The Lawyer and The Engineer

Update: Sylvester the Cat, Felinus Domesticus (Video)

2010-05-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

As you might recall, the pink one was trying to get rid of me. His efforts fell flat.

If anything, I am persistent. Just ask the large, pink one. Basically, I gave him two choices in my relentless endeavor to carve out a happy niche for myself, in life. Feed me, or kill me.

Thankfully the pink one chose the kibbel over catocide. My fate was never actually in doubt, because I know a secret. Modern, urban humans, like the pink one, are really just big-hearted pussies.

I've settled in nicely. As you can see from my photo, I'm taking on a more rotund and healthy glow. Every now and then I slip in through a door left open and really make myself at home.

As I lie, luxuriating, I often wonder what the poor cats are doing today.

Sometimes the pink one and I watch a little TV together. This is my favorite show:

Mawwage! Oh, Mawwage! (Video)

2010-05-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Nothing says eternal bliss like I do. And nothing says, "screw you," like, I do, when the waltz across the clouds comes crashing to the ground.

The Priest: Do you take this man/woman to be your husband/wife through all kinds of insufferable hell and turmoil not matter what?

The Infatuated Couple: I do.

[Exit The Priest and one half of The Infatuated Couple; Enter The Judge.]

The Judge: Regarding this here decree for the dissolution of marriage, do you swear that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

One very disgruntled, vengeful, soon to be divorcee: I do.

I do, in the context of marriage, is an alpha and omega, fateful bookends, a joker on the left and a joker on the right. And nothing illustrates the point more poignantly than THIS interpretive dance in two acts.

Note: Less any esteemed reader of this distinguished, award winning blog should interpret this post on a much deeper level than it was intended to be, let it be known that The Lawyer remains in exceptionally good-graces with Mrs. Lawyer aka She Who Must Be Obeyed, and intends to keep it that way, especially if he ever wants to be in her amorous embrace anytime soon.

Act I

Act II

Gen X's Revenge

2010-05-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. ~From the movie Fight Club

In the midst of the endless cycling of Flock of Seagulls and Culture Club videos, featuring she-men fluttering in front of the camera in outlandish costumes, with whimsical hairdos, wistfully abusing synthesizers on MTV in the late eighties and early nineties, a pressure was building. My generation was coming of age and chomping at the bit to burst on the scene like a volcanic explosion. And then it happened.

The gate blew open, and flew off the hinges, when a three-piece band, from Seattle, grabbed the baby boomers, and the greatest generation by the ears and screamed, "WE'RE HERE FUCKERS! Time to quit sucking."

The Greatest Generation had given us nightmares populated with mushroom clouds on the horizon. The Baby Boomers gave us hippy-dippy, pie in the sky, unworkable ideations of peace and love, disco and then the unbounded greed of the free market and cheesy commercialism. We gave them Nirvana, and put them on notice that the rules were about to change, because theirs didn't work.

Gen X was to be the generation of the authentic. Postmodern, multi-perspectival, pluralistic deconstructionism was the cleansing agent we offered to scrub all the bullshit away from America's eyes so that the territory ahead could be better seen.

One day, Kurt Cobain crawled into a bath tub with a shotgun and blew his head off. We graduated from college in the middle of a Republican, trickle-down fueled recession. The mosh pit lost its steam. Oh well, whatever, never mind.

We are turning 40 now. Some of us have had kids. Some have gone to rehab. Some have done both. But if you have made it this far, Gen X, you know now that our strengths and talents are not in standing out front and leading the charge. There simply are not enough of us to make the loud, out-in-the-open demands and changes that the Boomers have made and Gen Y is poised to make.

Besides slipping in and out of each day, marinating in a cocktail of absurdity, what's a Gen X'er to do? Boomers have a lock on the market they are constantly wrecking and, irony of ironies, making it impossible for themselves to retire. Gen Y, raised on positive vibes and psychotropic drugs to cure their various insanities that didn't exist when us Gen X'ers were kids, will take the reins from the Boomers.

Face it X. This world, outwardly at least, will always be about them, not us. We had our time, and it ended in a splatter of blood and brains on a bathroom wall in Seattle. Our place will always be behind the scenes, tinkering and tweaking, to do our best to keep it real, and to keep the world from completely sucking ass.

Most significantly, our place and purpose is to undertake what really is the only solution to all that ails us: to find our own personal paths to salvation, and let everything else roll out of its own, unfolding accord. Ours is an inner conquest and exploration, and that's where we shine.

In the final analysis, there is no way up and out without going inward, and that's what's real. And that's where we don't slack.

Spiritual, Not Religious: Honest, Responsible Agnosticism

2010-04-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

After spending a lot of time considering the issue, I have decided that two, equally reasonable conclusions can be arrived at regarding human existence. We are more than our physical bodies, or we are not. It is one or the other.

Either consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, or matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness. We are frisky dust destined for the nothingness of the deep sleep, or we are immortal and this often irritating Earthly experience is a very brief episode in a very long journey. Life and mind are an accident, against all the odds, or they are part of a scheme, infinitely conceived and beyond the conception our earthly senses and limited intellect can afford us. Take your choice. What's your poison?

I think the reason so many of my atheist friends are atheist is because they have limited the choice in the debate between having to choose between having martinis with Christopher Hitchens or suffer an infuriatingly ridiculous evening with Pat Robertson.

Between the two institutions of organized, dogmatic religion and The First Church of Atheism we have three options: heaven, hell, or nothing. I choose a fourth option: none of the above.

We know that we owe what we can sense of ourselves, and the world we live in, to the Big Bang, but do not know what caused it. We are involved in matter, but thanks to quantum physics we do not know exactly what matter is. Matter is not Newtonian billiard balls, but something hardly substantive, more like energy and waves of probabilities than something that can be swatted with a tennis racket. Space and time are interdependent, curved and relative. Physicist have postulated the possibility of multiple universes.

As humans we know our physical environment through our senses which are only tuned to consciously perceiving a minutia of the broadband that is available. We only consciously use a small percentage of our brains.

The only honest answer to the biggest of ontological questions is that we just do not know, and may never have the capacity to do so given the limits of what we have to work with here. But that does not mean we should stop trying.

The True Believers of dogmatic-mythically conceived religions would say we should stop, because all the answers are contained in sacred texts written by ancient inhabitants of Earth who thought the world was flat and not very old.

My atheist friends and I can agree that we are evolving creatures. Everything evolves. Nothing does not evolve. And anyone who would challenge the facts that science has provided us should be shunned and marginalized, like the Pat Robertsons of the world.

I would add, we are here to evolve, not just physically, but spiritually. That this world might be a laboratory designed to force us to evolve, and no matter what happens here, we graduate intact.

It is my choice to believe that we are more than our physical bodies; that we are primarily consciousness and only secondarily matter, and therefore something immortal. That choice is built on hunches of intuition which I cannot take out of a box and show anyone. It is also based on the rationalization that it makes existence infinitely more interesting and wide open with possibilities.

Dogmatically based religion would have us put a lid on scientifically verifiable knowledge when it is not in line with the mythic-fantasy espoused by it. Atheist would have us put a lid on speculation that we, and the world we live in, might be a subset of a much greater universe, or universes, that are conscious-mental-spiritual, not physical, in nature.

Science, logic and reason are indispensable tools to be utilized on the quest to knowing ourselves and the reality we live in, not just a means by which to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. As evolving beings, we owe it to ourselves to keep open the possibilities and not to shut the door on mature, reasoned speculation no matter where it might lead us.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

A Smug Ass' Guide to Verbal Superiority

2010-04-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Today's installment of A Smug Ass' Guide to Verbal Superiority features a word that should always be in handy reach when a quick, show-stopping insult is in order. When the end of an otherwise perfectly amicable relationship is required, troglodyte never fails to deliver dissolution better.

By pulling out the troglodyte card you can show the world that you are adroit and erudite at the fine art of insult through the use of multisyllabic elocution. So, troglodytes, you subterranean boneheads, enjoy.

trog-lo-dyte, noun
1a. A member of a fabulous or prehistoric race of people that lived in caves, dens or holes. b. A person considered to be reclusive, reactionary, out of date, or brutish.
2a. An anthropoid ape, such as a gorilla, or chimpanzee. b. An animal that lives underground, as an ant or worm.

Use it with gusto and zeal. But remember, The Lawyer and The Engineer are not responsible for any physical harm that may result from the unwieldy use of said stinging rebuke. Caveat Emptor, troglodytes!

Fahgeddaboutit...

2010-04-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

“Yo Tony! Tony, are you in here?” Charley said. “Boss, I need to talk to you about something.”

Charley “Two Bit” Scarfonso was the lieutenant of the Brasi crime family, second in line for the top spot, a spot that he didn’t want. His motto was “If you’re at the top, you’re the one with the target on your back.”

Just then Tony walked out of the bathroom. “My sister, love her to death, but she is the worst cook! The worst! How she can mess up Mom’s recipe for Manicotti is the great mystery. Don’t go in there by the way.

So just what did you need that was such a frickin rush? Did you get the Vig from the Lorenzo cleaners like I asked ya?”

“No, Tony! Listen to me! Just like I told you twelve times before, we killed them last month! Remember?” Charley said.

“Oh ya... sorry, I keep forgetting.” Tony lamented on, “Charley, it ain’t like it used to be is it? Remember when we could just walk down the street and people worshiped us. Money in our pockets, dames, respect! Remember that Charley? Respect?”

“That’s what I came to talk to you about! Remember my cousin Louie?” Charley asked.
“Louie…Louie…oh ya I remember, the skinny punk who went to college? College boy, ha! What about him?”

“Well, he knows this accountant, and from what he told me, it’s going to be the good times all over, Tony. This accountant has got this scheme to make us all rich bastards. Just like the old days.” said Charley “And the best part of it is, we don’t have to use hardly any of our own money!”

“Accountant huh, what’s this pencil pushers name?” asked Tony

“Well, he is coming over right now so he can explain it all himself. His name is Golden Sack. But he likes to be called Arnie. I think it’s Norwegian or some shit like that.” said Charley

Tony started laughing, “Ha, now that’s a laugh. I gotta tell ya, if I was named Golden Sack…”

Just then the door knocked. Tony nodded for Charley to let him in. Charley walked over and open the door. There stood a person of the most unfortunate genetic material. He was bald on top but his hair went straight out on the sides like a birds nest. He nose was running like a fire hydrant and the rest of him must have been about 98 pounds. But worst of all, the color of his clothes were lime green and looked like they hadn't been changed for a week”

Arnie came in immediately. ‘Gentlemen, I won’t waste your time with the boring chit chat. Let me start right in. What if I told you that you can take a small amount of money, say 1 million dollars, and use that to borrow 60 million?”

“You can do that?” Tony asked “With just a million?”

“Trust me you can, new rules since the 1980’s. You remember, back when you were wearing your Tony Montana white suit.”

“Just like yesterday, baby! Those were the days..” Tony wistfully staring at the ceiling

“Cmon, stay with me on this, Ok?” said Arnie

Tony snapped out of the daydream. “Great great, so we made 59 million dollars by taking that money? Big deal! That’s the scheme?” asked Tony.

“No, let me finish. You take that 60 million and loan it out to other people. But you choose people that are willing to pay a little extra interest, uh what do you mob guys call it, oh ya…Vig. Kapeesh?”

“Are you trying to say capice? Cause if you are, stop it numb nuts.” said Tony. “And hurry it up because I got to hit the can again. My stomach is killing me, thank you little sister.”

“Now this is where it gets good. You take those groups of loans, bundle them together like a….a big plate of spaghetti, you guys know spaghetti, right?”

“Hey, hey, you better show some respect, ya bean counting pile of…” mumbled Tony

“Tony, hear him out. Trust me you’ll like what you hear. He is a numbers wiz, this kid.” Charley said.

Arnie continued ‘Well, before I was interrupted, you take that plate and you turnaround and sell it to some other people. People with a lot of money just sitting around collecting dust. We call it in the accounting biz asset based securities. These guys love this stuff because they can make a lot of dough, a whole lot more than normal. “

Tony interrupted again “That isn’t a scheme! We could just loan the money to these people and get the interest ourselves. What do we gain by having these people?”

“Think about it, Tony. You are getting Vig from 60 million dollars of loans and you only put up 1 million dollars!” Charley enthusiastically said.

“Now this is the best part!” Charley continued. “Because we are the ones that bundled up this plate of crap, we can group the bad loans together and sell those to investors, telling them they are pure gold rated. My cousin owns a company that will rate anything we say as a creampuff.”

“Now tell them the best part, Arnie. You got to hear this boss!” said Charley

Arnie went on with his explanation. “Because we know which one is the bad plate of noodles, we can take out some insurance that will pay BIG time if that plate, er… I mean securities package fails. It's called a Credit Default Swap and it is completely unregulated. Are you dirty rats with me?" Arnie said with his best Cagney accent.
Charley glanced at Arnie with a "shut the hell up, are you crazy?" look. Arnie slunk down in his chair.

“Cmon, you can do that?” Tony said “How much does it pay?”

Arnie blurted “How does 1000 times what the loans were worth sound to those ravioli ears of yours?” He instantly wished he could take the words back before they finished coming out of his mouth.

Surprisingly, Tony didn’t react with anger. He seemed to be immersed with the idea, mulling it over in his head.

Suddenly, Tony burst out laughing. “Cmon kid, what do you take me for? That has got to be the most cockamamie scheme I have ever heard! And let me tell you, I heard them all. Plus if that ever happened, the government would be all over us like old Charley here is on my Mother’s plate of fresh Cannoli . The Feds would never allow something like that to occur. But, I have to hand it to ya kid, nice try. Now get the hell out of here, I got an appointment with the porcelain gods. Charley, see Mr. Gold Sack here, that name just kills me, out the door. And then bring me a magazine or something, will ya? I have a feeling I may be busy for awhile.”

An Easter Story by The Lawyer

2010-04-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

It’s funny how I remember the dreams better than the times we shared awake and living in the world. Steve appeared out of nowhere. To tell you the truth, I don’t know where ‘where’ was in the dream, but all of a sudden, there he was.

“Steve,” I said.

“Hey, man.”

I asked, “So, what’s it like to be dead?”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, possessed, with a contented and calm smile.

It was the morning after a ripping bender out on town. The night before, a bunch of us loaded up in Steve’s old muscle car, a fixer-upper in progress. A cooler was in the back seat with a case of beer sloshing around in the ice. After a few bars we
ended up in an old warehouse downtown that some guy had converted into a semi-inhabitable apartment.

We drank until the wee hours of the morning. How I came to wake up in my own bed the next morning is still a bit of a mystery to me.

It was back in the days, before kids, and other pressing responsibilities, when I still could get away with staying up that
late, drinking to my heart’s content, and spend a wasted day nurturing a hangover until it eventually went away. Or, as was the case on that morning, I would kick the hangover with sweat.

I called Steve. “Dude, I am so fucking hungover.”

“Me too,” he said.

“Let’s go sweat it off.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said.

For a month, or so, Steve had not been acting right. Steve was a talented defender on the soccer field; tall, fast and fearless. He showed up to the match without shin guards. To not wear shin guards was not an option and against the rules. Steve knew that. Everyone knew that. But on that day he protested his rights not to wear shin guards with the referee to the point that all of us there thought a physical altercation would break out between them.

A couple of us stepped in and calmed Steve down. Pushing and pulling him away from the referee, Steve sputtered, “Fuck him, fuck him,” over and over.

“Hey man, you have to wear shin guards,” some one said. “Just go buy some real quick and come back,” some one else said. “Calm down,” I said, or some one else said, or maybe I just thought it.

Steve drove off, and headed for a Walmart close by. “What in the hell is wrong with him?” I was asked. I didn’t know, and shrugged.

Steve returned with these ridiculous little cheap shin guards for a six year-old that were not up to the task, but they were good enough for the referee to allow him onto the field.

This was an adult men’s league. No one was being paid to play. There was no trophy at stake, and the spectators mostly consisted of other players on other teams waiting for our match to end, and for theirs to begin. Slide tackling was frowned upon and would eventually get you a red card. Steve knew that. Everyone knew that.

He played that day like a man possessed with fury. When a benign shoulder tackle would do, he would come sprinting up, take flight, cleats out, clear the ball away and take the opponent’s feat clear out from under him. More than once he would end up in a cloud of dust with a midfielder or forward from the other team toppling down to the ground on and around him. He was red carded, and left the field, while strongly suggesting to anyone who wanted to listen that they could go and fuck themselves.

“What in the hell is wrong with your friend?” a teammate asked me after the match.

I didn’t know. He had always had a bit of a fiery disposition, but this was something else. It was too violent.

There was another time, a week before the beer drenched night out on the town, and the horrible next day. Steve was parked out in front of our house as I pulled up arriving back from the office and another day’s work. Steve got out of his car, slammed the door. His shirt was torn, and he was mad with rage. The way he explained it, and the way I remember it, was that he had gone to a convenient store close by to fuel up his car. He wasn’t sure how it happened, or maybe it was that he didn’t know how to explain it. He had gotten in a fist fight with a total stranger and didn’t know why.

I sensed that there was more than rage boiling in him. He was equally scared and confused; not all his normal self. “Why did you get in a fight with the guy?” I asked more than once. He could not give a good answer. He had beaten a man up for reasons that couldn’t be understood or explained. Eventually he calmed down over a few beers on the front porch.

Steve had been on his own since he was a teenager, supporting himself working odd jobs , dealing marijuana, and renting apartments. He was born into the unfortunate circumstance of being an intelligent, free spirit to authoritarian parents. He didn’t fit the role they intended for him, and whoever’s choice it was it wouldn’t do for him to live under the same roof as his parents.

He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. I was always envious of his talent for walking into a party, or a bar, and pretty much pick and choose which girl he would get in bed with that night.

I knew him in high school, but was reacquainted in Norman where he was putting himself through college and I was attending law school. We began hanging out a little and eventually became close friends. Good conversations and lots of laughs, combined with confiding in each other life’s irritations and mysteries made us like brothers.

He introduced me to my future wife, to whom I would be married, and who would be pregnant with our first daughter at his funeral.

There have been other dreams and other people. One that comes to mind is when Jerry, my mentor in law practice, appeared in my dream. It was night time, and we walked along a paved path together for a while, talking about life in general. Suddenly there was a house in front of us. “That looks like a nice place to live,” I said.

“If you want it, then it is all yours, boy,” he said and then slapped me on the back which sent me stumbling forward and caused the contents of my pockets to empty in front of me. And he was gone.

The next morning I got the call that Jerry had been found dead on his front porch, with a hand full of files scattered around him, and his dog Danny lying next to him licking Jerry’s hand. Either he was just leaving or returning when he dropped dead of a heart attack.

The dream I had about Nanny was the most livid and lucid. I had no doubt that I was dreaming as I walked through a dusty ranch style house and found her lying in bed in a nicotine yellow room. The light streaming through the window illuminated a column of dust floating through it.

Nanny was my great grandmother. She had died of emphysema. We still joke about how in her last days she would unwind the hose to her oxygen tank so that she had enough length in it to go outside and have a cigarette.

Nanny was fond of saying to me, “You’re my favorite little shit.” It’s one of the perks that come with being the first born of a generation. It was always good and comfortable being with her, because I could feel that she loved me.

The weird thing, I remember thinking, was that the dusty ranch style house was not hers. I had never seen it before. But there she was, sitting up in bed as I came in. “But, you’re dead,” I said.

“Why weren’t you at my funeral?” she asked.

“I couldn’t do it,” I explained. “I was scared to see your body.”

We talked for a while. Eventually she grabbed my wrist and pulled me to her. “I’ve got to go,” she said. She looked at me, completely serious, and said, “Learn, learn, learn, and never quit learning.”

I walked down to the field with my soccer bag slung over my shoulder. Steve was sitting on the front row of aluminum bleachers at the side of the field with his back to me, probably lacing up his cleats, I thought. I sat down beside him, opened my bag, pulled out my cleats and started to put them on.

“My head is killing me,” I said. “It’s a nice day though, maybe a little hot.” Steve did not respond. “How long have you been here?” I asked. No response.

I looked at Steve for the first time since I had sat down. He only had one cleat on with the strings resting untied on either side of his foot as he looked out across the field in front of him. “Steve,” I said. “Are you okay?” He slowly turned and looked at me, his head kind of swiveling like he had been spun in circles and couldn’t keep it all straight and focused in front him. “Steve, what in the hell is wrong?” His eyes rolled back into his head and he lightly fell on his side towards me. I caught him and gently eased him down to the ground. He vomited yellow bile on my cleats. I rummaged in his bag, found his cell phone and dialed 911.

It was a stroke. Twenty-seven years old and hit with a massive stroke, out of fucking no where. “What drugs is he on?” asked the gruff, gray-headed emergency responder, while others lifted the gurney and rolled Steve into the back of the ambulance. “Come on!” said the responder. “You need to tell me. What drugs is your friend on?”

“He smokes a lot of pot,” I said. “That’s it, and he drinks, too. We were out here to play soccer, not to get fucked up, damn it.”

While in the hospital his eyes had gone from brown to silver. He couldn’t talk. He could raise his arms to gesture exasperation, doubt and ignorance at anything he was asked. He was in a helpless and hopeless place and didn’t seem to know how he got there.

Two weeks later I got the word. He died at the hospital after a second surgery.

That was thirteen years ago, almost to the day. It was Easter weekend.

I’m forty now, and am becoming acquainted with middle age; the usual stuff, like waking up sore for no reason. My hairline is receding. I’m not easily outraged by things like politics and injustice like I was thirteen years ago when I was full of righteous indignation and principle.

I am a dad of two girls, a husband, a lawyer, a writer, a seeker. I am also a whole lot of other things that I can intuit from time to time; things that I have a dreamy but distant sense of, like seeing a form in a thick haze that is just out of sight and out of touch, but there, more than my physical self, and more than can be adequately explained in language--much more.

The best thing about growing older for me is that I have lost my fear of death. It’s not some horrible specter that needs to be covered up with all kinds of tricks of the psyche that make people weird and paranoid. Death is going to happen eventually, but in the meantime I enjoy being alive and in the world, watching the people around me being alive and in the world.

I often wonder what Steve would be like at forty, and whether he would be married with kids, or divorced and working on his third marriage, and his forth career, or a perennial bachelor. I wonder how the serious business of having to work for a living might have affected him. Would life have made him bitter and harsh, insipid and uninspired, or profound and wise. What choices would he have made?

Steve appeared out of no where. It was like we were in a different place, not here. I sensed a certain serenity in him--a peaceful calmness that had not been there in such abundance before, the raw edginess, gone.

“Steve,” I said.

“Hey, man.”

And I asked, “So, what’s it like to be dead?”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, possessed, with a contented and calm smile.

I, Sylvester--Love Me

2010-04-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Sylvester. I'm a bastard. As you can see in this photo--a damn handsome representation of yours truly, if I may say so--I am one charming go-getter.

Owing to my unrelenting allure, I was able to hypnotize the corpulent, pink, two-legged mammal that took this photo, into feeding me on a pretty regular basis. Things are definitely looking up.

My credentials: I'm a real man. The towering pink one verified this by turning me over on my back and pointing at my beans and dangler, as he declared, "Irm ug blah storgen falpuden," or something like that. I don't speak English, just Cat. I'm very affectionate; some say to the point of being f**king irritating. I'm the tri-state area champion mouser, or so my business card says. Recommendations provided upon request.

If you are interested in me adopting you, please contact the ridiculous prick that took this photo of me.

Did I mention, I am also a certified, licensed acupuncturist.

H.R.3590, Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: The Opera

2010-03-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Being philosophically opposed to helping people in need and making life better for anyone other than the 1% wealthiest of Americans, Fox News and their affiliates, the Republican Party and the Tea Party, ratcheted up the rhetoric and theatrics ahead of the vote in the House of Representatives last Sunday.

Members of the Tea Party on Capital Hill on Saturday made their voices heard like a thunderous fart echoing off the sanctuary pews. How did they make their objections heard? By calling one African-American member of Congress, who was beaten within an inch of his life in the early sixties for his efforts to secure civil rights, a--it starts with "n" and rhymes with chigger.

Less the frothing throng of idiots feared that they did not make their opposition to H.R. 3590 clear enough, they took it one step further. Barney Frank, a serious legislator and a great statesman, was reminded what he already knows about himself and has told the world. Some mentally challenged Teabagger (was that redundant?) called Representative Frank a--starts with "f" and rhymes with maggot. Though he does virtually flutter up the steps of the Capital on his way to work every morning, he doesn't pretend to be something he isn't like some of the most religiously pious, wide-stanced, closeted homosexuals on the other side of the aisle.

During Sunday's deliberations, GOP members of the house egged on, from a balcony of the Capital, their functionally illiterate constituency below by holding signs that read, "KILL THE BILL," and the "Don't Tread on Me," coiled-snake flag.

Meanwhile, Michele Buchmann, candidate for the nuttiest bitch in the history of humanity award, reminded the Tea Partiers, through a bull horn, that if the bill were to pass that afternoon, first thing Monday file clerks from the Department of Human Services would begin to round up everyone's grandmothers, rape them, shoot them dead, and then rape them again for good measure.

On the floor of the House Representative Bart Stupak, the irritatingly pro-life Democrat was called a "baby killer" by some equally irritating butt hole from Texas.

On the local evening news, a woman with a hair-do like a cumulous cloud in attendance at a kill-the-bill watch party sobbed and sputtered uncontrollably at the horrifying news that the bill had passed and a black man would soon sign it into law.

Democratic representatives' offices were vandalized. One congressman's brother's gas line at his house was tampered with at the behest of a Tea Party website that mistakenly gave out the brother's address thinking it was the congressman's, proving two things: Tea Partiers aren't smart enough to do jack-shit correctly, and they are no more mature than a band of villainous thirteen year old boys that were potty trained by threat of physical abuse.

The most disappointing development from the far, honking-mad right is that the fat bastard, Rush Limbaugh, has not bolted for Costa Rica like he promised. That's right, the fat f^@k has lied to all of us again. Instead of being sprawled out on the tropical shore of Playa Manuel Antonio like a beached, albino whale, in an utter daze from ingesting a hand full of prescription pills chased with a bottle of rum, the prick is still at his golden microphone pumping several million people's ears a day full of false crap.

On the lighter side of things, the general public is just now starting to understand what is in the bill, and kind of likes it, according to recent polls.

Audio: The Bugle - The greatest satire podcast featuring John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman in the world

2010-03-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

Audio: The Bugle - The greatest satire podcast featuring John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman in the world

A Clockwork Beck...And an Engineer's Concern

2010-03-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

'Why is this damn phone ringing at 2:00 in the morning?' I thought.

I reached over and picked up the phone, barely able to see or think from the deep sleep I was enjoying.

"Hello and this better be good!" I mumbled.

It was the Lawyer's wife. Why in the world would she be calling at this hour of the morning? Something was wrong.

"You have to get over here," she said in a trembling voice, "as quick as you can. It's, it's my husband."

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" I said. "I was in the middle of this great dream. There were 8 girls in lab coats and.."

"Shut up and get over here now! It's an emergency!" She yelled.

"Okay," I said, "give me about 40 minutes to get there."

I got dressed as quick as I could and hopped in The Nissan Cube, the official transport of The Lawyer and The Engineer. I drove with the car maxed out, 67 miles per hour, and arrived in less than 35.

I knocked at the door and she let me in immediately. She looked very frazzled to say the least.

"Now what in the hell was the emergency? What's wrong with your imbecilic husband?" I asked.

"He has been down in the basement for about 14 hours now and refuses to come back up or even talk to me." She cried. "I'm really worried that this Glenn Beck thing has gotten out of control. Since he started watching, he has been behaving more and more...."

"What? Tell me," I implored.

"Well, just weird. Very weird...it's uh..well it's just hard to put into words. You just have to see for yourself."

"Oh c'mon...Look, I know you are worried and all but this is The Lawyer we are talking about. He has seen and done it all. Well, I remember just like it was yesterday when...," I said.

"HELLO! A little focus here. Go look for yourself if you don't believe me. He's in the basement," she snapped back.

I walked over to the basement door and started down the creaky steps. The Lawyer had spent some time and money fixing up the basement, making it his own personal hideway. In fact had nicknamed it the "ManCave." It had all the accessories to make it rock, like a refrigerator and a killer surround sound system.

I could hear the faint sound of music, but it was some bizarre song that I had never heard before, sounding almost like chanting accompanied by tribal drums.

"Are you down here, old buddy? Hello, can you hear me?" I said, cautiously descending the steps.

I reached the end of the steps and looked around the corner... Holy Shit!!

He was sitting in a chair and directly opposite of him was this..this...thing that he must had made himself. He had taken what looked like 10 rolls of duct tape and formed a crude shape of a head. On that duct tape head, he had placed a blonde wig but with most of the hair cut off so it was short and ratty looking. Then he had placed the duct tape head on a broom stick and somehow had stuck the other end of the broom stick into the floor. Around him was about 12 or so empty bottles of scotch, some rope, and a shovel.

I realized that he was having a conversation with it. Mumbling, screaming, pleading with it, his arms waving about. Trying hard not to just turn around and run, I slowly walked over to him.

"Uhhh...Lawyer old buddy...you okay? You want to talk a little?"

He turned to look at me. His eyes were wild looking, like a cornered animal.

"Tell him! Tell Glenn that he is just a stupid fucktard! You gotta do it...gotta do it....," The Lawyer screamed.

"Glenn?" I quizzed.

"He's right here! Can't you see him? Look! Just LOOK!"

"Ummmm, hold that thought and I'll be right back" I said

I climbed up the stairs, quickly, and walked over to his wife.

"Sweet Jesus in a cornfield!! Call 911. Call 911. Shit! He is WAY worse than you had said! He is worse than any words can describe! Holy Fuck! We gotta get some professional help and NOW!"

The Lawyer's wife was all ready starting to dial. She called her family and The Lawyer's family, as well as the family psychiatrist.

The Lawyer was descended on by every man in the house. He grew violent, yelling, "It's a government takeover, the government is coming to get me!" He bit someone's hand. With some extra rolls of duct tape on the floor they were able to mummify him as the psychiatrist loaded him up with a hypodermic full of happy juice. Completely rolled in duct tape, except for his smiling face, The Lawyer was carried to an ambulance and rushed to the hospital where he was admitted to the top floor until his sanity might...[sniffle, fighting back the tears]...might someday return. The initial prognostication was that the chances of a full recovery were bleak.

God save The Lawyer!

Stewart Employs Some Really Becked-up Logic.

2010-03-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

The introduction: It's a matter of life and death, so watch it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Intro - Progressivism Is Cancer

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

Bert the Nazi is infiltrating our children's minds with cancerous thoughts:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Conservative Libertarian

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

A Clockwork Beck, Thursday

2010-03-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

After four days of what amounts to self-inflicted torture, I could feel a gloominess pervading my spirit. At the grocery store, in the courthouse, at Pet Smart, at the gas station, all the people at those places, all around me--how many of them were shit for brains Beckerheads? How many of them carry on their daily lives with an air of normalcy, yet inside incubating and cultivating terrific fears that the government is in the hands of a baby-killing, Socialist Satanist? How many of them are just waiting for the day that their man-boy hero gives them the go ahead to start rioting and kill all the liberals and take back liberty and freedom?

That guy at the other pump, was he one of those nuts that went out and helped to empty the shelves of ammo at the gun shops after Obama was elected? The woman in front of me, checking out at the express lane, does she believe that Democrats in Congress really want to kill her grandma fucking dead, just for the hoo-ha of it?

It's them or us, man, I told myself. They're everywhere, man. They're coming to get me, maaaaan. I abandoned my grocery cart and made a run for it, and didn't stop running until I had made it home, and hid myself in the darkest closet in the house. I rocked back and forth, sucking my thumb, thinking evil thoughts, with a 1.75 liter jug of Dewar's within reach.

Thursday: I don't know how much more of his this lunacy I can take. Glenn has an audience! The bleachers are packed with white Beckerheads, that are unusually quiet as butter nuts drones on about government take over, and the end of the world as we know it. Glenn, in his typical fashion of running up to the edge of inciting a riot, warns the crowd that the bill about to be passed is not about health care and education. In his words, "it's war." Glenn say he thought and prayed about all of this shit last night, but then doesn't really explain what he thought or prayed about. He shows film of rioting in Greece, fires blazing in the streets. Glenn smirks, and points out, we're next. He is segueing from one non sequitur to the next so fast, I get vertigo and have to take a spirited swig from the bottle to make the room stop spinning. Glenn suggests that when this health care bill passes, we will be slaves to the government, just like what happened to the Soviet Union. I have no idea what in the fuck he is talking about. Paranoid assertions, followed by life-threatening extrapolations based on the underlying premise that progressives are really Stalinists who have nothing but hate in their hearts, are coming at me so fast I can't keep track of his delusional brand of logic. Glenn shows a pretty picture of an apple tree drawn on a chalk board. He explains, it's the tree of liberty. On one side is health care reform. On the other is ego, lies, and something else equally awful that the American public is being fed. He explains these trees used to have apples that had three seeds in them--faith, hope and charity! Progressives are poisoning the the tree of liberty at the roots. Ben Franklin would be ashamed. Fuck this!

I turned the television off and went back to the closet to drink in darkness where my wife found me three hours later passed out, muttering, something about apple trees, Greece, butter nuts and Bolsheviks. She called her mother.

A Clockwork Beck, Wednesday

2010-03-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Slowly coming to, I rolled in bed towards my wife's side and reached around her for a fervent morning snuggle, copping two handfuls of love. I felt her shift and roll over to face me. This might be my lucky morning, I thought. Opening my eyes I found myself nose-to-nose with Glenn Beck. "Hey, sweetie," he said in that buttery smooth voice of his. Throwing the covers off the bed, I bound to the floor screaming in fear. I woke up panicked and covered in sweat, as I bolted up right. Cautiously I leaned over my sleeping wife to make sure it was her in bed with me, not the mad, half-wit, Glenn Beck. It was just a nightmare.

Wednesday: The man-boy with the golden buzz cut is accusing Representative Dennis Kucinich of having a "wee, elfin body." You're one to start poking fun at the way someone looks Glenn. Look at him. Glenn has girlish hips, a small crotch and a fat, irritating face. He is the embodiment of the kid in grade school you wasted no time laying out flat with a good smack to the gob the first time he came up to you talking a heap of smart-aleck horse shit. If health care passes, we'll be like Canada, Glenn warns. Why's that so bad? Glenn and all of his semi-retarded fans know, Canada is full of Marxist pussies--it's just understood. No wonder Canada produces some of the best comedians. Glenn sounds the alarm that the IRS will be in charge of health care if the bill reaches the president's desk. The major theme running through all of his shows is that government is both hopelessly incompetent and explicitly malicious, which is my exact impression of Glenn after these three long days. Our health care system is the best in the world, according to the golden man-boy, because our top five hospitals conduct more clinical tests than all the hospitals in Canada, Great Britain and Sweden. If I understand, unnecessary tests are a big percentage of present health care costs, because that's what the insurance companies pay for--tests and procedures, not outcome. Blah. Tort reform is the answer, Glenn insists. Right Glenn, kill all the lawyers, and all that tired crap. 2% of health costs are captured by tort actions. Why? Because doctors and hospitals sometimes fuck up. Right on cue, there is good ol' uncle G. Gordon scaring the shit out of already scared and angry, over weight white people, tuned in all over the country, to buy, you know, gold. Glenn declares that the U.S. has the "greatest free market health care system the world has ever seen." And I would add, and damn near the only free market health care system among first world countries. That's why we are number thirty-seven overall according the those pinko-commies at the WHO. Glenn points out that Obama's damnable family tree is full of Marxist, therefore Obama is really a Marxist, though closeted. The red scare is alive and well in the curious mind of Glenn Beck. The federal government will lie, cheat and steal from Americans if the health care bill passes, says Glenn. [Drum roll]. And your quote of the day, straight from the pouty lips of the most odious little prick in the known universe: "Only logic, reason and honesty will save health care." I just want to lay my head down and cry, or, in the alternative, tazer myself unconscious. Glenn states that congress is breaking the rules by using congressional rules to pass the health care bill. Another gold commercial, and Barry Goldwater, attorney-at-law, with a one-eight-hundred number soliciting tort cases. What ignorant fuck-wad at Fox let that one slip in? More crap; too much for my mind to capture, hold and purge at this point. Another gold commercial. And Beck closes, not missing the opportunity to take one more snarky jab at our Democratically elected Marxist-in-chief by taunting him to pick up the phone and give him a call. I wonder how many dinner parties Glenn has been thrown out of, head over ass, resulting in a protective order being placed against the creepy little bastard.

My once contentedly functioning cerebral cortex throbbing in disarray, I turned the television off and made straight for the Dewar's. Shudder, gulp, shudder. Sitting at my computer I googled, "how to become a Canadian citizen."

A Clockwork Beck, Tuesday

2010-03-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Engineer would have none of it despite my whining and pleading to him on the other end of the phone. He did hint that he might take over the duty of watching Glenn Beck for the rest of the week if I would agree to baby sit his children every weekend for an entire month beginning Friday. I conveyed to him the unacceptability of the proposition by hanging up.

Upon arriving home I searched the house for any diversion possible to occupy me in an act of dereliction of duty. The clothes were folded, the dishes clean and put away, the toilets gleaming and minty, and the yard still brown and in no need of mowing. There was no available excuse to avoid another lost hour and an inevitable dampening of my spirits. I did consider one other thing I could do instead, but knew my wife would be home soon, and concluded it would be slightly less disconcerting for her to catch me watching Glenn Beck than perusing www.milfswithgargantuanfakefunbags.com.

I summoned all the bravery I could muster, and hit play.

Tuesday: I guess Faith, Hope and Charity is the theme of the week, since fuck face can't quit talking about it. A passing reference to Democrats as "snakes and cockroaches" in reference to their efforts to pass health care, and overcome the party of No. "Besides the military, tell me what government does well?" the bastard implores, his eyes wide with daring. Oh let's see, roads, schools, libraries (where Glenn claims to have educated himself after dropping out of high school), the justice system, disease control, and a thousand other things. Glenn introduces a panel of three white men. A cantankerous old bastard that used to be a judge, a frat boy economist, and a pencil-neck Jesus freak. It is quickly understood that they have a shared hatred of government, and I suspect particularly when the executive is in the hands of a black Democrat. Judge Napolitano the Cantankerous, suggests that Senator Schumer wants the Bill of Rights repealed. But, if you want to do away with government, that's as good as place as any to start, your honor. Glenn comments that passage of health care will guaranty government intrusion into our homes, and then makes this alarming declaration: "Democrats want people to have fewer babies," the implication being that liberals sanction abortion to satisfy their insatiable lust for the death of the vulnerable and young. I consider punching myself in the dick to make sure I am really awake and this isn't just a fucked up dream. Thank God! I never in my life thought I would be so happy to see G. Gordon Liddy pushing gold. More crap about Faith, Hope and Charity. I still have no idea what mythic significance these words have for Glenn. Another gold commercial. David Barton, the pencil-neck Jesus freak says that liberals misplace faith in government, instead of God. And this zinger: "Social justice should be delivered by religion, not government." Right, Barton. Close the courthouse doors, get out your pitch forks. Grab the noose, Cleetus. It's time to do the work of the Lord. What an asshole! Another commercial break, but no gold. Just a plug for The Teaparty Express coming to a town near you. I can't fucking wait. As Glenn sees it, the passing of health care is a constitutional crisis. The judge opines that faith is being destroyed by government. Barton accuses the administration of obfuscating facts. Oh the goddamn irony. Glenn closes with, "Faith, hope and charity come directly from God to you, to give you the spine to stand up." Uh, yeah, sure. The last gold commercial. Stop. Erase.

After another hour gone for ever, I imagined this is what it must feel like to have an out-of-body experience, and to have visited an alternative reality where fact and fiction are indistinguishable, inseparably pureed. I shuddered, mixed a stout one of Scotland's blended finest, and shuddered again. Only three days to go, I consoled myself. Damn my eyes and ears.

A Clockwork Beck

2010-03-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

It was my idea, but I felt something more than a tinge of anxiety about the prospect of executing on it. I asked The Engineer if he would like to run with it. Citing chronic indigestion, he declined. So, the matter fell to me, The Lawyer. I reached down in my pants, verifying that I still had a pair. I did.

I determined to watch Glenn Beck's show, on Fox News, for a week and report on it. Picking up the remote, I noticed my hand just barely shaking. Reminding myself that merely watching a program on the television could not harm me, I took a deep breath, puffed my chest, and steeled myself, a large container of Tums at the ready.

Monday: Beck is quoting Thomas Paine; something about standing up to tyranny. Here, in this context, the tyrant is liberal and progressive government. It's seems lost on Glenn that the tyrant that Paine spoke of was King George The Insane. Two very fucking different things! G. Gordon Liddy is pimping gold in a commercial, reminding everyone that the value of the dollar is going to hell. Glenn's back, warning his viewers that health care reform is not about doing what's right. It's not about prohibiting abusive practices on the part of insurance companies hell bent on screwing us all the way to the poor house. As Glenn tells it, it is a power grab by the Democrats in their demonic plan to take control of the country and deprive every last citizen of their personal freedom. God help me! Another buy gold commercial. With a stack of books next to him as a prop, Glenn rails against the the student loan bill intended to take financial institutions out as the middle men and make college more affordable by eliminating interest on student loans. Somehow this is evidence of more power grabbing and control mongering by "big government." Fuck you Glenn. Thirteen years later and I am still paying it off at 8% per annum. Another gold commercial. More paranoid prattling about big government and this quote: "Your rights come from God, not a politician." I don't even know where to begin in outing the utter fallaciousness of that statement. Another gold commercial. Glenn closes carrying on about some twisted crap about faith, hope and charity being the answer, the assumption being that government could never deliver on those things.

I turned off the television, shuddered, mixed a stout scotch and soda to cleanse my mental palate, and shuddered again. I doubted whether I could keep this up through to Friday.

A sisters gift....

2010-02-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

When I was 8 years old, my sister let me play all of her records. It was really my first chance at playing music, especially HER music. Having the power over what I got to listen to! It was great! It seems so outlandishly primitive now, but you would put a vinyl record on a rotating turntable, place the tonearm on the spinning disc, and if the vinyl record wasn't too scratched up, music would play!

I played all sorts of records. She had quite a collection. Several groups from MoTown like the Supremes, Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay. She had Steppenwolf, The Doors.Iron Butterfly. EVERTHING! I would listen for hours everyday, over and over again.

But eventually what I loved most would be classified as Hippie music or even maybe "long haired" music like Jefferson Airplane, WoodStock, Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

Everybody seemed to be singing in protest of the Vietnam war and singing about love and peace. To me, it eventually transcended from just protesting the war to more of a marching call to creating a better world. If only people would make love not war. Reject this society that has created tools to destroy the world and people with the desire to do it. Who knows, maybe people just got tired of being scared of nuclear destruction.

The Merry Pranksters went on their Magic Bus and Timothy Leary was telling everybody to "Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out". It seemed to peak around 1967 to 1969 with the "Summer of Love" and WoodStock. I followed all that stuff... always after it happened. My sister would talk and talk about current events, the war, all that was happening. I absorbed it like a sponge even though I think I was around 10 or 11 years old at the time.

Things always took a couple of years to reach Oklahoma. I say that not in a 6:00 o'clock news sort of way, as that was just an instant information thing. No, it was more like the general feel of things brought on by the music and the counterculture stuff. By this time, my sister had a Peace Sign hanging from the mirror, beads everywhere, and long straight hippie chick hair.

People were wanting to start a new society with, I guess, some sort of group love energy. Reject all of the current ideas and materialistic things. Just get it together! I know that it really sounds stupid and naive when you try to explain it, And the fact of the matter is, it was stupid and naive.

By the time I was about 13, I probably was ready to run away to a commune. What a laugh! I was just a little child!

Along with the stupid ideas, there WAS a sense of hope. Hope and a belief in the common goodness of humanity. Funny, but people actually thought that if only these could be brought together in a group, something new could be created. A new age of society! Everybody would tolerate each others differences and work on a common future where each participant is looked as being equal. Basic human needs, like hunger and health, were taken care of. Seems like some pretty radical "really out there" thoughts, huh?

My point being is that no matter how old I get, I never want to loose that naive optimism. I never want to become so cynical that I feel that it is pointless. I never want to believe that basic human nature will continue to always produce a never ending cycle of have and have nots. Never convince myself that it is right for the same country to have billionaires on one hand and on the other, poor families with starving or sick children. Be complacent when 8 figure bonuses are given to some people, while pink slips are given to others. Be silent while others are treated wrongly by the same people that are suppose to protect them.

That silly naive optimism was the greatest gift my sister gave me. The same will be the greatest I can give my children! Thank you, Karen.

New fish discovered in depths of slime pool.

2010-02-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

A completely new species of fish, called Roublard Le' Carpe, has been extensively studied for several months, revealing several never before seen patterns of co-existence thru the use of confusion and fear.

French scientist, Pierre LaFromage, who has made it his life passion to study the the feeding patterns of this strange fish, submitted several scientific articles describing in remarkable detail the curious habits of this creature nicknamed the "Cheney Fish".

Before an assembly of his scientific peers, Pierre discussed his insights to the bizarre creature during an interview with an American biologist, Herman Mandrake.

"Upon discovering a minnow school, the Cheney will use other larger fish, "Teabaggius Extremis" , to actually capture its prey. The Cheney only feeds on the remainder bits and pieces that are too small for the larger fish to bother with. The role that the Cheney assumes is to create fear and chaos in large schools of minnows, steering them into the larger group of fish that have learned to work together with the Cheney to create a collaboration of feeding. The minnows, with the brains the size of a small bb, allow themselves to be steered into the larger fish, not realizing they are running away from the Cheney because of distorted perception of terror that the Cheney creates by rapidly flapping its lips and nose in a rhythmic pattern."

"It tis a remarkable masterpiece of fish poetry" said Pierre,worthy of high praise. Like a Chateau de Pibarnon compliments a Chicken Velouté."

"So you have studied this fish for several months in its own natural habitat. Are you to continue with this research, producing more facts about this fish that quite frankly I think looks like a blob of crisco with a nose?" asked Herman

"Mind your own business, American PigDog!" Pierre replied. "I am thru talking to you and your silly court of jesters!"

"I hope that I didn't offend you with my off-handed description of this fish. If I did, I apologize." exclaimed Herman

"Chantez à l'âne, il vous fera des pets" Pierre replied as he walked off the stage. "It is possible that you will get several more years if you are not careful!"

Lunatic Fringe

2010-02-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

In a recent poll, conducted by Daily Kos, 2003 self-identified Republicans were asked various questions to gauge their attitudes about current political issues, and particularly their opinions about President Obama.

When asked whether President Obama should be impeached, 39% said yes and 29% were not sure. Never mind that as grounds for impeachment the President must be guilty of breaking the law. No evidence exists to support impeachment; they just feel like he should be. President Obama is, after all, black and Democrat, which is evidence enough of skulduggery and treason in the cynical hearts of that 39%.

When asked whether Obama was born in the United States or not, 36% of polled Republicans said he was not--22%, not sure. That points to a significant percentage unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of Obama's presidency. It gives them a basis on which to declare, he's not my president, notwithstanding the discredited fiction of the initial premise.

63% of polled Republicans believe that Obama is a socialist. I assume in the minds of Republicans "socialist" is synonymous with "un-American" akin to communist, and definitely in opposition to their unarticulated concept of "freedom." It troubles that 63% not that there is no evidence that Obama is other than he is, a left-of-center moderate. Liberals are pissed that he isn't socialist! But when you crowd against the wall of the lunatic fringe of the extreme right, everything to the left looks perversely liberal.

This one kills me: 24% of the polled Republicans believe that Obama wants the terrorist to win, with 33% not sure, thinking maybe, maybe not. Christ almighty! In the words of John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!" To believe that Obama is in league with Bin Laden is confirmation of delusional thinking, fueled by paranoia, and the need for psycho-therapeutic intervention.

53% believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than is Obama. 33% are not sure, and presumably need more time to think about it, not that all the time in the world to do so will result in any cogent, well-reasoned conclusion. This hits on the issue of competence and wisdom. People who possess any appreciable degree of competence attended by wisdom recognize the same in others when they see it, and instantly sense it when it is lacking. Fact: In the arena of competence Sarah Palin is to Barack Obama what an eight-man pee-wee league is to the NFL.

Asked whether President Obama is a racist who hates white people, 31% said yes, 33% not sure. Close and bolt the door shut to the room in your brain where reason resides, and get a load of this retarded logic. Obama is half-white, half-black. His mother is Caucasian. Therefore, Obama hates his mother, and presumably half himself. I guess all those white people in his administration are just window dressing to lure in all white people into believing that he actually likes white people. Then, one day, having lulled all the white citizens of the United States into complacency, BAM!, all the honkies will be rounded up by employees of ACORN and incarcerated in cracker concentration camps and brainwashed into accepting Muhammad as their personal savior. Please.

23% believe that their state should secede from the union. 68% do not want Congress to make it easier for workers to form and join labor unions. 51% do not want sex education being taught in public schools. 77% believe public school students should be taught that the book of Genesis is a factual account of how God created the world. 31% are of the opinion that contraception should be outlawed. 67% believe the ONLY path to salvation is through Jesus Christ.

The wide, open arms of Christ's compassion were not present in the poll with regard to undocumented Hispanics and homosexuals, shocking as that may be.

Let's call these people what they are: premodern, angry, scared, ethnocentric, insane and intellectually unfit to formulate reasoned, logical opinions. Oh, here's a statistic for you. 83% of those polled intend to vote in the upcoming 2010 Congressional elections. Look out.

The Lawyer: Evolution and Democracy

2010-02-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Our founding fathers manifested their belief that government should be in balance with individual rights through the crafting of the Constitution, which in turn would evolve through changing circumstances of social and commercial realities by, and under, the checks and balances exacted between the three branches of government that it created. For that Democracy is an ingenious invention. The fathers of our Democracy understood that there would always be a need to rebalance the competing interests between individuals and the greater good.

To be dogmatically dug in on one side of the debate, whether on the side of individual freedoms or the side that seeks constraints aimed at effectuating the greatest possible good for all, is to call one side of the coin the only real one. Therein we have the crux of the age-old feud between conservatives on one side, and liberals on the other.

Conservatives hoarsely bellow in favor of individual freedoms above all. Their mantra is liberty from any and all government intrusion. Played out to its logical conclusion, that belief leads to things like great depressions, devastation of the environment, the extinction of consumer protections against harmful goods and financial products, and the rich get richer while the middle class descends into poverty increasingly powerless to effectuate change in the political landscape.

Liberals champion putting the balance in favor of government to regulate the passions of personal freedom for the benefit of a greater social cohesion. Carried to its outermost limits, the creative forces of the individual risk being smothered and caused to stagnate, thus denying the components of the body politic the delight inherent in the individual's imperative to create.

A balance between the two is the key. Unfortunately, to expect our leaders to be mature and sophisticated enough to understand that, and undertake the task of exacting that balance requires of voters a degree of maturity and sophistication that seems lacking. Your average Jack or Jill, whether on the left or the right, is not particularly adept at holding two competing, and seemingly contradictory perspectives in his or her mind at once.

Evolution is always about the coming together of parts, previously whole in themselves and separate from others, to make a greater whole, thus transcending and becoming more than the sum of the new unit's parts. Our present problems, as a country, cannot be fixed except by an integration of the best that the right and the left have to offer. That will not happen until the general populous understands that killing off one side ensures the damnation and ruin of the other. How long will that take?

What calamity will be required to touch off the impulse to reach higher?

The Lawyer on Reverse Populism

2010-01-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

Ruling that corporations are the same as individuals, when it comes to free speech, the Supreme Court has overturned portions of the McCain-Feingold restrictions on corporate spending and advertising, and has opened the gates wide for corporate money to be spent on "documentaries" like the one that was meant to paint Hillary Clinton's ass black in 2008. Faux News and their faithful devotees are howling with delight that the Supreme Court's ruling signals the triumph of free speech over tyranny.

The issue is whether a corporation should be equated with an individual when it comes to voicing its opinions in the public arena with money. Corporations are amoral entities concerned with one thing only--profit. Corporations do not read good books, fret over death, worry about the price of milk, seek transcendence, get speeding tickets, have children, write poetry, get cancer and denied health insurance coverage.

Democracy, if it is ever to really work, should be of the people and for the people--that would be making it real. What we have now is a perversion of Democracy, its machination being of corporations for corporations. There are five justices, sitting on their fat asses in Washington D.C., who don't get that. And Faux News is hamming it up, giddy with delight that "free speech" is being preserved and championed for all the functionally illiterate Joe "The Plumbers" out there.

Health reform is going down the same way. The conservative purse, filled with the ill-begoten gains of big Pharma and the insurance lobby, has convinced scared, ignorant Americans, through the medium of a "news" organization called Fox, to spit and rail against their own best interest in the name of 'freedom,' though they don't know what 'freedom' really means. The beast the populist herd is feeding is the potential for unlimited corporate profits at the expense of Joe "The Fucking Plumber." "Real" America will continue to get really screwed by the same people they vote for.

Wake up, Joe. Corporate America doesn't give a damn about you.

The road to hell is paved with red herrings

2010-01-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

After reading a Facebook posting, from a very wise "FaceFriend", about the news of politicians trying to pass into law a requirement for drug testing if receiving public assistance, my rant urge became too strong to not write. I have viewed some of the crap out there like NotWithMyMoney, blahblah, etc.

How is it even possible for Republicans to be concerned about this? Have they not been informed of the present state of the country right now?

Folks, we are fighting wars on 2 fronts, the economy is in shambles that may take decades to get out of, the general public has just been taken for the biggest heist ever by Wall Street, and our manufacturing base is being exported to whichever country will sacrifice their enviroment and health the most. Did you know that about 25% of the pollution hanging over California right now has been traced to China?

The previous administration allowed the use of the techniques that we EXECUTED the Japanese in WWII for as War Crimes. They basically gutted the Dept of Justice from investigating any social injustice. Not one person has gone to prison for that whole 8 year madness. Remember those Haliburton non-bid contracts for infrastructure that didn't get built? Blackwater mercenaries?

Okay, say that drug testing is an important issue. Skipping the fact that it is applied to only the group that probably doesn't have 10 lobbyist working for them at the Capitol, what are the issues that are raised by this and what is hoped to be gained by this?

Let us list the possibilities..

We may be able to save money by not having to give it to people on drugs.

If they were concerned with saving money, they would scream about pork barrel projects like $1.4 billion welfare for an alternative jet engine for the Joint Strike Fighter that the military has repeatedly officially stated that they don't want. How about $1.9 million for the Pleasure Beach water taxi service project. There is a very long list of items so it can't be about saving money or applying government money fairly.

By not giving them money, it may make them change their life choices and improve their lives.

If they were concerned about that, they would offer rehabilitation and education services so that they would have a chance. Education is the key.

Drugs are bad, okay.

Just the bad drugs are bad okay. Drugs produced by companies that eliminate shifty eye syndrome are okay. Existing drugs that are acceptable like smoking or drinking that do more damage than all of that "tested for" drugs are fine. But if testing was a concern, they would do it for everyone that gets public money, including teachers, politicians, police, firefighters, even those pricks on Wall Street who got TARP. But that would complicate things, applying testing equally.

What it really is....
This is a Red Herring issue, used as something to divert attention away from the more complicated issues that aren't solved with a 5 second sound bite. This to them is one of those screaming black and white issues that raises emotions from the Rush Limbaugh group and allows easy remembrance for the people that cannot make up their own mind and have to tune into AM talk radio to learn what a opinion is or what opinion they should have. They are too lazy to look up the actual facts or research an issue so they turn to a cigar chomping drug addict for their answers. (Is that irony? I get confused ever since that Alanis Morrisette song).

For those 5 minute attention span people that gloss over the important stuff, seek easy solutions to complicated issues, and are easily mis-directed by "Red Herring" issues of the day, here is something to read so that you can make up your mind.

Unemployment went up to 10 percent today as the gradual decay of the manufacturing base...Britneys VahJayJay...drug testing for persons receiving public assistance.

Crime is on the increase especially in the urban areas due to decreased funding and lack... Saying Happy Holidays not Merry Christmas.... intelligent design taught in schools.

Divorce rates continue to climb as family stress conditions....Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.....Ban gay marriage to save the sanctity of the marriage.

See how easy that works.....look, a chicken!...send me all your money.

Jamaican Jimjam

2010-01-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

"Go fish," I said.

"Damn it!" said The Engineer taking another card off of the floor of our cozy, little jail cell.

Before I could bask in the glory of having beaten The Engineer for the seventh straight time, the deputy warden in charge of our block informed us that our federal public defender had arrived to meet with us. We were escorted to an interview room where Chuck Pradmore, Esq. was waiting for us. A manic depressive looking sort, he opened our file for the first time and flipped through its pages as we sat in silence.

Pradmore slowly shut the file, laid his head on it and began to weep. Beguiled with the distinct impression that we were fucked, I resisted the urge to swat Pradmore across the head beseeching him to get a grip and speak. "Oh, come on," said The Engineer. "What is it?"

"Oh, nothing," said Pradmore, wiping tears and snot with the sleeve of his jacket. "I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with your case," he said to our great relief. "It's just--I'm having one of those days I feel like I can't do it anymore. I have no idea why I went to law school, I'm one-hundred thousand dollars in debt to student loans, and I hate this job with every fiber in my body. I'm thirty years old going on fifty, on a steady diet of beta-blockers, anti-depressants, and vodka. Days like today, I just want to disappear."

"Well," I said, "that's some sad shit. My heart goes out to you, but is there any chance we could get you to opine about our case?" The case was The United States of America v. The Lawyer and The Engineer, filed by the U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia at the urging of the Department of Justice, charging us with among other things, treason and terrorism.

"Right," said Pradmore. "Your case. I'm sorry. Ha! That's why we are here, isn't it?" The Engineer and I nodded our heads in agreement. "You guys are screwed." Pradmore explained that he was going to do everything he could to cut us a deal with the prosecution and that if all went well we would only have to serve twenty years in prison, give or take a couple.

In the way of mitigation we explained how, with the aid of a couple of nice Russian girls that Tareq and Michaele Salahi had entered the black tie event at The Whitehouse, resulting in the termination of employment of the security guard who had formerly been employed by Satan. We had, in essence, saved the world! Our personal defender of The Constitution peered at us through his dark, sagging eyes, one of them twitching, as he closed his file.

"We might have to go the route of proving that the two of you are not competent to stand trial," Pradmore said, leaving us to brood in our misfortune, vanquished of hope.

The day before our preliminary hearing was scheduled, Pradmore had returned to the jail to meet with us. As depressed as ever, Pradmore opened our file and held up a letter that he read to himself. Putting the letter back in the file, he sighed deeply. "What in the hell is it? Speak up, damn you," I insisted.

"I just feel rotten today," said Pradmore.

"Sorry about that," I said. "Does your emotional disposition have anything to do with our case?"

"No. Not at all," said Pradmore. Conjuring a smile, Pradmore looked us in the eyes and explained that our case was being dismissed, costs to the government, in exchange that we enter into a gag order, promising never to speak of the matter to anyone. The Engineer and I jumped to our feet, dancing madly about the interview room, never so thrilled to be alive and free. Interpretive victory dance complete, we asked why the case was being dismissed.

Pradmore answered, "According to the Justice Department, the whole thing is just too fucking bizarre to persue."

We were ushered to the courthouse and presented to the judge that afternoon. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" We did. The Engineer and I eagerly agreed to be bound by the gag order, and we were released. We felt pretty damn happy to see that hell-hole of deceit and idiocy, called Washington D.C., in the rearview mirror of The Engineer's Nissan Cube as we sped twenty miles per hour over the limit out of the nation's capital, free to fight another day.

Loitering about HQ, I searched every online news source I could think of in an attempt to see if there was any mention of The Engineer and me regarding The Whitehouse party crashers. There was none. The Engineer paced about, making me nervous, as he was consumed with the thoughts of digging into a styrofoam take-out of spicy beef lo mien, while co-commitently lamenting that Edgar, the "intern" editor, had ditched us.

We were disturbed from our meditations by the sound of a knocking and the front door crashing to the ground off of its hinges. The Engineer had not yet had time to fix it from when the door had been damaged by The Pentecostals who had busted through it in a spitting rage to kill us before the world came to an end.

At the front door, at the street, the mail man stood wide-eyed at the sight of the door laid out in front of him. "What did you do?" I asked the mail man with feigned surprise. "You broke it. God!"

"But, I-I, just knocked, and--"

"What do you got there?" I asked, and the mail man handed certified mail for me to sign. Any lawyer who has been around the block knows that good news never comes via certified mail. My stomach churned and heart sped up as a dose of cortisol was being released in my veins while I signed the green card.

"There," I said handing the green card back to the mail man. "Well," I said, "you could at least say you are sorry for destroying my door."

The mail man shook his head, regained his bearings, muttered, "Sorry," and shuffled off.

Feeling paranoid, I looked up and down the street, picked the door up and propped it back in the door jam. Having barely reached the loft upstairs, where The Engineer was still pacing around thinking about crab ragoon, the door came crashing to the ground again, causing me to jump a foot off the ground, and involuntarily blurt out a string of profanities.

I walked back down stairs where standing in the doorway, staring stupidly at the door sprawled out in front of him, was a smug looking bastard, with a buzz cut, in a dark-blue windbreaker. "What did you do?" I asked buzz cut with feigned surprise. "You broke it. God!"

He looked up at me with a scowl on his face, and asked if I was The Lawyer or The Engineer. I confessed that he stood in the presence of no other than the man the world knew as The Engineer. Buzz cut whipped out a badge. "Agent Guy Ballkalsky, Drug Enforcement Agency. May I come in?"

"What the hell for?" I asked, genuinely confused. The Engineer and I had done a lot of weird things, some sort of illegal, but drugs? Searching my mind for the purpose of this unwelcome visit, I could not estimate the reason for a DEA agent wanting to have anything to do with us.

"I just want to ask you a few questions," Ballkalsky said in such a warm, brotherly way that it made my skin crawl.

"Fine," I said. "Come on up. Don't worry about the door," I said, lifting it back up into its jam.

Ballkalsky asked us whether we knew anything about a used school bus. We didn't. He asked whether we had made any purchases within the last few months amounting to $15,000 on a credit card. We hadn't. He wanted to know if either one of us had a green thumb. I confessed that I had a thing for hostas, Knockout roses, and ornamental grass.

"Grass?" Ballkalsky asked, his eyes wide with suspicion.

"Yeah," I said. "You can stick it in the ground about anywhere and it grows. You don't even have to fertilize it." At this Ballkalsky took a note pad and a pen from the pocket of his windbreaker and started scribbling frantically. I decided to shut the hell up, and announced that the interview was over.

"You guys don't mind if I have a look around, do you?" asked Ballkalsky. Before The Engineer could answer I put my hand over his mouth.

"Shove off, and come back with a search warrant," I said. Agent Ballkalsky gave The Engineer and I a wry smile and snapped his fingers. The door came crashing to the ground, causing me to clear a foot off the ground and set into another litany of profanity. Three more agents in blue windbreakers with DEA scrolled on the back in yellow, came clamoring up the stairs.

"Funny you should say that," said Ballkalsky. "I just happen to have one right here," he said, pulling a warrant out of that damned, government issued windbreaker. He handed me the warrant, which I read out loud to The Engineer.

It was something about the words, "for suspicion of the cultivation of a controlled dangerous substance, to-wit: marijuana," that put The Engineer and I in a state of panicky confusion. "Marijuana?" I asked. "What in the hell is this about? This can't be right?"

Ballkalsky was unaffected by my pleas of ignorance as his fellow agents and he rifled through HQ, turning over papers, looking through desk drawers, and reading everything. The bastards even downloaded all of our documents and the blog off of our computers to a thumb drive. Three hours later, on their way out and over the door, Agent Buzz-cut suggested we stick around for the time being, and not leave town.

Feeling supremely agitated I ripped open the certified mail we received. It was a dunning letter, threatening suit, if The Engineer and I did not make good on the $15,000 worth of horticultural products purchased on a credit card that we didn't know we had, within thirty days. I called the company, Amsterdam Express, Inc., from which the purchases had been made.

Somebody, some where, had opened a credit card account under our names and purchased, within the last year, a top-of-the-line drip irrigation system, a hundred twelve inch pots, grow lights with pulley kits, Ph specific soil, and gallons of liquid fertilizer. I called the toll free number in the letter to speak to someone at the credit card company. A woman with a rich Indian accent asked, "And when will you be able to pay your account current, sir?"

"Never," I growled. "We didn't open this account. It is not ours."

"Very good, sir, but I see nothing to indicate that there is any iota of truth to what you say, sir. And if I may be so bold as to say, you are a poor liar. If you do not pay the account, we will have no other option but to turn this matter over for collection and possibly a law suit, sir."

"Damn you," I said.

"Sir, if you continue to use that tone of voice with me, I will hang up and transfer your account to collection immediately, sir."

"Look here. Tell me where these purchases were delivered," I demanded.

The Indian account representative sighed. "You should know, sir, since you purchases were made on your account, and delivered to the delivery address that you provided the merchant from which the purchases were made." I hung up, and called Amsterdam Express, Inc. back.

"Amsterdam Express, duuuude. How may I help you on this beautiful day?"

"I need to know where my order--" I stopped at that, knowing full well that everything I said on the phone, and in HQ, was being intercepted and taken down by the DEA. "Er, an order that was made by someone pretending to be me was shipped to."

"You should know, man, since your order was shipped, received and signed for, dude."

"Look, damn you, I need to know where it was shipped," I demanded.

"Hey, whoa. If you're going to take that tone with me, I'll just hang up. So chill out, man." Finally I was able to persuade hacky-sack for brains to fax our--er, somebody's, invoice to us. The shipping address was a P.O. Box number in a rural township.

With an order of crab ragoon, egg rolls and spicy beef lo mien to go, we rolled out of town in The Cube. Destination: the sleepy and impoverished community of Jimjam, USA. I called ahead to a process server I had used in and near Jimjam to do what is called a "box buster," and was able to learn the the name and physical address under which the box was registered. Not surprisingly, the box was registered to The Engineer and me.

While in route, I called the county assessor to determine who owned the property with the address we were given. Not surprisingly, The Engineer and I were the proud fee-simple land owners of the property in question, though neither one of us before that day had ever so much as put our toes in Jimjam.

With the aid of GPS we drove a few miles down a county road and turned onto a dirt road that took us another mile or two deep in the sticks. With the GPS indicating that we were on top of our destination, The Engineer parked The Cube out of sight, obscured from the road by a thicket of tall shrubs and trees.

Armed with tazers, we hiked around the twenty acres the property encompassed, keeping low and treading cautiously. After a couple of hours, and very thirsty, we considered giving up for the day, having found nothing of interest, not even so much as a little tar-paper shack, which you would expect to see in those parts. Resting under a tree we considered our options.

"There's nothing here," said The Engineer as he jumped up and walked around, kicking rocks. "This is a complete fucking waste of--" said The Engineer before falling through the ground as he was replaced by a plume of dust.

"What the...," I said walking over to the hole in the ground where The Engineer once stood. I got down on my hands and knees, and no sooner than I had peaked my head over the edge of the hole, a large and hairy arm grabbed me by the face and pulled me down it.

"Drop the water guns," said a burly looking, gapped-tooth, hillbilly. The Engineer and I dropped our tazers. "You don't want to excite Cleetus here," he said pointing to another itchy looking hillbilly with a double-barrel, sawed-off shot gun trained on us. "His finger starts to twitch sometin' fierce when he gets nervous, don't it Cleetus?"

"Sure enough does, Darl," said the bastard, Cleetus. "And I reckon I'm feeling a bit nervous and twitchy right now, Darl." The two scumbags started to snort wildly, which I assumed passed as laughing in Jimjam, USA. After the initial shock of being yanked face first through an obscured hole in the ground and being confronted by the cast of Deliverance had worn off, I focused on the room behind Darl and Cleetus.

It was our credit card, hard at work. We were standing at the back end of a school bus that had been completely buried and modified with hanging grow lights, over pungent and healthy looking marijuana plants fitted in pots. Black tubing neatly ran from one pot to the next, methodically dripping water to nourish the roots. From one end of the bus to the other, marijuana plants thrived and reached upwards towards the grow lights, gently waving in the air moved by oscillating fans.

"Boss?" said Darl into a walkie-talkie.

A scratchy voice came back, "Yes?"

"We's got ourselves a couple trespassers. Whatchya want us to do with 'em?"

"Kill them," the voice came back in an instant.

"Hey there, Cleetus. It's your lucky day. The boss said kill 'em." The inbreds started into a hardy round of snorting and laughing. The Engineer and I shuttered.

"Woo-hoo!" yelped Cleetus. "Whichy oney do I wanty to killy first?" asked Cleetus alternating pointing the gun at me then the Engineer.

"Wait a second," came back the voice on the walkie-talkie. "Describe what the tresspassers look like."

"Well," said Darl. "They definitely don't look like they're from around here. Kinda look like smart-ass city types. Yip, both look like a couple of smug, know-it-all, punk, sons-of-bitches, boss."

"Ah, I know them. Take them up to the barn, and let Candy take care of them, over," said the voice.

"Oooo-weee!" exclaimed Darl. "Candy's gonna be takin' care of you all, you lucky sons-of-bitches." The Engineer's face twitched and contorted. I fought back the urge to piss my pants. Darl and Cleetus burst out snorting and laughing as hard as they had ever in their simple and despicable lives.

With Cleetus and his shotgun at our backs, we marched about half a mile to a wooden barn. Inside, Cleetus opened a box and pulled some articles of clothing out, threw them at us and commanded us to strip. The Engineer flat refused. Cleetus put the barrels of his shotgun right into the nostrils of The Engineer. "I suggest you do as I say," said Cleetus.

That was all the motivational inspiration The Engineer and I needed. We stripped and put on black latex shorts that were about two sizes too small for us. Cleetus pulled a couple of orange gag balls and made us put them in our mouths and fasten them around our heads, and then made us put a pair of hand cuffs on. We were made to raise our arms as Cleetus fastened the cuffs to a couple of hooks hanging from the rafters. The hooks were high enough that we could not raise our arms high enough, on our tippy-toes, to release them. Feeling very vulnerable, we expected to see Dick Cheney walking into the barn at any moment to deliver up a smarting round of torture.

"There we go, sweet hearts. I'll leave you all to think things over for your selves a little before Candy gets here," he said, snorting and laughing out the barn door closing and locking it from the outside.

An hour later, a stunning blond, attired in close to nothing, appeared in front of us. She wore emerald thigh-high boots. Other than that, she wore a pair of green panties. The only thing covering her breasts were marijuana leaf stickers over each nipple. "You boys ready for the shoot?" she asked winking at us, as she set up a tripod with a camera mounted on top of it. "Okay," said Candy looking pleased with her seductive self. "Say, cheese," she said, lighting a joint.

I dare not describe what happened after that.

The photo shoot over, Cleetus returned and released us from the rafters and the cuffs and directed us to put our clothes back on. "I hope Candy treated you boys real nice. Now hurry the hell up, and getch your clothes on. The boss wants to see you all."

In double time, Cleetus marched us to a mobile home close by. It was clean on the outside--there were no cars on cinder blocks, rusted-out kitchen appliances nor a pack of flee bitten dogs scratching about--a rare sight in a place like rural Jimjam. From inside, in the main living area, you wouldn't necessarily know that you were in a mobile home, especially in rural Jimjam, USA. It had an Ikea feng shui that was pleasing to the eye and cozy to the soul. It was the sort of place you expected to see black turtle necks, leather boots and black dresses, and martinis. Cleetus pointed to a door with his shot gun. "Thata way," he grunted.

We walked into what should have been a bedroom, but had been outfitted as an office. Candy was standing next to an executive seat with its back to us. We took it that this was 'The Boss' with his back to us. As we stood on the other side of the desk from them, they were looking at a computer monitor that sat on the credenza behind the desk.

"Wow, how did you learn to do that?" asked The Boss, whose voice sounded awfully familiar.

"I told you, I paid my way through college by being a stripper," said Candy, still in her cannabis costume, and giving us a wink. Peering over the back of the executive seat The Engineer and I could see that they were inspecting the photos of the recent shoot that Candy directed and produced. In each photo Candy had assumed a provocative pose, while smoking a joint, nestled up to either one of us as we hung from the rafters with gag balls in our mouths, looking like helpless morons. The Engineer and I were in a complete state of shock as we contemplated what it would portend for our careers and marriages if those photos ever made there way to the commons of the world wide web.

The executive chair pivoted around to us, and there sat no other, looking at us through squinting eyes as red as the devil's, our "intern" editor. "Edgar! You sorry, little prick," I said.

The Engineer followed up with, "You sack of shit," or something equally insulting. Edgar laughed as Candy rubbed his shoulders.

"Welcome to my farm, guys. I hope you have been treated well," said the stoned smart ass. "I take it you have met my business partner, Candy?" Candy blew us a kiss.

"Hey," said The Engineer in way of salutation back to Candy. It was hard not to be enamored with her talents, no matter how tawdry.

"Come on, Edgar," I said. "What's the deal here. You are going to get us all in a shit-pot full of trouble if you keep this up. We've already been visited by the DEA back at HQ. Once the fed's get a whiff of you, there is no shaking them."

"Don't worry, I've thought the whole thing through. I suppose, in part, you guys are a little concerned about this property being titled in you names." The Engineer and I shook our heads in agreement. We were mortified. "I have already deeded the property to Rush Limbaugh by way of forging your names to a quit claim deed. Anyone investigating will see that it is an obvious forgery and that your pens never came close to a piece of paper that has anything to do with this enterprise." Edgar started laughing again, though we didn't share his enthusiastic humor.

"Okay," said The Engineer. "But that doesn't mean we won't be investigated. Being investigated kind of sucks, you know. And besides, what is going to keep us from telling all, and pointing the finger right at you?"

"I'm glad you brought that up, bitch," said Edgar pointing at the monitor behind him. "All I have to do is click 'send'," he said, his index finger hovering precariously over the right button of the mouse, "and you will have a whole lot of explaining to do to the press, and your wives and families. All the photos will be up on the blog and emailed to your families and all of the local media." He widened his blazing red eyes and looked at us with a crazed, opened mouth smile, taunting us to dare him.

"Say, Edgar," I put forth, "there's no need to do that. Let's consider our options. You wouldn't have $15,000 lying around, handy?" He nodded in the affirmative that he did. "Wow," I said.

"Good job," said The Engineer, impressed with Edgar's and Candy's entrepreneurial spirit.

"If you will pay us what we owe on your credit card," I continued, "we can close that account and protest it with the credit bureaus as having never been ours to begin with."

"This is pretty damn good hydroponic stuff," said Edgar as he took a long drag off of a joint, kicked his legs up on the desk and blew a few smoke rings. "I call it Jamaican Jimjam--good name, huh?" Edgar fell into a deep contemplative silence. After a minute, and still no word back from Edgar with regard to our proposal that we get everything set straight and be allowed to get the hell out of there, The Engineer stamped his foot. "Hey! Edgar, come back."

Edgar bolted straight in his chair. "Do what?"

"What we were talking about, with the credit card and all," said The Engineer.

"Credit card?" asked Edgar.

"Goddamn it!" I explained the whole thing to him again.

"Sure," said Edgar. "No problem." Edgar opened a drawer of the desk and threw a wad of cash across it to us. "That should be a little more than fifteen g's there for you."

"Sixteen exactly," said The Engineer having counted the sum in a flash.

"Well, it's getting dark out," I observed. "Just give us the keys to The Cube, and we will let Candy and you get on with your lives."

"Wait," said Edgar with a look of alarm on his face. "Did you hear that?"

"You're just paranoid," said The Engineer.

"Eat some chocolate chip cookies, and drink a gallon of milk, and you'll feel better," I added.

"No! Shit!" Edgar said, panicking. Picking up a walkie talkie he yelled, "Cleetus! Darl! Get out of the bus. Repeat, abandon the bus. Code Green!" Darl's and Cleetus's voices came back in a sonic collage of redneck angst, driven mostly by drawling explicatives that only a fellow redneck-hillbilly, bastard could decipher.

"What the fuck is it?" I shouted.

"Listen," said Edgar. For the love of all the holy saints, it was the sound of the air being repeatedly dissected by the blades of a helicopter. I didn't know whether to run or jump in place. The Engineer was stricken frozen in a state of utter fear.

Candy danced around, her c-cups bouncing up and down, repeating, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Come on," said Edgar with a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder. "Down the hole," he commanded, dropping down a hatch in the floor of the mobile home, and into a tunnel. We popped out of the ground fifty yards from the home. Edgar took what looked like a control for a remote control toy car out of the duffel bag. No sooner had he hit a button on it than a ball of fire lit the night sky with a considerable concussion that came from over the hill where the buried bus was.

"That should take care of the evidence," said Edgar. We could see the helicopter, and dangling beneath it the silhouettes of men sliding down ropes to the ground. Edgar ran to a pick up truck parked in the dirt drive way. He started it up, turned on its lights, and put it into drive. We watched as the pick up idled off, driverless, down the dirt road and out of sight as the helicopter above followed it. "Let's go, this way. Stay low," said Edgar, the perfect homosexual version of Rambo.

We lit out into the surrounding woods. After there was about two-hundred yards between us and the home, Edgar took out the remote control, hit a button and blew the home to smithereens as agents ducked and ran for cover all around it. All that was left were the axles, ablaze.

"This way, keep up," Edgar implored The Engineer, Candy and me. After what seemed a half mile of trudging through shrubs and woods we came to a happy sight, indeed. It was The Cube. Edgar through the duffle bag in back, as we all climbed in. Darl and Cleetus popped out of the ditch and came running to us, but not before we were all inside The Cube and The Engineer had locked the car.

"They aren't coming with us, no fucking way," said The Engineer. "Where in the hell are the keys, Edgar?"

"Oh, shit, the keys. I left them in my desk." The Engineer and I turned, looking at Edgar in the back seat with a lust for murder in our eyes. "Hahaha! Just kidding. Here they are," he said handing them to The Engineer, while Cleetus and Darl banged on either side of the car demanding to be let in, like their lives depended on it. "Hit it," yelled Edgar, "but keep your lights off for at least a mile."

"What about the hillbillies?" I asked. "They are going to get caught and will tell the fed's everything to get out of this. They'll sing like song birds," I said as I watched Darl lose his footing and crash to the ground in a cloud of dust as Cleetus continued running after us, his arms flailing about wildly.

"Don't worry," said Edgar. "They have been greatly misinformed about who Candy and I are. Tell them your real name, Candy."

"Sissy," she said. The Engineer and I were not predisposed to believe that was her name either.

Edgar swept HQ for bugs and ran a few programs on our computers to prevent any further hacking by the DEA.

"So, what's in the duffle bag?" The Engineer asked Edgar.

"Oh," said Edgar, unzipping it, "after Sissy's cut, just a hundred thousand dollars more or less." Sissy took her share, loaded it into another bag, and said something about putting her business administration degree to good use and opening up a strip club, and sauntered off. It was for the best. Only a homosexual male, like Edgar, could be in business with trouble like that.

"Holy smoley," said The Engineer. "That's a lot of money. Say, Edgar, you wouldn't want to pop around the corner and pick us up a pizza, extra garlic?"

"Go fuck your self," said Edgar. Our working relationship with Edgar would have to be renegotiated on more favorable terms to our "intern" editor.

The next morning reading the paper, I blurted out, "Hey," getting The Engineer's and Edgar's attention, "check this out." I read them the AP report.

AP--Jimjam. DEA agents raided a rural estate located outside the small town of Jimjam last evening at dusk. The property was suspected as being the site of a marijuana growing operation inside a buried school bus. DEA agents confessed that there was little in the way of prosecutable evidence left on the property.

Two explosions rocked the area atomizing a mobile home on the property and what was believed to be an old school bus buried beneath the ground in which marijuana was being cultivated, according to DEA Agent Guy Ballkalsky. No agents were injured in the raid, he said.

Two local men have been taken into custody. According to agents, the two men were wondering about the property, bewildered and under the influence of marijuana. "They have been interrogated," said one anonymous source with the DEA. "We believe the two hillbilly, redneck scumbags were running the illegal operation, but we are still not sure. They don't seem smart enough to pull something like this off."

According to another anonymous source, the two men, while being interrogated, insisted that they were working for a man they only new as 'The Boss,' who they believe to be a wealthy son of a Polish oil man, and his assistant, Candy who 'The Boss' had met in New Zealand and brought to the U.S. with him.

Agent Ballkalsky indicated that the investigation will be dropped. The reason cited for closing the case is, "the whole thing is just too damn bizarre," according to Agent Ballkalsky.

Atomic Dinette???

2010-01-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

Heard on the radio the other day that "The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" has dropped back the Doomsday clock by one minute. This is sort of a coincidence as I am trying to write a blog entry about certain events that occurred not too long ago that most people didn't even realize had occurred. This particular series of events, by the opinion of some historians, actually brought us closer to doomsday than even the Cuban Missile Crisis! But until that blog, as I am somewhat of a Cold War history buff myself, here is some trivia facts for the interested....

1) Klaus Fuchs was a famous spy during the Manhattan Project. There was another spy, just as important, codename Perseus whose identity was never found out.

2) In the middle of Hollywood, there was a secret film studio called Lookout Mountain that filmed all of the atomic tests and had 250 employees. At one time they were producing more film footage than any of the major studios.

3) Several sites were set up so that a plan called COG or Continuity of Government could be implemented. Congress was supposed to go (but not their wives and children), when warned, to a designated place called GreenBriar which was a secret complex built underneath a luxury hotel. All of the luxury hotel employees were told that the secret complex employees for the underground site were "TV Repairmen". It was undiscovered for 30 years until a reporter disclosed its existence.

4) During the peak of the US Bomb making in the 50's, 50 percent of all the stainless steel produced in the country went to the process of making bomb. 30 percent of all the electricity produced in the country went to the same purpose.

5) During the fallout shelter debates of the 60's, a congressman who was a major proponent of cheap shelters that could be made by anyone for 40 dollars and would survive a attack, proved so by making one in his backyard for that amount. When he had a fire on his property caused by burning trash, the shelter was completely burned and destroyed. This prompted physicist, Enrico Fermi, to state "There is a God and he has a sense of humor"

6) Right before the first test during the Manhattan project, there was a science fiction writer that wrote a short story about such things. It was specific enough in detail that he was arrested and interrogated by the FBI before they were finally convinced that it was a coincidence.

7) During testing for pilots in the air that may observe accidentally a megaton burst, a mileage number was needed so that the pilots could be assured that they would not experience eye flash blindness that may hinder their ability to fly. The testing was abruptly stopped and the report was classified when it was discovered to be more than 750 miles.

8) During a SAC flight a bomber carrying a 1.2 megaton H-bomb collided midair with a jet fighter. They had to eject the bomb out of the plane into the waters because they thought they were going to crash.
The bomb was never found after 6 weeks of intensive searching by the military. It still sits in the water somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia in the good ole USA.

9) Before the first test at Alamogordo , there was concern that it would be a fizzle and the only sizable quantity of plutonium on the face off the planet would be scattered to the winds. So they came up with a design called JUMBO, a metal tank that was 25 feet long and weighing 214 tons that would contain the fizzle. They found the one foundry in the country that could make something of this size and had one produced. Then a special railroad car had to be designed to ship it to New Mexico. Special routes had to be then constructed to get from the rail lines to the site because normal roads would collapse with the weight. When it was brought to the site, the scientists decided it wasn't needed and left it in the desert where is still sits today.

10) No, Indiana Jones would not have survived in a lead lined refrigerator as shown in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull". So impossible was that scene that it gave rise to the saying "Nuke the frig" meaning a scene in a movie that is so implausable as to destroy any credibility of plot for the whole movie.

There WAS such a thing as the Doom-Town test in which the Atomic Energy Commission built a whole town complete with all the infrastructure and placed mannequins throughout the town and then blew it up with a A-Bomb.

11) There was sort of an "atomic energy is our friend" crazy pr campaign going on although by this time it was well known the dangers of radiation by government departments (AEC, etc). One of the things that I would have sold my soul to the devil for was this toy. It was the equivalent of the erector set and easy bake oven rolled into one! Behold the Atomic Testing Lab for kids!! And you thought that toys weren't educational. My 6 year old vision, a perverse sort of Christmas story, was me in a white lab coat saying
"and with this last step, I shall rule the world!! Bwaahaahaa!"

As the literature for the toy by the company stated.....

comes with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual "Prospecting for Uranium."

For some reason my mom refused to let me have it. I eventually came around to understanding the wisdom of that.

12) The picture is of Miss Atomic Bomb 1957. The title of this blog is a cheap take of a profound piece of media called "Atomic Cafe" by Jayne Loader. The Atomic Testing for Kids toy was produced for 1 year I think around 1951 by the Gilbert Company. The kit was expensive at the time but a neighborhood friend had that toy, used, that he was willing to part with for 10 dollars. He also had the largest box of M80's and Cherry Bombs that I had ever seen in one spot. And a Playboy magazine hidden for his paying customers to view. I think he later spent time in prison for some reason or other. Something about this kid just made bells go off in your head without the need any spoken words. Natures defense mechanism at work I suppose.

Pivotal moments in US history changed by the courageous actions of 1.

2009-12-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

It was something that was going to change the world! The internal combustion engine was not only going to allow everyday citizens to have personal transportation, but also was going to replace the more hazardous steam power. The only problem was the fuel. When the engines were made more efficient and more powerful with higher compression, this horrible problem kept revealing its ugly side. A ominous sound would start up from the very bowels of the engine cylinders when put under stress.

This sound was discovered to be "Pinging" or sometimes called engine knocking. The sound was like somebody had put gravel rocks in the cylinders! Besides the very undesirable sounds that were produced from the relatively new technology it was discovered that pinging caused damage to the internal workings of the engine itself. Some solution had to be found or this technology would never be accepted!

So in 1916 a chemist, named Thomas Midgley, was given the job of finding a solution to this particular problem. He was told that not only was it bad for the automobiles being produced but the newfangled flying machines and the associated aviation engine development was being hampered. So working for General Motors Research, he tried several schemes to prevent this engine knock.

Since Thomas thought that too much heat might be the problem, he tried different dyes in the gas. Perhaps different colors would absorb less heat. This didn't work out so well. They then accumulated almost every element they could think of based on the Periodic Chart of the elements and started going down the list.

By trial and error, they stumbled upon a substance called Tetra-Ethyl-Tin that showed some promise. Further investigation showed that it was the lead in the Tetra-Ethyl-Tin that stopped the knock completely. Lead was extremely cheap so if this substance worked out, a lot of money could be made. The chemist cooked up a batch of Tetra-Ethyl-Lead and tried it out. The knock went away completely like magic!

But by this time, other researchers had discovered that lead had some very bad properties like brain damage, strange skin reactions, difficulties in walking, etc. The League of Nations recommended to ban all lead in paint to which Europe complied.The United States, for whatever reason, did not regulate lead in paint until a much later date. Thomas Midgley was by then receiving all sorts of reports and letters telling about the hazards of lead but by this time too much had been invested in this magical liquid solution.

In 1922, the surgeon general wrote a letter to the president of General Motors with concerns that lead would become a serious health issue to the public. In spite of these warnings, the president of General Motors, Pierre DuPont partnered with Standard Oil to form Ethyl Gasoline Company with Mr. Charles Kettering as President and Thomas Midgley, the chemist, as Vice-President. The product was put on sale in 1923. Additional public advertising was helped by the fact that Ethyl fueled cars won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place at the Indianapolis Raceway in 1923.

But problems started to show up. At the Ethyl production facility in Deepwater, the workers became disoriented, had a strange gait, and couldn't seem to think clearly. The Deepwater Ethyl plant started to be called the "House of Butterflies" for the strange effects to the workers. The companies leaders excused the effects as the workers are "working too hard" and that was causing the slow insanity. "We are going to have to protect the workers against themselves" stated Mr Kettering. The public took these statements as a clean bill of health and soon the Ethyl lead additive started taking over the market.

By 1963, over 98 percent of all gasoline contained the additive. But all this lead was also coming out of the exhausts of all those cars across the country. Thousands of tons of lead per year at its peak. But because of political muscle, Ethyl lead gasoline enjoyed the protection of the government. One instance, when a competitor came up with a nonlead additive, the US government actually sued them into bankruptcy. The US Federal Trade Commission came out with a report that stated that leaded gas was not a narcotic, poisonous dope, or dangerous to human health in any way. Ethyl Gasoline was here to stay........except for one person who just wouldn't go along.

This one geochemist graduate student, Clair Patterson, was trying some new ways of measuring how old rocks were with the goal of finding out how old the earth was. His new method was by measuring the isotopes of uranium and lead naturally found in rocks samples. But something was wrong! All of the rock samples he tested contained about 200 times the amount of lead they should have naturally. He just couldn't figure out where the contamination was coming from! He set up a strict contamination procedure in his lab. Still he was coming up with the same results. Where was all the lead coming from?

He found out that the lead contamination was from the atmosphere and spoiling the samples. He then discovered that it was from the gasoline additive, Tetra-Ethyl-Lead, and started publishing his findings.

Dr Patterson came up with an experiment in which he would take core samples from pack ice in Greenland and from the different layers, be able to determine lead contamination throughout past years. The experiment worked and it show that lead levels started increasing in 1923 and that the last tested year of 1965, the lead levels were 1000 times what they had been before 1923.

He also started testing human bones and found that modern human bone lead level were many times greater than pre-1923 bone lead tests. When these results were published, the proverbial "crap hit the fan".

First the Ethyl corporation offered him lucrative contracts for more favorable results. He refused. They then started a public smear campaign designed to destroy his credibility. Even the US government got into the campaign with the National Research Council disputing the findings. The Ethyl Corporation had many friends on their side including a Supreme Court Justice, members of the US Public Health Service, and the American Petroleum Institute.

But Dr. Patterson would not relent on his campaign to inform the general public. Eventually Congress passed the Clean Air act of 1970 which demanded that leaded gasoline was to be phased out because of research that Dr Patterson published. DuPont and the Ethyl Corporation were able to delay the death of Ethyl based additives for 10 more years in court, but eventually all gasoline became lead free in 1986. In the 63 years of Ethyl additives existence, 6 million tons of lead was released in the atmosphere.

What happened to the chemist, Thomas Midgley, who ignored all the warnings about lead and came up with Ethyl additives? Well, he was not totally out of the creative process when Tetra-Ethyl-Lead ceased to exist. He later went on to invent ChloroFluroCarbons, otherwise known as CFC'S. What a guy!!

Resources:
The Nation: The Secret History of Lead by Jamie Kitman
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra-ethyl_lead
Damn Interesting: The Ethyl Poison Earth by Alan Bellows
http://www.chemcases.com/tel/tel-13.htm
Kenneshaw University "How the best known Poison on Earth remained in the Gasoline Supply for 60 Years"

Lawyer Claus

2009-12-20T09:56:00.000-08:00

It's definitely that time of year again. You can tell that the holidays are upon us by the way hard working Americans cram a month's worth of work into two weeks, stretching the limits of sanity to the brink of snapping. Of course, some do snap. But the purpose of this entry is not to probe the what-for of our collective insanity induced by trying to do too much in too short amount of time, but rather to dish out a few justly deserved presents.

First, for the teabaggers and their de facto leaders at Fox News. Man, these people really hate government, or at least a government under the executive control of a black Democrat. My mind still boggles at some of the rich signs these folks were holding up at rallies over the last year. My favorite was, "Keep Government out of my Social Security." If you do not instantly recognize the irony of that statement, you might consider using drugs--it couldn't impair your cognitive abilities worse than they are already.

One woman being interviewed by author Max Blumenthal at a spirited teabagging stated the purpose of her participation was because she wanted government out of her life, period. When pressed to expound, she repeated the injunction over and over. If no government is what you want, then I give you its alternative: anarchy for the U.S.A. Irrespective of naughtiness, my gift to the folks at Fox balls and their teabagging devotees is a pair of Doc Martens and hair clippers so that they can all give each other mohawks. Rock on!

The religious right's faith in the singularly literal interpretation of an ancient text written by men who thought the world was flat is unwavering. I admire people that can stick to a certain perspective despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Most astonishing though, I am chilled to the bone that the one thing the religious right wants more than anything in the world is the total destruction of planet Earth. So, my gift to them is Armageddon and the rapture. Go out to a hill somewhere in God's country, and wait, while modernity chugs along without you. However, this is a bit of a gag gift. It's not the people who subscribe to the idea that the world is 14 billion years old that are going to get left behind.

As a subset of the same category as the religious right, I have a very special gift for advocates of abstinence only sex education: STD's and more kids than you can reasonably afford.

Oh, and look here what we have in the bag. I have a gift for those mad geniuses on Wall Street for whom too much wealth, at any cost, is never enough. They are the only beneficiaries of anything that approaches socialism in the United States. Our taxes insure that they continue to make outlandish bonuses as they devise ever more complex schemes to screw us in return. Wall Street executives get locked in a room for twenty-four hours with a gaggle of stinky World Trade Organization protesters, armed with tazers--no cameras, or other recording devices, allowed.

Let's see. Reaching into the bag, rummaging around...I know it's here somewhere. Yes, there it is. For the health insurance industry, you get the bird.

As for the rest of you, all I have to give is infinite patience and an excuse to laugh at anything that might be spun as remotely humorous.

Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Pivotal moments in US history changed by the courageous actions of 1.

2009-12-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

The citizens of the country were in turmoil. "The President is a socialist" they cried. A large group of protesters formed to demonstrate around the county. "We need to take back the country and follow the Constitution" were the slogans used by some of the most affluent New York investors. They had lost a fortune in investments and were convinced that the country was headed in a hopeless direction of Socialism. They saw the rapid demise of all they had built up. Something must be done......

You may think that this was a description of the "Tea Baggers" and the harsh words were for President Obama. Well, think again. The President is Franklin Roosevelt and the time is during the Great Depression. Roosevelt had just begun execution of a program called the "New Deal".

The "Tea Baggers" of that time were called the American Liberty League and they had actually more in mind than just protesting. What they had in mind was a coup d'etat, a forceful overthrow of the US Government. So some of the wealthiest men in the country along with the help of a large group of investment bankers held a secret meeting in New York to organize and bankroll this devious plan. They then appointed a go-between messenger, Gerald McGuire, of the American Liberty League, to enlist the help of a U.S. Marine Major General by the name of Smedley Butler to gain control and lead the military.

They claimed that they already had control of the newspaper publications and also had immediate access to 3 million dollars to start the coup and up to 300 million if it was needed. That was a huge amount of money in the 1930's!

Smedley Butler wasn't just any sort of General. He had been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from both the Army and the Navy. He was also one of only 20 people to receive the Marines Brevet Medal and one of only a handful to twice, let me repeat that, twice receive the Medal of Honor. A national hero if there ever was one.

Initially Gerald McGuire approached the General saying he was from the Committee for a Sound US Dollar, a organization determined to force Roosevelt back to the Gold Standard. He implied that the organization had the support of several political leaders and was bankrolled by the country's most affluent individuals and corporate leaders.

After several meeting with Smedley not showing any interest whatsoever, McGuire dropped all pretenses and at a restaurant meeting laid it all on the line. McGuire indicated that he had the support of key industrial figures and had 3 million in cash to bankroll the cause. He stated that he would like General Butler to lead a force of 500,000 disgruntled Veterans and they were to overthrow the US government. The president and other existing US leadership would keep their positions but the General was to become the secretary of the Office for General Affairs and decisions were to be given to him as to the new formed government.

General Butler expressed interest in this so he joined with the group. After some months of planning, the time for action was now. In the autumn of 1934, General Butler called a press meeting to discuss matters of grave importance. But when the press meeting occurred, he didn't demand the surrender of the US Government. Instead he related to the reporters the details of the plot, complete with names and dates. He had been just playing along with the conspirators all this time. General Butler had also enlisted the help of a undercover reporter by the name of Paul French who was keeping a detailed record of the plot.

After the startling press meeting, Paul French and the General were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee for a full accounting. After their testimony and also testimony from James Zandt, National Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who also had been approached to lead 500,000 veterans on a march on Washington, the HUAC concluded that there was compelling evidence of a coup plot. They stated that there was no doubt that certain persons had made an attempt to establish new governmental control in this country.

Suddenly all the newspapers ran stories as to a "plot without plotters" and ridiculed that US corporate leaders could participate in such "Rabble Rousing" behavior. The governments action was of complete inaction. Criminal charges were brought against no one and the collection of listed people in the report were immediately excused from ever testifying. In addition, the go-between, Gerald Mcguire died suddenly 1 month after the report was made public. But the plan had been stopped abruptly even before a shot was fired.

Who knows what might have happened if it wasn't for the actions of one man, General Smedley Butler, who by the way was also known as the "Fighting Quaker".

Party Crashing

2009-12-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

Three hours had passed without the smell of pepper beef and chicken lo mien wafting through The Lawyer and The Engineer HQ. The Engineer and I assumed the worse. We had been abandoned by Edgar, our "intern" editor, the last of our restless team of editors to quit us.

Rudderless, The Engineer and I sat around for a few days, not discussing or doing much. Eventually I wanted coffee, so I stood up and walked to the coffee maker and set to figuring out how to make the thing work, but we were out of coffee. "Edgar," I shouted. "Pop down to the grocery store and get us some Costa Rican, ground..." The Engineer shook his head at me. I slapped my forehead. We missed Edgar.

The monotony was broken as we were jarred by a sudden calling while The Engineer and I watched the President give a speech on one of the cable "news" networks. We had cable, with a used DVR box, all courtesy of The Engineer who had hijacked cable from a nearby utility pole.

It was a town hall style meeting about health care, joblessness, the economy, Afghanistan, North Korea, swine flu, and global warming, which pretty much ran the gauntlet of all that is wrong in the world. Listening to him I felt more helpless and alone at the state of things in general than I did by being left to fend for my own basic luxuries by Edgar's resignation.

"Whoa, look there," said The Engineer, pausing the program. "Right there," he said pointing to a man in a dark suit, sunglasses, a white coil-y thing stuck in one ear, with arms like tree trunks. "Who does that look like?"

"I don't know? A secret service guy?"

"Yeah, he's a secret service officer, but have you ever seen him before?" asked The Engineer. I moved closer to the television and squinted. I did recognize the bastard.

I stood and backed away from the set pointing at it. "That's the guy," I said, my heart racing as only it does at the sight of someone by whom you have been tazered and generally roughed up. "The security guard at Fox News."

"Who had been employed to guard that psychotic, fart-face, dry-drunk Mormon, Glenn Beck," said The Engineer.

"And protect the dread pirate, Rupert Murdoch," I added.

"And," The Engineer said, "charged to keep secret Dick Cheney's undisclosed location in his makeshift vice-presidential office."

The Engineer and I looked at each other, the blood having drained from our already pasty faces as we entertained the same thought. My voice cracking, I said, "And to watch over the empire of--"

"The Prince of Darkness," said The Engineer as we slumped back into our respective, pre-owned, Lazyboy recliners.

Before you could say "conspiracy theory" we were in The Cube speeding out of town; destination: The Whitehouse.

Outside the beltway, we booked ourselves into a discount hotel that offered rooms, for a darn reasonable price, by the week or the hour. There, amidst the exotic smells of illegal substances being inhaled and the sound of primal grunts and groans and head boards thudding against the walls on either side of our room, we formulated our plan to have an audience with someone--anyone--of importance at The Whitehouse.

A black tie event was scheduled for that evening at The Whitehouse in honor of an international dignitary. Between the two of us, we had just enough money to rent tuxedos and a limousine. The Engineer explained that under the guise of being diplomatic assistants from the Luxembourg embassy we could gain entrance to the event and provide a written synoptic memorandum to either the President, Joe Biden or Rahm "The Asshole" Emanuel, whoever we could get closest to the fastest, and then we would have completed our mission. Thereafter, if we were lucky, we could hang out for a while, have a square meal, get drunk, have our photos taken with Hillary Clinton and Katherine Sebelius, and maybe show what we are made of on the dance floor with the First Lady.

"There's one missing ingredient," I said to The Engineer. "We have to have dates. You can't go to a black tie event without a top-shelf, classy woman hanging on your arm."

"Damn, You're right," conceded The Engineer. "How do we get two dates on short notice?"

The hotel manager, behind the bullet proof glass window in the lobby, looked like just the man that could help us with our dilemma. Our good host, Abd Al-Ala, who gave the impression he had not cracked a smile in well over a decade, nor appeared in the habit of shaving on a regular basis, impatiently put down the fried chicken leg he had been gnawing on. "What do you want? You only get one towel per week."

"No, we don't need a towel," I said. "We need your advise."

"How does this work for you, my friend? Go fuck you self," Abd Al-Ala counseled.

"Look, prick," I said, "we need to hire a couple of real classy women to accompany us to a very exclusive party. I just thought you might be able to point us in the right direction."

"Ha!" he guffawed. "I know just the women for you. How classy are we talking here?"

"Um, well, very, very classy," said The Engineer.

"What the fuck are you two?" asked Abd Al-Ala. "A couple of fucking Canadians?"

"Yes, that's it. We are a couple of fucking Canadians," I said. "Now help us out here, you greasy dick wad."

"Very well," said Abd Al-Ala. "If you want very, very classy piece of ass, as you say, that will cost you one-thousand per evening."

"Ouch," said The Engineer.

"Per woman," added Abd Al-Ala.

"Whoa," I cringed.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha," laughed the sadistic douche bag. "You a couple of broke ass punks from Canada, huh?"

"Look," I said. "We don't have much money, but this is what we have to offer." I was thinking by the seat of my pants. "We, uh, my colleague and I, are invited to a very exclusive event, and there will be a lot of extremely important and powerful people there. It could be a great networking opportunity for the right girls, and offer a boost up in their clientele. This is the perfect chance for the right, entrepreneurial type go-getters."

Abd Al-Ala chewed on another piece of chicken, put it down and wiped his face and hands with a dirty napkin while eying us like we were a couple of shit heads. A chilling smile broke across his sinister face. "I've got just the women for you then," he said. "I know a couple of good Russian girls. You will have to negotiate your terms yourself with them. I make no warranties, my friends." Though their accents were as thick as a Tolstoy novel, we were able to negotiate that in addition to being provided the networking opportunity of a life time, we would pay Inga and Olya one-hundred dollars each.

That evening we anxiously stepped out of the lobby of the reasonably priced hotel, appareled in discount tuxedos from a haberdashery called Proms-R-Us, with Inga and Olya who each had breasts as downy-white and expansive as Siberia. We stepped into the white stretch, Hummer limousine with ground effects, rented at a distressed rate. Inside the limo, rolling for The Whitehouse, we explained to Inga and Olya that all they needed to do was smile, not say a word, and to hang on our every adoring word. I'm not sure they understood half of what we instructed, as Inga twizzled my hair with her long fingers.

Immediately we garnered unwanted attention as we exited our gaudy limousine, but were able to put ourselves in line with the other guests quickly enough that most there were unaware of who arrived in the monstrous thing. The line was long and moving slowly as the secret service agents at the door thoroughly checked the contents of everyone's pockets, swept them over with a hand-held metal detector, and another checked off a list as the guests passed through another metal detector.

Succumbing to that familiar queasy feeling I always got before the day would end by being tazered, I lent over to The Engineer and angrily whispered, "There is a guest list. There's a fucking guest list. We're fucked." The man in front of us--who looked like a Mediterranean pervert I represented once--with a blond waif on his arm, had overheard me and caught my eye with a nervous smile on his face. I darted a cold look into his twitching eyes. Though he never quit smiling, bigger than life, he was shaking with nerves. I sensed there was nothing but trouble ahead.

"Change of plan then," whispered the Engineer. "We are not lower level assistants to Ambassadors from Luxembourg. We are lower level assistants to Ambassadors from Russia. We have to be able to see the list, while acting like we don't speak English, and point to the first Russian looking name we see."

Inga stared at the back of the head of the waif-ish woman in the red, silken, exotic dress, while talking what sounded like a barrel of smack in Russian. I shushed her, but not before the blond waif turned and smiled stupidly at Inga. Inga whispered in my ear. "I do not like the coot of her jib," she said. "There is something nawt correct about that American beetch." Hushing her again, Inga shot me a proud and fierce look.

With only the waif and the jittery looking Mediterranean guy with the idiotic smile left to go through the metal detectors, what I saw caused all the hope I had left of gaining entrance to drop out my pant legs. The secret service agent that had formerly been employed by those ingrates at Fox News was standing there with the clip board with the list of guests on it. As soon as I had recognized him, as if sensing that I was looking right at him, his eyes went straight from the buffoon with the waif and landed square upon my countenance.

"You!" he shouted. I looked behind me as if the person being addressed was not me. He dropped the clip board and lunged at The Engineer and me. The other agents joined in the fray, reaching and tugging at us as Inga and Olya beat them over the head with their purses and cursed them relentlessly in Russian.

The Engineer and I were able to pull apart from the grasping hands of the agents and make just enough space between us to make ourselves easy targets from the tazers that had been drawn and triggered. The Engineer and I were shot in the chest, and we went down hard, our teeth chattering madly, as we sputtered out something that sounded like, "Gi-di-di-di-di-di-di."

In all the excitement the agents lost track of the waif and her man as they slipped through the metal detector and into the event, the press's cameras blasting them in a strobe of flashes as they entered, smiling and waiving. The Engineer and I were picked off the ground, our limbs still twittering with electricity as we were hauled off into custody of The United States of America.

It was bad enough that we spent the next week detained in close proximity of cartel mules, inner-city gangsters, meth-heads in withdrawal and an assortment of other violent offenders. The only matter being covered in the news was the incident of The Whitehouse party crashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the mad man and his waif wife in the red, silk dress. It served as a constant reminder of our folly and failed mission. There was no mention of The Engineer and I since our arrest was a matter of national security and therefore secret.

Otherwise the coverage of the matter was predictably dull. Who are the Salahi's? What where they doing there? How did they get in? What does their house look like? What brand of car do they drive? Whose fault was it that they were able to shake hands with the president and Mrs. Salahi was able to get a photo with the Vice President while fondling his chest? It went on and on, in a monotonous dribble worse than Chinese water torture, until the announcement came one afternoon.

"This breaking news, just in," announced the perky anchor woman. "The secret service agent that was in charge of overseeing the guest list at last weeks black tie event at the Whitehouse has been terminated from his duties as an agent for purportedly being derelict in his duties in allowing the now infamous Salahi's to enter the exclusive event, though they were not on the list." The Engineer and I gave each other a high five and celebrated with an intense game of fish in our homey little cell.

Edgar, The King of Kings

2009-11-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

While still masticating the last of the second bagel he had eaten within the span of ten minutes, The Engineer spread a heaping mound of cream cheese on the third he intended to ingest. "Not hungry?" he asked me with a toothy grin.

I wasn't. Sitting in the green room, waiting to go on air, live in front of the whole country, my stomach was rebelling, along with my nervous system. No matter how much I wished to impress that I was calm and perfectly in command of my faculties, my hands were beginning to shake like they had a mind of their own.

A page stuck her head into the green room to remind us that we would be going on in five minutes. I looked at her like a suffering squirrel that had just been hit by a car, pleading with my eyes to be put out of my misery. She recognized the look and directed my attention to the top shelf of a cabinet. Scotch!

Stepping out into the studio of the Rachel Maddow Show, I tripped over a step leading to the stage but managed not to spill any of the contents of the MSNBC coffee mug. The Engineer bound to the stage and took a seat at the desk across from Rachel with the exuberance of a little boy strapping into a carnival ride. Seating myself, I took a long draw out of the mug summoning the courage of a hundred generations of musty highlanders.

A voice boomed out of the sound system announcing that we were going live in "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five," and went silent. I conjured the best smile I could muster that came across as maniacal. We were live.

After introducing us, Rachel got straight to the controversy that had been slowly suffocating us since stepping into the limelight. "You made a comment in one of your blog posts, wherein you stated that The Lawyer and The Engineer are more popular than Jesus Christ." As a result of that statement, we had received trash bags, and hard dives, full of hate mail, a large percentage of which wished The Engineer and I nothing short of an untimely and painful death.

"If I had said television is more popular than Jesus," I started, "I might have got away with it, but I just happened to be making a blog entry, as if I was talking to a friend, and I used the words "The Lawyer and The Engineer" as a remote thing, not as what I think - as The Lawyer and The Engineer, as the Engineer likes other people to see us. I just said 'we' are having more influence on our eleven followers at the time and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way."

Rachel asked, "Some of your blog followers have repeated your statements - 'I like the The Lawyer and The Engineer more than Jesus Christ.' What do you think about that?"

I braced myself with another swig from the mug, and said, "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to our fans. That we meant more to our fans than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for interpretive dance enthusiasts than for others. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this."

"But are you prepared to apologize?" Rachel asked.

"Wasn't what I said an apology," I said, my face turning crimson. "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry." I wasn't sorry, I just wanted the whole controversy to go away and to be in peace.

"Let's talk about another issue that has garnered a lot of negative attention. You wrote on your blog that it was your future intention to write an article entitled, Why Conservatives Hate Homosexuals even though Half of Them Are."

"That was The Engineer's idea," I said attempting to deflect some of the controversy away from me.

"It was not my idea, you scrote," said The Engineer.

"Yes it was," I lied.

"Up yours, man," said The Engineer.

"Piss on yourself," I said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Rachel encouraging us to bring it down a notch. "The reason I ask about this, in part, is that I want to know where the two of you stand on the issue of gay marriage and gay civil rights."

"Well," said The Engineer. "We have gay friends. I don't know. Whatever."

I chimed in, "They're here, they're queer, and we don't care."

"If," said The Engineer, "those people want the right to get married and divorced, more power to them. Give it to them." Rachel, the sharpest, lesbian wit on national television, contorted her face in a grimace.

"You have friends who are gay? Those people? Seriously? That sounds like what bigots say who are being disingenuous," said Rachel.

"Here's the deal," said The Engineer. "What we were really getting at with the quip about people hating homosexuals being gay themselves is this: That any irrational hatred of any aspect, or expression of human behavior that poses no direct threat to a person's well being, though is perceived as such, is nothing but a repression of one's own sacral desires and inclinations, and the self loathing that fosters is projected externally. The internal threat is externalized and made other--not the self. Hatred of anything, not a real threat, is denial, and a hatred of self. Homophobes are closet gays."

Rachel and I looked at each other approvingly. "Wow. Sounds good to me," I said.

A thousand miles away, in God's country, between the rural townships of Gotiebow and Bowlegs, the right Reverend Ezekiel Slanderson, the leader of the Southend Pentecostal Church of the Apocalypse, picked up the remote control and turned off his television set. "Dear Lord," he muttered to himself picking up the phone to call his second in command. "Daryl. The Lord has spoken to me this evening. The Lord told me that the end times are, at this moment, upon us, and the sinners are to be swept away in a fiery storm of God's wrath. The Lord also told me that we have one last mission to undertake in his hallowed name. Mobilize the flock. And most importantly, Daryl, find out everything you can about two fag-loving sinners called The Lawyer and The Engineer."

All of our editors, with the exception of Edgar, had quit The Lawyer and The Engineer citing the unsustainability of working for free. Edgar was different. He had recently graduated from college--an English major--and was happy, given the state of the economy, to be an "intern" editor. He had long hair that he kept in a pony tail, and a beard for the reason that he could not afford a hair cut, razors or shaving cream. The Engineer and I were happy to have Edgar, the "intern" editor, working long hours, fetching coffee, running errands and generally doing the things for us that we didn't want to do for ourselves, for no remuneration beyond encouragement, food and the occasional pat on the head. Edgar was a great sport.

There was a forceful knock at the door at the bottom of the stairway that led to the street below. "Edgar," I said. "Be a good fellow and go so if that is another delivery of tazers." The only material benefit that fame had thus far brought us was that we had been sponsored by the same tazer company whose weapons we had been stunned by more than once, all chronicled here in The Absurd Adventures of The Lawyer and The Engineer. We already had three boxes full of the damn things.

"Do it your self," suggested Edgar.

"I can't. Look at me. I can't get up when I am holding a newspaper in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other," I said. "Ask The Engineer, he's not doing anything."

"Sorry, Edgar," said The Engineer. "I'm thinking."

Edgar smirked and made his way to the stairway muttering profanities under his breath. He came back, the blood having rushed out of his face, holding a piece of paper in his trembling hand. He held it to us.

"What is it?" asked The Engineer. Edgar could only stammer in response.

"Give it to me," I said. I read it out loud. " And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. God hates fags. God hates Jews. God hates The Lawyer and The Engineer."

"Geese, that's a little harsh, don't you think?" asked The Engineer.

"Who in the hell is this from?" I asked looking at the blank backside of the note.

"It's--it's those bat-shit nuts," said Edgar, "from--oh shit, I can't remember what they are called. Ah! The Southend Pentocostal Church of the Apocalypse. God I hate those assholes."

"Well," I pointed out, "they don't make themselves very lovable, do they? What I want to know is how they found us?" I asked looking at The Engineer. "There is no public record whatsoever that we have anything to do with this building. Ah!" I said slapping my forehead. "Unless they checked the county records to see what property we are paying taxes on."

"They are famous for peaceful demonstrations, no matter how offensive, but otherwise they operate like a terrorist organization, with cells in every city across the South and Midwest," said Edgar.

"How do you know so much about them?" I asked. "You're not one of them?"

"Fuck no. I hate those bastards. I wish they would all die a slow, miserable death." Edgar was shaking and looked like he would lose his mind. "Guys, this has been a great resume builder for me, working for you, but I am afraid I will have to tender my one minute notice, now."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on," said The Engineer. "You can't quit--or, I guess you can, but...how about a tazer? You want a tazer?" Edgar shook his head in the negative. "Two?" asked The Engineer, upping the ante.

"I don't want a fucking tazer!" Edgar exploded. "I want money, and you two worthless jack-holes don't have any."

"Not much," I said modifying his assessment.

Our attention was suddenly captivated by the angry sound of a man yelling. We sidled up to the windows over looking the typically quiet and empty street and saw a throng of white bread, unimaginatively dressed people. The signs they held more than made up for their outward appearance of complete blandness. The signs read, God hates this and God hates that; mostly Jews and homosexuals. "That's the Reverend Slanderson," Edgar told us.

The preacher stood before them giving them an Old Testament, looker room, pep rally. He quoted nonsensical scripture breathlessly, interspersed with prophecy of the end of times and the second coming. "This is the anointed moment! That time we are blessed to see with our own eyes! That Jesus will return and smote the sinners into eternal hell-fire and damnation! And we, the chosen ones, after aiding God in his will to bring the sinners to their knees, and dash the life out of them, will be lifted up by the Angels of heaven, to be with and in the glory of the Almighty! Amen!" That was followed by more scriptural non sequiturs.

I couldn't resist any longer. I opened the window and shouted at the children of the corn. With all their eyes on me, I grabbed my crotch and hollered, "Here's your Almighty, fuck-nuts!" The Engineer and Edgar ducked away from the window, praying to the great Santa Claus, sky god that they would live to see tomorrow.

The Reverend had a skeletal face, with nothing of the rosy meat of joy in his chin or cheeks. His tight expressionless face gave way to the most sinister grin I have ever had the displeasure to witness. Under one arm he had a Bible. The other raised up, a bony, chilly white finger pointed straight at me. He said, "Death is your mother." I'm not sure what in the hell he meant by that, but I didn't like the tone of it.

"Oh shit," said Edgar. "Let's not screw around with these characters; just call the police."

"No, no, don't call the police," said The Engineer. "There are a few problems with that. We don't own, nor rent this building," he confessed to Edgar. "We are squatters."

"I looked it up in county records," I said. "The guy who owned this building has been dead for ten years. We pay the taxes on it."

"And I," said The Engineer, "have all the utilities illegally hooked. Most importantly, the police are exactly what those assholes want. If the police come, then so do the media. They love the attention, so let's no give it to them." We were in agreement, and went about our day to the noxious sounds of Leviticus, Genesis, Ezekiel and Revelations disjointedly quoted in angry, white voices. Occasionally I peeked my head out the window to try to engage in dialogue with the inbreds.

"Hey, crackers! Help me out here. What does this mean?" I asked and read from the Bible we had there at The Lawyer and The Engineer HQ. "From Ezekiel, and I quote, 'I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts--the sacrifice of every firstborn--that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD!"

"Sinner," one yelled to me. "Faggot," screamed another. "Jew!" bellowed a third.

"I don't know about the sinner part, for sure, but I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm not a Jew, nor a homosexual." They booed and hissed me. "I'm sorry, that's just the way it is and I can't help it. Another passage I need help with. Explain this shit from Deuteronomy: 'You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit, or the coney.' No coneys, with delicious cheese, chili, onions and mustard? That's my definition of hell."

Slanderson, not to be out done in the nonsensical quoting of Biblical scripture department, fired off: "The sun will darken," and with those words, a cold front with clouds finally moved in, obscuring the sun, just as it had been forecasted by the local weatherman that morning. The creepy old bastard of a reverend continued, "and the moon will not give its light--" It happened to be a new moon The Engineer stated. "The stars will fall from the sky--" I queried whether there was supposed to be any meteor showers that evening. Edgar and The Engineer shrugged. "And the heavenly bodies will be shaken. They will see the Son of Man on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all of these things have happened," he hollered, the cage of his chest heaving up and down under neath his shirt.

"Do you suppose," I asked Edgar and The Engineer, "they believe the second coming is upon us?"

"Ask them," said The Engineer.

"Hey! Reverend Skeletor! When's the rapture?"

"Soon," he answered up. "Before the day is over, faggot!"

It was then that I had noticed Edgar was looking queasier with each passing moment. I also took note that he bore and uncanny resemblance to a famous biblical character. "Edgar," I said.

"What," he said, a little jumpy.

"Undo your pony tail for a moment, please."

"Why?"

"Just do it, damn it," I persuaded.

Edgar let down his hair. "Fuck me running," I said. "Look at that. Who does Edgar look like?" The Engineer puzzled over Edgar but could not see the similarity at first. "It's Jesus H. Christ, in our midst." And he did look just like him, or at least the simile of the Northern European Jesus that had been shoved into the eye sockets of white, God-fearing children since time immemorial. Edgar had deep blue, shaming eyes, like the ones your mother looked at you with the first time she caught you masturbating in the bathroom. He also had a long, sad and humorless face, to go with the beard--it was a perfect match. "Behold," I proclaimed, "The Son of God!"

"Would you like to play the part of Jesus in a little passion play this afternoon?" I asked Edgar.

"Oh no. No, no, no. Fuck you," he responded.

"Wa, ha, ha, ha," laughed The Engineer. "No, Edgar, you have to. This is going to be too good."

"And if I refuse?" asked Edgar.

"Then you are fired," said The Engineer and I in unison.

"Then, I quit," said Edgar walking towards the stairway.

"We'll pay you," I said.

Edgar stopped and turned. "Pay me what? Chinese take out? Screw you."

"Um," the Engineer said, "twenty-five dollars."

"Get serious," said Edgar.

"Fine," I said. "Fifty." Edgar thought it over, and then shook his head. "Okay. One-hundred, and that's our final offer."

"Where is it? Put the cash on the barrel," said Edgar. I pulled out my check book, of a closed account, and wrote and endorsed it to his order. On the memo line I wrote, "For services faithfully rendered unto the governor of the universe." Ripping the check free, I handed it to him. Edgar looked it over and said, "To tell you the truth, I don't think I could do what I think you are thinking for a million dollars."

"Why?" asked The Engineer.

"Guys," said Edgar. "I'm Jewish."

"So what? Jesus was a Jew. And you don't look it." I said.

"Oh, because I don't have dark hair and skin and a big nose?"

"Well, yeah," said The Engineer. "They'll think you are Jesus."

"Damn it," grimaced Edgar. "I-I," he paused, "I'm also gay."

"All the better," I said gleefully rubbing my hands together with the serendipity of it all.

After a quick rehearsal, we huddled at the back door that let out to the alley behind head quarters. "Just in case," said The Engineer, handing Edgar a tazer.

"How do I use this?" asked Edgar.

"It's all ready to go. Just aim and pull the trigger if it comes to that," said The Engineer. Edgar put it in the front pocket of his jeans underneath the brown robe that we had fashioned for him from an old, dusty curtain.

"Now go forth," I summoned, "and may the peace of the Lord be with you."

"You guys suck," said Edgar as he walked down the alley and out of view.

Back at our perch, over looking the premodern imbeciles below, Edgar emerged from around the corner with his arms uplifted. One of the flock saw him and went silent. Then two more, and three, began to tremble with ecstasy at the sight and comfort that the world had finally come to an end. "He hath returned!" shouted one. "Behold, our Savior!" screamed another. The rest began to froth and babble in tongues.

The Reverend approached Edgar, our Lord, and dropped to his knees in front of him. "Dear Lord, Christ Almighty--you have returned. We are your servants. Bid us your command, Son of God."

Edgar looked them over, and shot a glance up at The Engineer and I, our heads peeking over the window seal above. We nodded to him, encouraging him on. "Kneel before your Lord," hollered Edgar, his voice cracking. The flock dropped to their knees, some laying out flat on their bellies in the street. There was a long pause as Edgar was obviously wondering what to say next.

The Reverend, holding his Bible in front him, his thin lips twitching, asked him again, "What is your command, O Lord? What would you have us know and do on this day that the sinners, faggots and Jews will be swept into the flames of hell?"

Edgar spoke, thus: "You shall do God's bidding on Earth, as he does in heaven." Edgar took a deep breath, and let it rip. "I am the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. I am love! I command you to love your brother as I do. Forgiveness is my sustenance. And love for all of God's creatures is my gift. And by all of God's creatures, I mean ALL people, no matter what religion they follow--or no religion at all; ALL men and women, whether they be Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, or homosexuals. THAT IS MY COMMAND!"

Rising to his feet, the Reverend stood toe-to-toe with his Holy Majesty, and looked him in his twitching eyes. The ancient Reverend began to shake with anger. He held his Bible to the air and yelled, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction!" We didn't like the sound of that, least of all Edgar. The Reverend turned to his flock, and gave them an acidic frown that made my skin crawl. Turning back to Edgar, the Reverend struck him across the head with his Bible. "Damn you to hell!" thundered the old buzzard, and was about to strike Edgar again, but not before two prongs of tazer zapped him between the eyes.

Never losing his grasp on his Bible, Slanderson convulsed, "Ga-di-di-di-di-di," his teeth chattering as he dropped to the ground, and flopped around.

The flock was as figuratively stunned as their convulsing leader. Edgar, unable to resist getting in one last juicy jab, lent over Slanderson and said, "You've just been tazered by a queer Jew, bitch." Edgar stood and took stock of his predicament. He was outnumbered by fifty. Edgar pointed to the sky behind them and yelled, "Behold!" Every last one of the dim-wits turned to see what it was. Edgar tucked-tail and ran like his hair was on fire back for the alley.

With a twenty yard head start, the flock tore after him. The Engineer and I hustled down to the back door with it cracked open, waiting for the arrival of the carpenter from Nazareth. He came furiously high-stepping it, holding the bottom of his robe in his hand, and dove into the door to safety. I shut and latched it as the faithful pounded on the other side demanding blood. The Engineer reinforced the door with a two-by-four. He ran to the front and did the same just as the flock began pounding and calling for our heads there.

"Oh shit," I said. "This is bad. You really pissed them off Edgar." Our hearts were in our throat. "How long are these doors going to last?" I asked the Engineer. The Engineer shrugged. "Fuck. What in the hell are we going to do? These bastards intend to kill us."

Edgar ran up the stairs to the main room. "Where are you going?" I yelled up to him. Edgar logged on to Facebook, Twitter, and began emailing with one hand, while furiously texting with the other. His electronic dexterity was breath taking. "What in the hell are you doing?" I asked. "This is no time to be lolly-gagging and networking."

"Shut the fuck up," said Edgar.

"That's really no way to speak to your employers," said The Engineer, as the howling of the true believers grew more violent by the second, and the front and the back doors were being pummeled.

"There," said Edgar. "It's our only hope," he said peering over the window seal. Below us was a splintering crash. They were in the stairway. No sooner than The Engineer leaped to the door to the room and bolted that door shut, the anointed ones were hard at it, unhinging the one thing that was prolonging our lives.

The Engineer and I stood hard against the door, holding it to while more than one of the flock threw themselves against it from the other side, repeatedly, for the next five minutes. "Crapping hell!" yelled The Engineer. "We're goners, aren't we? I'd say this door has about two minutes left." I had the uneasy feeling that The Engineer's assessment of the structural integrity of the door was dead on.

"Ha!" guffawed Edgar. "It worked. They're here! They're here!" he said jumping up and down by the window, still in his robe. We could hear the thunderous roar of motorcycles. "Come look," said Edgar.

"But the door," I said.

"We're saved, We're saved," said Edgar. I left The Engineer holding the fort, and ran to one of the windows. At one end of the street there was a sortie of motorcycles mounted by men all decked out in black, leather chaps, pants, vests, boots, jackets, and halters connected by a chrome ring above the solar plexus. At the other end there was about fifteen, shirtless hulks, pure muscle and all business, punching their fists in their hands. Edgar yelled instructions to the bikers and body builders.

They took after the Pentecostals on the street, banging heads, flipping them in the air, head over ass. Bikers came in the destroyed front door. The pounding on the other side of the door that thinly separated us from being maimed stopped. The Engineer stepped away from the door, puzzled. Then there was a blood curdling scream, and desperate pleas were shouted, mixed with sadistic laughs, and more screaming. We dared not to open the door for fear of what we might see.

In the street, the fallen were picking themselves up, scuttling about and trying to escape. Two Pentecostals picked up the Reverend, the tazer darts still stuck to his forehead, and dragged him away. One biker was beating another Pentecostal over the head with a God Hates Fags sign as he chased him down the street and out of view.

"We did it!" I celebrated.

Edgar looked at me, and asked, "What do you mean 'we'?" With the exception of the occasional scream for mercy and the roar of motorcycle in the distance, things had quieted down considerably in the street. The Engineer went down stairs and propped up the doors in their jams.

Looking out the window still intoxicated with bewilderment, I saw a police cruiser round the corner. I stepped away from the window and out of sight. Getting a glance a safe distance away from the window, I spied the cruiser moving along down the road and away.

Peace and quiet had finally returned after five hours of Biblical mayhem. It was as eerie as it was relieving.

"Whew," said The Engineer.

"Wow," I said.

Edgar wiped perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve.

"Edgar," said The Engineer.

"Yeah," responded Edgar.

"How about being a good sport, and pop around the corner and get us some Chinese carry-out. I'm famished," said The Engineer.

Ode to my Shadow: A Poem

2009-11-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

Leave me alone.
That's not me,
You see, peering
Through the blinds.
Let me be,
It's peace I need,
Guarding my
Soul and blood.
I know its urgent,
You need me ASAP,
But I do not,
Bathe with my phone.
Your sky is falling,
They're at the gate calling,
Your mortal name.
Rome is burning,
But I must
Play my fiddle.
Leave me alone.

T.M.I. and Polarization effects of the Internet.

2009-11-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

The title of the blog stands for too much information. What? Is it possible to have too much information? I think in some cases, it can cause a distortion and polarization of viewpoints, especially in the political circus of American Politics.

Well let me clarify the statement of too much information. I mean too much information of the same viewpoint. The Internet allows a person to seek easy reinforcement of opinions and viewpoints that the person may hold. It is easy to find out "You are not alone" in whatever it may be. But are you just reinforcing preexisting viewpoints?

With the old news information networks like newspapers and TV news, reading or watching exposed you to stories with viewpoints that were not particularly yours at the time. But, if a valid case was made or facts that were previously not known presented for a different opinion, intelligent minded people may actually veer towards changing their mind.

In a way, you were forced to deal with differences in thinking. You could think of it like traveling to another country or culture.You are exposing yourself to different opinions and facts, expanding your mind and outlook.

With today's instant click stories, blogs, and websites dedicated to certain viewpoints, doesn't this act as a reinforcement of ideas, giving people a sense of belonging with this "group-think". Most of these sites also contain links to "Sites we follow"that will further elaborate on the same viewpoint, perhaps getting just that perfect angle or soundbite that trumps the site before.

With the new social networking applications becoming more popular, does this reinforce this process?. If you create a network of friends, doesn't most of those friends hold similar opinions about social issues and political mandates. Even when a dissimilar viewpoint is expressed, does it eventually become a comment shout-down instead of debate? There has even been a funny observation of that phenomena, see Godwins Rule of Internet debate.

I am under the opinion that the current state of affairs of partisan politics is not all just the effects of the Bush Administration and throwing the Republicans out because of the direction the country was taking. I think that this is the new face of the American political process. Each political side, with its vast virtual army of spin, will continue to enlarge the gap between what is considered the center, not only by cherry picking stories to present their particular slant, but also by playing on emotions of a "Us versus Them" or "those people.."

There will always be biased news, blogs, and sources of "Truth". The Lawyer and Engineer blog could be claimed to be biased by who we make fun of. But we have also stated that any viewpoint, if the facts can be presented, will have value.

The only path that must be taken is for people to base their opinions by making the effort, not becoming complacent in searching for the truth. Don't just go to the same places for your facts. Mix it up, see what the other side has to say. Find out what other countries have to say about the same news. Don't be lazy!

You shouldn't always seek out that feeling of self righteous smugness from your favorite dogma channel!

If you just want comfort, make yourself some smores.

Raccoon Mountain

2009-11-13T15:01:00.000-08:00

Other than practicing law, there existed three other things I could cite as "job related experience" on my resume: dishwasher, cubicle rat, and lawn boy. Tired of loitering around the house in sandals, boxer shorts, a t-shirt and a robe, and my back aching from sleeping on the couch, where I had been relegated to by my wife

after the Smoky Balls incident, I focused my efforts on becoming gainfully employed as a lawyer, once again. I shaved my beard. Three weeks later I was employed as an associate at a large firm, and finally had sex with my wife instead of my right hand.

As for The Engineer and I, we had ceased to be on speaking terms. He had accused me of selling out. I had accused him of being a half-witted mooncalf. The coupe de grace was when he poured sugar in my gas tank. I swore that I would never talk to him again, much at the urging of my wife.

Law practice was just as wonderful as it had always been, working sixty-plus hours a week, gen'ing billable hours for work that may, or may not have been actually accomplished, all in a cold, soulless environment where nary a laugh could be heard. The judges were still dyspeptic, opposing counsel was still zealously uncivil, and the clients were still out of their ever-loving minds. Practice was still a high-paying, meaningless endeavor; the kind that makes being an artist subsisting on a meager diet of Ramon Noodles look attractive.

"So, I have this condition," said Gerald, my client. "See, here is the note from my therapist," he said handing it to me. "I have this turtle. His name is Gomer. I would take Gomer to work with me in a box, and let him hang out in my cubicle. Gomer helps calm my nerves and keep me from--," Gerald choked up. I slid a box of tissue across my desk to him. Gerald took a handful and trumpeted a few ounces of mucous into them, and laid the soppy tissues on my desk. "I got fired."

"Because of the turtle," I said.

Gerald looked at me, indignant. "Yes, because of the turtle. Because of Gomer. What else?"

"Gomer is a 'he'?"

"Yes," said Gerald.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"What does that have to do with my discrimination suit?" asked Gerald.

"There is no suit yet. We're just talking about whether you may have an employment claim. We've got to figure that out before we file a petition with the court. Is the turtle--um, Gomer--is he the only reason that you were terminated?"

"No," confessed Gerald. "Also, part of my therapy is to laugh out loud for fifteen minutes every hour."

"Really," I said. "And where would you exercise that part of your therapy."

"At my desk! Where else?"

"You couldn't go outside and laugh?"

"No," said Gerald. "I have terrible allergies. I have to laugh inside."

My phone rang. My secretary said I had a call from a man that would only identify himself as "The Engineer," and that it was vitally important that he speak to me that very moment; something about saving the planet from utter destruction. I rolled my eyes. "Excuse me, Gomer--ah, I mean, Gerald. Important call I got to take."

"I'm not important?" protested Gerald.

"You are, you are very important. Just give me a moment. This will be really quick," I assured him.

"Dude, you've got come with me," The Engineer said frantically on the other end of the line.

"Stop right there," I said. "I thought my wife had made it clear to you that you were never to speak to me again."

"I know, I know, goddamit, but listen. This is it. This is big. We have a chance to become national heroes. We'll be on the cover of Mother Jones. I've got The Cube gassed up and a bag full of soda and chocolate ho-ho's. I'm waiting out in front of the building. We are going to West Virginia to stop a mountain top mining operation."

"What's this 'we' shit," I said. "I'm not going anywhere. I've got a good job," I lied. "It is way passed due to give up these follies. You can go without me. Now leave me alone."

"Come on, man," implored The Engineer. "We have a chance to make history. This is going to be fucking spectacular. We are going to save a mountain. Do I need to remind you? Drawing clarity from the opaque, shining light into darkness, confronting ignorance with brilliance, and strangling boredom with competent absurdity and critique of postmodern interpretive--" I hung up.

I considered Gerald for a moment. "Could I get you to wait here for just a moment? I will be right back," I said, nonchalantly walking out of my office before he could protest. I walked by my secretary, putting on my jacket, and in a very easy-going manner told her I would be right back, but to hold my calls. I could hear Gerald begin laughing in my office as my colleagues and staff came out of their nooks and crannies to take stock of the offending noise.

The elevator doors opened and I shuffled past one of the elderly partners of the firm who was getting off. "Sir," I saluted. He grunted in response. I pushed for ground floor, whistling, with my hands clenched behind my back, the twenty-five floors to the street. The doors opened to the lobby. I walked calmly, waving to the security guard. A few yards from the door I could contain myself no longer and broke into a hair-on-fire sprint, burst through the revolving doors, and dove headlong into the passenger seat of The Cube. The Engineer revved the engine in neutral, dropped it into drive and we were off in a flash of smoke.

Hours later and before dawn, hopped up on ho-ho's and pop, armed with fifty pounds of sugar, dressed in black, with smudge camouflaging our faces, we stood looking through the tall chain link fence that surrounded the work yard of Massey Energy. There were twenty or so trucks loaded down with explosives, ready to deploy that morning to a nearby mountain whose destiny it was to be blown to kingdom come to expose the coal beneath it. The resulting rubble was to be transported to fill in, and bury, an adjacent valley.

With steel clippers in hand, The Engineer sliced a line in the bottom section of fence, enabling us to pull back the edges wide enough for us to pass through. We gave each other a thumbs-up, and with backpacks full of sugar, we stealthily high stepped it to the trucks ahead. I unscrewed the gas cap of one of the trucks, and stopped. "Did you hear that?" I whispered to The Engineer. The Engineer shook his head in the negative. I finished unscrewing the cap as The Engineer held up the first bag of sugar to empty in the tank.

Flood lights lit the yard up, causing The Engineer and I to jump to our feet. We were surrounded by a couple of dozen humorless looking goons with automatic weapons pointed right at our heads. A man with a fat face and a little sheriff mustache walked through the platoon of armed men and stood in front of us.

"How you all doing dismornin'," said the man as he chuckled. "Let me introduce myself. My name's Don Blankenship, the proprietor of this here operation." It was Blankenship, the fat bastard, CEO, of Massey Energy that had been blowing up West Virginia's mountains, and burying her valleys, polluting the water, and generally devastating the Appalachian ecosystem, for years, while donating staggering amounts of money to politicians, mostly Republican. In consideration of his coal fortune, once a year, during the holidays, he would personally hand out frozen turkeys to the toothless, mentally-stunted hillbillies that inhabited the surrounding area.

"I'd like you to meet my friends from the Blackwater organization," he said pointing to the armed men behind him. "These good Christian mercenaries help to take care of mischief makers like you."

"Good morning," said The Engineer to the Blackwater guards. His salutation was reciprocated with stoic silence. "Rude," The Engineer muttered.

"Well, boys, I'm kinda busy this morning." Blankenship snapped his fingers and the Blackwater guards were all over us like a rash. "Enjoy your last sunrise," said the fat fuck, laughing. Before we could say global warming The Engineer and I had been bound and fastened, on our backs (so we could enjoy the sunrise, as one of the guards put it) with duck tape to the hood of a Hummer, and driven out of the yard with the convoy of explosives laden trucks rolling out behind us.

We bumped along for a long while over what felt like an uneven, pothole ridden, mountain road, ever ascending. Finally the Hummer came to a stop in the middle of a clearing. It was the mountain top that was to go up, along with us, in a mighty plume of dirt and fire, shaved bald in preparation for the festivity. Men were hustling about all around us packing explosives in holes that had been previously excavated. After a while the frenetic comings and goings of the workers subsided. A Blackwater guard appeared standing over the hood looking down on The Engineer and me.

"This looks like the end of the line for you, dick wads," said the guard. Looking at his watch, he added, "You have exactly an hour. Enjoy the fireworks."

What we didn't know was that a safe distance away planned protests were in full swing by a number of environmental groups, and had attracted the media. Vans and talking heads from all the major and cable networks had set up shop to cover the event. In attendance was CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX who had brought with them a gaggle of idiot tea baggers that had somehow been convinced that blowing up mountains for coal was a good thing and had an amorphous connection with their personal freedom from government intrusion. Also, there was The Engineer's wife and kids, and mine, searching through the crowd of thousands for us.

As it turns out, the day before, The Engineer's wife had stumbled upon a notebook, authored by The Engineer, that outlined, in excruciating detail, our plan to sabotage the trucks and take the mountain, thus saving the environment and gaining some sorely needed publicity for The Lawyer and The Engineer. She contacted my wife and told her all about it, and they arrived a few hours later by plane and a rented minivan.

My wife happened to be standing next to Don Blankenship, by the FOX News van, when she over heard him mutter to another Massey executive there, "Don't worry. The whole thing is taken care of. When the mountain goes," he said looking down at his watch, "in fifteen minutes, there wont be a thing left of those two morons."

After forty-five minutes of contemplating the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, The Engineer and I were quickly coming to terms with our shared fates. We recited our mission statement together. The Engineer said with a quivering voice, "I love you, man."

Tears streamed down the side of my face. "I love you, brother." Then I noticed an eagle circling over head. I thought of Soaring Eagle and what he had told us out on the reservation about the universe and the spirit world.

At that moment a raccoon, my animal spirit, with whom I had become acquainted in Smoky Balls, popped its head over the top of the grill of the Hummer close to our feet. We stared at each other. "Get out of here, little fellow. We are all about to be blown to bits," I said.

"Do what?" asked the raccoon, looking confused.

"You heard me," I said. "Get going, unless you want to get atomized along with us."

The Engineer looked at me, puzzled. "Who in the hell are you talking to?"

"The raccoon. Who do you think?"

"Wow, you're really losing it," said The Engineer. "This is bad, bad, bad," he blubbered.

I shushed The Engineer and resumed my conversation with the raccoon. "This mountain is going to blow any moment now. You have to leave." The raccoon climbed down from the hood of the Hummer as The Engineer and I were mumbling our prayers, which were interrupted by a tapping on the windshield from inside the SUV. We craned our heads to see the raccoon inside the car waving at us, excited.

"The keys, the keys! They left the keys in the car!" yelled the raccoon. The engine beneath turned over and rumbled to life. Then there was a click noise, and the Hummer began to slowly move forward. "Ha-ha! I'm driving, I driving!" shouted the raccoon, holding the steering wheel, jumping up and down in the drivers seat, as the Hummer idled forward and picked up momentum heading straight for the forest and down a steep incline.

My wife was giving Blankenship what-not. "What did you say, you fat fuck? Are you talking about my husband and his reprobate friend? Where are they?" Several cameras trained on the commotion between my wife and Blankenship. "I heard what you said." My wife bleated to who ever would listen. "My husband and his retarded friend are on that mountain. They're going to get blown up!"

The Hummer rumbled down the side of the mountain, narrowly missing trees and jumping ravines. The SUV went up on two wheels as it struck a large green, and metal box that looked like a transformer, demolishing it to pieces. As things would have it, that box was the relay station for the multiple lines connected to the detonators above, and we disabled it, saving the mountain.

The Engineer and I screamed at the top of our lungs, as the raccoon laughed hysterically. At least on the top of the mountain we were destined for a quick and painless death by explosion, but now it looked as if we were to get dashed into a tree and skip across a few boulders before having the Hummer, driven by a raccoon, rolled over us. I was feeling unapologetically irritated.

After what seemed an eternity of bouncing down the side of the mountain, we finally leveled off into a clearing where there was a large group of people gathered. People were hustling, jumping and diving to avoid being ran over by the maniacal raccoon. The Hummer was running out of momentum, but still moving quick enough to pack a punch as we approached a van that said FOX News where a fat bastard, with a cheesy little mustache, was wrestling with a woman that looked a hell of a lot like my wife.

The woman looked straight at us coming straight at her. She jumped out of the way in a nick of time. The last thing Blankenship saw before being struck unconscious and having his clavicle, femur and eight ribs broken was the large silver letters "HUMMER" and the faces, contorted with excitement, of The Engineer, the raccoon and me. Having cleanly ran over Blankenship, the Hummer came to a stop as it crashed into the Fox News van.

A bunch of itchy looking environmentalist ran to the Hummer and peeled The Engineer and me loose. The raccoon, not particularly fond of large social gatherings of hairless apes, jumped ship and ran for the woods, but not before stopping and waving to me. I waved backed, smiling.

"Daddy! Daddy!" yelped my daughters running to me. I bent down to hug them as they crashed into me, knocking me over. The sun was blotted from the sky by the head of my wife standing over us. I stood at attention. We looked into each others eyes. She grabbed my face and kissed me passionately. The crowd cheered and clapped.

The Engineer's wife and kids ran to him, smothering him in hugs and kisses. Cameras and microphones jockeyed all around us. The questions were flying at us quicker than we could hear them.

That was the day the world was introduced to The Lawyer and The Engineer as flat screen TV's the globe over were occupied by our discombobulated, smudged faces in high definition. The Engineer and I raised our fists in solidarity to the wild cheers of our adoring fans.

Gerald, watching the news with Gomer, couldn't believe his eyes, as he turned the TV off and called his therapist.

Smoky Balls

2009-11-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

"Where in the hell have you been?" my wife asked. That was as close to a hero's welcome as I was going to get after The Engineer and I had gone to hell and back, tazered by goons, and pepper-sprayed by harpies, while escaping from the Fox News studios.

"I-I-I...," I stammered.

"Be quiet," she said. "Now, you are going to be very contrite. You are going to be dead honest. You are going to be straight to the point. What have you been up to?"

The time for lies was over. My dear wife had no idea about what The Engineer and I had been up to for the last few months. I told her that I had quit my position at the firm I had worked at for the last twelve years, and launched into a synopsis of our adventures, and how we had come face-to-face with The Prince of Darkness, had been uncomfortably close to Dick Cheney, in the same room, in an undisclosed location and lived to tell about it, and how we had duped Glenn Beck to eat dirt polluted with chicken shit. She listened without uttering a word for the full twenty minutes it took me to recount our epoch saga.

She sat quietly, for a few moments, searching my eyes, and then burst into tears. "Hey, what's the matter?" I asked consolingly, trying to hug her.

"Get away--don't touch me," she said. It was then I noticed our two daughters standing behind her, looking at me, with scowls on their precious little faces. I was out numbered. The best course of action, for the time being, was for me to shut up and take my lumps.

My wife retreated to our bedroom, wailing and sobbing, mistreated and let down. I retreated to the back patio, with a cigar and a low ball with three fingers worth of scotch poured over ice. The whole thing came crashing down around me in the moment of reflection that ensued as the scotch started to do its magic. It was true, as I have mentioned before here in this blog, that The Engineer and I were more popular than Jesus Christ, at least with our fanatical core of eleven followers. We had braved horrifying conditions and circumstances in our undaunted pursuit of the truth. We lived adventures that lesser men only dream about as they cowardly live out their days, second-by-second closer to their graves with little to show for it.

This looked like the end of the road for The Engineer and me. My family needed me. The money I had saved in law practice would not last for ever. The Adsense feature on the blog had not brought in a single nickle. Taking a slug from my scotch, I resolved to give up this craziness, and go back, full time, to doing what had to be done to support my family: practicing law. I wanted to cry.

My cell phone rang. It was The Engineer. "Hey man," he said, "I'm parked in front of your house. You have got to come out here. I'll tell you all about it as soon as we are on the road."

His timing was horrible and I told him so. "No way in hell. I'm giving all of this up. I've got to do right by my family. I-I," I said starting to choke up, "I have to go back to practicing law."

"Duuuude," said The Engineer. "You can't give up on this now. Look at what we have done. Fathom the grandiosity of it all. Are you ready to drop the whole thing? What about the Pulitzer Prize we are sure to win? What about the fame and glory we will surely bask in? What about being on the cover Rolling Stone and Interpretive Dance Today? We've fought too hard to come this far. Remember our mission: Drawing clarity from the opaque, shining light into darkness, confronting ignorance with brilliance, and strangling boredom with competent absurdity and critique of postmodern interpretive dance. Come on, man! It's time to reach down in your pants and make sure you've still got a couple."

Just then I jumped into the front seat of The Engineer's Nissan Cube, while he was still on the phone giving me a pep talk. "Punch it! Go, go, go!" I yelled as The Engineer smoked the front tires and left tread the full length of the block. Soon enough, we were on the highway, heading West out of town.

The Engineer explained that he had been contacted by a medicine man of a regional indian tribe. The medicine man had invited us to his tribal reservation promising that he had something to show us that would turn our worlds', as we knew it, upside down, with a great mystery that awaited us.

"Well, what is it--what's this enigmatic shaman supposed to reveal to us?" I asked.

The Engineer answered, "Um, I have no clue." So there we were, hauling ass out of town, going I didn't know where, nor did I know why; and behind me, a marriage on the brink of complete implosion. I felt like throwing up.

An hour and a half later we drove under a large sign that indicated that we had arrived at the reservation. Before us was a dirt road that stretched out to the horizon. After twenty minutes of bumping along, feeling like my brains were going to be jostled out of my head, we heard a loud popping noise, and The Engineer momentarily lost control of the Cube, but was able to bring it to a screeching halt. We got out of the car to discover that one of the tires had blown a flat.

"Shit," said The Engineer. The sun was setting. I was being consumed with a growing sense of anxiety that was eroding any patience I had left. "Give me a hand?" asked The Engineer.

I lost it. "We have no fucking idea where we are out in the middle of a reservation. Technically, we're trespassing. The sun is going down. My wife is going to divorce me in all likelihood. Fuck you! Fix the goddamn flat your fucking self, you stupid fuck-head." The Engineer and I stared at each other, both of our faces flushed crimson with anger.

"What did you say, you fuck-face ignoramus?"

"You heard me, you prick. You've ruined my life, you son-of-a-bitch. Prepare to have your ass kicked!" I said.

As quick as I could, I bent down and picked up a hand full of dry, powdery dirt and threw it in The Engineer's face, momentarily blinding him. Then I went straight for him, grabbing him by the neck. The Engineer croaked, "fuck you," and brought his knee up, connecting squarely with my round ones. I released my hands from The Engineer's neck and bent over, recuperating from the indescribable pain. The Engineer coughed and sputtered, catching his breath.

"You boys need some help?" asked the stranger that seemed to appear from no where. He was an old indian man, dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, a short sleeve button-up, western-style shirt, donning a well-worn cowboy hat, with a leather satchel slung around his shoulder.

Though it felt like my gonads were lodged in my stomach, and The Engineer sounded like a dying duck gasping for its last breath, we greeted the old man. "Hello," The Engineer croaked.

"Good afternoon," I said in an unusually high pitch, trying to resist the urge to hold my crotch.

"My name is Soaring Eagle. Are you boys The Lawyer and The Engineer?"

"That's the guy--he's the one," said The Engineer, regaining his usual enthusiasm.

How fortuitous, I thought, regarding the old man. What were the odds that he would pop up out of no where to save us from our own insanity? I didn't speculate on that issue for long, preferring a rational explanation for things in general.

Soaring Eagle implored us to follow him--that the car would be safe where it was, and we could come back later to change the tire. We walked, mostly in silence for what seemed like a mile. Soaring Eagle looked to the sky, and then bent down to the ground and planted the palm of his hands flat in the soil. "This is the place," he announced. "Come, sit here with me, and I will show you what it is that I want you to know."

The reckoning of the oddness of the situation shown on our faces as we sat in the dirt facing the happy, old codger. He pulled out a small leather bag out of the satchel, and a liter of tequila. "Are you serious?" I asked. "We came all the way out here--wherever 'here' is--to get drunk with a cooky old man, while my wife is at home thumbing through the phone book looking for a divorce attorney?"

"Patience, young man. We're not getting drunk," said Soaring Eagle. "I am going to guide the two of you on a vision quest." Soaring Eagle emptied, what looked like dried figs, from the bag into the palm of his hand. "Take these," he said handing five of the crusty things to me, and five to The Engineer.

The Engineer said, "Oh, goody--I love trail mix," and popped the handful of them in his mouth and set about chewing like he hadn't had a square meal in days.

"Good God, man, are you nuts?" I asked. "You have no idea what you just put in your mouth. It could be horse turds for all you know." The Engineer's face contorted, and his eyes began to water.

"Christ!" said The Engineer, talking with his mouth full. "That's the bitterest thing I have ever tasted in my life."

The old indian chimed in. "That's what the tequila is for. It will wash away the bitterness." The Engineer grabbed the bottle, and turned it skyward as he gulped down the kibble and tequila.

"All right," I said, still holding the dried chips in my hands. "What is this stuff?"

"It is the key to the spirit world, my friend--it is peyote," said Soaring Eagle. 'Might as well,' I thought. It was a perfect evening for a bad trip. I tossed the peyote in my mouth, and set about chewing like a disenchanted cow. The bitterness was overwhelming. I grabbed the bottle and took swigs, until I had managed to adequately masticate the peyote and get it down my gullet.

An hour later the sun had completely set, as Soaring Eagle, The Engineer and myself, sat around a roaring camp fire that Soaring Eagle had lit. Nothing was happening as we sat quietly looking at each other like a bunch of idiots. Soaring Eagle broke the silence by bringing his hands together, rubbing them vigorously and holding them to the air. "The time has come," he said. "The door to the spirit world is opening, and the quest begins."

The Engineer and I looked at each other, a portrait of skepticism. "What are you talking about?" The Engineer asked. "I can't feel a thing. This stuff is bunk--a complete dud. I'm leaving. This is a sham. Come on," he said turning to me. "We're--," The Engineer went silent, as he stared out in front of him looking utterly lost in his thoughts, as his pupils grew to the size of dimes. "Whooooooooa," he noted.

I asked "Are you okay, okay, okay, okay...?" the words echoing in my head and all around me. "Whoooooooa," I said, feeling like I was continuously falling backwards, though I remained sitting upright and cross legged. I looked across the blazing fire, emitting hues of white, green and orange, at Soaring Eagle who appeared to be in about fifteen different places at once.

Soaring Eagle spoke: "Here on the threshold of the unknown we journey to its depths transcending opposites. There we will find the undiscovered country and retrieve from it its great mystery; that all the world is one in its most distilled essence, and there we find with our soul and spirit, freed from the bonds of our mortal bodies, we are more real than real, forever joined in unity with the world beyond, our true home..." His diatribe seemed to continue to drone on and recede into silence, as I fell, spread out in the dirt on my back, and felt myself lift from the ground as a single, condensed point of awareness, and took to the sky, like a rocket. Soaring Eagle's voice seemed all around my, like a cloud. "We are each of us, a part of The Great Spirit, knowing, experiencing and creating itself. May your quest be fruitful."

The terrain below pulsated, and breathed alive, radiating colors of an indescribable intensity. It could have been minutes or hours--I don't know--until I found myself on the ground again, flat on my back. I sat up feeling like my hair was sticking straight out in ever direction. The fire, The Engineer and the insane indian were no where in sight.

I bound to my feet startled by something wrestling about in the bushes a few yards from me, prompting in me a desire to run for my life. Hardly able to get to my feet I stayed where I was. A furry face sprang from the top of the shrubbery. I jumped, but settled myself. It was a raccoon. "Wow," I said. "Ha. Just a raccoon."

"How's it going?" asked the raccoon. I stared at the ring-tailed creature for a moment, with my mouth open.

"Forgive me for being rude," I said, "but I cannot get in the habit of talking to random raccoons. It's just not right, you know."

"Really," said the raccoon. "Suit yourself, then. I'm out of here." The raccoon turned its back to me, with its tail sticking straight in the air, and began to saunter off.

"Wait, wait," I begged, deciding that a little companionship, under the circumstances, was not such a bad thing. The raccoon stopped and slowly turned to me. "Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm your animal spirit. Like you, I'm a wily, deceitful, self-serving, prick with an inflated ego, who is loathsome of others, and prefers to lurk in the shadows." It was an oddity beyond comprehension, being insulted by a furry, ring-tailed, dumpster-diving, over-grown rodent.

"Oh, please. I'm not that bad am I?"

"You're wife would agree with me," the raccoon said.

"Okay," I conceded. "You may have a point. But, what should I do?"

"How should I know? I'm a raccoon, not a therapist. Are you hungry?"

"No, not at all," I said.

"Are you sure? There is a trash can close by with some left over bean soup and peanut butter in it," he said.

"No thanks. I couldn't eat a thing," I said. "But hey, you could help me. Is there a camp fire around here somewhere?" The raccoon stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air.

"Yeah, there is. Follow me."

A short distance away, and over a hill I saw The Engineer sprawled out on the ground next to the fire. Soaring Eagle was no where to be seen. "Hey, thank you," I said to the raccoon, who I noticed had since disappeared.

I leaned over The Engineer who had a mad, disconcerted look on his face, and was muttering, "I'm a lizard, man. See my tail. I've turned into a lizard." His tongue was darting in and out of his mouth. I shook him.

"You're not a lizard," I said. The Engineer sat up, patting himself and reaching for his hind quarters.

"Where's my tail? I had a tail. I had turned green, and my face was pointy, like a sleestack from the Land of the Lost." I pointed out that he was perfectly human, and he slowly acquiesced in the proposition. We sat by the fire that was still blazing, but was beginning to look like ordinary fire--mostly orange.

We sat for a while in bewildered silence, too disoriented to formulate thoughts. After a while we could feel the effects of the peyote beginning to dissipate. As my senses were coming back to me, I started to feel good. I had a certain feeling of lightness of being that I had not had in years, if ever. It was then that I felt a surge of energy rise up through my feet, into my spine, and flow through my limbs, and out through the top of my head. I rose to my feet elated, and raised my arms to the sky.

The Engineer asked, "What are you doing?"

Standing on one leg, with the other raised and touching the knee of the one that supported my weight, my arms still raised, I broke into the interpretive dance of a life time. Whisking and spinning about, I shed all of my clothes. The Engineer did the same. Holding each others hand we spun in a circle, and released, the centrifugal force throwing us outward and away from each other like fractal vortexes unwinding and free. It was the greatest expose of postmodern dance that had ever occurred on this spinning ball, in this corner of the universe--we just knew it! We ran and leaped through the flames, over and over, and might have continued for hours more, but for the sudden intrusion of head lights from a car with flashing blue and red lights.

The Engineer and I stopped and observed, wondering if we were still hallucinating. A man stepped out of the car walked towards us shining a flashlight into our eyes. I squinted to try to make out who the uninvited guest was. "What in God's name do you think you fellers are doing?"

"Dancing," confessed The Engineer.

"Christ almighty," said the tribal policeman, noticing that the hair on our heads and between our legs was singed and smoking. He inspected our eyes closely. "Ah, ha. You've been out here with Soaring Eagle, haven't you?" We nodded in the affirmative. "Get your clothes on, and get into the car."

There is nothing quite like the startling shock that you feel upon waking up and having no idea where you are or how you got there. That was the feeling I had looking around the jail cell to the deafening sound of The Engineer snoring. "Wake up," I said poking at The Engineer.

The Engineer's eyes flew open as he stammered incomprehensibly. The policeman appeared at the bars of our cell with a tray of coffee, cereal and orange juice. "You fellers want some breakfast?" We did, and it was great.

An hour later, our kind host escorted us to the tribal court where we were to be arraigned. We were seated in the jury box to await the arrival of the presiding judge. The Engineer, the amiable policeman and I were the only ones in the quiet courtroom. A door, close to the bench opened, and an elderly woman came out and said, "All rise for the Honorable Soaring Eagle, presiding."

I couldn't believe it. The same man who had coaxed us into this bizarreness was now going to levy justice on us for whatever laws he encouraged us to break.

"Good morning, boys. Did you sleep well?" We nodded that we had. "Let's see we what we have here," said old Judge Soaring Eagle. He clicked his tongue and shook his head as he read the charges. "Indecent exposure, lewd and lascivious behavior, trespassing and malicious mischief. Those are some serious charges."

"Are you a lawyer, too," I asked the judge.

"Yip," he said pointing to his juris doctorate hanging on the wall behind him.

"Your honor? My I approach the bench?'' I asked.

"Sure," he said, amused in a grandfatherly kind of way. Looking over the bench I could see that he was wearing a tie, underneath his robe, with Republican elephants all over it. I gasped.

"Judge," I said softly. "Are you a Republican?"

The kindly old judge and medicine man laughed. "Son, no self-respecting indian is a Democrat. Many years ago there was a Democratic president, named Andrew Jackson, that sent my people marching from the Atlantic coast, all the way here, half of us dying in the process. I'm not a fan of the Democrats." But that was a different time, I thought to myself. I considered it wise, under the circumstances, to keep my mouth shut, to live to debate another day.

"So, your Honor, can we work out some sort of deal?" I asked. Soaring Eagle tugged at his chin, considering the proposition.

"I got it," he said. "How about a $250 fine for the two of you, and we can let bygones be bygones."

"Ha. That works for me," I said, happy. "What about you?" I asked The Engineer.

"Yeah, yeah," he said nodding feverishly. "That would be great."

Consumed with the spirit of pragmatism, a frustrating realization occurred to me. "Do you have $500 on you by any chance?" I asked The Engineer. He didn't, nor did I. "You Honor, does the Court take credit cards?" It didn't. "An I.O.U.?" Soaring Eagle shook his head in the negative. I grunted with a creeping sense of loathing. "Do you have a phone I can use?"

I was escorted to the court clerk's window where I was allowed to use the phone. I picked it up and dialed. "Um, hey, sweetie," I said to my wife. If stony silence was a sound, my ears were ringing with it at that moment.

100% Wrong

2009-11-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

The Republicans in Congress have made it their policy to oppose everything the president supports. To listen to the Republicans, as I have been doing today on C-SPAN watching the health care debate, you would think that it is the Democrats' agenda to turn this country upside down, and castrate it.

Is it probable, as the Republicans seem to suggest in their unanimous opposition to the president and Democrats, that everything the Democrats stand for is 100% wrong? Is it probable that the Republicans are 100% right in the positions that they defend and offer as alternatives to fix the country? I would say the answer to both of those questions is, no.

There really is no hope for bipartisanship in our government until our two parties are composed of a majority who have intellectual integrity, and that are concerned with discovering jointly the basic facts upon which to establish the basis of a debate. That requires a greater loyalty to the truth and country than one's party.

Over and over, I have watched and listened to Republicans today warn of the horrors of passing, what they refer to in the pejorative as "The Pelosi Bill." They say it will take away people's freedoms, whatever that means. They say the bill will provide free health care to illegal immigrants. It will slash funding for medicare, and adversely effect the health of America's senior citizens, notwithstanding that the AARP and the AMA have endorsed the bill. They argue that the bill is a backdoor ploy to foist upon America a single payer/nationalized health care system, like the ones that kill people on a daily basis in Canada and Great Britain.

Their arguments are lies; that or they are so retarded with fear they have lost the capacity to distinguish truth from fiction. More likely, the Republicans' agenda is to oppose everything the Whitehouse does for the sake of political gain, even at the expense of the welfare of American citizens.

Is the agenda of NO simply degenerate or evil?

Prometheus Tooted

2009-11-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

“Where’s the John?” screamed the lawyer as he slammed the door open so forcibly that the old door might come off the hinges. “And you better have a good reason to call me over here. The last time I was here, I got pulled over and had to touch my nose 3 times in a row. You know how I hate the local law enforcement here!”

“I must admit that they could be assholes, but this is important!” Do you remember how I told you about an important invention of mine? How it was going to change the world as we know it?

“Oh no, not that again! You made me drive all the way over here for that BS again? Unbelievable!” The lawyer was already getting his car keys out of his pocket.

“No, wait a second, I finished it and what is more incredible, it works!”

“What? Are we talking about the same thing? Explain to me again about this thingamajig gadget..”

“Well, if you would pay attention this time, this is a motor that draws energy from the air.”

“From the air? No way!” The lawyer said with his usual skeptical tone and eye rollings..

“Well not exactly from the air”, I said, “but it is easier to explain that way.”

“Well, what exactly is it that it gets its power from? Tell it to me straight because I got to be in court in 2 hours and I have a feeling that this is going to be my source of laughter while I am driving.”

“Well, it is a motor that derives it power from residual flatulence. It is able to extract minute particles of methane and sulfides and thru a catalytic conversion create energy. As I spoke those last words , I knew what was coming next.

“BwaaaaHahahahah!”, screamed the Lawyer, “ Let me get this straight, you have invented a fart motor? That is the stupidest thing I have heard ever heard, and I have heard some really stupid, stupid things”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you were a JayHawk” I said dryly, knowing this would at least get him to focus.

Suddenly the Lawyer was solemn. “What do you mean by that crack??”

“Now that I got your attention, let me demonstrate. Follow me.” I lead him into my private “Laboratory”, actually a small red shed I had in the backyard, but that is a minor detail of no importance.

“Here is the next thing to revolutionize the world! I present the Prometheus 1”

I lift the canvas I had over the motor, keeping my eyes on the Lawyer for any kind of response.

“Well, it certainly looks like it could do something.” He said “But let me see it work.” He then proceeded to rip the loudest noise ever and started laughing hysterically. Suddenly the motor lit up and started turning at a blindingly fast speed. The Lawyer was speechless as the motor ran for a good 15 minutes, slowing down gradually and only stopping after a full 30 minutes. I could tell that all disbelief was dissipating like the bad smell that was there before.

“It’s a trick!” He looks all around the motor for some sort of plug in or battery. “If this is just a motor hooked up to one of those Clapper thingies you see on TV so it would start when I made the noise…”

“No, I swear it is doing what I said. It is creating energy out of air”

“Farts, Farts, Farts!” the lawyer screamed with a maniacal tone. “Do you know what this means? The world will change as we know it! No more Greenhouse gases, Ha Ha, not even Outhouse gases!” He was laughing hysterically by now.

“There is only one problem”, I said, “The company I work for will not market it. They feel that because some people are more gaseous than others , this creates a unfair advantage that could disrupt the collective society as a whole. I had no choice but to quit my work in protest. The Prometheus1 will not see the light of day.

“Couldn’t we take the idea? , the lawyer stammered,” and just call it something else? Maybe like GreekFire1 or… or I don’t know, SOMETHING!”

“No, I am afraid it is over” As a matter of fact, I am thinking of quitting and starting Monday at my new job. You know how there is a train going thru this town every 10 minutes. Well, I decided to work for them. I have gotten used to the train whistle. It seems to have a calming effect on my nerves. So Monday, I start at LaPetomaine Railways as a railcar inspector. I am out of the engineer business!

“I wouldn’t go to that extreme, the lawyer stated,”Couldn’t you just contact your fellow engineers, maybe start a protest, expose this company you work at for what it is? Take your idea to another company. Just think, with this kind of energy the most gaseous people would be the leaders of society! You could bring societies to their knees, show them how the gassy people are the achievers and should have free reign to rip ones when and wherever they please. It is time for the lactose intolerant, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and spastic colon people to take their rightful place as the movers and shakers of civilization not to be slowed down by the moochers and hangers-on of the world....."

"Easy there lawyer, enough of the soapbox" I said. But still I thought...Funny, this seems like a strange sense of distorted Deja Vu. Something in college I remember reading.....naw, must be the lawyer fumes clouding my thinking. Oh well....

To Hell and Back

2009-10-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Engineer and I were passing the time just as we had for the last two days in our dank eight-by-eight, concrete, windowless cell in the county lock-up. "Go fish," I said.

"Oh, man," said The Engineer.

The monotony was broken when our pod warden announced that we had a visitor. We were shown to a small room and the heavy, steel door clicked locked behind us. The door at the other side of the room opened and we were greeted by our lawyer, a sullen old coot with wiry gray hair, a wrinkled shirt and a frayed tie. He explained that he was a public defender and had been appointed to represent us.

"This must be kind of neat for you getting to represent high profile clients like us," the Engineer said. The public defender stared at us in total silence, looking depressed.

"Um, we are The Lawyer and The Engineer. You know who we are, don't you?" I asked.

"No," responded our P.D. "Why in the hell should I?" He opened his file, licked his thumb and rifled through some documents. "Why don't you boys tell me what happened--and make it quick. I have twenty-seven other clients to see today that are just as deserving of my time as you."

"Fair enough," said The Engineer gesturing to me to relate the facts to our P.D.

"Where should I start?" I queried.

"At the damn beginning," quipped our sad-faced P.D.

"Right," I said. "Here's what happened."

* * *

Disguised as UPS delivery persons, The Engineer and I walked into the lobby of the building that houses the studios of Fox News. We were immediately greeted by a towering hulk with biceps like tree limbs. He inquired who the package that The Engineer was holding was for.

"Glenn Beck, sir," said The Engineer.

"You know the routine," said the security guard.

We didn't know the routine. The Engineer and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and pressed on towards the elevators.

"Whoa," said the security guard. "What do you think you're doing? You go over there to that window, the clerk will sign for it and deliver it to Mr. Beck. You can't just go up there to the studios. Are you boys retarded?"

The Engineer whipped out his cell phone and handed it to the security guard. The screen of the phone indicated that the contact being dialed was no other than Rupert Murdoch. "Rupert said this might happen and for us to give him a call when we got here," said The Engineer to the security guard.

We could hear the voice on the other end of the phone as the security guard held it to his ear. "Arg, who is this?" The security guard explained himself and the situation. "That so? Well shiver me timbers. Ye show them to Mr. Beck, or I'll be there, quicker than ye can say 'arg,' to slit ye from e'r to e'r, you scurvy bastard." What the security guard didn't know is that The Engineer had programmed the number of our friend, a professional pirate impersonator, into his phone as "Rupert Murdoch."

The security guard was all 'yes sirs,' and apologies, and handed the phone back to The Engineer. We regarded the security guard with smug smiles as he glared at us. "Follow me," commanded the security guard. Escorting us to the elevator he told us what floor we needed to alight upon and where to go from there. He stared at us with hatred in his eyes as the elevator doors slid shut between us. I thought to myself, if I never saw the likes of him again it would suit me fine. I wouldn't be so lucky.

A vibrating, buzzing noise could be heard coming from the other side of the door, upon which was a star and the words, "Glenn Beck--A Real American Hero." The Engineer and I put our ears to the door, and through the buzzing noise could hear voices.

"Oh, that feels soooo good, Bill."

"You like that, do you?"

"Yeah, I do."

"How about this?" The buzzing noise picked up in intensity, like it had been given extra juice.

"Oh, oh, yeah. Do it. Hard."

The Engineer and I jerked our heads away from the door, damning our ears. I knocked on the door lightly. The buzzing continued. I knocked a little harder, and the buzzing stopped.

"Who is it?" said the unmistakable, buttery-smooth voice of Glenn himself.

The Engineer cleared his throat. "Um, UPS. Special delivery for Mr. Beck."

"Come in," said a different, more gruff voice.

Beck was seated with a barber's robe around him, and Bill O'Reilley stood behind him with hair clippers. "Well, there we go, big-boy. You're hair looks perfect as usual."

"Thanks, Billy," said Beck.

"Don't mention it," said O'Reilley. "Remember what I told you. Keep your head straight."

"Don't worry, Bill. I got my med's all straightened out," Beck assured him. Bill gave him a wink and an endearing shot across the chin with his fist.

"What the fuck are you two assholes looking at?" O'Reilley asked us. "Get the hell out of my way or I'll show you what a real man is all about." The Engineer and I made way to allow Bill to leave.

"Mr. Beck?" I asked.

"Of course, who else would I be?" he asked. "You got something for me there?"

"Yes, sir," said The Engineer handing him the small cardboard box.

Glenn took it and opened it as quick as he could. "Oh goody. I love surprises." From the box he held up two Ziploc bags full of dirt. "What is this supposed to be?"

"I can answer that for you," I said. "We know you really love this country. I mean really love it, like it was another person, or something."

Glenn went misty eyed and silent. His bottom lip stuck out and began to quiver. He held his fist to his mouth in an attempt to fight back the tears that welled up in his blue eyes. "I--I--I..." The dam broke, and tears streamed down his fat cheeks. "I love this country so much."

"Oh, no, no," said The Engineer.

"Ah, man, come on. Stop it," I said. "Don't cry. It's not right."

"That's not the sort of thing people are supposed to cry about, for Christ's sake," said The Engineer.

"Here," I said handing Beck a Kleenex. Beck dabbed his eyes as he collected his wits. "Would you say that there is something magical--exceptional--about the ground we stand on here in America?"

"You know I would," said Glenn.

"The bags have soil in them," I explained to Beck. "One bag has American soil, and the other Mexican." Glenn looked at the bags and then us like we were crazier than him. I continued, "The two samples were collected about twenty feet from each other on either side of the Mexican-American border. Our question is, which bag contains American soil, and why is it better than the Mexican?"

"This should be easy," exclaimed Glenn. "One sample comes from a complete crap-hole, and the other from the greatest country in the world." He opened one bag, wet his index finger and collected a sample. He sniffed the sample on his finger, dabbed his tongue to it, and rubbed it on his gums. He did the same with the other bag. With a big smile on his face he held up the winning bag and proclaimed it to be the American soil. "As much as I love this country, there is no mistaking that the sweetness of this one is American dirt."

The Engineer laughed, and said, "You are wrong Mr. Beck. They are both American soil, from my backyard where I have about fifteen chickens running around shitting all over the place." We both did our best not to completely crack up, resisting falling to the ground laughing uncontrollably.

"Ha, ha, very funny," said Glenn, his teeth brown with dirt. "You think you are going to get away with this? I got a surprise for you, too." He picked up the phone and said, "Security?"

"MAKE FOR IT!" I shouted. The Engineer and I fell out into the hallway trying to keep our feet beneath us running for the elevator. After charging fifty feet, for dear life, or way was suddenly blocked by four security guards, the one with biceps like tree trunks standing in front. We slid to a stop, and made for the other direction. Glenn was blocking our flight in that direction. We had no choice, and made straight for the man-boy of Fox News. I stiffed-armed Glenn as The Engineer put his shoulder into him as hard as he could, sending him flying backwards, toenails over buzz-cut. He hit the ground with a thud as the sound of breath vacated his lungs.

With the guards in hot pursuit we slipped into the stair well, jumping four steps at a time, hoping not to break a leg or an ankle. We stepped out on another floor, and ran to the other end of the hallway and made our way down a few more flights of stairs. Our chests heaving with exhaustion we ran down another hallway, and jumped into an elevator that just happened to be open.

"Arg. And who in the fuck do ye be?" asked Mr. Murdoch as the doors slid shut trapping the three of us together for the moment.

Trying to catch my breath I said, "UPS, sir. Urgent delivery." Rupert scowled at us. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. The Engineer and I could not believe what we saw beyond the elevator. It was the same auditorium that we had been chased to by Dick Cheney, and had interviewed The Prince of Darkness in. A chill came over me. The Engineer looked dumb-founded. Rupert stepped out of the elevator and disappeared as the doors slid closed.

"Hit it, hit it, ground floor goddamnit," The Engineer implored. The elevator stopped at least six times, people getting on it, all going to the ground floor with us. We did our best to look natural, trying not to breathe heavily like our lives were in the mortal danger that they were.

After what seemed like an eon, the elevator came to a stop and opened to the lobby. We could see the revolving doors fifty yards in front of us, and freedom beyond. Doing our best to stay calm we stuck with the crowd, inconspicuously concealing ourselves.

"There they are!" screamed Glenn, his right eye swollen and blackened, his teeth still brown from the taste test. "Get them, get them!" he squealed like his head would burst. From our left the sortie of security guards came charging after us, their tazers drawn. Turning our attention to the revolving doors ahead, our way had become blocked by Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Greta Van Susteren, armed with canisters of Super Shot Pepper Spray.

As if in slow motion, The Engineer and I looked at each other, gritted our teeth, and went stampeding to the light, straight for the shrews armed with pepper spray. We yelled like men crazed in battle charging to certain death, but determined to face fate. Coulter, Ingraham and Susteren stood their ground, drawing a bead on us. The heavy sound of the hooves of the security guards where close up on us from behind.

As I yelled, "Freedom!" at the top of my lungs, we were hit by a torrent of pepper spray in front, and by thousands, upon thousands, of volts of tazer from behind, as The Engineer and I went crashing to the ground, eventually sliding to a stop on the marble floor, flopping about with our eyes on fire.

* * *

Our lawyer betrayed his thoughts and emotions with a look of befuddled amazement. He looked back down at our file, and slowly shut it. He looked back up at us, from me to the Engineer. "We," he said, "are going to take this case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, if we have to."

"Really?" I asked, optimism swelling in my heart.

"We are?" asked The Engineer, happy for the first time in days.

"No, we're not, numb-nuts," said our lawyer. "I'm going to get you a deal, and you're going to plead guilty, be put on probation and do 250 hours of community service picking up trash on the highway. Otherwise, we can get this set for trial while the two of you sit here for a few months, with bail set at $500,000.00 each."

"Yeah," I nodded. Looking at The Engineer I said, "Let's take the deal."

"Right," said The Engineer, defeated. "Let's take the deal. I'm tired of playing fish."

Exclusive Interview with Dick

2009-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

The Engineer's jaw dropped as he farted in high C. I spewed piping hot coffee across the conference table. Our editors had just announced that there was a cadre of men in dark suits wearing sun glasses waiting outside our offices for the purpose of escorting us to an undisclosed location to meet with a "person of interest."

We were secreted away to a private airport where we were loaded into the windowless and empty hull of a C-130 air transport. When the blind folds were removed from our eyes we found our selves sitting in what appeared to be the Office of the Vice President in the White House. The Engineer and I had the glowing feeling that we had hit the big time, and gave each other a high five, all smiles. The thrill was completely reversed and replaced by loathing and confusion by what happened next.

Dick Cheney came into the office from a side door wearing a black unitard mopping sweat from his face with a towel. He sat down behind the desk and snarled at us in complete silence for what seemed a long awkward while. I broke the ice.

"A black unitard? No, you're an interpretive dance enthusiast?" I asked.

"Uh-hum," Dick coughed and said in his low, raspy and breathless way, "shut up." We abided. Another long, awkward moment passed, The Engineer and I squirming in our seats while Dick sat motionless, snarling at us.

"Uh, sir, are we in The White House?" asked The Engineer.

"No you douchebag," said Dick. "I had this replica of my old office made in this here undisclosed location. I got kind of used to it. The reason I brought you fucking idiots here is to get something off my chest," Dick said in unnerving monotone.

"Great," said The Engineer, "we'd love to hear it--"

"Shut the fuck up," demanded Dick, "and listen." He leaned back in his executive chair and put his hands together, each finger tip touching its counterpart on the other. "You guys have said some very disparaging things about me. You don't like it that I am out on Fox News every other day with my daughter tag-teaming the Obama Administration's handling of the war on terror."

"Actually," I said, "they've quit using that term, 'war on terror'--"

"What is it that you don't understand about 'shut the fuck up?'" Dick asked. "You're a lawyer, right?" I nodded in the affirmative. "See that rifle at the top there?" he asked pointing to a gun rack hanging on the wall. I nodded. "I call her Lady Justice. The Lady is the one that was involved in that unfortunate hunting accident that filled that lawyer's face full of buck shot--you might have heard about that. He-he," he chuckled.

Dick leaned forward toward us, his elbows on his desk. "The reason I brought you shit-for-brains here is to explain to you what it is that I am doing now that I am no longer in The White House. How should I put this?" He snarled for a moment, thinking out his words carefully.

"There are two types of people in this world," Dick continued. "Real men and pussies. Pussies aren't going to keep this country safe. That's a job for a real man."

"Like your daughter?" I asked.

"He-he, you think you're pretty funny, don't you?" Dick slammed his fist on his desk causing The Engineer and me to jump in our chairs. "My daughter is more of a real man than the two of you pussies put together," he said pointing at us.

"We have a mission to complete," said Dick. "That mission is to keep America safe from those that would harm us, and from pussies. The way you do that is with a mercenary army of real men who enjoy torturing people for the fun of it. If you get actionable results, that's just icing on the cake. In Afghanistan, if you are a pussy, you talk a lot of nuanced buffalo shit about troop draw-downs, precision attacks with drone aircraft, and negotiating with the Taliban. In Iraq, the pussies want to pull all of our troops out while Al Quaeda over takes the country side.

"A real man's policy is to keep those two countries under a dust cloud from all the American boots and vehicles crisscrossing them. If someone sort of looks like a terrorist, you shoot them in the face."

"Yeah, but what about thousands of civilian casualties; not to mention the trillions of dollars a multi-decade occupation would cost?" asked The Engineer.

Dick answered, "That is just the sort of thing a grovelling pussy would ask. You go about this like a real man, or America will be nothing but a bunch of pussies surrendering in the streets to the terrorist."

"Oh come on!" I said. "You're fucking nuts. A bunch of peanut-brained, medieval-thinking terrorists cannot conquer the United States of America."

Dick stood and grabbed Lady Justice from the gun rack, and pulled back the hammer that made a click noise. The Engineer and I were standing at attention, ready to bolt. Dick pointed the barrel of the rifle at The Engineer, and then me, and back at The Engineer. "This is a hard choice," he said. "I've never shot an engineer. Or, I could have two lawyers to my resume," he said pointing the gun right at the tip of my nose.

In a flash of brilliance, The Engineer pointed behind Dick and screamed, "WHAT IS THAT?" Dick took the bait, lowered his rifle and looked behind him. The Engineer and I sprang for the door like a couple of scalded dogs. I slammed the door hard behind us. Four long strides later a gun blast demolished the door into splinters. Dick stood in the wreckage breathing hard, leaning against the door jam and snarling at us as we dashed out of sight down the long dark hallway.

I remember panting up a flight of stairs, flying down one hallway, then making a sharp right, running for our lives down another, until suddenly we emerged into a large auditorium where we were met by the same men in black suits and sunglasses that had brought us there. They were armed with tazers.

The Engineer and I instantly recognized where we were. It was the same auditorium where we had interviewed The Prince of Darkness.

From where we came, Dick appeared in his balck unitard, rifle in hand. Everyone stood staring at each other in a stand off. "Get the pussies," Dick said to his henchmen.

That was it, as far as I was concerned. I had had enough abuse for one day, and was seething ferocity. "I AM NOT A PUSSY!" I yelled and charged the men in suits. The Engineer and I were tazered from all angles. We dropped to the floor, flopping about and convulsing. We were bound and gagged with duck tape, and blindfolded.

I thought to myself, what irony. Not long ago I had written a fantasy scene on The Lawyer and The Engineer, in our entry on torture, where Dick, wearing not much more than a studded dog collar, walks into a dungeon room where I am bound to a table, and I get tortured by the bastard. It looked like the nightmare was going to become real.

We could hear the men and Dick discussing our fate. Dick wanted to torture, and then kill us. Then he settled on torturing us, and letting us go. In hushed tones the other men suggested that The Lawyer and The Engineer were too popular, and that it would bring a firestorm of bad publicity if we were visibly harmed. Though I couldn't see his face, I could feel Dick snarling as he thought out his options.

"Fine, Goddamnit," said Dick.

We were picked up off the floor. They drove us for what seemed a few miles. We were thrown back into the C-130. Eventually, The Engineer and I were unceremoniously dropped on the sidewalk outside our offices, as the car that brought us squealed its tires and disappeared around the corner.

But we'll pay you in shiny beads...(part 2)

2009-10-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

If you were one of the 4 readers that we have on the Lawyer and Engineer blog, you may have read the rant that the engineer had about outsourcing labor, especially for companies looking to avoid the unpleasantness of regulations or environmental impact. Well, it seems to be a timely subject because of the news lately on the airline industry outsourcing the maintenance of the airlines.

It seems that the airlines have been outsourcing the maintenance of airliners that normally would have to go into a FAA certified maintenance facility for inspections and repair. Now why would they do that? In business, services are changed for only 2 reasons. The service can be provided cheaper or faster or a combination of the two. Now some times, faster can mean a new manufacturing method has been developed that actually produces something that is a higher quality. That is called progress and everybody wins. But when it comes time for labor intensive jobs, like inspection and repair for airliners, how can things be inspected by a person faster without shortcuts being made??

There is extensive manuals written for aircraft inspection that must be followed exactly step by step. Are you going to feel better, flying at 30,000 ft, when you know they went from a person that makes 40k per year and follows procedure and repairs with specified structural parts to a person making 4000 dollars per year and any delay is destroying their thin profit margin?

When your running shoes or plastic coat hangers are made overseas, maybe it may not cause you some concern but here is a sobering statistic for ya....

Airline maintenance outsourcing (as percentage of total expenses)
AIRLINE 2005 2006 2007 (through 3Q)
Alaska 92% 80% 81%
Hawaiian 80% 86% 89%
US Airways* 77% 81% 80%
Northwest 76% 83% 81%
America West 76% 91% 91%
Continental 69% 68% 70%
JetBlue 68% 64% 65%
Southwest 68% 81% 85%
AirTran 66% 93% 94%
Frontier 65% 79% 80%
United 63% 66% 67%
Delta 48% 73% 72%
American 46% 49% 51%
ATA*** 18% 85% 87%

There are some pretty wide loopholes allowing this to continue without FAA over site. I don't know about the rest of our 4 people reading, but that scares the crap out of me.

Insufferable in Victory and Inconsolable in Defeat

2009-10-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

Texas beat Oklahoma today in Dallas. Despite having a battered roster, including an injured Heisman Trophy winning quarterback that sat out the last three quarters, OU battled and kept the game close. OU's defense played possessed the first half, but Texas was able to adjust at half time and eek out a three point victory.

Next week, OU fans will call into sports shows, and post on sports forums suggesting that it is time for the coach to move on, while blaming the referees for their defeat. I once heard a guy say that OU fans are like Daffy Duck, insufferable in victory and inconsolable in defeat. That guy happened to be an OU fan.

Sooner Nation is the only collection of fans that I know of that have co-opted another school's logo by giving it a disparaging twist. Thousands of Longhorn stickers are bought every year, and stuck upside down on Sooner fan's vehicles.

When the cameras are upon them, jam-packed in the stands, OU fans extend their index and pinkies on both hands and point them to the ground--the upside down hook-em'-horns--even if they happen to be playing a team other than Texas.

In Norman, in 1994, OU was playing The University of North Texas. A player for North Texas went down with an injury. I witnessed something I have never seen before, or since. The stadium boo-ed the injured player as he was helped off the turf by the trainers and assisted to the bench. OU won handily.

In September of 2007 a man walked into a bar in Oklahoma City wearing a Texas Longhorns t-shirt. A 53 year old Sooner fan gave him some lip. In the process of leaving, the Texas fan was counting out a tip when the Sooner fan grabbed the Texas fan and pulled him to the ground, by the scrotum. The Texas fan was given sixty stitches to re-attach his genitals. The 53 year old Sooner fan was, among other things, a deacon at his church.

Today, at the end of the game, Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy (Oklahoma's and Texas's starting quarterbacks) embraced each other in a show of good sportsmanship. As things should have it, they happen to be good friends. According to the on-field announcer, they bid each other good luck for the remainder of the season.

Now that's a health plan to die for...

2009-10-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

In a surprise move today, the house minority Republicans tried to pass their own health care bill ahead of the Democratic bill being debated. The bill, known as the Halliburton Healthiness Plan, would take the place of the public option by making health care available to everyone thru the use of one company instead of the currently debated public plan.

“Why should the government be the one to provide the health care option for the currently uninsured?” stated House Minority leader McConnell. “Better to have the private sector running the show instead of Government.”

When asked about his opinion of the bill, Republican Jim Inhofe added, “It’s a win/win plan where we stimulate the economy, make health insurance available to everybody, and we don’t have to rely on trusting big government to be in charge of American citizens. I am also delighted that the “Global Warming is a big load amendment” was also added to further show to the average citizen that honesty is job one with the Republicans.”

Halliburton is already gearing up with intense lobbying for the passage of the bill. Quoted by a non-identified source, “We just so happened to have 500 lobbyists in place, trying to block passage of that intrusive rape non-disclosure and arbitration thing, so its no biggie.”

When Democrats were asked to comment on this surprise piece of legislation, all that was said was "You have got to be f*&#$# kidding me!"

The above post is a parody in the form of a news article. Get over
it...

But we'll pay you in shiny beads...

2009-10-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

After hearing about a former company that I used to work for moving all of their jobs to Mexico because of the cheaper labor, my urge to write about such things is strong. I think it is an injustice to allow companies to shop for the cheapest labor despite circumstances and without responsibility.

We allow companies to export their labor costs to countries that pay extremely low wages, like 2 dollars per day, hiring of underage workers, and work conditions that are deplorable. The laws that we have created that regulate the handling of manufacturing waste and pollution, safe working environments, a decent wage, doesn't really mean anything if all the companies have to do is shop around for some country poor enough to accept any kind of conditions.

I know that some think that if the companies didn't do this, they wouldn't have any jobs at all. But isn't this like saying that the slaves were getting a warm cooked meal and a roof over their heads? If the laws are good enough for us aren't they good enough for other people?

Also it is not just the cheap labor that is sought after. A good example is the recycling of used electronic parts like computers, monitors, etc. These scraps are sent by the ship load to third world countries and they are basically cooked off or chemically dunked to retrieve precious metals such as gold and silver. It takes huge amounts of scrap to get just a little bit of metal so it is very crappy work. In the process, a smorgasbord of hazardous materials and by-products are in need of disposal, so it is just dumped in a field where it will get in the water table and create a heinous cesspool.

In addition, companies are allowed to do things that would get them in a whole lot of trouble here. Products such as pesticides, outlawed chemicals used in manufacturing, and medical trials are allowed to circumvent proper steps, even tobacco marketing to youths.

Some companies are doing the right thing but others only correct when reported on. Plus the only reason is bad publicity, not the breaking of U.S. laws.

To what extent can the US companies get away with exporting such nastiness or increasing profits at the extent of poorer nations? Could we not say that the laws that apply to the company headquarters here apply to wherever their products are made? Is the almighty pursuit of profits the sole decision maker of right or wrong in this?

Lawyerdamus

2009-10-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a bold prediction you can take to the bank, or stick in your pipe and smoke, as you please: The Lawyer and The Engineer will be mandatory reading in every World Civilization course in every college of liberal arts in each university, the globe over, by the year 2050. If you don't agree with that, just stay alive until then and you will find out that I am right, and you're not.

PhD candidates every where will be defending dissertations on head-scratching and paradigm-quaking entries such as "An Exclusive Interview with The Prince of Darkness," "Brainwashed Students Continue Rioting," and "What Would the Lawyer Do (WWLD)," as well as others yet to be published like, "What my Balls Say About my Self Esteem," "Sensitivity Training for the Complete Douche Bag," and "Why Social Conservatives Hate Homosexuals though Half of them Are."

A bronze statue will be erected and unveiled in honor of The Lawyer and The Engineer in front of The Library at Alexandria. Half the world's children will be named after us, creating an ever greater emphasis on people being addressed by their middle names. It's going to be great!

Pre-posthumous fantasizing aside, people are going to get smarter. I know; you're thinking, 'bullshit.' But hear me out. After all, you are reading the words written by the man who shall be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2086, not for doing much of anything, but rather for being the adroitly compelling voice of a pivotal generation, or some such crap.

I present my own ancestors as a perfect case in point. Caveman Lawyer was good at a few things. Hunting, building fires, getting laid, and avoiding getting eaten, but that was about as far as his expertise reached. Although an idiot, he was the smartest animal alive.

Shaman Lawyer was a crazed genius in comparison. He was a member of a tribe that worshiped the animating spirits of which the environment was composed. Not only was he hunting, but he was a horticulturist, planting things in the ground with a stick to grow and eat. He started domesticating animals. Life expectancy increased from sixteen years old to the rickety old age of twenty something. If you reached thirty, then you became Shaman Lawyer, and no one dared messed with your old ass, except for the rival tribe that, upon considering the matter, decided they were going to take your village, because their spirits told them to do it, and for better soil and easier access to water. So you were likely to get killed, enslaved or eaten by your brother and sister human.

Then, Warrior Lawyer whose implement of progress was metallurgy, and whose ideology was kill-the-bastards-before-they-kill-you. Warrior Lawyer was powerful and rich until one day, while luxuriating in a tangle of legs, butts and breast, being hand fed grapes and having wine poured over his head by his concubines, his power-envy rival's assassin slit his throat to the neck bone. It was a glorious and messy time.

Tired of all that unadulterated chaos and debauchery, Monotheistic Lawyer came on to the scene with some steadfast rules about the right way to live--the only way to live, in fact. If you followed the rules, and obeyed the tenants of the one, true God, then you would be rewarded in the after life, which made sense because this one really sucked. If you didn't follow the rules you got burned at the stake. You have to admire the simplistic elegance of justice in a two-dimensional world of good and evil, right and wrong, where you could be stoned to death for a nuanced suggestion that there may be a gray area in between.

Modern Lawyer burst onto the scene, a little bored with the Lord, and armed with a savvy individualism, weaving and juking to the top of the mountain with the cutting edge mental technologies of reason, analysis and logic. Materially speaking, life got better in every way imaginable. One's hands were freed from the drudgery of labor to pursue mental manipulations and ever greater comfort, wealth and power, often on the aching backs of others.

After that evolved the Existential Lawyer. No longer able sustain lasting satisfaction by his $2,000.00 espresso machine and his state-of-the-art rechargeable nose hair trimmer, he turned inwards for his quest for meaning, and emerged compassionate and less edgy, and a little preachy. He turned to the streets, arm in arm with his brothers and sisters to demand equality for all, awash in the altruistic elixir of mutual tolerance. An egalitarian utopia was in sight.

And then it was not. Information-age Lawyer lost faith in spreading good vibrations, and began to see the world in terms of paradigmatic squabbles between card-carrying members of the aforementioned states of mind on the evolutionary scale towards greater complexity. Before his eyes the world burst into a multidimensional collage of clashing interests, each indefatigably convinced of its superiority over the others, and confusing each for something it isn't. That is the flint spark for every flash point of which there is no lack in the world today.

The real "end of times" is the overcoming, and evolving from the ignorance and narrowness of perspective of the past, and restructuring the collage so that its fit is sustainable, peaceful and mutually beneficial. Wow, how in the hell do you do that? I don't know, but it seems a goal worth aspiring to.

Lawyerdamus' mandate is evolve, damn you. The world is too mysterious and allusive to ever come to the cozy conclusion that this is it, just as you see it, ever before and after. That's silly, of course. What ever the engine of its flow, evolution is with us at every level of existence as we know it: mineral, biological, psychological and spiritual. It happens so slowly that we pass along with it without noticing, and therein lies the illusion of sameness, luring us into a frightful, subconscious existence. Wake up, and have faith, because it is only getting better, if at a little too slow of a pace for most of our taste.

It is through the portal of an open, compassionate and curious mind that evolution whispers its magic. That is the flying carpet that will take us to the next age of humanity. A dogged insistence to keep things just the way they are is stagnation's and decay's whore. The way back is the way to hell.

If you do not believe in evolution, you probably aren't evolving. So, quit being a big wus, hop on the hand-woven Persian, and enjoy the ride into the unexplored territory ahead.

Going Deep: The Lawyer and The Engineer get Metaphysical with 'It'

2009-10-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

While at a party, doing our best to put a dent in a keg of beer, The Engineer confirmed my suspicion; namely, I don't know squat about anything. According to The Engineer, I'm in good company, because nobody else does either. That's a relief.

We could have been talking about sky-rocketing unemployment, the public option, Max Baucus's pocketing of $500,000.00 from the health insurance lobby, Afghanistan, the premodern insanity of the far right, a recent article published in the Journal of Interpretive Dance, or whether Denise Milani is the sexiest woman alive. Instead we were talking about quantum physics and humanity's limited capacity to know.

The way I explained it is that I have read quite a lot about quantum physics over the years and have never fully wrapped my mind around it. The Engineer explained that quantum physicist don't understand it either. "They grasp it mathematically, but beyond that they are just as confused as any one else about the way atoms behave, and the meaning of it all," said the Engineer.

"Physicist know that atoms are more like frequency transmitters than they are little billiard balls," he continued. "Atoms are more constituted of space than any thing tangible. And it only gets weirder. One atom can seem to be in more than one place at the same time. Consider this: from the ground we stand on, to our brains, everything is made of this stuff. Nothing is as it seems. As things should have it, we are incapable of discerning the nature of the stuff we and everything is made of."

We topped off our plastic cups at that.

Having completely lost the little crowd we were engaged with, I turned to epistemology.

"So," I said, "we don't really know what the stuff of the universe is, of which we and everything is intimately composed, nor do we have much access to a full perception of our environment given our very limited perception of things. The brain is a transducer that is bombarded by all of the universe we are in through our five senses, which is tuned to nothing more than a very narrow bandwidth."

We tugged at our chins.

"Much is lost on us as a result, stretching all the way back to the infrared and forward to the ultraviolet," said The Engineer. "It's like we are listening to a piano composition but can only hear one note."

"Just because we can't sense it doesn't mean it isn't there, whatever 'it' is," I suggested.

"Our window on reality is really a tiny peep hole," The Engineer added.

Feeling stupid, we refilled our beers.

"Denise Milani," I asked, "real or fake?"

"Definitely a brunette," responded The Engineer.

The Lawyer Opines on The Nobel Peace Prize and Jump Shots

2009-10-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

All one can do is speculate why some woolly, old cats in Oslo decided that the Nobel Peace Prize should go to the still new President of The United States. Even though I am a Democrat, and a big fan of Obama, you have to admit that he has not accomplished anything note worthy, yet. If he had, then I would agree that he is some sort of Messiah.

Turning a super tanker around that has been piloted into dire straights by Jesus freaks, neocons and Wall Street executives for the last eight years will take longer than Obama has been in office to right. It took eight years for Bush and company to damn near destroy the global economy, stunt international relations by telling everyone who didn't agree with them to go piss down their leg, to cripple global environmental efforts while denying credence to science, to bankrupt the Treasury while going woefully in debt to Communist China to the tune of trillions.

While all that disaster was in the works the rest of the world must have been driven to considerable dismay that the leader of the free world couldn't string two words together without making a grammatical error and looked and sounded like a smart ass doing it. In part, awarding Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize was the Nobel award committees' way of saying, 'We had written America off as being populated by a bunch of easily scared half-wits that are unfit to govern themselves, and thank you for proving us wrong. This award is given to all Americans that voted for the skinny smart guy that reads, writes, thinks, speaks perfect English and has a pretty fine jump shot, to boot.'

The other reason Obama was awarded the prize, I call the Frodo Factor. Like Frodo, Obama stepped up and was elected to do what appears, from this point and time, to be close to insurmountable. He's a hero by virtue of volunteering to take on mission impossible--fixing one hell of a mess left by government-hating Jesus freaks, neocons and those greedy scum on Wall Street. All that cabal of idiots can do is breathlessly, and nonsensically, criticize his every move, even while they hear the swacking sound of nothing-but-net that he shot right over their heads.

Engineer puts his 2.7182818284 cents in....

2009-10-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

I have never understood why a generation is defined by a timeline such as when decades start or end. What is the difference? Having the beginning of a new decade defining you! Bahh! This holds as much credence as the planets alignments when you are born will have defined your personality type. The doctor's body has more gravitational pull than Jupiter when you are born. Also I might mention that I truly believe that each generation has its greatest and worst but the one thing in common is that the aging generation of before always complains of the next generation in line.

My thoughts are that the actions of generations should be defined by major events that happened when the generation is at its premium adulthood, ready to go out into the world. That is what sets the tone and mood of the country.

Here is my go at it..

Heaven or Hell? Who do ya got? (1939 - 1947)

This generation is defined by the extremes in humanity. From the rumblings of the Third Reich, Pearl Harbor, and war atrocities, this generation volunteers or is dragged into greatness. Combating the insanity of evil rulers who achieved power by demonizing groups or ethnic types, the outside line of cruelness will be redrawn over and over again. By wars end, all bets were off as to what was permissible. Firestorms in Dresden and Tokyo. Not to mention what happened in Hiroshima. Uncovering the atrocities of the holocaust..how could that not affect the sanity of rational thought? On the opposite end was the Marshall Plan of rebuilding what was destroyed in Europe. Starting over and helping rebuild these war torn countries instead of saying "They started it.." was one of the finest hours of this country. This is the real America, helping people rise above the rubble. After defeating the real true "evil empire" this shell shocked generation just wanted to get home and start a family with a house with some lawn and a white picket fence. Too bad for some it was Levittown..

Ignorance is Bliss (1948-1962)

This is the generation that was taught to act like the "Cleavers" and not question anything or act out of the norm. The moms wore pearl necklaces and high heels while serving dinner when "your Father came home". While at the same time, all the new pills for housewife anxiety were selling at an astonishing rate. All complaints were stifled and weirdness was extremely risky. Commies were everywhere in a subversive way, just ask Senator McCarthy. Every boy was to be a engineer and every girl was to be..well.. a housewife. Remember that this is past time for the Rosie the Riveter so they have to hurry up and get back into the kitchen.

In the meantime, the government were building A-bombs at a frantic pace. Super secret stuff, all this atomic power goodness. Everything was atomic. Atomic symbols on diners, furniture, clocks, radium wrist watches.Clean energy to cheap to meter. Ha! Meanwhile, tremendous resources are poured into building bombs. At one time 28 percent of electricity and half of the stainless steel produced in the country went to making bombs. Those poor Mormons(downwinders)in Utah never had a chance. We were testing above ground bombs like the 4th of July. But just think about it, the supposed largest nuclear accident ever to happen, Cherynobl, released less radioactivity than even the smallest of above ground tests in the 50's. But the government said it was safe so don't worry. Especially don't pay attention to those glowing sheep and cows over there, dead on their feet.

Our Nazi scientists were racing against the Soviets Nazi scientists to make the first orbital rocket. Unfortunately, we got the rocket engine scientists, (I reach for the stars but sometimes it lands in London Von Braun), while the Soviets got the guidance system scientists so our rockets flew up extremely fast in circles and blew up and theirs mostly blew up on the launch pad. But all the new influx of engineers eventually fixes the problems. Yeah ENGINEERS! White short sleeve shirts, slide rules, and pocket protectors. We ruled!! The generation had a uneasiness about the situation but 'Government knows best". A complete pressure cooker building steam and heat until something was gonna give. And believe me it does!!

Shit, Stop the car right now! I want out! (1962-1969)

The event finally happened in Oct, 1962. Oh No! Missiles in Cuba! Something I would like to call the "Great PuckerUp" month. This generation hears JFK announce to the country about the blockade and everyone knows there is a strong chance that they made a mistake in not listening to that fallout shelter salesmen with more sincerity. Not that it would have made a difference. Somehow we make it through but it puts the seeds of discontent in the youth. What if there isn't a future in this world if it is a rubble? Remember those "Duck and Cover" turtles? This generation sees the system as completely broke with no chance of being repaired, (at least not with the amount of patience and perseverance that they have), and decide to tune in, turn on, and drop out. Meanwhile, this lofty goal is helped out by the latest in chemical developments and philosophical musings of Huxley, Leary, and various other Shamen. Assassinations of some of the countries leaders help to further demoralize any hope for change. Communes and alternative societies pop up everywhere. Noble experiments but basic human nature doesn't change. For the most part, those social experiments fail because of power structure problems. Hey Man, who made you boss? Bummer, too heavy for me man.I'm splitting. Leaders are being assassinated right and left and the CIA is really starting to flex its techno muscles with spy planes and photos taken from the sky. This fuels the fire of paranoia and conspiracy quacks saying they are responsible for everything but Santa Claus.

Complete narcissistic flop-doodleness (1970-1980)

The age of self awareness, self-help, and finding your inner man beast, cave whatever. Not only is this the generation that taste forgot, with the hideous clothes, colors, and leisure suits, but there is not really any pretense of social change or lofty goals of any kind. It is completely about the parties, self realizations, sex, discos, and narcissism. The social trends, thoughts,and even the music was the equivalent of Twinkies, seemingly good on the first bite but leaving a nauseous feeling after the experience. Threes Company, need I say more? Gas shortages and 55 mph speed limits were the norm. A president that was of high morals and character is, in my opinion, unjustly perceived as a..and I hate using this word but it does seem perfect.. pussy.

I may seem harsh on this group, but it may be just some self reflection because I am a card carrying member. BUT NEVER, and I cannot stress this enough, NEVER did I have one of the Brown Corduroy Leisure suits but I heard they were quite common with lawyers.

I not a President but I played one on a movie once (1981-1989)

This generation was tired of this flaccid bullshit and was ready to take charge! Unadulterated capitalism was in vogue and a take charge actor president was in the office. Making the big bucks on Wall Street was the name of the game and personalities were defined by the labels and brands of products that you had. Even books were written about serial killers that was designer driven. The drugs at the time defined the generation. Screw all that mind expanded doors of perception crap! I need something to make me work hard and party harder. Bring on the cocaine cowboys and the Miami Vice chic bullshit. Money was the name of the game and power was the way to achieve personal fulfillment. A person who was the president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 pivotal in getting actors blacklisted, major FBI informant in the fifties, became the President of the United States. Suddenly there was the "Evil Empire" and Star Wars defense. Good ole Edward Teller (Worm Tongue for u Tolkien followers) and his whisperings in the leaders ears! But after ignoring all of the foreign political experts advice on arms limitation, he starts to change his mind after seeing a movie on tv call "The Day After".

The generation had Michael J. Fox movies and the invasion of Grenada to set the tone. One the other side, the Soviets were coming apart at the seams with Chernobyl and having to import a lot of food to stay alive. Afghanistan was a major thorn in their side, partially because of the war being lost because of an influx on new weapons, (stingers), supplied by us. I mean, what could be a better idea than to give people in that desert area high tech weapons? The cold war had become hot again.

WHINING AND ITS DISCONTENTS, OR WHINING IN THE CULTURAL MILIEU AND GENERATIONAL APERSPECTIVITY

2009-10-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

Unless you have been holed up in a cave, deep in the foreboding, triple canopy jungles of the Amazonian Basin, with a cell phone that has long since ran out of juice, you may have noticed that the world, so long having offered a sturdy foundation on which to confidently stand, has gone to shit. The economy really sucks, people are losing their jobs at a mind-boggling rate, global warming, and melting polar ice caps portending ecological disaster that could send us back, as a civilization, to the stone age, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News with their daily, and ruthless, assault on logic and reason, medical bills and voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the rising financial inaccessibility to a quality secondary education—the list goes on, and the grass still needs to be mowed.

Reflecting on these unpleasant issues induces the pain of hopelessness and despair, and ultimately keeps liquor stores recession proof. The water bill is coming due, the mortgage payment is two months in arrears, and unemployment benefits have ran their course, and won’t be extended with federal stimulus funds because your Republican governor takes philosophical issue with helping people in need. Contemplating all these things compels me, for one, to indulge in a little therapeutic whining.

Whining doesn’t work unless there is someone to listen to it, and no one likes a whiner. It’s a tricky and delicate undertaking. You lull your unexpected victim in. As soon as you have them in, close enough, seduced by speculation of who’s going to be the starting quarterback next season, or the best of all inconsequential topics, the weather, and they are relaxed and leaning a little too much on one leg, you sock it to them, with a dizzying, dripping—soaked in self pity—whining of untold depth and girth.

This is a brief guide—soon to be released in consecutive volumes of encyclopedic proportions—of how to whine, and, most importantly, what to expect from your victim, depending upon their generational affiliation. To become a truly proficient and adept whiner you need to know your audience, whether they be a member of the greatest generation, a baby boomer, a Gen-X’er, or those adorable, attention-deficient, babblers of Gen-Y. So, here with it:

THE GREATEST GENERATION

Members of this species are easily approached, and in fact, if you wander in too close, say within fifty yards, they will flag you down and draw you in, not subtlety and seductively, but with one mighty jerk. You do what you are supposed to, because they are your elders, and you would be consumed with flames of guilt if you pivoted and tore off to hide in the woods leaving them stranded, and dejected, with no one to help them to cross the street. Also, you know, that if World War Three, ecological disaster, or a viral pandemic doesn’t prematurely wipe you off the face of the earth, along with another ninety percent of our species, you too would like to be afforded some dignity and respect having reached upwards of ninety years old, and a good stout ear to take in all of the non sequiturs that will come to your mind in terrifyingly large, typhoon-driven waves.

The secret is in allowing them an hour, or so, of bending (or assaulting, depending upon your particular angle on the matter) your auditory sensibilities, until their mouths grow dry as the soil of Death Valley, and they begin to nod off, ever so lightly, being called into a cat-nap, their only form of sleep. It is at that moment, when their consciousness is waning towards lapsing that you kick in with a hardy whine that has the same sonorous quality as a four year old debuting their skills on the violin.

Some caution is required here, for the reason that this may cause the wrinkled ancestor to jerk too suddenly to consciousness resulting in a dislocated hip, or, possibly, death. You don’t need that weighing on your conscience, what with all your other problems that you have got to whine to someone about.

Assuming your geriatric victim is of stern enough stuff to survive the initial shock of it, they will listen to you, and though without uttering a word, appear terse. You see, they think you are the biggest, dribbling, pathetic pussy they have ever met in their long, and very tough, lives. You have embarked on a mission of total and complete futility.

If they had the strength, which they don’t, they would grab you by the neck, wrestle you to the ground, and while pressing your face hard in the dirt, harangue and assault your ears to the point of bleeding. “When I was a kid, we had the Great Depression; we were lucky when we had some greasy raccoon meat to eat for supper; if we survived that, we were rewarded with getting to fight in World War Two; You know what it’s like seeing you’re buddy, his leg blown off, bleeding to death, screaming and crying for his momma? You can take your wus-ass existential flap, and stick it up your ass.”

But, as I mentioned, they probably do not possess the fortitude for as much violence as they used to. Instead they glare at you through folded and myopic eyes, and do not utter a word. And as soon as you give them an opening, assuming they have not gone to meet their maker in the intervening time, they will sharply divert your whining to the eighteenth re-telling of the time that their cousin Jim, who was an oilfield worker before the war, went to college on the G.I. Bill, and got a degree in electrical engineering, had this cute little dog, named Roosevelt, and he had these intestinal problems—not the dog, but Jim—and, etc.

THE BABY BOOMER

“Why fucking bother?” and “Are you shitting me?” are two rhetorical retorts that come briskly to mind when contemplating whining to a former hippy, turned yuppie, now dyspeptic AARP member whose 401(k) has the vitality of the rotting road kill that they ran over yesterday in their Lexus SUV. If you are a Gen-X’er, like me, you have gone back to this well too often, and know that drawing the bucket back up from that dark hole will reward you with little more than snakes and spiders, not the cool, wise, cleansing elixir of ambrosia, maaaan.

Whoa. Am I being a little harsh? Yes. So, in that vain, I shall continue.

Whining to this group, induces in them robust, impatient finger tapping, frowning and eye rolling. You won’t get very far into it before they shut you down with an agonizing lecture about how you need to adjust your attitude. There are two problems, the way they see it: you are bumming them out, and you are not talking about them. And they are really all there is.

If you are lucky, after a well strung-together whine, they may offer this, while checking the time on their Breitling wrist watch: “Well, good luck. It’s a tough old world out there, and it’s almost tee-time.”

Really, you can’t whine to this group. They are revolted, and easily nauseated, by anyone diverting their focus and attention from their own immediate needs, and well-being; don’t fucking bother. Just hand it to them for the breath taking mess they created for the rest of us to deal with for a thousand years to come. You don’t even have to use complete sentences. Just list it for them: “Watergate, Vietnam, The Bush Doctrine, the stained blue dress, free market greed, smoked salmon, Iraq, wage stagnation, hollow blustering about attitude adjustments, and mud baths.” They will be relieved when you are done, and quickly get back to thinking of themselves and what they need.

GENERATION X

Ah, my comrades, we know what absurdity is all about. We live, sleep, drink and eat absurdity. We lather up with it every morning in the shower. We blow it out of our noses, and pick it out of our ears. It’s everywhere and everything. And this is fine, usually. We are well equipped to deal with it. When we were babies, our mothers mixed in a shot glass-full of absurdity in our formula. We were raised on this stuff!

But, alas, from time to time, and after half of a fifth of hard booze has mysteriously evaporated from the bottle, we feel like indulging in a symphonic whining session. It’s a cleansing exercise (if a little absurd), and is our method of confessional catharsis. Its utility lies in its psychologically beneficial effects. But you must hold the thought that it is really an absurd endeavor contemporaneously while whining, less you should start really believing yourself, and turn to dark thoughts that life is truly, absolutely absurd. The trick is to believe that God is a humorist, motivated by hilarity disguised as tragedy, and everything will ultimately be fine, unless you’re an atheist, and then you are absurdly fucked.

We have leavened whining to an art form. We have contests to see who can whine most convincingly, with great alacrity and adroitness. We stand and applaud when someone pulls it off really well.

After all, we are good whiners because we have a lot to whine about: The blissful indifference of The Greatest Generation, comfortably riding out the golden years on social security and a descent pension, who otherwise don’t have it in them to fight anymore; the crap sandwich our boomer moms and dads have made for us with the admonition to put a little Dijon on it, and to quit our whining because it is bringing them down; the short end of the stick we have been shafted with, planted in the nutrient starved soils in the looming shadow of the boomers who wont freakin’ retire and clear a little space in the job market; and the fluttery, circle jerking, attention-dependent, attention- deficient chattiness of our future saviors—Gen Y.

When nary a drop remains in the empty fifth, and the beast, Absurdity, has been thoroughly flogged, and the whining winds down in a concluding and nasally C note, and we are called off to dream of authenticity, equality and selflessness—or put another way, beauty, truth and goodness—we bow our heads in supplication, and chant like absurdly tired Gregorian Monks: “Oh well, whatever, never mind.”

GENERATION Y

Like, OMG, like, they’re too busy, busy, busy to be creaped-out by your whining. But they may offer, out of an unfounded deference to the possibility of receiving some equally unfounded positive feedback from anyone who looks older then them, to suffer some of your whining. As soon as it dawns upon them that you are not thumping the lever of the WII Rockband guitar of immediate gratification, but rather stirring the heart of despondency with a second hand, and out of tune, fiddle, they will offer you the latest, feel-good, cure-all that their psychiatrist fixed them up with last week.

They are also likely, after hearing you out a bit, to suggest that what you really need is a happy, chatty and enormous circle of friends with which you can flap your gums, or text your fingers into bloody stumps with, about really mind-numbingly mundane tripe that doesn’t register two, on a scale of one to ten, on the substance meter.

For those with a proclivity for whining, this group will reinvigorate your verve to whine, to make up for their lack of whining. Someone has to do it.

Maybe they are just too young to have anything to whine about. They are used to being poor, and/or living with their parents, and that’s hunky-dory because their parents love, adore and scratch their bellies like they were cute little puppies (that don’t whine, because they are too hopped up on prescription anti-psychotics). They simply are not as beholden to the need for money as the rest of us, and can out wait us—no mortgage, little in the way of having to pay taxes, and they don’t plan to have kids of their own until they are in their fifties when they will spawn a biogenetically engineered army of happy, uncomplaining ubermanths.

Whining tends to bounce off them like a dying and indecipherable native tribal tongue—they don’t get it, and suspect that if they did that it might cause some sort of discomfort, and that’s, OMG, yucky and negative.

After all, they have a lot to look forward to. When the boomers finally throw in their Ping golf ball towel, Gen-Y will be in their late thirties, and still ready to rock, while us Gen-X’ers will just want to be left alone to do what we do best, which is anything without someone looking over our shoulders giving us positive feedback and constructive criticism, who is ignorant and unreceptive to artfully crafted, high-quality whining.

CONCLUSION

Fear not, for as long there are souls enshrouded with the needs of its meaty corpus, a little whining is in order. A lot of whining is in order when those needs are threatened, as they seem to be from all sides presently.

When damnation and ruin is the only thing left in the refrigerator for dinner, shove your index finger deep in your nostril of choice, and pluck out a big gob of whiny boogers, roll them around your mouth, and savor its bitter-sweetness. You might just learn to like it. If not, whine about it.