It Doesn't Make Cents to Me, Part 2

As I indicated in a previous post, when it comes to matters involving anything vaguely economical, my intelligence drops to the level of a starfish. Back in October, I expressed my frustration over not understanding how the economic collapse happened. Now I'm equally befuddled by the prospective solutions, so I will make yet another desperate plea:

Would somebody please explain the economic stimulus debate to me in 500 words or less?

As my befuddled economically-challenged brain understands it, the premise behind the stimulus bill makes sense. During times of high unemployment, people don't spend anything because they want to hoard what they have. This is not good for the economy because people have to spend money in order to make the economy go. With people saving their money because they think they're going to die, the economy starts to go down the shitter even further resulting in even higher unemployment. In order to alleviate these concerns, the government is going to spend a shitload of money at once to kind of jump-start the economy so that it doesn't stagnate.

If a gold star is warranted for being somewhere in the ball park on this summary, I'd appreciate being given that little reward. If I'm way off base, I'll take a very sensual spanking.

More conservative advocates want the government stimulus to instead come in the form of tax breaks for individuals. I do not understand this plan. Wouldn't the amount that each person receives be relatively small? Given such a small tax break, doesn't it seem more likely that individual taxpayers will simply put that money into savings (given the dire economic situation) instead of spending it? All that people hear right now is that they need to SAVE SAVE SAVE their money! If they get a tax break, isn't that exactly what they'll do?

I really enjoy telling people that I think they're stupid even when I don't understand their argument (makes me feel good about myself), but in this case I'm not going to do that. I truly don't believe that those people who support the tax breaks are incompetent, so I want to know what the reasoning is behind that notion. I'm looking to you, brave and discerning FoxNews viewers. What's the reasoning behind the conservative plan?

I rather like the people on TV who claim that a depression is necessary and that we shouldn't do anything. First, apathy comes naturally to me, so I'm totally on board. Second, the vast majority of people don't want to listen to these negative Nancies, so I root for the underdog. And third, there's a certain poetry to two decades of prosperity being rewarded with a giant economic comeuppance. With my twenty years spent in school receiving excellent grades and being told that I'd be going places in my life and then languishing in unemployment forever, I see my life as a microcosm for American society as a whole. Misery loves company.

So let's play a little game we're going to call: EDUCATE THE ECONOMIC SIMPLETON. The winner will get to have Carl Kasell record the greeting on his or her home answering machine.
(If you get that obscure reference, you're probably an economically-challenged humanities major like me.)

My brain is like an open vessel awaiting your soluble and quenching truth.

-------------------------------------
The Economy: Once you understand it, you've probably overdosed on LSD.

Thou Shalt Not Kill, But *I* Sure Will

I think I need to buy a Bible. There are a lot of very intriguing stories in that book for the cynical heathen to enjoy.

As per usual, I was photocopying church bulletins, and this week's bulletin happens to be really heavy on Moses. While mindlessly feeding pages into the copier, I couldn't help but notice the following heading in the bulletin:

PRESENTING MOSES:
Teacher
Lawgiver
Murderer
Prophet
Leader

It seemed to me that one of these job titles was a little out of place. It would be like looking at the resume of a respected doctor and seeing "Convicted Rapist" wedged between Pediatrician and ER Surgeon. I brought the bulletin into Mrs. Employer, showed her the page, and pointed to the heading. I asked, "Which one of these things is not like the other?"

I realize that I haven't read much of the scriptures in over six years, but I didn't really remember Moses as having been a murderer. That little tidbit seemed to have been overlooked by Charleton Heston as well. Nevertheless, it's quite the tale. This is what it says in Exodus 2: 11-12: "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."

I've seen enough Law & Order to know that Jack McCoy would never let Moses get away with that. Not only did Moses go out of his way to ensure that no one was looking, but then he concealed the evidence of the crime!! I realize the Egyptian was beating the Hebrew, but Moses was the Pharaoh's adopted grandson - essentially royalty. Couldn't he have simply told the Egyptian to stop or he'd force him to build pyramids or something? But it gets even better in the next three verses: "The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, 'Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?' The man said, 'Who made you ruler and judge of us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?' Then Moses was afraid and thought, 'What I did must have become known.' When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian." So not only is Moses a murderer and a liar, but he also flees the jurisdiction!

What I'm dying to know is what Moses' real reaction was to the ten commandments after this incident.
GOD: "Number six: Thou shalt not kill!"
MOSES: "Umm... can I be grandfathered in on that one?"

Mrs. Employer told me all sorts of fun facts about Moses, and the more I learned, the more I started to like him. Did you know that Moses got into a petulant shouting match with God and fucking won!? Apparently God wanted Moses to go preach to some people, but Moses bitched and complained about his lousy speaking skills, so God caved and told him to send his brother Aaron to do it. I repeat... God caved! That is fucking impressive!! Even James T. Kirk got a lightning bolt to the chest for asking, "What does God need with a starship?"

Moses had a lot of anger issues. Not only did he smash the ten commandments in a fit of rage after seeing his impressionable followers worshipping idols, but he repeatedly went on a rampage whenever his uppity flock did something to question his authority. For instance, after decades in the burning desert, some 250 of his followers gathered and accused Moses and his brother Aaron of thinking they were better than everyone else, and claiming God's authority as a way of maintaining power. I guess they finally got sick of their shit. Moses berates them mercilessly for their insolence, but that doesn't work. So Moses gets God to intervene, and he has a completely reasonable punishment for these dissenters. God splits the Earth apartswallowing up all 250 of the dissenters and their families, burying them alive. I can see why God liked Moses. They went to the same anger management classes.

This is great stuff. The Old Testament is so much more fun. Everyone (including God) is always pissed off, and someone is always eager to smite someone else. Human sacrifices are surprisingly commonplace as well. I think a lot of fun could be had from a closer reading of the Bible, and I now know that Moses will have my spiritual back if I ever decide to kill a man.

It's nice that so many people use this book as their moral compass.

----------------------------------------
Moses: Leader, Prophet, Murderer, Certified Badass!

But That Was When I Ruled the World

Allow me a small moment of English major indulgence. There's a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called "Ozymandias" about a traveler who happens upon a decrepit and worn away statue in the middle of the desert. On the pedestal appear the words, "My name is Ozymandias, King of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." Unfortunately for Ozzie, the poem concludes by saying that aside from the rubble of the statue, there's nothing to look at. Time has long since destroyed the works he speaks of, and Ozymandias is just a name on a slab of rock in the desert. Only "the lone and level sands stretch far away."

This is one of my favorite poems. The major theme is that no matter how great our achievements or how much of an impact we think we've had on the world, time and history will eventually forget all of us. It's a real pick-me-up! Anyway (returning to the less poetic real world), the poem reminds me of a childhood fantasy I had back in elementary school. When we impressionable little buggers were introduced to the concept of the time capsule, I found the whole concept intriguing. We were supposed to gather objects that we thought best represented our generation, put them into some sort of sealed container, and then bury it for future generations to see. The whole idea was completely stupid in retrospect, but I loved it. My thoughts immediately turned to exploitation. Our teacher told us that this time capsule could change the way that future generations perceived us. I thought this a great opportunity to make ourselves look good. After all, if we threw in a Calculus book or the collected works of Shakespeare and left out our third-grade collections of slap bracelets and pogs, future generations might look back and say, "Wow! Our parents were really fucking smart!"

Of course, the class didn't take this approach, but the thought was still in my head. Once in middle school, we learned about the concept of history being based on whatever archival materials could be found, and these are often incomplete records. Once again I was presented with more evidence of the possibility of changing the future's opinion of me. Suppose I could bury a book in my backyard that purported to be a first-hand account of how I conquered lands and ruled the world for decades! Perhaps in a few thousand years, my book could be the only record of our era. History books of the 44th century would be filled with mentions of JP the Great (or JP the Conquerer if they'd prefer). The idea was very compelling.

But my fantasy of becoming a faux historical global monarch was only the first step. I soon realized that I could never reap the benefits of such a scam, so I thought my plan needed a boost. That boost came when I saw Back to the Future, Part II. As you'll recall, at the end of the movie, Doc Brown inadvertently uses the DeLorean to go back in time to the Old West. As soon as he vanishes, Marty receives a letter from Doc that was sent with instructions to deliver the letter to him sixty years in the future. Marty then goes back in time to rescue Doc Brown. From the Doc's perspective, he sends the letter and Marty suddenly shows up. The miracles of time travel save the day again!

I wanted to try the same trick. I figured I could put an addendum in my manifesto indicating my current date and location and instructing future time travelers to come pick me up. But I couldn't wait. I grabbed a blank journal, and that became my first line. "To all readers of this document: I am JP and I am writing this on (whatever the date was) at (whatever time it was) from (I provided latitude and longitute coordinates for my house... we calculated them for a science class once). Should you be reading this, you must use your time travel gear to retrieve me from the past. I look forward to seeing you, my noble descendants!" (I'm paraphrasing of course). I got about three lines down before I got distracted by a Pop Tart or Card Sharks or some other such nonsense, and I never finished my temporal ruse. I decided that since no one showed up, either they never found my journal or the future never discovers time travel (and if that's the case, I'm sorely disappointed by science).

Several years later, I was cleaning out my closet and stumbled across that very journal. It was completely empty save for those few lines. I scoffed at my own immature notions and threw the journal in the trash. That's gotta be a predestination paradox or a time loop or something. I was the reason that no one ever came back in time to find me!! Curse my closet-cleaning day!

Many of you may scoff at the idea of a single book with undefined sources being able to alter people's ideas about events millennia after the fact. But then you forget that organized religion has been pulling the same stunt for ages!

That's right, everyone!! I'm comparing myself to Jesus!!

If only Jesus had demanded his own time machine, we might have funded our own Quantum Leap program by now.

--------------------------------------
JP: The Once and Future King (with apologies to Elvis)!

Employee Ennui

I've heard the term "bored shitless" bandied about by people who claim to be REALLY bored, but I've never really understood the nature of the term. Is a person apparently so bored that he or she has endlessly empty bowels? But now I understand. I believe that the term refers to a state of being in which the only highlight of your day is reading books on the crapper, but one only has to go so many times in a day, so eventually one is simply shitted-out.... bored shitless if you will.

I, ladies and gentlemen, to use sophisticated verbiage, am bored shitless.

While my current temporary (though I'm starting to stretch the definition of "temporary") job has decent pay and very flexible hours, it's extremely menial work. On most days, I'm filing or copying church bulletins, organizing my boss's library, or sometimes I get to stretch my mental prowess by showing my luddite employers how to use Microsoft Word. Some days get really exciting. Just today I helped them take down their Christmas tree. How holly fucking jolly is that!?

Don't get me wrong. I really like my employers; they're incredibly nice people, and they are really gracious to give me an interim job when I so desperately need it. But when your entire day consists of filing papers in a position that doesn't have any bearing on your future career plans, the everlasting ennui (ten dollar word being used to prove that I still have an advanced vocabulary) begins to set in. I almost prefer the summer when I could be out mowing grass and weed eating all day. The manual labor often makes the hours go by faster.

Sometimes I amuse myself at work by coming up with clever and subtle ways to subvert the religious teachings of my boss in her church bulletins. For those not following along with blog continuity, Mrs. Employer is the pastor at a nearby church, and I am often responsible for proofreading and copying her bulletins. I'm fairly certain that Mrs. Employer doesn't know that I'm a soulless heathen, so she has no idea that I really have no spiritual life to speak of. While I would never change the words in her bulletins without her permission, I often play devil's advocate (sometimes quite literally) in arguments with her. In one instance, a bulletin had a section about the power of prayer, and I got into a rather lengthy debate with her about prayer seeming to challenge "God's will." I knew I wasn't going to change her mind - the woman has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible - but I killed almost 45 minutes of work time by listening to her explanation and got paid for doing so. Then she decides that she has to clarify her bulletin so as to account for any difficult parishoners (such as myself) who may be in attendance.

Today, I was looking through various bulletin covers to find a picture about communion. I found one with bread and communion cups on it, so I said, "I found one!" She asked, "Does it have a chalice in the picture or communion cups?" I held the picture up proudly. "Neither!" I declared, "JELLO SHOTS!! How very inappropriate!" She actually got a big kick out of that, and it led to a fine discussion about the importance of wine in the communion ceremony. My inner atheist is simply going, "Blah blah blah churchy-shit" but my conniving lazy side is thinking, "Ha ha! I'm finally getting paid for putting up with religious instruction."

These instances are few and far between. I'd rather not press my luck (unless whammies are involved). On the whole, one tedious day is the same as the next, and it gets a bit maddening after awhile. I'm trying to compensate by reading more and relearning to play the trombone (I plan to join the Kittanning Firemen's Band this year so that I have something to occupy my time), but it's hard to go to work every day to a job that doesn't challenge me. I never thought I'd admit this in writing, but...... I think I miss grad school. At least there if I was bored it was because my lazy ass didn't do the reading for class, and I couldn't contribute to the conversation. I think my fortunes will improve when I can start my teaching certification program in the fall. Then I can feel like I'm actually making some progress in my life again.

Or I could always decorate my employers' house with Satanic cult objects for my own amusement. For their sakes, we'll see if my sanity can hold out for another eight months.

As if it hasn't already gone out the window.

--------------------------------
JP: He may be a lousy employee, but he's a detestible human being.

Today is a Good Day to Steal

Denver robber with bat'leth (left) not nearly as menacing as Worf with bat'leth (right)

A thief in Denver made my day. While most armed robbers are maddeningly dull in their choice of weaponry, one man decided to stand out from the crowd in a glorious fashion. This man held up a few 7-11 convenience stores with a Klingon bat'leth.

According to an article from the website of local Denver TV station (the local news delivers the goods for once), "The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series."

What I love about this story is that everyone involved must be an avid Star Trek fan. Not only did the fanboy thief pick his warrior blade from the Star Trek mythos, but the clerk recognized it as such. Not only that, but the Klingon pillager went on to rob ANOTHER 7-11 in the area:
"A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber 'transported' himself out of the store on foot. Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a 'bat'leth.'"

So two 7-11 clerks recognized the weapon as being a Klingon bat'leth. I have to admit that I'm thoroughly impressed but a bit disturbed. I don't like the idea of the most notorious Trekkies in the media right now being an armed robber and two 7-11 employees. This is not good press coverage for we who fanatically follow the goings-on of the fearless crew of the starship Enterprise. On the other hand, I absolutely adore this robber for his Trek-inspired brand of larceny. It was not a wise choice to make to avoid detection. While this elusive robber hasn't been apprehended yet, it shouldn't be hard to track him down. There are very few stores that manufacture Klingon bat'leths. I once saw one being sold at a specialty weapons store in Erie, PA, and I was tempted for a moment before noticing the extravagant price. Apparently Klingon honor doesn't come cheap anymore. Kahless would not be pleased.

Of all the geek-related weaponry that this man could have used, I'm proud that he went with a Klingon sword. There's a certain practicality in his choice. A plastic lightsaber doesn't actually cause much physical harm beyond some minor bruising, and most laser guns don't, to my knowledge, actually fire lasers. A bat'leth, assuming it was actually made of metal (the police apparently don't know yet), could do some legitimate damage if weilded properly. Nevertheless, he could have made some other stylish choices. He could have gone with a replica Blade Runner gun; it's not real but it looks intimidating as hell. And if he was dead set on using a Star Trek themed weapon (and who wouldn't be), then he could have used to the Vulcan "lirpa" that Kirk and Spock used to do battle in that one episode where Spock got horny. As it stands, though, he went for the elegant "bat'leth," the weapon of choice for all Klingons looking to efficiently gut a Romulan.

While I've never decked myself out in Klingon garb or learned any parts of the Klingon language, I can understand the allure for Kling-o-philes. Klingons are, to coin an outdated '90s phrase, totally boss, and they're usually played by actors who are experts at chewing scenery at an alarming rate. Christopher Lloyd, John Larroquette, and the guy who played Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air have all been Klingons in the movies or series. My personal favorite (and Batmite agrees) is probably the Shakespeare-quoting bald Klingon from Star Trek VI who has an eyepatch BOLTED to his skull:
He marginally beats out this guy:
So my nerd hat is off to this Klingon bandit. He probably purchased that bat'leth and proudly showed it off to his family and friends... who mercilessly mocked him for his foolhardy purchase. But he showed them all what he could do with the blade of a warrior!!

------------------------------------
9 out of 10 readers are sick of JP's seemingly endless Star Trek references. The tenth reader is the Klingon bandit who graciously decides to give JP a substantial cut of the loot... since that's the Klingon way.