Mykel's MRR Column for #326 (July 2010)

  You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board

"If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him." --Voltaire

"What if God is not as imagined? What, for instance, if he disapproves of gamblers, especially those whose purported belief in Him is dependent on some acorn-beneath-the-cup mentality? God might prefer the honest doubter to the sycophantic chancer”. --Julian Barnes

For months I've been reading about how the Texas Board of Education is trying to insert Intelligent Design in the school curriculum. What's all the fuss about?

For those who don't know, Intelligent Design is a kind of creationism. Instead of the usual creationist 7-Days-Pop-There's- The-World!, I.D. people believe that someone or something set things in motion. Then, there was evolution. Instead of lightning striking a primordial soup, there was a creator who did the designing.

I.D. doesn't use the word God right out, but who else could it be? Aliens? Even if it were aliens, who designed the aliens? Ultimately, it has to be God.

Christians use Intelligent Design to get around the evidence that the earth is millions of years old. The universe is much older. These facts make it hard to swallow the mere 6000 years that Biblical creationism can explain. I.D. people try to bring God to Darwinism. Their basic argument though, is the same as that of the creationists:

 

When you look at the workings of a watch, if you see that the gears move against one another... What one does, affects the other in calculated precision. You know there must be a watch-maker. A watch cannot happen by accident.

Creationists say that, given enough time, the watch can, in fact, happen by accident. Like moneys at the keyboard writing Shakespeare.

In the current evolution discussion, then, there are three theories: Darwinism (chance and the survival of the fittest), Intelligent Design, and Creationism. I will propose a third theory, but to understand it you have to come take a shit with me.

 

FLASH TO THE JOHN: It must be all that matzo. Binds me right up. It's lucky I cut my nails because my middle finger is now inserted into my anus, all the way to the third knuckle. I just touch the edge of a turd. As dry as the Gobi.

I grunt it down a little, tightening my abdomen as I give a peristaltic push. Ahh, it's a little farther down now. I can just wrap my finger around it. It's about the size and shape of a Brussels sprout. Push a bit more. Pull with the finger. Come on. A little more. Almost out. Kerplunk! There it is. Sinking in the toilet like a drowned kitten. I reach back in to coax out another one. Jeezus. This is awful.

Why can't your rectum come with a little more lube? Your nose comes with lube. Your mouth comes with lube. Why not your asshole?

I push again, trying to squeeze down the next one. Silver lights pop in my brain... behind my eyes. I nearly faint. In that moment I have a revelation... a vision. I see God-- the designer. Yes!

Let's look at the evidence: it's as plain as the dried dung in my rectum.

Take my balls... please. What a stupid invention. The most sensitive, painful part of a guy's body and where is it? Hanging outside, ready for the slam of a stepped-on rake or an errant baseball. My appendix is protected by layers of muscles and fat... and how often do I use that? But my balls?

 

“Hmmm, well I think I'll just leave 'em out to dangle in the air. Leave those fragile glands in a spot they'll most likely get damaged.”

What kind of thinking is that? Dumb!

And what about the other part of that dangly device?

“Oh baby, I'd love to, but...”

How come I can't? Or at least can't always. Why can't I just raise my dick like I can raise my middle finger? I can lift that finger to tell someone to fuck off whenever I want to? But (especially after a certain age) I have to take a little blue pill to raise my penis. Why?

But the moronitude extends to more than just me.

And how about the history of the world? Before humans?

90% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct. They didn't work and died out. Is that intelligent design? Sounds pretty dimwitted to me.

Besides stupidity, there's downright evil in the history of the world. Is it “intelligent design” for some people to be able put others in ovens?

Once, I answered a Facebook critic who said he drove an SUV because he “wanted to show you PC people that we are free to drive whatever we want.”

“You're free to nail your penis to a tree,” I said. “That doesn't mean you should.”

But why should we even be able to nail our penises to a tree? Is that a useful ability in the year of our iPad, 2010? Isn't it plain stupid?

Oh, I know what the Christians/Jews say. That's free will™. God gave the gift of free will™. It's up to individuals to use it for good or to toast their fellow humans-- or nail their own penises to a tree.

Free will? Free will??? I don't have free will. Can I walk through walls? No! Can I flap my arms and fly? No! Can I make myself invisible? Keep an erection for an hour? No. No! NO! Why aren't those things part of free will?

I can imagine God designing free will.

“Let's see. I have a choice. Either I allow people to murder one another... in huge quantities, and build ovens for the bodies... or I let them fly. I think I'll choose mass murder.

Hmmm, should I let people be able to turn invisible or should I let 'em be able to nail their penises to trees? Hah, the answer is obvious. Nail those dicks.”

It's crazy.

****

What I propose is an alternative to evolution, intelligent design, and creationism.

The I.D. people say “Look at the world. Look how everything works in one beautiful pattern. Even if the world is old, you can see it must have been designed by some great intelligence.”

I say, “Look at the world. Look at earthquakes, hurricanes, war, capitalism and American Idol. It must have been designed by some great idiot.”

And that's my theory. STUPID DESIGN.

Why does it hurt so much to have a kid?

Why are black holes eating the universe, destroying everything in their path?

Why are newborns so fragile that they'll die when left on their own?

Why are our heads supported by such a flimsy thing as the neck? Ripe for the axe or an accident under a truck?

Why do teeth rot just when an animal (or person) gets too old to chew effectively?

Why are there mosquitoes, cancer, viruses, swine flu?

These things cannot happen by themselves. There's just too much wrong, too much ugliness to happen by accident. The answer is clear: STUPID DESIGN.

Aliens... God... The master planner... They're idiots. Morons with power. Retards. Mentally challenged.

I say, image a watch that spins out of control... Where the gears fight each other... Which is right only once every several thousand years... Which requires you to take it apart before you can know what time it is...

You'd say that watch was designed by an idiot.

I'd say, EXACTLY!

The letter X is better designed than this universe. That letter is simple, with clean lines, easy to understand, and causes no pain. The parts work together, getting along well, even when they cross. 

The same cannot be said of the rest of this universe.

I propose schools teach STUPID DESIGN. Textbooks could be any history, geology, astronomy book. Students can learn about an earth too weak to hold in its own insides, causing volcanoes to wreck havoc like pus out of a pimple.

They can learn about cosmic collisions like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The can learn about human slavery, or the universal tendency of all matter to move to chaos.

Any subject. Any time. Anywhere. It all points to the same unavoidable conclusion. A unified theory of the universe. STUPID DESIGN.

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]

--> Bambi does it again dept: President Obama disappointed millions of Americans by announcing his plan to open vast coastal areas to offshore oil drilling.

    When we need clean energy and climate solutions, this plan is a giant step backward -- allowing oil companies to reap billions, while feeding America's addiction to dirty fossil fuels.

Of course Candidate Obama said in 2008, "We can't simply drill our way out of the problem. And we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming."

      The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that by 2030, the new oil drilling regions would yield only two months worth of oil in the next 20 years.

Talk about Stupid Design...

-->Naughty Boy dept: Army chief warrant officer Lewis Welshofer will spend ZERO months in jail after a military jury convicted him of homicide. The trial was for the murder of political prisoner, Abed Hamed Mowhoush. During the interrogation, Welshofer forced Mowhoush head-first into a sleeping bag, tied him with electrical cord and sat on his chest. There was a penalty, however. Welshofer was sentenced to 60 days restriction to his home, church and office. How horrible!

-->Naughtier people dept: The St. Patrick's Day Four is a group of anti-war protesters who threw blood on a military recruitment center in upstate New York. A judge sentenced them to an average of 5 months each for "damaging government property and entering a military station for an unlawful purpose." Shows where priorities are, huh?

-->Make up your mind to be naughty dept: In Ashland Oregon, the mayor cast a tie-breaking vote. That vote defeated a proposal to ban nudity within 1000 feet of schools. Yeah!... But, wait.

     After the vote, the mayor sent out an email saying he was rethinking his position because a tourist from Minnesota wrote that he wanted to be naked near Ashland schools. I don't get the fuss. But in any case, it ruins MY vacation plans.

-->666 dept: The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a new law. That law will prohibit employers and insurance companies from requiring people to implant microchips into their bodies. Why? Well one lawmaker gave the reason:

    “It might be the mark of the Beast,” he said.

  Pet owners and parents are exempt from the ban.

  Pet owners, I can understand, I mean those sub-skin microchips ARE the mark of the beast. But parents? Already some are doing it... in their children's best interest, of course. Nya hah hah!

-->Look at the right-center lobe for that one dept: Stanford Magazine reports on the new scientific field of decision neuroscience.

     Using MRIs to map the brain. Scientists are learning to determine “what triggers certain responses during purchasing decisions.” The idea is that if merchants/advertisers can create something to pull that trigger, they can sell more product. 

    I don't know why they bother. Apple has had that information for years. They can spit into a thimble, name it i-Sputum, and people will line up around the block to buy it.

-->Keep this under your towel dept: The French magazine Maisonneuve writes that Islamic clerics have decided “there's no opposition to a husband sucking his wife's breasts, but he should avoid drinking her milk.” This is related to an earlier decision that “a married couple may engage in oral sex as long as no semen is swallowed.” 
   Sounds positively Christian to me.
 

-->What the f**k? dept: Google finally admitted that it's Nexus One voice recognition software is constructed to censor “offensive words.” The software, used on iPhone competitor Android, drives that system's voice activated commands.
   That's not STUPID DESIGN. It's malicious!

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here

Mykel's MRR Column for #316, (September, 2009)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 316, September 2009
by
Mykel Board

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” --Winston Churchill

“As an Internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” –Godwin's Law

 “Those who study history are condemned to live in it.” --Mykel Board

I'm madder than a Klansman whose wife bought colored-- instead of white-- sheets. My fucking boss. Accusing me of sexual harassment because I ask a female student to sew a button on my shirt. Telling me what I can and can't say in class. He's a fascist.

“I'm gonna take a picture of him. Then, photoshop on a little mustache and comb-over,” I say, “Post it in the teacher's lounge.”

I sit in Jennifer's kitchen. The kettle on the stove whistles. Jennifer walks over to it. Using a Motel 6 towel as a potholder, she picks it up and pours the water over some green leaves.

“Oh Mykel,” she says, “cut it with that Hitler stuff. Everything is Hitler-- or the Nazis. If you get too much cream in your coffee, it's the Nazis. Somebody takes your seat on the subway. They're Hitler. Give it up already.”

Kerpow.

News item: Will Smith finds himself in hot water with the Jewish Defense League. He told a Scottish newspaper that Hitler didn't mean to do evil, but rather, using "a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"

The JDL denounced Smith's remark as "ignorant, detestable, and offensive."

In response, Smith issued a statement clarifying his position on Hitler as a "vile, heinous, vicious killer."

This column isn't (only) about Hitler. Though, he's probably the best example. Here are some others:

Wikipedia: The Armenian Genocide also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as The Great Calamity refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by the use of massacres, and deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million.

Wikipedia 2: In God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust 
Through the Centuries, Grenke quotes Chalk and Jonassohn with regards to the Cherokee Trail of Tears that "an act like the Cherokee deportation would almost certainly be considered an act of genocide today".

“The Indian Removal Act of 1830” led to the Trail of Tears. About 17,000 Cherokees — along with approximately 2,000 black slaves owned by Cherokees — were removed from their homes. The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with one party, estimated 4,000 deaths.

From the Internet: The 1831 uprising in Southampton, Virginia was led by Nat Turner, who was himself a slave. Slave rebels systematically went from house to house killing about sixty whites before they were disbanded. In the suppression of the revolt, about one hundred African Americans died and authorities hanged sixteen more.

In Turner's lengthy autobiographical statement, he says that God led him to bring judgment against whites because of the institution of slavery.

NEWSFLASH: The bloodbath began when an 8-year-old girl attending a Christmas Eve party answered a knock at the door. A man dressed as Santa and carrying what appeared to a present, pulled out a handgun and shot her in the face. Then, he began shooting indiscriminately as party-goers tried to flee.

By the time it was over, at least eight people at the party were dead and the house was torched. The gunman killed himself hours after exacting revenge against his ex-wife with the massacre at his former in-laws' home.

FLASH TO LAST WEEK: I'm at my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. I mine-sweep the tables for the dregs of the vodka bottles. Following me is my cousin, B_ who came in from Thailand. A man whose mind runs through the same trough as mine, he moved there after his wife dumped him. A new girlfriend (35 years his junior) later, he's in New York for the festivities.

“Hey B_,” I say. “Did you meet S_? She's over there and she's got a pair of lips on her that could suck a car engine out through a tailpipe.”

He looks over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says. “But I gotta keep away from her. We have a history.”

Flashback to 1487: It's 2 AM. You're in bed. You lay naked, face up, your knees pressed close to your ears. On top of you, Pablo lies with his tubular bell, pressed deep into your belfry. Your lips press against his. You feel each thrust, stretching that once tight sphincter into an open, welcoming ring.

Pain. Delightful pain, as Pablo bites into your shoulder, as 

he grunts to hold back the inevitable. Your own arm reaches around the back of your leg to pump yourself from the front, while Pablo comes up the rear.

BLAM! The doors smash open. You hear a shout.

SODOMIA!

A clothed arm curls around Pablo's neck. He's wrenched off you, thrown back against the wall. You smell the stench of your own body.

Then two hands grab under your shoulders, pulling you naked out of the room. Your feet scrape against the cobblestones as you're dragged through the streets. Your naked body comes to rest-- face-down-- in the basement of the cathedral.

You struggle. Something metallic smashes into your face. A warm liquid drips from the corner of your eye to the corner of your mouth. You taste the sweet saltiness of your own blood.

You're face down, in chains, handcuffed to a kind of pedestal. It pressed into your stomach, and feels like it will tear your hips apart.

Voices in Latin speak above you. Again, you hear the word SODOMIA!

Then you feel it. The Pear. You know what it is without seeing it. It's been your nightmare for years.

Now you feel it, the metal... like a clamp... pear shaped... shoved into your already bleeding rectum. A fist-sized metal flower bud at the end of a screw. It's massive. You'll die.

But not too soon... That's just the beginning... The screw is turned. Slowly, the clamp expands. Its petals open inside you like a flower blooming from a bud. Opening larger and larger. Your insides rip. Then they shred. Death can't come soon enough for you. Stop! STOP!

***************

Yes, STOP! Everybody's got their history. Everybody's got some saga that justifies being mean to someone else. Something 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 5000 years ago. Armenians, Jews, homos.

History is a grudge factory that justifies any atrocity in the name of one that passed. Conservatives want to kill Muslims in the name of 9/11. Palestinians want to kill Israelis in the name of land taken in 1967. Israelis want to ethnically cleanse Israel from Palestinians in the name of God who “gave them” the land 5000 years ago.

Get it?

I'm writing about history. Its abuse at the hands of every vengeful despot. It provides the all-purpose excuse for the worst atrocities. Its erection rises to impale everyone who is close, but different.

History. A bunch of guys killing other guys... written by the winner. Words in a book.

The Bible, the single most deadly book in the world, is a history book. It starts on day zero, and goes downhill from there.

Find a Jew. there's a holocaust museum. Talk to Catholics in Northern Ireland and you'll wait ten seconds before Protestant Oppression in Irish History pops to the fore. Talk to an anarchist? The commies, what they did to us in the Spanish Civil War. In Africa, tribal histories resurface every few years, along with severed limbs, and spilled intestines. People hate people they've never met. Why? History!

The solution is simple... and very New York. FUHGEDDABOUDIT!

Yeah. Ignore that history. Let it go. Armenian's 3 million, trumped by Jews 8 million, trumped by Stalin's 9 million, trumped by Mao's, I donno a billion? It's over. Start again. FUHGEDDABOUDIT!

The CIA tortured. G.W. Bush conspired. OK, show us the pictures. It's important to know the truth, but then LET IT GO!

The future won't right the past. “Justice” is the drag name for revenge. Call in the Alzheimer’s! Start every day thinking about what's gonna happen tomorrow. What you do now will make that day. Yesterday's over. You won't change it. Forget it.

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

-->Whoever said cops can't laugh dept: Ex-suburban Chicago cop, Drew Peterson, called into a local radio talk show. Peterson, in jail on suspicion of the murder of his third wife and the disappearance of his fourth, suggested a new on-the-air game: Win a Conjugal Visit with Drew. He did not say, however, if the winner would be leaving the prison alive.

-->Sometimes capitalism is its own best humor dept: The Aggronautix company has released GG Allin and Tesco Vee bobblehead dolls. Called Throbbleheads, the dolls will be a “limited edition” (yeah right) collector's item. The Dwarves collection is next. I shit you not. (But does the GG doll?)

-->Al and the Xenophobes dept: An organization calling
itself Repower America is spamming email from coast to coast.
Throwing Al Gore's name around, they're sponsoring a TV/YouTube
commercial promoting “clean energy.” 
 The commercial features some hick-looking actor, shucking hay
and walking in front of a horse. The focus? “We've got to stop being
held hostage by foreign oil.” And “we're still borrowing money to
buy oil from dictators who don't like us.” How about we're burning
in ways that kill God's green earth"
 Yeah, it's the new liberal strategy. Appeal to the worst in us:
Xenophobia and religion. Evil foreigners and God's earth. It' elected
George Bush, right? Maybe it'll work for the environment.
Sorry bub, I don't want to breathe clean air made for God and
against foreigners. You breathe it. It makes me sick. 
-end-

Go to Mykel's homepage here