RANT

Watching these home makeover TV shows, I gotta ask: WTF is the matter with parents these days? Spending thousands and thousands of dollars to rip out walls so that they can have "open concept" interiors "Because if I'm in the kitchen, I can't see the kids and see if they're alright."

My parent knew where the 4 of us were and what we were doing at breakfast, lunch, supper, and bedtime. All 4 of us lived through entire childhoods with all biological parts and functions intact, and we also all turned out fine. Not a serial killer among us.

Sorry, "Helicopters," but what kind of independent thinkers and what coping mechanisms are your crotch-fruit developing if they never have to take risks, learn, interface with hard things in life, because ... "Why? Mommy n Daddy are right over there. They'll take care of it."

SMDH

And while I'm at it ...

"Waah. I can't work in this antique kitchen!" Said about a kitchen that is bigger and more equipped than some of the restaurants I worked in."

"Waaah. We're out of space. I can't live like this ... only 2500 sq ft.!" I considered my 2100 sq ft. house a fokking mansion. Then the little 30-something shits go look at 3500 sq ft houses but they're no good because "there's no real media room" or "no nice office space" or (really) "no place to fold clothes in the laundry room. I wanna move somewhere nicer."

"Waah. We can't breathe in here when we entertain!" (Then the producer shows a clip of like 60 people crowded into the house in question, for some sort of party.) So, you little shits, you're going to go buy a new place, paying all of the related closing costs, packing everything up, moving, unpacking, changing all of the utilities, address on everything, new school registrations, and probably commute for an hour, instead of 15 minutes, so you can have a fokking party with more elbow-room, those two times a year when it's your turn to host?

"Waaaah. When everyone comes over for Christmas, we can't all fit around this little dining room table." You fatheads don't even have table settings for 12 as a mix-n-match. Will it kill the kids to sit at card tables and folding chairs? No. As a matter of fact, they LOVE having their own space without you side-eyeing them all through the meal because they're not holding their fokking fork the way you think is "proper." You're probably a crap-cook anyway. Rent out a private room at the steakhouse where the food will be palatable and you can seat 12 or 20 and keep the kids unhappy.

And a biggie: "Waah! I'm finished with this house. There's no 'en suite' in the master bedroom and that stinking little bathroom across the hall only has one sink. I can't possibly get ready in the morning with one sink. And, have you seen the old cramped shower? We have to have a luxe 'en suite' or I quit." Don't get me cranked up on this one.

Lastly, where do these little shits get the money to afford these places? Some whiny loser with a whiny wife says, "And our budget is not a penny over $2.5 million." WUT?!?

The beatings will commence at noon, right over there.

 The glut of crap (alleged) Japanese knives hitting the market make me sick.  The market is flooded with them and they're junk.

The latest brought to my attention is the Huusk knife.  Marketing B.S. at its finest.  Google them and click through any of the zillions of hits and get a good look at the knives.  Now go to Amazon and enter the single word huusk into the search box.

BOOM!  Many many knives that all look suspiciously like Huusk.  Hmmm.  Could it be that somebody is flooding the market with this junk under a dozen different front names?  Suspicious.  Notice that nobody claims that they are actually made in Japan.  Don't tell me!  Could this be another China scam?

Anyhow, Huusk just came up on Quora with a thinly veiled scam link and I blasted them.

Following is a copy of their "question" and my response.

What are huusk knives?  How does it work?  Are you looking were to get better kitchen knives?  Go to thereviewtrends.com to get all you need to know about hussk knives. [sic]

John Wegner, Used and collected knives for over 60 years.

Answered 2m ago

This isn’t a real question but I’ma answer these scammers.

You’re promotion methods appear to be to flood the Internet with scammy press releases filled with marketing B.S. and hope you move a bunch of your junk before any real reviewers catch up with you. Just google “huusk knives” and stand by for the avalanche. Notice that every review is exactly the same wording. Huh. Could this be because the sites employ the ancient technique of rip-n-print? (That means they fill their content with junk articles that are provided by manufacturers or promoters.)

Let’s look at the literature:

“The present dominating style is gotten from French and German customs, while Japanese blades, with their more slender cutting edges and bended spines, are gaining more popularity these days. This is the exact reason why Huusk Knife is trending all over the world.”

Well, clearly the copywriter isn’t a native English speaker. Awkward.

“made up of high-quality Japanese steel by ancient blade smiths”

The knives are claimed to be “7CR17MOV” steel. Impressive? No. This is a B.S. number used in China and Japan for sub-$20 crap blades made from the steel known universally as 440A. Cheap. Easy to sharpen because it is soft. In fairness, it does take a nice edge … but not for long.

How are their knives made by “ancient blade smiths”? Are the workers all over 100 years old? Have they resurrected a bunch of dead guys? More horse crap. No. Notice that they don’t say, Japanese blade smiths (or bladesmiths). Guess where they’re really made.

“Japanese samurai-based brand knife”

What is samurai-based? I wasn’t aware that samurai was a knife’s characteristic.

Are you seeing a trend of poppycock marketing here?

Definitely, the most important thing about these knives is, as far as a real chef is concerned, is the deeply deckled (stamped?) surface on the knife spine. Not wanting to have their kitchen shut down by the health inspector because the knives are full of hundreds of ridges, nooks, and crannies where food particles and bacteria can breed, I wouldn’t have these in my kitchen. You shouldn’t either.

The Slickest Religion -- Islam

Note: This is a repost of a portion of one of my 2012 posts. I've extracted just this section on Islam, for convenience.

So, maybe it's time for me to go off on Islam. Not that this specific religion deserves special scorn for any reason. It's just time. I'm actually a little bit in awe of it. I'm not all that much of an expert on the history of Islam's religious development, such as, "Who thought this or that up?" although it would be interesting to know because some of this stuff is just damn genius. One of the up sides, for the supporters of Islam, is that with their system, I'll bet only a tiny handful have been raised inside the system and have gone on to awaken and become atheists. Here's why:

I've lived among the real Muslims (as opposed to the recently invented Afro-American Muslims) through work and play. I've lived through an entire Ramadan and I've been allowed to stand quietly among them during prayers. Islam is brilliantly unparalleled by any religion at any time in history by its super-clever and all-pervasive methods of ensuring that their faithful remain faithful and that those "faithful" partake of religion so constantly that there isn't much time to sit around and cogitate on "why the hell did I just do that?"

 First, unless one has an agenda (e.g., the Afro-Americans) or unless one is under threat of death, there ain't going to be many willing converts stepping forward to join the Muslim flock. It is just too hard and takes up too much time. Any outsider who has experienced any of the other world religions, which are generally (way) less demanding, isn't going to be easily "awakened" by Islam and go running to its bosom. So, my earlier noted principle of "you're born into it," pretty much says it all. And a LOT of people have been born into it. A lot more will be.

 Second, the religion's adherents are probably the least philosophically circumspect and open thinkers on the planet. That means that none of the usual intellectual arguments will work on them, so don't bother. That, and there's the "you renounce Islam and we'll kill you" thingy. That might give one pause. The following are the clever methods by which the people are kept from thinking anything but Islam.

 The trappings: People have to carry around their prayer rugs or have them stashed, everywhere they'll be (requires thinking about religion.) They have to plan ahead, where they're going to be throughout the day, so that they can perform their purification (i.e., where can I find a spot to wash my damn feet,) know ahead of time (think about) which direction to face, identify a place (think about) to spread out the prayer rug, etc. Also, an amazing number of them physically carry a copy of the Koran, everywhere -- work, play, no matter. Walking around in public, prayers commence, in public, at the appointed times. Therefore, there have to be provisions for people to wash (purify) in the public sphere. So, even if it ain't prayer time, you'll probably be passing washing stations which are another means of reminding adherents, constantly, of their religion. In short, the trappings keep the faithful thinking about the mechanics of Islam worship even more frequently than one would suppose.

 The Shouter: National Geographic films, etc., don't do The Shouter (actually called The Muezzin) any justice because the impact of his "call to prayer" just doesn't come across the tiny, tinny speakers of your TV. This is kind of like hearing an AK47 shot in the movies and firing one in your own two hands. Yowzer! There's no comparison. The Shouter is using a PA system the likes of which you've probably never seen or heard. It is so loud that it is guaranteed you ain't going to sleep through it or miss it over the noise of your job during the day. For non-Muslims, I'm willing to bet we all have the same reaction every time he goes off, calling the faithful to prayer ... and that is, "Fucking Shouter!") But no Muslim can say, "I didn't hear it," which brings me to the next point.

 Public Prayer: I haven't known Muslims to quietly do a solitary, quiet little prayer to The Big A, such as, "I promise to be really good if you'll just let me pass this test." Nope. (Although, see The Talk, below.) In the Muslim countries it's ALL your neighbors and ALL your coworkers dropping whatever they were doing and getting together as a group to pray five times a day. If someone doesn't show up, it's pretty obvious to a lot of people. You SHALL show up -- and that leaves very little time in between moments of each reminder of Islam during which a Muslim mind might wander.

 This isn't just "if it's convenient." Even offshore, on the oil rigs in the Red Sea, the world stops at prayer time, upon the notice of The Shouter, everyone drops everything (there are emergency or safety exceptions) troops to some pre-ordained space on some deck where they can roll out the AstroTurf "prayer rug" wash their feet in the provided ritual ablution facility and get busy with the prayin'. No kidding.

 In addition to this public prayer, the faithful seem to be taught to do little recitations and readings of the Koran during any idle time. (Idle minds might be the devil's playground. Better keep them occupied.)

 Peer Pressure: If you don't show up to pray or go to the mosque when you're supposed to, first you'll get the evil eye and questions from your family, friends & neighbors. (This can be defended as being a "good" aspect of Islam. Everybody is "concerned" about everyone else. If Little Hesham doesn't show up for afternoon prayers, he might be sick or in trouble. People will know to go check up on him.) But, that checking up is the real point. You don't pray and you'll be checked up upon, pronto. And it won't be just mommie checking. It always seemed to me that the oldest, nastiest, brutish looking beast-of-a-being was the dude who walked around giving the "official" evil eye to any strays or infidels. Big time "shudder" when they came around. Must be like it was when the Gestapo or the KGB operatives walked into a room -- except, of course, Brutus is a "good" guy.

 The Mark: At first I couldn't figure out why so many of the faithful, even top business executives, had these patches of dark marking, about the size of a U.S. quarter, right in the center of their foreheads. Makeup? Hereditary?!? After enough time, you see why. The true faithful touch that spot on their forehead fully down onto their prayer rug, several times per prayer, and the prayers are five times per day, every day, forever. It's a freakin rug burn. Avoidable, but obviously not avoided. I've concluded that it is a mark of the pious, i.e., "See ... I ain't just going through the motions ... I'm actually banging my damn head down on the ground to The Big A!" Brilliant! Here's a religion which has pervaded the culture so totally that the men go to great lengths to bash the shit out of themselves, for god, many times a day.

 The Talk: Unlike the Western habit of saying, "Bless you," when somebody sneezes or even Western extremes like the Christian nut-job few who will say, "Go with God," or such when you part their company, etc., in the sphere of Islam I think it is impossible to have a one minute conversation with anybody about anything without some Islamic religious saying being tossed into the transcript. I didn't have a long enough immersion in the culture to know for sure if this is true everywhere; or, if maybe they were piously posturing for the "infidel" but there are more than 30 derivations of common language greetings or wishes which employ the name of Allah and/or Mohammed (none of which are swearing, as a Westerner might say "God damn it" or similar.) For details, see https://web.archive.org/web/20121004140157/http://arabic.speak7.com/islamic_expressions.htm

 Special Times: This ain't just like a few extra trips to church around Easter or Christmas. For instance, Ramadan is an entire freaking month wherein the faithful "fast," every day, from sunrise until after sunset, and cannot eat, drink, smoke, screw or swear -- at all. Lucky-me got to the Red Sea station on the first day of Ramadan (oh, goodie!) . Supposedly, non-Muslims don't have to play by these rules, but, a). see above about Brutus; b). where do you think you're going to get food or drink when all such sources are closed up tight from sunrise to sunset; c). how much shit that you've squirreled off the tables in the mess hall can you carry in your backpack, into the helicopter, out to the platform, before even you're desperate for sundown (and where do you think you can "partake" that is totally out of site of Brutus?) Thus, for an entire month, everybody is up to their who-ha's in religion as they're getting ready, eating like maniacs before The Shouter lets them know, officially, the sun is up, DIEING of thirst and stomach growling all day after about 10am, praying five times (nope, ya don't get to quit doing that) and then sitting around the table, in front of gobs of food and pitchers of drink "praying" for the fucking sun to set (again, announced by The Shouter.)

 On top of the actual time of Ramadan, when there are long-into-the-night celebrations (resplendent with food and drink), at the official end of Ramadan there is a huge celebration to end the fast. This party is such a big deal that it requires a lot of planning -- more time to think about things to do with Islam. There are a whole pot full of other special days and events in Islam, beyond Ramadan, which all work to keep the faith in front of the faithful. If interested, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_holidays

 Now, looking back at all of the above, isn't this a brilliantly planned out religious system? There ain't no stopping these guys. They have it all together. My only regret is that I never figured out how to make big money off of their crazy system. Oh well.

 That's it for today, friends. Please save your IED's and fatwas for somebody who is really worth it. I'm just one crazy old loon living and loving real paradise.

Well, back in the good ol' U. S. of A. it came to pass, fairly frequently, that I would get a bad case of the redass at other drivers. Sometimes I would begin shouting at them in tongues, (within the safety of my own car.)

But, here in Pura Vida land, I have turned over a new leaf and I try not to get torqued up over traffic events ... until this week.

It started right away as I passed through the toll booth of Hwy 27, in Atenas, headed to San Jose. Another little car came out of an adjacent toll booth a few seconds before I left mine and he started down the entrance ramp ahead of me. Down hill. Steeply. All set up so that you could easily get up to speed (only 70 kph at this location) to merge with any traffic.

Nah. This phenom of the driving arts poked down the hill and then at the Ceda (yield) sign CAME TO A COMPLETE STOP.

Me? I was flying down that hill, looking to the side for traffic (there was none) so that I could make the decision to merge ahead or behind any traffic. Instead, as I finally paid attention to what was supposed to be an empty ramp in front of me, I had to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming Einstein. 

From his dead stop the clown swiveled around in his seat to gawk up the road to see if some nasty car or truck was fixin to try to hit him. Only after he had triple checked the emptiness of the roadway did he risk brushing against the accelerator pedal and he oozed out onto the road.

Some evil spirit tried to fire me into a state of rage but I resisted and simply commented on the other driver's mother's occupation as I blew past him. Oh, well, into every life a little rain ... and all that stuff.

Have you noticed how unbelievably slowly many many trucks plod up the hills on the highways here? I mean, hey, I lived in California for quite a few years and on those serious mountain highways, if you weren't breaking the speed limit, semis would run right over you. It can be done. Those really big trucks can go really fast uphill. Does this mean that the truck drivers are just doing the snail act to piss me off? Well, maybe, but shouldn't they try to make up for lost time when going downhill on the other side?

No. I think they generally go slower downhill than they do going uphill. How? Why? DRIVE, dammit! If that piece of junk you're piloting has such crappy brakes that you can't control it going downhill at any speed above 10 kph, then: a). your rolling scrap heap cannot possibly have passed its RITEVE (safety) inspection this year, so, b). just drive that piece of shit off the road and wreck it. Maybe you can buy a real truck with the insurance money.

Fortunately, the tollroad has frequent passing lanes allowing all of us driving at the blazing maximum speed of 80 kph (50 by god miles per hour!) an opportunity to scoot around the highway sloths. 

Speaking of passing lanes, here in Costa Rica, they always end with plenty of notification coming at you from both road signs and from warning lines painted on the pavement. In other words, unless you are asleep (or on your fucking phone, you shithead) there is no way to not know that your lane is about to vanish. You'd think.

All of this end-of-lane awareness stuff doesn't really work though if the rutabega operating a vehicle has zero sense of depth perception. Yeah, on this fine day a turd in a BMW SUV was riding my tail and he kept waiting until all of the "Lane Ends" warnings and the Yield markings had flown by. Then he'd jerk his jerk-wagon over into the right lane, floor it, and get about 2/3 of the way past me before he realized that he was staring directly at a guard rail, whereupon he'd toss out the anchor and drop back on my tail. Over and over. Don't animals learn from their errors?

Well, I don't know ... because we all rolled into the tollgate complex near MultiPlaza. He went left for a booth and I went to the far right QuickPass lane.

As I picked my booth/lane, tightly surrounded by traffic all around, a box truck was slowly pulling through ahead of me. Too slowly. So slowly that just as the nose of his truck reached the gate, it lowered onto his bumper and he continued for about two feet, snapping the gate off.

Now, people, in case you don't know it, these gates are made out of soft plastic and they're designed to snap off cleanly without doing significant damage to their mechanism or to your vehicle. If it happens, let it go. It happens every day. Move along.

This truck stops dead in the lane and I'm trapped behind him. Two, three, four, a dozen cars and trucks pile up behind me. "Hey man ... move the truck over to the side." *beep beep*

Nothing. Then the driver's door on the truck opens. "No! Don't get out. There's no booth attendant. Just get out of the way." *HONK HONK*

Sir Thinksalot, the driver, moseys up to the front and stands there staring at the gate, like a goat looking at a watch. Everybody is honking. A cop rolls up in the next lane ... and watches. Oh, yeah, I forgot -- cops are hired to drive around in their cool cars with the emergency lights all flashing, going nowhere in particular. They don't even do donuts. They just drive around. Then the passenger door of the truck opens.

"No! Don't get out. Get out of the way you flaming cretins!" Now everybody is honking.

The passenger s-l-o-w-l-y walks to the back of the truck AND OPENS THE DAMN BACK DOORS! He's going to inspect the load for damage!

That ripped it. I was full tilt boogy flipped out. I was ready to pop a blood vessel. The cops seemed amused. Patricia, my co-pilot, seemed aghast that the Incredible Hulk had just materialized in the seat next to her.

And suddenly ...

The little voices in my head said, "Pura Vida, Mae. Tranquilo." That's right. I had no place to be. What do I care if that DUMB SHIT sits there for the rest of the day?

I'm tellin' ya. This Costa Rica life is really making me into a nice person. As I eventually rolled past the plodding former lane blocker I almost didn't flip him off. Pura Vida indeed!

Ban Crazy People -- not guns

In the wake of the horrific mass murder in CT, it amazes me how many people are again singing the "ban assault weapons" song. That's just plain ignorant. And I'm still amazed that NONE of the Sunday morning Talking Heads of the news/talk shows still can't step away from, "People don't need assault weapons to hunt." It ain't hunting, people. The Second Amendment is about giving the citizenry the means to fight off (defend themselves) from despots and groups of nuts who have designs on the country's freedoms -- and deer rifles are not at issue because you ain't going to fight off a rogue general, with a battalion of military grade weapons. You better have as many assault weapons as you can muster.

I know that I've written this so many times that it makes some of your heads hurt, but I think the Congress needs as many public reminders as possible.  For the security of a homeland, to the general population, a mess of excellent weapons, scattered all over a country, means more for that homeland's security, than any number of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Predator Drones in the hands of an organized army.

Again, (you knew this was coming, didn't you) a history lesson.

Hitler did not invade Switzerland because he knew every single damn house in the country had a male head of household with the latest military grade rifle then in existence and knew how to use it.

Many of Japan's military leaders were similarly reluctant to entertain attacking the USA mainland because they knew that the citizens would fight them from every doorway and rooftop and that the weapons were not only "out there" but a big chunk of the population (WWI vets and rural hunters) knew how to use them.  Yamamoto even wrote a letter cautioning:

Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. [emphasis added]

He had studied at Harvard for over two years and had done two Naval Attaché hitches in Washington, DC.   The reader may think that a country full of serious war weapons is a danger to them when in reality, it might be the reason they aren't speaking Japanese or German today.

Ban assault weapons?  Nah.

Every time government tries to legislate a problem from the back end, the problem gets worse or the "cure" goes out of control.

Stop the drunkards:  The 18th Amendment -

"The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

 What did that get us?  Highly enriched organized crime; blind and dead people from drinking bad liquor; and, maybe the worst effect, a general public disregard for a constitutional law.

The war on marijuana:  Millions of dollars spent against the horrors of our children becoming crazed zombies under the psycho effects of the devil weed, positively leading to addiction to opium, heroin and, oh, yeah, "sex, love, & rock and roll."  Tens of thousands of law enforcement, judicial & penal assets pissed away, resulting in a massive population of citizens with arrest records and subsequent meaningless incarcerations.

What did that get us?  Same thing as the first example.  Highly enriched organized crime and a lot of citizens "wounded" by the stigma of being criminals and (now) at least two generations of the general public with a disregard for a national law. (And, oh, yeah, probably 0.0000001% of the users ever graduated to heroin.)  [I just made that number up.  Go ahead and get me the citations to prove it wrong.  I'd appreciate your efforts.  Thanks.]

And, how's that knee-jerk Homeland Security thing working out for you?  Do you feel more secure now or are you amazed at how your freedoms have been impacted?  Have you traveled lately?  Tried to directly ship something by air lately, via air freight?  Visited a sea port lately?

So, should you stick your head in the sand ... business as usual?

Hell no.  Attack the problem.

Is the problem pervasive gun ownership?  While I'd say, "clearly not," if you want to legislate away assault weapons, and large magazines (they're not "clips" newsboy!) and anything else, please see above.

How about you get to know your neighbors so that you know if the young man down the street with the mom railing against the local school administration is bordering on being unstable?

How about if you speak up when you see or hear something disturbing developing?

How about if you raise your kids off of and away from the X-Box and absolutely know what they're doing for how many hours on the Internet?

And, even, how about if you quit being so damned "enlightened" about mental health because you saw the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and bring back mental institutions?  There has to be a place to put the wackos because you can't fix wacked with medications and/or touchy-feely halfway houses all of the time or nearly fast enough.  [Plus I might need a nice warm place to stay after the family reads this.]

How about if you all shun violent movies and video games?  They ARE an effing problem, whether you like to think so or not.  Just ask yourself, would you take your 5 year old or your 80 year old mother to the latest splatter movie?  Exactly why not?  Yeah.  Those are the reasons that you shouldn't be taking/letting anyone do that.  Free speech?  Let 'em speak all they want.  Just don't buy into it, thereby enriching the speaker and encouraging further such behavior.

That's enough hammering for now.  I hope you see my position. 

Good luck with this.  I'm down here in the Wild West watching.

Let's Alienate More Than 47%

We've been rolling on a "Religions and absence thereof" thread over on one of the Costa Rica blog sites (until the site owner snaps to the fact that we're discussing nothing about CR and shuts us down) and I thought that it might be an agitation (one of my favorite games) to reproduce that thread over here, plus add some other dreck.  So grab onto you cajones, god-squad ... here we go --

--- In CRRealists@yahoogroups.com, Carole Saylor <carolesaylor@...> wrote:
>
> About time we had something to discuss.  :-)
> I have a question for everyone.  How did you decide on which religion (or nothing) to believe in?  Is it because of how you were raised?  Is it because you had an epiphany?  Did you arrive at it scientifically?  Did you construct your own belief system?  Or what? 
> 

Then another frequent contributor added:

--- In CRRealists@yahoogroups.com, "lenpetry" <lenpetry@...> wrote:
>
>
> I get to my belief system in a backward way.
>
> Science seems so far incapable of answering the most important questions about existence:  why are we here, how did we come to be here?
>
> To be sure, science has made progress, but when we think of the simplistic science that existed before Copernicus, Newton, Einstein etc, it seems likely that the current state of science will appear equally inadequate to future generations. This is not to dismiss science, but rather to acknowledge that if science is capable of understanding the universe, that day is a long way off in the future.
>
> I also wonder in quiet moments whether science will ever completely understand the mysteries of existence. The ant cannot understand a human being, so perhaps we human beings don't have the mental apparatus required to  understand a supreme power so complex as to be capable of creating the human body, and the universe.
>
> This is at least a possibility to consider.
>
> Nor do I think that formal religions have the answer. They all strike me as woefully inadequate human attempts to put the universe into some sort of order, any kind of order, as if any order is better than mystery. But the believers of one religion pick at the others, hoping to make their own religion more valid than the others. So, with so many reasoned criticisms levelled against each religion by informed others, which one to favour?  None of them is my answer.
>
> This line of reasoning could lead one to agnosticism, or atheism, or mysticism (the latter being a belief in the possibility of a supreme being, but not going as far as to ascribe thoughts, intentions, etc to that being).
>
> Yet atheism won't do.  If we can't understand the universe, we are in  no position to make assertions about it. If we are in no position to assert that a supreme being exists, nor are we in a position to assert that such a being does NOT exist.
>
> This leads me by elimination to mysticism and agnosticism, but the more I learn of the mysteries of  the universe, how incomprehensibly complex it is, the more I believe in the possibility that it was all created and organized by a supreme being.

> No proofs, of course.  No firm declarations. Only an admission of the possibility of a supreme being.  And that's as far as my limited human intelligence could ever be expected to take me. 
>

Pretty well thought out.  Then, I replied:

Carole --

As a "hard scrabble" (love that terminology) person of naturalistic views, as
opposed to a person with super-naturalistic views of "why are we here," etc.,
from what I have learned, the most reasonable answer to your question about how
people chose one religion over another is that for the vast majority of
religious people, they are born into it.

If you're born in the USA, there's a very high probability that you'll be
Christian. Which flavor of Christian has everything to do with parents and
friends. Not intellect.

If you're born in Saudi Arabia, there's a stupendously high probability that
you'll be a follower of Islam.

India = Hindu
Israel = Jewish
Tibet = Buddhism etc., etc.

Then, the naturalistic argument becomes, "So, if you're Christian, only because
your parents and friends are Christian, what's the basis of your rock solid
belief that people born Muslim are so wrong?" And, "If there are so many
'right' opinions (from the points of view of the many religions) then,
therefore, they must all be called into question."

Len --

Fantastic post. Really well thought out. My only deviation of opinion is that
I have no problem with science continuously updating and improving itself (i.e.,
"being wrong" at first) because that's what real science is about. Looking.
Seeing. Observing. Collecting evidence and then making a reasoned effort to
explain why something is the way it is. And NOT taking into account any myths
or unsubstantiated fairy tales because some barbarian in a tent wrote it down
after drinking too much mead, thousands of years ago.

Regarding religions explanations: I love the argument that in religion (e.g.,
the Bible) vs., science -- religion has been proven wrong 100% of the time with
respect to explaining any aspect of our physical universe; whereas, science has
been correct many times and partially correct (and then updated or corrected)
countless more times. What is the basis for an argument that, "Well, THOSE were
just stories and parables but THESE paragraphs are absolutely true and correct."

For both of you, one of the newest and deeply naturalistic books written in a
long time is by a respected theologian, who's brain finally snapped out of it so
that he could shake off the programming of his life and write, "Why I Became An
Atheist," by John W. Loftus, which is available in hard and Kindle versions.
Some portions are slap-in-the-face clear, yet some are deep philosophical
screeds which I have to read several times to grasp. I have to hand it to him
-- he leaves no stone unturned and might be the new Most Dangerous Man for
Religions of the 21st century.

Keep thinking, y'all.

JW

But I dashed back and had to drop in one more remark --

Ooops. I forgot something ...

Len said:

>
> Yet atheism won't do. If we can't understand the universe, we are in no
position to make assertions about it. If we are in no position to assert that a
supreme being exists, nor are we in a position to assert that such a being does
NOT exist.
>

By my definition, atheism is not a belief system and does not attempt to "prove"
anything. It is the lack of a belief system. Simple absence. And, since one
can never prove a negative, there wouldn't be anything to prove, anyway. Some
people don't want to leave the black hole of "I don't know," in their lives and
I guess that's why agnosticism exists. ¿No es así?

Then, shock of shocks, the forum owner jumps in ...

--- In CRRealists@yahoogroups.com, "John Dungan" <grumblesfmarenal@...> wrote:
>
> I was born to parents who practiced no religion.  My mother seemed to lean towards a vague Christian belief, but was pretty turned off to organized religion due to what her mother put her through growing up.  My old man's major devotion was to the bottle, so he didn't have room for much else.
> I converted to Catholicism in order to marry my wife (we've now been married over 44 years).  I did little more than pay it lip service for many years, but have gradually become a for real 'practicing' Catholic, attending Mass regularly, going to Confession, etc.
>
> Over the years I have found a certain amount of fellowship in seeing the same familiar faces week after week, and take a measure of comfort in the sharing of the repetitious celebration of the various Church functions.
>
> I was fortunate to have one-on-one education prior to my conversion from a Priest who taught me that we can and do exercise free will, and we are each responsible for our own actions.  I strive to leave my religion out of my political beliefs, and do not pick candidates based on any religious positions they might espouse.  (We all need to remember that a politician will say any damn thing to get elected, and then do whatever the hell their backers want them to do once elected; so, never, ever believe what they say).
>
> So, I guess I'm an exception to the previously stated idea that your birth usually determines your religion, although, having been born in the U. S. A., I would have to say that if one is going to have a religion, odds are very strongly in favor of that religion being Christian.
>
>

I think this post elucidates one of the greatest strengths -- and weaknesses -- of Christianity (and Islam, to a lesser extent ... see the end of this mess.)

People are not adhering to Christianity and going to church for intellectual reasons -- They're going because IT MAKES THEM FEEL GOOD.  Seeing the people of "their tribe" makes them feel good.  Praying makes them feel good.  The songs make them feel good.  The security of a routine makes them feel good.  Joel Osteen makes them feel good.  Not very many people give a shit about whether or not there was ever a virgin birth and the philosophical ramifications thereof.  Nobody gives a shit about whether or not there was ever really a flood that covered the whole earth.  For all except a tiny few it's all about feeling good.

I responded to Mr. John:

>
> --- In CRRealists@yahoogroups.com, "John Dungan" <grumblesfmarenal@> wrote:
> >
> > Over the years I have found a certain amount of fellowship in seeing the same familiar faces week after week, and take a measure of comfort in the sharing of the repetitious celebration of the various Church functions.
>
> 


What amazingly parallel lives we've led, John.  I too "went Catholic" for marriage and also had the marvelously intelligent Priest, one-on-one.  My only difference was that I came into it with a strong formal education in world religions and already knew a fair amount about the non-Christian groups and their beliefs.  If anything, this made me more strongly able to support the Catholics in their programs.  I am even the co-founder of two highly successful Catholic education programs -- one in TX and one in CA.

Your point, reproduced above, is exactly why I endorsed religious participation for my kids while growing up.  It is wonderful and warming to see the same circle of families week after week.  (When we "sucked" them into joining in as CCD teachers, we would see them night after night!)  All of the kids went through the entire Catholic education, baptism, 1st Communion, Confirmation regimen. 
 
But I also made sure that the kids knew more than most about the other religions out there and I also made sure that they were circumspect, independent thinkers.  Scorecard: 2 Full Atheists; 2 Closet Atheists; 1 Born Again Christian (who will drop it like a hot potato if her husband ever does, I think.)
 
Here, now, in the twilight of my years (no ... I will NOT sing it) I have friends who are "churched," friends who are atheists and me, Mr. Stirs-The-Pot.  I'm totally good with that.

This all went on and on.  It was probably he longest running thread with the greatest number of written words, ever, for the group.  Finally, everyone kind of petered out.  They'd all blown their wad and nobody actually went away angry.  Pretty rare in this day and age.

So, maybe it's time for me to go off on Islam.  Not that this specific religion deserves special scorn for any reason.  It's just time.  I'm actually a little bit in awe of it.  I'm not all that much of an expert on the history of Islam's religious development, such as, "Who thought this or that up?" although it would be interesting to know because some of this stuff is just damn genius.  One of the up sides, for the supporters of Islam, is that with their system, I'll bet only a tiny handful have been raised inside the system and have gone on to awaken and become atheists.  Here's why:

I've lived among the real Muslims (as opposed to the recently invented Afro-American Muslims) through work and play.  I've lived through an entire Ramadan and I've been allowed to stand quietly among them during prayers.  Islam is brilliantly unparalleled by any religion at any time in history by its super-clever and all-pervasive methods of ensuring that their faithful remain faithful and that those "faithful" partake of religion so constantly that there isn't much time to sit around and cogitate on "why the hell did I just do that?"

First, unless one has an agenda (e.g., the Afro-Americans) or unless one is under threat of death, there ain't going to be many willing converts stepping forward to join the Muslim flock.  It is just too hard and takes up too much time.  Any outsider who has experienced any of the other world religions, which are generally (way) less demanding, isn't going to be easily "awakened" by Islam and go running to its bosom.  So, my earlier noted principle of "you're born into it," pretty much says it all.  And a LOT of people have been born into it.  A lot more will be.

Second, the religion's adherents are probably the least philosophically circumspect and open thinkers on the planet.  That means that none of the usual intellectual arguments will work on them, so don't bother.  That, and there's the "you renounce Islam and we'll kill you" thingy.  That might give one pause.  The following are the clever methods by which the people are kept from thinking anything but Islam.

The trappings:  People have to carry around their prayer rugs or have them stashed, everywhere they'll be (requires thinking about religion.)  They have to plan ahead, where they're going to be throughout the day, so that they can perform their purification (i.e., where can I find a spot to wash my damn feet,) know ahead of time (think about) which direction to face, identify a place (think about) to spread out the prayer rug, etc.  Also, an amazing number of them physically carry a copy of the Koran, everywhere -- work, play, no matter.  Walking around in public, prayers commence, in public, at the appointed times.  Therefore, there have to be provisions for people to wash (purify) in the public sphere.  So, even if it ain't prayer time, you'll probably be passing washing stations which are another means of reminding adherents, constantly, of their religion.  In short, the trappings keep the faithful thinking about the mechanics of Islam worship even more frequently than one would suppose.

The Shouter:  National Geographic films, etc., don't do The Shouter (actually called The Muezzin) any justice because the impact of his "call to prayer" just doesn't come across the tiny, tinny speakers of your TV.  This is kind of like hearing an AK47 shot in the movies and firing one in your own two hands.  Yowzer!  There's no comparison.  The Shouter is using a PA system the likes of which you've probably never seen or heard.  It is so loud that it is guaranteed you ain't going to sleep through it or miss it over the noise of your job during the day.  For non-Muslims, I'm willing to bet we all have the same reaction every time he goes off, calling the faithful to prayer ... and that is, "Fucking Shouter!")   But no Muslim can say, "I didn't hear it," which brings me to the next point.

Public Prayer:  I haven't known Muslims to quietly do a solitary, quiet little prayer to The Big A, such as, "I promise to be really good if you'll just let me pass this test."  Nope. (Although, see The Talk, below.)  In the Muslim countries it's ALL your neighbors and ALL your coworkers dropping whatever they were doing and getting together as a group to pray five times a day.  If someone doesn't show up, it's pretty obvious to a lot of people.  You SHALL show up -- and that leaves very little time in between moments of each reminder of Islam during which a Muslim mind might wander.

This isn't just "if it's convenient."  Even offshore, on the oil rigs in the Red Sea, the world stops at prayer time, upon the notice of The Shouter, everyone drops everything (there are emergency or safety exceptions) troops to some pre-ordained  space on some deck where they can roll out the AstroTurf "prayer rug" wash their feet in the provided ritual ablution facility and get busy with the prayin'.  No kidding.

In addition to this public prayer, the faithful seem to be taught to do little recitations and readings of the Koran during any idle time.  (Idle minds might be the devil's playground.  Better keep them occupied.)

Peer Pressure:  If you don't show up to pray or go to the mosque when you're supposed to, first you'll get the evil eye and questions from your family, friends & neighbors.  (This can be defended as being a "good" aspect of Islam.  Everybody is "concerned" about everyone else.  If Little Hesham doesn't show up for afternoon prayers, he might be sick or in trouble.  People will know to go check up on him.)  But, that checking up is the real point.  You don't pray and you'll be checked up upon, pronto.  And it won't be just mommie checking. It always seemed to me that the oldest, nastiest, brutish looking beast-of-a-being was the dude who walked around giving the "official" evil eye to any strays or infidels.  Big time "shudder" when they came around.  Must be like it was when the Gestapo or the KGB operatives walked into a room -- except, of course, Brutus is a "good" guy.

The Mark:  At first I couldn't figure out why so many of the faithful, even top business executives, had these patches of dark marking, about the size of a U.S. quarter, right in the center of their foreheads.  Makeup?  Hereditary?!?  After enough time, you see why.  The true faithful touch that spot on their forehead fully down onto their prayer rug, several times per prayer, and the prayers are five times per day, every day, forever.  It's a freakin rug burn.  Avoidable, but obviously not avoided.  I've concluded that it is a mark of the pious, i.e., "See ... I ain't just going through the motions ... I'm actually banging my damn head down on the ground to The Big A!"  Brilliant!  Here's a religion which has pervaded the culture so totally that the men go to great lengths to bash the shit out of themselves, for god, many times a day.

The Talk:   Unlike the Western habit of saying, "Bless you," when somebody sneezes or even Western extremes like the Christian nut-job few who will say, "Go with God," or such when you part their company, etc., in the sphere of Islam I think it is imposible to have a one minute conversation with anybody about anything without some Islamic religious saying being tossed into the transcript.  I didn't have a long enough immersion in the culture to know for sure if this is true everywhere; or, if maybe they were piously posturing for the "infidel" but there are more than 30 derivations of common language greetings or wishes which employ the name of Allah and/or Mohammed (none of which are swearing, as a Westerner might say "God damn it" or similar.)  For details, see http://arabic.speak7.com/islamic_expressions.htm

Special Times:  This ain't just like a few extra trips to church around Easter or Christmas.  For instance, Ramadan is an entire freaking month wherein the faithful "fast," every day, from sunrise until after sunset, and cannot eat, drink, smoke, screw or swear -- at all.  Lucky-me got to the Red Sea station on the first day of Ramadan (oh, goodie!) .  Supposedly, non-Muslims don't have to play by these rules, but, a). see above about Brutus; b). where do you think you're going to get food or drink when all such sources are closed up tight from sunrise to sunset; c). how much shit that you've squirreled off the tables in the mess hall can you carry in your backpack, into the helicopter, out to the platform, before even you're desperate for sundown (and where do you think you can "partake" that is totally out of site of Brutus?)  Thus, for an entire month, everybody is up to their who-ha's in religion as they're getting ready, eating like maniacs before The Shouter lets them know, officially, the sun is up, DIEING of thirst and stomach growling all day after about 10am, praying five times (nope, ya don't get to quit doing that) and then sitting around the table, in front of gobs of food and pitchers of drink "praying" for the fucking sun to set (again, announced by The Shouter.)

On top of the actual time of Ramadan, when there are long-into-the-night celebrations (resplendent with food and drink), at the official end of Ramadan there is a huge celebration to end the fast.  This party is such a big deal that it requires a lot of planning -- more time to think about things to do with Islam.

There are a whole pot full of other special days and events in Islam, beyond Ramadan, which all work to keep the faith in front of the faithful.  If interested, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_holidays

Now, looking back at all of the above, isn't this a brilliantly planned out religious system?  There ain't no stopping these guys.  They have it all together.  My only regret is that I never figured out how to make big money off of their crazy system.  Oh well.

That's it for today, friends.  Please save your IED's and fatwas for somebody who is really worth it.  I'm just one crazy old loon living and loving real paradise.

Wake Up

I'm reading quite a few posts and news items about the "bad, evil" people in the USA Congress or the "bad, evil" in the Presidential Administration who are doing "everything" wrong because it doesn't agree with the writer's political point of view.

Then, this is usually ended with some polemic or another of "throw the bums out" or "vote, vote, vote."

Wake the hell up.

The USA is NOT a country of the people, by the people and for the people unless "people" is defined as The Club of ultra-rich powerful folk that are really running things -- and you ain't one of them, Mr/Ms Voter.

Obama's 50th birthday is being marked by an "intimate" little gathering of 1100 people who are each paying between $50 and $3000 to attend. (How many $50 tickets do you think there are?) You got $3000 to toss his way? How about $3000 to toss his way several times before the 2012 election; and, several $3000 gifts to plop into the coffers of your favorite senators and representatives? Oh, and don't forget that you can "encourage" all of the corporations, for which you are a Director, or political action committees, for which you are a Director, to do the same.

You in that Club? I didn't think so.

But wait ... there's more!

The little get together for 1100 is only for the riff raff. The VIP's (?!?) are attending a different "special" party where the entrance fee is $5000 to $15,000 per.

I wonder why The Club can afford to spend so much money? All told, most people are estimating that the 2012 election will run in the neighborhood of $8 billion. Yes ... billion, with a B.

Do the "people" have that kind of money to donate? The Club does.

I often use the following "great revelation" to make people think about the futility of fighting this monster. Obama is expected to top the $1 billion mark for his re-election campaign of 2012. Obviously, whomever is his Republican opponent will have to match that (and they will.) Quite certainly Mr's Obama and Whomever don't have that kind of money to personally spend, so almost all of it will come from donations from The Club.

All to land a job which pays only $400,000 per year? For a job that is so tough that the "winner" is certainly going to age 10 years for every 4 he spends in office. Oh ... do the damn math.

And, do you think the poor dumb sap that gets that Oval Office REALLY runs things? Come on -- even a dumb monkey like "W" was in that office and The Club just grew richer and richer. [Bet you were thinking I wasn't going to get in another shot at Dubya. Ha ha. I'm very resourceful.]

During “that other damn Democrat’s administration,” prior to Dubya, The Club was losing a little wealth and power in the world because the US cut back and back on military projects, canceling them right and left. Then came 9/11.

Yay! We got ourselves a jenyouwine war!

But, shit, we can kick that little despot's ass in Iraq in a week. We gotta have a Real War so that our (The Club's) companies can sell We The People lots and lots of munitions and equipment and food and medical supplies and fuel and, oh, just tons of stuff.

Oh, yeah ... Afghanistan! The country that either hasn't been conquerable, or has bankrupted the conqueror, for the last 2,000 years. Sounds good to The Club.

Now, TEN YEARS later, have YOU made any money off of the war, other than maybe a salary? Nah. (You’ve just made all of the sacrifices.)

Did The Club make any money?

Why, yes they have, thank you very much. By the time you read this, the number will be $1.3 TRILLION. Kind of makes a stinking $8 billion look like a damn good investment, doesn't it.

So, yell and scream. Write lots of political screeds damning those damn Democrats/Republicans. Get out the vote. Send in your pissant little $100 donation to the Party of your choice.

But just keep the noise down a little. The Club has to get some sleep so that they can wake up in time to control whomever you elect.

Comes the revolution ... don't call me. I'm too old and I'm retired. Let somebody else get killed fighting the military might controlled by The Club. I’ll be watching from here in paradise and I’ll be sure to write and tell you what I think.

You’re welcome.

You'll Die!

Recently, I overheard a lady on a cellphone telling someone, "No, don't use Splenda! It causes Alzheimer's Disease."

Sure it does, and breathing air apparently (in your case, lady) gives a person a mega-case of the screaming yellow stupids. You're the living proof.

A few years ago it was Equal. A few decades ago it was saccharine, which absolutely positively caused cancer in millions of people ... oops ... they were wrong. Remember cyclamates? Cyclamates ... we're all going to die!

Coffee's good for you. Coffee's bad for you.

Red wine makes you live longer. Red wine kills you.

Water becomes a magical medicine because it "remembers" having some poison or chemical in it, even after it has been diluted down to the equivalent of a thimble-full of that chemical dumped onto the Pacific (homeopathy ... don't get me started.)

Where on Earth do so many people get so many ignorant urban legends and false "scientific" information? The Internet, of course; or, their best friend's aunt's boyfriend's boss. Therefore, it HAS to be true.

News Flash, sheeple: Just because YOU or your buddy reads something, it probably means that it is NOT true if it's on the Internet as a "new scientific discovery" or the latest easy way to do something hard. It is highly UN-likely that you would be reading or hearing about anything which has been newly scientifically proven because those results are only published in peer reviewed professional journals -- and you don't subscribe to any of those, do you, Big Dog.

Even worse, Stud Master, is if you hear something startling or controversial reported by broadcast news. Broadcast "journalists" have degenerated from the likes of Murrow and Cronkite to a collection of some of the most shockingly ignorant buffoons ever to grace any "profession." Nowadays, their only purpose is to look pretty/handsome, act like they're your best friend and confidant while they read fluffy, entertaining dreck, written by some 1st year J-school intern who is barely literate.

Finally, P-L-E-A-S-E stop forwarding emails to me about dangers and discoveries or for that matter, any damn thing -- especially if it's about Obama or politics or ...

Oh. Wait. I'm saving that for another screed.

J'ever notice how like-minded humans seem to be drawn to nest together? We were in a fringe neighborhood of Houston yesterday, to purchase new weapons and it dawned on me that everyone around me at the strip-mall was anglo and mean looking. Kind of like we'd driven into the private digs of the local Hells Angels chapter. Very weird.

Since we were there, we decided to go hopping around from geocache to geocache in the vicinity. We drove to several more spots in the area and the people-scenery didn't change much. REALLY nice homes ... but everyone looked like they were hiding from Da Law or were in the witness protection program. Eeek. Think I'll stay away from that area from now on.

Anyhowski, I have two new toys to report on. First, the Trimble software for cell phones called Geocache Navigator. http://www.geocachenavigator.com/ Darn near free, this stuff loaded painlessly onto my Blackberry and suddenly I have a GPS geocache locater that's as good as many dedicated geocache units. Some of the really cool features are that you can plot out a selected cache on a map that can be switched among blank background or overlays of a street map or a satellite view (ala Google Earth) or a topographic map mode -- all while your real-time position and that of the cache are shown. On top of these features, there are tabs to select which show: the cache's detailed description at www.geocaching.com; the direction to the cache using an electronic compass needle; or, "radar mode" (my favorite) which looks like, um, a radar screen, showing you and the cache positioned relative to your direction of motion. This radar screen automatically updates and zooms scale, as you get closer and closer to the cache, until every step you take shows up as a significant pixel shift on the screen. The radar screen is particularly excellent in forested or otherwise GPS hindered areas because you can walk to a clear spot, get a good satellite fix, then take a visual of the x-axis to the cache (including the distance in feet) then move to a perpendicular clear area to shoot the y-axis and distance. So, even when the cache is beneath a dense cluster or beneath a bridge you can still nail that puppy. Ultra handy.

Admittedly, the GPS engine on our Garmin is more sensitive and accurate but I was still able to have the Blackberry guide me to within a yard of a cache in the open.

Next new toy: I was surfing the Kimber America site (manufacturer of my hip cannon) when I noticed a tab for "Less Lethal." Uhhrrrru?!? Had to look. Zounds!

Kimber, in association with a Swiss company, is selling a device that looks like one of those electric self-defense zappers, but these fire (yes, fire) a loogie of dense oleo capsicum, accurately, at 90 miles per hour, for 13 to 25 feet (depending on which unit you buy.) The 13 foot units are up on You Tube titled Guardian Angel. These things each carry two shots and hit with a bang. Kimber claims there is virtually no blow-back and that a shot will blast right through a stocking mask or defensive fingers, etc., and that it travels so quickly to the target that it is impossible for the bad guy to duck out of the way. No more pissed off big bad guys whom you just shot at with a cloud of pepper spray ... but he started weaving n bobbing when you pulled out the canister and all you managed to do was make him cough once before he beats the crap out of you.

Are these critters a substitute for Kimmie on my hip? Nah. There's always still the chance that you'll miss with both OC shots and, well, see above. Or, you might be "taking a knife to a gun fight." But, these little toys are so non-threatening looking that I'm pretty sure that you can open carry and nobody will think anything of it. So, at bars, the beach, school campuses, hospital grounds and other places where Kimmie can't be carried, these "pain launchers" are way way better than conventional less-lethals and infinitely better than nothing. Check 'em out. We bought two.

How quickly we forget

I am shocked at how long it has been since I've goobled the gobbus. Shame shame. I need to get back with it. I have many curmudgeonly and downright contrary things to say. What better place to rant than a blog site that nobody ever sees. I resolve to reform.

Toll Road Followup

Award:

She's out there. La gran estúpida.

This really happened, this week:

Coming south, through the West Little York Toll Plaza, I'm in the Easy Tag Only lane and the usual morons are tying up traffic as they get into the Tag Only lane and then discover (or is it "discover" since I suspect that a lot of this is intentional) that they are in the wrong lane ... and they have to then block everyone while they try to nudge their way into one of the adjacent cash lanes.

So this woman in front of me, with an Easy Tag plainly visible on her windshield, begins to roll smartly along with the traffic as the morons clear away from in front of us.

She gets up to the Easy Tag reader and STOPS!?! (whereupon, I almost rear-ended her; and the guy behind me almost rear-ended me; and the guy behind him ... ad infinitum)

No horn from me, because I'm a REFORMED Road Rage Psychopath and every person has the right to drive safely and with the level of conservatism to which they are comfortable (gack! I want to retch every time I parrot those "good driver" platitudes.)

Away she crept from her stop at the reader. The toll gate went up (don't get me started -- yes, the damn things are back) she rolled up even with the gate and SHE STOPPED AGAIN.!! That ripped it.

She got the horn. I almost got rear-ended, again, and the other good drivers went wild with their horns.

She got moving, so out we all roll. I passed her and looked over to lay my most evil, rotten, "You're sooooo stupid!" dirty look on her but she won't look my direction. Ms. Gotta-stop has the pedal to the metal and is going to break the speed laws. On a mission.

Yeah, genius, stop twice in the toll gate but then get out there and drive 80 miles an hour while everyone else is doing 65-75. Makes perfect sense -- NOT.

That's O.K., I'll probably pass her in the next tool plaza after she stops suddenly, again, and causes a 37 car pileup. I'll save my "look" for then.

I Was Right All Along

I just knew that our old truck, Suzie Isuzu and I would get crosswise sooner than later.

O.K. Yeah, I’m spoiled. I’ve driven new cars for decades. After I’ve driven them awhile, they start to break, and I go get a new one. So, shoot me.

Regardless, there didn’t seem to be any sense in getting a new or near-new car for Costa Rica, driving it for a couple of weeks, then parking it in the garage for months, until our next trip to CR. Logically, we bought a 1994 ol’ beater. Dependable enough, but not breaking the bank. And NO PAYMENTS.

But then I started driving her and my love affair with Suzie started to sour:

• She burns oil.
• The rear doors are sticky and won’t always unlatch, without a jiggling and banging session. (And if somebody KEEPS slamming her seatbelt buckle in the door, they’re really hard to open.)
• The outside spare tire rack rattles and squeaks.
• THERE ARE NO CUP HOLDERS. ZERO! NADA. NONE!
• The driver’s window sometimes won’t go all the way up, leaving a tiny crack that whistles air and dribbles rain.
• Radio? There’s a radio?
• The front windshield washer doesn’t work.
• She stalls a lot when she’s cold.
• She burns a lot of that $6.00 per gallon gas.
• The hatch window lift gas struts are worn out. They won’t lift all the way by themselves and they leak down, slowly letting the window close on your noggin while you’re loading groceries.
• She smells like an old truck that has been used to haul everything except (maybe) dead bodies.

Waaah.

Then I remembered, “No whiners allowed in CR.” So I sucked it up and we started to get along.

Things were going pretty well one Monday, considering that I’d received 2nd degree burns across the top of my left leg that morning.

That afternoon, we had driven to Alajuela to see Maritza and Venicio and to introduce them to our daughter, Jenny, who had arrived from the States for a visit.

Time kind of slipped away during our visit and before you know it we were saying our goodbyes in the dusk. A short stop at a roadside restaurant put us out on the road home even later -- well into the darkness.

THUNK! Clang-ity-clang-cling-dinkle-dinkle-dinkle.

“What was that? Did you see anything in the road? We hit something,” I said to co-pilot, Pat.

“Didn’t see a thing, but yeah, I think we must have hit something,” she responded.

We drove for about 10 more minutes, putting us well up into the mountains, on the winding stretch with no shoulder and no pull-offs.

PHWUMP PHWUMP PHWUMP. I knew the sound and feel of a flat tire.

Absolutely no place to pull off. No way to stop on these blind curves … in the dark … with the pavement wet from the evening rains. Cripes.

Then a couple of those Pura Vida drivers started flashing their lights and honking their horns because: a)., I had a flat and was driving on it (duh); and, b)., I’d slowed down to below the speed of sound on these curves because, I brilliantly reasoned, a flat tire probably doesn’t get as much traction on wet pavement curves as does a fully functioning tire.

Tensions went up inside the cockpit as the girls tersely informed me that I shouldn’t be driving on a flat tire and that I needed to … well … uh … do something! Okey dokey.

It was probably at least a half mile before there was even the hint of a semi-flat spot along the shoulder of the road. I started in towards one and then saw that it was probably soft mud. Bailing back out onto the road irritated yet another Tico and earned me his ire, manifest by a little ol’ blast on his horn.

Thankfully somebody lives somewhere back in them thar hills as a driveway entrance suddenly loomed in the headlights. Driveway = flat (ish) and driveway probably = gravel. I pulled right in.

We’re parked at the top of a hill, at the end of a blind curve, about a foot off the road’s pavement. I hit the 4-way flashers. Yee-hah, they work. Score 1 for the home team!

O.K., we might as well get on with it. I knew the location of the jack due to an accidental discovery of its little hiding cubby while poking around inside one afternoon. That much we had going for us. And, oh yeah, we knew where the spare tire was … right there on the back hatch, always in the way. Two things going for us!

In very short order, the jack was out of its storage, and yippee, the lug wrench was in there too. Three things to the plus column!

You just know there are going to be some inhabitants of the minus column, don’t you. Bingo. You’re right.

First, pop that spare tire/wheel off the carrier on the back hatch. Slip the lug wrench onto the first bolt … skreeeek … it squeals loose and backs out; do the second one … ooof! … tighter but out it came … the third one should be easy because it’s on the bottom and I can put all 300 pounds down onto it. Nope.

By the time I was finished jumping up and down (painfully) on the lug wrench, the head of the bolt was starting to round off and there hadn’t been so much as a little “click” of promise out of the stubborn fastener. A couple of times I just let my arms drop to my sides, figuring that the game was over. That 3rd bolt was not coming out.

We momentarily discussed locking up the mess, calling a taxi and getting a wrecker to take care of the problem in the morning. That didn’t sound fun. One last go at it. The hell with how my leg was feeling, lean into the bolt head with everything I’ve got and then kind of fall down against the lug wrench. It squeaked a little! Re-purchase the bite on the bolt head … and pound down on it once again and it turned. That pig was completely cross-threaded – who knows how many years ago – and was probably hammered home with an impact wrench. It ground out of its hole by hand, but not willingly.

Pat started to cram the jack under the side of the car. But I knew that there must be some exact spot for this jack to go and that just anywhere wouldn’t work. What I didn’t know was that the inscrutable engineers at Isuzu had thought long and hard about how to set up their jack/vehicle “exact spot” in a location most likely to cause pain, anguish and suffering for any stupid old gringo loony enough to get a flat tire in the dark and then park over sloshy-wet mud/gravel. Oh, yeah. Let me.

I found the old owner’s manual in the glove box (amazing!) and dug into the “Changing A Tire” page. Oh, lord. The jack must be positioned directly under the rear axle, immediately next to the inside of the leaf spring bracket. In other words, WAAAAY the hell up under the stinking car.

Great. I’m dressed in cut-off jeans – cut off so that my bandaged leg didn’t have the pain of anything pressing against the burns – a brand new shirt and Crocs. Pura Vida. No whining.

Under the truck you go, boy. Not that hard. Just skud the jack through the mud and feel around in the dark (I had brilliantly taken our flashlight out of the truck the day before and forgotten to put it back.) The jack nested right up under the axle tube. The jack actuator wheel turned easily as the jack rose up and made contact. The actuator wheel stopped turning. That thing was going no further without a serious handle.

“Anybody see a jack handle?” No answer.

Dragged my bod up off the mud pan and started through every nook and cranny of that *&%$ truck. Nothing. Yikes.

Oooo. Oooo. The owner’s manual.

Remember those inscrutable Isuzu engineers that designed the lift point for the jack in an impossible place? Well, the same guys were on the team to find a place to put the jack handle. Without the owner’s manual, nobody would ever find it. Ever.

Here’s the trick. The rear seat and seat back fold down to give extra load space. While folding the seat forward, the very underside of the seat becomes visible. It is completely covered with the same carpet/fabric as are the floors. That (I guess) is supposed to be a clue. “Why would anybody upholster the underside of the seat?” you’re supposed to ask yourself. As you may have guessed, with a clever array of Velcro closures, the underside upholstery peels away. And, there, amid the springs and foam rubber, are little clips holding the two long jack handle pieces.

Oh, uh, but they are just straight bars. No handle off to one side so that you can crank the durn things.

Owner’s manual is no help on this one.

Search, search, search. The girls looked everywhere while I lay on my back underneath Suzie trying as best I could to turn the jack’s wheel with no crank.

“Are you SURE that there isn’t a handle under the seat somewhere?”

Jenny is standing near my feet, holding the lug wrench. “What does this little slot do?” She asked, examining the lug wrench handle.

Sure enough, punched through the middle of the lug wrench handle was a little slot that I guess we were supposed to simply know was the exact size of the flats machined on the end of the jack handle. What a leap of logic.

O.K., now I bet you’re thinking that all I had to do was to just slide that handle in place and spin the jack up.

Nah. Isuzu has engineers.

Some feces-face little geek in god-knows-where, Japan, designed this jack’s gearing so that the jack handle, which is already too long to rotate a reasonable arc beneath the truck, can’t possibly exert enough force to lift the truck smoothly, given the normal strength of a regular person. You get to lay on your back, way under the truck, let out a karate shout, while simultaneously pushing with all your might on the jack handle. It moves a quarter turn and then clangs into the truck’s undercarriage. (If you pull on the handle, you just lift yourself up out of the mud.) Re-set the handle for another push and repeat.

So with way more effort than I EVER expected to put forth while on vacation, I grunted and groaned the damn truck up a good two inches.

I was resetting the wrench/handle when I perceived the truck moving. I shouted something to the girls and did a twisting roll out from under the truck as it slid in the mud and fell off the jack.

Hey, this is getting fun. Now the gauze on my legs is fully saturated with mud – it feels really good – and we get to start all over again.

The girls went on a rock hunt and somehow came back with several stones big enough to wedge under the tires, ensuring that Suzie wouldn’t take any more unplanned strolls.

I went back at it and finally got the beast up high enough to remove the flat.

But not high enough get the new tire onto the lug studs.

Crank; clang. Crank; clang. Crank; clang. And then the engineers struck one final time. Ya see … they didn’t want to waste all of that money designing and building those fine jacks with ¼” of extra, useless lift capability … so they didn’t. The ol’ jack ran out of travel and quit with, oh, maybe 1/16 of an inch of clearance under the spare as it finally slid onto the studs.

But it went on and the girls took over the final installation and tightening of the lug nuts. And the jack cranked right down, with ease, so long as the weight of a whole damn truck was pressing it down.

Within 15 minutes we were home, covered in mud and grit (all 3 of us). Those on-demand water heaters proved to be up to the task because we all wanted and took some really long showers.

I love this car.

An Obvious Name

If you are sensitive to strong language, swearing, cursing, invective or whatever you want to call nasty words -- do NOT read any further. Go away.

If you are under 21, go away.

Are you ready?

This is serious stuff.

This is going to be rough.

Take a deep breath and hold on.

Here we go ...

If you've been over to the family blog, you know that we bought a car down in CR and Pat thinks we should give the new wheels a name. She even has a survey over on that blog so that you can vote for a suggested name or even suggest one of your own.

When she asked me to suggest a name, I immediately knew what to call the new buggy. This critter is a 1994 Isuzu Rodeo. Remember those old tanks? Solid.

But, being 14 years old and having seen a lot of duty on some pretty rough roads, I'm betting that this old lizzie will hear some invectives from me (gasp!).

{I've been trying to get rid of this bad invection, but I'm pretty sure that this is a Multi-Antibiotic-Resistant Invection (MARI). Groan.}

Seriously, here's the name:

"Fucking Car."

Perhaps even, "The Fucking Car."

Why, you ask?

Think about it. How convenient that name would be and how easily it will roll off my tongue.

When going out for a ride, or shopping:

"Get in The Fucking Car."

When coming home:

"Get out of The Fucking Car."

Let's say you're out for a day of shopping at the big mall and it has been so long since you arrived that you can't remember:

"Where's The Fucking Car?"

You can blame things on it with an innocent tone in your voice:

"The Fucking Car broke down in front of the bar, so I just went in to look for a mechanic."

Think about getting a flat tire:

"The Fucking Car has a fucking flat tire!"

What if, during idle conversation about exercising, you need to determine if your partner really feels like a jog or a ride:

"Do you want to take The Fucking Car or walk?"

As old as it is, it will certainly cost me repair money, whereupon I shall say, disgustedly:

"That Fucking Car."

I've already felt the vibes from Pat and I don't think The Fucking Car will formally initially be known by this name I'm suggesting. That's O.K. Everyone knows that it will eventually shed its cute anthropomorphic name in deference to the name it will answer to.

I'm taking The Fucking Car on a beer run. So there.

Bagging On Bags

I'm sure you've noticed that every product that comes with a storage bag -- air mattresses, tents, sleeping bags, quilts, etc., -- all come with storage bags that are sized so that the intended contents can only be folded small enough to fit back into those bags if you are a professional "Folder," working from a Folding Blueprint, and have arms and hands as powerful as Popeye.

If you're a normal person, chances are that your best efforts, along with multiple re-folding attempts, will only result in a lump of product that either won't go into the storage bag at all or which sticks out of the end of the bag.

WHY?!?

Message to manufacturers: You shit heads! I'm paying hundreds of dollars for your stinking product and you can't spend 30¢ to enlarge the stinking bag ... oh, maybe get crazy and slip in 6 whole inches ... so that normal people can put their valuable purchase away after using it. Sheesh!

The Stir Star Awards (Toll Road Division)

For those of you who don’t have toll roads or may not even know what they are, please indulge me. Read on. You might recognize a stirring performance that you’ve seen elsewhere.

The guy in the full service pay-lane that waits until he is stopped in front of the toll booth before he leans over to fish out his wallet; and, then he has to dig around in it to come up with the appropriate folding money.

Why am I in the full service lane anyway? Ya gotta be here in Houston to know. At some toll plazas (like the West Little York, on the West Sam Houston) if you are getting on the toll road at Little York, to go south, you are barred from using the main automatic lanes. And, the toll road authority brain trust has decided to only install a single automatic lane for EZ-Tag and that usually backs up beyond belief. Thus, if you want to get home while supper is still hot, it is quicker to go to a different lane. Sometimes the full service lanes look like they’re moving faster. That’s when I end up there.

Now, why is it such a reach for me to expect a person to plan ahead just a little … and BE CONSIDERATE (you clod!) of the dozen cars behind you. We don’t need to watch you finger through a wad of bills in your wallet while you select THE special dollar that you’ve been saving for years, just in case you ever have to pay a toll. Get that shit out before you even start to drive, dunce boy.

Taking your foot off the gas at the electronic toll gates, over on the EZ-Tag-only side.

Oh, all right, these people probably only deserve 1 stir, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

And, admittedly, there are signs that tell you to slow down and even signs that tell you to slow to 45 but this is the only State on Earth where some fools actually do it. Some states (e.g., Illinois) have even built the automatic lanes far away from the cash lanes, separating them by berms and trees. They command you to not slow down.

So, WHY do so many Houstonians slow down?

Are you afraid that the Tag reader won’t be able to read your Tag? It works on radio waves, Einstein. They’re travelling at more than 186,000 miles per second. Do you really think you can drive fast enough so that the speed of light waves cannot get down to your car and then be received in the return signal?

Scared of other drivers changing lanes right up at the readers and that they then might side-swipe you? We’re only changing lanes because people like you are impeding the flow of traffic when you slow down, pudding head.

And, what’s with you people at the Westheimer Plaza? What is so special about your fears and foibles that you need to slow down to stop & go for the automatic lanes? Who starts that mess? Please, some cowboy, shoot them.

Stop it. Just stop it. Keep your stinking foot smashed down on that stinking little narrow pedal on the right.

On the side of the toll road where EZ is mixed in with Full Service, getting into the EZ-Tag-Only lane when you don’t have an EZ-Tag.

Are you truly that unaware of your surroundings? Or are you just a mega-turd that thinks he’s getting to the head of the line … screw the rest of the world.

What happens, is that all of the lanes are filled up with long lines of cars needing to pay cash. In our single lonely EZ-Tag lane, the traffic usually moves significantly faster because we don’t have any clown digging under his seat for loose change.

Note to HCTRA: I’ve written to you jack-wads twice about leaving gates down across EZ-Tag lanes. One of your little minions even admitted that she couldn’t think of any reason why they are left operational. TAKE THOSE DAMNED GATES OUT!!!!!

Back to the story …

So, while we are moving reasonably steadily (5 mph,) down the long canyon created by lines of cash-pay cars, inevitably some anti-Mensa either doesn’t notice that he’s in the EZ-Tag Only lane or he’s trying to get to the head of the class. Either way, he then tries to push his way out of the Tag lane and into one of the cash lanes.

But it can’t be done. The cash lanes are at a dead stop and they only creep along one car length at a time. We, then, are trapped behind this clever person, building up our own traffic backup.

Please, oh please, give me Sidewinder missiles on my next car.

Stopping fully in front of the toll gate in an EZ-Tag lane when you have an EZ-Tag.

Ohmigod! What are you thinking!?! Oh … right. You haven’t the capacity to think.

Very close to these people are the folks that make a mistake in lane selection and then not only stop, but they begin to back up. I’m not making this up.

Patricia and I were driving back home one day, at about 75 mph (oh, get over it). She was driving and talking to me. I was lazily semi-focused on the road ahead as I listened. Something caught my attention. Something didn’t look right in the traffic way up ahead at the toll plaza.

Once the old synapses processed the message and I shouted, “Car backing up!” Pat barely had time to react. She got into a different lane and we went by that 7-stir. As we sped away down the road, I watched him in the side view mirror, expecting to see a fireball as he got run over by an 18 wheeler but, alas, no fireworks that day.


That’s the rant for the day. Many of the wackos that I mentioned in earlier posts about Houston drivers are doing their surface street tricks up on the toll roads, also. Sometimes it is just too bizarre to even award stirs.

Why are they breathing my air?