Have a SAFE New Year

Well it's New Year's Eve here in the mighty metropolis of Jakarta. There's a stage set up at the end of the "jalan ticos" or "mouse street" that I live on in preparation for some partying tonight. For a country that is so full of Muslims, things have been absolutely dead since even before Christmas. I'm sure there'll be plenty of carrousing tonight and sleeping it off tomorrow. Then hopefully January 2nd things will start rolling around here. I have a ton of stuff to do!

I keep seeing well-wishers telling friends to have a "safe and prosperous" or a "healthy and safe" new year, a year full of love, happiness and safety, and so on and so forth. It seems safety has become a bit more important this year. I don't know if there are more people frightened out of their wits than usual, if those wishing to keep us all that way are working harder than usual, if the world is less safe than usual or maybe I'm just noticing the word "safe" more than ever. Not sure. But let's just see how safe we are, shall we?

Ever just sit down and think of how many times a day you take your life into your hands, or put it in the hands of another person? I mean just get yourself really really bored sometime and start thinking about this. It's uncanny! We trust thousands of total strangers every day with our fragile, little lives! You're saying, "Thousands? Come on, Dave!" I'd be willing to bet that most days it's in the TENS of thousands or even HUNDREDS of thousands. You don't think so? Okay just think of the food we eat. How many deaths were there in 2014 as a result of contaminated food? As usual the stats are hard to come by for most places so we'll have to look at the U.S. As far as I can read on the internet there are 3000 to 9000 deaths a year in the U.S. caused by foodborne illnesses, diseases and contaminations. And if the food is perfectly fine there are 3000 deaths every year just by choking on it.

Think of how many people are directly responsible for the food you ate today. Even if it's something as simple as a piece of fruit, an apple, just imagine how many people have had a perfectly good chance to touch, or contaminate your apple in some way. There's the seed manufacturers and sellers, the planter, the grower, all the people at every stage of production of all the sprays, fertilizers, waxes and whatnot the grower uses during the growing process, there's the people responsible for checking and maintaining the purity of the water used to water the apple tree that grew your apple, the pickers, the handlers, the boxers, the transporters, the wholesalers, the grocers, every customer at the grocery store during the time that piece of fruit was on display, the supermarket clerk, and finally you. You can get into greater detail. There are also the kids in the neighbourhood of the orchard who snuck in on Halloween night and stole apples from the tree your apple grew on. There are the nearby factories that belch contaminants into the sky that get into the clouds that get into the rain that falls into the ground that gets sucked up by the roots of your apple's tree. I mean you can really go crazy and talk about every creature throughout the years that has contributed to the make-up of the soil that your apple's apple tree grew in. If you dwell too deeply on this, you can drive yourself around the bend.


And speaking of driving, think of how many people could kill you every time you go for just a short drive. Not just your fellow motorists who breeze by you going in the opposite direction an arms length or two away at speeds that, when combined with your speed, would obliterate you in a head-on collision if the other driver, or you, should for whatever reason just jerk the steering wheel two inches the wrong way. I'm talking about every worker on every assembly line at every factory that worked on every single part of that car you are driving. Just take one part, I dunno, a lynch pin in the axle let's say. It was manufactured 10 years ago in a small, rural area of Northern China at a factory where people can make better wages than they can farming so long as they work more than the 12-hour days they are contracted for. Imagine one day a sleepy, 12-year-old who had just finished three 18-hour shifts in a row and was in a state of fatigue in which motor skills were deteriorating was working the lynch pin sealant line in the factory. This is a conveyor belt with metal lynch pins on it and workers with hoses spraying anti-oxidant coating on the lynch pins. Cheaper than making them with rust proof material! Well Wang Chung, just one of the 100,000 people you are trusting today, that 12-year-old boy who is now 22 and attending college with all the money he saved from his job at the lynch pin factory, (yeah right!), nodded off for a minute and didn't spray 10 or 15 lynch pins. One of those lynch pins is holding the left front wheel onto your Toyota Carolla. It's been rusting for ten years and at this very moment it snaps and your left front wheel comes off your Carolla and you lose control hurtling off a hundred-foot cliff and into a colony of fire ants on the ground below. All because you unknowingly trusted Wang Chung 10 years ago to stay awake on the lynch pin sealant line.


Now just imagine how many hundreds, or maybe thousands of those very same scenarios happen to us every single day! I swear germaphobes have it the worst! But if you really sat down and thought about things you'd realize that there is absolutely no way of avoiding exposing ourselved to a bazillion germs every day. We try to wash, or sanitize our hands as often as we can but after a few million million million microbes, who's counting really? Microbes, folks. They've been around since the days when the oceans routinely boiled and they represent all the deadly viruses, plagues, bacteria and fungi of many millennea. There are more microbes on your hand right now than there are people on the earth. I don't care how recently you used your hand sanitizer. You might put toilet paper on the seat before you use a public toilet but then you flush using the same handle or button that everybody all day has used then open the door twisting the same lock they twisted unlocked then turn on the same tap that they did then crank the same towel dispenser crank and exit using the door knob that they all used on the door to the washroom. All this time mixing microbes. You use the same buttons on the bank machine as 100 other people with millions of different microbes each. You hold the same handle on the bus as 50 different people. You can try to avoid touching what other people have touched but then you will open a door and it's like shaking hands with dozens of people and a whole history worth of microbes! Phones, shopping cart handles, lightswitches, computers, tables, and then we touch our faces and self-administer all those germs. It's estimated that we touch our faces once every three minutes and that 80% of infectious diseases are transmitted by touch.


Every time you walk on a sidewalk there could be a 100-foot drop below and you are trusting the sidewalk to be thick enough to sustain your weight. Forget about that, we are just trusting that we won't trip and fall. (6000 deaths a year) We speed through intersections even though faulty traffic lights are responsible for thousands of deaths a year. (2000 in the U.S. alone) Elevator cables sometimes break. (30 deaths and 17,000 injured every year in the U.S.) How often are you in elevators? We go outside even though we know we'll get a mosquito bite or two. (800,000 deaths a year by mosquito) Tonight there will be a lot of champagne drunk even though every year 24 people are killed by champagne corks! I'm not making that up! Even the buildings you go in and out of every day. Are they safe? One of my friends here in Jakarta had the roof of her office collapse from the weight of rain on it. Apparently that happens a lot in the rainy season here. Roads cave in. Sinkholes. Disappearing planes. Crashes, earthquakes, tsunamis, Ebola, ISIS, wild animal attacks... it's no wonder people are getting so preoccupied with safety!


Or maybe it's not really that kind of safety people are worried about. There are so many other examples of false safety we have! Ever seen a handcuff key? It's a little metal shaft with a bump on it. Every set of handcuffs known to man has the same key. Duplication is a cinch. Yet you could have Ted Bundy in a room full of female college co-eds wrestling in Barbecue sauce and if he was cuffed, "No danger there. He won't rape, kill or eat anyone because he has these infallable safety restraints around his wrists!" When I was a security guard I had a couple handcuff keys on me at all times. I'm sure a lot of guards do. Just one example in a world choc - o - block full of false security.


I would be remiss if I didn't mention the growing world, (and shrinking safety), of technology. I'm not going to ask how many people HAVE had a bank account hacked into or an incident of credit card fraud. How many people HAVEN'T? How hard do banks and credit card companies try to keep THIS fact a mystery? With the recent Sony hack, how safe does THAT make you feel???


But you know, there are simple solutions to all of these problems. Interac, cashless environments on flights or in hotels, mandatory credit card imprint or number for registration, and other such things are trying to force us all into the unsafe world of credit but I can't remember the last time I heard a story about a house being broken into and a person's saving being stolen from their house safe. Or from their mattress for that matter. I admit there are a few conveniences to credit. I have been travelling, run out of cash and been unable to get any more from the bank machine. I really wanted a credit card then. But had I known a country could just shut down its bank machines, I would have brought more cash. Philippines...


I'm here to tell you that I touch my face FAR more often than once every three minutes and I don't wash my hands all that often. I shake people's hands, high five, use public toilets without my hasmat suit, judge leftovers by smelling them, employ the five second rule for dropped food, I live dangerously! Ironicallly this might be the safest way to do things. I just never get sick any more. A cold here and there but that's it. I think it's got a lot to do with not sweating the small stuff. Can't get much smaller than a microbe. But it also has a lot to do with living a reasonably healthy life. I exercise and eat my fruits and veggies. I fight sickness with strong biological immunity not drugs. I am reasonable, not paranoid, in my cleanliness.


As for bank and internet security, they're not secure. I understand that. So I try to use banks as little as possible and I try not to do anything that I might have to keep a secret. Simple.


When you think about it the world is a dangerous place, our lives are tennuous gifts that are in moment to moment peril no matter what we try to do to change that and EEERRR verybody is living dangerously. Coconuts fall on the heads of a lot of people every year. 150 people die from kepala to the kelapa (coconut to the head). Lightning kills 24,000 people every year. So sleep well knowing all of these dangers, my beloved readers, (450 people a year die from falling out of bed). 20 people in the U.S. alone die every year from COW attacks! That's no bull! Cow! Somehow 100 people a year die from hot tap water! How does that even work??? I guess there are a lot of deaths every year from just being stupid. When you know something is dangerous, it's probably best to avoid it. It is astounding how many people just can't obey this advice! In fact they are somehow driven to the opposite! For them there is no help but eternal peace, but for most of us, all we need to do is be reasonably careful.

I added this pic because I can't upload vids to my blog again. It comes and goes that ability. But just go to youtube and search for croc or log and you'll see it. It's funny because it's true.


So anyways, I don't want to wish you a safe new year. It sounds just a bit paranoid to me. All I want to say from the bottom of my heart to all my readers is just take care of yourselves, don't be stupid and try not to do anything you have to keep secret.

Tropical Funk

Do you remember the days when sleep was the enemy? I do. I recall the strangest of psychological pathologies we sometimes call wide-eyed wonder that made me fight off the dropsies, you know, when your eyelids are heavily dropping and your head is too and your chin hits your chest and you force your leaden eyelids open again for fear of missing even a little of the miraculous stuff of which existence is composed? Do you remember getting up early when you didn’t have to? I do. Bolting out of bed to meet a new day open to all of the stimulation that life has in store for you.

I bolted out of bed today. One of the cleaners at my kost had put a key into the keyhole of my door. They do that, about once a month, when they have decided to clean the room for me. I have taken to leaving my key in the keyhole for this reason. They cleaner’s key won’t go in all the way so he knows I am home and he doesn’t need to clean. Not that the place couldn’t use it, I just feel helplessly awkward hovering over the guy as he scrubs my mold, slime and build-up off the toilet, sink and shower floor. As he sweeps my hair, dead skin, food particles and the occasional finger or toenail off my floor. And especially when he strips the bed of sheets, pillow cases and the superfluous blanket all soaked in the tropical funk that every pore on my body exudes during sleep here in Indonesia, air conditioning or no. Though I have grown accustomed to the staff here, and vice versa, I bolted out of bed saying, “No, no! No cleaning!” because I’d really rather not have them walking in on me in my old and holy Kiss drawers and nothing else.

Ha ha. “Tropical funk.” Sounds like a new kind of music. I’m picturing Phil Bailey from Earth Wind and Fire doing a reggae song in his super high voice. Ha ha ha. Tropical funk.

While I HAVE grown accustomed to the cleaning and security boys here, I am still a long way from growing accustomed to the heat. It’s just hot. Every day. And now, in the rainy season, it’s hot and more humid than usual. Rainy season trumps the Christmas season. At least it did this year. The yuletide joy and festivities aren’t really observed so much here. When I was a boy pretty much right after Remembrance Day till the second day of the new year it was extreme bolt-outta-bed season. What holiday event, TV show, TV commercial, decoration, food, observance, tradition, visiting relative or whatever might make today exciting? That’s what charged me awake and opened my eyes with an electric jolt that bypassed the morning dreariness and launched me straight into activity.

This morning I got up, stayed in bed rubbing my eyes and trying to keep myself from dozing off again for about an hour. Then the bladder more than joie de vivre encouraged me to face the day somewhat upright. I sat at my computer, my all but decorative, wifi-less computer, and caffeinated while checking the internet connection. Every single weekend the internet is jammed here. I don’t know why but I’ve grown accustomed to that too. I reluctantly added shorts and my Hard Rock Café Fukuoka T-shirt to my holy Kiss gotch in order to exit my room. I grabbed both of my plastic, made in Malaysia, Lock & Lock water containers. The 1.2 litre I carried in my left hand and the 1.5 litre, still with a swallow of water in it, I tucked under my left arm like a football. Then I bent over to pick up a previously tied off grocery bag of garbage and the swallow of water went all over it and the floor behind the door. That happens more than I’d care to admit. Still, I can blame it on the morning groggies.

I opened my door and made my way to the community kitchen. I dropped my dripping garbage bag next to the kitchen garbage can and proceeded to the water machine to fill up on water. I need a lot of it here in Indonesia since I turn so much of it into sweat. On the way back to my room I ran into one of the Nigerian dudes who lives upstairs to me and we exchanged cordial greetings. I put my water containers into the door of the fridge in my room, then went back outside my door to tend to the router. I am just tall enough to reach it on its elevated, wall mounted platform. While the cleaner guy had a cigarette and watched I took the router down, pulled out the power cord, counted ten and plugged it back in. Time to get on Facebook and check on my games, do some online fishing and maybe comment on a few posts or chat with someone. These are the things that sometimes DO get my lazy ass, (or my lazy ass ass), outta bed on the mornings I don’t have to work. This is one of them. December 29th. It’s a Monday. I would normally have some classes to teach but not this holiday sandwich Monday. In fact for me it’s a job sandwich Monday. I am down to my final client with the place I'm working. I’ve talked to the boss and he knows I’m moving on to greener pastures. I’m still not sure if I will teach Mr. Yoo, my last client, into the new year or not. I’ll have to talk to Mr. Yoo and the boss man about that. I will also have to find out from Herry, the guy who lets me stay in the room I am in, when I need to vacate it.

Last I heard Herry had relatives coming who needed the room in January sometime. I have another friend/benefactor named Rica who has a house that she has offered to me rent free whenever I have to leave. I’m just trying to prep for the move in any way I can right now. You know, not buying much food, especially heavy stuff like cans; collecting boxes and bags; throwing out useful but unnecessary things that have built up like glass jam jars and other such containers. I can rebuild my supplies in the new place.

Then there’s the concerns about upcoming interviews and job changes. I really won’t be doing anything until well into the new year about these things so I should just relax and try not to worry. I should keep some Tropical Funk song like Phil Bailey singing “Every leetle teeng gon be alright ya’ll…” in my head. But I’m like the sheep herder played by Seth MacFarlane in his movie “A Million Ways to Die In the West.” Traffic? Glacial internet? Lack of noise bylaws? Heat? Sweat? Crappy phone service? Crappy taxi service? Crappy service? Hello? Is this thing on? Am I the only one? Then somebody in the bar stands up and says, “Why don’t you shut up?” and slugs me. I fall through a window out onto the street and rub a little blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my wrist. Then I smoke some weed with a friend to relax while listening to “Every leetle teeng… gon be alright, mon.” and I get even MORE paranoid! “That rat that crawled out of the open roadside ditch there? See him? He KNOWS!!! HE KNOWS EVERYTHING!!! I’m not swallowing right…”

I could make a movie. Heh heh. But seriously, I have done a little bit of Christmassy stuff here. The day before Christmas I was invited to a karaoke party by my friend and former co-worker, Tessa. I didn’t go because I had to play Santa the next afternoon at the Shangri La Hotel and wasn’t sure I’d be able to sing anything without some irresponsible drinking. Hindsight being 20/20 I realize now I should have gone and just sung in my best falsetto, “Don’t worry… about a teeng. Every leetle teeng… gon be alright, mon.” But I didn’t want Santa to be the stereotypical down on his luck boozer just picking up some extra holiday hours as Santa to finance a few bottles of holiday cheer. Hmmm…

Anyways, I didn’t go to Tessa’s party and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed for my gig as the Santa at Shangri La. My former student, Rica, has a sort of party planning business and she suggested that I be Santa months before this. I had expected more than 3 hours of work but one thing led to another and three hours at the Shangri La was all I got. Now I was treated to a GORGEOUS buffet at the Snangri La Hotel early on in my stay here by Annemarie. You may remember that blog post with the bad oysters. Poor A.M…. heee heee hee. It’s a very nice hotel. Upscale. And I’d been told that I would be spending most of my time indoors. I was going to be Santa for 3 hours at a special kids party where kids, (of well-to-do parents), have activities, games, toys, crafts, snacks and a bit of a party and they have Santa and Barney there too. So I assumed there would be air conditioning, and there was. In every corner of the recreation room we were using there was an air conditioner. But they were all off! I saw some of the KIDS sweating in this room! And, hey, Barney was a skinny, young, Indonesian dude and he was sweating like a madman too!

I’m wearing a red velvet, well lined Santa suit that had fur all over it and would have sufficed for an Everest attempt, plus all the beard, mustache and head hair, PLUS a furry, well lined Santa cap on top of that. I think the suit was for an outdoor Santa. Outdoor in Christmas-like conditions in a Christmas celebrating country that is. There I was in the hot, and rainy season humid, air trying to be jolly while hoping the copious lining would soak up the sweat and people wouldn’t see salt stains on the Santa suit. Seriously I had to take off the white gloves half way through because they were soaked in sweat and people were no longer shaking Santa’s hand. My glasses were fogging up and probably worst of all, my bottom lip was getting numb. I have heard this mostly happens to children but it’s a sign that you are dangerously dehydrated. I had a piece of gum so that Santa’s breath wouldn’t stink but the beard and mustache hair had already mixed with that. Combined with the numb bottom lip I was saying things to the kids like, “And wblere you a good blwoy blwis year?” Which shouldn’t have been TOO bad because some of the kids spoke only Indonesian, but, being children of the better off parents of Indonesia, and some of them being kids of foreigners, I’d say 90% spoke English. To make matters worse there was ANOTHER Santa wandering around the place. I didn’t see him but a lot of the kids saw him when they were outside in the fishing pool, riding horses, swimming, in the bouncy castle or on the merry-go-round. Apparently he was a huge guy! Bigger than me and much different looking. And probably better able to enunciate. So the kids knew that at least ONE of the Santas was fake. One little boy looked at me and said, “You’re not Santa.” I tell you what, if I DID go to Tessa’s party the night before I would have sweated out the hangover even before the halfway point!

But, as you know, I’m a complainer. I’m sure it wasn’t nearly so bad and some folks might even say I did an okay job as Santa but afterwards I felt much like I had run a marathon. I was sweaty, consuming liquid non-stop and just really really happy it was over. And I got some money from Rica for doing it so that made it okay. The funny thing was at one point I wandered over to the buffet and I suppose because they weren’t expecting Santa, (and hadn’t paid for him), people went NUTS for pictures! It was the highlight of the day for me! I think it was just nice to be appreciated so much. Santa really didn’t have too much in the way of loot to hand out to the kids so they had better things to do. But it sure didn’t hurt that most of the people I was posing for pictures with at the buffet were the hot wives of the guys who could afford to go to the Shangri La buffet! A couple of them were wearing Christmas finery that was so sexy and low cut that they might have a pic or two of Santa’s eyes where they shouldn’t be! It was in the final hour of my time as Santa so I was too sweaty for them to get TOO cozy with Santa. Probably a good thing.

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, since the World Jrs. was still a day away, I decided to make some Christmas cards for my two benefactors, Rica and Herry. I drew a Homer Simpson Santa Claus and wrote Merry Christmas Herry, and Rica and then wrote on the inside how it was a time of year to give thanks and I gave them thanks for being so nice to me. It was about 2 PM when I finished the cards and decided to walk to their places, (not that far away), and hand deliver the cards. I looked out the window and the clouds were threatening so I put the cards into a plastic bag and put on a hat. No more than a couple minutes after I got outside and en route to Herry’s it started just POURING. Remember, it’s the rainy season. But this was not a bad thing. You see when I go for a walk when it ISN’T raining here I get soaking wet. With sweat. This was actually quite nice! It kept me relatively cool and I wasn’t a whole lot wetter than I would have been if it were a clear, sunny day. Herry wasn’t home so I left his card with the doorman. He was laughing because the rain was torrential by the time I got there. Many people in shelters alongside the streets were saying stuff to me, waving, laughing and such. But I didn’t give a rip. It was a nice, pleasant, not sweltering hot walk. Rare around here.

Unfortunately, I had worn my sandals. They were good for short, dry walks but because they are not to be worn with socks and because of the Velcro straps that keep them on my feet, the exposed Velcro rubs my feet every step. Now this is not too bad even for a long walk when it’s dry. But when it’s wet and the foot skin is especially soft the Velcro rubs right through it. By the time I had reached Rica’s place I had two pretty blistery feet. She wasn’t home either so I left her card, plastic bag and all, in the handle of her apartment entrance. I hope it was still there when she returned. I still haven’t heard from her or Herry since.

When I got home I had 6 or 7 pretty nice raspberries on my feet but since I had exercised, and since I needed to nurse those raspberries, I just watched movies all day long. Some Christmas movies, some not. I really liked the movie “Nightcrawler.” I think Jake Gillinhall could get an Oscar for it. He was creepy! I also liked “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

So anyway, not a whole lot of action here to jolt me out of bed in the morning/afternoon. It’s kind of between seasons and jobs and nothing much is happening right now. Most likely the calm before the storm. And the storm should start right about New Year’s Day. I’ll probably blog you all about it. Meanwhile I'll try to keep some Tropical Funk in mind. "Don't worry. About a teeng. Evy leetle teeng... gon be alright."

Take care my faithful readers!

Santarnalia

Two more days until Christmas! What will you be doing? Most of us will be spending time with family. Immediate, extended and the requisite holiday visits to and from relatives of some questionable consanguinity.

Almost all of us will be going to Christmas, or "Holiday" or Saturnalia or Festivus or whatever parties. Some we look forward to and some we look forward to being over and done with for another year. Usually those are the company Christmas parties where you get together with bosses, co-workers and even owners of a company that reaps at least 80% of the benefits of your labour and then turns the whole affair into a celebration of their generosity. "Let's all take a moment to consider the gift of employment we have been given by (insert company name) this year, and how they give us the privelege of scraping by while they get filthy rich. But hey, at least we're not starving to death, right?"

Funnily enough, that's pretty much the origin of the celebration, isn't it? We try to make the best of the company party by laughing at the office romantics trying to act like they are not together, taking bets on who will get the drunkest, who has the tackiest holiday sweater, and maybe even enjoying the food, drink, music and festivity just a little bit. Cuz we're like that, humans. We're pretty awesome when you think of it. We will find ways to have fun at even the crappiest holiday party. The company Christmas party is just one example of the awesomeness of mankind but those are usually over by mid November so not really in the actual celebration season. I think I heard a few people saying they were having their "Year End" company party in OCTOBER this year! Could that be? Even before Halloween? Craziness!

But when you look at all the partying, celebrating, bonding, hugging, kissing, forgiving, gift giving, spending and over-spending, contacting old friends, making up, re-establishing lost relationships, tying up loose ends, giving to charity, feeding the poor, settling debts, just being the good person most of us aspire to be somewhere deep down, it almost looks like this season is more about death than a holy birth. It's ironic that a lot of the signs of suicide are included in our behaviour at Christmas, isn't it? I think if I knew I was going to die I'd do a lot of the kind-hearted things I wanted to do but was too busy clawing out a living in this pit fight of an existence. I'd empty the bank account and blow it all on my friends and family. And after we'd finished THAT case of beer... But seriously, a lot of us celebrate this season as if we are trying to do as much life maintenance as we can before imminent death. And traditionally all over the world, that's what the season was originally about wasn't it? Before it was even highjacked by the church and called Christmas it was actually like the band on the Titanic playing as the ship went down. Might as well, eh?

In many cold countries, back in the old days, (like hundreds of years ago, (that is hilarious when you consider the length of time people have been here. The "olden" days aren't all THAT olden!)), winter meant no crops, no rain, not much sunshine or fishing or hunting. You pretty much stayed in whatever shelter you had, ate all the EXTRA food you could store for the winter, and spent time socializing with whoever you wouldn't freeze to go visit. And by the end of winter you were likely out of food and good cheer and you were waiting for either sunshine or death. And I think the greatest thing about the people back then is that they KNEW somebody was going to die. It was a given. They'd treat Granny extra nice around Christmas just in case this was her last. They'd look at the infants and just hope they made it through the harsh winter. Sick, weak, disadvantaged, you might never see the heartiest fellow in town again let alone THESE people! So what did they do? Did they get all weepy and funerally? Nope they busted out the wine, and the presents, cranked up the tunes and partied! Well, it didn't hurt to slaughter the fatted calf or livestock of any kind knowing that it'll be easier than feeding them all winter long. So they did that too. You gotta give it to our relatives: when Death knocked on the door they invited him in and had a house shaker of a party.

To be fair, I may have been harsh on Christians saying they "highjacked" the holiday. What I meant was that there was a sort of "Christmas" probably a couple thousand years before Christianity. Every year you hear people reminding us not to forget "the reason for the season,"

but the birth of Jesus was actually not that reason until it was added pretty recently. In fact the birth of Jesus could not have occurred anywhere near December 25th according to the Bible itself. No the reason was the Sun. As mentioned earlier by the end of a long winter, back in the days when people were simple farmers who had no reason NOT to pray for the sun to shine a bit harder and hasten the end of the season of death, that's exactly what they did. But prayer and worship was a bit different back then. If someone tells you to remember the reason for the season, it's most likely someone who would not appreciate it if you did just that.

To be more accurate the reason was Saturn and the Sun. Saturnalia was a Roman festival from Dec. 17th to 23rd. Then the birthday of the Sun was December 25th. During this time of year EVERYBODY went bat shit crazy feasting, drinking, eating, gambling, debauching and celebrating. Quite comprehensively doing most of the things the Church of today frowns upon. But the basis of Saturnalia and the customs attached to it make it clear how it transitioned into modern day Christmas. The wealthy made gifts to the poor in honour of the golden age of liberty when Saturn ruled the world. Saturn was the Roman god of wealth, crops and liberation among other things. During the festivities slaves were allowed to change places and clothes with their masters. They even elected a slave king. There was a great deal more freedom of speech and behaviour during the festival. Slaves could complain about, even badmouth their masters. Gambling was allowed even for slaves. Women were more free to mingle with men. Female entertainers performed at many banquets. Rampant overeating and overdrinking, as well as the debauchery they tended to lead to, were the norm. Quite a far cry from Christmas today!

But children were given toys as gifts. Candles, pottery, books, clothes, knives, just about anything could be exchanged between adults. Even the good old gag gift was pretty common during Saturnalia. Bosses helped poor clients and workers to buy thier gifts much like the quickly disappearing Christmas bonus of today. Verses written on paper cards usually accompanied the gifts, just like Christmas cards. It is beleived that the Great Yule Feast of the Norsemen is where the Yule log, Christmas tree and decorations come from but many of our Christmas traditions were taken directly from Saturnalia. Everybody loved it!

The Catholic church wanted it. Despite God's direct warning NOT to adopt pagan worship customs, (Deut. 12: 29-32), the Christians chose Dec. 25th, the birthday of the Sun, in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to the Son. I'm not making that up.

Early in Christianity, (A.D. 155-230), when Catholic writer Tertullian put pen to paper he wrote of Christians flocking to the Roman pagan winter festivals with disapproval. Pagans would never be seen with Christians for fear of being associated with them and thought to be one. Why, he wondered, did the opposite happen? He wrote, "...gifts are carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar."

It wasn't until the 4th century that December 25 was just decreed by the Catholic Church as the birthday of Jesus. And not till another 500 years had passed, (9th century), was Christmas called Christmas instead of the Midwinter Feast. At one time in the 17th century, in places like Scotland and the U.S., Christmas was not a feast but a time of fasting for Protestants and Puritans who criticized the undisguized pagan elements of Christmas. Even Christmas carols were forbidden. Strict abstinance from fun was what they reckoned God wanted and they even recruited the army to enforce it by pulling down pagan decorations all around town. No wonder Scrooge was Scottish! Believe it or not it wasn't until 1836 that Christmas became a legal holiday in the U.S.

Christmas has come a long way! Nowadays we have our annual worship of Greed and Mammon in which children are trained to like receiving more than giving

and in the spirit of love and harmony, adults fight over the last Playstation 4 or Iphone 5 on the shelves because they want to show everyone how impressive their spirit of giving is. But along with all of the bad things, there is a spirit of peace, love, forgiveness, charity, giving and partying in the air every year. So almost everybody still loves Christmas. I sure do!

There's still controversy about the word Christmas though. And I AM noticing more atheist posts on facebook this holiday season. I still call it Christmas. It's habit. I don't know any atheists who SAY they are offended by people going to church or singing Christmas carols or worshipping the Lord at this time of year, they just don't want to be part of it. Yet we have this controversy. The word "Christmas" has Christ in it so we can't use it in case it offends. Well I suppose it's other religious people then who are offended. So now we have to say "Happy Holidays" and all that. I think I have a solution to this problem. I have heard countless Christians saying how we should celebrate like it's Christmas every day. So do that. Don't celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th, it's the wrong day anyway. And since most of us no longer worship Saturn, we'll call the former Christmas season Santarnalia and celebrate it like the old days, in the spirit of giving, liberty and equality. But we'll do it as a completely non-religious party that EVERYONE can celebrate without the pressure of religious behavioural rules.

I'm gonna be Santa at the Shangri La Hotel on Christmas Day afternoon. After that I'm hoping to do some Santarnalian Christmas partying, baby! Because you just never know if we will survive the winter! Who's with me?

"Ass" post

I'm singing in my brain the David Bowie song ch-ch-ch-ch changes... I'm sure there are a few who know the Yes song called "Changes" too. Those are both rolling around in my head. But to illustrate a point, if someone from a younger era was thinking about how things are in a constant state of flux, they might have a Carrie Underwood or Taylor Swift song running through their grey matter. (Both of them have songs entitled "Change." I looked it up.)

The youngsters are really changing the world. And now I understand the oldsters that I couldn't understand when I was a youngster. Cuz a lot of the changes are hard to get used to. Some folks my age just refuse to even try. A good example, one close to my heart, is language. It's my bread and butter. This whole sentence would be written differently by a person younger than myself. For instance they have a new structure denoting emphasis. It's when you take any adjective and attach the word "ass" to it. So I should have said something like "Now I understand the old-ass people I couldn't understand a long-ass time ago when I was a young-ass person." I'm not too sure if I mind THIS change in the language so much. Sometimes I think it's a cool-ass change but sometimes it doesn't work. Other changes, the kind of things I used to notice and encorporate almost without hesitation, I am hesitant-ass to use. There's an example of the ass emphasis not working.

Young people, you can't MEAN something until you've said something, okay? So when someone sees you for the first time today, crosses over the street and says, "Hey how's it going?" don't say, "I mean... it's okay." What do you mean, you mean?!?! You haven't said anything! This lame-ass language trait is annoying. I used to have a teacher named Mr. Sarbadhikari. He was Indian. Probably still is. He liberally sprinkled "I mean" throughout his language. It made him fun to immitate. "The Canturbury Tales is, I mean, E-Chaucer's, contribution to, I mean, the canon." We used to waste entire classes counting the "I means." I remember triple digits! But for him it was like, "Um," or "Like," it wasn't as annoying to me. Plus English was his second or third language. "Who do you think will be voted out tonight?" asks Jeff Probst. "I meaaannnn... Dennis looked bad in today's challenge but I'll be voting with my alliance." Just say "um" or "uh" or "duh," for crying out loud.

But some things stay the same too. I still get asked regularly why I'm not married. Often, and most recently, by a Korean. I've even been told I'm selfish for not having a wife and kids. Me and Doug Stanhope beg to differ. Hey, next time you and your wide-ass, 12 baby making hips are standing in line waiting to use the women's washroom, don't complain because it's folks like you who have kids like they're collectables that are partly responsible for overpopulation, starvation, malnutrition, fresh water shortages, ozone depletion, high prices of scarce non-renewable resources, and bathroom line-ups. Don't be honking your horn at ME in traffic either. I have zero kids, (that I know of). I am contributing to population DEcrease. Meanwhile you have more than made up for me and you have the clackers to blow your horn at ME? Just sit back and enjoy the fourth time you've played "Frozen" today on your newly indebting minivan TV screens. Try to block out the screaming of the youngest and the arguing of your third and fourth. Don't pay any attention to that seatbelt click, or UNclick, or that mysterious smell. Remember YOU got yourself into this because they're cute for a short time, they kinda look like you and once in a while they say or do adorable things. The rest of the time you have this, but you signed on for it so don't complain and DON'T take it out on me by hammering on your horn like the steering column is going to go through the Astrovan's floorboards and punch a hole in the ground that you can just dive into and disappear.

If you knew me you might do it out of jealousy. I'd get that. This morning, well, more accurately a little after noon when I slowly got out of bed, got a piece of pizza and a beer from the fridge, took them and my laptop to the toilet, ate brunch, I guess, while surfing porn on my laptop on my lap on the toilet with the bathroom door wide open I thought to myself, "It's times like these I need to remind myself of how lucky I really am." You can't do that because you have a wife and kids. You have a role to play. You have a life to star in. The question is not why I made the choices I made, is it?

Don't get me wrong, I sometimes feel a twinge of envy at couples who kiss on New Year's Eve at midnight, or families who have big Christmas dinners and piles of gifts under the tree. But they're nothing compared to the Hunger Games bow TWANGS every nerve in my body gets simultaneously when I am in the supermarket and a kid is knocking stuff off the shelves and his mother is trying to keep her cool saying, "Jeffery that's not how we behave in public." (nervous laugh and glance at fellow grocery shoppers). "Shut up, Mom!" screams Jeffery, grinning like Damien the anti-Christ, continuing to knock products off the shelves. Some break open and will need to be paid for by Mommy. "Jeffery, please stop doing this. You are embarrassing yourself." "I'm not embarrassed, YOU are!" screams the demonic little brat. "Am I going to have to give you a time-out?" "Time-outs don't scare me you bitch!"

Remember when we were young? Oh sure Mom might behave like this in the grocery store but when we got out of public we were in for it! So WE didn't behave like Jeffery. In our changing world it seems like everyone is more violent except parents and teachers. The ones raising the larger and larger numbers of kids in the world. They're the people who need a little MORE power behind their disapproval and society is allowing them less and less. Of course there are limits. I believe most of us are naturally provided with the ability to have kids and the ability to know when one of those kids could use a patt on the butt or a smack in the head. And when we were young parents were still allowed to use corporal punishment. You know what I'm talking about, Dad comes at you, takes off his belt, ties your hands behind your back, strips you naked, butts out cigars on your skin, maybe a little waterboarding, you remember that. (that's Doug Stanhope. I just watched him last night. lol)

Seriously though, any parent, teacher, babysitter who even LOOKED like he/she might not be afraid to employ some REAL physical discipline rarely had to use it. Just the threat was enough. And, BLAMMO, limit established. Okay, now we know and we will behave accordingly. I don't think I want the all too difficult responsibility of creatively establishing and reinforcing behavioural guidelines on kids with the insane limitations society and laws made by young folks have provided. "Okay any student who is caught fighting, torturing, maiming, murdering or bringing any harm to another student will have his or her Xbox priveleges revoked. FOR A WHOLE WEEK!" That's why I don't teach kids. Well, not young ones anyways. And that, coupled with the lack of the necessary partner, is a big reason why I don't have any kids of my own.

To quote the great Don Henley, "Freedom, oh freedom... well that's just some people talkin'." These days when these words ring truer and truer; when cost of living rises every day and wages stay the same or go down; when you take off hats, belts, shoes, empty your pockets, produce three pieces of photo I.D., a retinal scan, a stool sample, and a fingerprint-based criminal record check to order a pizza, I think another big reason I stay single is the relative freedom I have in comparison to the Orwellian lives I see friends and family living. We have to snatch our little freedoms everywhere we can these days because it seems the time is coming when they'll all be gone.

Right now sunlight and rain are free but give our owners a few years to figure out ways of owning the sun and the rain and renting them to us and they will. It's so much about ownership nowadays. Moreso than when I was a kid. And getting worse. I think that's the inherent gambler in all of us. There are a VERY few people in our world who own pretty much everything, and don't kid yourself, they own me and you too. But we don't mind! We're cool with that! For the same reason we're fine with paying money for a lottery ticket or a visit to the casino. Because we know there is a miniscule chance that the bet might pay off and WE coud become one of the owners. Unlike a lot of people, I have no desire to be one of the owners. I don't want to be rich, own a big house, a wife and three kids. I want to own a vehicle someday maybe but that's it. And when I'm old, a small shack, a small piece of property and a blazing fast internet connection. Try to find a gal that thinks that living the rest of her life with me, cranking out some kids and having one vehicle, a small shack and a small piece of property is worth it. The blazing internet connection doesn't sweeten the deal much. She knows she can do better. This may not be a big change but I have noticed over my lifetime that it has changed in degree. The ladies of my youth were more satisfied with less. Now that might have something to do with my having more hair, less belly and better looks back then. Maybe. Or maybe it might have had more to do with having more years left in the work force, and more drive to get that job that will lead to the bigger house, multiple cars and so on.

I'm even finding that employers have the same prejudice. This is WHY wages are going down while the cost of living goes up. Like in China where factories pay so little the workers MUST work hundreds of hours of overtime just to keep from starving, the model has expanded into what we call "western" cultures too. Businesses want workers who will work for the company knowing that they won't make very much money unless they DO the overtime hours. This way the company has a larger stake in your life. They OWN a bigger piece of your life. Like everything in the world, this benefits the owners and it's by design. This is how we've ended up with upper classes making more money than ever and the other 99% making less than ever. Higher numbers on the paycheck don't mean you're earning more money.

Bust your ass your whole life and if you're lucky you get a decade of retirement when you're body and mind are too worn out from the years of hard work to enjoy it. I want to make enough money now and work few enough hours to enjoy that money. While I'm young. Golfing, travelling, sightseeing, sure I can do these when I am older but they're not as much fun. Right now I want to go sightseeing at the Great Barrier Reef, Soy Cowboy, catch a tiger shark, not have tea at an emperor's palace or stroll the batanical gardens. Snorkelling, diving, dancing, drinking, whitewater rafting, hiking up volcanoes, catching big fish, there are long lists of things you can't, or probably shouldn't do after retirement. I'm just trying to scratch these off my bucket list while I'm relatively young. Can't do it if the company you work for OWNS you. And if you have 4 kids and mountains of debt trying to give them the kind of life society mandates, then you are STILL owned by the owners. Maybe not just the ones who own the company you work for.

The way I see it, I'm a bit more free than the average guy. I am leaving less of a footprint on an overtrampled Earth. And though I'm not free, I am not so beholden to my owners. And I always reserve the right to tell them to kiss my big-ass ass if they start getting too possessive of me. It's nice to have that ability, but in my opinion, things are changing in this world so fast that this ability won't be around much longer. I might be a dying breed. So take advantage of the time you have with my single-ass, free-ass ass! I, and others like me, will soon be extinct.

EASILY the highest "ass" count of any post ever by me.

I Don't Care, I Love It!

"Hey hey hey just think while you've been getting down and out about all the liars and the dirty dirty cheats of the world you could have been getting down to this sick beat." Taylor Swift from her song "Shake it Off."

Well, I am a fella who no longer has hella good hair but I DO have somethin' in my brain so when the fakers fake fake fake and the haters hate hate hate, I'm not just gonna shake shake shake. But thanks for the advice anyway, girl younger than the underwear I have on right now.

"You're on a different road, I'm in the Milky Way. You want me down on earth, but I am up in space. You're so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch. You're from the 70's, but I'm a 90's bitch." "I crashed my car into a bridge. I watched, I let it burn. I crashed my car into a bridge. I don't care. I love it." Icona Pop's song "I Love It."

"You're like a drug that's killing me. I'd cut you out entirely. But I get so high when I'm inside you." Maroon 5 from the number one song on Billboard as I type, "Animals."


"Staying in my play pretend Where the fun ain't got no end Ooh Can't go home alone again Need someone to numb the pain You're gone and I gotta stay High all the time To keep you off my mind." Tove Lo's song "Habits (Stay High)"

Anybody else see a theme here or am I out on that all too familiar limb of the tree all by myself again?

I have been on a bit of an ethical, philosophical, spiritual mission since I got out of the mindless euphoria of youth to try to find some joy in the suffering of life. That's been my goal for quite some time now. Not going well, but thanks for asking. But am I seeing here what could be my problem? Am I too busy trying to find GENUINE joy in the pain that is life? And "Life IS pain, highness! Anyone who tells you different is selling something." Westley/The Dread Pirate Roberts. Such a quotable movie!!!

The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. You're gonna get lemons. But maybe I've been struggling so much because I am trying to make lemonade out of lemons instead of saying, "Screw it, I'll just go dancing, crash my car and watch it burn like a pyro, have some hate sex or alter my mind synthetically to get to a play pretend place where I'll forget about those uncooperative lemons." Don't fix the problem, settle, shake it off, get stoned or just repeat I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it until you love it.

Does this sound like unhealthy autohypnosis or phony escapism to anyone else out there or am I from the 70's and damn hard to please? I guess I DO want people more down to earth instead of walking around with their heads in the clouds, (or the Milky Way). How else are we going to make the world a better place? Or at least keep the world from being run by liars and dirty, dirty cheats?

But then again, maybe the younger generation is finding in their crappy music, a way to empty their heads of all thoughts so that what is important becomes clear. Having hella good hair, a smile on your beautiful face, youthful body and the ability to move that body to a throbbing techno beat. I admit that is an insanely envious and dismissive statement, but seriously, are they so different from Mevlevi twirlers who "sama" dance to experience the ecstasy of total surrender? Are the flashing strobes in the club welcome luminosity to Daoists in deep meditation? Is the sweat from dancing caused just from exercise or is it the result of what the Hindus call "siddhi" which is a(n) hallucinatory state marked by excessive body heat? Are these young whippersnappers practicing Tantric "hot" yoga at the clubs characterized by the intense heat of the kundalini ascending the spine? Is Friday or Saturday night raving essentially the same as the Namibian San tribe trance dancing with the goal of heat ascending the spine culminating in an out of body experience? Are they so different from natives smoking herb in sweatlodges to gain communication with the spirits? Or the Cora, Huichol, and Tarahumara Indians dancind their peyote dance all night long so that they can have visions of the future?

I'm a believer in trying to DO positive things, not just, as they say, "act as if." If I don't like my situation, I do something about changing it. I don't settle for artificially self-programming my brain to accept things the way they are. Especially when I know they are absolutely wrong. The Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha started his life as a rich boy with no idea of the suffering of the world. All the people around him acted as though it didn't exist. He then left his cozy home and was exposed to the real world. He didicated his life to finding enlightenment. That is, a way to take joy in th suffering of life. I just find it hard to believe that his "enlightenment" was to go back to the happy pretenses of his younger days. Could it be that easy?

It's not supposed to be if we believe the Bible verse, "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be who find it." This verse was practically the sole inspiration for one of the very few epic poems, The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser in which the Redcrosse Knight struggles literally with what we all struggle with figuratively. He fights many battles for Una, or truth and fends off the evil womanly wiles of Duessa and the two-faced, wicked harlot almost defeats him. To me that would seem to be the opposite of what these young, hedonistic songsters are advocating.

But is the truth overrated? Wouldn't it have been infinitely easier for me to just do what I was supposed to do, get married, work a job I don't like, crank out two point five kids, smile at people I want to punch in the face then go drink scotch till it feels better... I don't know if that WOULD have been easier, would it? A lot of people I know did pretty much that and when I ask them "How are you?" do they not say they are fine? I've been called selfish many times for not having a wife and kids. Am I? Oh geez, major crisis!

But, I DON'T CARE, I LOVE IT! This is the way life is supposed to be. Difficult. Otherwise you're doing something wrong I reckon. And I'm not going to go out and crash my car, get laid, spike up and shoot some forget into my veins, I'm just going to figure it out, fix it up and keep plugging all the leaks until I die. Youngsters sage advice notwithstanding, I think it might be too late for this dog to learn the trick of just acting like my troubles are not there.

Get Smart

Read this.

Now take a look at this:

Now PLEASE watch THIS.

I'm tempted to just leave this post at that. But you know I can't. Let's start with the supermarket scene. It says it may have been in a different country or it may have been totally fabricated. I have a hard time accepting that in Canada, which I have read is the "most educated country in the world," (whatever that means), this could ever happen. If Canadians really ARE educated they'd take the hour or two of research time it would take, (the vid is an hour and a half actually), and realize that the Iraq invasion and occupation had absolutely jack-shit-diddly to do with ANY rights and freedoms we have in Canada. It was Operation Iraqi Liberation - O.I.L. Period.

Ostensibly it was about weapons of mass destruction. ZERO were found. But how many were USED? Watch the doc. They talk about cluster bombs used on the general population. Cluster bombs are weapons. They are intended for indiscriminate destruction of large amounts of people. Perhaps these are the bombs the lady in the burka was referring to. Incidentally to add drama, the average age of the population of Iraq that were being indiscriminately cluster bombed was 15. How many were used in Iraq? Impossible to know because despite the hundreds of "embedded" reporters we saw giving reports from the ground with soldiers drinking beer and kicking a football around behind them, the Iraqi operation was mostly done from the air and I don't remember a single reporter embedded in a bomber. They weren't allowed to see that part of the war, the documentary reports. And if they were they might have lots their hooowah comradery that built up when spending time with the amiable troops and actually been journalists instead of jingoists. Now I know that the article points out most of the cluster bombs were launched from the ground but if any reporter had seen that or any of the air bombings, they'd probably have lost some of their patriotic support and possibly the contents of their stomach.

This report gives an unconfirmed number of about 10,800 cluster bombs used by the U.S. and 2,200 used by the U.K. Watch the video. Read the article. People died and children were sent to the hospital because of cluster bombing. The video shows some. It also talks about an Agent Orange, napalm-type substance also used in Iraq.

Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, the Ukraine, pretty much anywhere there is conflict the cause is oil, natural gas, or some form of corporation-enriching commodity. This is not conspiracy theory. In so many cases the people who do the research are, in my experience, the ones who believe the "conspiracies" and the dummies who believe the corporate and political media doublespeak are the ones laughing at them for being so stupid. Like the cartoon. Laughing, bullying, taking away their jobs, or worse.

The Muslim shopper had a point. When ARE we going to stop bombing people, or in Canada's case, when are we going to stop supporting with our tax dollars, the greedy, violent tactics of western corporate global Manifest Destiny? When are we going to face facts and admit to ourselves that if we saw this kind of killing in our countries, we would want revenge too? When are we going to stop blaming these things on religion? Yes, the woman was Muslim. Yes, she has more rights and freedoms in Canada than she had in Iraq. But precious little if any of the fighting done by Canadian soldiers since WWII has had anything to do with either.

I have met a hundred soldiers here in Asia if I've met one and amongst them I have yet to hear a single freedom fighter slogan or emotional mantra such as "freedom ain't free" or "fighting for our way of life." Those are skillful emotional manipulation used on civilians to build the fighting forces into heroes they don't want to be. They're doing a job and collecting a paycheck, most of them. And when I talked to soldiers, male and female, during the Iraq operations every one of them said they wanted to go over there. I asked if it was to "defend the liberty of Americans" and they all said, "Nope, it's better pay." I have even heard stories from protesters protesting for peace and being guarded or even arrested by soldiers and/or police, that they were secretly told by the soldiers to keep doing what they're doing.

Look at the little girl in the article. Shahad Thaer Mustafa. Just saying the name connotates something negative in my mind and I hate the fact that somehow I've gotten that anti-Muslim name sentiment into my head. It sounds like a religious extremist or terrorist, right? How do you suppose that happened? She's a little girl whose uncle was killed by actions that could very accurately be described as "terrorist." If she grows up and joins ISIS or ISIL or whatever organization they might morph onto by then she will be called a terrorist. But is that accurate? Or is she just a person who has seen friends and relatives killed by a force and she is doing everything within her power to weaken or eliminate that force? Even if it unfortunately involves killing innocents. Her uncle was innocent. Maybe some other friends and family she lost were too.

If this becomes the case there is no doubt little Shahad would be labelled a terrorist. You see when she allows for the killing of innocent people in the name of her cause, it's called terrorism. When the allied forces use cluster bombs that they know will kill innocent people, it's called collateral damage. The same goes for a lot of other types of warfare that has been used including drone strikes. When an attack in retaliation for murders perpetrated by evil corporate warmongers is arranged and carried out the spin-doctors in the media always pretend like it was completely unexpected, out of left field, unwarranted, cowardly and without justification. Terrorism. This aggression will not stand. This aggression will not stand. We must redouble our efforts to combat such unwarranted and evil attacks. It's all skillful, emotional manipulation. And if your brain is small enough, it's so easy to jump right on that bandwagon of violence!

But smart people question things. Smart people don't get carried away with emotional calls to arms against people who are subjugated by our foreign policies. Smart people need to object to people using, "It's just business," or "It's my job," to try to justify taking human lives. Smart people know that this is why there are more and more emotionally messed up soldiers and former soldiers. Read this story of one soldier who was wounded in Iraq. Was he a hero or an unappreciated pawn in the global game of Monopoly or Risk or Oil Grab being played by the true psychopathic terrorists of the world? Smart people need to stop sitting down and taking the brainless abuse that dumbasses such as the two in the cartoon or the person who wrote the fake supermarket story dish out. Smart people understand that the people bombing Iraq are not WWII veterans and they're not doing it for Iraqi, U.S. or Canadian freedom. Smart people need to say some smart things and educate those people even if they don't want to be educated and they might punch you in the face if you try. Smart people need to show the same support for corporate/military killing as they do for retaliatory killing or if you prefer, "terrorism" being committed by ISIS and other such groups: NONE.

The Koran does not support killing unless in self-defence. I doubt there is a single member of any ISIS-type organization who doesn't believe that this is what they are doing. The simple solution is to remove the perceived need for self defence. Stop with the extremist economics. Don't just kill more people and further solidify their resolve. I don't even think a person has to be smart to figure this out, but it's getting to the point in our world where we must either get smart or get dead. We're not there yet but I sure hope we don't leave it until it's too late!

Harpy Egg Wasting No Time Building His Legacy: Chinada

Well now I know how the U.S. must feel. HERE'S a wonderful article by the CBC, Canada's national(ly owned) news broadcasting corporation. It is absolutely hilarious how positive they are making this sound. The deal is expected to "dramatically boost exports..." of Canadian money and resources back to China. "The signing of the deal was announced in Beijing today..." because while Harpy Egg is there he won't have to field questions like, "Why the hell are you making all these massive deals that Canadians only find out about after they are done and while you are not in the country to explain them?"

And look who the quotes are from. "Great boon for Canada..." says Stewart Beck, of Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. "Great news for Canada..." says Jason Henderson of HSBC Canada. Two white sounding names working for Asian companies. Probably eggs like the crime minister. An "egg" is a person who is white on the outside and yellow on the inside. Though most eggs in Asia eggs are well tanned, but my N. American readers will get the analogy. And there might just be a little bit of profit in this for their workplaces so talk about the WRONG people to get unbiased comments from! Jason at HSBC must know that the Canadian bank that will take care of the "hub" transactions, (gozillions of dollars worth of them), has still not been chosen. So of oourse he loves the deal and will do anything to help facilitate and expedite the proceedings for whoever is in charge of choosing the bank... wink wink ANYthing!

But the article isn't all bad. I like articles like this actually. It's the most dependable way to find out how many Chinese actually ARE in Canada. Let's see... "Trade between China and Canada supports 470,000 jobs in Canada." 470,000. There are 470,000 Chinese citizens in Canada. Because the Chinese DON'T hire Canadians. They're too expensive! Well except for guys like Stew and Jason above who are kept around to make quotes and appearances so people think Chinese companies hire non-Chinese. In all seriousness HSBC was established in the UK and probably has a few non-Chinese holdovers after the Hong Kong handover. The other company is just figuring out how to "trade" with Asia things like oil, natural gas, and whatever else Canada can handover, I mean trade to China. And those other countries over there.

I'm exaggerating. Sometimes Chinese companies hire Canadians, or Chinese people who have, (somehow), qualified for Canadian citizenship. These are valuable people to politicians because they allow statements like, "Chinese companies employ Canadians," to ALMOST be true. At last count more than half of the people in Canada were not born in Canada and the Chinese are by far the biggest group of these new Canadians. They've just been hanging around in Canada for years to be the future labour force for Chinese companies to start pillaging Canadian resources once the sale of Canada to China has been finalized. Chinese have been filing into Canada for years and systematically deteriorating Canadian laws to allow them to do so. For example the Canadian government knows there are lots of Chinese in the country on student visas who not only breach those visas by not attending classes, they are illegally working in their uncle's tire store or dim sum restaurant. And they are working for illegally low wages. I did not pull this out of my ass, people, this is an example taken from many years ago when I lived in Vancouver. Two of my students told me they were working for their Uncle for less than minimum wage. Less than minimum wage in Canada is still way more than they can make in China. That was I think in the early 2000's and I found out first hand from the government agencies that they knew about it and there was nothing they could do about it.

You can't just sell Canada to the Chinese overnight. It takes many years apparently.

At least this article isn't like most of the past articles I've read about Harper's traitorious reign as a PM loved about as well as a hockey lock out. Most of the articles I've read preceeding this one did not allow for comments. This one, they believe, might fool a few Canadians into saying something positive I guess. But I read through the comments. Nope.

This will be great for Chinese business in Canada! The ones already in Canada and the future businesses. This may actually inspire MORE Chinese businesses to set up in Canada. So now the businesses and all the Chinese workers they employ can avoid the hassle and expense of exchange rates while they are sucking dollars out of Canada and back to their beloved homeland. I don't see the benefits for Canadians though there are those knuckleheads blinded by inexplicable loyalty to the Conservative Party of Canada I suppose, who are trying to tell us this is a good thing.

But even though this won't help the average Canadian, even though this will contribute to a tide of new businesses in Canada that aren't hiring Canadians, even though the Chinese will eventually do to Canada what they did to China and take every drop of oil, stick of wood, gallon of water and anything else they can sell out of the country, take heart, my fellow Canadians because Harper is taking care of you. Well, your kids anyway. So since you won't be working, why not crank out about 20 kids? They'll be worth about 160 bucks a month each. That'll keep you in Kraft Dinner and maybe even hot dogs with it once in a while. I don't know if the Chinese will be nice enough to put Canadians on reservations while they invade but who knows? We might have that to look forward to.

The ISIS Crisis

There’s a part in the movie, “Her,” when the guy played by Joaquin, (Johnny Cash), Phoenix, says that sometimes he thinks he’s felt everything he’s ever going to feel. It’s after a failed computer set up with a girl that was really pretty, very nice, easy to talk to and the night went well, but it just didn’t work out. She ends up calling him a creepy guy. He argues and says, “No. Really I’m not.” But that’s just what you’d expect a creepy guy to say, isn’t it?

A couple of things that might give you some idea where I’m going with this: 1. I wasn’t sure if he was creepy or not. I kinda took both their sides on that one. Because the guy, what’s his name, (Google), Theodore, is a very nice guy. He’s NOT abnormal, he’s just past the point in life where he’s no longer able to get into character for some of the social situations that make up our youths. At least not without more alcohol than they drank on that evening. He may have replaced too much of his emotions with wisdom and when he gets to the point in the date that everything is strategically set up to come to, and he opens up the emotional floodgates, it’s more of a trickle than a flood. And maybe, like myself, he starts employing the brain where it’s really not wanted and questioning the stagecraft of the entire evening and losing the seduction supplied by the suspension of disbelief and while he’s moving in for the all-important first kiss he’s thinking of scenes in a movie or TV show he has seen lately. “Should I do the clichéd hesitant kiss like Twilight, or should I just make a strong statement and then grab her like in Divergent, or should I start the hesitant kiss, hope she asks, “Do you want to kiss me now?” then say, “Yes, please,” then go for it like in the Flight of the Conchords?
2. I didn’t make it all the way to the end of “Her,” or any romantic movie lately. If it’s got comedy with it or adventure I’ll hang in there but romances do zilch for me. In fact I’m to the point in my movie watching career where I absolutely hate the requisite love interest that is thrown into movies habitually. It usually ruins comedies, adventures, dramas, well pretty much any kind of movie but a romance. If I want romance, I’ll go watch one of them. Now get back to the car chase. Actually car chases and explosions are powerless to me as well. Blood and gore. Funny. I just laugh at how they have just gotten more and more absurd as I’ve gotten older. EVERY movie has become a comedy to me!

And not only that, to carry on the above description of the kiss, I’m the guy that’s thinking, “Okay now should I do fast head movements or slow; should I do the head grab or a hair touch; full tongue or just probing darts here and there; eyes closed, of course eyes closed, that’s right isn’t it; how can I make this the most romantic kiss she’s ever had so that we will talk about this when people ask if we remember our first kiss; oh why didn’t I drink more; but wait if I had drunk more then she might not have allowed me to get to this point; but at least I might score; if I can make this memorably romantic… Then I totally lose character and burst out laughing because I picked this girl up at a bar, have known her for all of two hours and because of the loud, thumping, crap dance music have yet to have a conversation with her, I want her body and she wants my money, who the hell are we kidding? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

And after that she looks at me strangely and says, (can you guess what she says?), “You’re a weirdo!” Weirdo and creep, do we have synonyms? Let’s check with the judges…. Ding ding ding! I think instead of challenging the assertion that he’s a creep, Theodore could very easily have said something like, “Yeah well at least I’m not a big phony.”

And there you have it! Phoniness. A common theme that has coloured the literature, (that is the ADULT stories), of many a great. My favourite is probably Salinger. The irony of Holden Caulfield flunking out or getting kicked out of so many schools as a result of already having done what their purpose it was to teach him, that being to reach intellectual adulthood and the bittersweet moment of sad clarity when the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and “you can do anything you put your mind to,” are gone forever.

What puzzles me is that I was young once and I remember so well flinging myself into love fully and completely trusting that it was worth the risk. It was a fantastic feeling! Maybe the best feeling there is! My question is was it all genuine or was I then just a better actor than now? More able and willing to throw myself entirely into the roll. Or maybe it’s just a physiological explanation. After all it could have just been all those raging hormones that made life tingle so much every time I looked into her eyes and saw that she was right there with me on this ride, real or imagined. Another question is pretty obvious: does it really matter? It was something I will never forget and it was absolutely wonderful. Who cares if we were just stupid kids who had built up a fallacy of our own to a point where we both fully believed it? We weren’t hurting anyone but ourselves. And holy shit did it hurt! Probably worse than anything else! After saying the stupid things we say about forever and always and realizing that wasn’t going to happen. For me they weren’t lies. I found the one for me, genuinely told her so, and watched in helpless horror as we proved incompatible. About fifteen times. I don’t think it was the vain disappointment of having been proved wrong that caused the heartache, it was the gut-wrenching jolt of adulthood knowing that she WAS the one and still she was wrong.

Now don’t go thinking I’m going to run out and kill myself here, I realize that my idyllic expectations for a woman who never looks like she just woke up even when she just woke up; who thinks everything I say is clever and agrees with it; who will never blow a smelly fart let alone take a stinky dump; never look at another man or like a sexy actor; have no problem with me looking at other women or liking sexy actresses; never love me any less than a kitten or puppy; and so on and so forth. NO girl is the right girl with those expectations. With age my expectations have really lowered. It doesn’t mean I will date or marry any less a person, it just means I will be fully aware that anyone I choose to be with now is not perfect. And one of the new expectations is that she know that about me. But in a realistic relationship such as that we lose the fantasy and the emotion of those foolishly optimistic and hopeful relationships of our youth. Like most things in life, love is not just about play, it requires some work too. Said the reluctant grown-up.

So, sorta like Theodore, I’ve felt all I can feel as far as unrealistic, heart-bursting, super tingly feelings. The best things in life are fake I guess. Now I’m perfectly content with the satisfyingly simple, realistic happinesses life has left in store for me.
However, I still maintain that in my youth I was more capable of greater love than I am now. And forget about the cloudy, vague, mysteries of romantic love, I’m talking about REAL love here. Love that still endures. I loved the music back then more than I can ever love the music of today! No question. I still love that music too! And, much like romantic love, if I have a beer or two and suddenly somebody puts on some 80’s rock, 80’s hits or even some old 80’s hair band, I can still get emotionally cranked up. But even this reminds me of the movies. That scene from “The Wrestler” when they were doing EXACTLY the play acting I’ve described above and suddenly some Ratt comes on the box. This is genuine love and unlike the phony romance they were awkwardly trying to prod along, in that song they shared some real love.

I get none of that over here. Not just because the only girls I have dated are from the 90’s music generation, (or on a good night the 2000’s), and I’m with the Wrestler when he says, “The 90’s sucked.” And before I go on I’d like to point out that I was in my TEENS in the 80’s and am dating girls who were in their TEENS in the 90’s and 2000’s. Nobody remembers the music of the decade when they were born. But not only do girls here in their 30’s and 40’s like music from a different generation than me, (like my Halloween honey last night), they like music from a different continent, sung in a different language! So it’s tough to relate on a musical level. I’m afraid I’ll have to start dating 20 year olds since all the best music of the late 2000’s and the 2010’s is remixed 80’s tunes. Hee hee hee!

But I’m going off the rails, (on a Crazy Train), here. Stop that! When I think about the 80’s when I was young and foolish, ERR verything was better! I think it’s like that because I just put more emotion into everything. I liked TV shows better. Video games were lame but better. My friends were better. Movies were better. Snack food, fast food, candy, FOOD was better. Nature was better. Fishing, camping, just walking outside was better. Cars were better. School was better. Hairstyles and fashion… okay I got carried away there. I’m not sure that all of this stuff was better but what I think is true is that I put far more emotion into those days so all of this stuff SEEMS like it was better. Even hair and fashion. I liked a good mullet when I still had the hair to have one. And big, feathered hair on a girl? Oh yeah. And what about terrycloth shorts? The yoga pants of my generation. I used to love watching girls’ volleyball! Not like, LOVE.

Okay, so whether you agree with me on that or not I have to get to my point. There was one other thing I was into on a very emotional level back in the 80’s that I’m not now. The churches I went to back then benefitted from my wholehearted participation in all the various programs. And I certainly don’t regret it. My spiritual walk figured largely in who I am today. And in the curiosity in the prospect of God that leads me to do things like investigate other religions and read the Koran. Long before I taught in Canadian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Indonesian schools I was a Sunday School teacher in Ignace and Thunder Bay. I loved it! And just like hearing an old 80’s tune or meeting up with a friend from high school, if I heard an old gospel music song from the 80’s or met up with someone I knew from church back then I’m sure I’d get just as emotional. But with more reason and less emotion I will say that my expectations of God, much like those of a girlfriend, have significantly lowered.

But I know the feeling of being emotionally revved up for the God you believe in. I know how it feels to believe you are invincible with God on your side. I know how attractive and persuasive that can be. And I know that there are people in religious places who will take advantage of the vigour and foolhardy emotion of youth. In fact it’s not ONLY the youth, it’s just commonly the youth who are so more emotional. As we age we can reign in our emotions and discern the difference between right and wrong more often but not always. Sigmund Freud had one of the greatest all time quotes about this. “The people are not moved by fact or reason, but the skillful manipulation of emotion.”

What do you reckon the average age of a member of ISIS is? Or whatever acronym they’re going by these days. I’ve read, (and there’s really no way of knowing how accurate this is but), that the average age of recruitment is between 16 and 25. Coincidence? I think not. And how skillful do you think an ISIS leader needs to be to manipulate the emotions of a force so young. Is it that much different from ANY military really? The comradery, the common purposes and beliefs, the common code, the common suffering, spending all their time together, these people get very close and given their ages there is going to naturally be a massive buildup of emotions amongst them. If you remember back to your youth, (assuming my readers have all passed it by), what would the result be if someone tried to take away something you felt a strong emotional attachment to? Not gonna happen, right?

Well what about if someone KILLED someone you had become emotionally attached to? Or what if you were told that someone was trying to put an end to the religion and the way of life you had become emotionally attached to? That’s a whole other level of commitment. The soldiers of ISIS are highly motivated to say the least. If we could talk to them all individually I bet we would discover a world foreign to most of us. If you listen to Christ Hedges, a guy who has been there, he has seen what contributes to the mindsets of the member of ISIS and states from a position of superior closeness to almost anyone but the actual members of ISIS, that it is not shocking in the least to see them join a faction based on revenge. They don’t see a couple of military member killed by some whacked out nut jobs with some tenuous connections to a newly espoused religion. They see killings regularly for long periods of time. More than two. And most, if not all of them, have seen people killed that they know or are related to. There is very little doubt as to who has committed the killings or why. And there is a convenient organization recruiting people to fight against the killers. Hedges, in a couple of talks he gives that are available to watch on Youtube, says that almost anyone would do the exact same thing.

There really should be no surprise at all that ISIS or the Taliban or Hezbollah or whatever the name is the revenge fighters are going by, are very successful at recruiting. And there should really be no surprise, (but there always is), in places like the U.S., U.K., Canada, any of the countries who are dropping bombs on these people or supporting the attacks on them, when they commit acts that are considered by the so-called “terrorists” as the only way to fight back. These acts are always described as TOTALLY unprovoked, shocking, senseless acts of “terrorism.”

"But wait," you may say, "THEY started it!" Well, two things: firstly, is that really a legitimate foreign policy? Are the world leaders 5 years old? And secondly, did they really start it? If terrorism IS senseless, unprovoked acts of violence on innocent people then why aren’t illegal occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan described that way? What about indiscriminate drone bombing of Pakistan and Somalia? The 35 years of well-funded war between Israel and Palestine: anti-terrorism or terrorist war crimes? Slaughter of Kurds in S.E. Turkey? Syria, Sudan…

How about something that happened in Indonesia where I am now and where the largest portion, (about 13%), of the Muslims of the world call home: the East Timor massacre. Not a lot of people have heard about it. Well what do you know about that? Even though it’s described in a C.I.A. report as “one of the worst massacres in the 20th century,” we didn’t really hear much about it… I will use this, because it happened in the 70’s and 80’s during the Suharto reign of terror and we have damning evidence against the greedy warmongers who financed and fortified it, as a model that most likely applies to most or all of the above.

Indonesia. 95% Muslim and I went out to a Halloween party last night dressed as death and carrying a toilet brush. I’ll give you a second… I was, ahem, a brush with Death. Thank you very much. Anyway, as you may have surmised, I didn’t get my head cut off though I am an infidel and an enemy of Islam. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something other than religion that influences the goings on in this country. Do you think?

Back before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two guys fighting for, no scratch that, uh, peacefully working toward the independence of E. Timor, before Suharto was exposed as the black mark on Indonesia he is now considered, there was an Australian ambassador named Richard, (ever notice how many truly bad people are named Dick?), Woolcott who recommended a “pragmatic” course of “Kissingerian realism” in E. Timor because it might be easier to deal with Indonesia rather than an independent E. Timor on, (I’ll give you three guesses…), its oil reserves. Valuable resources in E. Timor – fighting in E. Timor. We’ve seen that pattern re-emerge many times since, haven’t we? Another pattern that goes along with that: the U.S. supplied Indonesia with 90% of their arms to go in and kick some E. Timorian ass. For 24 years Indonesian military forces exposed E. Timor to a wide variety of tortures, executions, deliberate starvation, even rape. The numbers vary but around 200,000 people, about a quarter of the population, was killed. You can bet 100 percent of the population was affected.

Now, there isn’t much of a “terrorism” threat in Indonesia, but not surprisingly, any stories in the news with links to ISIS or terrorism I hear around here often mention E. Timor.

I am not saying that the U.S. or any of the countries that profit from wars in resource rich countries deserve things like the 9/11 attack or suicide bombs or car bombs or any of the things labelled “terrorism” by our beloved media. I don’t condone ANY killing unless it is in self-defence. Which brings us to the next subject that needs to be dealt with in the ISIS crisis: Islam. Interestingly, there are people who would say that Islam does not condone any killing except that in self-defence. It’s not very popular to believe that right now and as our friend Wild Bill points out, the evidence against that is “overwhelming” and it is only people who do not understand Islam, (unlike himself presumably), who believe this. Wild Bill waves his coffee at us and tells us that we should not mindlessly believe guys like “President Pee Wee,” who said that ISIS does not represent the Muslim faith and a majority of the people they are killing are Muslims. Wild Bill prefers that we mindlessly believe HIS totally unsupported fear/hate cultivation. He gives some interesting stats that he claims infallibly quantify the Muslim violence throughout the world quoting an unsourced rule of Mohammed, (or maybe just one he made up), to be a friend until you can crush the enemy. So apparently in Wild Bill’s research he has found that when the Muslim population reaches 20% there is war, violence, burning of religious buildings, rape, assassination, absolute may ham! And it is observed in EVERY nation that is nice to Muslims EVERY time!

Indonesia has the largest concentration of Muslims anywhere in the world. It’s 95% Muslim and has roughly 13% of the world’s Muslims. I guess that little known rule of Mohammed is more accurately, “Be a friend until you can crush the enemy, and then be a friend again.”

Religion! I don’t think it has a lot to do with the ISIS crisis myself being that there are many variant sects of Islam, many who hate and fight each other. Not just the well know Shia and Sunni sects but historical sects like the Sufi who believed, as the Koran says, that religious pluralism is God’s will. Well they were replaced in the 18th century by the less accepting, and, yes, more violent Wahhabism. Wahhabists believe that they are the only true sect and all others are “apostate.” They also believe the Koran should be read literally. Well herein lies a massive problem. It is unlikely that all the churches and/or religions ever met and agreed upon anything but if they did it almost certainly was to make their beliefs and the written records thereof, the holy books, completely undecipherable. So much so that the casual observer would call them contradictory.

Unlike our buddy Bill, I am not going to make that statement without some backing. As evidence that the attempt to characterize the entire religion of Islam as either violent or peaceful is a futile exercise in ignorant reductionism, I will present verses from their holy book, the Koran, which seem to support both sides. These are all going to be written here completely without context.

But before I do that, let me caution the reader that I brought up Mohammed, Wahhabism, and the Sufis as historical information. To believe the Muslim of today is violent, or peaceful based on the distant past is a slippery slope. I would probably not need to, though I will, remind you, dear reader, of the many acts of brutality committed historically by the “Western” nations that we could unjustly use to condemn their religions as well. For instance, the world wars, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, European colonization and ravaging of various parts of Asia and Africa, or the decimation of North American natives to name a few. If we are going to declare modern behaviour of violent, extreme sects like ISIS to be related to Islam, I think we should concentrate on the relation to the religion and the Koran, not the history. So without further ado, let’s see how much more confusing I can make the situation with some Koran verses.

To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;

(They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, "our Lord is Allah". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will). [Quran 22:39-40]

Fight in the Way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits. {Quran 2:190]

"O you who believe! stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well acquainted with all that you do." [Quran 4:135]

Here are a few that would seem to support the self-defence argument I mentioned earlier. Islam is not a “turn the other cheek” religion and I think I kind of respect them for that. There is a great deal of difference between a violent religion and one that takes no shit. But you can see how these verses might be distorted. For instance the one that warns AGAINST distorting justice could be interpreted as a call to take action and avenge parents or kin who may have been unjustly killed or tortured or whatever. If you decline to do justice, (i.e. violent revenge), Allah is watching.

"But if the enemy inclines towards peace, you (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah" [Quran 9:61].

There are also those verses in the Cow at the very beginning of the Koran that I quoted before that say there will be non-believers. Allah has made them this way and Allah will deal with them. Leave them alone. I’m paraphrasing obviously but don’t wish to directly quote them again.

This all seems okay to me. Where are people getting the idea that the Koran is promoting violence? Well there IS one that is the overwhelming favourite of Muslim bashers. And I’m not going to offer anything in the way of explanation. It certainly does seem to contradict all of the other verses. See if you feel any differently.

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush." [Quran 9:5]

But for every verse like that there are many like this:

"...if any one slew a person unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land, it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." [Quran 5:35]
But I have saved the best for last. The one that I believe is most to the point and may actually on its own explain the whole ISIS crisis.

"Let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression." [Quran 2:193]

Look at the militant actions taken by capitalist nations in the name of corporate profits all around the world including in nations peopled with Muslims. Are they not oppression? If the religion of Islam is a contributing factor to the actions of ISIS, this may be the most persuasive Koran verse. We are told by most Muslims that ISIS represents an extreme sect that is not representative of most Muslims and I believe them. But if ISIS follows the Koran at all it would seem that the best course of action to end the violence they are committing would be to stop the oppression. Stop the hostile takeover of oil-rich nations. Stop promoting proxy wars within strategic or resource-rich nations to weaken the country and make them vulnerable to cheap economic domination, or oppression. Pretty much throw out the blueprint for Western economics. Yeah fat chance of that happening!

No, instead the West has decided that the best course of action is to demonize Islam and convince the world that these groups putting up resistance are terrorists and they need to be bombed. I’ll remind you again, so you don’t have to scroll back, of that quote by Freud, “The people are not moved by fact or reason, but the skillful manipulation of emotion.” Look what happened when those two girls from Austria who joined ISIS. When they realized that they had made a foolish, youthful, massive mistake I could not believe the internet reaction. It was with violent vitriol to the effect of “Let them be raped and abused by the scumbags they joined. It’s their own fault.” People, not just teenagers, can have their emotions aroused to such a point that we can get pretty feral and dumb as teenagers.

And what about the instant reaction of the Crime Minister of Canada after the shootings? He saw a perfect opportunity to promote hate/fear with the possible purpose of eroding constitutional rights. As Russel Brand put it, “Right, Canada, give us your computers.” It is already happening too! And he blathered on to propose investing more tax payers’ money into the violent PROMOTION of groups like ISIS. Yes the bombings. He said efforts will be redoubled. Harper's shameful reaction to the tragedies in Canada was totally about economics, not some honourable cause of protection of Canada and the Canadian way. I didn’t find him any more credible than old Wild Bill, did you? I was proud of Trudeau's speech about the events and VERY proud of THIS: social experiment. It shows me that Canadians are not yet falling for the fearmongers' salesmanship.

Talking about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining. So what can we do to end the ISIS crisis? It certainly has NOTHING to do with killing ISIS members.

This will only perpetuate the steady stream of capital flowing into the Western war profiteers’ coffers. Nothing else. What we need to do is cut off that and many other flows of capital by opposing, non-violently, our government and corporate terrorism worldwide. Root out bad corporations, (won’t be hard), and don’t buy their products. Support taxation of those corporations. If the government won’t stop supporting the violent business tactics, don’t support the government. Easy peasy Japanesey. But how many of us will even try? We’re too busy working in our punitive consumer societies. Gotta stop typing now, gotta go to work.