Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Apparently, there are some nudie pix out there of some people I would very much like to see naked, and it’s controversial because they didn’t actually give permission for their pictures to be used.

Jennifer Lawrence

It’s obviously not right, putting nude pix of somebody online without their permission is a serious invasion of privacy.  It’s not as big a deal as it would have been a few years back.  In these days of easy access to porn, it’s not really that urgent to see one person naked.  Nobody’s more than a couple of clicks away from watching someone who looks  very much like Jennifer Lawrence engaging in all sorts of sex acts.

And, the women whose nude photos have been posted without their permission are actresses.  Nudity is not really surprising.  Still, it’s not right.

It’s a natural effect of our social media world, our interconnected mind.  Privacy is dead.  It’s not right.  But, it’s so.

The best that we, the public, can do about it now is not to make too much of a big deal over it.  If you really want to see naked ladies, there are plenty of ladies online who are happy to be seen naked.

When Ronald Reagan made his little joke about “The bombing of Russia will commence in 5 minutes,” the world was not amused.  However, as much as I think Reagan was a horrible president and probably not a very good human being, it turned out it was just a bad joke.  A really bad, stupid, oafish joke

No joke – He is a threat to world peace

which could have had serious consequences, sure.  A joke like a gun owner coming out of the shed and pointing his gun at you and then saying “HaHa, it wasn’t loaded,” as if everybody should just trust him to actually be sure of that, sure.  But, still, just a joke and nothing was ever done and within a day or two the world had recovered from its collective pants shitting and moved on.

Putin’s statement today about “remember that we’ve got a lot of nukes and could turn the United States into radioactive dust” is a lot more worrying.  Like Reagan, there is the possibility that he is old and senile.  I don’t actually believe that, but he sure likes to take his shirt off in public much more than is normal for a man his age.

The thing is, he was not joking at all when he said it.  His appeal to Russian voters is exactly what George W. Bush’s appeal was to American voters.  He’s the gang leader acting tough, the preening peacock, the one who’s going to solve the whole country’s problems by making war on somebody.

The thing is, he’s combining that statement with the most naked land grab since Hitler took the Sudetenland.

The  thing is, once somebody defies the world and gets away with it, their tendency is to do it again…and again…and again.

So, the world has a Putin problem.  Who can save the world from this evil, evil man?  Only the Russian people.     And, so far, I see no indication that they will.

As I was looking for poems to read at tonight’s Alchemy Poetry Reading (which was fairly successful, although not the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen there.  I quite liked the featured performers, a folk duo called Nice Verdes) I came across this, which I wrote a couple of months age and was probably originally intended as a sarcastic reply to somebody’s facebook comment, but I’ve totally forgotten the original context.

There might be some jobs that robots can’t do,

but human beings are bad at them, too.

Robots are going to take over a lot of our functions in the not so distant future.  The metro in Singapore is entirely robot controlled.  Soon the technology will be there to make all automobiles robot driven.  Human beings, proud, stupid, stubborn human beings may be hesitant to hand over the keys, but it’s only a matter of time.  Some day, all factories will be manned by robots, and they’ll be doing the heavy lifting on construction sites and farms.  Deliveries, sure, robots can do that.  Receptionists?  You bet.  Cleaners and lawn care workers.  No problem.

Jobs where a person has to think on their feet, improvise, and deal with other human beings in a human sort of way might take longer.  Teachers, police officers, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, and artists are a few that spring to mind.  But, as the poem says, human beings sometimes suck at these jobs, too. 

I can definitely see an advantage to robot teachers.  Eyes in the back of its head, super hearing, an extendable arm with a vise-like grip…but robots con’t have the necessary compassion and it will be a long time before they do.  Also, kids might get freaked out. 

A  robotic cop would not be nearly as cool as the one in the movie.  Faced with so many strange situations, there circuits would overload and they’d be standing in the middle of the street like rain-man.

But there are lots of bad human teachers who creep their kid’s out.  There are a shit ton of bad cops out there, failing  spectacularly at all aspects of their job except for corruption and beating suspects.  Human civilization  would not be in the pickle it’s in if it were not for our politicians,  but a robot in that job might be worse.  If a robot is elected with a mandate, “Do whatever is necessary to ensure enough wealth for all human beings,” it may then  decide to destroy the human  race.  The 2 or 3% remaining would  have it great, but that’s not a solution we should embrace.

Summer is over and tomorrow the kids go back to school and I couldn’t be happier.  Of course, because with the kids in school several hours a day, my life becomes a lot easier.  I hope I’ll have a bit more free time (and quiet time) to work on the book I’m writing, which should have been finished months ago.  Also, my work should pick up.  It does every autumn.  Somehow, even my adult students seem to be rooted in the schedule they learned in childhood.  They all cancel in the summer and start up again in September.

Another thing is that tomorrow is the first Alchemy Poetry Reading of poetry year 2014-2015.  I was very bummed out and depressed today because I did not have anything written for the occasion.  Although I write a couple of poems a day, they are mostly smartass replies to things on facebook and generally two lines long.  Also, a tweet a day to try and direct people to this blog.  It’s more akin to graffiti than literature.

Still, it’s what I’ve got so I went back through my activity log and started copying and pasting and voila!  I’ve got plenty of stuff to present tomorrow.  None of it’s great, none of it’s earth shattering,  but a lot of it is fun.

So, I’m not depressed any more.

The Jesse Benton bribery scandal may be the funniest bribery scandal since Rod Blagojevich.  It tarnishes three key Republicans at once – Mitch McConnell, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul.  Four if you want to count Kent Sorensen, but he’s only important in Iowa.

The guy holding the baby?  Huge crook

I hope it’s enough to finally bury Mitch McConnell, but slimy, corrupt Republicans can be harder to kill than cockroaches, and McConnell himself didn’t do anything illegal.  He may be a poor judge of character, having Benton as a campaign manager – more likely he’s a good judge of character and figured a slimy weasel was exactly what he needed as a campaign manager – but, either way, he’s not directly involved.

Ditto Rand Paul.  Benton was probably going to manage the Rand Paul for president campaign, and that’s not going to happen now, but Rand will find someone just as lacking in ethics.  He may take a brief hit in the polls, he may get a little bit of mud on his suit, but 2016 is a long way away and nobody will remember this little kerfuffle by then.

Rand Paul is old, he’s not going for the top job again, so unless it can be proven that he personally knew about the bribe, this won’t hurt him much at all.

The real victim is the one who was victimized at the time it all happened – Michele Bachmann.  She probably would have lost in the Iowa caucuses anyway – mistaking John Wayne for John Wayne Gacy and accidentally reminding the world that her home town’s most famous son is a notorious serial killer and cannibal is a pretty serious faux pas.  The actor John Wayne was born -as was I, which  is why I mention it – in Winterset, Iowa; not Waterloo.

But the bribe didn’t help.  Here’s the story.  Benton, who was then Ron Paul’s campaign manager, gave $73,000 to Kent Sorensen, Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager and Iowa State Senator, to switch sides and support Paul.

As I said, she probably would have lost anyway, but what if she hadn’t?  What if she’d gone on to get the nomination, and won the presidency?  It could be that Republican corruption saved us from a seriously bad Republican president.  Thanks, Jesse Benton.