Saturday, August 27, 2005

I (HEART) Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

I recently received a dispatch from "Hands Off Venezuela,"
an international group that is adamant about the right of
Venezuela to rule herself, which is rather distressing.
Personally, I see Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an
eloquent and forceful representative of the power of democratic
socialism. He has done more to end poverty in Venezuela since
taking office in 1998 than any other president in the history of
the republic. Absurdly, a man who won his office with 56.1% of
the vote in 1998, and who won an opposition-led recall
vote in 2004, is called a "dictator" by American conservative
leaders. This is from Widipedia.com:

"The recall vote was held on August 15, 2004. Record
numbers of voters turned out, and polling hours were
extended by at least eight hours. 59.25% of the vote was
against the recall, for Chávez remaining in office. Election
observers Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center and OAS
Secretary General César Gaviria endorsed the results of
Venezuelas' recall referendum."

While embracing democracy and a campaign against corruption,
Chavez has re-organized Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to
pay huge dividends to the people via elaborate socialist programs.
He calls himself a "21st Century Socialist." This year, almost
half a billion dollars has flowed in from Citgo alone (the PDVSA
owns half of Citgo) to fund socialist programs like the "Inside
the Barrio" program. That program provides free health and
dental care to people who live in heinous poverty. And through
an oil deal with Cuba, over 20,000 Cuban doctors have been flown
into the barrios of Venezuela to fight disease and promote
health programs.

Venezuela also has seven privately-owned and openly-critical
television stations and newspapers.

If embracing republican government, the existance of a vibrant,
free press, and fighting to end poverty are the acts of a tyrant,
what do the actions of our own president represent?

I understand why Chavez and the Movement for the Fifth
Republic (his party)are annoying American imperialists. He
openly states that he fears assassination by the US, and that he
thinks Condi Rice has a crush on him. He is also reducing the
amount of oil sold to the US by Venezuela and instead selling
to China, Cuba, and "PetroCaribe," a group of Caribbean islands
that will buy oil at almost $25 less a barrel than the market
dictates. His first deal beyond China and Cuba was made
earlier this week, with Jamaica, for 20,000 barrels a day at $40
a barrel. This while oil prices are at $66 a barrel.

That's bound to piss off the Estados Unidos.

The unification of Latin American socialists (the Bolivarian
Revolution, named for the revolutionary anti-imperialist
Simon de Bolivar), the end of poverty, and a desire to see
the world evolve beyond capitalist degradation are all
nice changes from US puppet-governments, corruption,
and unspeakable greed.

That is how I feel about the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Unfortunately, my feelings and thoughts and everything I
mentioned probably won't save my beloved comrade. The
aforementioned letter from "Hands Off Venezuela" contains
a piece from NewsMax about how many in the CIA and US
Military agree with Pat Robertson's assessment that Chavez
should be "taken out." This comes from the article,

"'Chavez is a dangerous guy,'" retired Col. David Hunt told Bill
Bennett's "Morning in America" fill-in host Steve Malzberg on
Wednesday. "We helped to elect the son of a gun [and] after 9/11
you don't get to threaten us."

It gets better.

"The issue of assassination 'should be on the table,' Hunt said.
'I'm suggesting that we use it as a tool . . . to get those guys
nervous.'

Former CIA Operative Wayne Simmons agreed. 'He should have
been killed a long time ago,' Simmons said."

The Bush Administration doesn't speak out against these
comments, instead he simply says that they are legal coming
from citizens and not government representatives. As a US citizen,
I'm going to have to politely insist that our government speak
with greater force against those who threaten acts of terrorism. For
isn't an assassination the ultimate act of terrorism?

Atheism And The Wheel

As an atheist, I respect life more than any theist. This has been discussed among friends and comrades lately. It's true that I personally see life as pointless, at least my life, but that doesn't by definition devalue life in general. And atheism has no apparent impact on how much the numerous atheists in my life appreciate how exotic is life in the universe; atheism can make life quite precious. I don't value my own life, but that has nothing to do with my atheism; I despise myself and would eradicate my existence (meaning never have been born) in a minute. I ache inside and wistfully imagine a wonderful world that didn't have to endure my having helped poison it. Suicide is awful, as it hurts the living, and there is enough pain in the world; I know that now. I have tricked people into loving me, and they would feel betrayed by another suicide attempt, nevermind a successful suicide. Therefore, as an atheist, I can say that I appreciate the spectacle of life, in all of its splendor and horror. But the whole wheel could have turned without me, and I wish it had.

Call me a "whiner" and I will nod, and go on wishing it.

But it's a mistake to blame my lack of spirituality on my self-loathing. If I were a devout anything, I would find myself hating god; it's better this way. For one, I get to pity myself and every little thing. And being pissed-off at the Almighty for all the pain and cruelty hidden in the garbage is pointless. What do I know about being a deity? Besides, I can't help but know that there isn't a god...there isn't. It's been the Issue of Greatest Concern in my noggin' since I was age 9. If you know of a god out there, have the fucker drop me a line.

So in short, atheism sees life in contrast with the void. Look around the universe and see how rare is life. They should put "Life" on the Periodic Table of the Elements and rate how infrequently we uncover it here and there. Perhaps not.

Again, the rules change for everyone when we look at ourselves alone within the world. Then I can understand the desire to want to let things move without you. I hope that makes sense to those who love me.

But above everything there is compassion, that I know. I never knew of anything that didn't benefit by it, or suffer from its opposite, cruelty.

So there's that.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Of Kids and Their Penguin Stares

I'm sure you understand that I agree that there are too many children, and by extension too many people. I get really, really pissed when I see people with large families, and frankly I don't see many. But when I was down at Roger Williams Park in RI three weeks ago and they had an event for kids that night (some dinosaur thing), there were HUGE families everywhere, and I don't like it. And what I don't like needs to go away from me.

I don't know why, but I hate people who stupidly decide to have nine kids, or even one. Sure, they're kicking my evolutionary ass. But is there anything more fucking annoying than a kid who isn't yours? I almost kicked about 50 of them. Their fat little fingers up their fat, little noses, their blank penguin stares, the screaming and yelling, the demands for this and that. Shut the fuck up and exit my life.

My balls never worked, and to avoid a life threatening cancer they removed one. By "they" I mean the ice cream man and the UPS girl. Actually, it was a urologist. Sadly, I'll never be the father to a testicular cancer, either. But even before that, my thunder had no lightning. I wish they took both of my testicles, though, as then I could get kicked in the crotch without the painful aftermath. I was kicked in the nuts exactly once, by a guy, and I literally almost passed out. I'm not sure, but I think it was Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate in 1992. Anyway, I could do without the dangling "off" button betwixt my legs.

Over the years, several therapists have considered, as have I, that my infertility and numerous other health problems have made me feel abnormal. That could be, yes. But there is a big difference between wanting to be free of suicidal thoughts, self-destructive adventures and mind-crushing depression and anxiety, and wanting to be "normal."

I've seen "normal," and I don't like it. I mean I REALLY don't like it. Smart people giving up risky ambition to feed a child? Sure, that's normal. But I don't like it. I hate it, actually. A friend of mine sent out invitations to his daughter's birthday, her FIRST birthday. The kid is sitting in her own shit and I'm supposed to thoughtfully consider a present? Buy a fucking Carvel cake and cut it with a hot knife. Jesus.

So maybe it would have been interesting to me to have once been fertile. However, I don't think it would have ever been more than "interesting." And as we've been discussing, it may have been just awful. I'm a self-centered, neurotic, nihilistic prick who seriously looks forward to non-existence. You don't call an abomination like that, "Daddy!"

It would be nice to have the feeling back where they made the incision on the right side of my crotch, but that's only because it's a strange numbness that compels me to fondle it as I recline in bed at night.

Would you like to feel my numb crotch scar? What? I'm insulted! Now somebody cut the fucking cake.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Anal Sex Test Used By Real Anal Sex Gurus


Find out if you enjoy anal sex in 4 simple steps!
For continuity reasons, this has to be done with the same partner:

1. Have sex ten times and rate each time on a scale of 1-10.
2. Eliminate your best sexual experience and your worst, develop a mean number rating.
3. Shove something up your ass.
4. Repeat the first two steps.
If your mean rating is higher after shoving a lamp or something up your ass, you like anal sex!

Here are my results...

Initial mean rating of 49
(marble ashtray then shoved up my ass)
Secondary mean rating of 3
Therefore, I don't like anal sex...at least not when using a dirty ashtray with a cigarette still burning in it.

More later!

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Fear and Distrust and a Mind Full of Memories Alone

I'm "on disability" and to some people this sounds like Heaven. I guess I can understand this, as work is usually hell. I've worked long enough to know that, but it doesn't provide a person like me with much comfort.

I miss the world. I miss the accidental friendships and stupid stories that come with being somewhat within the mainstream. I used to work the overnight shift at a Boston Hotel, and that job provided me with dozens of stories. One night, the groom at a Jewish wedding dropped dead 2 minutes after getting married. The night crew coming into the hotel at 11pm were all told to "look solemn" and not to laugh at anything.

Another night, I stood on a floor-buffing machine and turned it on when my friend Napoleon dared me to. I was thrown 30 feet away, and the security people came downstairs and said they would never erase that security tape; it was the funniest thing they ever saw. "John," a Gulf War I veteran was there.

I think I have a lot of funny stories from school and work. I was approved for Social Security Disability shortly after my heart fluttered and nearly stopped due to an overdose in Boston's Copley Square. John from the hotel was there, too, looking into my eyes and clearing the crowd around me. I remember that just before I passed out. After I was diagnosed with "severe anxiety and panic disorder, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder, dysthymic disorder, and severe depression," I was pretty much on disability. I didn't care. Now I do, and perhaps that's a good thing. Maybe one day I will work again. Maybe I won't.

But all that schooling went to waste. A shame they didn't know that the brain getting the education was rotted-out. They could've saved money and provided it to someone else. A bag of rats would've been better.

Since 1998, my first suicide attempt, I have become a person of no consequence, by design. Being a person of consequence is too taxing on me, apparently. I'm a shadow, and am totally irrelevent.

It may sound good to some of us, but it's not very much fun, to miss the living while fearing them. To want to travel but suffer from agoraphobia. It's a big, fucking joke. Dr. Gibbons used to take me out to lunch every week to talk about everything from politics to planes (he was a pilot). He was the chair of the Anthropology Dept. We especially like to talk forensic osteology. Gone now, though. A friend of mine at university told me I would make a great teacher. Can you imagine? I can't...Darren W. Lyle as anything but the living dead.

I do miss hope and potential. UMass Boston isn't my school anymore, and I have no workplace...I'm not emotionally capable of tolerating random human contact for long periods of time. So I have no place at all. I'm such an asshole.

Isn't it pathetic? To seek such comfort in memories? To be unable to cut new experiences out of fear and distrust of oneself.

The Mantra: Life will end one day, I'm not a bad person for being sick.

Underwear and Strife

Less than five minutes ago a trip to the bathroom to urinate revealed something to me that went un-noticed the previous 4 times I went to urinate today; that my underwear is on backwards. Life is a constant voyage of discovery. Sometimes you discover that your girlfriend hates your guts, and that destroys your being faster than a Humvee outside the Green Zone. Sometimes it's the underwear thing. Who knows what I'll learn next time I pee, or boil an egg, or step off a subway platform. I can take comfort in knowing that what I learn will be either really boring, to the point that I want to die, or really painful, to the point that I really want to die. There is, I suppose, a possibility that I may learn something new tomorrow that will inspire me and make me happy. Here are three possibilities:

1. As it turns out, all my mirrors are distorted in the same way and I am not fat, lumpy and kind of odd-looking. No, I look exactly like Brad Pitt.
2. I find out that there is a gene responsible for my lameness, and it can be yanked out and replaced with a coolness gene.
3. My therapist reveals to me her growing sexual appetite for all things me. She insists that she take me to Paris for a month to "explore what we both may have to offer each other sexually."

My voyage of discovery, however, is more likely to reveal that I got a drop of bleach on my black jeans, or that those kids in the corner of the "T" station are making fun of my ass.

When life isn't painful, it's boring and/or humiliating. That's the most you can hope for...boredom, and that humiliation doesn't fuck up the only good thing, sex.

I'm going to subject everyone to a poem in a moment or two. It's called, "Bloodsport: Miles a' Guts." Actually, I'm kidding. It's called, "Strife," and it's about how life whittles away at our higher aspirations and possible comradeship and replaces it with an inclination to hide away from truly awful existence. It's in two, short parts, and I hope you enjoy.

Strife

1.

No more, the dead resisting
Base want replaces Hope
Armies gone, that were persisting
Romantic misanthropes

How easily bold dreams subside
Outwardly, so strong
Within, a rotting frame, un-eyed
A hoax? A lie? A wrong?

Perpetrated not by me
but one I used to know
Wonders dreamed, not to be,
Like rocks the seeds I sow

Like rocks in that they sit in soil
Natural, constant, and pure
But these rocks will never boil
With green vine, strong and sure

These stones, however, were heavier made
with need and expectation
Nothing this crop would do but fade
against all propagation

2.

The Future, ahead, sits never reached
An unconquered state, bright and rich
Whose borders siege has never breached
and flag diminished, not a stitch

Soldiers marching, never reaching
Always searching, never ceasing
Chaplains mercilessly preaching
"It's our destiny!"

But let it go! Please, let it go!
That holy city cannot be found
Within it, our hearts will never grow
That city is not border bound

Eyes go peeking, then feet sneaking
It's walls I sometimes see
With experience, however, I am reeking
Alarmed, it shuts it's gate to me

Again, perhaps, I'll turn once more
to rocks, and from them bricks provide
And make four wall walls with earthen floor
In the Present I'll reside

In doing so, I will create
A new destination, here today
A home to live in, not as great
As Future's unreached bright, new day.

Stones, thought seeds, now bricks, preserve
A place to stop and live a life
No longer needed soldiers' nerve
Now untouched by fear of strife

fini

Isn't that just a peach?

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Sex and The Towel

For some reason, I decided to map some of my thoughts and feelings that travel along with the base physical arousal, climax, and resolution stages of sexuality. Sex is a really funny thing, partially because we pursue it relentlessly and engage in it voraciously. We definitely lose more than a modicum of control. But if you can get a little distance, or better yet, watch porn, you can see how absurd is seeking out and engaging in the act of physical love. That includes the faces and noises we make.

I don't have to apologize to any of my partners, as nothing personal or revealing is here. Although I do have to apologize to myself for being suck a jackass.

Well, here it be.

Stage 1: Arousal
At this point, nothing is disgusting and I'm open to any suggestions. Anything super-freaky will be considered. This is a time of great determination for me, as if I'm trying to build a bird-house with a gun to my head; I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I'm 100% sure that it is going to get done. If I held a strong desire to stick my head up my own ass, I'm sure that I could do it during this stage.

Arousal, and the play that goes with it, is supposed to lead up to the orgasm, and then the "resolution plateau." Only a fool would focus too heavily on the orgasm alone, and I'm fond of exploring. I'll leave it at that. With all the engorgement and blushing and heart-racing and mind-numbing desire, I'm most blind to the absurdity of sex during this phase. Afterwards, though, the arousal stage amuses me the most

At some point during this stage, I always say to my partner something like, "We should fuck more often!" This is usually taken as a joke, but I'm speaking in complete earnestness.

Stage 2: Climax
After a little bit or a lot of the first stage, it's time to get your partner off and then go for broke yourself. My background thought is always the same at this time...I get pissed at myself for being so fat. It seems a bit random, as I'm already getting it on and any timidity should have been left behind. And for the most part, it has. But simply put, I want to look like Brad Pitt when I fuck. Mr. Pitt could have any facial expression when he comes that he wants, but even if he looks and sounds ridiculous, who would complain?

If Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt vomit and fart when they climax together they would still be sexy. It's just how I see it. Women have said that I'm cute, and two even said that I'm sexy (after they've had a drink or two). But I'm still fat, and I imagine that I look like a ball of Jello getting slapped with a yo-yo when I climax.

That's about all I want to share regarding that. When I come, I want to shout, "Look away, I'm hideous!"

It's important to make note of the brief moment of genuine, balanced happiness after orgasm. It exists nowhere else in life, except perhaps for when you don't have to wait very long for a table at a restaurant on a Friday night. And if the "apps" are good, all the better.

Stage 3: Resolution
Stage 3 involves a flood of thoughts and feelings...here is a quick inventory: The first is a need to find a towel, or "cum-rag." This is followed by an odd desire to be ANYWHERE else, like you just did something wrong. Finally, there is a frantic search for the remote control. Occasionally, regret is felt over having said or done something really embarrassing during the first two stages.

After sex, I once said, "Is there any hummus left?" Another time I asked, "We should have kids? Are you out of your fucking mind?" It's like waking up from a spell.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Little Educated Fleas and Beans

I finally found it. It was sitting in my portable CD player; very retro. The "it" was a small flightless bird named "Wren." Wren is an Emperor penguin, not a wren. Had I known that before I "let him go" out my window, there'd be one more Emperor penguin in the world.

They don't bounce as much as you might think; more of a spectacular splat.

In truth, that was a stupid joke. No arctic birds getting killed 'round here, who am I, Jodie Foster? (If you get that joke, I'll clean your house). The "it" I couldn't find was a CD entitled, "Billie Holiday, The Finest." I love this CD, and I don't care what anyone says, the Blues and Jazz have got Country music beat when it comes to great titles. Here are my three favorite titles on this album of 25; Love Me or Leave Me, Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love), Practice Makes Perfect.

Ms. Holiday, you SEXY woman, you! And here's a great lyric, "Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let's do it...let's fall in love!" And "People say in Boston even beans do it! Let's do it, let's fall in love." At least fleas require an education to "do it." And I don't want the beans to do it at all. What a farting/fucking disaster that would be.

So now I have my CD, and have decided to go out for a walk and listen to music and ruminate on nothing. You don't have to be physically busy to make yourself tired. A total lack of sleep and a mind-riding Thing called "Self-Pity" that looks like the coal-stoker from "The Hairy Ape" by Eugene O'Neill will do the trick.

I'm sorry, blame the technology.

I used to love to wear Donna's panties now and again. Why did fate make us love but have to be apart. Perhaps I can get her to send me a couple. Oh, shit...did I leave this thing on? Well that's humilia....

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Superman Kill Me

While it is still early, I found myself ready to retire for the evening not more than a half-hour ago. It would be wise of me to do so, as I have nothing of interest to contribute tonight. This is made particularly unfortunate by the inexplicable desire to post something, even if it is unfit for human consumption.

I decided recently that I don't want to die via suicide anymore, that suicide doesn't interest me the way it once did (as a borderline fetish). I don't cut my arms or legs to get the mock rush of impending death, nor do I burn my feet and arms with fire and acid. I'm glad for this, as doing such things makes the world an ugly place, on an emotional level even moreso than in terms of appearance. But without my recently stitched wounds and hospital stays, where is the evidence of the battle that is taking place every fucking day of my miserable life? To burn painfully, alone, and with as little complaint as possible. That is apparently my goal now.

Where once dominated at least the aesthetics of nobility through strife are now the silences of a defeated soldier long after the war is over.

I don't want to romanticize this shit too much. But trying to kill myself may have been the best career choice I ever made. I never had a single thing going for me, despite having everything going for me. And what nearly killed me twice? Affection!

But now that those moments are past me, hopefully for good. I almost died in hospital after taking 200 Benadryl in 1999, and I briefly went into a heart fluctuation in Copley Place (Although I had no problems with allergies that say.) I have many stories, about that and getting attacked in the Men's Dorm, and ECT.

I should be dead, but instead I float around and plague the living with money problems or emotional problems or whatever. I'm an energy grease spot.

I have a story idea. We all know the story of how Superman arrived in a pod of some kind in the American mid-west (ostensibly the home of values and peace and justice). He was raised to take care of the wee folk and defend truth, justice, and the American-way (that one still makes me nervous).

Imagine if the little tyke didn't land in Kansas or Idaho or some fucking place in the USA. What if he landed in the small Polish village of Smopka, where he was picked up by Adam and Mikhail (a transplanted Russian Jew). Adam and Moishka represent everything there is to be Poland before the fall of the Soviet Union; they are Communists, atheists, losers, nihilists, and an acid-tongued homosexual couple. After 20 years of reading Nietzsche (Superman!) and 30 year old Saturday Evening Posts', Superman has been transformed into...

What? I picture him as a guy using his powers to help turn a good price on transmitter radios, who dreams of schilling the rubes in NYC, and can always find a HUGE potato if need be.

My story is more inspiring to the average man, and more believable. But I don't care. I should have gone to be earlier tonight. Talking to me is like talking to a streetlamp.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Stop Bitchin', You Anxious Fuck

Hello, everyone. I feel compelled to point out a couple of reasons why I haven't been posting to my beloved 'blog as of late. It has little to do with ennui, and even less to do with an industrial accident. It has to do with the level of mental clarity I currently possess, and the existential crisis that lives within the fog.

Naturally, I'll explain.

About three weeks ago, I got the hankerin' for a new psychiatric drug that may help stave off the mind-blowing anxiety I feel for no good reason. Pretending to be Anne Coulter at a dinner conference of angry feminists would cause me less anxiety than going to buy a hot dog down the street. Incidentally, both scenarios are equally outlandish. I get HOT DOGS from outside the home, and make a HOT DOG from within. I don't go out just to get a one hot dog.

Anyway, mundane daily events cause mucho panic, agoraphobia and anxiety. So I thought I'd try a drug called, "Shutthefuckup" by Merck. Actually, it's called, "Abilify." It's an anti-psychotic that has been used for anxiety. I was happy to be trying it, but soon after my first pill I realized that I might have mistakenly trusted a pharmaceutical ad. Imagine my disappointment.

The short story is that I got really sick, with the fever and the vomiting and all that. While the drug did work to the extent that I wasn't anxious anymore, the fear of death caused me to stop.

But ever since then, a permafrost exists betwixt my ears and the stuffin' seems to have been permanently knocked off my mental Egg McMuffin, in psychiatric terms. It's a little scary to think that one may be on the road to the Special Olympics (the one where they don't let you hold a torch). And I don't mean as a volunteer.

I just hope that if my brain melts and flows back through my foramen magnum and into my spinal column, I'll get to leave this life with as much dignity as Ms. Schiavo.

My touch typing ability sucks recently, too. And that really pisses me off. It's the only fucking thing that came out of that "computer" course from high school that isn't obsolete. But my typing, and my brain, are getting better, thus this missive.

Cram it.

Friday, August 05, 2005

My Letter To Santa, Revisited

It's hot, folks. Stinky hot. So I decided to post a reminder of the impending winter, and the absurd holiday called, "Christmas" that goes with it. Draw it mild.

Dear Santa,

I haven't been a good boy this year. It's difficult to admit that to you, but you must be aware of that anyway. That I'm certifiably insane should not be used as an excuse, but it might go a long way towards an explanation.

They say that you are jolly, which is good. I've been jolly a few times, and I remember it fondly. I'm asking that you look past the shoplifting, consumption of illegal substances, and creative financing and find it in your heart to give me things. I want to be rewarded for the time I gave a young woman a dollar so she could get on the #87 bus to Davis Square. And for buying "Spare Change" even though I didn't want it. There is also the time, I think it was in July, when I didn't laugh at the guy for walking into the door at Someday Cafe. These acts will hopefully help you to forgive my theft of that "Bush/Cheney" sign, and for masturbating every day since I was nine.

Provided that you decide to bring me goodies, I thought I'd let you know that I want only one thing: A couple of pounds of fine marijuana from British Columbia. I know you can get it. Nobody is that jolly without a little help. So please take me off the "Naughty" list.

If not, you can go fuck yourself.

Peace,
Darren W. Lyle

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Of Obesity and Personal Responsibility

It bothers me that obese people get more shit for their addiction and lack of self-control than other addicts. Clearly, some people have a pathological need for tasty delights. Most often, this is the result of a desire to find a "comfort zone." Food simultaneously helps some people cope, and also helps to kill them.

And while people need to be responsible for their own bodies, that doesn't let parents and corporations off the hook for how they fuck up kids when it comes to food. Ronald Reagan said that ketchup was a vegetable to help justify cuts in the nutritional value of school lunches. And today, unspeakably nasty shit is targeted at children via the use of movie tie-ins and commercials that practically qualify as mind control. And vending machines in schools? We're all whores.

A parent should never take their kid to McDonald's. Ever. In my opinion, it's like giving a kid a shot of Wild Turkey. Yes, it's tough being a parent, nobody ever said it was easy. I'm sure the appeal of a cheap, convenient dinner at McDonald's is strong. But so is the desire to leave an infant in a hot car while you "just run in" to the fucking Wal-Mart to buy a "Support the Troops" maget that was made in China. It's just easier that taking him or her with you. But if you do the latter and get caught, they take your kid away while your fitness as a parent is assessed.

How is sticking a 6 piece chicken McNugget meal down your kid's throat any different than that? Is it so hard to figure out that a deep-fried meat product called a "McNugget" is bad for you?

So culture does play a part, as do economics; a significant number of people work in a job that barely requires any movement whatsoever. That doesn't help the obesity problem. And asses are widening in other countries, too, like China and Japan and Europe.

I remember a Libertarian brain-teaser about the limits of personal responsibility. It goes like this...

You're walking in a desert and slowly going mad with thirst. Just before you pass out, you see a man walking toward you. As it turns out, he is selling ice cold spring water. So the dying man begs him for some. "Sure!" says the salesman, "The cost is $1 million dollars a bottle." (which is close to what they get at Fenway Park) "But I don't have that!" says the dying man. The salesman replies, "Well, if you just sign this contract, you can have the water now and pay me back the million, along with a smidgen of interest." Now, given that the other fellow is dying horribly, he can't sign the contract fast enough. He gets the water and survives. A week later, he is forced to start making payments that will go on for the rest of his life.

Is the person really bound to pay the $1 million? If not, why not? He made the decision to sign the contract. On the other hand, should motivating factors be considered when it comes to making such a decision? If he refuses to pay, should he be forced to pay by the courts, given that he signed a legally binding contract? Is he a dead-beat or a victim?

So I will extend this to the problem of obesity. If a person was raised under a constant barrage of corporate messages to drink Coke, eat fat, and play video games, can we really BLAME people for being obese? Again, personal responsibility is there, but is it wise to ignore the rest of the picture? Is anyone really being helped with judgement and a lack of empathy, particularly in a society that is hardly known for restraint when it comes to consumption. And that goes beyond food. I'm talking about gas guzzling SUV's, a bizarre need for everyone in your family to have a cell phone camera, overpriced crap from Old Navy, etc.

And if health lectures piss us off, as so many of my comrades claim, why can't we see the hypocrisy of lecturing others?

Be Vigilant, America, and don't just sit there, east something...
Darren the Fat