Author: masshol

Bush pardons TX pot dealer…hmm…

From CNN.com:

James Edward Reed, Kaufman, Texas, conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, sentenced January 1975 to 18 months in prison and two years special parole.

Now you have got to be shitting me on this one.  Someone out there with some time on their hands please please please find out more about this guy.  

From Wikipedia:

Bush has said that he did not use illegal drugs at any time since 1974. He has denied the allegation (Hatfield, 1999) that family influence was used to expunge the record of an arrest for cocaine possession in 1972, but has declined to discuss whether he used drugs before 1974.

The timelines just seem to good to be true.  I wish I could write more.  I wish I could write about my disgust for Bush and his hypocritical drug policy and post-911 roundup of people selling pipes and bongs using much needed federal agents.  But I have no time.  

Feel free to write about that part for me.

This is scary – latest USA Next email

So a while back, someone kindly subscribed one of my junk email addresses to USA Next.  I do mean kindly, because I never would have thought about it, but I love getting emails from the dark side, and these guys have provided me with months and months of humor.  

But the email I just got from them is downright scary.  It promotes this book by Marvin Olasky, which USA Next is basically promoting as the book that tells the “truth” about non-Christian religions, spun in such a way that leads me to believe it is professing that Christianity is the only real religion.  

Now I have been wanting to rant on religion in general lately, and I still plan on it, but my work schedule just hasn’t allowed me to really sit and think and write as yet.  So for now, please enjoy the text of the email, which follows.

What the media won’t tell you about non-Christian religionsM

Plus: the anti-Christian agenda behind their biased reporting

The Religions Next Door
by Marvin Olasky

Aren’t all religions fundamentally the same? Don’t they teach the same basic ethical principles, and worship the same God? To the media, the answer is an obvious “yes” — but the real answer is an emphatic “no.” Now, in The Religions Next Door: What We Need to Know about Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam — and What Reporters Are Missing, Marvin Olasky tells the truth about about non-Christian religions — and the danger of believing that all religions hold different variations of the same tenets.

Olasky, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, and editor-in-chief of World magazine, also challenges the way religion is reported in the media, revealing that not only do the media invest little in religion reporting generally, but the reporters they do hire tend to reflect the secular, anti-Christian ideologies of the newsrooms which they serve.

But the heart of Olasky’s book is his straightforward treatment of the four major non-Christian religions — for each of which he provides a concise yet thorough account of its history, beliefs, rituals, and key figures, plus a glossary of terms. “It is neither wise nor compassionate to remain uninformed . . . when one culture may be threatening another, to settle for the most superficial coverage of that culture’s belief, or to assume that both cultures have essentially the same understanding of who God is,” Olasky warns.

A tiny sampling of Marvin Olasky’s insights:

  • How many reporters and editors at leading publications attend religious services weekly? Five in ten? Four in ten? Three? (Keep going, you’ll get there)
  • How syncretism — the attempt to merge religions under the assumption that they are all basically the same — creates an illusion of similarity that can be dangerous, especially when it applies to reporting on religions with militant aspects
  • How the favorable treatment Islam has gotten from the press and in schools has fostered its growth in America
  • The profound differences between God and “Allah,” and between the “paradise” of Islam and the Heaven of Christianity
  • The theology of Islamic jihad and “self-martyrdom”
  • Why Islam has no concept of “inalienable rights,” but accords a subservient status to Jews and Christians, known as dhimmis
  • How Hindu belief underlies India’s caste system — and why the subservient status of 240 million “untouchables” may lead to the greatest civil-rights conflict of the 21st century
  • How Hindu scripture and theology contributes to the epidemic of “sex-selection” abortions of females in India
  • Why Buddhism is a religion of doubt — not only in the existence of God, but of reality itself
  • Why Buddhism is especially appealing to those who have lived as hedonists — such as 60’s rebels and Hollywood stars
  • The Hebrew Scriptures: how archaeological research is vindicating the accuracy of the Old Testament
  • How Judaism changed after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.
  • How Hitler’s anti-Semitism arose not from Christianity but from racial theories stemming from the Enlightenment and Darwinism
  • Why journalists never write about the way Christianity has survived and thrived
  • Why the lack of religious belief among most journalists does not leave them neutral toward religion, as the like to think

Is anyone else scared that not only is this hate and xenophobia out there, but that it is being pushed by USA Next, the fucking random anti-AARP group?  I seriously don’t know what to think about this.

Quitting Smoking – day 2

So I know that there is so much going on in the world right now that affects us all a whole hell of a lot more than my hopefully final attempt at cessation, but I had to share this story somwhere, and to be honest it seems a little easier to share with people who I don’t really know.  

Although I have done my best to be as gentle as possible in a story that follows, I do describe a dream I had last night which may offend those of extremely sensitive nature.
So after five years of pack a day smoking (more on the weekends when drinking), I have finally reached the day when I really and truly want to quit. Not the kind of quitting where I feel some sort of guilt or I am quitting because I should, but the kind of quitting one does because one finally really and truly wants to. In my previous incarnations of fake quitting, the attempt has always been done cold turkey, although sometimes supplemented with dipping. For one reason or another, even though my brain tried to say no, I always ended up back at the 711, dropping the fist five of what would become an uncountable amount of MORE dollars wasted.

So this time I decided to admit that I can’t do it straight up all on my own, and I went for the patch. Day one of the patch, yesterday, went by without incident. I had a nice smooth calming behind the scenes buzz all day and only once (as I was pondering bed) did I even think about wanting to smoke a cigarette. I did have to make a couple walks around the block to try and mimic my old smoke break habits, and I certainly chewed my fair share of gum for the oral fixation, but I wasn’t thinking about having a smoke like I usually do. So that was good.

The really interesting part of day one was actually night one. I remembered when i woke up this morning a small warning on the Nicoderm CQ box, something about vivid dreams and only leaving it on for 16 hours if this occured. I awoke with that blurry memory because of two incredibly vivid dreams that I had. One of which would make me consider taking it off to sleep, and the other making me wonder why I didn’t try this glorious dream enhancing transdermal injection before. Let me explain.

I was tired early, and ended up falling asleep around 11. Plenty of time for quite a few REM cycles. Dream one is a bit hazy, and was the bad one. I think it happened between 3:30 and 4:30 sometime, as I sort’ve remember waking up around 4:30 and thinking how I wished I could get out of the dream (which was followed immediately by a hard pass out and an entrance directly back into the dream). Anyhow, here is what I can remember:

On vacation on the beach somewhere with my family. It began at the house on Popponessett, Cape Cod, where we used to vacation when I was a kid. There was a dreadful feeling in everyone’s minds and bodies, and we found out shortly thereafter why that was. Some little evil thing (reminded me somewhat of the infamous Leprechaun from the self-titled horror movies of the 80s) showed up with his incredible physical and mental powers of torture. I remember only a few things from there. The first was that he drove our family car into the ocean. Also, anytime he was within a few feet of you, he had a strange awful magnetism that would pull at you from your insides and make every inch of your body burm with unthinkable pain. I really wish there were more than that, and as the day goes on, more may come to me. But I can be assured that it most definitely lasted way too long and didn’t end well for anyone.

Onto dream 2. In retrospect, this was actually two completely seperate dreams, but both with the same overall theme. That theme is something that has (partially thankfully and partially unfortunately) evaded me for about the past 8 months. That theme needn’t be discussed, as it will become immediately apparent.

So the first part of the dream began with a visit to the apartment of this girl who I had recently met. It wasn’t anyone in particular from my life, just some very attractive 20 something who invited me over. So we are in her bedroom, and she rips all of my clothes off, then all of hers, then sits on the bed, pulls me up to her (I’m still standing) and you can figure out from there. This goes on for a while, then she lays me on the bed and it continues. She then climbs on top of me and over a period of what seemed like 30 minutes (gotta love dreaming), we went through various positions, all seemingly amazing. Then in walks my ex-girlfriend, Christine, a miserable psychotic life-sucking drain of a person, who happens to be the roomate of my newfound lover. She very calmly and uncharacteristically asks her roomate to dismount me, which she does. Christine then apologizes (again, very uncharacteristc) and leads me into their bathroom, where she goes down on me (an unnecessary detail, but this was also not like her ;-).

Cut to next part of dream

I hop in a car in my neighborhood back in my hometown and start driving like an absolute madman around and around our neighborhood, which I am clearly screamed at for. I end up driving to this house where I am babysitting (I know, who the fuck babysits?) the younger siblings of a friend of mine. I can’t remember which friend, but I think that was definitely part of the dream. Anyhow, their mother gets home unexpectedly early and is exhausted and wants to get out of her dinner clothes (husband was nowhere to be found). So she slips off her skirt as she walks in the door, and hugs her two little kids. I, being the king of couth that I am, point out to her in front of her children that she has a remarkably attractive figure, and that she should show me more of it. So she takes off her top and takes me into the next room, where she proceeds to go down on and then mount me.

Cut to the neighbors house, where almost the exact same thing happens, except it is out in the back yard this time. And this one wasn’t quite as attractive, but I was apparently on a roll, so why stop? This one ends when we notice someone walking through the woods towards the house, and we run inside and try to put our clothes on. We weren’t quick enough, and in walks this woman’s husband, who seemingly unfazed, says thanks, have a good one, and lets me out the back door to walk home (must’ve lost the car somewhere?).

As I am walking through the woods, I come upon two little 10 year old who start shooting nerf balls at me with these little plastic guns. I start throwing them back at them, at first softly, and then harder when I tell them to stop and they wont (yes I will not be having children). As I continue to walk on, who do I come across, but their mother. And yes, you guessed it, she is also attractive, which I point out, with once again the same outcome.

And my alarm goes off.

Now what is most remarkable about these dreams is not the fact that they happened to be explicit, it was the sheer lucidity, which I know I cannot express as it was completely in my brain, but trust me, I have NEVER had dreams like that before.  

If you have gotten down this far, thanks for sharing my story with me.  I won’t post any more of these here, as there is plenty else going on, but I do plan on keeping up a day-by-day account of the next 6 weeks on my blog: http://masshol.blogspot.com

Not partisan, not angry, not breaking news

I have been reading diaries and comments here for a couple of days, and today I got myself a username.  Some of the things I have read have made me realize why I am here at Booman.  I have been reading dKos for about a year now, and have been contributing my comments and a few diaries here and there (under a different user name).  

What I realized today is that everything I have written over there has been full of vitriol.  Since the election I cannot say that I have felt normal, and today I realized that it was because I could not let go of the anger.  But today I am ready.  Today I read some things here that just made me smile.  So I wanted to share some sort of story that made me happy.  Here it goes.
My junior year in college (2001), after getting back from a semester abroad in NZ, I took all these anthro classes because I had decided to give up the worship of capitalism and switch my major from business to anthropology. There was this one girl in 3 of my
five classes.  This one girl.

Jocelyn.  She rarely spoke, but when she did, she had the softest, most pleasing voice I have ever heard.  Her outward appearance is what I refered to then as “[insert northeast liberal arts school] hippie,” meaning the patchwork bags and jeans, bandana, loose fitting, flowy shirt, etc etc.

But she was beautiful in the most raw sense of the word.  So when I got bored in class, I would just sit there and stare at her like a wierdo.  And this one time she caught me and gave me the biggest smile ever with her big bright white teeth.  I was instantly obsessed (not an emotion I support or enjoy experiencing, usually).

But we never, ever spoke. Year ended.  I lived in my college town that summer, so while most people went home shortly thereafter, me and a few friends stayed a little longer, as did quite a few seniors. Jocelyn was a senior. So a week or two after finals are over, I’m in a bar downtown and in strolls Jocelyn and her friend who I sort’ve knew.  

Eye contact made all around, as they are passing I say hi to Emily, the friend that I sort’ve know, and then to Jocelyn. She stopped right in front of me, looked right at me with her big shiny brown eyes and said “hello beautiful” and kissed me.  I honestly had no idea what the fuck had just happened.  Nothing like that had ever even come close to going down.  

They get drinks, and she comes back over and we start talking about the ins and outs of biological anthropology, actually quite interesting stuff.  We continue drinking, while nobody will mention what Jocelyn had said or done when they walked in.  I had the most unbelieveble tingle in my entire body.  

Emily decided she was going home, but Jocelyn says she is staying (forgive my confusing of tenses, I am half here and half there right now).  10 minutes later, she asks if I will walk across town (an hour walk) to this botanical garden and retreat for artists that has amazing rose gardens and whatnot.  Obviously, I say yes.  

So we get there, its like 3am, and she lies down in the grass of this huge field, pulls me on top of her, and we kissed for the next hour, maybe two, before passing out on top of each other.  

Woke up as the sun rose, more kissing ensued, nothing else, then we got up and walked home, holding hands.  We got to her place and she was like, I’m going back home tomorrow, but I just wanted to say that that was awesome, and I’m glad it finally happened, I’ve been waiting all semester for you to come and talk to me, but you didn’t.  

I said goodbye, and I never saw her again.