TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN

I never bring up the subject of religion with people (except expressing my views on the Buzzard blog.)   But I was in a waiting room the other day and reading Salman Rushdie’s new book Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights – which has nothing to do with religion.  A man near me said he had tried to read Rushdie’s Satanic Verses but couldn’t get through it because the Muslim religion doesn’t make sense.

 I should have let it go, but I couldn’t help myself.    I told him all religious beliefs are a matter of geography.    If he had been born in Saudi Arabia he would be a Muslim, if he had been born in Tibet he would be a Buddhist, if he had been born in China he would probably be Taoist.

Here he was; a chance to confound a non-believer.   He asked me where I thought the universe came from.  I told him that theoretical Physicist propose that the universe began with the Big Bang.  

Aaa-ha, now he has me.  His got-ya question was; what was before the Big Bang?   Someone had to initiate the Big Bang, so it must be God. 

I know you shouldn’t talk religion with these people, and if my wife had been there she would have given me an elbow and shut me up, but I was already on his hook – so I replied:

It is well accepted by the scientific community that the universe began when the celestial turtle farted – what we call The Big Bang.  Each time the turtle farts he creates a new universe.   According to String Theory there are at least eleven parallel universes attributed to our turtle; but there are probably countless celestial turtles creating unlimited universes.   One of these turtles is what you have just described as God.

His answer was; we can agree to disagree (no we can’t, but I let it go at that.)

the Ol’Buzzard

HALLOWEEN VIEWING

At this time of year my wife and I break out the old DVD’s and VCR’s of our favorite spooky movies.   We watch various versions of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – including animated Disney version and the Johnny Depp.   We watch The Witches with Anjelica Huston and Hocus Pocus with Beete Midler. 

My favorite is Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are In My Neck.   This movie has so many subtle aping of the genera that I feel it should be a classic.   

 One of my favorite scenes is the Jewish Inn keeper that has been turned into a vampire comes back to the Inn to attack the serving girl.   She holds up a cross and he replys, Boy do you have the wrong vampire.  

There are numerous vampire movies with lesbian vampires, but this is the first with a gay male vampire.

The fearless hunters.

The scenery is authentic. 

The vampire ball

I know there is a stigma attached to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate; but that aside this is well worth seeing. 

the Ol'Buzzard

SOUTH CAROLINA JUSTICE?

If you must drive through South Carolina, get in and out as fast as you can, drive under the speed limit and if you are not white – good luck!

October 12, New York Times reported on a homeless man caught in the perverted legal system that exist in South Carolina.   The article is provoking enough, but the paragraph that caught my attention stated that in South Carolina cops can act as prosecutors in court against an accused and judges are not required to have a college degree.  

“He is at the mercy of the South Carolina municipal courts, an idiosyncratic system in which police officers serve as prosecutors, judges are not required to have college degrees, and public defenders are often absent.”

LINK TO STORY 

What the fuck?
We are in the twenty-first century, aren't we?
Perhaps, not in South Carolina!
the Ol'Buzzard

KELLYANNE IS BACK

Have you missed her?   They all float down there!


the Ol'Buzzard

I AM IN OVERLOAD

I find it harder and harder to write post.   My everyday activities that are catalyst for a large part of blog post are over shadowed by catastrophic daily outrages committed by President Donald Trump supported by his base of the gullible.  

How can I write about the beautiful fall color that has peaked in western Maine, or the repairs of my fifteen year old snow blower in preparation for winter snows, or the bean soup recipe I made in my new slow cooker when Porto Rico has been devastated and abandoned, fires burn across northern California, the Affordable Health Care act has been defunded, the treaty with Iraq to halt production of a nuclear weapon has been withdrawn and a nuclear exchange with North Korea draws closer – all within this week. 

It all seems so……….

the Ol’Buzzard

BANGKOK TATTOO

Bangkok Tattoo published in 2005: the story of a Royal Thai policeman, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, who with his mother manages a brothel.   

Sonchai is a devout  Buddhist, able to accept the  corruption of the system, the violence in society and his own position in the Bangkok sex trade with true Buddhist mindfulness.

"You are a remarkable collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all, everything depends on everything else, your body depends on the environment, your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the media, your emotions are largely from the reptilian end of your DNA, your intellect is a chemical computer that can’t add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator, and even your best side is a superficial piece of social programming that will fall apart just as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in your joint account, or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack, or you get conscripted into some idiot’s war, or they give you news about your brain tumor.   To name this amorphous morass of self-pity, vanity, and despair is not only the height of hubris, it is also proof (if any were needed) that we are above all a delusional species."  

excerpt from Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett.

namaste

the Ol'Buzzard 

THE UNRAVELING OF AN INFORMED DEMOCRACY

Another storm threatens the Gulf states.   Tropical depression Nate is expected to  reach the southern coast of the U.S. this weekend.  

Even though  97 percent of climate scientist declare that the climate of the world is warming; according to Scientific America 72 percent of Republican Senators and 57 percent of Republican Congress persons still deny climate change. 

Moderate Republicans list climate change near the bottom, at 21 of the 23 most important issues and conservatives list it as last.  









"The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Eighty percent of Republicans deny any connection between human pollution and climate change.   


MEANWHILE

MORON

Donald Trump has always attached names to his adversaries in an immature attempt to degrade them.   

There has been;

 

LITTLE MARACO

LOW ENERGY JEB

CROOKED HILARY

LITTLE ROCKET MAN

Now we have a new one.   I can only hope that everyone who communicates on Twitter, Face Book, Blogs and all the other social media, from now on refer to this man only as 

MORON

THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING IS A ONE-UP

I know this sounds tactless, but the carnage in Las Vegas is a one-up.  

If the Nation did not get incensed, and pass stricter gun control laws after the killing of elementary school children at Sandy Hook, then this mass shooting will just be another momentary outrage before going back to business as usual.  

To say that the easy availability of military type weaponry and semi-automatic pistols with large clip capacity is not the catalyst for all the killings that take place in the U.S. daily, and mass killings that now occur with some regularity, is like denying that tobacco causes cancer. 

No civilian needs to own a military assault weapon that is designed for the sole purpose of kill humans, and no civilian needs a semi-automatic pistol to protect his home.  A 44 mag. or 357 mag. six shot revolver is more than adequate home protection, and bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns with limited magazine capacity are adequate for hunting any game on the face of this earth.  

Assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols with large clip capacity make the action of mass carnage possible.

There is no justification for a civilian to own these weapons.

The bloody state of the Nation today, including this latest mass killing, is the direct culpability of Republican law makers who have been willing to whore themselves to the wing nut (Donald Trump) base of their party and the NRA.    Republicans are more concerned about their next election than what is obviously in the best interest of the Country.  Now they are proposing to allow the purchase of silencers.   

What civilian in this country needs to own a weapon with a silencer? 

This is where the Republican Party has taken the United States to today. 

the Ol’Buzzard