With a beer in hand, I gesture from across the table at Christmas dinner....
"if I were you, I'd rather have my husband in the room next to me jerking off to his computer rather than getting some blowjob from a hooker with the family's grocery money."
She comes back....
" Really?... I don't know, it doesnt make sense to me how someone can get off when there's no physical contact there..."
In this light, she actually chose the slutty, STD infested streetwalker rather than the privacy of an Apple, and who wouldn't agree that "head" is physical contact. Let's be honest, the woman's jealous b/c her hubby's staring at ladies that literally blow her away, and the thought of her husband straying from her own legs would be impossible...therefore, she'll choose the assumed impossible.
My buddy once told me he'd go with clients to get "happy endings". It was a great way to end a meeting or dinner....just swipe the corporate card and everyone gets off. This was Wall Street bankers and traders like anyone else sitting on the train with two kids and an oblivious wife back home. Mommy's meatloaf's in the oven while her loving husband's pitching wood at some Asian massage parlor answering the repeated words of David Spade's best housekeeping impersonation. In order to fully understand the audacity of these men, just look out your window....it's your neighbor or your brother in-law or whomever you never expect. It's any man that has a woman back home with zero sex drive and the bedside creativity of a tuna yanked on-deck. The problem is you want the happy, faithful man that comes with once a millenium sex.
Girls don't understand how ridiculously easy it is to make a man happy.....ten minutes every day. Holy shit, I know, ten minutes....you might miss a re-run of Will & Grace. Instead you'd rather have a sexual tension argument ensue at 11pm over a comment you took differently than it was meant, such as "did you do anything today?.........(you respond) "what do you think I sit on my ass?!?!" If you just took those ten minutes all would've been peachy and you might have enjoyed yourself too. In fact, I don't understand why a woman in a relationship ever even masturbates. If you have a boyfriend/husband, call that fucker up...guarantee he'll drop hammer, leave work and fly from London if you're in the mood. Trust me......you should never waste that once a month urge on anything but keeping you both happy.
Guys need to relieve themselves otherwise they're ornery, miserable, frustrated and short-tempered. Some several times a day, and I say that to give you a comparison of how often we want it versus you. The internet I think you women should consider a blessing. As you know from my previous blog on marriage, over 50% of married couples get divorced in the US. The number would be far less if the temptation for other women wasn't there. And that temptation can be highly subdued if not erased, by masturbating to the options left safely for you online. This way he's not out there doing shit behind your back, spending your mortgage payment because you bitched at him for looking at porn without alternatives.
You tell me ladies......... you either remain in control with the options you have, or forego the responsibility and pretend your man wouldn't dare. To me the internet's a no-brainer, pun fully intended.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Arranged Marriages: A Blind Box Success or Wool Over Your Eyes
You never know who you're going to meet, and where.
In the middle of the Grand Canyon, we finally finished bopping over Class II rapids before settling in to a warm fire, an Indian guy with a reservoir of memorized jokes and a cot with nothing over it but the stars. Earlier in the trip we were introduced to our companions and smiled out of appreciation for a common purpose....we each wanted to ride the Colorado River. After taking pictures dunking one another in muddy brown water to cool off, we got a little more comfortable and a lot more personal.
Out of the 6 couples on the boat (my father and I exclusively seeing each other), two of the couples were Indian. They had brought along with them a bond we knew nothing about even after we asked them how long they'd been married. Like the layers of rock around us and the carved out story its waters continue to write, these people too had a tradition that's flowed sacred and true through the veins of the ones they've loved before them. After doing the math on the years in which they'd been married and how old they actually were, we got right down to the arrangements made by their parents. At a young age he told us, they mix you amongst those kids that are within your societal class or caste, and you literally pick who you would like to meet or be friends with and you're introduced to them. He said families often will pick for you if they've already had a family in mind that they'd like their child to be associated with for the rest of their life. Although it's pretty simple, the families often know each other and court one another during the process, making most of the decisions beyond the initial union. I believe things these days have changed and the time for dating has come into play a bit, but only for a short amount of time before the families push hard for a decision. I can picture a middle school dance with my peers all around me drinking kool-aid and eating Italian subs and Oreos, except we're unaware that our wife or husband is across the hardwood gym floor. Could the decision be that easy, for eternity?
Who are we to know.....our country has a divorce rate right around 50% for new marriages. When we say "I do" we know in the sleeve of our tux we have a Joker stashed just in case. If we ever want to leave and wipe our brows clean of the difficult, no one's going to ostracize us.... especially not our families. But whatever happened to the love then that you thought you had? You got weary of fucking the same person? You met a nice new girl at work that looks prime? You resent not having a bigger house or better car so therefore your marriage must be a failure? People please.....if you don't think there's always going to be someone with more, or someone prettier than what you have, you're an idiot. Relationships aren't easy, and if they were, everyone would be in them. You either sacrifice your immaturity and realize too that the person sharing your life also gave up their anxious options of sleeping with the next best offer....and appreciate that you're setting in stone the groundwork and foundation for a child's upbringing. In India, the divorce rate is around 2%!! So much for needing to fall head over heels or date just enough people to know exactly who you may like best....or finally feel fulfilled that you had enough sex partners to justify a comfort for having enjoyed yourself while young, and now you can settle down. These people never had those options and yet they're more successful?
As I research this I keep seeing the idea of 'growing' in love with one another versus 'falling.' They think they grow, while we inadequately fall. God damnit, let's fucking prove them wrong. I think that reasoning is a bullshit excuse for success in those countries with arranged marriages, such as Iraq, Iran, Japan, India and Afghanistan. We should have a ridiculously better shot at success considering we get to do both. First we "fall" after finding the right person. Getting to live that amazing infatuation stage where public displays of affection and giddy reasons to grab some one's waist are priceless...and then "growing" through the many layers of depth, the days of sickness or fights that wrench ones normal reaction to walk away into a tighter more compromising grip, that any arranged marriage might drill you disinterestedly through. I think we all want the excitement in the roller coaster ride we take. We want the creeping anticipation and the building up towards the big plunge. We want the upside down loops to challenge us and change our perception of the world. The corkscrews, twists and turns leaning harder on and by each other's side. I think we're lucky our ride is different, in fact I love our ride. It contains what anyone should want the most, what we deserve the most....and that's the butterflies.......when the track "falls" out from below you and you're suspended but for a moment in a neck hair tingling sensation that reveals the peculiarity of our position. The risk in one's own choice and the clarity that it is in fact theirs. We've earned the right to feel it....in our gut. And if those opportunities to "fall", if they're going to be misconstrued, damned and relegated to picking a suitor from a lineup...then I choose butterflies...I choose falling.
By your family making it be.......doesn't mean you'll really ever know it was meant to....
In the middle of the Grand Canyon, we finally finished bopping over Class II rapids before settling in to a warm fire, an Indian guy with a reservoir of memorized jokes and a cot with nothing over it but the stars. Earlier in the trip we were introduced to our companions and smiled out of appreciation for a common purpose....we each wanted to ride the Colorado River. After taking pictures dunking one another in muddy brown water to cool off, we got a little more comfortable and a lot more personal.
Out of the 6 couples on the boat (my father and I exclusively seeing each other), two of the couples were Indian. They had brought along with them a bond we knew nothing about even after we asked them how long they'd been married. Like the layers of rock around us and the carved out story its waters continue to write, these people too had a tradition that's flowed sacred and true through the veins of the ones they've loved before them. After doing the math on the years in which they'd been married and how old they actually were, we got right down to the arrangements made by their parents. At a young age he told us, they mix you amongst those kids that are within your societal class or caste, and you literally pick who you would like to meet or be friends with and you're introduced to them. He said families often will pick for you if they've already had a family in mind that they'd like their child to be associated with for the rest of their life. Although it's pretty simple, the families often know each other and court one another during the process, making most of the decisions beyond the initial union. I believe things these days have changed and the time for dating has come into play a bit, but only for a short amount of time before the families push hard for a decision. I can picture a middle school dance with my peers all around me drinking kool-aid and eating Italian subs and Oreos, except we're unaware that our wife or husband is across the hardwood gym floor. Could the decision be that easy, for eternity?
Who are we to know.....our country has a divorce rate right around 50% for new marriages. When we say "I do" we know in the sleeve of our tux we have a Joker stashed just in case. If we ever want to leave and wipe our brows clean of the difficult, no one's going to ostracize us.... especially not our families. But whatever happened to the love then that you thought you had? You got weary of fucking the same person? You met a nice new girl at work that looks prime? You resent not having a bigger house or better car so therefore your marriage must be a failure? People please.....if you don't think there's always going to be someone with more, or someone prettier than what you have, you're an idiot. Relationships aren't easy, and if they were, everyone would be in them. You either sacrifice your immaturity and realize too that the person sharing your life also gave up their anxious options of sleeping with the next best offer....and appreciate that you're setting in stone the groundwork and foundation for a child's upbringing. In India, the divorce rate is around 2%!! So much for needing to fall head over heels or date just enough people to know exactly who you may like best....or finally feel fulfilled that you had enough sex partners to justify a comfort for having enjoyed yourself while young, and now you can settle down. These people never had those options and yet they're more successful?
As I research this I keep seeing the idea of 'growing' in love with one another versus 'falling.' They think they grow, while we inadequately fall. God damnit, let's fucking prove them wrong. I think that reasoning is a bullshit excuse for success in those countries with arranged marriages, such as Iraq, Iran, Japan, India and Afghanistan. We should have a ridiculously better shot at success considering we get to do both. First we "fall" after finding the right person. Getting to live that amazing infatuation stage where public displays of affection and giddy reasons to grab some one's waist are priceless...and then "growing" through the many layers of depth, the days of sickness or fights that wrench ones normal reaction to walk away into a tighter more compromising grip, that any arranged marriage might drill you disinterestedly through. I think we all want the excitement in the roller coaster ride we take. We want the creeping anticipation and the building up towards the big plunge. We want the upside down loops to challenge us and change our perception of the world. The corkscrews, twists and turns leaning harder on and by each other's side. I think we're lucky our ride is different, in fact I love our ride. It contains what anyone should want the most, what we deserve the most....and that's the butterflies.......when the track "falls" out from below you and you're suspended but for a moment in a neck hair tingling sensation that reveals the peculiarity of our position. The risk in one's own choice and the clarity that it is in fact theirs. We've earned the right to feel it....in our gut. And if those opportunities to "fall", if they're going to be misconstrued, damned and relegated to picking a suitor from a lineup...then I choose butterflies...I choose falling.
By your family making it be.......doesn't mean you'll really ever know it was meant to....
Monday, December 22, 2008
Our Access To Resources And Our Desire to Leave Something Behind
I really got into that John Adams series after reading the book by David McCullough. One of the things I remember most vividly was a journey he had taken from Cambridge to Philadelphia. A distance I am well aware of being from the East Coast and bordering the New England states. By car it might take you 6 hours depending on traffic. By our standards and tolerance of patience, many consider that to be a bit of a trek. It took John Adams 12 days by horseback......12 friggin days of nothing but counting the minutes...gauging the distance he'd traveled by map and a few wooden road signs. Stallion tachometers weren't invented yet. This type of stagnation baffles me as to the extent by which this man still achieved things. Not just John Adams, but any man representative of that time. They were well read to the point of fully stacked libraries within their homes. They took four full weeks just to get across the Atlantic, and another month to get back. I get annoyed if a website doesn't load in two seconds. How on earth did these men cement such acclaim without telephones, email and airplanes?
Sometimes I wonder to myself what is the meaning of life. I've drawn several conclusions after much thought, and at one point the answer I'd given myself was to leave something behind. To make my mark on the world no matter how great or tiny. Besides for a long drawn out explanation of life's end goal, I got to thinking about the accomplishments or marks of mortals, with a great many more barriers than I. A couple of John Adams' greatest achievements in the eyes of the public were the hand he had in drafting the Constitution, the establishment of our independence from the United Kingdom, and becoming the President of the United States....including a son that followed soon behind. These things are the dreams of many. Though lofty, flighted aspirations these days........back then they might have been considered a natural progression of leadership and a newly created vacant position that needed filling. For myself, I worry I'll never make my mark, and I contemplate whether that's due to my desire to juggle several life goals in the hopes that one or two come through, rather than dedicating oneself to a specific task or specialty for years on end which might lead to the highest professional mastery and a rank deemed worthy of respect and awe. On the flip side, said dedication to ones work instills fear in me of the men who have come before us, institutionalized in their repetition and alienated from their original motivations toward personal achievement, having accepted their monotony as a necessary evil leading to the greater good of others.
Take this example for instance.....If I was a miner, spending 22 years of my life 1 mile below the earth's surface, honing my craft and becoming the best damn miner I could be....would that earn me the mark I'd have wanted to leave behind? Well I guess that'd be a personal opinion or ones relegation to the individual's episodes outside his line of work such as.....was he a great father? Did he support his family as best he could at all times gravest? Did he ever give back to the community? I mean, these are all things one could consider, and ones I actually hold much more important to the success of a human being than the accomplishments of ones work, however the argument is about making ones mark. Was John Adams' making those marks through his textbooked stories recited in history class? Did he look at those titles or speeches he'd made as his life's work? Some might disregard his work altogether when considering his life. How was he as a father, did he fail? Maybe with one son.....or in some people's minds, maybe every day that he chose his work over his family he had failed from sun up to sundown. In my mind the troubling yet exciting combination is how a man can achieve national acclaim with so little time and resources.....and with what I or my peers have today, why we can't do one better? Are we doing one better without knowing it? Maybe we've already begun stepping down that path without knowing it. Was this man thinking he was wasting time when spending full seasons farming and laying seed, or hours upon hours behind the pages of books? Did he think that any of it would ever make him the President? I honestly doubt he'd ever expected it until he saw it presented as an option. Am I holding a man's full long life up to a light and expecting to match its success without working for it? Quite possibly... I would like to think it's more than just patience...maybe we haven't sacrificed yet...maybe the children, wives or homes we'll bed haven't yet become our motivation to strive for better. And once we become so determined and adamant that we're men worth a damn, there'll be no stopping us and any step we take will be a stride toward the greater good. What is "better" anyway? More education? Longer hours? Perfecting ones craft? Raising our kids with enough time to make it to all their events?
I think what this raging contemplation of the inept, confused and discontent.....this purgatory of purpose and clouded forecast on ones horizon of dreams.... is a struggle with what makes someone happy in their own rite. What they'll be most proud of in their final moments. Not whether I succeed in making my mark because I'll really never know if I keep looking forward. I think working as hard as I can towards what makes the ones I love around me happy, will actually become the mark itself...not a title, or national beacon exposed to the many, but for those it's solely meant, in the hours I press its meaning.
Sometimes I wonder to myself what is the meaning of life. I've drawn several conclusions after much thought, and at one point the answer I'd given myself was to leave something behind. To make my mark on the world no matter how great or tiny. Besides for a long drawn out explanation of life's end goal, I got to thinking about the accomplishments or marks of mortals, with a great many more barriers than I. A couple of John Adams' greatest achievements in the eyes of the public were the hand he had in drafting the Constitution, the establishment of our independence from the United Kingdom, and becoming the President of the United States....including a son that followed soon behind. These things are the dreams of many. Though lofty, flighted aspirations these days........back then they might have been considered a natural progression of leadership and a newly created vacant position that needed filling. For myself, I worry I'll never make my mark, and I contemplate whether that's due to my desire to juggle several life goals in the hopes that one or two come through, rather than dedicating oneself to a specific task or specialty for years on end which might lead to the highest professional mastery and a rank deemed worthy of respect and awe. On the flip side, said dedication to ones work instills fear in me of the men who have come before us, institutionalized in their repetition and alienated from their original motivations toward personal achievement, having accepted their monotony as a necessary evil leading to the greater good of others.
Take this example for instance.....If I was a miner, spending 22 years of my life 1 mile below the earth's surface, honing my craft and becoming the best damn miner I could be....would that earn me the mark I'd have wanted to leave behind? Well I guess that'd be a personal opinion or ones relegation to the individual's episodes outside his line of work such as.....was he a great father? Did he support his family as best he could at all times gravest? Did he ever give back to the community? I mean, these are all things one could consider, and ones I actually hold much more important to the success of a human being than the accomplishments of ones work, however the argument is about making ones mark. Was John Adams' making those marks through his textbooked stories recited in history class? Did he look at those titles or speeches he'd made as his life's work? Some might disregard his work altogether when considering his life. How was he as a father, did he fail? Maybe with one son.....or in some people's minds, maybe every day that he chose his work over his family he had failed from sun up to sundown. In my mind the troubling yet exciting combination is how a man can achieve national acclaim with so little time and resources.....and with what I or my peers have today, why we can't do one better? Are we doing one better without knowing it? Maybe we've already begun stepping down that path without knowing it. Was this man thinking he was wasting time when spending full seasons farming and laying seed, or hours upon hours behind the pages of books? Did he think that any of it would ever make him the President? I honestly doubt he'd ever expected it until he saw it presented as an option. Am I holding a man's full long life up to a light and expecting to match its success without working for it? Quite possibly... I would like to think it's more than just patience...maybe we haven't sacrificed yet...maybe the children, wives or homes we'll bed haven't yet become our motivation to strive for better. And once we become so determined and adamant that we're men worth a damn, there'll be no stopping us and any step we take will be a stride toward the greater good. What is "better" anyway? More education? Longer hours? Perfecting ones craft? Raising our kids with enough time to make it to all their events?
I think what this raging contemplation of the inept, confused and discontent.....this purgatory of purpose and clouded forecast on ones horizon of dreams.... is a struggle with what makes someone happy in their own rite. What they'll be most proud of in their final moments. Not whether I succeed in making my mark because I'll really never know if I keep looking forward. I think working as hard as I can towards what makes the ones I love around me happy, will actually become the mark itself...not a title, or national beacon exposed to the many, but for those it's solely meant, in the hours I press its meaning.
Friday, December 19, 2008
We All Know As Much About Anne Frank as Otto
Sticking around the topic of my Amsterdammmian experience, my guys and I shuffled along a line that snaked a city block in order to see where 8 people hid out from Nazi fucks for two full years. I remembered reading aloud from some little girl's diary around the 7th grade....nervous I'd screw up the words as fellow students followed along in their own books. "Am I reading every word correctly, please voice don't crack on me, god I wish Id gotten a haircut..." Never appreciating the words, or that the girl next to me could've written them...after all we were about the same age as Anne Frank when she wrote it. We don't concentrate on comprehension unless we're interested in what we're reading.....and I would've been if the teacher just walked up to me and said "this girl about your age wrote this book while hiding in a room the size of a shoebox with her whole family...shitting, pissing, eating and sleeping within twelve square feet of eachother for 2 years....worried that any next minute they could be split up forever or killed for being born....and she was... so you might really try and take this one in." Never hearing that, instead I danced over her words as fast as I could with no passion, no empathy, no clue....I'd have known more of who I would celebrate one day 20 years later.
Tapping any bit of my memory to try and relate to the bookcase we were about to move, a hole revealed itself to the height of an 8 year old. Anyone taller had to duck to get in. This was their hiding spot...a home within a home that began behind a piece of furniture in any normal bedroom. The deeper we went, the quieter we got....wincing at wooden creaks at my feet....if the gestapo had heard,we'd be shot on site. They weren't allowed to move around during the daytime as the workers in the rooms below them might hear and become suspicious. You would think in such confined spaces you might get to know one another pretty damn well. Well that's where this bit gets more to the point rather than walking you through the fantastic tour we endured. One of the last things before you leave the Anne Frank house is an audio interview with Otto Frank, Anne's father. He was the only one who had survived the concentration camps that killed Anne, her mother Edith and sister Margot after their hiding place had been revealed by an unknown source. Otto received Anne's Diary from a friend who'd helped them while in hiding when he returned to Amsterdam after the war ended. He couldn't believe he never knew that Anne had so much on her mind. Such depth in her feelings, concerns and conflicts....even while only feet away. This is where I'll never forget the most important point made that day and the reason for writing this......Otto had concluded after reading the thoughts of his daughter and the reality of her being gone forever, that the opportunity to ask questions was gone. And that a harsh generality does in fact exist, and that is "most parents truly don't ever really know their own children."
It seems so easy to me....to know your own children, because I've had a ridiculously open relationship with mine. No matter what the topic is, whether sex, drugs.......no not rock and roll you douche.....depression, love, respect, manners, morals, opinions, politics, religion.....it was always open for discussion. In fact, all of it was drained out of us by morning wake up calls and bedside questioning for details of the night prior. You couldn't escape unless you'd really delved into what happened.....it wasn't like they waited for us to come and open up to them...it was instilled early on, it'd be part of our relationship. I feel bad for people who don't share the same feeling about this as me because I bet their parents would want such a relationship with their own child no matter what they think. And hopefully something so drastic doesn't need to occur in order for either of them to realize the moment's passed. One of my uncles was hysterical at my grandmother's funeral...she died in her 80's. His family's well known for not showing up to family gatherings and always finding an excuse. The only thing he could say was "I wish I had gone to see her more...just talk with her.....I knew she was getting older but I never thought she'd be gone." This is a man in his fifties we're talking here. Seriously people, if you're not old enough yet to have kids or even if you do and your grandparents are alive, start with them first...sit them down and ask them about their lives. What they wished they had done....what they learned, the favorite place they traveled, the wars, the depression, what it was like being a mother or a father, what they think the goal of life really is...who's more wise to answer that question....and you, the more ridiculously intelligent for asking it and taking the time to hear their answers. I wanted to smack this guy Otto. In my mind, he was a failure as a father. If that's what you come away with, regret that you didn't even know your own child.....and it took her death to figure it out....well you didn't do enough to savor those years you'd be given extra that many other Jews never had with their families. I don't care if your kid's shy or standoff-ish...this girl was sitting in the seat across the room, and yet he had no idea how to talk to her? To grab her diary in the middle of the night when she was asleep and see what she was writing about after a full year of watching her scribble. Give me a break on privacy people if that's your consolation....a kid comes home from school and gets a "D" on a paper he wrote....you're not going to ask to read it? You accept that this little kid of yours who represents your family while at school, and with whatever he's written that has awarded him a "D", you're going to accept his privacy without even knowing why he got the grade? Bullshit. Step it up...know when both you and your kid are better off for having each other rather than assuming everything's peachy because they made it home that night. If you're thinking I'll be overprotective you're out of your mind...what you're doing is correlating interest in one's life with an overbearing nature. Sorry but you're parallel lines are convoluted intestines when penciled on paper. You're off somewhere worried about curfews and bedtimes and a structured set of guidelines for your child......the freedom and comfort you receive from knowing your kid so well that you can trust them automatically affords you the luxury of less anxiety over their actions and less need for discipline. Everyone has a different circumstance of course, and life doesn't deal us all the perfect cards...but it's never too late to start asking some questions....at this time of year, there's always someone you love sitting right across from you....get over yourself and make the first move.
Tapping any bit of my memory to try and relate to the bookcase we were about to move, a hole revealed itself to the height of an 8 year old. Anyone taller had to duck to get in. This was their hiding spot...a home within a home that began behind a piece of furniture in any normal bedroom. The deeper we went, the quieter we got....wincing at wooden creaks at my feet....if the gestapo had heard,we'd be shot on site. They weren't allowed to move around during the daytime as the workers in the rooms below them might hear and become suspicious. You would think in such confined spaces you might get to know one another pretty damn well. Well that's where this bit gets more to the point rather than walking you through the fantastic tour we endured. One of the last things before you leave the Anne Frank house is an audio interview with Otto Frank, Anne's father. He was the only one who had survived the concentration camps that killed Anne, her mother Edith and sister Margot after their hiding place had been revealed by an unknown source. Otto received Anne's Diary from a friend who'd helped them while in hiding when he returned to Amsterdam after the war ended. He couldn't believe he never knew that Anne had so much on her mind. Such depth in her feelings, concerns and conflicts....even while only feet away. This is where I'll never forget the most important point made that day and the reason for writing this......Otto had concluded after reading the thoughts of his daughter and the reality of her being gone forever, that the opportunity to ask questions was gone. And that a harsh generality does in fact exist, and that is "most parents truly don't ever really know their own children."
It seems so easy to me....to know your own children, because I've had a ridiculously open relationship with mine. No matter what the topic is, whether sex, drugs.......no not rock and roll you douche.....depression, love, respect, manners, morals, opinions, politics, religion.....it was always open for discussion. In fact, all of it was drained out of us by morning wake up calls and bedside questioning for details of the night prior. You couldn't escape unless you'd really delved into what happened.....it wasn't like they waited for us to come and open up to them...it was instilled early on, it'd be part of our relationship. I feel bad for people who don't share the same feeling about this as me because I bet their parents would want such a relationship with their own child no matter what they think. And hopefully something so drastic doesn't need to occur in order for either of them to realize the moment's passed. One of my uncles was hysterical at my grandmother's funeral...she died in her 80's. His family's well known for not showing up to family gatherings and always finding an excuse. The only thing he could say was "I wish I had gone to see her more...just talk with her.....I knew she was getting older but I never thought she'd be gone." This is a man in his fifties we're talking here. Seriously people, if you're not old enough yet to have kids or even if you do and your grandparents are alive, start with them first...sit them down and ask them about their lives. What they wished they had done....what they learned, the favorite place they traveled, the wars, the depression, what it was like being a mother or a father, what they think the goal of life really is...who's more wise to answer that question....and you, the more ridiculously intelligent for asking it and taking the time to hear their answers. I wanted to smack this guy Otto. In my mind, he was a failure as a father. If that's what you come away with, regret that you didn't even know your own child.....and it took her death to figure it out....well you didn't do enough to savor those years you'd be given extra that many other Jews never had with their families. I don't care if your kid's shy or standoff-ish...this girl was sitting in the seat across the room, and yet he had no idea how to talk to her? To grab her diary in the middle of the night when she was asleep and see what she was writing about after a full year of watching her scribble. Give me a break on privacy people if that's your consolation....a kid comes home from school and gets a "D" on a paper he wrote....you're not going to ask to read it? You accept that this little kid of yours who represents your family while at school, and with whatever he's written that has awarded him a "D", you're going to accept his privacy without even knowing why he got the grade? Bullshit. Step it up...know when both you and your kid are better off for having each other rather than assuming everything's peachy because they made it home that night. If you're thinking I'll be overprotective you're out of your mind...what you're doing is correlating interest in one's life with an overbearing nature. Sorry but you're parallel lines are convoluted intestines when penciled on paper. You're off somewhere worried about curfews and bedtimes and a structured set of guidelines for your child......the freedom and comfort you receive from knowing your kid so well that you can trust them automatically affords you the luxury of less anxiety over their actions and less need for discipline. Everyone has a different circumstance of course, and life doesn't deal us all the perfect cards...but it's never too late to start asking some questions....at this time of year, there's always someone you love sitting right across from you....get over yourself and make the first move.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Che Guevara - Four and a Half Hours to Celebrate, Thank and Applaud Revolution..and let's not forget, Murder
Tonight I spent a comfy 4 and a half hours through the bio-epic Ernesto Che Guevara film done by Steven Soderbergh. Although my intentions for the film were to understand better those actions behind the revolutionary and psychotic mind of the man, instead I got a feel good, we all love Che, Che can do no wrong…Che never killed a man film. Well he never did personally in the movie, kill a man. At least not from what I remember… unless the 20-minute Intermission, constant personal sewing of comrades’ battle wounds, or high winds of Cuba or Bolivia, swept those bad images from my mind. Although I would never spoil such a film for anyone looking to see it, I would suggest you see it in its entirety if possible because to cut this movie in half is to subject yourself to having the ingredients for a sandwich on your plate, yet the first and only thing you can eat is the bread.
My minor obsession with Che Guevara started in Amsterdam three months ago, unaware that there was a movie ever even being made about the man with the Communist ideals. It was his face that we couldn’t avoid. Every shop we’d passed on the way to a jazz club, the Anne Frank House, or the Red Light District, we saw a t-shirt hanging with a shadow silk-screened onto it. A celebration of some man…a man who’s name we’d known but couldn’t pronounce, and couldn’t relate anything to. The face looked like that of a proud young druglord with blown-out muttonchops and an untamed muslim beard. A beret kept his unkempt hair, kept, and his face held such mystery and power that it dared further research. He must’ve done something right to be remembered, to be bled and smeared onto shirts for young skaters and eco-degenerates to praise. But the more I dug deeper to find out this man’s history, the more I related him to Fidel Castro and the murdering tendencies we’ve all associated with Amin of Uganda. However, I think a bit differently about such men after a recent conversation. Normally we’re brought up to hate such men because only what we know of them were the horrors they caused. It was a talk with a man who worked to introduce a brief glimmer of light in a dictator’s purpose and the extent by which his or her damage actually often make’s unique progress….and that too is the goal of a revolutionary….progress, not just destruction and death. This dictator, for conversational reference to the point I’m making overall was Adolf Hitler, and although he is one of the worst people in the world to emulate, he turned what was then a desperate German society where any local mother would wheelbarrow millions of her own Deutsche-Marks into the grocer’s market and dump it on the shop-owner’s countertop just to buy an apple, to a thriving competitive global and economic force within only 9 years. Che and his buddy Fidel were not all too different in what they wanted for farmers and countrymen, to get them out from under Baptista. Che, an Argentinean by blood, and an educated doctor, we should already note is a bit outrageous for leaving his family to go fight for some other country’s people. Believing that the best way to overthrow a power that they truly believe the people want overthrown, is by brute force and guerrilla warfare. So public that everyone hears about it, so daring that it can’t be mistaken in the news as some accidental exchange of friendly-fire at a jolly quail hunt out in the jungle. The movie itself is a masterpiece in the geographical landscapes and scenes it portrays amongst the forests and mountains it pitches tent after tent. It also reveals a unique take on the life of a revolutionary…..a lonely nomadic existence, laying your head against a different tree trunk each night. And the things one abandons such as family and freedom for this life in hiding, always on the run making your next move for people who aren’t sure they really care you’re there because it puts them in equally more danger. Benicio Del Toro did a fantastic job….he really did, but then again he remains the same character he usually is, a slower moving, talking and squinting version of himself, except this time with a bad case of asthma and a love for Cuban cigars and cigarettes. Soderbegh should’ve never had the Hollywood celebrity cameo that you’ll catch in the 2nd part of Che because it seriously deters from the movie’s local mission and geographic feel. In fact I dont even remember what his part was it threw me off so bad to see him. The whole film is subtitles as they’re speaking Spanish, some scenes even with thousands of locals scattered amongst the brush in tactical formats…and there, this additional character out of the blue, although brief, was a totally unnecessary casting decision that jostled audience whispers and deep breaths of disappointment.
Aside from that, the film cut out Che’s motorcycle ride across the South American continent that made him come to love and appreciate it’s beauty so much, the celebratory years after defeating Baptista that became more of a conflict in service and opinion amongst Fidel and his inferiors, as well as his unsuccessful attempt at stirring up a revolution in the Congo. The movie lacks any love story, which I actually liked since these days everything has to do with what piece of ass is affecting the main character’s current decisions. For some reason they chose to have it be a film that jumps around a lot, irrationally shifting from different time periods in ten minute intervals. His life is a story of successive battles...moaning and roaring his wise demeanor into the ultimate sculpture, and therefore the time flickerings just makes us work harder to keep focused on what city or year we’re in.
In the end, I hated that I liked Che the man (I knew I'd like the movie), because they portrayed him more as the doctor and next door neighbor than the obsessed maniac cult leader with a gun who imprisoned eager minds to join him in shooting the heads off any dissenters he’d crossed. How can you be one of Fidel Castro’s most lethal and feared assassins if you’re a saint with a heart of gold? Give me a break. I think if we’d seen more of a mental struggle with what Fidel had become and how it differed so much from what Che wanted to achieve, which was never-ending liberation of all of Latin America, than we would’ve understood the more obsessive, stop-at-nothing murderer that he’d really been….enough so to understand why any country would ever request his hand be chopped off for fingerprint analysis and confirmation that he really was caught……even this was left out of the movie, making my point stronger for the blatent disregard of historical fact to swap amicably for admiration and tender-loving vittles we and our kittens should enjoy when thinking about the motives and the man behind the loved interjection Hey “Pal” or “Bud” or “Che”.
My minor obsession with Che Guevara started in Amsterdam three months ago, unaware that there was a movie ever even being made about the man with the Communist ideals. It was his face that we couldn’t avoid. Every shop we’d passed on the way to a jazz club, the Anne Frank House, or the Red Light District, we saw a t-shirt hanging with a shadow silk-screened onto it. A celebration of some man…a man who’s name we’d known but couldn’t pronounce, and couldn’t relate anything to. The face looked like that of a proud young druglord with blown-out muttonchops and an untamed muslim beard. A beret kept his unkempt hair, kept, and his face held such mystery and power that it dared further research. He must’ve done something right to be remembered, to be bled and smeared onto shirts for young skaters and eco-degenerates to praise. But the more I dug deeper to find out this man’s history, the more I related him to Fidel Castro and the murdering tendencies we’ve all associated with Amin of Uganda. However, I think a bit differently about such men after a recent conversation. Normally we’re brought up to hate such men because only what we know of them were the horrors they caused. It was a talk with a man who worked to introduce a brief glimmer of light in a dictator’s purpose and the extent by which his or her damage actually often make’s unique progress….and that too is the goal of a revolutionary….progress, not just destruction and death. This dictator, for conversational reference to the point I’m making overall was Adolf Hitler, and although he is one of the worst people in the world to emulate, he turned what was then a desperate German society where any local mother would wheelbarrow millions of her own Deutsche-Marks into the grocer’s market and dump it on the shop-owner’s countertop just to buy an apple, to a thriving competitive global and economic force within only 9 years. Che and his buddy Fidel were not all too different in what they wanted for farmers and countrymen, to get them out from under Baptista. Che, an Argentinean by blood, and an educated doctor, we should already note is a bit outrageous for leaving his family to go fight for some other country’s people. Believing that the best way to overthrow a power that they truly believe the people want overthrown, is by brute force and guerrilla warfare. So public that everyone hears about it, so daring that it can’t be mistaken in the news as some accidental exchange of friendly-fire at a jolly quail hunt out in the jungle. The movie itself is a masterpiece in the geographical landscapes and scenes it portrays amongst the forests and mountains it pitches tent after tent. It also reveals a unique take on the life of a revolutionary…..a lonely nomadic existence, laying your head against a different tree trunk each night. And the things one abandons such as family and freedom for this life in hiding, always on the run making your next move for people who aren’t sure they really care you’re there because it puts them in equally more danger. Benicio Del Toro did a fantastic job….he really did, but then again he remains the same character he usually is, a slower moving, talking and squinting version of himself, except this time with a bad case of asthma and a love for Cuban cigars and cigarettes. Soderbegh should’ve never had the Hollywood celebrity cameo that you’ll catch in the 2nd part of Che because it seriously deters from the movie’s local mission and geographic feel. In fact I dont even remember what his part was it threw me off so bad to see him. The whole film is subtitles as they’re speaking Spanish, some scenes even with thousands of locals scattered amongst the brush in tactical formats…and there, this additional character out of the blue, although brief, was a totally unnecessary casting decision that jostled audience whispers and deep breaths of disappointment.
Aside from that, the film cut out Che’s motorcycle ride across the South American continent that made him come to love and appreciate it’s beauty so much, the celebratory years after defeating Baptista that became more of a conflict in service and opinion amongst Fidel and his inferiors, as well as his unsuccessful attempt at stirring up a revolution in the Congo. The movie lacks any love story, which I actually liked since these days everything has to do with what piece of ass is affecting the main character’s current decisions. For some reason they chose to have it be a film that jumps around a lot, irrationally shifting from different time periods in ten minute intervals. His life is a story of successive battles...moaning and roaring his wise demeanor into the ultimate sculpture, and therefore the time flickerings just makes us work harder to keep focused on what city or year we’re in.
In the end, I hated that I liked Che the man (I knew I'd like the movie), because they portrayed him more as the doctor and next door neighbor than the obsessed maniac cult leader with a gun who imprisoned eager minds to join him in shooting the heads off any dissenters he’d crossed. How can you be one of Fidel Castro’s most lethal and feared assassins if you’re a saint with a heart of gold? Give me a break. I think if we’d seen more of a mental struggle with what Fidel had become and how it differed so much from what Che wanted to achieve, which was never-ending liberation of all of Latin America, than we would’ve understood the more obsessive, stop-at-nothing murderer that he’d really been….enough so to understand why any country would ever request his hand be chopped off for fingerprint analysis and confirmation that he really was caught……even this was left out of the movie, making my point stronger for the blatent disregard of historical fact to swap amicably for admiration and tender-loving vittles we and our kittens should enjoy when thinking about the motives and the man behind the loved interjection Hey “Pal” or “Bud” or “Che”.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Take your hat off at the dinner table!
This was the worst thing I'd hear as a child when sitting down for the daily family tradition. Besides for that little mishap, there was nothing else I would have ever tried to get away with. In fact, it became a game for us to see how long before my father would say to take it off, and then we'd all watch as I'd try and ring the hat around a banister post at the edge of the stairs. I missed 95% of the time. A small subtle form of discipline and lesson in manners, yet I remember it clearly.
The other day I'm chowing down on some chicken lettuce wraps and Mongolian Beef at where else? You got it, PF Changs. And the table next to me gets sat with what looked like two totally different families. Two dads, two moms and one kid each. One family was Mexican and the other was Korean....guaranteed, and I know, what?! An Asian family at PF Changs! It's like treason since it's so commercial and stray cat isn't on the menu (I still harvest a strong vendetta for food poisoning suffered at the wok of a local Chinese restaurant called House of Yau Kitchen as five days of dehydration, losing 12 pounds and a hospital bill can rile you up). As they strike up conversation the son of the Asian couple hasn't taken his eyes off his handheld PlayStation. I told my girlfriend, "no way would I ever let my kid sit in a public restaurant and play a video game at the table while everyone is eating. " Even worse, they were out with another family of guests or acquaintances and having a conversation. My girlfriend chimed in "we wouldn't even dare," recollecting her childhood with her brother and sister as they were well versed in respect from her Iranian father. Some of you might say "whats the big deal?" Well for one thing, manners. Another is the fostering of unstable building blocks in the foundation of a child's social development. Our generations were different in the sense that we participated in conversation with our parents and gained social skills that children today are lacking. We looked at this kid as if he was walking all over his parents...if you wouldn't, than have a discussion with your local elementary school teacher and see what their thoughts are, having to deal with your children everyday. You might know less about your own child then his or her teacher does. Hate, I mean, love to be blunt but kick your kid outside to play with his neighbors or friends nearby....don't let him stare at the TV everyday. He's just going to get a new game once he tires of the old one. Tell him to take the iPod out of his ears to have a conversation. Ask them what their day was like and force a decent response out of them so they know how to react next time you ask them...one word answers aren't acceptable. I just don't understand how you wouldn't notice if you yourself can't build a rapport with your kid, how do you think someone else can? Letting them drift off into a digital/virtual world sure won't help them in everyday, professional life where they have to deal with other people. Cause them to interact and use their imaginations to create and problem solve.
Not to forget the health implications of sitting on one's ass in front of the computer every single day. We are the fattest country I hope you know, and for our children we're not exactly steering them down a different path. I know they have high a metabolism, but woopty-doo. Let's not assume some physical activity wouldn't do them some good. Our parents are fat and they never even had video games. Just think about what you did as a kid...it's not like times have changed so drastically. Man-Hunt, Touch-Football, Barbie's DreamHouse with the built-in air pocket to bubble-up the jacuzzi tub....I have a sister whadduwant from me. If it worked for you then why wouldn't it at least work a little bit for them. Please, I'm begging you, don't go relying on some kid's annual birthday party at the local indoor Rock Wall climbing facility to be the one form of endurance little Drewbie Jenkins is going to see. It's a huge mistake. Get Drewbie out there beforehand for some practice so he doesn't make a fool of himself on the first try and get so frustrated that he buries himself in the corner to peel cheese off those big white boxes with a guy sporting a long red mustache that reads "Made Fresh Daily." It seriously wouldn't be his fault, it'd be yours.
The other day I'm chowing down on some chicken lettuce wraps and Mongolian Beef at where else? You got it, PF Changs. And the table next to me gets sat with what looked like two totally different families. Two dads, two moms and one kid each. One family was Mexican and the other was Korean....guaranteed, and I know, what?! An Asian family at PF Changs! It's like treason since it's so commercial and stray cat isn't on the menu (I still harvest a strong vendetta for food poisoning suffered at the wok of a local Chinese restaurant called House of Yau Kitchen as five days of dehydration, losing 12 pounds and a hospital bill can rile you up). As they strike up conversation the son of the Asian couple hasn't taken his eyes off his handheld PlayStation. I told my girlfriend, "no way would I ever let my kid sit in a public restaurant and play a video game at the table while everyone is eating. " Even worse, they were out with another family of guests or acquaintances and having a conversation. My girlfriend chimed in "we wouldn't even dare," recollecting her childhood with her brother and sister as they were well versed in respect from her Iranian father. Some of you might say "whats the big deal?" Well for one thing, manners. Another is the fostering of unstable building blocks in the foundation of a child's social development. Our generations were different in the sense that we participated in conversation with our parents and gained social skills that children today are lacking. We looked at this kid as if he was walking all over his parents...if you wouldn't, than have a discussion with your local elementary school teacher and see what their thoughts are, having to deal with your children everyday. You might know less about your own child then his or her teacher does. Hate, I mean, love to be blunt but kick your kid outside to play with his neighbors or friends nearby....don't let him stare at the TV everyday. He's just going to get a new game once he tires of the old one. Tell him to take the iPod out of his ears to have a conversation. Ask them what their day was like and force a decent response out of them so they know how to react next time you ask them...one word answers aren't acceptable. I just don't understand how you wouldn't notice if you yourself can't build a rapport with your kid, how do you think someone else can? Letting them drift off into a digital/virtual world sure won't help them in everyday, professional life where they have to deal with other people. Cause them to interact and use their imaginations to create and problem solve.
Not to forget the health implications of sitting on one's ass in front of the computer every single day. We are the fattest country I hope you know, and for our children we're not exactly steering them down a different path. I know they have high a metabolism, but woopty-doo. Let's not assume some physical activity wouldn't do them some good. Our parents are fat and they never even had video games. Just think about what you did as a kid...it's not like times have changed so drastically. Man-Hunt, Touch-Football, Barbie's DreamHouse with the built-in air pocket to bubble-up the jacuzzi tub....I have a sister whadduwant from me. If it worked for you then why wouldn't it at least work a little bit for them. Please, I'm begging you, don't go relying on some kid's annual birthday party at the local indoor Rock Wall climbing facility to be the one form of endurance little Drewbie Jenkins is going to see. It's a huge mistake. Get Drewbie out there beforehand for some practice so he doesn't make a fool of himself on the first try and get so frustrated that he buries himself in the corner to peel cheese off those big white boxes with a guy sporting a long red mustache that reads "Made Fresh Daily." It seriously wouldn't be his fault, it'd be yours.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Right when I was born I cried out, Catholicism!
This one's gonna get a bit interesting....
I remember when I was little going to religion class, learning about the miracles that only one man was ever able to make happen....fish in the empty pond, blind man being able to see, loaf after loaf after new pitched loaf......except now of course we have David Copperfield. Okay, so they're not the same, David was born through actual sex, so far as we know. Jesus would perform these acts only once he was able to understand that he had this power, somewhere around his mid to late twenties, because before that no one's really sure what he was doing; maybe training with the high school debate team or forming their Model UN. The concerns started coming to me though when I went to a Catholic high school. Not when I never made my Confirmation because I stopped going to religion class at the sign of consistent yawning. That wasn't enough, I needed tactile proof. In high school, nuns were the most miserable women. "Put your hand on the desk so my ruler can abuse you for what god has taken away from me" (she meant having to live a life of chastity, poverty, and obedience). If you want a disgruntled human being, dress them up like a penguin and tell them they have to be poor and can never get off for the rest of their life. Good god, literally.....Fan-Tastic god. Having to take Theology class I learned about how many people were killed in The Bible by so called God for not believing or following him. If you don't remember, the easiest example is the Pharaoh and his Egyptian Army and all their horses that were drowned in the parting of the Red Sea when chasing the Israelites. Or how about the famed Noah's Ark where God's night of binge drinking got him so upset that he found the word "Deluge" in his papyrus dictionary and decided to flood all of mankind, to kill everyone except Noah and his pets because he's a murdering psycho. Ive never thought killing someone was a necessary evil to accomplish a goal or make a point. That'd be like praising Hitler. Wait a second, what kind of a vacation was he on during the Nazi regime? And yet here's the evidence in our faith's holiest book that we're supposed to follow, telling us what he did to make Catholicism popular. Scare the shit out of people and force them to believe.
Well, the last straw was my trip to Italy. Remember, life of poverty. There's not a man richer than the Pope, I'll tell you that. I walked through the Vatican with gold reflecting off my eyes, yet I had to wear pants in the middle of Italy's blistering July. Heaven's forbid my legs were to be seen while inside the building...doesn't god already know what I look like butt naked? To my right was Michelangelo's Pieta, a priceless sculpture that cannot be purchased, and right above it, the Pope's bedroom. I wonder what kind of nightmare's he has, expecting news of another young boy and what atrocity his fellow Priests have inflicted. The Sistine Chapel is another place which is limitless in terms of monetary as well as historic value, and there's where our tour guide told us about the infallible homosexual relations between the Pope at the time and the artist Michelangelo himself....kissing each other's necks with every swipe of the brush. One for you, one for me, two for you, and one, two for me. All you women out there, you're telling me a merciful God would make women's childbirth specifically painful to punish them for some sin of another thousands of years ago? He'd definitely wiped out those bitches who had it easy during his night of drinking anyway....or how about giving everyone different languages and sending them off to random countries to live without any idea of what the hell was going on. The story of the Tower of Babel. Maybe just ironic or derived from the story itself, that word "babbling" is perfect for how everyone sounded after God's great mercy that day.
If I do have a child I think I'll let them choose what religion they like, if they ever even want one. They can do the research themselves and see which one truly fits their interest..and then I'll study it and start debates with them. I can't say I'm the cleanest and meanest since I will still follow through with hypocritical family traditions that are wrapped around religious celebrations. And I'll do that because on Christmas Day or Easter, I'm not praying or sacrificing lambs, nor do I even attend church which would equate being religious, but rather because they have become days each year like many others in our family, where we get together to appreciate each other's company.
This isn't meant to be a disproving argument of Jesus' existence, as it's been factually proven that a man named Jesus did actually live....down the block from me when I was little. No but seriously, the scariest idea is that any one religion is the know-all, be-all in someones life... If you're really going to choose that then fine, but before you go converting your neighbor and condemning everyone that believes something different, look into the background a bit and don't deny your common sense to shrugs that you're just lacking faith.....you sense it because it most likely smells like bull....
I remember when I was little going to religion class, learning about the miracles that only one man was ever able to make happen....fish in the empty pond, blind man being able to see, loaf after loaf after new pitched loaf......except now of course we have David Copperfield. Okay, so they're not the same, David was born through actual sex, so far as we know. Jesus would perform these acts only once he was able to understand that he had this power, somewhere around his mid to late twenties, because before that no one's really sure what he was doing; maybe training with the high school debate team or forming their Model UN. The concerns started coming to me though when I went to a Catholic high school. Not when I never made my Confirmation because I stopped going to religion class at the sign of consistent yawning. That wasn't enough, I needed tactile proof. In high school, nuns were the most miserable women. "Put your hand on the desk so my ruler can abuse you for what god has taken away from me" (she meant having to live a life of chastity, poverty, and obedience). If you want a disgruntled human being, dress them up like a penguin and tell them they have to be poor and can never get off for the rest of their life. Good god, literally.....Fan-Tastic god. Having to take Theology class I learned about how many people were killed in The Bible by so called God for not believing or following him. If you don't remember, the easiest example is the Pharaoh and his Egyptian Army and all their horses that were drowned in the parting of the Red Sea when chasing the Israelites. Or how about the famed Noah's Ark where God's night of binge drinking got him so upset that he found the word "Deluge" in his papyrus dictionary and decided to flood all of mankind, to kill everyone except Noah and his pets because he's a murdering psycho. Ive never thought killing someone was a necessary evil to accomplish a goal or make a point. That'd be like praising Hitler. Wait a second, what kind of a vacation was he on during the Nazi regime? And yet here's the evidence in our faith's holiest book that we're supposed to follow, telling us what he did to make Catholicism popular. Scare the shit out of people and force them to believe.
Well, the last straw was my trip to Italy. Remember, life of poverty. There's not a man richer than the Pope, I'll tell you that. I walked through the Vatican with gold reflecting off my eyes, yet I had to wear pants in the middle of Italy's blistering July. Heaven's forbid my legs were to be seen while inside the building...doesn't god already know what I look like butt naked? To my right was Michelangelo's Pieta, a priceless sculpture that cannot be purchased, and right above it, the Pope's bedroom. I wonder what kind of nightmare's he has, expecting news of another young boy and what atrocity his fellow Priests have inflicted. The Sistine Chapel is another place which is limitless in terms of monetary as well as historic value, and there's where our tour guide told us about the infallible homosexual relations between the Pope at the time and the artist Michelangelo himself....kissing each other's necks with every swipe of the brush. One for you, one for me, two for you, and one, two for me. All you women out there, you're telling me a merciful God would make women's childbirth specifically painful to punish them for some sin of another thousands of years ago? He'd definitely wiped out those bitches who had it easy during his night of drinking anyway....or how about giving everyone different languages and sending them off to random countries to live without any idea of what the hell was going on. The story of the Tower of Babel. Maybe just ironic or derived from the story itself, that word "babbling" is perfect for how everyone sounded after God's great mercy that day.
If I do have a child I think I'll let them choose what religion they like, if they ever even want one. They can do the research themselves and see which one truly fits their interest..and then I'll study it and start debates with them. I can't say I'm the cleanest and meanest since I will still follow through with hypocritical family traditions that are wrapped around religious celebrations. And I'll do that because on Christmas Day or Easter, I'm not praying or sacrificing lambs, nor do I even attend church which would equate being religious, but rather because they have become days each year like many others in our family, where we get together to appreciate each other's company.
This isn't meant to be a disproving argument of Jesus' existence, as it's been factually proven that a man named Jesus did actually live....down the block from me when I was little. No but seriously, the scariest idea is that any one religion is the know-all, be-all in someones life... If you're really going to choose that then fine, but before you go converting your neighbor and condemning everyone that believes something different, look into the background a bit and don't deny your common sense to shrugs that you're just lacking faith.....you sense it because it most likely smells like bull....
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