Pick a Card, Any Card

Story 3) makes me glad that I had a fat harmless oaf and a Ned Flanders clone for Boy Scout leaders.

Annoyed by the fact that my CEO and deluded failure blew 3 mil a year on private plane rides while he shit canned some 5000 of my fellow employees.

Otherwise, I’m more mellow (for me.)

Megan Mullarkey for claiming to be a victim of “brownshirt” tactics by us fascist Gheyz. Nope, this is ostracism, woman. If we were brownshirts, you would have been sent off to a camp.

Nothing pissing me off today. I had a nice ride in to work with Mrs RML, took her out for a latte, counted the angles on the head of a pin on an ethical issue and now I’m headed across the street for a free lunch at the fancy hotel. Not a bad day at all.

@ManchuCandidate: I’m kinda agnostic when it comes to getting all up in arms about boy-diddling scoutmasters and such. I mean, it has always been such, for one thing, seems to me that we knew which guys were “creepy,” back in the day. And even later, in high school, we knew several guys who would give us beer and pot if we went and hung around their house, they would hit on us ocvcasionally, but they didn’t rape us, so if we were low on funds, we’d go take advantage of their hospitality. They were the victims, really. And I knew kids who were somewhat detached and clinical about sex who just figured a BJ is a BJ. Told you I ran with a dangerous crowd.

The hysterical reaction has been described by some in the field as more damaging to the “victim” than the sex, and the prosecution even more so.

@Prommie:
For some reason, the creepy church guys I knew about when growing up always preyed on the girls. One 40 something guy spent an unhealthy amount of time hanging out with a female high school classmate of mine.

Actually, I’m not furious about story 3. Just happy that wasn’t my boy scout leader.

@redmanlaw: You’re not trying hard enough.

@blogenfreude: [Sound of birds chirping.]

@ManchuCandidate: My boy is just getting started in scouts, and the whole thing is rather surreal for me. The Ms. grew up in commie-land and makes jokes that we’re indoctrinating him in the “Young Pioneers”. I watch all the kids (and parents) at pack meetings and mentally check off which ones will probably grow up as endlessly mocked but with mad whittling skills, and which scoutleaders I should steer my boy and his friends away from. There are a couple, but mostly the leaders seem genuine if mawkishly Flanderesque. The female packleader is actually really down to earth and kinda hawt in a soccer mom kind of way, especially with that uniform, but I digress. Our den leader is kind of – check that – really dweeby but enthusiastic and there are always other parents around and for any overnight activities they require a parent to be there and in the end, I got drafted as an “assistant den leader” because all of the other parents can tolerate the guy any further than we can throw him (and he’s hefty). I’m the closet atheist in the pack of course, so if you ever hear of a dust up over Heathens in the BSA in Pennsyltucky, expect a write up in these here pages. Oh, and they’ll never get me to wear a uniform. I dropped out after one year at Tenderfoot because all we did was have meetings and never once went camping which is all I was interested in.

Oh, and I’m pissed off that Haggard has managed to give church, meth and pegging a bad name. But I digress.

@nabisco: I was asked to leave the Cub Scouts (junior boy scouts) for becoming helpless with laughter during the “Dib, dib, dib. Dob, dob, bob. We pledge to thee Arkela.” nonsense.

Well if Haggard was stoned while preaching it explains a lot of the scarier behavior.

@rptrcub: I wish people would stop thinking that by ‘being OK’ with drag queens they are somehow pro-gay. In my view, drag-queenism has nothing to do with gayness and everything to do with internalized self-hatred and fear of women.

@redmanlaw: If I haven’t made you pound your desk today, I’ve failed utterly.

@nabisco:
I hope your boy has fun. Despite the whole “God” thing, I enjoyed my time in the boy scouts. I learned many skills that will come in handy during the Cannibal Anarchy like trapping game, tracking and identifying animal poo.

I also learned to be cynical about authority. 1st winter camp, we went out into the worst snow storm in a decade. The night before, my fat oaf of a scout leader helped us set up the snow shelter and then helped himself to half our food (to our dismay because we only brought enough to feed us and a normal sized guest) before leaving us and Flanders to go watch the Leafs (I think they lost so things haven’t changed much in 30 years.) 150 cm or 5 Ft of snow hit us over the next 24 hours (I lived in a snow belt.) Turned a 2 hour hike the next day into a five hour trek for survival.

Anyway, oaf comes back on his snowmobile. Probably feeling guilty that he “abandoned” us to the snow (but not about eating half our food) and arrived on his snowmobile which promptly crapped out forcing him to march back with us (to most of our amusement.)

Got back with frostbite on my feet and cheeks and a slight case of hypothermia.

Learned a few things to be a leader:
1) Always check the weather report
2) Don’t abandon your charges to watch a shitty hockey team lose.
3) Don’t eat most of the goddamned food. Leaders eat last.

Discovered stuff about myself:
1) I had a dark sense of humor
2) Dark senses of humor are not often appreciated
3) I’m stupider than I thought because I went to the next winter camp trip (out of 12 boys on the first trip, only 2 ever went out again.)

How narcissistic is it to get pegged with a dildo replicated from your own cock?

And “Ted Two”? Did he think of it as a stunt double or something? Maybe he should have had the dildo give the sermons while he stayed home snorting meth and banging hustlers.

@Pedonator:
Maybe he should have had the dildo give the sermons while he stayed home snorting meth and banging hustlers.

Maybe it did.

“I have seen things that no one else should see!”

@Pedonator: Stunt double? Or… ? Rhymes-with-stunt double? For those times Ted Jr got shy about coming out to play with wifey?

I never heard the term ‘pegging’ before. Thank you all for bringing just a little more sunshine into my life. BTW. There’s a shop down the street selling Art Dildoes made of hand-blown glass. Such as.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Yoicks!

@Pedonator: I almost just choked on a granola bar. Well done.

@Prommie:

I have always contended that if you want to keep pedophile scoutmasters away from your kids that you should see to it that your kids’ scoutmaster is gay. Teh open Gheys A) Are obviously into adult guys, and B) Know they are being watched like hawks due to latent homophobia- so they would avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

@Benedick:

They have one of those on Melrose here in LA. Lovely work.

@Benedick: You make it sound like a cult. Actually, come to think of it — yes, yes it was. I hated it and I was forced to be in it until I made the rank of bear (big surprise).

As far as drag queenism goes, I can appreciate it for what it is, depending on how it’s done.

Prommie: Boy. That brings the victory of Hope, brought about by Change We Can Believe In, into starkest relief. We could have had Supes nominated on account of their ability to rebuke all forms of witchcraft. But no — not gonna happen. That buzzing sound was the sound of the bullet just missing your ear.

(Preceding tempered by obvious and necessary concern for an all-around great lady. Pancreatic cancer is a big heaping pile of NO GOOD. Wish it weren’t so.)

@chicago bureau: My first love died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 43. It is a crappy way to go. Poor Justice Ginsberg.

@Prommie: Thank FSM she’s at Sloan Kettering instead of Walter Reed.

1) Of all the things taken off (or out) in the Oval Office in the last 20 years, a jacket should be the least of our worries.

2) Of course. I would expect nothing less.

3) Don’t newspaper writers know by now that the SNL Canteen Boy sketch was based on a true story about a political operative? You can’t shock anyone with the Boy Scout leader revelation anymore.

4 & 5) Interchangeable.

My blood ran cold when I saw this photo of thousands and thousands of people lined up around the block for a job fair in Seattle.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2008708421.html

FSM help us. As a state, WA is actually very well run (though we do have the most regressive tax system in the nation), and we’ve had billion dollar surpluses as recently as the last budget.

Now we’ve got a six billion dollar deficit, and the state’s effectively bankrupt.

Did you know that states can’t legally declare bankruptcy? It’s true! We’re learning all kinds of fascinating things these days.

I have a supreme, 100% incredible idea for getting things back on track:

Obama needs to summon the magic unicorns and declare a jubilee!

All debts are forgiven! Say it loud and say it now: Jubilee! Jubilee!

@Original Andrew: At least they’re not eating each other. Gates should definitely get a division of shock troops to garrison his house or just build a walled city with farming acreage over a big aquifer.

@Prommie: Why can’t a sack of shit like Scalia or Thomas or Alito get pancreatic cancer?

There’s been a lot of talk in these parts about establishing a commune and I do have a location to suggest: Washington’s San Juan Islands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_Islands

They currently enjoy a status as a tourist and plutocrats’ second home destination, but back in the day they were Washington’s bread basket. There are still many working farms with the potential for intra-island self-sufficiency, and their geographic isolation lowers the danger of having to deal with the roving hordes (just throwin’ that out there).

The winters are a gloomy, rainy hayell, but it rarely snows or even gets below freezing. And the summers are phenomenal; Mr. OA and I have been up there several times and it’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

@FlyingChainSaw:

Well it is Seattle; you can expect people here to queue up quite politely to be eaten when the Mad Max-esque anarchy breaks out, then to apologize for being so pale and boney.

@Original Andrew: Holy fucking shit. So will the breadline dress code be business casual?

@redmanlaw:

Prepare your best Dockers for the hellpocalypse.

Jubilee! Jubilee!!

@Original Andrew: That pic is doctored, right? I see shadows, and don’t shadows require sunlight?

But really, six billion dollar deficit? Cripes, I know you folks have Boeing and Microsoft and all that, but you can’t possibly have a bloated state bureaucracy like we do in Pennsyltucky, and our (projected) shortfall is still under 2 billion US$. Mebbe my governator is right, we are a bunch of whiners.

And yes, this is what it has come to: I’ll show you my deficit if you show me yours.

@Original Andrew:
Not a bad idea. I was thinking along the same lines although different locale.

@Original Andrew:
The other day there was a photo in the NYT of thousands of people who had lined up days in advance to apply for open firefighter positions in Miami.

@nabisco:

We don’t have an income tax, so all the state’s munnies come from sales and real estate taxes (ex. excise tax), so things went to H-E-double hockey sticks when all us Bitter Nuevas Pobres slammed our carteras shut when the economy crashed last fall.

Here’s an article from November back when the projected deficit was only $5.1 billion.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/388475_revenue20.html

This was before a massive snowstorm hit in December that basically shut down the state and most retailers froze to death in their empty stores.

Now the budget deficit has reached ridiculous, Looney Tunes levels–it’s like Six Hundred Bajillion dollars!!!11!

Governor Gregoire has told us that we can tuck our cabezas between our piernas and kiss our culos buh-bye.

Asi fue, Game Over.

And the schools will be going to four-day school weeks.

@Original Andrew: Wow, I thought it was a hotbed of anarchic furor, everyone wired on coffee and ready to start killing and eating face carpaccio at a moment’s notice.

@Original Andrew: Ah, four day school weeks. That’s the way to put food on our chillen! (I just read Gladwell’s “Outliers”, and he makes a compelling case for longer school years, not shorter ones).

@SanFranLefty: Two words, SFL (in answer to why Scalia, Crazy Eyes Chief Justice, and Alito don’t get cancer): professional courtesy.

I always thought that US America would eventually go into decline as all world powers eventually do, and that there was a real possibility that I’d see it, but I didn’t think that it would happen with the speed of a car crash.

I wonder how our future historians will describe our flailing about in the time of crisis, the short sighted, wrong headed moves we’re making that will be come clear with the passage of time, and more importantly, how it could have been avoided.

@FlyingChainSaw: Gates has an island in BVI. I suspect thats where he will hunker down during the cannibal anarchy phase.

You know, a sailboat would be a great way to ride out the storm. No need for fuel, people do it now, cruise for months, years, you would have to get proficient at fishing. And you could cruise to places that never were industrialized; traditional, primitive, poor agrarian societies will be unaffected, they’re not gonna miss whats gone. If you get proficient at fishing, and stocks will certainly rebound with industrialized fishing dead, you could trade fish for manioc.

You’d want to be heavily armed, some of the more sophisticated cannibal bands will of course take to the seas as cannibal pirates.

@Original Andrew: I’ve long fantasized about having a cabin on an isolated island there.

@redmanlaw:

Depends on if those historians are the Morlocks or the Eloi.

@Original Andrew: Some places in Orygun are talking about going to 4 day school weeks too. My first thought was, great – what are parents going to do for day care on that extra day, and then I realized at least one parent would be home because they’d been laid off.

@FlyingChainSaw: Face Carpaccio? I think I would prefer a dish more like tete de veau, for the face and head.

You do have to worry about mad cow, creutzfeld-jacobs disease, don’t eat any part of the central nervous system, and marrow is best avoided as well. Apparently, large muscle cuts are relatively safe, even if the cow has mad cow, its when you eat the slaughterhouse sweepings, the dregs of the meat that they clean off the bones with steam and mechanical separators, these are the parts that spread mad cow; hot dogs.

@ManchuCandidate:

PEI? I would so go totally Anne of Green Gables.

Vancouver Island would work, too.

@redmanlaw: I guess the more complex a system is, the more catastrophic its failure. Andean peasants who spin their own wool and tend potato plots by hand will be completely unaffected. With no modern medicine at all, infant mortality and commonplace diseases will even drastically reduce the population pressure that keeps these cultures poor now, they will do real well, those who live.

@Original Andrew: I has actually been to PEI, for the wedding of my brother to the waittress he knocked up while working in a restaurant up there, near Montague. They have a good lobster fishery, and bluefin tuna, up there, too, we could live like kings. And potatoes, tons of them.

One of the best stories of my young life took place up there in my ex-sister-in-law’s family farm, her family had gathered, including her brother the mountie who had spent time up around Hudson Bay. I was maybe 8 years old. My family had been bragging about what a prodigy I was, though they would not have known the word “prodigy,” and the canadian contingent got all triumphant, and said “we got something, bet he doesn’t know what it is, eh,” and the mountie went and brought out a 6-foot long narwhale tusk, what a beautiful, precious thing that was, given to him by eskimos that are allowed to hunt them. I took one look at it and said “where’d you get a narwhale tusk, I thought those were protected.” Stunned silence, not even an “eh.” What they didn’t know is that one of the only books in my house back then was the XYZ volume of the world book encyclopedia that my older sister had stolen from the high school library, I had read it over and over, W, whales.

@Original Andrew: I loved those books and read them until the covers came off.

@Mistress Cynica:

Looks like we’re all gonna be camping out on I-5, selling jewelry on the roadside and holding up hand drawn signs saying “anything helps, god bless.” It’ll give our faincy BC Canadiastan neighbors The Sad.

@Promnight: I’d say the two words are “puppy blood” – like what Cheney drinks to stay alive.

@Promnight:
PIRATE CANNIBAL ANARCHY

@Mistress Cynica:

But of course! What sassy girl or gay boy didn’t fantasize about living la vida Anne of Green Gables ; )

Jubilee! Jubilee!!

(I know you’re reading, Barry!)

@Ewalda: I am starting to think I wish this happened when I was 20, or 30. Oh, I have knowledge and skills I didn’t have then, strategic thinking, things I did not have then, but I think, in the arena of pirate cannibal anarchy, sheer physical strength is gonna be more valuable. Who knows. Give me 10 good men and RML’s arsenal, and I think I could take us to safety, come what may.

@Ewalda: When I was young, I loved sci fi, and my favorite genre was apocalypse survival stuff. Probably aquired the taste when I read Robinson Crusoe very young. I don’t remember most of the titles, Earth Abides, I remember. It was an adolescent fantasy of mine, to lead a band, organize a survival strategy, to survive in a situation like that. Nerd revenge fantasy, but then, isn’t that the appeal of all great sci-fi? Its not far off from the fundie fantasy of the rapture, being saved when apocalypse comes.

@Promnight:
I was more into Victorian Pornography.

@Ewalda: I pawed through “The Biography of a Gentleman of Pleasure,” or whatever it was called, stading in the “literature” aisle of Waldenbooks. I didn’t have the balls to buy it. If anyone came up the aisle (a rare occasion, this was Florida, and I was in the “literature” aisle), I would have to turn away to hide the pulsating bulge in my pants, and I would try to control my breathing. I did not do any rude acts there in the store, no no no, but, when you are 16, the erections, they are always a threat, they could come any time, the great fear was if you popped a boner while up at the board doing a math problem. Nope, just a case of superhornified 16 year old. There was no porn available then, before the internet, we found old moldy copies of playboy in the woods, we looked in vain for “bush,” even a glimpse of crotch hair was rare in Playboy in those days, and the things this Victorian Gentlemen were describing boggled the mind. There was no internet then.

@Original Andrew: Jubilee! Jubilee! Save me from my mortgage monstrosity!

I’m totally down with a commune on the islands. I like rain. It’s raining here right now. The day started sunny and warm, turned gusty and cloudy at lunch. A guy in the break-room at work in the afternoon looked out the window and said, “Hey! There’s fluid coming from the sky!”

@Pedonator: Wasn’t Bono pushing that a few years ago during the Vertigo tour?

@redmanlaw: Yeah, but I think that was debt relief for Africa or some such thing only a fabulously wealthy rock star could adopt as a cause. I mean, Bono, how about you pay my mortgage? I’d start buying your records again.

Sheesh, anyway, how much debt could those poor Africans have? I think those raped brown people cowering in the refugee camps have bigger things to worry about than their mortgages and credit card bills.

Damnit, now I’m going to have to get the image of Ted Haggard using a dildo molded from his own dick by having his wife peg him with it out of my goddamned head. This is going to require a fair amount of pornography.

@Benedick: I’m kind of surprised. I saw it in a Dan Savage column about five years ago (before his readers came up with “santorum” for another particular term.)

@Pedonator:

We call it liquid sunshine.

“Hey! There’s fluid coming from the sky!”

@Benedick: We will use these vocabulary words in a paragraph:

Biff and Muffy were hard-core Promise Keepers. So when Muffy’s parents took off to the Vineyard for the weekend our intrepid teens knew just how to maximize their pleasure while minimizing their sin. After a long night of saddlebacking, Biff still felt…unfulfilled. “Muffy mount me!” he moaned. Muffy obliged. But when she pulled out her strap-on with a wet smacking “plop!” after pegging Biff soundly, she cried out in dismay: “Oh Noes! Conchita will never be able to wash these santorum stains out of the sheets! Daddy will know!”

I was reading an article on Israel’s use of Ruger 10/22 semi-auto .22 LR cal. rifle as a sniper weapon when I thought about Our Girl Over There.

@Pedonator: I liked the last CD with Vertigo, etc. My son was saying the other night how much he likes City of Blinding Lights. I’ve been listing to Pop a lot over the past several months. I like albums other people hate, like Metallica’s “St Anger.” (“Some Kind of Monster” is on VH1 in the next room.)

@Pedonator:

“Daddy will know!”

“And then he’ll be inspired to make a dildo molded from his own cawk suctioned to the shower wall that he’ll enjoy backing himself onto every morning because that’s perfectly normal at Jeebus University, right?”

@redmanlaw: I really have nothing against Bono or U2, just stopped paying attention to them long ago. Have to admit that “Beautiful Day” anthem brings tears to my eyes. I really should catch up on their catalog, but there’s just so much new music out there, I get distracted.

@Original Andrew: That’s just sick. (And, were you the hot jock I lusted after in the Regent University locker room showers?)

@redmanlaw: I like albums other people hate

I’m gonna crank up Trout Mask Replica to lull me to sleep.

@Pedonator: The newest bands in my collection are Gojira, Mastodon and Lamb of God, and some of that is a couple of years old at least. My son is on top of all the new stuff so I get to take him to shows like Linkin Park and Slipknot, maybe Disturbed w/Lacuna Coil next month. Might be a fun way to kick off spring break if the dates are right.

@redmanlaw: I’m just not worthy, I can’t reclaim the head-banging metalhead disposition of my youth, which did indeed smell like teen spirit if you want to know, and I’m sure you do.

Latest additions to my iTunes library: Langhorne Slim, Animal Collective, Tanghetto, reissue of ancient Volcano Suns, Rosebuds, Angels of Light, Antony and the Johnsons. I know, hopelessly alt-bourgeois.

Forgive me, let live me…

@Pedonator: I’m the same, although less metal and more punk. I fear that I have become the clichéd Adult I refused to be, hopelessly stuck with my ancient Ramones, Clash and Gang of Four recordings while the kidz glom the latest fad. My latest adds were a couple of Conor Oberst tunes that seemed suitably alt/country (I know, I know…), a Jon Langford contribution to a Sandinista tribute, an original version of the song that was lifted for that SamWill.I.Am “Yes We Can” mash-up, and Manu Chao.

I was happy to see everyone chime in last night with props to Lux Interior on his passing. Never saw them live, but still can’t get “You Got Good Taste” out of my head…

@Pedonator: Thanks for the explication. I’ve led a sheltered life.

@nabisco: Out.side. the. trains. run. on time.

Son of RML loves him some Clash, Ramones and Nirvana and can’t believe the other 6th graders don’t know about that stuff. My drums are set up in the garage and he can play them anytime he wants.

@nabisco: Hmm, for me its Ramones, Clash, and Replacements. Lately I have discovered psychobilly, and I absolutely love the new alternative stuff, the The bands, Killers most of all, The Fratellis (their name is an homage to the Ramones) The Strokes, oh, and Radiohead.