Thank the Creator above that it is no long October. Well, in actuality, it is are a couple of days after of the official end where the ancient festival of Samhaim, with the modern day version of this harvest extravaganza…where the dispersal of candy to oddly dressed children, horror films, and creepy crawly critters abound.
For me, however, the true end of this dreary month occurred the night the World Series ended. While an anticlimactic occasion for this dyed in the wool FANatic of the Bronx Bombers, I watched out of respect for the time of year. I was but half interested after my team had been eliminated in the previous incarnation of the pursuit for world glory. It was a well-played series, with many exciting moments and tearful disappointments as I cheered on the team from my current state of residence with but a single constellation to its credit.
The next to last game offered much of this excitement as well as a healthy dose of gastrointestinal distress, and, the threat of laryngitis when my earsplitting outbursts of vulgarity in the latter innings made my throat hurt. Yet still, the excitement was less than optimal in the light of the absence of my Yankees.
As to the rest of the month, the culmination came with the dance I attended celebrating All-Hallows Eve. One of the many blessings of the gift of recovery is that I did not lose the ability or opportunity to have fun. There is much to do for folks resisting the use of mind altering, mood changing substances. For the most part there are dances. I am not one to “shake my booty” but I love to go and watch. It is infinitely preferable to the viewing opportunities at one of the local institutions that provide and advertise the glamorous frolicking of young women in their undergarments (or less). This is not to say that I have any issue with scantily clothed (or unclothed) females, however, it has occurred to me that at my advanced age, patronage of such establishments and hopelessly gawking at females young enough to be my granddaughter (ouch!) is somewhat…well…freaking creepy.
The dances in recovery fulfill this absent need and are the safest of pastimes. It is a simple task to ferret out those in the crowd that have experience with dancing poles, and those who used to be patrons of those types of operations. Particularly humorous is the choice folks in recovery make when choosing costumes. Pimps and Prostitutes are quite common, but only with those who have never participated in the world’s oldest profession. Those who have tend to come without costumes. There is always the slasher or serial murderer. Elvira always comes, but most of the time portrayed by someone who possesses insufficient cleavage to truly pull it off. The kids are the best. We fill them with caffeine from soda and sugar from candy and cake to the point that the little angels become devils, and the devils become slashers. Darth Vader is a must, and the Dark Knight Detective rounds out the card. I did miss the young lady with the most perfect legs that always dresses like a naughty nurse or a vampire, or anything that will be best accentuated by a micro-mini skirt and five or six inch platform pole dancing shoes. Hey, I might be a creepy old man, but I am a discreet creepy old man.
Watching people dance sober is infinitely amusing. There is the old hippy guy (in reality and not costume) that just stands there and shakes his arms and legs without regard to rhythm or melody and sports the biggest smile as he laughs and enjoys the simple act of letting go to the spirit of the moment. If I were of a mobility that did not hurt, perhaps I would join him.
Fated, as it seems, that the revelry of the month must come to an end it is not what the eye of the beholder perceives. There are forces at work that can besmirch even the most sincere of feelings for the month of October ending.
Upon the closing of each game in the race for the World Championship I always had the “rest of the story” as they say. Part of my nightly routine is the checking in at my computer for emails and make sure all is right with the world as defined by the state of the posts on Facebook. On each of these occasions there were no less than fifty separate posts detailing for me, play by play, what I had just observed. As little interest as I truly have where it comes to sports, I tend to want someone telling me about it that has some realistic ability to be discerning. Basically if you have not hit a home run, or struck out, or caught a long fly ball deep in center field, I am not interested! I seek not the counsel of some out of work carpenter with too much television and not enough savvy about computer etiquette!
Halloween, while an innocuous holiday has turned into a clutter of images and practices that hold no veracity when stacked against the true meaning of the holiday. Or maybe it does and this cranky old man simply wants to complain. To tell the truth it is I that irks me.
Where I should be grateful to have “friends” on a global social network, I am critical. Where I should applause a formerly last place team even making it to the World Series, I take umbrage at those who revel in the event.
Bottom line, I am really trying to find an end to the page. Momentary ire is easy to remember and complaining on paper or print without just cause, is one of the things that I rail against. Perhaps hypocrisy is a universal malady. I will end in something that just occurred to me. During the process of taking exception to acts or episodes heralding the end of fall I got to hear my Sweet Deifiúr tell me that the tests came back and she no longer has any detectable leukemia cells in her body.
"In the words of a famous losing baseball coach “Wait ‘til next year!
Peace
Friday, November 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Bamboozling of the Fundamentally Flummoxed Fanatic
“Moral indignation is the last refuge of the stupid.” T. Lloyd Reilly
Is there a point where even the densest of people know when they are being stupid? There are questions circling the atmosphere above my instrument of enlightenment manufactured by Hewlett Packard similar to a pair of vultures awaiting the final demise of something not quite conclusively run over on a freeway. Which highway is that you may ask? What the questions are might also interest you.
My love of the written word aside, I am probably the “flummoxed fanatic” referenced in the title of this piece. I have attempted, here of late, to steer clear of impulsive or injurious prose that might be detrimental to the deep belief I hold hope for in the pursuit of peace and unity for all mankind…but the bastards just won’t allow it.
That my peace of mind and desire for good fortune for my fellow man has been compromised has brought us to the aforementioned questions and the thoroughfare in question. The avenue of disenchantment we speak of is the information stupor highway as transmitted through television, or the internet. The questions are of a more simple direction – who, what, where, when, and why, as well as how. The answers are not necessarily plausible in that order, so here we go.
What is this fool talking about might be the place to start. One of the late night pundits, from a cable channel that does not protect the viewer from vulgarity, has, in his infinitely ill-educated perception, decreed that the inhabitants of this planet who adhere to the teachings and preaching’s of the Prophet Mohamed are all gay. This revelation is based on a single incident in a Moslem country. The despotic leader of Libya, after many years of enforcing his morality on the citizens of his country, was recently captured and summarily beaten to death. During the commission of this atrocious yet questionably justified act, the crowd allowed someone to commit, with a wooden stick, sodomy on the dead or soon to be dead body of this tyrant. The conclusion that millions of people are to come to thanks to this broadcast guru of social conscience is that the act is a predictor of the behavior of close to one third of the world’s population.
It is a sad reality that punishments for crimes in the Moslem world are, more often than not, appallingly harsh as compared to most of the civilized world. The issue this writer has with the matter is the glorification of an abhorrent act in order to draw viewers to a show that has strayed far from the truth, and served to possibly enflame the rift between that one third of the world and the other four fifths that are tired of war and death. The same sage of the airways has preached the futility and stupidity of the wars in the Middle East while attempting to propagate the extension of the conflict in order to increase viewership.
We started wanting to know the what, and have gotten through the where. Who is simple to ascertain, and when was last week. The how are the ghastly images circumnavigating the television and YouTube. Why is because the guy probably had it coming. So there are our questions, but where do we go from here?
Now, it is no secret that I am an opponent of capital punishment. Truthfully, I am opposed to any situation where one person or persons find it acceptable to cause the death of another human being, but that is a discussion for another day.
The atrocity of war has precedent in the Moslem world as directed by the holy writings of the religion. Therein lays the problem. We are trying to fight an enemy that believes that God wants them to fight and kill the enemies of Islam. It is an act of utter stupidity to believe that you can fight a war against God. Yet we are engaged in such absurdity. Allowing, well not allowing (we do have freedom of speech, something not offered in most Moslem countries), but listening to inane rhetoric from a television celebrity and believing his ill-conceived misrepresentation of the truth diminishes the religion of those who oppose us (the Koran warns that homosexuality is not permitted). What part of God telling them to be at war is not being understood? What mindless idiocy is it to piss off the people we are fighting? Especially if it is for naught but the possible nomination and awarding of an Emmy, People’s Choice, or Golden Globe award. Winning awards, or increased market share for your program opens the gate to larger salary negotiations and more calls to your agent for concerts and other television opportunities. To hell with the effect as long as the money keeps flowing in. And we wonder why our enemies treat our greedy asses with disdain.
The true difficulty this author suffers with is the fact that I am as unreasonably liberal as this erudite idiot who reports his trash every Friday night on the channel with the most Emmy awards in recent memory. I am a self-proclaimed champion of the oppressed and adherent to the ideals of the propagation and betterment of mankind through the principles of love, acceptance, peace humility, and universal equality. What truly irks me is that reading about the crap this fool reports makes me wish he would be beaten and sodomized so that he would be cognizant of the horror he is trying to glorify. What truly enrages me is that I find myself wishing for another human being to experience the terror that made me sick to my stomach in the first place. Making the punishment befit the crime is a function for medieval societies such as most of the Moslem world, and not acceptable for one raised in the, supposedly, kindest and most compassionate country in the world. My true discomfort is that this boob has succeeded in convincing me to wish brutality on him in the same manner as I found ghastly in the first place.
I take refuge in the belief that my feelings are not facts and that just as my country is the kindest and most compassionate in the world, so too is the God of MY understanding. I must beg his forgiveness for my violent thoughts and rest secure in the faith and belief that he will forgive me. I find comfort in the reality that my God does not wish me to wage war. I am to remember that that same God who I seek clemency from, has instructed me to love and accept my fellow man…even the erudite idiots on the television who I allow to have power in my life.
My last duty today is to ask for my reader’s forgiveness. Intolerance is a sin and forcing my readers to experience it through my writing is also a sin. Please forgive me.
Peace.
Is there a point where even the densest of people know when they are being stupid? There are questions circling the atmosphere above my instrument of enlightenment manufactured by Hewlett Packard similar to a pair of vultures awaiting the final demise of something not quite conclusively run over on a freeway. Which highway is that you may ask? What the questions are might also interest you.
My love of the written word aside, I am probably the “flummoxed fanatic” referenced in the title of this piece. I have attempted, here of late, to steer clear of impulsive or injurious prose that might be detrimental to the deep belief I hold hope for in the pursuit of peace and unity for all mankind…but the bastards just won’t allow it.
That my peace of mind and desire for good fortune for my fellow man has been compromised has brought us to the aforementioned questions and the thoroughfare in question. The avenue of disenchantment we speak of is the information stupor highway as transmitted through television, or the internet. The questions are of a more simple direction – who, what, where, when, and why, as well as how. The answers are not necessarily plausible in that order, so here we go.
What is this fool talking about might be the place to start. One of the late night pundits, from a cable channel that does not protect the viewer from vulgarity, has, in his infinitely ill-educated perception, decreed that the inhabitants of this planet who adhere to the teachings and preaching’s of the Prophet Mohamed are all gay. This revelation is based on a single incident in a Moslem country. The despotic leader of Libya, after many years of enforcing his morality on the citizens of his country, was recently captured and summarily beaten to death. During the commission of this atrocious yet questionably justified act, the crowd allowed someone to commit, with a wooden stick, sodomy on the dead or soon to be dead body of this tyrant. The conclusion that millions of people are to come to thanks to this broadcast guru of social conscience is that the act is a predictor of the behavior of close to one third of the world’s population.
It is a sad reality that punishments for crimes in the Moslem world are, more often than not, appallingly harsh as compared to most of the civilized world. The issue this writer has with the matter is the glorification of an abhorrent act in order to draw viewers to a show that has strayed far from the truth, and served to possibly enflame the rift between that one third of the world and the other four fifths that are tired of war and death. The same sage of the airways has preached the futility and stupidity of the wars in the Middle East while attempting to propagate the extension of the conflict in order to increase viewership.
We started wanting to know the what, and have gotten through the where. Who is simple to ascertain, and when was last week. The how are the ghastly images circumnavigating the television and YouTube. Why is because the guy probably had it coming. So there are our questions, but where do we go from here?
Now, it is no secret that I am an opponent of capital punishment. Truthfully, I am opposed to any situation where one person or persons find it acceptable to cause the death of another human being, but that is a discussion for another day.
The atrocity of war has precedent in the Moslem world as directed by the holy writings of the religion. Therein lays the problem. We are trying to fight an enemy that believes that God wants them to fight and kill the enemies of Islam. It is an act of utter stupidity to believe that you can fight a war against God. Yet we are engaged in such absurdity. Allowing, well not allowing (we do have freedom of speech, something not offered in most Moslem countries), but listening to inane rhetoric from a television celebrity and believing his ill-conceived misrepresentation of the truth diminishes the religion of those who oppose us (the Koran warns that homosexuality is not permitted). What part of God telling them to be at war is not being understood? What mindless idiocy is it to piss off the people we are fighting? Especially if it is for naught but the possible nomination and awarding of an Emmy, People’s Choice, or Golden Globe award. Winning awards, or increased market share for your program opens the gate to larger salary negotiations and more calls to your agent for concerts and other television opportunities. To hell with the effect as long as the money keeps flowing in. And we wonder why our enemies treat our greedy asses with disdain.
The true difficulty this author suffers with is the fact that I am as unreasonably liberal as this erudite idiot who reports his trash every Friday night on the channel with the most Emmy awards in recent memory. I am a self-proclaimed champion of the oppressed and adherent to the ideals of the propagation and betterment of mankind through the principles of love, acceptance, peace humility, and universal equality. What truly irks me is that reading about the crap this fool reports makes me wish he would be beaten and sodomized so that he would be cognizant of the horror he is trying to glorify. What truly enrages me is that I find myself wishing for another human being to experience the terror that made me sick to my stomach in the first place. Making the punishment befit the crime is a function for medieval societies such as most of the Moslem world, and not acceptable for one raised in the, supposedly, kindest and most compassionate country in the world. My true discomfort is that this boob has succeeded in convincing me to wish brutality on him in the same manner as I found ghastly in the first place.
I take refuge in the belief that my feelings are not facts and that just as my country is the kindest and most compassionate in the world, so too is the God of MY understanding. I must beg his forgiveness for my violent thoughts and rest secure in the faith and belief that he will forgive me. I find comfort in the reality that my God does not wish me to wage war. I am to remember that that same God who I seek clemency from, has instructed me to love and accept my fellow man…even the erudite idiots on the television who I allow to have power in my life.
My last duty today is to ask for my reader’s forgiveness. Intolerance is a sin and forcing my readers to experience it through my writing is also a sin. Please forgive me.
Peace.
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