What is "hate speech"?

Is it ANYTHING that's disparaging, or flippant and sardonic?  Anything not "sugar-coated" sanctimoniousness?

If "hate speech" signifies anything harsh, derisive, or contemptuously critical then I'm guilty myself of such.

The way I see it, if it's okay for certain others to treat me like crap then it should be okay for me to respond candidly to such and to express my sentiments to and about those individuals or factions that/who prompt my ire.


                                                              Where do I start?
The way social service agencies are constantly changing their rules and policies "every five minutes" on how they provide services for food stamp entitlements, MEDICAID services, HUD public housing facilities?

Or businesses and government agencies who, these days, seem to be constantly moving their facilities from one location to another every other year?  How is it these people don't seem to have enough wealth and stability to establish any kind of permanent base and keep their roots firmly laid down?
They give in to the highest bidder who wants the land or property to build a casino, shopping center, or high-end nightclub on (in the name of gentrification).  You know, the very things that enhance our cultural climate and contribute to civility in general.  Casinos and nightclubs=loud drunks, DUIs, more noise and air pollution.  And more employment opportunities for those who work at rehab and addiction centers.

How about defective consumer products?  Or lousy consumer services?

How about the way any subversive with a laptop has the "right" to cyberembezzle anyone's bank account, checking account, or credit card account because banks and businesses are too cheap to invest in any kind of credible and effective security measures?

Responsibility is...

You're eating out in a dine-in/sit-down restaurant and the party in the booth behind you decide to do a "dine-and-dash" and haul ass out the entrance.

When you go to pay your ticket you're informed that you also owe the tab of the delinquent guests, a gulit-by-association due to your close proximity to them. And, if you refuse to also cover their tab you're threatened with arrest and prosecution for "theft".





                                                                 Adages For Today
               
            Most of what you learn in life you learn too late for any of your knowledge to do you any good.

                                Those who lay booby traps never put up warning signs.

                           Two ways to learn the laws of your land. Attend Law School. Or get busted a lot.

             When it comes to urban noisemakers there are two types:

                                                                         The  Nightlifers

These people either have a plethora of great wealth or one hell of a great credit rating because they seem to have an endless supply of funds for purchasing of all manners of alcoholic beverages and also always seem to have gas money to keep their vehicles running up and down the streets nonstop at all hours of the night.
As one can guess these folks don't exactly "tip-toe and whisper" their way around town while engaging in their ultrahedonistic activities.  They figure since they don't finally get to sleep until 4:00 A.M. no-one else should be allowed to do so either.


                                                                          The Earlybirders

These idiots are the morning commuters, the city refuse workers, construction crews demolishing the building next door to wherever you live, delivery services who "have to" come around at 7:00 A.M. to drop off packages and who honk their horns repeatedly until someone finally comes out to greet them, service providers (plumbing, exterminators, maintenance crews, inspectors), road repair crews who "have to" get started at 6:00 A.M. to continue their resurfacing job on the street and sidewalks of the block you live on, who think "just because they get up at 5:00 or 6:00 A.M. everyone else should too".

And I'm the "urban dweller", the one-in-the-middle, who has to suffer being beset and vexed by these eternal morons. 

I wonder: How do these idiots all manage to find sleep themselves? You would think each one's lifestyle patterns, being so antithetical, would interfere with the other one's, but somehow I seem to be the only one affected by all this.

Maybe these people live in their own isolated soundproof enclaves out in the woods somewhere and only come into the city to either party or to work.

There are theories abound expressing the notion of some kind of "natural selection" process transpiring in the way people choose their mates and lovers.

It's no trade secret that women are only attracted to men who exhibit domineering traits: aggressive, excessively self-assured, smug, arrogant. Even-tempered or milquetoast types they consider undesirable. As are those perceived to be "child-like".
Women want either a surrogate father or a swashbuckler ("bad boy" type).

Men want "trophy" cunts.  They go for the good looks and "sexy" clothes.  If they score a good-looking chick it's like scoring brownie points.  They want to feel like a "real man", and scoring fat chicks or "plain Janes" just won't do.
Everything is visual for the human male.

Now, there are those who contend that this phenomenon is a subconscious preprogrammed instinct put in place by nature for the purpose of ensuring only the most desirable genes get reproduced for the sake of the survival of the species.

However, this notion does nothing to explain why, for example, so many married couples one runs into fit into some of the categories of "undesirables".
Nor does it explain why so many people exist who have profound defects: diabetes; heart disease; epilepsy; mental retardation; mental illnesses; low I.Q.s; arthritis; cancers; obesity; glaucoma; skin diseases; and so forth.

If nature's REALLY "tricking" us into passing only our "best genes" along it's not doing a very good job of it.

(Then again, I never cared much for any kind of Darwinian-minded theories.  They always seem a bit nihilistic---if not literally, then in a manner of speaking.)

                                    Musings / Adages

The "system" is a tall tree with long invasive roots capable of upending structures, foundations, and pathways and routes necessary for functionality.


General Motors should just pack it in and dissolve.
Their products are defective and dysfunctional and it's only their ongoing legacy and imagery that keeps the company going.
They should just demolish the headquarters building and erect a plaque or monument paying tribute to the company as "a great American legacy which is no more".
They violated the trust factor a few times too many.  No private individual would ever begin to pull off being that incompetent and corrupt without being disgraced and blackballed.


I hate this modern-day practice of having contractors and contract workers performing jobs formerly held by professionals, specialists, union workers, and wage earners.  You know: people who actually did those things for a living and were formally trained in their respective fields, occupations and professions.
Nowadays it's all about "meeting quotas".  And, as a result, society has become totally substandard in all areas.


There's something to be said about a society where full-grown adults need to be reminded to "not text while driving". 
 (Note: Woodbridge Township in the state of New Jersey outlawed the use of headphones while driving, jogging, or riding bicycles back in 1982. The main culprit at the time? The SONY Walkman portable cassette player. Distracted driving, "old-school" style.)



A computer program will only be as accurate or intelligent as it's programmers.


 
 

What Year Is It Again?

I say twenty-fourteen.  But a lot of people are saying two-thousand and fourteen.

What's with this "two-thousand" crap?  We didn't pronounce the last few centuries in that manner, did we?  For example, the "summer of love" was nineteen-sixty-seven, not one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-sixty-seven.  President Lincoln was assassinated in eighteen-sixty-five, not one-thousand-eight-hundred-and sixty-five.

And in the United States' Bicentennial year, 1976 (nineteen-seventy-six, not one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-seventy-six) the Broadway play "1776" was a big hit, celebrating the Revolutionary war and this country's forefathers.  Pronounced "seventeen-seventy-six" not "one-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-six".  That drawn-out pronunciation would not make for a very catchy title.

I've always said "twenty-hundred" right from the start: twenty-o-seven (2007); twenty-ten (2010); twenty-o-eight (2008); twenty-o-five (2005).
Like that.

I'll NEVER EVER say "two thousand and..."

One thing I don't understand about the methods of road (and sidewalk) repair being carried out by the city:

Why do they tear up large areas of the neighborhood all at one time, then take all of forever to redo it?

Wouldn't it make more sense to just do a small segment at a time and complete that portion of the job before moving on to the next segment? The repair work  itself wouldn't take any longer and there would be far less disruption of the normal business and pedestrian activities.

I think blogging should be given more serious consideration than it normally is.

It has the potential to be a serious medium of insightful commentary and analysis, one that questions assumptions and contentions most people take for granted.

The focus these days seems to be on the "social media" aspects.
I think there should be less focus on "social" and more on content, substance and individual free thought.








                                                                    Adage For Today
                                                 Either self-repress or suffer being others-oppressed.

Paul McCartney Turns 72

Notice I didn't say "Sir Paul". That's arbitrary of course. Having grown up in the 60s The Beatles were integral to my childhood and adolescent years, hence to me he's always been "Paul McCartney".
Knighted or not he's still Paul McCartney. Or James Paul McCartney.

So much time has gone by. McCartney is now elderly. This is the kind of thing we would joke about (during the late 60s): "What do you think the Beatles will look like when they get old? Can you imagine them being all wrinkled like grandma and grandpa?"
Everyone stereotypes the elderly you know.

Granted, his greatest achievements were when he was still in his 20s and 30s. However they were still of HIS doing, they were still the results of HIS efforts and were HIS ideas and concepts. We're still talking about the same individual, right? Hence, the credits still belong to HIM no matter how much longer he sticks around, even if 20 years from now he's suffering so much from dementia he can't even remember his own name half the time.

What's up with this obsession with guns and weapons?
All these guys collecting piles of bizarre military and assault weapons and storing them in and around their own private residence.
Some of these guys don't even own their own homes either. They're apartment dwellers. Just where does one store "enough armaments to potentially supply half the Israeli army if need be" in an apartment unit? Are the bedrooms simply stockrooms for their ill-gotten black-market treasures? Do they sleep on the floor by their front door, with clothes and toiletries stacked up on end tables and their couch?

What gets me is how much these weapons and ammunition are worth. When one reads the news accounts of the latest "shooting incident" it's often revealed the "shooter" possesses somewhere in the vicinity of $30,000 worth of guns and ammo.
Speaking for myself, if I had that kind of money to burn I could easily come up with far better uses for it. Get a passport and travel abroad. Take in different cultures. Or travel around the U.S.. Spend a day at Bryce Canyon or someplace else just as scenic. Explore the different subcultures within one's own country. Spend time somewhere reclusive and revive one's spiritual and emotional equilibrium. Try to LOSE the collective insanity instead of ADDING your own to the sludgepile.

Naturally I don't expect these brain-addled types to harbor such wisdom and perspectives.

The worst aspect of "shooting spree" types is they're a lot like suicide bombers and World War II era kamikaze pilots in that it's impossible to halt their plans even by making any kind of extortive threats toward them.

Most people have tunnel vision. Not only lacking peripheral vision physically, but also mentally as well.
Someone with a fear of flying, expecting an old friend visiting from out of town, is looking all over the train station for their friend while their friend is stuck at the airport wondering "Where is he?".


The apartment building I reside in has an exterminator who stops by once a month to eradicate unwanted 6-legged and 8-legged "guests" from each unit.
Problem is, I never know when he's going to come around, which can be Monday through Friday between 8 A.M. and 4 P.M.. On a number of occasions he's come in when I was still in bed or was in the bathroom. Lately he seems to have copped an attitude, like he's pissed off at being made to feel like an intruder or whatever.
I don't know why neither his company or the management of my apartment building ever sends me an advance notice of when he's due. Then I could prepare and make the necessary amendments for said day (i.e.: get up earlier, etc.).
Methinks someone could afford to "up the ante" on their methods of communication.





                                     Another site to check out: www.ihatebicyclists.wordpress.com
                                                                           ...and still another one: www.thiscrazytrain.com

I-I-I'm Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack!

Holy Poltergeist! So much for my alleged "hiatus". Just as well. As the adage goes: I don't promise ANYTHING!

I've discussed the issue of "Invent-A-Laws" before. Those are the type of laws that have nothing to do with ethics or public safety, such as laws against theft or murder. They're concocted solely for the purpose of favoritism toward select factions or to supplement social or provincial standards or prejudices ("Jim Crow" laws are a perfect example), or just for the purpose of some kind of social control.

Those restaurants and bars with the signs on the bathroom doors: RESTROOMS ARE FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY. If you have to go desperately and defy the signs because the only alternative would be going outside which is also unlawful, would they actually have you arrested and prosecuted?
A "Criminal Trespass" charge would imply you "have no respect for the rights, property and possessions of others".
That's one of the issues I have with Invent-A-Laws. The way they "criminalize" individuals who are actually just average middle-of-the-road good-natured types.