8th Grade Syndrome

Newt Gingrich was pontificating the other day, as is his wont, about the just completed midterms, giving the Republican party spin that it wasn’t all that bad, got control of the House, yadda yadda, but had to admit the much anticipated ‘red wave’ turned out to be nothing more than a slightly higher tide than usual. Seemed to surprise him and he concluded that maybe, just maybe, he needs to reevaluate his political thinking. 

‘Bout time.

It’s been rather clear to those of us not blinded by party and politics that a goodly portion of the American people have reached a fatal level of self-absorption and illogic, what I like to call “8th grade syndrome.” ‘Why can’t we all get along?’ is the central core of their social and cultural stance and they firmly believe material goods and security and recreation are freely and deservedly provided by dufus parents who Just Don’t Understand Me. So, they vote accordingly, for anyone who promises to give them anything for free; against anyone they think is mean i.e., anyone who talks like a dufus parent, i.e., conservatives; and for anyone they feel sorry for, i.e., Fetterman. The result? Over the past twenty years, there has been an increasing Balkanization of the populace, somewhat along the same lines that split the Romans and the Visigoths, with about as much chance of compromise.

Newt and the other Republican party mavens have, of course, missed this. Having moved from one civilized environment to the next - middle class family to middle class college and career - they developed a logical and common-sense view of human behavior. Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs and western civilization’s inspirations and motivations for family, relevance, and prosperity form the convictions and subsequent voting patterns of the populace. In normal times those are givens and the various political parties set their platforms based on them, the Republicans for an orderly society in which anyone can participate by exertions of their own efforts, the Democrats for more assistance to those who have somehow missed the chance to participate, the one-off lunatic fringe parties for their various single issues, such as the environment or anarchy.  

That was then, this is now.

Pocketbook issues and common sense are now only the province of a rapidly dwindling boomer generation, which was the last one raised with individuality, respect, and optimism. We now have the Nietzsche generations ascending, and they have far more loyalty to themselves than they do to social structures. Anything that promotes their own well-being and the advantage of their friends over others has their attention. They are far more akin to the 18th Century aristocracies than they are to the American yeoman class, seeking power and wealth and control over yon peasants who still cling to those outmoded concepts of individual rights and sacrifice and responsibility.

Which is why they vote for Fetterman. Because a brain-dead pseudo-Marxist is far more likely to help install the neo-corporatist state that they feel will bring about the eight-grade world they have long dreamed of than will some fussing farmer boy spouting self-reliance and more police.

Which means, of course, that all former bets are off. So, Newt, and everyone else who still thinks elections will save us, y’all best re-evaluate.

It Matters Now

Race, I mean. It didn't used to, at least, not to me. I grew up an Army brat, and practically every place I lived was a mini-UN, with whites and blacks and Asians and Latinos and some categories you never heard of running around. We all played with each other, we all hung out together. My Dad was a true-blue racist, as was my Mom on occasion, but it didn't take. While he railed against blacks and Chinese (in significantly egregious terms), I was with them down the street. All the things he said about them just wasn't my, or most of my peers, experience. Seemed to be generational: our Depression-era World War 2 veteran type parents were a lot of racists, while most of us, their kids, weren't. Familiarity breeds nonchalance.

But now?

I don't know the point in time where it changed, but I'm guessing the OJ Simpson trial. I mean, in the face of overwhelming evidence, he's acquitted? Because of non-specific racism against blacks at some point in history, and because no one likes the LAPD? Oh, c'mon!

Oh. C'mon.

Because if there is one thing that shows whites and blacks are universes apart in their understandings and concepts, it's that trial. I was utterly baffled by the verdict, but a black guy I knew, wasn't. He exulted. And I looked at him, speechless; two people were butchered, and it simply didn't matter, because some black guy was a slave 150 years before. Nicole Simpson died for our sins.

And since then: Hurricane Katrina, the Duke Lacrosse team, the Philadelphia Black Panthers, the Cambridge police acting stupidly (at least, according to the post-racial President), Don Imus...and now this Zimmerman trial.

I am baffled, again, by some of the things I've heard from blacks on the radio and TV: Zimmerman shouldn't have gotten out of his car, he shouldn't have followed, he just should have taken the beating...

What. The. Hell?

And there's no need to go into it, seek an explanation, understand it, because the problem is obvious: whites and blacks are universes apart. We don't even speak the same language. We are two distinct alien species with absolutely nothing in common. And I guess it's always been that way, regardless of my experiences when growing up.

That's sad. Really, really sad. 

A modest proposal

The schools have gone completely insane. Suspending a kid for a Pop-Tart gun (it goes 'pop,' right?) or, as Chris Plante (a national treasure) talked about today, suspending another kid because he wanted to defend his school from a Sandy Hook Elementary-type massacre...wow. It seems 90-year-old brownshirt nuns have taken over the school system.

And what did you expect? For the past twenty years, the school system has waged a massive behavioral modification campaign to change little boys and little girls into little robots: ve are goink to eliminate ze violence in ze system. Make tag and pointy-gun-finger a capital offense. Promote homosexuality to give the little girls shopping partners, not eeeevil beer-swilling oppresive male husbands. Tart up the little girls and teach them about condoms so pedophiles will have an easier time of it. Dispense Adderol like candy.

And, really, it's so far advanced and ingrained in the entire public school system that no amount of lawsuits, outrage, and pulling your kids out is going to fix it. Noting can fix the public schools, which have become expensive, intrusive, and incapable.  

So, shut down public education. All of it.

Oh no! How will our precious little children ever learn about Dick and Jane? There'll be anarchy! Ignorance! Illiteracy! Dogs and cats living together!

 

Well, no.

After you've tossed the Marxist educational apparatus out the window, you pass two very simple laws: (a) no one can obtain a driver's license without a high school diploma, and (b) no one can work more than 10 hours a week without said diploma.

What??? WHAT?? How can someone get a high school diploma without a school to go to??? How can you deny a 16-year-old the joy of getting a license?? And how in the heck is McDonald's going to staff the front counter???

Easy. Get your GED. Then you're set.

Imagine. All across your town, hundreds of different schools would pop up. Some would just be bare bones Mom-and-Pop operations run out of a garage, teaching just enough to pass that GED. Others would be lovely institutions in (former) public school buildings, teaching Latin and Chemistry and Calculus to those who want more than a GED; you know, all those kids who wants to be doctors and lawyers and physicists. If all you want to do is join Daddy's roofing business, then great, go get your GED by the least expensive and fastest means possible, at 12 years old, if you can. But, let's face it, any 12-year-old who can pass the GED probably wants to do more than roofing, maybe be an archeologist, instead. So he enrolls in the Latin school.

But it'll be too expensive! No, it won't, it'll be pretty cheap. First, these schools need your kids to enroll, so they're going to have to keep their tuitions reasonable. And you'll have more money to pay for it because taxes will plummet. You'll be paying for only your school, not every other school in the county like you do now, whether you have kids or not.

And. boy, wouldn't this radically alter the colleges? Instead of an outrageously expensive four-year Communications degree just to learn how to run a recording studio, you could, instead, go to a much less expensive community college and get a certificate to do exactly the same thing. Without all the ridiculous courses that raise your tuition by, oh, say 1000%. In fact, the universities would have to get downright serious because they'd be competing against cheaper, faster, better ways of getting a great job. They'd actually have to become places of research and thought, instead of diploma mills and centers of Marxist indoctrination.

Utopia, people.

We're All Gay Now

According to the news and Hollywood and polls and Republican leadership, that is. I doubt it. Methinks there is, instead, some creative polling going on, along with wishful thinking and the normal idiocy that is a hazard of being young. Which is puzzling, because, really, gay? Are you serious?

I put homosexuality in the same category as pedophilia, incest, bestiality, whatever we used to think was degenerate behavior (I say "used to think" because there's been some movement along those lines, too). It's like marrying a goat. And this does not make me homophobic. Not in the least. I have absolutely no fear of homosexuals. I am, instead, rather contemptuous of them.

Call me, then, homoscornic.

My attitude can be summed up in Sam Kinison's rather poignant question: How can a man look at another man's hairy ass and find love? Seriously, how? Men, at best, are just functional, while women, even the worst of them, are works of art. Stand a naked man and a naked women next to each other and note where the symmetry and beauty lie. And which parts actually fit together, indeed, seem to be DESIGNED to fit together. With ease. Not with a lot of effort and Vaseline.

I regard homosexuality as nothing more than arrested development. Gay guys never really got past the "Girls are icky" stage, and remember their middle school circle jerks with great fondness. They developed such a regard for ejaculation that they are willing to find another man equally in love with his and do unspeakable things to each other in order to achieve it. And they think that's love.

It isn't. No one over 14 mistakes orgasm with love...well, at least they didn't before the 30 year effort to reduce all relationships to mere orgasm. And since we all now believe that all relationships are measured primarily by the amount and level of sex contained therein, then a homosexual's particular brand of ejaculation is just one shade of gray. So why can't they get married?

Why can't brother and sister? Brother and goat?

Oh, tut, says the gay lobby, a goat or a child can't enter into a contract so marriage with them would never happen.

Yeah? Just give it some time.

And, please understand, because I am scornful of you doesn't mean I want to put you gay guys in jail or stone you or burn you at the stake or anything. You wanna be gay, knock yourselves out. Broadway is a better place because of it. Set up house together. Have a ball. Or two.

But don't think for a second I will ever consider you legitimate, even if the Supreme Court loses what's left of its mind and sanctions your marriage. You can't make a horse a Senator. Lots of horses' asses are, but no actual horses. And no gay guy will ever be anything more to me than a guy in love with another guy's hairy ass.

Now, lesbians. You're okay. Just take a lot of pictures.

What it takes to be President

They're all abuzz on the radio today about Condeleeza Rice. I love Condeleeza Rice. She is a brilliant Soviet scholar who can stand toe-to-toe with Putin and his gang of thugs. I would pick her for National Security Advisor or Secretary of State again. But VP? Nope. Waste of her talents.

Amidst all the buzz, some pundit asked if Rice, or Rubio or Pawlenty or whoever, had the experience to be President. That one heartbeat away thing and all.

Experience to be President? Where, exactly, does one get such experience?

Oh, c'mon, Schlub, that's easy— you get it from being a Senator or Congressman or mayor or governor, yeah, especially governor, 'cause that's like being a minature President.

Uh, no.

All that "experience" makes you a better politician. And politicians are the LAST persons who should be President. Indeed, all the people you think should be President, shouldn't.

Let's take Ronald Reagan as an example. Guy should never have been President. I mean, an actor? With chimps? Divorced? Didn't go to Harvard, either. A governor, sure, but you know, California, the Twilight Zone. Wore a cowboy hat, too, so just not the sophisticated brie-eatin' Foreign-Affairs-published sophisticate we want to elect so Europeans will stop calling us rubes.

Won in a landslide, yes, but only because of the same "infected toe" situation we are in today: running against Jimmy Carter, who was Obama Lite. Besides, winning by a landslide is no measure of Presidential stature, as the current situation proves.

It's what you do afterwards.

Reagan was an astonishingly brilliant President, the best one of these modern times, a hero, a wonder. And he shouldn't have been, given professional politicians' criteria for leading. So, why was he?

Simple. He regarded these truths to be self-evident:

a. The individual is more important than the mass.

b. The United States is an aberration, historically unique, and while this model serves as example, it only works here. Be grateful, be awestruck, that you are an American.

c. Nothing can be accomplished through government. Indeed, government must diminish so the individual can flourish.

d. Rights are inherent, not granted.

Find me that person. Don't care how old they are, what their job is, where they live. That person is a President.

Expelled

The sheer genius that is Community continues apace, with that astonishing tribute to Starburns and subsequent disciplinary action.

E Pluribus Anus.

Assemble

Avengers, that is.

Schlub and Baby Schlub went to the Mighty Marvel Marathon at Tyson's Corner, preceding the midnight release of The Avengers. What an absolute blast. Iron Man, Cap, the Wasp, Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow were there. What's funny, Iron Man told me none of them knew each other, they just all happened to show up appropriately dressed. Wasp and I advised Widow that she really wasn't an Avenger, never was, but she is so kick-ass she gets a by.

And then the movie...

Schlub, and every other Marvel True Believer, has been waiting 50 years for this movie.

Masterpiece. 

It's back!

Community, that is. A small sacrifice involving Alec Baldwin’s ears will be made to the TV gods, in gratitude.

Troy and Abed being normal.

The Hulk.

Man, perfect.

Dan Harmon for president.

Might as well be Gossip Girl

Schlub is a big fan of the PBS series Downton Abbey. Yeah, yeah, PBS, bastion of Marxist culture, living on government largesse because they eschew the vulgarity of, ewww! commercials (Viking River Cruises notwithstanding). But sometimes they latch onto a pretty good British series and the Schlub will watch. After all, I’m paying for it.

And since Schlub is enamored of All Things Modernist, especially the last gasp of Victorian aristocracy just before World War 1, Abbey quickly became a favorite. At least, the first season, which was masterful.

But I think the producers of American Idol have snuck in the back, gassed all the writers, and replaced them with the staff of Dallas. Because this season has turned into a prime time soap opera.

Plot points abound: Lord Grantham kissing Jane, which you could see coming a mile away; Matthew’s miraculous recovery; Sir Richard turning into Snidely Whiplash; Livinia’s very convenient death by Spanish Flu (which the doctor treated like some nuisance common cold); Bates’ arrest for murder, also available for viewing several miles away…oh brother. Makes Schlub want to walk over to some random corner and throw up.

No doubt the writers intended a single season. Their target audience was familiar with the events of the early 20^th and knew Downton was going the way of Tara, so pass gently into that good night.  But unexpected popularity and a frenzied demand for more and the writers are sitting around the table bewildered, going “What do we do?” At that point, some guy in a checkered suit and loud tie bursts in shouting “I’ll tell ya what we do!”…and here we are.

To quote Hobson, “How revolting.”

Apologies to Dan Harmon

Okay, Dan, I was wrong. W-R-O-N-G. These last few Community episodes have been brilliant. Just friggin’ brilliant. Up to your standards. Documentary Filmmaking, Studies in Modern Movement... Ruptured my stomach lining, I did.

So, those previous episodes that Schlubster took issue with- throwaways? Filler? Some exec’s son put on the writing staff? S’okay. Things is good again.

What's goin' on?

The one or two of you who occasionally read this blog knows the Schlubster is a big fan of Community. Sheer genius, that show...

...but not this season.

The opener was good, vintage Community, but the last few shows...WTF? The characters are just way over the top. Admittedly, that's an odd criticism for a show that makes it's living on over-the-topness, but they are becoming cartoons of themselves. And not part of a wacky Christmas episode, either.

They're becoming The Office.

Which was not a good show. No, it wasn't. Any of that Dunder Mifflin behavior would have resulted in massive employer lawsuits in about five minutes, so I couldn't accept Office's premise. I have been on campuses like Greendale, so it's believable.

But, no more. Jumped the shark, mayhaps?

Eh. Happens. There's only so many good ideas in any given premise, and it's hard to sustain because we expect people to grow or change or become something else (hear that, 2/12 Men?). Good example is Scrubs, which remained brilliant throughout its true run (not that unbelieveably bad second effort, you know, the one set at the medical school. Although I really liked the tough chick) and went out with some class. Gotta know when to fold 'em, TV writers.

Maybe Dan Harmon is taking a little revenge on the Emmys for lack of nomination/award. You want us to dumb it down? Okay, check THIS season out! I certainly hope not.

Should just fold, guys.

Root of all Evil

Government is out of control. Health care is out of control. Schlub admits this may be the linking of disparate topics, but no, not really, and not for the reasons you think.

In 1913, the US amended the Constitution to collect income taxes. In 1965, the US instituted Medicare. How do they relate?

It’s where the money is.

Both changed government and medicine from service organizations to profit centers. Before the income tax, most persons sought government office from a sense of obligation. Yes, yes, often it was noblesse oblige, but, still, they gave up jobs or positions and spent a few years in the swamps of DC Serving the People. And yes, yes, there were notorious exceptions. But for most, it wasn’t a career; for most, it was an annoying but obligatory interruption of their career, to be endured and then forgotten.

Same with doctors. Up to 1965, they made house calls and took bags of potatoes in exchange for treatment. It was a priesthood, a life dedicated to healing.

But, throw in gobs of money, and now, government and medicine are places to get rich.

Off of you.

More Salmon for Kunta Kinte

Just watched my TIVO’d episode of Community, the one where Pierce gets his revenge. In awe, I am. Sheer friggin' genius. Just like last week's episode, the librarian, and the week before's, Dungeons and Dragons, the Don’t Do Drugs one before that. Epic. Each of them. Each of them, the best episode they ever did. Until you get to the next episode.

How is that possible?

At first, I suspected aliens, but executive producer Dan Harmon doesn’t look like a lizard wearing a human mask. Looks like Bill Murray, instead. Which may be explanation enough, and that his writers are God-touched wizards, the progeny of a very select breeding program secretly initiated decades ago among Mensa members.

Community is, hands down, the greatest television show ever. Just ever. Not only that, it is the best written television show ever. Ever. E. Ver.

And yet, the ratings suck. Por que?

Because... American Idol is the most popular show on television. No further explanations necessary.

Let's get real over Egypt, shall we?

There is much, much talk on the radio about the “democratization” going on in Egypt. If that’s what you want to call it, fine. The usual talking heads are telling us we need to be supportive of (a) the mobs and/or (b) a chastened Mubarrak who will, after seeing the light, allow the incremental establishment of a good, just, wonderfully free society where there had been, hitherto, none.

Stop it. Please.

There is no Democracy Fairy waving a magic wand over the Great Unwashed and presto-ing them into bicameral government and constitutional law. That so many believe in this Fairy is the delusion of our own favors- because we here, in this unique country, a true aberration of history, enjoy a democratic form of self-governance, we believe all shall want, and shall have, our fortune.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Foist of all, you gotta remember we were thrown out of every perfectly good country in Europe and Asia because we are, collectively, a mongrelized bunch of malcontents who chafe at authority and will pick a fight with anyone at any time for any reason. Not the docile, wheat threshing peasants the kings and dictators of the Old World desired. So, they gave us the ole heave-ho, and we, somehow, managed to throw together a type of governance that works well for our temperament. Our temperament. No one else’s.

Twoist, all of the dog-poor dirt eating countries over which we fret have had at least 200 years to take the measure of our success and decide if this is the way to go. Please note, they haven’t. They remain as dog-poor and dirt eating as they were at about, oh, say, the year 1132. Christian calendar. The only persons in those dog-poor countries who had even a modicum of democratic urge made there way here and are now fat, dumb and happy Americans, and to them, mazeltov, welcome, good to have ya. But the home countries remain dog poor.

Why is that? Because the rage in their hearts and the urge to kill Boris’ goat is far more important than self-governance. They are peasants in their thinking, and always will be. So, the chances of something similar to Congress and the electoral college emerging from the looting of the Alexandria museum is slim, to none.

I hope I’m wrong. Please feel free to let me know if it turns out I am. But the only evangelization you can do is religious, and the person evangelized has to make a personal decision. You can’t evangelize a form of government. That’s what the Soviets do. Or did. Or are still doing, who knows with those guys.

A country has interests. Not friends. Protect those.

Al Gore, Bring a Shovel

There's 30 inches of global warming in my backyard. Take a look...

Scrubs

Big fan of the old show, thought the finale was superb, figured syndication, re-runs, I'm good. But, they bring it back! So, I watched the premier. Like the premise, think Dr. Denise is quite the hot young thing, but they are just trying way too hard to be Scrubs. Relax, guys, got nothin' to prove. Be a new show, not a painful shadow of the old one.

Yabba dabba doo time

They had some kind of gay march in DC over the weekend, and I don’t mean a lot of light hearted people singing show tunes. Or, maybe I do. I’m sure it was quite festive. It gave Baracula a preview of his upcoming military, I suppose.

But I gotta say, dudes, please, spare me. It’s not a civil rights issue into which particular set of noxious body orifices you wish to place your organs, or to what degree of bizarre flex you are willing to subject yourself. No, it’s a matter of what lengths you are willing to go to achieve ejaculation, and nowhere, even with the closest reading of the Constitution, do I find that protected by the Bill of Rights. And don’t get all Commerce Clause on me and say “pursuit of happiness.” Your willingness to do unspeakable things to yourself and others for the sake of your fifteen seconds of bliss does not fall under happiness anymore than does a heroin overdose.

“But Schlub! It’s not a choice, it’s who we are and you have to accept us.“ Uh, no, I don’t. Your urges to splay another man’s hairy rear end is not something I have to accept or tolerate or feel anything but utter contempt about. As far as I’m concerned, you are no different than a guy who marries a goat. And please don’t try that “gay gene” crap. You may very well have strong overwhelming urges to be spiked by another man, but urges do not justify, no more than urges by NAMBLA to spike 8 year old little boys justify that behavior.

What you won't admit is that your gayness is nothing more than arrested development. See, all of us went through that He-Man Women Hater’s Club period, but most of us outgrew it. You never did, because you like your ejaculation more than you like anything else. See, with girls, in order to maneuver them into a willingness to assist with that ejaculation, you gotta be nice to them. Buy ‘em things. Show you will be sticking around for the inevitable babies born of that ejaculation assist. Your attitude is, ‘the heck with that, I just want to ejaculate,’ so you find a like minded guy and you selfishly pound each other in untoward ways and fool yourselves that you’ve got a relationship, that you love each other.

Uh uh.

You just love your stiffie.

Seeds

Pat Buchanan has an article on Townhall asking whether America is coming apart. He bewails our balkinization and loss of shared culture, but it’s a good bewailing, Pat, I don’t imply a criticism. He seems a bit bewildered, in a “how could this happen?” kind of way, and I suspect a device because Pat knows how it started.

The seeds were planted in the 30’s.

Oh, here you go, Schlub, going onto the FDR trope again. Well, yeah, ’cause if you haven’t figured it out by now, ideas have long term effect, which is why some ideas, like Communism and Nazism, are debilitating and cancerous and simply should be wiped out. Look at it. We came very close in the 30’s to giving up the Constitution and turning into a collective. There was a lot of push for it. FDR was the American Stalin, and he surrounded himself with a lot of bright eyed youngsters who had met Joe Stalin, loved him, and thought collectivization was the cat’s meow. They made a giant effort in that direction and, IMHO, at least half succeeded. What is Social Security but the socialism of retirement? America had been set up for it by a national enamoring of All Things Russian, by the stupidity of Hoover (who was NOT a conservative), and by the huge push of labor organizers and groups like the Wobblies. We was all thinnin’ this commie social structure twern’t half bad. Couple that with the Depression and the way many businesses and corporate leaders put on their Marie Antoinette masks, and you’re set.

But, then, hey, the nature of man asserts itself and you get Stalin and Hitler’s pact and then Poland and then that whole Word War 2 thing and America slaps itself upside the head and goes, “What we were thinking?” Go over there, kick some ass, put our national character back up on the pedestal, and try to forget what we were doing earlier. Except we didn’t forget. A lot of those 30’s persons still held fond memories of the pre-Hitler Stalin and the horrors of the war reinforced their desire for a utopian world. So they turned to us, their kids, and said, “We’re going to make a better world for you.” They lavished us with gifts and toys and cars and better food and TV and wonderful education theories from Dewey and wonderful parenting from Spock and Sarte-inspired self-absorption and thought we could have both worlds: a benevolent centralized direction of our lives coupled with individuality and self-made prosperity.

But you can’t.

It’s an either/or situation. You are either a free and independent individual making your way based on your own capabilities, or you are part of the mass directed by some larger power. And given the choice of the tough, individual life filled with much struggle and disappointment, or a relatively benign life where the biggest struggle is whether your Mom likes your boyfriend or not and which college you should attend, where do most people opt?

You cannot maintain a culture of rugged individualism when the majority base ruggedness on the kind of latte they're offered. When “my country” is replaced by “me,” things fall apart.

But you already know that, Pat.

We're the hippies now

Whoda thought the dope smoking maggotry of the 60's and 70's, marching around with big signs about Tricky Dick and Give Peace a Chance, long haired flower shirted earth shoe wearing hiho boys and girls, possessed of A Greater Insight, would grow up and face their own home-grown insurgency? Plumbers and housewives, no less. And they are shocked, shocked! that an ungrateful peasantry spurns their wonderfully sincere thoughts of goodness and helping and unicorns.

What goes around...

Tell ya, the first time Joe Biden says "nattering nabobs of negativity," I'm growing my hair out.