(MRR 348) May 2012 Mykel vs Atheists & Other Critics

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"God did not create man in his own image. Evidently it was the other way around.” Christopher Hitchens

I'm madder than a Republican with anal warts. I should be happy. Hatemail again... after such a long dry period. I'm no longer preaching to choir... or maybe I am, but they're sure as shit a choir in a different church.

One letter was absolutely correct about my error in crediting my half-hero, Ron Paul, with something he didn't write. One letter looked as if the author googled my name with “pedophile” and used all the results to incriminate me. Jezus fuckin' Christ.

Ok, I tried it. I googled the combination of Millard Fillmore and pedophilia. The results?

About 10,500 results (0.38 seconds)

Try it yourself... from home... not the library. Though with the way Google is, YOUR inquiry will probably match YOU with both Millard Fillmore and pedophilia when someone else asks.

With Rick Santorum complaining that Obama is not governing “by biblical principles.” And this from Newt Gingrich:

I have two grandchildren. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they'll be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists.

It's clear that Americans live on the dark side of the moon of idiocy. Of course, those politicians may not be as stupid as their quotes, but THEY are preaching to the choir.

I just finished reading a book called GOD IS NOT GREAT, HOW RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING. It's by anti-abortion atheist Christopher Hitchens. As a pro-abortion non-atheist, I expected to disagree with a lot of what Hitchens had to say. I didn't expect, however, how useful his book would be in providing examples for this column.

So, now Brothers and Sisters. I want you to stop reading for a bit. Close your eyes. Get down on your knees. Feel the power coursing through your veins. It's the power of MYKEL. Imagine the touch of MYKEL on your forehead. Feel the love of MYKEL. Listen to the song of MYKEL as he preaches to the unpreached. MYKEL telling it to the congregation. MYKEL preaching to you on HOW NOT TO THINK.

Take the quote at the beginning of this column. What it means is: 1. God did not create human beings. 2. Human beings created God.

Okay, then add the idea God does not exist... and BINGO! LOGICAL INCONSISTANCY. Our first way NOT to think.

If human beings created God, then God MUST exist. It is not possible to create something if that thing does not exist. That should be as plain as the wart on your anus created by anal intercourse. An argument based on the non-existence of something you say was CREATED is a non-argument. It contradicts itself. Get it brothers and sisters?

Flash to a dark empty stage... a single spotlight focuses on a wooden stool.... the sound of footsteps... a man enters the spotlight. He wears a dark suit, a black cape with bright red lining, and a top hat. He bows to the audience, removes his top hat and sets it-- upside down-- on the stool.

“Thank you ladies and gentlemen,” says the man, “I know magicians are supposed to pull rabbits out of top hats...” he gestures to the top hat with his left hand.

While the audience looks at the hat, his right hand quietly reaches under his cape‚ “but this hat is empty today.” He holds up the hat in his left hand to show the audience it is empty. This action hides his right hand that now grasps something.

“Instead,” he continues, “I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having a hare up my nose.”

He drops the hat onto the stool and puts his right hand to his nose releasing a rubber rabbit. He holds it high. The audience laughs. It's call magic. And it's called misdirection.

Look over there! And while you're looking, the author pulls a fast one. In Hitchen's case, he writes: Faith-based fanatics could not design anything as useful or beautiful as a skyscraper or passenger aircraft. But, continuing their long history of plagiarism, they could borrow and steal these things and use them as a negation.

It's clear Hitchen means that religion (especially Islam) cannot make anything on its own, but can only destroy what was made in the secular society. By implication (misdirection), the World Trade Center Attacks were MUSLIM attacks. The reason was religion... a fanatical Jihad.

Bullshit.

Logic says this attack was NOT religiously motivated. If it were, why not Big Ben or some synagogue in Des Moines for fuck's sake? The World Trade Center is a symbol of American TRADE, business... not religion.

If someone attacks your people, kills your leaders, invades your country, you don't need religion to tell you to fight back. The US has destroyed the middle-East for OIL. MILLIONS of people have been killed, either directly by the US, or by US financed troops that later find themselves killed by other US financed troops.

The pilots who flew into the Twin Towers could've been Zoroastrian for all that mattered. 

Hitchens, like the American right, and the pro-Israel everybody else, made a political attack into a religious attack. It's a trap, and if you fall into it, you'll be a victim of MISDIRECTION.

I don't remember it exactly, but in college I saw the play Cyrano de Bergerac. I remember that Cyrano was supposed to be some kind of intellectual who had great ideas and a big nose. When people didn't like what he said, but were unable to come up with an adequate objection, they made fun of his nose. Maybe I got it wrong, but it doesn't matter. What's important is the idea.

That's called AD HOMINIM. It means “if you can't attack the idea, attack the person.” I write a column complaining that people are more concerned about a football coach accused of a non-lethal crime than they are about Apple making iPhones at companies with such bad conditions people have committed documented suicide... REAL DEAD PEOPLE. Two letter-writers attacked me, personally, with only the briefest mention of the IDEAS in the column, and nothing refuting them.

And Hitchens?

We now know Pope Pius XII composed the following letter to Berlin: To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich!... We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the spiritual welfare of the German people... May the prosperity of the German people and their progress in every domain come, with God's help, to fruition!

What's it mean? CATHOLOCISM IS BAD. Why? Because one pope writes a nice letter to Hitler. That is ad hominin... a kind of misdirection and it's a way you should NOT think.

NOW try this one from Hitchens: Pythagoras refuted astrology by the simple means of pointing out that identical twins do not share that the same future.

While I don't believe in astrology, I know even identical twins are not born at exactly the same time and would therefore have different “charts.” I also know that no astrologer believes your life is determined 100%... down to the smallest anal wart... by the stars. There are still other influences-- or free will. It's SCIENCE that's trying to do away with free will (the gay gene, the alcoholic gene, the obnoxious personality gene)-- not religion.

Hitchen sites an expert and POOF, it's true... NOT!

Type “Experts Agree” into Google and among the 10,300,000 results you'll find these things they agree on:

Experts Agree With Ron Paul’s Controversial Foreign Policy

Experts agree biodiesel must be part of a sustainable society

Romney Vs Paul: Experts Agree GOP Contest Now A Two Horse Race

Experts agree: Pack's Aaron is simply amazing

Winter forecasts vary, but experts agree it'll be wet and stormy

Experts Agree This Is The Most Effective Diet In The World

Experts agree - Sugar is a health destroyer

Experts Agree: Cindy Crawford’s 10-Year-Old Daughter Is Genetic Perfection

Experts Agree anti-gay texts of major faiths taken out of context

Get it? If you want to convince people without actually having facts, just make it up and put it in AN EXPERT's mouth. Better, a bunch of experts... all agreeing (with you).

You can be vaguer. Try EVERYBODY KNOWS... or IT'S COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT...

There's even a linguistic trick called the agentless passive that does the same thing.

[Aside] A brief intro to Grammar 101:

Active: Natalie Portman thinks Mykel's penis tastes like licorice.

Passive: Mykel's penis is thought by Natalie Portman to taste like licorice.

In the active sentence Natalie Portman is the subject. In the passive sentence, the subject is Mykel's penis. The agent, however, (the one who does the tasting) in both sentences is Natalie Portman.

I can use a passive with no agent. Mykel's penis is thought to taste like licorice. That way, I don't have to say who actually did the tasting... the reader has to guess. [End of aside]

From Hitchens: As a materialist, I think it has been demonstrated that an embryo is a separate body and entity, and not merely a growth on or in the female body.... the words "unborn child" describe a material reality.

Who demonstrated it? Who gets to call a sliver of barely more than a snotball an unborn child? The agentless passive answers those question... but it shouldn't. And it's a way you should NOT think.

Ok, Brothers and Sisters, that's enough for today's sermon. I'm not sure if next month's column will be written from New York or Gibraltar. Probably the latter. The one after that: AFRICA. Yes MUSLIM AFRICA. You wanna make somethin' of it?

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

-->Right again dept: After the WTC attacks, Ron Paul spoke about how the US itself, caused the attacks. Not in some stupid conspiracy-theory way, but because of how the US is viewed by other countries in the world. Read the text of his speech at: tinyurl.com/RonPaulon9-11.

-->King Bloomberg dept: NY Mayor Bloomberg said in a speech at MIT that "I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world." A private army for the mayor. Occupy that!

-->Pay to Play dept: Supervisors of Riverside County California voted for a bill that would force jail inmates to repay the country for the costs of jailing them. Supervisor Jeff Stone, who introduced the measure, called the jails "prison hotels."

-->Sid Yiddish sent me this note from the IRS:

You can treat your child as meeting the residency test even if the child has been kidnapped, but both of the following statements must be true. The child is presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or the child's family.

      In the year the kidnapping occurred, the child must have lived with you for more than half of the part of the year before the date of the kidnapping. 

Now that's what I call compassion!

-->Website magazine reports that email spam in November 2011 was the lowest in three years. Only 70 percent. I guess most folks are like me and only read our Facebook mail, deleting everything else. So spam killed email and now it's killing itself.

-->Arizona does it again dept: Sorry Sid, but that is one fucked up state. This time, five Arizona Republican state senators have introduced a law that prohibits teachers from talking about anything that would not get past the FCC.

     The law not only cripples the ability to teach about sexuality and other non-Victorian topics, but it also puts teachers in jeopardy for teaching The Canterbury Tales, The Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses, and probably every work by an obscure English writer named William Shakespeare.

      But the bill goes further. Because the language in the bill doesn’t distinguish between public speech or conduct and just plain old every day speech or conduct, the law could require schools to fire teachers who use profanity and have sex in their private lives away from school. 

     With the Republicans continued attacks on teachers and schools, and the guaranteed lowering of educational levels... they guarantee a society of ignoramuses! Exactly the people who will be voting Republican! 

--end--

you can find Mykel's African adventures at: www.mykelsdiary.blogspot.com

(MRR 347) April 2012 Column... True Punks!

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"You can tell how punk somebody is by how often they go to the post office.” --Kyle Nooneman

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.” --William Blake

Almost every month, I complain about the internet. Perhaps, though, like Blake's grain of sand, the world is contained somewhere in anything, even Facebook. Right now, I'm reading the Facebook group Old School Hardcore Kids. It starts me on the path to this column. Let's look at what it says.

From one post to another, when it's not YouTube videos of Agnostic Front, it's debate about what's real hardcore. On Facebook and in this zine... One month after the next... Letters columns and reviews... some debate rages... if not hardcore... at least punk. What is it? Who is it? And most importantly, who it is NOT? This column will settle that.

First... as you know from the myriad of editorials, letters to the editor, interview comments... if you allow your song to be used on anything that has corporate connections. IT'S NOT HARDCORE.

THE SCENE: Tom Vomit is in a crisis. He's been offered a job as a designer in the mega-evil ad agency, AD BOOSTERS. Tons of cash. The only problem: he has to make an ad for Walmart, the most evil corp of corpAmerica. He has one way out.

His band, the Decolators, has a song that Toyota wants. If he sells the rights to that song, he and his bandmates can live from the royalties. He won't have to take a job whoring himself to the corporatocracy. He can live from his music... his dream since he was a 14 year old punk rocker listening to Green Day. Music or evil corporate hell? What does he choose? He chooses music...and gets thrown out of the punkrock club because of it.

Get it Tom? It wouldn't matter if you got nothing from the song or if it's a benefit to save French anarchist bombers from the guillotine. If it's got a corporate logo^TM on it, it ain't punk-- and neither are you!

Of course, that doesn't go far enough. No matter how macho, shirtless, ripped the picture on the cover is, if the music is poppy, danceable (rather than moshable), or if it makes you smile and not grit your teeth and clench your fist. IT'S NOT HARDCORE!

 THERE'S MORE: no matter how nasty it sounds, if the musicians look like dorks... if the singer has glasses... or the cover shows a bunch of cute guys in Hawaiian shirts and porkpie hats... IT IS SOFT! IT IS NOT HARDCORE!

FLASHBACK. It's 1986: I'm in Bleecker Bob's... fishing through the cheap punk bin. At the next milk crate is Fairly Mulligan, bass player for the hardest band in New York: THE NEANDERTHALS. I pull a record from the case and show it to him. It's from 1982, a band called The Ancestors. I heard a lot about them, but never actually HEARD them. On the cover is a drawing of a guy in glasses wearing a tie. The name of the LP is FILO GOES FOR AN MBA. I show it to Fairly.

“Waddaya thinka this?” I ask him. “I heard of 'em but I don't know 'em.”

Fairly looks at the LP and just about spits.

“It's shit!” he says. “You can't be HARDcore and wear glasses.... and a fuckin' tie? Are you kidding? Somebody should kill that guy.”

I put the record back.

Flash ahead to 1993: It's GG's notorious last show, at the Gas Station in New York. Everybody knows about it. The chaos, the shit-slinging, the fatal aftermath. But what everybody DOESN'T know is what happened AFTER the show... at THE MARS BAR (RIP).

The scummiest bar in New York. It somehow managed to last well into this century. I've been there with Ivan Merma and Gilberto... post WTC.

In 1993, you took your life... or at least your balls... in your hand when you went into the place. Several of us refugees from the GG show go there to have a few drinks to recover from what we saw.

I walk into the bathroom. enter a stall, sit on the toilet and remove GG's shit from my jacket. I use the corner of my wallet to scrape. Then I wrap each stinky brown piece in a paper napkin. My plan is to sell the wrapped GG shit for $5... in front of CBs at the next hardcore matinee.

As I scrape, the door thumps. At first, I think someone's knocking to get in, but the door doesn't lock... just open it and come on in. Then there are more thumps, on the door... outside... everywhere. Only one thing sounds like breaking wood. That is breaking wood. I hear that sound. I also hear some groans... some “motherfucker!” Gunshots do not come, but they wouldn't surprise me.

A lull in the smashing, bashing, breaking, crashing, tumbling... I push the door open... slightly... The bar looks like the aftermath of a mafia hit. The back mirror is shattered... shards hang at odd angles... most of it on the floor and bartop. Not one stool is vertical... few are in one piece. On the floor, from my vantage point, I see the leather clad arm of someone whose body I can't see... the hand holds a half-shattered bottle of Olde English 800. Blood puddles on the floor under that hand.

I stick my head out a littler further. There on the bartop, in a grey hooded sweatshirt, unzipped, is K Rappo, singer for one of the hardest bands in NY: YOUNG PEOPLE NOW.

“Them walls are broke down, huh?” he says when he sees me crawling out of the bathroom.

“Waddaya mean?” I ask.

“GG ain't so tough,” he answers. “He says DRINK, FIGHT, AND FUCK? Hah, he's got it wrong. Hardcore is not about drinking or fucking. It's THE FIGHT. Listen, Mykel, get this straight. YOU ARE NOT HARDCORE IF YOU DON'T FIGHT.”

FLASH AHEAD A WEEK: THE NEADERTHALS are playing A7. They've broken up and gotten back together more times than a Hollywood couple. Great show, but that's not the important point. AFTER the show, I see Fairly Mulligan in the corner, breathing hard... showing off his chest. He spots me and waves.

“Hey Mykel,” he says. “I got something for you.”

Grabbing my hand, he pulls me into the A7 bathroom.

Now, I've been thirsting for his glutei maximi since I first saw him as a drummer for The Motivaters in 1980. Is he finally going to give up that anal hymen? My hopes rise like my penis when he pushes open a stall door. But then something strange happens.

Instead of dropping trou and bending over, he pushes on the back wall of the stall. It moves and we enter a secret room. 

It's dark. Before my eyes adjust I see nothing. A sound comes through the blackness... like a muffled pigeon chirp... or the struggling screams of someone whose mouth is duct-taped shut. Bingo!

As my eyes adjust, I make out a platform in the middle of the dark room. Tied down to that platform-- a limb stretched toward each corner-- is what looks like a naked white boy wearing black-rimmed glasses. It IS a naked white boy wearing black-rimmed glasses. It's Filo Zuckerman, singer from The Ancestors.

“See him?” asks Fairly... as if I could miss him. “He thinks he's hardcore. No tattoos and the songs? Titles like You're the One, and Silly Girl. Nothing about UNITY or THE CREW or AMERICA. Just love songs... and he calls himself hardcore?”

Something glints in Fairly's hand. I just see a faint flash before I realize that it's a pocket switchblade now plunged into the chest of the boy on the platform. It must have hit a vein, because blood spurts like a geyser... covering Fairly's face and chest.

Stabbing is not enough. Fairly slices downward and then flings the knife aside. With both hands he reaches into the slit and pulls out Filo's still beating heart. I can barely keep from fainting at the gore. Fairly leans over the pulsating cardiac, I watch him take a deep bite. It seems to explode as the blood-engorged organ spews red everywhere.

Chewing, then swallowing, Fairly looks at me. His face covered in blood like a kid's face... covered in blueberries after a pie-eating contest, Fairly looks at me and smiles.

“Mykel,” he says. “You're not HARDCORE until you've eaten human flesh.”

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

-->Apology dept: I don't answer letters in the letter section. That section belongs to the readers. I have this column. It's not fair if I have the last word both places. Here, I want to answer a letter and to apologize for an error. I quoted Ron Paul on Muammar Qhaddaffi. Though the quote was from the Ron Paul website, Ron did not actually write it. I missed that. Still, written by RP or not, the quote is correct in its analysis of why that great Libyan was killed.

-->Oh that again dept: Another letter was about my column comparing a coach's sex with some kids to Apple/Steve Job's exploitation of thousands of Chinese workers, including several who committed suicides because they couldn't take the pressure. I asked why the former got all the press and attention while the latter was clearly more evil.

      The MRR letter ONLY attacked my “belief that there is nothing wrong with a 50 year old man having sex with an 10 year old boy.” It made no mention of the Apple-caused deaths. I guess it proved my point.

-->It's not as bad as you thought dept: This Week Magazine reports that the break of the “housing bubble” is not what it seems. While homes valued under $1 million have fallen an average of 1.5 percent in value over the last year, fear not. Homes valued over $1 million dollars have risen 0.7 percent in the same time.

  Says real estate economist Stan Humphries, “Luxury is the best-performing segment of the housing market right now.”

-->But they can watch us dept: The Freeman website reports that: In at least three states (Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland), it is now illegal to record an on-duty police officer even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

     The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not.) In practice this exception is not being recognized.

-->Anarchy in Bloomingdales dept: Anarchist News Dot Org reports that the Axe perfume company is making a new fragrance. You guessed it Anarchy Perfume. (Does it smell like tear gas?) One of the commercials for it is: A female police officer chases a masked jewelry thief through a sun-drenched cityscape. Sprinting, he pulls off his mask, sheds his jacket and dumps his bag of loot; she throws off her police hat, undoes her utility belt and drops her weapons to the ground. She’s no longer a cop; he’s no longer a criminal. They stare at each other with unbridled desire. The words “Nothing will ever be the same again” appear on the screen, followed by the warning “Anarchy is coming.”

Can Eau d'Punk be far behind?

--> If it takes the blood of one Christian boy to make 40 matzohs, how many matzos can you make from 143 Christian boys dept: Kyle Nooneman, whose quote starts this column, sent me this from the Huffington Post:

Parents of students at Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross, Ga., are outraged at the school district's using examples of slavery in math word problems, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

    The word problems in question include references to slavery and "beatings." 

   Here are some examples:

   "Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how many would each slave pick?" and 

   "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?"

-->I wish he were right dept: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attacked President Obama as encouraging a nation that “places comfortable lies ahead of difficult truths” and a person who is trying to “divide the country by demonizing the wealthy.” If only it were true! The wealthy ARE demons. Much more than Muslims or non-working people or old people that the Republicans are trying to demonize. Obama, unfortunately, could never be so good as to demonize the right people.

-->That's so ghetto dept: Kyle also sent me this one about Microsoft. They makes this mapping app to keep drivers out of dangerous neighborhoods. In modern American cities, this means places where there are a lot of Negroes or Hispanics.

Since most urban crime is between people who know each other and not random drivers, one critic of the app suggests:

A more useful app would be for young black men to be able to map blocks with the highest risks of their being pulled over or stopped on the street by police," he said. "That phenomenon affects many more people than the rare occurrences of random violence against motorists driving through 'bad' neighborhoods."

I say, yeah, but the guys being pulled over by the cops usually can't afford iPhones to use the app on... unless they steal them.

-end-

(MRR 346) What America Needs is JOBS!

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"The crucial reality is the need to sell your labor to capital in order to live, the need to carve up your personality for sale-- to look at yourself in the mirror and think, "What have I got that I can sell?" --Marshall Berman

It was something I ate. Bang. Stomach ache, I can just make it... I hope... It musta been the Korean food... Seemed so healthy... mushrooms... kim chi with sesame seeds... even tofu ice cream for fuck's sake. Pow! A belt to the stomach. I'm gonna explode.


On the way to the bathroom, I grab today's mail. I'll need something to read while the food makes its painful progress through my intestines. 

Ah, made it. Not quite ready to let loose though.

I pick up the mail.

First, THE NATION... my usual bathroom reading. Lefty enough to be interesting. Alexander Cockburn who's almost always right. And book reviews better than the books they review.

This issue reviews a book about the mind. The author of the book is a neurosurgeon who splits peoples brains in epilepsy operations. Then he does experiments on the split brainers. His experiments convince him that people don't really have free will. We act, he says, spontaneously. Then we use free will in rationalizing the act.

The reviewer asks “if people lack free will, why did the surgeon make them sign “consent” forms before the experiments? How can you consent to anything if you don't have free will?” Smart guy, smart ass. Right up my alley.

Ow! Ow! Ow! The brown muck makes it's way up the right side, across the middle, down the left, almost... almost... Fuck, stuck right at the key point... begging release... yet unreleased.

I check out the NATION'S front cover. Getting Priorities Straight. It's about how Obama sold out to the Republicans (what a surprise!) by making the debt the number one issue. Says THE NATION, “it should be JOBS!” Let's have another WPA like during Roosevelt. Let the government hire people so they can earn their own living... not have to take handouts... give people the dignity of earning their own way... put Americans to work.

Yeah, pouring tar on highways. That'll give 'em dignity... or black lungs.

Enough! I put the magazine down and open a letter from something called ACE. I'd think it was a hardware advertisement but for the blurb on the front of the envelope. EMPOWERING THE HOMELESS. Hmmmm. What does that mean? Register them to vote? Give them a place to live, regroup and get something decent to eat? Um, no...

ACE program participants-- who have all spent time on the streets or in prison-- now sweep our sidewalks, bag our trash, and shovel our snow.

That's empowerment? Empowerment means giving people power over their own lives. What does ACE give people power over, a plastic garbage bag?

The Republicans, they want jobs too. Take the oil pipeline through Canada... please.

This from another NATION report:

Republicans used the payroll tax measure to push for quick approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline project, backed by labor unions but opposed by environmental groups.

The legislation requires Obama to approve construction of the pipeline from Canada to U.S. Gulf of Mexico facilities within 60 days or declare it is not in the national interest. Obama wanted to take a year, beyond November's elections, to review the project.

Republicans argued the pipeline would create jobs at a time the nation is suffering from an 8.6 percent unemployment rate.

"The president says he wakes up every morning thinking about jobs. This morning, the Senate took action where the president has punted," said Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Meanwhile, Libertarians call on the government to stop all welfare programs, and let people find their own jobs. Stand on their own two feet. Instead of handouts, they should work and find dignity in any job.

The problem, they say, is the minimum wage. It's too high, a strain on business. If you pay people 25 cents an hour, think of how many more you could hire! Newt Gingrich wants to end child labor laws. Hire kids at four dollars an hour. Fuck school. What do they learn there? Maybe poetry or art. Is that gonna get them a job?

What about cripples? They can wheel on their own two wheels.

Get people out of school. Get 'em off welfare. Cut unemployment insurance. Work! That's what freedom's all about, isn't it?

Just at this moment, I release. Relief-filled brown splats into the toilet. Pow! Like a beershit. I can feel it in my ankles. It's wonderful.

Wiping myself, I use nearly a whole roll of tissues. Still, I seem to have missed something. I feel a little prick... like a small stone in a sock... I reach a finger into a particularly deep anal fold. There it is... I scrape through with a fingernail... another scrape... Something catches between the nail and the finger flesh... got it! I pull it toward my face to examine it. A sesame seed, from the Korean food last night. What a relief!... Then it hits me.

Jobs! People need jobs. There must be hundreds... no thousands... millions... of people who need dingleberries fished from their anal folds. I'd certainly pay $2 for an anal fisher. Think of the employment possibilities

The new company, At Your Anal Call. All those homeless people, welfare moms, kids who only like poetry or music. All those old folks who no one else will hire. Here's a chance for them to earn money... learn pride in work... make other people happy.

Their $2-a-berry dingleberry-picking will do more than give them enough money for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It will give them pride in doing it themselves. It will teach them the dignity of earning their own way.

Set up charges will be low. There will be little equipment to buy. The only expense will be advertising the service... and the 39 cents of the $2 fee that will actually go to the dingleberry- picker.

I got it! I'll let the government-- and foundations-- advertise for me. It's a company liberals and conservatives will both love. They'll shower me with cash. It should be easy... a piece of cake... er... Korean sesame.

I call the libertarians at the Cato Institute.

“Hello,” I tell 'em, “All Power to the Koch brothers and private enterprise.”

“All power to capital,” comes their reply. “What can we do for you?”

After a bit of explaining, I'm switched to a Mister DeLoit. I explain my plan to him.

“That's a great idea!” he says. “We'll contribute five million bucks to help you set up the project. Then we'll create a front grou... er... charitable organization, do a mass mailing, encourage people to support people standing on their own two feet...”

“Actually,” I say, “the work requires some kneeling...”

“Wise guy!” he says. “Now where was I... oh yeah, keep the government out of people's business. Let people earn their way in a free society. Start at the bottom. Learn the value of hard work and a dollar. Go from dingleberry picking to... to who knows where? Might even open a chain of pizza parlors... right? The sky's the limit.”

I nod into the phone.

“Now who should I make the check out to,” he continues. “And where should I send it? ...”

Well, that was a fruitful phonecall. Next I call THE NATION, that bastion of left-wing thinking.

“Hello,” I tell 'em, “all power to the people... especially the workers.”

“All power to labor,” comes the reply. “What can we do for you?”

After a bit of explaining, I'm switched to a Ms Jackson. I tell her my plan.

“That's a great idea,” she says. “The government can subsidize your organization... maybe make a contract. It'll be like Roosevelt and the WPA. Jobs, jobs jobs. Of course the workers will have to make a living wage. Your $2 an hour for the extreme effort of dingleberry-picking is much too low.”

“I understand,” I say. “How 'bout if we double it?”

“Excellent,” comes the answer. “We'll be creating real jobs. Useful work for workers who really get their hands dirty. And there are no plastics, chemicals or other environmental hazards.”

“There may be occasional gas,” I say.

 “Wise guy!” she says. “Now where was I... oh yeah. We could set up a lobby to encourage the government to hire dingleberry-pickers. We'll explain it's a public need. We'll contact the unions. Let them organize a Brotherhood of dingleberry-pickers Local 584. Get some government protection. It'll be like the WPA during Roosevelt's time. Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”

It sounds like she's having an orgasm.

I clear my throat.

“Sorry,” she says, “I got carried away.... Anyway, you've got a great idea. We'll form a front group... er... Political Action Committee... to push the idea. Americans for Jobs Now, we'll call it. How much do you need? Will three million hold you over until we get things started?”

“I think I can get by on that,” I tell her. “It'll be a struggle, but I can do it.”

“Ok,” she says, “we'll make it four. I'd like to give more, but times are tough, you know.”

I thank her and hang up.

Okay, maybe there's something to this JOBS thing after all.

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

-->Inspiration dept: For those who are just learning about anti-workism, the best source is the great essay by Bob Black. Called, The Abolition of Work, it's available for free on the internet. Just google it.

-->Ultimately THEY control it dept: San Francisco's BART subways system is the first American government agency to block internet use to discourage dissent. On August 11, 2011 BART cut off cell phone and internet access in some stations. They believed those stations would be targeted by protesters demonstrating against a transit shooting by transit police. It worked.

-->As if you need another reason to vote 3rd party dept: Obama has signed a law invalidating the constitution. The law allows indefinite imprisonment... without trial... a violation of the most basic law of any free society. In the U.S. the law violates the “due process” clause of the Constitution. Obama cast it aside...like his promises to close Guantanamo.

-->God or jail, which is worse? dept: In September 2011, Police Chief Michael Rowland of Bay Minette Alabama, announced a new program. Called "Operation Restore Our Community,” non-violent offenders would have an option of paying a fine, going to jail or attending church weekly for one year. At the end of 12 months, their records would be wiped clean. 
 There are not many religious choices in Bay Minette: several Protestant churches, one catholic, no synagogues, no mosques, and no B'hai temples. So it's off to the evangelicals... the good thing about it is that prisoners will learn what every goyish kid learns: church is a punishment. Jews learn that synagogue is a punishment. 

-->Government training dept: Wired Magazine revealed that, at the FBI training center in Quantico Virginia, new employees are told, "the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent." Sounds like a Christian to me. The same training material characterizes the prophet Muhammad as a "cult leader," 
 In a surprise move (When Good Things are Done by Bad People), Senators Joseph Lieberman (Israel's 100% patsy) and Republican, Susan Collins, sent a letter to the US Attorney General complaining about the training. They called it "inaccurate and even inflammatory." They're right. What got into them? 

-->Where there's a will there's a hustle dept: Hallmark Cards announced a new line of "cards for people who have lost their jobs," The cards come in six designs. It's not clear if any are congratulations cards. 

-->And if there's an attack did God allow it? dept: The Kentucky Court of Appeals said it's okay for Kentucky to give official credit for its homeland security to "Almighty God,” and put that credit on all official correspondence. Now, if there's a terrorist attack in Kentucky... who's responsible for the FAILURE of that security? Not that I'd advocate such a thing. Who me? God forbid!