While the name of this blog may bring of thoughts of something racy, I am not talking about what is going on in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan or Central and South America. I am speaking more in terms of visual pollution in the forms of endless websites, unyielding amounts of bumper stickers, and hours of wasted media coverage. Wasted on whom you ask? Local, homegrown, good ol’ American terrorists.

The first of these are those people who want you to realize, “Meat is no treat for those you eat.” Yes, it is the crazed vegetarians, who would rather you become sickly and dwindle to nothing rather than harm animals. Therein lies the problem. They put the well being of the animals they protect above their own. Kind of ridiculous in concept design alone, but they also have to spread their propaganda all over the Internet with websites like Peta and Peta2, not to mention all over Myspace pages and in e-mail.

The other major organization that we can collectively not care for is AIM, or the American Indian Movement, who keep a list of “U.S. Political Prisoners,” which is primarily a list of American Indians who have been incarcerated by the U.S. government for various reasons. The most illustrious of these, Leonard Peltier, is currently serving two consecutive life sentences for killing two FBI Special Agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They are also major supporters of the “Sure you can trust the government, just ask any Indian” mentality, bringing forth their message of individual sovereignty for tribal groups in protests, writings, poetry and art.

That alone is not a major problem, but the way these groups spread their message like a disease (or the Baptist church) is the issue. The way they distribute propaganda, you will hear them out or go to hell: do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars. Well, of the latter that is for sure, since it will go directly into their never ending, yet always almost empty coffers. Besides, someone has to start a large bumper sticker campaign. This is most popular amongst teenagers and adults who haven’t grown out of their activist past, which should have been left in the past (also see: the 60’s), and we would all say thank you.So, grow out of years gone by, as we have new ways of changing things other than just bitching now. You can always run for political office (see: Ben Campbell) and use the tools change things set forth by our founding fathers.

I recently cleaned out some of my old hard drives and found something I wrote a while ago but never shared.  A little something to think about when things get you down, moonbats drive you nuts, or you are fed up with everything.  

A Simple Analysis of 20th Century Thought:

• Capitalism, he who dies owns the most toys wins.
• Hari Krishna, he who plays with the most toys wins.
• Catholicism, he who denies himself the most toys and little boys wins.
• Anglican, the boys were our toys first.
• Atheism, there is no toy or boy maker.
• Polytheism, there are many toy or boy makers.
• Evolutionism, the toys made themselves.
• Church of Christian Scientist, we are the toys.
• Communism, everyone gets the same number of toys and you are in big trouble if we catch you selling your toys or playing with them.
• B’hai, all your toys and are fine by us.
• Amish, toys with batteries are surely a sin.
• Protesting Moonbatism, war toys are evil.
• Good Ole Lefty, toys that are violent are to be rounded up and put into camps in order to become nonviolent toys.
• Taoism, the stuffed rabbit is as important as the dump truck.
• Mormonism, every boy can have as many toys as he wants.
• Voodoo, let me borrow that doll for a while.
• Hinduism, he who plays with plastic farm animals loses.
• Seventh Day Adventist, he who plays with toys on Saturday loses.
• Southern Baptist, if your toy is Disney product, you have a one-way ticket to hell.
• Jehovah’s Witness, he who sells the most toys door to door wins.
• Pentecostalism, he whose toys can speak wins.
• Existentialism, toys are a figment of your imagination.
• Confucianism, once a toy is dipped in the water, it is no longer dry.
• Non-Denominationalism, we don’t care where the toys come from lets just play with them.
• Agnosticism, it is not possible to know whether the toys make a bit of difference.
• Unitarian Universalism, we still have not decided if the toys exist, much less how, where, or who made them.

Isn’t that nice?

     Some days I think: Estrogen makes people crazy.  Some go insane for having it, and others go insane for putting up with the ones who have it.   

     There’s some proof to it, too.  Just look at space shuttle astronaut Lisa “Robochick” Nowak.  She was charged with attempted murder and accused of plotting to kidnap Colleen Shipman, who she believed was messing with “her boyfriend,” space shuttle pilot William “Billy-O” Oefelein.

     Estrogen, all the way.

     The last few months, I’ve had a lot of great experiences with women.  Paramount of these has been talking to ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, and just kind of making sure the air’s totally clear.  One hundred percent closure, making sure we’ve said all that we ever needed to say to one another, and generally cutting through the years of crap and getting back to the business of being friends again.
     I’ve hung out with the usual suspects, as well, and generally had a great time.  Pirate Chicks rule, because we get together, laugh at everything, and pretty no subject is sacred.  No drama, so for the most part, they don’t really fit inside the Estrogen-Crazy bubble.  Yay!

     So here’s the weird stuff from the last week:

• A young girl decided to create overly dramatic situations involving violence towards other people, just to see how I’d react.  Me, being old, realized it for what it was.  I died laughing as I walked away.
• A bartender/server decided to sit down uninvited, start flipping her drink on me, calling me names, and when I decided I’d had enough (I was mean back — heh), she decided to say I’d poured a drink on her (never happened!) and send out a couple of guys to attempt to cause me physical harm.  Laughed all the way to the car.
• A pretty hot one my age decided to get all weird, complaining that she’s boring, not very smart and too old.  “Oh, and I’m fat.  I need to lose weight.”  At that point, I couldn’t help but laughing at her 115 pound, skinny butt, and of course, she got more than a little pissed off.  She told me to copulate myself, or words to that effect.

     Ones like that are pretty easy to just walk away from.  Drama, drama, and more drama.  Life’s too short.

     Sometimes, tho, it’s people you care about.  Friends you’ve known for years, people you talk to on a regular basis.  You let your guard down with them.
     Last Saturday was a case in point why I shouldn’t.

     I liked hanging out with “Elle” for a couple of weeks, getting to know her.  She was good fun, enjoyed movies and we could pretty much talk about anything.
     Eventually, though, the conversation became nothing but self deprecation on her part, having an extremely poor opinion of herself.
     Me being a guy, and wanting to fix things rather than listening to constant complaining, I reminded her about what she’s accomplished in her life, the fact that she’s a beautiful woman, and that she needs to just relax and take things as they come.
     Of course, she felt that this proved her point that I’m “smarter” than her, and that she’s “an idiot,” and I’m “a jerk” for making her feel so stupid.
     Finally, I just told her:

If you wanna get along, we’ll get along. If something isn’t working, I’ll try and fix it. But don’t you dare come over here and kick me in the balls for caring enough to try and make you feel good about yourself.

     Sad, really.  I liked her, and she didn’t.  You can’t do anything with that.
     Haven’t heard from her since.

     Later that day, I was talking to a friend about it, and I’ve known her for about twelve years.  I was decidedly a little down about the whole Elle situation, which, according to the people I’m around most, just isn’t like me.
     “You don’t know how to date.  You never have.  You’re too sexual,” she says.
     When I consider that she’s been a friend for twelve years, and I’ve never been sexual with her, and she’s seen me go in and out of some pretty intense relationships, I couldn’t help but wonder what man pissed her off that day.
     “Hmm, okay,” I said.  “I guess ya never knew me.”
     I had to walk away and ponder that one.

     Next, I hit a few more of the same.  Grave “observations” about myself and my personality which were clearly aimed at someone else entirely.

     And then, finally, I was talking to “Kay” online.  We talk occasionally, haven’t ever dated or even talked about it.  But she came out with a winner.
     “You hate sex.”
     A minor argument ensued, and I said, “Ok, well, on that note, I’m gonna call it an early night.  I’ve had enough of that kinda thing today.”
     A little dishonest of me, perhaps, but I just wanted away from that silliness: I hung out with a couple of friends for rest of the night.  We discussed.  We laughed.  We always do.  😉

     The aftermath of the Kay-thing got funnier tonight, tho.  It has changed and twisted so many times over the last few hours that it’s hard to figure out, from moment to moment, what, specifically, she was angry about.
     It all started earlier tonight when she asked if I was “still in a grumpy mood” (which I wasn’t actually in one to begin with), and I responded laughing:

I was in a fine mood [Saturday night]. Just had four of “you people” (you ones with Estrogen) giving me shit that day, and I had more than I wanted or needed of those judgemental statements with no basis in reality. 😉

     Well, apparently that was enough to set her off, even with the smiley, the subsequent laughter, and outright assuring her there was no mean-spirited intent to any of it.
     Estrogen Logic (the oxymoron) dictated that I was the one who was being grumpy the other night, since I didn’t feel like putting up with insults.
     It apparently also dictated a few other twisted things that made no sense, but I’ll digress them to her since I don’t understand them.
     I mean, I am male and all… *rolls eyes*  😉

     But all grumpiness aside, when she finally realized that I wasn’t really bothered (I didn’t care), it was the “judgemental statements with no basis in reality” wisecrack that really got to her.
     But, hey, she let me know that I live in a screwed up reality, where I’m an unhappy whiner who never has any fun.
     I’ll bet I would be, since I also “hate sex.”  😉

     WHO KNEW?!?!

     So I have to ask … I’m dying laughing the entire time I’m writing this, because, to me, it’s funny.
     Should I go over to these peoples’ houses and search their basements for Pods…?

     Nah … they’re tough girls.  They’ll probably get over it.

     Then I’ll laugh at them some more.  😉

     As I’ve mentioned before, I generally hang out with women.  I’m comfortable around them.  I enjoy their company and companionship.  But dating is tough.  When you go from “friends” to “more than friends,” there are substantial changes in what’s allowed and what isn’t, what they’re worrying about and the way they treat you.

     Last month, I put up a personal ad on a dating site just to see what would come of it.  My profile was natural, just a quick ramble about myself, what I didn’t want, what I was looking for and where I wanted to end up.
     I was also quite clear that I didn’t want to date women with children, because there are simply too many points of possible conflict such as distraction which take away from being able to get to know one another, conflicts with schedules, meeting ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends, families who don’t take kindly to anyone else other than the father-of-a-child being with their daughter, discipline issues, etc. etc. etc.  I simply don’t want the stress of that.
     I was also quite clear that I wasn’t looking for mind games, and wasn’t putting up the ad simply to find a boink-of-the-night.
     Unfortunately, all of these things were ignored.

     Out of fifteen people who I went out with over the course of a month (yes, my profile was popular)…

• Nine went out specifically to complain about the fact that I didn’t want children.  Insults ranged from my being selfish, having a worthless life, being a sexist, to nothing but pure profanity.
• Two went out specifically for sex.  One became extremely angry and stormed out mid-date because I wasn’t interested in helping her get back at her cheating husband.  The other got so entirely falling-down drunk that she couldn’t keep her clothes on, and then decided to profanely take a knock at my sexuality because I didn’t find her particularly attractive at that point.
• One went out, talked about what a great time she had and how much she was looking forward to our next date, but stood me up and then systematically and callously went out of her way to ignore me without bothering to even tell me what was going on.

     The remaining three were sweet, they were fun.  There was no real chemistry between us, but they’ve become friends nonetheless.  But a twenty-five percent rate of having an amicable time together is bad odds.  It is absolutely astounding that seventy-fire percent of the women I went out with from that site were such total … err, umm … well, you know.

     It’s truly refreshing to see Joan over at Seven Inches of Sense make a similar argument.  It’s good to know that just when I’m feeling despondent, someone of the opposite sex can pipe up and make an argument about very thing that’s I have known is true, and has been bugging the crap out of me.

Somehow, over the past fifteen or so years, the attitude of women has changed drastically. They have gone from striving to prove their worth, to asserting it without ever having proven anything. And the problem is, somebody is allowing them to do it. Men have become so scared of being called ‘sexist’ that they are enabling these bitchy little divas to walk all over them. It’s time for that to stop, boys. There are other options.

Seriously, if I see another video, movie, or book about what scum men are and how the scorned woman can destroy them, I think I might just pluck my eyeballs from their sockets. Do you know how much shit a man would get for putting this kind of hatred out into the world against women? Need I remind you of the fallout over the Eminem song, Guilty Conscience, where a man is urged to kill his cheating wife? It got ugly. Yet when the Dixie Chicks sang a song about killing an abusive spouse, people dedicate websites to explaining step-by-step how to get away with murder. Seems a bit lopsided doesn’t it?

[…]

I’ve been hurt by men in some truly horrific ways. But at the end of the day, how I handle it is the only thing within my control. And that is the only part of the ordeal that says anything about my character. Everything else is on them. If I go off the deep end and ruin someone’s life because they hurt me, that becomes definitive of who I am as a person, and as a woman. Do I want to be a cruel, jaded bitch? Not especially. There are people who think this makes me a pushover. Personally, I think it makes me an adult…not a whiney little child.

I don’t make demands of my mates (except in bed). I make requests. How they react to my requests, lets me know what kind of person they are and if the relationship is going to work out. But everywhere I look, I see women beating men down into submission with the entitled diva attitude. It makes me very sad for those men. I guess they don’t know it doesn’t have to be like that. Even though that attitude does seem to dominate popular culture, it isn’t indicative of all women. Just keep looking and you’re bound to run up on a good one at some point. But when you do, you better hold on to her for dear life because she might not come around a second time.

     Bravo, Joan!  You’ve singlehandedly restored my faith that there might actually be some normal, rational women out there past my group of friends!
     I was actually starting to wonder…

     If you see this face in a personal ad, do what she did — run away!

     In case you were dead between April 26th and May 13th of 2005, I’ll recap.

     Duluth, Georgia resident, Jennifer “Deer in Headlights” Wilbanks (pictured above), was about to get married to her fiance, John Mason, in a lavish wedding of nearly seven hundred guests and attendants.
     However, shortly before she was to make the final leap to becoming Jennifer “Dear in Headlights” Mason, she decided to put on some sweats and go for a jog. By the way, do you know that some people are having a problem with excessive sweat? Good thing, there’s an Ultrasound therapy for it.   When she didn’t come back, everyone was worried.
     It made headlines immediately, the picture above being plastered all over every Newspaper, television channel and telephone pole in the continental United States.  Some Media asshats even went so far as to attempt to turn John Mason into another Scott Peterson — viciously accusing him of foul play in the disappearance.  
     The exhaustive search by authorities, family, friends and concerned citizens turned up nothing.  But four days later on April 30th, Jennifer called from a pay phone at a 7-11 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  She claimed to have been abducted against her will by a man and woman in a van, and that she had been sexually assaulted by the couple.
     Of course, none of that was true, as it turned out.  She’d simply run away, citing that she “needed some time alone.”  She also expressed amazement, saying she didn’t think anyone would be looking for her.

     As a fitting retort, Fox News had a nice little tidbit…

Ryan Kelly, owner of the Park Cafe, an eatery a few blocks from Wilbanks’ house that gave out coffee and sandwiches to searchers, said he was glad Wilbanks was alive and healthy.

“But that being said, this is one of the most selfish and self-centered acts I’ve ever seen. We saw her parents, and you could see the anguish in their eyes. It was terrible,” he said.

“I don’t care where you are — unless you’re in the Amazon rain forest, you’d know everybody was out looking for you.”

     Aside from ruining a wedding of nearly seven hundred people, Wilbanks exhausted State and Federal resources looking for her.  She caused her fiance considerable pain and suffering not only in disappearing and his fearing the worst, but he also had to put up with a Media Hell-bent on trying to pin him as a murderer.  The poor guy also ended up looking a fool for his tearful plea for her safe return.  She exhausted the time, money and resources of citizens groups who assisted in the search.  She wasted the Media’s time, in fact, and we all know what they charge to run a commercial.

     John Mason, however, stayed with her.  Well, for another year, anyway.  They finally broke up in May 2006.

     But in an interesting twist, it was revealed publicly yesterday that Wilbanks was suing Mr. Mason for $500,000.  Regan Media, who bought the rights to the “Runaway Bride” story, gave Mason $500,000.  He bought a house with it.  And, of course, in May, he kicked her out.
     But why did he get the money from Reagan Media instead of her?  Well, while Wilbanks was undergoing therapy (for being — in addition to stupid, selfish and a witch with a capital B — clinically nutso), she made another idiotic move — she made Mason, the guy whose life she turned upside down, her Power of Attorney.
     So now she’s suing for half the money, and another “$250,000 in punitive damages.”  She was even brazen enough to call Mason “overly litigous.”  And still complaining that he hasn’t returned a few wedding gifts — which she apparently used.

     Maybe I’m just mean … but at least $250,000 of that seems entirely frivolous.  As for the other half, there’s a bit of an argument for, too.
     Quite honestly, a ruined wedding of nearly seven hundred people isn’t cheap.  Neither is getting your story front page all over the country.  Nor stopping your entire life.  Nor hiring private investigators.  Nor him paying for her “medical care” over the last year.  Nor…
     And in the long run, surely there’s a cost for him … I mean, the mental anguish of it, being accused of murder, made to look like a fool, putting up with her dumb ass for the next year…
     Get the idea?

     “Overly litigous,” indeed …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD5ikU6-mDA