This one's about God.

    I usually refrain from speaking about two topics, religion and politics.  Those are the two fastest ways I know to lose friends.  However, in this post, I am going to break that rule.
    Here's the deal.  When you took at something, let's say an unpainted wooden chair, you make some assumptions.  The first is that the chair is brown, because wood looks to be that color.  In truth, wood is not brown, it is every color but brown, and because it is all those colors, it absorbs those colors of light and only reflects the color it isn't.  So we don't know the color of the chair.
     The second assumption you make is that it is a chair.  Since we cannot occupy the same space as the chair, we don't know that is is really a chair.  It might be a better doorstop, or speed bump, anything else.  We grope blindly around the edges of the thing and then use it in the first (or most convenient) manner that we see fit.
     This is how man uses God.  We cannot know or see God, we can only grope blindly around the edges of the concept of God.  We do not know or understand God, we just use the idea of God to further our petty ideals, whether they be a suicide bombing, a witch burning, or a trek across some desert.
     I wish I could show everyone why this is perfectly reasonable, but religion is one of those areas where people are not open to reasonable discourse. 
     Don't misunderstand me.  I am not arguing that there is no God, or that religion is bad.  I merely think that Man (and Woman, for that matter) misuse religion in some instances.  (Maybe that 'some' should read 'many.')  I can understand (and also believe) Socrates' argument for the immortality of the soul in "The Apology."  My understanding of science, as well, has shown me that the universe is governed by order, by a set of rules.  It works like one of those old pocket watches that your grandfather might have worn.  An impossible to count number of little gears and springs and cogs all working together in perfect harmony.  This could not have happened by accident.
     Therefore, there must be a 'watchmaker.'
     But Man (and Woman, for that matter) is a petty and silly critter and twists the idea of God (as well as religion) to his own ends.  A lot of mischief has been done to this end.  Just look at the stupidity the Westboro Baptist church gets up to at every military funeral they can manage to attend.  They verbally attack the families of men and women who have died--in combat--to protect their right to free speech.  While these veterans are being interred.
     There is no excuse for this behavior, it is unconscionable.
     I honestly couldn't give two shits what your religious views are.  The only thing worse than being the dipshit that does this is being the dipshit that allows someone to think like this for you in the first place.
   

The world is now a little less shiny.

     Levon Helm, who sang and played drums with The Band, died on 19APR2012.  If you don't know who I am talking about, check out YouTube, look for 'The Band,' and you can learn.

You're on your own.

     I should call this blog the WTF page, because it is usually those '"What the fuck?" moments in life that cause me to write here.  Here's the latest.
     Last Wednesday (18APR2012) at the dojo (http://aikidoarnisoffarmville.blogspot.com/) a few of us started talking after class.  Kitty Genovese was brought up.  For those of you unfamiliar with her, Catherine Genovese was a young woman who was murdered on 13MAR1964, just outside her Kew Gardens apartment in New York city.  You can Google her name to get all the details, but I'll relate some here.  38 (that's thirty-eight) people watched her get stabbed repeatedly.  Her attacker left three times, only to come back each time and stab her some more, over a period of roughly thirty minutes.  No one helped an attractive and helpless young woman as she screamed and plead and died.  Instead, they watched.
     Some of you may remember this more recent incident from the news.  On 27OCT2009 a fifteen year old girl was leaving her homecoming dance at 21:30 (that's 9:30 PM to those of you with no military background) in Richmond, California, when she was attacked and gang raped for over two and a half hours.  You can find a piece of the story at http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7084114 (and I know shouldn't be surprised by how many gang-rape porn sites were brought up as I tried to search for this through supposedly legit news sources but somehow I was, go figure).  The onlookers not only did not help, they laughed and cheered the attackers on.  Some joined in.  Others took photos and video.
     Here's another one from the news.  On 16NOV2010 Bill Nye ("Bill Nye the Science Guy," for those of you with kids and the Disney channel) was giving a lecture at USC (that's the University of Southern California) when he collapsed.  The audience did nothing to help.  Instead, they pulled out their phones and started tweeting and taking video.  Check YouTube if you are morbid enough, the videos are still there.
     In my experience, almost everyone has a comic book inside their head.  In it they are the superhero and live a life of adventure and adversity.  This is not reality, it is a coping mechanism because the world is not the fairy-tale spongecake fantasy you were fed as a child.  In reality, there are no superheroes, just ordinary mortals who are typically apathetic, criminal, or ruled by their fears.
     In truth, people are alot  like teapots: the closer you inspect them, the more cracks you can see in the glaze. 
     This is the part where those who know me would expect me to start displaying my admittedly abundant knowledge of profanity--fuck this, that, and the other, and so on.  Honestly, I just don't have the space here to put all that down, so let's pretend I did and move on.)
     There is no excuse for the behavior these people displayed.  Or for anyone on the planet.  If you feel even the slightest outrage, that shows you have a little humanity left, especially if you have ever stopped to help someone in need.  I know I have, and way more than once.  If this post makes you think of a moment in your past when you should have made a 911 call, or pulled over to help the accident victims of the crash you just witnessed, or turned the TV up so you wouldn't hear the sounds of the guy next door beating the shit out of his wife and kids, I hope the shame haunts you forever.  As for the people above and anyone else who responds in their kind of fashion, I hope that your time in Hell is a reflection of the torment you witnessed but did nothing about.
     I have a thing for that kind of irony.
     Anyway, time to get to the point.  There is probably not going to be any help for you when you get into trouble.  If you cannot rely on yourself, if you have not made some kind of attempt to prepare yourself for the inevitable time that something bad will happen to you, you will end up like Kitty Genovese, or the 15 year old girl, or worse.  Buy a gun and learn to use it--especially if you are a woman.  Learn the basics of first-aid and self-defense.  Learn to be aware of your environment.  Keep a first-aid kit and a fire extinguisher in your home.  But don't expect help, because there is no cavalry, no knight in shining armor, or guy in a cape and long blue underwear coming to your aid.  Just a bunch of dipshits with camera phones and YouTube accounts.
     Unless you'd like to get off your ass and show the other monkeys what they should be doing, get used to this idea: you are on your own.

There's blood in the water.

     It started out with Trayvon Martin's.  It will probably end up with George Zimmerman's.  NBC creatively editing the 911 call to make it appear that Zimmerman was targeting Martin because he was black was the work of an individual who wanted their feelings to be your ideas.  It was a stupid move.  Just as stupid as Spike Lee re-tweeting Zimmerman's address (what kind of a dumbass would do such a thing, anyway?), which turned out to be the wrong address, too, so now a totally innocent family is living in fear because some idiot jumped to his prejudices instead of his common sense.
     Understand me, I am not advocating this case one way or another.  And that's the point--neither should you or anyone else.  Wait until all the evidence is in and the courts have made their decisions regarding the matter.  Candle-lit vigils and camera time for any jackass with an inflammatory opinion are not what matters.  If the media (or conveniently roused-to-ire mobs) decided the outcome of our legal issues we wouldn't be living in a democracy--it would be a monarchy and Jerry Springer would be the king.
   It is unfortunate, but the Edward R. Murrow days of honesty and integrity are gone.  News isn't reported anymore.  It is sensationalized, and in some cases deliberately distorted, in order to earn networks more money.  The people you see on TV reporting the news are not journalists, they are actors playing a role.  Their job is to control the way you think.  I find this behavior so offensive that I lack a vocabulary crude enough to give it the condemnation it deserves, but I can understand it.  Some people will do anything to make a buck.  But there is  something even worse than that: participating in the carnival of stupid they offer.
     Letting those jackasses win, allowing them to do your thinking for you, is unforgivable.

Be prepared.

     It's a lot more than the Boy Scout motto.  Being prepared is all about shifting the odds from you being a victim to being a survivor.  This applies to everything in life.  Here's one example: anyone who lives on the East Coast, especially in the Southern states, knows to be prepared for hurricanes.  You put at least a week's worth of food in the pantry and fill the tub with water before the storm hits.  You keep batteries and candles and an extra propane tank for the grill handy.  And lots of other crap.  Because we all know that you could have to ride a storm and the after-effects out for days, perhaps even weeks.  However, taking steps to ensure your survival should go further than just guarding against acts of nature.
     People usually live their lives violence-free.  This is how it is supposed to be, but not always how it works.  Locally, we had a small, family-owned convenience store get robbed.  All three of the men working that night were murdered by the thieves.  They handed over the money promptly and without resistance, remained calm in the face of danger, and did everything else they could to comply with the criminals.  And they got shot to death for their efforts.  Here's a link to cut-and-paste for those of you reading this from outside of North Carolina:
     http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/Search_For_Killers_Continues_146037285.html
     The murderers have been caught and I am confident that they will spend a great deal of time in jail for their crimes.  That does fuck-all for the people that had their store robbed and family members murdered.  The unhappy truth of the matter is this: sometimes, no matter what you do to avoid it, violence will happen to you and yours.  Some people can't be talked out of it.  It is what they want, and they will have their way no matter what you want.  If anyone had survived the 9/11 hijackings they could tell you the same thing.  The best thing you can do is to be prepared.  This doesn't necessarily mean toting a gun with you everywhere, although that is one hell of a deterrent.  A knife is another.  Learning to be environmentally aware is a really important skill to develop.  Training is another thing to consider, with that gun or knife, or in some kind of self-defense art.  The importance of this cannot be understated.  It prepares you for the mindset you need in violent (pr otherwise dangerous) situations.  Many people are unprepared for this, untrained for this, and so the aggressor has a tremendous advantage.
     I can't say for certain that any of these things could have saved the three men mentioned above.  All I can say is that it would definitely have increased the odds of their survival.  And that is the best you can do.