You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board (for MRR 286)

"Never give advice! Let them stew in their own juice and rot!...the more the better!... one little piece of advice and people never forgive you!” -- Celine

Before I start in on my Celine violation-- handing out advice like it was candy to a pre-pubescent. First, I've got to bring you into my bedroom. Here, have a seat in the desk chair.

It's late. I lay in bed. My fall-asleep jerk off, already jerked. My nightly chapter of NIGHTMARE ALLEY already read. It's time to hit the hay, crash, catch some Z's. Visions of Orientals dance behind my closed eyelids. It must be midnight. I've got to get up at 7, make coffee, check eBay, drink coffee, shit, brush my teeth, roughly in that order. Then the subway to work where, at 9:00, I begin the task of teaching Japanese housewives how to talk good English.

A faint whirring comes in through the closed window behind my head.

The whirring gets louder. Ah, a police siren... and voices. Lots of voices, and whistles, and more sirens. I'm up now, madder than a Jew at a bacon breakfast.

Jesus fuck! It's another demonstration. This one later than any rational person would be on the street. I bet it's bikes. Sounds like the storm troopers of Critical Mass.

I look out my window. I see first one then a dozen guys on bikes. The first to enter my field of vision wears a yellow shirt, black spandex shorts, and a helmet with a big circled A on it. Then, there are dozens of 'em. Bikes, riders in spandex, with helmets or not, shorts or not, leg muscles out to here, skimpy clothes in the fall on Broadway. Average age? I guess 25. Not a chubby one in the group. Fit as fiddles, the lot of 'em. Kids out for a good loud time. Causing chaos down below. As a fan of chaos, you'd think I like this kind of thing. You'd think wrong.

Is it anarchist? No! It's fascist. It's goose pedaling to the beat of the master race. It's macho, saying if you aren't tough... if you don't have the leg power to ride a bike, stay at home, you faggot! You wimp! WE own the streets.

Are you an 80 year old woman? Tough, ride or die! Paraplegic? Fuck you cripple. Pedal with your hands!

The Critical Mass website says, “We aren't blocking traffic. We ARE traffic.”

Yeah, tell it to the guy who dies of a heart-attack or is felled by a stroke because the ambulance couldn't get through your bells and whistles.

It's not only in Critical Mass demos that this spandexed machismo runs rampant in the city. I dodge it every night, when common bike riders don't have the decency to put a light on their bikes. When they say to pedestrians and drivers: death? Hah! I'm tough. I don't fear death. My death is your fault. If you can't see me, that's tough for you. Come on, hit me. I dare you.

I see it in riding the wrong way down one way streets. I see it in bike riders terrorizing pedestrians going through red lights and shouting at people to get out of the way.

“It's my world,” they say, “and if you want to survive in it, get out of the way.”

Listen, buckaroos, if you want to ride a bike, it's up to you. I'm pro-choice. But if you want ME to ride a bike. If you tell me and my wheelchair-bound parents, and the old lady who lives next door, and the heart attack patient, and the UPS driver, to ride bikes, I'm gonna fight back. I'm not gonna take the bullying. I will defy you.

Sudden flat tire? Guess who. Chain slipped? Hmmm, I wonder. I'd like to take that chain and shove it up your critical mass. If I don't, someone else will. My advice is: watch your back.

Am I saying that militant bicyclers are the cause of all the world's problems? Ah, were it only true. We could just open our car doors into traffic. BLAU! Downhill splat. Like spraying mosquitoes. It would be easy.

But there is another group... just as totalitarian, just as macho, just as dangerous. Before I discuss them, I want you to join me in some time and space travel.

The year is 2004. The place: the highlands of Mongolia. It's the winter. Mongolia faces its worst zuud in fifty years.

[Aside: A zuud is a series of winter blizzards accompanied by extreme cold. It kills millions of livestock and hundreds of people. A zuud means physical and economic devastation.]

A herder on the steppes walks over to one of his goats, frozen solid in the extreme weather. Hungry, newly impoverished (in Mongolia, your animals are your wealth), he thinks about lying down in the cold. Letting it devour him. It's easier than living through this.

Instead, the man cradles the dead animal and carries it into his ger (those big round tents that Americans like to call yurts). There is a dung-fueled fire in the central stove. On the stove, a pot of water boils. The man's wife, a moon-faced woman with high cheekbones and a square body that belies her extreme hunger, sits and waits. Their 3 month old son sucks hungrily at her almost dry nipple. Next to them sit his three daughters, eagerly awaiting his return.

The man has decided he wants to live. His family needs him. He will be poor, but they will live.

Inside the ger, it's toasty warm. Mongolians are experts at insulation. In a few hours, the goat thaws enough for the man to skin it, cut it apart and put it into the boiling water. The plunging meat cools the water a bit. The boiling stops. Then a few bubbles rise to the surface. In an hour, it's time to save some lives.

As the family begins to divide the fresh meat, the sound of a helicopter comes from overhead. The ger shakes as the whirlybird comes closer. In the front of the ger, the man hears a sharp THUMP. Then, the sound of running and a bang on the door.

Stunned, it's a few seconds before he goes to the door to see a young American wrapped in plastic, dragging a parachute.

“Stop!” shouts the American. “You can't do that. Don't you know MEAT IS MURDER?”

Yes! I'm talking about vegetarians!

Like people who ride bikes for pleasure, I have no complaints about casual vegetarians. I eat pizza with friends who go for a half-sausage half-mushroom. I'm yelling at those swaggering, victual hitmen. Food fascists who demand the world pay homage to their preferences.

They would have Kwashiorkor (disease caused by sever lack of protein) sufferers die to save the life of a lamb. They would scoff at complaining when a JAWS shark has a water-skier for lunch. But let the skier be on the other side of the table. Whoa! Save the sharks.

Okay, let's look at the whole picture. Half a million people die in Iraq. Are a few loud bikers that serious? The U.S. government is building a database on every American, every email, every phonecall. Are a few hundred (thousand?) jackass vegetarians that important in the scheme of things?

Answer: They're not important like the E-Coli virus. They're important like a rotted liver. They are not the disease, but symptoms of something very serious. Bike riders and vegetarians are part of the same totalitarian thinking that gives us George W. Bush and Southern Baptists. They are symptoms of the idea that we know right from wrong and you have to follow our right-- or we will hurt you. They are symptoms of all fascism.

Just as there's no space in the world of the bike riders for the weak or handicapped, there's no space in the world of the Baptists for homosexuals or prostitutes.

Just as there is no place for meat-eating self-determination in the world of vegetarians, there is no place for Iraqi self-determination in the world of G. W. Bush. It's no accident that Hitler was a vegetarian. The most basic foundation of vegetarianism-- and bike-riding-- is fascism.

Want my advice? Tough, you're gonna get it anyway. That is: STOP IT. STOP IT! STOP IT!!! Your way is not the only way. If you want to ride a bike, do it. But realize there's no moral high ground in it. Recognize it for what it can be: a macho exercise in self-glorification.

If you want to eat vegetables, do it. But realize there's no moral high ground in it. Recognize that one gal's broccoli is another man's chicken a la king.

My advice is the same for bike-riders, vegetarians, war supporters and racists. Learn a little tolerance. Not everyone is like you. Not everyone should be like you. Relax. Give the rest of us a little slack. That's my advice. Sorry Celine, I'm not keeping it to myself.

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]

-->Global Warming? What global warming dept: the Competitive Enterprise Institute released two TV commercials just before Al Gore published his book on the horrors of global warming.
CEI is an industry apology group funded by Exxon, Amoco and the American Petroleum Institute. Their commercials feature children blowing dandelions, animals skipping around in their natural habitats, and people getting into their cars.
Say the ads: "They call it pollution. We call it life."
So first they say there is no global warming. Then, they say humans didn't cause it. Now they say, there is global warming, humans caused it... and it's good for you.

-->Further on the global warming front dept: The Utne Reader reports that researchers from Duke and Harvard Universities piped carbon dioxide into a controlled forest environment at levels expected by 2050. The result? Poison ivy grew 150% faster and produced a stronger concentration of urushiol. The “poison” in Poison Ivy. If global warming continues, things are gonna get mighty itchy around here.

-->I'm king of the Bushmen dept: Leo De Caprio being called on by the Kalahari Bushmen to help save their land from evil diamond miners? Sounds like the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster - except it's true.
Cute-boy De Caprio, star of Blood Diamond, a new movie about this sinister diamond trade. Meanwhile, real miners have just started digging in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
The Kalahari bushmen have lived in the area for thousands of years but are only now succumbing to First World diseases. AIDS is spreading rapidly as they get screwed in more ways than one by corporate investors. Their way of life is under the threat of extinction as they are evicted and forced into reserves. They have called on the Titanic heartthrob to highlight their plight to the world. See www.survival-international.org for more details.

--> I'm number 885,550,364 dept: Are you feeling loaded? No? Well how about some help to put it into perspective? At www.globalrichlist.com you can enter your yearly income and it will calculate exactly how rich you are. So, I am the 885,550,364th richest person in the world! Top 14.75%. No you cannot borrow $10. Ask number 885,550,363.

--> Carrying the torch dept: For many years I had an organization called The World for Free, where folks could stay with each other free, all over the world. The idea was to screw hotels, meet fine folks, and maybe end up screwing each other (in a good way).
Post office incompetence put an end to THE WORLD FOR FREE. In the meantime, I've discovered two similar organizations, internet based. I joined them both: couchsurfing.com and hospitality club. I have no idea if they work... yet. I'll let you know when I get back from your couch.

-->Yowsah dept: I wanna thank Maria and Rys from ROCK YER SOCKS in Connecticut. They put on a great show, had me read between bands, and I sold a ton of books. Yeah! If you're looking to play somewhere between New York City and Boston, check out www.rockyersocks.org. They're great people and really easy to work with.

-->And also dept: Part of that CT show was a band called BOVACHEVO. You can check them out at their MySpace spot. They are jaw-droppingly great. No vocals, just a hugely powerful trio with a drummer who gives Dickie Peterson a run for his money! If you don't see these guys, your life will be worth a little less.

-->Seems like every month there's another story about Norway. We had one about traffic tickets, one about how Oslo is the world's most expensive city. Now a United Nations survey ranks Norway as the world's best nation to live in. Number two is Iceland. The U.S. ranks number 8. Hard to believe we're so high on the list.
Oh yeah, in case you're thinking of traveling, Sierra Leone is smack dab at the bottom.

-->Higher numbers dept: If the U.S. manages to rank a high number 8 on the livability index. It ranks a low number 53 in Worldwide Press Freedom. After a mediocre 17 in 2002, we've plummeted to a new low.

Reporters without Borders, who does the ranking, rated Finland as number 1. They dropped DENMARK, the former number one to number 19. The country dropped because of serious threats against the authors of the Mohamed cartoons published there in autumn 2005. For the first time in recent years in a country that is very observant of civil liberties, journalists had to have police protection due to threats against them because of their work.

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board (for MRR 285)

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of demand.” -- Josh Billings.


War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. -- George Orwell's NEWSPEAK in 1984

“I am not going to put that thing in my mouth,” she says. “It's just been up my ass.”

“But it was your ass!” I whine. “It's your own body after all.”

“No!” she says with a voice like a stomping foot. “Last time, you asked me to stick a carrot up your ass while you jerked off. Okay, I did it. You had a good time. Did I ask you to eat the carrot?”

“But the carrot wasn't attached to me!” I tell her.

“What's that got to do with it? It's still eating shit! Ok, wash it first,” she says. “Then we'll talk.”

“But it'll go soft if I wash it,” I say. “Look! It's already drooping.”

My little friend has stopped looking at the ceiling. It slowly droops to fix its gaze on the wall. First in the center. Then, where the wall meets the floor.

“Come on,” I beg. “I've swallowed enough of your menstruation to transfuse the Iraqi army. Don't you think we can go tat for tit on this?”

SCENE SHIFT TO NEW JERSEY: It's the 19th annual Chinngis (you know him as Genghis) Qan (you know him a Khan) festival. Every year in New Brunswick New Jersey the Mongolian American Community Association celebrates this holiday. Mongolian-Americans and visiting Mongols from all over the US attend. Me too.

Women dress in beautiful silk deels. People are friendly, happy to see the BIG NOSE crew is interested in their culture.

This year, it's a celebration of 800 years since the rule of Khan. To most of the world, Genghis is a cruel tyrant and marauder. To Mongols, he's a hero. (Can you name two famous Mongols?) He ran the largest empire in the history of the world. He not only conquered the land, but set up structures of rule, taxation, and law.

You cannot maintain control of an area that size just based on cruelty. If everyone hates you, they can gang up and overthrow you. Before Khan there was chaos. After him, though there was fear, there was order.

I'm not here to defend Khan-- or to praise him. I just want to let you know there's more to him than meets our history books, and he's like a God to the Mongols.

The featured speaker at this meeting is an Italian scholar, Nicola di Cosmo. A professor at Princeton, he's presenting a paper on the system of kings and how Khan changed it.

According to the professor, by the time Genghis was just a teen, he had already amassed a small kingdom. Around him was chaos. It was time to tame it. But the leader needed to be sure his inner circle was faithful. He had to count on them to rule for him-- and not against him.

“Kill your favorite horse,” the great-Khan-to-be said to his trusted circle of followers. Most of the men took their trusty sabers and swish swish. Headless horses. Those who allowed their horses to live were swish swished by Genghis.

A great pile of horse and man heads lay in the center of town.

“Now,” said the young ruler, “kill your wives.”

Most of the men immediately lopped off the heads of their better halves. Those female upper body parts joined the head heap. A few more male heads-- those who refused to comply-- were added to the kaput capita.

“Now,” said the ruler, “kill your fathers.”

This time, there was a hundred percent compliance.

Satisfied, Genghis built his inner circle.

“This,” says Dr. Cosmo, “shows the strength and bravery of young Chinngis. It was perfect politics in a time of chaos.”

SCENE SHIFT TO MENTAL: I write this a couple weeks after the U.S. mid-term elections. My fellow liberals walk on air. We won! We won! They shout.
I say, “Waddaya mean we, whiteman?

Maybe some people I voted for won. In New York, if you vote for a candidate on any party, they still get the vote. Say Latoya Schwartz runs as a Democrat and as a Dance-Your-Booty Party candidate. She earns 5005 votes as a Democrat and 302 votes as a DYB. Her total is 5307. That beats Albert Pennyweather's 5104 as a Republican-only candidate. This way, if I like Latoya, I'm not forced to vote Democratic to see her win.

Other states (Massachusetts, for example) don't have that system. They count each party as if it had a different candidate. That forces people into voting for decent guys in bad parties.

This year I voted straight Dance-Your-Booty. Maybe someone from that party won. I don't know.

But was I happy about the election? No!

William Safir, a NY Times columnist and intelligent conservative, explained it best. His column after the election siad that this wasn't a radical victory. It wasn't even a liberal victory. It was a victory for moderation.

Hillary Clinton, an Iraqi war supporter, insurance company flak-girl, pro-censorship pusher, “let's work with the anti-abortionists,” princibleless carpet-bagger, starts her victory speech with GOD BLESS AMERICA! Please tell me how that's different from what Laura Bush would say.

Joe Lieberman, the Republican's best Democrat, runs as an independent and beats the anti-war Democrat running against him. Elliot Spitzer, the anti-porn crusader wins as NY governor. In California, the same goes for middle-of-the-road muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The election was a contest between people with bad principles and those with no principles. The NO PRINCIPLES won.

It was not the Republicans who lost this election. It was ideals, vision, principles. And it disgusts me.

One exception was Charles Rangel, a colored Democrat from New York. He suggested starting the draft again. (I told you before the last Bush election, that it would be a Democrat, NOT a Republican who'd bring back the draft.)

I don't know his plan, but if it were mine, I'd say: EVERYBODY GOES—- in reverse order of family income. Start with the Billionaires. Got big bucks in your family? Yeah! Pow! In the army. Front lines. See how many wars we get into after that. You'll see a fuck of a lot fewer invasions. That's my bet. That Charles has balls. If he were representing my congressional district, he'd have my vote. I'd actually be happy if he won.

But is there anyone else? The anti-war people lost. Democrats, who ran on nothing more than Republicans are fucking up, have no plan on how NOT to fuck up.

Iraq? The solution is simple. It's just what the Republicans accuse the Democrats of saying... but the Democrats lack the balls to say:

“We fucked up. We shouldn't have gone in there in the first place. Sorry. We're leaving.”


SCENE SHIFT to Oprah Winfred. She's talking to a female school teacher who is a registered sex offender.

“Just like a pedophile,” says Oprah.

Jezus fuckin' suckin' humpin' Christ!

The guy was 13. He had a crush on a cute young teacher. And he made it!! He followed through. Had balls. Did what every 13 year old wishes he could do.

“You ruined that boys life,” says Oprah.

What the fuck? The arrest. The trial. The love of his life vilified. THAT ruined his life. Getting laid? Come on!!

“I know,” says the teacher sobbing. “That's why I came on this show. To warn others. To ask people to get help so the same thing doesn't happen to them.”

I think I'm going to be sick.

SCENE SHIFT to NOW.

I sit in BurritoVille on Nassau Street downtown New York. I've just finished my pair of tacos.

[ASIDE: It's a clichè, but like most clichès, it's true. You cannot get good Mexican food in New York. New Yorkers are food wimps. Anything spicier than salt throws their delicate little tongues into a tizzy. Mexican food, Thai food, Indian food, it all sucks in New York. Korean food is decent. That's because Koreans make it for Koreans, not the mealy-mouthed locals who think Taco Bell is a bit too heavy on the pepper.]

Across from me is an older Chinese lady and a younger Hispanic woman. Maybe they're on the same jury. It is the court neighborhood. Me? I've just returned from opening an account with AmeriTrade stock brokers. I decided to sell my 15 shares of Pfizer. I just can't scratch my balls in good conscience, knowing that I'm part owner of one of the most evil corporations in the world. Among the worst corporations in the world. It made number 6, right after Phillip Morris and before Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux. The latter is a French company that privatizes water and sells it back to locals at a huge profit.

Pfizer is notorious for selling its AIDS drugs at more than most people (let alone POOR people) can afford and actively going after anyone who tries to make the same drugs cheaply. For them, it's us or die. OK, they make Viagra, but they don't give it away free-- even to stockholders. I'm unloading.

My economically sophisticated friends say I shouldn't.

“Leave your morals aside when you invest,” they say. “You've got to use your money with your head, not your heart. When you make a bundle, give to the needy. But investing and morality just don't mix.”

SCENE SHIFT to THE NETHERLANDS: Holland, that bastion of personal freedom. That land of marijuana coffee shops and homo weddings. That land of ladies in windows and 12 year old age of consent. That land has banned burqas.

You know, burqas, those long Muslim gowns. They only show the eyes. Women in Iran wear them. In Iraq, women will soon be wearing them again. Sadaam banned them... and now the Dutch are doing the same. No one cares. Could you imagine if they banned yarmulkes?

Are the burqas a problem? How many European terrorists were dressed in them, hiding ticking TNT under their tresses? Er... none.

Well, are they a police problem? Thousands of burqa-wearing babes running pell mell through the streets, mugging at will, with victims unable to report what the perpetrators looked like? Er... nope. There have been NO reports of burqa crimes. Fewer than 100 women wear the things in all of Holland. So what's it about?

Glad you asked me.

I've said that Freedom of Religion is the least important of American freedoms. If there were no religion in the world, it would be a so much better place. During the last dozen or more years, more people have died in religious wars than in any kind of national aggression.

If I could piss in a genie bottle and make religion disappear in a flash, I'd do it. But I can't. There's some basic human spiritual need that religion fulfills. The commies tried to wipe it out, and died trying. It won't happen. So we've got to deal with it.

But this Holland law goes beyond religion. Muslims are dark, have kinky hair, “a look.” You can see it in the cooks at the hallal stands. You can see it in the owners of half the delis in L.A. We Jews consider ourselves a race as much as a religion. The world considers Muslims to be one.

It's racism. A. B. and C. That's it. Those nice liberal Dutch. Those blond haired, blue-eyed giants, stomping through tulips in their wooden shoes. Those models of good sense, are racist.

Like Israelis who say anyone can be a citizen, as long as she's a Jew (and her mom's a Jew). The Dutch are saying, anyone can wear what she wants... as long as it doesn't say MUSLIM.

Ah yeah, socialist Holland... or should I say National Socialist Holland.

FINAL SCENE SHIFT: It's rarer than a Democrat with principles. How many times have you said, “You can hold it while I pee.”? How many times has she done it? Yowsah!

I lay naked in the bathtub. She's holding it straight up.

“Go!” she says. “Now's your chance. I said I would and I will, but I'm not waiting all night.”

“But it's hard for me to do it if someone's watching,” I whine, forcing hard, but releasing only a fart against the dry tub.

“I'll close my eyes,” she says. “Then I won't be watching, I'll just be holding.”

“Try it!” I tell her.

When her eyes close, I feel my own close. The urethral muscles relax. The warm liquid millimeters its way forward. Yes! Yes!

“Yes! Yes!” I yell. She opens her eyes and directs the spray right, left, over my body, my chest, my legs. The warmth spreads over me like a blanket over a baby.

I drip dry.

“That was disgusting,” she says. “But you liked it! That means it's not the same as eating a shit-covered carrot. You still owe me.”

The earth shakes. My blood turns cold. The roof cracks and allows God to shine down from her heaven. The girl's right. I've missed it.

I missed how people, because of their intractable beliefs, take the most obvious facts and twist them. When truth is so obvious, so direct, so true, you, me, the Dutch and the Democrats go through contortions to avoid it.

How can we believe this stuff?

Pissing on yourself for fun is the same as eating shit you find disgusting. Chopping heads off is good politics. People with no principles are better than people with principles we don't like. Giving someone pleasure is bad. Banning someones beliefs by banning their clothes is good. You should “forget your morality” when you enter the stock market... or anywhere else.

You've got an angle to avoid the most obvious truths. You've got some cover, some internal mechanism that disconnects the crap detector when it inconveniently smells of your own shit.

Sorry buckaroos. I'm here to rub your nose in it.

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

-->Who's got the family values department: So, the fundies want to have faith-based” instructions about family values. Well, not so fast buster.
George Barna, an evangelical pollster reports that "born-again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce. That pattern has been in place for quite some time...and challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages." <
Other research shows that Bible Belt states have higher divorce rates that Northeastern "liberal" states. Actually, the Northeast has the LOWEST divorce rate in the country.

-->Are hate-crimes a 2 way street? dept: The Associated Press reports that a Manhattan court arraigned seven women, all from New Jersey. The charges? First-degree assault and first-degree gang assault. One member was accused of stabbing a man with a steak knife.
          The victim, Dwayne Buckle, said he was standing outside a movie theater when he saw the women walking by. He said "Hi," and one of the women spat in his face. He spat back. Then they started hitting him and one of them stabbed him in the abdomen. He said the women were lesbians and the incident was "a hate crime against a straight man." We'll see what happens with that one.

-->Are your genes too tight? dept: Allerca Inc, a San Diego company, has genetically engineered cats not to produce the protein responsible for allergies. Since the cats are new, there's no telling what else this genetic manipulation might cause. Can you say CAT PEOPLE? Werecats? Hmmm, I think I'd rather sneeze. Especially since the price tag for one of these monsters is $3950... but for you...

--> We won dept: Remember I was talking about the South Dakota abortion referendum? Jerry Fallwell said it was an important test for the whole nation. Well, we won that one! The ban was repealed. Congrats! But I still haven't received a postcard from Souix Falls.

-->On the other hand dept: Besides the twin tragedies of Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, 11 states voted to prohibit gay marriage. While I'm against gay (and straight) marriage, I think it's a bad idea to officially prohibit it. I could be convinced, however. Next year, I'd like to see those same states vote on measures to prohibit straight marriage. If they pass, I'll move there.

-->We're number one... er... two... er... three... er... four...er... dept: The United Nations released its report on the best countries in the world to live in. Number one, for the sixth year in a row was NORWAY. Next was Iceland, followed by Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Japan, and then at number 8 the U.S. Frankly, I'm surprise we scored so high. Denmark? France? Germany? Where are they? People in those countries can see a doctor when they get sick. They can read when they finish high school. They can drink before their hair turns gray. They've got to rank somewhere higher than this big lump of dirt.

-->And what about that Chinese mp3 player you bought last week? dept: At the Chinngis Qan ceremony I learned that the current politically correct term for Inner Mongolia is Southern Mongolia. Who knew?
                I also learned that the country, still under Chinese occupation, is even more repressed than Tibet. At least, Tibet has the PR and the Beastie Boys to make folks sit up and take notice. Inner... er... Southern Mongolia has only me. And...The Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center. Check out their website (http://www.smhric.org). It'll give you some idea about what's going on.

-->One for the Monster Dept: CNN did a special report on Energy Drinks. Probably a prelude to liberal calls for the banning of such drinks... or setting an age limit. I've been championing MONSTER over ROCK STAR for several months.
                Here's what the network's energy drink expert said: Monster is more of a hard rocker, maybe with a little punk thrown in, much more hardcore. Rockstar (distributed by Coca Cola)is the more mainstream, glam rock band that's more about partying then playing.
I especially like that “punk thrown in” part.


-end-