Tuesday, September 19, 2006

So I have to write about the dog shit brownies

So anyway, I got this email from my sister, it was one of those chain inspirational emails, and it was about some kids that wanted to see a dirty movie, and their dad teaches them a lesson by painstakingly baking them brownies with dog shit mixed in.

It turns out the source is Danae Dobson, daughter of James 'Focus on The Family' Dobson. I fou nd this out from the 'Shakespeare's Sister' blog. The entry is from 2004, so these things just don't die apparently, they float around wasting precious email server resources and disk space forever, a tragic misuse of technology rivaling the 'Benson' marathons they always seem to be having on the 'TVLand' Channel (also a tragic waste).

Now's a good time to listen to The Evolution Control Committee's 'Acid Family', which chops up and re-assembles some Focus on The Family propaganda tape.

As a father, I have had moments where my daughter has frustrated me, but I certainly can't imagine going out in the back yard, or maybe a nearby park, collecting dog shit, making brownies, mashing the shit so it's not in big clumps, then mixing it in with the brownie mix, then baking these brownies nobody is going to eat, just so I can have some grand 'wisdom of Solomon' moment where I teach my kids profanity is wrong (but apparently, wasting precious food is A-OK). Anyhow, there probably was no shit in the brownies, the Dad was just lying. What a fucking hypocrite. All his daughters are gonna grow up to be crack hoes for sure. Perhaps in an ironic twist, one will star in 'Copro Hoes VIII - Dog Shit Day Afternoon'

It's also curious to note that there is shit in a lot of our food. I recall reading about regulations as to how many insect parts or how much rodent excrement is allowable in peanut butter, things like that. You can also Google around and find stories like this about our food being fed shit:

Britain Seeks Stricter Beef Labels. Britain's Agriculture Minister Nick Brown says he will order stricter labeling on meat following a European Union report that accuses French rendering plants of using sewage in livestock feed. Brown says it is "a pretty horrible and disgusting thing" to use human and animal excrement in animal food. "I am going to tighten up the labeling rules...to be more explicit than we are now," says Brown.

As Bruce Willis points out in the film Fast Food Nation: "We all have to eat shit once in a while". So I guess Dad's point is invalid. No matter what we do, the world isn't perfect. Even George 'Direct Line To God' Bush acknowledges that you may get some arsenic in your water, and too bad, that's just the way the world is. In fact, I believe what he and his people said was something along the lines of 'stop whining, it's a small amount, it won't kill you'. So too, people aren't pure or perfect. Life isn't pure or perfect. Pretend otherwise or expect otherwise and before you know it you're carrying a backpack full of explosives into the market, with not dog shit but nails mixed in.

And now, to further the tragic waste, is the story:

Not long ago I became interested in foreign films. I began renting various titles, selecting those that had been applauded by the critics. Not surprisingly, I found some of the videos pretty trashy. The Lord brought one word to my mind: discretion. I was not exercising good judgment when renting these foreign films; I needed to be more discerning.

You might be asking, "What's the big deal, anyway? It's only entertainment-why does it matter what we expose ourselves to?" Let me try to explain with a story.

A father of three teenagers set a rule that the family could not watch R-rated movies. This created a problem when a certain popular movie opened in local theaters. All the teens were bent on seeing the film, despite its "R" rating.

The teens interviewed friends and even members of their church to compile a list of pros and cons about the movie. They hoped that the list would convince their dad that they should be allowed to attend.

The cons were that it contained only a few swear words that misused God's name, only one act of violence ("which you can see on TV all the time," they said), and only one sex scene (and it was mostly implied sex, off camera).

The pros were that it was a popular movie-a blockbuster. If the teens saw the movie, then they would not feel left out when their friends discussed it. The movie contained a good plot and two hours of nonstop action and suspense. There were fantastic special effects! The movie also featured some of the most talented actors in Hollywood. The teens were certain that the film would be nominated for several awards. And Christian friends at their church who had seen the movie said it wasn't "that bad." Therefore, since there were more pros than cons, the teens asked their father to reconsider his position just this once.

The father looked at the list and asked if he could have a day to think about it before making his decision. The teens were thrilled. Now we've got him! they thought. Our argument is too good! Dad can't turn us down! So they agreed to give him a day to think about their request.

The next day the father called his three teenagers, who were smiling smugly, into the living room. They were puzzled to see a plate of brownies on the coffee table. The father said he had decided that if they would eat a brownie, then he would let them go to the movie. But just like the movie, the brownies had pros and cons.

The pros were that they had been made with fresh walnuts and the finest chocolate. These moist frosted brownies had been created with an award-winning recipe. Best of all, they had been made with care by the hands of the teens' own father.

The brownies had only one con. They had a little bit of dog poop in them. But the dough had been mixed well-the teens probably would not even be able to taste it. And their father had baked the brownies at 350 degrees, so any bacteria or germs had probably been destroyed. Therefore, if any of his children could stand to eat a brownie that included "just a little bit of poop," then they also would be permitted to see the movie with "just a little bit of smut." By now the teens had lost their smug expressions. They turned down the tainted brownies, and only Dad was smiling smugly as they left the room.

Now when his teenagers ask permission to do something he is opposed to, the father just asks, "Would you like me to whip up a batch of my special brownies?"

Friday, September 15, 2006

Each of us brings our own special ignorance to the table

It's been observed that back in the day (the early 80's), you could pretty much know everything there is to know about the Apple ][e. You didn't even have to necessarily be Steve Wozniak. The Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide came in at under 500 pages.

Well,apparently you couldn't get 'Hello World' in J2EE in under 500 pages these days. And that's just the beginning. Once you know everything there is to know about programming, or at least have fully mastered Java (not just core Java but JMS, JSP, JAX, JNDI and Hibernate and JSF and JKE and JRP and cetera), C++, Python, Ruby and probably thrown in a good mindfuck language like Haskell or, why not, Brainfuck, you will still be regarded as a fucktard by the DBA where you work. And best to steer cleer of the Network Engineers altogether, is my advice to you.

You will have your hands full explaining to the non techy types why you can't fix their printer (leaving out that if you could you wouldn't because you ain't the help desk, dammit), because odds are saying 'I dunno how to do that' while wearing a practiced expression that just radiates ignorance and obliviousness is just plain not an option.

(a really old draft)

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Martin Amis On the Spraying of Hair, Blood and Bone Fragments

Amidst the almost robotic by-the-numbers treatment of the 5th anniversary of Sept. 11, this was worth reading: "The age of horrorism". Amis goes into much greater details on Qutb's disgust with the Americans he encountered in the 1949 Sodom of the dry Greeley, CO, and closes with this quote from Joseph Conrad which sums things up beautifully:

'The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is - marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity.

'Whatever my native modesty may be it will never condescend to seek help for my imagination within those vain imaginings common to all ages and that in themselves are enough to fill all lovers of mankind with unutterable sadness.' ('Author's Note' to The Shadow-Line, 1920.)

Next time: more goofy shit!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Random Toughts In The Larry King Vein - The Political Edition

It must really suck to lose your job these days, via layoff or even your own overwhelming incompetence, and then see Donald Rumsfeld on the TV just cruising along, everyday outsucking himself.

Ahmadinejad is the embodiment of evil and all that, yet on TV he mostly looks like a creep working at Radio Shack wearing a Members Only jacket.

I saw an interview on TV with a top guy from Hamas, and he was very charming, articulate, immaculately dressed - he almost made you forget his job was to convince confused adolescents to spray hair, blood and bone fragments all over Israeli pizza places.

Sayyid Qutb thought Americans were shallow and soul-less because of their pre-occupation with lawn care, and I guess I can kind of see that. But he also hated Americans for our haircuts, and I think we can compete with any nation, hair-wise.