Home made poetry corner, or if it rhymes, it’s probably Friday.

Any body got any good poems they wrote and want the world to laugh at? Hey, put em here. I can guarantee you that you’ll get some interesting responses to them. Write anything you want: romance, humor, horror, science fiction, political, whatever. They don’t have to rhyme and they don’t even have to make sense. Just write something: make them brain cells work!!!

Let me give you an example of one of mine:
She looked at me,
As I got out of bed,
And said,
“Where are you going?”

I looked back at her,
As I slowly walked away,
And said,
“To get a drink of water.”

She looked at me,
With a grin on her face,
And said,
“Leave your dick behind.”

I looked back at her,
Slowly turned around,
And said,
“Damn, that’s gonna hurt.”

Global warming, heating, cooling weather.

With all the rhetoric about global warming and climate change going on, who’s right and/or who’s wrong? To totally ignore the facts of climate change is to ignore science fact. That the only place on the planet not seeing its ice sheets melting is Antarctica should tell any reasonable thinking person somethings going on.  Every other glacier on the planet is melting at a rate most will be gone in less than twenty years. Permafrost is melting at an accelerated rate, and could pose a serious threat due to the methane it will release as the billions of tons of vegetative matter decomposes. As the arctic loses its ice sheets, Krill, which form the basic food in many of the oceans inhabitants, will lose their breeding grounds, and seriously effect the fishing industry.

In California, the fire season is coming sooner, and lasting longer, than at any time in its history. It is because spring comes sooner each year, extending the growing season, and leaving more flammable material. The Bristle Cone Pine, the oldest trees on the planet, have shown increased growth at 500 feet above the tree line since the fifties. Examination of tree rings for the past fifteen hundred years show this to be highly unusual.

The politicization of global warming has succeeded in putting the scientific community under the microscope. The recent release of cherry-picked emails, stolen from University of East Anglia, has done nothing to place climate change where it should be: in the hands of scientists. Now, every person reading the emails suddenly thinks they know more than climate scientists. Now politics rule the day and every arm-chair internet-tater raises his/her/its hand in voicing their less than knowledgeable opinion on the subject.

My own opinion, and I will admit I’m on the fence on this, is there is not enough data known to positively say man has or has not been a major factor in climate change. I, personally, find the carbon sequestering politics to be not fully supported by science. I do know man can and has effected this planet in many ways. For instance, smog, the ozone layer, and pollution (air, water and land). I am well aware the oceans are getting more acidic, and that’s a really bad thing; and most caused by CO2, but is it natural, i.e., volcanoes, natural emissions, etc., or man made?

The bottom line is the climate is changing, and we’re in for some serious side effects, such as changing in growing patterns, water resources, etc., and they could easily lead to turf, water, and quality of life wars. People can, and in some cases, will, die. It’s those scenarios we have to prepare for, and taking the arm-chair politics out of the discussions, and leaving it to the scientists, would be a good start. After all, it’s the scientists that have brought us our way of life, including conquering Polio, cures for many cancers, and an abundance of food products via growing methods, fertilizers and insecticides. But with the hate and derision shown by both sides, I doubt it will happen.

Your thoughts?
I’m adding an excellent link to a glacial website: http://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/

The time of hate.

No pictures today, boys and girls, just a rant about hate. For instance, Obama is basically hated by the right. Bush was hated by the left, but I can’t recall the rhetoric reaching the hate levels it has with Obama. The recent attempt at igniting a bomb on the plane over Detroit on Christmas day, and the subsequent hate filled nonsense spewed by the right wing of the Republican party, is a perfect illustration. We heard, “Where was Obama? It took him 72 hours before he addressed the nation?” They seem to conveniently forget Bush didn’t address the nation until six days after the shoe bomber. Let’s see: 6 X 24 = 144 hours. Seems to me that’s twice as long. Then they are weeping, wailing and gnashing teeth over Obama wanting the terrorist tried in court, again, conveniently forgetting that is what happened to the shoe bomber, who is now in prison.  And it’s not all the right who are guilty of injecting hate into political discussions, or any other, discussions. Good old Hollywood is well known for attacking politicians who disagree with their left wing agendas. For instance, their support of Polanski, who had sex with an underage girl, and fled the country after being convicted, is totally unacceptable. Johnny Depp, while living in France is his right, knocks this country by saying it is too screwed up to raise his children in. Hey, Johnny, become part of the solution, not the quitter.

Then there are the movies: Avatar, The Golden Compass, etc . . . all received attention by the right as attempts to further attack Christianity, or make this country look bad. They’re movies, people. That they may or may not have hidden agendas may be true, but they’re still just movies. I had a friend, who considers himself an independent, tell me he wouldn’t watch the Golden Compass because it is a direct attack on Christianity. I asked him how he came to that conclusion. His response was he read numerous reviews of it and came to that conclusion via them. I saw the movie, and while it wasn’t the best I’ve seen, I would hardly call it an attack on Christianity, unless you call the dark ages a good time for Christians.  It makes me wonder what some of these people do for fun, or if they have any fun at all. I’m sure if I watched every movie ever produced with the sole intent of finding something that attacked religion, politics, human suffering, Ad nauseam, I could find it. And that these people have a large voice to echo their hate scares me. Do they never just go to a movie to enjoy it?

It seems the last half the the previous decade, and the start of this one, has been inundated with nothing but hate. I find that entirely unacceptable. My memory of twelve years of Catholic school, and the lessons on love, not hate, has served me well. Christianity itself, via Christ, teaches love, not hate. Why has that changed? Why do Christians think their beliefs are being undermined by the left? I can only guess they are victims of this gang mentality, whose only object is to gain a foothold in politics, and bring their religion in with them. The founding fathers were well aware of what effect religion can have on society, and put into the Constitution of the United States laws strictly forbidding it. What the right wing of the Republican party can’t, or wont, realize is the fact they are the ones fomenting hate by doing and saying the things they do. And the left isn’t doing much better by laughing at them.

Sadly, I don’t see it changing, and expect it to get worse, until some day people will die because of the words of hate preached by both sides. And that is not the America I fought for many years ago in the fields of a foreign country. It is nothing better than the regimes we call radical. It seems we have met the enemy, and it is us.

The Return of the world’s greatest nerd!

Yes, that’s right, boys and girls. Pee-Wee Herman is back.  January 12th, at the Los Angeles’ Club Nokia, a ninety minute show called, The Pee-Wee Herman Playhouse, will open. My guess is tickets would be next to impossible to get. And my guess is it will be a complete success.

For those who don’t remember Pee-Wee, he made a movie with Cheech and Chong, then came his big movie: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. In it, he cooled off some bikers by dancing to the song, Tequila. Probably one of the funniest scenes in movies ever. He then did Pee-wee’s Playhouse, a Saturday morning kids show, that ran from 1986 to 1990. His downfall came when, in a Florida adult cinima, Pee-Wee flogged his wee-wee, and got caught . . . end of Pee-Wee . . . until ,now.

For most of us that do remember Pee-Wee’s high-voiced, nerdy antics, they were some of the funniest stuff of the era. He was in Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, and was a riot. His Saturday morning playhouse was probably watched by more adults than kids. He made some movies after his arrest, appearing as Paul Reubens, and even got nominated for an emmy as outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for Murphy Brown. He’s done a lot of work with Tim Burton, voicing Lock in both the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the subsequent video game.

WELCOME BACK PEE-WEE, AND HOPE TO SEE YOU IN MANY FURTHER ADVENTURES!!!

Creation, Evolution and stuff.

So anyway, Adam was sitting there, trying to open a coconut, because he liked coconut cream pie, but Eve said he had to get the coconut stuff out himself, because she didn’t like beating them with rocks to open em up. Suddenly, he heard a really loud deep voice call out, “Dude!” Adam looked every which way, but didn’t see anybody. “Dude . . . up here.” Adam looked up but still didn’t see anybody, but he said anyway, “What?”

“Dude, I’m God, and I got a few years, so I thought I’d drop by and tell you all about yourself.”

“Like what,” Adam asked.

“You know, like where your from, how you were made . . . all about the universe and things.”

“Hey God, if you’re going to tell me I’m from Toledo, then forget it. Nobodies from Toledo. Besides, how longs this going to take. The missus is washing my good fig leaf because we got this special cave-drawing exhibition to go to tonight.”

“Hey, I’m God . . . it’ll only take an hour or so. So listen up, don’t interrupt, and remember everything because it’s important:

“Thirteen and a half billion years ago, everything in the universe was packed in this little speck smaller than an atom. It burst forth in a big bang, creating neutrons, anti-neutrons, protons, anti-protons, quarks, anti-quarks . . . “  Three days later . . .  “Then it coalesced into hydrogen atoms, which, under gravity, compressed into a giant sphere, and when it got hot enough, became a star. Then around this star . . . ” One week later . . .  “Then at the bottom of the ocean, at the junction of the Pacific plate and the North American plate, chemicals formed and life started, which consisted of Deoxyribose nucleic acid, proteins, Ribonucleic acid . . . ” One month later . . . ” And so, that’s how you evolved from the first living thing on the planet into Adam. Got any questions?”

“Ya . . . whats a billion?”

“Hmmm . . .not scientifically inclined, huh? Okay, how’s this: A week ago I created everything. Then I created you, but you were really clumsy, so I took one of your ribs and created Eve, so things could get done here on earth. Can you live with that?”

“Ya, but Eve’s really going to be pissed because we missed that special.”  God shook his head and split to do God things. Adam thought about that rib and went off to invent barbecue sauce. The rest is history.

The end.

War or children: who or what’s worth more?

My friend, Sek, posted an excellent speech on his blog, Kansas Mediocrity, and it got me thinking about the war in Iraq, it’s cost, and who supports it. I came up with some cold hard facts:
Here is the running cost of the war. (740 billion and counting.)
Total number of Republicans voting for the war: 215. Total Democrats: 81
Estimated cost of SCHIP for the country: $40 billion
Total number of Republicans voting for SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program): 42. Total number of Democrats voting for SCHIP: 221.
It amazes me the Republicans, who seem to have this Christianity thing going for them, think more of attacking a tinpot dictator, who never attacked this country, then ensuring the children of this nation have access to quality health care. There’s something seriously wrong there. It makes one wonder what it is they think this country stands for.  When invading a country is more important to a major political party than ensuring the health and safety of it’s future business people, leaders and workers, there is a problem. I can’t, for one minute, understand that line of thinking unless it involves the following: Capitalism at any cost. The industrial machine takes precedents over all other endeavors, including the people who actually make it work. It sure seems to me to be the roots of what the Republican party stands for. By putting the system ahead of its people, it totally eliminates humanity. I can think of no other reason for doing what they did. If anybody has other ideas, I’m more than willing to listen. Feel free to dive in.

Gimme dat ole tyme religion!

Ever been to one of those revival tent meetings? A couple of friends and myself went to one in Joplin about ten years ago. It was all I could do to keep from cracking up during the meeting. I’d seen them in movies and the tube, but to witness one in the flesh is something else. I’m certainly not going to degrade any one who attended, as religious beliefs are as personal as tastes in food and politics, but the preacher was something else. According to him, everyone there was bound for damnation and hell fire, with the only hope of salvation being an extensive, personal casting out of demons at the cost of whatever you had in your wallet or purse. I’m sure the ladies got extra casting in the process.

It made me wonder what religion actually stands for. Is it an actual belief in a higher being? Is is a way for people to latch on to something in order to make their lives “meaningful”? Is it a way for those running their particular religion to save souls or fatten bank accounts? Certainly, I believe in a higher being, God in this case, but after being raised in a strict Catholic family and attending Catholic schools for twelve years, I think I have a well rounded idea of what religion actually is.

Humans are social creatures, and religion gives them something to socialize over. Is it wrong? I don’t think so. I doubt there are many “wrong” religions out there, but the battles over who’s right and who’s wrong amazes me.  Adherents has over 4200 religions listed, each thinking theirs is the one true religion. Who’s to say any are wrong in thinking that?

My main problem with organized religions is the mis-interpretation of some of the dogma in them. For instance, Muslim radicals thinking anyone not of the Muslim faith should be killed is way out of bounds. I can think of no God who would condone such nonsense under any circumstances. On the other hand, fundamentalist Christians thinking they should have a place in both politics and public school teachings flies in the face of what the founding fathers drew up when they wrote the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

I have come to a personal conclusion that organized religion is not what I want for my beliefs. I’m sure most would find it blasphemes that I can look at a tree, goat, star, snake or rock and see God in each and every one. Assuming there is a God, why would he need a million dollar glass church as a place of worshiping Him? Wouldn’t someone sitting under a tree saying howdy do the same thing, only without the materialistic trappings?

David Alvin wrote a song called Evrett Ruess, about a man who left home to live alone in the wild. Everett died at the young age of twenty two, but lived a life most men in their eighties couldn’t come close to. Part of the songs lyrics I’m including, as they pertain to what I believe:

Well I hate your crowded cities
With your sad and hopeless mobs
And I hate your grand cathedrals
Where you try to trap God.

‘Cause I know God is here in the canyons
With the rattlesnakes and the pinon pines
And they never found my body, boys
Or understood my mind.

I was amazed when I heard the song for the first time, as it was like he was reading my mind. You can hear the whole song here.

So what do you all think? What is religion to you? Or do you not believe in it?

My New Years Resolutions!

I hereby resolve:

1. To marry a bunch of really really rich women and divorce em all and take all their money.

2. To spend all that money on snuggies and Prongy beer.

3. To avoid constipation at all costs.

4. To get a hole in one during a round of golf, or say I did on the scorecard (just kidding ).

5. Try out for Dancing with the Stars, assuming I can still walk.

6. Sell my original drawings, like the one on the left, for millions!

7. Treat all politicians as if they were clowns . . . wait, aren’t they already?

8. To not flash on the corner of Main and Second anymore, and if I do, make sure it’s warm out.

9. Sleep as late as I want to every day

10. Be kind to all bloggers, except the ones I don’t like, of which I haven’t met any yet.