Grand Theft Narrative and Call of Red Herring...

  Over the last several days, I've seen a number of opinions in the social media regarding why the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting occurred, what led up to it, and what might have prevented it. I wish I could say there was an answer among them. It would be wonderful if there were a simple cause that could be identified and changed which would make atrocities like this a thing of the past. We all wish it were that simple.
  Unfortunately, most of the opinions I have seen read like a greatest hits album of "how to fix these out-of-control whipper-snapper kids out there." It's the music they're listening to! It's the lack of good, Christian prayer in schools! It's them dang, dirty video games!
  All of these thoughts, while well-meaning, are over-simplifications and they don't address the larger, socio-psychological issues that face our times. It just isn't that simple.
  I can't address all of these in this blog because I haven't the time or the inclination. I'm also no expert, and I don't pretend to be. I do feel qualified to speak to the subject of violent video games, however, as I am an avid gamer myself, and I know exactly what people are referring to when they speak of the senseless violence contained in them.
  Two of my favorite video games franchises of all time are repeatedly pointed to as red flag games that desensitize people to extreme violence. Those are the Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty games. While I agree those games depict extreme violence both very realistically and on a constant basis, I cannot agree that the solution is to remove them from store shelves entirely.
  The fact of the matter is, the responsibility to keep these games away from impressionable youths is still on the parents. If your child isn't mature enough to separate reality from fantasy he or she should not be allowed to play these games. Not at home, and not at a friend's house. It is your job as a parent to know these things and act accordingly.
   There are those who suggest these games are just as bad for some adults to play, I agree. There are adults in the world with twisted minds who cannot separate what is real from what is fiction. Those adults are sick, and they need mental health-care. This is not a question of removing games from the world, as these individuals would simply gain their fantasy-violence input from movies or TV shows or the like. Without proper mental health evaluations, these people will continue to glean inspiration for possible violent acts from anything from books to movies to the nightly news. Call of Duty is just the easiest thing to blame because of its subject matter.
  In short, I wish we could just pull some products from shelves and violence would be a thing of the past. We cannot. For many of us, gaming is a cathartic stress release akin to screaming into a pillow or beating on a punching bag. Some of us, myself included, don't have the luxury or physical ability to undertake more active forms of stress release, and video games are a great help. I can't run off the stresses of life on a treadmill, but I charge into combat on my PS3 and feel better after a three minute round of multiplayer Call of Duty. This works for me and I am more than capable of realizing that my behavior in the real world and my activities on the screen are separate and very different things. I would hope most of my teammates and adversaries know the difference as well.

thisistruth4you@gmail.com
Follow on twitter @JACarlisle1

Thoughts on Newtown...

  Here we are again. This time it isn't a couple of wounded and two or three killed. It's dozens. Most of them babies of five or six years old. It is not an accident those children are dead. He targeted them. He. Targeted. Children. They weren't collateral damage. He killed exactly who he meant to.
  Predictably, we were not a full twenty-four hours out from this heinous atrocity before Facebook and Twitter were clogged with every possible and retread argument about how this could have been prevented. Calls for more gun control. Calls for less. Suggestions that teachers and principals should be armed. And, most curiously, the suggestion that this wouldn't have happened if God were "allowed" in schools. Basically, all the same old nonsense Red Herrings we hear and read about every time someone decides to kill a lot of people. It doesn't hold up this time, people. It just doesn't.
  The fact of the matter is there is nothing to be learned here. We cannot reason away this event or create a context in which we can be made to understand it. This is nothing short of absolute, undiluted, unfiltered evil, and your philosophical/ideological/religious opinions or theories do not in any way enter into this. What you see is what you get, and what you get is utter, black-hearted madness.
  Yes, after this there will no doubt be, at the very least, a robust argument in Washington about reinstating the assault-weapons ban that expired in 1994. Yes, there will probably be an attempt to draft up some symbolic piece of legislation seeking to improve mental health screenings for potential gun buyers or increased scrutiny to people applying for handgun permits, and so on and so forth. Those things may very well be good things that need to happen. This writer hopes those discussions happen. But none of it matters at all.
  It doesn't matter because there will still be twenty-six souls lost. Twenty of them the souls of babies whose parents will never see them graduate high school and go to college and give them grand-children. There is no piece of legislation or talk radio panel discussion that can make that right.
  In the end, the damage is done and it is irreparable. There is no coming back from this, and though only one finger was on the trigger, we all bear some of the responsibility for those victims. We bear the responsibility because we created the society that allowed it. No, we don't condone this, but we didn't stop it either. We are the society that created the circumstances which ultimately added up to twenty dead children and six dead adults who were tasked with the protection, instruction, and guidance of those babies.
  It is not an isolated event, but rather the culmination of a series of events in an American life. If any number of factors had been altered ever so slightly, we would not be where we are today, all of us with blood on our hands. We didn't pull the trigger, but we most certainly helped create the person who did. With our complacency. With our self-obsessiveness. With our cold indifference to our fellow man. We are none of us innocents.
  A butterfly flaps its wings in California, and a town in Connecticut will never, ever be the same. And neither will any of us. I wish I had more to say about this, but words fail me. I think I'll just wear this sadness like a cloak for a while. To be happy now feels unclean. God help us, if you're up there. God help America.

The Truth, Brought To You By...

  First of all, I know what you're thinking. "Thank Odin he's returned! I thought we would never again behold the wisdom of that golden-penned wordsmith! Whatever have we done without him?!"
  I hope most of you survived this drought with your psyches intact. I know there were definitely some casualties. There are bound to be when people are left to fend for themselves without proper guidance. Let's just remember the fallen fondly and move on, shall we? We shall. Indeed, we must!
  Now, since it has been such a long vacation and most of you are still on slacker-time, I will keep today's lesson relatively simple. We'll get into the hard stuff next time. For now, just try to stay awake, and, for chrissakes stop drooling on your desks. Honestly...
  So lately I've noticed a few disturbing trends I think we should all be made aware of. Awareness, after all, is the first step to solving any problem. Just ask those highly affective problem-solving whiz-kids over at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Those guys have been kickin' ass and takin' names for over twenty-five years. If I have learned nothing else from them, it's that getting a bunch of pre-teens crammed into a cafeteria for a one hour "awareness" presentation  can stop the flow of high-grade Colombian cocaine into American cities dead in its tracks. But I digress...
  I don't want to discuss drugs today. I just know without them I would be a train-wreck. Thanks, Doc.  Rather, I want to discuss the way we interpret the stories we read in the paper or see on the news and the bias those media impart on us. Subliminally, perhaps, they subtly sway our opinions with the simplest things. A turn of phrase. An extra bit of unnecessary information which adds nothing to the story except to direct your view-point in the desired direction of...someone. Be it the network, the network's parent company, an advertiser, or maybe the writer themselves (though not usually). It's a simple thing to do, really, and people can't wait to be told how they should feel about any given subject, so it helps them out, too!
  For example, I recently read a story about a young woman who was arrested for the deplorable crime of neglecting her three children. She left a very small baby alone and took the other two with her on a drug buy or something. The details escape me now. It doesn't matter. What matters is, the children were all put at extreme risk and she is obviously a very disturbed individual and a shitty mother.
  To me, that's the take-away we should all get from this story. Don't leave babies alone. Don't take toddlers to buy drugs. Maybe don't do drugs at all if you have kids. Don't be a shitty person. Period. That is not how the story was presented. Instead, the writer opened up something like this: This twenty-three year old woman with three kids from three different fathers, none of whom is she married to left her illegitimate...blah, blah, blah. "sources" say she has had at least one abortion...blah, blah, blah...drugs...blah...stripping...blah. Do you see the pattern developing here?
  There is a clear direction the reader is being pointed. We are meant to judge this woman for things that have nothing to do with her crime. We're meant to believe she is much more than a drug addict who neglected her children. We are to conclude she is a slut who has made a bevy of terrible life decisions. Decisions that not only make her a very bad and evil person, but we are made ever more self-righteous for NOT having made similarly bad decisions. We are good people. We are moral people. We are right. We are true. We have God on our side. Buy Pepsi.
  The point is this; we have to consider the source every time we read something, watch something, or listen to someone. All these media outlets have an agenda and it has gotten very far away from simply being an agenda to inform and educate. They have to turn a profit so they have to make a story sexy and interesting. They have to play to our biases and "help" us conform to the standards set forth by some ideal model-consumer. Journalism is fucked and truth is buried so deeply in a story you have to dig through a mile of bullshit to get to it. But don't ever think its not worth it. The truth is always worth digging for.
  That's all for today. Your homework is to read between the lines.

Thisistruth4you@gmail.com

You're Doing it Wrong...

   Sweet Jesus, it's finally over. After what seems like literally a four year war, we have finally pushed through into the president's second term. Or, hopefully, the president's "real" term. Now that he has achieved the goal of getting to be a two-term president, maybe Mr. Obama can actually get around to really governing. Or not...probably not.
   Without question the hallmark of the president's first term will be the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it is colloquially known. This controversial piece of legislation  dominated the focus of the Republican Party's ire since the day it was awkwardly shoved through without any bipartisan support (or lube) like a monkey trying to hump a basketball. This bill is really the perfect example of the political climate in America in that the Democratic Party and the president twisted and contorted the bill's original form until it was a virtually unrecognizable shadow of itself. Despite all those attempts to make this "socialistic" bill palatable to the right, they STILL refused to get behind it. Not. One. Yay. Vote.
   Which brings me to my overall point for both of our government's dominant parties...you're doing it wrong. In every way and with your every single political move, both the Republicans and the Democrats are completely and utterly fucking up and destroying any sense if reliability and trust We The People ever held in them. It's like watching two stubborn children arguing over which one gets to sit "shotgun" in the car. There isn't one logical argument to support either side. There is only the steadfast conviction of each side that they are right.
   If I may, I'd like to offer some simple suggestions for both sides that might help them to revive their respective base's faith in their ability to act like goddamned adults instead of bratty children in need of severe spankings and a lengthy "time-out." I humbly offer these knowing full well they will likely ricochet off their targets like a BB fired at a full-steam freight train bearing down on me and my awesome Red Ryder Rifle. I've got nothing better to do, so here we go.
   First, to the GOP and their Tea Party minions, I think you should be aware of some numbers you may not know about. Roughly 12.6% of the US population is African American and 16.4% are Hispanic or Latino. Lots of those folks vote. Especially the African Americans and Latinos who feel somewhat disgruntled and disenfranchised by your party's pretty blatant anti-black and anti-minority policies. I'm not calling you racists, but...if the shoe fits...you buy it quickly and then hurriedly scurry out of the mall before you get mugged by those "urban" teens with the saggy pants.
   Secondly, it's become extremely obvious that the American people aren't comfortable with your assertion that your party has a monopoly on patriotism. Believe it or not, many liberals actually love the hell out of some America. They think its totally groovy to live in a country where they are free to say what they want or even burn a flag if they feel like it in protest of...I don't know...super expensive and unpopular wars against abstract ideas like terror or laws that seek to make women bear the unwanted children of "legitimate" rapists.
   In most parts of the world, tanks get rolled over those who dare to even whisper words that suggest their Dear Leader isn't hung like a horse and endowed with the power of super-duper strength and X-ray vision. Liberals like it here. That's why they fight so hard to keep their freedoms. You might benefit by actually trying to get some of that 29% of Americans to vote for you. Whitey McWasperson's vote isn't enough to keep you in power anymore. The world is changing and you gotta get with the program, ya dig? While you're at it, there are roughly 8,000,000 Americans who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender who would love to have a word with you.
   As for you Democrats, you HAVE to grow a pair of balls...metaphorically speaking. Since President Obama was first elected in 2008, those of us who voted for him have watched incredulously as the Democrats have repeatedly bent over forwards, backwards, sideways, and over a tree-stump in a ridiculous attempt to compromise with an opposition party that has no intention to budge even an inch to the left. For the first two years of President Obama's term, the Democratic Party controlled both houses of congress. If there was ever a better chance to make good on campaign promises than between January of 2009 and January of 2011, I sure as hell don't remember it in my adult life. Did the Democrats take advantage of this opportunity? Hell no! They completely wasted it by stooping and bowing like prison bitches to their opponent "daddy's" in an effort to look like they wanted to reach across the aisle. Guess what? You're daddies aren't interested. Their hands were too busy tweeting anonymous conspiracy theories about how Obama grew up in a Kenyan Al Qaida training camp to be bothered with trying to work with their majority leaders.
   This perception that the Democrats were running rampant in the legislative branch led to the Tea Party Revolution of 2010. Basically, a bunch of uneducated rednecks ran for Congress and won due to a massive misinformation campaign that terrified conservative Americans into believing Obama/Pelosi/Reid were re-writing the Constitution and changing our nation's name to Lil' Kenya/Russia. As you know, not a lot was accomplished after that...dicks.
   So now that we've reached the President's final term, hopefully both sides will realize that America has spoken with the voice of her voters. We want this government to DO ITS JOB! Republicans, climb down off your high horses. Democrats, insert your back-bones and show us you can actually make some changes that benefit America without bankrupting us. Both of you, get your shit together and most of all...DON'T MAKE US COME BACK THERE!

Two Candidates Jump Out of an Airplane...

  The first debate has come and gone and, unsurprisingly, the Republicans are claiming victory.  I can't say I blame them. If the measure of victory is indeed the strength of conviction exhibited by the candidates, then I have to give the win to Romney. The Governor clearly believes his own rhetoric, at least for as long as it takes for the words to come out of his mouth and land in the ears of all the people who were already going to vote for him anyway. 

  The President, by contrast, seemed to treat the debate like the formality it is, and didn't bother too much with trying to point out all the holes in Romney's exhortations.  The truth is, it doesn't make a bit of difference either way.  At this stage in the campaign, if you don't know who you want to vote for, then this writer humbly suggests you stay home on Election Day.  You're clearly a dithering, indecisive moron and you have no place in a voting booth.  Decisions like this are clearly beyond your intellectual capacity and you lack the understanding needed to make informed choices about things as important as who will run our government for the next four years.

  For my own part, I have decided neither of the major party candidates are qualified for the job, and I cannot in good conscience vote for them.  Despite having voted for President Obama in 2008, I am extremely unhappy with the job he has done as President, and can no longer support him with my vote. Instead I will either vote for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party (if he is on the ballot in Indiana) or I will leave the boxes for President and Vice President blank and vote only for the Congressional, state, and local offices...unless I can request a write-in ballot. 

  The reasons for my disillusionment with the major party candidates were clearly illustrated during the first debate.  The two candidates represented the flaws of their parties perfectly. It was like they were hosting a clinic on inept political jousting.  Mitt Romney ignored the rules of the debate throughout the hour by interrupting, changing the subject, and stepping on moderator Jim Lehrer's every procedural pronouncement as if they made no difference, just like Republicans routinely ignore the will of the electorate and the plight of the people. Romney also cheated by sneaking notes onto his podium despite the rule against them. This was caught on video, but I have heard nothing about it in the "liberal" media.

  The President's performance was every bit as disappointing to me as his entire term in office has been, and for many of the same reasons.  He stood by idly as Romney ignored the rules and cheated.  The President made no attempt to call Romney out on any of the countless lies the Governor told that night. Opportunity after opportunity to show up what a flip-flopping, lying con-man Romney is came up and passed without the President doing his job and pointing those things out to the American people. Much in the same way he failed to adequately inform the American people about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (which he now claims to prefer to call Obamacare like the disrespectful opponents of everything it represents). Cowardly, craven ass-hattery, I say! If the President had made even a token effort to fight back, it may have edged me towards voting for him again.  I doubt it, but it might have.  I would have to overcome my anger that the President broke his promise to end the war in Afghanistan.

  Ultimately, this debate was a joke and the ones that follow will be jokes too, and they won't be any funnier than this one.  Speaking of jokes, what do you call it when Mitt Romney and President Obama are tossed out of an airplane at 15,000 feet with no parachutes? A really good start.

e-mail: thisistruth4you@gmail.com

twitter @JACarlisle1

"Thirsty? Here. Shove This Box of Wine Up Your..."

  Anyone who has been paying any attention at all these last several years knows that teenagers have reached a level of stupidity that once existed only in the exaggerated rants of only the most grouchy and curmudgeonly of old farts. Between their ridiculous sense of style and the lazy, retread cadence to their "writing" (consisting entirely of text messages, IMs, status updates, and 'tweets'), one could very easily assume the average teen is mentally impaired in one way or another.
  Now, the author of this article is not as old as you probably expect based upon the preamble you have read thus far. One might think what follows to be the puritanical gripes of a detached septuagenarian disgusted by his grand kids lack of respect for their elders. Nope. This comes from a thirty-two year old man with decades ahead of him in which to become even more cynical. That is, provided his head doesn't literally pop first.
  Now, in the late nineties and early 2000's, myself and the rest of the Generation Y-ers were coming of age, going to college, getting our first tastes of real life. Despite the opinions of OUR elders, we hit it pretty hard. Most young men and women this writer knew worked hard at school, their jobs, and they unwound from those with equal vigor.
  We drank to an extent that, looking back, seemed really excessive. On more than one occasion, bottles of tequila were drained and kegs were floated. Large bags of brown pot were burned in a night, and everyone woke up the next day and felt absolutely horrible. Disgusting hangover remedies were concocted and, immediately, dismissed as we became aware that the only thing that helps a hangover is a belly full of fried food, coffee, and time. Depending on the severity of the hangover, you may also need to mix in a forty-five minute, head in hands sit on the John, culminating in an absolutely obscene crap that makes you wonder how in the hell you aren't dead yet. Lessons were learned.
  In the post-9/11 America, a generation has hit "adulthood" for whom it appears to be their mission to ensure none but the absolute Alphas of their numbers survive to middle-age. For the love of God, these people are evidently trying to see if they can eradicate drugs and alcohol from existence through consumption. It's as if they have ALL been collectively pulled over by a cop at once, and are simply trying to shove the entirety of the generations contra-band into their orifices before they get caught with them. They seem to be completely unaware of or unconcerned with the probability of consequences.
  The most chilling example of this generation's dysfunction is the new, not so cleverly titled, 'Alcohol-Enemas'-fad. Not exactly as elegant sounding as "The Century Club" or as cosmopolitan as playing a game of  "Around The World." Neither is it as fun as doing "Keg-Stands" or playing "Beer Pong." It definitely lacks all the sexiness of doing "Body Shots."
  It is, simply, shoving a hose up your ass, squirting a large quantity of alcohol into your colon, and becoming ludicrously intoxicated as the alcohol hits your blood-stream through the walls of your bowel. What goes up (as we know from science class) must come down. Thus, those who find themselves passed out from their intense alcoholic high, usually find themselves, once they wake, lying face-down in a massive puddle of liquid shit mixed with the sour, fetid stench of Franzia White Zinfandel or Red Blush. These are the booze of choice for alcohol-enema aficionados, due to their low cost, large quantity, convenient tap, and potent alcohol content. Franzia is no easier to clean out of your pants, carpet, couch, or your conscience for that matter, though. Normal people feel shame if they shit themselves. For today's teens, however, it's just the natural by-product of having some "drinks" with their friends.
  I wish I had a message of hope to pin on the end of this. I wish I could point to a significant population of young adults who were doing things the right way, who might redeem their generation and save the future. I can't do that, because I don't believe they exist in sufficient numbers as to provide any real solution. They are the most minuscule of minorities and they will likely be trampled by their contemporaries and drowned in a river of fecal Franzia, Adderall, Klonopin, and cough syrup. I truly hope my generation still has the strength of will to dominate the important positions of society at least until I die. My biggest fear is that there will ever be a person sitting in the Oval Office with a scarred rectum and dead brain cells from a frat party in 2011 that can very literally be called "sick." Hepatitis being the main sickness...and Pink Eye. Those kids are gonna get Pink Eye.

Feeding the Poor Has Never Kept One Morsel Off Your Plate

  I have noticed a disturbing trend in the social media. It seems not a day goes by when I don't see a "friend" waxing philosophically about how awful government programs designed to help poor people are. Invariably, these posts come from people who have never suffered a hardship in their lives.  Mostly they come from white, upper-middle-class "Christians" who seem to have forgotten the substantial portions of the Bible in which Jesus is said to have avidly supported helping the poor and, with equal vigor, chastised the rich. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"-Mark 10:25 KJV.
  More than any other government program, food stamps are by far the most reviled by the Facebook pundits I see regularly. None of whom have ever been in a situation where they needed any help at all, of any kind, from anyone. Or, at least that is what one would logically conclude after reading their tremendously well-thought posts on the matter. So gifted are these social media economists and policy crafters, that they can usually dismiss the problems of the poor with just two or three witty sentences, with only a handful of misspelled or misused words. Why these folks don't run for public office is anybody's guess. Clearly, they have it all figured out.
  The most recent figures I find say there are roughly 46 million people on food stamps in the United States.  Last year, the U.S. government spent $76.7 billion on food stamps. Despite the minuscule percentage of the people who are abusing the system (we'll define abuse for these purposes as using food stamps when you can afford to buy food without them), the program helped over 16 million children who legitimately face hunger every day as well as their working parents. Since 2001, the U.S. has spent $3.7 trillion on a war in Afghanistan with a stated purpose that is murky at best. The prime target in that war has been dead for over a year, and yet there we still are, wasting ungodly amounts of money "securing" people who do not want us to secure them at all.
  The people I see complaining about the small percentage of food stamp frauds they imagine to be so enormous never, ever mention any reservations at all about their government wasting trillions of dollars to ensure Osama Bin Laden is still dead. That would be unpatriotic or something, in their view, I imagine. It's harder and harder for me to get my head around their views at all lately.
  I don't want to delve any deeper into this topic because discussing people who think the poor are a burden and that anyone who needs help is lazy makes me sick.  On that note, I would simply ask that before you launch into a tirade about how mad you are that your taxes get spent, in part, to feed the poor as well as to kill those awful brown people in the middle east; that you might just look at a poor child and think, instead, there but by the grace of God go I...for those who claim to be religious in addition to being so well read on economics and stuff.

thisistruth4you@gmail.com
twitter: @JACarlisle1