June 6, 2013

Disparities in wealth and self-worth are only part of it.

I've been under treatment for depression for years. What I tell my psychiatrist and counselor now is that prospects for the entire world depress me.

I grew up reading science fiction and had an optimism about the future. I had a negative self-worth, but I had optimism that the world itself would improve. I mean, we had put people on the moon, we had that energy crisis, but fusion energy would come along, the problems with nuclear energy had not become so explicit, at least not with me. When global warming was first hitting the news, it seemed that could be handled. Nationally. We had just had Vietnam, but seemed our nation had learned its lesson from that. There was the Cold War, but it seemed that would either be worked around or would destroy the world suddenly. Thinking about the future was a matter of the two systems learning to live harmoniously. Racial relations appeared to have nowhere to go but improve. There was certain anti-intellectualism and anti-science undercurrent in this country, but that didn't appear to have any legs. The gap between rich and poor wasn't a chasm. The military industrial complex was a problem, but it seemed to have a cause with national defense, and at least it employed a lot of people in technical positions, and it was a driver behind science.

I look at it today, and it's all worse. And I can trace back the point where it began to become worse to the day we elected Ronald Reagan. Before that, we had the canker of Richard Nixon, but all of the worst people in the Reagan administration had cut their teeth under Nixon.

The optimism, if not the actual prospects became better in the late '90s. Communism was over, and it seemed the world improve. Then the dot com and telecom crashes hit. And if that didn't disillusion my generation enough, George W. Bush was arbitrated President, consequently followed by 9/11, with all of the barbaric and oppressive measures to follow.

And wouldn't you know, they date the uptick in boomer suicides back to about the time of the dotcom crash. I bet it became much worse during Bush's first term.

Now, Global Warming is all but at hand. This culture is not going to move the population into space; in fact, physics has screwed us. Moreover, nothing has fixed the energy problem, and we have corporations running and ruining the planet. Bolshevistic communism has ended, but the military industrial complex has run amok and has turned against us. Moreover, the government spies on us wholesale, and has turned into a system that has to be called fascism in every way except subtlety. The only good thing I could name: the Internet. But that has consequences, because if the government doesn't show restraint (and ours doesn't), it becomes the best surveillance tool in history. Meanwhile, with overpopulation, depletion of resources, global warming, and general degradation of the environment, it's questionable to me that humankind will survive another millennium.

I could go on, but I'll sum up by saying when I graduated high school, this is not the world and the nation I thought I would see in my fifties. Part of it was just bad luck, but a lot of it is we just blew it. I think if I would have known when I was sixteen what I would see now, I probably would have committed suicide then.

It's depressing, even crippling. I keep going through antidepressants, escapism, focusing my attention on problems I can solve, and generally turning my attention away from the big picture when I have to.

May 31, 2013

Maybe having it private property isn't good enough.

No, I don't think the pagans will keep your town from surviving and prospering. I think it more has to do with the town's third grade average education, needed to provide fertile soil for so many Christian cults. Here are the ones mentioned in the article:

Church of God Door of Jesus Christ
New Destiny Community Church
Harlem Church of God
Saints on the Move
Hispanic Nazarene Church

Maybe the Solstice pagans should march down Main Street, too. Or maybe they should go door to door to gain converts. Set up a permanent temple.



Obviously, because you're living in a backwater with cheap hotel rates-- despite all the good weather and sunshine-- due to all the bigotry and weirdo Christian cults you cultivate there.

These townspeople better hope that bigger Christian churches are always as tolerant as they are now. History has left that question open.

May 15, 2013

There are so many vested interests in food . . .

. . . that getting to the complete truth is impossible.

Sodium does raise the blood pressure, and it probably isn't good for the kidneys, but the chloride ion is an absolutely essential nutrient. Though it probably doesn't do you any harm in excessive amounts, you're body is happy with an abundance of it. Salt is the yin and yang, that's the joke nature has played on us.

If you stay away from processed food, you could really afford to use salt to your heart's content, no pun intended. Processed food has incredible amounts of salt in it.

If you take that out of your diet, you don't have to measure.

April 19, 2013

Chechens? Who next?

That comes out of the blue. Are the Tamil Tigers going to make an attack now?

These guys were here for a decade, apparently, after escaping the war-torn hell-hole of Chennya.

The one was actually interviewed by AP because he was a champion boxer, and said he did not understand Americans and didn't have any friends.

I begin to wonder if these guys didn't do this out of boredom. Maybe after you grow up in a war-torn hell-hole nothing else measures up.

March 24, 2013

Assault weapons ban: from The Onion.

Forcing laughter from despair, via Twitter:

Week In Review: Proud Time To Be A Cowering Sack Of Shit As Democrats Back Off Assault Weapons Ban http://onion.com/WJRAvZ

March 3, 2013

Data collected on pornstars.

They finally have enough data to draw valid statistics:



Here are the most interesting ones to me:

-The industry is larger than I thought in terms of workforce. The Adult Film Database has a record of 115,000 porn performers and directors and 125,000 movie titles. That's about 6 times larger than I would have predicted.

-Pornstars are considerably lighter than the general population: male pornstars average 17 pounds and female ones average 48 pounds (!) lighter than the average population.

-They start in the industry older on average than you might think: females at 22, males at 24.

-About pornstars being encouraged to do anal: 62% of female pornstars do anal at least once in their careers. In other words, it's far from certain. They have the choice.

-The females are not, as the stereotype would have it, blonde and busty. Most prevalent hair color was brown, and the average bra size was 34B.

January 21, 2013

Rapist gets called out.

I found this to be amazing. His rationalizations are . . . disturbing.

http://www.davidwraith.com/home/2012/8/23/the-rape-dialogues.html

January 10, 2013

The trillion dollar coin: now Obama impresses me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/09/platinum-coin-white-house_n_2442073.html



After negotiating us back from the fiscal cliff only to put us on the edge of another debt limit standoff, Obama has sprung this on the GOP.

He's letting them know that he holds all the cards. He doesn't even have to negotiate with them. He's won their cash, their bank accounts, their wallets, their shoes, socks, pants, shirts and undershirts, and their iPhones. The game's over and they're going home in their boxers.

No they're not. He won their homes, too.

Quite an accomplishment playing chess. Checkmate!

He had to have planned this in December. This is the kind thing that I've only seen Bugs Bunny do, and Bugs lives in a cartoon universe.

I'm impressed with Obama now. Unlike all other two term presidents I've seen, I'm looking forward to a better 2nd term than 1st term.

November 26, 2012

Pornstars are psychologically as healthy as other women?

I'm not saying it's true, I'm just pointing out that's what a study has found. And it's reported not in some third-rate publication either.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/porn-stars-and-the-naked-truth-8348388.html

It is just one study. However, it does make this note:



Basing your judgment on one study is better than basing it on zero.

November 7, 2012

Only Gerrymandering saved the GOP from losing the House...

. . . and they know it. This election would be so much more decisive if they hadn't redrawn the districts. Now they're entrenched at least till 2022, but I'm thinking more districts are going to turn Democratic in the decade.