It's Like a Vast Bowl Of Pus

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." - Kurt Vonnegut

[theraroth]

Death Awaits Us All (from 2016)

I wrote this around August 3-4 2016, for a lit blog that rejected it outright for its brutal honesty and horrific accuracy concerning what we were soon to see as the presidency of Donald (BAAAAARRRRRFFFF) Trump. Presented with minimal edits, I give you:

DEATH AWAITS US ALL...enjoy (or not, it’s your choice):

The rust monsters have sacked my brain. Writing anything creative is a near-impossible hateful sojourn through corridors of frustration. I was recently accosted by the corrosive evil of reorganizing a college level class in order to conform, at least in spirit, with the format of a dreadful textbook thrust upon me, like skin rot contracted from an outhouse in a leper colony. There’s no task as phony and unfulfilling and soulless as revising lecture notes. You can feel your creative juices drying up like a sun-blasted desert oasis. There goes another part of me I can never recapture. Pandora’s Box fits into the analogy somehow, but I am unable to weave it into the narrative adequately so I instead rely on brutal confessions of academically induced impotence, if there is such a condition, and if not let me self-diagnose as Patient Zero for a heretofore undiscovered malady.

Where was I?

Somewhere, out in the desert watching heatwaves rise up from boiling sands…painting a picture with a broken brush is no mean feat, but I think I have risen to the challenge. Rise…risen. Nope, still hopelessly ossified and amberized. I coined that word, I believe. Or I’d like to believe I coined it.

Pointless!

So I’ll conjure a point from nowhere: I was rereading Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country, his last published work before succumbing to a head injury at the gruffly tender age of 84 (it was his opinion that old farts like himself had “just gotten here,” so he was therefore little more than a pup, and who am I to contradict a master?). The book, a glib examination of George W. Bush’s America, has aged more rapidly than Vonnegut’s cantankerous literary turns, hobbled in part by the limited scope of the subject, but in spite of that limitation, it ventures into less dated territory or at a minimum more open territory free of political intrigues anchored to that desolate era, and one of these vistas for free range thoughts was in the author’s note at the end in which Kurt mentions that he had recently bonded in a friendly manner, not a love interest mind you, with Ralph Steadman, the artist indelibly linked to Hunter S. Thompson, the late gonzo journalist who, in the context of this aside, had recently taken his life in 2005. And where in the fuck, you ask and rightfully so, is all this digressive bullshit headed? It’s headed toward one of those strange coincidences which plant the idea that perhaps coincidence is a term of art humans created to dismiss the only tangible proof of a higher power manipulating the strings of the world, for I had just received in the mail a copy of Ralph Steadman’s The Joke’s Over, with a forward by, of all people, Kurt Vonnegut. So when I read the passage about Steadman and Vonnegut acquainting, a series of events whose connective tissues were dark to me suddenly coalesced into a definitive line of causality. Kurt met Ralph, Ralph wrote a book, Kurt wrote the forward for the book.

Isn’t it amazing that two people I have admired from afar somehow interacted out of the blue and “cross-pollinated,” so to speak? How does that shit happen? It’s a small world doesn’t do it justice. Nor does that hideously saccharine shit of a song do justice to my ears, real or the virtual stereo in my head that blares it as punishment for writing this, or possibly for writing, period, why-oh-why did I ever travel down that path? it yells at me in a chorus of squeaky castrati frantic to know the whereabouts of their balls…sorry boys, but, snip, snip, all gone but for the empty skin pouch.

If any of this makes sense, I apologize. It was never my intention to impart wisdom. There are more than enough shit-bird seers and visionary with all the answers in the world for a million lifetimes. So I guess one more can’t hurt or at the worst can’t inflict more harm than has already been inflicted. Death by a million papercuts…which cut was the killing stroke, the first or the last or one of the ones somewhere in the middle? Don’t answer that. Only a real asshole thinks he can answer the unanswerable.

Trump.

Balls, I’ve been tap dancing around the proverbial elephant in the room, tap dancing around heaping mounds of elephant shit so pervasive and voluminous I am drowning it in. We all are. Fuck. I need respite from the ugliness or I’ll goddamn well explode. And we can’t have that, can we?

But beware! If you speak of the devil, he shall come forth to heed your call. And in line with that warning, just as I was resigned to submerging and drowning in the muddy trenches of the Trump travesty, some blasted interloper knocked on the rustic steel door I rely on as a barrier between myself and the cruel world beyond. A wave of dread crept up my spine. Dusk time visitations never go well. Could be the authorities paying a call to impart bad news or some Jesus hustler at the end of his shift off-loading surplus pamphlets on the house closest to the tax dodge. God, I hate those fuckers. They have a habit of ignoring the NO SOLICITORS sign taped to the glass. Perhaps a large billboard broadcasting I EXTERMINATE FUCKING JESUS FREAKS might get their attention. When I opened, I came face to face with a fresh brand of trouble: the new neighbors were stopping by, not to say hi, how’s it hangin’? boy it sure is hot and whatnot, but to raise unholy hell (vs holy hell) about ground ivy, a common broadleaf, encroaching on their newly sodded lawn.

My inner cynic lives for these moments, affirmations that people are the real hell on Earth, as they clearly intended to start a territorial dispute over a goddamn plant native to every square mile of land in the world’s innumerable temperate zones, which, as far as they were concerned, excluded their yard. My only recourse? Consult the local ordinances online. Damn them straight to hell, I thought, for I’d sworn to on everything that is holy in the ecumenical sense that I would NEVER EVER consult the local ordinances, out of respect for the fact that I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about local ordinances or other petty nonsense crafted by bureaucrats with measuring sticks, prepared to issue citations for overgrown lawns or minute infringements of sacred lot lines. This is the kind of meaningless tripe that sucks your life down the fucking drain, pisses away the hours and scours your nerves to raw fucking bloody pulpy scum. So it was with utter disdain that I broke this promise to the Powers That Don’t Give a Fuck and combed the local ordinance site, state of the art for 2008, and tracked down the arcane passage detailing what manner of flora presented a nuisance to the neighborhood and would bring the wrath of the gods down upon my head, and lo and behold ground ivy was not among the offending species of plants.

But the neighbors more or less told me as much when it was mentioned in passing that they had consulted the ordinances and were at a loss to find a passage with the clout to enforce their milquetoast suburban pursuit of a simplified, unstable, monochromatic, aesthetically drab and understated ecosystem aching to wither and die if a fucking drop of acrid dog piss falls on its tender shoots. I’m not eager to engage in a death struggle over botanical differences. However, people have died for lesser causes.

Trump.

Darkness descends. Evil abounds. Feet itch. Is there no one who can save us? Okay, there’s Hillary. I have confidence in her ability to topple the tyrannical Trumpenstein “turd tornado” (tip of the cap to Ben Shapiro for helping fulfill my alliteration quota for the month). But I cannot shake the creeping doom. It skulks the hallways of my mind. I hear the thundering hoof beats of the Apocalypse fast approaching.  I see other horrifying apparitions that defy description. Lots of wriggling tentacles, gnarly horns shiny with the blood of the innocent, severed nipples—a bowl of them, sitting out like Halloween candy as demonic children (well, children) paw through them seeking the tastiest morsel of nipple flesh. Michael Phelps’s perfect swimmer-nipples figure into the picture, adding a certain glistering, chilling symmetry to an otherwise asymmetric tableau involving hell spawn hungry for nipples, and even more macabre, Halloween was EIGHT DAYS ago.

November 8th promises to be the premiere of a new mediocre, bound-to-disappoint horror flop from M. Night Shyamalan, THE TRUMPENING. Okay, that scared the shit of me. You see, a word I’m 99.9% sure I just made up was ALREADY IN MY GODDAMN SPELLCHECKER. Relax, damn it. There is a logical explanation. Right. Spellcheck for all capital letters, by default, is turned off, and I tend to eschew tinkering with default settings unless they really piss me off, which is harder than it seems. But ’tis the season for rampant, unchecked, unabated, relentless paranoia, and what concerns me most is that the second my new novella arrives on the scene in the fall, there won’t be anybody to buy it. Apocalyptic settings dampen book sales almost as much as the very concept of a book does. Past authors and critics have predicted the end of the novel as an art form, and they were wrong, but their inaccuracy was a matter of poor timing not poor judgment. It is dead, and we killed it, and I cannot envision a novella, even a competently written one with an occasional dash of brilliance, resurrecting the dust and bones of the theater of the imagination. We are adrift in the briny wastes of instant entertainment gratification, and never again shall we touch the shores of useless art made beautiful by intense admiration.

I only wax poetically against my own interests because I am congenitally unable to believe in karmic justice. Karmic injustices proliferate with the ease of ground ivy, and unlike a relatively innocuous plant they swallow everything in their path. Take the savagely unjust conviction of five boys (four African Americans and one Hispanic) railroaded in 1990 for raping, beating, and sodomizing a female jogger in Central Park. After languishing in prison for 6-13 years as sex offenders, exculpatory evidence exonerated The Five of any wrongdoing (a serial rapist serving life in prison confessed to the crime, which led to a round of DNA tests, and none of The Five’s DNA was extant at the crime scene). And who shelled out an estimated $85,000 for full page ads in all four major New York newspapers urging the reinstatement of the death penalty, citing the Central Park assault as just cause and inflaming prejudice against the defendants before the case had been tried?

Trump.

Karma is officially deader than Vaudeville, deader than Caesar, deader than analogies in the “deader than” form. For a “law and order” candidate, Trump has a penchant for viewing mob rule as a functional arm of the Constitution. Deferring to the wisdom of “2nd Amendment people” to prevent Hillary from appointing judges belongs to the white-lighting-fueled ruminations of Tennessee moonshiners vigilant and on the eye for “revenuers” and “guvment men” and cannot be tolerated as just a bit of harmless bluster on the campaign trail, even if the candidate in question is a bloviating armchair politician with the discipline of a baboon wildly masturbating between salvos of shit-flinging.

I could go on and on about the other five billion instances in which Trump comported himself with the aplomb of a one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed lemur performing open heart surgery with a broken whiskey bottle. But when for the love of Zod does it fucking come to a satisfactory conclusion?

November 8th.

I hope?

No, hope doesn’t factor into it. Or faith. Or other invisible forces of the universe. It all teeters on the electorate getting off its asses and voting for Hillary. Every stay at home vote is a vote for Trump. Every vote for Lexus-liberal, vaccine-doubter Jill Stein is a vote for Trump. Every disgruntled Millennial write-in vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for Trump. But it’s possible every vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary. Libertarians exist in a kind of pseudo-Republican limbo populated with potheads who bawl for small guvment between bong hits. Trump’s xenophobic, bigoted rhetoric loses its shine once the pot haze clears a skosh and it dawns on them that their dealer, Raul, is a Cuban/Mexican cross-dresser with a lapsed green card, and their backup plan, Timmy the Titwillow, is a gay bartender at a nightclub six blocks from the Pulse massacre.

Never underestimate the influence of self-interest in the electorate. Or for that matter self-deceit.

For as long as Trump is in the race he has a chance of winning, however remote, and we could be living the last fruitful days before a literal madman takes control of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. If things should take a turn for the worst on Election Day, our only chance for a temporary reprieve from utter annihilation is to pray that that twisted septuagenarian imbecile can come to some kind of arrangement with Ivanka to stick his thrombosis-savaged pecker insider her every Sunday on an onyx altar carved in the image of the Great Old Ones. But given the obviously degenerated state of his body, it’s doubtful even an overdose of boner pills could conjure anything remotely resembling an erection, perhaps a tiny bubble filled with pus and blood and shattered pieces of dick vein floating around in the mucosal soup.

But I kid our future overlord. All in good fun and jest. Lucky for me, the dark, dank confines of a North Dakota gulag are a rich source of inspiration. Besides, I could use a change of setting. A place where I can write the last and greatest Great American novel before the steepening decline of the written word smashes into history’s wall. And upon that wall there is inscribed but a single word:

TRUMP

For the record: damn, was I spot on to worry! And I nailed the culprits of this fucking nightmare, less the Russian collusion, Who could have seen that coming, besides

HILLARY?

Right?

[benofbens-blog]

On her rocking chair she sits, silent, aside from the anti-semetic murmurings and hateful speeches she occasionally gives to her cats while she knits. She could find others like herself in this age, ease her spiteful loneliness, if she would reach out to others online.

She won’t, however, because nobody on the Internet likes a Gramma Nazi.

[theraroth]

Insert Title Here ()

I was supposed to post something I considered a castoff but each successive copy and paste filled me with dread that I was posting something somebody might publish so I substituted an apology instead, knowing it was a worthless bauble of thoughts I could part with without remorse, but then the apology took shape as a great work, so I transplanted it from this box into another box where it could flourish into something superlative.

R.A. Roth

[theraroth]

Supreme Court Decides Prayer Okay Before Town Halls

Today in yet another 5-4 split decision running the rails of the political divide, in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that leading a group Christian prayer before a town hall meeting is not a violation of separation of church and state, nor an express endorsement of religion. Here’s a quote from Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion:

“The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers.”

Now here’s the same quote modified to reflect an alternate sane universe where the Supreme Court upheld the right to begin a government gathering with an expression of atheistic thinking:

“The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial acknowledgement of rational thinking as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge scientific leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce believers.” (emphasis added to highlight differences)

Never in a million years would the current conservative SC and its regressive bent find that acceptable.

The hypocrisy of the Greece decision is that in practice, expressions of atheistic thinking are labeled as coercive by believers and their affiliated institutions, no matter how mild and reserved such expression might be. To stand up in public and declare, “Isn’t it nice that we don’t have to pretend there’s a man in the sky ruling over all of us, thanks to scientific thinking?” is to risk being pelted to death with stones Old Testament-style. We are not a tolerant society when it comes to freely expressing the superiority of rational thought over superstition, or expressing in public the traditions of any religion besides Christianity. From Justice Kagan’s dissenting opinion:

“No one can fairly read the prayers from Greece’s town meetings as anything other than explicitly Christian – constantly and exclusively so. The prayers betray no understanding that the American community is today, as it long has been, a rich mosaic of religious faiths.” (emphasis mine)

Note the myopia in the dissent. She mentions other faiths yet sidles past the absence of faith. The case became an abstract argument over which kind of turkey should we serve, white or dark meat or both, never mind that not everybody likes turkey.

If the prayer were more ecumenical and homogenized, the ruling would have been 9-0. The contention hinged on the express endorsement of a single religion over religion in general. The right to not have to listen to antiquated nonsense was, at best, a tertiary concern.

[theraroth]

Road Trip

Pass potential rest stops, the world melted under a blanket of fatigue. Dream of the sun burning cold. Ships dive into the blue corona and freeze on impact, turn to sky-long breakers of shimmering dust.

Simplest form of flattery is to imitate badly that which one admires, so that the admired object’s glory redoubles and multiplies exponentially when contrasted, mournfully, to the turgid mimicry. Out of such failures spring illusory successes upon which one can build the grandiose, fortified bunkum of enlightenment.

Seek that which you cannot ever hope to find, or in finding it wishing you had never begun the search. Such recklessness rewarded with further null tests and symbolic boondoggles.

Stop on a dime, find a quarter. Drinking fountain surrounded by sulky stone visages, road weary and time wary hulks hurried by invisible whips driving them forward. Weapons employed by warlords return to their outposts like homing pigeons, castrated by persistent satisficing. Take what is given, ask for nothing more. Politely wither and dispose of one’s self in the nearest sanitary receptacle. Landfills gotta eat, same as us all.

Do yourself a favor and hide inside the bomb before it detonates. In that instant, confine yourself to generalities.

Trees splinter. Buildings pancake. Controls blunder. Squirm among broken eggshells on your belly. The juices flow in dark ruby runnels. Acrid dis-ease rises in the yellow fog.

Pretend to understand or understand for real. Nobody can tell the difference.

Stop me if you have heard this before. Homilies delivered from the strained backs of the ignorant tend to sound the same.

Question everything. Accepting nothing. Live along the narrow path. Die among the infinite.

Or vice versa mutatis mutandis.

Our storm sewers are overrun with alligators. They live on the rats, who live on the scraps of our tedium. The alligators won’t last much longer.

[theraroth]

Here is racist LiarLair1600's post on MMfA. He can hide his comment history, but he cannot hide from this pic. It says it all. Total scum.

[theraroth]

This is my blog…

While there are many like it, this one is mine…enough channeling Full Metal Jacket. A short project update. I’m currently writing the 28th story in my “500” series (it has a proper title, but I’m keeping it secret because I’m paranoid someone will steal it and my luggage, if I had any). The topics continue to be disparate, rangy and downright random. New topics include drug crazed kidnappers, bestiality (one of the funnier stories), witches, a succubus tale, a sexy siren, hoarding and a reimagining of a topic from my novella, versing.  Average story length has swelled considerably, from 520 to almost 800 words. The application of icepack might get it down to 700 words. The project got so unwieldy I created a spreadsheet to track topics and writing styles. I was on a 1st person present tense kick, and now I’m on a run of 3rd person past tense tales. Some stories, I realized, are neither past nor present tense but a modified tense (typical of narrated tales where the narrator slips in and out of talking about current and past events).

 In other news, I have submitted my novella (packaged with three short stories to flesh out the length) to a publisher in the UK. Perhaps they’ll be more amenable to my unorthodox style. USA publishers and agents, so far, have given Tetraminion the cold shoulder based on single chapter samples. I’ve read my fair share of novels and can say without fear of contradiction that the majority aren’t “amazing” out of the gate. The literary world is sadly short “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” beginnings. Here, for the first time anywhere in a public forum, is the first sentence of Tetraminion:

 “Delivered from his cocoon of isolation, Bill plunges out into the sultry night, neck bowed to the shiny, damp pavement, ever vigilant and on the eye for blurry arcs of gold and Vaseline smears of red, purple and green—markers indicating refueling stations where Bill can load up on the surplus calories required of his McRecycling habit.”

 It has changed since the 1st draft, but the basics remain intact. I think it sets the stage nicely. Character, setting, and conflict all established with strong visual cues in 57 words. I know that the masters have managed that in fewer words, but I am not them and they are not me. Just as this is my blog, this is my vision not theirs, nor am I predisposed toward emulation, which is a good jumping off point for all writers, but makes a piss-poor excuse for a long term writing strategy, if one can imbue a strategy into such a solitary enterprise as writing.

 I don’t do segues, although I actually saw mall cops riding Segues on Monday and could barely suppress roaring with laughter, so I will end on an anecdote about my best friend’s father, who, upon seeing my beard, commented about a friend whose facial hair went completely “blond” in a year. He substituted blond for gray, which my beard is streaked with and is steadily becoming the predominate color scheme. Whatever. Grow old or die. As limited a pallet of choices as any on earth.

[theraroth]

Unicorns Nibbling on Four-Leaf Clovers in Brigadoon

I’m only blogging for the sake of blogging. Regressive reasoning indeed. But has to be done. I don’t want to live in a world in which I never blog. Such a world is too savage, too brutal for even the most seasoned mind to survive in. We all share a common goal of wanting what is best for humanity, and I for one refuse to stand idly by and watch the blog-sphere sink further into a quagmire of mediocrity.  My input is more than vital, it is mandatory, like vitamins and water. Better yet, water spiked with vitamins. Two for the price of one.

But suffice it to say that it’s best to blog with a concept in mind. Sadly, I don’t have one. Concepts for blogs are elusive these days. I’d sooner catch a unicorn nibbling on four-leaf clovers in Brigadoon.

This is not to say I am bankrupt of ideas. My head is swimming with ideas, some viable, many abortive. I’m presently writing a series of flash fiction stories (some closer to short story length) at the rate of close to one a day, none shorter than 520 words, and writing at least 500 words per day for better than 14 days straight. My normal output had been closer to no words a day, so this is quite a step-up in productivity. The plan, insane as it is, is to write 500 different pieces with 500 different themes.

Madness.

So far I have touched on lycanthropy, necrophilia, mass murder, sex addiction, rape and hydrocephalics. Light reading, if you haven’t guessed, isn’t my long suit. Unless you count blogging, which I advise against until I can conjure up a topic of substance, which promises to be a long wait.

[theraroth]

Crap Miner's Tale

Under normal circumstances, I don't blog, or blog so little as to make following me for blog-sake a futile exercise. I might change that. I might not. I'm up in the air about this type of expression, given how flooded the market is with similar products, and although the competition is often inferior and less literate, it's out there, elbows sharpened, prepared to muscle in and seize a niche readership.

Also, there's no money of any kind in writing blogs on user-driven sites open to the public, unless one wants to lower him- or herself to asking for Paypal donations or other appeals to the better angels of human nature (we do still have those, don't we?). I'm not above seeking monetary gratification. I'm just not interested in pimping my work.

Did I mention what a horrible promoter I am? I must be the WORST self-promoter on earth. Go ahead. Ask me about my work, and I'll tell you, eh, it's all right, even though there's a chance (a very, very slim chance, mind you) that I'm in fact penning amazing works bound for legendary status halfway competent, perhaps worthy of publishing on a scale larger than what my printer can handle.

Someday, maybe, I'll sprout an egg tooth and crack out of the shell of modesty in which I'm trapped and proclaim, in non-ironic fashion, that I'm one of the best contemporary writers of the early 21st century better than average at my craft. I think I've got a lock on imagination, and over the last 13 years, I've written over a million words of fiction, so I've paid my dues. I've written mountains of crap, declared it crap, and moved on to less crappier endeavors. As of today, my viable body of work, as I see it, is about 65,000 words, give or take.

I'm currently fidgeting with an idea that started in 2003 and self-aborted about 200 words in. Two days ago, that abortion demanded a second chance at life, and I obeyed to the tune of 1,400+ words and a twist I didn't see coming.

So that's my present occupation: crap miner. Good work, if you can get it. Foraging through your castoff work, however, is not for the faint of heart. It's like rooting around in your guts with a chainsaw. Plus, there's the ubiquitous risk of being sucked into a vortex of nostalgia where you convince yourself that all your departed idea needs is a fresh coat of rewrite paint and it'll be good as new.

Wrong.

You disposed of it for a reason. Let it rest in pieces. This is strictly an idea salvage operation. Collect what you can and get the hell out before the spirits of the past sucker you into casting lengthy resurrection spells liable to fail. I speak from experience. And despite that experience, I openly admit there are no fewer than five zombie books stalking after me, aching to eat me alive if I get too close.

Did I also mention I'm a master of mixed metaphors? That's one skill I can brag about comfortably. Writing a million words will hone your ability to craft all sorts of neat-o comparisons, some that even make sense in the context of your work.

But enough babbling. The crap mine beckons. Hi-ho!

[theraroth]

Regarding the Latino vote...

I just reread my last Tumblr post from sometime last year. All could think while reading it was, Did I write that? Sounds like me, yet never have I penned anything so prophetic.

Be that as it may, I refuse any credit for being a forward thinker. I was just reading what the tea leaves told me, that Latinos, with no other alternative, would vote for Obama en mass due to the dictates of the harsh reality awaiting them under President Romney. Unfortunately, the thoroughly gerrymandered House didn't flip Democratic, despite trouncing the GOP in the aggregate House popular vote by well over a million. So immigration reform will once again stagger and fall into a pool of blood after Republican hands, still bearing the stains of past kills, thrust in the dagger to the hilt, give it a twist, and proclaim the matter DOA, please ignore the fresh body lying at their feet.

The rush to kill immigration reform is the GOP fulfilling a self-fulfilling prophecy of electoral doom if "illegals" are granted voting rights on par with "legal" citizens. Such fear is warranted when you are the party who openly harbors xenophobes, racists, bigots and NRA zealots eager to gun down young black men for the transgression of looking out of place or playing loud music.

If the current "illegal" Latino population were granted full voting rights, the Democrats would win Texas and Arizona by a landslide. As it stands, by 2016 the demographic shift will make it near impossible for a Republican presidential candidate to win, even if the GOP's criminal electoral reallocation schemes go into effect. The battle for hearts and minds cannot be won through cheap political maneuvers and lip service. But who says the GOP cares about hearts and minds? Not me. Their central concern is the arrogation of power. And money. All else is an afterthought.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part to imbue thinking into the GOP's motives. Predators are all reaction, no thought. No time for it. Too busy lining up the next prey for a quick bloody death. And if the hunting grounds are barren of prey, the next layer of instincts instructs them to turn on each other. Which they have, with ever-more-difficult-and-absurd purity tests. By 2014, the roster of "real Republicans" will consist of Ted "Red Tide Rising" Cruz and former Rep. Joe Walsh, a perennial deadbeat dad and lunatic who got into a shouting match with constituents at a Palatine, IL, watering hole called Lamplighters (One-Termers would have been more apropos).

While opinions vary on the usefulness of a two party system, as opposed to a one party system, I see no practical use for the GOP, except as an instructive example of how to self-destroy without the use of drugs and alcohol. Given the wide variety of political affections in the Democratic ranks, everything from ultra-liberal to conservative, the GOP has outlived its usefulness. The Democrats can govern effectively, unilaterally, without any input from the asylum inmates running the currently unhinged and mentally incapacitated incarnation of the Republican Party. And do not bring up Chris Christie. He failed all GOP purity when he cared more about the plight of his submerged and devastated state than a cheap and obvious photo-op with robotic plutocrat cum presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

By 2016, Christie will be an independent, having been shoved out to sea by the intransigence of the Tea Party and the GOP's incurable Tea Party codependency. And yes, I just analogized Chris Christie to a whale. At least I didn't have the GOP harpooning him from dinghies deployed from a doomed whaling schooner. That I'm saving for the next post. Stay tuned.

[theraroth]

Why the Latino Vote Belongs to Obama

The surge in the Latino population explains why the GOP’s number one goal this year has been vote suppression through ID laws. Having forfeited that bloc to Obama by backing a series of xenophobic measures, such as the AZ "papers, please" law, the GOP's time as a viable party is fast coming to a close.

  Take the GOP’s stance on the Birther movement.

  So far, Republicans have yet to repudiate the idea that Obama is some foreign invader planted by very forward thinking agents of the Middle East (planting newspaper birth announcements in 1961, for example, is very forward thinking, just for one person...far as we know). Fact is, they cannot sever ties with the Birthers, for it, far more than the Democratic Truthers ever were, is the “Alien” face-hugger of movements, where removal can prove fatal.

  The Birthers are the Southern Strategy reborn in thinly veiled, unfounded accusations levied against a sitting president, whose credentials have been repeatedly investigated, and despite the intense scrutiny, the Birthers won’t cease pursuing legal action, even going so far as petitioning the courts to pull Obama's name from the Nov. ballot.

  Couple this with the DREAM Act lying face down unconscious on the House and Senate floor after a thorough elephant trampling, what other choice does the Latino community have but to view Democrats as the party capable of ushering in an immigration policy aimed at integration, not vilification.

[theraroth]

Musings on Corporations

A couple of things you should know about that business you work for or buy things from:

1. All corporations are formed via a government charter. What that means is without the government stamp of approval, you cannot be a legitimate corporation. Each state has its own rules governing incorporation. Delaware has the most lenient rules, so a disproportionate number of corporations can trace their origins to Delaware.

2. All corporations enjoy limited liability (debts). Investors (stockholders) cannot lose more than their investment in the corporation's stock. Some contrast: if you invested in a partnership (as a full partner; limited partners share limited liability same as stockholders), all your personal assets are at risk. The liabilities (debts) of the partnership can be apportioned by solvent partner. If you were the only solvent partner, ALL the liabilities would fall in your lap. But as a stockholder, you are shielded from this risk by the corporate charter. The creditors of the corporation only have the right to seek payment from the corporation itself. Shareholders are considered "at arm's length" from daily operating decisions, thus are not held as responsible for corporate negligence or gross negligence (actionable by civil lawsuit), or fraud (can involve both criminal charges and a civil lawsuit).

So why the lesson, you ask? Well, these videos got me thinking:

  The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

If Napolitano is so vehemently anti-government, then why is he such a proponent of corporations (and the judicial system; that's another can of worms)? Corporations are entirely dependent on government approval for their existence. If government ceased to recognize the validity of corporations as legal entities separate from the owners and operators, every corporation would revert to a partnership, and all partnerships MUST have full partners. You cannot have a partnership of just limited partners. Any agent (such as a CEO) capable of binding the partnership to contracts is by virtue of this power a full partner, which puts his or her personal property at risk.

So if government holds the legality of corporations in its hands, why isn't government suited to REGULATE the same entities?

That's where the hypocrisy is boldest.

Conservatives want the BENEFITS of government (the corporate charter and the body of law recognizing corporations as antonymous citizens with full rights (and then some; see Citizens United)), but they want none of the RESPONSIBILITIES that come with being a citizen. They wish that government would clear out of the boardroom and permit corporations to govern themselves, which is laughable in the extreme. The EPA, OSEA, FDA, FDIC, and SEC all came about because corporations are terrible at self-regulation. They know only one thing: MAKE MONEY. The consequences be damned. 

R.A. Roth

[theraroth]

Heavy Duty Angst

I have a bad habit of volunteering myself for the front line of certain touchy subjects that I can relate to. One of them is weight.

While my weight never qualified me to be called "fat," I was indeed "chubby" striving for the title of "fat." That was over two decades ago, when I started working out. Besides a severe nerve pinch that put me on DL for a month, I have worked out consistently for over 23 years.

Why? Because I like how I feel after a workout. There are some "glory moments" within the routine that are satisfying. But that sudden stop at the end is by far the sweetest moment of them all, that sense of accomplishment and the sustained endorphin rush (endorphins are self-manufactured drugs, totally legal...until some asshole conservative finds out about them).

As a side effect of this habit, I can still see my feet, thighs and my "area" when I look down, and have what you'd call an athletic build. I also have a resting heartbeat of around 60-65 beats/minute. Not bad for an old guy.

But circling back to the touchy subject at hand, weight: I saw a RT concerning discrimination:

@PennySometimes All my feminists out there who wanna discuss discrimination. Have it apply EVERYWHERE, such as sizeism & the marginalization of fat people.

I said this:

- One diff.: you don't HAVE to be fat. Sex, skin color, race are not choices. Being fat is. EAT LESS/WORKOUT MORE. #ExChub

Perhaps a bit blunt, but certainly not a lie. Fat isn't a permanent part of your being, like skin color (the late Michael Jackson excepted), genetic ancestry and whether you have a Y-chromosome or not. Fat is something you can add to or subtract from. How much you consider tolerable is a CHOICE as much as what you wear. Trust me, I know taking off fat is harder than changing clothes. But there is a choice involved. It may be a difficult one, such as giving up favorite foods and/or working out. But a choice nonetheless. I know there's at least one person reading this with a genetic tale of obesity or inherited slow-metabolism. Guess what? Those are BOTH genetic markers I inherited. I have to stay active and eat right or end up tipping the scales at 225 lbs. +. Which is okay if you are six feet tall. But I'm five-five and not in a Lord of the Rings movie. (That's me, Goderock Gloinhammer, seventh dwarf from the left!) So I sympathize and also I don't. See, I'm self-insured, meaning I pay for my own health insurance, and guess how much of a cost reduction I get for being in shape? NOTHING. Insurance companies do not discriminate on the basis of weight or physical fitness. Thus, I am paying what a person my age would pay at 225, 325, heck even 625. I am paying for fat people who will end up under the knife to have a triple bypass in their 40s. I don't think that's what Penny had in mind when she called for an end to fat discrimination. On the other hand, I really can't say with certainty because her response to my post was brief and even more blunt than mine: - STFU. To which I responded with: - Well, that was a convincing argument. So I can only conclude my assertion struck a nerve. Truth always hurts. #WORKOUTBEFREE You can see why I'm not a grief or suicide hotline counselor. Penny especially didn't care for my hashtag. Again, I admit my fingers and mouth are blunt instruments. But I felt that her hostility towards me had less to do with my propensity for bluntness than her own self-opinion. Boy-oh-boy was I right! FOUR responses: - No. It didn't. Your opinion is ignorant. Just because you hated yourself when you were fat & changed it, doesn't mean everyone + - else has to. NO ONE should be marginalized because of their appearance. Bottom line. Beauty is subjective. - Self hate is no joke, huh? If you took the time to love yourself in your fat skin, you wouldn't be so bitter toward fat people. - & you wouldn't spend your time on Twitter saying things like #WorkOutBeFree. You are a self hating joke. Toodles! I responded to each of these posts. I accused her of projection in three of them. The outlier was taking down a straw man (that I ever said fat people should be marginalized). Why is she so hostile towards a differing opinion? If she's this actualized fat person, then why all the anger? She acts as if fat people are social outcasts beaten with whips and chains. I live in the suburbs of Chicago. There are fat people roaming free and unbeaten EVERYWHERE I go. Some of them even workout at my health club. If I extrapolate her argument that I hated my chubby self, then she's also saying those fat people I see working out hate themselves as well. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. It's not for you or her or me to psychoanalyze the rationale behind wanting to drop some weight. I applaud them for trying, whatever the reason. Believe it or not, I like fat people. My maternal grandparents were fat. My paternal grandfather wound up fat. My mother is chubby. Several high school friends are chubby to fat. Documentarian Michael Moore is fat. Santa Claus is fat. Oliver Hardy was fat. But despite my affections for fat people, those extra pounds are/were by choice (except Santa; as a jolly fat mythical character, he has no choice but to be fat). Consider this: what we mean by fat over the past 75 years has shifted drastically. Is Oliver Hardy still fat by modern standards? Yes. In his day, they would have called him morbidly obese. Today, he's your average fat person. Same goes for all my heavy set grandparents. Average or below. We haven't just accepted fat people, we encourage people to pack on the pounds. To hell with diminished wellness and shortened lifespan, fat is beautiful, fat is phat, fat is where it's at. Fat is what's killing us. Diabetes is so prevalent in the USA, we should put it to music, same as we did war. Move over "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Here comes "Insulin: The Musical." I shudder to think how hostile Penny is towards First Lady Michelle Obama and her crusade against obesity. Our messages are the same: work out. Only our demeanor differs. Michelle Obama smiles a lot. I just get out a truth hammer and bludgeon away. But let's say we do accommodate fat people in every respect. To what extent must we go? At what point should society stop? For example, should all doorways be widened so a 1,000 lb. person can enter? Why not? Those skinny doorways are discriminating against that person. Elevators are also not mega-fat friendly. A standard residential elevator has a weight capacity of 750 lbs. What about airplane seats? Seats at ballparks, arenas, and in cars? Should we widen them to fit a half-ton person? If not, who shall determine at what point fat is just too fat? Who is wise enough to be the arbiter of what constitutes the acceptable dimensions of a human? Penny said beauty is subjective. True. But mass and weight aren't. They can be measured and quantified in terms of pounds, kilos, stone, BMI (body mass index) and waist size. We can also measure your pulse, cholesterol levels, and calculate degree of blockage in key arteries. All these measurement can be expressed in terms of your probable life expectancy. As size and weight go up, that goes down. So if you choose to remain heavy, that's fine. But understand that the "fat is beautiful" bandwagon carries with it a number of contraindications and risks. Loving yourself should never require killing yourself as proof. R.A. Roth

[theraroth]

This is my blog. There are many like it. But this one is mine.

Howdy, pards and pardettes!

I'm starting up a posse, er, a blog, and I invite everyone to come and read what I have to say, which is often little or of little importance. But so is everything. And by that I mean there is too much seriousness in the world. We humans are a tight-assed bunch of apes. As a tight-assed ape, I am as qualified as the next tight-assed ape to commentate.

There. That wasn't so hard. Was it?

Not meant for you. That was for me. But feel free to borrow the sentiment, which dates back to the first tight-assed ape.

No, the picture isn't me. It's Kurt Vonnegut whose books I have reread a half dozen times or more. I will post a picture of myself when I can find a camera lens that doesn't crack or steal my soul. I might do a self-portrait and post that. Who knows? Anything is possible.

Sincerely,

R.A. Roth