Armageddon and You

Woke up to the news today that Saudi Arabian Oil production was attacked and seriously damaged.  To me, this is all part and parcel to the poor political choices of many countries in recent decades, most notably the United States.  The cold hard truth is that WWIII won’t be started by the working class, it will be started by the ultra rich in their blind, uncaring quest for profit and personal wealth.

The tensions currently plaguing the world are the direct result of the Ultra Rich, a disproportionate number of old white men, abusing their power and the poor/working class to further enrich themselves.  President trump is only the most recent actor.  However, his willful deceptions, obvious greed, and woeful ignorance along with his amoral character may be the straw that breaks Peace’s back.  The fact that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney never faced a war crimes tribunal for the things they did in office shows the depths to which the moral rightness of the American people has fallen to.

Our American companies have been the cause of suffering across the world for decades through the exploitation of labor through sweatshops, union busting, and governmental bribery and when that comes home to roost, 9/11 was just a taste, it will be riding a nuclear missile.   We will have no one to blame but ourselves because we valued our wealth and comfort above that of anyone else.  We did not care how we got our cheap junk or what it cost someone else to make as long as we got it.  Then when the cost started becoming American jobs, we blamed them for taking the abuse, and the job, we were willing to give them for our crap products.  We locked up Mexicans whose only illegal action was to sneak across our border to escape the life we had created for them through our greed for money and drugs.

All I can say is that when the war starts, I hope you trump supporters are proud of what you have done to the world.  You lying Republicans, you White Supremacists, you Koch brothers, you Corporate Lobbyists, you Evangelical Churches, you Karl Roves, you Fox News and Rupert Murdochs, you Mike Pences and Sarah Huckabees, Sarah Palins, and on and on, will carry the blood shed in this war as will all those that blindly followed you.

 

U.S. Hypocrisy 101, E-Cigarettes, Guns, and Regulations

As usual, I am thoroughly disgusted by the hypocrisy of donald trump and the republican party as a whole.   Our current government plans placing a ban on e-cigarettes after a few deaths being related to their use.  Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to belittle the deaths of these people or the damage done to the surviving family members.  What I am taking exception to is the fact that after only seven deaths, the government is swiftly making a decisive unilateral decision to ban e-cigarettes, while decades and thousands of deaths related to guns and gun violence have only been met with calls for people to buy more guns.

 

If the vaping situation was handled the same way, there would be assholes driving around with bumper stickers saying “you can pry my vap from my cold dead hands”.  Politicians and manufacturers would be flooding your mail box with scare mail saying the government was coming for your electronic cigarettes and they need money to fight for your constitutional right to Vap.  There would be an NEA or National E-Cigarette Association to make sure you knew how to accessorize your lung killing Vap to its fullest and protect your constitutional rights.

 

My disgust with the so called Moral Majority and their hypocrisy just continues to grow.  Yes, common sense regulations need to be placed on the e-cigarette industry to prevent them from selling deadly products.  Come to think of it, that is why most regulations are created by the government.  Someone either caused a death through shoddy products or ripped people off with false claims.  The regulations trump is so keen to remove because they inhibit businesses were put into place because these self-same businesses either killed someone or basically stole money from people by lying to them about their product.  Remember Bernie Madoff, Kenneth Lay, and donald trump?  If you don’t like regulations protecting your life, then why ban e-cigarettes?  That will greatly impact the e-cigarette makers I hear commercials for nonstop.  I give it about a week before donny backs off under pressure from the tobacco companies. then you will see who he cares about.

 

So, by all means, keep killing yourselves with e-cigarettes, guns, and toxic waste.  Maybe after enough republicans disappear from the face of this earth sanity will finally prevail.

Pray Like You Mean It

Just remember everyone, the only thing Republicans can offer as a solution for all the gun violence in America is thoughts and prayers. So, if you find yourself in an active shooter situation, face the gunman and pray the death away. Pray it away like you would your gay neighbor. You could also see if thinking about stopping the bullet works. Let me know how that turns out.

Addendum:

In case you think I believe the Democrats are any better, their solution is to put on a good show then run away and hide.  I haven’t forgotten their little sit in on the Senate floor that ended as soon as the donor, I mean the NRA, er I mean… you get the picture, got mad.  This is why our country is a mess and we have soooooo many mass murders.  Both sides are in the back pocket of all the big money special interests that care more about profit than your life.

Worst Generation

The problems America face today are not the fault of Mexican’s taking our jobs, spoiled millennials, or Islamic terrorists. They are own fault. They are a result of the lies we have institutionalized and the delusions we have greedily embraced. Our pride and ego has blinded us to the fact that we have become the very enemy we fought against in WWII. Unlike our forefathers; however, we will not be deemed the greatest generation but, instead, the worst.

A Flare for Spices

See if you can guess why I am posting this story now (on all accounts).

 

A Taste of Armageddon

By

Robert Garbin

 

 

The great cauldron sat deep in the fire, shimmering waves of heat rising all around.  Flames licked the soot blackened metal almost to the rim.  What could be seen of the kitchen where it boiled was a nightmare of warped selves, darkened by millennia of cooking, filled to the brim with jars of all sizes and colors, jars that contained any number of rare delicacies for the tastes of the depraved.  Light flickered off jars of spurned love, betrayed trust, and glutinous lust.  Helen reached out a fine hand covered in smudges of vanity and grabbed a jar from a shelf.  Her exquisite hair clung to her scalp in oily strands, while the porcelain beauty of her face was hidden under layers of soot and sweat.

She opened the jar and smelled the powerful aroma of polished leather and expensive cigars wafting off the influential men who had guided humanity only for personal gains, men who were careless of the costs to others.  Helen reflected on how plentiful this particular spice was now.  She carefully shook only two screaming businessmen into the bubbling cauldron, knowing full well its overpowering nature.  Pursing her full lips, she perused the glass crocks from which blood smeared bodies writhed in the throes of agony.  The mistress of the cauldron reached up to the top shelf for a jar distinguished by a bloody red cross.  Opening the lid she inhaled the cloying smell of incense mixed with sacramental wine.  Letting a wicked grin twitch one side of her mouth, Helen pulled out a hefty squealing Catholic Bishop with several child molesting Priests clinging to his legs.  A quick flick sent the caterwauling bunch into the stew.  The Bishop should add a nice hint of hypocritical self-righteousness with a lingering aftertaste of restrictive dogma towards the female gender.

Ingredients from millennia of human history weighed down the shelves of Helen’s kitchen, which made the creation of each stew an art unto itself.  Every century carried a unique note that had to be accounted for if the final product was to be worthy.  Helen walked down the long line of shelves to where the light from the fire barely touched the dark shadows and the glass containers were smoky with age.  She selected a jar from near the bottom, rubbing away the accumulated dust of ages.  From within, Helen pulled out a golden statue of a cow.  She left the squirming orgy of the makers of this false idol in the jar; their unfinished orgasms holding them in an eternally unsatisfied agony of unreleased pleasure.  Resealing the jar she placed it back on the shelf.  From a nearby nook she pulled down a bottle filled with the blind arrogance of military leaders so set in their ways that the deaths of thousands could not change their useless methods.  The bottle swirled with broken bodies in a gravy of thick blood.  Helen returned to the bubbling cauldron to add her latest ingredients.

She tossed the golden cow into the stew and watched as it melted like butter, giving an oily film to the top of the concoction.  Helen lifted a paddle from the wall and gave the contents a stir before adding in the next ingredient; the comingled smell of sins tickled her nose.  Continuing to stir with her right hand, the mistress of the kitchen upended the entire contents of the bloody bottle.  The smell of scorched earth, decayed bodies, and dried blood rose strongly from the cauldron.  Young men dying on the battle fields of hypocrisy would form the base for the Master’s soup.  Helen hung the paddle back on the wall to allow the stew time to burn a little.

She brought a delicate finger to her lips.  The challenge was to create harmony in the stew without losing the distinctive notes of each individual spice.  The arrogance of ambitious officers, while overpowering, carried the desires of all the other spices to fruition and formed the tempo that organized them into a coherent symphony.  To dilute its presence too far would turn the mixture into a chaotic blend of competing players with no direction, every flavor trying to outdo the other.  Helen pulled a tarnished spoon from the pocket of her stained apron.  With a deft flick of her hand the spoon slipped just below the surface of the thick morass and carried a steaming sample to her ample lips.  She blew softly then placed the spoon into her mouth.  The rich blood of sacrificial lambs rolled over her tongue followed by the tang of secret meetings and religious doctrines, ending with the bitter taste of betrayal.  Not quite everything she was looking for yet.

Helen tapped the spoon in her open right hand as she contemplated what to add.  She moved to a set of shelves just behind the cauldron where newer hybrid varieties of older spices glistened in their shiny bottles.  She studied the shelves for several minutes before hooking a finger around a bottle of swirling grey mist and dancing sparks.  Removing the lid, Helen caught the strong aroma of gunpowder and deception from modern war profiteering.  This particular bottle carried a stronger variety gathered from the leading councils of the NRA who reaped wild profits for the corporations they represented by making it harder to stem the tide of guns sold to criminals, while using the fear of such weapons to sell more to the public they pretended to protect.  The refined hints of misdirection, duplicity, and rabid loyalty were intoxicating.  In combination with the blind Generals, the profiteering would add a satisfying base of rampant death and misguided trust.  Helen turned and sprinkled a liberal helping, almost sneezing from the pungent smell of spent gunpowder.  She returned to the cauldron and stirred for a while.

Inspiration came to her as she worked scorched mixture loose from the sides of the great pot.  She reached to the right for a jar wrapped in red velvet.  Pulling off the velvet, she revealed a jar filled with a thick golden substance that seemed to flash as it swirled inside the bottle.  Helen tugged the stopper out and sniffed the scent of floral perfumes, stale vomit, and leftover sex, Hollywood’s finest.   Women forced into visions of splendor by old men drunk on power and lust.  Girls who worshiped at Aphrodite’s Alter and suffered through the jealous goddess’s penance of anorexia, low self-esteem, and unrewarded trust.  Helen knew all too well the costs of following the dictates of this creature of legend.  The golden spice should add a nice touch of unobtainable perfection and foolish pride, affecting men, as well as women, since they would desire the illusion more than reality.  They would punish themselves for not obtaining the ideal, while they abused their lovers for failing their dreams.  Blending with the other spices, the golden essence would bind the others in a knot of tension that would explode upon the Master’s palate.

Helen added the essence of delusion then reached for the stirring paddle before sitting on the stool near the cauldron.  The only task left was to watch over the stew to keep it from burning too much as she allowed the concoction to reduce and concentrate the blend of sins to a conflagration of flavors.  Centuries passed as she tended the great cauldron.  Civilizations rose and fell.  Finally, Helen judged the mixture complete and extinguished the nether world fires beneath the charred cauldron.  She called out to the Master’s servant Adolf, while she searched the pantry for an appropriate vessel to carry the stew to his table.  Pulling down a large golden soup tureen she returned to her stew and neatly ladled the final product almost to the brim before replacing the lid.  Turning to the immaculately dressed servant, Helen carefully placed the Master’s dinner onto the intricately etched silver tray he held out.  Without a word, since he had no mouth, Adolf turned and left the kitchen through a heavy wooden door.

He walked down a short hall as quickly as possible though the fear of spilling even a single drop caused him to sweat profusely.  Opening the door at the end of the hall, he entered a room worked to a grand scale, several miles from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.   Thousands of fine crystal chandeliers with hundreds of candles each filled the vast space with a soft burning glow.  A fireplace, five hundred feet wide and two hundred feet high, was placed in the wall opposite the entrance and before it was set a table half a mile long with hundreds of seats to a side.  The Master sat near the fireplace at the head of the table.  Without stopping, the servant Adolf moved swiftly to the Master’s side, the focus of the room weighing heavily upon him.

When he finally arrived at the near end of the table, he refrained from looking at the ornate tableware set for the Master’s favored minions, whom would eat only after the Master had deemed the meal worthy.  Unfortunately, he could not tune out the orgy of lust, treachery, and murder, which played out continuously down the length of the table’s center, droplets of various bodily fluids threatening to stain his spotlessly maintained outfit.  With great relief, Adolf finished his journey and bowed to his better before carefully filling the Master’s bowl with the steaming broth and then he moved to his place behind and to the left of his Master.

Satan inhaled the spicy mixture of lust, greed, and violence, making some guesses at the ingredients this particular cook had used.  Millennia had weathered the world bald as cook after cook had failed his expectations for the final feast, the screaming anguish of his starving horde gnawing away at his delicate temper.  Tentatively, the Master grasped an ornate spoon and broke the surface of the stew.  He closed his eyes as the smells of sins, new and old, rose from the disturbed surface, saturating his sinuses and causing his nostrils to dilate with anticipation.  Satan’s sensual lips parted as he brought the spoon slowly to his mouth.  Flavor burst upon his tongue with a release of spent tension that deposited the blood of millions to caress his palate in a celebration of carnal desires, causing his overheated skin to rise in excited response.  Subtle tones of abused childhood melded magnificently with betrayed youth and bitter old age.   Boy molesting priests, philandering husbands, and vindictive sirens merged with religious fervor, hush money, and tabloid headlines.  Blind trust answered by cruel manipulation.  Satan quivered as he tasted the slaughter of entire species and the desecration of almost all of God’s creation.  A long sigh of pleasure escaped his lips as the spoon fell to the table forgotten.

The servant twitched with fear at the cacophony of furious hunger that raced along the walls of the enormous hall, while hundreds of servants rushed forward to fill the table before the horde was freed.  Few were successful as the Master made a negligent flick of his wrist.  Even the Master’s personal servant was flung viciously to the side, ending in the great fire behind Satan, as the ravening pack annihilated anything in their path.  Most of the candles throughout the chamber were extinguished, sending the room into a nightmare of primitive sounds and fears.  Slurping sounds were punctuated with the snap of bones as even the centerpiece of human sinners was consumed.  The sharp staccato din of platters crashing to the floor echoed off the distant walls.  Overall, Satan’s satisfied chuckle could be heard.  Finally, at Satan’s command the candles relit, freezing the horde of demons in mid debauchery for which the Master smiled fondly at them.

Satan arose from his seat to walk the length of the table, hundreds of gleaming red eyes and pointed ears tracking his every step.  A lazy hand caressed the spawn nearest as he progressed down the grand feast, letting the copious amounts of blood and bile drip from his delicate fingers.  When he reached the end of the table, Satan turned to address his minions.

“Beloved, at last our great task is at hand.  I held back your succor for millennia so that your perfection would not be sullied by an inferior product.  Tonight, you have supped on the sublime creation of all my dreams and are now prepared to unleash the fullest measure of your talents upon the flawed creations of the world.  Go, go and show the heavens the will of your Master!”

But for Satan, the room was now empty.  He strode gracefully toward the kitchen entrance as a wicked grin creased his handsome face.  When he entered the kitchen, the walls were spotless, the shelves modern, and the kitchen fully outfitted.  Helen winced as her appearance changed from one of weary exhaustion to radiant beauty before her master had taken a single step into the room, grand illusions even unto the end.  The Prince of Lies entered his kitchen with a broad smile on his face and a cocky swagger to his step.

“My dear Helen, you have finally outdone yourself.  My minions would also give you their expressions of joy, if they did not have other business to attend to.”  Helen shuddered involuntarily.  “Soon all will be set right and I have you to thank.  I see now that I could not live another day without your delectable creations so I have decided to make your position permanent.”

“Noooooooo…,” Helen screamed as her legs buckled.

On the surface, cities fell and nations died.  Man finally knew the apocalypse had come.

The Times They are A’Changing

 

Watched this yesterday and was quite saddened for all involved if this depiction is anywhere close to the facts, being not too dramatized.  I can certainly sympathize with Kaczynski and Fitzgerald as well as those harmed by the Unabomber.  What it brought to my mine and the reason for this post is that “Time does Not heal all Wounds“.

I know it is a platitude many use to help those who are grieving and/or ease the helplessness of the person saying such, but the simple hard fact is that it does not.  If the wound is festering and untreated, as in Kaczynski’s case, almost Fitzgerald’s, then it can get worse, killing the patient and possible infecting those around them.  So take time to think about all the ways people are wounded throughout a lifetime before you decide to judge them.  Also remember that not everyone has the same ability to heal; if they did, then there would not need to be so many different medicines to heal the same illnesses.

Boners as Far as the Eye Can See.

Here is one men don’t talk about.

Given the revelations of Fox News Culture, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Crosby, Harvey Weinstein, and donald trump to name a few, I thought it appropriate to re-post one of my first entries into this blog back in June of 2012.  Can we have a discussion now?  This is an issue that men just do not deal with or if they do, they deal with it poorly by trying to be funny with it.  In truth, Americans like to think we deal with it my making it Taboo but in actuality we are making the problem, which branches out into other parts of our life as noted in the news, far worse.  Not talking about it to our children in schools and in church sets them up to fail in this area and leads to the situations we see in the news.  Stop hiding and deal with it.  Most of the problems America has now could be made better by facing the realities that so many want to close their eyes, ears, and minds to.  Not dealing with a problem doesn’t make it go away.