License to Feel

Not too long ago, one of my favorite funny men Mel Brooks said to Bill Maher that he wouldn't be able to do Blazing Saddles in Today's Politically Correct Climate. The resulting world-wide pearl clutching event in response to this statement not only proved his point, but the force actually knocked the planet .1012 dm off of its normal orbit, and Earth is now on on a 246 year collision course with Venus.

The price of comedy

Blazing Saddles could easily be made today, but the internet would not stand idly by. It's not really an issue of political correctness, but the fact that everyone has an opinion and an outlet for said opinion: the intertubes. If people actually read this blog, I can assure you that there would be a micro-community somewhere already ready to debate the validity of my take on Earth's inevitable celestial fender bender. You see, for every thing which has ever existed ever, in all of space and time, concrete or abstract, there is at least one person who's underutilized neural system has somehow managed to develop a way to take it personal.

I personally believe that this stems from the fact that for decades, so many people (read: anyone not a white male) were discounted or treated like shit. Over time as we progress, our society as a whole is less and less likely to ostracize others for being different. It was the status quo for this to happen, so people just sat idly by as they were oppressed. If someone called me a Nigger a few decades ago, no one would bat an eye and many a pearl would go unclutched; not calling me one would have been more of a problem. This is now unacceptable for (hopefully) obvious reasons, so not only do people not do it (in public) if it is done, there are plenty of white knights who will swiftly ride in to combat their intolerance.

Fair Negro, Telleth me of the knave who said such things to thee!

However, somehow when the universe applied it's most recent update to the human condition, it over-compensated and swung waaaaaay too fucking far on the other side of the sensitivity scale. We somehow went from "bottle your feelings up, this is the way of life so get over it" to "Let your feelings free! We'll stand with you regardless." So now not only do people react to almost everything, they are encouraged to have a reaction and now have the internet to broadcast it to the whole world.There is literally absolutely nothing that can be done on this earth without someone feeling some type of way about it.

Now don't get me wrong. I have total respect people for being unable to react to their personal triggers. Sometimes they extend from irrational fears, some from traumatic experiences: the brain is a crazy thing and there is no written rule for how it should work. Myself for example; if I am in the presence of a loose sharp object (Saw, sharp Knife, etc) for an extended period of time, I tend to get the mental image of said sharp object slicing my hands or my tongue. Actually just typing that now gave me the chills. Also, if I am in the presence of a large insect (mainly spiders) for an extended period of time, my overall ability to function as a normal human being begins to degrade.

This is how I die

As much as I would loath for knife-riding spiders to exist, and no matter how much that horrible feeling is a detriment to my own physical and mental being, it registers a whopping 0 on the "shit that actually matters" scale. People get so caught up on how they feel about something, they tend to forget that they are, in fact, not the Scarlet Witch, and that their individual feelings hold no water in the grand scheme of things. We have to remember, that no matter how much we may feel about something, our feelings are not always grounded in reality. I'm 6'2". I can literally smash a spider with my hands. But I won't, because reasons. While I find it completely acceptable to reward anyone dumb enough to prank me with a giant fake spider with a rousing round of punches, this is not an acceptable thing to do fuck that guy he deserved that shit.

Things get scary though, when those individuals and their feelings harness their spiral powers, combine, and become a movement. You see, in the very recent past, many movements were formed because of very real issues such as the Civil Rights Movement, because black people were literally being treated like animals and the Vietnam War Opposition, because why the hell were we over there again? This is, you know, shit that actually happened. However, thanks to our old friend anti-intellectualism, we now have movements for Anti-Vaccination, for those who feel like vaccines cause autism; Flat Earthers who think that the earth is not spinning because we would feel the motion, and Trump Stumps who will vote for Donald Trump because they feel that America is no longer great.

This just in: NASA reports that The world-wide face-palming event caused by this insanity corrected Earth's orbit.

Feelings are running rampant in all aspects of American life these days, and we should be kind, understanding, and listen to those feelings. FALSE. My feelings don't matter, and your's especially don't. Life existed before you and will after you. Every time you feel tired from working your 9-5 there is someone who's tired because they can't afford to eat. Every time you get offended that some woman is "exposing" herself in the media, there is a woman being raped because she refused to do so. You think the US isn't great? Try living in a country who's number one import is privileged tourists and number one export is sex slaves. You and your feelings are only as important as the impact you make on others around you. Without friends and loved ones you might as well be an undiscovered alien on a planet that is about to be blown up by space pirates.

So please, fair reader(s), before you get caught all up in your feelings about something, take a moment. Calm yourself, have a drink, do some research, share with a loved one, and maybe, just maybe, you'll find out that hey: feelings are fleeting, and reality has a long list of fucks it doesn't give.

That sumbitch is written in stone, too

Lord of the Dies

As a large, black man, it can be scary sometimes living in this world. At any given moment, some white, frail person may instantly feel threatened by my presence and I could be arrested or shot. I mean, how dare I be large and black on a Tuesday Morning? I wondered one day, if maybe life would be easier if the universe had decided to deny my body the right to melanin. Would it be easier and safer to be white? That all changed when I pulled up the horror section on Netflix.

I guess I shouldn't take it personal when I inadvertently scare white people. They are afraid of everything.

If horror movies are any indication of actual fears, then white people can't do ANYTHING without fear of being brutally murdered to death. A fucking routine elevator ride can't happen without claiming the lives of 3+ white people. In fact, let's go through a list of things that, as per horror movies, white people can't do without dying horribly meaningless deaths.

Go Camping
Don't go camping white people. If you don't get murdered by a deranged person or dismembered by a crazy backwoods monster, you'll get possessed by a fucking book or catch some weird sickness.

Go On Vacation
Foreigners hate white people, especially their vengeful ancestors and creatures of lore. Incidentally, they also love white people, and will keep them forever.

Fly
Planes don't give no fucks either, and will crash leaving you to die in sweltering heat or bitter cold. Killers also love planes, because there is nowhere to run.

Go near Water
If you don't drown, a shark will attempt to eat you, not to mention whatever other eldritch abominations which are dwelling in the deeps.

Return From Vacation
Just in case you do make it home from vacation, there are plenty of murderers and kidnappers patiently waiting for you outside the airport.

Drive
Apparently there is a direct relation between the amount of consecutive hours a white person spends in a car to the number of things that will try to kill them. Car accidents, deranged truckers, and whatever nonsense the universe can come up with.

Go to College
There's nothing a killer loves more than a curious white person fresh out of high school and no parents to deter their poor decision making skills. Also, that secluded, prestigious school is run by a cult.

Get a Job
In the event you do make it out of college alive, your job will pick up the slack. If you want horrible things to happen to you, your career of choice should be home nurse.

Become a Graduate Fellow
In the event you say "screw work I'm staying in school", the only things you'll learn are new ways to die and unearth things that want your soul for brunch.

Buy a House
That house you just bought? If it wasn't built on a burial ground, it's last owner did some pretty horrific shit before you bought it. Either way chances are something in the furnace will eat you.

Buy Anything Else
People can be sentimental and grow attached to objects. So attached that they will possess it after death and fuck up the next white person to buy it. Whether it is a doll, a puzzle, a car; it will attempt to suck your insides out through your navel cavity.

Get Married
Your spouse will be insane, abusive or try to kill you for your money. Stay single.

See a Medical Professional
Your doctor, dentist, or nurse will lovingly perform horrific operations and experiments on you just because you have an odd eye color.

DON'T See a Medical Professional
It's really not a good idea to let that rash "heal on its own". It may be deadly, supernatural, extraterrestrial.

Go Outside At all
Lord willing you make it from your front door, to your destination, then back, there is a chance someone has broken into your house and is waiting to kill you.

Stay at Home
Perchance you say "Fuck outside" and stay in, someone might just decide to break into your house and kill you anyway.

Watch a Movie
For white people, somehow watching an old VHS is literally a death sentence. We have them to thank for the invention of the DVD, I guess.

Answer The Phone
One out of every Eight phone calls to a white person is an attempt to kill them. Better off not answering the phone.

Don't Answer the Phone
Unless of course, you want to receive a voicemail from the future of you dying a horrible death. Better just send them an email.

Use The Internet
Just stay clear of some websites and definitely do not share tasteless videos. In fact, just screw technology and send them some snail mail.

Use the Postal Service
Yeah don't open any mail either. It may be some crap credit cards or a murderous chain letter. Might as well just go to sleep

Go to Sleep
White people can't even go to sleep without a severely burned pedophile  trying to kill them in ironic ways. Hell, you'll probably wake up to find your spouse motionlessly standing over your body for no reason at all.

Exist
Did I say foreigners hate white people? Everything hates white people. If you are white, something, at this very moment, is trying to kill you. Being white is like living in a Rube Goldberg Machine of Inevitable Corpses.. You go to prom? You die. Go to the carnival? You die. Go to a party? You die. A white person's very existence is always at stake. Maybe that explains white fragility.

"Don't talk to me about racism, the racist guy always dies first. I mean I love black people!"

This is also extra enlightening regarding some white people behavior. "Shit, well since I'm persistently in danger of being sold into white slavery to some dude in Saudi Arabia or have my soul devoured by an angry indigenous spirit, I might as well go chase Tornados, climb mountains for the hell of it, or resurrect fucking dinosaurs. What's the worse that could happen?"

You would die, fictional white person created for the sake of this post; you would die.

I Have No Brain and Must Scream

This past week, after playing video games  being a productive member of society I decided to browse the Facebooks. What I saw spurred me to toss my phone into the depths of Oblivion. But I was too lazy so I settled for the depths of a Few feet from the couch. What horrors did I see? Do you truly want to glimpse into the madness? OK Sure here yah go:

THE MADNESS

I get that the Internet is a haven for expression and free speech. It's one of the reasons I am able to create this amazingly awesome blog. Unfortunately it is also why stuff like this is able to exist. I didn't know "Beyoncé is an agent of Satan" is a real thing and has real people on Facebook talking to other real people about this in all seriousness. Here look!

This is real, people

At what point in your supposedly God-fearing life does this make sense? To anyone ever? Did this person just wake up, late one night in a cold sweat like "Illuminati! Beyoncé! It all makes sense! Thank you Jesus I'll report to facebook on your behalf right away! Lesbians!" I haven't been to a church service in a while, but is this the kind of shit the pastor covers at service now? This isn't just one insane person coming up with this stuff. This is a full blown, "I saw it on the internet so it must be true" conspiracy where people are deeply analyzing videos to find triple 6s and upside down triangles and any other pieces of nonsense they can find to help their reasoning sound legitimate. At this point Beyoncé is probably up there with video games and Dungeons and Dragons as evil incarnate.

I may have missed this game in the series...

People crank out malarkey on their mobile devices and keyboard faster than what science can barely classify as their brain is able to verify the viability of it. Phrases like "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" or "think before you speak" mean nothing when you have the anonymity of the internet to protect you. OH WAIT. Most of these people will openly post using their Facebook accounts without a thought! Politicians, music entertainers, teachers, and even that one old guy at Costco will brazenly display their stupidity. People will miss a joke and lash out violently or say shit like The NFL has been around longer than the government  because hey; who has time to think, fact check, and make sure I don't make a fool of myself when I can respond right damned now! Some people's ignorance is so far behind current standards that they have embraced lost ideologies of the past.

I routinely post nonsense on the internet which I think is funny, But that's exactly what it is. Nonsense that I find humorous. Half the time I don't even believe the stuff I am saying. Usually when I think of something profound whilst taking a shit, I take some time and think about how not profound it is before I eventually blog about it here. But there are living, breathing, VOTING people who have brought children into the world and work jobs where people's livelihoods are at stake who routinely say the most incomprehensible shit imaginable and mean it and these people will not take a first thought before posting. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.

This is totally reasonable commentary for a White police officer in Flint, Michigan after two black people are murdered.

The desire to share one's thoughts to as many people as possible for praise and recognition should come after one first confirms that they, in fact, have a significant thought to share. Every stupid thing you say on the internet is like a mini time capsule which could be opened at any moment by anyone. Whether it's your boss seeing your Instagram photo with racist and sexist comments at a restaurant, your kid seeing all your Facebook posts debating your previous desire for an abortion, or an angry Predator who saw you live tweeting AvP and claiming that you would have kicked his ass; some things are better left unsaid. There's a thin line between looking like a fool online and losing your job because you thought it would be funny to make a post about hoping President Obama would be assassinated.

I think i'll avoid social media for some time and just read more professional articles. At least they check themselves before they wreck themselves.

Well, fuck.

Wage of Ambition

Minimum Wage is a hot topic, if not the hot topic in today's political climate. Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders is on a campaign, NAY, a CRUSADE; to combat income inequality in the United States. No village, infidel, or vagina shall be safe!

He's coming for that booty. And that booty

Raising the Minimum wage gets a lot of flack. Usually from really, really smart people.  But let's be honest, there are so many reasons why minimum wage needs to remain low. Let's touch on a few of them, with the help of our dear friends, people on Facebook.

This is a great reason for minimum wage to remain low. I mean why should I pay an EMT more than minimum wage? His ability to administer medical need to dying people is not desirable at all. Even worse are those Pharmacy Technicians. I mean any idiot knows what Phenoxymethylpenicillin is. They don't need to be paid a lot for that. Don't forget those lazy Amusement Park Ride operators. Who doesn't want to go to an amusement park, enjoy the summer sun or a nice cold fall evening all while controlling the fate of 10 to 20 people on a metallic joy device capable of reaching high speeds on decades old constructions? If they want more money they should get one of those better jobs that no one is taking where people's lives are not at stake.

Another great reason, and it compounds well with the first! I mean if we raise the minimum wage, we'd have greater job loss, because all of the teens will drop out of school because they won't have to work harder for more pay! Since they don't have to go to school any more, they would now take all of the jobs that had to staff only Retirees during school hours because lets be honest, no one wants as 75 year old EMT saving their life. The retirees, now out of work, will be unable to pay for their assisted living arrangements, so the nursing homes will have to fire a number of Certified Nursing Assistants, putting even more Teens and Retirees out of work!

Great point. If you're trying to support a family, you need to get a job that pays enough to support that family. The minimum wage is there to keep those 14 year old Pre School Teachers from being exploited, not to make up for one's personal inability.

Another great reason. If Hotels paid their bellhops and desk workers too much money, they wouldn't be able to keep their doors open. If those workers can't manage to provide adequate food or shelter so that they are healthy enough to continue performing their duties, they can be replaced with more suitable workers. The only people who would be able to pay such a high wage are large companies with insane profits.

This guy hits the nail on the head. If we raise the minimum wages, and the workers prove themselves to be unproductive, the companies lose out on money that could have gone to more productive workers. The companies would dig themselves into a hole since they would be unable to fire these unskilled, unproductive workers.

"Michelle, did you finish the filing I assigned to you?"
"Does it look like I'm done?"
"Why I oughta..."

There are no benefits to increasing the minimum wage. If we give the lowest common denominator more money, are we supposed to believe they will invest it back into the economy? If you find that your current job doesn't pay enough, just get a new one, or another one. There are Plenty of jobs to go around.

Hot Under the Scholar

College is an interesting idea on paper. It seems like the natural progression in becoming a knowledgeable adult. You go to elementary school to learn the basics and take naps, go to high school to learn the intermediates and try to get laid, go to college and forget the intermediates and take naps while still trying to get laid; you graduate and get a job: the road to success. Or is it?

College is honestly a bill of goods. We're told "You go to college, you get a good job." It creates a sad sense of entitlement where people believe they deserve a college education and in turn, deserve a good job. We treat physically laborious, "blue-collar" jobs as a sign of failure, and that if you have one you aren't really working hard enough. I mean, it's not like there are college educated people working part time jobs, right? We talk about how important it is to have access to education, but confuse the difference between access and need. Should people, if willing, be able to get access to substantial higher education? Yes of course! Does everyone need or deserve it? Nope.

Picture Related

Historically, Universities were institutions in design where only the foremost minds in Medicine, Law, and Theology gathered to brag about who was smarter and sell their knowledge to the highest bidder. If you wanted to learn how to be a doctor, a clergymen, or a attorney, you sought out a university. Literally everyone else was an apprentice of some sort. If you wanted to be a knight, you would squire for a knight, carrying his shit around until he was slain and you picked up his arms. If you wanted to be a black smith, you would follow some dude named Smith, carrying his shit around until he died and left his business to you. Generally, getting a job without higher education involved waiting for the person ahead of you to die.

Other than the copious amount of death, nothing much has changed. While we as a species overall have gained more knowledge and technologies, an individual's capacity for knowledge can be just as abysmal now as it was then. Just like there was someone who was doomed to shovel shit until they died of the plague back in ye olde times, there's some poor sob who will be mopping pissy bathroom floors at the Cubs Stadium at 3 AM.

Some people do not have the capacity for knowledge overall, let alone specific schools of thought, that no number of classes can fix. There are things that I will for the life of me never understand, and there are things that I will pick up and retain immediately. For instance, network topology. I can't explain to you the extent that I cannot even begin to explain what I don't understand about it. It just doesn't make sense to me. I can explain the hell out of algorithm time complexity though.

Left: Pretty simple stuff
Right: Black magic. Seriously there's even a fucking Hexagram.

We live in a coddled society where "everyone is a winner" and anyone can make it if they try hard enough. So teachers can't tell students that "hey moron, you're not going to be a doctor so learn how fix air conditioners" so they'll encourage students and tell them that they are all capable of greatness no matter how bad they failed biology. I probably could have been a surgeon if I tried really, really hard, but I would be a C student surgeon at best, even after pulling all nighters and killing the bare minimum number of patients as a medical intern. Do you really want an average med student to be your surgeon?

The standard for a "good" college education is a 4 year stint at a "accredited" institution, with the average of 10 classes per year. That's 40 classes. More often than not, only half of those will be relevant to your desired career path. So why the hell does anyone need those other 20 classes? As a Computer Science major, what good are two fine art classes going to do me? Outside of an ethics course, why do I need any humanities classes?

"I modeled this encryption algorithm from the 3rd Stanza of the Fairie's song in A Midsummer Night's Dream"
-No One, EVER

All of those extra "General Education" courses should be handled in high school, and only the essentials should be focused in college. An Art Student doesn't need college level Calculus, and a Law Student doesn't need a fucking Music Theory Class. Those classes are fluff that waste a fledgling adult's time and money which could be better spent on better things like an internship and working to save money or eating taco bell and playing copious amounts of video games.

I get the idea behind college. There are too many people in the world for every person to apprentice under a master to learn their trade, and most apprentice work is now done by machines or minimum wage workers. College is necessary to import industry-level knowledge on students when it is impossible to provide hand's on experience for every potential student. That way when they're done with college they have all of the means to take on the world and get a great job that help pay off those 4 years of drowning debt.

Wait... shit....