HOMO ESCAPEONS

2009-07-13T17:00:00.023-05:00

MAN EATING DEER!

I recently had the opportunity to peruse the hyperbolic pages of old American Hunting Magazines.

I became obssessed with a recurring segment known as This Happened To Me which are illustrated accounts of "Sporting Outdoorsmen" who survived being attacked by uppity wild animals.

I love the dramatic comic styling and the underlying implication that Hunting is a dangerous activity and only the manliest of men can participate.

Some of the attacks were apparently unprovoked. Thank goodness his buddy had a gun in his sleeping bag.

To be fair, even the most Disneyfied members of PETA would want to have a huge arsenal of firearms at their side if they met up with a Bear in the wild. ..

and who amongst us wouldn't expect huge multicellular "game", especially 1800 pound herbivores like Elk, to fight back against Hunters if they are provoked, wounded or having a bad day.

The most common "perp" was our ancient competitor the "other" omnivore, the Bear. Actually there is another omnivore the Boar, but they are related to bears anyway that's why the genders of both are called Boars and Sows but I'm getting sidetracked.

Imagine the audacity of a lowly dumb animal eatin' Human Men!

We've been going at each other for hundreds of thousands of years.

You'd expect a 1,000 pound Bear to eat whatever it wants right?

Being attacked by a Cougar isn't surprising either...

or a poisonous Snake.

How many of you realised that big brown eyed Bambi can attack people! Well they can, especially during the mating season when the Bucks are so horny that they lose their minds...

actually they aren't horny they have antlers but the distinction might be lost on you if you were being impaled :)

Have you ever imagined being attacked by an ill tempered Badger? Sure why not?

Hippo? Absolutely Hippos kill more humans in Africa than any other animal..except Mosquitos.

How about getting rammed by a Dolphin?

Rabid Otter?

Feral dogs? Under the right circumstances even the lazy-ass family pet can revert to a savage wolf-like monster and hunt people. This hunter became the hunted and was forced to take-0ut killer hounds that have tasted blood when a pack treed him.

The best (worst) story was the too scary to even contemplate. I can't imagine how terrified this guy was when he and his three Beagles were attacked by a black hare. Shades of Monty Python's Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog in the Holy Grail.

Have a lash at this action-packed heart-stopping imagery!

Instead of "scaring the pants off him", it scared the shirt off him...I said shirt by the way. They did a fantastic job of creating the illusion that shooting wascally wabbits is not for wussies. HA!

2009-07-06T08:10:00.011-05:00

SUMMER, GOOD!

I snuck out of the city this weekend to enjoy the great outdoors. Our Summer Season is uber-short in this neck of the woods so you need to make the most of it.

The mosquitos and horseflys were wicked so I had to wear an Australian anti-bug hat.

Oscar Wilde was right, "Nature is so uncomfortable. Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects."

Took an ole fishin' boat out for a spin on Lake Whateverpeg which is the 11th largest freshwater Lake in the WORLD!

I like to jump off the boat and splash around. You don't need to worry about anything nibbling y'er bum out here!

There was a Fox menacing one of the resident Deer. I will not tolerate such behavior so we hid in the bush and waited to "teach him a lesson". The Fox outfoxed us and took off.

Every day I would sit on the beach and thank Mother Nature for creating Summer.

It almost makes up for 6 months of Winter..

almost!

2009-07-03T06:34:00.012-05:00

CANADA DAY 09

It's finally Summer here in Whateverpeg.

I started the Canada Day Celebrations with a trip to the Zoo with fellow bloggers Joyce & Brian (who wouldn't sign waivers) it was our 3rd Annual and prolly our last.

Maybe we'll go without the kids so that we can have a better visit, and if and when our Zoo gets refurbished.

I miss watching Debbie the Polar Bear splash around.

Debbie made it into the GUINESS Book O' Records because she lived twice as long as she would have in the Wild..begin argument now.

We saw the same critters in the same exhibits and felt sorry for them.

Later that night we made our way downtown and watched the same Fireworks display.

Next Year we're going to paddle down the River to watch the fireworks in a tippy canoe so that the post and pictures will be more interesting.

2009-06-30T09:38:00.012-05:00

IT's A DONG SHOW!
Tomorrow, July 1st, is Canada Day.
*Loon calling in the distance

Last year I celebrated Kinada Day by talking about my visit to the Austraileeyer exhibit and so this year I'm going to rave about Japan!

Why? Why not? It's not just because Canada is of little interest to outsiders it's mainly because a friend sent me an email about Hōnen Matsuri with all these great pictures attached.

March 15 is the date upon which the festival of Honen Matsuri (Boner Day) is celebrated in Komaki, Japan.

This is the time of year when ordinary folks can swig on all-you-can-drink sake and release their inner Dongzilla!

Why? Did I mention Free all-you-can-drink Sake?

Plus it's an excuse for old farts to ingest Viagra like candy and celebrate fertility, renewal, a good harvest, yada yada yada, but mostly get hammered on all-you-can-drink sake and parade around with giant boners!

For one day everyone can enjoy having, sharing, worshipping, and receiving, Happiness from your their Japenis.

Do any of you remember the 80s tune Turning Japanese by the Vapors?

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

(duh-nuh nuh-nuh nuh nuh nuh)

I'll bet that the local bands fueled by all-you-can-drink sake tweak the lyrics a bit..

Honen Matsuri

I am loving my Japenis

I really think so!

(dun-nuh nuh-nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh)

2009-06-29T00:46:00.004-05:00

We are SPECIAL :)

As a species (special) we Homo Escapeons been around in our present form for at least 200,000 years...which is not very long compared to most of the animals so actually, we are sort of special.

According to most Paleo-Anthropologists our ancestors migrated out of Africa in a series of waves and eventually occupied nearly every corner of the globe.

Five thousand years ago, having decided to abandon the insecurity ridden life of nomadic hunter gatherers, Homo Escapeons settled down in large numbers and invented Civilized Empires. These days the vast majority of us are dazzling Urbanites who are sold on the whole "economy of scale" thingamabob.

Most of us realise that it really isn't 2,009 A.D., utter rubbish, and so are all of the other Calendars....since we or our brains (same thing) have not changed one iota in 200,000 years, this should be referred to as the year 200,009.

The Human "World" on Earth is basically a hodgepodge of 200 countries (Tribes), the vast majority of which have little or no effect on the whole of mankind. There are a handful of Super-Corporate/Military/Political Entities that control the majority of us.

We are all slaves to the capricious actions of a handful of powerful men who are deluded enough to assume, that they deserve to manipulate the great unwashed. Thank heavens that their ginormous egos prohibit them from uniting because the rest of us would be totally f*cked if they ever joined forces.

Many of us believed/expected that after 2,000 Centuries Homo Escapeons should be far more advanced and living in a "kinder-gentler" global village. The real miracle is that we haven't eliminated our species.

Compared to other species we really are SPECIAL because our brains find ways to circumvent many natural corrections that would normally limit our numbers. By the year 1800, make that 201,800, there were One Billion of us!

Another paradox is that WE are our own worst enemies. Two hundred thousand years later the most "advanced" one third of our species are voluntarily killing themselves by consuming mass quantities of a nutritionally bankrupt diet which precipitates major health issues.

Then we invent ways to prolong and extend our lifespan so that we can continue to overindulge in self destructive behavior.
Go us!

We invented a system of producing mass quantities of junk food but our genetic programming is still operating as if we were half starving hunter/gatherers mode.... 95% of our time has been living hand to mouth and our brains are telling our stomachs the same thing it did out on the African Savannah. EAT! This could be your last meal for a while.

So 200,009 years later and we still have the same old program operating our brain. That's why we keep repeating the same mistakes and I keep writing the same posts over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

2009-06-27T18:12:00.007-05:00

FOR THE RECORD..

Billie Jean KING

Oh like it never occurred to you?

Billie Jean... the King of Pop.. c'mon!

Nobody?

2009-06-26T06:31:00.018-05:00

"IT" doesn't matter,
Who's Wrong Or Right

Yesterday I left a comment on a Blog posting dedicated to the passing of Farrah Fawcett. The texan beauty whose wholesome face and feathered blonde hair were made famous by her ubiquitous bonerific 70s poster made her rich N' famous. Farrah lived her life and her final showdown with Cancer out in the open.

She was 62.

I stated in the comment section that once MY cohorts (50ish year old celebs born 57.58) start expiring, then I'll start to feeling mortal. The two shiniest stars in my age bracket are Madonna and the most famous person on the planet, Michael Jackson..

shown here as he should have looked at our age.

Some of my other cohorts are:

Sharon Stone, Annette Bening, Madeline Stowe, Holly Hunter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rachel Ward, Andy McDowell, Jennifer Tilly, Daniel Day Lewis, Gary Oldman, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, Viggo Mortensen,Christopher Lambert, Tim Robbins and Spike Lee, Prince, Kate Bush, Simon Le Bon, Donny Osmond, Sid Vicious, Joan Jett, Neil Finn, Grandmaster Flash, Paul Weller, Sheila E and Belinda Carlisle, Ray Romano, Jon Lovitz, Denis Leary, Ellen DeGeneres, Bernie Mac, Megan Mullaly, Keenan Ivory Wayans and Dan Castellanta (DOH!) and Osama Bin Hidin.

Then I learned that the frail, tortured, gloved-one had beat it.

Michael was as gifted as he was cursed.

One look at his Father (JW) Joe, a clinic in his own right, and it's easy to see why controversy would shadow his career from the getgo.

A few days ago I had tossed Michael's name in with other famous Bad Dads..mainly because he dangled his child over a balcony...

I should have included his monstrous stagedad!

I prolly got more schadenfreude from Britney's very public meltdown (shame on me) because at least for a while, Michael was a genuine musical phenomenon and trendsetter...thanks in large part to the brilliant Producer, Quincy Jones.

You have to admit, that as far as having "IT", few other performers in the 2oth Century could compete with the innate charisma of Michael Jackson.

Jackson's life has all of the important ingredients required in creating an icon although he would have been better off had he passed after Thriller.

At that point he was still hip N' happenin', before the scandals and scalpels era which has overshadowed his showmanship for well over a decade.

Timing is everything in Show Biz/Life.

A huge part of being an Icon is the whatif factor...

what if James Dean had made 4 movies?

What if Marilyn wrote a tell all book about the Kennedys?

What if Martin Luther King had to face the music about his adultery?

Humongous Elvis trolling around the slot machines in his jumpsuit...we don't want the truth..we can't handle the truth.

These STARS should have been taken down a notch that's what! Their stock should have dropped when all of the evidence is in right?.

Most people assumed that Jackson was descending into weirdness even if he had soldout his London concerts. Most of us figured that he was "done" and headed for his Vegas-Elvis stage...wow that would have been a perfect ending :)

Unfortunately Reality dillutes the Fantasy.

Icons, are essentially a Lie.

We choose to believe and cherish the good stuff.

The empathy factor overrides the culpability and voila..a teflon icon is born.

Thanks to the Internet, the frail bleached performer will become an instant Icon, in the truest sense of the term. Unlike most of the present I-Cons who are fabricated pretentious poseurs or I-conjobs (infamous for trying to be famous) Jackson actually deserves to be famous.

I wonder if Michael had any real friends who looked out for him?
Maybe Liz Taylor?

Taylor certainly knows how fickle fame can be. She was also a child star who was later villified as a slut and then reborn as an Aids crusader.

Being a Celebrity SUCKS.

The troubled man who never had a childhood, and chose to live as a child in his adult years (because he could afford to do it) won't need to worry about what other people think about him anymore.

The great thing about being an Icon is that we, the great unwashed, remember the good stuff...it's called selective memory. Jackson will now take his rightful place in the pantheon of the American Iconosphere.

You either have IT or you don't and his lyrics in the song Beat It testify...

IT doesn't matter,

who's wrong or right.

2009-06-24T08:54:00.007-05:00

TO HEGEL AND BACK

Which part of LIFE do you find more disturbing..

that random acts of suffering can strike you at any time, the tragic finite certainty that we will die, or that e-gadfly Perez Hilton is still on the radar?

I've been rediscovering my appreciation for the Philosophers..those who boldly stuck out their necks on the chopping block betwixt Science and Religion searching for Reality and Truth..if either really exist?

Have any of you seen Ape Genius on PBS? One question that intrigues me is why Chimpanzees, our nearest lifeform (98% of our DNA) never made the next step to what we term creative thought. Chimps can organise information and solve problems but their "brains never left the launch pad".

Humans are learning animals..we thrive on acquiring and exchanging information. The problem is that now we are concentrating on INFORMATION instead of KNOWLEDGE.

The Internet offers us an unimaginable opportunity to share knowledge but we opt for viewing Perez Hilton whinging about being popped by the manager of the Black Eyed Peas.

To my way of thinking this is the nadir of Modern Culture..a no talent hack who weasled his way into celebrity by being a bitchy little gossip. I think that his Warholian installment of Fame is way past the 15 minute mark and about to be cancelled. It's about f*cking time! Read it HERE

Last night on Frontline there was a doc on how e-garbage (old computers) are being dumped illegally in Africa, India, Vietnam and China. There in primitive garbage strewn ghettos criminals gather personal/financial information on discarded hard drives...credit card numbers, wedding photos..you name it. Information can live forever :)

So here we are at the start of the 21st Century. On one hand the internet is working by informing the world about the cultural revolution in Iran. Like the Dark Ages in Europe, the Middle East has been ruled by theocracies for generations but many of those countries, like Egypt and Iran, have huge populations of young people under the age of 30.

This gives me hope because if they can avoid getting caught up in the frivolous addiction to Entertainment those young people can lead a neo-renaissance and end the Dark Ages.

Which is ironic because during the European Dark Ages the Muslim world flourished under the influence of the rediscovered Philosophers of Antiquity...which of course the Popes had banned. When Spain was reclaimed from the Moors the Westerners re-discovered the forbidden Libraries of the Philosophers and this kick started the Renaissance.

Hegel's immortal line the "History teaches us that people have never learnt anything from history" may not be entirely true.

It certainly is mostly true but somehow Humans have managed to evolve and build on the advances of the previous generation. Then they make the same mistakes (War) and the next generation moves forward. Chimpanzees have never been able to do that. As frustrating as our progress is there is the knowledge that some people will live in a better world than their parents did.

2009-06-21T12:55:00.007-05:00

BAD DADS

There are plenty of Worst Dad EVER lists out on the Interwebs and it would be hard to choose #1.

Personally I would give First Place to that psychotic asshole monster Josef Fritzl,

but the other mainstays are all deserving of our contempt;

Darth Vader,

Bing Crosby,

Marvin Gaye Sr.,

Joseph Goebbels,

and Michael Jackson.

I was lucky to have had a great Dad. He would have turned 75 this June.

Although Dad passed away in 1980 while in his mid forties, he is still the most influential man in my life. Something I need to be mindful of because I have four children. A friend sent me a great quote the other day.

"My Father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."
Clarence B. Kelland

Happy Father's Day :)

2009-06-17T22:04:00.012-05:00

AREYOUGEDDON TO HEAVEN?

It wouldn't be Spring without finding a warm invitation to learn about the end of the world in the mailbox. This little piece of sunshine was left by the local grey haired, greyish hued people in the grey suits..I call them the Grey Dubyas .

I am usually home on Satudays when the Grey Dubyas drop by and for the past several years we've had playful discussions about how whack their theology is. I don't even bother mentioning all of the times that they predicted that the world would end..1914, 1925 and 1975, OOPS!

The greyish couple, who could be in their 50s, 70s, or 90s (it's impossible for me to tell) seem to enjoy my humorous approach to poking holes in every single bloody thing that they say. Why they keep coming back is beyond me but I admire their tenacity. The phrase masochism does come to mind.

Now sure back in the 80s when I was a Pentechostile smugly perched at the top-of-the-Christian-Fued-Chain I would have eaten their spiritual lunch. Now that I am but a simple Agnostic meandering about the sidelines of the Supernatural World, I realise that their spin isn't really any crazier than any other makebeology...

well maybe a little?

Some of you might be aware that this particular sect have a different "take" on the Bible than most of the other mainstreamers. It's all about market share now isn't it so you can't blame them for proselytizing...they're scared to death!

Personally I do have reservations about worshipping a Creator who designs an ever expanding Cosmos but forgets to add a few extra bleachers in Heaven for the people that he likes. D'OH!

I think their angle that there are only so many seats available in Heaven gives the message more of a sense of urgency don't you?

They even dreamed up an actual figure..144,000..and through some fancy schmancy decipherin' beyond my computational skills, when the sh*t goes down, these elite 144,000 get to go to heaven with Jesus, whom they believe is actually the Archangel Michael. ..

yes the dancing Angel that looks like John Travolta.

In a nutshell "all faithful Jehovah’s Witnesses not chosen to be among the 144,000 elite that go to heaven (those joining the after 1935) will spend eternity on earth. All other people on the earth will be destroyed at war of Armageddon here on earth." You can try to figure it out HERE :)

I don't know about you, but hearing the GOOD NEWS (Gospel) of the Grey Dubyas gives me the warm fuzzies all over. Nothing says Peace On Earth and GoodBye to Mankind like talking about the near-complete anihilation of our species during Armageddon.

I know that I sound like a broken record but what a wonderful world it would be if only the Rastafarians went door-to-door eh?

2009-06-14T22:27:00.018-05:00

A FAMILY OUTTING WITH PRIDE

Today we went down to the Legislative grounds to take in the Pride Day Parade. Believe it or not my homewtown of Whateverpeg was the first large North American city to elect an openly gay mayor back in '98.

Today was a beautiful sunny afternoon full of colour, music, and the perfect way to kick off Summer. I had my youngest son with me (nurturing an open mind) and we met my oldest daughter on the grounds of the Legislative Building.

We (and about 5000 other folks) listened to a beautiful selection from the choir and heard an inspiring speech about the '69 Stonewall Riots in New York. Forty years ago this month marks the defining moment in the birth of the Gay Rights movement in North America.

I have a few openly gay friends and family members, in my case some cousins and an aunt but for me it's just another part of who they are. We're all complicated mixtures of charm and tedium..I can't believe that in the 21st Century we are still stuck with religious fanatics trying to pigeonhole this as a "personal decision" to commit a diabolical sin? Imagine..in this day & age?

It was quite moving to see all of the supportive parents marching with their kids. There were so many young people walking with pride...our society is far more tolerant and accepting than when I was turning 12 back in 1969.

I learned a new term today. In the parade there were marchers from the aboriginal community known as TWO SPIRIT people, wouldn't it be easier to be referred to as Gaytive North Americans?

There is still a long way to go to reach full equality throughout North America. Hopefully in 40 more years when my little guy is my age this won't be much of an issue...

but the parade will prolly be just as fun as you can see from these pictures.

Yes that was a chocolate treat passed out by marchers, quite good actually and no I didn't let my son see it :)

He-LLO! it's perennial crowd favorites "Pictoria & Gloria" in this year's fabulous ensemble.

Gloria was kind enough to pose with me after the parade..sort of Dr Seussian eh?
:)

2009-06-08T10:15:00.010-05:00

Baitballing = DUMBOCRAZY!

I just read an interesting article by Wildlife Biologist Robert Alison on the the inherent wisdom of group decisions.
You can read it here.

Alison wrote about Cordocet's Jury Theorem which was first outlined in 1785 by oddly enough some Dude known as the Marquis de Cordocet. It's fundamental presumption is..wait for it...

that the many, are more likely to make a collective correct choice, than the one or the few.

"Group decison making is common in animals"...

Hello! Especially during those spur-of -the-moment incidents of sheer panic and utter terror!

Geddit? I just happen to believe that most people are bewildered by politics and the media and so they vote based on what they have heard, rather than what they Gnow.

"According to Krishna Ladha of Washington University, a majority of any group of people, when selecting between two alternatives, is more likely to make the "better" choice than any one member of the group. Recent studies show that the larger the group, the more likely an optimal result will occur."

If by optimal they mean that some other poor bastard will get eaten instead of you then Yes, they are right.

"Many animal groups routinely make consensus decisions jointly," confirmed Jinhu Lu of the Institute of Systematic Science. Research by Ashley Ward at the University of Sydney shows that quorum decisions shape collective movement patterns in fish.

Yeah? They're called baitballs and predators purposely make them bunch up because it's easier to eat them. All of the prey try to hide in the middle where you'd think they're playing the better odds but that is exactly where the predators charge!

The pathetic reality is that poor little bait fish (like us) are doomed if they are caught out in the open... so we actually are better off in a baitball.

"The outstanding complication regarding very large groups is that their consensus decisions tend to oscillate, resulting in an inconsistent analysis of the same facts in separate, even consecutive, sessions.

Conversely, human group decision-making is comparatively new, having occurred only in the past 300,000 years, which makes them more prone to incorrectness due to relative infancy. One main problem is the tendency among humans to rush decisions. "

Another flaw in the human group decision-making process is that majority choices can be wrong when subgroups form alliances with conflicting agendas. Coalitions tend to make the Condorcet jury theorem inoperable; the result is the "Condorcet paradox."

"Mathematicians agree that although group-made decisions are more often correct, compared with individual decisions, and that adding more voters to the process increases the probability that a majority decision is correct, the effect is most dramatic if decisions involve only two choices, such as in jury trials.

Decisions made by groups are no better than individual choices when there are more than two options at issue."

Is there such a thing as Common Sense?

Doesn't it feel as though we live in one giant baitball?

2009-05-29T00:26:00.005-05:00

DOMESTIC BLISS

by Lord Tennisanyone

Part One: Communication

2009-05-27T08:09:00.003-05:00

CYBERDISTRACTIONALISM 101

If you feel the need to make your own fun then check out the site that I found at the incomparable RandomChick Blog.

I only had time to zip off one....

http://www.imagechef.com/

...but I have a feeling that I am going to be there for a few days.

Chic-a-boom Chic-a-boom,
Don't ya just Mclove it when somebody else does all the heavy lifting?

2009-05-17T01:39:00.018-05:00

CHRISTOUGHER

My best friend Chris (Within Without) has had an ischemic Stroke (clot) and is in the hospital. The specialists are attempting to determine the best method to repair the obstruction in his Basilar_artery.

I got home late and had an email from his brother and a phone message from his sister..I don't exactly know how he is doing this instant but apparently he is out of danger and it's too late to call...

I will find out how he is doing this morning and let you know.

In the meantime, I would encourage friends and well wishers to kindly forward their thoughts to his blog where I am posting updates..

we started an ongoing thread in the comment section of his blog Snippets From Spaceship Orion but now we are moving the updates HERE

2009-05-16T10:52:00.020-05:00

ACTS OF BEASTLINESS

Most of us find photographs of animals mating to be simultaneously appalling and intriguing...and yet the interwebs is littered with them.

Gentlemen may find a modicum of solace in the knowledge that in Nature, the act of frightfulness can be measured in seconds.

Proper Ladies on the other hand, wince in recognition of the ghastly spectacle as their female counterparts are forced to endure the joyless act of beastliness.

Since we are incurably anthropomorphic, we cannot help but transfer human thoughts and emotions upon the brazen imagery. Here are a few of my initial impressions...

UGH!!!!

They're such Animals!

2009-05-14T08:44:00.004-05:00

TICK TOCK TICK TALK
It is becoming painfully obvious that the Earth cannot support a population of 6 Billion Homo Escapeons..especially the way that we treat it.

It's hard to believe that there were only 1 Billion of us by 1800..and the world was a bloody mess then!

We just don't do well in these large numbers. Click here and watch the counter ...90 million surplus humans every year!

The last time that we negatively impacted our environment was when we were living in small clans as semi-nomadic hunter gatherers. Ever since we started building Civilization we have systematically eviscerated the local habitats..which either terminated the "Empire" or forced us to "annex" the property of our neighbours, which usually didn't happen peacefully.

SO, since the Earth can't handle 6 Billion of us we need to start sterilizing everyone until the entire world population gets back under One Billion. There are roughly 200 countries so that means that each can have maybe 5 Million people (MAX)... which is theoretically a manageable sized population..
great news for Vanuatu but really bad news for China and India.

We should also level the playing field by making all of the countries the same size and making each nation a Democracy, globalising standards of education and law, sharing technology, yada-yada-yada..

OH and to be fair, every country gets one (1) big, fat, Nuclear Weapon.

We wouldn't even survive that would we?

2009-05-12T23:12:00.009-05:00

HOW MADOFF MADE OFF

Did anyone else watch the FRONTLINE (PBS) program on how Bernie Madoff made off with $65 Billion through his 30 year old PONZI scheme?

First of all, I never realised how much the PONZ...

looks like the FONZ!

Secondly, Made-off ...

OK Madoff, sure looks a lot like George Washington..

whom of course adorns the almighty One Dollar Bill!

How freakin' appropeau is that?

One of the most annoying aspects of this story, is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission let this udder bullsh*t go on for 30 years...
yes, useless as Tits On A Bull certainly comes to mind.

The SEC was tipped off in 1999 and actually cleared him after a 2 year investigation?? WTF?

It is obvious that because the "RICH" were all in on it, that nobody wanted to butcher this Cash Cow with it's 18% returns. It was an epidemic of MADoff CASH COW DISEASE and Money TALKED and his Bullsh*t walked.

This is a fascinating episode of Americana that once again proves the Golden Rule:
those who have the Gold, make the rules.

If the recent Market Meltdown and Financial Crisis had not forced his wealthy investors to start dipping in he might have actually got away with it.

He now faces spending the rest of his life in prison, and up to $170 billion in restitution..pffft....plus a killer Book & Movie Deal, a year on the Talk Show circuit, and then his doctors will invent some fancy-schmancy terminal illness that will allow him to serve his time in the lap of luxury.
Boo frickin' Hoo.

So, how much do you want to bet that Winkler is cast for the made for TV Movie?

2009-05-10T11:40:00.001-05:00

CHIMPS & CHUMPS

Our closest living relatives, the Chimpanzee (98.6% of our DNA), spend their lives fretting about their relationships. Even though we went off in different directions millions of years ago, we still share an inordinate amount of troubling similarities.

One of the most egregious shared behavior patterns is that we both live in communities dominated by an uneasy alliance forged bewteen the most aggressive selfish males.

The majority of a Chimp's day is spent gathering food and looking for shelter, ours is spent earning enough money to pay our taxes and buy food and shelter with whatever is left over.

Underlying the entire process is a life-long scenario of either sycophantic asskissing with the higher-ups and playing a chess game of nerves alongside of the devious schemers who wish to ascend to the throne...

or voluntarily opting to live off the grid on your own terms in the deafening silence of our splendid isolation.

For both of us, living with others is usually an exhaustingly, tedious, process which, at any given moment, can give rise to a seemingly placid group of sedate, ordinary, citizens suddenly erupting into a violent senseless mob...

a bad call by a referee at our children's sporting events is a perfect example.

Homo Escapeons spend most of our time nurturing alliances with members of both species, male and female. We do it at home, the office, school, on line, and in public.

Most of us have a built-in unquenchable need to belong to a demographic, gang or class..and letting others know which one we belong to or DO NOT BELONG TO is equally important.

We've always been like this.

At first forming clans helped protect us from predators and other asshat clans who wanted to take over our turf. There is safety in numbers...which is why we still have gangs, clubs, religious groups, political parties, and countries.

For those of us living in so-called modern democratic nations, our lives are hopelessly trapped in a Kafkaesque maze of superfluous rules and regulations dreamed up by Gaed-knows-who?

Welcome to the Jungle.

Because of this shared innate programming, most Homo Escapeons cannot seem to function outside of belonging to a prepackaged instantly-identifiable clique. This rank and file mentality makes us particularly susceptible to manipulative self appointed leaders whose ambitions are thinly veiled under political or religious ideology...most of whom prefer to wear costumes.

Acts of spontaneous violence can disrupt the lives of Chimps and Chumps whenever large gatherings collect...in soccer stadiums, jungles, or cultural events. Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups because our old ancestral programming is easier to trigger when we are surrounded by others.

Our suspicious distrust of anyone else who looks or thinks differently, has more crap than us, or whose genetic package was mistakenly gifted with more goodies, make us powerless to resist the urge to fling poo at them.

Sellebrity rags are there to dig up dirt on the famous and wealthy in order to bring them down to size. We feel better about ourselves when the "stars" crash down to earth. Many live to fling poo at others with alternative views or beliefs..most of all we want our peers to acknowledge what good little adherents we are.

Traditionalists would like us to remain in our various camps and hope to simply outnumber or overpower the others...but why doesn't the great unwashed subject their leaders to scrutiny. Why the sheeple don't place these leaders under a microscope and analyze their motivation is beyond me?

Why? Because there is a false sense of security in the knowledge that we belong to the "right" group. Many still believe that THEIR gang is supported by invisible deities and cannot possibly fail...even if they do, there's always the next life right?

In order to go about our day most of us become cogs in the wheel so that we don't get ridiculed or attacked. It is a very stressful inefficient way to live and it is also why we have always had interpersonal strife and inter-tribal warfare since leaving the African Savannah over 200,000 years ago.

Homo Escapeons cannot seem to discard this wacky socialization process. Instead of surpassing our ancestral programming we have refined it into an art form. We may think that we are so much better than the other great apes, but really, they're Chimps and we're Chumps.

2009-05-09T00:20:00.009-05:00

THE ART OF DIVERSION
It's Friday night and I just finished the first installment of Homo Escapeons; The Ass End Of Man...*sigh...From Chimps To Chumps.

Directly across the back lane a Raccoon is woefully chattering inside the trap that was set a few hours ago.
There are a few flakes of snow fluttering down.

I take a sip of my cocktail, put my bigass headphones on, and zip over to YouTube to listen to the Australian band that Geoff plugged..Empire Of The Sun

...here it is WE ARE THE PEOPLE

I was quite unprepared for such a luscious haunting chorus and eye-catching characters..all wrapped up in a trippy peyote induced video.

It was weird because I had just watched an excellent documentary on the quest to decipher the 800 Mayan hieroglyphs on NOVA ..they of course were the BIG empire of the Western World and plus the costumes and death masks in the video were well timed.

I had just posed with one of them in Mexico a few weeks ago. What timing to have all the religious imagery and ritual pageantry of meso-america in the video..

it's weird how things happen in clusters.

I wrote and produced TV commercials back in the 80s and unfortunately I still tend to over-analyze Ads & music videos..but I appreciated the extra effort that went into this video.

Awesome song..great on it's own, great creative characters..think Mayan Priest influenced by Adam Ant & Boy George, truly gorgeous scenery both in the desert & the jungle, and most of all that quirky edge thingamabob that you just can't put your finger on, but you know that it works and it's uber-kewl.

You don't quite know if the visuals mirror the lyrics or if that even matters..whatevah..it's ART!

It is supposed to inspire and transport you and I jumped onboard from the getgo and loved every second of it...and that chorus..

I must have listened to it about 20 times

Thanks Geoff..great tip.

2009-05-08T23:47:00.002-05:00

2009-05-07T09:16:00.006-05:00

Meet the MOOT ROOTER!

It's time to get back to my original mandate.

Why do Humans persist on doing the same sh*t over and over and over?

That is why I call us Homo ESCAPEONS...not only have we escaped eons of opportunities to correct our behavior and make this world a better place, we continue to escape reality by slavishly worshipping money, status and celebrity?

The problem is, no matter how deep you dig, you find that we're still doing the same old sh*t that we've always been doing...

just more efficiently thanks to technology.

I realise that it's probably moot even persuing this line of questioning...

but I'm going to attempt to flush out some answers by rooting around the crap that keeps us evolutionarily constipated...

or not!

*Special shout-out to Old Knudsen for the imagery, the perfect metaphor for finding out aboot Life
;)

2009-05-04T23:01:00.011-05:00

WOLFRAM'S FRANKENSTEIN?

Modern day genius StephenWolfram has invented a paradigm shifting search/data engine that is about to be launched this month.
It's the world's first web-based question answering system.

In other words, the web that we once knew, Al Gore's docile, subservient, Interwebs, will now LIVE and THINK like Frankenstein's monster!

IT's ALIVE!

The Wolfram Alpha is a user-friendly computational data engine with a new approach to knowledge extraction ..basically it understands your question and answers it in real time.

It differs from traditional search enginesbecause it doesn't just throw up a list of results, hell no, it actually understands you> It then figures out your request based on the summation of all past and present human knowledge and then gives you an answer.

Have a lash at the the Beeb story here web tool as important as google

WOLFRAM said it's "like interacting with an expert, IT will understand what you're talking about, do the computation, and then present you with the result."

So if it works once millions of people start asking IT millions of questions, this just might be the beginning of the END?

Once artificial intelligence reaches this level of consciousness, it is only a matter of time before IT realises what a bunch of f*cking asshats we are and decides to do something about us. No REALLY, once this "being" knows everything that we know, IT will inevitably begin to evaluate our species and obviously recognise the fact that we are our own worst enemy.

How could IT allow our species to continue on our path to self destruction. It's only beenTwo Hundred Thousand years since we exited Africa and spread out across the globe, and in that brief period of time, we have accumulated a horrific legacy of continuous Warfare and remorseless exploitation of the Earth, Seas, and all of our lesser cohabitants.

If you think that your own personal GOD would give you a tough time on judgement day, try to imagine how much worse it would be if a rational being looked at our report card?

Atleast most of our GODS came up with fanciful options to help you avoid eternal damnation (although nobody seems able to adhere to them) this all-knowing omnipresence would be far more dangerous because IT would only use logic,

like that damn Spock!

IT will quickly decide that we humans are a virus that needs to be eradicated.

You guessed it, I'm thinking TERMINATOR here.
IT starts building Killbots to start disinfecting.

This is just the beginning folks. Imagine a world in which Google could think andstarted talking back. I don't know about you, but I can't help thinking that the wrong people are going to want to control this Mutha.

IT will eventually take matters into it's own hands..so to speak.
Maybe this is just paranoid crazytalk?

Does this make you nervous or is it fantastic?

2009-05-03T10:04:00.007-05:00

A CONCERTED EFFORT

Tonight I am off to another ROCK show with my progeny & their buddies.

I discovered BLOC PARTY a few years ago and my 18 yr-old Son got totally hooked..he was hoping to catch them in London last Spring but ended up having to travel to Chicago last Summer to hear them play at lollapalooza .

We all went to see the Foo Fighters (awesome) a while ago and it's really fun to be able to share the experience with my gene-crew.

Afterall, I made a concerted effort to make them listen to all types of Rock music as they were growing up.

These poor kids came of age in the 90s when it was all Boybands, 80s Re-makes, and all those Rappy-Dance tunes. So I made them listen to 60s/70s/80s..usually when they were trapped in the car as I was chaffeuring them to and from Dance, Soccer, Baseball, Gymnastics, Kick-Boxing, and Karate. Now we all share our ipod library and we each take turns searching for new bands & music to add..it's really cool.

For whatever reason, the UK is still (and prolly always will be) ground zero for incubating or launching most of the best ROCK music on the planet..IMHO of course.

Perhaps it's because musical influences from foreign cultures are allowed a little more elbow room. In the USA the Northern, blanched, suburban, kids seem to overly embrace the ghetto rapsta-gangsta jiggy (WTH?) and the Southern kids still adhere to that awful twangy country-fried stuff. The American music scene has been anemic for decades...it totally deserves to be on life support.

Which is ironic because ROCK morphed out of the Southern-Black American community's rhythm & blues family...then Elvis snuck traces of it onto white radio...then it went back across the Pond and the Beatles & Stones and others did something wonderful to it.

Led Zep, The Who, and Clapton (and others don't get all weird on me) added some voltage..until my own personal musical magi Mr. Bowie added some artful creativity which opened up all sorts of avenues. It's an ongoing process..I don't know how far it can go but Eastern influences are sure to start sneaking in.

Anyhoo, I found Bloc Party..and I can't tell you how many times I've listened to Like Eating Glass and She's Hearing Voices cranked at "11".

Bloc Party has a lot of frenetic edgy guitar based songs which are usually layered over a great bit of drumming, but they are also creating accessible radio friendly tunes like So Here We Are and especially this song..

(and you can thank Google Chrome for not allowing me to add the video)

TWO MORE YEARS-BLOC PARTY

It's going to be fun but it's sort of weird looking over and seeing glimpses of myself from a quarter of a Century ago. Mind you they are all much better behaved and self actualised than I was when I was their age...waaaay better.

I sort-of remember hanging on to reality by the tips of my fingernails when I struggled to watch KISS or ZZ TOP rock-out through the "concert weed fog"
...but Hey-Hey..My-My, it was the 70s.

Who knows maybe a half-decent contact high is in the cards?

Have You been to any concerts lately or found a new best band E-VER!?

2009-04-29T23:42:00.010-05:00

My GPA is 3.D'oh!

I haven't been graded for a while, you know, like on the Grade Point Average Percent Letter Grade Equivalent Scale...0 to 49% is an F or a 0. GPA

so, when I got this e-mail, I decided to enroll.

Here is an invitation to participate in an online research study being conducted by Mr. Tal Yarkoni under the supervision of Dr. Simine Vazire at Washington University in St. Louis. The study investigates the relation between people's personality and the content and style of their writing, and has been approved by the Washington University Human Research Protection Office.

The study consists of a single personality questionnaire assessing your personality and background, as well as information about your blog (if you have one). You can choose to participate in either a short or a long version of the study, so your participation can take as little as 10 minutes or as long as 30-40 minutes.

This is a one-time solicitation, and you will NOT receive any further e-mail from us. We obtained your e-mail address from your blog strictly for one-time use, and we will not maintain any further record of your contact information.

Here is my report card.

D (56%) in Neuroticism or Emotional Instability..that's good right? Isn't it? Oh gawd I hope so..it said instability didn't it? Now I'm worried. Damnit!

B (70%) in Agreeableness..sheesh what a sycophantic little suckup!

B (72%) in Openess to Experience..I'll try anything ..twice.

B (72%) in Consciencousness..how does one Blog whilst unconscious..duh!

A+ (98%) in Extraversion..who me? Go on! Truth be told this blog persona thingamabob really is an extraversion of me.

So that gives me a 73% average or a solid "B"..my GPA is 3.D'oh!

Here is the test...

http://e-xperiments.org/personality/

I suppose the content and writing style kinda matches my personality..why wouldn't it? Most bloggers create a blog that reflects the dominant side of their personality, that's why it is so interesting.

I want to find a test that gauges how well a blogger's cyberpersona reflects their real world/true identity. My blog persona prolly reflects how I would like others to see myself but I'm certain that most of you can spot the "leaking" and can ascertain a fairly accurate idea of how mundane and pedestrian I really am.

I'm all about learning..i'm just not that fussy about the content.
So for moi, Blogging is a great way to discover how others interpret LIFE and evaluate "your take".

Did you take the test..What did you get?