NPR Comedy

I heard a great comedy show on NPR yesterday. They were asking listeners to contribute money to NPR. I never laughed so hard. I tried to think back to a single show I have heard from NPR that in any way seemed interesting, and I couldn't think of a one. The entire radio spectrum is just a wasteland now. NPR has been taken over by relentless, monotonous knee-jerk liberal talking heads, hostile to science, hostile to history, and suspicious of anything remotely educational. All they ever want to do is talk bad about the Republicans and talk about how terrible things are, all the time. NPR should pay me for ever tuning in. I tune in out of a faint hope that NPR will revert, at some point in the day, back to the sort of public radio that brought good shows, about science or history, shows like what the BBC has produced. The BBC is an example of high-quality radio programming.

Assumed Racism

The brouhaha over two black men arrested at Starbucks seems much ado over nothing. It is well-known, at least by anyone with experience in the world, that coffee shop owners are not in the business of providing a free meeting space or, for that matter, free restroom facilities to the public. No, they are in the business of selling coffee. No one, black or white, who sits at a table without buying anything is going to be welcome, ever. Of course, the two black men, instead of acknowledging this obvious fact, have opted, quite naturally, to maximize their media exposure and, hopefully, profiteering over the whole incident, which was entirely their own fault. Had one of them simply purchased a $2.85 coffee, none of this would have happened. The manager would have perceived them both as paying customers and ignored them. Instead, they opted to freeload off Starbucks and exploit it as a meeting place, without paying a nickel for anything. Of course, their self-inflicted problems are all the fault of bad, racist whitey. Close 8,000 stores nation-wide immediately to scold the baristas and teach them not to expect blacks to pay for anything. Yes, that's the way to handle it. This is exactly the type of thing, incidentally, that causes white folk to vote Republican in large majorities. Punish white people for being human, for expecting paying customers in their store.

Racists used to be a really bad word, back in the day. When whites are castigated as racists on the national media every day for quite ordinary and common-sense activities, the term "racist" loses its cachet. In today's society, "racist" simply means human. What we have learned from Starbucks is that expecting people to pay for services rendered, that is racist.

The A is Out

For the gay male community, what was true in 1979 remains true today. The A is out.

Not a lot of intelligence is required to deduce that the HIV virus is something one does not want to get. It is survivable, perhaps---with money and a great deal of effort and inconvenience, but it is highly undesirable, both for the individual and society. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost for every new HIV patient.

The main reason the gay community was and still remains a favorite target of the HIV virus is due to the ancient and traditional practice of anal sex. Therefore, any intelligent and self-respecting gay must refrain from anal intercourse, even with a condom, even with a supposedly monogamous partner. This seemed obvious to me back in the day and remains so. Abstinence is best for gays, regarding that one act, although everything else remains on the table. This is a sacrifice that must be made by any living gay today that wants to keep on living and pursue serious goals. On the one hand, it may seem a humiliating concession to the misguided fundamentalist Christians, but so what? Survival trumps meaningless pride. Science cannot be defied by the wise. The A will be back again when an HIV vaccine gets mass-produced.

There was a case in the U.K. recently involving a sociopath that intentionally infected other gay men, then taunted them with the fact afterward. This insect is by no means the first and will not be the last. He deserves death, swift and soon, but was instead sentenced to a lengthy imprisonment, owing to the U.K.'s ineffective legal system that coddles criminals and saddles their taxpayer with enormous costs, that murderers might pick their noses for many decades. At any rate, there are some men that will infect others intentionally, out of malice, because they are wicked spirits. There are some that will do so out of negligence, because they are fools. There are some that will do so due to pure blind chance, because no condom will ever be entirely effective in all cases, no matter what. For all of these reasons, the A is out.

Culture Has Declined

In the past, the music world bestowed upon posterity Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Now they give a Pulitzer to a rap crooner (not musician and not singer, nor artist). Culture has declined a great deal since the 1800s.

So-called musicians of today merit no more than tavern singers of yesteryear: a meal, a drink, a few coins here and there for a good performance, if the audience is well-to-do. Anything more is pelf. Their stuff isn't likely to still be played a hundred years from now. Their frequent protestations about deserving more money are preposterous. What they need to do is work harder, compose and edit their existing compositions to be better.

Popularity is based upon sexual urges and aspirations, that is, what folks want to become. Rap deals with stealing, rape, and murder, so one can conclude what the listening public wants to do based upon that.

Rather than give a Pulitzer to a rap crooner, the award should be given to a teacher. Teachers work really hard and have to deal with all kinds of criticism, disrespect and long-term liabilities in today's society, one of which involves being underpaid for the work they perform.

Times Past

Used to be, the arrogant, stupid leaders of the world could throw a hissy fit, launch a bloody war, off a couple million folks, and call it a day. Now, all of a sudden, a world war results in Nuclear and/or Biological and/or Chemical Apocalypse. Are we to presume, that following the year 1945 and the advent of the Nuclear Age, H. Sapiens has evolved morally and ethically to the point where our leaders will abstain from world war and bloody conquest?

Not at all, not in the slightest; our leaders are just as stupid as before, if not more so, but their weapons are awesome and far beyond anything their predecessors ever dreamed of.

The only possible conclusion is that history will repeat itself, and world war must come again, and in fact, is long overdue. Putin wants war. He thinks he and a small group of cronies can survive the Apocalypse by hiding out somewhere far away from civilization, in the mountains of Siberia, deep underground, with plenty of food and medical supplies stockpiled, and even a generator or nuclear reactor to provide electricity. He figures he can repopulate the world in his own image: ugly, evil, and stupid; something along the lines of what Sauron wanted. Unfortunately for everybody else, his plan is just within the realm of possibility.

Our intelligence apparatus, instead of wasting time on the ragheads of the Middle East, should be focused with laser-like precision upon Russia and China, the real threats, as opposed to the ever-reproducing ragheads, who should be contained, not by American forces, but by other ragheads. Resources spent upon policing ragheads are resources wasted. They will never amount to anything and will always destroy whatever is built in their region of the world, because that is in their nature. It is pointless to expect the raghead to do anything other than have a strong man operating under the cloak of Islamic legitimacy. The past several decades consisted of opportunities and resources wasted by the U.S. foreign policy due to the false expectation that the Middle East would have its share of Thomas Paine, George Washington or Benjamin Franklin. Fat chance of that. All they have is a bunch of lunatics with scimitars, grenade-launchers and automatic assault rifles.

Alexander is laughing at us. "Did you learn nothing from my war against Darius?"

But of course, the Americans do not read history.

Occam's Razor

In the recent Russian nerve agent assassination, Occam's Razor indicates Russia is culpable. The nerve agent was manufactured by Russia and is only known to exist in Russia. Putin is a liar; to lie is nothing to him. Putin controls Russia as a de facto dictator. Putin wanted the ex-spy living in London to die of spectacular and macabre symptoms. Thus, the simplest, and therefore most likely, scenario is Putin ordered the poisoning. Any other theory relies upon further complexity and far-fetched possibilities. All the lies being generated by the Russian state may be ignored without further consideration. Russia can be assumed guilty, under any circumstances, until proven innocent, because Russia under Putin is evil.

Putin is playing with fire, skirting along the edge of war. The fool may miscalculate at some point, to his peril. It is unfortunate that the rest of us have to live on the same planet as Putin. He is in a similar category as Hitler and Stalin, his two heroes. That such a fool is in charge of a nuclear-armed state is a big reason to be pessimistic about the future of H. Sapiens. The odds that H. Sapiens will survive the nuclear age are about one in a million.

Hand-wringing over Tariffs

It is amusing to watch the media's gyrations against tariffs and the looming trade wars. For years, the elite sat back and partied their butts off, enjoying getting rich off the backs of unemployed Americans. Meanwhile, working people in the U.S. suffered. Factories shuttered, towns got destroyed, whole cities like Detroit turned into hellholes, where homeowners were lucky to get any amount at all for their homes. Working people turned to the "gig economy," earning minimum wage or less with no benefits at all. The elite didn't care. They talked about "free trade," "the global economy," and gushed over the stock market's performance. Yeah, who cares about the working people? They can die, right? They should stop having babies, eh?

When I read that tariffs don't work and trade wars are all bad, I just don't believe it. I think that is a lie. The U.S. imports far more than it exports. We still have the biggest economy. So, any country having a trade war against us is going to lose financially. And, in the end, the U.S. does not need any international trade at all. We are an entirely self-sufficient country, with enough natural resources and people to produce whatever we need. Stop all trade, is a good idea, for several generations, and then automatically we will be a strong competitor again, producing anything and everything. Meanwhile, China can stockpile all the junk it produces and build a mountain with it and name it after their dictator.

Funny how otherwise liberal-minded folks cozy up to foreign dictators and think everything is just hunky-dory that we are letting them have so much wealth, while so many of our own people are just getting by working for Uber.

Asylum

The only folks that should seek asylum in the U.S. are those on our border. Canadians and Mexicans, logically, should have the right to seek asylum in the U.S. Maybe those in the Carribean, too, and that would include Cuba. Anyone else is just shopping for a better financial life. People in the Middle East need to look at the neighboring countries around that region. There is no need to fly all the way over to North America. That is a nonsensical stretch of logic and abuse of the asylum system. Anyone that comes here from outside of North America needs to be sent back to wherever they came from, if their only claim is based on asylum. Other countries are better prepared to assume immigrants. The U.S. suffers from unemployment and underemployment. When so many of our people do not even have basic medical insurance or retirement plans, then this is no time to take in more people.

Opinion Repository

This blog serves as a safe repository for my opinions. No one really wants to hear another person's opinions, so the best place for opinions is in a little-noticed blog that nobody reads (except bots). Loudmouths that share their opinions with others unasked aren't terribly popular. No one gives a crap about what other people think.

Now, I think that social media is stupid, by its very design. Place your personal opinions and personal information on a public venue where anybody can scan them to learn all about you. In the first place, people underestimate the number of hostile eyes. They don't realize, people have bad intentions for gathering information. By giving away information, one serves one's enemies.

The beginnings of social media stretch back far into the days of BBSes. Even back in the BBS world, there was danger, but now the danger is ten-fold, because social media encompasses the globe, and everyone is in on it. I have known people to get in trouble on their job because of what they wrote on social media. It is better not to write anything that is attached to a real name. Everything you write or post goes directly to your current and future employers, friends, lovers, foes, co-workers, and so on. It never ends.

Censorship on Facebook and Twitter is a gift. Everyone should be censored. No one should post anything. That is the perfect ideal. Anytime someone is censored, they should write a thank-you note to the censor and mail a check for a hundred dollars. The censor is your friend.

I've never understood why they call it social media. People are sitting at home, alone, in front of a computer screen. How social is that?

National Public Radio

Every time I turn on NPR, I hear whining. I have gotten so that I can't stand NPR. All it ever talks about is politics, the latest Trump brouhaha or how awful white people are. Where is the science, history and culture? I thought NPR was supposed to be educational. Instead, it is just the liberal propaganda machine. And it doesn't work very well at the intended purpose. If racism is such a huge problem that it deserves all the NPR coverage, even in 2018, then it will never get fixed. I think the constant pointing of the finger at whitey is the main problem. The only real racism we see today is against white people. White people are presumed guilty, by mere fact of being white, regardless of their political beliefs, and never permitted to demonstrate their innocence, under any circumstances. Meanwhile, take a look at what has happened over in Zimbabwe, for an example of a black-majority country.

I think that NPR should focus more on science and education, because there is a real hunger and need for that. Just pressing the enrage button constantly makes people miserable and dumbs people down. I wonder what good NPR is, if that is all it ever does.

Amazon

Look at what people do, not what they say. For years, Amazon's CEO has been hyped as this great liberal figure, but in reality, Amazon treats its employees like dogs, skimping on air conditioning, salaries and benefits, and underpays the U.S. Postal Service, and gets away without paying taxes in most sales. Admittedly, the U.S. Postal Service is run by fools, all of whom should be fired for undercharging Amazon all these years. The price to deliver packages needs to be increased not today, but ten years ago. Bribery is the most likely reason the USPS has given Amazon such a princely gift, worth billions. Someone in management is being paid off. As for Amazon not paying sales tax, it should be charged, not just for future sales, but for all the past sales that it failed to charge sales tax. That would solve the financial problems of most local and state governments. Perhaps Amazon's corporate management can sacrifice their personal home and wealth to pay off the back taxes.

So this is the real reason that Amazon's owner is hyped as this great big genius. In reality, he is just a selfish, cruel tycoon very willing to take advantage of anyone and everyone. He is farther right-wing than Trump. Trump is a liberal next to Amazon. The only reason Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post was to use it as a tool against Trump, because he feared that the U.S. government might act against Amazon's selfish interests. Well, it should. Congress should pass legislation to make sure that the Postal Service is paid, not just what it needs for current costs, but to ensure that Postal employees are getting the health benefits and retirement savings that they need long-term. Postal employees are temps with no benefits, work long hours and suffer long-term hearing loss from their dilapidated jeeps. Congress should see to it that Amazon pays its fair share to local and state governments, who have been short-changed for years. How is the government supposed to get funding, when people are buying everything from Amazon and not paying a dime of sales tax?

Trump was Right about Africa

Africa is composed of s-hole countries. Are there exceptions? No, can't name a one. The latest news from the one supposedly advanced country, Kenya, is that their high court ruled they won't conduct forced anal exams of gay men. Wow, big progress. Just a bunch of savages in Africa. The amount of immigration from the blighted continent should be zero or negative. The only thing Africa contributes to the world is a hand. A hand out, that is, and always asking for more.

But I'm sure it's all the fault of whitey.

Crapple Claims It Is Made in America

Crapple's CEO claims Crapple builds its junk in the U.S. If that were even half-true, then the Iphones would say "Made in U.S.A.," but they don't, they say "Made in China." A tariff on Crapple imports would be the right approach to making Crapple change its ways. It is a Chinese company, not an American one, and should be treated as Chinese. If a company does not hire American workers, then it is not an American company, and its products are imports.

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke is such a good writer of science fiction. His prose is clean and concise, and he has proven prescient. It is a symptom of cultural decadence that our world leaders do not read from and quote him.

Trump is entirely unacquainted with either science or scientific thought, and to be fair, the same applies to many world leaders, who view science merely as a tool for military weapons or economic gain, if they think of it at all. Elevating the bullies of the world into positions of power has had a deleterious effect upon our future prospects. Putin, Trump, Xi--and then the nitwits of Iran, North Korea, and really most all of Africa. I think there is a great case to be made for pessimism over the future of H. Sapiens, given that many of these leaders have vast arsenals, including biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons at their disposal. Probability will run its course, and there is a distinct probability one of these nitwits will miscalculate at some point in time and set off a most regrettable chain of events.

Therefore, what is an ethical person with sense to do? Enjoy life, I suppose, and try not to dwell upon the coming end of humanity, and try to secure little pockets of knowledge and culture into safe havens that can endure, perhaps, the coming nuclear/biological/chemical Apocalypse, when vast numbers of the human race will perish in suffering and death, slowly or mercifully quickly. It is well to stockpile cans of pinto beans and dried milk, as I know many folks that do, but also stockpile books and data, because much learning could be lost when the Internet is no more, and libraries have burned to the ground.

Give a care, not just to the immediate needs of current life, the avoidance of hunger and thirst and so forth, but also to the knowledge-base of the human race. Imagine having to discover all of our science and technology all over again. Imagine being without all our fiction and prose. We could well be sent back to the Stone Age, depending on the severity of the Apocalypse. It would be well to have many treasure-chests hidden around in various locations with a wealth of knowledge.

Perhaps if all is lost, and most all our species perish, there is yet hope, if not a hundred years after, then a thousand, or even ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. I imagine a secure and timeless repository like the Pyramids of Egypt, something that can endure, in a desert perhaps, or some remote place far from the beaten path, hidden from thieves and wild animals, safe even from rot and decay, microbes, humidity and solar radiation. It is a technical problem that demands a technical solution. It would be worthwhile to invest a million dollars in securing hidey-holes around the globe for future wanderers to uncover, that our civilization might be reborn in a future age, after the radiation has died down and open spaces are habitable by human beings again.

In Education, Bigger Isn't Better

One reason there are so many school shootings is schools are huge mini-cities nowadays. The only reason is people are cheap as hell and want to maximize their investment in education by herding kids into the biggest possible cattle farm. The kids don't know each other anymore and don't much care about each other, either. Every other kid is just another zombie in a video game shoot-em-up. It is a situation that was well-designed to create mass-murderers. When folks know one another by name and know what is really going on in a small school environment, that is when you nip these problems in the bud, rather than letting them fester.

Never Using Piriform's CCleaner Again

Ccleaner installed Avast Anti-Virus on a user's machine during a fresh install, even though I opted out. That resulted in a scenario where the user had two active anti-virus programs. What ensued was a 30 minute ordeal of trying to get Avast off the machine. A reboot was required, naturally. I will never use Ccleaner again and plan to blacklist it to prevent anyone from using it at all, under any circumstances. Ccleaner is malware. At one time last year, Ccleaner actually had a virus payload inserted into its code, by accident, or so Piriform claimed at the time. I rather think that Piriform has grown jealous of the wealth of other software companies and is doing anything at all to increase revenue, whether ethical (or legal) or not. The equation is simple. Ccleaner = Virus.

A good substitute for CCleaner is Bleachbit.

The Eternally Ungrateful E.U.

If the E.U. really retaliates on the steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump enacted for the sake of national security, we should begin preparations to withdraw all troops and military material from Europe. One hour after that announcement, any retaliation would disappear. Indeed, Europe should be paying for its own defense. American taxpayers have subsidized Europe's defense for decades, allowing Europeans to have a social safety net far better than U.S. citizens. Trump would be justified in exacting tribute from every European country, to the tune of many hundreds of billions per year. It is not right that the U.S. taxpayer pays only so that the European gets six weeks of vacation per year, free medical care from cradle to grave, early retirement and free education.

What Europe needs is another world war on their soil, to teach their people gratitude. They seem to have forgotten who pulled their delicate bits out of the fire.

European countries are arming fascist Turkey right now to crush the democratic, LGBT-friendly Kurds in Syria. European nations just don't have any scruples; they will do anything at all for money. They don't care that the U.S. protects them against annihilation, unless we start sounding serious about withdrawing that protection. That would be a wake-up call for the stupid Europeans, whose knee-jerk anti-Americanism is prevalent all throughout their public discourse. It is fashionable in Europe to dismiss the very people who protect Europe from annihilation. "Fat, stupid Americans," eh? Yeah, we're stupid, because we have been paying for their defense all these years, getting zero in return. And the U.S. has about the worst medical system in the entire developed world.

Guns Vs. Pot

It is amusing to contrast the police response to an active shooter situation at a Florida high school with that of a pot dealer. Tipped off that there's a large stash of pot, eager swarms of police bust in the doors of the pot dealer, looking to score cash, guns, and drugs, some of which can be siphoned off, but at any rate all opportunities for promotion, because the police department gets to keep the cash. Now, active shooter on a school campus? What's the hurry! We could get hurt, yo? No money in that, either.

It is a symptom of the collective schizophrenia in the world today that marijuana is perceived as a crime that must be answered with deadly force. China, Singapore and Malaysia, among other barbaric outposts, are known to execute those that traffic in large quantities of marijuana. For this reason, among others, an alien intelligence evaluating H. Sapiens would be wise to conclude that our species is not worthy of rescue, of enlightenment and education; that we should be left to our own devices, which means, to self-destruct in our own toxins and nuclear weapons. Rather than continue to contact us, they withdraw, leaving no trace.

Oh, No! A Professor Speaks Out

I read about Prof. Amy Wax's disparaging of black college students. In essence, she simply said that black students underperformed academically, but then she went on to point the finger at presumed causes--not genetic or racial, mind you, but cultural--rap music culture and the like. I think it is important to listen to what people are saying before jumping to conclusions about their ideology. Professors tend to carve out idiosyncratic world-views that borrow a bit of this, a bit of that, here and there. It is seldom correct to pigeon-hole them. But people are obsessed with labels, because they hate thinking.

There probably is merit to her observation, which was not denied, regarding underperformance among black students. Who benefits by her pointing out this discrepancy? Actually, if I were a black student, her words would serve as a spur to prove her wrong. Indeed, utter the inconvenient truth, say that the Emperor has no clothes. Truth is refreshing, liberating, and once truth is known, people can act based upon what they know. Prof. Amy Wax could potentially be the best friend of a high-performing black student. What she is demanding is better performance. She has not said that black students are incapable or biologically inferior at all, and they are not. She has said that rap music culture is brain-dead, and it is. Rap music prepares a mind to commit violent crime. Period. This is irrefutable, and there are tons of blacks in prison today, producing nothing, contributing nothing. A black student listening to Tchaikovsky, reading books, writing poetry, playing chess, and studying diligently--well, that would be a different kettle of fish, wouldn't it? I think that Prof. Amy Wax would be taken off her guard and might even write a recommendation letter for such a student.

The knee-jerk reactions of people in academia are insipid and do cause a reaction from the right. In the end, there is noise and little light.

Now, someone may say, but Igor! What if you were a college student that had to deal with a homophobic professor! Wouldn't you want him / her fired? Well, that did happen to me. I took two courses in microbiology from a very politically active, Republican (of course), right-wing, rabidly homophobic professor who equated homosexuals with pedophiles. She occasionally used the classroom as a platform for her views, although she was limited in this regard, because we had so much microbiology to cover that we had little time for extras. She had to contend with hundreds of pages, and it was a terrible confinement upon her clear and powerful desire to drone on and on about socially conservative politics, against the Godless liberals that wanted to normalize sexual perversion. Nevertheless, I liked microbiology and found her explanations of it tolerable and performed at the top of her class. I even gave a presentation on a disease that was quite well-received by the class and her comments and A+ led me to conclude she liked me. It is often thus with politics; people do not relate the solid and visible of everyday life with the invisible abstract, the boogieman homosexual that she conjures up in her fevered thinking about politics and public policy. Thus people persist in misguided views and generalizations based upon little but jokes, fancies or rumors they heard long ago.

It is possible to "prove 'em wrong" and there is a satisfaction in doing so. Yes, people begin by believing such and such, but they are mistaken, and if you are right, you must demonstrate to them, by your actions, they are wrong, and must revise their opinions, that is, if they want to be true. Not everyone wants to be true, but a great many people do, and upon descending into their world with clear and tangible evidence of a contradiction, one delivers a challenge to change.

Death Dream

I dreamed I was twenty again and driving my father into a deserted parking lot behind a closed shopping mall late at night. There was something work-related I had to check, a malfunctioning outdoor gadget of some kind, and I parked the car beside it. Another car pulled up. I shined my flashlight at the occupants. They got out, two men, armed with pistols. I was face down on the ground, begging for my life, and one thug smiled at my pleas, then put a bullet through my brain, which ended my life. What happened to my father, I don't know, but likely the motive of the attack was robbery, and the callous killers could brook no witnesses. It is deplorable, the tiny amounts of lucre that people are willing to kill other human beings for. It is not like I drive an expensive car or wear gold jewelry.

Upon awakening, I observed that the dream bore little relation to my current life, as I have no mortal enemies and have not been a victim of violent crime, at least recently. Perhaps I was visited by a traveling spirit that had seen the scenario. Or perhaps it was a memory of a television show. Television displays murders often. I guess it gets peoples' attention.

Of course, I will die in a certain amount of years, and that fate is unstoppable, even if I manage to elude the bullets that zip by in mad, modern-day America, where every hothead ends his life while taking out ten or twenty others.

So, what of it? I will not have any worries after I die. I will rejoin the earth, become one with it, and give up this individual identity known as self. The constituent atoms will reform into something else. And eventually, the earth will die, along with the universe itself.

I do not believe the self is so precious that it must be preserved forever. I believe the self is disposable rather, a base thing, prone to selfishness, driven by needs such as hunger and greed, and not really that fine. The dissolution of self could almost be regarded as a liberation of sorts. We cling to self and to life out of nostalgia and familiarity. One comes to realize that what we think of as the uniqueness of our self is actually replicated in many other people, who have the same drives, the same motives and desires. We are not really that different in the end. And the world keeps on spinning even after we are gone.