A GRIM FAIRY TALE – THE ZOMBIE KITTEN

It is that spooky time of year again, and that means more Grim Fairy Tales.  This next one was pulled from the archives of the now defunct but fondly remembered Journalspace that, like a ghost, was there one minute, and then vanished the next.

.

THE ZOMBIE KITTEN

Once upon a time there was a zombie kitten.

.

.

The story of how she became a zombie is long and complicated and would be a huge waste of time to tell.

.

.

All you need to know is that she was a kitten who died and came back to life as a zombie.

.

.

Which meant she was very sad.  No children wanted to pet or cuddle her.  They would always run in abject terror when they saw her.

You see, being a zombie meant she had an insatiable desire to kill other creatures and eat their brains.  To be honest, it didn’t cause any trouble as long as she was hunting birds and rodents and eating their brains.  But it didn’t stop with birds and rodents.  And that really prevented her from becoming a pet that is loved.  Which is all she wanted.  She just wanted to be loved.

.

.

She tried everything to find a family to adopt her.  She would run into houses when the door opened.  She would mew piteously in the rain.  She spent a small fortune and used a lot of favors to put up posters showing her picture with the words “lost kitten” in the hopes that someone would see her and take her in while her true owners were located.  She hoped some nice family would just fall in love with her and want to keep her.

.

.

These tactics worked once or twice.  But the whole brain-eating thing always ended up ruining everything.

One rainy night, some family she was haunting finally had enough of her running into their house when the door was open and mewing piteously in the rain. They tricked her into a box, baited with some cow brains, and took her to the Animal Shelter where they tossed her unceremoniously into the night drop box.

.

.

The shelter staff didn’t know what to do with her. It soon became evident that she was a zombie kitten and she was put in a cage all alone. The shelter staff knew no one would claim her and that no one coming in to adopt a pet would want a pet that would eventually attack them and try to eat their brains. So they had to kill her, but how do you kill one of the Undead?  No one at the shelter was willing or ready to shoot that zombie kitten in the head.

 Eventually they decided to cremate her along with a load of gassed, unwanted, unclaimed, unloved animals. The shelter staff didn’t know if this would work, but they figured it was worth a try.

.

.

Then – on the day the zombie kitten was scheduled for cremation – in walked a man and a woman and their daughter.  They were a zombie family looking for a pet. Ordinarily, zombies are not allowed to adopt children or pets – for obvious reasons – but the shelter made an exception and let the zombie family adopt the zombie kitten.

It was a win-win solution for all concerned.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  You never know.

 

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PAUL RYAN

[In this frankly fictitious interview, Congressman Paul Ryan – Mitt Romney’s choice for Vice President – talked with People of Earth about his recent refusal to discuss Mitt’ Romney’s tax proposals because it would take too long to explain.]

PEOPLE OF EARTH:  Congressman Ryan, let’s cut to the chase.  You recently appeared on Fox News and refused to discuss yours and Mitt Romney’s tax proposals because it would take too long to explain.

RYAN:  That’s right.  When Mitt Romney and I are elected, within the first 100 days of our first term in office we will cut every American’s taxes by 20%.

POE: How will you do that?

RYAN:  We will do it by closing tax loopholes.

POE:  Which ones?

RYAN:  Isn’t America great, Paul?

.

.

POE:  Hold on. Let’s not get distracted.

RYAN:  What? Do you deny that America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen?

.

.

POE:  About your tax proposals –

RYAN:  It’s about freedom, Paul.

.

The freedom to die in the street.

.

POE:  Congressman Ryan, I will talk with you about freedom later –

RYAN:  Freedom is great.

POE:  No argument there.  But –

RYAN:  It is great to be free.

POE: How would you cut taxes 20% for all Americans?

RYAN:  Could you repeat the question?

POE: How would you cut taxes 20% for all Americans?

RYAN:  We would do it by eliminating tax loopholes.

POE:  Which ones?

RYAN: Which ones what?

POE: Which tax loopholes would you eliminate to cut every American’s taxes by 20%?

RYAN:  We would cut a lot of them.

POE:  Yes, but which ones?

RYAN:  Well, it would take a lot of time to answer that question, Paul, so I would rather not do it.

POE:  We have all the time in the world.  Please feel free to explain.

RYAN:  I have many demands on my time. I am busy trying to save America from being destroyed by a secret Muslim socialist baby killer.

POE:  Clearly, you are a busy man.  So let’s use what time we have left hearing your explanation of how you and Mitt Romney are going to cut taxes by closing tax loopholes.

RYAN:  The explanation involves a lot of math.

.

.

POE:  Do you understand the math?

RYAN:  I sure do!  I have the reputation in congress of being a number cruncher.

.

“I TOTALLY crunched these numbers, you crunching mother cruncher!”

.

POE:  Good, then why don’t you explain what you understand?

RYAN:  Because, even though I understand it – because I am real smart – it would take too long for you to understand it.

POE:  I am real smart, too.

RYAN:  Not as smart as me.

POE:  I have advanced degrees in mathematics and economics.

RYAN:  There still isn’t enough time for me to explain it.

.

.

POE:  So you just want America to take it on faith that you are right – without any explanation before the election.

RYAN:  Bingo. On the nose.  Yes, exactly.

.

.

POE:  But why should we believe you?  You lied to us about running a marathon in record time.

.

.

RYAN:  (Laughing) yeah, I did lie about that, didn’t I?  But this is different.  I’m telling the truth here.  Mitt and I have a great plan to cut taxes by closing tax loopholes and it is a great plan but it is too complex for the average voter to understand.

POE: Okay. Then let’s try to apply some basic math here.  You want to cut taxes by eliminating tax loopholes.  That doesn’t add up.

RYAN:  Sure it does.

POE:  No it doesn’t.  People use tax loopholes to cut their taxes, to pay less tax.  Eliminating a tax loophole will increase the taxes for people who rely on those loopholes.  So by eliminating tax loopholes you are just shifting the tax burden from one group to another.  Some may see a tax decrease, but others will see a tax increase.

RYAN:  Not if you cut spending.  If you cut spending, then the tax reductions won’t increase the deficit because we are spending less than we are taking in overall.

POE:  You are talking about trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

RYAN: (Pausing) uh huh.

.

.

POE:  What spending are you going to cut?

RYAN:  Isn’t America great, Paul?

POE:  Don’t change the subject.  True or false: you are proposing huge tax cuts for the richest Americans.

RYAN:  Can you repeat the question?

POE: Yes or no: you are proposing huge tax cuts for the richest Americans.

RYAN:  You changed the question from “true or false” to “yes or no.”

POE:  I did that to make it easier for you to answer. Here is the question again – yes or no: you are proposing huge tax cuts for the richest Americans.

RYAN:  Yes.

POE:  Yes or no:  without an increase in taxes or, in the alternative, a cut in spending, cutting taxes for the wealthy will cause further budget deficits.

RYAN: We prefer to call rich people “job creators.”

POE:  My question, again is – yes or no:  without tax increases or spending reductions, cutting taxes for the wealthy will cause further budget deficits.

RYAN:  Yes. President Obama failed to -

POE:  Yes or no:  if elected, you will not cut military spending, corporate welfare, tax breaks for oil companies, or federal give-aways to red states with Republican majorities, but will, instead, cut education funding, food and safety regulations, entitlement programs for the poor and elderly.

RYAN: No, that isn’t true.  We are going to save Medicare and social security.

POE:  But the rest is true?

RYAN: (Pausing) yes, but we are going to save Medicare and Social Security.

POE:  How are you going to do that.

RYAN:  It would take too long to explain.

.

.

POE:  Yes or no:  you intend on “saving” Medicare and Social Security by privatizing them.

RYAN:  Yes, but we won’t be making any changes that will affect any people currently retired or about to retire.

POE:  What about people like me who have paid taxes our whole lives into the Medicare and Social Security system but who aren’t going to retire for at least ten years?

RYAN:  Oh. Well, people like you are shit out of luck.

.

“I feel your pain, you poor, sick, homeless, irrelevant asshole. Get a job.”

.

POE:  How so?

RYAN:  By the time you retire, the Medicare and Social Security systems as we now know them will have been abolished and replaced by a voucher system where every American gets a flat payment they can use for retirement living expenses or medical care.  Or they can invest that money in the stock market and become rich the way Mitt Romney and his rich friends have.

POE:  What if the stock market crashes after I converted my retirement and health care vouchers into stock?

RYAN:  Shit out of luck.

POE:  What if I keep the money, but my living expenses and medical care are higher than what the voucher covers?

RYAN:  Shit out of luck. But so what? That’s your fault for not working harder and saving more, or, if your stock investments tank, its your fault for not having enough money to hire expensive investment advisors like the kind Mitt Romney and I have to help us know when the stock market is going to crash so we can take our money out before that happens and make huge profits off of the backs of people like you who can’t afford the same level of financial advice and so couldn’t get their money out of the market before it crashes.  And it is going to crash. It always crashes.

.

.

RYAN:  That’s how people like Mitt and me make our money. We buy low after a crash, then sell high right before the next crash.  This process essentially takes money out of your pocket and puts it in ours.  And we didn’t have to do anything other than hire someone to tell us when to buy and when to sell – people you can’t afford to hire.  The free market is a beautiful thing.  We get rid of Medicare and Social Security and give you a check instead to invest in the stock market. Then we take that money the government gave you when the stock market crashes and you lose that money you invested – to us!  We get richer, and better able to pay for the advice we need to do it again, and you get poorer and less able to pay for the kind of financial advice you need to avoid being a victim to the financial game that we are essentially forcing you to play but that we fixed to benefit us at your disadvantage!

.

.

RYAN:  When the US government encouraged people to gamble with their retirement money by investing it in the stock market it resulted in the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the upper class in history!  We can do the same thing with Medicare and Social Security, and the beauty part is that these “vouchers” will be paid for with tax money – middle class tax money – being snatched out of the hands of elderly Americans and sucked right into the offshore tax sheltered secret bank accounts of the wealthy!

.

It’s socialism in reverse! Instead of redistributing wealth downward from the rich back to the poor, it redistributes wealth upward!

.

POE: So that is how you are going to save Medicare and Social Security?

RYAN:  Yup.

POE: By destroying it and replacing it with a voucher system that favors the rich at the expense of the middle class and poor?

RYAN:  We prefer the term “reform.”

.

.

POE:  A distinction without a difference.

RYAN:  That is free market economics, baby!  It is what made American great. Well, to be honest – and, as we’ve determined in this interview, honesty does not come easy to me – free market economics made some Americans great, but not all.  And for a good reason. Someone has to be so afraid of starving to death and dying of preventable disease to work for near starvation wages and be grateful for it in order for a very small group of people who don’t work at all to be super rich forever.

.

If they get hungry enough, they will be satisfied with less.

.

.

RYAN:  That is how every system that allowed a small group of people to get rich and stay rich has worked through the ages.  Something went wrong here in America, but Mitt and I – joined with a Senate and House of Representatives controlled by social conservatives – will set it right.  I mean, look at China!  They have what we want:  a huge group of serfs without health insurance of any kind working hard for virtually nothing to make less than 1% of the Chinese population rich!

.

.

.

.

RYAN: Sure, you get the occasional peasant riot in factories, that are more like prisons with barbed wire fences and guard towers around them, but look at how the Chinese deal with those ingrates – they round them up, throw them in real prisons where they make them work, this time for no pay, and then sell their internal organs to rich people all over the world who get the best medical care their money can pay for so they can live on virtually forever.

.

.

RYAN:  Look at Dick Cheney!  He should have died years ago.  For a while he didn’t even have a heartbeat!  But he is rich!  We are so close. So close to getting that for everyone who counts, who matters – the job creators.

.

RYAN:  It is so close.  But with voter suppression efforts, voter vigilante gangs that will harass minority voters at the polls, and with the grace of God, we will win this election and the revolution will be an accomplished fact.  This may be our last chance.  If Obama wins, he will improve education, which means the average voter is more likely to see through the bullshit I am spouting and realize that I want to use Big Government to make me and my rich friends even richer and to impose an economic system on America that is the modern equivalent of feudalism where workers have no rights and the poor are free to die, and where the wealthy ruling class uses modern technology to suppress dissent by listening to phone calls and reading emails and text messages to find the potential leaders of any popular revolt and have them arrested because they are terrorists trying to overthrow the political system oppressing and enslaving them.

.

.

.

RYAN: We are so close. Everything is in place.  We have the legislation we need to suppress dissent. The vast majority of the population is now dependent on electronic means of communications like phones and the internet; there are CCTV cameras everywhere, which means we have everyone under surveillance. We control the Supreme Court.  The Press is now irrelevant as a watchdog.  We are about to take over congress and the executive office. We won’t get a chance like this again for a generation, if ever.  So this is it. We have to take advantage of a stupid, undereducated electorate before steps are taken to teach them critical thinking skills.

.

.

A GRIM FAIRY TALE – THE SAD GARAGE SALE

“Hello, children. I’m Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a story?”

.

THE SAD GARAGE SALE

          Once upon a time in a tiny town named Elko, Nevada, a man named Ted was checking out of the Holiday Inn Express.

.

.

          Ted was driving from Salt Lake City, Utah to Los Angeles, California because he had a passion for alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, all of which were difficult to procure in Salt Lake City without risking social isolation and spiritual damnation, or at least the popular perception of it.

.

.

          The drive from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles is a long one, and Ted spent the night in Elko, more or less located half way between the two.

          “Where are you off to?” asked the checkout clerk at the front desk as Ted turned in his key.

          “Los Angeles,” Ted said.

          “Take me,” the checkout clerk said.

          Ted smiled and chuckled as he hoped was expected.

          “No, seriously,” the checkout clerk said. “Take me. I hate this place and I will do anything to get out. I will pay for gas and sexually satisfy you. What do you say?” clerk asked while making a rude and suggestive gesture with a partially closed fist.

          “I – don’t think so,” Ted mumbled.

          The check out clerk laughed. “Okay, I understand and I don’t blame you,” he said.  “If I was younger, well, maybe I would have had a shot, but I haven’t had any action since my 80^th birthday. And you know, Elko isn’t such a bad place. At least it isn’t Battle Mountain.”

          “Battle Mountain?” Ted asked.

          “Yeah. The next town on the I-80 on the way to Reno.  Back in 1983 Battle Mountain  was voted the Armpit of the Universe.”

.

.

          “Okay….” Ted said, walking towards the exit to the parking lot.

          “You can’t miss it,” the clerk called after Ted. “They put a big ‘BM’ on the hillside in  fifty foot letters in an attempt to publicize the town and create a new image.  They even voted for a new town slogan: ‘Home of the biggest BM in the universe.’”

.

.

          Sure enough, Ted saw the letters “BM” on a hillside as he approached Battle Mountain, and he was overcome by the desire to leave the I-80 and take the business route through Battle Mountain.  Ted hoped to see the town slogan (“Home of the biggest BM in the universe”) on a building and further hoped to take a picture that he could then post on his blog.

          Ted did not find the town slogan, and he was beginning to wonder if the clerk was pulling his leg, when he saw a sign advertising “GARAGE SALE!”

.

.

          And, as he was about to leave the Battle Mountain town limits, he saw another sign indicating the garage sale was happening in the driveway of the house he was passing.

          Ted stopped and walked up to a little boy sitting on a chair behind an empty table – empty except for one old tennis shoe.

.

.

          “Where is the garage sale?” Ted asked the little boy.

          “You’re looking at it,” the boy said.

          “Here?”

          “Here.”

           “And you’re selling this shoe?”

          “Yup.”

          “Was there other stuff for sale earlier?”

          “Nope. Just this shoe.”

          “Why just one shoe?”

          “It’s all I got to sell.”

          “What happened to the other shoe?”

          “Dog took it.”

          “Oh.”

          “Look, are you going to buy anything or not?”

          “You mean the shoe?”

          “Yes, the shoe. Do you see anything else on the table?”

          “Why would I want to buy just one shoe?”

          “How the fuck should I know?  I don’t know your life.  Do I look like some kind of psychic?  Do I look like I even care why you want to buy this shoe?”

          “I didn’t say I wanted to buy that shoe –“

          “Yes you did. I heard you say it.”

          “No, I didn’t.”

          “Yes you did.”

          “No. I did not.”

         “Yes. You did.”

          “Okay, look, how much for the shoe?”

          “One thousand dollars.”

          “That’s ridiculous!”

          “Yeah, well, that’s the price.  You buying or not?”

          “I am not.”

          “Then this garage sale is over,” the boy said, taking the shoe off of the table and holding it close. “You just fucked yourself out of owning this shoe. It’s a magic shoe.”

          “Magic?”

           ”Yeah, magic.  If you buy it, it will grant you three wishes.”

           ”I don’t believe you.”

          “Why not? This is a magic shoe.”

          “If it is magic, why haven’t you used it?”

          “What do you mean?”

          “Well, if it is magic, you would have used it to get out of this town.  Its the most depressing place I’ve ever seen.  Even a kid like you has to know there is something better somewhere. If that shoe was magic, you would have used it to get out of here.”

          “Maybe I used it to wish for something else.”

          “Like what?”

          “None of your business.  I’m telling you this is a magic shoe.  Are you going to buy it?”

          “Does it still cost $1,000?”

          “No.”

          “No?”

          “The price has gone up to two thousand dollars. Cash.”

          “Forget it.”

          “Okay, then get the hell out of my face.”

          “No problem,” Ted said, turning to walk back to his car.

          “Mister?” the boy asked.

          “What?”

          “If you change your mind, I’ll be here next week.”

          “Selling that shoe?”

          “Uh huh.”

          “Will you be selling anything else?”

          “No.”

          “Do you do this every week?”

          “Uh huh.”

          “Have you ever sold anything?”

          “If I did, would I still be here, in the biggest BM in the universe??” the little boy shouted.

          Ted didn’t answer. He just got back in his car, drove out of town and back onto the I-80.  He stopped for lunch in Reno, Nevada, where he lost all his money playing roulette, betting on 22 black.  Ted never made it to LA.

.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Gambling is bad.
.

A GRIM FAIRY TALE – The Schnauzers of Boogerville

.

“Hello, children. Would you like to hear a story?”

.

THE SCHNAUZERS OF BOOGERVILLE

            Once upon a time on Earth 35916782(a) there was a small town called Boogerville. In this town there lived a most contented family of schnauzers.  Poppa worked at the paper mill where he supervised the maintenance crew.  It was a humble job but it had lots of responsibility. Poppa was proud of the work he did and proud of the men he supervised.

            Momma worked in the family home taking care of her two puppies, Jessica and Max.  Jessica, being the older of the two, had a fine sense of responsibility. She loved her little brother very much and did all she could to keep him out of trouble, but somehow trouble always found Max.  He was always falling into puddles and chasing cars.  But overall, Jessica and Max were good dogs. Momma and Poppa were proud of them and loved them very much.

            One day while Poppa was reading his newspaper at breakfast before work, he read that people wanted to change the name of Boogerville to something else.  The article said that there was going to be a town meeting that night to decide the issue.

            “They want to change the name of Boogerville,” Poppa said to Momma as she scrambled eggs for breakfast.

            “For heaven’s sake, why?” Momma asked.

            “Some folks are embarrassed by our town name,” Poppa read. “They think it hurts business and depresses property values.

            “What are property values, Poppa?”  Jessica asked, stirring her Cream of Wheat.

            “Well, honey, property values are something grownups talk about when they lack conversational skills.”

            “Oh,” Jessica said, sounding a little sad.

            “I’m an astronaut!” Max yelled as he ran through the kitchen with a bucket on his head.  Max bumped into the wall and fell to the ground, moaning.

            “Oh, that boy,” Poppa said, smiling and shaking his head.

            “He sure is,” Momma agreed.

            “Well,” Poppa said, putting down his newspaper. “I think it is terrible that they want to change the name of Boogerville.  Our town has been Boogerville since before the War for Independence!  It is wrong to change it because some people don’t like it.

            “But what can we do?” Momma asked.

            “We can go to the meeting tonight and tell them how we feel about it!” Poppa proclaimed.

            So that night after work on the day of the big meeting Poppa dressed in his very best and most expensive suit. Momma put on her prettiest dress. Jessica combed her fur and Max chewed on a pair of slippers.

            They walked together, with Poppa in the lead, all the way across town to City Hall where the meeting was taking place.  The schnauzer family found seats somewhere in the middle of the auditorium and listened quietly as Councilman Hamphister spoke.

            “I am tired of being embarrassed by the name of the town I live in!” he proclaimed. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that Boogerville is a terrible name for a town!  We need a new name.”

            “Thank you, Dick,” the Mayor said as Hamphister sat down. “Unless there is someone else who wants to say something, I move that we vote –“

            “I have something to say,” Poppa said and his voice rang out through the hall.  Everyone watched as Poppa walked up to the podium and, standing on a chair in front of the lectern, began to speak.

            “I must oppose any motion to change the name of our town,” Poppa began.  “For the last two hundred and seventy-five years this place has been called Boogerville. The Battle of Boogeville was the turning point in the Civil War.  Two American Vice Presidents were born in Boogerville. Instead of being embarrassed, we should hold our heads up with pride!  The sons of Boogerville fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and both World Wars.  We fought for freedom in Korea and Vietnam.  Now our sons and daughters serve with distinction in the Middle East.  Our humble town is a center for business and art.  Our schools are the best in the Tri-State area.  We say hello to each other on the street and we help each other during times of trouble.  We are the children of Boogerville, and I say we hold our heads up high with pride and proclaim to the world “Boogerville is my home!”

            Poppa finished, staring defiantly into the crowd.  And then, out of the hushed silence, someone shouted “Hey! It’s a talking dog!”

            The crowd descended upon Poppa. Momma, Jessica and Max made a run for it, but it was too late.  Only Max got away.  Poppa, Momma and Jessica were put in a cage and sold to a university where they were subjected to unspeakable medical experiments. Max ended up performing in a traveling carnival as Jojo the Talking Dog Boy.  He wasn’t happy, but at least he ate regularly.

THE END

MORAL OF THE STORY:  If you are different in any significant way, don’t ever let anyone know or you might end up being used for medical experiments.

.

GEOPOLITICAL OUTLOOK: THE AMERICAN DROUGHT

It is often said that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. Even though the American Century is over, and American power and influence is declining, what happens in the United States still affects the world as a whole.  This has never been more apparent than it is right now: a drought in the United States is going to cause millions to die around the world.

Allow me to explain.

In the last century – especially after World War II – the United States used the lure of its comparative prosperity to seduce the world into remaking itself into America’s economical image. When China finally embraced the Western economic model, it became the 2nd largest economy on Earth in only a few decades.

We now know, however, that the American model was and remains deeply flawed. American-style capitalism, embraced by Europe, Asia, South America, and increasingly embraced by Africa, is essentially a shell game governments play to create the illusion of prosperity which in turn fuels consumption, leading to ultimate breaking points.

Prior to the Bretton Woods Accord, the cycle of boom and bust inherent in American-style capitalism was not much of a problem. The United States’ economy was just one economic system in a world composed of multiple economic systems typified by multiple currencies. It is well understood and accepted that the interplay of these separate economic systems was inefficient, typified by the chaos of international currency exchange rates. However, although inefficient, independent economies insulated the world from global economic crises.

That all changed after World War II. On July 22, 1944, the world’s major industrial states signed an agreement setting up the current world economic order more commonly known as the Bretton Woods Accord. That agreement established the  International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and what ultimately became the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Bretton Woods Accord, combined with the United States’ unlateral decision in 1971 to terminate the gold standard (i.e., the convertibility of the American dollar to gold), resulted in the U. S. Dollar becoming the reserve currency for the world – which meant that all major international transactions took place in U. S. Dollars, and this essentially transformed the U. S. Dollar into the de facto world currency.

And this is why, even now when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. Even though the American Century is over, and American political power and influence is declining, the entire world is still inextricably tied to the American economic system.

One of the consequences of the American economic model becoming the dominant economic model for all the world is the fungibility of agricultural products. Before the Bretton Woods Accord and the advent of the WTO nations zealously protected their food production capability. Prior to Bretton Woods, the foundation of a country’s national interest was domestic food production capability: wars were won by destroying your opponent’s ability to feed their armed forces.

However, after Bretton Woods such protectionism slowly ended and all nations aspiring to become part of the new, prosperous, economic system were required to place their agricultural production onto the world market. Prior to Brenton Woods the price of a bushel of corn depended on where it was grown and where was sold. After Bretton Woods corn production globally sets the price and a bushel of corn purchased in India costs virtually the same as a bushel of corn purchased in the United States.

Demand and the ability to purchase food dictates food availability.  For example, Dixon California is famous for its lamb production.  However, due to international demand for lamb fueled by growing middle classes in India and China, for short periods of time in 2011 people in Davis – which is a few miles from Dixon – could not purchase lamb; Dixon lamb producers were selling their entire production to Chinese and Indian meat distributors.

Nations can still play games with commodity prices and can engage in acts of quasi-protectionism, such as the recent decision of the United States government to aid American pork producers by buying their products at a higher price than the price the worldwide market imposes in order to ameliorate the effects of the American drought on American pork production. But these  protectionist manipulations only drive the price of agricultural products higher on the international market by reducing the supply.

And that is why millions of people around the world are now facing inevitable hunger and death. Millions of people around the world depend for their lives on surplus American agricultural production that keeps the price of food low enough for them to be able to buy it. The American Heartland –the breadbasket of the world –is experiencing a terrible drought causing a dramatic drop in American agricultural production. This shortage will cause the price of basic staples like rice, corn and soybeans to increase beyond the point where millions of people can afford to purchase them. And this means they are going to starve.

The international economic system dictates where this starvation will occur.  Despite the WTO rules against protectionism, nations that produce food surpluses will manipulate their agricultural systems to make sure that food supplies for their national populations remain affordable. For example, when the United States government purchases pork products from American farmers at prices higher than those dictated by international markets, the United States government supports the ability of those farmers to buy food with prices set internationally.

The same is true for nations with strong natural resource exports, such as Australia, United States, and Russia. Natural resource sales provide the liquid Capital necessary to buy food at inflated world prices.  However, this is true only for nations with robust economies.

For example, Venesuela imports food but exports oil and gas. However, Venesuela’s economy is collapsing; their oil and gas production is dropping due decaying infrastructure that is too expensive to repair.  The government of Venesuela is already bound by long-term contracts with other nations exchanging oil for food at prices set before the American drought. Consequently, Venesuela’s energy exports to not generate liquid capital that can be used to buy food at increasingly expensive international prices.

The nations that will be hardest hit by the consequences of the American drought will be nations that neither produce food surpluses nor export natural resources. Those nations will face food riots and eventual mass starvation.  These nations include Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Senegal.

We are already seeing signs of this happening. Farmers in Niger are selling their cows, goats and sheep to obtain currency sufficient to buy food.  Nomads dependent on their camels are selling them for the same reason. This is a desperate move and the positive effects are temporary. When the money runs out, they will starve.

China – despite its seeming economic strength and the flexibility of its capitalist dictatorship – is one of the nations that will be hardest hit by the American drought. Although Chinese coastal regions have experienced the benefits of unbridled capitalism in the world economic order, the rest of China is poverty-stricken. Even if this were not true, the Chinese economy is dependent on food and natural resource imports.  Egypt is also vulnerable.

So it is fairly certain that the poorest populations of our world will experience famine, food riots, and starvation. So the question is: how will the world respond?

The answer is fairly clear: the world community will do nothing substantial to prevent the humanitarian disaster that is rapidly approaching. The existing world economic order does not provide mechanisms for any meaningful response to the consequences of the Great American drought. The world’s industrialized powers that are best capable of shifting resources to alleviate world hunger are busy dealing with their own economic crisis. They simple cannot afford to respond to the pending crisis in any meaningful way.

This is not to say there won’t be a lot of activity. Certainly there will be at least one telethon where celebrities from around the world join hands and sing in the spirit of peace and harmony and ask the viewing audience to send money. Nations around the world will contribute millions of dollars toward aid relief. But, beyond the “feel-good” result of such efforts, millions will still die.

This crisis will not be remedied; it will be managed. Food will be distributed as it always is – to those with sufficient political capital to assure their survival. Those without sufficient political capital will die.

There are those who will argue that we should let them die, that all of this is for the best, that this is a result of the earth exceeding its carrying capacity, that there are just too many unproductive people and that their population must be reduced, that if we feed them now, all they will do is reproduce so that even more will die tomorrow.

So it seems quite certain that a lot of people are going to die. But before they die, they will fight. And the authorities controlling food distribution will attempt to suppress any unrest with force.

So the ultimate question is whether or not suppression efforts will succeed. If they succeed, the result is likely to be more repressive governments consequently better able to manage the next round of food riots that are sure to come.

If governmental suppression efforts do not succeed, however, it could lead Revolution.  The French Revolution was caused by food shortage. The Arab spring movement was likely started by a food shortage in Tunisia.

There is really no way to predict what will happen because American corn and soybean farmers did not meet their expected production goals. But it is fairly certain that the world is in for a bumpy ride.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale – THE GHOST DANCE

.

Hello, children. Would you like to hear a story?

.

THE GHOST DANCE

.

.

It began as a television show: a dance contest with a Native American theme, financed with Native American money accumulated slowly over the years from slot machine and roulette revenues.

.

Auditions were held in New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco and lost Angeles. Contestants from all walks of life were asked to perform a complex set of steps called “the Ghost Dance”.

.

.

The competition was fierce.  The dance itself was hypnotic. The show was a hit – outperforming every program in its time slot and eventually becoming the most popular television show in America.

.

.

In its 3rd season, the show began promoting what it called “Ghost Dance Day” during which the show’s growing television audience was invited to join in the fun. The goal was to get as many people as possible performing the Ghost Dance simultaneously.

Each year thereafter as the show’s popularity grew, so did Ghost Dance Day, with people all over America – from New York to San Diego – performing the steps of the Ghost Dance simultaneously. The producers of the show had tapped into the power of dance to build a sense of community.

.

.

And the movement spread. People all over the world began to celebrate the Ghost Dance Day.  Even the world’s poorest people petitioned their government’s to furnish them with television or Internet access that would allow them to both view the competition and participate in Ghost Dance Day.

.

.

Pundits both great and small endlessly analyzed the Ghost Dance phenomenon.

.

.

Scholarly papers were written about the psycho/social elements of the dance’s  unbelievable popularity. But, despite all this intellectual attention, virtually no one looked very closely at the historical roots of the Ghost Dance – other than a few anthropologists and historians, whose warnings were ignored and classified as an element of the egg-head racist lunatic fringe.

.

.

In its 8th year, the show’s producers boasted that Ghost Dance Day would see over 4 billion people dancing together.

.

.

Nobody knows if that boast was realized. Nobody knows the exact number of people needed to fulfill Sitting Bull’s dream. All we know is that, all over the world, the skies grew dark, the earth trembled, and the dead returned.  The Ancestors returned and destroy the works of European civilization in Africa, Melanesia and the Americas, fulfilling cargo cult prophecies and millenaristic dreams.

.

.

.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  dance shows are bad.

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance

.

HEADLINE – WHAT IS ROMNEY HIDING BY WITHHOLDING HIS TAX RETURNS?

.

.

Money.

.

.

He’s hiding money.

.

.

Lots and lots of money.

.

.

A shit load of money.

.

.

So much money he can play with it – literally.

.

.

Enough money for Romney to buy another small country.

.

.

Ours.

.

.

.

BONUS PICS: 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LARGER TEXT

.

.

.
.

HEADLINE – Michigan woman censored for saying “vagina.”

.

DETROIT – A Michigan lawmaker has been banned from speaking on the House floor after saying the word “vagina” while debating a Republican sponsored bill that would strictly restrict abortion rights in the state.

“I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina,” Rep. Lisa Brown said, addressing the Speaker of the House, “but ‘no’ means ‘no.’”

.

.

Brown was gaveled into silence by House Speaker James Bolger (R-Bumfuck) for “violating the decorum of the House.”  Brown was then barred from speaking during the debate about a school employee retirement bill because she used the “V-word” in an unrelated debate.

.

James Bolger

.

“Listen, silly, even the concept of a vagina is offensive and is probably an anti-American commie liberal socialist secular humanist plot,” Bolger said.  “Like global warming and a deserving poor person, I don’t think it exists. I married  two women, not at the same time of course – so there is no way I could be gay – and I never found either of my wives’ vaginas, and I tried terribly, terribly hard for years,” Bolger said before explaining how fabulous  Joan Crawford, Judy Garland and musical theater is.

.

“I think I saw one over there.”

.

“Seriously. Years,” said Bolger’s second wife, Charlene. “I did everything I could think of to help James locate my vagina, but he just can’t get past his fear that girls have ‘cooties.’”

.

.

“If girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, then why do they smell like sardines?” whispered conservative Republican former Senator Larry Craig (married, with children) on the Senate floor during a debate to defund Planned Parenthood a few months prior to being arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in a men’s bathroom. Senator Craig didn’t realize the microphone was on when he whispered his joke to a fellow conservative Republican Bob Allen.

.

.

“I haven’t worn underwear since 1978 and I have a big red arrow painted on my abdomen pointed down. Nothing seems to help,”Charlene added.

.

.

Bolger’s first wife, Betty, agrees. “Jim doesn’t know anything about vaginas. On our wedding night he burst into tears, locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out until I promised to “put that thing away.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

For many Republicans the “V word” issue is less about abysmal sexual ignorance, misogyny or covert homosexuality, and more about returning America to a better time before non-whites “ruined everything.”

.

.

“Fair is fair. If I can’t say nigger then you can’t say vagina, okay?” said Republican political strategist, Baptist minister, Holocaust denier and high school drop out Trip Tripperson.

.

Trip Tripperson

“You let me call negroes niggers again, and Mexicans wet backs, and Asians gooks, and the mentally handicapped morons, and homos faggots, and women bitches and cunts –  just like God intended – and I’ll let you call beavers vaginas.  I want my country back, okay? Where’s the birth certificate?? Where’s the birth certificate??!!!” Tripperson shouted in presumed support for Republican sponsored legislation requiring women to post nude photos of themselves in fetish poses on “Christian D/s lifestyle” websites before obtaining an abortion.

.

.

.

Ron Severstone – the sole remaining moderate Republican – suggests a possible compromise. 

.

Ron Severstone

.

“There are plenty of ways white men can effectively discuss the plan to turn back the clock and utterly dominate the sex lives of women without offending the lunatic fringe that has taken over the GOP,” Severstone said, a Republican politician who will soon be accused of “hating America” for offering to compromise with “satan worshiping baby killers.”

.

.

.

“For example, we can call it ‘the hoo ha’ or “the bad thing” or “the otter’s pocket” or – my personal favorite – ‘the lady cave,” Sevestone suggested before running for his life.

.

.

Still others simply view this recent kerfuffle as part of an ongoing process. “History has shown that, when male dominated societies wants to control women, they make sure that women’s bodies are considered obscene as part of reducing a woman’s status to that of a servant and  as property, rather than as a person,” said Professor Judith Holmes.

.

.

.

.

 “That is what is essentially happening now.  And, to be brutally honest, it’s working,” Professor Holmes said just before renouncing her American citizenship and emigrating to Australia.

.

Prof. Judith Holmes

.

The anti-abortion law passed in the House 70-39, with all Republicans voting in favor of it. The legislation now goes to the Senate and is expected to pass with only democrats voting against it.

.

.

.

MOVING ON WITH NO REGRETS

Two events prompt this blog entry:

The first event is my need to travel to France – not to teach as I have done every year since 2005, but to withdraw my Euros from my Credit Lyonnais bank account, close the account (which I must do personally) and fly home.  These Euros were deposited into that account by the University of Poitiers  to compensate me for serving as an adjunct professor of law at University.

[I used this account to transact all of my business in Europe. Why pay the cost of converting Dollars to Euros?]

The second event involves an interesting and very unusual pattern of sudden Internet activity.  Since May 24^th someone has been feverishly searching for websites using the following search terms:

Paul Nicholas Boylan Poitiers

“Paul Nicholas Boylan” Poitiers

Most, if not all, of these search attempts lead the person investigating me here,5here,/here,, heref(page 16),  here,/here,/here1and here.y

I cannot, of course, be 100% sure why there is this sudden interest in my professorship, but I have a fairly good idea.  On May 24th I filed and served a motion for an award of attorney’s fees and costs in Mecum v. City of Lindsay,Tulare County Superior Court Case No. 11-243461. In that case, I represented Steven Mecum, a guy who is concerned that the City of Lindsay - a small town in Central California where Steven lives - is spending public money improperly. 

In summary, here is what happened:  Steven asked for access to records dealing with areas of City spending he wanted to examine.  The City gave him some of these records, but not all of them. So he sued to get what was being withheld.

Ordinarily, these sorts of disputes get resolved very, very fast. Usually, opposing counsel work together and come to an agreement as to what can be released and what should remain confidential.  The reason for this cooperation is because the California Public Records Act (CPRA) is a “fee shifting” statute.  The CPRA states that, if a judge orders a governmental agency to turn over records or information the agency is withholding, then the agency must pay the petitioner’s attorney’s fees and costs.

So an agency faces a bigger and bigger potential liability for fees and costs the longer a dispute lasts, and it is this risk that prompts most agencies to work to resolve CPRA disputes as fast as possible.

That didn’t happen in Mecum v. City of Lindsay.  The City, through its attorney, deployed what is known as ae“scorched-earth”/defense strategy, which means the City refused to so much as discuss an amicable resolution and fought tooth and nail to win.

So instead of a fast resolution, this case was a long, slow slog ending in a hearing where the trial judge ordered the City to turn over documents and information to the petitioner, Steven Mecum. And this meant that the City must pay me what I would have charged Steven if I were billing him on an hourly basis.

As these things go, the arguments are fairly straight forward:  Steven asked for records; the City said no; Steven sued to get them; the Court agreed with Steven and ordered the City to give Steven more records; this makes Steven the prevailing party; and Steven now asks the Court to pay his fees and costs to me.

So what does all of this have to do with my professorship?  Everything.  In addition to my “base fee” (hours multiplied by my hourly rate) I am asking for what is known as a “multiplier.”  As the Memorandum shows,  although the Court has no discretion to deny the motion, under some circumstances, the Court has the discretion to increase the fee award by multiplying the base fee by whatever number the Court feels is just.  One of the factors justifying a multiplier is harsh litigation tactics that caused the case to be needlessly complex, time consuming and expensive.

That’s what happened here.  Defense counsel was very, very aggressive – so aggressive that I was forced to choose between teaching in France and staying home just in case defense counsel attempted to manipulate my unavailability against my client.

Here is what happened:  I notified defense counsel that I would be unavailable during the entire month of March 2012 because I was scheduled to teach in France during that time.  Knowing this, defense counsel arranged for a briefing schedule that would require me to respond to her arguments against my client’s petition while I was away from my office in France teaching.  I decided to withdraw from my teaching commitment that year and stay home to be ready for whatever happened in the case rather than be far away and less able to respond to actions opposing counsel might take knowing I was overseas and less able to respond.

It turned out to be a good idea.  Although I had arrangements for opposing counsel to serve papers on me via email, she nevertheless served her Opposition Brief on me via ordinary mail service, which meant that if I was teaching  I would not have received that brief until I returned from France, which would have provide me only a few days to respond.

But because I stayed home (and didn’t tell her) my client’s position wasn’t disadvantaged by my absence and I was able to draft one of the best Reply Briefs I’ve ever drafted in a CPRA case and, because of it, the Court agreed with Steven’s position and ordered the City to give  him access to what amounted to approximately 7,100 pages of records.

But staying home also meant I lost my professorship. And I told this to the Court as part of my argument justifying application of a multiplier, hopefully increasing the eventual fee award.

And this is why someone is frantically investigating my teaching history. Someone is looking for anything that might contradict my story, throw question on my claims, and hopefully minimize my client’s claim for fees and costs.

It isn’t going to work, but they are welcomed to try. 

I am very sad.  I loved teaching those kids, and the University provided me with students from all over the world. I had a chance to influence future policy makers. I had the chance to make a real difference.

I don’t blame the University. And, even though I cherished my teaching position, I have few regrets.  When confronted with a choice between my duties as an attorney and my desires to travel and teach, I chose my client over my personal desires. I did what I had to do to best serve the interests of my client.  That’s my job as an attorney. 

And what the hell, really?  I can still call myself “professor” and I am now free to seek out a position with another university if I really want to do that.

But I sure will miss those kids.  So bright.  So eager to learn what little I had to teach.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Au revoir, mes amis. Tu vas me manquer.

Now it is time to go to France and close out my bank account, certainly before the Euro drops any further in relation to its value compared to the US dollar.

And to you out there researching my history – take your time; do it right; find out exactly who I am and what I can do.  What you find will not reassure you.

.

HEADLINE – Obama ate a dog

.

 I take full responsibility and credit for this rumor./ 

 

UPDATE:

That dog had it coming, man.

.

A GRIM FAIRY TALE – Free Among the Monkeys And Elephants

.\

"Hello, children. Would you like to hear a story?"

.

I just saw a ten minute preview of the new movie John Carter, and it got me thinking.

I’ve met a lot of professional writers, many of which I admire as artists who have skills I cannot and could not possibly match.  But not all the writers I’ve encountered in my life fit that description. The simple fact is that being a good writer and being a successful writer are often different things and depend on factors that have nothing to do with skill.

So I see the John Carter preview and it looks great. And I am reminded of the book and the author that inspired it back in 1912 – exactly a century ago. And I realize, again, that no one can say what is good or predict with any accuracy what will last.

What follows isn’t exactly a grim fairy tale, but it’s close enough to fit in that category.

So, without further faffing, I give you…

FREE AMONG THE MONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS

On night in late October, 1913, in Dover, England, in a pub at the bottom of a hill, in the shadow of Dover Castle – walking distance to the beach where Matthew Arnold heard ignorant armies clashing by night – George Bernard Shaw was working hard to persuade Lydia, an aspiring American actress, to have sex with him.           

“Should we be going?” Lydia asked.  The piercing cry of gliding seagulls sounded loudly throughout the thick seaside darkness. “The train back to London leaves in ten minutes.”

 ”We can catch the next one,” Shaw responded. 

 ”Do you really think you can get me a reading for Liza?”

 ”I am the playwright.  Of course I can.”

 ”But I don’t know how to do a cockney accent.”

 ”That’s won’t be a problem,” Shaw said.  “I can teach you.  Look, since we’re waiting for the next train, why don’t we take a walk down to the beach?  Matthew Arnold wrote his famous love poem there.”

  “Who? Lydia asked.

 ”Never mind,” Shaw said, taking her hand and guiding her out of the pub.  They passed where James Joyce sat with his traveling companion and lover, Nora.  Joyce listened to Nora and watched her face as she drank pint after pint of bitter, dark, thick beer.   He listened as she talked about her sex life prior to meeting him.

“I think he made them a bit firmer sucking on them so long,” she slurred, nourishing her thick Irish working-class accent each time she lifted her glass and gulped beer. 

Joyce and Nora were on their way to Paris from Dublin by way of London.  Joyce was struggling to find a publisher for two books – a collection of short stories and a short semi-autobiographical novel.  At that moment, in the middle of her beer-sodden reminiscence, Nora could not have cared less.

 ”He made me spend the second time tickling my behind with his finger,” Nora laughed, red eyed.

Joyce smiled and nodded, encouraging her to continue. 

 ”I tried it with the banana,” she confessed. “But I was afraid it might break and get lost up in me somewhere.”  Joyce looked concerned, but wasn’t.  He listened carefully, trying with all his might to memorize every single word.

In the same pub, Edgar Rice Burrows sat with his friend and fellow writer, William Seabrook.  Burrows eagerly described a novel he was writing.

 ”Thuvia is this voluptuous Martian princess,” he began

 ”Are there any other kind?” Seabrook asked.  He genuinely liked Edgar, and admired his success as a popular writer, but nevertheless believed that Burrows was an idiot.

“She is in love with the son of John Carter, the Warlord of Mars -” Burrows explained.

“The Martian princess?”

 ”Yeah.  So she’s in love with this big warrior type who can jump really far and high because his father is from the Earth.”

 ”He can jump high because his father is from Earth?”

 ”Yeah.”

 ”Sort of like a handsome, muscular grass hopper.”

 ”Look, do you want to hear about this or not?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Please go on.”

“So Carthoris – that’s the guy – he has the hots for Thuvia -”

 ”Carthoris and Thuvia?”

“Yeah.”

 ”Sounds like a bad Shakespearian play.”

 ”So she’s got the hots for him, too, but bad guys kidnap her and make it look like Carthoris did it.”

 ”So he sallies forth to rescue her.”

 ”Yeah. What do you think?”

“Charming.  But tell me about that ape-man novel you are writing.”

“Sure.  It’s based on the short story I published.  Did you read it?”

 ”No, but I’m still interested. It is about a man who is half man, half ape, if I remember correctly.”

“Not half-man half-ape.  He is an ape-man named Tarzan.”

“Whatever.  You say that your publisher is willing to pay you in advance to write it?”

 ”Yeah.”

 ”Well then, why waste your time with your Martian Romeo and Juliet until you’ve finished the Tarzan novel?  What are you going to call it?”

“Tarzan.”

 ”I should have guessed.  Sort of a foreign adventure piece I take it?”

“On, yeah. Lots of adventure.  Tarzan is a guy who was raised in the African jungle by apes.”

“It sounds ghastly.  Are you sure they’re going to pay you for this?”

“You bet.”

“I wonder what the appeal is?” Seabrook pondered.

“Every guy wants to be Tarzan,” Burrows explained.  “Tarzan has everything a man could want.”

“Fleas?”

“Tarzan doesn’t have fleas,” Burrows said, irritably.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not going to give him any,” Burrows said. “I’m giving him a great life.  He’s king of the beasts, lord of the apes.  He can talk to elephants.” 

“Elephants?”

“He can call elephants if he needs them.”

“Why would he need elephants.”

“If he needs a ride, or if he needs help.”

“How helpful can an elephant be?” 

“Lets say he’s surrounded by bad guys, and there’s no way out.  Well, he calls to the elephants and they come and trample the bad guys.”

“Deus Ex Elephant?” Seabrook asked.

 “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “The point is that Tarzan does what he wants.  He is totally free from the pressures of the modern world.  He could have been anyone, any one of us.  And that’s my point.  I want the reader to think, ‘Hey, if I had been dropped into a jungle, I could have been Tarzan.  Tarzan and me are the same guy, we were only brought up different.”

 ”You see this Tarzan as leading some kind of idyllic life?”

 ”Not idyllic – ideal.  Idyllic lives are boring lives.  Tarzan faces plenty of danger to keep things interesting.  And there are things missing that he really needs.”

“Soap and water?”

“No.  Women.  There aren’t any women around.”

“What about native women?”

“Oh, yeah, plenty of those.  But there are no white women anywhere.  So he meets this beautiful explorer, and she shows him the ropes -”

Seabrook smiled at the reference.

” – and brings him back to London.  Good stuff.  But the biggest reason why my readers are going to admire Tarzan is his total freedom, so it won’t surprise anyone when Tarzan would rather be in the jungle instead of in civilization.”

“Free among the monkeys and elephants?”

“Exactly.”

.

Elmo Lincoln, in the first Tarzan film (1918)

.

William Seabrook

.

Nora Barnacle

.

James Joyce

.

George Bernard Shaw

.

Lydia Atherton

.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

.

Thuvia

.

Cathorsis (the one doing the stabbing)

.

Meet My Oldest and Youngest Sisters

.

My father married three times.

.

.

He producing three sons, of which I am the second, and five daughters. I recently realized that my oldest sister shares inexplicable similarities to my youngest sister.

My oldest sister is Marea. We share a mother and a father.

.

.

.

As is apparent, Marea is in love with the American culture exemplified in the 1890′s through the 1920′s.  Her passion for that era extends, in particular, to its music.  I personally am amazed that Marea has found a variety of fora to express her appreciation through performance in front of audiences of people equally passionate about such an esoteric historical period.  Here is an example:

.

.

Jump ahead a generation to the results of my father’s third, and most lasting, marriage.  This is my youngest sister, Eileen.

.

.

.

Like her oldest sister, Eileen has embraced the theatrical.  She is actually a fairly accomplished actress, which you can see byhclicking here/or by watching this film preview:

.

.

I am very proud of all my sisters, but Eileen possesses a talent that excites me more than any other: she is a talented graphic artist and there is a possibility she will collaborate with me to illustrate one of my Grim Fairy Tales entitled The Vulture Who Thought He Was a Person.

Stay tuned.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale – THREE STUPID WHALES

.

Once upon a time there were three grey whales trapped under the arctic ice.

.

.

That alone is enough to make anyone wonder:  what is wrong with these three whales?  What kind of whales get themselves trapped beneath ice so they will most likely die because they can’t hold their breath long enough to swim beyond the frozen ice and out to the open sea?

.

Okay, let’s just get past the fact that these whales were unusually stupid. Whales, for the most part, are fairly intelligent. They’ve survived for millions of years and the stupid ones have died out because they were too stupid to avoid obvious dangers – like getting trapped beneath an arctic ice sheet.  But every now and then one or two whales don’t get enough oxygen when they are born and they end up just a  little bit stupid. 

.

.

The whales trapped beneath the arctic ice are three very stupid whales. They’re trapped. They are gonna die. That’s that. It is what it is. It has happened before. It will happen again.  Stupid is as stupid does, and  – over the course of geological time – stupid tends to die.

.

.

But sometimes even the stupid get lucky.  In this case, the three stupid whales were discovered by a little blond girl who decided to try to save them.

.

.

In all honesty, the details are a bit boring.  To make a long story short, the little blond girl convinced a bunch of white people to cut holes in the ice that the three stupid whales could use to breathe while they swam to the open sea.

And it worked. The whales – although stupid beyond reasonable belief – used the air holes carved out of the ice to breath as they made their way to the open ocean.

And when they got there – when they were finally free of the consequences of their own stupidity, when they finally broke into the open sea – they were set upon by a band of Native Americans in big canoes who  thrust hand-made harpoons into their flesh, puncturing their lungs, and killing them.

“Hey, thanks, white people!” the Native American arctic hunters shouted as they attached ropes to the three dead gray whales to tow them to their village, where the whales were beached and butchered for the traditional nutritional pleasure of the village.

,\.

.

.

And the shame of it all –  the real tragedy here – is that the white people who helped bring the whales to the open sea were not allowed to eat any flesh of the whales they saved because, by law, only Native Americans are lawfully entitled to eat whale meat.

Sometimes, life isn’t fair.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale – BOXING DAY

Hello, children. I am Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a true story?

.

BOXING DAY

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Jennifer. Jennifer lived in a place known far and wide as the City of Angels, which Jennifer liked because she considered herself a Born Again Christian, and living in a city of angels was fine by her.

.

.

Jennifer lived with a man named Robert.  They met in church and were married a year later.  The day after their first Christmas together, she found Robert’s secret briefcase hidden in the apartment bedroom closet.

.

.

The briefcase was large, hard shelled and had a combination lock with three numbers on rotating dials set side by side.  It was very heavy. She shook it gently, but didn’t notice any peculiar movement. She had no idea what was in it.

She tried to open it (of course), but it was locked and she could not open it. That is when she realized the brief case belonged to Robert, because she would have remembered buying something that could lock.  

She put the briefcase back where she found it and walked away.

.

.

But the next day she was in the closet again looking at the secret briefcase. She looked closely and noticed that the numbers on the combination had changed. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. She memorized the number combination showing – 0-8-7 – and placed the briefcase back in the closet.

.

.

A week later, she checked and saw that the numbers had changed to 4-2-7. This meant that at least twice in as many weeks, Robert had opened the lock, gone into the briefcase, and jumbled the numbers when he relocked it.  So Jennifer began to check the briefcase every day. Every day she tried to open it, just in case Robert forgot to jumble the numbers to set the lock.

One day the briefcase opened.

.

.

Inside, Jennifer found a pair of musty, sweaty boxing gloves, a stack of magazines and some video cassettes. Tucked into one of the organizer pockets inside the briefcase, Jennifer found a bunch of letters from men addressed to Robert at his office.

.

.

Jennifer read the letters and looked through the magazines. She even watched one of the videos. The magazines and videos showed men – and sometimes women – boxing and wrestling.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Jennifer learned from the letters that Robert would regularly go to the Olympic Gym near Downtown L.A., rent a boxing ring, and box with strange men—rarely the same man twice.

.

The Olympic Auditorium then.

.

They’d punch and pound and smack each other and then afterwards they would perform unnatural, sinful acts upon themselves as the other watched.  The letters would end with promises that the writer would inflict great bodily harm upon Robert the next time they met at the gym.

.

.

Naturally Jennifer confronted Robert about her awful discovery. She let him come home to find her sitting on their bed with the briefcase open, reading his letters.

.

.

Robert admitted everything—the boxing and the unspeakable, sinful acts. He admitted that he lied to Jennifer – that when he said he was working on weekends he was really meeting strange men at the Olympic Gym.

.

.

Robert admitted lying about playing rugby as a subterfuge to explain the injuries he sustained boxing.

.

.

That night Jennifer slept at her friend’s house and the next day she moved her things out of the apartment she shared with Robert.  She resolved that her marriage with Robert was over because lying, Jennifer knew, is a sin. 

.

.

.

The Olympic Auditorium now.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale – THE HANDSOME MONSTER

Hello, children. I am Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a story?

Once upon a time, there was a handsome monster.  But he wasn’t born handsome.

He wasn’t born at all.   He was made.  A brilliant young scientist with a fetish for reanimating dead tissue made the monster from bits and pieces of dead people.

.

An early attempt.

.

 The young scientist did it in a laboratory he built in an abandoned castle in the middle of nowhere.

.

.

He chose the abandoned castle for four reasons. First, the price was right.  The place where the castle was built was experiencing a deep economic depression.

.

.

Years before, the local real estate market was red hot.  People bought castles and then resold them at a profit, over and over again.

.

.

But when this bubble burst, it drove property values lower and lower until, by the time the young scientist was looking for a place to do his experiments, he could buy a castle for next to nothing and, if it was a “fixer-upper” he could buy it for even less.

.

"It only needs a little work."

The second reason the young scientist bought the castle was because it was isolated and provided him with privacy.   The young scientist wanted to keep his experiments secret because, at that time, the reanimation of dead tissue upset stupid people much like stem cell research upsets stupid people today.

.

Is also afraid of frozen food (not mentioned in the Bible).

.

 The third reason the young scientist wanted to experiment with dead tissue in secret was because he found the creation of life distinctly enthralling, and people with socially unacceptable desires prefer privacy when there is any chance their socially unacceptable desires might manifest.

.

The obvious benefits of privacy.

.

 The fourth reason the young scientist chose that particular location to perform his viscerally unsettling experiments was because the economic conditions that depressed the local real estate market also impoverished a nearby village.  The young scientist was from a wealthy family, and, as a member of the 1%, he knew that poor people embodied four virtues that would advance his interests – poor people lack curiosity, they keep to themselves, they overlook the eccentricities of the rich, and they die in large numbers.

.

Poor people are buried on their sides to save space.

.

 So the young scientist built his laboratory high inside a castle in the middle of nowhere near a poor village with a busy graveyard.  He built a man, stitched together from bits and pieces of dead people he “borrowed” from the village graveyard and, in time, his experiments bore strange fruit.

.

.

.

.

“It’s alive! Alive!!!” the young scientist shouted, filled with a love that dare not speak its name.

.

.

But, as quickly as the thrill coursed through his body, it vanished just as quickly when the young scientist realized that the man he made was incredibly ugly.

.

.

It was a gross miscalculation. Even worse, the young scientist overestimated poverty’s effect on the local populace. They found out about his monster, but they did not shrug it off due to lethargy or indifference.

.

.

The villagers didn’t look the other way as they would have overlooked the excesses of other wealthy people acting badly, such as flamboyant homosexuals, or those who abuse their domestic servants, or those who use political influence to manipulate economic policy to their further enrichment at the poor’s expense and enhanced demise.

.

.

Reanimating dead bodies scavenged from the local cemetery was just too much to overlook and, in response, the local populace organized into a large mob, armed with torches and pitchforks, bent on killing the young scientist and destroying his unholy monster.

.

.

They killed the young scientist, but the monster got away. He wandered  alone, afraid, and friendless.

.

.

Then one day, deep in the forest, the monster stumbled upon a little cabin where lived an old, kindly plastic surgeon (the cabin was a  vacation home).  The old man took the monster in and offered to inject some collagen into his lips.

.

.

At first, the monster refused.

“Needles, bad,” the Monster said. 

But, in time, he learned to trust the old man, signed some consent forms, and submitted to the procedure.

.

.

The result was nothing less than spectacular.  Rounder, fuller lips transformed the monster from ugly into handsome.

.

.

And, in the twinkling of an eye, the monster’s fortunes changed. 

He found an agent.

.

.

He made a sex tape that was “accidentally” released to the internet.

.

.

.

He was recruited for a new reality television show The Real Monsters of the Enchanted Forest.

.

.

His sudden fits of anger and violence were especially popular with the audience.

.

.

He was a frequent guest on late night chat shows, with interchanges similar to the following:

LENO

I’m told you don’t like fire.

.

.

MONSTER

Fire, bad!

.

.

LENO

I’m also told that you are being considered to play Joey in a remake of the poplar television show Friends.

MONSTER

Friends, good…

.

.

But some things are just not meant to be.  One day when the monster was on tour promoting his new celebrity fragrance Menacing, he was killed by a mob of blind peasants

.

.

(who lost their sight due to malnutrition and lack of basic health care) – which is a powerful sermon on the fragility of modern celebrity.

.

.

HEADLINE – Rick Perry reassures GOP about debating Obama

WASHINGTON — Rick Perry on Sunday sought to reassure GOP primary voters concerned about his wobbly presidential debate performances, apparent low intelligence and general lack of basic education, saying he would draw sharp distinctions with the Democratic incumbent in televised showdowns next year.

“I’m not worried a bit to debate Barack Obama,” Perry said.  ”And I believe in Santa Claus,” he added.

The Texas governor, driving for front-runner status as the most viable conservative in the wide-open field, offered up samples of the scathing rhetoric he used to get elected as Governor of Texas.

“President Obama’s policies are poopy,” Perry said with a grin.

“And he is ugly and his mother dresses him funny.  President Obama’s mother is so ugly, well, she is pretty ugly. And she is white. Can you believe that? A white woman having sex with a black man?  In Texas we don’t take kindly to any sort of race mixing.”

“And we don’t like Mormons. They are a cult,” Perry concluded  before further demonstrating his wit by firing a gun into the air.

“Yee ha!” Perry screamed. “Now, don’t that qualify me to be prez-o-dent?” he asked.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale: BUMPKIN THE COUNTRY PUMPKIN

So I am sitting in this tavern in Melbourne with my mates Flinthart, Banger, Melbo, Mayhem and Catty, eating and drinking and otherwise faffing up a storm, exploring the random furphy and otherwise having a grand time, when the topic of writing comes up.

I mentioned the inappropriate series of children’s stories I wrote many years ago told by my alter-ego, an evil old man named Brother Grim.

One of my dining companions actually encouraged me to post those awful stories here. I think all of them are secretly laughing at me.  Australians are inscrutable.  I can’t think of any way they can be scruted. But, what the heck, it is nearly Halloween, so why not trot out Bumpkin the Country Pumpkin – posted a couple of years ago at the Mini Burger.  I’ve added illustrations.  I recommend that all of you read it to your children, the younger the better.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you

.

BUMPKIN THE COUNTRY PUMPKIN

.

.

Once upon a time there was a little pumpkin named Bumpkin.

.

He lived in the country, far away from the Big City, on the side of the road next to the pumpkin patch.  He was a bit scrawny and small.  He began as a stray seed that accidentally flew to the roadside to sprout and grow without the benefit of regular water, fertilizer and pesticides. 

So he sat by the side of the road, watching the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch grow big and orange and proud.

“We are Halloween pumpkins!” the pumpkin patch pumpkins would say to Bumpkin.  “Children will buy us and make us into Jack-o-lanterns for Halloween!” they bragged shamelessly.

Bumpkin wished he, too, could be a Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween, but the pumpkin patch pumpkins laughed when he confessed his deepest desire.

“We are big and orange,” they would point out.  “We will be picked at harvest and taken to the supermarket where we will be examined and fawned over and picked by children, who will carve us into scary and silly faces.  We will be illuminated by flickering candles, glowing yellow out from our carved eyes.  We will be remembered forever by children who grow into adults, who will take their children in turn to the supermarket to pick a Halloween pumpkin.”

“Maybe I will become a Jack-o-lantern too!” Bumpkin squeaked from the roadside, interrupting the litany of self-admiration.

“You?” the other pumpkins sneered. “Who would pick you?  You are funny-looking, and besides, you are growing out by the roadside, away from the pumpkin patch.  You will never be harvested and taken to the supermarket.”

When harvest came, Bumpkins saw that it was true.  The truck loads of migrant workers were paid by the pound, so they concentrated on the bigger, oranger pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.  They didn’t even notice little, scrawny, misshaped Bumpkin.

But then one of the workers, for reasons unknown, and to the righteous shock of the finer pumpkins, reached out and picked Bumpkin and placed him on the pile with the other pumpkins.

And so Bumpkin was taken to the supermarket and placed on display. 

But no one picked him.  Many children came and looked.  Some touched and weighed, some seriously considered, but they all ended up choosing the bigger, oranger pumpkins.

On Halloween Eve Bumpkin found himself all alone on the wooden display sitting between two rotting pumpkins.  He felt it was all over when he heard a woman’s voice ask:

“How much for the pumpkins?”

“I’ll give you all three for a penny a piece,” the voice of the produce manager said.

And so the woman bought Bumpkin and the two rotting pumpkins and brought them to her home.

The woman lived in a bad neighborhood in a small appartment near a busy street.  When she got home, she took all three pumpkins out of the bag and began cutting and cleaning the two rotting pumpkins, who had died from despair many days earlier.

“I guess I’m going to be a pie,” Bumpkin said to himself in bitter disappointment. 

But then a little boy walked into the kitchen.  His name was Timmy, and Timmy wanted – more than anything in the world – to carve a jack-o-lantern for Halloween.  He saw Bumpkin lying on the counter beside the sink, and Timmy fell in love.  Bumpkin was the most beautiful pumpkin Timmy had ever seen.

.

“Please, Mamma. Please, can I have that little pumpkin?” he asked.

“No,” his mother said.  “We are very poor, and we need these pumpkins for food.  It is wrong to play with food.”

“Oh, please Mamma!  If you give me the pumpkin, I promise to get a job and work real hard to earn enough money to buy another pumpkin so you can cook it!  Please!”  Timmy said, and began to cry, because he knew full well that there were no jobs for poor little boys like him.

His mother knew it, too, but she gave Timmy the little pumpkin anyway. She really didn’t want to cook it.  She was suspicious of Bumpkin’s sickly color and odd shape.  She thought Bumpkin might be diseased.  So she gave it to Timmy.

“Make sure to wash your hands afterwards,” Timmy’s mother instructed.

Timmy didn’t care what Bumpkin looked like or the risk of pathogen contamination associated with cutting into Bumpkin’s flesh.  Timmy was overjoyed.

And Bumpkin was overjoyed.  He was going to be a jack-o-lantern!  At last, his dream was coming true.

Bumpkin became a little hesitant when he saw Timmy spread some newspaper on the floor and take hold of a long carving knife.

 

And it hurt a lot when Timmy clumsily stabbed into Bumpkin’s flesh, cutting a hole in Bumpkin’s top and reaching in to scoop out Bumpkin’s guts.

.

Bumpkin fainted more than once.  And, as Timmy’s little hand scooped out Bumpkin’s insides, reaching in over and over again,  Bumpkin screamed over and over again, screams that only other pumpkins could hear – as well as the occasional banana squash.

.

Between fainting and screaming, Bumpkin could hear, out in the black night, the howling screams of the bigger, oranger pumpkins who, like Bumpkin, were being eviscerated by smiling, laughing children, as well as the occasional perverted adult.

After what seemed to be a timeless eternity of suffering without end, Bumpkin was transformed into a jack-o-lantern.  Timmy beamed as he placed a candle in Bumpkin, lit the candle and set Bumpkin in front of the apartment door.

Bumpkin’s pride overshadowed his excruciating pain.  He looked up and down the street at the other jack-o-lanterns carved from the fine, cultivated pumpkins.   Bumpkin could feel their surprise – and a little outrage – when they noticed him.  Bumpkin decided that he was just as good as any of them.  And he was.

The magic of that night went on and on.  Bumpkin watched as the costumed children went door to door yelling “trick or treat!” holding out their bags for candy.

.

And then it was Timmy’s turn.  Bumpkin watched as Timmy and his mother left the apartment to go trick or treating.

“Isn’t my jack-o-lantern beautiful?” Timmy beamed.

“Yes, dear,” his mother said, and they walked off.

It wasn’t long before more children came to the door.  But no one was home to give them candy, and the children walked away, dissappointed. Some of them said foul and impolite things, angered by the lack of candy caused by Timmy and his mother’s absence.   Then one group of boys came by who weren’t dressed in costumes.

.

When no one responded to their baritone cries of “trick or treat!,” the boys threw eggs at Timmy’s apartment and wrote rude remarks with bars of soap on the apartment windows.  Then they picked up Bumpkin and ran off.

Bumpkin remained with those terrible boys through the night.  He was with them when they threw more eggs, sprayed shaving cream, and frightened other children.  The boys even used Bumpkin to terrify the littlest kids.  The boys would thrust Bumpkin into the faces of children and yell “boo!”  The little kids would look at Bumpkin, scream and run away crying.

.

Just before midnight, the boys climbed to the top of a building, ran over to the edge of the roof and threw Bumpkin down to the pavement below.  Bumpkin smashed into a million pieces.

.

But he didn’t die. 

.
In the morning someone swept up the pieces of Bumpkin and threw them into a garbage can.

As the pieces of Bumpkin lay there in the dark, smelly garbage can, Bumpkin heard a little boy crying.  It was Timmy, and he was crying because someone had stolen his first and most favorite jack-o-lantern.  Timmy’s mother came to comfort him.

“Don’t cry, dear. It was only a vegetable,” she said.

And then, alone in the trash, Bumpkin died.  

THE END

.

.

.

A Grim Fairy Tale – THE NOVICE

Hello, children. I am Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a story?

.

.

THE NOVICE

.

Once upon a time in a city carved out of the Central American jungles,  a novice priest of the Feathered Serpent sat on a stone bench in the High Priest’s ante chamber, waiting for the High Priest to finish with a sacrifice.

.

.

The novice rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say to the High Priest. Suddenly, the door opened, and the usher – resplendent in his brightly feathered robes – came out and beckoned the novice into the audience chamber. The High Priest was standing at the window, looking down at the bustling metropolis.

“Praise the Feathered Serpent,” the novice intoned.

The High Priest looked away from the window and barely acknowledged the salutation.

“Please sit down,” the High Priest said. He gestured to a stone bench by the wall. Both novice and High Priest sat down together.

“How long have you been a novice here at the temple?” the High Priest asked.

“Two years, Excellency.”

“Two years. I talked to the faculty about you. They tell me that you are a good student. Hard working and spiritually gifted.”

“Thank you, Excellency.”

“So what went wrong out there today?”

The novice expected the question, but not the bluntness of its delivery. He swallowed hard before answering.

“I have no excuse, Excellency.”

“I’m not looking for excuses. I want an explanation. You’ve been here two years. You’ve probably assisted in hundreds of sacrifices. Today was your first unassisted solo. So what went wrong?”

“I really don’t know, sir. Everything was going fine. I recited the prayer, made the first incision and reached into the prisoner’s chest cavity. I felt the Feathered Serpent watching over and guiding me, I swear. I’m sure the crowd felt it too. I found myself holding the beating heart up high, showing it to the crowd. It was glorious.”

.

.

“And then…” The High Priest prompted.

“And then the heart just slipped out of my hand and went flying. I think it hit someone in the head.”

The novice sat silent in his shame and disgrace. But then, to his utter amazement and relief, the High Priest laughed.

“You know,” the High Priest said. “many in the crowd hope that the priest performing the sacrifice will slip up.”

“You really think so?”

“It’s human nature. Heck, its cheap entertainment. The peasants even wager on it.”

“They do?”

“Yes. We tried to stop it once, but we gave up. I’m sure the betting was rather heavy on your first solo.”

“And I am thoroughly ashamed -”

“Don’t be. It happens to the best of us. I know.”

“To you?” the novice asked.

“No, but it happened to my great and noble predecessor.”

.

.

“Really?”

“Sure. I was there. The old coot hadn’t performed a sacrifice for over ten years, you know, being busy with administrative duties. But it was the Feast of the Flatulent Twins and he decided to do it himself. I’ll never forget it. There he was – on the sacrificial platform at the top of the pyramid – he made the cut, reached into the chest cavity, pulled out the heart, and lifted it up – still beating – to show it to the crowd below on the steps. And then, pop! It shot out his hand and up into the air. You never saw an old man move so fast. He tried to catch it with his other hand, but that heart shot into the air again. This went on for about five grabs when he finally missed and the heart plopped onto the steps in front of him. Talk about embarrassing.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“Believe it. But the next day it was forgotten, and my old master served as high priest for another ten years, and even performed – successfully – a sacrifice or two. And that’s my point. Don’t let this little mistake shake your confidence. When you fall off of a llama what do you do? You get right back up on that llama and ride it!”

“Yes sir!”

“You have potential, young man. You might even have my job one day.”

“Oh, no, I’m not -”

“Sure you are. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Anyway. There’s an opening for tonight’s sacrifice. Interested?”

“Yes, of course!”

“That’s the spirit.”

.

.

But it happened again. The Novice slipped at the evening sacrifice and the heart went flying.And the novice was banished from the priesthood forever.

.