The Target Audience for Apocalypse Disaster Flicks

If only the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society had the budget, they'd stop with the bad pamphlet illustrations and start making epic disaster films like "2012."  However, in their version, John Cusack's worldy ass would not be getting saved.

Way to go, Focus on the Family!

I present to you a "Day of Dialogue," sponsored by Focus on the Family.  Because sending your kids out to tell other kids that they are sodomites who are going to hell won't increase bullying or teen suicides at all.  


Focus on the Family sponsoring "Day of Dialogue" to counter "Day of Silence," an anti-bullying campaign

Asshole by Nature

Last week we took my mother-in-law in for preliminary tests related to a small cancerous mass recently found in her right lung.


As we searched for open seats in the waiting area of the cardiopulmonary wing, we picked our way through pale people wearing oxygen masks, patients attached to IV drips of chemo and other drugs, women with shaved heads, and a skeletal elderly man toting an insulated lunch bag stuffed with that day's medicine.


When we sat down near the television, an anchor on Fox News was reporting that football star Brett Favre was in hot water for allegedly sending lewd pictures of himself to a female sports reporter.  


"Wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't no female reporters," drawled a voice from behind me.


I turned slightly to see a lanky, stubbly-faced, middle-aged man with a brown mustache and work boots.  He leaned back in his chair and continued his monologue.


"Whadduz she think is gonna happen, walkin' around lookin' like that?  She done shown all her stuff to the world in Playboy an she gonna get all upset cuz a guy sends her a picture of himself?  Gimme a break!  That's what she gets fer walkin' around in a locker room with all them boys in their towels an' stuff..."


His speech was interrupted when the nurse called a name--his or a family member's--and he stepped around IV poles and over patients' feet on his way to the back.


Across from us, a bearded man with ripped blue jeans and a black Harley Davidson T-shirt sat quietly beside his gray-haired mother, playing dejectedly with one of the rivets on the side of her wheeled oxygen tank.  A huge tattoo was scrawled across his muscled forearm:  "Asshole by Nature."




    

What they neglect to mention. At all. Ever.

It all started rather recently, in terms of history, and like so many other cults--it all started with a man.  Not a prophet.  Not a chosen one.  Not a deity or the son of a deity.  Just some guy.

Charles Taze Russell - Founder of what would later be called the Jehovah's Witnesses

The one danger the Watchtower neglected to mention...

Smurfette sitting upon a wild dangerous beast.

Smurfette rocks that beast WAY better than Babs the Great ever did!

NYC Smokers Fired Up Over Proposed Park Ban

"Nice butt."

While scanning the headlines this morning, I noticed a story about how New York City is proposing a new ban on smoking in public parks and beaches.  This would expand NYC's Smoke-Free Air Act of 2002, which banned smoking in public buildings.  The park/beach smoking ban has been proposed to keep folks from littering up the beaches with cigarette butts, as well as to allow citizens to breathe a little easier when enjoying time outdoors.

The ban is being met with opposition from smokers-rights groups such as C.L.A.S.H.---Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment.  (For me, the name brings to mind images of a smoker walking past a construction site and enduring whistles and catcalls:  "Heeeey, Smokey!  Whoooo!  Smoky!  Look at the butt on that one!  I'll light you up, baby!  Whoooo!")

All kidding aside, I fail to understand why my reluctance in taking part in a slow double suicide is deemed harassment.  If you are determined to smoke, shoot heroin or jump off of a cliff, this is a free country.  Which also means that I'm not forced to breathe your smoke, shoot up with you, or do a tandem somersault to my death.  God bless America, indeed!     

My home city of Houston has been slow to act on the issue of secondhand smoke.  My wife and I could not endure spending time at any of our city's bars or clubs before the city enacted its own smoking ban in September of 2007.  On the nights we would venture out, the smoke was horrendous.  We'd have a few drinks and then come home, strip off our clothes and shower so we wouldn't go to bed smelling like we'd been fighting a 4-alarm fire.   

I've repeatedly heard the argument from smokers that it's not fair that they can't enjoy a smoke with their beer or drink.  And I do feel for people who aren't allowed to partake in an activity that makes them happy.  What I don't understand is smokers' total refusal to acknowledge that their pursuit of happiness does affect other people.  Others have no choice but to breathe in a smoker's secondhand "happiness."  According to the CDC, as of 2010, approximately 21% of American adults smoke.  In public places with no smoking bans, if 1 out of 5 people light up, 4 out of 5 must leave or simply endure.  Where's the freedom there?  I'd call that bronchial harassment! 

Ah, but I'm off topic, aren't I?  The issue at hand is smoking in parks and beaches.  Outdoor places where smoke disperses quickly.  Supposedly.

Every weekend, we take our dogs for walks at the Houston Arboretum.  The Arboretum is a nature preserve in the heart of the city--155 acres of trees, butterflies, water, wild animals and fresh air (all scarce commodities in a city as large as Houston).  Every couple of weeks as I am walking the trails, lost in nature, I will end up behind a smoker who is... making themselves happy... as they walk the trails.  As I typically don't ever actually see the smoker, I can tell you that their smoke does not disperse, but remains for quite some time after they've moved on.  I can also tell you that the smell of burning tobacco and chemicals in the midst of nature does not make everyone happy.  Neither does the sight of cigarette butts on the nature trails.  I've never understood the odd juxtaposition of smoking while being out in the fresh, clean, mostly-nonpolluted park air...but that's a whole other topic....   

This is on a system of trails where you keep moving.  If you hit smoke, you'll eventually pass through it.  I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to be sitting in a park or on a beach and have someone light up next to you.  It's always the non-smoker who is going to have to move elsewhere in order to pursue their happiness.  If you ask the smoker to move, you're a *gasp!* harasser.  ("Heeeeey, Smokey!  Whooooo, hooooo!"  *lewd gestures*)   

(Read the ABC News story here: NYC Considers Smoking Ban in Outdoor Public Places: Good Idea or Going Too Far?)   

Happy Birthday... Carpe Diem!

It occurred to me on my birthday this year that we're going about our personal goals and resolutions all wrong. Every year, on New Year's Day, we all come up with a list of resolutions, most of which are forgotten within the first month.

Why New Year's Day? I mean, it is a day of new beginnings, but it's the same big day for everyone. Why not start a path of renewal and rebirth on the day that is most personal every person---your birthday?

I'm not going to write down a list of resolutions. My goal is simply to live better, healthier and exist more in the moment. As I achieve goals, I might document them as a little pat on the back. But to make a list seems self-defeating before I even start. Besides--what I wish to achieve is, quite simply, continued health and contentment. There's no way you can plan for that--you just do it by making the right decisions whenever they present themselves.

With that in mind, rather than watch a movie or play XBox, I'm headed upstairs to work out for an hour....

World Cup madness from people who only just discovered what a soccer ball is... (Otherwise entitled: "If only I wrote for The Onion...")

     Three men were arrested in Houston’s upscale Galleria area on Saturday after a gangland-style beatdown of two men.  The victims were driving through the neighborhood, honking their horn and waving the Ghana flag when they were surrounded by luxury vehicles and forced into the Neiman-Marcus parking lot.

Tiffani Westmeuller, whose husband was charged with attacking one of the Ghanan revelers with a Perrier bottle, recounts the moments before the incident began.

“We were having Sunday brunch at Le Peep when this car drove by, honking and celebrating,” Westmeuller said.  “Kevin got so upset!  I begged him to finish his omelette and not let his cappuccino get cold, but he stormed out of the restaurant.  He even put a scratch on one of the rims of our BMW X5, he roared out of that parking lot so fast!  I didn’t know what to do, so I just sipped my mimosa until he called me from jail.  Can you imagine what my girlfriends at the country club will think?”

John Evans, the only perpetrator who agreed to an interview, spoke frankly from his jail cell.  “Here I am, trying to enjoy my eggs benedict, when these guys drive by, hooting and rubbing it in our faces.  I mean, sure, yesterday’s game was the first soccer match I’ve ever seen.  But now that I’ve seen our U.S. team and how good they are, I’m certainly not going to have a bunch of hooligans disrespecting a team I’ve been following for my entire...well, since yesterday!”  

We were in the middle of creating what we visualized would be a quaint, European-looking pathway up one side of our house when I found these neat stepping stone mats from Viva Terra. I've ordered from Viva Terra many times in the past and have always gotten great quality merchandise from them, so it never occurred to me that they would sell anything that was...well...junk.

I was delighted when the mats arrived - they were exactly what I had in mind. It took a couple of weeks before we had the pathway built and ready for the mats. When I laid them out, they looked like this:

Then, as things that are used outside tend to do, they got wet. Mind you, the Viva Terra web site SHOWS these mats being used outdoors and SUGGESTS you use them in your "garden footpaths." Maybe that's only for folks who live in a moisture impermeable bio dome, because here's what our Viva Terra River Stepping Stone mats looked like after a couple of weeks of use:

By the time the first stone dropped off (an omen of the nudist philosophy all of the mats were soon to adopt), I had already ordered more in order to fill in the walkway, so that people weren't leaping wildly from mat to mat like the guy in Pitfall. (Atari, anyone?)

I called Viva Terra today in order to rectify the situation. The customer service agent read me a pre-written script informing me that while my recent orders of defective stepping stone mats would be eligible for return, the first set would not, as they fell outside of their 30-day return policy window.

When I explained that the mats had sat, all shiny and new, in their boxes for two weeks before being put outside, where they took another two weeks to begin begin disintegrating before my very eyes, she replied that Viva Terra would offer to send its customers a tube of eco-friendly adhesive so we can glue the mats back together.

Let's analyze this. We are so aware that this is a cruddy product that falls apart that we actually have GLUE that we are shipping to customers so that they can stick the defective product back together? Seriously?

"Rooms to Go customer service? How may I help you?"

"Uh, yeah... Um, I bought a...recliner from you guys? A few weeks ago? We haven't had it for that long and have only, you know, sat in it to watch "Grey's Anatomy" and reclined it to take a few naps. But yesterday, the arms fell off of it!"

"We're sorry you have experienced problems with one of our recliners, sir. As a valued Rooms to Go customer, we would like to offer you a complimentary bottle of Rooms to Go adhesive with which you can glue the arms back onto your piece of furniture..."

Yeah. With any other product, that would sound pretty damned absurd.

Which is what I argued with the customer service rep. She held on to her script like a bulldog with its teeth in the throat of...a Viva Terra customer service script. In the end, all I got was an agreement to refund the newer defective merchandise I ordered, minus shipping, plus a 10% refund of the initial defective merchandise.

I'm on the fence about the company. In all the years I've shopped with Viva Terra, I've never had the slightest problem with anything I've purchased. But this one bureaucratic, powerless-to-help-the-customer, stick-to-the-script experience with their customer service may have just lost them any of my future business. Unless sometime, months or years from now, I develop an uncontrollable need to have a bath mat made of plastic pull tabs from milk cartons. I mean, where else can you find something like that?

Dirtying up the brainwashing...

I just finished reading Kyria Abraham's book, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing. (Find it on Amazon here.)

It's funny; I had considered writing a blog--sort of like my earlier posting on religion--documenting the memories of my Jehovah's Witness childhood in a humorous way. A couple of weeks later I find this book and discover that it's been done for me!

This book couldn't have described my childhood more perfectly if I'd written it myself, apart from some of the specific details from age 17 on (Kyria struggled to get out of a loveless teenage marriage; I came out of the closet and left my hometown for a few years to gain enough strength to deal with the mountain of JW literature my family was showering me with). I was laughing out loud as I read so many of the EXACT phrases I was taught to use as arguments for the various JW beliefs, from not celebrating holidays to avoiding questionable music and television shows.

And the Smurfs... I had forgotten about my Smurf deprivation. All my friends laughed because I had to avoid--of all things--servants of Satan who were masquerading as adorable blue cartoon creatures. My brother and I were even forbidden to watch "Scooby Doo," despite our impassioned arguments that the ghosts on "Scooby Doo" weren't REAL ghosts, but only a crotchety old man running around in a Halloween mask. (Thinking of it that way, you'd think JW parents would steer clear of "Scooby Doo" because it features creepy potential sexual predators, rather than the whole ghost argument.)

(Every Jehovah's Witness's worst nightmare:  a giant Smurf attacking crowds of children whose parents were lax in their home cartoon monitoring.)  

The book was humorous, as I got to look back at the arguments, the beliefs--even the Kingdom Hall decor (which I'd forgotten about!) through the eyes of an adult. I couldn't help but feel some bitterness, though, as it also reminded me of the lingering results so many experience from this sort of religious upbringing--the anxiety/depression, social ineptitude, lack of education and general lack of preparation for the real world. I was an honor roll student who was taking college prep courses for no reason other than I was smart enough to take them and do well. I wasn't really being "prepped" for anything except going door-to-door hawking fundamentalist literature.  I won't even begin discussing the years of anxiety attacks that it took forever to get under control.  


Despite it all, I'm a (mostly) well-adjusted adult (the adult part is up for debate, depending on whether or not I'm in the middle of an XBox zombie-shooting session at the moment) with a college degree in English literature. It was a long road to get here, however, and I do battle feelings of resentment over that. And THEN I go all Eckhart Tolle, take a deep breath and let it go...

I remember when it first occurred to me that I had spent a large portion of my childhood as a member of a cult. My wife and I were watching interviews with the women of the FLDS church, shortly after the raid in Texas. My wife commented on how she couldn't understand how anyone would just swallow the things that these women were taught without questioning them. Meanwhile, I could perfectly understand why these women simply accepted such absurd beliefs without questioning a thing. To question is wrong, I told her, because it opens you up to evil, outside influences. So many of the things these women said echoed the type of rhetoric I was taught growing up--I was stunned.

So here I am as an adult. My "I Was a Childhood Cult Member" blog has been rendered unnecessary. Truthfully, I'm glad I got the benefit of reading my story without having to relive it enough to write it. It was just as therapeutic without being overwhelming. I still feel the old anxiety creeping around the edges when I start thinking about it all. I guess you don't go through that sort of brainwashing for half of your life without it leaving some traces. That's why it's important that people share their stories. Get out the real truth, you guys. Get out the info, the dirt, the facts, the real content without the fundamentalist shine--we've got some brainwashing to undo.

Confessions of a Wanna-be Early Riser

I like to be all snuggled up tight

under cool sheets, resisting

the first morning light.

I like to feel the earliest ray

of the sun rubbing sleep

off an unblemished day.

Open my eyes--first one, then two

then close them again

for an hour...or few.

Sip hot green tea and breathe in the perfume

of dewdrops on green grass

and lavender in bloom.

I love the daybreak sights, daybreak smells...

Is there a way to sleep in

and rise early as well?

Waiting for quiet...and the magic.

I'd like to write, but right now there are workers in my house, making tons of noise that is distracting me. When I write--when I REALLY write--I go into a sort of trance. I become totally absorbed in what I'm doing. I keep going until I've told what I'm trying to tell--until I've poured it all out of me. I won't stop to eat, to use the bathroom, to answer the phone. Because once the trance is broken, the spell is broken, too. The magic evaporates. The flow starts getting all blocked up, like a stream that is being loaded with boulders, one by one. Suddenly, I can't think of the word that fits best there. And what was it I wanted to say, again? Also, I forgot about the dishes that need to be done and.... Suddenly, it's over as abruptly as it began.

The hardest thing is getting into that trance to begin with. Once you're there, it's sweet. But it's hard to get it started.

And nearly impossible with this amount of noise, talking, and banging going on! More to come later...possibly?

Dear Jesus: It's nothing personal.

I made a crack about Easter recently. It wasn't meant to be mean spirited. It wasn't meant to offend. When I said it, I honestly thought it was funny (albeit in a lame sort of way). My wife didn't think so.

It was the evening of Easter Sunday and I had noticed, upon walking outside, that no one besides me had rolled out their garbage cans. In my neighborhood, everyone usually has their cans out by nightfall on Sunday night--everyone, that is, except me. The one who is running down the street in her pajamas at eight o'clock on a Monday morning, wheeling a garbage can behind her and frantically trying to flag down the garbage truck? That'd be me.

In any case, I stopped in the driveway, trying to remember if the Monday after Easter is some sort of holiday, as well. There was Good Friday, Holy Saturday (I had just learned that there was a such thing as Holy Thursday...does this apply to all of the days of the week leading up to Easter?), thenEaster...and then...? Do the festivities and repenting continue?

I wandered into the kitchen. "Hey, hon?" I asked. "Is tomorrow some sort of holiday?"

"I don't think so," the Wife said.

"Because no one has their garbage out," I continued. "I wasn't sure if tomorrow was 'And Yea He Has Risen Monday' or something like that."

***Crickets chirping.***

Although I wasn't trying to disrespect Easter or the many Holy Days that surround it, I apparently had.

Now, my wife is not overly religious. But she does consider herself a Christian and the major Christian holidays are very special to her. Meanwhile, I simply believe in a higher, intelligent power (who may or may not go by one or many names) and regard most organized religion with a mix of disbelief and amusement.

In apologizing to my wife for my comment, I thought about what inclined me to say it (or think it) in the first place. If it was a weeklong Buddhist celebration of holy days or a Wiccan celebration of the Spring Equinox, it wouldn't have been a target of my humor. (While writing about the Pagan ritual, the voice in my head protests: But wasn't Easter originally a...with the big bunny...and the eggs for fertility...oh, never mind.) I'm not anti-Christian. But why am I so quick to go there with all things Christianity? (Ok--Kabbalah and Scientology also raise my ire, but that's a different blog posting...)

The only conclusion I could arrive at is the religion in which I was raised. I wasn't just raised as a Christian, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. An uber-Christian. Christianity on steroids. Christians that are too good even for OTHER Christians.

For a JW child, religion is not a warm, fuzzy world full of Sunday school, Christmas presents and chocolate brought by the Easter bunny. It's a place where something as fun and innocent as a kid opening up presents on Christmas morning is considered sinful. It's a place where the bloody, plague-ridden, terror-filled Apocalypse is just around the corner (and all of your little friends who aren't JWs? They're toast.). It's a place where you never quite feel like you're good enough because you could always spend more time studying the Bible, memorizing hymns or walking door to door handing out leaflets to save more people. (Because tomorrow morning could be that Apocalypse. You never know!) I associate my religious upbringing with the looming threat of the end of the world. (Google "Jehovah's Witnesses," "Armageddon" and "1975" to see the sort of thing I dealt with on a daily basis. There's a wonderful account of that whole debacle here:

http://www.exmormon.org/exjw3.htm)

Your friends at school? You shouldn't really be hanging out with them because they're "worldly" (the JW word used to describe, well...everyone else. Gays are a special brand of "worldly," as they are also "abominations."). Activities at school? Cheerleading? It shows too much skin. Band? Evil, because you'll have to play all those holiday songs at special school assemblies. Sports? It takes too much time away from "Spreading the Good News of the Kingdom," and besides, you'll get so much more exposure to all of those "worldly" kids.

I'll never forget my holier-than-thou grandfather (who had a less-than-holy past) and how he used to talk about me hanging out with all them "werrly little kids." (Now that I think of it, it almost sounded as though they were dizzy kids.) He criticized me for knowing the words to all of the oldies songs I loved but not having all of the Kingdom Hall hymns memorized. He also said that if Armageddon came and my entire family was wiped out, it would be my fault for not encouraging my parents to take us to the Kingdom Hall more often.

I was fourteen. Ah, fond memories! *Sniff!* Good times!

In my parents' defense, they were only doing what they thought was best; raising us in the religion that they had been taught was the road to salvation. I couldn't help but see huge parallels when, as an adult, I watched news specials about the Mormon sects up in north Texas. Their beliefs are also passed down from one generation to the next, so you end up with a long line of family that doesn't know it's possible to have different beliefs. There were so many things I saw in the FLDS coverage that screamed "cult!"--and it all echoed the same sorts of things I was taught as a Jehovah's Witness. Limiting one's social circle/relationships to within the congregation, for instance. Both groups have a deep suspicion of all outsiders--especially the government, and a commonly held belief that all governmental powers are the work of the devil. Both drill it into their follower's heads that to question any of the congregation's beliefs or seek alternative sources of information is the devil working through you. In hindsight, it makes my skin crawl.

So yes, I emerged from that bit of religious upbringing with a huge knee jerk. I guess I feel like I've earned the right to be critical. Maybe for me, humor and sarcasm are a way to break free of that old brainwashing.

I feel that I have earned the right to be wary. I tend to be suspicious of any belief system that creates an "us" against "them" mentality. I grow frustrated with people who will willingly follow a religious leader without asking questions or understanding the reasons and the history behind what they're doing. And I detest any teachings that are based on either fear or the hope of some future existence that is somehow better than the present moment and the beautiful world that we've been given (and are destroying, by the way). Hope that things would be better in the next life is what people believed in during the Dark Ages. I learned that in my college literature courses. (Had I remained a JW, I wouldn't have gone to college for an education, because they frown on that sort of thing.)

I guess all I'm saying is, my reactions may be strong (and inappropriate) sometimes. If there is a "And Yea He Has Risen Monday," I'll bet you it's a really beautiful holiday. But whatever religion you are--Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Muslim, whatever--I just wish people would think for themselves. Otherwise, people become "sheeple," mindlessly bleating along behind the herd with no real desire to know why. I know first hand that this can be damaging. Our brains are a God-given gift. I'm sure He intended that we use them.