Closer to Home...

If what modern philosophers state is true and there is no truth (analyze that computer!), then what is the next step in philosophical progress? There is a consensus that attempting to condense the many to one would be a never ending effort, so many choose to embrace the multitudes. Prudence would dictate that we focus on the local and subjective rather than the universal and objective since the latter is beyond our comprehension. So the post-post-modernist would be represented by our local news correspondents or bloggers in the know.

Turning my mind's eye away from the infinite I find a muddled mess...

The planet is turning to chaos, industries are compromising the planet to make a profit, consumers are devouring everything presented before them, governments are betraying their citizens through the collective corruption of the body politic, everyone is adhering to the scarf or starve ethic. We're all Hungry-Hungry Hippos and the marbles are running out. The chain reaction of perpetual consumption has reached an unsustainable rate. Intolerant conservatives are manipulating public opinion turning constituents into fellow hate-mongers. The stage is being set for the final showdown where not even John Wayne can walk away unscathed.

Maybe extreme locality would be less depressing...

The city of Chicago is block busting, providing grants and tax breaks for developers to build in destitute neighborhoods. Townhomes replace ghettos and the residents can no longer afford the taxes and are forced to leave, turning west--a manifest destiny of unemployment and hunger. The poor invade the suburbs scaring Ma and Pa yuppie, who see a hardlined approach the only solution to prevent their town from turning into a slum. The poor either get pushed into the countryside or packed into condensed section 8 housing, conveniently placed near industrial centers to feed businesses with cheap labor.

Certain towns are spared. River Forest is an affluent town adorned with multi million dollar homes occupied by whites 9 to 1. 70% of the residents are college educated, The policemen are paid well and plentiful, the crime index is low and the average income is high. The neighboring town to the west is Maywood and it is the exact opposite of River Forest. The race ratio is flipped in favor of blacks, only 2 in 10 made it passed high school, the average home price is a third of that in River Forest, the policemen are few and the crime index is more than double the national average. The only geographic separation between one town and another is the Des Plaines river. It acts as a moat to keep the barbarians at bay.

Maywood maybe destitute and crime ridden, however they find plenty of money to build a multi million dollar Rock of the Ages Baptist Church. This building is decorated with a emerald green structure pointing towards heaven. My take on it's symbolism is that money is providence. The Cadillac's, BMW's and Mercedes parked around the church are owned by people (if the owners are average Maywood residents) that don't send their kids to college and let their homes and landscapes fall into disrepair. While the funds to build this monstrosity came from good, tithing, impoverished Christians, the faithful donors neglected to address the economic issues of their town in favor of bribing God to accept them into heaven. They could have pooled the money together to finance a public works project, loan money to small businesses, pay for street cleaning services, fund more neighborhood watch programs, hire more policemen, etc...

This financing of a church by the poor and poverty stricken is not uncommon in the area. Broadview, the western neighbor of Maywood, is home to a Missionary Baptist church of mega-plex proportions. The church resembles an enclosed basketball stadium and almost an acre of parking. While the rest of the town is littered with waste, pot holes and gang members, the church has a perfectly kept green lawn and a pristine building. The tithing is expected of its members and the church's website accepts tithes and contributions online (http://www.broadviewbaptist.org/onlinedonations/). The business of God seems more lucrative when shop is set up near poverty.

Sure these people feel that they need God in their lives because of their squalid predicament, but the money used to build these houses of worship would be better spent on improving their lot. Instead they ignore the opportunity to progress in favor of accepting the degradation and depression. God becomes the thief, stealing a brighter future from the poor.

A Cornucopia of Futility...

The reality to which we are doomed is devoid of meaning and purpose. So say the modern philosophers, authors, poets and artists. Any hope of finding meaning "out there" that isn't derived from within would either lead to disappointment or being manipulated by another.

Our only refuge is an existential existence where we decorate our lives with activities and beliefs to which we choose to commit due to subjective aesthetic attraction. We become artists of life and our own is our canvas. But these paints we splatter so liberally are chosen for us. Our activities are determined by our means and our means by our education, exposure, and resources. Our beliefs are decided by environmental conditioning--our upbringing, exposure, etc... Even existentialism fails to fulfill.

A hope appears when we try to filter out the impurities that have polluted our existence. If we find our true self and identify our center then we would have a starting point from which a more fulfilling development can begin. So armed with honesty and a probing inner eye we analyze our own history to distill our purer form. But is it possible to ever truly know thyself?

Students of computation will know that it is impossible. Our brain is essentially an enormous collection of analog processors that retains gradually fading residual tendencies in favor of past decisions. To be completely aware of the phenomena occurring within, all inputs and outputs must shutdown. The idea is simplified using 4 neurons [A, B, C, D].

A >> B >> C >> D >> A >> ...

Complete self containment is the only hope of true self awareness. Noticeably, the pollutants remain in the system so how better off is a person from when they started? The gradual degradation of favorable tendencies within our neurons provides the possibility for us to identify our center. But that center is a snapshot of who we were, to discover who we are is truly impossible. Surely we can generate mental schemas to average who we are, but that is just an estimation, our current self is beyond our grasp.

So rather than continuously sitting in perpetual meditation for eternity, most people give up these personal pursuits in favor of a more sensual life. We rely on the flesh to direct us. Pleasure and pain become our moral North and South. Ethics are replaced by advantage. God is replaced with resources. Polytheism reigns again where the gods are comprised of the elite and privileged. George Bush as Zeus, Bill Gates as Apollo, the Walton family replace the Titans and the House of Saud the Furies. Celebrities become anthropomorphic half-men/half-golden calves, demagogues become demigods, and athletes become giants.

The striving of life is now directed towards the legacies of indulgence, superficiality, materialism. Autonomy becomes a childish fantasy as the world lets go of doubt and gets carried by the current of consumerism. Earth is preferred over providence and the senses over the spiritual. But what a let down when decay proves ideal wrong.

Baby boomers fight for faces lifts, line up for liposuction and beg for botox. How long do they presume they'd be able to ward off time. Soon the body rejects the effects of indulgence. The pharmaceutical industry has been able to elongate the time they could spend abusing their flesh and ignoring their mind, but eventually the body shuts down. Will they continue to evade their emptiness by filling it with Oxycontin, Percocet, and Vicodin? Subvert spiritual failure with Prozac, Zoloft, Zyban and Paxil? Will they continue to deny decay with Cialis, Viagra and cosmetic surgery until the myth of Bimini become reality?

Eventually time conquers all. As hard and as fast as they run, they can't escape death. Their personal time line is only a segment and without ever addressing that mortal fact, they die without ever trying to discover their purpose beyond the flesh. Why deny the mind when it is such a powerful tool? Choose to make an impact and resonate from beyond the grave. Immortality is the goal of every person. Buddha, Jesus, Nietzsche and others have proven it possible at least in spirit (even if it's bastardized), we should all pursue the same end.

Even that is futile. If our spirit permeates humanity for millennia, it can never be eternal. If grace allows mankind to avoid self destruction, the life giving sun will eventually swell to swallow all that is man (less a few hunks of metal and silicon flung into the great void). So maybe the sensualists have the right idea. Forget this gift since it only brings despair. But then again, why should we let futility stand in the way off our self actualization? Lets just avoid the subject of there being no self...

Postmodernist Babble...

Language is the bumpy, pot hole ridden road we travel while trying to define the world. When looking over the edge we see that it is actually a bridge without support that circumvents the globe. It is suspended by its own gravity and below is nothing more than a void. Meaning is constantly in flux and any single word can have multiple meanings, phrases littered with symbolism, paragraphs a plethora of paradigms, and the entangled chaos expands ever outward.

Each person's individual culture has no consistent center--each experience shifts them within the tangled labyrinth of identity--so with no absolutes there can be no foundation. The illusion of a base is purely the result of naiveté or spite. The blurred basis is dictated by demagogues and the herd never bothers to adjust their focus to see that the ground work rests upon a pile of bullshit.

Deconstructionists have chipped away at the floor of meaning leaving themselves standing in the corner upon a pillar descending beyond our vision, and upon it rests the word "be". Structuralists tie these decaying tiles together and arrange them according to parity and balance. They fail to realize that the arrangement must be continuously adjusted due to the ever changing weight and meaning of each tile.

The analysis of language to discover concrete meaning is destined for failure. So if language is not guaranteed to transfer an idea without variation, then what is the point of communication. Wouldn't it be prudent for all to remain silent and abandon this flawed device? The postmodernist philosopher Rorty said that all discourse was simply conversation. No infallible rule of law, only an evolving dialog between opinionated subjects regarding phenomena. Those that affirm eternal truth expose their ignorance of the absurdity of their claim. Nevertheless, we still have many people that make such rediculous assertions in order to govern scores of people. And why shouldn't they, it allows for greater advantage and exploitation of the masses.

Nietzsche claimed that the Overman would govern a slave caste that would naturally submit and serve them. Are these demagogues the Overman? Is the gullible unquestioning herd the slave caste? Surely they would rise to the level of Overman if they had the capacity to do so... Capacity is the problem. Barriers to entry of the Overman caste: capital, education, location, appearance, etc... There are a great many that possess the will to power comparable to the Overmen but are restricted and remain in the slave caste due to lack of priviledge.

Would the slave caste willingly submit to their oppressors if it weren't for their acceptance of their lot? The Overmen are composed of spiritual leaders, governors of law and providers and distributors of means. To revolt against them is to oppose the core of culture: god, country, commerce, purpose, etc... The herd has no choice and has adapted to embrace their slavery.

Those straying of the herd at the margin is what drives advancement of the herd condition. Overmen routinely silence the dissent of these spiteful slaves. What is surprising is that the herd itself despises these revolutionaries for not conforming to the norm. The current trend is a cooperation between the two classes to prevent any uprising by controlling the exposure of young to the ideologies of the margin. The herd elders, at the direction of the oppressors, condition their offspring to abhor the discord of the margin. The power of the oppressors is therefore guaranteed by the oppressed.

How can the margin infiltrate the herd's center and spread the seeds of dissent? The channels of communication to the masses are regulated by the oppressor, so any means utilizing an established media would be censored and of no avail. Grass roots efforts are at the mercy of the barriers to entry imposed by the hegemony. Abandoning the pursuits of universal freedom becomes the only viable option to avoid futility.

But the message is out there. I have received it and am retransmitting it to a very limited audience. There is a collective awareness amongst the margin and the motivation is there to spread dissent. Do we not know that we have the herd surrounded? Do we not realize that we are the boundary between the herd and the overman? If we leave the herd to its own druthers, they will surely never see beyond the surface. They will be bound to the simulacra where reality is synonymous with appearance. Appearances will be under the control of the oppressor and the herd will accept the reality they're given. Since the overman provide the foundations of culture and define the world, albeit flawed and vulnerable, the herd itself is at their mercy.

An infallible definition of truth that encourages dissent is the only potential savior of the herd from the overman. The definition must topple those purported by the oppressor. The philosophy must be stronger than Kant, Descartes and Hegel. It must be able to stand up against deconstruction. It must become the compass of Rorty's conversations. It must embrace a future where each is his/her own guiding force. It is the law of originality, the glory of the unique, the committment to the tangent, the worship of Phi.

An Oily Digression...

A co-worker told me that she was stung by a bee and presented a swollen red bump on her ankle to prove it. Being early January, I was naturally skeptical that an insect so dependent upon the blooming of plant life would be out searching for food in winter and end up stinging a woman it had mistaken for a Primrose Penumbra.

"How did it sting you through your pants?" I asked trying to uproot the truth.

"I was jogging along the prairie path in shorts when it happened," she replied further justifying her claim.

Her winter jogging in shorts didn't come as a surprise. Our typically frigid, subzero Chicago winter has been replaced with spring-like fifty degree weather more appropriate for the rural south than for the windy city. This past week we have enjoyed many days where the temperature has crept toward sixty. Indeed, last year at this same time we have several days in the lower sixties. It seems that the Chicago winter is risking to lose its infamous reputation. The people don't seem to mind much and many have taken advantage of these mild days by bicycling, rollerblading, and yes, jogging.

She went on to tell me that her friend had to pull out the stinger left in her ankle. She then saw the dead bee on the gravel path and promptly squished it under foot and they both fled the scene in fear of another bee offensive. Even after the conversation ended and each of us went back to work, this issue of the January bee sting was still throbbing in my mind. So to aleave my intrigued I went about trying to explain this unnatural phenomenon.

Now I knew that honey bees have barbed stingers that tend to be left behind in the sting victim, disemboweling the bee leaving it for dead. Probing the depths of the Internet I found that honey bees don't actually die during the winter, they pack themselves into the hive and circulating throughout to keep the temperature up so that come January the Queen could start laying eggs for the spring season. During this usually cold month, bees have to maintain a temperature of around sixty-eight degrees. They survive during the winter months on the honey reserves that they collect during the spring, summer and fall. The bees all compete to eat and the resulting hustle and bustle is what keeps them circulating around the hive and essentially heating it up.

Bees tend to leave the hive for one reason: find and return food (plant nectar). Chicago suffered from a drought over the summer and many plants failed to bloom. This was a major issue for bees, for their primary food source was limited and they resorted to scouring trash cans and picnics to gather sustenance. Bee stings, more common in early fall when flowering plants wilt, were popular throughout the summer.

Assuming that the honey reserves were low, I figured that the accused bee mistook the warm weather as a sign of spring and courageously left the hive to find nectar. When finding this jogging woman in its path, it took her as a threat and performed a kamikaze mission to defend the hive.

So it was the dry summer and warm winter that factored into this bee sting... but does it end there? Could this unseasonable weather be the result of some deeper cause? Many esteemed members of the scientific community have been warning the world about the dangers of global warming. The increasing temperature of the oceans have led to a record breaking hurricane season that seemed to span the entire year. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma all devastated costal American cities costing billions of dollars and hundreds of lives. These catastrophes have all been attributed to the effects of global warming. It is quite possible that our sixty degree Chicago winters and summer droughts are the result of this global warming.

What then is the cause of global warming? Many say the cause is green house gases being pumped into the atmosphere. The primary culprit being carbon dioxide, a by product of carbon based (mainly petroleum) combustion. The widespread use of combustion engines increases the amount of green house gas in the atmosphere, traps in the heat from the sun, increases sea surface temperatures that churn out a record number of hurricanes, dries out the Midwest in summer and warms it up in winter causing bees to sting the ankles of joggers. There we go, problem solved... Wait, why are we so hooked on burning oil?

There are other fuel alternatives, such as hydrogen that burns to produce water. Why then does the human population of the planet choose to burn so costly a resource? The truth is that petroleum is an energy packed and easily accessible fuel. Petroleum comes from ancient organic life that has decomposed and under high temperatures and pressure has formed happy little hydrocarbons that readily release that stored energy with just the slightest effort on our end. This process took millions of years and a bunch of geological activity so that now our cars can feast on the remains of our ancient ancestors.

The abundance of oil is due to the flourishing of organisms so long ago, primarily during the Cambrian era. At the beginning of that era, about 550 million years ago, the Earth was basically a big snowball that thawed a bit during the summer seasons. Life was limited to the coast lines of the Pangean supercontinent, where the sun would be able to penetrate through the glaciers or water and the tidal effects would churn the organic stew to feed these lazy single celled organisms.

For some reason, either from an impact of another celestial body and/or from the break up of tectonic plates, the temperature increased. When the planet was a snow ball the sea level was higher (water expands when frozen) and coast lines were fewer. Then when the ice melted, the sea level lowered revealing a great deal of fertile coast providing room for those lazy organisms to stretch out and explore their potential. They flourished in their expanded real estate and soon there was competition over resources, and with more diversity and higher temperature it led to organizing and cooperation that evolved into the multiple celled organisms that eventually conquered the coast, sea, land and air.

But it was the global warming that led to the Cambrian explosion and it seems another warming is happening again. Will we one day have bees competing over nectar year round? Will perennials become continuals? Will we all be able to adorn shorts and go jogging in January no matter what latitude we call home?

Not likely. Even back during the big thaw of 250 million years ago, most of the northern and southern hemispheres were snow capped year round. Life seemed to collect and thrive around the equator. This is why major oil deposits are clustered around the Middle East, Gulf of Mexico, Southeast Asia, and the Northeastern coast of South America. Those locations were abundant with coast line and high temperatures conducive to organic life. There were other coasts that resided in the tropics, like western South America, but the mountain ranges that lined the ocean made it rough on the tiny seacreatures of yesteryear and in turn an unpopular destination for organisms to go, die, be crushed for millions of years and become oil.

Unfortunately much of the life that did become oil has been buried under mountains, The northern Indian subcontinent was a ideal location for life during the Cambrian explosion but has been buried under the Himalayas. Other prime Cambrian real estate was buried under the Sierra Madres and Nevada ranges.

The Cambrian explosion that spawned the grand diversity of life is the same cause of much of our conflict today. The struggles spawned from middle eastern and Venezuelan oil are due to life not being able to reproduce well in colder climates. Its ironic that the results of the world's most significant global warming is continuing to warm the planet allowing bees to buzz and girls to jog in January. And even though we may burn through the final remains of our Cambrian ancestors within the next twenty years, we are making the world 250 million years in the future rife with oil.

Gullibalooza!

The bar for America's gullibility has just been lowered another notch. Last week the public learned that the Oprah endorsed autobiographer, James Frey, is not the pill popping, needle pushing, reefer toking, coke sniffing, alcoholic that he so proclaimed in his memoir entitled "A Million Little Pieces." How could this be? What has the world come to when we can't even trust a drug addict to really be a drug addict? But the biggest question in the mind of so many Americans is: Does reality hold as much credit as Oprah? That question can only be answered by the talk show magnate herself.

Why is it that so many people abandon their own druthers and submit completely to the will of Oprah Winfrey, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Moore, George Bush and Charles Manson? Is free thought that odious that people choose to dispose of it as though it was junk mail? I refuse to accept that the average American has had their brain replaced with primitive, single-chambered sponges. No, I believe that the gullibility of Americans is part of a more sinister, global plot to overthrow the American dream and the pursuit of happiness.

After much consideration (all of two minutes) I have discovered the origin of this conspiracy. It dates back 2010 years beginning in a rural shack inhabited by a pedophilic carpenter from a land of scarce lumber, and a small, barely pubescent pregnant teen. An evening in early January, the two welcomed into the world the single greatest threat to the American dream. Joined by three Persian merchants and hallucinating sheep herders, they set in motion a chain of events that served to compromise everything America holds dear.

I know what you're thinking, America wasn't around back then, how can a conspiracy begin without a subject to conspire against? The central figure behind this conspiracy was supposed to possess supernatural faculties that were independent of both time and space. He very well could have foreseen this great nation and it's dream and acted in advance to topple them both. Surely you ask, why didn't he just prevent the inception of this dream and nation instead of after the fact? Answer: he works in mysterious ways.

This conspirator was stealthy and tactical. He waited thirty-five years, flying under the radar, and then with the force of a juggernaut, he pounced on the American dream like a lion on a quivering slave-girl in a Roman colosseum. Within the span of two years he managed to lay the ground work that would guarantee the topple of the greatest empires the world would ever see. By spreading his message of gullibility he created a sea of sponges, dry in the tongue and wet behind the ears. He set himself as the authority figure of a realm to which no one is absent. "Believe in me and your reward will be greater than the entire world." He appealed to the very nature that drives the American dream, Greed; and there is no need to ever fulfill the obligation for before the reward is due, the person must make a one-way trip to oblivion, never to return to express a grievance. These subscribers to the sponge ethic, initially lined up in caves, offering up as sacrifice to the legacy of the conspirator their very minds.

The gullibility production industry grew at a pace not seen again until the Dot Com Boom or Methamphetamine plague. The industry expanded their factories from the god forsaken desert to the Turkish towns of Colosse and Galatia, then on to the Greek metropoli of Salonia, Philippi, Ephesus and Corinth, and finally the final destination and location of their current headquarters Rome.

From Rome the gullibility industry found a place to set their anchor in history. They set up franchised sponge factories throughout Europe, Asia Minor and northern Africa. Soon every element of society was held in check by the gullibility anchor. People of prestige and talent fought and struggled to continue the delivery from the mighty Roman drip into their sponges. Even when the factory managers squabbled over the moistness of the sponges and who would administer the drip the expansion never ceased. The sponge ethic had never reached such a height.

Then, on a cloudy Wednesday in October of 1492, a syphillatically demented, uneducated Italian sailor, financed by the asexual monarchs of Spanish Aragon and Castille, set his unwashed foot upon the sand of an obscure Bahaman Island. There his deranged senses confused maze, chili peppers and turkey for human forearms, fingers and buttocks and he accused the natives of cannibalism sentencing them and all those of their mainland cousins to eternity of plague, alcoholism and compulsive gambling. His severe ruling cleared the way for the mass exodus of European sponges and the expansion of the sponge factories.

Now the sponges were separated from the mighty drip by the great expanse of water infested by sea serpents and underwater monsters. To prevent the need of abandoning the sponge ethic, they became reliant upon local sponges.

In 1692 Salem, when a promiscuous cackle of adolescent devil worshipers tripping on acid were confronted over their ritualistic chanting and nude forest dancing. These young girls turned the tables on the town sponges by making accusations that there were witches residing amongst them. Instead of the townsfolk recognizing that the witches were in fact the young girls, they took these Satanic girls at their word and jailed 80 people for suspected witchcraft and their possessions confiscated. The gullibility grew as more people believed these sinister little girls who accused pregnant woman of having the devil growing within them, rich men of making Faustian deals with Beelzebub, Frenchwoman for speaking in accents of the devil, a deaf mute for not being able to respond to accusations, and a revered of siding with the devil instead of the devil worshiping nymphs.

The gullibalooza spread throughout 17th century Massachusetts, sending 25 people to death by means of fire, rope or the mounting of hundreds of stones upon the condemned. Sane people all over new England escaped to the safety of New York. Mills, crops and cattle were abandoned to wither or wander the countryside, contributing to the overall look and feel of the hellish decor to accompany the smell of burning human flesh. This sponge-fest reached its height after a year, when the presiding governor and judge, Sir William Phips, abandoned the witch trials after his own wife was accused of witchcraft. This episode in sponge history was not without its lesson for it set the precedent of people being innocent until proven guilty.

That lesson, however didn't take long to forget and in the many years following the witch trials, soldiers repeatedly massacred hundred of native Americans without proof of guilt. During the Civil war thousands of southern towns were ransacked regardless if they owned slaves or were sympathetic with the southern secessionists. During the labor movements at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, hundreds of unionized workers were killed by police without trial or due process. Dead, dry sponges lined the streets of America as the moist consolidated their moisture.

The lesson was once again learned after a drunken Republican Senator from Wisconsin, named Joseph McCarthy, fueled a sponge hysteria during the early 1950's known as the Red Scare. The senator built his doctrine of fear on hearsay, conjecture and pure imagination. His tribute to the Salem witch trials drew the attention of the main stream sponges when he and other fear mongerers accused many of Hollywood's royalty of communist sympathizing and had them blacklisted or deported. Actors, animators, authors, and composers were now all the subject of treason trials. Families were divided between the paranoid and the compassionate. This alcoholic cheesehead had set sponge against sponge.

In January of 1953, the future husband of an American sex symbol that encapsulated the American dream, wrote an allegory that related McCarthy's Red Scare to the events that occurred in Salem 261 years prior. Suddenly, and without hesitation, the sound of millions of sponges slapping their foreheads and the following splash of fluid could be heard around the country. They began to remember that lesson, that complete reliance upon another person's point of view was a folly that often led to tragedy.

It was as if a wake up call had been given to all sponges. During the next couple decades, there were mass wringing out of the old fluid and a replacement with one's own. Change actually occurred and progress was made. The quality of life increased and a brighter future was seen where sponges would one day be replaced with brains.

The American dream began to take form, freedom, pursuit of happiness, access and happiness seemed possible for all. No longer would each depend upon drips for sustenence of the body, soul and will. There would be a mass awakening where no drip would be needed.

Unfortunately the transition from sponge to brain proved too daunting. Sponges couldn't decide what to fill themselves with until a brain took form. Mighty drips once again came to the forefront of society to provide a steady pouring of fluid to sponges everywhere. Drips foreboding the end of times and promoting fear, other minor drips echoing the prophesies and once again the sponge ethic came into full swing. Millions of people began to trust a drip over their own experiences.

Even the young sponges that were once likely to seek their own fluids are being force fed by the drips. The perpetual programming spewing from every orifice of the media monster is serving to manufacture armies of obedient little sponges that buy what they're told to buy, eat what they're told to eat, speak what their told to speak, dance how their told to dance and think what they're told to think. This monster is guided by the reigns of the drips and is driving the rest of America towards that intention of the original conspirator. It promises eternal reward, with no fulfillment, but instead of a posthumous reward they place it on a carrot that hangs from the end of a stick, just longer than the arms can reach, that is stapled to the head of each sponge. These sponges go sloshing ever-forward toward the images of celebrities, giant SUVs, 15000 square foot estates, diamonds and mammon. And if, for some spiteful reason, the sponge veers their sights off target, they are greeted with the threats and horror provided by disciples of the conspirator that aims to distill every impurity from the sponges.

So, when every sponge is obedient the true gullibalooza will begin and will continue for one thousand years. Sponges will vegetate in harmony. Every doubt would be distilled, every question will remain unpostulated, absolute trust and faith will be at the discretion of the drips. The moisture levels of the sponges would be a constant, change would be a memory, then a myth, then a hoax and then as non-existent as the mind.

The followers of Oprah, Bill O'Reilley, Michael Moore, George Bush and Charles Manson would no longer have any distinctions. Unity will be achieved for the sponges and the drips will replace the carrots and they will all go sloshing about towards their beloved void of oblivion. Reality will be dictated by the drips, and the sponges wouldn't even question why experience doesn't match up, for they will be sufficiently trained to ignore all experience that doesn't originate from the drips themselves. So when the next Oprah endorses a deceptive profiteering publicity hound, or a Bill O'Reilley manufactures a war between the Christian Right and secularists, or a Michael Moore paints a picture of misunderstood massacring dictator, or a Manson proclaims a pregnant woman to be the minion of Satan or even when a Bush accuses a third world nation of possessing atomic weapons, the sponges will all nod their moistened heads in agreement and slosh to the rhythm of unquestioned credence and faith.

Put Me On Your Do Not Market List!

Working for a marketing firm, I've become intimately acquainted with the operations of an outbound call center. Since January of 2005 the call center has experienced a remarkable slow down and was forced to skim off that layer of fat comprised of inefficient telemarketers (ie. the young, the old, the idiotic, the disabled, etc...). This downsizing was the direct result of the Federal Trade Commission demanding all call centers filter their calls from the Do-Not-Call list. This added process to our already squeezed system, due to competitive measures brought on by oversea call centers, created a need for higher productivity amongst agents and no hope of a pay raise for staff.

The FTC Do-Not-Call list is available from them for the small cost of $15,400 (roughly the annual salary of a single telemarketer). Initially it was assumed that the single mother without a high school education would lose her job and go on welfare and the call center would go about business as usual. Unfortunately the impact of the list was more detrimental.

The FTC rules require the call center to filter their existing names every 31 days. With the total Do-Not-Call list numbering more than 50 million the downloading of updates and subsequent filtering of our records taxes our IT staff and technology. This created the need for another IT staff member and an upgrade to our database server.

BAM BAM BAM!!!

Three more pathetic lives ruined by government induced downsizing. The alcoholic trying to get back on his feet, the Vietnam veteran that suffers from seizures periodically, the wife of an abusive husband that doesn't come to work when the bruises can't be covered with clothes and makeup... Sorry Charlie... Now you don't have to worry about people seeing you black and blue. The bottle is still there to welcome you back. And to the former soldier, your veteran benefits will take good care of you (when you die).

Wait we also lost 50 million telephone numbers available for us to call. That represented about one sixth of the calling pool. With a diminished supply, demand rises as do prices so the our cost of attaining leads rose. This effectively reduced our productivity by one sixth demand the same percentage of mediocre telemarketers being terminated.

KAAAABOOOOOM!

Every elderly worker that takes too many bathroom breaks to be productive, every student that tries to do homework on the clock, every welfare case that misses the first Monday of the month to stand in line to get their food stamps, every disabled person that takes too long of breaks and has to get off work early because the twinkie bus doesn't run past eight o'clock, all of them gone. Go find a job on the southside of Chicago... Whoops, my bad, there are none there. Ha ha!

Ah, ah, ah... That's not the end of it. Now every single call center that abides by the FTC rules is calling the same reduced amount of telephone numbers. This means that those that aren't on the Do-Not-Call list are being bombarded by pesky telemarketers to buy vinyl siding, purchase National Geographic and attend a timeshare presentation. These people are becoming perpetually perturbed and are less inclined to listen to telemarketers. So sales are harder to come by and guess what?

CHK CHIK... BLAM! CHK CHIK... BLAM!

Those that speak with an accent that the majority (white people) find offensive are all naturally less productive than those who don't. The telemarketers that are unable to properly speak English--due to a lack of education or a speech impediment- can't seem to perform as those that can speak correctly. So, if they sound too black, too Hispanic, too Asian, too eastern European, too [fill in the blank] then they're fired. Oh you have a cleft palate... Go work for the March of Dimes (they aren't limited by the FTC). Oh you never made it beyond fourth grade, well go AXE SUMINILZ FO E JAB.

Now, when I walk through the call center, a much needed IT staff member privileged to free coffee and bagels, I see the frightened look of over caffeinated telemarketers, scared shitless that they'll be the next poor soul on the chopping block. And as the call center become more proportionately white and educated I wonder what other pro-Aryan measures this government will take to further the Nazi agenda.

In 1968 the US Postal Service enacted an opt-out process for receivers of junk mail. This was mainly for preventing the dissemination of pornographic material to those that found it offensive. In 1970 the Supreme court expanded this regulation to apply to all direct mailers. But this means that I will be forced to fill out a form for every junk mail pusher that wastes money on sending me letters stating that I've won a new car or a trip to Cancun. My hand would surely suffer a cramp and that is downright unconstitutional. I demand a Do-Not-Mail list to be created and if I ever see the dentured smile of Ed McMahon I will go ballistic. They can send me the smut, but I don't want to asked by Sally Struthers one more time to help some pathetic child live a healthy life somewhere across the planet for 30¢ a day.

When I drive to work I take the interstate highway, a road created solely by the tax payer's dollar. This medium is as much mine as the telephone line coming into my house, and likewise should be devoid of needless solicitation. I make the motion that all roadsign be omitted from view. There is no reason why the charming face of Jessica Simpson should disrupt the road rage of my morning commute. And why should I be forced to delight in the thin and gorgeous bodies of Victoria Secret models while I'm busy flipping the bird to some disgusting (and likely drunk) truck driver. By removing the road signs we make plenty of carbon monoxide plagued land available for children to play upon anddevelope asthma, allergies and a host of other sinus problems to feed our ever growing health care beast.

I've considered buying TiVo to eliminate those pesky commercials that I am forced to avoid by pressing buttons on my remote. Why should my thumb do the work that the FTC could be doing. Yes, commercials are solicitations and intrude upon the privacy entitled to every couch potato from Bangor Maine to Sacramento California. Instead of forcing vegetables to use their limbs, the FTC should slap a $11,000 fine on that scary red and yellow clown every time he urges me to eat hamburgers, or every time a celebrity tells me to buy something while giving me that come hither look. I want none of it!

I also protest the shameless advertisement of products and services so prevalentt in the mainstream art world. I'm sick of Thomas Kinkade promoting the electric companies by "painting with light." Enough already, we all know you're a spokesman for General Electric. And Andy Worhol's children should be slapped with the same $11,000 fine for every person that has ever stared at his Campbell's Soup Can painting and looked in their pockets for a can opener.

America deserves a Do-Not-Market list that encompasses every media channel available in the pseudo-free market. We need to limit those liberal marketers from invading our peace of mind no matter how small it may be. We pure Americans don't deserve to have our eyes punished with beautiful images nor our ears with pleasant hello's. And when the marketing world is brought to its knees and my children's minds aren't polluted with ideas of "buying things" then I'll have more money to buy things like timeshares, vinyl siding and national geographic. I could donate money to the March of Dimes, buy my wife some Victoria secret lingerie, take that trip to Cancun, pick up some campbell's soup and light bulbs, eat some McDonald's, buy a Jessica Simpson album and some pornography. Without a doubt, I'd be a regular consumer if it weren't for all that damn marketing... Unfortunately, without it I wouldn't know what to buy and where to buy it.

What is there to shout about?

Once again the raving of the mentally ill has stimulated my motivation to speak out against the forces of tyranny and oppression. After waiting at a customer service counter at the local Best Buy to return a malfunctioning DVD recorder I left the store with a general discontent with everything bearing the colors blue and yellow. Stepping out upon the liberally salted side walk I noticed a man with heavy beard and acridity pacing beside a luggage carrier, laden with various sized cardboard boxes and stained blankets, and a filthy white bucket labeled, in poor penmanship, "Gulf Veteren."

A passerby, not holding the misspelling against the man, dropped change into the bucket producing an ear perking sound that signaled that the vagabond was profiting well from the post-holiday return season. Despite his lucrative venture his behavior gave the impression that he wasn't pleased with his state of affairs. His feverish pacing was accompanied by convoluted gesticulation and an almost incoherent ranting to no one in particular.

As though telepathically sensing fear, his flashing eyes focused upon a woman furnishing a microscopic hand bag and a pristine-white, fur collared jacket, exiting the store with trepid and rapid tiny steps. Her eyes fluttered in the vagrant's direction as his meandering pacing took a more defined direction towards her. Her path embraced the tangent as she tried to avoid his interception. His ranting increased in volume and tone as he followed beside her as she circled back to the source.

He abruptly disengaged his coupling of opposing poles when the automatic door slid open, releasing a gush of warm air and allowing the frail creature of blonde hair, red lips and pale skin to find sanctuary behind the metal framing and tempered glass. He was now shouting drawing attention from within and causing a backup of alarmed consumers anxious to move on to the next store.

In a heroic fashion, a middle-aged Midwestern stereotype, complete with grey mustache and pot belly, accosted the derelict bellowing the question, "What is there to shout about?" An unintelligible bark was retorted and the hero departed leaving the vagabond to return to his frantic pacing and raving.

Noticing me standing at the curb subtly watching him, he paused his dance and with eyes twitching he brought his hand to his face and evened out his beard. Then, in an unexpected display of sanity, he bowed, brushing his darkened fingers across the salted cement below. When he rose I tilted my baseball cap, bringing a gum lined smile to his prematurely aged face.

I walked toward the parking lot, dodging monstrous SUV's, leather filled luxury cars and giant trucks driven by petite women barely able to see over the wheel. Looking back to the Best Buy entrance I noticed that our little performer had found a seat beside his cardboard crate and plastic barrel. People were once again streaming to and fro totting plastic bags. By the time I drove my car around passing the entrance the vagrant was passively being lifted to his feet by men in blue three-buttoned shirts with yellow collars. Behind the sliding doors I spotted the pristine nymph pensively watching the bum being escorted beyond the concrete perimeter of the store.

The clashing blue and yellow were never so well placed.