Sleepless in Seattle
Yeah, it’s me again. Figured this goes beyond my normal truck driving stuff so I’d post it seperate. It’s real early and I’m not tired so I’m like Tom Hanks here, 1am in Seattle and wide awake. Maybe I’ll go take a dip in Puget Sound, go swim up the Strait of Juan de Fuca and hit up the Pacific ocean. Perhaps I shall go down to Safeco field and see how many jelly beans will fit inside. Or throw quarters off the Space Needle. Hell, everyone knows the CN Tower is cooler than that gay ass space needle. Maybe I’ll take a new Boeing for a test run since they build them up here. Or go find the old Olympia Beer factory and demand they make some more. Perhaps I should do like BZ and head up to BC and come back ten minuites later just to experience life under the metric system. No, I don’t think any of those things will do. I’m just going to ramble on about random thoughts like I usually do.
A conversation with Paul that started yesterday in the truck and spilled over into today at Jack In The Box made me think and I’m going to let you reap the benefits. It all started with the book I’m reading which is a book about “Natures Fury” y’know, earthquakes, storms, Volcanoes, that sort of thing. And that led to a discussion (it wasn’t a debate since we agree) about Algore and his global warming thing. Wich in turn turned to a talk about guns, censorship, religion, and racism.
We’ll start with global warming. There is much debate about man’s (I use man because I can’t stand being pc okay?) influence (or lack therof) on nature (is this two many parenthesis?). Algore says it is our fault that the planet is warming up and we are all going to die unless we drive pussy cars and buy his dvds. Well, I’ll agree with him to a point. Yes we have an impact on nature and it’s usually for the worse. Yes we need to regulate how much we pollute. But no, we are not killing the planet off or even changing it to where the earth even notices we are here. This is my point. To quote my book: “The earth emerged from cataclysm 4.5 billion years ago and has been evolving ever since.” There are forces, from our molten core 1,800 miles down, to the sun 93 million miles away, that effect our daily lives. Nature has been raging on our planet for millions of years. The earth has been buffeted by comets and asteroids, it has been frozen and flooded and burned. There have been terrible earthquakes and volcanoes, and raging tempests since before any humans were around to notice them. There have been good times and bad. Feast and famine. Since life emerged on this planet there have been five mass extinctions, remember the dinosaurs that ruled this planet for 160 million years and then died off very suddenly 65 million years ago? There was the forming and re-forming of a super-continent some call Pangaea. There have been several ice ages the last of which 18,000 years ago, left most of the US north of the Mason-Dixon line under a sheet of white. Most scientist believe those were caused by a slight shift in the earths orbit. And of course there are the tragedies that humans were around to see. Noahs flood for instance, THE flood. Weather or not you believe that it happened or not (no solid evidence exists yet) what you can’t argue is that the very human writers of scripture knew what a flood looked like and the carnage it leaves in it’s wake.
Yes, human history is full of tragedies. How about 1470 BC when the mountain of Thera blew up? You know, the island in the Mediterranean that is now five islands known as Santorini. Not much is known about this eruption since there is little record from back then (most likely since those who witnessed it probably didn’t live to tell) but it is theorized that it wiped out the Minoans on Crete and gave birth to the myth of the lost city of Atlantis. But really you know the stories, AD 79 in Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the death of up to 30,000 Romans. Or the 1815 Mount Tambora explosion that had the force of 20 to 25 thousand megatons and threw 170 billion tons of Vocanic debris into the sky. As far as 300 miles away darkness reigns for three days. It caused the year with no summer where it snowed in Vermont in July. Or the 1883 destruction of Krakatoa (I use the old spelling cause I’m old school like that) that killed 36 thousand people, obliterrated the island, and made possibly the loudest sound ever heard in human history. The explosion was heard 3,000 miles away in Madagascar.
I could get long winded here but these names should ring a bell: The Dust Bowl, The Great White Hurricane of 1888, The Johnstown Flood in 1889, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, 1902’s erruption of Mount Pele, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, The Tri-state tornado of 1925, The New England Hurricane of 1938, The constant China Floods that kill Millions, 1952 Deadly Fog in London, 1953 North Sea Flood, 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, Florrence drowns in 1966, the 1970 Bhola Cyclone (Bangladesh), The endless Volcano in Iceland of 1973, the regular drought in Ethiopia, 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak, 1976 the Tangshan Earthquake, the Blizzard of 1978, 1980’s Mount St. Helens, 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 1991 Mount Pinatubo, 2003’s european heat wave, and of course we can’t forget the Indian ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the deadly hurrican season of 2005 with Hurrican Katrina and the others. Anyway my point is the list is endless and that’s just the ones we were here for. Everyday there are storms and floods and avalanches and droughts and earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and lightning and all that jazz. And there always have been and assumadly there always will be. But for all the loss of property and life these tragedies bring, this is the way the world works and at the end of the day, it is what makes life on this planet possible. The earth is in a constant cycle of destruction and re-birth. That’s just how it works people.
The problem is, we moved here. And now we get pissed off when it inconvieniences our lives. And we humans being who we are look for something to blame. You know, how tribes sacrifice virgins to apease the gods. Folks call it the wrath of god to cope. I’ve seen the blame placed on Ill Nino. Remember that? You don’t hear as much about that anymore. And now it’s us. We did it. Katrina? Us. Our bad. Bullshit. It wasn’t even the Halliburton Hurricane Machine. It was earth herself. She’s not mad at us, she’s just doing her thing. And of course we are just doing our thing. Being lazy and also blaming others. We always look for an easy out on these problems. Hitler blamed the jews, southern whites blamed their poverty on the blacks, the blacks blame the whites, most folks blame the government whenever they can, christians blame the devil and Heavy Metal, and now we have global warming.
I’ll tie some things together. In recent times there has been a fight to ban the “N” word from our vocabulary. There has also been a timeless fight to ban guns. Smokers and drinkers know about that too. (prohibition? or how about the new fad of smoking bans?) Well these things all have one factor in common. It’s a vain attempt by so called upright citizens to feel better. They say they want to change the world for the better but really all it is, is a pointless attempt to pat themselves on the back and feel good, while actually accomplishing nothing. Banning the “N” word (you know, nigger) will never solve the problem of racism. As we all know, if a word becomes un-acceptable we will just find alternatives. And we all still say the bad word anyway, we are just more carefull of our audience. The word isn’t bad, the meaning we give it is. We make up words and their meanings. Any word can mean any thing. So banning a word makes no sence because we will still be racist, we will just express it differently. Besides, if racism went away, what would Jesse and Al do? What would minorities have to blame their shortcomings on? Nothing. And that’s why no one wants to solve the problem of racism, and thats why our time is wasted on stupid trivial bullshit like censorship. Just look at the fight over the parental advisory sticker or all the shit the FCC does. One person gets offended and entire programs go off the air. It’s another easy out. I don’t like what you say so you should go away so I feel better. Well, you know what? If you don’t like whats on the tv or radio change the fucking channel. It’s even more ridiculous if you put it in another context. Lets say person “A” doesn’t like chocolate ice cream, they only like vanilla. So instead of ordering vanilla and ignoring chocolate, they decide they don’t even want chocolate as an option. They don’t even want to see it. So they fight to have it banned. Sounds stupid right? And thats my point. And that goes for the gun ban and smoke ban and banning drinking and so on and so on. Banning guns does nothing. People will still kill people. People will still find guns. It may make it harder but it will still happen. Killers will always be killers they will just use different means. Besides, if law abiding citizens all had conceal-carry or open carry even, I bet you crime would go down. Nothing stops crime better than fear. Goverments have been using fear for centuries. Anyway, the same logic goes for smoking, drinking and drugs. No matter how much you preach how bad the stuff is. So matter how many jel ads there are. No matter how illegal or legal it is. There will always be smokers drinkers and druggies. Banning stuff may make you feel better but it does nothing but waste time and money. Hell speeding, rape, and murder are all illegal. Those things happen everyday.
So anyway this all brings me back to Global Warming. It’s an easy out. We see these tragic things happening and want an answer and us being lazy, that is what we came up with. But it’s all a crock of shit. The fact is, we are ants on a mountain. The earth will do what it pleases and we can’t do anything about it but get out of the way. But we being we want to find a way to stop it. We see glaciers melting and polar bears (some of which are animated btw) drowning. We see the victims of hurricanes. And we want it to stop and we see our cars and factories and go “Ah ha! That’s the problem” but it is really just lazy science. The deal is, we don’t know how the world works, we like to think we do but we don’t have the technology and we haven’t been here long enough to really understand. Hell the science of Plate Techtonics wasn’t accepted until the 1970’s. How long did we think the world was flat and that the sun revolved around us? Exactly. Well global warming is this generations flat earth. It’s the equivilent of me holding up a salt shaker in a restraunt and saying “This salt shaker repells tigers.” You can’t prove me wrong since there are no tigers available to test it. The believers of global warming are basically saying that since you can’t prove me wrong, I must be right. But that is really a shallow inconvinient truth isn’t it? It’s similar to religion in the effect that I can’t prove God doesn’t exist but you can’t prove that he does. So are we both wrong? We don’t know. But global warming is more obvious to me just for the fact that the earth is constantly changing without our help and it has done so since it’s formation. So why the hell would it be logical to conclude that we are doing anything? We have a hard time dealing with change but unfortunately that is what the planet does.
Just think of where you are right now. What did it look like in the past? Has it always looked the same as it does now? Odds are, at one time or another where you are sitting was under a glacier, or under water, or it was a mountain top, or a rain forest. Perhaps 70 million years ago a dinosaur was taking a shit right where you are now. That’s my point. The world never stops changing. For some reason we have this silly notion in our heads that our world stopped evolving when we got here. That mountains exploding, the world flooding, or quaking, etc is a bad thing when in reallity it is only bad to us. To the world it’s everyday normal stuff. And without these things we wouldn’t be here.
Now like I’ve said I’m not saying we have no impact on the environment. Things like the Exxon Valdeze oil spill were our fault. The deadly fog I mentioned earlier in London was deadly because of our involvement. As well as the Johnstown Flood or the lesser known flood at Buffalo Creek and even a few in China like in 1664 the Ming Army quashed a rebellion of peasants in Kaifeng by inundating the city killing 300,000 and in 1938 nearly a million people drowned when during the second sino-japanese war, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the opening of a dike to halt the oncoming Japanese Army. The dust bowl was also partly our fault, when a drought combined with our lack of knowledge on how to properly manage soil. But none of those happened by themselves, nature helped.
And really most of these deadly disasters are only that way because we are here. Earthquakes would probably kill no one if it weren’t for the fact that we built bridges and buildings and stand in or under them. Here is a good one for you. What was the largest vocanic event of the 20th century? Mount St. Helens? Nope. Was it Mount Pinatubo? Close. It came second even though the aerosols released into the stratosphere caused the greatest ozone depletion on record (here that algore? Blame that on us!) It caused the Mississippi river to flood that year and people on the east coast wore sweaters on the beaches in mid summer. Some even think it caused yet another drought in the Sahel region of Africa. But no that one isn’t the biggest. The biggest was actually the eruption of the Novarupta volcano on the Alaska Peninsula in 1912. But since the place is so remote and scarcely populated it is almost forgotten today. So we can only imagine what terrible things have happened in the past that we weren’t here to see. And those things can and will happen again and they do. We just need to deal with it like men instead of trying to blame it on fictional demons. Don’t like the weather? Move. Can’t move? Tough.
It all boils down to our inability to cope with the unknown, we want an answer for everything and a solution to every problem. And the fact is we just don’t know everyting and we can’t fix everything. Change happens if we want it to or not and we just can’t deal with it. Glaciers melt, animals become extinct, cities flood, forests burn, we live, we die. Deal with it and move on. Life is too short to try to fret over things we have no control over. The sad thing is, algore won a nobel fucking peace prize over this shit. People act like he’s a hero or something. He’s really just looking for attention. Hell half of his movie is just footage of him staring out a window or typing away on his lappy. I mean give me a break. You want to lessen your impact on the planet? Die. It’s the easiest and cheapest way and it’s guaranteed to work.
And I’m done now (finally) thanks for reading this far if you did.
And on a side note, I watched the movie “Be Kind Rewind” tonight with Jack Black and there was a scene that bothered me. In the scene Jack’s charachter was busy making a movie and he had gone into the back to get into costume. He came back out in black-face and a derby hat with a fake mustache ready to play the part of a black man from the twenties. And as soon as he walked out into the room the whole place went dead quiet with angry stares from black people in every direction and Jack’s charachter couldn’t figure out what was the matter. And neither do I. Why is it that white people can’t do anything to make fun of black culture or even in Jack’s case, he was just playing a bit part for a movie, there was no racism on his part he was just doing what he does. But my point is, how is there this double standard where the fucking Wayans brothers can do a movie called “White Chicks” and it’s hillarious because two black guys are dressed up as white bitches and it’s wrong for a white man to dress up as a black? WTF? Hell Dave Chappelle dressed up as a white guy all the time. Carlos Mencia does stuff like that? Why can’t we? Why is it only racist when a white man does something? I’m just curious. If anyone can answer that and make sence I will give them a cookie. Besides, in the same movie Jack dressed up as an old woman, Jackie Chan, and even fucking robocop and no one had anything to say about that. But as soon as he comes out to play the part of a black man, and it wasn’t even a real bad stereotype black guy either, he was doing an honest tribute to a person he admired who happened to be a different color and somehow he’s wrong. I don’t get it. I think Paul Mooney was right in a way, I’m gonna cast a movie with Tom Hanks and call it “Last Nigger On Earth” and see how it goes. I’ll let him talk to a 40 of malt liquor named Wilson.
BoBo out.
Oh btw, I’m sure he’ll bitch if I don’t mention it but the salt shaker tiger thing was all Paul. And my source for the historical disaster stuff was Life magazine special edition “Nature’s Fury”. Both of my sources helped my post here tremendously so thanks to both of you.
What’s Wrong With Being Nice?
Was listening to the radio the other day, I believe the Ron and Fez show, and they had a debate about men being nice to women and how some women find it offensive. I guess I don’t get it. How is someone being nice offensive? It kind of pisses me off a little cause I do those kind of things you know, like hold a door open for someone or offer help if they are lifting something heavy you know, and I guess some women find it offensive because we are underhandedly saying they are weaker and they need our help. So come on. I don’t fall for that bullshit. We offer to help because it is embedded in our genetic code to do so. Women are the bearer of our children, the key to the continuation of our species. Men are designed to provide and protect, it’s natural instinct, and not concious insult. Plus most men are nice to women cause they want to get in their pants. But either way how is someone being nice offensive? I just want to know what harm it really does. The other thing is, the woman on the show was saying that we shouldn’t help women because it implies we are not equal. Fuck off. Okay, yes socially and legaly we are equal now where before we were not. We all can vote and own land and have good jobs and all that jive. But chemically and physically we are different and you can’t convince me otherwise. Men are just designed to be bigger and stronger. It’s no ones fault but nature so don’t get pissed at me. Besides most women I’ve ever heard of play both sides of the field where they say that we are equal and there is nothing a man can do that a woman can’t, but then they turn around and when something is too hard or too icky, then they bad their eyelashes and say well I’m just a girl. Shit. I’ll tell you what though, if I ever open a door for a woman and she yells at me, I’m slammin it back in her fucking face. Thats the price you pay for trying to make the world a better place I guess. Oh and to counter this particular woman who said that men only open doors for women, I for one open the door for everyone. It’s not sexist, it’s me being polite. So quit being a bitch and let people be nice to you. That is all for today.
Sorry for the length of my bitching again.
BoBo