Something That I Actually Get My Geek on About

Control cities. 

I find that in the US generally,  and especially in rural states were towns of 10000+ are considered 'big', the listed destination points on highways are generally too provincial and small, especially on federal highways where facilitating long-distance travel is the entire point.

On I-80 for example I would sign Lincoln and Omaha all the way from Cheyenne Wyoming, with North Platte, Kearney, and Grand Island as the secondary points.  (Go ahead and use for slots until GI is passed)  While from the east end Denver should be signed all 540 miles from Omaha, (Lincoln, GI, Kearney, NP, and Cheyenne for secondaries), with Salt Lake City taking over as the ultimate point past the I-76 split.  

I could give some other suggestions; Kansas City should be listed on southeast NE 2 all the way from Pioneers Park; that's where the majority of people using that road are going.  Topeka KS, should be listed on US 75 south from downtown Omaha, Sioux City on US 77 north of Lincoln.  In fact I would even go so far as to sign Chicago on I-80 from Lincoln eastward, with a couple of auxiliary signs showing the way to Minneapolis.  This is so not the most boring and aspergery I could write about, honest.  Put me in charge of the signs and I'll blow your mind.    

Olympics/Endless Joys of Yahoo Answers Sidenote

For those knuckleheads who still think that athletic ability, especially in a certain sport, is in any way a matter of genes instead of culture, I give you, Pau Gasol....

and of course.....

Here, on the other hand, is how b-ball teams from Sub-Saharan Africa finished at the last five Olympic games....

2008 Men:  Angola, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -156 point difference

2008 Women:  Mali, 0 wins, 5 defeats,  -147 point difference

2004 Men:  Angola, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -100 point difference

2004 Women: Nigeria, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -87 point difference

2000 Men:  Angola, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -107 point difference

2000 Women:  Senegal, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -184 point difference

1996 Men: Angola, 0 wins, 5 defeats, -99 point difference

1996 Women:  Congo, (Legally still Zaire At the time) 0 wins, 5 defeats, -160 point difference. 

1992 Men:  Angola, (Drum Role) 1 win, 4 defeats, -68 point difference 
 (The win came against Spain, hard as that may be to believe today, and once you factor in the infamous salt-the-earth beatdown that team suffered in the Dream Team's debut the point difference is eminently  reasonable. This Angola squad also won a game against China in the 'Avoid last place' bracket, back when they still had that. Downright competitive these guys. ) 


Culture as Mitt Romney said the other day, certainly does count for quite a lot in human affairs.  Which is not to say that culture is some sort of magical essence.(as he seemed to be suggesting).  And certainly not in the matter of more per-capita wealth being proof of moral supremacy, (As he was quite obviously suggesting.  If that were true, Israel would somehow be culturally superior to Palestine while at the same time being deeply inferior to Kuwait, the U.A.E, and Qatar.

Just Because I'm Somewhat Cranky Today.

The Ebola virus has reached the Ugandan capital of Kampala; population 1.65 million.

Kampala (Entebbe Airport) to New York City (JFK) is a  twenty one & a half-hour trip, two layovers.

Dead time in NYC metro to interact however with whomever one likes; a little under five hours, weekdays. 


New York City (Via Newark International) to Omaha: Three hours, no layovers. 


And oh by the way, the Ebola virus can linger for some time in the sperm of men who have otherwise survived the disease and now appear perfectly healthy; perhaps someone eager to move to a place with better medical facilities and basic sanitary infrastructure, bound to be invigorated by the crazy good luck of his survival and eager to sow his oats.  Who's to say? 

For lunch today I'm going to use a friends garden fresh onions to flavor a tin of store-bought beef stew. It might be me getting old or it might be a temporary thing, but lately I'm just on a kick for really intense, pungent flavor.  In lieu of crackers I'll be using Gordetto's that I soaked in Valentina hot sauce for hours.  How this turns out or whether it would be advisible to you I've no idea.  My lasagna is fucking key.  I make it with chorizo and a pasta salad on the side, also doused with Valantina.  But not often.  Not today. 

Interesting Quote in the NYT

“There is no ideal resolution to the problem, other than reducing the illegal population,” he said. “Incorporating illegal immigrants into health exchanges or directly taxpayer-funded health care legitimizes their presence.”






Right. So some act of cultural 'legitimization' is a stronger and more important truth then physical reality of their presense? So that in a way "those people' are not actually here and altering 'your' society for so long as we don't aknowledge them as 'legitimate'?  Do go on. 

Quick Word on Olympic Men's Soccer

The US men did not qualify, which in my opinion is a good deal more embarrassing than going three and out at the World Cup would be/has been. We fell out of contention after suffering a last minute draw to El Salvador, in a game played in Nashville, Tennessee.  Gabon qualified for London.  We didn't.  New Zealand did too.  We didn't. 

 With the tournament in Britain, and our own side not there, I suppose there's nothing to do about it except to cheer for our closest cultural siblings as they amuse the Anglophone crowds.  This of course would be Mexico. Pickup trucks, cowboy hats, ostentatious displays of Christian faith, a whole native genre of music that sings of lost love, outlaw rebels and getting drunk, a handful of urban hubs peppered among vast open spaces, the constant low-level threat of being gunned down by some fuck while you're shopping for blue jeans, weird emphasis on condiments in our fat-heavy cuisine, and of course football and beer on Sundays. If you seriously perceive the Mexican people to be in any way 'alien' to us than I don't know.  Do you live in a soddy?  Do you amputate your own broken limbs?  Do you only take your mule to town once in a lifetime after you've gained enough Bridesgold?  Anyway.....

In keeping with the norm of modern spoting events, the Olympic football tournaments have grown hideously bloated and overbooked.  So they had to start holding games a couple of days before the official sixteen day Olympic schedule.  Mexicos' first game was a scoreless draw with South Korea, putting them technically in a tie for 3rd/last in their group since the other game their was also a draw in which both teams scored, once each.  If my surrogate team can't entertain me better than that then I'll probably switch to cheering for the British to lose.  Satisfaction guranteed there. 

Late Summer

On the Eastern Great Plains, late summer is primarily the season in which spiders have had the time to grow very fat and very large, complete with immense webs, so that if you're walking through a bushy area you cannot avoid occasionally touching these webs and letting those God. Damned. Things know that you're out there. Anyway, here's a spider eating a warm-blooded vertebrate, just in case you were wondering why the human phobia for the 'little' satans is so neigh near universal.

It is my personal belief that 1955's 'Tarantula' is the best out of the glut of Giant Spider horror films to be made.  In the fifties, when men were men, a medical degree gave one the power to command the US Air Force to bomb American soil.  In fact this was the preffered way to deal with gonorrhea outbreaks in urban slums before they could spread to the more proper classes. 

This is Playing at the UNL Sheldon Art Gallery, free of Charrge

And it turns out that I have a rather intense human cello fetish that I ws unaware of before.

Snoop Dogg is 40 Years Old

As I think about it I realize that he's essentially been in the state fair phase of his career for at least a decade, playing for crowds impatiently waiting for the 'What's my name' closer so they can get another eight dollar cup of light beer.  'Doggystyle' is geezer rock.  I still have my original copy.  Damn damn damn.

Anyway, I am very leery of this idea.  The live shows are going to be awkward when us old folks realize that he isn't going to play what we paid to hear him play. 

Some Facts on the Middle of Nowhere and Its Burning

Keya Paha County.   Pronounced 'keypaha' quick out the mouth. The word is Lakota for 'Turtle Hill', more or less.  The county seat is Springview. pop.  two hundred and forty two. the county's overall population is eight hundred and twenty four.  One of several dozen counties on the Great Plains that are in truth far to small to actually function as such. The sheriff once elected can count on a lifetime appointment for so long as he doesn't offend some branch of cousins; and finding twelve jurors unconnected to either aggrieved or accused is of course a fantastic impossibility.  Occasionally there's been idle talk of breaking up the county and placing the land under the authority of Ainsworth or Valentine; these being the nearest towns large enough for doctors, motels, and courthouses with actual employees instead of scattered archives.  Generally though the spectre of dissolving established counties is viewed as something that would be the most villianous outrage at the hands of urban elites. 

The economy of Keya Paha is based mostly on ranching and tourism.  Or more generally upon the lands generosity of bounty, beauty, and not being on fire.  Rafting on the Niobrara River draws crowds from the distant cities.  The current blaze burns on both sides of the river, jumping it as casually as a crack in the sidewalk. A most impressive feat even with the drought conditions.  Fire on dry prairie grass can move at speeds greater than fifty miles an hour. There are several cases of firefighters or cowboys, (In the north Nebraska hills, generally one conscripted into the other) being broiled instead of bashed into paraplegia, because they had been within a hundred yards of their quarry when the wind changed, as it tends to here.  The size and unpredictible wondering of this fire has forced the evacuation of both Sparks, (Pop. 7) and Meadville Nebraska, (Ghost town with an up and running beer store)  Authorities were succesfully able to clear both places without stampede. 

To reach Springview from Omaha, follow the Fremont/West Dodge freeway until it ends.  continue northwest on US 275 until it itself ends at O'Neill.  From there US 20 west to Basset, and finally state route 7 north to Springview.  From Lincoln the simplest route (Though not the fastest, look that up your damn self.) is to take US 77 north to Fremont, and then the same route as before from there.  The market town of Norfolk (Generally pronounced 'Nor-fork' or sometimes 'Norfiryk') would be probably the best place to stop for lunch or top off your gas tank.  Please respect the work of emergency responders by not masturbating to the sight of fire directly in front of them.

There's Been An Incident Here in Lincoln

The victim has requested anonymity.  The assailants were masked.  Details in general are few and sketchy. 

To this I can only say that Lincoln is, by Prairie standards, a tolerant and civilized town.  Still I suppose that it was a hotbed for 1920's nativism, and still we do have the strutting, thuggish, chauvanistic element still existing here.   They should be made to understand that they are already defeated; that if they make it a habit of threatening the peace & safety of any one of us then they will be deservedly treated as precisely the undesirible corruptive force they consider everyone but themselves to be. 

This is my town, and if you harass my neighbors I will fucking fight you.  Everyone in my town is free to be who they are.  If you cannot accept that there are millions of acres of culturally dead homogenous desert starting just west of here that you are free to go to. Do not think for a second that you will ever be able to chase off the queers, freaks, hippies, heathens, infidels,  or any other assorted brand of deviant away from what we have chosen as our home.  We are staying right fucking here you punk motherfuckers, and we are only going to multiply until we outnumber you.  

In Colorado

I know the Denver area and several people in it very well.  Just, damn is all I can say.  Beyond that I think it's best to reserve my own comment until more facts over how and why this was done present themselves.  Obviously a damnable thing, to say the least. 

I Have Just Seen a woman Wearing a Charles Barkley Suns Jersey

She's slightly chubby, which is beautiful.  Slightly chubby is exactly what I like.  I want to have sex with her standing up with her shoes and shorts removed but the jersey still on.  I want my hands to caress no part of her except the jersey. 

I want her name to be Charlene.

In Other Nebraska News

I once knew a man who had stolen somebody's garage door opener.  Said he could get some "street money" for it.  Yes he was a meth addict.  On that note there's apparently someone who thinks there's a market for human ashes.  And you know, there probably is.

I saw rolling pickup gallows open a show for Hank Williams III and Macgyver suicide once.  They were okay.

For no particular reason at all...

In Religion/Health Care/Jon Bruning is a Shameless Hack News

Our state attorney general is among those who sued to prevent provisions for birth control in the HCA that would deny employers the freedom to prevent other citizens from exercising their will. He remains undaunted. 

“Today's decision completely disregards the federal government's continued shell game when it comes to this rule,” he said. “Essentially, this decision asks millions of Americans to watch and wait for their religious liberties to be violated.”

I have a strong intuition that Bruning is a half-sincere, dishonest shill, and I actually like him better than the Gov for that.  My sense is that Heineman honestly believes his own hateful, small-minded nonsense, which would make him a breed of human far more loathesome than a mere hustler.  Bruning, I'm convinced, has simply strapped himself to the gravy train that is the dominant party of a small state and the relatively easy access to the governor's mansion or Capital Hill that comes with that.   What a shame, that he seems bound to end up just like Don Stenberg, doomed to never attain the big Brass Ring(s) in spite of being a good obedient soldier. 

Shame for him anyway.  Rather delicious to ponder for some of us.

Long As You're Groovin, There's Always a Chance

That's all I have for today. 

In My Dreams I Had a Prophetic Vision

There is, in this town right now, someone with a slow roasted boar of several tons that they want to share with everybody.   They need only be found, or perhaps smelled or even felt.  I know that I'm not wrong on this. 

The Old Saw of Happy Conservatives

Has been examined some more recently. 

There have been many, myself included, who have described intense, dogmatic, self-defining belief as 'Romantic' in the classical, capital R sense.  But one could well argue that this 'capital R' Romance actually differs very little from the more commonly used definition of romantic love.  Certainly the prose of any authoritarian crank or aspiring martyr from any era is unfailingly grand, purple, and florid. It seems clear that to imagine ones own beliefs as the obvious truth that only the willingly evil object to does satisfy a sort of lust.  To imagine ones own beliefs, customs, and folkways as the Only Path demanded of everyone seems to produce the same kind of transcendent rapture normally ascribed to the most idealized form of Eros.  Ayn Rand would probably be the best and most famous example of this.  As even her most horrific, genocidal putdowns of the leaching masses carry a definite air of satiation, purring agitation, and indulgence.  (And then of course there's the rape fetish, which....)

Why this should be the case is for obvious reasons probably beyond rational understanding.  I suppose it could serve as a substitute for immortality.  To view one's own culture and belief system as the only legitimate ones can justify all the things one's self will never see or experience as not rightfully meant to be seen or experienced, aleve the smallness of one's own life with the illusion that,  in the rightful course of things, ones own life will be eternally repeated by everyone. 

Anyway, to get back to the old parlor question of why conservatives tend to report as more happy than liberals.  Well there is, first of all, the fact that we are living in a prosperous country where happiness is the expected social norm, and conservatives are by their nature more likely to give the normatively expected answer out of hand without too much reflection.  There is then again also the ecstacy of self-assurance that I described above.  Brooks in the link article does point out that conservatives are joined by those on the far left in being happier than moderates or mainstream liberals.   "One possibility is that extremists have the whole world figured out, and sorted into good guys and bad guys"  Perhaps.  Or it may be the case that the happiness of the True Believer is the same as that of the newlywed. 

Friday the 13th

It's been a solid month now since the last rain, and still it is quite literally and uncannily cloudless.  When rain does come it tends to be a protracted torrent that lasts for hours or even days without end. so that instead of what's historically normal on the Plains; most summer days ending in a post-sunset thunderstorm that lasts for an hour or so, after darkness alows heat and evaporated water to escape the earth, it is now only either drought or flood for the apparently permanent future. Thank you, Nebraska neighbors, for speaking out against those dirty global warming socialists. 

Shaytanic Black Metal

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/when-black-metals-anti-religious-message-gets-turned-on-islam/259680/

You know, there was never anything close to a time when I conciously thought to myself that Arabian Black Metal was inevitible.  Yet if you were to ask me if somewhere in my bones I somehow Knew that Arabian Black Metal was inevitible, I would tell you in all honesty that yes, I probably did.  It's a trip to live in the twenty first century. 

Of course, since this is Black Metal, it isn't particlarly good music;.... at all.  Still there's a definite air of historical determinism at work here. 


"FUCK JESUS FUCK MAHOMA...HAIL SATAN! SALUDOS DESDE COLOMBIA"

Oh Ho Ho

You know Chris Collins, prostate and breast cancer are precisely the things that happened to kill my grandparents Beran.  Though in truth they were old New Deal/Kennedy Democrats.  Maybe they just wern't strong enough to will sickness away like real Americans?  Perhaps I should take it as a lesson for the day those socialist cancer genes turn on my mother and myself?  Asshole. 

In a related gripe, here is part of Collins' 'clarification'. 

 Clearly, I’m not a politician," Collins said. "I come out of the private sector. I speak very directly. I actually answer questions. I’m not someone who filters, who is consistently filtering everything you say.”

Damn, this guy seriously went full O'Brian/Colbert in not just all earnestness but all perfect self-awareness as well.  This man seriously believes that speaking on impulse is more innately honest than internally forming and 'filtering' his statements beforehand .  To put it another way, he seriously believes that the lack of thought one puts in his statements is a truer measure of honesty than the physical accuracy of what is said. 

This sort of macho magical thinking is something else that rubs me personal.  I myself am a deeply introverted person.  I simply can't not filter my words in my mind before I speak them. This for me is a primal instinct.  And it is one that has caused me no small amount of flak in my life. Because I come from a culture and a family where men are expected to control conversation. To speak loudly and certainly are considered fundamental traits of manhood in my native environment, especially when the speaker is performing a prophet-like denunciation of 'One of Those People'.  Under this mindset there is no such thing as a man not having the natural desire to 'Tell You What he Really Thinks.'  And I have had it not so subtly suggested to me that I am some sort of mentally ill coward more than once.   I do have a true, venemous hatred for this pigheaded attitude, is what I'm trying to say.  It has brought me to the edge of actual madness several times.  And I for one would very much prefer a 'Politician' over any jackass who promises to bring more of this crap into our politics.

Jiang Qing and Daniel Bell are Fucking Daffy

As far as I can tell, they seem to be advocating something like the labyrinthian mix of theocracy and psuedo-democracy found in Iran, except with Confucianism.  I am not Chinese and I suppose that it's none of my business, but still my personal view is nuts to that. 

Okay Conservatives

I know that many of you harbor fantasies of becoming invincible Leviathan through perfect unity of belief.  Still you may have heard about those phony elections that Third-World dictators have from time to time?  Where they claim something like 80 or 90 billionty percent of the vote?  Well you see, the reason why these things are ruefully funny is that there is simply no such thing as any sizable group of people ever being in 83 percent agreement over anything.  It is, in fact, impossible for even a single human mind to be in such near-perfect agreement with itself without the help of some very nifty scapegoating and sloganeering.  Though heaven knows y'all know all about that.   Anyway the main point is that you have made yourselves out to be extremely foolish, again.

Regina Spektor

I realize, or try to anyway, that the woman is an artist and not in any way obligated to be visibly arousing to myself, any other man, or any lesbian for that matter.  Having said that, would somebody please stop deliberately lighting the woman so as to make her look even more pale than she actually is?  Because it's really disconcerting you see.  distracting from the music to hear this undead person wail on about living concerns. Listening to piano pop from someone who looks like the tranny lead vocalist for some neo-nazi/black metal/glam outfit is the most incongruous musical experience since Savage Garden. 

This Is What the Whole of the Northern Plains Looks Like

One hundred degrees and absolutely cloudless today, again.  Been that way for a solid two weeks now, thanks no doubt to the global warming that only America-hating socialists could possibly believe in.  Oh well, time to take White settlement in reverse to the next level I suppose.  I've no personal objections to a Nebraska that is nothing but Lincoln, Omaha, and Beyond Thunderdome. 

Happy Holiday All

To compatriots and those foreigners who accidently stumbled here in search of something else alike; cheers.  The entire 'One Nation Under a Groove album' seems appropriate here.  I myself am currently kicking it in the most ethnically monochrome region of the United States, but never mind that.  I'm just from here is all. 

I've Been Travelling

Went Han Solo to Rockport, Missouri for fireworks that you can't get here.  The fourth is a big deal in my family, what can I say?  And it is more important than Christmas to me personally.  It is after all just as much the national day for George Clinton, Woody Guthrie and Kurt Vonnegut as it is for the godblessMerica types.  Had a rueben with waffle fries for lunch at the Rockport truckstop and it was well done by foreign standards.

I stumbled into a Huey Lewis and the News show at Memorial Park while wondering through Omaha on Friday night.  Omaha has done quite well to improve its cred since the turn of the century but it is still far from being a Huey-averse town I can tell you.  The place was jumping with thousands of souls.  I shared pulls of Captain Morgan with a man who had the air of living out deep in the hundreds and enjoyed a series of downright competent guitar solos, though 'Hip to be Square' was omitted from the setlist for reasons that are surely beyond comprehension. 

It has been over ninety degrees and rainless every day for the last two weeks and there's a good chance that a major plains city will burn to the ground on this holiday.  The nights are filled with sublime invigoration at the thought of it.