Captured Populations

Ladies and Gentlemen, you may remember Hurricane Katrina from several years ago. New Orleans was all over the news after that, and so much money and so many volunteers poured into the city to help rebuild. Believe it or not, New Orleans was not the only place affected. Every coastal county in Mississippi took heavy damage with extensive flooding and a 27 foot storm surge that moved upwards of twelve miles inland. Even now, almost four years later, driving along the beach, the devastation is blatantly obvious. Rebuilding is slow, and takes a lot of money. We only recently had the last of our destroyed bridges replaced. Still, many places have a lot of work left to do. One city, Bay St. Louis, has found a creative way to help rebuild.

The first thing one needs to understand in the rebuilding process is that it takes a lot of money, often tax money to rebuild and jumpstart a destroyed community. Unfortunately, a number of people who fled from Katrina didn't return. Their homes were gone. Their jobs were gone. There was little to pull them back to the coast. There was little to return to, for that matter. The price of homes skyrocketed because there were so few that came through unharmed, and those who had them didn't want to part with them. Of course, no returning constituents means a loss of tax dollars. Bay St. Louis found a unique solution to the problem.

Detours.

I went to drop off a job application at a school there and found myself taking the scenic route through the entire town as one detour led me into another. There were no fewer than five major road construction projects and that's just what I saw. How does all of this boost populations? As I drove in, I was thwarted by half a dozen detours just getting to the school. I was frustrated, but not deterred. It was only when I attempted to leave that I saw the true evil genius behind their plan. My detour led me to another, which led me to another, which led be back to the beginning. You see, there is a single lane leading into the general vicinity of the school, but all roads leading out are detoured. I was stuck in a vicious, inescapable circle that ran me past dozens of quaint little homes for sale.

It's the perfect plan, really. Ensure that those who enter the city can never leave. Then, when their cars run out of gas, direct them to the lovely three bedroom two bath with a nice lawn their car died in front of. Maybe they'd like to tour it. Take out a loan. Settle down. Have some kids. Pay some taxes. Only then will they tell the new resident of the secret route out of town. By that point, however, it's too late. The poor victim is settled. They don't want to navigate a moving van down through those construction zones and they certainly don't want to sell a house in this market.

I wouldn't be fooled by them, oh no. We cheated. We used parking lots, alleys, and quick trips down one way streets to make our escape. I know what happens in picturesque towns you can't escape from. Housewives butcher people and serve them for dinner. Librarians sprout Cthulhu tentacles and keep their husbands locked in the basement in bondage gear. If not that, it's haunted by ghosts seeking revenge for some age old offence, and that sounds equally unpleasant. No thank you. I made my exit post haste, and informed my fiancee that if I did get that job, she'd have to move there, because they'd never let me escape the same way twice. I'd never find my way out again.

So consider yourself warned. Beware of small, quaint little towns that try to make you detour. It's a trap. It's always a trap. Turn around. Drive backwards down one way streets. Get out of your car and run if you must. But whatever you do, do not do not do not be tempted to buy a house when your car runs out of gas.

You have been informed.

Cruel and Unusual Punishments

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's no secret that the U.S. is holding a number of detainees in the war on terror. Note, these are detainees, mind you, not prisoners. Prisoners are tried and convicted individuals who, according to various treaties and conventions, must be treated in certain ways. As detainees, however, we are not subject to rules against cruel and unusual punishments. I believe that the U.S. is doing a fantastic job in this instance of providing a punishment that suits the unspecified crimes. And what is this punishment, you may ask. What are we using to extract our national revenge> Irony.

These detainees, who fought so hard to destroy our American way of excess and privilege, are forced to endure the same cruel privilege and excess that they railed against. That's right. These terrorists and enemy combatants who feel at home in the rigors of third-world poverty are forced to endure not two, but three, three culturally appropriate square meals a day! Oh they shame they would suffer if those at home were to learn of this. And two of these meals are hot!  From what I understand they actually must suffer the indecision Americans feel every day when bombarded by an excess of choice. The poor men at each meal must choose between four meal options! Even after a lifetime of practice at navigating the culinary world of privilege have difficultly. It's cruel and wrong to force these individuals to make such unaccustomed decisions before they can eat! We don't force other prisoners to do 1,000 push-ups or beat a super computer in a game of chess before being served, so how do we morally justify making these men, men who've had no practice at choosing what to eat, decide before we give them food> Even more cruel is that these meals are in excess of 4,000 calories! We're forcing obesity, America's epidemic of excessive comfort and wealth, upon them.

They're required to endure the horrors of hot running water. Further, these detainees can't even take pride in finding their own means to keep their government supplied holy Koran off of the floor. We give them a sling to keep it from touching the ground and then paint arrows on the floor pointing the way to Mecca. I understand this is essentially a prison without all of the Geneva Convention restrictions, but really. Must we leave these detainees with no problems to surmount so that they can hold their heads high and call themselves men> They do not need to use the stars to determine directional orientation, so that they may use their wits to prove their devotion to Allah. Likewise, they do not need to improvise clever devices from their clothing to keep their sacred scripture sacredly off of the floor. 

They need not ever exert themselves. They do not need to think too hard or work to hard. They are being turned physically and mentally into sheep, with the government giving them all of the answers they will need, telling them where they should go and what they should do, depriving them of the need to think, to reason, to earn their place in the world, to question and problem solve. They are given access to legal council and are allowed to speak on their own defense. They do not need to do an honest day's work to provide their luxury, and thus can take no true pride in what they have. They are forced to eat themselves to death with fatty foods and oversized portions the way so many of us do every day. Their punishment is the most sick and twisted I have ever seen. These men who have fought so hard to bring down the American lifestyle are forced to endure the most ironic punishment man could devise. They are forced to live like Americans. 

Geneva needs to put a stop to this sick and twisted mind game. 

You have been informed.

Why People Are Jerks

Ladies and Gentlemen, how many times have customers yelled at you for getting their orders wrong even thought it was their fault? How often do you find yourself cut off in traffic by some angry guy who never learned to use his turn signal? Have you noticed how the likelihood of someone being a self-righteous jerk is directly proportionate to the individual's failure to adequately communicate what that person wants, be it no pickles or to make a left turn?

I used to assume that because these people are jerks, they take for granted that everyone will know exactly what they want based on some misguided sense that the world revolves around them. In other words, the poor communication stems from egocentric laziness. As it turns out, the truth is much more tragic.

There are psychics among us, telepaths mostly. The world is full of individuals capable of projecting their thoughts into the minds of others. Unfortunately, there are also those among us (most of us, it seems) who are unable to receive these telepathic messages. Thus, when working in, say, a movie theater box office, you may find yourself receiving an order that sounds something like this: "Can you tell me which is better? I want to see a different one, but she wants a repeat," or perhaps simply, "I'll take two" with no statement for movie or showtime or that one of these tickets is supposed to be a child's ticket.

The poor telepath becomes frustrated when you are unable to complete his order or answer his questions. It isn't as though he didn't give you all of the information. About half of it, he said out loud. The other half he thought, expecting you to be able to read his mind. After all, if you grow up able to read other people's minds, you tend to forget that others can't do the same. Orders get botched and our psychics are become angry when you swear they only said, "I'll take two," when they clearly said mentally "children's tickets to the 4:30 Cinderella."

These individuals believe everyone has telepathy and those who don't are simply too lazy or self-centered to pay attention when the psychics are thinking at them. The fact of the matter is, people aren't jerks, which leads to bad communication and arguments. Quite the opposite. They truely believe no one is paying attention when they mentally signal that they plan to change lanes and are enraged at the total disregard others seem to give their psychic communications. They're jerks to the rest of us because they think we deliberately never listen to them when they explain themselves so clearly.

This also explains how so many jerks are able to communicate with one another with but a look. Each party can send and receive these psychic messages.

You have been informed.

Amber Alerts and Your Food

Ladies and Gentlemen, everyone knows that, aside from telling you how nutritious your tasty, creamy glass of cold milk is, the sides of milk cartons help locate missing children. Today I discovered that some milk cartons will actually go out there and seek those missing kids out.

Such foodstuff innovation should be applauded. After all, it's not every day a dairy product does something to help people. Previous smiling dairymen Milk and Cheese have, in fact, done a great deal to promote lactose intolerance via their transcontinental sprees of violence and degradation. The creators of this newer, friendlier milk should be proud. They should receive medals or a guest spot on America's Most Wanted. But if you'll pay close attention, you'll notice the milk is generic. No one claims ownership to him. He's his own person, and that's great. It shows Milky possesses personal initiative. He's into strawberry milk, so he's a little liberal, but that's okay, I guess. The Cold War is over, so it isn't as bad to like a pinko commie carton o' moo juice. 

Still, why the anonymity> That milk is doing good service. Perhaps it just wants to do a good deed without the reward, like a true philanthropist and humanitarian. Surely from how uneasy he is on the streets, he's not a criminal. Or is he> I believe that the milk in question went bad in its youth, but was taken in by the family and given a chance to be a wholesome, productive, and all around nice guy. As such, when he sees the family's young son turn to the streets and the rock and roll music, he sought to save the boy from a similar fate. The milk saved the boy because he was seeking redemption. And it killed him. The boy killed him for bringing him back home. Again, appearances are deceptive. The boy wasn't behaving cruelly or ungratefully. He was releasing the milk. It suffered under the weight of its past sins from its former life. His charitable act allowed him to die in peace and earn his salvation (and score a dead girlfriend to boot!). Milk cartons with faces on the side, then, are not informing you of missing kids for your benefit. The picture is there to allow milk to atone from its crimes.

If you see a missing child on a milk carton, the lesson here is pay it no mind. If you leave the carton alone, it will find the kid for you and save its soul in the process. You wouldn't want to keep a poor sweet carton of milk out of heaven, would you>

You have been informed.

Are You One of the Chosen?

Ladies and Gentlemen, some time after Martin Luther, for lack of a Comments box, nailed a few complaints (ninety-five to be exact) to a door, and the Protestants used the Protestant Reformation to reform, a guy named John Calvin (for whom my favorite comic strip character is named) decided that only so many people were getting into heaven and those who were going to Heaven were already chosen. It was an idea called predestination. Essentially (to oversimplify a complex religious concept) that it doesn't matter what you do, God has already decided before the world even was who would be allowed through those Pearly Gates. Now, sure, that should take some of the burden off of people's minds. After all, fretting about it clearly won't change God's mind. However, there were those who just absolutely had to know if their name was on His Almighty Guest List before trying to show up to the party. The idea was that you could tell who was saved based on how successful they were mortally (again, to draw an oversimplification). After all, why would God allow someone he didn't like to have a highly lucrative business and someone he loved to be poor? So, material wealth and status were taken to be signs that God clearly approved of someone.

Now, what does this history/theocracy lesson have to do with us?

Today, I met hundreds of God's chosen. My place of employment is hosting a poker tournament and a lot of affluent individuals were present. I suspect these people were Chosen because not only were they financially successful, they got to do things like put their cigarettes out on the walls and flick their ashes on the floor when an ash tray is literally six inches away from them. They get to spit and swear and otherwise be socially unacceptable and we bend over backwards to cater to their every whim. The can toss trash onto the floor with their right hand when an identical action with the left would have put it in a trash can. They can squash their cigarettes out on the carpet. They can even chain smoke to the point of having asthmatic coworkers needing paramedics to give them oxygen. Now if that doesn't say, "There must be something really special about me for me to behave like this and not get in any trouble," nothing does.

It was kind of awe-inspiring being in the presence of so many people whose places in Heaven are clearly assured. I suspect, given my endless string of financial difficulties, that I am not on the Holy Guest List. I guess I'm ok with that. God seems to really like selfish jerks anyway, and I can live without spending eternity around them.

You have been informed.

Blue Collar For The Win!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I missed an important lesson growing up. It's a lesson that hit me in the face time and time again, and still I would pay it no mind. I went to college to teach because I thought it was the best way to change the world. That's what Dead Poets Society taught me. That's what The Emperor's Club and Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers and Stand and Deliver told me. But the real answer, the real key to saving the world was in front of me all the time. Blue collar work. The Republican Party constantly touts the blue collar worker as a hero, as the backbone of America. They're absolutely right. Mario and his brother Luigi are plumbers and they fight monsters and save the world all the time. Arthur, the Tick's partner, was a CPA. Mitchell Hundred, aka The Great Machine, did maintenance for the city before becoming a super hero and later mayor. The Toxic Avenger was a janitor. 

If I'd have paid attention when I was younger, I could have learned to be an electrician instead. Evidently, it's a growth industry whose career advancement opportunities include superheroism.

You have been informed.

Heartbroken Homeless Heroes

Ladies and Gentlemen, the movie Hancock made me realize something. Our superhero population is destined to suffer in our society. Granted, the plot of the movie did nothing to bring me to this realization. I'm not talking about murdered loved ones or the inevitable betrayal by the best friend who secretly turns out to be your arch-nemesis kind of suffering. I'm talking about being socially dysfunctional. I'm talking about a string of break-ups and pink slips. A superhero must keep his identity secret for the safety of his loved ones. After all, if every villain in the phone book knows who a hero is and where they live, it's only a matter of time before the significant other is thrown over one side of the bridge and a bus full of orphans over the other. The superhero will ultimately save the orphans, because deep down, all superheroes are utilitarians. They all believe that the action that produces the most good must be the best action. I suspect utilitarianism is, in fact, a prerequisite to gaining superpowers. But are we as citizens of the world the protect mandated to be utilitarian as well> After all, superheroes are forced to suffer in their own personal lives for our own well-being. Think about that. Every time you let Superman or the Green Lantern save you, you are essentially saying, "My happiness is more important than yours."

Alright, I've dwelled on this point for a while. I should explain. Superheroes must drop what they are doing and act at a moment's notice to save the world in times of crisis. How many dates, anniversaries, and school plays do you think these guys miss> And it isn't like they can say, "I'm off to save the world." They have secret identities. They have to say instead, "Honey, I'm sorry to rush off and miss the entire first act of our child's first play, but the boss really needs me to get that paperwork filed. You know, the paperwork I said I finished at the office today>" They get labeled by their loved ones as dead beats, workaholics, or even adulterers. Superheroism is a divorce mill. And while we're at it, how is a hero supposed to maintain a steady job if he's secretly skipping out of work for an hour or two at a time to go save the world or stop a robbery> Do you think any employer will allow that sort of absenteeism to go unpunished> I don't. What about the sheer number of "family emergencies" they have to attend to> What boss will believe your same child gets sick five times a week. But our heroes can't exactly give an honest explanation. Once again, they're bound by the secret identity, and they let the break-ups and the firings continue because, once more, their utilitarian needs are superseded by the needs of the many. Further, their alter egos gain reputations. He's an unreliable boyfriend. He's an irresponsible flake. He can't hold a down a job, so don't even bother hiring him. "Have you seen the resume of this guy> Twenty jobs in a year. We don't want to take that kind of risk."

The result is a batch of resentful, heartbroken heroes unable to afford a place to live, let alone eat. They suffer. Constantly. They become bitter alcoholics. Then, they realize that they're loaded with powers enough to gain everything they need and want, if they can just get past those ethics. Thus, another supervillain is born. Secret identities create villains. Or at least, secret identities left unchecked can create villains. 

We need to socialize superheroes. We already socialize our police force, and superheroes are like police, only with earth shaking powers and fewer restrictions (go illegal vigilanteism!). Sure, giving them a by-the-book, cigar smoking chief who will strip them of their badge right as they're about to solve the case will limit them with the handcuffs of red-tape bureaucracy, but it also provides them with reliable lifestyle. There's no worry about being fired for disappearing constantly for "family emergencies." (Unless of course, they're still faking family emergencies, in which case they were going to end up as super villains eventually anyway.) With reliable food and lodging (see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), the hero is much less likely to go rogue. Sure, they may still have many short-term relationships, but at least they'll have their own bed to sleep in when they get kicked out for missing another date. Voila. Our heroes don't have to suffer as much and we still get our day saved. Call your congressman (202-224-3121) and demand state sanctioned heroes to prevent villainy from becoming a growth industry.

You have been informed.

Egypt's Death Hotels

Ladies and Gentlemen, I like to think of myself as a friendly guy. I'm not one to judge based on race, class, or creed. That being said, I'd like to take a moment to speak the portion of the Islamic population that's trying to ban bellydancers and alcohol from their hotels. Did you miss my report yesterday on the importance of dancing? Sure, ban booze all you like. It's your prerogative. After all, according to Maslow, we have the need to drink, but booze dehydrates as the body tries to flush the intoxicating toxins from the body, so drinking is counter productive. But I wrote a whole piece about the importance of dancing to continued human survival. Did you miss it? It explained how dancing is as important as eating, breathing, and breeding to our ongoing existance. Are you trying to kill these poor bellydancers? You may remark that it is too racy, to sexy for married couples and families to witness. Fair enough. The married couples are already breeding and meeting their needs. But what about the dancer? She needs to support herself. She needs to buy food, and so she uses one need to draw attention to another. She dances. She sways her uncovered belly about as if to say, "Do you see this belly? I left it uncovered for you to have a good look. Examine this flat tummy. Not an ounce of fat. Please pay me so that I may eat."

Do you not see? You are depriving the poor woman of two of life's necessities: eating and dancing. Is this not considered torture? Is this not prolonged homicide? How long can the human body go without dancing before it dies? Without air, several minutes, without water, several days, without food several weeks. Though all evidence is anecdotal without years of scientific research to support it, following the short lifespans of those deprived of other physiological needs, surely these bellydancers, even if able to scrounge scraps, cannot hope to live for more than two months tops without the ability to dance. Let them live. Let them dance.

You have been informed.

An Update to Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm sure I've spoken about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs before in this blog, but for those of you who do not know what it is, it's a, well, it's a hierarchy of needs that people need met to be well adjusted. The bottom level must be met before the level above it becomes important, and so on, essentially stating that we can't reach our full potential as self-actualized human beings until all of our lesser needs are met.


As you can see, the order of importance for needs is as follows:

1. Physiological needs such as air, food, sleep, pooping, and sex must be met if we're to care about anything else. After all, if you're starving, are you really thinking about what's on friends tonight? No. That's why mice go for food on mouse traps. Risks to safety, priority 2, are outweighted by the need to eat.
2. Saftey needs are the next to be met. We need shelter to make sleep more reliable, employment to ensure we are able to eat tomorrow.We need others to help watch over us as we sleep to keep us safe. Once immediate needs are met, we start to ensure that we'll be able to meet these physical needs in the foreseeable future.
3. Now we need love and belonging. We have everything we need to survive. Now we need to ensure that we enjoy what we have. Beggers can't be choosers, but now that we've reached this level, we have what we need, we want it better. We want to like the people who look out for us and we want those providing sex to be people we can deal with when the sex part isn't happening.\
4. Now that we're happy with everything around us, we have food, we have love, we need to be happy with ourselves.
5. Finally, at the self-actualization stage, now that we like everything around us, we have to find something to keep us from being bored with how great things are, so we use our creativity, we are driven by the need to solve problems. Essentially, now that everything else is great, we need to have something to work on to, something to create or improve or we'll feel useless.

So what does this long mess of psychology have to do with anything? The team down at Sony has created, free of charge, something called Home for the Playstation 3. It's a virtual world in which people can, in theory, form deep connections and lasting friendships with those they play with online. However, according to one user, it seems like all anyone ever does in the virtual city is flirt and dance. When we look at the hierarchy of needs, the reason for this becomes glaringly apparant. At the physiological level, almost all needs are met by the very nature of the game. The in game avatars require no food or water and as such do not need to use the bathroom. Breathing is rarely an issue, and the same can be said for heat and cold, making homeostasis a non-issue as well. Characters simply aren't programmed to worry about these things. But what about sex? If it weren't important, why do designers program in both genders, particularly in rather attractive forms? The mind of the player still responds to the overt sexuality in the game while shrugging off the character's lack of need for food and sleep. As such, before people can make these deep meaningful online friendships they need online sex. Ok, the flirting is an attempt to replicate that. But what about the dancing?

It's a fact that almost every MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) has commands to make your character dance. Some online games are dedicated exclusively to dancing. Clearly this is some deep-seated need of the human condition. Dozens of movies are made about the need to dance: Flashdance, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Take the Lead, Save the Last Dance, and that one scene from Hot Rod. Even in Jane Austen's book Pride and Predjudice, Mr. Darcy comments that "Every savage can dance."

Ok, so we all like to dance, but do we need to? After careful examination of Maslow's hierarchy, yes. Yes we do. You see, if we must flirt, if we must seek sex, even online, then we cannot do anything else online until we find said sex, hence the prevalence of porn on the internet. According to the hierarchy, we cannot seek lasting friendships until the potential to mate has been secured. Hence all the flirting online in chatrooms before anyone even considers having a real conversation. That being said, we wouldn't desire to dance until all physiological needs are met. A quick survey of these MMORPGs, however, reveals that we are clearly not meeting these needs. Therefore, if we must flirt AND dance, it can only mean that dancing is a physiological need on par with eating and breathing and needs to be added to the most fundemental level of human need. If we cannot dance, we cannot live. We can have no friends unless we dance first. We can have no job unless we dance first. We cannot respect ourselves unless we can dance. I believe no one has made the need to dance as clear as our good friends Men Without Hats.

Therefore, I shall wrap up this mini-thesis on the newly discovered importance of dancing to continued human existance with the following thought, before you can succeed any day of the week, after you wake up and have your breakfast but before you step out that front door, dance as if your life depends on it, because according to Maslow, it does.

You have been informed.