The Rats Are Coming
                                   ...Maybe There's A Rat Race On


The Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus Ohio is experiencing a rat population explosion lately.
No, I'm not referring to the neighborhood residents having more children.  I'm talking about the four-legged kind.  The actual rodents themselves.

Of course this neighborhood has always been noted as being among the nation's most prominent free outdoor landfills, where it's okay to just throw one's trash anywhere one pleases: sidewalks, front lawns, alleyways, parking lots.  With that in mind hordes of rats actually fit right in with the physical environment.

One would figure as hidebound as Columbus Ohio is (in spite of all the red herrings it throws up to impress outsiders otherwise: live theatre and concert venues, numerous cultural festivals, a phony "arts" subculture, free "alternative" newspaper publications expressing token "liberal" viewpoints, and even a gambling casino) there would be more stringent health and safety regulations.  But outside of Draconian laws involving improprieties or property crimes (Ohio State University students excepted) this city seems to be amazingly lax.

Responsibility is...

Someone dumps their garbage all over your front lawn
...but since it's YOUR lawn you have no choice but to clean the mess up since you're obligated by law to keep your premises clean and presentable.

But don't you ever dump your garbage on anyone else's front lawn because you then stand to be arrested for vandalism and littering. 





                                                    Adages For Today

The two greatest weaknesses of the Alpha personality type:  an obsessive need to constantly fraternize and the feeling they're never wrong.


It's a dangerous world out there.  Not just the "criminal elements" but we also have to worry about the proper authorities themselves learning about some of our iniquities and frailties and concocting presumptive contentions around them.

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs---"Mexican-American" Style Rock n'Roll?

I can't remember exactly when or where I read that.  Maybe in a magazine or on some web site.

Frankly I've always thought of those guys as being along the line of a novelty "garage" style band.  Best known for their satirical parodies of monster movie imagerisms and children's fairy tales.

These days anything ever recorded by someone Hispanic is somehow automatically considered representative of the "Mexican-American culture", no matter how irrelevant the actual content of their music is to such or how broad-based their music is.

The only image Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs ever projected was one of spoofing the modern-day stereotype of ancient Egyptians.  There isn't anything even remotely "ethnic" about their style.
It's simply "fun rock" mid-60s style.

                      Have any I.D. on you?


My state I.D. card is set to expire in 2014.
I'll have to get it updated before October of the next year, which is just as well since I've recently moved and now live at a different address than the one listed on the current I.D..  One really should have their correct address on their I.D. card.

Frankly I wish this society would implement some kind of biometric means of identifying people--i.e. fingerprints, eyeprints, DNA matching.  True, it would put a lot of people out of work: credit card companies; the licensing bureaus (minus the driving instructors); those contracted to print up everything from social security cards to bank debit cards and the like.  But to be able to get through even the most complicated transactions via simply "being scanned".  Besides, this country isn't much on prosperity any more these days anyway.  What's a few more "unemployed"?

Would this take us one step closer to "Big Brother"?
Not really.  Actually the world's societies, past and present, have always been paternalish in nature. Think: Why is it most laws and regulations involve restrictions and what one's forbidden to do while a mere fraction concern themselves with benefits and entitlements?

"The Mark of the Beast"?
There's always been that.  Even ancient Egypt had their currency exchanges wherein one had to look at whatever coin they had in their hand to make sure it was the correct denomination before spending or accepting it.
"The Beast" is simply a metaphor for the way a major society takes on a life of its own and becomes more powerful than its creators and curators.

Reputation or Credibility?

There's a website run by a group of P.R. experts claiming to undo damage done to businesses by disgruntled ex-employees and dissatisfied customers who go online and make malicious and disparaging claims against these businesses regarding services, products, attitudes and practices---resulting in potential customers avoiding said businesses and the financial ruin that follows.

The concept is to have a good P.R. staff put up sites which praise and commend various aspects of these businesses in a bold attempt to counterbrainwash impressionable internet users (who apparently believe whatever they read online).

I think maybe instead of chastising individuals who may be simply exposing unethical business practices or various forms of discrimination they've experienced from certain establishments or maybe exposing plain-out incompetences, someone should also put up another website for businesses titled SOCIAL DIPLOMACY, which would entail among its premises the importance of:  treating all customers and clients equally and fairly; the importance of not favoring certain customers over others---as in treating select regulars like kings and queens while ignoring irregulars and eccentric ones or treating them like shit; and the importance of not having inside corruption in the workplace itself: you know, allowing domineering employees to bully fellow workers and act like they're the ones who own your establishment. 
Oh, and not to mention: TRAIN YOUR DAMN WORKERS THOROUGHLY AND COMPREHENSIVELY.  Few things worse for a customer to experience than dealing with staff and management or workers who don't quite know all the ins-and-outs of whatever they're supposed to be getting paid to do.

I know it sounds radical:  the notion that business owners should actually be responsible themselves (beyond just merely tallying the cash register at closing time).

These Landlines Could Use An Enema

One thing I can't understand: Why in the world do mutes have telephone service?
I can see for texting, but why do they call landline numbers and then say nothing and hang up?
And why do they keep calling the same numbers over and over again, day after day?  Often 5 or 6 times a day?

Paranoia

You know the story of the man who thought a certain neighbor of his was guilty of stealing items off his back porch.

So he enlisted the help of a few friends and one day, when this neighbor was away, they all broke into his residence to look for those stolen items.

Upon failing to find any of those items they all figured "He probably sold them all by now" and proceeded to trash his place and damage a few personal items before leaving out the way they broke in.



                                                 Adage For Today
                         One cannot navigate around caprice and impromptu.

On Being Offensive (Revisited?)


Trying not to be "offensive" to anyone is always somewhat of a dead-end prospect of an agenda.

Most people are such alarmists.  Anything that rubs their fur the wrong way will set them off, either running away terrified or lunging toward you in full jackboot fashion.

And just about anything can potentially offend most people (especially if they see it either gives you pleasure or benefits you in some way.)  If it's not to their liking or goes against any of their personal standards they respond like you just did something really vile or hideous.

Also, when one does do or say something another considers "offensive", society is always so harsh on the "offender" as if that was the primary reason for said words or act:  like you meant to be offensive, like it was all you had in mind.

I have no way of knowing or figuring out what's going to bother or upset another person.  I don't possess any kind of telepathic aptitudes, and most people are strangers whose lives I have nothing to do with anyway.  If anything I do or say "offends" it's purely incidental and not part of some conspiracy to intimidate or undermine any specific individual or group.

I just can't see putting myself "on hold" or allowing certain persons or groups to stifle or muffle me or curtail my personal activities simply because of their own arbitrary disapproval of whatever it is I'm doing or saying at the time.

How Generous of Nature to Ensure That Such Einsteins Keep Reproducing


Dear L.M.,
      I'm curious why my girlfriend will suddenly pee on me sometimes during sex.  I'll either be going down on her or having sex or mastubating her and then all this pee comes out and everything gets wet.  She's not that freaked out by it 'cause it happens to her all the time.  She claims it's not pee.  it doesn't smell like pee either.  What is it?
                                                   Signed,
                                               Oh My Gush!


Dear OMG,
      It is not pee.  It's female ejaculation.
      The anatomy of a woman's vaginal canal is an extraordinary landscape, filled with nerves, ducts, and spongy tissue...   (etc.)

"...You are what you eat, you are what you see, what you touch, what you smell, and what you hear."


...to quote the late ex-Beatle George Harrison.


Be careful of what kind of company you keep.  Those who spend most of their time among wise ones will themselves develop wise ways.   But those who spend most of their time among the foolish and reckless will themselves develop unwise ways.

...to quote the Bible.


Many ask:  Can exposure to violent forms of entertainment, like action movies and violent video games, affect the attitudes and behaviors of individuals?

A better question:  Can living in a dysfunctional, corrupt, discordant, inefficient, and turbulent culture have any adverse effects on an individual?





                                                                        Adages For Today

          These days the students have to teach the English teacher how to read and spell.

         Responsibility is:  having to do certain things you have no interest in nor aptitude for,
            and having to care about things you're not really all that concerned about.