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If you make sense to people, they will only make sense back at you!

Meow Says the Wolf

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by danielwalldammit in Travel, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Children, Creepy, Fun House, George R R Martin, House of Eternal Return, Meow Wolf, New Mexico, Odd, Santa Fe

26047434_10154931395015706_3812321740213932580_n

I told Danielito, his name is ‘Bob’ for the balance of our visit. I was Daniel first.

I could easily wish the crowds away, but that would be foolish. They are a big part of the experience here at Meow Wolf. Mere moments after entering the fun house, our party is already separated into at least 3 separate groups. Moni is nearby, but I’m not sure where. Her sister and I are together. She is nervous and worried the place will be scary. I’m not entirely re-assuring. We catch a glimpse of her two kids. They rush on by as their mother tries to call them back.

It’s no use going after them. Did they go up into the tree house, or over to the musical mastodon? Perhaps into the fish-tank? We’ll find them eventually, but not by looking. No matter. One is old enough. The other has been here before. They will take care of each other. So, we let them have their fun.

I’m recovering from a bad flu, so I tire easily. Luckily, there are places to sit and watch the people. This is my second time at Meow Wolf, so I am happy to take my time; happier still to rest when I can. A woman walks by urging her child to stay nearby. A few minutes later she walks by again, alone.

“Baby, where are you?”

I get up to help her look for the child and instead find myself helping a couple women trying to connect a completely different child with his parents. They are on it; I’m just trying to see if I can help, but it’s difficult. You’re never more than one room away from getting completely lost in this place. Give yourself time and you’ll find your way back to the main entrance. But how to search more than one room without losing these two and their momentary ward?

A solution takes the form of a stumbling old man in mad scientist garb. I’ve seen him before. He gets lost in corners and regularly stands motionless for odd periods of time. Soon after meeting the women, our shambling scientist becomes a competent staff member with an intercom and a clear set of procedures. Unfortunately, the first step (getting the kid’s name and that of his parents) doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. The kid is just too disoriented to answer even these questions. Another child is screaming in my ear. It’s disconcerting, but this child is already in her own mother’s arms, so that’s probably a good sign. Still those are blood-curdling screams for such a little girl. What has her so scared?

“I don’t want to leave!”

Ah, …got it!

The girl keeps screaming that she doesn’t want to leave. She screams this as though her life depended on it. Nearby, the once-shambling scientist calls three names into his head set. He is well on his way to solving the problem.  I wander off to find something new. I’m told there have been some changes to a few rooms, and the people scrambling about me add a whole other layer of new things to see.

A young woman opens up a closet, then stands in awe as people behind wait for the moment to pass. Others charge into rooms and devour them. An elderly woman has trouble navigating a narrow staircase. The crowds wait patiently. There is plenty to see. Just about every where you look, there is something odd to see, something weird to wonder about. Kids open the drawers and study their contents. A middle aged man yanks out a drawer a little too far and spends the next few minutes putting its spilled contents back. Some tap on shiny mushrooms, hoping to know what sound they will make. You can play a piano, an odd piano, or even a lazer-lyre.

 

 

I found myself in the entrance to the place, a large area resembling a classic suburban home. It is two stories tall, filled with all the usual features of a middle-class home; a kitchen, a living room, a study, several bedrooms, a nice bathroom, and so on. There are also a few things you don’t find in most middle class homes. A few inter-dimensional portholes, lots of odd scenes. You can find the beginnings of a narrative here in this home. Notes and booklets scattered throughout the rooms allude to scientific experiments gone wrong, perhaps a bit of a cult gone wronger.

I sit here and watch the crowd. Within minutes a little girl asks if she can sit on my lap. She is adorable, but her mother isn’t having any of it. That’s understandable, of course, but I have to wonder. I’m no Santa Clause. Is there something about this place that softens my resting-bastard-face? The next little girl seems to want my attention to. Her parents shuffle the family by without any event.

Perhaps they just want to sit down?

I free up the chair.

Standing on a narrow bridge a woman turns towards me saying; “that’s just the weirdest thing I…” It’s at that point, she realizes I’m not the person she thought she was talking to. It’s understandable. At one point, I mistake a woman for a manikin. In my defense, she wasn’t moving. I find another mad scientist repairing a refrigerator door. That may seem an odd job for a scientist, but in his defense, not every fridge serves as a porthole into another dimension. The condiment rack on the door of this porthole is loose, and there is no telling what that could mean!

I bump into Moni and her family a couple times. All are happy. The kids are positively glowing.

Just like some of the exhibits.

Other things, you may hear in this place?

“This is the most ridiculous thing.”

“Don’t go in there!”

“Oh, oh, oh!”

“that’s how we came in”

“we came in through the fireplace?”

“How do you suppose that kid got stuck in the toilet?”

“What’s the big deal about this place? …Oh, I see.”

 

 

***

Meow Wolf is the brain-child of George R.R. Martin. Yes that George R.R. Martin! It’s an artist collective and a non-profit located on the south-side of Santa Fe, New Mexico. What they’ve created here could be described as a fun house, but that doesn’t even begin to do the place justice. Suffice to say that a lot of very creative people have invested a lot of brilliant thought into this project, and the results are spectacular. I reckon it can be a little stressful for the parents, but they will live through the experience, and so will their kids (who will no doubt keep the memories well into their own grey years). For the rest of us, I expect the key to this experience is opening ourselves to its disorienting qualities. You may think for a moment that you are beginning to figure something out, or that you know what’s around the corner to the left, but don’t be surprised if you are wrong. No matter! If you can make sense of this place, you are probably doing it wrong.

Thanks to Moni and her family who have contributed pics and suggestions. As usual, you may click to embiggen.

Hm...
Hm…
Moni and her Mom, at home in any kitchen
Moni and her Mom, at home in any kitchen
A surplus of doorknops
A surplus of doorknops
A performance artist and her pet dragon
A performance artist and her pet dragon
Belongs with the musical mastadon
Belongs with the musical mastadon
Fish Tank (mirrors a normal-sized tank in the front room)
Fish Tank (mirrors a normal-sized tank in the front room)
Lots to read
Lots to read
Wonder what kind of sermon you could hear in this place?
Wonder what kind of sermon you could hear in this place?
Life in the fish tank
Life in the fish tank
An oddly normal corner
An oddly normal corner
Southwestern weirdness
Southwestern weirdness
...among other things
…among other things
A cool family
A cool family
Do not climb on the spider!
Do not climb on the spider!
When aspen have eyes
When aspen have eyes
Motivational Weirdness
Motivational Weirdness
26166916_10215201306131055_6736171591348282671_n
Creepy
Creepy
The head of the musical mastodon
The head of the musical mastodon
Hm...
Hm…
Most kids just take a bath
Most kids just take a bath
Teenagers room, ...a teenager with a bit more angst than usual
Teenagers room, …a teenager with a bit more angst than usual
I wonder if she will teach me to weave?
I wonder if she will teach me to weave?
yep
yep
More creepy lit
More creepy lit
Should I run or give it a big hug?
Should I run or give it a big hug?
An Angstier teen
An Angstier teen
Yes, you can enter the ice box
Yes, you can enter the ice box
Poor little guy! ...er, big guy.
Poor little guy! …er, big guy.
A special kind of Hell
A special kind of Hell
Parking lot
Parking lot
More lit
More lit
Little Guys
Little Guys
The ribs make music
The ribs make music

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When Trolling Douchebags

01 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Douchebag, Election, Ethics, Friedrich Nietzsche, Internet, Melania Trump, Misogyny

trumpcrop5“When trolling douchebags, take care not to become a douche yourself.”

I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote from Friedrich Nietzsche. I’m almost certain my man Friedrich was talking about Trump when he wrote that. He was trying to tell us to be careful how we criticize Trump, because Trump is full of idiot and when you argue with idiot, you get idiot sauce all over you.

Make a note of that Hillary!

“Cereal?” You may be asking, but I can assure you that Nietzsche was totally cereal with all of this stuff, cause the man was a totally cereal kind of guy.

…at least about how you should argue with Trump. Or with the idiots who support his Trumpery badness.

Nietzsche’s point of course was that you really should watch what you say about Melania Trump. I know this, because I asked him. I asked Nietzsche straight up. I said; “what do you mean dude?” And he told me I shouldn’t really call him dude. He said Zarathustra would not approve. He then told me the whole damned quote was actually about Melania Trump. He wanted us to know that people should watch what they say about her.

“Surely, you don’t mean,” I said to Nietzsche, “that we can’t criticize her for plagiarizing Michelle Obama in her speech at the GOP convention.”

“No, that’s fair game,” he said. “You can totally criticize her for plagiarism. You can even take a few extra digs for saying she wrote it herself just before blaming the fact that she didn’t write it herself on the ghost who didn’t write it herself either. Damned ghosts anyhow! You just can’t trust a ghost to write new stuff you can take credit for these days. Rich folks ought to be able to take credit for the work of others. It’s the American way!”

I thought he had a point.

Nietzsche added, that you could probably criticize Malania and the whole Trump camp for pretending Obamas are the Devil himself when they actually seem to find some merit in what at least one of them does.

I asked Nietzsche if the devil has multiple personalities. He said only when he’s from Kenya. That’s all Nietzsche was wiling to say about that subject, so we moved on.

I asked the old philosopher if we could criticize Melania for saying she graduated from a place that never spat a degree her direction. He said, surely we could. I also asked Nietzsche if we could raise questions about her immigration status when she came to the country. He told me that was probably okay, but it would really depend on the questions. Did we really want to encourage Trumpery people to think of immigration as a bad thing? I agreed that might not be wise.

“So what’s the big deal anyway?” I asked the old curmudgeon. “What is it we are not supposed to say about Melania?”

“Oh, you can say anything you want.” Nietzsche assured me. “Without gods, everything is totally cool.”

“So then what’s the problem?” I asked again. “Can we go after Mrs. Douchebag or not?”

“Of course you can, but if you go about it wrong, you will become a douche yourself. You’ll be talking along, or tapping away at your keyboard and suddenly your mouth and your fingers will be the mouth and fingers of a douchebag. If you’re cool with that, then it’s all good. But if you don’t want to become a douchebag, then you should watch what you type about Melania.”

I told Nietzsche that I really didn’t want the mouth and fingers of a douchebag.

“Well, then take care of what you type!”

“Okay!” I was getting a little exasperated at this point. I mean, Nietzsche may not be a systematic philosopher, but this was a little cryptic even for the proto-gonz himself. “What exactly is it that I might not want to type about Malania.”

“Don’t slut shame!” he said. “That way lies douchetude.”

“Cereal?”

“Totally cereal!”

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback by this whole thing. I mean, I really didn’t expect a conversation with Nietzsche in the first place, but nobody really expects that. What I really didn’t expect was that slut-shaming would be his biggest concern about election politics in the U.S. Maybe that wasn’t his biggest concern, but that’s what he chose to tell me at any rate. It really seemed to be the main point of the conversation.

“Why?” Nietzsche asked, “Why would you go after her anyway? Hasn’t the man himself given you enough cause for complaint to fill countless servers with perfectly sound criticisms? Does the image of Trump himself not make you want to claw your own eyes away from your face? Does his voice not make traitors of any ears foolish enough to pass along the sound of it? When you have Trump University, why would you bother about Melania’s degree? When you have Trump saying stupid things on a daily basis, why would you care if Melania chooses to channel Michelle like some drunken psychic who mistakes a radio for a ghost? Sure, you can make some good points about Melania, but the real story is always going to be the festering bloodfart beside her. Why on earth would anyone take the time to score a little field-goal against Melania, when you could score a game-winning touch-down against Trump himself? He’s the candidate for POTUS, and he is way worse than his wife will ever be? He’s worse than anyone’s wife will ever be. Hell, the Donald is worse than worse. He’s a singularity of worsitude? There is absolutely no reason to cap on Melania when her husband himself is such a bundle of dumbfuckery that the heavens themselves have been screaming “you’re fired” ever since his campaign announcement. Seriously, you have to ask yourself, why anyone with that much material on the Donald would instead choose to go after his wife? That just smacks of misogyny.  I’m saying that, and I’m a notorious misogynist.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Your writing about women is pretty bad. And when did you start using football metaphors?”

“When you decided to write me into this damned blog post.”

He had a point.

I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation. Nietzsche was getting a little belligerent at that point. Also his Superbowl predictions seem a little far-fetched to me. Really, you just don’t want to know.

My main point, Nietzsche main point, is that one ought to think twice about attacking Trump through the use of Melania’s nudie pics. It’s become a rather common game on certain social media circles. Some people like to circulate racy photos of Melania Trump along with a comment or two about how she could be our First lady. Yesterday the #TrumpsMexicoTripSayings even had someone suggesting a donkey show for Melania, thus mixing racism with misogyny. It’s an ugly argument, and one that doesn’t do a damned thing to show just how bad Trump would be as a President.

The problem here isn’t really fairness to Trump, or even Melania. Neither Melania nor Donald will suffer much as a result of such idiocy, and these memes aren’t going to cost him the election, but the notion that a woman deserves punishment for her own sexuality is toxic as Hell. It does hurt people. Maybe not the wives of billionaires, but hurts people just the same. An objection to commercial nudity is also pretty damned hypocritical when coming from people who consume such images themselves, all the more so for those spreading such images while criticizing Mrs. Trump for appearing in them.

With enough mental gymnastics, you could probably concoct a respectable-sounding argument about the topic, but at the end of the day, you are still using a woman’s body to attack her man. That way does lie douchebaggery. Nietzsche is right about that.

So, anyway, that’s what Friedrich Nietzsche has to say about this election. I asked him if I could share his thoughts on the subject. He said I could, but only if I did so by means of a completely ridiculous literary device.

 

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Eight Tips for Writing an Eight-Tip Advice Post (Crazy Uncle of A Bullet Point Mind)

31 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by danielwalldammit in The Bullet Point Mind, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Advice, Blogging, Counting, Creative Writing, Internet, Nonsense, Numbers, Satire, Writng

IMG_20160215_142830

If you make sense to people, they will only make sense back at you!

The internet is full of pages providing us with numbers.

Numbers and tips!

Numbers OF tips.

That’s right. The internet is full of posts containing a designated number of little advisatory gems. I don’t know how much use there is in reading these lists, but I’m convinced there must be a point to writing them. I reckon the wisdom must reside in the numbers. So, the secret to providing advice online must be to put the advice in the form of a list of useful tips. Most importantly, you have to number them. Then put the number in the title. Netizens love numbers. They will read all the tips you want to give them as long as you put them in a well-numbered list.

…I think.

Anyway, I’m gonna give it a try. I do have a list of my own. It’s totally full of good advisings too. At least I will have such a list when I type out a bit more of this post. Here are my tips! My, …um, [INSERT NUMBER HERE)-point list of how to do [REPEAT NUMBER]-point lists. Yeah, that’s right. I don’t even know the number of points on my list, but I will have a number when I’m done writing my list, and you’re gonna read it to.

The number anyway. You’ll probably skip the rest. Dog knows, I would. Anyway, here goes…

OneFirst! Number one! The main, first-most, and totally beginning number on my list list of numbered things on the list that is totally numbered. The point of that number is to, …um …Number you tips! Yep. You gotta totally number them. Otherwise people won’t know the count, or maybe they will forget your advice as they read through it. Plus, it might be that your advice really sucks, but at least the numbers will make sense, so if you give bad advice, you can at least give good numbers. That’s why you gotta make sure you give people tips and make sure you number them so people can count as they read your tips.

And anyway, numbering your tips makes them way more important.

“Look before you cross the street?” …Meh!

“Number 1: Look before you cross the street.” …Dude, that is so totally profound!

Trust me, numbers profundify the lamest advice, and if that isn’t enough for you, then I just don’t know what else to say. Just fricking number your tips, okay dude!?!

TwoTwo: At least half your advice can be totally obvious or completely meaningless. In fact, it’s probably better that way, because it leaves less for people to disagree with. You just have to use the right words. If you are giving advice on how to do a bang up blog, for example, then be sure to tell people they should produce ‘quality content’. That may sound to you like an obvious call to write good stuff, but that’s because you haven’t grasped the full nuance. See, words like “quality content” are just so qualitative, they will make people feel all somehow, and then they will think you’ve actually said something, and they will respect you more. Plus, think how important that advice really is. Your readers were probably planning to write something that sucked, but you totally steered them in the right direction with that advice. Isn’t that cool?

Oh, what do you care? It’s a hit to your website one way or another!

IMG_20160223_143321Drei: Use your advice to drag people by the nose through your website. This isn’t hard to do. You just add all sorts of links to each piece of advice, hinting each time that they can learn more about whatever they’ve just read if they click the link. This way the vacuous nature of your not-so-helpful advice will work to your advantage. People will think; “Oh, I just haven’t found the real information yet. I have to go to that link where I will learn everything I need to know about this and it will finally make sense.”

If you’ve figured out that nothing at the link has to actually make sense, then you are catching on. The point is that this practice will generate extra hits on your website, which will totally drive up your search rankings. Your readers won’t learn a damned thing, but fuck them anyway, right? Your advice is good because it’s good for you, good for your rankings, and good for your blog. It’s probably also good for Jesus, all of your fellow countrymen, and if you can swing the suggestion, starving children somewhere in Africa.

…don’t forget to shed a tear as you write that last one. Also finish your dinner.

SusieQuatroQuatro: Try to include at least one useful piece of information. It doesn’t have to be original. It doesn’t really even have to be all that relevant. Hell, you can steal it shamelessly from someone wiser than yourself. The point is that you want your reader to have something to hold on to. That way when they remember your post and can’t remember all the other stuff you said, because – CAN THE CAN, HONEY – after all you really didn’t say anything in most of your advice post, but when they think about that, they will hopefully remember that one thing, which probably didn’t come from you anyway, but they’ll remember it just the same. Then when their buddies ask why anyone should go visit your site, they’ll say; “Oh I learned that one cool thing and some other stuff. If you go to the sight, you’ll see that one thing and all the other stuff too, and then you can remind me about all the stuff I forgot.” …which is of course totally cool for you, especially if their friends start following the links. No-one will remember the useless non-advice, but they’ll remember the one good point and think there were others that they forgot. If your lucky, they will even come back to check.

I know, I know. You’re worried that you may not have any really good advice to give, right? Don’t worry about it. All you have to do is find someone else who is worth listening to and use them as a source. The advice they give will be the one that matters. So, just pick something that seems superficially relevant to the topic. Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be actually relevant, just as long as it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb and make people think it doesn’t belong in your post at all. Then you’re sunk.

Ashdla’: Be sure to write in short sentences. Also make sure that your grammar is nice and standard. It’s best to avoid run-on sentences. For instance, most of what I wrote in bullet point Suzi? That kind of writing is right out! (Seriously, don’t write like I do. It’s bad for the economy.)

Now you might think that the point here is to communicate more effectively, but you would be wrong to think that. The real reason is that your 8th-grade English teacher will haunt your fricking dreams if you don’t follow this advice. You don’t want that, now do you? I know I don’t. Seriously, Just leave me alone Mrs. Lawrence, will you please just leave me alone!

20160331_1311305) Some bullet points can be really brief. People won’t mind the break. Reading is hard.

…dammit!

…

…

…

20160331_131502Tallimat) Oh, brevity? That’s a good one! Reading is hard. Remember that point when you write stuff. People don’t like to read, which is one of the reasons that writing is hard. Writing is hard, because reading is hard. Maybe writing is actually hard, because reading seems hard, or maybe there is a lesson about laziness here, but the point is writing is really rude. I don’t know about the rest of this paragraph, but I am totally serious about this point. Writing is definitely rude. When you write something, you are asking someone to read it, and no-one wants to do that. So, don’t write anything, you rude mother-fucker!

…Alternatively, remember that whatever your write, your readers are just waiting for an excuse to stop reading. Why they started reading in the first place is a mystery to me and to you, and probably to them as well, but they are just waiting to bust away from your damned blog post and go do something fun. So you have to keep it brief, and you have to do stuff to keep their attention. Words like ‘fucker’ help with the last part. When I figure out how to keep it brief, I’ll write another post to let you know. I’ll probably even add it as a link to this post.

Seven SamuraiVII: Promise them money. I don’t mean that you should offer to pay your readers, though that might work. …No, it wouldn’t. (No-one wants to read.) Anyway, my point is that you should allude to financial success. Hint that people will earn a lot of money if they just follow your advice. Ideally, you should get that hint into your title as well, and into every other bullet point. In fact, you should probably get it into every bullet point, just to be on the safe side. Just keep suggesting that you’re offering people the keys to a successful career in whatever, and you’ll be fine.

Now you might think the point of this advice is to get readers to think they can make money by following your advice, but that is totally not the point. Seriously, no-one is that stupid! The point of doing this is to convince other internet advice-bloggers to think that you are in the same business they are, and hopefully that you are really good at it. If you can sell that image to them, then those guys are totally gonna start coming to your blog, commenting, and hopefully referencing you on their own blogs. That will totally drive your hint count up, at least as long as you do the same for them. You won’t make any money off any of this, but it’ll be a gas to think that people came to your blog, even if most of them only did so in the hopes of getting you to come to theirs. They didn’t read your posts. Don’t forget that. No-one reads blog posts. But they will count as hits, and that’s cool.

See, no-one really believes advice on how to make money online, but some people evidently believe that others believe you can make money online. THAT, my friend, is your target readership!

20160331_133916восьмой: Wrap it up and hit the ‘Publish’ button. Seriously, just get on with it!

No seriously, just hit the damned button.

***

***

…No fair, using this advice for 10-point lists. It’s only meant for 8.

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Decalogic Schmecalogic!

08 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by danielwalldammit in atheism, Native American Themes, Philosophy, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

atheism, Charlton Heston, Christianity, Decalogues., Memes, Morality, Native Americans, religion, Ten Commandments

shoppingMaybe you’ve seen it yourself. One of the many pieces of spirit-kitch floating about the net these days is a little gem called The Native American Ten Commandments. It might as easily be labelled an Indian Ten Commandments, or even the Native American Indian Ten Commandments.

…cause extra syllables make it all better.

Either way it’s just the sort of thing that goes with overly staged old photos or pastel-tinged paintings involving beautiful people and lots of feathers. To the left, you can see a poster version of the list. It is short on feathers, but totally cosmic, cause, well, Indians are good for that sort of thing.

…of course.

pst2831ntvam_grandeThat’s just one version of the native decalogue. Here is another! The list looks about the same, but the order seems to be different. Apparently, the order of this list isn’t as important to the Great Spirit as it is to the God of Abraham. I know, I know. Some of you are already saying these are the same thing.

Well maybe.

But seriously, I don’t think so.

See, one of the many things that I typically admire about indigenous peoples is that they aren’t the sort of people who normally produce this sort of nonsense.

…or at least they weren’t historically. (Progress ruins just about everything.)

So what’s wrong with a decalogue of commandery goodness? Well we could start with the commandment theme. It contains a whole host of culture-specific assumptions about ethics most of which seem screamingly out of place here, not the least of them being that ideas about how one ought to behave come from some being of cosmic authority. This one of many respects in which the politics of kings comes screaming through the metaphors of modern Christianity. Ten commandments construe morality in terms of fealty to a liege-lord who gets to tell us how to behave. Whatever else the Lord is, he’s also a Lord, which is to say neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He tells us what to do, and doing His will is what defines our own morality. That is the logic of the Ten Commandments. This logic gets softened a bit in the Native American variant. We don’t exactly know who is commanding us. It might not even be the great spirit. One imagines, perhaps an elder who wishes us to show respect for the Great Spirit, which is at least a little more egalitarian than a God who  starts his list of does and don’ts with a demand that we pay more attention to him than anyone else. So, yeah, it’s a little more egalitarian.

A little!

Tossing the commandment format out altogether would be a lot more egalitarian.

…and as far as I can tell, a lot more authentic. Maybe I’m missing something, like the history behind this particular decalogue. I wonder who produced it, and just what they hoped to accomplish with it. Suffice to say, it doesn’t strike me as having much connection to the traditions of any particular Native American people. It’s language and its metaphors are those of a generic pan-Indian culture, and in this case a pan-Indian culture as envisioned from the viewpoint of an outsider.

indexDo I object to the principles at stake here? Not particularly. Some of them sound rather cool. It’s the total package that sets off the red flags for me, not the least of reasons being its rather non-native packaging. What bothers me about this is the fact that some people don’t approach ethics in terms of a list of rules, much less imagine them to be the product of a cosmic legislator. The Native American decalogue invites us all to appreciate a kind of difference, but imposes an artificial similarity on the subject even as it pretends to acknowledge that difference.

And why ten? Seriously, can’t your ethics come in five or eights, or maybe even thirty-twos. Actually, I’m not a huge fan of listey philosophicals in general. The numbers always seem arbitrary, and along with that goes a lot of potential for contradiction, and very little potential for substantive understanding. It’s the matter-of-fact nature of such lists that seems to me an invitation to the most mechanical of moral sensibilities.

If there is a good place for such lists, I suspect it’s in less cosmic subject matters. They seem quite appropriate for a professional code of ethics, not the least of reasons that folks don’t usually expect a professional code of ethics to be complete. If your morality is dictated entirely by your job, then most folks would say you work to much. Then we just say; “Thou shalt get a life!”

…and thou better get on it, dammit!

Yes, I know I’m misusing ‘thou’. It’s not the worst thing I will do all day, not even in this post. Trust me!

commandments-colour-smallAnyway, I don’t really mean to pick on native Americans here. They aren’t the only ones to fall for the lure of the decalogue (or perhaps to have someone else fall for it on their behalf). Apparently, there is a Ten Commandments of Colour Theory. Ted Talks seem to have their own, ..um, TED Commandments. Unnamed sources tell me there is a Ten Commandments of Journalism. Actors have their own Ten Commandments. So do bartenders. I would not have guessed, but it appears that even Propagandists have Ten Commandments. Even Nudists have Ten Commandments. Writers have one just for social networking. Is there a secret to a successful marriage? Yep, ten of them. Typography has its own decalogue. Apparently millennials have their own Ten Commandments. Following these Ten Commandments will lead to weight loss. …surely. Computer programmers have a decalogue, though presumably they will work on it sometime next week.

5f3129f4f2e3c4dfde49270fbb5646ccAs I understand it, a list of Ten Commandments for Atheists has been floating around for awhile, though I assume the commandery parts of these Commandments is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Actually, it seems there are a few decalogues for non-believers out there. Richard Dawkins seems to have produce one such list in The God Delusion. Penn Jillette has one too. I don’t remember reading it, but I’m told Bertrand Russell produced such a list long before him. Hitchens has his own list, so now his face appears on memes beside such a list. The guy at Daylight Atheism on Patheos blogs is not to be outdone. Oh look! The Atheism Reddit seems to have a Ten Commandments.

h9r6qCh…it looks like someone else made that up.

…probably not a fan of the atheist reddit.

Hey, there is a Ten Commandments of Logic! Hm…

There is a Ten Commandments for Musicians. Better yet, Captain Beefheart once produced a Ten Commandments for Guitar Playing. Classical Musicians have their own Ten Commandments. Drummers have a list of Ten Commandments, but honestly, I think they have machines for that now.

How many commandments do RPG Gamers have? Ten. It appears that Gamemasters have ten of their own. Do game designers have ten commandments? Of course. But there is a different one for educational game designers. There is even a Ten Commandments specifically for video game menus. Game Inventors have one of their own.

Do Republicans have their own Ten Commandments? Yes, but apparently they didn’t write it. Or this one. Liberals don’t seem to have written theirs either.  Elizabeth Warren once issued 11 Commandments for Progressives, cause apparently one of them is breaking the frame. Mostly, Republicans and Democrats argue about the Ten Commandments, but let’s not get into that.

…today anyway.

ac95140ca7e38d9210cf7a63357977b6I can only hope that I’ve broken at least three of them, but you can damned well bet that there is a Ten Commandments for bloggers. Actually, there seems to be two of them. No, Three. Make that four. Okay, five. Six? Okay, that’s really enough. No really, stop it! Seriously, stop it! I said STOP!

Someone here says that cats have a Ten Commandments, but they only follow it when they feel like it. Dogs have their own take on the Ten Commandments. I would look for a Ten Commandments of tropical fish, but I imagine it would just go like; “1) Gloop, 2) gloop, gloop.” Horses have a Ten Commandments. There is a Ten Commandments for pets in general.

Oh Hell, I haven’t even got to all the interesting or well known decalogues! This could take all day. …maybe even ten of them. But you get the idea. What’s fascinating about the proliferation of decalogetry, at least to me, is the seeming arbitraryness of the whole thing. Even within the Abrahamioc religions, the Ten Commandments have less to do with actual scripture than pop-Christianity. Compared to its source material, the Ten Commandments are simplified and trimmed of questionable content (one might even say that ‘politically correct’, but of course that phrase is only to be used in attacking liberals). Still, the notion caught on, and caught on so well it just keeps generating itself, time and again. Some of its children are meant to be taken more seriously than others, but an awful lot of people seem to fall quite easily into the notion that ethics begins with a list of ten principle to be declared into existence by someone (with or without the authority to do so).

imagestyIn fact, maybe I’ll have a go at it myself:

The Ten Commandments of Decalogue Building

1: The Number of Commandments Shall be Ten.

2. Ten shall be the number of the commandments.

3) Thou shalt not have 11 Commandments, nor 9, except that…

4 – No Monty Python References!

5 ~ Numbers 2 through 5 are bullshit. Start over!

2b -> …or not to be. That is the question.

3b, Okay, I’ll let you get by with that one.

4b That which is numbered shall be commandments. Simple oughts and issez shall not count in the counting except insofar as one reconstructs them into shalls and shall nots, or even to fuck offs.

5c = No, not fuck-offs, dammit. Do this right!

6 This is hard.

6.2 –You’re wasting time. Do that one over!

6.3 …Okay, …No matter the subject, all that is deemed worthy of the counting shall end in an exclamation mark

6.4 …

6.5 !

7)) All commandments are to be read in the voice of Charlton Heston. Of course!

8:: The decalogue will not be televised.

  • 9 You’re off topic again.

(10) I really can’t do this.

11 Cause my rules go to 11.

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With Apologies to the Moths Along I-40; My Summer! (Includes Pictures)

10 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Bad Photography, Las Vegas, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Cooking, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Road Trip, RPGs, Story-Telling, Summer, Vegas

Just an excitable boy!

Just an excitable boy!

Stays in Vegas, my ass! What happens in Vegas gets bigger, wilder, and more sordid with every retelling of the story!

My summer in Vegas might even have included the slaying of giants, for example. Dice might have been involved, but let’s not dwell on the details. Other frequent activities included book night. Book club did involve Scotch I believe, or at least a Corona. I could say that I really don’t remember the books and leave it at that, but it’s entirely possible that no books were to be found at book night.

…or even discussed for that matter.

And if RPGs and an occasional beer ain’t wild enough for a good Vegas yarn, then let me tell you about the museums. Yeah, that’s right. Vegas has museums! No, I’m not going to tell you about the mob museum, because that’s just what you’re expecting me to do. But Las Vegas does have a Mormon!

…Fort.

I do recall a bit of neon!

And then there was the place that went boom! Lots to lean at the museum that goes boom. More on that on another day. The Mojave Penguin at the Clark County Museum was cool! The Springs Preserve was annoying, then amusing, then kinda cool, but there were absolutely NO butterflies, dammit! Pin Ball, you already know about, and of course there is the sexy museum that isn’t really that sexy! I took a former student to that place.  He declined to go next door. Otherwise, we’d have some real story to tell.

I met an old friend in an alley. Shhhhhh….

Downtown is always fun, and the Container Park rocks!

…sometimes literally.

I narrowly escaped a giant flame-spouting mantis somewhere in that area. No big deal. So did the others, you might say. I know. I saved everyone!

Hoover Dam is still there. Much of the water isn’t. Dammit!

Also I biggened the moon while I was in the area. Yes, I did!

The strip? What happens on the strip might as well stay on the strip, cause I couldn’t care less.

Apparently, I am now on Instagram.

Bob still makes great steaks, and Pam hasn’t greened a chili in a long time, but this summer was special. Plus Moni approved my gringo tacos, so I is a happy cookery-guy!

Vegas might well have included the Santa Monica Pier and a visit to Church, unless I was just sober. Not that I’m not often sober, or that any of this will make sense to you, but I don’t give a damn.

If you make sense to people, they will only make sense back at you!

Vegas might also have included a Corn Dance and a lovely stay in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but hey, I told you what happens in Vegas gets bigger with every retelling. Sometimes Vegas itself gets bigger with every retelling.

Or so I telled you!

Big skies happen!

Big skies happen!

Moni almost went boom at the corn dance. My fault on accounta I’m a bad person, but red chili be praised! She came out okay. My thanks to the kind people at Santa Ana Pueblo!

On a serious note, I really enjoyed our stay at Rancho Gallina and a chance to visit a couple of old friends. If you are ever planning a stay in Santa Fe, do yourself a favor and check out this bed and breakfast!

Yeah, there were utility boxes too, in vegas I mean, and the utility was sometimes amazing! I mighta seen a few other street-arts, some of which were quite cool. Or maybe they were hot, but only if being hot is cool, if you’re cool with that, I mean!

Hot pots also happen!As does Kimchi! And Origami statues happen! Lots of happenings happen, as it happens.

The View from Pikes Landing

The View from Pikes Landing

I would tell you that Vegas included the Chena River, but that might be stretching the bounds of credibility, so I’ll just admit that was Fairbanks. I went to Fairbanks before I became really Southy, and Fairbanks was cool. That said, credibility is a damned kill-joy and he’s not invited into any more of my stories!

Also, I really am a bad man, and I will probably be kicked next time I go to Vegas.

That’s ‘boiled alive’ in What-happens-in-Vegas talk!

***

You may click to embiggen!

Biggish Moon
I’m pretty sure this counts as metagaming!
A kind and helpful sign.

Container Art
Yeah, this is kinda creepy.
Hot Pot!

Kimchi!
The terrible beast at the gates of the container park
A great guardian mantis stands outside the container park.

Container Park is Contained!
Container Rock
I geek! yes, I do.

Carpe no diem. …in lake Meade
Hoover Dam (Kinda sad)

Er, …the Los Angeles part of Vegas.

Santa Monica is pretty, but I worry about the fauna. ..flora. …fauna. …Argh!
So this is what people do in sunny and beautiful places!
Piers happen!

Comedian John Fugelsang and the Choir.
I wish I could tan like that!

Moar Street Art!

Back of the container park.
A Phoenix in the back of the old Huntridge Theater. …Irony is a cruel mistress!
The Precious Slut Tattoo Parlor

Run away!
Splash of color!
Zebra’s happen!

Mural by ARG
Back of the Beauty Bar as I recall.
Also the back of the Beauty Bar.

Nuther one from the back of the Beauty Bar.
Hammerheads also happen
oooh, …sexy!

Pretty!
Near downtown.

Museums. …I like the one that goes boom!

The Neon Museum (AKA the Boneyard)
One Aisle
Inside the Mormon Fort!

Told you the museum goes boom!
You need these at the museum that goes boom!

Okay, the Springs Preserve had plenty of these butterflies.
Desert Bighorns! …the artsy kind at the Springs Preserve.

On the road again…

(My friend Monica took a lot of these images, and I think she even tweaked the colors a bit for her Instagram page.)

Blue in front of us and blue behind us.
Road
Clouds

Near Gallup
A bluing path
Me Drivinating!

Sunset
Moni likes clouds!
Near Gallup

the road is cloudy and cool!

Santa Fe and thereabouts.

Rancho Gallina
Entrance to Rancho Gallina
The dining hall and office for Rancho Gallina

Rancho Gallina
Interior of Rancho Gallina
Common Area (Rancho Gallina)

Desk and Fireplace at Rancho Gallina
Santa Fe
Spanish Market

View from a friend’s house.
At the Museum of Contemporary Indian Art associated withe the Institute of American Indian Arts
We have no pictures of the corn dance.

My friend had another guest.
Origami Tower
Airplanes taking off

Rock,Paper,Scissors

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I Rant! I Does!

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Education, Irritation Meditation, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bureaucracy, Committees, Education, Frustration, Paperwork, Rant, Reform, Reform Movements, teaching

Me gal thinks I'm grumpy. I really don't know why.

My gal thinks I’m grumpy. I really don’t know why.

Context? We don’t need no freaking context! Let’s just get this started…

1) Reform happens. What needs reforming; who will take charge of the reform and what direction the reforms will take remains to be determined. In any case these are not important questions. Reform will happen! It is a singularity.

2) Resistance is futile. The most effective opposition to any given reform consists of failure to act on it. Many great plans have withered and died as people went about their business, just as they did before, but nothing nourishes a reform quite like vocal and open opposition. Write a few memos against a reform agenda, and you just may get added to whatever committee has been formed to enact it. Write a few more and you just may find yourself chair of that committee. (…true story!) You may ignore a reform, unless of course you can’t, but active resistance will shine a rainbow of regret all over your already miserable work-day.

3) Change is a Many-Splintered Thing. Support for any given reform means that people have found a way to read their own agendas into that reform. Every ‘yea’, ‘amen’, or ‘right on’ is invariably a sign that someone sees in a given proposal the chance to do something they’ve really been meaning to do for a long time. Listen carefully to the planning of a new policy and you will hear as many different reforms as there are active and energetic participants. When a reform policy is finally put in place, it may look nothing like it did in its initial conception. In fact, its originator is doing very well if the final policy isn’t completely inimical to her own goals.

4) Fresh and Refresh. Listen carefully to a given proposal and you just may hear the echoes of an old policy. Listen very carefully, and you may just realize how much reform is really about repackaging, but don’t try telling that to those peddling old drugs in new prescription bottles. Just learn to present your standard way of doing things as a new and original approach to business. Say it with enthusiasm and hope that you then get to play tug-of-war with a host of enthusiastic supporters, each of whom really wants to turn your new/old thing into their new/old thing and then make sure everyone else does it.

5) ‘Studies say’ and ‘research suggests’. You would be surprised at just how often a room full of highly educated people needs no more than to hear one of these phrases to be convinced that whatever claim follows them must be true.

6) Correlation is not causation. …unless of course you are one of the millions of people making policy on the basis of nothing more than a correlation loosely established using shady procedures most of which never make it into the summary that you only skimmed anyway.

…just like everyone else at the committee table!

7) You can count on objectivity, or at least visa versa. The most important thing about objectivity is that it takes the norm of numbers. It isn’t that the numbers provide more accurate information than qualitative data, personal reflection, or even interpretive dance, but committees know what to do with numbers. They can act on numbers, and that makes all the difference in the world. Once a committee gets wind of a compelling set of digits, they aren’t going to be too fussy about where those numbers came from. …or too patient with anyone who does want to get fussy about that.

8) Yes, in fact you are a number. For all the talk of ‘learning objectives’, ‘learning outcomes’, and other nice fluffy ‘learning’ talk about intellectual development, never forget that a student is also a statistic, and a very significant one at that. Her presence on forms describing participation in your institution and/or your own classroom can be used to facilitate transfer of funding back and forth between various agencies, both private and public. She may or may not learn a damned thing from any part of the curriculum, but her significance as a statistic is vital to all concerned.

Even you!

And yes, her too!

At least some of the money triggered by the presence of students on forms typically makes its way to faculty. Whether it be now or later, the presence of any given student on forms may also provide her with sufficient forms to open up new possibilities of money transfers into her own future bank accounts. No sane person would say that it was more important than all that ‘learning’ mumbo jumbo, but few sane people would allow the learning mumbo jumbo to interfere with the digital life of a catalyst for funding transfers.

This might seem a particularly cynical view of education, but don’t despair. With any luck your student will learn whatever she really needs to know from social media. …probably when she’s supposed to be listening to you.

9) Autonomy is a double-clawed hammer. Staff and administration will either want to change something in your classroom or they will want you and your students to spend more time outside of it. Every new policy will exacerbate one or both of these tendencies.

Time and again, you will encounter policies which make claims on your contact time. In the worse case scenario, you may face command and control over what you teach and how you teach it. In the best case scenario, you will be dealing with opportunity costs that can leave you kissing your own plans for this or that lesson goodbye. It will only take 15 minutes to complete this survey, explain that policy, or just step back and let someone from student services talk to your students for a bit.

…and cross something you meant to teach off your to-do list.

Don’t worry though, because you can always save the essential lessons by eliminating the most interesting themes from your lesson plans (you know the ones that made you want to become a teacher in the first place). There is always time for reform!

If the faculty at your institution have successfully minimized these incursions into your contact hours, then congratulations, but now you have a new problem. Your classroom has become dark matter to staff and administration, which means everything that takes place inside it is irrelevant to their view of the educational process. It has to be irrelevant to them, because they can’t affect it. So, when everyone else sits down to plan out how they want to improve the learning process at your school, they will envision these improvements taking place anywhere else but your classroom. This means the institutional world outside your classroom is going to get a lot busier. You will be attending more meetings and writing more reports, but don’t be too depressed about the time lost to course preparations, because your students will also be too busy taking advantage of support activities to attend to their studies.

And cosmic balance is thus preserved!

10) New people bring new policies. This often has the fringe benefit of meaning that old policies die with each new administrator, but rest assured these new administrators will replace them with something new. The near certainty that new policies will be allowed to die on the vine with the next administration does not seem to dampen enthusiasm for creating new ones. It’s the cycle of life.

11) Don’t Kid yourself. You are not quitting this job to go and join the circus.

***

Kumbaya! The committee chair sleeps tonight!

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A Damnable Dilemma!

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in atheism, Religion, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Argument, atheism, Atheists, Debate, Ethics, Etiquette, Judgement, religion, Unbelief

Ah to be just as cool as this! (pun intended)

Ah to be just as cool as this! (pun intended)

Seems like I’m always reading (or hearing) that atheists are just as bad as religious folks. This theme has a few funny variants! Pushy atheists are just as bad as pushy  believers, or maybe they are just as closed minded as fundamentalists. Atheists who force their views on others are just as obnoxious as Christians who do the same. You can add all manner of pejorative adjectives and get the same formula. We non-believers always seem to be just as annoying, just as rude, and get on people’s nerves just as bad as those we criticize.

I guess atheists are justazzy people.

…which I suppose is fair enough, but is being ‘just as’ really just as bad as being what others just are when someone accuses them of being justazzy?

It’s a bit of a dark night where all cows are grey, this world of justazzyness. I guess it’s a question of priorities, and some folks’ priorities don’t leave much place for the the particulars. Those without a damn to give will hear only that others talk too much about a thing and not much about what each has to say about it.

…which makes for a whole lot of justazzyness.

It’s easy enough to imagine the possibilities. We’ve all met the assholes who could easily square this equation off quite nicely. But of course, folks complaining about the justazzyness of non-believers are rarely clear about just what it takes to cross the line into justazzyness. It could as easily be a thoughtful question as a bit of snark; just likely to be respectful disagreement as a bitter bit of insult. I can’t help thinking in most cases one enters the land of justazzyness simply by stating a point of view in the first place.

My old high school used to suspend both parties in a fight, even if one clearly attacked the other. To them defending yourself was just as much a ticket to the principal’s office as picking a fight to begin with. This would seem to have been just as much a case of justazzism as the one that has me up at this fricking hour. It’s 3:30am fer fuck’s sake! And my dreams no doubt find this topic just as poor an excuse for keeping them waiting as any other.

Soon, dammit!

Oddly enough I can’t help thinking this justazzitude is just as unfair to the justazzinination as it is for the justazzinandum. It can be no better to be a measure of damnation than it is to be damned for opposing the damnable. But of course that’s just as one would expect it to be. But is it really a forgone conclusion that faith imparts an evil to anything that shares a measure of whatever it may be? Is belief really such a settled villain that the only question left is will it take its foes down with into a Hell of great peevishness? I’m no friend of Jesus, and even I wouldn’t say it’s such a settled matter as that. But who could fault a fellow for saying ‘no’ to anything so easily dismissed as that? Who but someone who really just wants the issue off the table whatever the costs and whatever the merits of the parties involved?

What a damnable state it must be to live in a world where one can neither affirm nor deny with anything more than a shrug and a meh!

It’s a tragic narrative I suppose. An unbeliever confronts the monsters of superstition and gullibility only to find himself becoming a monster in the eyes of a third party. Try as he might, our soldier of reason can only see in those eyes staring back at him  the very darkness he seeks to combat. The vision is painted in broad strokes to be sure, but some eyes don’t see care for detail. There is no argument against apathy. But is faith not the original sin for this tragedy, a seed which bears fruit in the form of a rotten dilemma? One may accept faith, or one may just as well accept it in the very act of denial. Damned if you do and damned if you might as well have anyway.

You have to wonder! Will those impatient souls who make no distinction keep to that mood Saturday and Monday as well as Tuesday and Friday? Or will they take a side some day, perhaps one which is just as present today in their thoughts as it will be when they at least choose to voice it? Not that they will wish to discuss the matter then, now, or ever.

…which is just as frustrating to some of us anyway.

I expect this rant makes just about as much sense as a kite in a bowl of soup, but then again, I’m feeling kinda justazzy tonight.

Anyway, I guess we’ll have cause for concern when folks start talking more about how religious folks are just as bad as unbelievers. When people of great faith are just as bad as us already justazzy folk, then me must have taken a wrong turn after all.

Till then…

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An Uncommon Icon

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Uncommonday, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Anchorage, Bicycle, Garbage, Humor, Iconography, Odd, Signs, Underpass

146What is this?

It is conspicuous placement, to be sure, but what does it mean? What does it signify? What is its author trying to tell us?

Personally, I think it is a bicycle seat of scorn, placed here in condemnation of all the vehicles that pass through the underpass. Its message is clear. It is saying to the city of Anchorage; “I see your motor vehicles, and your drivers too. I see the lot of you, and I do judge. I do!”

Course, then again, I am prone to flights of fancy.

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It Went Something Like This

11 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Animals, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bears, Cameras, Disappointment, Nanook, Perception, Polar Bears, The arctic, Tourists, Zoom Lens

“What is that?”

“What?”

“That right there out on the ice, is that a Nanook?”

“Is that a bear!?!”

“Where?”

“Right there!”

“Is that a bear?”

Is that a bear?”

“Oh hey, I see it.”

“Is it sitting down?”

“Did it just move?”

“Oh, yeah, it looks bigger now. It definitely moved?”

“I think it’s a bear.”

“I can’t zoom in enough without losing it.”

030“Is that a bear?”

“That’s definitely a bear?”

“Do you see it? Is it a bear?”

“I think it’s moving?”

“Let me just snap the picture and see if I can see it more clearly afterwards…”

71.271549 -156.751450

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Atheists Attack! …Coming to a Theater Near You

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in atheism, Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

atheism, Criticism, Ethics, Hemant Mehta, Hyperbole, Matthew McConaughey, Miley Cyrus, P.Z. Myers, Rickey Gervais

airbus-a400m-military-transport-cargo-plane-flares“Atheists attack…” I see this phrase a lot. I read it and I imagine Apache helicopters and seal teams dropping in on folks locked&loaded. …or perhaps a platoon of World War II era soldiers. …at least a gang of thugs with baseball bats and crowbars! Maybe a drone missile?

The reality is always so disappointing.

I’m told that my fellow non-believers have been attacking Mathew McConaughey of late, and certainly the twitterverse has come through with an exhibit or three of genuine uglitude. I’m not sure if any greater sources have opened up on Mr. McConaughey, but I suspect that he and his award are alive and well. Both of them, really. Mathew and his Oscar are alive and eating cold pizza while looking out of the sundeck somewhere. Both of them. The statue is saying to Mathew; “Mathew, can you believe what those impious assholes are saying about you and the speech you made when we first met?”

Mathew says; “Not at all, Oscar. Non-believers are like that you know, but when did you start talking?”

“Your Dad quickened me to get him a cold beer. It seems that the Duke drank all the Bud during at the viewing party on cloud 9 and Jesus only brings wine to parties. But seriously, can you believe those guys are upset over your speech?”

Mathew peers out the curtains, “It’s hard to believe, but you know those guys gotta attack someone. They’re just attacky people. Anyhow, I’m grateful for their attacks, Oscar, really I am.”

“Grateful? Are you out of your down-home slow-drawlin’ mind? How can you be grateful? They’re attacking you!”

“I know, I know, and truth be told I am a little worried about ninjas; I just figure gratitude is my best defense. After all, they will reciprocate.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s a scientific fact.”

They stare at each other a moment, and Oscar gets a kind of pained expression on his golden face. Mathew continues; “So, how do I send my dad a beer anyway?”

Oscar replies; “You know how things keep getting lost in the bottom-left corner of your refrigerator?”

“Yes.”

“Just put a six-pack there, and your dad will get it.”

Mathew thinks a bit and slowly nods his head, “…Alright, alright, alright.”

Anyway, I expect Mr. McCounaughey will survive the savaging of the godless. As I understand it Miley Cyrus came under great threat some time back, something about a terribly impious road. I think this attack may have struck home, really I do. Given her recent behavior, we can only conclude that Satan and his impious minions have talked Miley into doing something scandalous, …or at least the MTV version thereof.

Miley Cyrus twerks. Checkmate Jesus!

Yes I do realize that some criticisms are overboard, some are unwarranted, and some are just plain obnoxious. …and yes, some criticisms can be fairly described as ‘attacks’ (warranted or otherwise). Actually every argument can be described asn an attack; the argument-as-warfare theme is an oldie but a goodie, just ask Lakoff and Johnson. But folks don’t always seem to use the term with quite the same sense of urgency, which I find it fascinating to see just how easily the narrative seems to flow off some keyboards and out of some lips. If I am sometimes sympathetic to object of heathenous abuse, I am frequently frustrated at the effectiveness with which the ‘atheists attack’ meme seems to help people dodge the attack, so to speak. Many a point seems good and lost the minute one learns that it has been made by a mad angry atheist. …cause we’re mad angry people, it would seem, and full of angry power.

Sticks and Stones, Hell! Apparently bones should fear the words of a cynic! It’s tempting to think I and my fellow non-believers have stumbled into some ironic form of magical power. All we need do is disagree and a terrible pestilence will fall upon the land. The power is of course unevenly distributed; one sees it most in the prophets of critical doom.

Ricky Gervais tweets something snarky and temples fall. P.Z. Meyers says hello to a mother and puppies barf biscuits three states over. Hemant Mehta politely disagrees with a Priest and eight countries pledge troops in support of the Vatican. The spirit of Hitchens haunts every debate hall and devours the bees of the world. Sam Harris himself may yet cause California to fall into the sea, and of course all of this is in mere preparation for the appearance of he who must not be named. Resistance is futile believers. We will not stop until all feel the magical force of our negative naughtitude and all around general meanyositude.

– The unbeliever says ‘nay’ and flowers wilt.

– He demands evidence and bunnies cease to hop.

– He shakes his head and kittens everywhere become just a little less fluffy.

Such is the power of the skeptical word. None can escape it, not even on Sunday. Am I engaging in hyperbole? Yes, but in this case hyperbole is poetic justice.

Take that Jehova!

***

Postscript: I’m trying to be nice today, but if I ever have to write anything about Mathew McConaughey again, I swear by the Nullitude I’m gonna mispel his damned name. I know it’s cruel, but we atheists can be vicious like that.

71.271549 -156.751450

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