All The Breast To You!

Boobs are great! I think I've been way too negative on this blog. Some other people do too. And some have suggested I write about something I like. Well, I like boobs. And before you go thinking I'm being a misogynistic creep here, the main suggest-er was a girl. So let us contemplate the female breast, at the request of someone who has two of them, shall we? 

Maybe the best thing anyone ever said about breasts was said by Conan O'Brien when he said, "The first thing men notice about women is their eyes. Then when their eyes aren't looking, they notice her breasts." I can't argue with Conan on that. Another funny person, Rita Rudner, said, "Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. It's quite the opposite. A woman having large breasts makes a man stupid."

You may be able to see from the lists I am about to provide (genuflect) against my better judgment and the general content of this blog, but in accordance with a request I received, from a woman I'll have you know, that I don't always agree with Rita. I like small breasts sometimes. I like breasts of all kinds of shapes and sizes! To me, breasts bring me back to the days of my childhood in a way. Freud would go crazy with that statement I'm sure, breast-feeding and all. But what I meant was they remind me of candy. They are the candy of old age for me! I want to peel off their wrappers and suck on them all day, but, alas, I don't have enough money to buy them. 

Okay, if that offended you, you probably shouldn't read on. While I post this as an homage to the beauty of the female form, this may come off as an affront to women, the Me Too movement, objectivity and you name it. So proceed with caution. I hope you don't think less of me, but this was literally suggested to me as a blog subject by a female friend of mine. I will not disclose her name in the interest of maintaining her plausible existence. NO REALLY!!!

I thought about the suggestion for a while. Then I thought about boobs for a while. Then I realized that I'd been down that road a thousand times, only without any encouragement. The female in question, whether you believe she exists or not, asked me if I had any preferences as to size, shape, equality (because women rarely have two boobs the same size, in fact 90% of women have 15-20% diff), and other factors. I gave a non-committal answer, but she pried. She asked about celebrity boobs. Just to get an idea. Which were my fave; which were surprising; which weren't surprising; which were disappointing; and then we got on the MOST interesting subject of which celebrity boobs we'd like most to see. Because, you see, she TOO wanted to see some boobs that she hadn't. It's a strange, but wonderful thing about some gals, but THEY like seeing boobs too! I haven't met a dude, aside from gay guys (and even some of them?) who like seeing dicks in movies. Or in washrooms, showers, videos, popcorn buckets... Dicks aren't generally well accepted when they're waved around. If you disagree, why is it then that a guy who does so will almost always get a fine or a ticket or even get hauled into jail? Whereas, a girl who lets her girls get some sunlight will generally receive bashful reprimands from the police, if not standing ovations, then instructions to put them away. 

Me and my friend, who owns a couple of fine breasts herself, chatted about this. Then she, being a reader of my blog, said, "You should post about this." I didn't resist for long.

And so, crediting/blaming my friend for this, I'll happily type on, devoid of any political or moral recourse. Don't try to pretend you aren't interested. If you weren't, why are you reading this? This is going to be a super-objectifying listing of celebrity boobs and cleavage. You've been warned.

Okay, I'll start with the boobs I've seen (and we've probably ALL seen) that I thought would be great and they really WERE. Let's go backwards from 15. The other categories won't have 15 entries, but this one does because a lot of famous women are, bless their exhibitionist hearts, okay with boobie baring!

15. Tanya Roberts in "Beast Master." I'm old. She was not just Charlie's angel. And I think maybe during her time on "That 70's Show" she was packin' a little extra. She didn't need it. Her nude scene in that movie was legendary in my books.

14. Amanda Peet in "The Whole Nine Yards." Just WHAM! There they were and there they stayed for a while! She was not shy, bless her exhibitionist heart!

13. Julie Andrews in S.O.B. Yes! Her hills were alive with the... okay, too soon. Maybe I should save stuff like that until we get deeper into this.

12. Brooke Burke is someone you might not know. She was the host of a show rating beaches around the world and she was a bikini model. But she never got naked even though her show SHOWED some folks getting naked around her. Finally, she posed for some nude shots and it did not disappoint. Because you may not know who she is, I post the following pic:

11. Kate Winslet. I don't need to post any pic here because the whole world saw her boobs in the Titanic. And they were lookin' pretty noice!

10. Uma Thurman was in a movie with Glenn Close and John Malkovich early in her career called "Strange Liaisons," and there was a quick glance of her boobage that must have worn some VHS tapes out rewinding, pausing and so forth.

9. Denise Richards in "Wild Things." Nuff said.

8. Angelina Jolie in "Gia." And if you doubt the stats about uneven boobs, there's plenty of footage here. You don't need micrometers to see, but... who cares? These are some of the nicest boobs I've seen ever!

7. Halle Berry in "Swordfish." It was contrived and not important to the plot, but who cares? Not me!

6. Heather Thomas in the movie "Zapped." I still don't know if this was a body double or not, but the poster of her in her pink bikini gave me a pretty good idea... and the movie was what I expected.

5. Emma Ratajkowski has been shot nude in lots of mags. Her nudity in the music video for "Blurred Lines" she says she regrets cuz it might not have been as artistic. Again, who cares? Not me!

4. Alexandra Daddario was nude in "True Detective" but I didn't see that movie until I saw some movies she WASN'T nude in like "The Layover" with another person who will appear in this post. She is freakishly perfect and even though Conan O'Brien might argue with me, the first thing I WOULD notice about her would be her eyes. But, of course, he's right about what would happen after...

3. Jamie Lee Curtis was topless in a very good movie from my movie-going days, "Trading Places." I watched that recently and was shocked at its impropriety! But still, what a rack!

2. Nicki Minaj is always "accidentally" showing her spectacular boobs. I don't mind that a bit! 

1. It may not surprise anyone reading this that my number one boob flash on this list is the number one pause point in video history, "Fast Time at Ridgemont High." I think Phoebe Cates was one of, or maybe the most gorgeous women of the 80's. I, for one, (of millions) will be eternally thankful for her swimming pool, "Living in Stereo" scene from that movie. I can't hear that song or watch that movie without thinking about her knock-out knockers! And, as mentioned before, they're not very big, just, as the French say, "enough to fill a wine glass." 

All right, I already feel like a bit of a heel. This seems like something I might be writing for a skin book or chatting with a horndog friend. Getting a little uncomfortable here. But it's what my imaginary friend wanted, so I'll keep on going. Please don't hold this against me but we'll now get into an even MORE judgmentally evil category: the boobs that I thought would be good, but were disappointing. Now... let me say this: just because boobs are disappointing doesn't mean I don't like them. In fact, I'm pretty sure most guys will say the same. Boobs are like pizza, even when they're bad, they're still pretty good. I've never said, "Oh, shame on her for showing her boobs!" while watching a movie or music video. I wouldn't even say that to a 99-year-old woman! I've been to nude beaches before and I've seen topless AND bottomless women who were not exactly rockin' fantabulous funbags. But to me they brought a smile to my face and a tingle to my crotchal area anyway. I'm going to say that even though the next entries to this (unusual) blogpost are entitled "disappointing," I still got a boner for every one of them! 

I can't believe I'm writing this! I hope you are happy, my female friend that everyone will think I made up. Only 10 in this category and they were really hard to think of. Cuz I like all boobs when they're set free!

10. Reese Witherspoon was topless in a vampire thing I didn't watch. But I saw the clips. I gotta admit, I thought her boobs would be different. This is NOT to say they weren't nice, just not as perfect as the rest of her. And sue me for saying her boobs were not perfect! They were still great! :-)

9. Same goes for Demi Moore. I think I would have preferred to see her girls BEFORE they got all blown up and fake before she showed them to us in "Striptease." Probably would have been nicer. But this is not to say they weren't nice, just, you know, not real.

8. Cameron Diaz has some nice boobs! But after seeing "The Mask" I just thought they were bigger. I wish I didn't have such heightened expectations.

7. Maggie Gyllenhaal is as cute as a button! I absolutely love her! And her acting is as good as her brother's. I have a crush on her. Even after seeing her naked on screen. Again, even if my brain wasn't as impressed with her as with the list above, my weiner still was. Ugh, I KNEW this would be the hardest category! But I promised.

6. Teri Hatcher said on Seinfeld that her boobs were real and they were spectacular. I don't know if I'd go that far after seeing them in a B movie with Julia Robertses bro. I forget the name of it. Down south, in the Louisiana swamps. Anyhoo, nice, but not thrilling.

5. Marilyn Munroe was a blonde bombshell and looked great showing cleavage, but when she finally got naked, her bod wasn't as great as I thought it would be. Now, she was from an era long before I had testosterone, so that might be why this phenomenon occurred. But when compared to another blonde bombshell from her era (on my next list) I don't know how she was more popular. Different era, different ideas of beauty I guess.

4. Not surprisingly it was in a movie when she was portraying Marilyn Munroe that Mira Sorvino first bared her boobage and it was a let down. I have to say again, ABSOLUTELY not bad boobs, but not as good as I'd hoped for. 

3. Meg Ryan was the Alexandra Daddario of my day. Only with blonde hair. Her eyes WERE the first thing I noticed. I am not lying! I hardly even thought about her chesticles. In "When Harry Met Sally" when she's wearing that blue gown on New Year's? Oh my GOD Magnum! Her eyes were POPPIN' and I fell in love! But I gotta admit, in the Doors movie when she got topless, she fell off that pedal stool I had her on. (IT crowd joke)

2. Okay, I feel like such a humongous heel for the last 8 entries, but the next two... not so much. Tara Reid in the "Big Lebowski" was HOT! She was hot for so long! What the frig did she do? Her and Lindsay Lohan! Like watching a priceless wax sculpture melt.

1. Janet Jackson during the halftime show of Superbowl 38. Even though it was totally not a "wardrobe malfunction" and even though it was probably done to increase her popularity, that was not the best boob in the world. So many pics of her while clothed hinted that she had some dynamite knockers underneath! She shoulda kept us thinking that. Crazy sun nipple covering or not, that was a CAREER malfunction.

Okay, now that I feel like a complete asshole, I'll try to bail myself out with a list of boobs I haven't seen, but I'd like to. The first one and the last one could be shockers.

Take a look at this:

Queen Elizabeth II was a stone cold beauty! And don't pretend you can't see the bosom that's bustin out of that dress. She's probably got the best hidden bazooms of all time! Back then or even right now, I don't care, I'd throw her some beads at Mardi Gras! 

9. Scarlett Johansson had some shady, blurry pics circulated, and she's been in a few movies with "muted" nudity, but I bet to see her boobs clear as day would be like looking straight into the eyes of Medusa! You'd probably turn to stone. Or at least part of you would...

8. Kate Upton is one of those gals that just has IT. She is probably the Marilyn Munroe of our times. She's not as gorgeous as a girl from her time who shows up on this list at number 5, but she was WAY more popular! Kate Upton gets S.I. Swimsuit edition covers over girls with "model" figures while she's considered kinda fat. I love her for that and even more for her sense of humour. And then there are two other assets she has...

7. Jessica Alba's boobs are not big but all natural and from what I've read and heard, nourished with only the healthiest of foods and drink, so they're EXTRA special! 

6. Winona Ryder was popular for a time and she did a lot of movies in which it seemed like she, or the movie makers, did their best to hide her, uh, femininity. Finally, when Brahm Stoker's Dracula came out and we saw the unforgettable scene with white top in the rain running... well you know. It was mamor... I mean memorable.

5. Jayne Mansfield was just a hard body that made all the other sex symbols of her time jealous. Sophia Loren for example: beautiful! Here she is looking sideways in a very famous picture at the assets that Jayne has but she didn't. She might be thinking how much more famous she could have become if she was the lucky one in this picture. Or maybe she was admiring those beauties like we all can't help but do!

4. Katy Perry if we stick with what Conan said, has the eye of the Tiger but when that eye isn't looking at us, we tend to check out one (or two) of her other formidable features. She too has some magnificent eyes! I could get lost in them if she didn't have such a distracting pair of, well see for yourselves...

3. Jennifer Love Hewitt. JLH. She's a mistress (some of you will get that) of mystery. What do those glorious golden orbs look like? She's been majestic in her presentation of them leaving the horndogs disappointed and the regular guys thirsting for more. There is no third category there. No guy can look at her, no matter what age, hormone level, or possibly even sexual preference, without lusting after her. Even when she's not even trying! But in some films and TV shows, she has been trying. Yet, alas, we have no confirmation of what we fantasize is hidden beneath her sweaters or her skimpy workout clothes. 

2. We're almost done this post that makes me feel creepier than I've ever felt here before. I kind of regret agreeing to doing this now. Please don't hold this against me. But, on the other hand, I'm kind of going with the flow here and it IS fun to share my preferences on my blog. We all have crushes on famous people, and these are mine. Number two is only second to Phoebe Cates. 

Those just might be the best boobs in the whole world! And I haven't seen them. That's what keeps them up there on the list. 

Number one probably is a downgrade from number two, but the mystery is a great deal more. This is only to see her tits, mind you, I don't feel like I'd have any connection to her on a personal level. I'm sure I'd love Tyra. She's more untouchable, number 10 on this list, probably. And for some reason, she's the one and only person on this list I don't feel too bad about objectifying. Probably because she has already shown her own inhumanity in so many ways. But that still hasn't distracted me from the one (or two) and only thing (or things) that interest me about her: 

Here she is getting her vaccine. I guess the fact that she sometimes does stuff her father wouldn't like interests me too, but it's mostly the boobs. I confess to total shallowness here: by FAR the thing I like most about Ivanka is her boobs. And they're probably fake, bought by Daddy, but they top my list. 

If you are as shallow as I am, and you have made it this far, share with me your agreement, or disagreement with my opinions. I know only one person I'm sure will be interested in this, but I bet some others will be, even if they're not supposed to be...

I apologize to anyone who needs the apology.  

The Con of Don

 I didn't think it would be long before the High Shade Grifter, The Fartful Fraudster, The Don of Con, The Abortion of Extortion, (I think you know who I'm talking about) made it back into my blog. What's it been three whole posts without him? Last time I was talking about how he needs to be impeached. Well, that didn't happen. He is embroiled in about 3500 lawsuits, here is a list of just a few of the latest (14 actually, but that's just a few for 45). And like Teflon, these charges likely won't stick to his oily hide either. But he remains relevant in the news, at least to me, while I cheer for the prosecution.

Occasionally, aside from his horse that he's flogged way past the point of decomposition, the "Somebody cheated ME" gambit he constantly brings up about the election that he says was fixed, he says or does something else so the world doesn't forget about him. Like complaining about "cancel culture" then throwing shade on all kinds of companies and telling his groupies to boycott them. MLB, Delta Airlines, JP Morgan Chase, Viacom (CBS), City Group, Cisco, UPS, and Merck, which is the company that makes it so he still has a few remaining strands of hair to arrange on his bald noggin. The best, of course, was when he was drinking a Diet Coke while condemning Coca Cola like the High Shade Grifter he is. 

But none of that was what brought him to my attention most recently. Read this article and watch the video. Go ahead. I'll wait. I recently talked with a Trump supporter about how money should be kept out of politics. He agreed and said that the best thing about Trump was that he was rich and therefore incorruptible, at least by money. A LOT of Trump supporters felt that way and have repeated this as at least part of their reason for voting for the Fartful Fraudster in 2016. Inconceivably, more than four years of cheap chicanery later, many STILL believed he was not completely corrupt and voted for him again! The corruption was so obvious, they didn't see it!

The person I was talking to, the Trump fan, used the Clintons as an example of why money shouldn't be in politics. "Where did they make all their money?" he asked me. He gave the figure of 120 million. That's Hillary and Bill and that's, as he said, "all their money." Now let's remember Bill was prez 8 years, governor of Arkansas 11; Hillary was First Lady 8 years, Secretary of State 4 years, and a senator for 8 years. That's 39 years in office between them, not to mention the fact that they are both lawyers and successful authors. With the average senator's salary at 174,000 and president's salary at about half a million including travel and other expense allowances, plus whatever money they made when they were not in government, you total that up and it's not gonna be 120 million. Not unless they got in on Apple stock on the ground floor.

I don't doubt the Clintons made it killing during their time in office. Everybody does. That's the root of all political evil. But in comparison, let's look at Jared and Ivanka, shall we? They profited from working in the Whitehouse to the tune of between 172 and 640 million. Dollars. American. In 4 years. Hello? Kettle, this is Pot. Come in Kettle! But wait! There's more! Here's an article that says Trump made 1.9 BBBBillion while he was in office. Uh, and oh yeah, that was just the first 3 years. So that's not including the scam for contributions allegedly to aid in his fight to, (irony cough) STOP THE STEAL.

But this is what it's like trying to reason with Trumpsters, isn't it? They'll point out Biden poking you with a needle (and I use this metaphor purposely) while Trump is impaling you with a jousting lance. You talk to them and they don't believe you. You give them news stories and it's fake news. I showed the Trumpster I was talking with the article from the NY Times and he immediately said that publication was on his "do not trust" list. EVERY publication should be on EVERY person's "do not trust" list, but there's something in legal jargon that has been used to constitute legally binding proof that the Trumpsters as a whole seem to be missing: it's called preponderance of evidence. It is, admittedly, the lowest standard of proof, but it is of common usage particularly in the courts Trump is the king of: (or at least head jester) the civil courts. To sum it up, if there is a pile of evidence so high that it becomes obvious that something is better than 50% likely to be the case, preponderance of evidence meets the burden of proof. Here's a more thorough explanation if you're interested.

Don't trust anything, question everything, but while reading with sufficient skepticism, keep track of the piles on both sides of the issues you're particularly interested in. Chances are good that if you try to remain as objective as possible, weeding out the obviously biased articles, the bigger the pile, the closer to the truth it should be. That's what I've found and as long as our world remains on the good side of 50%, which I still maintain it is, this method should work. Just don't let somebody else do your thinking for you. This is why, toward the end of our conversation on money in politics, I told my Trumpy buddy to check some of his preferred publications for the absolutely hilarious Bitch BlockConnell doing his best "I know you are but what am I" argument in support (need I say blind?) of the Abortion of Extortion saying, "Corporations need to stay out of politics." He was referring, no doubt, to the afore-listed corporations that have spoken out against the new legislation (361 bills in 47 States) that make voting more difficult. One of the ways voting is limited is by requiring ID. Passports and to a lesser extent, driver's licenses require proof that you are who you are and you need to fill out application forms. Questions on applications are about your background. Essentially, the new legislation is requiring background checks for voters.

Now, let's examine some different legislation, shall we? Soon, Joe Biden will be trying, again, to pass some restrictions on guns in response to recent, and let's face it, NOT so recent, mass shootings in the US. One of the main issues will be the HIGHLY popular universal background checks. About 90% of Americans support this idea. Slam dunk, right? Not so fast Kimosabe. Any gun legislation is a tough sell for the Republican party because - you guessed it - money. Financial backers of the Republican party, like the NRA, have gotten any legislation to do with guns blocked in the past 20 years. This same legislation was passed in the House before, but senate majority leader, Bitch BlockConnell just buried it. It was never voted on. McConnell, the top recipient of corporate funding in the 2020 election cycle, and 4.3 million in the last 5 years, is not the senate majority leader any more. So he's worried his benefactors may be disappointed, particularly in the state of Georgia, which is virtually neck and neck between the two parties. So he momentarily bit the hand that has been feeding him for years by telling the corporations who don't support voter suppressing legislation and are taking action and speaking out against it, to stop acting and shut up. But that was on Monday. On Tuesday, he went back to licking the hands (and other body parts) of the money-grubbing, soulless corporations that have pulled his strings for a price his whole career by saying something to the effect of it is fine for rich big shots to purchase politicians to gain unfair power and influence in America, just not to try to influence things when average Americans would be helped. 

The above is a GREAT depiction of Mitch the streetwalking whore McConnell taken from an article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled, "Mitch McConnell, The Man Who Sold America." It's a long article, but if you want to read how politicians "earn" so much money, there's no better example than Moscow Mitch. His campaign funds of 4.3 mil were a mere drop in the bucket. I encourage you to not get pissed off while reading this article. If you read the article, you'll find that as far back as '73 this jagoff was railing against corporate interference in politics even writing an article about it in the Kentucky newspaper, the Courier-Journal. Then in '87 he actually proposed a bill to end the ability of wealthy Americans to spend limitless cash on their own campaigns. McConnell didn't become one of the richest politicians by sticking to his guns on issues (and again, I choose the metaphor carefully) or having any discernable principles or allegiances. He went where the money was. Just read about it. It goes without saying that if you're a Trumpy, don't bother reading it - fake news!

They're scam artists. Crooks. Grifters. Guys like Mitch and Don ARE the proverbial swamp Trump claimed he would drain. Just like the mobster is the criminal element in your neighbourhood he says he will protect you from. And the reason they're so powerful and they've clambered their ways to the top of politics is money.

You may be thinking, "Yeah, this may ALL be right, but it really doesn't affect me." You couldn't be more wrong. Remember the days when politicians were honoured and revered and you didn't sound like a schmuck if you told your kid that some day he or she could grow up to be President (or Prime Minister)? Those days aren't gone. They've just changed. Presidents and Prime Ministers are still revered and honoured. Just not for virtues like honesty and ethics. They're now honoured and revered for modern virtues like acquisitive business "savvy" (greed) and moral relativism (spinelessly fluid principles). Money changed those virtues. And now those are the virtues that are imitated by regular folks.

Just the other day I was at Costco and I was at the checkout counter. I had a 6-pack of onion bagels. I was already going to store it in the freezer because I can only eat a bagel once in a while for a treat. Six would last me half a year. But the cashier said they were on special, one-plus-one. Well I wasn't going to walk back and get 6 more. I certainly couldn't use a dozen for myself, but I was there with a friend so I said to her that I could just give her six if she wanted. We asked and they don't have anyone who can run to get you something. You know, like every grocery store USED to have. So I said, "Whatever, just ring them up. I'll take six for the price of twelve." A nice deal for Costlyco! But even THAT was not possible! Two bags of bagels or none were my only two options. I find it hard to believe that there was no way I could have been accommodated there. It probably wasn't a scam but because of the ubiquity of the scam in this day and age in which scam artists are the heroes, I was SURE I was being ripped off in some way!

I've also been the victim of a similar scam to the Trump fleecing of his contributors. I don't know what I bought or when I bought it, but I'm being billed 29 American dollars every month for something I either wanted to pay for once or never wanted to pay for at all. Only thing I pay monthly is storage in Canada and my phone. It's probably one of the places I did my Christmas shopping at. But I've talked to my bank and they can't put a stop payment on things like this. The fucking banks are IN on these scams! Why could you not put a stop payment on something like this? All I could get was the company name and it means nothing to me. That's by design so I can't return to whatever website scammed me and uncheck the monthly payment box. I've looked up the company name on Google and it is listed as a scam site. It's attached to many websites evidently. But I couldn't find a list. The only thing I can do is cancel the credit card. Which I've already done twice in the past 6 months. For the same reason. I'm sure that's what I'll end up doing but then I'll have to give my new credit card info to everybody plus I'll have to go into Seoul and the bank isn't open after my working hours and even if it were, I'm farther away and there are fewer buses, I wouldn't make it on time, also I might have to be quarantined if I go to Seoul since there is now mandatory testing in the area for foreigners, I think...

I can't avoid bringing up my pet peeve scam perpetrated without legal recourse on every one of us every day and that is the widely accepted charges banks hang on us regular people to access our money. Bank machines, transfers, paying bills, writing checks, these are charges over and above the charges charged for us to GIVE the banks our hard-earned money so that they can make money with it. You just knew it wouldn't be long before THAT bullshit scam caught on didn't you? And in an area that directly or indirectly affects us all: school books. You can't blame McGraw Hill. If the banks don't get charged or fined or even frowned upon for this scam, why can't we do it? 

The legal fraud is endless! Non-refundable plane tickets should never be a thing. Your flight gets cancelled and you're fucked. People collecting your signature for purchases or refunds. Should be illegal but it's not. In fact, most of us don't know how often we give our signatures when it's totally unnecessary. Email, phone numbers, any contact information is valuable to scumbag advertisers and the collection and sale of it is only just starting to be punished. Here in Korea there are all kinds of scams perpetrated upon foreigners who are depended upon to just avoid the inconvenience of challenging them, in Korean, and pay. Housing surcharges, utility bills, removal of price tags, frivolous immigration documents and processes, hell, my landlord knows I get a housing stipend and used that as an excuse to overcharge me on my rent. My current apartment is worse in every way but I pay the same rent only because the landlord has rented to teachers before and is aware of the Gongju University contracts.

Actual exchange rates on the Korean won are easy to find out but impossible to get. Try using your Korean bank card in another country and see if you don't pay charges that amount to more than the allowable 23% in Canada. Having said that, there's always a loophole for the bad guy. Sometimes up to 60% is allowable. SIXTY PERCENT! What kind of screwjob capitalist wiseguy loan shark law is that? Here's a list of the most common scams nowadays, but not appearing on this list are a lot of overcharges we collectively just sigh and pay without complaint. Well this IS a complaint. I think the main reason we are so thoroughly scammed is because we're perfect chumps. We're the marks every con man dreams about. Socialized to believe all complaining is negativity. As I pointed out to a friend recently who had posted on Facebook one of those toxically positive "avoid negative people" posts, avoiding negative people is awfully negative behaviour! So we're mindfucked. And we're overworked. Too exhausted to bother. Surrounded on all sides by fraud so that it's become commonplace. 

I gotta believe all this wouldn't be the case if we lived in a world in which the con-man mentality was punished, not rewarded. I feel like the US, being by FAR the most represented country in all media, will have to be the country where this change is initiated. I see good signs from the Biden/Harris administration so far, but this is a monumental task I don't know if they're up to. 

At this point, I guess all a guy can do is hope...

Easter in Korea

 Happy Easter everybody! It certainly IS a happy Easter for me! Not because of the chocolate, the Easter egg hiding, hunting or colouring or Easter celebrations with friends and family, (there won't be any of that) and not because of the holiday, (we don't get one here in Korea) but because I'm back to work and all signs point to a better situation. I was getting a bit worried that I'd have to go without work for a semester again, or even worse, accept work in China or Saudi Arabia. But I got this job after the deadline. March 1 was starting day for most uni gigs here in Korea, but I started April 1. And that's no April Fool's joke!

You may be wondering about Easter in Korea. A better place to start would be Christianity in Korea. If you live here as long as I have, or for a month, you will get a sense that Korea IS a Christian country. Statistically, about 46% of people have no religious affiliation. That surprises me! About 20% are Buddhist and a whopping 33% are Christians. Here is a really good article on how that came about. I would also encourage you to read the article so that you don't think the next few things I'm going to say are the products of my imagination/any sort of prejudice, but are opinions shared by many, including members of Korean Christian groups.

Christianity in Korea is a different animal! While Christian Mammonism has always been one of many sources of confusion for me in ANY church, I haven't seen an integral connection between God and prosperity to the extent it exists in Korean Christian churches. You can find many instances throughout history of prosperity being linked to God's favour and even superiority of race, but there are few rags to riches stories like the "Miracle on the Han River." In about 50 years, Korea went from a nation of uneducated and destitute farmers to one of the top dozen economies in the world! It's no huge wonder that the people of that generation were deliriously happy at their good fortune! Short of saying exactly the following, the above article certainly hints at it: Korean pride, (and considerable xenophobia which led to the nickname "hermit kingdom") would not allow them to give full credit to the foreign countries upon which they were more dependent than most nations on earth, so they chose to believe it was their own hard work and God that created the miracle. This gave rise to the only miracle that surpassed the Korean economic miracle: the Korean religious miracle. Churches were filled with zealous worshippers faster than they could be built. 

In a discussion last week with one of my students about culture shock, he said short skirts on the girls and the number of churches were to two most shocking things for him when he first arrived in Korea. There are about 17 million Christians in Korea, which is the size of the state of Indiana. About 81.5% live in the cities, so you can imagine what it's like walking down any city street. There seems to be a church on every corner! When I first came here in 1997 I was asked about once a week if I was a Christian. 

Nowadays the churches are still there, but the zeal is not. The Korean economy couldn't possibly have sustained the trajectory that created that zeal. Things have levelled out and while the beneficiaries of the economic miracle of the second half of the 20th century still maintain their wealth and their belief that somehow God factored into it, the younger generation isn't prospering as miraculously. So here we have identical sentiments among the last couple of generations as we have in most capitalist countries in which unchecked capitalist aggression and greed has created unprecedented wealth gaps and funneled almost all the resources and power into the hands (and bank accounts) of so few. The younger generation here are discouraged by employment and happiness prospects. The term "Hell Chosun" has been created to describe their feelings. And you can bet that some of the tin-eared older generation believe that the youngsters need to work harder and get their asses to church instead of complaining.

As for Easter, it's not even a holiday here! I will work a full day Easter Monday. Christmas isn't big either. With the church being so dominant, and a third of the people I meet every day being Christians, it's just colossally confusing to me how Easter is such a non-entity here! It feeds into the belief, and once again, not just MY belief, that Korean Christianity is first and foremost a kind of socio-economic cartel of like minded people giving each other preferential treatment. How real is the zeal? 

I imagine conversation between the generations might be similar to the meme war we often see around Christian holidays between Christians and non-believers online. The Christians will be all like...

And Easter non-celebrants might be all like...

and maybe they'll refuse to go to church. The miracle generation might think, "Hmmm... that WOULD explain the Easter eggs and chocolate bunny rabbits. I've always wondered about them. I mean, like, wouldn't a phoenix have been a better symbol for Easter? Jesus wasn't really a symbol of fertility or spring or growing or mating and he didn't really get reborn, he rose from the dead." But then they will probably get all up in the faces of the younger generation saying things like, "This is exactly WHY things are going so badly for you!"

To which the younger generation might reply, "Come on Grampa, give it a rest you zombie worshipper!"

And maybe the logic of that might go through the heads of the elder generation. They might even recall chilling, and confusing Bible verses they'd read. Like...

 or...

... but they'll say, "Jesus gave his life for you!"

The young and cheeky will reply, "Well, not really. He was actually only inconvenienced for three days. Then he returned and scared some people."

"Don't be blasphemous! Jesus died for your sins. We celebrate Easter here in Korea, not with a day off, but by thanking Jesus for saving us and washing away our sins."

"Again Grampa, he was dead, but only for, like, two and a half days, and if the wages of sin are death, but those who believeth in Jesus will have eternal life, and if God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all One, then isn't he technically saving us from himself? Couldn't we have all been forgiven without all that?"

"All that? You dismiss the crucifixion and the suffering of our Lord as 'all that'?"

"It's because I'm not so sure I believe in 'all that.' I think maybe Jesus puts the 'fiction' in 'crucifixion.'"

"Get out of this house!" 

"Fine! See ya later. I'm gonna go out and drink some Cass beer, meet up with friends and maybe commit a few sins... because:

"Yeah, sure, GO! Drink your beer! Do your partying! Coast through life working your measly 12-hour shifts taking advantage of the blessings that your ancestors worked so hard for! I'll go to church and pray for you! Lousy younger generation... mumble grumble... Don't know how GOOD they got it... mumble grumble..."

I'm not saying for sure that this is the way things go here, but I wonder... 

At any rate, I am celebrating Easter and my good fortune this year. The job is going very well! I will get immigration taken care of next week and submit my curricula for both online and face-to-face classes, then the next week is exam week so it's a week off for me! And the Wednesday of that week is my birthday so I'll be celebrating that most likely. 

Just in case it seems like I was favouring the Atheists this post, I will ask if any of the Atheists are going into work Easter Monday. What about Christmas? What do you say during sex? Just asking. And in case any Atheist gets too cocky, here's your fucking soup:

 

So, how 'bout we just get along? All religious and non-religious people? Maybe THAT'S what we could celebrate on Easter. Yeah, right! Happy Easter from Korea anyway!