EVERYONE Is Above The Law or Mykel's July 2024 Blog Entry

   

EVERYONE is Above The Law
or
Mykel's July 2024 Blog
aka  You're Still Wrong

The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread. 

– Anatole France

“The law roasted her to death at a slow fire.
                        –Mark Twain in The Prince and The Pauper

Practically all laws, whether they forbid me to take your car, outlaw racial discrimination, or coerce the payment of taxes, impose somebody’s morality on somebody else. 
                     –Stephen L. Carter

--------------------

I stand with half a dozen people at the northwest corner of Broadway and Houston Street. A cacophony of horns blasts from the barely moving cars and trucks. If this were a symphony, every thirty seconds or so, a conductor would cue a VROOOM VROOOM screaming from motorcycles... and cars that wish they were motorcycles. No one looks at the traffic lights. The red-handed DON’T WALK sign hides behind the school bus blocking the crosswalk at the corner.

From our standing-at-the-corner crowd, an attractive young woman in twat-shaping shorts, steps from the curb into the traffic. Stepping hard… intentionally… she weaves her way through the cars to reach the divider in the middle of the street. Her move has given me the courage to try it… and I twist and turn my way to the middle divide. So does a mom pushing a stroller. Then a tourist trying to follow his cellphone map.

Slowly we wind our ways through the traffic until one by one we reach the other side of Houston Street. None of us notices or cares about the lights… and it’s the same for the traffic we’re weaving through. They don’t care either.

FLASH TO WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT: I tried asking Google (actually DuckDuckGo) how many federal laws there are. It turns out nobody knows. The last attempt to count them was in the 1980s. The result “was scattered among 50 titles and 23,000 pages of federal law.”

Of course, there are also state, city, and local laws… new ones coming and going every day. The laws are constructed –some by accident, some by intention– so that EVERYONE will be a lawbreaker at one time or another.

I haven’t been in high school since 1968. It’s likely things have changed since then. When I was in school, Social Studies taught us that America was a Nation of Laws. Unlike dictatorships… like Russia, where HUMANS rule arbitrarily, in America everyone must obey the same laws. It doesn’t matter if you’re Al Capone or Jane Fonda. The law applies to all of us.

“In America, everyone is equal before the law,” Mr. Greenspan told us. “There is no aristocracy here… no dictatorship.”

Even then, I thought something was fishy about that idea. Al Capone was a gangster. The guy behind the machine gun that The Untouchables were always fighting. But what sent him to prison? TAX EVASION. He didn’t pay the government on the money he stole from those dead guys. It seemed to me that mass murder from the end of a machine gun was a more deserving crime than tax evasion. But that was the only way they could get him.

FLASH AHEAD TO 2325: A teenage Mikhail Boardinov is struggling against the body lock placed on him by Robocop4870-UB.

 “You are under arrest,” says the 4870… whose mellow voice is uncannily like that of HAL in 2001.

“What for?” asks Boardinov. “I know you don’t like what I say sometimes. But I have a right to say it.”

“Of course you do,” answers the Robocop. “This is a free country… You’re not in Russia.”

“Then why am I being arrested?” asks Boardinov.

“You know why,” says the Robocop. “You’re not being arrested for your beliefs or your writing. You’re being arrested for breathing without a license.”

“How do you know I don’t have a license?” asks Boardinov, “This wouldn’t have anything to do with my vocal opposition to the merger of AmazAppleGoogleSoft with the US government, would it?”

“Of course not,” comes the reply. “You know about climate change. You know how bad carbon dioxide is for the earth. Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. You know that the law requires a breathing license for every citizen… and that all citizens must document at least 3 periods of one minute each day… where they stop breathing in order to help save the planet. You are a selfish bastard… not caring about the earth or anyone in it besides yourself… and if you had a license, you’d show it to me.”

FLASH TO 2024: As I write this, Donald Trump has finished his trial about paying a pornstar hush-money^®, but like Al Capone’s trial, the reason for the court is violation of some business expense reporting.

Donald Trump is an outsider. Before his previous term in office, he was without experience with the Washington politicos. He was a businessman and an entertainer. And he lived his life according to the rules of those professions. I can’t imagine a successful businessman who doesn’t have an accountant or lawyer he pays to fiddle the books. The pornstar makes the news. Few people know – or care – about the buisiness law.

In Florida, they’re bringing Trump to court for boxes of classified documents on the floor of his bathroom. No he didn’t piss on them, at least not as far as I know. He didn’t do anything with them except leave them in his house. And they raided that house. The Feds tore the place apart looking for… for whatever they could find. A little later they raided Joe Biden’s house too. Found a few classified docs. Poof! that was the end of it. No big deal for Joe, but Donny Trump had to go to court.

And now the Repubs are getting into the act. They can’t get Joe, so they go after his kid… cooking up a violation of some federal gun laws for an ILLEGAL purchase of a revolver... a decade and a half ago… and they’re still looking to dig up some law to prove the kid’s an undercover secret agent for Ukraine or someplace else in The East.

GET IT???

There are so many laws in this country that anyone at any time is guilty of violating something. The function of the law is NOT that all people are subject to all laws. That would mean jail for EVERYBODY. The function of the law is to provide a means for powerful people to GET those they don’t like. It allows good-old-boy cops to arrest black drivers going five miles over the speed limit. Not because they’re black (wink wink), but because THEY VIOLATED THE LAW. They were speeding. Laws allow colleges to break up peaceful demonstrations, not because the big donors don’t like the ideas of the protesters, oh no, ever that… but because the demonstrators were OBSTRUCTING. And that’s AGAINST THE LAW.

Mr. Greenspan was wrong. The purpose of the law is not to make some rules that apply to everyone equally all the time. The purpose of the law is to control or punish people the lawmakers don’t like. American elections have become not who wins at the ballot box, but who stays out of court… and the corollary, who stays out of jail.

Along with the US, other third-world countries have adopted the same system. Pakistan and Thailand have both jailed the “opposition,” using the law as an excuse. Nelson Mandela spent 20 years in prison in South Africa before JUSTICE finally beat LEGALITY and he became president.

Of course Donald Trump is guilty of violating the law. Every one of those people crossing against the light on the corner of Houston and Broadway was guilty of violating the law. Every person in the United States is guilty of violating the law… or a law… or multiple laws.

The law does not “hold violators accountable.” The law provides the violation to punish people out of favor with those in power.

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

LATE ADDITION: Just before I’d planned to post this, the Supreme Court issued a decision saying that “Presidential Immunity” means… er… Presidential Immunity. Much of the plot to let the courts, instead of the voters, decide the next president has been lost. That’s a good thing. Friends and regular readers know I’m a Trump agnostic. He’s done selfish and serve-the-wealthy things, Can you say cutting rich and corporate taxes? But he also kept us out of war, opened up a dialog with North Korea, and pardoned thousands of non-violent jailed humans. I don’t think his election will mean DEATH TO DEMOCRACY. Democracy has been dead a long time.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→A FISH LAW DEPT: Hand-fishing without a license is illegal in Kansas. Anyone who plans to hand-fish must first get a hand-fishing license in addition to a hook-biting fishing license. Even with a license, however, it is only legal to hand-fish flathead catfish from sunrise to sunset June 15 through August 31 along the Arkansas River, all federal reservoirs beyond 150 yards of a dam, and the whole stretch of the Kansas River. Everywhere else, you have to keep your hands to yourself.

 → SPEAKING OF FISH AND HANDS DEPT: In Gainesville County, Georgia, it is against the law to eat fried chicken except with your bare hands. As for enforcement: in 2009, a 91-year-old visitor from Louisiana was arrested and charged for eating fried chicken with a fork. 

→ GETTING MARRIED ON THE WAY DOWN! DEPT:  Unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be fined or jailed in Florida. You know sometime, somewhere, a bachelorette parachuted on Sunday. It was her passion. Then, some unrequited state legislator decided to teach her a lesson. I’ll get you, you bitch! Take THIS law!

There are a ton more of these super-weird laws. You can google them. At first, they seem funny. But there’s something sinister behind all of them.

→ IT MAY BE A CULT… BUT Dept: I’ve been on the LaRouche mailing list for a long time. The cultishness and conspiracy focus have usually put me off them. But they are often so logical, and print news that you just can’t get elsewhere. This is a translation of part of a Putin speech… and it makes a lot of sense

See you in hell (redux)
MB

THE NATION AGAIN:

In the newest issue are a couple of worthwhile columns: There’s a good one by Adolph Reed Jr. It’s sumarized in this quote: Liberal policy offers sympathy to those sleeping on the streets, but stops fhort of giving the shewhere to live..

And there’s another good one by the often right, Jeet Heer, on the necessity of cleansing the Democratic Party of the remains of Hillary (and Bill) Clinton, and building a true alternative to the Republicans. Also the column talks about the Dems abandoning young people (Hillary Clinton on young followers of Trump vs. Bernie Sanders fans: “At least they shave.”)

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions many I’d never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth, superstar comic writer, Justin Melkmann and possibly the next vice-president of the US, Charles Bukkake.

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry. 

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their on-line version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Longtime writer, Randall Fleming, has a new book out about the reversal of flag desecration. In his view, the right And more generally it’s about political violence in the 21^st century.

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. mykelboard@gmail.com

Hate, a Crime? or Mykel Board's Post MRR Column no. 41

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 41

Hate is a Crime?

You fucked him? Him? With a chest hairier than my head? Him with a belly? Him with that pimple on his nose... that puss-oozing pimple. You fucked HIM???

At each question mark I lift the knife out of the body now on its knees in front of me. Then, I plunge it into a different spot. The deep red splashes my arm, my chest, my face. I can't tell if the wetness dripping under my eyes is from blood or tears. I keep pressing. IN... OUT... IN... OUT... the knife fucking skin like my penis used to fuck flesh.

I LOVE you! I yell to the still-whimpering naked body. The screams now faded into barely sobs. Again and again the force of love guides my stabbing hand. The body stills.

I press my face into the now silent face on the couch in front of me. I LOVE YOU! I yell, as the knife cuts through the neck flesh choking the last sob... slicing around... deep and around...sticking hard on the vertebrae.

I LOVE YOU, I yell as I use the blade like a crowbar, separating... cutting... like removing a stubborn fishhead from my future dinner. Cradling that now-severed head in my arms, I kiss the lips... lapping the still warm blood... that puddles in a lipstick parody around the mouth.

Under the severed neck hangs the bloody tube that once connected that most perfect mouth to the stomach below. It now flaps and inflates and deflates like the end of a balloon farting out air.

I unzip... pull out my five inches of throbbing love... insert it into the blood-lubricated esophageal opening. Yes! Yes! This is love. I love you. You'll be with me forever, I tell that head. We can love each other and never have to be apart...

=======================

At the trial, they... of course... find me innocent. Temporary insanity... a crime of passion. Blinded by love. A quick visit to the looney bin, and I'm out on the street... rehabilitated.

Affection, Amusement, Anger, Annoyance, Anxiety, Agitation, Boredom, Calmness, Caring, Contempt, Contentment, Delight, Despair, Disappointment, Disgust, Doubt, Elation, Embarrassment, Empathy, Envy, Excitement, Fear, Friendliness, Frustration, Guilt, Happiness, Helplessness, Hope, Humility, Hurt, Interest, Irritation, Joy, Love, Pleasure, Pride, Relaxation, Relief, Sadness, Satisfaction, Serenity, Shame, Shock, Stress, Surprise, Tension, Trust, Worry

During Yom Kippur, we ask forgiveness from The Holy One^® for the past year's sins. We have a prayer that lists all the different emotions in which we sin. It's an alphabet of sinful feelings... a Hebrew alphabet... from Aleph through Tav. And those are only the BAD emotions.

There are dozens of human emotions. Maybe scores... maybe a gross. You've felt most of them, I bet. That's the nature of humanity. It isn't a crime, is it?

You bet your iron cross it's a crime. If it's the WRONG emotion you're feeling there, buckaroo. It's criminal. LOVE crimes we can forgive... HATE crimes are evil. Here's the law in New York:

When a person is convicted of a hate crime pursuant to this article and the specified offense is a misdemeanor or a class C, D or E felony, the hate crime shall be deemed to be one category higher than the specified offense the defendant committed, or one category higher than the offense level applicable to the defendant’s conviction for an attempt or conspiracy to commit a specified offense, whichever is
applicable.

That means, if you draw a swastika... six lines on a wall... graffiti... protest art since Roman times... You can go to jail for a year! Minor nothing! If you do it in hate, it becomes major something. You pay for what's in your mind... not for your action. As if being thrown in jail with cripplers and murderers is a cure for hate.

Where are the BOREDOM crimes? The INDIFFERENCE crimes? I type this in a bus between Boston and New York. The asshole in the seat in front of me is reclining right into my lap. I'm like a circus clown in a clowncar... crunched into an ever tinier space by this shithead who didn't even look behind him before he hit the release lever. INDIFFERENCE CRIME! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

And it's not just me: More people are injured, crippled or killed from not-caring than from hating.

Earthquake in Haiti? Let 'em die. My best friend is suicidal? I don't give a fuck. Drones in Syria are making refugees who can't go anywhere? Who cares?

INDIFFERENCE CRIMES! A YEAR IN THE CLINK! I say.

And where are the PRIDE crimes? Wad you say 'bout my Nikes? Take that you fuck!

How 'bout the IRRITATION crimes?

Listen you shithead. I don't give a fuck if you just have to text your boyfriend to tell him you saw this cute little cabinet that would look soooo good under the bathroom sink. You're in my way. You're walking too slow. I push you off the sidewalk... into the street... you get hit by a Citibike going the wrong way. It's an IRRITATION crime! Off with MY head!

The worst crimes of emotion are LOVE crimes. Of all the crimes in the world... LOVE crimes are the most vicious, most destructive of crimes.

My severed-head opening paragraphs recreate a love crime. Motel floors are littered in love crimes. But the problem is bigger than that. In some countries (India), it's the duty of a man to kill his wife's lover. A duty? It should be a LOVE crime!

And as bad as love crimes is LOVE SPEECH. The little goo-goos and kuchi-kuchis that inevitably lead to violence. Free speech is one thing. But there are limits. LOVE SPEECH is that limit. Besides engendering disgust-- a completely justified emotion-- love speech is otherwise destructive.

Every puckered lip sound... every partner-hair-fix... every did I ever tell you how much... is a spike driven deep into the intestines of those around the speakers. Public displays of love make the lonely guy in the next seat... lonelier. They make widows and orphans tear. They make the short... the crippled... the aged... feel their afflictions more deeply.

LOVE SPEECH is not simple sticks and stones. LOVE SPEECH is hurtful. It drives people to suicide. How many souls throw themselves off bridges because of a careless I Love You overheard on a trip back from the cemetery? How much tension, how much jealousy, how many early deaths come from careless LOVE SPEECH? Too many to count, I bet.

Religious Christians tell us GOD LOVES US: Yeah right. Typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, yeah, that's LOVE all right. For the religious, that's what love is. But even if it's not...

The criminality of love is bigger than a husband killing a paramour.

Patriotism is GIANT love. Probably the most disgusting example of love. How many people have been murdered for that one? We officially honor murderers for killing because THEY LOVE THEIR COUNTRY. (Whichever country that happens to be.) Their job is murder. They carry tools of murder. They train in techniques of murder. Why? They LOVE their country. Salute that flag now.

People commit the most heinous crimes... for love of country... or religion...or race... or “the people.” Love is the excuse for the worst atrocities in human history. Excuse? No, the REASON. And that reason should be a crime.

So stop with the HATE crimes, already. Prison can't break some one out of hate. Let's go to where the real evil is. Let's get on to the LOVE crimes. Prison can certainly break someone from that affliction.

-end-

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]

-->Laws I Like Dept: According to the human rights group LandMark, Tanzania is one of only five countries to grant autonomy and access to resources to all its people. Why? Because they don't allow private land ownership outside urban areas. Sounds like Mongolia (used to be?) What a great idea! Of course, I'd extend that to the cities too. How can you OWN land? You didn't make it. It was there before you were, and will be there after. It belongs to everybody!

-->Creative Dentistry Dept: A Taiwanese artist/dentist, Kuang-Yi Ku was annoyed that his dentistry textbooks did not address the mouth's value as a sex organ. He created a special dental retainer including “bumps, cones, ribs and ripples” that promises to be more pleasing to a partner than your everyday teeth and saliva.

It's not clear whether the retainer hides your teeth as well as providing the extra hills and valleys. If it doesn't, you could still feel an incisor or two... definitely a LOVE CRIME.

-->Say it and BANG! it changes dept: Before I even have this posted, I see that the locals seem to realize the idiocy of “hate crimes.” So what's the new term? Bias Crime. As if bias were an even more evil emotion than HATE.

-->Just when you thought they couldn't get any sleazier Dept: Time-Warner has changed its name to Spectrum, but that hasn't changed their dishonesty quotient.

Remember how they used to advertise? PHONE, INTERNET, CABLE 89.90 a month* with the asterisk explanation hidden in tiny print *plus fees, taxes, service charges, postage, installation and equipment?

Now, it's SPECTRUM and they advertise PHONE, INTERNET, CABLE for $29.90 a month.

And the asterisk? *for EACH SERVICE... when bundled...

So you have to take ALL the services and it's $90 a month (plus taxes, fees, tips, equipment, extortion, etc.)

Now, tell me again how THE GOVERNMENT is dishonest, and should be run like a business?

--> Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.

Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

See you in hell.

-end-

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. (It hasn't been updated in awhile, but you might enjoy the history.)

If you want something closer to the ENDNOTES-- bitesize tidbits-- try: http://mykelsclippings.blogspot.com/

Mykel's MRR Column for #319, (December, 2009)

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.         

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 319, December 2009
by Mykel Board

“"They knew that in politics, like religion, power lay in certainty-- and that one man's certainty always threatened another.”-- Barak Obama

L'shona Tovah. Today is the first day of 5770. Pretty amazing we made it so far. At least I made it so far. Jim Carroll and Lux Interior did not.

SETTING THE SCENE: I sit in Café Café, a small place on Greene Street, tucked far enough into Soho to charge $9.50 for a sandwich. Too far south to be crowded with horrible NYU students, it's café enough to have teeth-grinding jazz blasting at the inmates. It's better than home, though. Fewer distractions. No dishes that suddenly need washing. No garbage that suddenly needs to be taken to the basement.

In front of me, behind my laptop, is a covered cup of coffee, the cover torn just enough to let me sip from it. The lid slowly melts in the coffee beneath.

In my lap (there's not enough room on the table), is a children's book called ALBANIA IN PICTURES. It's open to the page about Shkodër, one of the few “big” cities in the north of that country:

The residents of Shkodër rebuilt many of its buildings after a strong earthquake in 1979. One of the city's main attractions is The Museum of Atheism, which Albania's Communist government built to celebrate its ban on all forms of religious practice...

The Museum of Atheism??? Holy Pentateuch Batman! Sounds like my kind of place.

By the time you read this I'll probably be back from Albania. I leave in two weeks. No punk connections. No nothing. I just take the plane to Rome, a train across the boot, and a boat from Bari to Durres. I can't tell you what I expect to find (except, maybe, a museum of atheism.) That's why I'm going.

Give the Context: A couple months ago, I wrote about factives. This group of verbs creates truth... or at least the image of truth.

To review: verbs like know, realize, understand are factives. Phrases like everybody knows that, or nobody knows that... are factives.

If you say, “Everybody knows that Arnold is a piss drinker,” Arnold is a piss drinker. If you say, “Nobody knows that Arnold is a piss drinker,” Arnold is still a piss drinker.

Extend the context: There's another kind of factive-- a truism-factive. This one involves a cliché that unconsciously controls your point of view. It's a phrase that molds what we think. A one-sentence assumption.

My father used to say, “Never assume. It makes an ASS of U and ME.”

That phrase itself is one of these truism-factives. People say it all the time. Utter the words I assumed... and someone's sure to spit it out. Sometimes they'll just say “never assume.” You're supposed to fill in the rest. Everybody knows it. But... it's WRONG!

You assume all the time. You can't live without assuming. If you drop a marble, you assume it will fall to the ground, not shoot upwards through the ceiling. If you buy a cup of coffee at a Soho café, you assume it will not be laced with acid, tearing your stomach out, bubbling blood from your mouth at the first sip. As I type these words, I assume when I push the F key, the letter F will appear on the screen.

These assumptions come from 70 years of marble dripping, coffee sipping, and F-pushing. But even babies assume. If they press their lips against a warm nipple, for example, they assume it will dispense some tasty milk. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but to live, they have to assume.

Life is assumptions. Sometimes we're wrong. But we HAVE to assume in order to live. It's obvious. But people think in truism-clichés so they miss the obvious. The cliché trumps the reality.

More Context: It's 1989, somewhere on Second Avenue. This guy in Doc Martins wears a plastic jacket with a bunch of patches on it. He runs his hand over his smooth head.

Having recently been punched and booted by a colored skinhead, the image does not attract me. That this guy is white is scarier. As I turn to walk back to the Mars Bar, I read one of the patches on his jacket: IF IT DOESN'T KILL YOU, IT MAKES YOU STRONGER.

What the fuck? How many people have this truism-factive doing maneuvers in their mental battlefield? It's easy to see where it came from. If you give chickens antibiotics, the antibiotics kill off the weak bacteria. The strong ones survive. They do the bacteria screw, and the surviving bacteria get stronger. But that's it. Bacteria. Otherwise, the truism is WRONG.

I visit my father in an old folks home. I see people in wheelchairs. I see blind people. I see folks unable to speak, howling like wolves howl at a full moon. These people have diabetes, alzheimers, emphysema. Thousands of medical problems that don't kill them.. but make them WEAKER-- not stronger.

Of course, you die in the end, so you can say EVERYTHING kills you. But at any moment, if it doesn't kill you (unless you're a bacterium), it will probably make you WEAKER... not stronger. It's as obvious as the cancer on your nose, but you think in truism-clichés and miss the obvious.

The Crux: It's not only verbs, and truism-clichés that act this way. It's an entire mindset, a brainbug.

You hear something and it triggers a string of thoughts. Newspapers headline that a highschool girl is gang raped in the bathroom. Cops arrest four guys. They're looking for a fifth. The public is outraged.

Our girls, our daughters. How could we let this happen? We need more security in schools. We have to protect our women.

Here is the NY Post front page of September 19^th, several days after the “rape.”

Danmell Ndonye, 18, told cops she had been raped during a restroom romp at a Hofstra dorm early Sunday.

Stalin Felipe (left) and his cousin Arvin Rivera talked about their ordeal yesterday. Felipe credits Rivera, who had filmed the bathroom orgy, with clearing his and his friends' names.

He and his stepbrother, Kevin Taveras, 20, and pals Jesus Ortiz, 19, and Rondell Bedward, 21, were all charged with first-degree rape, which could have landed them in jail for 25 years.

"We went to Hofstra just to have some fun, and it turned out to be a nightmare," Felipe said. "Cops were telling us, 'You are going to rot in jail.' "

They were exonerated only after the fifth man -- Felipe's cousin Arvin Rivera, an 18-year-old senior at Harry S. Truman HS in The Bronx -- contacted prosecutors through his lawyer and said he had videotaped the sex romp with his cellphone. The video showed the sex was consensual.

Get it? The girl was lying! But we're so conditioned to believe the woman, the cops who were investigating reached their conclusions before they started. So did you.

How many innocents are in jail because people believe the victim. How many times have you heard cries against blaming the victim, when it may be that the victim is to blame!

This happens again and again. Remember the Duke University LaCross scandal in 2006? Even if you do, it probably won't matter. Let a woman cry rape and the guy is guilty. It's in your brain. Everybody knows men rape and women are victims, right?

The innocent woman/guilty man image is an idea thousands of years old. It's responsible for most of the gender inequality in the world. Woman's circumcision is mutilation. Men's is “protection against disease.” Husbands defend women's honor. Women can't defend themselves. Men are perpetrators. Women are victims.

Take Sweden... please.

“Enlightened people” say that Sweden has found the right way to handle prostitution. Instead of punishing the whores, as in most countries, Sweden gives them the right to ply their trade. BUT, if you frequent a prostitute, if you pay for the offered service... then you can go to prison.

Huh? That's the opposite of enlightened drug policy... or any criminal policy. It would be like saying, it's okay to sell heroin, but if you buy it, you go to jail. Talk about blaming the victims!! This is jailing the victims.

Where does such perverse thinking come from? It's a brainbug. An unconscious everybody knows it's true. The same brainbug that creates the knee-jerk reaction to cries of RAPE!

Women are victims. Most prostitutes are women. Most purchasers of prostitutes are men. That means the victims are the women. If that's the case, the criminals are the men. Jail them. Bullshit!

Careful thought shows the only victims are those created by the law. Prostitution, even more than drugs, is simply a paid relationship of mutual agreement. How could it be legal to have free sex between consenting adults, but illegal to have paid sex? Is there anything else in the world that's legal to give away, but illegal to pay for? I can't think of it. It doesn't make sense.

But sense has nothing to do with this. It's the mindset. Women are right. Women need protection. If there's a crime, women must be the victims. It never occurs to people that there may be NO victims.

Throwing up my hands: Ah fuck it. I'm going to Albania. There are no clichés about Albania. No performatives. There's NOTHING everybody knows about Albania. My brain will be free to make its own discoveries. Let's see what happens.

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

-->Gimme Nuuk department: Greenland had its first election since it won near-independence from Denmark, my favorite country. The leftist Inuit Ataqatigiit Party of Greenland took control.
   Why? Global warming has melted the Greenland ice. Suddenly, the natives have access to natural resources worth exploring. The Greenlanders wanted control of their own resources. Danes, being Danes, let them have it.
    Speaking in the Greenlandian capital, Nuuk, the new leader said, “Greenland deserves this.” I hope he's right.

-->What's up Doc? dept: It used to be that doctors were the biggest block to healthcare in the U.S. In the old days, doctors opposed Medicare and any other government interference in the health biz.
    After a taste of rule by insurance company, a bunch of doctors are now head-banging to a different speedmetal song.
   Physicians for a National Health Care Program includes more than 16,000 healthcare professionals. It was started by Dr. Linda Farley who has since died of cancer.
   “The doctors who have been on the front lines can tell you,” Dr. Farley said, “there only one real 'public option.' It's single-payer.”
    That means socialized medicine. Yeah!

-->Plugging myself department: During my trip to Albania, I'll be blogging my adventures. And, depending on if I can find an internet site... and if my computer gets stolen, you can read that blog regularly at: http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

-->A weird church-state issue: A Washington D.C. Christian Science church has sued that city's historical landmark department.
    They asked for the right to tear down their own church. It looks like a windowless war bunker, they said.
   At a press conference, church leaders said, “Little is more representative of a church’s theology than its architecture, and this building is not us.”
   The landmark department has reversed its ruling because of the suit. But since there is no plan for a replacement, the building still stands.
    A windowless war bunker, huh? Sounds like a pretty good representation of any religion to me.

-->A tougher church-state issue: During the last days of the Bush administration, the president issued new regulations about healthcare. The rules say the government will cut funding to any group, state or local government that does now allow workers to follow their religious conscience.
    That means pharmacists don't have to fill birth-control prescriptions if it goes against their beliefs. Lab workers don't have to give lesbians in-vitro fertilization if it goes against their beliefs. Catholic hospitals can refuse to provide morning-after pills to rape victims, if they believe it's a sin.
    Who is right? Should the government force workers to violate their beliefs? Or should there be equal treatment for all in need of it?
   I say, if you're gonna go for the belief side, you gotta go whole hog. My belief system says that wage-slavery... expending effort for the profit of someone else... capitalism... is immoral. For me, to participate in such a system is a sin. I want the right to my paycheck without the duty to actually work. If my employer has to respect MY BELIEFS, then I agree with the religious guys. Let 'em follow their conscience.
   Otherwise, face it, in capitalism, we DON'T respect the beliefs of working people. That's the whole point.

-->Good news department: Ward Churchill, the guy who was fired from the University of Colorado for saying the World Trade Center victims were little Eichmans, won a lawsuit against the university. It's not clear whether he'll be rehired, but it is still one small victory in the fight for free speech and academic freedom.

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