Sunday, December 30, 2007

Mykel's Column for MRR 298


You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column number 298
by Mykel Board


"Anytime you find you're right, you should be wrong.”

-- Richard Ford

Jesus, what is that? I've been feeling it all day. Like a pinprick. Finally, in the privacy of this stall I can poke it out. Right in the fold, the brown wrinkled part. I've got just enough nail left to scrape around a bit. Ah, ah, there it is, plucked from the sphincter. An anal booger. I bring it up to my nose. Smells like everyday shit. I take a closer look. It's a seed. Some kind of little seed, like the outer sprinkling of a sesame bagel. I'd thought those things were metabolized, became part of my body, like how fish turn into brains and ice cream becomes fat and heart disease. I had no idea they pass right through you. POW! From the mouth to the toilet. I'd never have known if one hadn't gotten stuck where it hurt. Who wudda thunk it? Knowledge is a pain in the ass. But I guess it's good for you.

I don't know when you'll be seeing this. It doesn't matter. You only need to know that I'm writing it in December. In that quiet period between Christmas hell and New Year's drunken debauchery. It's a year-end column-- for me. A summation of what I've been trying to tell you. A list of how you-- like me with my misbelief about Sesame seeds-- are wrong.

Time and space prevent me from telling you every way you're wrong. But here are a few important ones-- a recap.

Recycling is bad for the environment. You think the opposite. You think that every time you drop your Mountain Dew bottle in that round holed container by the park, you're doing a good deed. You're wrong.

It's Thursday morning-- real early. The exhaust-belching recycling truck winds its way through city streets. Stopping every half block, some poor shlub lifts plastic bag after plastic bag of old soup cans, shredded stock reports, Coke bottles. He throws them into the truck.

“OK! Next one!” he shouts.

Somewhere around 10AM, they're done. Then it's off to the recycling plant. At the plant, dozens of workers tear open each plastic bag, empty the contents, and throw the bags onto a mound of unrecyclable plastic. They separate the contents. Then ship them to other recycling plants using other gas-powered, exhaust-belching trucks.

Let's follow the paper to the plant. When it arrives, electrically powered machines soak the paper. Gallons and gallons of precious water. Then more electric machines mulch the wet mixture and turn it into paper soup.

After mulching, the paper is electrically dried and pressed. All that electricity uses resource-depleting turbines or radioactive timebombs.

After that, still other machines wrap it in still more paper and ship it to a Staples warehouses. Staples stamps the paper RECYCLED, puts on a higher price, and then ships it to their own outlets.

You think this uses less energy than cutting down a tree? Yeah, right.

Then what do we do? Nothing?

How about not using the paper in the first place? How about sending an email and NOT printing it out? How about giving a phone call? Buying a used book? Calling the catalog company to ask them to take you off their lists?

Recycling lets you consume guilt-free. That's its real destructive nature. Recycling tells people “everyone can help. Just do a little bit. Separate your garbage and we'll be all right.”

It lets the big guys off the hook. Hey don't worry about G.E. buying water and reselling it to impoverished Africans (get rid of comma, use the period, you did both). Don't look at Exxon sucking out the earth's belly like giving a giant blowjob. I bet G.E. and Exxon recycle. So it's all okay.

Vegetarianism causes hunger: You think the opposite. You think that every carrot you eat feeds a starving child in Darfur. There's more on the bottom of the food chain than at the top. If you eat at the bottom, you use fewer resources. You're wrong.

In case you missed the publishing event of 2007: The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists by Amy Wallace and Handsome Dick Manitoba came out in November.

In that book, I list nine ways in which vegetarians are destroying the earth. The fundamental reason-- the one that underlies all the other-- is that cattle already exist. If we don't eat them, they live longer.

Here's Bossie. She eats her hay, blinks the flies away from her eyes. Shits. After 3 or 4 years, farmer Joe leads her off to the house of horrors.

PLOW! Blood spattered, she's torn limb from limb. Her doe-eyes gouged out. Body cut into thousands of pieces, patted into thousands of Big Macs, and shipped off to Mickey D's.

Now imagine a world of increasing vegetarians. There aren't enough people to take care of all the Bossies at three or four years old. Farmer Joe has to wait. In the meantime, Bossie shits more, eats more food, drinks more water. Then what?

If the average cow lives four years and then is slaughtered, that cow consumes four years worth of resources. If there are more vegetarians, then the average cow lives eight years, instead of four. That means the cow consumes twice as many resources. Plus, the vegetarian also consumes her own resources, competing with the cow, creating even more scarcity.

Take responsibility for your food. Eat cows raised humanely, outside the factory. Use the evil marketplace against itself. Encourage farmers to give cows more space. Feed them better food. Buy organic so farmers will GO organic. Buy humane so cattlemen will see humane sells. But vegetarianism only makes the problem worse.

Smoking is good for you: You think the opposite. You think big tobacco companies are evil. Worse than Nike, Wal-Mart or Microsoft. You think smoking causes cancer, emphysema. You think people are at risk from Second Hand Smoke. You're wrong.

A little internet research is all you need. Except for The Bahamas, the United States has the lowest men's smoking rate in North America, 28.1%. (I use men only, because in some cultures, women just don't smoke.) In cancer, America is number one. But how about lung cancer?

The U.S. has the highest lung cancer rate of any place in North America, South America, Oceania, and all of Asia except Seychelles. (Where?) In Japan, more than half the men smoke (59%). The lung cancer rate there is 47.9 per 1000 people. In the U.S. it's 85.9. Looks like smoking PREVENTS lung cancer.

What's up with all the TV commercials? In New York, we have a commercial with a guy talking through an artificial voicebox, swabbing his neckhole in the shower, telling people how cigarettes wrecked his life. Yeah, who speaks for the other dead? Where are the commercials showing the agricultural workers breathing pesticide? Where are the pictures of the throatholes of coal minters slowly strangling from Black Lung disease?

Hey buckaroos! It's a trick! Tobacco companies are the sacrificial lambs for corporate America. Never mind the shit that goes in the water you drink. Never mind the crap spewed into the air-- or the radiation from depleted nuclear weapons, used in Iraq, stored in Kansas. Oh no. If an American gets sick, it's smoking!!

Smoking in 2008 takes balls. Lighting up means you're not falling for the ruse. It means, you've seen through the deception and aren't buying it. If you smoke, you're showing the world you KNOW. Of course, I recommend American Standard or some other indie non-pesticided cigarette. But even a Marlboro is better than nothing. Don't allow yourself to be bullied into thinking if you get sick... you did it. Bullshit.

THEY did it.

Science is not god: You think the opposite. You're an atheist. No God, so what do you believe in? Science. If only people would look at the world in a scientific way, you say. The world would be a better place. Trust science to find truth. The scientific method will analyze the problems and give you the right answers. You're wrong.

Scientists can tell us what will happen to a bog if ATVs roll across it indiscriminately for a decade or two, What scientists cannot tell us is how to weigh the relative importance of mechanized joyrides through the bogs, a healthy water table, the preservation of bird habitat-- and the will of the majority... These are moral and political issues, not scientific ones. There is a certain implicit conceit that if you attach the word scientific to anything, then that makes it more important or more valid. And that's really metaphysically wrong; it's not true.
--John Toren in Macaroni Zine.

Yeah, I hate religion as much as the next guy... or at least as much as the next guy should. But science is one of the best arguments FOR religion. At least Catholics take a moral stand-- even if it is the wrong one.

You're dying. In the hospital. A new drug could save your life. It hasn't been approved yet, but it looks promising. It works a new way, targeting disease cells without damaging the tissue around them.

Breathing is hard. You've got tubes up your nose, forcing air into your lungs. The effort of expanding your chest hurts so much you just want to pull them out.

Yet you cling to life. Maybe this one last drug. This last chance will help you pull through. You've agreed to be a guinea pig. This is your last chance.

HAH HAH! Fooled you! You got the placebo! You're the control group! Someone else got the real medicine. See you in hell!

Science demands a control group. It demands a neutral test. It demands that people die. Science has no ethics. Scientists make medicine, cluster bombs, computers, napalm all with equal morality... or lack of it.

Scientists are interested in proof. They want to know how and why. They're not interested in SHOULD.

Of course, some scientists have ethics. Just like some religions are tolerant. But science itself has no more ethics than a TV set. Like monotheistic religion by its nature is intolerant, science by its nature is amoral.

Religion is ethical totalitarianism. Science is no ethics at all.

GW Bush is not evil incarnate: You think the opposite. You think the man is Mr. Evil. You think that even Hilary Clinton would be better for America and the world. You think George is only a tool of the right. An idiot with no principles... or at least no principles you share. You're wrong.

Dubya has appointed more Negroes, Hispanics, and other minorities to more high offices than any other president. Two colored secretaries of state. One of them, a woman. Was it for show? Check out his former Hispanic attorney general... an old pal. His secretary of state... they went way back. Who else can say that? G.W. has been the most principled, least racist president the U.S. has ever had.

During his lame-duckedness what does he do? Pardon his friends like Clinton did? No! He vetoes child-insurance because it's “too socialist.” Sure he's wrong. It's harder to be “too socialist” than to have too much nookie. And that's hard! But he's stuck to his principles. More than any politician since Jimmy Carter. You've got to admire that.

OK, that's a summary of the most important ways you were wrong in 2007. Hope you had a drunken New Year. Next year's election should be as easy as ABC (Anybody But Clinton). It's better that you don't vote at all, than vote for Hillary. I'll explain why in a future column. In the meantime, remember you can improve your life-- and the world-- by eating meat, smoking, distrusting science, not recycling, and putting in a nice word for G.W. Bush.

Yeah, changing the way you think is, like a sesame seed caught in your anal fold, a pain in the ass. Trust me, it's good for you.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column]


-->If I wanted to donate to sweatshops, I'd buy Nikes dept: I get this letter from SOHO partnerships asking me to contribute. This group pays local homeless people to clean sidewalks, empty garbage cans, do stuff no one else wants to do. Many of these people are required by law to work. In an amazing Catch 22, New York law says homeless can't live on the street in the winter. BUT, in order to use city homeless facilities, they have to work. Who'll hire people with no address and no references? You guessed it, good ole SoHo partnership. And the wages? $6 an hour!! I don't know where you work. In New York, $6 an hour doesn't pay for lunch. PLUS! They have to use another 2-3 hours of non-wages to pay for the shelter they don't want to stay in. Er... who was it that abolished slavery? When did that happen?


-->But in This Case Dept: Usually I think it's lame to put down someone because of spelling mistakes. Most geniuses, including Einstein and me, are bad spellers. But my jail-pal Kyle sent me this ad for merchandise from The Racial Nationalist Party of America. You've got your Mussolini videos, your “KKK with Blood drop” flag, and Storm-trooper Marches CDs. Want something punker? Well, you can buy a ton of CDs by Screwdriver. Yep, that's how they spell it in the catalog. You'd think they, of all people, would know!
The website corrects the error, but still entertains with their description of payment method:
The RNPA has taken itself out of the Jewish banking system so do not send checks or bank originated money orders. Send only postal money orders. Make payable to Karl Hand. Send cash only at your own risk. All orders are considered as a donation to the Racial Nationalist Party of America. Include 10% shipping and handling.

-->Running business like a government dept: After all, the hideous Bloombergs of the world talk about “running government like a business.” You now have Google, planning to run their business like a government-- the American government.
According to The National Coalition Against Censorship, Google is “developing ambient-audio identification technology” that turns on the microphone in personal computers to listen in on what's going on in the room. According to Google, the purpose of this is to “monitor what television channels Americans watch.” Yeah, right.


-->Running education like a government dept: F.I.R.E., a libertarian Free Speech site, issued a report that shows nearly ¾ of the surveyed colleges have “speech codes” already ruled unconstitutional. These include:
Northeastern University in Boston, which prohibits students from using the university’s network to “transmit or make accessible, material, which in the sole judgment of the University, is offensive…”
Florida Gulf Coast University which prohibits “expressions deemed inappropriate.”
Ohio State University which instructs students in the residence halls: “Do not joke about differences related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability, socioeconomic background, etc.”
There are tons of other examples. Go through the supporters of such stupidity and you'll find a pantheon of liberals who believe in “freedom of speech”-- as long as it doesn't offend anybody.

-->Running governments like governments dept: The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks the U.S. sixth among jailers of journalists. That puts us just behind Uzbekistan-- tied with Burma.

--> A touch of inspiration dept: Many of my readers have attended the Brian Deneke memorial shows around the country.
The average MRR reader was still nursing when a Texan jock killed Deneke, 15 years ago. The reason? The 19 year old was a punk-rocker. He had a mohawk. He listened to the same music you do.
Every year, there are memorial benefits around the country in his memory. I attended the one in New York. Valerie aka Xena, who organized it, is a goddess of the highest order. All the bands were great. (Especially a new kiddie band from Staten Island called Lucky Fucks ... and they are! I saw the teen-aged lead singer making out with this hot girl in front of the show. I was jealous of BOTH of 'em!)
The atmosphere was terrific. People of all ages, genders, persuasions, in the pit and out of it. Friendly as a Dominican whore! Wow! Find out about the memorial at the MySpace website
or just Google. You'll find a ton of links!



Monday, December 03, 2007

Mykel's Column for MRR 297 Feb. '08

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 297
by Mykel Board



If you're really devoted to your calling, you can expect the worst.
--Celine


I didn't plan on writing about sports. I HATE SPORTS, except baseball, which isn't a sport. It's a game.

But, I was madder than a Yankee fan at the end of last season. News articles-- a ton of 'em. Barry Bonds, the greatest homerun hitter since Hank Aaron... or Sadaharu Oh (look it up!). And the stupid papers complain about steroids. More, a New York One News “snap poll” finds that 60% of the respondents think that the hero “should go to jail.”

Here's a guy who sacrificed his body, took risks, rose to the top. A real baseball man. And look what happens. Jezus fuckin' Ruth.

While seething at this injustice, my Yahoo screen flashes. Click here for the latest news:

   The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has annulled all sprinter Marion Jones's results dating back to September 2000. She won five medals, including three , in Sydney but they will be re-allocated by the International Olympic Committee. Jones is to serve a two-year ban after admitting she used steroids.
       The federation has also recommended that the other members of the relay teams be stripped of their medals. Gold and silver medals won by Jones at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton will also no longer be recognized.
       The United States Olympic Committee says they will abide by the IOC's decision on relay medals and not appeal.

If I hadn't hated the Olympics before, this would have been the butterfly jump that broke the camel's ankle.

SCENE SWITCH ONE: It's the fifth grade. Little Aiden Schwartz sits quietly at his desk but not for long. Nothing is for long with Aiden. His tussled blond hair defies every comb to challenge it. His clothes are more tears than cloth. Now, Aiden raises his hand.

“Teacher, teacher, can I go to the boysroom?”

“You just went,” answers the teacher.

“But I was drinking a lot of Evian that Mom packed with my lunch. I gotta take a piss.”

From the back of the class come snickers. From somewhere else, a loud farting sound.

The teacher, a slightly chubby woman, in her early 50s, is just starting to feel comfortable in the half glasses she peers over to look at the boy.

“Young man,” she says. “We don't use that language in school. Is that what your parents taught you?”

“You don't need to be taught that you gotta piss,” he says.

“Out!” says the teacher, pointing to the door. “But not to the boysroom-- to the principal!”

It isn't long before a dejected Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz sit in front of that administrator, Ivan Rinsky. He's a big guy. His blond hair, high cheekbones and barrel chest show his Slavic roots.

The Schwartz's squirm in their seats. Small, Jewish-looking, they know Aiden is a problem. He's a smart boy. Loves to read. But he's a trouble maker. In class, he stands too close to the girls. He chases after smaller boys, and picks fights with bigger ones. He's rarely without a broken bone. Never without a bruise.

The boy loves exploring. Loves adventure. He's thirsty for new experiences, new thrills. He loves learning, trying, experimenting, testing the limits. He never has enough.

“Our school psychologist has examined Aiden,” says the principle. “His diagnosis is ADD. That's...”

“We know,” says Mrs. Schwartz. “We've suspected it for a long time.”

“It's a disease,” says the principle, “like diabetes. But it can be treated. I have a prescription right here...”

SCENE SHIFT TWO: It was a horrible hurricane. 120 mph winds. Struck the coast like Barry Bond's bat. Worse than a tornado. Houses wrenched from their foundations. Flipped over. Torn apart. Scores dead. Among those was Mildred Wenchpot, a 27-year-old bride-to-be.

A thousand miles away, Herbert Pudnick watches the devastation on his hotel room TV. He does not yet know his betrothed is a soaking pile of dead meat. He does know that things look grim.

Phone lines are down. There's no way to contact anyone. Herbert is helpless. He sits on his bed, mouth hung open, barely understanding the destruction of his city-- his life. Absentmindedly, he runs his hands through his thinning hair, digging his nails into his scalp. Sweat pours into his eyes. He's not sure if he's crying.

A heaviness seizes him. Like nothing he's experienced before. It would take more energy than he has in his entire body just to move his little finger. He stares at that finger. At the flaking skin around the knuckle. At the tiny hairs that grow from the back of the first joint. It doesn't move.

“I can't take it,” he thinks. “I'm going to die. I know I will. It's just the hope that Mildred might need me that keeps me alive.”

Six months later, Herbert is a wreck. Somehow he's managed to get to his sister's house in Rockford Illinois. He doesn't remember-- or care-- how. He hasn't left his sister's couch except to piss and shit-- and not always for that.

His sister, Fortuna, is a usually jolly woman, about 35 with a svelte athletic body and tremendous breasts. Today her smile looks forced. She enters the living room with a man Herbert wouldn't recognize, even if he had the capacity to recognize anyone. The stranger, tall and thin, has a dark complexion over European features that makes you guess Indian. He's dressed in a conservative suit, and carries a small bag.

Fortuna kneels besides the couch. She gently strokes a loose strand of thin hair from Herbert's forehead.

“Herbie,” she said, barely louder than a whisper. “This is doctor Goupal. He can help you.”

Herbert rolls on his side and moans. “I just lost my wife, my future, everything I've lived for. My life is ruined. You can't help me. Just leave me alone”

“I understand,” said the doctor, subtlety moving Fortuna aside, taking her place next to the bed.

“When we are depressed,” continues the doctor, “we think it's our own fault. We think it's because of life's little problem and vicissitudes...”

He pauses dramatically, “it's not that. It's chemical. It's just like diabetes. Your body doesn't produce the right amount of serotonin. Here, take this pill. It will help make you all better.”

SCENE SHIFT THREE: This is real: (http://tinyurl.com/239o8n)

Arkansas, 1979, the year Bill Clinton became governor: The state sentences Charles Singleton to death on a murder charge. He spends more than 20 years on death row. The problem? Charles is psychotic.

In the 1920s, Clarence Darrow showed that it was even worse to execute schizos than to execute regular people. Would you kill a 2-year old who picked up Dad's gun and playing, pulled the trigger? Of course not. Why? The kid didn't know what he was doing. The same with schizos. But the Arkansonians, in a typically American thirst for vengeance, sentence this guy to die.

Here's the catch. For the State to legally kill someone, that person has to be aware of what is happening to him. If Charles is kablooey, they can't execute him.

What does the state of Arkansas do? They force him to take drugs to control his symptoms. That makes him appear normal, so they can execute him. Arkansas law says that the government can force people to take drugs “only if it's in their best interest.”

The local court rules that drugs “make Singleton feel better” and are thus “in his best interest.”

He's executed in 2004.

DENOUEMENT: Get it? This is a pill-popping society. Too sad? Take a pill. Too happy? Take a pill. Too lethargic? Too active? Eat too much? Shop too much? Don't fuck enough? Take a pill. Your sickness saving you from death? Take a pill.

Along with violence and God, pill-popping is the all-American solution to every problem. It's as American as a cluster bomb. How can anyone blame athletes for solving their problems with a pill? (Or an injection, just a pill in liquid form.)

Barry Bonds didn't CHEAT. Neither did Marion Jones. Unless you consider every American on some prescription Pfizer profit-maker a cheater. If you took steroids would you run as fast as Marin? Hit as many home runs as Barry? You bet your Prozac you wouldn't. That takes skill and talent and training. That's there, drugs or not.

More than that, all athletes know the risk of using the drugs. They know roid-rage, the shrinking testes, the heart attacks. Still they do it. Why? They want to win! What else are sports about? It's the only thing!

Blame these athletes for steroid use? That's as hypocritical as Bill Clinton telling the Columbine kids that violence doesn't solve problems while bombing the crap out of Yugoslavia. People who live in glass bathrooms shouldn't throw shit. Clean your own medicine cabinet first!

When general society says that people can solve their problems-- without the use of chemicals-- then maybe it'll have the right to condemn those who use chemicals. When we create a place where winning isn't the only thing, then maybe we can complain when someone really wants to win. When the quick response to I can't, is no longer, you should take something to help you, then we can grumble about those who DO take something.

Until then, to Barry and Marion: this Lude's for you! In my book, you're winners. And that's the only thing.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column]

--> Must've been a Christian dept: The Black Frog Restaurant, in Minnesota was famous for its SKINNY DIP. Docked in Moosehead Lake, the restaurant is perfect for those with a love of water. Evening diners eager for a swim and a bargain were – until recently – welcome to peel off their clothing and jump into the lake’s chilly waters. Those who did, got a free sandwich, called, a SKINNY DIP.
         Leigh Turner, the restaurant owner, found out about a single complaint against the practice. It happened when he tried to renew his liquor license. If he’s formally asked to stop allowing his clients to have their bit of naked fun, there won’t be any more free Skinny Dips served in exchange.
        John Simko, the Town Manager for the area, apparently was contacted by the only person to have visited The Black Frog and complained. Because of this, Simko has suggested that the Police Chief talk to Turner about the sandwich deal. If that happens, it’ll be a fat chance that anybody will be earning a free Skinny Dip in the future.

-->Wishful thinking kidnapping dept: My pal Bob sent me this:
          Nothing is moving north or south on the Chicago Expressway. A man knocks on the window of one of the blocked cars.
          The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What happened? What's the hold up?"
         "Terrorists have kidnapped Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They are asking for $10 million ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection."
         The driver asks, "On average, how much is everyone giving?"
        "About a gallon," he answers.
    (I wudda left Rosie O'Donnell out of the joke.)

-->Bad enough to be in Indiana dept: Last month, I asked you to write to my jailpal Kyle Noneman Since that time, he's been transferred. Here are the new details:
          (Write to this guy! He's lonely and in the former home of Timothy McVeigh... the Oklahoma bomber. His fellow prison mates are REAL SCARY!) Find out the details: Kyle Nonneman, #68528_065, United States Penitentiary, PO Box 33, Terre Haute IN 47802

-->I'm international! dept: New Zealand Customs has a list of "Indecent Publications" at:
http://tinyurl.com/24velt
          These are banned from entering the country. ABUSED AT ATTICA, one of the porno novels I wrote for hire in the 80's, is on the list! Yeah! Somehow, I feel that makes it all worthwhile.

-->From the folks who brought you Hiroshima and Nagasaki dept: I got an offer to subscribe to FREE INQUIRY magazine. I guess it's a magazine for atheists, kind of a support group.
           What caught my attention was the offer of a free book with my subscription: CAN SCIENCE HELP US TO MAKE WISE MORAL JUDGMENTS?
          The implicit answer is YES!
          Besides the atom bomb, we've got steroids, smart missiles, poison gas, and iPods. Wise moral judgments?
          Might as well read the companion: CAN RELIGION HELP BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD?
         The answer to both: yeah, right.

-->Didn't scientists invent those bottles? dept: You buy everything in them. From water to Tennessee whiskey. Plastic bottles. If you're using them because you don't like the idea of aluminum cans causing Alzheimer’s ...er... think again.
           Prevention Magazine says that BPA, a chemical in plastic bottles, leaks into the liquid they hold. Studies show that after several days mice exposed to BPA develop insulin resistance. That means diabetes! And how many of those have YOU drunk from. I'll take water, thank you. From a glass.

-->It sounds like a porn movie dept: I nominate Pomegranate Blue as Spurious Health Drink of the Year. And yes, it comes in a plastic bottle.
           The label shows a picture of a pomegranate with a few blueberries lying artistically next to it. The name, like the label combines those two fruits.
           The motto at the bottom of the label: JUST A TAD SWEET.
           Now, check out the ingredients:
           Number one (after water) is SUGAR. Next comes grape juice CONCENTRATE.
          Only then do we get pomegranate CONCENTRATE. Not real fruit...
          There are no blueberries at all. The closest is second-to- last "organic blueberry flavor." What is that? The chemically-made taste of organic blueberries?
          Oh yeah, the real kicker, the name of the drink company: HONEST ADE.

-->Bend over pahdnah... sheh sheh dept: The Chinese national language registry has added a new term: duan bei. It literally means "broke back." But the current meaning of the slang word is "male homosexual."

-->Aw come on! dept: New York Metro reports that the City Council wants to raise fines and jail penalties for guys who expose themselves in the subway. Fines would be raised from $500 to $1000 dollars. Maximum jail time goes from 90 days to a year. OK, that's not news.
What is news is the headline the newspaper used for this war against flesh exposers: STIFFER LAWS EYED FOR CITY FLASHERS... Yowsah!

-->Kyle, my jailbird pal sent me a clipping about Kansas City police who are investigating a 20-year old who tried to flush her newborn kid down the toilet at McDonald's.
         The woman was discovered when workers saw she didn't return from a restroom visit. They called the cops who discovered the flush. Unfortunately, the kid survived, and will grow up to mug you or invade some classroom with an AK47. Can you imagine entering the world that way? And then some Xian is gonna say, YOU ARE LOVED.

-->Kyle also sent me info about Jack McClellan, a pedophile with the balls to call himself one. He has a website: http://www.stegl.info/ that tells about his likes and dislikes. He's never been convicted of a crime, but somehow that didn't stop a California court from issuing an injunction against him. Stay away from playgrounds! A court action, for a website! Long live freedom of...

-->Money from the war dept: Not THAT war, but the right-wing invented "War Against Christmas"
            The American Family Association brought in more than half a million dollars selling buttons and magnets reading "Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying." The Rev. Jerry Fallwell's (R.I.T.) (Rest in Torment) Liberty-Counsel took in more than $300,000 pushing a "Help Save Christmas Action Pack."
             The Alliance Defense Fund sold a similar kit for $29 a pop. It consisted of two buttons and a document called "The Memo that Saved Christmas," supposedly legal advice for those who want more Christmas in public life.
            One thing missing, however: examples of government hostility toward Christmas. With so little go on, most organizations had to gripe about language used by privately owned stores and businesses. Pretty lame.
            Oddly, none of these groups complained about the White House's 2006 Holiday card, which did not once mention "Christmas."

-->Used to be called CHEAP dept: These days everyone and his enterprise are being ECOLOGICAL. 20 years ago, the same actions would have been called CHEAP!
            Some hotels participate in something called PROJECT PLANET. They write on a door tag: "The Project Planet program is an effort of this hotel to protect the environment through conservation of water and decreased use of detergent. If you are staying more than one night, as part of the Project Planet program, we will launder your linens every three days."
           If that doesn't get you to feel good about sleeping in your own dirt, let 'em throw in the guilt!
         "If you would prefer not to participate in this program, simply hang this card on the outside of your door and linens will be changed today."
         Umm, excuse me, Mr. Hotelman, if I'm “saving the planet" by not using water and detergent, what am I doing for you? How 'bout a discount, bub!

-->But I can carry my six-shooter dept: The National Coalition against Censorship reports that Boris Mills, a representative from Texas, the state with the most executions in America, removed two works of art from an exhibit in the Capitol Building in Austin. The Representative complained about the pieces which showed a lynching and a man tied to an electric chair. He said they were "offensive." Maybe the rep needs to chill out. I know a pill that'll help him.

-->It's a tiny one dept: For this column I've used a free internet program called tinyurl (available at tinyurl.com). The program translates very long URLs with lots of number to SHORT urls that fit on one line. The end result is the same.

-End-


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