Cows Moo: Thoughts from the Top of a Hill.

This morning, ny economics professor was talking about something (I wasn’t exactly paying attention) and he started using this extended metaphor.

He asked us to pretend we have never seen a cow before. Then he asked if he took bits of cow - the bones, the meat, the milk, the fat - and laid them individually on the floor, would we know it’s a cow?

But when you drive along the highway and see farms with cows atop the hill, you know it’s a cow. It moos, it eats, it stands aound, it shits. It shits a lot. All those little individual bits of cow are working together to make a living thing.

His metaphor got me thinking - if we weren’t just bits of cow, would we still be in this predicament we are now? Would this country cease to be individual pieces of flesh and bone and come together to be an entity that stands proudly atop a hill?

As partisan as we are, we can’t afford to become more divided. If we keep following the path we’re on, eventually we’ll be put through the meat grinder in some Upton Sinclair yarn.

Karl’s Marks

I found this in a notebook of my stuff. The original date on it is April 7, 2009.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan of their time. They have obviously time traveled. If you look at what’s going on now, they had it dead on. The theory of class struggle applies today even more than it did in their time.
In America, we didn’t like that. Not in the 1950’s, oh no. Those damn pinko Commies endangered the American family. Communism would destroy the working class!

The truth is that, if implemented and regulated the right way, the economic theory would have destroyed the upper class, not the workers. That was the point. The government has already lied about so much, and we’re surprised that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the “money weasel,” fucked his judgment and wasted tax dollars on those greedy, fuck-holing, ass-fucking, scat-munchers over at AIG? A little naïve, America.

A perfect testament to this are the Native American reservations. Why do casinos keep popping up on reservations? It’s because the government can’t regulate tribal land. I mean, okay, we gave them back a glass of water if America’s an entire ocean. But now they’re breaking bank.

It’s a little ridiculous how partisan we can get over the country’s future. No country has lasted over 200 years without a revolution. We got close when Bush was in office. We’re good for a while. The far right isn’t going to revolt, even if they’ve got the heavy artillery. Revolution is progressive. It’s driven by people who have actually had their rights repressed.

Sorry guys, losing is not the same thing.

How to fix America.

There’s talk of health care reform. Of course, where there’s talk of health care reform, there’s going to be fuckery.

I’ve mentioned before that I work at a four-week day camp sponsored by my town’s parks and recreation department. Camp runs from 8:30AM to 3:00PM Monday through Friday.
I was at work the other day, and I realized something so simple that every camp counselor, past and present, should understand what I’m saying.

The easiest way to solve all of America’s problems is to think like a summer camp counselor.
Our camp is like America. The ‘citizens,’ otherwise known as campers, pay $50 per four week session. In other words, these are the taxes I pay out of my paycheck to the federal government. Every day last year, an ice cream truck came right after lunch and sold ice cream to the kids. Because the ice cream truck was not included in the price of camp, this can represent a free-market economy.  Howerver, when kids started to leave hunks of bubble gum around the playground, we had to ban and regulate the sale of ice cream with bubble gum in it.

I’m not an economist, so that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Now let’s get to health care. When a kid gets hurt, we don’t demand that they pay us a quarter for a band-aid or three dollars for an ice pack. If a kid skins his knee or runs straight into a metal pole, we care for them. That’s included in the price of camp. Do the other kids care that little Johnny gets a band-aid every day because he’s a spaz? No. They’re happy because they know that if they get hurt, there’s a cold ice pack waiting to soothe their every bump and bruise.
Here’s how Senators, Representatives, and other public figures should handle the town hall meetings with rowdy audiences:  make attendees sit in silence for five minutes. When they talk, start the time over. If they’re still rowdy, take away dodgeball.

I’m still not sure what dodgeball is in the analogy, but once I do, hell, I’m in business.
Hear that Obama? Hear that Congress? Think like a camp counselor.

Hummers.

Originally Posted on 2/25/2009.

Do we still manufacture Hummers?
I guess we’re at least making the smaller, family-friendly versions. How much do these motherfuckers cost to make? Didn’t we just bail out the big three in Detroit? How much did we give them? Probably about enough to make about 4 H3s, right?

Ready, average American family?
Set…
Go!

Go buy hardcore HUMVEEs and STIMULATE THIS FUCKING ECONOMY!
Gas is cheap! Buy big-ass cars!

I’ve seen a lot of these stupid things driving around. Usually in suburban neighborhoods. Parked in front of identical houses with identical yards and identical mailboxes owned by identical families.
The only reason a Soccer Mom needs one of these monstrosities is if she has one hell of a Napoleon Complex… or her husband feels the need to compensate.

You don’t need it, man. Just get a week’s worth of your free trial of ExtenZe and a nice, shiny new Glock.