The Pantheon Outcast

As much as I’d like to keep my posts as impersonal as possible, I thought I might make a much-needed update by recounting a recent experience I had with Home Depot. About a month ago, I visited the DIY mecca intent on purchasing new carpeting for my home. As obsessive about most things as I am, when it comes to shopping for consumer products, I’m a pretty easygoing shopper; I see a product that I want to buy, I buy it. I don’t need 11 weeks to think it over – people who spend inordinate amounts of time hemming and hawing over which blender they should take home will ultimately be left with unresolved feelings of despair and frustration as they realize that Amazon.com alone offers 1,555 different models of blenders. Americans have far too many choices nowadays, and that’s probably one of the reasons everyone is sucking back pharmaceuticals like they were Skittles. But I digress. After spending about 20 minutes browsing through carpet samples, I picked the one I wanted and attempted to ...

Paris is burning , as it goes, erupting in a stunning display of barbaric behavior by some of the most uncivilized people on the planet. Cars, buildings, small lapdogs and other edifices are being torched by African Muslim immigrants in response to what the rest of the civilized world sees as a non-event. It all began on October 27th, when two teen-age Muslim boys -- a 17-year-old immigrant from Tunisia and a 15-year-old from Mauritania -- were electrocuted when they hid in a high-voltage power substation while trying to avoid a police checkpoint in the northeastern Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Why they were running from the police is anybody's guess --mine being that they were actually guilty of some sort of crime. So after their deaths, the "community" of Muslim Africans in Paris decided to take action in the only way their backwards, stone-age culture can possibly respond: By burning and destroying other people's property. As of Sunday, 1,295 cars had been tor...

While listening to the radio the other day (more specifically, the Dan Patrick Show -- gotta love that hair) I heard an advertisement for something called the American Express Gift Card. Beneath the whimsy, the ad claimed that during the “holiday season” (which I suppose now begins as Halloween), people should give gifts to their friends, family, and co-workers in the form of something they actually want. Therefore, claims the voiceover, one should give American Express Gift Cards, which can be used at any of the thousands of places that take American Express. My first thought was typically cynical. A person who gives such a gift is blatantly admitting that they haven’t clue one as to what sorts of things their friends and family are interested in. A card with a gift certificate inside practically screams: “I don’t want to appear inconsiderate, so here’s a bunch of money that you can use to buy any consumer product that you wish – products that I would have bought you myself if I w...

Just a quick update today to prove once and for all that I’m not overtly biased towards American frailties and idiocy. Responding directly to the Damocles-like threat of the Avian Flu, the every-growing population of homicidal maniacs who blow up bus stations in the name of their invisible deity, and other such pressing global concerns, Italy stepped up to the plate and nailed a two-run blast of utter stupidity that will resonate with cynics and entropy fans everywhere. In their first stunning legislative action, the city of Rome banned fishbowls. That’s right, the home of Vestal Virgins, Fiddle-Playing Emperors, and Vomitoriums, has finally put an end to the centuries-old torture of brainless aquatic sea life by making it a crime to keep goldfish in round bowls. It’s not illegal to eat fish, mind you, just to keep them in bowls of water. Animal rights activists certainly know how to split hairs, don’t they? In the words of animal lover and city council member behind the law Monica Ci...

And you thought having more than a dozen pairs of shoes made you a shallow, selfish person. Consider Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar , happily married since 1983 and living in Arkansas. Jim Bob is a real estate agent, and his wife, well, “homemaker” doesn’t exactly begin to capture the complexity of her career. “Automated Uterus” is more of an apt title, for you see, The Duggars have 16 children, including two sets of twins. That’s not a family, that’s a litter. But the Duggars are as happy as a brood that size can be, and are planning on having even more children, which they consider, “a blessing from the Lord.” Tonight, your ovaries are mine! The children, whose names pretentiously all start with the letter “J” are awaiting the completion of their 7000 square-foot house, where they will each get their very own 9’ X 9’ cage complete with water bottle and feeding tube. Actually, according to the article, they are to be housed “dormitory style, which I can only imagine means that they will...

As much as I take pleasure in deconstructing the news articles of the day, it’s important to examine the society that breeds such news in the first place. In order to accomplish this, we need to stick under the microscope those things that have had a momentous impact on the collective unconscious. I’m talking of course of the people and events which humans, and Americans in particular, relish, admire, and worship – in other words, those things that are completely and utterly worthless. I’m not sure exactly why you people insist on idolizing the inane and useless, but idolize you do, to the point of mania. As we are limited by bandwidth, we’ll take a look at only one of these sacred cows at this time, and carve it into delicious, bloody bite-sized pieces. I’ll be talking today about Non-Competitive Sports. As far as I am concerned, there are only three true sporting activities that exist on your planet: Baseball, Football, and Basketball. I could extend the parameters and include Hockey...

Kind of puts everything into perspective. What's more devastating: 20,000 people being crushed to death because a hole opened up in the Earth, or 1,000 drowning because they moved into a city 10 feet below sea level? I'm just waiting for the inevitable looting. Walmarts in Pakistan carry Heineken and Nike, don't they? If only John Kerry were president, this would have never have happened! The fact that so many people are dying due to natural disasters points to one undeniable truth, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Global Warming, Republicans, or Terrorists: There are too many damn people on your planet. As of July 2005 , there are 6,446,131,400 of you creatures scurrying around on the third rock, and that number is growing by about 1.14% a year. That means that by the time the shiny ball drops in Times Square, they'll be 73,485,897 more mewling, whining, complaining mouths to feed and minds to brainwash. In ten years, they'll be a billion fresh new souls ...

Two items have come to my attention in the past couple of hours, and I find it essential to comment on both of them, as they speak volumes about the hypocrisy surrounding the so-called race problem in America. On Thursday, Tennessee State Legislator Stacey Campfield was denied entry into the state’s Black Caucus because he was white. According to Rep. Campfield’s own website , he and the leader of the Caucus, Johnny Shaw, had the follwing exchange: “Back in the spring, I had asked the leader of the black caucus, Johnny Shaw, for a copy of the bylaws. Johnny said he wanted to see a copy of the Republican Caucus bylaws first. I agreed and had a copy sent to him in less than 10 minutes. When my assistant returned from dropping them off, she notified me that Shaw did not want to give me a copy of the bylaws. I called Johnny Shaw back and he said unless I had a court order or attorney general's opinion, he was not going to give me anything.I later asked him again for a copy and was aga...

Why are people afraid of the truth? Is it because it stings like being shot in the spine with Double-O buckshot? Every time I read the papers, it seems that someone has made a factually true statement that ends up “offending” one or more groups of people in America. And these days, everyone belongs to a group. You’ve got your “Minorities”, “Homosexuals,” “Women,” “Physically Challenged,” “One-Legged Left-Handed Bursitis Sufferers,” and the list goes on and on. For some reason, the media likes to refer to any group larger than two people as a “Community," as in “Homosexual community leaders staged a protest today….” In order to make a cogent argument, definitions must first be agreed upon by all parties involved. A community is, as far as I can tell, a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. Levittown, New York, therefore is a community. People who are attracted to members of the same sex, however, do not share a zip code, only a hobby, and can’t ...

Everything tastes better when it’s free. Especially irony. A 24 year old Hurricane refugee named Don Maurice Airline was found dead in Tennessee last Saturday, apparently the victim of a robbery. He had been shot five times in the head and his Red Cross debit card worth “several hundred dollars” was missing from his body. Now before you start shedding tears or pouring malt liquor on the sidewalk, read the rest of the article to discover where Mr. Airline was just before his untimely death. Was he buying medical supplies for his family? Negotiating the settlement from his insurance company? Discussing his finances with his bank officers? Doing anything remotely related to piecing together the shattered remains of his pre-hurricane existence? No, he was at a nightclub. You know, the place you go to drink copious amounts of alcoholic beverages while flailing your arms around wildly to pulsating bass rhythms and attempting to elicit the attention of the opposite sex? Nightclubs are also t...

In addition to being immortal, I have also been blessed with the gift of foresight, which comes in handy on Lottery Night, The Kentucky Derby, and the four hundred college bowl games which all seem to be sponsored by auto parts manufacturers. However, I decided long ago that I would be using my powers of divining the future for the good of the general public and not for monetary gain. That being said, let me reveal to you now what will occur shortly after Hurricane Rita slams into the Gulf Coast with deadly, sardonic precision: Prediction #1: 100 million people will blame the imminent destruction on the President of the United States. 10 million of them will go on to narrow down the blame to his refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty. At least 100 of them will be celebrities who throw cell phones at their assistants when they fail to provide enough backstage bottled water. Prediction #2: Stubborn, ignorant townies will refuse to leave their swampland residences, and will sit on the porch wit...

Even in the wake of an unprecedented mobilization of aid and donations, there are still those determined to prove how “wronged” they were. I realize that I had sworn not to comment on any more of the Hurricane Katrina coverage, but this article was too good to pass up. Apparently, the residents of Gretna, Louisiana have become the latest recipients of the dreaded “Racist” branding after it was discovered that after the hurricane, their Police Chief, Arthur Lawson, had blockaded the bridge that connects their city to New Orleans. Gretna , a small, upscale suburb of about 18,000 residents, in addition to having to deal with the devastation and loss caused by the floods, now also has to contend with the angry, fanatical finger-pointing perpetrated by a select group of ignorant but media-savvy individuals, including the mayor of New Orleans himself. Regardless of Newsday’s flawed statistics, the town of Gretna is approximately 50% white and 35% black, numbers that make the town look less...

2,749 Americans agree that the next major U.S. military operation should be targeted at 21° 25′ 24″ N 39° 49′ 24″ E using 72 Trident II SLBM missles armed with W88 Nuclear warheads. That's how you show that you've truly "Never Forgotten." Lex Talionis.

An interesting item today from Newsday , known worldwide for having more "I Blame Bush" content than any other newspaper, seems to indicate that New York is currently so free from crime, that authorities can now go ahead and prosecute people who have only contemplated breaking the law. Jan Kabas, a 53-year-old attorney from Jericho, New York has pleaded guilty to “first-degree attempted disseminating indecent material to minors,” which apparently carries with it anywhere from 16 months to 4 years of prison fun and excitement. But the truth shows that he never, according to the letter of the law, did any such thing. Seems that Mr. Kabas, when not committing bank fraud , likes to kick off his shoes and spend a relaxing evening chatting with 13-year old girls on AOL. One in particular caught his fancy, and he spent the next month and a half wooing her in the chat rooms. Ah, but much to his chagrin, the young lady with which Mr. Kabas was conversing for six weeks was in fact an u...

(Cartoon Courtesy of Steve Kelley ) I’m getting exceptionally bored and restless with all the over-hyped, redundant coverage of that passing shower Katrina, so this will be the last time I make reference to it. I was trying to come up with a fitting way to cap off all of the maudlin photo-essays, conspiratorial journalism, and whiny race baiting with a solid, keen-edged slash-to-the-heartstrings article, but it seems that I have been beaten to it. Even though I know it’s tongue-in-cheek at its finest, I temporarily take back every negative comment I’ve ever made about Jack Shafer, Slate Magazine’s editor-at-large. In today’s issue, he writes a very compelling argument on why the city of New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Read it and don't forget to take notes! Now here’s the irony: In an attempt by Mr. Shafer at using facts that cast Sin City in a negative light, thereby gaining the emotional support of those who see his article as sarcasm, he has actually done precisely the opp...

I thought I’d share with you today a topic that not too many people are aware of, or in the greater sense, “care about in the slightest.” It seems that Anne Rice wrote an open letter to the People of the United States and had it published in the New York Times. We can’t be sure that this letter was actually written by Anne Rice, because the Times has a slightly irritating habit of completely fabricating the stories that appear in its pages. Nevertheless, for the sake of this article, we’ll assume that it is genuine. Her editorial, published in the opinion section, basically lambastes the Federal Government, the American People, and pretty much everyone else on the planet, for not doing enough to save her precious, vibrant city of New Orleans during the hurricane “crisis”. In case you don’t know who Anne Rice is, she is the unquestionable Queen of the Gothic/ Horror/ Homoerotic/ Sadomasochistic/ Guys Who Wear Velvet Shirts and Paint Their Fingernails literary genre. She was famous for...

There are two types of people in your world: Those who swallow everything that is fed to them, like the starving dogs that they are, and those who, if someone told them they were on fire, would roll their eyes unless they could actually smell their own hair smoldering. And it’s easy to tell the two types apart, too; just listen to their vocabulary. If someone uses the words “tragedy,” “victim,” “godsend,” “blessing,” or “perspective” more than six times during a normal three-minute conversation, then they are undeniably of the first variety. It’s not easy to be cynical, or as I like to call it, logical. Logical people are pariahs in this society, for the simple fact that they revel in crushing the conventional dreams, beliefs, values, traditions and customs of pretty much everyone who have closed their minds and eyes to the truth and instead elects to be guided by their hearts. Letting your emotions rule your actions is okay for, say, Valentine’s Day, but on a day-to-day basis, it’s as...

Because I’m such a benevolent, compassionate soul, I did a little checking around to see what I, as one outcast god, could do to help the untenable situation down in Hurricane Country. I stumbled across this site , which, in the spirit of pretentiousness, was set up to elicit donations to the Red Cross. A noble cause, wouldn’t you say? In the comments section, however, the site’s true colors came out. Seems one poster, a Mr. Rick Blake, was very troubled that the current federal administration was not doing enough to help out all of the black people that are suffering. Let me remind you that 33% of the affected area is white, so Mr. Blake is really only concerned about 2/3 of the victims. His comments are too extensive (and convoluted) to post here, but you can click here to read about Bush, and FEMA, and how the bible all figures into the hurricane situation. I’m not sure what bothers me more, that an idiot like that made such outrageous comments during a time of such widespread cris...

Ah…(rubbing hands together gleefully). It’s begun. People, (and I use that term loosely), are blaming the President of the United States for the destruction caused by the Hurricane Katrina. So far, President Bush is responsible for: Muslim terrorists hijacking planes and killing 3000 people Wars in the Middle East that have been occurring ever since Mohammad first crawled out of his cave Skyrocketing gasoline prices Global Warming And now, a Hurricane. Is there nothing this man can’t do? He’s got his finger in every pie! From governing the actions of religious fundamentalists, to tinkering with International Politics, to controlling the world economy, and now it’s been proven that he has dominion over the forces of Nature! I humbly pledge my obeisance before this omnipotent deity .

Tell me again how all people are created equal: This poor woman was dragged out of her car, punched, kicked and throttled by a mob of sub-humans because they suspected her of “ratting out” some local gang of thugs. She later died from her injuries. Apparently, in the criminal community, snitching on other criminals is the lowest form of behavior imaginable. Drug dealing, murder, rape and prostitution on the other hand are the glue that keeps such communities together. So why did a throng of troglodytes beat a woman to death because she dropped a dime? Because their role models gave them the green light. Last year , Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony made a cameo appearance in a underground DVD called “Stop Snitchin’.” The video, in addition to reinforcing almost every known stereotype of black Americans, (you know, doo-rags, finger signs, the ubiquitous use of the word “nigga”), presents one salient point throughout its 120 minute runtime: if any person informs the police of suspec...