Goodbye, Gore Vidal

It is with sadness I mark the passing of Gore Vidal, one of my favorite writers. However, he had a long, prosperous and successful life, so one mustn't be too sad. I liked the quote from his partner, "Didn't it go by awfully fast?" I often feel that way too. Life does go by awfully fast.

Gore Vidal will live forever, or survive his death for a longer time than most, due to his voluminous writings, which many will still read far into the future when many other writers are long forgotten. Many of his works are insightful and prophetic. He knew things.

Get that HPV Vaccine

I remember a couple years ago some right-wing Internet yahoo wrote that I was "a lazy race-baiting homosexual with warts."

I was surprised first of all that he had bothered to read enough of my blog to make these observations. You know, I'm glad when the opposition reads my blog. I didn't mind the homosexual bit. I'm gay, big deal. As for lazy, well, I know I'm not, and people that know me know I'm not, so that just bounces right off. Race-baiting, I don't know where he got that from. Maybe somewhere I didn't toe the party line on a sensitive racial issue exactly as he expected me to do. More likely, he misinterpreted a complicated sentence due to lack of basic reading comprehension. I don't know, but I thought that was the strangest part of his little critique.

As for the warts, they're gone now, although I did have them at one time and probably still carry the HPV virus like millions of other people. That is one reason I recommend that young people get the HPV vaccine. I wish I had. But having had warts doesn't really bother me, although it does raise my risk for cancer. Is there a stigma to warts? Maybe, but it can't be greater than the stigma attached to herpes. At any rate I've gotten past stigmas for the most part. Stigmas are stupid, a shortcut for people who don't like to think for themselves.

Moral of this little story is for people, especially the younger generation, who are or intend to be sexually active to get the HPV vaccine. It's cheap and not only will protect against warts but also certain forms of cancer. The vaccine is not just for girls either. Every young person should get it.

Forgiveness

Sometimes I don't know whether to forgive people that have done me wrong or not. I've always erred on the side of forgiveness because I detest getting involved in drama. Drama is fun to watch on television but not so fun in real life. I think that drama by activating the emotions obscures truth, which is best viewed with cold and sober eyes. Emotions are dangerous things, the relics of our primitive nature, steeped in superstition and irrational thoughts and ideas. With icy dispassion one can see direct into the heart of things. That is my strongest belief. By references to ice and cold, I do not mean cruel or vicious or inhumane, but principled, based upon reason and logic, and with the best intentions. Emotions that are hot dwell upon vengeance, egotism, vanity, and are subject to every kind of delusion. I have been most deluded of all when my emotions were aroused, and most level-headed when they were kept in check, so I prefer that my emotions be kept in check in general and feel that emotions are dangerous things, esteemed by the foolish.

I take the view that once a wrong has been done, punishment of the perpetrator doesn't make things right (although in criminal cases an argument can sometimes be made that punishment is necessary to prevent further crimes against others). I feel that those who do wrong also suffer themselves from the same mind that leads them into evil, because they are disconnected from the community of good people. I prefer to live my life in relative peace and would continue to do so until such time that I perceive no hope, no future, no opportunities, and no satisfaction, and then and only then I might entertain an alternative strategy. Life is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to inspire others, to help others build a better world. Only when such opportunities shrivel and disappear does one need to look for right angles.

Few people are absolutely evil. Sometimes people start out good, or mostly good, and then their minds decay until they turn. I have seen this happen. One should recall the good years, the good times, and weigh the present with the past. Sometimes good people have lapses which they, too, regret, unfortunate episodes that should be considered in the context of their entire experience, not in isolation. If a man does a person wrong, perhaps in one instance or several, but in many other instances far outnumbering those other ones has done good, then is he still a villain? I think rather he is a human being, for who among us is perfect?

When my emotions engage, that is when I thirst for justice, that elusive and unpredictable dragon that is known to breathe fire upon the seeker and sometimes even upon unintended parties. Usually I perceive the risks, if there are risks, and disengage if the risks outweigh the benefits. Justice can wait, is my view. Justice is the luxury of the rich and the powerful. Such a humble person as I must endure a life with substantially less justice than the proud. It is the common state of working people all over the world and to believe otherwise is to dwell in a fantasy land.

There is also a fatalistic view I have that we are all equal no matter what because everyone lives under a death sentence. In a matter of years we are all dust.

If I avoid wicked things then that is certainly better than some, although it is a modest goal and insufficient in my estimation. If I live in a manner that inspires, pleases or enlightens others to whatever extent, or at least avoids the opposite outcomes, then that is enough for me. I do not need to be great or strong, successful or renown for anything. It may be that some people I knew and cared about were disloyal, unappreciative or acted with misunderstanding or duplicity. I rather count my losses and think it a good bargain to lose only vanity or material assets, rather than anything truly important. It is a welcome relief to me when others strive for material or out of pure vanity, but are willing to live and let live otherwise. Because I prefer to be left in peace to think, to wonder, and to help the people that I care about. I will leave the treasure for the orcs to grab with their dirty claws, while I content myself with old books written by marvelous people I should have liked to know. All I want is time to read, time to think, and time to care. Let the fighters fight over spoils. I will fight if cornered, like any beast, and I think that I would fight very well indeed, but otherwise am inclined to go my way.

I don't mind leaving everything just as it is, because it gives me satisfaction to reflect on my accomplishments, modest though they may be, and on the esteem that others have for me, and on my good experiences in life. It is all right to have modest accomplishments when one's talents are modest. It is a mistake to judge oneself in comparison to one's superiors, and there are many people who will have more talent in one area, many areas, or even all areas, because talent is not distributed evenly.

Voting for a Republican

I vote for a Republican in special situations, such as the Republican primary, or when the Democrat has no chance and I particularly like a specific Republican, or when it is a contest between one right-winger and another (even if the other is a Democrat). In such cases one prefers the better of two alternatives.

I support one local Republican because he used to own a newspaper that I read every now and then. He was conservative and his editorials reflected that, but he did something that was very un-Republican. He allowed a liberal to write a column on a weekly basis. And he didn't hide the column on page 44-F in small print, either, but put the column in the main section, A, in regular print, along with a photo of the author, who wasn't some nutcase intended to discredit liberals but a decent guy who understood things fairly well.

One day, somebody wrote a letter to the editor claiming that the writer was a socialist, as if that disqualified him from being considered by any reasonable person. That is what I remember to this day, and that is why I vote for that particular Republican over all his Republican rivals, because he had a heart big enough to tolerate a voice from the other side. And his rivals are trying to tear up him right now six ways to Sunday, and I know they are, and their attempts are transparent, and I just feel like they are lying about him, just like Republicans love to lie to get ahead, because getting ahead is the only thing that matters to so many of them. I just don't care what they say because I perceive in my own way that the guy has an open mind and believes in debate and discussion. If so many of his fellow Republicans are out to get him, then he must be even better than I thought, so I am more inclined than ever to support him.

The Religious Right and Paganism

Some of the beliefs of the religious right, such as speaking in tongues, demonic possession and the notion that Satan inserts demons or magic spells into people and things in order to wage war against God's Chosen, smack of paganism and earlier beliefs. There is an attempt to explain the world in simplistic terms for child-like adults who can't understand science or much of anything else, while inserting absolute moral rules, such as "rock and roll is bad and drugs are bad, because these are the tools of Satan." By seeing superstitious reasons for everything, a religious righter doesn't have to bother debating or evaluating. Much thinking is rendered unnecessary. Such a primitive religion may be beneficial for the simple, if it gets them off hard drugs or keeps them from robbing and killing people. Often I hear a religious righter tell me she used to be a prostitute, or killed someone, or robbed, or used heroin or crack "before turning to Jesus." It would never occur to me to do any of those things.

Perhaps religious righters are throwbacks to an earlier point in evolution. I think if religious righters were the only human beings around, then we would still be hunched around campfires in the wilderness with animal furs on our backs.

Bush and Phillip II

Bush was the Phillip II for our time. Phillip II took a first-rate nation, Spain, which enjoyed a dominant position in Europe and the Americas, and reduced it to a second-rate nation through mismanagement and pointless wars. Bush took a booming economy and thriving people and reduced us to unemployment, debt, and the scorn of the world. I think that Bush could have given Al-Qaeda lessons.

The Republicans are a hundred times more effective at destroying America than Al-Qaeda ever was. The terrorists only had one day, 9-11, whereas the Republicans were operating every day of the year doing everything in their power to outsource jobs to foreign countries, commit our tax money to foreign wars and loot the treasury for their rich cronies. Republicans and corruption go hand-in-glove. Republicans despise America, and their fondest desire is for all American workers to be unemployed or dead. The type of worker Republicans prefer can be found in other countries: poorly educated, paid very little, with little or no medical or other benefits, and kept in line by thugs, police or soldiers, with any dissenters silenced. That is what the Republicans want here in America.

Iran

One never hears about Iran except in the context of crazy. They are always doing something stupid and evil.

Syria

Comes as no surprise to me that the opposition is gaining ground in Syria. The regime behaved like brutal thugs. You know what, if you kill someone's grandmother, then you have created a whole family of enemies who will be willing to die in order to kill you. That's what Assad failed to comprehend, the principle that people are willing to die in order to avenge the death of a loved one. All the money and the bullets in the world won't defend him against blood-vengeance. I'm going to drink a toast when Assad is toast. He betrayed the oath of his profession, to "do no harm."

George Pill

I'm always amused by how George Will is introduced as "the intelligent conservative," like here's an elephant that can sing.

He's about as smart as he sounds.

Romney's "Work"

Romney's boasting about his experience is a joke. He never worked a day in his life. He had everything handed to him on a silver platter from his rich daddy. Left to his own devices, he'd be working in the kitchen at a Waffle House. Obama's the guy that clawed his way up from the ranks of the working class to success. Obama rose based on merit. Romney rose because daddy was a rich man.

Daddy was a rich man, daddy was a rich man, daddy was a rich man, hey!
Romney got money, got money from daddy, and that's why he's where he is today!

So Long, Mountain Dwarves

I maintain that players should reject racism in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. By that I mean growing so attached to one race, such as Mountain Dwarves, that they lose sight of the overall picture, which is that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is the best game on earth.

 I have played every race and like them all with five exceptions. To only play one race or to think one race is absolutely required would strike me as ludicrous. My favorite race is Spriggan, but I haven't played a Spriggan in months, and why? Because I'm tired of them. My detested races are Ghoul (too much bother carrying rotting corpse chunks around, and yuck! by the way), Human (Zzz...), Demigod (I'm atheist in life but don't want to be in Crawl), Half-Orc (I'm a Tolkien fan and can't stomach the uglies), and Felid (too weak, and the lives don't matter to me with my handy dandy regen.bat).

I never did take a liking to dwarves, for purely aesthetic reasons (memories of Gimli), although they are an excellent choice for fighters and among the easiest races to play, if not the easiest. But if I were a dwarfist, I'd make the transition to Half-Orc, Demigod, Demonspawn, Ogre, Troll, or Minotaur. Any of these make excellent fighters, and the half-divine also excel at spellcasting.

Ogres are an underplayed race. I prefer transitioning to giant spiked club and going shieldless. A giant spiked club has the highest damage potential of any weapon in the game, so it makes an interesting choice. Imagine vanquishing a Hill Giant with one pop on the head. Another nice thing about Ogres is that they learn Maces and Flails and Fighting very easily, more so than any other race, and consequently it is not uncommon for a high-level Ogre to acquire 300+ hit points. Since they also excel at the Spellcasting ability, they have no problem with low-level spells such as Blink, which helps to escape bad situations.

Trolls are limited, but if one must play one, then I would suggest being either a Hunter (five large rocks!) or even a Death Knight in order to diversify the attack portfolio. Ogre Death Knights are actually the ideal Death Knights, much superior to Trolls due to their higher hit points (due to Ogres being better at Fighting). Under no circumstances would I want to play any spellcaster as a Troll.

Places in the World

When I was a boy, I used to study the globe and wonder what faraway places were like, what kind of people lived there. The truth is there aren't many places I'd want to go. If I had made the journey to Papua New Guinea, I might have wound up as dinner. They call humans "long pig" in Papua New Guinea. I don't think people from areas like that should be permitted to come to our country. They need to acquire civilization first. The same applies to people who circumcise young girls or perform so-called "honor-killings." They don't need to live here. Only countries that have a base level of civilization need to be sending any people over to the United States. I don't think an immigration policy needs to bend over backwards to avoid offending anyone. There are certain things we can all agree on, like no cannibals, no child-abusers and no wife-beaters.

The Media, Romney, and Bain

The media won't support Obama's attacks on Romney's role at Bain, because the media is controlled by plutocrats who do the exact same things that Romney did. So I'm not surprised the media is full of spin today trying to make Obama look like the bad guy. Lies, lies, and more lies are the only way Romney's going to get elected in 2012. If enough workers snooze through the politics of 2012, then we will have Bush #3 in the White House again.

Jesus

The stories about  Jesus were embellished with miracles for the benefit of the writers, to awe the simple and inspire the faithful, and they had the very best of intentions, just as the previous Jewish patriarchs did when they were composing the Old Testament. They wanted to improve humanity and reduce evil in the world, but also build their own power and secure a livelihood for themselves.

It is likely there was an extraordinary, charismatic, intelligent, and imaginative man such as the one we name Jesus. He probably was at least as gifted in speech as Oscar Wilde and was probably gay, with a reduced desire for a wife and family and increased adaptability for living with other men. When the Roman soldiers came to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him, Jesus was found with a naked man:

And there followed him a certain young man,
having a linen cloth cast about his naked body;
and the young men laid hold on him:
and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
- Mark 14:51, 52

Jewish authorities were annoyed by Jesus's magnetic ability to attract followers, his heresy in declaring himself the son of God, certain of his moral teachings that strayed from orthodoxy, and his criticism of their practices, so they petitioned the Roman authority to have him crucified to discredit him in the eyes of his followers by revealing him to be an ordinary man. Their plan backfired, because the followers were so invested with love for the man that their imaginations devised and their reason accepted a fantastic alternative reality in which Jesus rose from the dead, and this story was repeated often until many came to believe it, and today two billion of our species are officially Christian, while one and a half billion are officially Muslim and accept Jesus as a prophet of God.

Sodium Cyanide for Euthanasia

A banker's recent suicide did serve at least one public purpose, in that now everybody knows that sodium cyanide can be placed in a capsule and swallowed for quick and painless death. I think there should be an exit mechanism available to all human beings. Death is a human right.

Clock Radios

After two hours shopping on Amazon, NewEgg, and E-bay, I did not find a single clock radio that was not designed by a retard. All brands are terrible. I imagine it would be easy to make a million dollars in that business, because anyone could design the best clock radio that the world has ever seen in about an hour or less.

Idea

One of my favorite ideas for a novel concern an invisible or otherwise inaccessible benefactor who performs good deeds for an old woman, who for a while remains unaware of the benefactor's identity, and after learning the identity, the motive remains mysterious.

Salt

As I ate my gourmet luxurious breakfast this morning in ease and comfort with the nice air-conditioning and pleasant company, I meditated on how lucky we are as compared to our ancestors, both recent and remote. Our distant ancestors did not have A/C, nor electricity, nor half the foods we take for granted, nor, in some cases, salt.

Imagining meals without salt led me to think about how salt is produced. Today most is mined simply because mining and transportation has increased vastly in efficiency, but there is nothing wrong with evaporating sea water, and in fact gourmands prefer sea salt for various reasons. I pondered why our ancestors did not evaporate sea water, since England is surrounded by coastline and Western Europe certainly is not landlocked.

All that is required to evaporate sea water is a pan, preferably of dark wood to absorb rather than reflect the sunlight. The Sun will do the rest. So, why did our ancestors not manufacture their own salt, instead of paying exorbitant fees to merchants? Why was salt considered a luxury in the old days? The only conclusion I could reach was that our ancestors were mostly ignorant of the process of evaporation. That led to a feeling of smugness, which is always a mistake. I asked myself, would I have discovered evaporation if my teacher had not taught me about it in the third grade? I'm not so sure it is quite so obvious to most people.

Another complication is that coastlines tend to have more rain, which would interfere with any large-scale evaporation scheme. Also, standing water can fall prey to parasites and contamination, which ancient people might not know how to counter in an effective manner. A few cases of sickness would be enough to dissuade people from using evaporation.

Wizards

Wizards are a highly powered class in Dungeon Crawl, equipped with a seven-spell spellbook, more than any other magical profession to my knowledge. They also, alone among spellcasters, come equipped with a wizard's hat, which is no small potatoes for an otherwise unarmoured Octopode.

All-Day Kitty Buffet

If you have cats take heed,
All day long they feed.
A never empty bowl
Soothes the kitty soul,
So if outside they do stray,
they'll come back the next day.
We got an all-day kitty buffet,
That's why they stay.

Murdoch is Right About Something

Well, I finally found something that Murdoch and I agree on. Romney is a weak candidate. Murdoch perceives in his own way that Obama is more intelligent, more ethical and has greater strength of character and therefore will win the election in 2012. It is difficult to imagine anyone of sound mind and an annual income below a billion dollars voting for Romney. The only possible reason would be someone who does not follow politics at all and does not read the news and has not paid the slightest bit of attention to history, but in that case, why are they even bothering to vote in the first place? Uninformed voting is worse than not voting at all.

Hooray for Turkey

I say hooray for Turkey for playing tough with Syria. I think they have a right to intervene in Syria and even to invade Syria, because Syria is massacring people of their culture and religion and the Syrian dictator is just a bloodthirsty tyrant with no sense of ethics at all who believes that only the strong and powerful matter. If Turkey severs Assad's head from his body then so much the better.

An improbable analogy is that if Mexico started killing Protestants left and right, then I think the Proestant-majority U.S. might have something to say about that. I really don't see how anyone can fault Turkey, especially after their jet was shot down, even if it did invade Syrian airspace. Who really cares about airspace? The Syrian tyrant does not have any rights, and Syria does not have a legitimate government.

It is about time a country other than the U.S. took action to set things right in the world. Our country needs some time to lick its wounds and pay off debt, thank you very much. See you next century.