far from the halls of government.
Dr. King, who was an ordained Baptist minister, never tied the Civil Rights Movement to his or anybody else’s church, and borrowed his non-violent tactics from a Hindu, one Mohandes K. Gandhi, to achieve his goals. He instead relied on the words of our Founding Fathers and challenged America to be America for every citizen. It cost him his life, but it worked.
Our Founding Fathers, none of them particularly religious people, had seen first-hand the bloody results of state-sponsored religion, and were having none of it for their brand new nation. They stated simply that Congress shall pass no laws concerning religion, rendering it a private matter for citizens to deal with, or not deal with, as they saw fit. Any and all faiths were welcome to flourish in the United States, but none of them were allowed to have a say in governing the nation.
Which didn’t stop certain Americans far too insecure in their own faith from trying to persecute other religions, most notably the waves of Catholic immigrants who came to America in the late 1800s and early 1900’s, bringing with them the “Papist Scourge.” Jewish immigrants were also treated to this lapse of hospitality.
Both groups petty much ignored the bigots and went about their business, confident that the Constitution protected their right to pray and worship as they saw fit. Of course they were correct and the bigots are forgotten by history, while these immigrants have all left their indelible marks on America. They built and ran this place as we now know it and their descendants continue to flourish, having produced war and peace heroes, Nobel laureates, poets and titans of both politics and industry.
America itself flourished with this infusion of new blood, offering an unprecedented quality of life for the working classes unmatched before or since in history. Not having a useless and demanding monarchy or a rapacious official religion to support removed a huge social barrier from humanity. Outstanding individuals and hard workers could and did climb the social ladder, something almost impossible in the monarchies and theocracies that dominated the earth in the not-so-distant past.
There are still plenty of such nations around, staining the landscape of their regions and oppressing their own people, and now Glen Beck and the Tea Party want America to join these backwards assholes and “turn to God.” Turning away from God, or at least rendering Him a private citizen, is what enabled America to build the best hope for humanity the world has ever had, and to build history’s biggest economy.
While the Tea Party has never been renowned for its ideas, what with most of them being Sarah Palin addicts and complete morons, at least they attracted the attention of a lot of people who liked the notion of a new political party, any party, just to wake up the Democrats and Republicans who figured they had a monopoly on politics in this country.
The whole idea was exciting, at least for about 5 minutes.Then one of the Tea Partiers opened their mouth and all that came out was horseshit. Dang! Then came the revelation that the Tea Party isn’t a separate political party at all, but a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, Inc.
Apparently one of those notorious closet-queen Republican operatives came up with this ruse in response to having their party unceremoniously dumped from power in 2008, figuring Americans are really, really stupid. Stupid people have long been the bread and butter of the Republicans, people who can be regularly fooled into voting against their own interests.
In years past, the Republicans employed really smart people to sell others on the notion that what is right for the super-wealthy and the giant corporations is right for America. They’ve elected some terrible presidents with that idea, but the last time around they got too cocky and installed a semi-literate bumbler as a figurehead president and just had Dick Cheney run the show.
The fact that they did this so openly and led the nation into one disaster after another is what got them ousted in 2008. Americans don’t like dictators, and were doubly insulted that our first-ever dictator was Shotgun Dick Cheney, as unlikable a human being as has ever breathed with the aid of replacement parts, like some bald and dumpy Darth Vader without the cool swagger.
So naturally you’d think that the rank-and-file Republicans would protest and go off to form their own party. Too bad for America that the only serious recent attempt at forming a 3d political party turned out to be another phony sideshow from the Republican Dirty Tricks Department. The only “leaders” it attracted were Glen Beck and Sarah Palin, two seriously unhinged individuals who are also both as dumb as your average Cocker Spaniel.
Imagine being a follower of someone like that? Wow! The mind boggles at having as your leader someone who has never made a lick of sense and never sustained an ideology they did not contradict time and again whenever convenient. On Saturday in Washington, no agenda was proposed, no famous speeches made or memorable phrases etched into American political lore.
What was it all about? Who the hell knows with these pinheads? Let’s just hope that this whole “return to God” crap doesn’t become what so many other public petitions to God have become, a bloodbath for some poor saps practicing the “wrong religion.” For now, Beck and Palin resume their lucrative careers of trashing other people’s ideas, figuring that ideas are things they never have, so it must be wrong to have one. Ask Fredo what it all means.
BOB CRESPO LIVE IN CONCERT AT CONEY ISLAND WITH THE TASH BROTHERS BAND! FREE SHOW!
Coney Island? Rock & roll? What else do you need to know? Oh, yeah, the time and place: SATURDAY, AUG. 28, 4PM at PEGGY O’NEILL’S, 1904 SURF AVENUE, @ W. 16th St. in front of BROOKLYN CYCLONES’ STADIUM. Listen for new songs! Admission: $0.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 733
Somewhere along the line someone will try to maneuver you into denying what you believe to justify their own hateful nonsense. Tell them nice try, but you’re smarter than that, and they’re on their own with the evil bullshit.
DO THE SOCIAL DISCONNECT (NON)DANCE
Now that people are accustomed to communicating with one another almost exclusively via electronic devices, even within the same room, it makes some sort of perverted sense that Internet companies are now negotiating with Little League Baseball to install web cameras at these children’s games so their parents can watch the action on their computers.
Now all they have to do is come up with a computer to play catch with your kid and you’ll never have to see the little brat in person again, and our social disconnect will be complete.
Are we that friggin’ busy these days that we have no time at all for one another, not even our own children? Nobody’s even working anymore since the damned bankers stole all the money! What’s the excuse now?
“Daddy can’t make it to your game, son. I’ll be too busy talking to my 378 very close pals on Facebook, twittering my profound political insights 140 characters at a time to the Huff and Puff Post feedback blog, and then I’m scheduled to blow your college fund on e-Trade. But don’t worry, I’ll catch the game on Hulu in the middle of the night.”
You then set your computer to remind you to text your child an attagirl or a way to go, son! and go back to your devices.
And it’s not just Americans hooked on our Captain Kirk communication devices. The German government had to pass a law prohibiting potential employers from using job applicants’ Facebook pages to judge their characters, or lack of same. What ever happened to interviewing somebody?
One can only assume that the interviewers are also unaccustomed to meeting people in person, and so have no idea how be a judge of character except by peeking at their virtual footprints on various Internet websites, which technically, do not even exist. Look up the word “virtual” some time.
Can’t we face one another anymore? Can’t we size up another human being in the flesh? How many young people grow up hunched over some electronic piece of crap playing some piece of crap game or texting their clueless friends about every half-formed thought that pops into their flabby brains?
Many seldom speak, and when they do it is usually some inarticulate code that doesn’t make much sense, so you tune them out, they get frustrated and bend back over their little electronic pieces of crap with a vengeance and the evening’s conversation is over before it began.
The internet has brought us the greatest source of information ever compiled and the convenience of shopping at home for goods and services available across the planet or across the street. It has been a blessing and a curse rolled into one, sort of like television in the 1950’s, a huge what might have been.
Local stores and the friendly local people that work in them are disappearing and nobody knows anyone in their own neighborhood anymore. That’s not because people moved away, it’s because people are leaving their homes less and less and have no idea how to relate to other human beings. People are trickier and far more unpredictable than our electronic devices, and cannot be controlled or manipulated so easily.
No wonder there’s things like road rage, where people are caught in traffic that does respond to keyboard commands and cannot be shut down, and so they lose control of themselves and lash out violently at other people, people they don’t consider any more “real” than the animated apparitions in their piece of crap video games. Why not shoot or maim apparitions?
Worst of all, there’s no record stores left since the wonderful product they sold has been replaced by electronic digital downloads, not the same feeling as leaving a record store with your own copy of “Exile On Main Street.”
Who do young people talk to about new artists or exciting new musical trends? Do they even dance anymore on the odd occasions when they are physically in one another’s presence? They sure don’t speak much. How do they pair up in boyfriend/girlfriend pairs, according to which cell phone company they use?
Good thing these kids’ hormones are churning away or they’d never mingle with other human beings and the species would die out in a single generation. It’s ironic that all our electronic devices designed to bring us all together are driving us apart. We are raising a Disconnected Generation.
THE HALLOWED GROUND BUSINESS
So this dopey mosque issue near the site of the World Trade Center atrocity has the whole friggin’ country up in arms now, even people who never stepped foot in New York City, long-distance carpetbaggers claiming “hallowed ground” they’ve never seen, either before or after the 9/11 attack, much less bought a falafel from one of the local Muslim street vendors.
Tourists still pack the area, every one of them wanting to take a peek at Ground Zero to try to understand what it was like, to reconcile the horrific news footage seared into the whole world’s mind. In a sense, they have a powerful claim on Ground Zero, and a very real connection, both Americans and foreigners alike.
While New Yorkers endured the attack and lost so many, what we forget is that the rest of the world stood still that day, numb and disbelieving, riveted to the images of the capitol of Earth being so shockingly and devastatingly attacked. There were no other headlines or lead stories anywhere that day.
The jets crashing, the towers burning, people jumping 100 stories to their deaths, and the final, stunning twin collapses were followed in real time everywhere, and everyone stopped whatever they were doing to watch in disbelief. It was a day that will go down in history for as long as there is history.
The nearly 3,000 deaths were far lower than originally estimated, thanks to hundreds of fire fighters, police officers and many others who sacrificed their own lives to perform the greatest evacuation and rescue operation since Dunkirk. Ten times that number was considered a conservative estimate that day, when no one anywhere seemed to know exactly what was going on.
The New York City government was nearly crippled and very little real information was forthcoming, only scattered pronouncements and speculation on the part of the news media, and this went on for most of the day. The president was flying around incognito somewhere and the vice president took over, lower Manhattan was disaster area and cell phone service was knocked out.
Rumors of a dozen or more such jets were rampant, and the Air Force was reportedly hunting hijacked aircraft with missiles. The Pentagon was in flames and the crash landing of the 4th jet in Pennsylvania was thought to be caused by our military. The uncertainty and chaos were terrifying.
A whole lot of people had a loved one who worked in the area, and the TV footage looked like no one could have survived anywhere near the collapsing towers. No one panicked but tension and confusion were everywhere, and a feeling of helplessness. So many wanted to help, to do something, but only police, firefighters and proven rescue experts were allowed near the site.
The city held its breath and waited for their land lines to ring. There were block-long lines for pay phones in Manhattan, people waiting to call their families to tell them they were okay, and to please call everyone else, there’s people waiting. Three thousand families never got that call.
We mourned our dead and still feel their loss. Wars were started to avenge them, grand pavilions planned in their memory. Services are held on each anniversary, and the wound still feels fresh. For most, there were little or no remains, loved ones incinerated to dust. Ground Zero is the only grave they will ever know.
Too bad these victims have now become political footballs, their memorial still unbuilt while their spirits are invoked by cynical fools with political ambitions. This has been going on for years, and now we have this media-driven madness over a planned mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero, right down the street from the Ground Zero strip club, a place where presumably mourners can receive some measure of solace with a lap dance from a naked young lady. To each his own, no?
The story grows more bizarre when it is revealed that the location of the mosque was actually picked by a 19-year old immigrant from Colombia who was hired by the developer after appearing on a reality show. His job was to scout locations for the mosque and he found the Burlington Coat Factory building to be vacant and available.
The deal was consummated and plans made to build the mosque as something called an “Islamic Center,” a combination house of worship and community outreach facility. Lord knows that Islam could use some good PR right about now, and the hysterical reaction to their project only underscores that. Anti-Muslim sentiment has poured out of every corner of this nation, even from people who detest New York City and the big umbrella melting pot it stands for.
Unclear so far is exactly who is providing the funds for this piece of downtown Manhattan real estate, where every square inch of space is worth a large fortune, even in this depressed economy. Few believe that the Muslim street vendors are footing the bill from the proceeds from the sale of bananas, couscous and souvenirs. This is a big money venture and will require hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. Who’s paying?
While the Imam in charge says he will raise funds from local Muslims and bond offerings, there are rumors of Iranian and Saudi Arabian funding, making the whole thing even more suspect. These are legitimate concerns, potentially dangerous political concerns having little to do with Islam and everything to do with provocation.
Is this what’s happening? Can we be sure? Anyone on the ball with finding that out before we start messing with the Bill of Rights? It’s always the Bill of Rights that stands to take a hit in times like these, with no shortage of media fools and elected politicians sworn to uphold the United States Constitution openly in favor of violating it because a distasteful religion is ruining the neighborhood and the Hallowed Ground trade.
For a story invented and fueled by the media, there are few hard facts available. That’s how out of practice our news media is with journalism, that they can’t even find out the facts on a story they invented. They seem content to report on the shit storm they have created to fill the slow news cycles of Summertime and feel no obligation to dig for facts.
Small wonder fewer and fewer people trust the mainstream media. The impact on New Yorkers’ daily lives by the building of this mosque will be nonexistent. We’re already tripping over a thousand and one houses of worship of every imaginable denomination, barely noticing them as we go about our business.
People swiftly got over the Mormons’ building a tabernacle near Times Square, and nobody likes Mormons all that much, not even their fellow Mormons if you follow their soap opera saga in the news with the lucrative sales of underage teenaged brides to lumpy old Chesters. Times Square survived, and so will Ground Zero.
Few people will bother to notice another temple to a God we all claim as our own as we go about our day-to-day business doing whatever the hell we feel like. Most Americans figure church is for women and religion is for teaching kids right from wrong. That’s not what we say about our various faiths, of course, but what we do, the truer measure of intent.
In Islam, like Judaism, it is the men who take the lead in practicing their faith, something that makes many Americans uncomfortable. That whole 5-times-a-day praying seems excessive and unseemly, even without the bad press Islam gets from terrorists and religious tyrants.
The fact that Islam is just one more dumbass religion designed to annoy the crap out its believers by giving them a whole lot to do on top of having to live their lives is forgotten in this war of words. Life is hard enough without God, but almost unbearable with Him, because now people feel obligated to defend their faith and attack the faith of others, not once stopping to think that every faith is founded on some pretty tall friggin’ tales.
That’s why they are called faiths and not The Jewish Fact, the Christian Fact or the Muslim Fact. None of them can stand up to a reality check or ever be proven. Our arguments about God and religion are transparent excuses to dominate one another along tribal lines and to vent our hatred of others. God has always been a handy tool to further these aims.
This Mosque on Hallowed Ground business is just one more example of people using God as an excuse to act like hateful assholes. The 3,000 victims of this religious warfare deserve better. They were real people with real lives and real families, not abstract concepts to be cynically used for our endless debates over the improbable and unprovable. Who cares who else builds what sort of shrine where or who they pray to or how? That’s private.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 731
Good genes and temperate habits take you only so far. Runaway dump trucks don’t care how long you were supposed to live. Don’t discount dumb luck.
- LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 735
- THE ANSWER MAN IS READY!
- LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 734
- 100,000 IDIOTS ON AMERICA’S LAWN
- BOB CRESPO LIVE IN CONCERT AT CONEY ISLAND WITH THE TASH BROTHERS BAND! FREE SHOW!
- LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 733
- DO THE SOCIAL DISCONNECT (NON)DANCE
- LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 732
- THE HALLOWED GROUND BUSINESS
- LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 731
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