Things don't change

I guess it isn't too shocking given that my book is entitled The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years to have a topic that says things don't change.  The book talks about how the same debates that have been going on for centuries are still occurring but people don't realize that on the small scale, things don't change either.

I recently went to dinner with my 31-year-old former roommate who is dating a 24-year-old woman.  There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever.  I feel that once both parties are past college graduation, age doesn't really matter.  When my former roommate left however, I asked the girl about him.  She said, "well I like dating someone much older than me because they are more mature."  I told her, "Men don't mature past the age of 12" and pointed to where her boyfriend used to be sitting and said, "Case in point."
Her response, "Yea true"

Women have this belief that older men are more mature.  I believe the opposite is true, men are more mature than women, but that is something I've written about before. It seems though that the mistakes we make as children, we repeat in adulthood.  High school girls like assholes and they get burned time and time again and in adulthood they end up marrying an abusive man who beats her.  They never like the nice guy.  it is never like the movies.  The nice, respectful man finishes last and that's just as true at 14 as it is at 35 or even 45.  It doesn't matter how old you are or how often you get burned, you will never learn that the man who you're attracted to because he doesn't give a shit about anything also doesn't give a shit about you.

Now, let's talk about the dorky guy, that keeps to himself, actually does his own thing despite criticism from everyone else.  He is the true person that's secure with himself and the real mature one. But, he's not innocent.  Just as how he was a pussy in high school with making a move on girls, he doesn't learn in adulthood.  Sure, he can turn down sluts because he doesn't need hook ups to feel better about himself but when he likes a girl, he does nothing just like when he was in high school.

I am one of these dorky guys.  I have an affinity for redheads.  I often wonder where it came from.  I think the best explanation for it is I keep chasing my 1st girlfriend.  We'll call her Kera.  I dated Kera in 8th grade.  I actually dated her twice, totaling five months.  Not exactly a lasting relationship. During this whole time, I never kissed her.  I asked her out over e-mail the 1st time and over the phone the 2nd time.  I was so much of a loser, I didn't realize I had won.  I had gotten the girl. She said yes, I don't have to use any tricks, I can just kiss her.  I wanted to try to "fake French" her.  In that I put my arm around her, cover her mouth with my hand and kiss my hand but since my head is blocking it, it looks like we're making out. I was planning on moving my hand at the last second. She refused.  Simply because, she just wanted me to kiss her, which I never did.  It's been 16 years since this time.  I've had more years since this occurrence than I had life on Earth prior, yet I often wonder what it would have been like to kiss Kera.  As you may have guessed, Kera had red hair.  In college I fell in love with another redhead. This one I did get to kiss a few times but I never got her to say yes to me when I asked her out.  She wanted a casual friends-with-benefits, I wanted more.  Her and I are still friends to this day and I have no regrets with her as we are not compatible.  But, kissing her didn't make the regret with Kera go away.

I have  been asexual for the last nine years.  I often wonder if the two redheads in my life, the college one that married and had children with another man and Kera are the sole reasons for it.  I say it's because I lost my virginity and hated it so it ended my desire to try it again. I still think that's the reason but I'm not entirely convinced the two redheads didn't have something to do with it.  I haven't seen Kera since my junior year of high school.  One day I was telling a high school friend about Kera, and he told me to call her.  I actually remembered her home number from 8th grade.  I called it and her mom picked up and told me she was at work and then told me exactly where she worked.  Now, mothers of girls always liked me and Kera's mom was no exception.  Throughout my childhood I would hear, "You're the first guy I ever trusted my daughter with."  and now that I'm old, "You're the only guy I trust my wife/girlfriend/fiancee with."  I showed up to Kera's work and acted like it was random.  She saw right through it and she was actually getting off work five minutes after I showed up.  She stormed out of work and made a bee line for her car and drove away, she wanted nothing to do with me.  I never saw her again but I took that as a sign that I will never get a chance to make up for my idiotic prudeness as an 8th grader.

Fast forward to now.  I still am hesitant to make a move on a girl.  I feel awkward going in for a kiss.  The odd thing is, if she makes the move, I'm turned off as I think guys should make the first move.  But, when I'm too shy to make it, then what choice do I give her?  I hung out with a couple girls last year.  I got the urge to make a move but I never did.  Basically, the little 8th grade boy that I've imagined going back in time and smacking is still me.  One of the girls was adamant that she wasn't flirting with me and wouldn't want me to hit on her but she said yes when i asked her out.  Given that I spent the next 12 days trying to convince her that I actually liked her and it wasn't pity, then I called her damaged causing her to dump me to my relief.  During these 12 days, she invited me to her house.  She lived in Maryland, I live in New York.  I told her I had plans to go to Atlantic City, she dumped me after the weekend was over.  That was fine, I was happy about it actually.  But here's the point.  She probably wanted to hook up  but I blew her off.  This is Kera all over again, Kera wanted me to kiss her but I never did.  So, I've decided that just like the girl who never learns not to fall for assholes, I will never learn to just go for it.

autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years  can be bought at the bottom of this page.

Donald Sterling vs. Magic Johnson

I think Donald Sterling's attacks on Magic Johnson  are fueled by jealousy because his girlfriend admired Johnson more than him.  With that said, Magic did nothing to disprove what Sterling said.  Johnson just said, "I wish he knew the facts"  Well, Sterling said you haven't done much for minorities whereas Sterling has given millions of dollars to helping minority programs.  So much so, the NAACP was going to give him an award, then this whole scandal happened.  Has the NAACP ever offered Johnson an award for his efforts with minorities?  Sterling's comment, Jews make money and then help other Jews but minorities who make money don't do that is completely accurate from a broad perspective.  As a Greek, I wish Greeks helped Greeks the way Jews help Jews and I'm not even a minority.  What has Magic done?  Nobody answered that question.  Then again, maybe Johnson felt that he had no reason to respond or to explain; the record speaks for itself.  A simple google search may solve this problem but to be honest, I don't really care what Magic has done for minorities.  I have no idea why Sterling keeps dragging Magic into this.  Even on the tape, Sterling said, "You should admire Johnson."  I'd now ask Sterling the question, "If you say he isn't a role model, why did you say he should be admired on the tape?"  Sterling is contradicting himself.  Nowhere on Sportscenter or the guy who interviewed Sterling, did they defend Magic by saying what he has done.  The only thing the interviewer took issue with is when Sterling said, "Magic got AIDS" the interviewer responded, "No, it was just HIV, it wasn't full blown AIDS."  He felt the need to clarify that point but not one thing Magic has done to refute Sterling?  This is odd.  It is, however, irrelevant.  This is not a Magic Johnson issue, Sterling should keep his attacks focused on the real villain, the monopolistic, anti-American, tyrannical nature of the NBA trying to grab his property from him.  Rest assured that behind closed doors, the owners are thinking that if they do it to Sterling, could they do it to me if say, I chastise an NBA referee or if I eat meat?  Remember this secular-progressive movement is taken over just like the French Revolution.  Robespierre started the French Revolution and later was killed by the revolutionaries for saying they were taking it too far.  First it's racist comments, what's next?  Eating at McDonalds?  Smoking cigarettes in public?  With the way the public is today, nothing would surprise me. Given that nobody has come forth with an actual example of how Johnson has helped the minority communities, it begs the question; Was Sterling right?

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years" can  be bought at the bottom of this page.  

Sterling's fight

It is true I piled on to the Donald Sterling attacks.  I knew if I waited long enough, the media would stray from my feelings, and here we are.  I personally have no idea what the NBA constitution says but I do know that if a contract is signed and agreed upon but counteracts the US constitution, it is not enforceable in a court of law.  You can read the widely popular 50 shades of Gray to see examples of that.  As in all things, I look to logic to make sense of things because I believe truth exists outside of human interpretation and a majority opinion.  Logic is the closest way we can get to these forms or objective truths.  Here it is, the objectivist reaction to Donald Sterling devoid of emotion, the only way I know how.

If you read my previous posts, Donald Sterling's comments made to his girlfriend were indefensible.  Hell, even Sterling isn't defending them.  The closest he came was, "She always referred to people as blacks and she wanted to bring blacks she found attractive to my game so I said don't bring blacks to my game because I was jealous."   "Blacks" meant her attractive African-American friends and he said they can't come because he was jealous she found them attractive.   I know they investigated if the tape was doctored.  I know that I listened to the tape and she never claimed she was going to bring blacks to the game.  I don't know if the investigation indicated if the tape was doctored or not so I can't say if Sterling's explanation is valid factually.  All I know, is that they did indeed believe it to be the voice of Donald Sterling.  Again, these are not refutable.  Now for the punishment by Adam Silver.

Adam Silver did what most people have to do.  You have to give into the mob, the NBA seemed to be ready to revolt if his punishment wasn't severe and they all applauded him for banning him for life, fining him the NBA maximum allowed, 2.5 million dollars, and suggesting the owners take away the team from him. I wasn't surprised that they threw the book at him but it is kind of redundant.  Banning him for life I was okay with, the NBA is Adam Silver's organization and he can decide who comes and who doesn't to his shows.  Interestingly though, why can't Donald Sterling do the same thing with his team?  If he didn't want blacks to come to his game, that's his prerogative.  I believe in private property and I've always been against others telling you who you can and can't have in your place of business.  If you want to lose out on the revenue by blacks coming to the game, then I believe that to be a stupid business decision, but it's your business so be it. Just how I have no problem with Adam Silver banning Sterling from any sanctioned event.  That makes more sense because Silver's not going to lose out on any business doing that.  

          Secondly, the $2.5 million I found asinine.  Why would you pay that?  He's already banned for life.  What can they possibly do to him?  I had a problem with this because White man guilt was playing it's card and he would have to pay just because nothing has changed and the public still likes watching pounds of flesh being taken.  Hell if you hung Donald Sterling in the public square, I'm sure a crowd would gather just as it did in the Middle Ages.  Sterling, however, saw the situation for what it was; pointless.  His reputation is destroyed, he's got nothing to lose, so fight!  Not only did he refuse to pay the fine, he sued the NBA for their right to do so.   Good for him.  Society keeps running their mouth that people are entitled to their opinion, but the second someone has an opinion the majority of people don't like, they crucify him.  It takes more courage to say the things Margie Schott did than it does for Michael Sam to come out.  I don't say Sterling because he made his comments in, what he believed to be, confidence.  

          Thirdly, they want to take the team away from him.  Mark Cuban was the only guy to publicly say what I feel about this. He was worried about a slippery slope if we let the commissioner  steal a team from you.  Most people are like, "Well he's going to get paid" but that's not the point.  Sales should not be made at the end of a gun barrel.  A forced sale is anti-capitalistic and immoral.  Just as I consider what Ben Roethlisberger did as rape when he locked himself in a bathroom with a woman as his offensive line stood guard.  The woman told him "no" repeatedly, he just repeated back "It's okay."  They then had sex.  I don't count that as consensual; I count that as rape.  If someone gives Sterling the millions he deserves for the Clippers, that is not a consensual transactions, therefore an invalid trade.  With all that said, I saw the punishment as redundant.  If the NBA has a little patience, they won't need an owner vote, Sterling would have to sell as a smart business decision.  He's already lost sponsors.  His players probably will boycott playing for him.  Again, as a pro-capitalist, I'm anti-forced labor.  If the players decide they don't want to accept his money to play for him, that is their right.  I think Sterling will have trouble finding scab laborers.  Basically, you need to find players that are really good at basketball and don't mind the public ridicule, vehement attacks and vitriolic hatred they will receive from playing for Sterling.  This goes for players of any race.  Good luck with that one.  So, Sterling probably will have a team with no players. At best, they will be mediocre players who weren't good enough to make it to the NBA on their own so exchange the public hatred and endanger their lives, for their only shot to play in the NBA.  Clippers will be the worst they have ever been and, given their history, that's saying something.  The Clippers team would lose value, he will be funding it for no apparent reason and either he sells the team for a much lower price than he would get now, or he just pays millions of dollars for absolutely nothing.  Those are Sterling's options.  As for Shelly Sterling, I see no reason she shouldn't get the team. She didn't do anything.  Why is everyone so mad at her?  The only caveat to this is if the NBA is set up like a food chain.  You can manage a McDonalds but you don't own McDonalds.  I think the CEO of McDonalds could fire a manager if need be, so if teams work like individual franchises of a chain, then Adam Silver could kick him out but as that hasn't come up, I don't think that's the case.

One last thing about Shelly Sterling, I applaud her for filing to divorce her husband.  I was bothered that the issue of Donald Sterling having a girlfriend when he has a wife never came out.  It was Sterling the racist, not Sterling the adulterer.  I will say Sterling the racist bigoted adulterer.  

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years can be bought at the bottom of this page.  

You do you; I'll do me

Much has been written about Jesus' golden rule.  His rule was "Treat others as you would like to be treated." Variations include Confucius, "Do not do on to others as you would not want them to do to you."  Even in modern terms, "Turn about is fair play" seems to be referencing this age old rule.  To me, though, the golden rule doesn't encompass everything.  It assumes that everyone has the same likes and dislikes.  For instance, I want to be left alone.  Most people like to constantly have people around.  These people, following the golden rule, will see someone sitting by themselves and come over to talk to them so they have company.  If we believe they are following the golden rule, they do this because they would want someone to do it for them.  Me, if I'm alone, I don't want a complete stranger to come up to me so that person is now bothering me even though he followed the golden rule.

Here is my creed, "You do you, I'll do me."  Unlike the golden rule, I need to explain it.  I have noticed that those I considered my closest friends are obsessed, and I'm using that term to the fullest power, with telling me how to live my life.  Most notably, the way I dress, it's always the same motto to sell out to the corporate world because you'll be homeless if you don't.  Yes, I dress up to go to work, but I'm not going to get fired if I'm dressed casually outside of work.  They, in a sense, are trying to break me.  When I was younger, this was amusing bordering on cute, then I got into my 20s and it started getting annoying, now it's just trite.  The thing is, unlike drugs, the more you say no, they louder and more obsessed they become.  How is this like drugs?  Well, in high school when people would offer me drugs, I'd say no.  They then harassed me and after a while they would use the phrase, "Come on, I want to be the first one to get Larry to do drugs."  It's amazing how many people begged me for that privilege.  They all failed however.  In college and beyond when people offered me drugs and I said "no" they responded, "Cool, more for me."  I like that creed MUCH better!  I don't mind if people do drugs around me, I just won't partake.  I didn't realize it, but I was living by, "You do you and I do me."  If you want to do drugs, I'm not going to stop you but I will not do them with you."

My last example is sex.  My closest friends are obsessed with me having sex and hate that I'm asexual.  Two of them planned a trip to Amsterdam and offered to buy me a prostitute just so I could have sex.  I went to Amsterdam and declined.  A year or two later, another person, who doesn't associate with the first two, decided to have an overnight layover in Amsterdam on our way to Berlin.  She didn't tell me this till after the trip but the overnight layover was not to save money but she wanted to buy me a prostitute.  Due to her missing the flight, she never got the chance.  That makes three people who spent hundreds of dollars to go to Amsterdam specifically to get me to have sex.  I can't grasp this mentality.  Now that I'm in my 30s, the persistence has reached a yelling, fever pitch.  To which, I finally had to ask, "Why do you care?" Most of the time the answer is, "Because I want you to see how great it can be."  When I press it further, they can't elaborate.  I am not telling them not to have sex, I just don't want to.  They have been adamant that they would not have sex with me, so they're not propositioning me.  Why does something that objectively doesn't affect them at all mean so much to them?  The only thing I can think of is, they really are trying to break me.  In which case, I need to evaluate who I consider my closest friends.

As I had gone through a gauntlet with these friends, I had lunch with a friend of mine.  We are not extremely close, she will readily admit she merely tolerates me, which is fine by me.  We were discussing marriage and my desire not to get married.  We then talked hypothetically about if I were to get married, what type of person would I want.  One of the first things I said was, "Well, you're not going to like this, but she would have to be Greek."

     She interrupted, "Why would I care about that?"

      "Well because you may think I'm being elitist"

      "No, if you said that I could only marry Greek, I'd be like 'whoa, you have no right to tell me that."

      I glared at her because it makes absolutely no sense to me why I would ever say that to her.  The reason I would want to marry Greek is because being Greek is such a large part of who I am and you would have to be Greek to understand me fully.   Since she is not Greek, this is irrelevant to her in choosing her mate.  Then it dawned on me what she was actually saying.  "With regard to marriage, you marry who you want, and I'll marry who I want, as your choice doesn't affect me at all."   Damn, if only my closest friends were as understanding as the people that merely tolerate me.

After all this, it has occurred to me that if you're ever around someone that is loudly and obsessively pleading for you to live your life to do something that has absolutely no affect on them whatsoever, then that person is merely looking at you as a strong willed person and looking to break you since they are broken themselves and can't stand someone with the audacity to do what they want, even if society is against them.  These are people that you certainly shouldn't consider your closest friends.  When your being yelled at, just ask, "Why do they care?" if you can't think of a reason; run

Autographed copies of my book the World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be bought at the bottom of this page.  

Donald Sterling

Well, let's pile on shall we.  I like to be the voice of reason when people cry racism.  I do believe the racism card is played way too often and America is the least racist country in the world.  That is why they have to grasp on to non-racist quotes and twist them to be racist.  Like Rush Limbaugh when he made the comment that the media wouldn't care about Donovan McNabb if he was white.  That's an anti-media comment, not an anti-black comment.  That is why when I saw on the ticker while watching the NBA playoffs, "Clippers owner Donald Sterling being investigated for racist remarks reported on TMZ"  I was skeptical.  First, I don't consider TMZ very reliable.  I quickly googled the TMZ recording and heard it for myself before the media tried to influence my thinking.  Well, this time, the media seemed to be dead on.  I will preface all this by saying I am assuming that the tape is authentic, hasn't been altered and the male voice is Donald Sterling.  I've never heard Donald Sterling speak so I have no way to identify that voice as his and given that guys like Frank Caliendo can expertly mimic other voices, it is possible that it is an impersonation.

All day yesterday, I tried to make sense of the comments.  The male voice believed to be Sterling was upset because his girlfriend posted a picture of Magic Johnson.  He tells her "People will think you're associating with the enemy."  Alright, fine, this may not be because Magic Johnson's black.  This may be because he represents the Lakers as he was a star for the Lakers. He does say later that Magic Johnson should be admired.  Maybe it's a LA Clipper vs. LA Lakers rivalry.  I can handle that.  Another aspect of it, maybe he doesn't like that she's being photographed with another man in general.  A lot of guys are insecure in their relationships and don't want people to think their girl is cheating on them so if they're walking/photographing in public with other men, it gives gossippers fuel to think this.  I know men like this.  To believe any of these things, however, would be doing exactly what I blame people that grasp on to any remark and twist it to be racist for doing; ignoring what was actually said.  Sterling specifically says people will talk about you associating with black people.  His entire issue is the public perception of her being seen with black people.  This is so asinine and retarded to me that I hoped the tape was a fake.  I mean, public perception and society is literally the last place where you will receive condemnation for associating with minorities.  Later he says, "If you want to fuck them fine, if you want to have them over privately fine, but not publicly and don't bring them to my games."  This comment really baffled me.  I know racist people.  I've traveled extensively to Europe where they are extremely unapologetic of their racism.  This is not consistent with any type of racism I've seen.  For lack of a better word, "interbreeding" or having intercourse (I hate the term "slept with") with a person of another race is the worst thing you can do to a racist.  Sterling seemed okay with that but not okay with being seen in public with them?  It just made no sense to me. Anyone who believes that "the people" would be against someone hanging out and photographing with minorities in America, has absolutely no grasp of reality and is just plain stupid (ironically, Sterling calls his girlfriend stupid for not realizing that society is against it). To make this even funnier, his girlfriend is half Mexican; half black.  Sterling calls her white in the video.  I've seen a picture of her, she looks Latina.  Did he really not know her background?  During the video the girlfriend tells him a couple times of her background.  How did he not know?  He just says, "You just want to fight me.  You're a fighter" and "You don't understand"  Well you know what?  I don't understand either!

Now that I had garnered my opinions, I listened to the media.  Exactly what I expected: Whites and Blacks alike showing how upset they were over the comments.  Like me, they were pissed that it was overshadowing what is an amazing first round of the NBA playoffs.  It wasn't until Sportscenter this morning that I was given confirmation to what I already believed and an explanation for the mentality which I didn't think made any sense.  Baron Davis, who was an amazing player for Golden State, then he went to the Clippers and didn't play so well.  I never really understood why.  Full disclosure, when he went to other teams, he didn't play that well either. But in an interview last week, before the TMZ video, Baron Davis calls Sterling "Delusional."  That's exactly what someone who believes that American society would be against someone associating with a race that is not their own is; delusional!  I still didn't get an explanation for the mentality until David West posted his comment, "It is plantation mentality, make money off the bucks, lay with the women, nothing in public."  It is known that slave owners had sex with their slaves.  Yes, they made money off the men's work in the field.  No they weren't public about it. I loathe when people reference slavery for any black issue, but, in this instance, it absolutely fits.  Well said David West.  You are exactly right!

The Clippers players should focus on trying to win the series.  I am routing for the Warriors, but I don't want to see them win based on a forfeit or a strike by the Clippers.  Leave the striking and such after the playoffs are over if the league hasn't stepped in and ended it before then.  The commissioner  said that he is planning on finishing the investigation in the next couple of days.  The playoffs are over in June.  It could be sooner for the Clippers, but that remains to be seen.  I don't like the media forcing business owners to govern their businesses. I am a firm believer in private businesses and CEO's and owners can do whatever they want with their businesses. That being said, Doc Rivers, and every black athlete on the Clippers are not forced to work for an owner that believes what Sterling does.  If Sterling wants to try to make a team of white people...good luck!  Not only would they have to be White, they would have to be White and not mind a racist or the public ridicule they would face for being a scab worker for a racist. Like I said, good luck with that one!  But Sterling should understand that.  After all, wasn't the issue what "The people" will think?"

After all this, I have concluded that Sterling's comments are completely indefensible.  There is no truth in it.  It can't even be seen as simply being politically incorrect or truth that people don't want to hear.  It's exactly what the mainstream media has called it ranging from asinine, to bozo, to no place for it in today's society.  Not only is it racist, it's flat out untrue!  It is wrong in every sense of the word; morally and factually!


Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be bought at the bottom of this page 

Remember the Alamo

Ah the Alamo, we all know the expression, "Remember the Alamo."  What happened there? Oh yea, it was a massacre by the Mexican army; they came in and killed a bunch of Americans including Davie Crockett.  Was it a war? Was it an invasion of the United States?  What is the significance?  Or is it simply where we lost a battle?

The Alamo to me is a microcosm of the way the Union views the South.  The general of the Alamo requested back up because a Mexican attack was imminent but the request was ignored.  Kind of like Benghazi wouldn't you say?  No, not really.  Although, technically the U.S. Consulate is United States territory, even the surrounding area of the Alamo is still in the United States.  As I looked into it, I wondered what it is that spurred men to rally behind it.  Was it the ruthlessness of the Mexican army?  How vicious were they?   Did you know that many of the soldiers brought their wives and children with them into the Alamo because they believed it to be the safest spot?  Well, we know all the soldiers in the Alamo were killed so what did the ruthless, barbarous Mexicans do to those women and children???

The Mexican general told them to go home and spread the word of what they did to their husbands and fathers. You can spin that as insensitive and a little like Natural Born Killers but I actually think it was quite gentlemanly of them.  My conclusion is that the Mexican army's actions and nature were not what caused the uprising but merely the bravery of the men that stood and fought even though they were going to die.  Much like the 300 Spartans inspired a nation but the 300 Spartans took their fair share of Persians before perishing.  Those in the Alamo didn't do so well.  I'm not sure where the inspiration came from.

The history of how Texas became part of the United States when it was Mexican territory is what most fascinated me.  When Texas was a Mexican territory, Americans emigrated there and flocked there in droves to get away from the oppressive American laws.  The Mexicans began to worry that Americans were outnumbering Mexicans almost 10-1.  A few years after this population shift, the Mexican succession happened.  See any parallels?  Now the Mexicans are coming to America to escape the harsh living conditions of Mexico.  They say that even if no illegal  immigrants come, the breeding rate of the Latinos vs. the Whites will lead to more Latinos than Whites by 2020.  Interesting how these things seem to reverse themselves in less than 200 years.



Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years can be bought at the bottom of this page.

What school didn't teach you about WWII

I recently took a cross country road trip across the south of America.  As I visited many places, I got a huge American history lesson that I never learned in school.  I have found a lot of things out about FDR that has made me doubt his status as one of our greatest presidents. The New Deal made a recession into the Great Depression and his subsidies to farmers and sugar producers led to high fructose corn syrup and all the synthetic crap in our American foods, which makes us by far the unhealthiest food in the world.  I didn't think my view of him would change too much when I visited New Orleans of all places.

If you're like me, New Orleans would not be the place you'd think of getting a World War II history lesson. When I went there, I was looking forward to the Jambalaya, Gumbo and Cajun food.  I must say that it was the best food on the trip.  I had the freshest seafood I've had anywhere in the United States, and I've lived near a giant body of water my entire life.  As I was randomly wandering around the city, I happened upon the D-Day museum.  I must confess I was surprised to find this in New Orleans. I went inside and looked around and then in the main room, I saw a carrier boat with a caption.  "Why is the D-day museum in New Orleans? Because as President Eisenhower stated to Dr. Stephen Ambrose 'Andrew Jackson Higgins is the man who won the war for us.  Without Higgins designed boars that could land over open beaches the whole strategy of the war would have to be rethought.'

Fact, in September 1943, the very middle of the war, the American navy totaled 14,072 vessels of these 12,964, or 92% of the entire U.S. Navy, were designed  by Higgins industries."

I had never heard of Higgins.  Some people know about Higgins boats, but did they know he was from New Orleans?  Did they know that he had 7 factories in New Orleans building ships?  Did they know that they produced a navy ship every hour?  I certainly didn't.  It appalls me that in my American education, I had no idea of Higgins.  This guy should be as famous as General Patton!

Back to FDR.  Although I believe he forced the Japanese to attack us at Pearl Harbor by refusing to speak to them and he desperately wanted us to get into war.  I have to hand it to him.  At the start of the war, the American army was a small fraction of the German and Japanese armies.  We were ranked 18th in the world, behind Romania (Guess World War I didn't raise our ranking too much).  I don't give him any credit for the 1% unemployment. He initiated a draft, sent most of the workforce to war and had the rest, mostly women, replace them.  Forcing them to war so they are no longer considered  unemployed doesn't impress me much.  He then went about multiple ads and campaigns telling Americans to sacrifice and give back to the war effort.  The point is though....it worked.  American production exploded.  We popped out ships, planes, ammunition, tires, etc. etc. anything that our boys at war needed.  Heavily supplied with the might of American work ethic and production, we won the war.

Unfortunately America isn't producing anymore.  Maybe it's because we are the greatest nation so we can export that out and focus on the higher business aspects much like a lawyer focuses on preparing his argument in case but his secretary and paralegals do the research and typing for him.  The american work ethic isn't dead though. If one travels the world, you see that people in other countries not only don't work as hard as we do, they brag about it and look down at us for living to work.  It was FDR that started this culture of work within us.  But 85% of American entrepreneurs are either immigrants or children of immigrants.  We are losing our sense of pride as hard working producing machines.  Could you imagine telling someone now to not get new tires because the army needs it more than you do?  That is exactly what World War II ads said.  No, we had wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the only thing we may have been asked to sacrifice was slightly higher gas prices...and yes we bitched about that!!!  that is why the World War II generation calls themselves the greatest generation.  But I am an advocate of selfishness but I believe Americans need to remember what led us to greatness; our work ethic and our ability to produce quickly and efficiently.


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US demographics prove Raeganomics

            I recently went on a trip to Cleveland, Ohio.  I live in New York City. When I went to the bar with some friends, I bought two tall beers (equivalent of two beers) and six shots.  When I closed my tab at the end of the night, it read twenty dollars.  Not because the bartender liked me, not because some of them were on the house but that was the cost at the bar.  It wasn't happy hour, this was Thanksgiving weekend.  I've drank in Cleveland before but it never ceases to amaze me just how cheap alcohol is there.  The odd thing is, alcohol at the grocery store may run you about the same as I would find in New York.  Restaurants are also dirt cheap in Cleveland.  Is it because food has to travel a shorter distance, thus less transportation costs, forcing the price of food down?  No, there's more farmland in New York State than in Ohio.  So why?  When I commented to my cousin in Houston he asked me about the price of alcohol in New York.  When I answered, he said, "Those are the same prices we have here."  Ah, so it's not a size of the city thing as New York is the biggest city in the United States and Houston is about the same size as Cleveland.  So why?

         Well, the answer comes from my favorite president, Ronald Reagan.  He said that if the rich people have more money, it will have a top down effect on everyone else.  I then thought to look for the United States demographics.  Even though New York is the largest city in the United States, it is not the most expensive city in the United States.  For that prestige belongs to San Francisco.  To which I queried, where are there more billionaires and uber-rich people?  Well the most amount of uber-rich people are, you may have guessed it, San Francisco.  Why can Houston afford to be more expensive, the oil tycoons and NASA are there.  They have their share of rich people too.  The point isn't that these cities can be rich because the uber-rich can afford them.  It's that the Uber-rich can afford to pay higher salaries to their employees thus creating a wealthier, by comparison, middle class than other cities.  Since these companies pay their employees enough to afford higher prices, restaurants, bars etc. can afford to charge more because the demand is more inelastic (the effect price has on demand).  Many bars in Cleveland closed down simply because Lebron James left.  If they started charging $5 per beer and $7-10 per mixed drink, people would stop coming and they may be forced to close.  The wholesale cost of alcohol is about the same everywhere in the United States, but a bar can make more profits when the citizens make more money.  You see this in cities with the highest concentration of rich people.  There is a direct correlation between the expensiveness of a city and the amount of rich people that live there.  Therefore, rich people seem not to be as greedy as society makes them out to be.  They pay more for their laborers, which in turn makes their employees able to pay more for recreation so that every part of the spectrum makes more money.  Exactly how Reaganomics is supposed to work.  So even though it's been 25 years since Reagan left office, his theory is still proven true in US demographics.  Perhaps someone should tell our President this so he stops forcing the uber-rich to give more of their money to the government when they seem to be distributing the wealth much more efficiently than the government could ever dream of.


Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be bought at the bottom of this page.  

Blackfish

With the CNN documentary, Blackfish, people are now petitioning to free the killer whales from captivity.  This is classic liberal thinking; "Since we don't like it, nobody can like it."

If someone is offended by the documentary and appalled at how the killer whales are treated, then they shouldn't go to Sea World anymore.  That simple.  Why feel the need to ruin it for everyone else?  The object of knowledge distribution and informative documentaries is to educate people on an issue and then let them decide what to do with it.  Unfortunately, this is not what those who sympathize with the makers of the video do.  They want to ban all killer whales in captivity and ruin everyone's fun.  

If the documentary is as powerful as you claim it to be then it by itself will cause the demand for killer whales to plummet and Sea Worlds to close.  Then the owners may have to decide to release the killer whales back into the wild.  Or maybe they'd just kill them.

I'm sure that many "experts" claim that killer whales could easily transition from captivity to the wild but I'm not so sure it'll be that easy.  They may die anyway.  Maybe if Sea World goes under, they'll kill the whale.

The point of any art, which is what the video is, is to release a catharsis or an emotion.  Real art should stand on its own and need no interpretation.  That is what Ayn Rand said in Atlas Shrugged.

Some people who saw the video were encouraged to go to Sea World because they believe they have a chance to see a trainer get killed by a whale.  I know that's not what the video makers intended but that's art, it changes based on who's looking/reading/watching it.  Like all things, I let the invisible hand decide.  Here's the video, nobody is forcing you to go to Sea World so don't force us to not go.  Let's just see if this documentary is powerful enough to convince people not to go.  Something tells me, it isn't.

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years can be bought at the bottom of this page

Fair is unfair

If you ever hear the term, "It's only fair" know that the person has given up on competing in any objective or rational way and is now just a whiny little bitch.  For being fair is the most unfair thing ever created.  Let's take some popular examples always keeping in mind one of my favorite quotes, "If you're ever in agreement with the majority, it's time to pause and reflect"~ Mark Twain

Title IX is the biggest most egregious "fairness" doctrine ever created.  It says that a school has to spend the same amount of money on girls programs as they do on their corresponding boys programs.  That means the University of Alabama would have to devote the same amount of resources and funds for their boys football team than their girls.  Have you ever heard of the women's Alabama football team?  I haven't, but the men are # 1 in the country right now and have one of the most impressive records in the last five years.  So, they shouldn't be slightly more compensated?  Not to mention how many more people want to be a part of the Alabama football team than the girls team, which I'm not even sure exists. Yet, legally, if a group of girls decided they wanted to put on pads and play football, the school would have to let them.  People say, "It's only fair" women and men are equal.  Well, look at television ratings, sure women's football isn't on any of the major networks but there's a reason for that; nobody would watch.  Millions of people tune in each week to watch Alabama. Many more buy tickets and products with the Alabama logo.  Men's college football is a multi-million dollar industry to the point that everyone is complaining the players should get paid.  But if you paid the players, you'd have to pay women's players the same amount.  Even though, the women's players don't bring in any money...if they even exist.
        For those of you that ridiculously claim that if women's football got TV time, they would be just as popular, let's take another college sport; basketball.  I know there's a Duke women's team.  In fact, they're pretty good, I'd say they're around the top 10 teams in the country every year.  But, they don't bring in a fraction of the revenue, fans, jersey and other product sales as the Duke men's team.  You think it's fair to devote the same amount of money to Duke women as it does Duke men?  In what world is that fair? You would need the money you bring in from the men to pay for the women's for an inferior product.
     ESPN celebrated Title IX recently by having a "nine for IX" special.  I personally found it insulting to women that Mary Decker was on it.  Here is a woman who choked in three straight Olympics and has won the same amount of Olympic medals as I have; 0.  You couldn't find nine better athletes than her?  Tells you something about female athletics.
         The most celebrated aspect of Title IX is tennis. Women need to be paid the same winnings as men.  They talk about Billy Jean King beating a pro-male and Serena Williams took a set off Andy Roddick once.  So, a woman only beat a man once and Serena, probably, the best women's tennis player of all time, is celebrated for picking up a set, not a match, a set on a male counterpart.  A female commentator (I think it was Pam Shriver) said during one of Serena's dominant performances, "Get Murray and Djokovic out here, I think she can beat them" her male counterpart said, "Now wait a minute" but she was adamant and he gave up quickly so as not to be accused of being a chauvinist.  Rather than tell you how I think that match would go, I'll let you know what Serena said when asked.  She laughed and said something along the lines of she would only have a chance if Andy Murray was not allowed to serve and Serena got the doubles alley and Murray could only have the single's.  So...why do they get paid the same again?  Maria Sharapova did have a good point when a French player said something along these lines, Sharapova said, "I think more people watch my matches than his."
       Okay, so then I have a solution to make it really fair. If your match generates x million amount of viewers, you get paid x amount whether your male or female.  That would be real objective fairness.

    The other area you see this is in radio.  Interesting you don't see it on TV.  Liberals are arguing that an equal amount of time needs to be assigned to left radio hosts as right.  They are appalled Rush Limbaugh has so many hours on the air.  The reason he does, however, is millions of people are listening for the entire time.  When left radio hosts spout their vile, slanderous, and malicious diarrhea of the mouth, nobody is really tuning in.  That's why they get cancelled, because they don't bring in good ratings and the radio needs to do whatever it can to make sure people are listening.  That's why leftists complain because they can't compete with objective numbers or ratings with right radio hosts so they have to ask the government to force companies to do it since the leftists are incompetent on their own. Bottom line is most people who work for a living hate the government stealing money from their paycheck every day and they don't want to listen to their defenders when they're driving to work.  There would be no gripe if all the radio hosts were left.  How do I know?  Well we do have TV.

     I have never heard anyone talk about the fairness doctrine with TV.  TV is all dominated by the left. The only right leaning show is "Last Man Standing" and they do provide both sides of the issue.  "Modern Family" "Big Bang Theory" every other TV show pretty much is left.  I have no problem with Modern Family being on seemingly every TV channel all day simply because it's hilarious and people watch.  Big Bang Theory is the # 1 comedy.  That may in part be because it's not on a cable channel but it is a very funny show.  How come this idea of "fairness" is never brought up with all the TV shows that are left wing but it is for radio?

The last one I will name is business.  People think that this small company is more efficient and better than the huge corporation but the corporation squashes them.  There has never been a real world example of predatory pricing (selling below cost to drive out the competition) in the history of the world.  There hasn't been because it doesn't work!  Companies stay small or go out of business because they can't innovate and they can't compete in efficiency and quality as their competitors.  One example of this, one man created a website called "Napster" and he completely decimated and obliterated the "Goliath" or "huge corporation that squashes little people" in Virgin records.  Have you seen one lately?  One man, probably in his basement, took out the corporation. Why?  Because he innovated the industry and delivered music much more efficiently than his competitor.  Odd that a few years before that mom and pop music stores complained, "We just can't compete with the corporation"  Yes you could have if you worked hard enough.

Just remember that "fair" is never fair.  The only fairness is found in the invisible hand.  The people that a capitalist society leave behind is a negative externality.  Yes, extremely minimal amount of aid can be given to them to stop them from revolting but it shouldn't be anything that a sane person would be content with.  The only people that should be content are people who just can't offer anything to society. Remember, nobody ever roots for Goliath but Goliath is the one that puts foods on the tables of millions and millions of people by employing them.

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be bought at the bottom of this page

Jim Irsay and the continued pussification of the American Male
Here we go again, another example of how easily offended and retarded Americans are.
Jim Irsay, CEO and owner of the Indianapolis Colts, releases a statement along the
lines that under the Peyton years, the Colts enjoyed incredibly fantastic regular
seasons but only one super bowl ring.  He goes on to say that he's disappointed that
he couldn't win more.

All over, sports news anchors everywhere were screaming about how he dissed Peyton
Manning.  John Fox, Manning's current coach, fires back at this "classless" act by
Irsay.  John Fox also says, "Peyton has too much class to fire back."  Well,
apparently John Fox doesn't have too much class to fire back.  What, praytell is
wrong with what Irsay said?  If you're not playing/owning a team/coaching etc. in
the NFL to win a Superbowl, you probably shouldn't be affiliated with the team.  I
think Peyton is disappointed he only has one Superbowl ring too.

When they asked Lebron James (before winning) about his MVP's and all these
individual accolades, he always said the same thing, "That's nice but I'm here for
one reason, to win a ring."

Kevin Durant, Tracy McGrady, Derrick Rose (take a guess what my favorite sport is)
have similar comments when they won their scoring titles.  Were people offended? 
No.  You know why?  Because it's not offensive!  You want to win championships, if
you don't, don't play professional sports.  This idea of celebrating mediocrity is
lost on professional athletes.  They want to win it all! Yes, Jim Irsay did the
mandatory apology session because people are offended by everything!  I think every
media outlet owes Jim Irsay an apology.  And if you have a problem with Jim Irsay's
comments, then you are a pussy that should stay indoors crying yourself to sleep
every night.  If I offended you, GREAT! I don't care, you get no apology from me you
overly sensitive piece of trash.


Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be
bought at the bottom of this page.

What I learned from the government shutdown

What I learned from the Government shutdown
The government is shut down! What are we going to do?  Who are we going to blame? 
These are the questions that all the pundits and "experts" are battling.  Well, I
was raised by a scientist and all we have now is a variable that has been
eliminated.  Based on what happens, we can see what that variable does.  So far, it
doesn't seem like it does much.

First off, the last two weeks, I have not noticed anything different in my life.  I
wake up, I go to work, I check e-mail, eat food at restaurants etc. etc.  Nothing
has changed except every now and then when I watch TV I see something about a
government shutdown and people coming up to me asking me what it all means.  Here's
the answer in a nutshell...it means the conservatives are right, we don't need the
federal government that much because private enterprises will pick up the slack if
people want it.  Let's see some examples from the last two weeks.

While watching a sport channel, I looked at the ticker on the bottom of the screen
and read, "Army vs. Navy game may be cancelled due to the government shutdown." 
Well that's a great way to get Americans upset, take away their football.  Me, I
couldn't care less.  I've never watched the Army vs. Navy game, I am an Ohio State
fan so I was looking forward to that game.  That and starting at noon on Saturday
there are other college football games to choose from.  Who cares if one game is
missing? and I do have a cousin that's an alumnus of West Point and I still didn't
care.  A couple days later, I was watching the same sports channel and I see
something like, "Army vs. Navy has received funds from private enterprises and the
game will take place." Well, apparently someone cared.  Problem solved.  The next
Saturday the armed forces were still able to play football because they found the
money.  Apparently people cared even about the non-rivalry game.  Alright so that
crisis averted.

Then we had the military controversy.  If you're killed in action in the military,
your family gets $ 100,000.00.  Now the families of those who died and are in all
those coffins coming home from Afghanistan won't get paid because of the government
shutdown.  Now, President Obama could just take his pen out, draft an executive
order and pay these families but no he didn't do that.  President Obama seemed to
use this to stick one to the Republicans and their shut down so he screwed our
troops.  I truly believe Bush would have been crucified definitely figuratively and
if the liberals got to him, maybe literally.  Obama, however, always gets a pass and
this time the liberals don't have to be hypocrites because they're rooting for our
enemies anyway in the war.  Now, the American people can be like, "see with the
government shut down, the military families won't get any money."  What happened
though?  The corporations ruined the liberal cause once again.  Fisher Price(tm) was
like we'll pay it.  Then private individuals started donating money to Fisher
Price(tm).  Some schools even decided to do a fund raiser to raise money to pay the bill to
the military families.  A corporation showed up the government by throwing all their
money around and the private citizens started reimbursing the corporation.  Yea,
this capitalist society is so full of greed you can't rely on generosity (sarcasm
greatly involved in the last sentence).

The only thing I can see is the national parks are closed.  I try to hike in a
national park every year and I love them.  This is a case where private citizens
cannot step in because they're not allowed.  I have a feeling though if you were to
say sell the Grand Canyon, there would be buyers.  You can even put in the contract
that it has to be used so people can see the view and not destroy the park for
commercial enterprises.  That can be done.  When I brought this up to someone they
said, "Don't you have to pay to get into a national park?"

Yes you do.  It's $20 per car for the day.  You can get week passes
and other denominations but that's the one I normally pay. 
Apparently national parks are run at a loss or else they would have
stayed open because it is a way for the government to make money. 
Or, this is the only thing those opposed to the shutdown could
shutdown to make people notice.  Either way, this is not too
catastrophic to me.  Like I said, if the government were gone, 
someone would buy the national park from them.  Liberals may
contend, "Yea but the entrance price would probably go up so our
poor couldn't appreciate them."  If you were so concerned about
that, you'd complain that it's twenty dollars a day!  That's a
price! Why not just have it be free?  Well the government wants some
money too.  There's that greed again.

If the government shut down is really the Republicans' fault, I say thank you
Republicans for proving my conservative views are right.  All these programs and
whatever the hell the federal government pretends to do are probably just as
ineffective and useless as I thought.  There really is too much government waste. 
So, now that we know this, let's use the federal government only for strong national
defense, to keep out national parks open (naturally keeping the entrance fees), and
the Supreme Court when we don't think our state courts upheld the constitution
enough.  There's probably a couple more things but It won't cost that much if those
are your only expenses so then you can lower taxes and give more money to the
people.  Any kind of gap this will cause will be picked up by private enterprises as
we noticed during the shut down.

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be
bought at the bottom of this page

Obama the Stone Cold Killer Like many of my rants, I'm going to give both the positive and negatives about President Obama. Barak Obama has spent a lot of time talking about change. Some liberal news outlets will point out that Guantanamo Bay is still open but not nearly as loudly as they did when Bush was President. President Obama gets a pass when it comes to killing terrorists. It is true that he has outlawed torture and other "enhanced interrogation" methods. No, our President prefers to just kill them. I for one, commend him on that. The liberal media refuses to highlight this the way they did to Bush, the warmonger president. Let's recap Bush's eight years and Obama's five. Fine, we'll say Bush had seven since 9/11 and since 9/11 happened toward the latter half, we'll just round to six. Either way; here is the scorecard. Drone Strikes Obama: 292 Bush: 52 Senior Al Queda members killed Obama: 22 Bush: 12 Now, this is a little unfair to Bush because we don't give him any credit for Saddam Hussein , his sons and those in Iraq. This is a bias on my part, although I was for the Iraq war, 9/11 was about Al Qaeda and the Taliban protected Osama Bin Laden. President Obama did get THE target; Osama Bin Laden. Yea, Republicans scream, "They never would have gotten him if it wasn't for torture." Maybe, but since I'm skeptical of everyone, I resort to logic and common sense. Bush left office in January 2009 (you're a lame duck from the November election to January). Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. That's over two years later. I find it hard to believe that information received two years ago was still relevant now. Maybe he stayed in that safe house that Zero Dark Thirty described for three years. I don't know though, it seems far-fetched. Republicans who haven't ignored Obama's success at killing terrorist complain "We can't interrogate and get information about the few Al Queda leaders we have left." That sounds legitimate but we got Osama Bin Laden by killing everyone, so why can't we get this ophthalmologist? The liberals don't bring this up because they have a school-girl crush on Obama. That's fine, he's immune to kill all the terrorists he wants, and some are even US citizens. Yes, right-wingers think this is a dangerous precedent and it is. According to the constitution, the president can engage in acts of war for 30 days without congressional approval. Clinton enacted this power more than every other president before him combined! Now we have Obama who's abusing his right to kill people. But then again, as far as I can tell, he hasn't killed anyone that didn't deserve to be killed. I made up a ridiculous conspiracy that as Vince Flynn and Tom Clancy died shortly after each other, it was Obama that did it because they had the courage to call Muslims terrorists. That would be odd though, these people wrote fictitiously about what Obama does for real. Maybe they exposed some of his tactics, maybe Mitch Rapp is real (Vince Flynn reference). Maybe there are multiple Mitch Rapp's all over the world. I certainly hope so! So, kill away Mr. President. I do believe that there are some things you do that we the American people shouldn't know about. But so long as you keep killing people that have tried to hurt us, then kill away Sir. Also, Cheney and those of Bush's administration are complaining that after criticizing them for being war mongers, he has taken their work further. I say "good." So the inexperienced Obama didn't realize the violence was necessary. Now that he has experience, he realizes that violence is necessary; so I'm okay with that. The thing that baffles me about this stone cold killer of a president we have is Benghazi. Our US representatives, including the ambassador, are murdered and President Obama does nothing? There was a little investigation but not much. There was no manhunt; nothing. This should have cost him the election, but Sandy saved it for him. Where was this man that has killed so many Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders? I really have only one explanation. President Obama likes working in the shadows. There was too much press on Benghazi, so he appeared weak. Behind the scenes though, he's looking for and going to kill those responsible. At least, I hope so. In all, when President Obama gives a speech he comes off as a terrorist sympathizer. He doesn't like using words like "terrorist" or "evil" and likes blaming youtube for Muslims killing. Right-wingers have a problem with that. I, however, would prefer someone talk weak and walk tough than one who talks strong and acts weak. His strategy has seemingly lured the enemy into a false sense of security before Obama can kill them. Obama can call terrorists the "backbone of our society" for all I care just so long as he keeps killing them. Every single law enforcement officer would probably tell you that you need to let the little guys go and monitor them so they lead you to the big guys. Obama kills them but his strategy doesn't appear to be failing. To give an article that summarizes what's been discussed here see http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/09/11/more-killing-in-obamas-war-on-terror-than-bushs-war/ http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Pakistan/Al-Qaeda-leaders-who-have-been-killed-and-arrested/Article1-551687.aspx

Homophobic gays

Homophobic Gays

 I love paradoxes. How can someone be a homophobic gay?  Well it's actually more common than what the media would like to contend.  I could search through lexis nexis and other sites to come up with these articles from "Blade" (a homosexual magazine) of people feeling guilty because they engaged in sexual activity with the opposite sex when they consider themselves gay but quite frankly, I'm just too lazy.  I know they exist because when I wasn't so lazy, I have read them.  But on to the issue.  

Gays are unlike most minorities in that it's extremely hard to stereotype them nor can you definitively identify them all on the street.  There isn't a set pattern that describes them except that they engage in activities sexual in nature with the same sex as they are.  This definition doesn't even work too well as some women make out or do things sexual in nature with women to attract other males because they are heterosexual.  This type of person is the point of this essay; there is nothing wrong with calling that person "straight."  

I have met a gay man that openly say anti-gay comments like "I hate flamers."  It was odd when I heard this but he explained to me that flamboyant gays give gays like him (bulky muscles, facial hair and other "manly" features)a bad name.  I likened this to the same as Chris Rock when he gave his speech 'blacks vs. n-words' in a stand up routine in the late 90's.  I met this man in 2002, a lot has changed for gays in that time. Nowadays, gays have a new target, and it's anyone that admits anything that may provide evidence against a gay gene.  

I am very open about my asexuality.  Every one of my friends/acquaintances/family has accused me of lying with the exception of one of my gay friends.  The one friend, however, took exception when I said, "I became asexual when I was 21"  I know that it is a taboo now because the notion that you "became" a sexual preference is absolutely "beyond offensive."  But why?

This same friend recently posted a video that was captioned "After watching this, nobody will ever doubt being born gay." I had to watch this video to see what this "overwhelming" evidence was. I talk in my book how the "gay Gene" theory isn't given much validity and even gays aren't willing to take it to the next level by merely taking a blood test to see if they're really gay; much like I took a blood test to find out if I am O-.  The "nature vs. Nurture" debate, which is exactly what a born-gay assertion is(siding with nature), has been going on since Descartes debated Locke.  And since then, there has not been one issue that is definitively proven either way.  Locke, who believed we were born a blank slate (Tabla Rassa), believed everything was nurture.  He has yet to be proven wrong definitively.  At my college, a group of people argued gender was a social construct and not genetic.  Their proof, hermaphrodites have a "Y" gene(XXY) and they aren't considered male.  The logical answer would be "XY = male; XX= female" and there is a 3rd gender, "XXY = Hemaphrodite" Done.  But they didn't accept that thus leading to another chapter.  So, you're telling me, that sexual preference is the only thing in the history of the world that is exclusively nature?  I find that extremely hard to believe.  Like all nature/nurture arguments it's probably a combination of both, but this isn't an article about the "born-gay" notion.  

The video is people approaching straight people and asking, "When did you realize you were straight" to point out how ridiculous it is to ask that question.  I found out that gays are supposed to be extremely offended by answering this question.  This confused me because one of my gay friends volunteered it when she came out to me. She said, "I became gay when I was 12."  This is a normal age when people find out their sexuality.  I wish people would ask me that question about my asexuality instead of the normal, "You're lying."  Oddly, this same friend that is absolutely appalled by the question "When did you know you were gay?" has no problem when people tell me I'm lying.  What if someone accused him of lying about being gay?  If "When did you become gay" is "beyond offensive," then that I think goes into a whole new stratosphere. 

As I've talked to more and more gays, I find that either I just happen to run into the outliers or there is a real problem with the gay community.  They only accept you if you (a) Never admit to having done anything sexual in nature with a member of the other sex and (B) are liberal.  This means that the "club" normally designated LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender) is false because bisexuals now are being ostracized by the gays and lesbians because they go back and forth from one sex to the other.  This goes directly against the "born gay" notion.  Any kind of group that ostracizes it's members if they don't think exactly like they do is dangerous.  Most liberal groups in general are dangerous; see occupy wall street and the multiple rapes, murders, and millions of dollars in property damage. 

Fact is, most gays have tried to do things sexual in nature with the opposite sex.  Maybe after experiencing this and not enjoying it, it made them discover they were gay.  Hence that would be the moment you realized you were gay and thus the answer to the "absolutely appalling" question of when you became gay.  

Now, is it offensive to ask a straight person that?  Of course not!  That would be hypocritical of me.  I also don't think it's a ridiculous question for straights and the people on the video shouldn't have been that shocked.  It probably happened right around the time you got over your "girls/guys have cootie" stage.  Me, I had my first crush at 3-years-old but the bitch moved to Spain thus ending our relationship. I never went through the cootie phase but I've been asexual for the last eight years.  Have I kissed or done things sexual in nature with people since then, sure, but I haven't enjoyed any of them, thus confirming my belief that I am asexual.  You don't lose your "gay card" just because you experimented with the opposite sex.  

If gays were tolerant of gays who do that, and let them be open about this experience instead of forcing them to repress it and not tell anyone as if they did something wrong, then I would have no problem with gays. Gays have become intolerant of people for not being as gay as them.  It used to be LGBT all stood together in solidarity to be accepted and not part of the DSM-IV (List of psychological disorders) like they were in the '70's.  Now the LG's hate the B's and have kicked them out of their club because they don't fit their mold.  Gays scream about how they want to be equal and society should tolerate them but they are intolerant of gays that after coming out, try activities with the opposite sex once in a while and shun bisexuals and asexuals.  

I met a flamboyantly gay man last weekend who asked me if I was gay.  I told him no and we talked about how I'm asexual and both gays and straights ridicule me for that.  He responded, "Gays hate me too because I hate Obama."  This is the other tisk-tisk.  If you're gay, apparently you're not allowed to be a Republican. There's a group called the "Log Cabin Republicans" which are gay Republicans and the gay community hates them.  Why? What does preferring to be in a relationship with the same sex have anything to do with your views on the economy, big vs. small government, abortion etc. etc.?   Yes Republicans tend to be against gay marriage but maybe the Gay Republicans link that view to "big government" which is a Democratic ideal.  Maybe they think, "the government has no right to tell me who to be with" and they extend that to, "The government has no right taking my hard earned money."  The latter being a right-wing view.  Are you really less gay because you don't believe you should kill a fetus? Are you less gay if you look at all the government waste and realize that they suck at investing money so maybe we shouldn't give them as much? Are you less gay if you don't want to rely on the government to defend your home and you'd rather have a gun?  I would say no to all these things. I don't get much static from other right-wingers because I'm pro-abortion.  Why does the gay community give Republican gays (not all of them are officially in the log cabin Republican camp) so much static?  Why are they viewed as traitors?  Where is the tolerance they so loudly cheer for?  I guess the Gay community is like any other liberal organization; French Revolution, mob mentality.  Remember, Robespierre, one of the founders and starters of the French Revolution, would eventually get guillotined by French Revolutionaries for not being radical enough.  Seems that's where this is headed to.

Autographed copies of my book The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 years can be bought at the bottom of this page.  

Reflecting on Boston

"Any time a bomb is used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror"

~Barak Obama ~ Eerily similar to my quote on facebook the day following the attack 

"We will find them an bring them to justice" ~Both Barak Obama and Sheriff of Boston Police Department.  I was skeptical because Obama made similar comments after Benghazi and nothing has happened since. But it happened, kudos to BPD and the President 

"(Just like the 78-year-old marathon runner) We may be temporarily knocked off our

feet, but we will pick ourselves up and we will finish the race" ~President Barack

Obama.  Also eerily similar to my silver lining posted on facebook earlier this week.

Black hat, suspect # 1 shot and killed as he hijacks a car ~ 

Wednesday Boston Bruins game, entire crowd sings National Anthem loud enough so the singer stopped and deferred to the crowd to do it.  Bravo on the Patriotism Boston.  I don't remember anything like that after 9/11, just a lot of flags but I don't

remember spontaneous karaoke night at the sporting event.

I must say I'm emboldened and proud of the American spirit since the Boston tragedy.

And those who starkly oppose our president will point out that it wasn't the Feds

or his men that killed suspect # 1 and captured # 2 but the local police that did.  I have always held that despite my personal differences with someone, I will give credit where credit is due.  The last five days Mr. President, thumbs way up, good job.  We got great words and great action!

I’m not sure what happened as different websites tell me different things but if Boston was forced to evacuate their homes, I had mixed feelings, on one hand it’s not the government’s right to force you from your home, on the other, if you don’t leave…..well….that seems like probably cause to see if you’re aiding and abetting.  I guess you could just let cops search your home while you’re in it.  My mixed feelings got some vindication because it was a homeowner who actually saw blood in his backyard, opened the tarp of his boat to find the 19-year-old and then called the cops.  So, if he was evacuated…..that wouldn’t have happened as the cops had already searched the house/shed.  

honor is evil

Throughout my life, I have always believed that your word is your bond.  If you say you’re going to do something, you do it.  If you can’t do it, you be very apologetic!  I have broken my word a handful of times but I have always apologized profusely for it.  I thought this was an admirable trait, I didn’t even think it was a rare one.  As I live longer, I realize that not only is it rare, but it’s vilified.  I can’t say it’s how I was raised because I look at those who raised me and I don’t see honor at all.  My pappou (Grandfather) was the most honorable man I’ve known.  I can’t think of one time that man ever said he was going to do something and not delivered.  I’m not going to say he was perfect, he had many faults, but if I got it from anyone it would have had to have been him.

This is happening because with people very close to me they consistently give me their word about something, break it, then get mad at me for thinking that they would actually carry through with it.  Most of my closest friends have broken their words to me but they are always extremely apologetic and it is rare so therefore, I don’t hold it against them.  I have a lot of problems for the select few who aren’t apologetic, like it’s somehow my fault.  I get excuses like “Life happens” or “it’s unfair because I didn’t realize X” But for these excuse artists, fear not, for media and conventional wisdom seem to back you up.

As I watch the Dark Knight, I revel at how great of a movie it is.  Heath Ledger does such a phenomenal job as the Joker and Christian Bale is by far my favorite batman.  But let’s look at batman, a man that has an altar ego.  A man that puts on a façade that he’s some trust fun billionaire who inherited his dad’s company but doesn’t care about anyone but himself, meanwhile he fights crime every night keeping Gotham safe.  It’s not that he expressly lies, but he misleads, which I’m okay with.  Then there’s the Joker.  The Joker never breaks character.  He tells the world this is what I’m going to do, and then does it.  He says throughout the movie, “I’m a man of my word.”  And never does he go back on his word throughout the entire movie.  This is the message that is sent, honor is evil, just like the Joker.  If you want another example of this being reinforced, take the show Dexter, one of my favorite shows.  Again, the protagonist is a dark character.  In the most recent season, one of the villains, a Ukrainian mob boss, also constantly gives his word to Dexter, a man he’s trying to kill.  Again the Ukrainian mob guy who is evil in all aspects, never breaks his word to Dexter and constantly tells him he’s a man of his word.  Dexter, on the other hand, lies all the time.  He lies to people he’s about to kill, he lies to his sister whom he’s closest to, he lied to his wife, he lies to everyone.  He even brags about it as he’s taunting a victim, he promises he won’t hurt them if they do something, they do it, he says he’s going to kill him anyway.  The man says, “You said you’d let me go” Dexter responds, “You think I’m a killer, but not a liar?!”  The Ukrainian mob boss was a killer but not a liar, the Joker was a killer but not a liar.  So yes, you can be a killer but not a liar, Dexter just happens to be both. Yet, the people love Dexter and hate the Joker and the Ukrainian mob boss and root for Dexter, the liar and the killer rather than just the killer.  Keep in mind Dexter killed the Ukrainian mob boss’ lover.  I can understand why he would want to kill Dexter. 

The media seems to give villains the characteristic of honor and make it devoid in the heroes.  It is hard to be an honorable man, when I see the stars of Hollywood and celebrities, it is clear they fail miserably at it.  So, if you can’t be honorable, attack it.  That’s what emboldens those close to me that blame me for believing they could be honorable.  After all, based on conventional thinking, I’m calling them a villain.  Therefore, I love being, and will continue to be, the villain.  You may hate me, but if I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to do everything in my power to stay true to my word and you can take it to the bank.  In near 29 years, I can only think of two times I didn’t keep my word.  Both I regret, and both I’m very apologetic for.  For self-attack decreases the likelihood that it’ll happen again.  In this new culture where honor is villainous, is there really any wonder why divorce rates are so high and backstabbing so common?  

How Victoria Azarenka is like WWE champion CM Punk

Two weeks ago, I was not a Victoria Azarenka fan.  Like many of the female tennis players, she’s a bad server but a great returner.  She was # 1 in the world but tennis rankings have always baffled me because there’s so many tournaments, I feel it’s unrealistic that a player can play that often and travel as much as they are required.  But, if you miss a tournament, your ranking gets affected in a larger amount than is fair.  True, every player has this same problem but this is how Caroline Wozniacki was # 1 but never won a major, she played more tournaments than anyone.  So, I could believe the “experts” when it was all about Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova and nobody cared about Azarenka.  That being said, I still picked Azarenka to make it to the finals and lose to Sharapova so I did trust her over Serena.  But, nobody really believed me. 

I am one of the few people that is not in the closet about being a WWE fan.  I’ve had to defend my fanship to almost everyone for over a decade.  After watching Azarenka win, I realized one more reason I’m a WWE fan.  The superstars in the WWE treat their audience like adults.  Yes, you can insult us.  You can insult the city where we live.  We’ll get over it, it’ll be okay.  Right now, CM Punk has been going on for months about how sheepish the masses are and how all someone has to do is mention the city they’re currently in and they go nuts.  Fans boo him immensely but then he mentioned the town they were in right after mentioning that if he did they’d cheer.  The crowd cheered loudly at the mention of their city.  He then rested his case.  He openly talks about how he doesn’t need the people and the people don’t matter.  Tomorrow is the Royal Rumble; the writers of the WWE have expertly set up the championship match of CM Punk vs. The Rock.  The dichotomy is obvious.  The man who despises the people vs. the man who calls himself “The People’s Champion.” 

Interestingly, the women’s tennis final was set up in the same way without any script (I think).  Usually the crowd unfairly attacks Azarenka for her grunting.  The William sisters, Sharapova along with many other women grunt.  It may not be as loud or as long as Azarenka but Azarenka is the only one that constantly gets mocked and ridiculed by the fans for it.  In the semi-finals, Azarenka got hurt so left the court for a training break. This is completely legal.  When she came back, she ended up beating Sloane Stevens, the 19-year-old sensation that the world, including me, fell in love with.  International news syndicates came out attacking Azarenka for manipulating the rules.  CM Punk has been champion for a modern-era record of 434 days, and a lot of matches he too gets counted out or disqualified since the title can’t change hands on these things.  Again, CM Punk is well within the rules to do it.  He is not the only champion to do it by a long shot.  But, he gets vilified more than anyone else.  Same thing happened to Azarenka.  So then the finals took place.  Sure, Stevens captured the fans attention with her charismatic, funny and charming interviews but now we have one of the oldest women on tour, Li Na.  Li Na has been cracking up fans for years with her surprisingly candid and honest interviews.  One of the reasons I like tennis is that interviews aren’t all the same, they are quite funny and Li Na is one of the best.  Li Na plays her best at Australia for reasons she can’t explain.  This was well documented in her run to the finals beating two of the top women, Radwanska and Sharapova.  As she kept highlighting how she loves Australia, just as how CM Punk predicted, the fans loved her for complimenting their country. 

So, at 3AM eastern time, I sat down on my couch to watch Victoria Azarenka, the woman that has been attacked and crucified in newspapers across the world for the last two days vs. Li Na, the woman that everyone loves for her charm and hilariously candid interviews who loves Australia, battle it out for the championship in Australia.  The fans didn’t boo Azarenka except for one time during the match.  But they were notably silent when Azarenka did well and cheered much louder for Li Na.  It was obvious who the fans wanted, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Li Na would collapse on the court twice for a twisted left ankle and had to receive help from the trainer.  Nobody cared, unlike when Azarenka did it once just two days ago.  The 2^nd time Li Na fell, she banged her head pretty hard and they were worried about a concussion.  If the fans didn’t love Li Na before, they certainly did now.  The woman has come back from twisting the same ankle twice, possible concussion, but she’s going to fight to the bitter end.  She’s not tapping out, she’s not going to quit, she’s going to stand on the opposite baseline and battle the number 1 player in the world.  Victoria Azarenka would beat her in three sets. 

I loved the match but at the end during the ceremony I watched intently to see Azarenka’s speech.  Unfortunately, she did the classy thing.  She got up there and thanked the fans.  I know the logic, without the fans there couldn’t be the large prize money reward for playing tennis.  But, I’m an economist, if it wasn’t for what these players could do, the way they can entertain the masses, they wouldn’t show up.  There are much more people that like watching tennis than can play tennis at the ability of those on court.  Lower supply, higher cost, Azarenka deserves the money.  If CM Punk beats the Rock, he will come out on Monday Night Raw the next day and say, “Once again, I have beaten your hero.  Once again, I have proven that you don’t need the people to be successful.  Once again, I can’t be stopped and have beaten everyone in my path for 435 days to prove that I am the Best in the World”

Now, I didn’t expect Azarenka to say that.  If she did, I’d love her for it.  But, if I were her, I wouldn’t have thanked the fans.  She broke down crying after she won.  I understood it, through all the adversity, having a nation against her, she walked into enemy territory and still got the job done.  Athletes should be mentally tough, but what she went through is unfair and it had to be tough.  I normally dislike crying in sports by male or female but this time I was okay with it.  So, I know I don’t have a big following.  But I will say it for Azarenka since she’s too classy to say it herself.  “I have come out here, and I have beaten your heroes.  Back to back I took out the two non-Australian players you love the most.  Boo me if you want; mock me if you want; but this (as she holds up the trophy) says that I am the champion, this solidifies that I am unquestionably, undeniably, indisputably the Best in the World!