Don't Glorify the Psycho

Just when you thought it was safe, another psychopath decides to take out his road rage, and pent up hostility, sexual frustration, etc on a bunch of innocent people. Of course all the warning signs were ignored, as usual. Dummy humans didn't learn anything from Columbine I guess, so all those deaths were in vain. Good job everybody.

There are accounts of heroism and bravery that are emerging. Humans sacrificing themselves to save their friends and colleagues; a testimonial to the true brilliance of the human spirit. On the other side of the coin; when it is found out who amongst the authorities ignored the warnings (in my opinion they are accomplices of this crime), they should be sued by the families for negligence. Maybe then, when someone like this comes along again (and they will if history has proven anything), it will be less likely to be dismissed.

I also think the news agencies need to stop publishing the pictures of this guy (I won't mention his name as fame was part of his goal. I won't be complicit to another man's psychosis). But of course this is the crap that sells. So go ahead NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, FAUX News, et al. Cash in on the death and misery. It's what you do best after all.

My deepest and sincerest condolences to the families, and friends of the slain, as well as the entire Virgina Tech community. Words will not heal you, or bring back your loved ones. But the nation grieves with you, honors your heroism, and prays this never comes to pass again.

That's my theory. We are not fighting a "war on terror." You can't fight a means, a concept, an abstract. But we are at war, or I should say we have been invaded by the Massive Attack of Shabbiness. Just about everything is made in China, and is a piece of crap. The admissions standards at private universities are lower than ever (just ask former Duke President Nan Kohane, who confided in one of her deans, that the freshman class gets dumber and dumber every year). Look around you, stuff is crap. Even things that are supposed to be top of the line are made to be broken (not that this is a new concept; just ask anybody who bought a Colicovision back in the '80s).

And of course our presidential candidates are shabby. Let's look at Barack Obama, the liberal democratic poster boy. Everyone is giving him money and looking to him to save the country. Wake up idiots. The guy gave an impassioned speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. And? Tell me one thing Obama stands for, tell me one plank in his platform that is not a platitude. You can't. I went to his website and looked at his issue position statements. There is not one, not one idea, not one answer, not one plan. Platitudes only. He's the little wooden boy who wanted to be real. He's vapor. He's wasting everyone's time.

The Man

This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's history making entry into Major League baseball. Having grown up facing prejudice and racism in his hometown, and in the United States military during World War II, Jackie knew full well the importance of what he represented to Black America the day he first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Named Rookie of the Year that season, Jackie demonstrated, as Jim Thorpe and Jesse Owens did before him, that talent, class, and integrity know no color, or race. In an age where athletes seem to be more known for their fighting, raping, drug use, and cheating at their respective sports by using performance enhancing drugs, Jackie stands as an example of what is the best not only in sport, but humanity as well.

I should also take a moment to mention Branch Rickie, then owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who made the historic decision to hire Jackie, and break baseball's color barrier.

So as long as we're on the subject of integrity in sports, let me not fail to mention the anti-Jackie; Barry Bonds. Barry you're an egomaniac and a cheat. Your career is a fraud, and no one but you is going to recognize you surpassing Hank Aaron's career homerun record (hey Mark Mcguire, guess what? You didn't break Roger Maris' single season homerun record you douche). If there is any integrity left in Major League baseball (a highly debatable notion) then you will never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Never. Not ever. You suck. Hank Aaron has more talent and integrity then you could ever hope to even pray to possess. The only sentences in which your name and Hank Aaron's should appear together are these: "Barry Bonds will never break Hank Aaron's record because Bonds is a cheat," and "Hank Aaron is one of baseball's greatest players, but Barry Bonds is a colossal fraud."

Bud Selig (another worm at baseball's rotten core), has said that any player who desires to wear Jackie's number 42 this weekend may do so to remember the greatness of the man. Barry, if I hear you wore his number I just may vomit.

Here's to you Jackie, a real hero, not only to sport, but to the human spirit.

And so long Don, don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out

So Don Imus got fired. Good. He's a waste of the airwaves anyway. If I want to hear someone bitch I'll read this blog. Now here's the $64,000 question: Are we going to start hearing about radio hosts of color, who malign Jews and white people getting fired? Anyone? Bueller...Bueller...

Don't get me wrong...in a civil society people should not be getting paid millions of dollars to spew racist invective over the airwaves. But if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander. There are all kinds of so-called "Urban Radio" shows that, according to reliable sources, spew the same crap about whitey, Jew boy, spic, chinks, you get the idea. Guess what? They need to go too.

But Shtuey...what about our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech?

I admit that it's a fine line protecting rights of expression. But when a broadcaster's racist invective poisons the minds of people who then decide, based on these rantings, to violate me because of my race, guess what? You've just fucked up so big time that I can't begin to discuss the kegger of wup ass you'd be dealing with. Speech that encourages hate, bigotry, violence against anyone else...that's not protected by the Constitution. Don't believe me? Go ahead and test that. If your speech results in the violation of my Constitutional rights of life, liberty, etc., your ass is mine.

But Shtuey, Don Imus referring to a women's basketball team as a bunch of nappy headed ho's doesn't incite violence against black people. He's being censored for doing his job.

You show me in Don Imus' employment contract where it says that's his job. And you have no idea where that kind of statement would lead. The human mind can be a sick and disgusting place, just ask Mark David Chapman (for those of you who weren't born, that's the sonuvabitch who shot and killed John Lennon...John was one of the Beatles...a band from Liverpool England that...oh forget it, if you don't know who the Beatles are I can't help you).

This is why I will never encourage or endorse violence to be perpetrated against anyone, aside from the fact that I firmly believe that Gandhi was right about nonviolence being the greatest weapon against human oppression. You just never know what sicko is gonna take what you say and twist it. Of course, this is a country that produced a man whose dog told him to kill people, so anything is possible.

Now let's move on to the Duke Lacrosse affair. This thing ended up exactly the way I predicted it would last year. The charges were dropped due to the lack of credibility of the witness, as well as an overwhelming lack of evidence. This does not mean that the Duke Men's Lacrosse team is made up of a bunch of saints. It's probable that members of the team over the years have been guilty of date rape, along with plenty of fraternity brothers, and members of college sports teams, and for that matter, college men in general. But in this case there is no forensic evidence to indicate that this happened.

As I predicted, Mike Nifong is in big big trouble. Quite frankly he should be disbarred, and probably will be. But he is not simply guilty of pushing this nowhere case, running roughshod over legal procedure, etc. He is also guilty of pandering to the black community of Durham that didn't want to see these privileged white boys get away with a crime that, in the end, they did not commit, so that he could better his chances of being elected District Attorney. Now I've lived in Durham for quite a while and I know that a white man does not get the support of the black community in Durham without the endorsement of the Committee for the Affairs of Black people. I wonder if there was a meeting between Mr. Nifong and Committee members. I couldn't say, but I would imagine that an intrepid journalist could find out. Any takers? Oh, and where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton now? I do believe they were shooting their mouths off about this case last year. Wonder what they have to say now...I don't suspect we'll be seeing any press conferences from either of them on the subject any time soon.

Gosh Shtuey...are you a closet bigot?

No, I'm not in the closet. I'm bigoted against racists, people who use race to advance their agendas even when contrary to the facts, liars, cheats, scumbags, slave owners, greedy bastards who break the human will so they can buy another house...and guess what? I don't care what color, religion, race, creed, or species they are. "Ain't no time to hate."

The moral of the story is...don't compromise your ethics (if you have any) simply to get elected. Unless you're George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney (if you have the money to buy the protection), you'll never get away with it. And don't pander. You'll gain more respect standing up for what's right than what a potential constituency wants. Just ask John McCain. He spent so much time kissing W's ass that whenever he opens his mouth the only thing people hear is the sound of farting. Maverick my ass. Those days are long gone. It's gotten so bad that he's had to fire campaign staffers. Not good John, not good.

In our next episode: Barack Obama, the wooden boy who wanted to be real, and Hillary Clinton, the power hungry automaton who will say anything and do anything to be President, and my pick for President of the United States in January 2009.

So Long and Fare Thee Well

Sad to hear that Kurt Vonnegut has moved on to the other side. Once, maybe twice in a generation, a voice comes along that demands nothing less than the total freedom of the human mind. Sure, there are other voices saying the same thing, but you can ignore them, pretend they're not there, but not Vonnegut. You've at least heard of Slaughterhouse 5, and if you haven't read it go buy it, or get yourself to that thing called the library and check it out.

I had the honor of attending a lecture of his at the University of Massachusetts back in the early '90s. Unlike unthinking "liberal" douches like Noam Chomsky, who demands that you accept everything he says at face value because he's Noam Chomsky, (who if you listen to carefully you'll find he's really a great big fascist asshole), Kurt demanded that we challenge and question everything, take nothing for granted, and never back down from what we know to be morally wrong.

In my mind the man was nothing less than a champion of the human spirit, who's voice will continue to call on us to stand up for what we believe in, to never accept the folly of human stupidity. Like Ken Kesey, and Mark Twain, Vonnegut saw America for what it was, made us look at it, made us smell and taste it, laugh at it, cry with it, and instill us with the notion that we have a say in making it what we all know it could be if we just got it out of the hands of the pinheads, and greedy douches.

Thanks for all you did Kurt to push us forward and wake us up.

Thank Goodness!

At last we know the name of Anna Nicole's baby's daddy...the man who undoubtedly will be responsible for her years and years of drug addiction and therapy. I think his name is something Shithead. Now would somebody please tell me why we give a shit? Really, someone please tell me. I mean, I know there isn't anything pressing going on in the world so we have time to put into this, but really. A drug addict with no acting ability is dead. Drug addicts die every day, many of them in a world of filth and pestulance that most of us cannot relate to at all. No one's covering their deaths. I suppose if they were gold diggers with big tits who couldn't string two sentences together then maybe we'd hear something (some undoubtedly are, but they weren't screwing any producers (well maybe they were, they just weren't the type that get any media exposure). Personally I'd like to thank all the major media outlets for covering this VERY important story because otherwise I'd only have to ignore George Bush's delusional rantings. CNN, I hope you sent Wolf Blitzer to cover this because quite frankly you're wasting his ineptitude getting him to cover world events with his nonsensical rantings. This is more his speed. And call me when Geraldo Rivera takes us in search of Nicole's brain (here's a clue Gerald, it's in Al Capone's vault you miserable waste of air).

Speaking of ranting...is it me, or is it about time that the world finally figured out that Don Imus is a fuck faced douche bag who doesn't know a hawk from a handsaw? This weed has been posing as someone people actually give a shit about for too long. Glad John (the butt kissing rebel without applause) McCain is still planning to do his show...we thought you were losing your cutting edge John--thanks for setting us straight).

So what's the solution Shtuey? You just keep bitching but you don't tell us what the answer is.

Fair's fair. The answer is so utterly simple, you won't believe it. Music. Music is the answer. Music has been at the center of every important cultural revolution of the 20th century. Think about it. The Blues spread throughout America with the Black exodus of the South. Jazz soared into the mainstream during prohibition and the labor movements of the early 20th century. The Beatles coming to America in 1964; the San Francisco sound that fueled the psychedellic revolution (arguably the single greatest socio/cultural revolution of the past 100 years). Music people. Go out and make it, listen to it, go see it live. It doesn't even have to be rock. Go to a performance of your local orchestra, choir, or philharmonic. I guarantee you will walk away feeling better, inspired, less weary. Really, you will. I'm not kidding. That's how we're gonna bring peace to Israel, and get the Palestinians to reject the culture of violence. Stop depending on the crooked politicians and let the musicians sort it out. Arab and Israeli musicians record and perform together all the time, and no one gets blown up. There are even groups made up of Palestinians and Israelis, and guess what? No fatalities. Put the musicians in charge and there will be peace, and rock.

People are Like Cake

There are all kinds. Some are store bought, dry, yellow, disgusting blobs of artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, and just don't taste very good. But some store bought cakes are moist, fresh, and delicious; but still, not necessarily the tastiest. Then there are homemade cakes. Some mean well, but just don't quite have what it takes. Maybe they were left in the oven too long, or weren't baked with enough love, or a rubber bladder fell in the batter and inflated in the oven making that weee waaah sound like in that episode of the Little Rascals. But some cakes...some cakes are a chocolate delight, with real whipped cream icing blended with chocolate chips and nuts, and smeared in between the layers of chocolatey goodness. The kind of cake that stirs up pleasant memories of childhood (the ones in between being accosted with wire hangers and polyester leisure suits, and brussel sprouts). The kind of cake that makes you remember your first French kiss, when you hesitated after and decided that a cootie shot was unecessary.

But even the nasty store bought cake has someone who wants it, who finds it to be the French kissinist cake ever. And there are some who think that the cake that makes me go ga-ga tastes like a dog's butt. My mom always says, "That's why they make chocolate and vanilla."

Dick Cheney likes cake. It's probably made with asbestos, dioxin, crude oil, and $1000 bills, with buckshot mixed in sludge icing. But he likes cake, and that should count for something. You let me know what that is when you find out.

What's that smell on Google's breath?

Is it sourkraut? Is it garlic? Is it pantyhose? No, it's Chinese governmental butt smell! For those of you who haven't heard Google sold the Chinese people up the river to make a buck off the regime by censoring the searches that the people can make. No references to Tibet and Tiennamon Square for the questing populace. Oh, and apparently there are no gays, and no alcohol (along with whatever else Google agrees to censor). Of course the sycophantic money grubbers at Google justify themselves by saying that at least they can get some information, and that's better than none. I'm sure the people of China really appreciate your complicity in the continued stifleing of their desire for transparency and freedom. Go blow you a-holes.

So much for taking a stand for what you believe. You butt licks could have stood up to the Chinese government and told them to go to hell. You could have taken a stand on their policy toward Tibet in the face of the coming Olympic games in Beijing. You could have made some other kind of noise instead of cha-ching! GO TO HELL Google.

So maybe I should destroy this blog seeing how it's now under the uber-google purvue. It's not like I'm paying for it. And besides, I like being right here stickin' it in Google's eye.

So no folks, Google's no better than Rupert Murdock or any of the other thoughtless money grubbing douches that censor what you read, see, and hear. Thanks for being duplicitous scumbags you phonies...we didn't have enough of that already. Click on this entry's title to read CNet's article on how the butt farts at Google are screwing the Chinese people. And find out more from Human Rights Watch.

Stop! Humor time. What's brown and sounds like a bell? Duuuuuuuuuung.

Who Perpetuates the Lie?

It's all about perception. One douche's truth and is another human's lie. On Halloween night in 1991 Ken Kesey declared, "In any given situation there are always going to be more smart people than dumb people." That's a safe assumption to make. Look around, he's right. Never assume that the people around you, even ones with whom you feel you share the same point of view, are actually informed, thinking people. Most are content to be spoon fed their warm bath of information from the evening news...if they watch the news at all. Who reads between the lines? That's how we end up with conservative jackasses going on NPR in December of 2004 saying things like, "If I knew then what I know now I wouldn't have voted for Bush." Hey dumbasses...where were you the previous 4 years?

A two term Bush presidency (my valve just closed) is not as scary to me as living amongst a population of people who decided he was doing such a great job the first time around that they'd give him another shot. Sorry to those of you who voted for him but, you are all a bunch of stupid idiots.

But you can't lay the blame entirely on the masses of dupes. Let's give the White House Press Corps their due. These sanctimonious wind bags let Bush ride four years for free. Most of these butt wipes work for news agencies that are owned by corporate conglomerates, and Arab cartels that have Bush's saliva on their posteriors, and visa versa. These reporters have a vested interest in throwing Bush cream puff pitches. They're too scared of losing their jobs. It's the rest of us who suffer for their lack of journalistic integrity. Even Bob Woodward sold his credibility for access. Hey Bob, is that Kool-aid on your breath you hypocrite? Of course now it's popular to bash Bush, and Bob will be right there with new book in tow. Ass.

If you want a smarter populace you should educate yourself, and share what you've found.

Tonight begins the observance of the Jewish holiday of Passover, marking the liberation of the Israelites from servitude in Egypt. Some might say that they left Egypt only to become subservient to the cult of priests. I'd have to agree. I don't let intermediaries get in my way of communing with the universe. For me, this is a time to celebrate the time when we'll all be free. Really free, not living the illusion of freedom. It starts with the human mind, and the next step is freedom of expression.

Next time...is the internet really letting the world speak its mind? Guess what my answer will be?

What Are Ya Gonna Do?

So let's get down to brass tacks shall we? Issue one: Who are you going to trust?

Let's face it folks, in today's world you can't even trust what you see on TV. Thanks to computer technology photos, and video can be doctored to convey to you whatever bias a journalist wishes to convey. Spin however they want to spin (if you'd like to see how it's done check out Honest Reporting).
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I don't think I need to spend one minute discussing that you can't EVER trust a politician--not until you see the proof in the pudding. For those of you dyed in the wool party believers--pull your heads out of your asses. Your party doesn't give a crap whether you live or die; except that if you die you can't vote...but they won't send flowers either).

Can I trust my teachers/professors?

That's the subject of another entry. Stay tuned.

But Shtuey, if I can't trust my leaders, or journalists, who can I trust?

Excellent question.

Watch the Watchers. On the right are links to various human rights organizations (and some to make you laugh and smile...if freedom isn't fun then what's the frickin' point?) These groups are non-political. Their power is vested in your action, not the buckages of corporations for whom they do their bidding (like every douche you elect to office).

What's the good news?

The good news is that you're not alone. There are literally millions of people all over the world who think the way you do, who think that, despite all the beauty here, the world is a miserable fucked up place for millions upon millions of people. And even the most simple of efforts can make a difference.

Go to Save Darfur and learn how to nudge the President. Call the White House every day and tell that s.o.b. in the Oval Office to get off his spotty behind and do something.

Go to WITNESS and view videos, learn what's going on in the world, and tell the stories to your friends. Suffering is allowed to happen when no one is watching. Freedom happens when the eyes of the world can see.

Go to Amnesty International and enlist in a campaign. Sign petitions, write letters, find out how you can get involved.

Learn how you can help raise awareness regarding the crisis in Tibet. The Chinese government has illegally occupied Tibet since 1949. As the Beijing Olympics in 2008 draw near, pressure must be applied to the Chinese government who will undoubtedly whitewash its destructive Tibetan policies. You want change, do what you can to restore Tibet, to help his Holiness, the Dalai Lama return home.

But what is the real key? You must learn to train yourself to drop your politics. There are no sides when it comes to abuses of human rights. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a frickin' duck. So Guantanamo is bullshit, Abu Graib is bullshit, Hamas is bullshit, the Palestinian Authority is bullshit, the Israeli government is bullshit...do I need to go on? Whatever your political or ethnic bias is you better learn to let it go. If you don't guess what? You're a hypocrite.