IT's A MAN's WORLD AFTERALL

COME ON ALL OF YOU 52%ers!

No, really!? Q: If vertebrates are naturally formed as default females, then why-on-Earth do most people think that that a/the "Creator" would A: be a male and B: make this a "Man's World" ?

Obviously our human world is totally out of whack, so does it not stand to reason that this cruel mess is NOT the way it should, would or could be?



Since forever, males have over-stepped the natural order of things through sheer physical force and more recently, by perpetuating a various supernatural decrees which imply that having a wenis entitles them to run the show and make up all of the rules for females?

This observation presents several painfully obvious conclusions, the most egregious of which are, well,  painfully obvious.

Schwarzenegger Schadenfreude

If an Austrian Oak falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

The other day I stumbled a upon a Youtubian clip from the film "Pumping Iron" and it made me think about the very public downfall of Argh-argh-arghnold Schwarzenegger,
the "Austrian Oak".

Like a lot of other testosterone fueled teenagers back in the 70s, I was in awe of Ahnold's uber-masculinity. He was the ultimate posterboy for the Bodybuilding craze that Joe Weider was cultivating and Ahnold was the dude who sold it to the world.

Before the 70s there had been hypermasculine celebrities  and movie stars like Johnny "Tarzan" Weismuller. They counter balanced the female counterparts like Jane Mansfield. Today we still have a great demand to satisfy our voyeuristic appreciation of over-the-top physiques and we have stars with superbodies like  Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Sofia Vergara.  

as if

Most of us could never attain Ahnold's level of physicality because of the genetic limitations and fear of taking steroids, but the greatest impediment was the amount of physical labour required...it was just way too much work.

It was inevitable that Ahnold would appear on the big screen and from Conan to Predator and Terminator, he became the BIGGE$T box office draw in the world and according to Box Office Mojo, his adjusted lifetime gross amounts to nearly..wait for it...
THREE BILLION DOLLARS! http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=arnoldschwarzenegger.htm


He parlayed this notoriety into a post cinematic political career. He hitched his wagon to the mystique of American Royalty and married into the Kennedy clan. This secured some serious credibility and piggybacked the zeitgeist of celebrity worship, and became the Governator of "Kaleefornyah".

Now of course the revelation of his indescretions and illegitimate child with one of his domestic servants has torpedoed the magic and he is in the midst of a very public scandalous divorce. How the mighty Oak has fallen.

Last night I watched "Who's Sorry Now" on the CBC's Doc zone: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/whos-sorry-now.html 

"This episode explores big marquee moments of regret from public figures to take a sharp and timely look at the art, spin and billion-dollar business behind The Big Apology. The recent boom in public apologies is taking place against a backdrop where powerful people and interests have less and less privacy. With a mobile phone camera in every pocket and an internet audience instantly riveted to postings of fresh scandals, it‘s harder than ever for public figures to hide mistakes and misdeeds.   
Inevitably when a crisis comes, an elite brand of "reputation managers" or "crisis control" specialists springs into action. They take control of the message by spinning the apology in an effort to "protect the brand" and salvage the image of the philandering politician, the cheating sports idol, or corrupt CEO. More often than not it all goes wrong."


Our society's obssession with celebrity has collided with the 24/7 365 world of the internet and it's Open Season on famous people. Our pathetic inclination to feel pleasure at the misfortune of others (Schadenfreude) is a deeply ingrained psychological need to measure up to others...and our prehistoric brain is hardwired to make us victims of our own insecurity.

Social validation increases the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain, so we subconsciously strive to find ways to even out the playing field. Since many of us believe that we, the great unwashed hordes of workaday nobodies living in anonymity, allow celebrities the privilege of living these amazing wealthy lives, because we finance their fabulous lives by buying tickets or voting for them, so we think that they OWE us...BIG TIME!

The media has capitalized on our natural pre-programmed-pre-occupation with social grooming. "Humans live in a constant duality between how we see ourselves and how others see us."

 Like our Ape cousins and ancestors, we evolved big brains that freed up a lot of time from food finding and sentenced us to the majority of out time being kidnapped by social grooming. Now this natural obssession has spun right out of control to the detriment of our participation in political and social activism..things which actually affect our lives.

It's sad that we need to invent and create heroes. If we spent more time concentrating on our own lives, we'd realize that the real heroes are the people we know, who actually affect your life. We also need to appreciate that the great unwashed hordes of workaday nobodies living in anonymity aren't looking at our lives under a microscope.
We should all be ridiculously overjoyed that when saplings like us fall in the forest, nobody is watching and it doesn't make a sound.

WE ARE OUR BRAINS

If I could, I would like to arrange for every person on the planet to watch this video. If we could collectively acknowledge that the 3 pound glob of jello holding our ears apart controls how and who we are, it would free us from all of the bullshit that we think that we know about ourselves.

Even a casual glance at my blog roll or list of "friends" on Facebook proves my obvious predisposition towards associating with like-minded individuals is a direct product of my selfish genes.

"Social validation increases the level of dopamine and serotonin in the brain and allows us to let go of emotional fixations and become self aware more easily. We are in a constant duality between how we see oursleves and how we think that others see us."



We are what we think, but we need to train ourselves to be consciously aware that we are still operating with a prehistoric brain that can hijack our rational thoughts when we feel threatened...regardless of whether that threat is real or imagined.

The more attached we are to a belief system, the more imprisoned we are by this artificial environmentally induced bias. To have self awareness and free choice, we must disconnect from our socially induced cosmology.

HAPPY EVOLUTION WEEKEND!

I am Agnostic because I accept that the BIGGEST question of this ongoing debate cannot be definitively won or lost based upon our current level of available scientific data.

To many folks this is perceived as fence-sitting. This is how the incomparable Carl Sagan explained his position: "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic. I have some discomfort with both believers and with nonbelievers when their opinions are NOT based on facts ... If we don't know the answer, why are we under so much pressure to make up our minds, to declare our allegiance to one hypothesis or the other?"

I have friends who are anchored along every angstrom of the debate scale. Oh sure sometimes I totally lose it with the Fundies, but I acknowledge that the vast majority of people wish to incorporate both aspects into their lives. So instead of letting the extremists on either end continue to monopolize this discussion, Evolution Weekend looks like a viable alternative that most of us can build upon..without compromising on Evolution because I oppose the ongoing movement to incorporate "Intelligent Design" into the education system.

"Evolution Weekend is a chance to celebrate the intersection of religion and science and to do so in a mature manner. The clergy members of The Clergy Letter Project are deeply religious, every bit as devout as the fundamentalists who oppose them, but they also recognize that practicing their religion should not have to mean turning their backs on the facts of science.

Instead, they understand that a deeper understanding of the natural world will only enhance their faith. And they are not so insecure in their faith that they feel compelled to condemn all other belief as false and demand that everyone else be forced to accept their singular perspective."

Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for religious individuals to practice their faith while appreciating all science has taught us.

Evolution Weekend: Protecting Both Religion and Science

www.huffingtonpost.com

Rattling The Swill Bucket

"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket"
George Orwell

We male homo escapeons might try to distance ourselves from the primordial impulses which control our wenis and influence 99.99% of our behaviour...but we can't....not really.

Like it or not Ladies, we men can blame the brain. Yes our ridiculous sex drive is mercilessly dictated by the three-pound lump of jello lodged between our ears. The thick skull houses the 200,000 year-old monkey-brain which helped our species escape a period of drastic climate change that ravaged our once edenic& verdant bithplace, the African Savannah.

Fast forward to the present day age of incomprehensible miracles such as the world wide interwebs, mapping the human genome, and Hollywood suits green-lighting re-makes of 70s & 80s movies that nobody really liked the first time around...
and here we are..
still slaves to our apeman cravings.


I present as evidence of our anthro-psychological mindcuffs exhibit A: a simple car commercial.
Perhaps you've seen it?
How I love the catchy song Tightrope by Janelle Monae
you can listen to her video for the song here>
 *  
Mm-mm-MM!

and now here is the car commercial >!



Listen to all the benefits of owning this vehicle...
interspersed with the now ubiquitous jumpcut imaging of young people on the cusp of having it all. WOW!
But wait?

There is one shot 40 seconds in that every wenis owner from 12 to 90 remembers..
BAM...
it's only on for a single second...
and it has nothing to do with driving the car.

It's this cute girl in repose enjoying a carefree moment at the beach..

Actually most guys don't even notice that there is a Dude sitting behind her?
I didn't.

Now we all know that male humans crave a mindnumbingly low standard of needs, wants and desires... and therefore sex sells. 
I suppose that as a former TV spot writer/producer I may scrutinize Ads a smidge more than most folks, but most of the comments about this spot are asking about that girl. 

Perhaps the male sex drive is the achilles' heel..it is regularly used to destroy Kings, capture Spies and snag the tall good-looking guy down the street with the great job that's married to what's-her-face?.

We "Y" chromers and our seemingly endless supply of fertilizer..enough to effortlessly impregnate bajillions of females and re-populate our own planets...we're all virtually powerless to deflect either subliminal or blatant sexual messages.

It's not fair...ladies you should point fingers at the evil advertising wizards who are manipulating  our evolutionary monkey-see, monkey want-to-do brain!

This might be the greatest car in the world, but 99% of the hetero men will remember this one second flash of this cute girl in the Ad, and maybe even the name of the vehicle.

If Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket, this Orwellian pronouncement works on so many levels.
Rattling the stick indeed!

Winterkills

I shouldn't read stuff like

" Why The Future doesn't need us :( "

during the Winter months.

It argues that human beings would likely guarantee their own extinction. Like Winter isn't bad enough?

Whinging and kvetching aboot it feels good. 

REGAL DNA BEYOND REPAIR

DATELINE LONDON:

Following the recent trothing of Prince Willy Wales and Katty Kay, genetic scientists immediately sprang into action.

Newfound evidence of a once secret program which carefully monitors the breeding of aristocratic European families recently came to light.

Yesterday, around noon, several files were discovered by scavenging Government workers searching for food in the garbage bins behind the Freedom Of Information Bunker.

Members of Royalty are not bred for a specific skill or purpose other than to be entered into an ancient 'show' between Nations. Awards are generally based on conspicuous displays of wealth, but sometimes given to outgoing characters who have displayed outstanding, energetic acts of immorality.


From the files we learn that during the Middle Ages it became apparent that without fail, royal families produced offspring burdened with many undesirable attributes.

These traits ranged from simple undesirable character irregularities such as uncontrollable giggling, to despotic paranoia and delusions of grandeur.

One doctor, Lord Sinjin Tennisanyone, correctly deduced that this appalling condition was the direct result of over 800 years of unbridled inbreeding amongst the European Aristocracy.

In order to combat these terrible afflictions and maintain political stability, substitute eggmaidens were selected from asylums.

This selective breeding program was astonishingly successful and lasted well into the 20th Century.

However, once the Human Genome had been mapped, the Tennisanyone family, gatekeepers of the Royal basting and neutering program, introduced modern scientificky procedures in order to streamline the process and free-up their weekends.

These days all that is required to successfully create an aristocrat is a wee DNA sample from suitable donors most of which are still conveniently warehoused in asylums. 

A procedure that once required numerous bottles of Gin, scented candles, yards of velvet rope, and a tub of lard, can now be done in a matter of minutes.

The only constant still required is that the Princess or Queen must be either rendered unconscious or distracted with jewelry or shoes.

Here for the first time we can view the shocking photographic evidence of what could happen if scientists refused to intervene.

Exhibit A is unquestionably shocking. This is a computer generated image of what William and Harry would have looked like, had Charles been allowed to follow his own devices.

Exhibit B is another disturbing projection of the future progeny which Princes William and Harry would unleash if their severely compromised royal swimmers, floaters, twirlers and sinkers were allowed near an egg. 

As you can see, this remains a highly sensitive issue, and you didn't hear this from me, but a Mrs. Gwynyth Throatwarbler Sharpley of Thamesmead, is suspected of being harvested on four separate occasions.

So Mums the word eh?

DOES DEATH SCARE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU?

Most of us are all too familiar with the Kübler-Rossian 5 F'n stages of dealing with Death, terminal illness, catastrophic personal loss, significant life events, and any other tragedy or disaster.

1) NO F*CKING WAY?
denial
"This can't be happening not to me Nuh-UH?
Talk to the hand."
 

2) F*CKKKKKK!
anger
"Son-of-a! Oh no YOU di'int!?"

3) HOLY F*CK!!!
bargaining 
"I'd make a deal with God, 
And I'd get him to swap our places"
Kate Bush Running Up That Hill

4 f*ck it  :(
depression
 "Think I'll just go and eat worms.
And when I'm gone you wait and see,
They'll all be sorry oh so sorry that they picked on me."

5) Ahhh f*ck
acceptance
"Yeah but what-are-ya-gonna-do?"
Homer J Simpson

 
What brought this on?
Last weekend I went to see BODIES the Exhibition and yes it did affect me.
 

 
The platicized people made me realise that we are, to quote The Fifth Element, meat popsicles. When sliced up and laid out on a table, we look like a platter of Ham, Turkey, Steaks and Ribs. I'll never carve a Christmas Dinner again without noticing how similar we are.
 
Which is fine. As an empiricist I accept the scientificky theory that it took 3 Billion Years of evolutionary tinkering to create us. From stiffly finned fish through to primates...
 

it makes perfect sense that our basic template has been modified to accomodate our progress.

We've come a long way from the primordial ooze to our own unique place in the grand scheme of things. No other creature can boast of having attained such a dysfunctional and near complete separation from the Natural World.
 
But it dawned on me that all of those other organs are just there to support the 3 pound glob of jello folded betwixt our ears. I don't know how electric-chemical connectors create a mind out of a brain, and I also understand, that I never will.

That being said, I honestly believe that we ARE our mind.
 

 
When I looked at the bodies in the exhibit I was fine, but once I glanced into the faces and saw those marble eyes in a real face, it freaked me out. Then I would suddenly be aware that at one point in time, this WAS A REAL PERSON.
 
A human being who experienced all of the same emotional trials and (hopefully) a few triumphs as the rest of us, and who no doubt wondered what would happen to "them" after they died...
especially ending up on display like this?
 
When my time comes, I hope that it's sudden, and that somehow Monica Bellucci was directly responsible.
 

 
Just kidding, no seriously, I can only dream of dying in my sleep like Grandpa, and not like the terrified screaming passengers in his car...
okay sorry, I love that old joke.
 
For the time being I'm not going to obssess aboot it. All the whatifs and shoulda-woulda-coulda's add up fast and take the fun out of being a cognizant being. Like these future Darwin Award recipients. 
 

 
NOW is a gift, that's why they call it The Present.
..go ahead and groan.
 
Personally, I don't see any point in trying to figure oot what's waiting on the other side, if anything, because nobody knows, and there is no way of finding out.
 
There have been plenty of theories dreamed up over the past several Millenia. Some of them are creative & comforting, the recycling ones are nice, but for the most part, most of these imaginings are just plucked out of thin air and burdened with laugh-oot-loud, perplexing, guilt-ridden, value-added rules which nobody can adhere to anyway? 
 

 
I just hope that researchers keep pluggin' away on how a physical brain creates a magical mind so that eventually Humans can stop worrying aboot it.

For now I'll just keep renewing my Lease On Life with the Reaper every Halloween. I guess that if I am being perfectly honest with myself, I'm stuck in the "bargaining" phase.
 
 

Aren't we all? 

Imagine there's no Lennon?

I put this drawing together shortly after the senseless slaying of John on December 8, 1980. What I failed to see in the heat of the moment was that it was not "the day the music died".

A part of me wanted, and still wants, to play judge, jury, and executioner and exact some instant karma on his psychotic assassin, but I have a feeling that John would disapprove.

A large part of what allows his music to stand the test of time, is his recurring message of Peace.

'Imagine' has long been my Agnostic anthem.

No hell below us, above us only sky, and no religion too.

However John also mentioned other obstacles, no countries, possessions, nothing to kill or die for, no need for greed or hunger.

This fantastic idealism all makes perfect sense to me and millions of others, despite the fact that there always seems to be just enough humans, who are so full of ignorance and hate, who keep us circling the drain. 

Maybe that's why the song is so bittersweet, because it's totally impossible...

and yet, so many of us still want to believe in it.

They may say that he was dreamer, but he's not the only one.

ESCAPEONS OOT OF AFRICA

What am I missing? Oh yeah the link between Empirical Evidence and Belief! 

Before Darwin's theory 150 years ago Humans could be excused for believing in a magical supernatural cosmology wherein God plopped us down on the planet out of thin air....
and then in his infinite wisdom only told one f*cking guy about how his  universe works...
and left that one guy in charge of letting the rest of us know about it?
Really? 


That antiquated notion is simply too dangerous to be dropped in the lap of a few megalomaniacs who have proven time and time again,  that they usually edit and redraft all the good bits, and abuse it as a license to impose their will upon others, and enslave them.

When our common ancestors started traipsing oot of Africa it wasn't because they were bored, or looking for an IKEA. Some climatic disaster drove them away. Which is why I refer to us as Homo Escapeons. An Eon means "age" or "forever". We've been running away from our problems for Eons.

To this day most Humans seem more concerned with where they think they are going when they die, rather than finding out how we got here. Most Earthlings are shackled by superstitious beliefs that exist without any empirical evidence...dogmas which are eventually tweaked and manipulated to justify and absolve themselves of murdering, dominating, and controlling the proverbial others.

There are no others!

The earliest Humanish predecessors (Erectus, yes it's always funny) left Africa around 1.8 million years ago. Antecessor left 800,000 ya, then Heidelbergensis (future Neanderthals?) 600,000 ya, and finally us (Sapiens-Sapiens) around 60,000 ya.

Genetic evidence suggests that every single Earthling descended from a few thousand people about 70,000 years ago. This 'bottleneck' may have been brought about by a one of the world's largest know volcanic eruptions at Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia), which plunged the planet into a 6 to 10 year volcanic winter, followed by a further 1,000 year period of cooling.
We left Africa to escape a changing climate.


The oldest known anatomically modern human is aboot 160,000 years old.
Every single Earthling shares a common ancestor dubbed Mitochondrial Eve, who had genetic markers that are shared by all of us. She lived roughly 120-150 ya...
okay enough with the numbers!

Once we were oot of Africa, we were primarily Beachcombers, and eventually we made it to Australia (40,000 ya) and eventually North America. In these new places we sapiens eventually "replaced" the earlier bunch of African escapees like the Neanderthals..who had a pretty good run ..about 400,000 years twice as long as we've been around .

Zip forward tens of thousands of years and here we are...
staring at all of this hardfought data from the past few hundred years that the Religious organizations tried to stop and are still trying to stop!


Instead of accepting that we are all rellies and combining our efforts to solve our myriad of dilemmas, we refuse on the grounds that some of having an exclusivity clause with the Almighty. Most religious leaders do everything within their considerable powers to cloak shared historical information from ever reaching their adherents...for obvious reasons.  

Most Earthlings are ordered to concentrate on the will of their supernatural God (to whom they claim exclusivity) so that they can escape THE END..whether THE END is their individual demise or that of the entire f*cking planet.

 Prospective global terminal disasters include but are not limited to:
solar flares, supernovae, black hole explosions or mergers, gamma-ray bursts, galactic center outbursts, pollution, geological disasters, human infertility, global nuclear warfare, pandemic viral infections,  all of which seem safe bets when compared to the various religious doomsday scenarios.

This gnashing of teeth is the result of watching Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Out Of Africa. In that film Redford's character recognized that the natural world was on a collision with the Human world circa WW1.
I love the irony.

The imagery of the head-up-their-ass British Gentlemen's Club sipping G&Ts in the midst of the primal savagery and beauty of the Kenyan wilderness.
The British and German Royalty, cousins no less, have a territorial tiff to which the Gentleman merrily rush off to kill each other. Hear Hear!

We are ridiculous and we no longer have the luxury of ignoring the facts about who or what we are. It needs to stop.

Oot of Africa indeed!

EVILution
Only 39% of Americans believe in Evilution!

In a recent Gallop poll , 25% admitted that they do NOT believe in Evolution.

Even more baffling is that 36% don't even have an opinion...1% don't know if they have an opinion! 

Only about half of Americans aged 18 to 34 say they believe in evolution.

(I added the quip but props to Propps)

The pollster summarized these findings with this stunning revelation;
"Americans' religious beliefs are a significant predictor of their attitudes toward Darwin's theory!"

Ya think?

"There is a strong relationship between education and belief in Darwin's theory, as might be expected, ranging from 21% of those with high-school educations or less,

 to 74% of those with postgraduate degrees."

The Good News for Modern Man is that 55% of Americans believe in "the Rapture," 

so before our world ends, those who denounce Darwinsky, will be spared and mysteriously taken up to Heaven in the blink of an eye.

I am presuming that after "the Rapture",  
the stats for the 36 percenters without an opinion on Evolution, will dramatically decrease.
Those poor "left behinders" will be much too busy looting the vacant homes and bank accounts of the Faithful to answer stupid surveys on Evilution.

KISSIN' CAUSEIN'S !?

rehashed from March 08

Don't worry I'm not going to ask you to tell me your favorite Big Screen Smooch..

you can if you want to...

but, have you ever wondered if we homo escapeons simply mimic passionate "Movie" kissing or is that type of kissing natural?

Once you have seen one of these torrid smooches on a giant screen aren't you disappointed if you don't receive an earth-moving Kiss?

This same logic dictates the reason that ordinary people should NOT watch porn.

The success of do-it-yourself sites like YouPorn prove once and for all that regular folks will be devastatingly discouraged by their 'shortcomings' if they try to mimic the Herculean performances of the Pros...

not to mention the abscence of all those ridiculously embelleshed 'bits' on display that most of us are neither born with n'or can we afford to implant them.

Do you suppose that prehistorical Cavemen tried hanging upside down or rolling in the surf having slurpy kisses?

Back in 1967 the author of The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris, suggested that mutual sexual gratification (Ladies Stop Laughing) was the key to securing a pair bond which was essential for successfully raising offspring.

He said that our species evolved by choosing mates with less hair and therefore more errogenous zones, female breasts became portruding, hemispherical, eye-magnets to divert the males attention to the front, so that we could invent the missionary position, which developed as a way to make reproducing more enjoyable.....

and it was easier to kiss.

OK scrub your brains and let's try to focus on just Kissing..oh wait....

This Kiss/Sex thingamabob reminds me of my favorite scene in Monty Python's Meaning Of Life when John Cleese is teaching Sex-Ed to the remarkably, disinterested, pupils.

Whilst discussing foreplay he says,

"What's wrong with a kiss, boy?

Hmm?

Why not start her off with a nice kiss?

You don't have to go leaping straight for the clitoris like a bull at a gate.

Give her a kiss, boy ."

According to Wiki;

-Anthropologists haven't reached a consensus as to whether Kissing is a learned or instinctive behavior

-Kissing may may be related to grooming behavior or may be the result of mammalian mothers premasticating..that's MASTICATING..

food for their children in order to recognize biological dangers to their offspring

-Kissing allows prospective mates to smell and taste each other's hornymones (also know as pheromones) for biological compatibility

-Ladies are subconsciously more attracted to men whose major histocompatibility complex portion of their genome is different from their own; leading to offspring with resistance to a greater number of diseases due to heterosis, and thus having a better chance of survival...

which is why we put the kibosh on Kissin' Cousins!

This explains why couples are more likely to bond if they have the right chemistry !  This tedious examination sort of takes all the mystery out of Life doesn't it?

So the hell with that.

Q. Of all the kisses that you've ever had, what percentage of those would be face-sucking, skull-drilling, take-me-now, make-me-lose-control, lip locking...

and how often do you want it?