War! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47a

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 47a

War!

by Mykel Board

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

It's a playground. In back of Lee Avenue Elementary school... just after a rain... Children out for recess.

A boy about 6 years old... his shirt: think horizontal red and black lines ... walks up to a mud puddle... BLAM! Jumps in... spraying mud from here to Timbuck Three... covering his baby Nikes... his school shorts and striped shirt.

Closest I could dig up on Google Image

In another corner of the playground... a girl slightly younger than the little boy... blond curls... like Goldilocks... walks directly to a puddle... stops just before it... kneels, looks at her reflection... an advertisement for Gerber... until SPLAT... She slaps both hands down into the puddle... the dirt flies... adding mud polka dots to the blue stripes on her oh-too-cute dress.

The older kids are on the basketball court... trying to dribble on the wet concrete. Throwing down a dry ball. It bounces back... now wet. A guy with yogurt colored skin wears a Yankees jersey... weird. This is basketball... and he's wearing a Yankees shirt? You know.. pinstripes... to play basketball?

Anyway, a tall nappy-haired guy from the other team is on the Yankees guy... Fast... the guy with the Yankees shirt throws the ball to a tall freckle-faced kid... red hair. A trail of dirty water follows the airborne ball.. like a tail follows a comet. The tall guy turns on his heel and goes for the redhead. The redhead throws the wet ball to the Yankee. He grabs for it... It skids off his hands... lands smack into a puddle sending a shower of mud up and onto the the Yankee jersey. I knew it would happen.

FLASH: I'm a sociologist... or a journalist... or a politician. Somehow I get the job of analyzing the mud-splashes on the playground. Well, it's clear. What did the splashes have in common? THEY WERE ALL WEARING STRIPES. Conclusion? Stripes attract mud. Solution? Ban stripes from school... stop the mudness.

Hey buckaroo, didn't you miss something. Yeah all the clothes in this case were striped, but maybe other kids got muddied too... and maybe the reason they got muddy was that THEY'RE KIDS! And that's what kids do. Stripes have nothing to do with it.

FLASH TO ORLANDO SOME MONDAY IN MAY: John Robert Neumann Jr. walks into his former Orlando company through a rear door. KABLAM! He opens fire, hitting five of his former coworkers... Then he turns the gun on himself. KERPLOW!

Neumann, a veteran honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1999, had a “troubled” home life when he was a child, says a close friend.

The Press says it was depression. 

FLASH TO NYC MARCH 27: A white US Army veteran accused of fatally stabbing a 66-year-old black man has been charged with murder as an "act of terrorism" after telling police he was planning a race-based killing spree.

James Jackson, 28, "prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism against our Manhattan community and the values we celebrate," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance says.

The Press says it was racism.

FLASH TO FORT LAUDERDALE January 2017: Esteban Santiago walks into the Fort Lauderdale Airport and kills people... shoots 'em with a handgun. PACHING! PACHING! PACHING!

George Piro, the FBI's special agent in charge in Miami, tells reporters that Santiago was turned over to local authorities and he voluntarily submitted to a mental health evaluation.

"His erratic behavior concerned FBI agents," he says.

The military said Santiago's nine years of service in the National Guard included one 10-month tour of Iraq, where he was awarded a combat action badge.

The press says he was a loony bird.

FLASH TO FORT HOOD TEXAS: On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan an army psychologist starts shooting unarmed soldiers. RATTATTTATT! RATTATTATTT! Pfitttt! They scatter... hide under desks... under tables. Score 12 soldiers and one civilian dead. 30 wounded. Prosecutors say one of his motivations was to kill as many soldiers as he could in order to wage jihad on American military personnel. A Senate report calls it “the worst act of terrorism on American soil since the Sept. 11 attacks.”

The press says he's a Muslim Jihadist.

FLASH TO MAY 29 2017: Memorial Day EVERYWHERE in the US. Who is the memorial for? All those marching firemen, cops... bag pipes, hairy legs under man-skirts.... All those floats... wreaths... politicians.... a parade of marching music... No floats with scantily clad girls... just girlscouts... marching in blue and white... sexy as a toothless meth freak... 

They're marching for the heroes. The heroes in war. And who are they? Are they the ones who protected the innocent? Are they the ones who hid Jews in their cellars or threw their bodies over Syrian children to protect them from Obama's drones? Are the HEROES the ones who stopped the war... who negotiated the peace?

You bet your shattered tibia they're not. The HEROES are the killers themselves! They're the guys BEHIND the guns, not in front of them.

In New York the Heroes of 9/11^® are the fire-fighters, the cops, the ambulance drivers who helped people. Not the pilots who flew the planes into those buildings. I suppose, somewhere, they're celebrating those guys... the pilots... as heroes. Yet we look at THEM as Muslims, Al Qaeda, Extremists... not heroes... without seeing that they're all.. uniform or not... officially or not... American or not... KILLERS.

Oh, it's Muslims. It's guns. It's Donald Trump. Like sociologists in a playground, Americans can't see the kids for the stripes. There has been no country this millennium putting less value on human life (except if it's unborn), than the US. Every president (except Jimmy Carter-- my favorite) wants his own war. Commander-in-chief doesn't mean commander of healthcare and chief of wealth redistribution... it means killing people! America's answer to EVERYTHING is KILL PEOPLE.

In the newest Godzilla movie, when Godzilla attacks, the Japanese diplomats want to use liquid nitrogen to freeze the monster and send him back to the oceans? The Americans? Nuke 'im! That's how the world sees us, and the world is right.

For Americans... EVERYTHING is war. There's a WAR ON POVERTY, a WAR ON DRUGS, WAR ON TERROR, CLASS WAR, GENDER WAR, RACE WAR, WAR ON BAD HAIR... War is the metaphor for everything.

I start my day losing the war on sleep. My overfilled bladder wakes me up, and I run to fight the war on last-night's beer. After coffee, the beer war continues... splashing brown rockets into the toilet.

The war on shoe-leather gets me to the train station. On leaving the train, the war on rudeness makes me shoulder my way through the enemy fighting to enter the car before I've left it. Finally, I'm at school, fighting the war on bad-English by teaching my students that the whom and shall they learned in Japan are casualties of that war.

For lunch, I fight the war on my wallet, buying halal chicken-over-rice for $5 and eating it in the park... occasionally fighting the war on mosquitoes. When the day's over, I go home and fight the war on sleeplessness with the rhythmic pump-action machine gun of xvideos.com.

War doesn't have to be the metaphor. Why not health? Instead of fighting poverty, we could cure it. Instead of a war on hunger, we could alleviate it. How about magic? Instead of race war we could make race disappear. Instead of killing poverty, we could levitate the poor.

Fat chance that's gonna happen. Instead, when the next Muslim brings to the West a taste of the terror Middle East citizens feel every day... When a great equalizer makes life in London, Paris or New York feel like Kabul, Gaza or Mosul ... it'll be because he's a Muslim. When the next veteran open fires in a Florida nightclub it's because he's a homophobe. When Donny Trump nukes Pyongyang, it's because he has little hands. When I go to Yankee stadium and everyone stands up and applauds a uniformed military woman, it's because she's been defending America-- or my freedom.

Listen buckaroos, the ACLU has done more to defend my freedom than any hundred gals with bazookas. Unions have protected Americans more than any hundred cops with guns. As long as we keep killers as heroes, there sure as fuck will be more of them.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

--> Cultural Appropriation dept: A tortilla shop in Portland was forced to shut down because the two white women who owned it learned how to make their tortillas in Mexico. The local ethnic purity cops complained that the pair had “culturally appropriated” the recipes from Mexico and had no right to use them for their own profit.

Next: I'm going to shut down those goyish Southern Court houses who have culturally appropriated OUR ten-commandments for their own judicial propaganda. And, I heard, the Japanese will be suing for use of microwaves, DVDs and animated characters with big eyes.

-->Windows Up Means Enclosed Dept: Harry Kraemer is the 76 year old owner of Sparkles Cleaning Service in London Ontario. He was alone in his SUV recently and decided to light up a cigarette. Smoke-Free Ontario^® officers saw this and ran to give him a ticket. Why? Since his vehicle was registered to his business, and the windows were up, the van was an "enclosed workspace."

-->But was he a veteran? dept: Jose Chacon, 39, was arrested in Florida after allegedly fatally shooting an acquaintance who laughed at Chacon's first shot attempt. That time the gun failed to fire. He taunted Jose to try again. He did. The second time, it worked.

-->Keeping the pressure on dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

That's a lie.

In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer.

MRR also has a facebook Page. You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!

Chill! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 47

CHILL!

by Mykel Board

No great theater director ever said to an actor, “Okay, this scene calls for some real emotion, now go out there and give me lots of offendedness.”...If I'm sad, I cry. If I'm happy, I laugh. If I'm offended, what do I do, state in a clear and sober voice that I am offended, then walk away in a huff so that I can write a letter to the mayor?

We take offense at chewing with one's mouth open as well as, say, using an ethnic slur. While I like to think that it takes a lot to offend me, I don't personally believe people that people shouldn't feel offended. I just wonder what the context is. Can one be equally offended by someone's elbows being on the dinner table, senseless police shootings and the fact that Seahawks threw the ball on second and one?

– Paul Beatty

SCENE ONE: Central Park, NYC August 15, 2004. Dawn S is walking through the park with her seeing-eye dog. It's a hot day in August... New York Summer. One of the few ways of getting out of the heat... without the electrical expense of air conditioning... a walk in the park. The trees... the reservoir... the lack of concrete... The park is a respite from the city heat.

Dennis, the seeing-eye dog, is a yellow lab. A big lumbering beast... half-dog half-yeti... bold... but friendly to those who know him. Dawn and Dennis are on that diagonal path that leads from the 59^th street fountain north to the lake. Dawn sits on a bench just where the path begins. Dennis sits on the path itself. After a few minutes, Dawn stands to walk on.

Sensing the general direction, Dawn tells Dennis, “Go!”

The dog guides her north.

In less than 100 yards, Dawn feels a tap on her should. She looks up... into space, as she doesn't know where the tap came from.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“You should take your dog inside,” comes a very austere-- animal-rights-sounding female voice... somewhere to her left. “Your dog should not be outside in this weather.”

“I'm just enjoying the fresh air and vegetation,” answers Dawn.

“But you can't tell how hot it is,” returns the voice. “You're blind.”

SCENE TWO: Los Angeles sometime last year: The local Chinese community is becoming so used to the stereotype Chinese driver that they made stickers... like those caution signs you see on scary looking metal boxes.

As you might guess, it isn't long before the complaints come. That sign is racist, offensive. It should be banned... and the first and main complainers? Offended White people.

SCENE THREE: Bill Maher answers a call to work in the field in Nebraska. “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger.”

There are outraged calls for his firing. Bang! He apologizes for offending. Meanwhile, Paul Beatty, the guy I quoted at the beginning of this column, wins the Man Booker Prize (like a British Pulitzer) for a book with more mentions of nigger than a Klan rally... or a Hip Hop concert.

SCENE FOUR: Gyu-Kaku Japanese Barbecue May 18, 2017. It's my friend Mei's birthday. We're seated at a long table with two grills built in. While grilling... I talk to my friends about RAPEMAN, the notorious Japanese comic that is actually a hilarious parody of superheroes.

By day, Rapeman is a Junior Highschool teacher-- his Clark Kent identity. By night, he's a caped crusader (from the waist up)... raping the bad girls to turn them good. Rapeman is for hire, and the money is used in local charities... especially an orphanage.

“Good deeds through penetration,” is his motto.

I have a copy of the manga with me. I pass it around to the curious Japanese who have never seen one before. (I pride myself in knowing more about Japanese culture-- traditional and popular-- than most Japanese know.)

Both Americans and Japanese look at it with curiosity... except Sadako (name changed to protect the guilty). She glances at the book and throws it across the table. “How many times have you been afraid you were going to be raped?” she asks me.

I'm shocked. This is a satire... a parody making fun of superheroes. It isn't about rape. I'm so taken aback I bullshit... Well, that's not true... It doesn't take a whole lot to get me to bullshit.

“When I was in the Cub Scouts,” I lie, “there was this patrol leader... and in Albania... when I was kidnapped.”

“Well, women have to face this every day,” she says. “It's not a joke to us. You're saying it's okay to rape people. You're giving permission to rape.”

“It's a comic book!” I plead. “Just a comic book. I'm not giving permission for anything. It's just a wild Japanese comic book unimaginable in the Christian west.”

“And I'm offended,” she continues, “I'm offended for two reasons. I'm offended because you joke about rape... and I'm offended because you look at Japanese people as little jokes. Oh how cute, that wacky culture. You look down on us.”

“What?” I'm too shocked to say, “I LOVE Japanese culture. I LOVE Japanese things. I love Japanese movies, manga, haiku, screen painting. I have more Japanese friends than I have American friends.”

People who know me know I believe Japanese culture is one of the greatest cultures in the world. Certainly greater than anything American culture has to offer (except maybe rock'n'roll).

Yes, part of the reason I love the culture is that they're free of the burdens of Christian (or Jewish) guilt and can explore a kind of wild side that would be completely out-of-bounds for Americans... It's American culture I look down on... not Japanese culture. Actually, I'm 5” 3” tall. I don't look down on ANYONE!

But she's offended... she throws $10 on the table (not in the barbecue pit)... and walks out.

Ok, Mykel. We know the routine. You take some shit from your life... or someone else's life and then tie it all together with some wacky philosophy that connects completely unrelated events as if there were some cosmic order... where things are constructed just to PROVE YOUR POINT. So, what's the point?

The point is CHILL!!!

CHILL!... a wonderful command asking for calm in the midst of self-created hysteria... CHILL... Relax in the midst of offendeditude... CHILL.. Breathe deep instead of getting huffy.

CHILL!

I'm a Jew. I laugh at holocaust jokes.

I'm 5' 3” tall... I sing, Short People Got No Reason to Live.

I'm 72 years old: I smile when people ask me why I'm not dead yet.

Old people texting:

BFF: Best Friend Fainted

BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth

CBM: Covered by Medicare

FWB: Friend with Beta-blockers

LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out

GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!

Even punks are offended... How can that be? Punk was CREATED to be offensive. It's essense is being offensive from Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat to Let's Lynch the Landlord.

Nowadays, punks are the most easily offended. Call someone a Pussy and that punk rock girl will throw a Bikini Kill record at your head.

NOT ONLY ARE THEY “sensitive” but they think they know YOUR sensitivity... what you feel and don't feel. What's in your mind... what's behind your motives. They think, with religious fervor... though most are not religious... if only you could realize THE TRUTH... you'd be sensitive in the same way.

That wacky animal rightist thought she knew that a blind person wouldn't realize the day was hot. Their overriding concern with the poor dog, made them completely unaware that there was someone attached to that dog. They were offended by the dog in the heat (though they themselves were comfortable in it), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

That sensitive white girl who complained about the Chinese Driver stickers, thought she knew what was in the mind of the Chinaman on the street. Her overriding concern with race and nationality, made her completely unaware that the Chinese themselves were absorbing-- and negating-- a stereotype.

That Japanese girl who accused me of promoting rape and denigrating Japanese culture thought she knew my motives for being so fascinated with Rapeman. Her over-riding concern with nationality and gender made her completely unaware that the point was satire and inventiveness... nothing to do with nationality or gender. She was offended by the comic book (a comic book, for God's sake!), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

Sometimes the old cliches are right. Most obviously sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. If they DO hurt... the hurt is minor, not permanent, and necessary for life in a free world. It's even better to take the words, give 'em a twist in meaning... then claim 'em for yourself. That's what homosexuals did with queer. What the punk band, New York Niggers did with Nigger. What The Hip Nips did with Nip!. If you take a word and make it cool, the word loses its power to hurt you. 

Short? Old? Jew? Egomaniac? Oh yeah. Those words are MINE! I own them. Now let's see you use them against me.

You too (and the world) can learn how to destroy the effects of words with other words... or by taking them in and turning them around.

That takes time... In the meanwhile, calm down! Laugh at yourself. Relax. Learn that making fun is FUN. Give it. Take it.

CHILL!

(What does Nazi Santa give naughty kids for Christmas?

Jews.)

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Is that a panel in your pocket or are you marginalizing me dept: The University of Michigan was seeking student input about redesigning their hundred year old building.
Anna Wibbelman, former president of Building a Better Michigan, an organization that voices student concerns about university development, stated that “ minority students felt marginalized by the quiet, imposing masculine paneling” found throughout the 100-year-old building.

        Oppressed by quiet... and wood paneling. Pretty sensitive, huh?

-->Meanwhile in Maryland dept: A group of Maryland teachers displayed posters showing white, black, yellow and other colored women working together... and just being friends. School administrators ordered them removed. Why?

       Said the administrators, “They express a negative view of Donald Trump.”

-->Speaking of a crank call of sensitivity dept: Jordan Haskins, a Republican state councilor was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys."

Wanna bet?

-->Now's your chance dept: The new wiki Censorpedia is looking for input on censorship from all fronts. By government, by school, by crowd, by boycott... any way. Just go and report it... this is something that has been a long time coming. I just hope it doesn't get censored.

-->Keeping the pressure on dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

         That's a lie.

       In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer. MRR also has a facebook p age. You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!