Tantrum

Empty words
 empty verses
stupid children
  shouting curses

Must do what
 the babies say
all the bad
 will go away

Hearts of stone
 could only doubt
serious faces
 angry pout

Dancing on
 glowing screens
empty-headed
 puppet teens

You Had Us at Hello

You Had Us At Hello

By P.B. Rage from USA (More Kurt -- too rad) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

   More than 20 years ago the rock landscape had languished in a sea of regurgitated sameness. Carbon copies. Pretty boy bands that looked like girls singing about Girls Girls Girls. Half naked girls singing about virginity and prayers.


 Thrash metal was scratching the itch that glam could never satisfy. Rap was another venue for expressing angst and becoming quite lucrative, in a way metal was not.


  Edgy and cool was listening to classic rock. Boston, Aerosmith, Triumph were the alternative to the Lipsticked Pretty Boys prancing on MTV.


   The Purple Rain had become a foggy memory, replaced by a long-haired ginger in a bandana snake dancing to a guitar charmer in a top hat. The class of 90 was made of this. The rose that bloomed with a bang soon also faded in a cold November rain, and there we were.


  Our eyes fed upon Alice in Chains. Red Hot chili peppers were trying to get us to put them in us, and some of us were satiated. The rest of us hungered for more spiritual manna in this musical wasteland of pop and rock.

 What new thing could we find to listen to in our apathy and malaise? "Here we are now, entertain us."  "Hello hello hello, how low?"  We were suddenly hearing our decade put in words we never could have found on our own, growled and howled over the pounding high school marching band drum beat.

  We heard the voice in the wilderness saying come as you are, and we covered in mud soaked in bleach opened our ears and minds and souls to this new sound. We were all ugly here, and it was ok. We lit our candles in a daze because we found our Nirvana.

20 (plus) years later we are back in the wilderness and where is our voice? Married, buried. Weiland could tell you but he is not here either. Layne is truly the man in the box.

Our pop-giant killers were slain in fields of poppies.

 Who will be our hero to chase away the twerking, jerking, hordes of circus performers that vie for our attention now? The shallow rivers of saccharine flow from our speakers and earbuds, yet we are starved. A constant repeating parade of boy bands that look like girls singing about girls while naked girls sing about respect and degradation simultaneously.

I do sometimes wish I were that easily amused after all.

oh,

whatever

nevermind.

Abandon Hope and Change Course

I am a firm believer of mutual self construction.
By which I mean individuals
united in their seclusion.
Conjoined disjointed orphans
Erecting a Solace of Fortitude,
Asylums of Family Disunity
A harmonious cacophony of orchestrated solos
Instrumental temperamental
monumental chorus vocalizing
localizing
Individual vision

Alas
Feral sheep shepherded astray
by a Piper's dulcet atonement
Promissory sour notes called
due
Bald faced ideological ribaldry
Preselected elected offal, officious
Inhumane scentipede
Mentally ill dressed succession
of public servants self servicing

Disarmed armada of the disillusioned
flotilla of fools on the Hill
Come sale away with me, indeed
Flotsam jet setters presiding
Deciding
Die-er consequences
Pirated copies of declarations
of interdependence.
Anchors a weigh

My country-
 tis for me
Sweet land where things are free
Of me Im singing
Land where our fathers sighed
Land where their dreams have died
State of Ship of State, Sinking

It's All Fun and Games 'Til the SJW's Get Involved.

 Body positive. Gender equality. Forced tolerance under any other name is still propaganda, and it still smells.

No longer satisfied with brainwashing your kids on social media, tv shows and public schools, the Equality Brigade of Big Sister want to start indoctrination at the cradle. By social engineering the lumps of plastic your child can play with and what mascots adorn their breakfast cereal box  they hope to build their socially conscience utopia brick by Lego brick.

"How many Lego mini-figures live on your street? With a planet-wide population of 4 billion, there are sure to be a few plastic folk nestling down the back of a sofa near you. But for all the mini-figures in the world, Lego does not produce a single one with a wheelchair or a disability?"


Of course this is not true, pirates with eye patches and peg legs have been available for quite sometime.( Yay for being represented by a yellow plastic toy?). The X-men set also has the iconic wheelchair bound character. I am sure there are more, but who cares. It's a toy. Toys are for play, for imagination expansion. You can remove arms and legs or wrap injuries in toilet paper bandages. You can get a sharpie when mom is not looking and draw scars.

The article goes on to bemoan the lack of wheel chair accessibility for Lego Airplanes. Seriously. This is adult grievance culture forcing its world view on the mind of a child. I can remember many times as a child, a certain figure was the wrong size for the entrance for whatever building you were playing with. ( Oh and you could actually cross play. Barbie did not have to play with just Barbie abodes, she could ride "in" your brothers Tonka truck) We used our imaginations and pretended it got through and placed said figure on the other side of door. Imagine it's wheelchair accessible, if you are a child and actually concerned with such, and go your merry way. Problem solved simply, without the retooling of a whole toy manufacturing complex.

No answer on how toy manufacturers are supposed to illustrate less visible handicaps, like mental illness or blindness

For years, child development researchers have been calling for unstructured play to encourage creativity in children. At one time coloring books were frowned upon. Pre-drawn illustrations were thought to handicap creativity.  Experts thought a blank page was the best resource to bring out the artistry in preschoolers. Yet today the SJW wants to force your child to draw inside the lines. Having every toy possibly imagined and pre-made for each possible play scenario, surely inhibits inventive problem solving.

Of course that is the point. Control. "Wrong play" might lead to "wrong think" so let's be sure that no "wrong imagining" happens. We know their busybodying does not come from genuine concern for the less fortunate, because after all, these the same people that fight for the right to abort a disabled baby. When it actually matters, their concept of forced acceptance only goes so far.

Of course the bane of a feminist existence could not go unscathed. Mattel announced on Twitter, Time Magazines new cover featuring the new "realistic" body Barbie. Because that is what play time is all about, realism and not fantasy.

What a powerful moment and this is just the beginning... #TheDollEvolves #Barbie https://t.co/wuAgbidIby pic.twitter.com/e0tCmOxDlt

— Barbie (@Barbie) January 28, 2016

"Barbie has, to some extent, always been this bully to women. Her impossibly thin waist has taunted us, pointing out what for many of us is our biggest insecurity — our body size. Though she is carved plastic, she has screamed at us across generations, telling us our bodies aren't good enough. Now, that voice may quiet — albeit just a little."

 When your toys are oppressing you, you really should seek help.


As a child I read a lot of books about little girls. Not once do I remember Laura Ingalls wondering if she was going to look like a corn cob when she grew up. Little girls through out the years were playing with molded clay dolls that vaguely had human shape. Sticks and clothespins wrapped in scrap cloth. Faceless primitive rag dolls misshapen and stuffed with saw dust never once pressured a child into wishing she too had a featureless visage.  Having a real doll was once a rarity. You sure as heck didn't complain about it's dimensions

  "As the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.   There’s just one problem: Despite our demographic diversity, not everyone’s beauty gets equal representation. However, new changes to one of the world’s most iconic (and influential) dolls are set to address this"

  "In what is unquestionably Barbie’s "biggest change" since the toy first hit stores in 1959, Mattel is making room for other Barbies — 33 to be exact — to have a chance at dominating the shelves. And, to be honest, we’re all better for it."


   Barbie is a toy, not a role model. To run an advertising campaign stating she is, is a bigger issue than her waist size. Of course Barbie is suffering the effects of the modern age. Kids are choosing electronics over plastic and ad campaign like this is causing product to move, initially. Why? Limited run items are highly collectible. How many stores is going to devote shelf space to all models and clothing sizes. How many parents are going to fork over for the different clothing for all the diverse body types. Skipper was never popular for just this reason. Matel needs to have realistic pocketbook standards. This is not realistic long term business model. Retooling to become less streamlined rather than more is backwards in today's market, but of course not a single SJW will mourn Barbie's passing should she indeed prove unprofitable. They got their feather, and if the bird dies, they will blame institutionalised misogyny etc and say it was too little too late.

  Girls will never be a mermaid or Cinderella. Should we quit giving them toys that promote this false vision of the future? Most children will never grow up and own a Lamborghini, let's promote realistic driving standards. If we follow this logic, kids should only play with minivans. Allowing children to play with Disney castles or Barbie Dream Houses (or yachts) just sets them up for an unrealistic homing image. The will never be satisfied with their apartment complex or basic rancher. It's best to just nip all that imaginary play in the bud.


1 Corinthians 13:11-13King James Version (KJV)

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Believer or not, this is good advice, for the most part. Children's play time is exactly that. Let them play. Let their creativity and imagination flow freely to solve the problems important to them. Let them be kids. Let the adults deal with all the serious issues that need serious people addressing them.

Sex, lies, and nerds

Over on Facebook a few days back, a link to this story in Forbes about sexual harassment in the astronomy community was posted in a private group.  Alison Paige made the following, fairly astute, observation:

Astronomy, physics, computer science, engineering. Is anyone surprised that white males who love science so much that they participated in science fairs willingly and gym class only because it was required and played chess or D&D instead of attending the prom are really bad at communicating with women? These are the men who were bullied by teacher-coaches and fellow classmates repeatedly all through their grade school and HS years. They have no social interaction skills.

As a white male who voluntarily participated in science fairs, hated gym class, and played on my high school chess team - this was pre-Dungeons & Dragons - and then went on to get an advanced degree in materials science, I can affirm that there is a lot of truth to this.  People who go into the hard sciences, in general, don't come equipped with a full set of social graces.  Put these socially inept men on today's college campuses where even complimenting a woman's appearance is construed as an act of overt male aggression tantamount to rape and, well...yeah, sexual harassment charges will fly, regardless of whether the alleged act of harassment was real or committed with the most innocent of intentions.

I'll throw something else into this mix:  Hard science academicians past a certain age, i.e., those that were hired before political correctness and diversity became the driving principles for higher education,  are more likely to be conservative politically than their soft science and liberal arts colleagues.  As a consequence, all of their actions are going to be viewed through a liberal political lens that places them under far more scrutiny than, say, the politically correct English literature professor who may be staging Lolita reenactments in his classroom to bring Nabakov's writing "alive".

Having said all this, the reality of higher education in America is that heterosexual white male professors are indeed dinosaurs and are being replaced by a more "diverse" faculty.  Whether or not these professors are forced out by charges of sexual harassment, real or imagined, or simply retire, the end result is the same:  A faculty selected to be culturally diverse and politically homogeneous. This is not to say that these new faculty are not talented and, in some cases, extremely talented, but when a significant basis for their hiring is their sexual identification and/or race and political views, they are not required to be.

I could go on and on about all the reasons I believe that higher education is dying in America, but I'll save that commentary for another day and end this bit of Saturday morning amusement by making a prediction:  At present, American universities are net importers of foreign graduate students, mostly from China and India.  With ten year - fifteen, at the outside, this trend will reverse and serious American hard science students will be learning Mandarin and heading to China to learn their trade.

Racism Is Not Unintentional

I keep reading about how racism is systemic and only can be directed by those in power. In other words, White people have held power over Black people (and other people of color) since the U.S. was founded, so no matter what has happened since then — no matter how prosperous Blacks have become, or the fact that a Black man is the leader of the free world — Whites still hold the power, so Black people are still oppressed and cannot be racist.


As a result of this thinking, White people are being convinced that asking questions about someone's difference (in the name of diversity and getting to know a culture other than their own) is racist.


In the 1990s, corporations were told that they weren't diverse enough because too many White men held positions of power. Departments of Diversity were created, often headed by a woman and/or person of color and/or gay or lesbian (the bi-sexuals and transgendered hadn’t been offended yet — and weren’t even recognized in their own “circle” of “different” sexual behavior), in the name of creating equality. So-called “affinity” groups were formed: Black Employee Networks, Asian Employee Networks, Left-handed Green-eyed Lesbians with Plus Seven Wizard Points Employee Network. Every “specialized” group wanted to be recognized for being different. In the name of “equality and diversity”, these groups essentially bullied their way into silos of difference. “Celebrate me because I’m different!” “Celebrate me because I’m special!” “Celebrate me because I’ve been held down by the White man!” I think it started as wanting be accepted, but it quickly devolved into wanting to be different but not different.


I was included in a class action lawsuit because of the color of my skin. The lawsuit was intended to give disadvantaged Blacks in the corporate world an opportunity to advance their education so they could move up the corporate ladder. I already had a Bachelor’s degree from a prestigious university, and was being told that I needed to take advantage of this “opportunity.” I took a class that interested me, but that had nothing to do with advancing me in the position I held. It was “free” money. Except it wasn’t. The company paid for it, and employee salaries (across the board) were likely limited because the company had this lawsuit they had to pay for. I am grateful for the “educational opportunity experience” I got, but in hindsight, I didn’t learn any more than I had learned in the same class in high school — and I got to take that class because of my intellect and ability, not because of the color of my skin or my gender.


This post is not about my own hubris. Please bear with me.


A quick Google search says that a “system” is (1) “a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, in particular” and (2) “a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.” Wikipedia (which is where most people rely on their definitions of things) says a system is a “ set of interacting or dependent component parts forming a complex/intricate whole.”


So where is the other side of this oppression/diversity system? If Whites hold the power and people of color are oppressed as part of this system, that means both sides are, in fact colluding. It means both sides are responsible. So why are Whites obliged to feel guilty for their success while people of color are continually oppressed for their lack of success? If Whites set a standard that works economically, educationally, socially, etc., that works for everyone, and people of color reject that just because Whites set it up, those people of color are part of that system that keeps them down because of their own rejection of people not of their color set it up.


According to the definition, a system needs more than one side to operate. And the people “in power” can only operate as long as the “oppressed” acquiesce to being the ones “not in power.” So I say to the “oppressed,” stop dwelling on the past. Stop demanding equality so long as you are only seeking revenge for the actions of the past. Equality has existed for a number of years for people of color. We have the opportunity to change the future for ourselves. Many of us have. We blame no one but ourselves for not taking advantage of the opportunities presented to us.


You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

De Facto Sharia

As I mentioned in a previous post, Germany is having a bit of a rape culture problem ( though to be honest, it's a cultural rape problem, but whatevs). The revised number is now up to 150 reported complaints during a 1000 man violent sexual assault rampage. The descriptions of the men were specific and quite problematic for authorities. Seems all of the perpetrators had a belief system in common. Most of them were of Arab or African origin ( as per witness description), some specifically, Syrian refugees, by their own admission. They literally told police that “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me"

Merkel, Time's Person Of the Year, herself, has come out with strong condemnation, of the victims of course, for not taking the proper precautions. While not specifying head to toe coverings and related male escorts when going in public, one can only assume.

Thus, de facto sharia, without even a fight. The strong man is tied, he shaved his own head, and can only watch as his women are raped and sold as chattel.

  Here in the Evil Patriarchal bastion USA,  feminists have been decrying words, glances and thoughts as rape. A man talks to you on campus, rape. If he looks at you, rape. If he thinks you are unattractive and refuses to have sex with you, rapity rape. One can only hope that Merkel can take time from governing/ruining Germany long enough to do a speaking tour of American universities.

Christ, For Ratings, How Low

  So I guess a some TV show thought it would be an awesome idea to have a female lead get an abortion on TV. So cool! So edgy! Just about the only way to make it more edgy, would be have a hymn playing while it happens. So that's what they did.

 A hymn.

   Not just any hymn, THE hymn that means Christmas to Christians ( and non believers) everywhere, Silent Night. A song about a birth, THE birth, of the Christian Savior.

   Now I am sure their intent was not to offend, so perhaps next time they can dub over these words instead.


Silent scream
Terror dream
Woke by cold
Doctor's light
On the table
A mother and child
Lonely infant
So tender and mild
Worth more sold by the piece
Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Silent scream
Ended dream
Angels weep at the scene
Gory end to one with no voice
Outside chanting Hooray for our choice
Christ, for ratings, how low
Christ, for ratings, how low


http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/11/20/abcs-scandal-shows-abortion-set-silent-night/