99 Percent

While watching a superhero cartoon the other evening - because I’m over thirty and married, I can do any childish thing I want without feeling ridiculous - I had a bizarre epiphany strike me during a climactic showdown between the heroes and the villain.  This being, called Graviton (dear lord, the people at Marvel really did run out of creative names at some point), had absolute control over gravity - one of the four basic forces of the universe.  One of the heroes calls out to Graviton, saying that such immense power could have been used to benefit all mankind.  It’s the stock moment in so many superhero stories, but at that time a voice in my head cried out, “Bullshit!”
Why?  Because if I was in that situation, where I suddenly found that I could control one of the fundamental laws of physics with my mind, I would have already destroyed my fifth orphanage by the time the hero had even posed the question.  I know that you’re now thinking that I’m a horrible person who should be locked away forever, but I must protest your judgemental attitude.  I am not a horrible person, but at the point I am given god-like powers I would cease to even be a person.  Does that mean I would start sprouting tentacles like some Lovecraftian horror?  Not necessarily, but at that point I would have more in common with Cthulhu than the average joe.
As human beings, we have limitations.  There is only so much we can do to affect changes in reality, but we really are brilliant at going right up to the edges of those limitations and pulling off some fantastic changes.  But should I somehow gain awesome cosmic powers, there would no longer be any limitations to my behavior.  As a result, I would feel a sense of detachment from the entire species.  Anything I could dream of would be possible, so why should I not do it?  Morality would be tossed to the wayside and orphanage-flinging would commence.  The old adage that power corrupts is not as accurate as saying that power dehumanizes the powerful.
Thankfully, there are no laboratory accidents doling out awesome powers, mostly chemical burns and singed eyebrows.  The closest thing we have to that are trust funds and the stock market.  I have had a second epiphany, after the supervillain one.  What I have described, a person completely detached from humanity, seems to also work terribly well for many of the super wealthy.  It’s the only explanation I can find for the callous behavior of so many CEO’s.  They have this vast wealth, which frees them from so many of the limitations imposed on nearly every other human being on this planet.  They feel justified in playing with the lives of ordinary people, all in the name of the shareholders.  They destroy people’s livelihoods, trap individuals in debt, and treat good health as a commodity instead of a necessity.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that we are living in a world with real supervillains.  But this isn’t a time for superheroes.  This is not a struggle that will be won by people in capes and tights.  It won’t be one individual leading the way, taking the fight all on their own.  We do not need such a powerful individual.  It’s time that we realize that we are enough for the challenge.  All of us, together.  

We are individually limited.  We do not have the wealth to confront them financially, because that is their domain.  The oligarchs of our age built that arena.  No one of us can really stand against that wealth and power, but all of us together can.

America has become the wonderland of the Objectivist, Ayn Rand’s “Utopian” dream.  The lower class in this country is responsible for its own problems for having the temerity to be born poor.  On the bright side, this system is not sustainable, as shown by the recent financial crisis.  The challenge for the rest of us it to keep this country and this world from slipping into chaos when the system does collapse under its own largess.  

Thoughts on Twitter

I despise Twitter.  There is no section of that website that does not fill me with an immense loathing of all humanity.  And I like humanity!  I really do!  I think we’re a fantastic species, having accomplished a great deal in our short time on this planet and capable of so much more.  We went from from discovering fire to sending men to the moon in less than 100,000 years, which is brilliant for a species that spends most of its time trying to destroy itself.  But Twitter represents the absolute nadir of technology, and, by association, human development.  I now spend days dreaming that any number of post-apocalyptic scenarios will occur in my lifetime in the hope that Twitter will finally be destroyed.  In other words, I am actively hoping for the destruction of civilization as we know it just to stop another “Tweet” from ever going out.
Why the hatred?  Why the vitriol?  Two reasons, the first being that I love language.  But what’s that you say?  Twitter is language?  It is communication?  My only response to that, alien voice in my head, is that you should keep quiet lest I beat you down with the unabridged OED.  Every “Tweet” - and I continue to use the quotation marks because I refuse to adopt such an idiotic term as part of my own vocabulary, apart from answering the question, “What sound does a bird make?” - is nothing more than a viral sound byte.  It is a random thought, restricted to 140 characters.  Yes, it is communication, but it is communication devoid of any real meaning.  What thought can possibly be encapsulated in such a limited amount of space?  I’ve tried reading some Twitter profiles, and I cannot make any sense of it.  There is no context for about seventy-five percent of what is on there.  There is only one sort of communication that makes a shred of sense on the page, and it is the only form of communication that benefits from short, snappy messages lacking context or complex thought - advertising.  It is nothing but a marketing tool, an attempt by individual humans to sell the world on their own value.
That brings me to my second reason: I love humanity.  I said it before, but I need to reinforce that message.  I truly care about all humans, even the ones I don’t particularly like.  And it pains me to see individuals use such a service to transform their lives into some sort of commodity that must be advertised in order for it to have any worth.  Every life already has worth.  Every one of us is a vast array of thoughts and emotions, constantly shifting as time moves on.  Twitter debases the human experience.  Maybe I’m reading too much into the topic, and perhaps the site is only a bit of harmless fun.  Or maybe I’m just another cynic, and my own voice doesn’t even deserve to be heard on the topic.

In Praise of the Almighty Sarlacc

The single greatest moment for me in the Star Wars trilogy is the Sarlacc Pit sequence in Return of the Jedi.  I know for most people it’s the lightsaber fight from Empire or the trench run from New Hope, and that many consider Jedi to be the weakest of the films, but there is one thing all of these people fail to take into account: people are being fed to giant monster in the desert.  There was no greater thrill in my childhood than when that scene came on, which may be indicative of far greater psychological problems that I would rather not get into at the moment.  It’s a massive, gaping maw at the bottom of a pit where people fall in and God knows what happens to them after that.  All you know for certain is that they are getting eaten.  I still chuckle when Klaatu, Barada and Nikto get chucked into the thing (and yes, I know the names of the characters and had the action figures when I was a kid).  There are complaints about Boba Fett dying such an ignominious death as he is accidentally launched into the Great Pit of Carkoon, but to me that serves as the potent reminder that no matter how bad-ass you are, there is always something in nature that just doesn’t give a damn.

Even after seeing the behind-the-scenes footage of how they made that sequence  didn’t take away any of the magic for me. It actually added a whole new level, as now I could either enjoy it as a scene of monster mayhem or take heart in the fact that a talented group of stuntmen were having the time of their life jumping down the gullet of a foam rubber atrocity.  

And then, George Lucas had to try and ruin it for me.  Evidently, someone showed him a definition of the term vagina dentata and his tiny brain couldn’t stand the idea of anyone possibly interpreting the Sarlacc as a sexual metaphor.  So, being the genius that he is, he decided to give the Sarlacc a mouth within a mouth, a little beak that for all intents and purposes could be seen as either a penis or a clitoris.  But that aside, the idea of giving this thing a mouth ruins the mystique.  This is supposed to be an otherworldly being that is unfathomable to us, a truly alien creature that’s true intent is unknowable.  Giving it a mouth (within a mouth, mind you) just makes it look like a generic, hungry creature.  The whole idea of keeping most of the monster out of side adds to the horror of what might be lurking below the sand.  In the original scene, all you know is this thing has tentacles and a mouth.  It has no personality to speak of, and that just makes it more interesting.

The good thing for me is that the damage George Lucas did to the film will never really affect me.  I know what the Sarlacc is supposed to look like and in my imagination and memory, it still satisfies the bizarre part of me that enjoys scenes of people being fed to monsters.  And I can always enjoy my second favorite sequence, the Rancor Pit, in it’s original glory.  

I really should get some sort of professional help for this monster obsession.

An Angry Letter from Me to the Anti-Vaccine Activists

Hello Anti-Vaccine Crowd,

I’ll admit it, right off the bat, that I’m largely writing this letter as a form of experiment.  I’m testing the hypothesis that a human being can have their head jammed so far up their own ass that the person is then able to actually read this letter.  If this is illegible, it simply means that your head is lodged somewhere around the diaphragm.   If you can read this, congratulations!  You may very well be classified as the first living example of a Klein bottle.

Now, I realize that a lot of those terms might seem confusing to you.  Words such as “hypothesis” and “experiment” have probably never come up in your lives.  Don’t be frightened or confused (which do seem to be your normal states) – these are simply terms used in science.  That thing you tend to ignore in favor of your moral indignation and panic.  But don’t worry; there are literally thousands of people who are familiar with this term.  These are the people who have worked for much of their adult lives on the vaccines that have extended human life expectancy by a good thirty years.

Right now, I can tell that you are frothing at the mouth, ready to pounce on “all those so-called scientists” who, in your mind, are nothing more than corporate shills, trying to line their pockets at the expense of your precious child’s health.  And normally, I am pretty skeptical myself of pharmaceutical companies and big business in general.  However, this is one instance in which these scientists and businesses are doing the right thing.  Due to the efforts of the medical community, many diseases that once ran rampant in American society are now incredibly rare.  Polio is on the verge of being wiped out.  Please note the use of the word “verge.”  All of that good work can be undone pretty quickly if kids aren’t getting vaccinated.

Of course the big bogey man in this argument is autism.  That’s an easy fear to allay, if you are capable of critical thinking.  There is no causal link between autism and vaccines. It’s been tested and retested and retested.  Denmark conducted the most thorough examination of autism and vaccines and found no significant difference in the occurrence of autism in populations that were vaccinated and those that were not.  Scientists still have no clue what the real cause of autism is, but the reason for the massive increase in diagnoses is due to improved techniques for recognizing the condition.  A vaccine is very, very unlikely to alter the neurological system of a child.  Meningitis, on the other hand, could completely alter the mental capacity of a child, if the child survives.

I appreciate your right to decide what is best for your child, but what you’re doing is jeopardizing the lives of a lot of other children instead.  To protect the population from infectious disease requires widespread vaccination.  By refusing to have your children vaccinated because of pseudo-science, you are jeopardizing more than just your child.

Thoughts from an American Doctor Who Fan

Being a Doctor Who fan places you on the bottom of the geek pecking order in America.  In a collection of quirky misfits, you suddenly become the quirkiest of the lot.  It doesn’t help that many of us were more or less inducted into fandom in a way reminiscent of a cult.  Some people came across it late on Saturday nights while watching PBS.  Others were raised up on it by their parents, already dedicated converts who wanted to get their kids on the right track to sci-fi righteousness.  Then there was my path into this bizarre world of Daleks and Autons. 

I was always a geek.  I had been ever since I uttered my first word, which was “Batman.”  All through my childhood, I was pleasantly dragged into the realm of science fiction and fantasy by my older brother. Roleplaying games, Nintendo and comic books made up the majority of my social activities.  After college, I was working at a bookstore, like many others who foolishly chose to major in English without the benefit of a trust fund to see us through to a doctorate and tenure.  There were three other guys at the store I tended to hang out with and complain about the customers.  But every so often they would start talking about the Doctor.  I was lost.  My entire exposure to Doctor Who at that point had been a themed pinball machine and a strange collection of toys I saw at GenCon.  These guys would go on about the mythos of the show, bringing up favorite episodes.  And eventually, I had to ask what the hell they were talking about.  And, like the drug dealers they were, they were only too happy to hook me up with a sample. 

Two of the guys, Andy and Pat, invited me to join in on a viewing of Terror of the Autons (yes, my first Doctor was John Pertwee, and I still love the Venusian Aikido and I still try to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow).  We gathered in Pat’s living rooms, along with his girlfriend, and by the time the DVD was finished, I had become a faithful convert.  I joined in on the conversations about regenerations and sonic screwdrivers.  I sat in basements watching bootlegs.  And I was one very happy monkey the day I learned the show was coming back with a new Ninth Doctor in 2005.  By then, I had left the bookstore in Milwaukee for a newsroom in DC, and still had coworkers I could chat with about the show.

But I found myself in a rather odd position.  In social gatherings of a geeky nature, I found myself mostly isolated from the conversation, as everyone else wanted to talk about Star Wars and Star Trek.  Occasionally, there might be a remark about the show, some people knew about it, but no one around had the same passion for it that I did.  It was never their main interest in the universe of sci fi and fantasy, just another satellite orbiting the core planet of Star Wars/Trek.  I was the outcast among the outcasts.

And to be quite frank, it can stay that way.  That’s because I’ve realized something about Doctor Who that, for me, makes it superior to the more mainstream obsessions of American sci-fi fans.  Star Wars had three movies, three horrendous attempts at expanding the films, and a large number of books that are really necessary to keep adding to the story, and yet those books are an absolute muddle of conflicting ideas.  Star Trek had to be rebooted with a new cast as The Next Generation, then again as Deep Space Nine (which, for my money, is the pinnacle of the franchise), then again as Voyager, then again as Enterprise.  Even the films had to be rebooted, until finally they’ve been reborn as a lens flare-laden piece of shit directed by the biggest hack in Hollywood, J.J. Abrams.  True, all of those stories take place in the same universe, but there is no real continuity except when it is unnaturally shoehorned in.  Both series had to do complete overhauls in order to stay relevant (and unfortunately, in the case of Star Wars, those overhauls have almost destroyed the love of that universe that many have held).  But Doctor Who is a constant, never needing a reboot because it has always been about change.  It is a simple story of a man in a blue box who can go anywhere in time and space, and the few people in the universe who have the good (and sometimes horrifically bad) fortune to go along with him.  Its narrative is as boundless as the human experience.  

Think Different - Just Like Steve Jobs Tells You To

The New York Times referred to Steve Jobs as this generation’s Thomas Edison.  I have no problem with this comparison for the sole reason that I have as much contempt, if not more, for Edison as I do Jobs.  Edison was a patent thief who ruthlessly crushed all competition (sometimes using physical violence) and succeeded by being an all-around asshole and a marketing genius.  And that is also all that Steve Jobs is: a marketing genius.  But the announcement of his resignation from Apple has some people reacting as thought they just found out Christ was going to be crucified again.

Let’s review something here: marketing is simply the science of convincing someone to buy something and, possibly, at the same time convincing that same someone that a similar product offered by a competitor is not as good.  That’s it.  That is the entirety of Steve Jobs’ career.  He made expensive computers and convinced a large number of people to buy them.  That is not an earth-shattering achievement.  He has not done anything that really betters mankind, changes the world, or fixes any of the major problems we face as a species.  He is just a man who made a shit load of money.

It really strikes me as a symptom of the culture.  People seem to heap praise upon those who earn an ungodly amount of money.  Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett – all of them are revered by a large number of people because they were able to become rich.  As if that is the only indicator of success in life.  Never mind the fact that numerous artists, writers, activists, scientists, and other influential people died without a penny to their name, but made a lasting impact.  People who truly changed the world through ideas, altering the way others think and shaping society for the better.  Instead, this country seems to have become so jaded that all anyone can care about is money and how to make more of it.

True, people like Buffett and Gates try to do some charity work with their money, but it seems to me that a great many of the causes they work for would be better addressed if there wasn’t such a massive gap in income between the incredibly wealthy and everyone else.  But Steve Jobs doesn’t even do that.  He actually shut down Apple’s charitable giving when he came back to the company.

In the end, Jobs has sold a lot of luxury items and made countless people around the world desire those items.  And even more so, he has sold the idea that those people were being different by buying those products – different just like everyone else buying them.  The man is not a hero or a role model.  He’s a businessmen, and that is all.

A Dinner Invitation

Dear Col. Gadhafi,

I was wondering if you would be interested in coming over to our house for dinner tomorrow night?  And this is simply a dinner invitation, and not an attempt to lure you into our house so my wife and I can collect the bounty currently on your head.  I have full confidence that you will be able to overcome the multitudes of angry citizens who have completely overrun Tripoli and sent you into hiding, and I just thought you might like to have a nice dinner to relax and recharge your batteries before you gather up your hundred or so loyalists and overcome all odds by testicular fortitude alone.

When you come in, make sure to walk on the palm fronds we have laid out in the living room for you as a traditional sign of greeting in our home.  When you get to the couch, we’ll have a cup of tea ready for you.  Never mind if it tastes a bit different – we found a rare variety of orange pekoe that has a distinct taste.  Make sure you drink all of it.  And please do not look down, because you will definitely not see a diminutive man hidden in a small space under your seat attempting to jab a syringe full of chloral hydrate into your posterior tibial vein.

We simply want you to come and enjoy our hospitality.  Put away those thoughts that quite a few people would love to hand you over to the rebels for the $1.6 million dollars being offered.  We certainly won’t have a burlap sack in the closet and a black cargo van waiting out back with the engine running. 

Yours truly,

Adam

A Little Off the Top

I was circumcised as a baby.  And if I had never known what a circumcision was or then asked my parents if I had one, I probably would never have been the wiser.  Yet now there seems to be a very vocal group calling for a ban of the practice, regardless of religious belief or parental preference.  Most of the arguments I hear against the practice boil down to “I didn’t get to choose this for myself” and “My penis is mutilated!”  It troubles me to no end that in a time where income disparity, violent conflicts, political upheaval and environmental destruction are looming over us like the sword of Damocles, there are human beings devoting a considerable amount of time trying to prevent a minor medical procedure. 

Oh the indignation!  Oh the rancor!  Researching the topic online pulls up a plethora of anti-circumcision websites.  Any articles in support of circumcision become inundated with comments from outraged people, calling it barbaric and equating the practice to female circumcision (a completely different procedure, it involves the complete removal of the clitoris, which may have more to do with keeping women from enjoying sex and the abuse of their gender around the world).  But when I read medical websites, there is no argument against the practice.  It causes no major health complications, and actually helps prevent some afflictions that can occur later in life (such afflictions often requiring the procedure).  The only benefit that seems to be agreed on is that having a foreskin helps improve masturbation.  Having performed countless experiments in my laboratory, I can attest that I have had no difficulty in achieving this and was entirely satisfied with the test results each time.

I want to bring up the scientific support for circumcision, such as the WHO’s endorsement of the practice for the prevention of HIV transmission.  But I really don’t want to, because quite frankly, I don’t want to keep  this argument going.  In the scope of the challenges our species faces in the immediate future, a little flap of skin should be the least of our concern.  Don’t make this a human rights issue.  There are far more pressing  issues that need our attention.  I highly doubt that circumcision is preventing us from finding renewable energy resources.  The growing public discontent in the Middle East is not over the presence of a foreskin.  And famine-stricken Somalians could give a flying fuck about the whole debate right now, they’d rather not watch their children starve to death while warlords take the last remaining food.

What I’m trying to say here is: get some perspective.  I’m sure quite a few people are outraged about the issue.  I’m sure it’s near and dear to their hearts, and they feel it must be stopped at all cost.  But right now, we don’t need any more divisive causes (and please remember that over one quarter of the world’s population practices it).  Take that anger and that energy and that commitment and join in on something more important.  If you want to protect the rights of a child, how about throwing your support in the fight against the war in Iraq instead and helping those kids have their right to grow up with all their limbs intact.  If you want to lament the perceived loss you have, why not think about the actual loss of opportunity in this country to earn a wage that allows you to live life to the fullest?  Quit trying to force an issue that simply drives one more wedge between people.  We need a little more unity at the moment, a greater concentration of our efforts.  Let’s solve the real problems first.

A tragedy is a moment for reflection, not polemics

The tragedy in Norway is a sobering moment.  As of this writing, 76 people are confirmed dead, either killed by the blast in Oslo or hunted down by a madman with a gun on Utoeya Island.  Most of those killed were teenagers.  It's so difficult to to write anything about such an event, and I can barely string together the words to express my emotions at this time.  My heart goes to the survivors, the families of the victims and to all the people of Norway.

When such events occur, I take the time to think deeply on the subject, reflect on what has happened.  I don't normally write anything when such things happen because words fail me.  And I wouldn't say anything now, but for one thing I read.  Once again the American media has plumbed the depths of degradation.  Once again it has proven itself an international disgrace.  It has allowed a pundit airtime to say that the camp attacked "sounds a little like the Hitler youth.  I mean, who does a camp that's all about politics?"

It shouldn't surprise me that Glenn Beck was the one to say that.  What surprises me is the fact that the man is paid to be anywhere near a microphone.  That comment is filled with the hatred and vitriol that Beck and all the other pundits, conservative and liberal, have been able to spew on television and radio.  And "all for ratings," a technical term for feeding one's own ego through attracting attention like a spoiled three-year-old.

Besides showing Glenn Beck's complete detachment from reality, it also displays his ignorance of world history.  Norway was forcibly occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II for five years.  During that time, it formed a major resistance movement to defy that tyranny.  Norwegian resistance fighters helped sink the battleships Bismark and Tirpitz, and, more crucially, helped destroy Norsk Hydro's heavy water plant and the stockpile of heavy water at Vermork.  They derailed the Nazi's nuclear projects.  And many paid with their lives for their defiance.  While there were collaborators, just as there were in France and the Netherlands, the majority of Norwegians fought against the occupation and it is obscene to relate the Nazis to Norway

What disturbs me even more, is that many of Glenn Beck's tirades against Islam echo those of Anders Behring Breivik.  In the very same broadcast, Beck stated that "evil" Islam is "squeezing the neck" of Europe.  Those are the same views that drove Breivik to kill children.  Of course, Beck then said that the killer was a horrible person like Bin Laden, but that is a hollow statement.  You cannot denounce a man for his actions while affirming his motivations.

There is no hope for reaching a person like Beck.  Such people are so lost into their own paradigm that they will never find their way back to reality again.  But I hope that statements like those he made will disgust the majority of people.  Then again, knowing that this man has an audience of any kind dims such hope.

A Series of Disgruntled Letters Directed to Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli from a Mr. P. Nesbitt of Derbyshire

11 October 1868

Dear Mr.Disraeli,

I was so terribly pleased that you were able to attend the event we held last night in honor of our daughter’s recent engagement.  It is quite regrettable that we failed to send you an invitation directly, however we had no idea that you would even make the effort to come since we’ve never had the privilege of making your acquaintance prior to last evening.  It was also very kind of you to provide the three bottles of brandy that you consumed during your visit.

If it isn’t too much of a bother, would you mind compensating us for the three broken windows, nine smashed vases, and 27 shattered plates?  I do understand that you felt a need to vent your frustration when Mrs. Chiswick did not recognize you immediately as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, but I believe it was a perfectly normal reaction on her behalf since she did not know you would be at the party.  Also, she is blind.  And thanks to your actions, she now has a limp as well.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Mr. P. Nesbitt

13 October 1868

Dear Prime Minister Disraeli,

I do apologize if my first missive struck you as too familiar, and I am all too glad to use your second most-preferred form of address.  I will not, however, use your first choice of address, “Lord John Thunder-Crotch the Insatiable.”  In addition, I will not acquiesce to your request for what I should do with my previous letter.  Such an act is anatomically impossible, and it pains me that I had to consult my physician on that matter.

As to the matter of the money you owe me, your proposal that you will pay for the damages once I relinquish your trousers is unacceptable.  You weren’t wearing any when you arrived, and I do not see it as my responsibility to find them.  If I do happen to come across a pair of mauve trousers that match the jacket your were wearing, I’ll be sure to pop them in the post.

Now I must insist that you send compensation immediately.

Earnestly,
Mr. P. Nesbitt

18 October 1868

Dear Sir,

It is truly an abuse of power when an elected official finds it necessary, and for some reason amusing, to fire one of Her Majesty’s cannons at my home.  And don’t for a second think I didn’t recognize you.  I clearly heard you cry out, “Choke on that, you Swedish bastard!”  Neither I nor anyone else in my family has ever been Swedes, and I can’t see why that would call for artillery fire in the first place.

If you refuse to pay for the damage to my home, I will be forced to take you to court.  I have written to my solicitor several times on that matter, simply because he didn’t believe me the first time.

Mr. P. Nesbitt

25 October 1868

Dear Prime Minister,

Please give us back our daughter.  We have tried to meet all of your demands, but many of the things you have asked for are beyond unreasonable and utterly impossible.  For instance, we are unsure of how much cinder toffee it would take to choke a horse.  Nor are we capable of getting you “five minutes in the same room with that glass-jawed ponce, King Charles of Sweden.”

Now please release our daughter, safe and sound, or we shall be forced to vote Labour in the next election.

Mr. P. Nesbitt 

An Irate Piece of Parchment Recently Discovered in the Crypt of Brother Bartholomew

Translated from 15^th Century German

Johan Gutenberg, you insufferable prick.

I never met you, but if I had I would have punched you in the face until it stopped being funny.  You ruined my life, such as it was.  I don’t know how much of a life you can have with your ass stuck to a wooden stool for twenty-five years, hunched over a desk in a freezing cold room. 

Yeah, that’s right.  Twenty-five years, asshole.  And you want to know what I did in all that time?  I made one copy of the Bible.  ONE!  I’m sorry, I meant to say “illuminated manuscript,” which is what the abbot wanted us to call it.  Man, that portly son of a bitch got on my last nerve.  Evidently that vow of poverty didn’t cover sneaking extra portions of mutton stew when no one was looking.  And don’t think I didn’t notice the steady stream of farmer’s daughters decked out in brown robes heading down the hallway to his room.

But I never complained about any of that.  I didn’t complain about having to draw fancy little designs around the border of each and every page.  Nor did I complain about the time I worked on one page for an entire week, only to have a small spasm in my hand on the very last word.  I had to take that page, burn it and bury it in the garden.  I can’t even remember what page that was anymore – I’m pretty sure somebody begat someone.

Let’s bring it back to you, Gutenberg.  I endured the bad boss, the horrible working conditions and the required anal retentive attention to detail, finish up my copy and find out that you built a machine that makes everything I’ve done with my life utterly pointless.  Do you have any idea how many months I had to train to draw the big-ass letters at the beginning of a chapter?  You know, the giant, audacious ones that serve no purpose but to screw up the spacing on the next four lines?  But now none of that matters.  All of that time could have been put to use in a much more worthwhile pursuit – like touching a woman.  Any woman.  I know they exist, and, more importantly, I know what they can do (after hearing the descriptive language screamed out by one or two of the more chatty ladies in the abbot’s quarters).  I thought I was giving up all of that for an important task.  Instead, the end result was a lifetime of sexual frustration.  I got so pissed off the day I heard about your invention that I went out into the stable and punched a donkey.

I have no purpose left – everything I trained for is now obsolete.  Given that, I have taken it upon myself to steal a barrel of ale from the kitchen.  I plan on drinking all of it and then taking a dump in the abbot’s hat.  

Thanks so much for all of this, Gutenberg.

B

A Mildly Annoyed Correspondence from Thomas Middleton

To whom it may concern,

Hello, terribly sorry to bother you.  It’s just that a few of us were gathered around here in the hereafter feeling a bit neglected, really.  Ben Jonson and I were trying to decide on the best way to go about airing our grievances.  Ben wanted to “haunt the holy fuck out of those illiterate, shit-brained knuckle draggers,” by which I believe he means you.  I felt that we could be far more constructive by writing them out and hoping there are still a few people out there capable of reading something more complicated than a Wikipedia entry on Scooby Doo.

Basically, our grievances all boil down to one over-riding theme: why does no one care about the Jacobean playwrights?  And already, I’m feeling I’ll need to explain myself – by Jacobean, I mean “during the time while James I was king.”  If I find out that does not sufficiently inform you, then I’m going to let Ben do things his way.  At the moment he’s claiming that he knows how to make everyone’s dead grandmother rise out of the grave and perform lewd sexual gestures at the nearest child care facility, but I hope he is bluffing.

Obviously we have to compete for attention with our colleague, Mr. Shakespeare – a man who couldn’t even decide how to spell his last name.  Ben is especially touchy about it; he’s spent the last couple of centuries amassing an expansive vocabulary of offensive words in several languages to best convey his emotions on the topic.  I don’t rightly know how you people are able to sit through Romeo and Juliet so many times.  For God’s sake, how many people today even know that “wherefore” means “why?”  It might help your comprehension of the play to know that Juliet is a philosophical, whiny, teenage half-wit and not a near-sighted, whiny, teenage half-wit.  It’s not even that good a play.  Will locked himself in a shed with eight barrels of beer for three days and that piece of shit was the end product.

Ben and I deserve more attention these days.  Hell, our plays are all about sex and violence.  You people eat that stuff up, right?  We have dick jokes, too!  Anyway, I better leave it here.  Ben is feeling a bit maudlin now, and he tends to lick things he shouldn’t when he gets like that.

Sincerely,

T.M.

An Angry Missive from Suleiman the Magnificient

(translated from 16th century Turkish)

Dear jackasses,

600 years.  We were around for 600 years.  We spanned three continents.  We made the Holy Roman Empire collectively shit its pants.  I personally kicked Hungary's ass so hard that 500 years later the country still isn't relevant.  It took a freaking world war to finally take us down.  But does the Ottoman Empire get remembered for any of that in the west?  No.  Say the name of it and most of you just think of a piece of furniture.  And it's a fucking footstool at that.  It's just embarrassing, really.

I don't mean to sound petty, but I've been looking up a lot of the other empires that have come and gone since and I've noticed a distinct lack of furniture-centered memes to remember their exploits.  Queen Victoria took over a decent chunk of the world and got a damned century named after her.  There isn't a Great Britain  coffee table or a Victoria hat stand.  Think of Napoleon and the image of a particular style of bidet does not spring to mind.

Maybe I wouldn't be so pissy if it was at least a decent type of furniture.  But it's a footstool, the least essential piece of furniture a house can have.  No one has ever been in a panic because they didn't have one.  If you have more than one, people starting thinking you're a bit touched in the head.  Couldn't we have gotten a couch named after us?  There were a lot of those in the empire.  Or a desk?  Hell, a pantry would have been a step up.  But we didn't get one of those.  And now, when people talk about an ottoman, the next thing in their head is IKEA.

Look, I know we weren't exactly on the same page as you guys - different beliefs, different customs, etc.  But the Mongols were about as alien as a prom queen at a comic book convention and you don't associate them with a household oddity.

We gave you ungrateful bastards coffee.  Could you at least have the decency to remember us for more than an outdated piece of furniture?

Piss off,

S

Does a book of maps even have shoulders to move?

I love books - absolutely adore them.  There’s something so refreshing about cracking open one for the first time, that sound as the binding is stretched and you begin reading that page.  Or the feel of an old one, the edges of each page softened by time to the point you need to lick your fingers to turn them.  And, I’m not proud to admit, I’m addicted to the smell.  When no one is looking, I love to grab an old, musty tome from my shelf (I have a couple I keep around solely for this purpose) and stick my nose in it to get my fix.  I know there are others like me with a passion for books.  We understand each other and share knowing looks at author signings and used-book sales.  But like all passion, there are some who take it just a bit too far and delve into mania.

There is one book in particular that seems to drive its fans into an almost frenzied state.  Mention their favorite book, and these fans become glossy-eyed.  They are overcome by an almost religious adoration.  The book has become an absolute obsession in which the themes of it take over their lives, and they seek to reshape the world in accordance with what they read.  It’s not a particularly well-written book.  It’s author’s sole stated purpose for writing it was making money, hand over fist.  And, perhaps most surprisingly, the book I’m talking about is not Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard (although I will most likely write about that at a later time when I’m feeling up to the litigation).  It’s Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

                Oh Ayn, you wonderfully evil piece of shit.  So vile and hideous a human being, that the very name Ann refused to have anything to do with you and - through sheer desperation for its survival - altered the very spelling of your name in all texts ever written by or about you to include that ridiculous “Y,” so as to preserve its usage for millions of non-insane women.  I will concede that my view is a bit judgmental, but I am someone who believe in working for the benefit of all people, and that every human being should have the opportunity to live life to the fullest.  So, when confronted by the specter of a woman who espoused a philosophy that can be summed up as “1) Rich people are awesome, 2) All governments suck, and 3) Poor people are horrible because they are blood-sucking leaches on the rich and I hope they all die in a fire,” I tend to get a little rankled.

                I wouldn’t pay her so much attention if it weren’t for the legions of her devotees who see her novel as some sort of guide for life.  I was in an elevator carrying a rather sizeable novel (full disclosure, it was Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett – not exactly high literature, but damn is it a fun read).  There was another man in the elevator, and seeing my book asked, “Oh, you’re reading Atlas Shrugged?”  And when I told him no, the light that had previously been in his eyes went out.  The man looked crest-fallen for a brief second.  It was as if he had a glimmer of hope that the next 25 seconds were going to be a few back and forth comments about the oppression of the superman through government regulation, and other such half-baked thoughts.  And I had crushed that little hope.

                I’ve read a few pages of that book and put it down as unreadable crap.  It really is awkwardly written, with horrendously stilted dialogue.  I’ve had to read through summaries online and in literary papers to learn what the story is about – namely a group of egocentric assholes getting to do whatever they want.  I recently read that it is considered the second most influential book among Americans, after the Bible.  Say what you will about the views and ideas on display in the Bible, at least it is beautifully written. 

Atlas Shrugged has become a sort of Linus blanket for the uber-rich and powerful, and those who want to be one of them.  It approves anti-social behavior conducted in the name of profit.  It encourages selfishness.  It is the Mein Kampf of the CEO and the hedge fund manager.  I just hope that someday soon, Atlas Shrugged will be thought of in a similar manner to the way most people view Main Kampf now – as an historical relic displaying bad ideas that harmed humanity.