Don't give in to stupidity and fear - part 2 (History repeating.)

"In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment." - George W. Bush


Surely you read part 1? Good.

It is time to Stock up on canned food for humans and cats alike, according to media we are heading for a new cold war. Well, color me impressed, I really didn't think we would let it get that far. But I like to be prepared, and I've got very little faith in people in general, so I actually have a small stockpile of durable foodstuffs. I'm not a survivalist nutcase, I'm a realist, or so my cat keeps telling me. When everything goes wrong, I will be stuffing my face with delicious baked beans. I also have canned ham if the zombies come before the Russians.*
I'm not actually worried, the headlines are always dramatic, or someone wouldn't be doing their job very well, but there is some truth to it, the situation between Russia and, well, the world**, isn't cheerful. But as they say, it takes two to move their bodies together to a complicated early 20th century Latino rhythm. Meaning, what the hell are you all up to, what on earth are you thinking and what can I do to make you stop being stupid? These are not rhetorical questions. Somehow, we let this happen, ignore the problem or just grumble about evil Russians.
This will certainly help just as much as the good old "duck and cover". If only the Japanese had heard this phrase, thousands would've been saved. But then again, I suppose the point was to kill them.

The point of a cold war is not to kill anyone, as opposed to the famous hot wars. Well, isn't that a good thing, not killing each other, I hear no one in particular ask. Yes, I answer, and most people manage that every day without entering a verbal agreement with his neighbor that neither part will firebomb the other's house.
I sometimes talk with people in Eastern Europe, and they tell me the tanks are rolling through the streets where they live. At first I was surprised, now it seems commonplace. NATO is showing muscles, just in case Russia invades anyone they shouldn't. And I'm totally confused as to why we are entering this particular scenario again. Surely, the Russians love their children too. I mean, come on, here I was, thinking the nuclear arms race was more or less over, and we could worry about other things. But no, of course not, let us worry some more about nuclear holocaust. Our parents had such a blast digging token shelters in their gardens, we simply need to bring that back. We can pretend we live in Vault 13, it will be amusing, haha.

But wait a second. I just said the point of a cold war is to not kill anybody. Where is the danger, and what exactly is the point? Well, the danger comes from the politicians, corporations and international organizations that stoke the fires. They are clearly not good people. They might even be slightly unstable, have substance abuse problems or just be plain evil. For the most part, they just tend to prioritize money and power over everything else. And these people are the same people with the finger on the big, red nuclear buttons, or  maybe they just control said finger, it doesn't really matter. What really gets me, is that these are the same people with access to fallout shelters that might actually work. Do not for a second believe that this brewing conflict is about difference in ideologies, politics or even ethics. If the world cared even the slightest about Putin knocking off the political competition by making them dead, protecting Russians in other countries by invasion, promoting hate crime against gays or just being insanely macho, we wouldn't have given him the Olympics. The point of a new cold war would only be about money. And possibly power for the sake of power.
I hate to say this, but the damn hippies and conspiracy theorists were right on this.

USA has had a wartime economy ever since WW2. They spend insane amounts of money on defense contracts, new hardware, ships, planes and gadgets. More than any other country in the world, probably more than most other countries combined. If you hadn't noticed, the American economy hasn't been all that hot lately, neither has that of many European countries who happen to be a part of NATO, for that matter. It would be impossible for USA to change gears to peacetime economy at this point. They have used small and big wars to fuel their economy for 70 years. If the war wasn't hot, then the cold war would work just as fine until something better came along. You think I'm making this up? Use the internets, google it. War all the time. Reagan even made his own Star Wars project for blogs sake. Russia now being somewhat a lesser threat than back in the glorious USSR times, it seems the threat rests more firmly on the European countries. This works even better for USA, it's even a boon for Russia. All the better if this is mostly a regional conflict. The region still needs loans, equipment and suitable cultural entertainment.***

So why do I insist that everybody are stupid? Except for the obvious reasons (and fear), we live in democracies.**** This means we elect representatives to carry out our will. I love the term "public servants", that is exactly what they are, at  least in theory. So in a way, we are responsible - No, I don't care if you didn't vote for this or that person or didn't vote at all, you are still responsible as a human blogging being. Please, please use your grey matter, be aware of what is actually going on, question the news and don't give in to fear. The fear-dollar is big enough as it is.


*It's a classic. Zombie apocalypse and ham are like hand and glove. For some reason.
**Except those countries not bordering to Russia, not a close partner to USA or a part of NATO, so we are mainly talking about USA and Europe. You know, the world.
***See, I said everything was connected!
****If you, the reader, somehow has managed to read this from North-Korea or similar, I salute you.

Don't give in to stupidity - part 1 (We have nothing to fear but fear itself.)

"In the late 1930s, as Britain refused to adapt to the new realities of war, Winston Churchill observed, "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

- George W. Bush


Today, while I was at work, I was hearing all sorts of news.
First of all, the supreme court of USA legalized gay marriage nationwide. Good for them. Seriously.

Second, IS seems to have let all hell loose, wherever they had the opportunity. This worries me, because it worries other people. The news these days, are mostly bad. Religious fanatics, cold war, racism, it is a hell of a stew. People get frightened. Fright is contagious. It makes people stupid. It makes people do stupid things. Like throwing their freedom out the window.
I'm of course talking about the Patriot Act, the famous piece of American legislation, where people in power capitalized on the fear of the powerless. The personal freedom and rights of any and all citizens was greatly reduced. Fear mongering also let them start a couple of wars against people they had previously trained and armed themselves.*
Europe has had it's own share of terrorism, both religious and political motivated, but so far we've not gone totally overboard on cutting civil rights. Sure, we've got new security routines at airports and we had to join said wars, but hey, a deal is a deal, and we are all members of the club called NATO and so on.
But as the threats increase, we seem to mess up. The police in Norway are now armed with firearms in most situations.  We recently cut down on transparency in political processes. This seems to be solely for the sake of bureaucracy, but it doesn't make it any better. Damn you world, you are making me smoke actual cigarettes at home again. Anyways, I predict that terrorism will be a prevalent story in the news for some time. There will be speculations about threats to Norway. There will be questions about how well we are prepared for worst case scenarios. All this at a time where our prime minister already is worried about Russian spies,*** and an elevated threat level in Europe because of the situation in the Ukraine. More about that in part 2. Point is, people will be stupid. I implore people to not be so. Let the media and politicians rant and rave about the dangers of the world, but for blogs sake, let's not buy into it  ourselves. Please don't believe the hype, and don't let your political representative misrepresent you. When the government limits your liberty, the terrorists win.**** When you are afraid, the terrorists win. When we bomb the shit out of some country to kill the terrorists, we generate more terrorists and the terrorists win yet again. When we arm the rebels to overthrow the regime we don't like, we end up arming IS. Terrorists win. This is not counterstrike. This is the real world. Only damn way to beat this is by not being afraid and therefor not stupid.

Anyways, gay marriage, eyh? Textbook example of people being unafraid from the supreme court. Use your brain if you are going to hate something, it is a big decision. Don't use your heart or guts for hate, those are for loving and eating.


*This will be another case of everything is connected to everything else, as you will see in part 2**
**If you bother to read it that is. But take my word for it, everything is connected to everything else.
***Of all things to worry about....
****And so does the government.  Yes, they do, don't argue.

Spoilers gallore! (will contain spoilers, for real)

Yes, so... Due to mental lethargy, I've not been producing these last months. That may or may not change, but as of right now, this here moment in time and space as I am occupying it,* I am producing this here big list of spoilers to punish you. I would like to punish the film industry and their promotion-people, but let's face it, they will not read this, so I punish you. Also - thank you Scrubs.

I am in my prime. That means I remember VHS. These splendid magnetic tapes held movie magic in their spools. After the movie, you had something sort of trailing after the main attraction, some small promotional teasers for future attractions - trailers.

Trailers are no longer to be found after a movie. If you are a slightly out of touch and still use DVDs and blu-rays and such, they are to be found before the stuff you actually would like to see. If you just download everything or stream it, you dodge that stuff altogether.
But then there is the internets. Oh yes, YouTube, Imdb and Facebook will show you all the latest trailers, teasers, promos and featurettes. Sometimes, that is ok. About 70% of the time, it is NOT ok, as they will contain so much of the plot and potential spoilers, that you might as well just watch the trailer and don't bother with the rest hour and a half of film, as you've already know what will happen.

All right, so you stay away from these digital spoiler-factories, then you should be good, all fresh and oblivious to what the latest blockbuster or your favorite show has in store for you? Of course not. Because people are basically bad at keeping their mouth shut.** They will happily tell you all about the Red wedding, long before it comes up, because they read the books (as they should), and they will post RIP Opie all over their facewall while you are still on season two.

So here is the deal. As a public service, I will go ahead and give you all the spoilers I can come up with, without actually telling what show, franchise or movie it is from. It will be done solely with the help of my spotty memory. You will have to find out if you've seen it and know the reference. It's a game. It will be fun. Come on.

Spoilers ahoy!


Bruce Willis was dead for most of the time. The kid sees dead people, remember?

Other than that, Bruce Willies never dies. Oh, except for when he saves mankind from asteroids.

The literal hand of god comes out of the sky and detonates the nuke, while transporting the good guy away from Vegas. Shittiest ending to a great story ever.

Darth Vader is indeed Luke's father, but despite the handicap of having been Hayden Christensen in his youth, he saves Luke in a last ditch effort of parenting.

The spooky voodoo ritual she performs will not save her, it will transport her soul into the old gals body and vice versa. Surprise!

I don't know about the movie, but in the comic, Batman beats the shit out of Superman with a little help from his friends.

Ryan makes it home. 90% of the guys who are sent to rescue him die. Someone didn't think this through.

The outlander kills the vengeful alien with a little help from his Viking friends. He also gets the girl.
Poor alien.

Speaking of aliens, Ripley will always survive, even when she dies.

Sofia Coppola dies, leaving her father as an old, broken man who falls dead on his face thinking it was all for nothing.

They were not dead the whole time. You will never understand the island!

Dicaprio is not a federal marshal, he's just crazy.

Matt Damon is the informant. Wahlberg kills him in the end. The Asian original is hereby spoiled too.

Is there a Keyser Soze or is there only Kevin Spacey?

Speaking of Spacey: He has Gwyneth Paltrow's head sent to Brad Pitt, forcing him to kill him.

The Sopranos don't do so well in cars.

William Shatner and James Spader marry each other in the last episode. 

Samurais are awesome, but not even Tom Cruise can save them from a Gatling gun.

Bob the demon possessed Laura Palmer's father. He killed her. Bob takes over agent Cooper in the end.

In the comics, Glenn gets beaten to death. Andrea is still alive though, so you never know.

Ozymandias saves the world by killing thousands. Dr. Manhattan kills Rorschach. Rorschach destroys plot to save world from beyond the grave.

Lenny Nero is not paranoid, his best friend is trying to kill and frame him. Juliette Lewis is very pretty.

Sam and Frodo marry each other and live happily ever after. So does Legolas And Gimli. No, I lie, everyone has a bad time and then die sooner or later. Legolas and Gimli have a good time, though.

A broke tank can't handle hundreds of axis. Everyone dies except new guy.

The guy from Spain kills the emperor, then bleeds out in the arena.

Spartacus dies. So do everyone who claim to be him.

Riddick is super-ninja-cool. He survives monsters and bounty hunters, he keeps what he kills, gets betrayed and kills more monsters and bounty hunters. Yes!

There is no Earth, except Earth is what you make it. The cylons do whatever they do and most of the cast die before they get there anyway. Angels exist and they are very fond of sex. Starbuck pulls a Jesus.

Lucy Lawless always gets shafted. Mhm.

Wash and Shepherd die. The rest of the lot continues to misbehave. Don't expect any sequels.

Doctor Holiday kills people who aren't daisies, then succumb to consumption. Mr. Earp lives on room service and love 'til the day he dies.

Gene kills Morgan, Clint kills gene. No one were forgiven that day.

The Ship hits an iceberg and sinks. Leo drowns. Winslet has spectacular bosoms.

Kong goes to the city, climbs a bit, gets shot by planes, falls down and dies. Depending on what timeline you are on, of course.

Roland enters the Dark Tower to save the rose. The journey continues ad infinitum.

Hugh Jackman cheats with the help of David Bowie. Christian Bale has a twin.

Bilbo goes there and back again. The hunky dwarves die.

It is not futile to resist the Borg.

Vic Mackey gets immunity. The rest of the squad, not so much.

Hawkeye gets the girl. The penultimate Mohican and his girl die. 

Troy gets burned to the ground. Legolas shoots Achilles in the heel. Everyone are retards.

He is not the messiah, just a very naughty boy. He still gets crucified. Mel Gibson directs.


















 

 





































*You, the reader, will be at somewhere completely different location on the time/space cake chart, not unlike Matthew McConaughey in the movie Interstellar, where he knocks down stuff from a bookshelf.
**And soooo many other things. Like Dennis Quaid in Pandorum. The cap has issues.

The Age of Denial. (Guatemalan goats will kill us all.)

"Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see Armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of freaks" - Ænema, Tool


So.
Happy new year everybody, and congratulations. You survived to celebrate life in a giant feast of fireworks, food and alcohol. I know I did. We didn't blog up and die. Our bodies didn't go all wonky and betray us with a random heart attack. The titans of the world didn't cause any wars or catastrophes that killed us. Lots of other people, but not us in particular.  Congratulations.
Now I'm going to tell you why we are all doomed.

Early morning on the first day of the year 2015, I had a long conversation, some of it about this blog. Normally, I don't remember much of anything after drinking for 12 hours, but sometimes I come out at the other side, with a alcohol fueled brain and a clearness of thought that's denied me on most days. You are reading the result.

The reason we are doomed is money.
I've touched the subject before, but I'll do it in detail now*. 

In the good old days, when things were really crappy, we didn't have money. We bartered. Then we got kings, emperors and pharaohs. They made money, which is great. Money means you don't have to trade sexual services, manual labor, food or trinkets for those exact same things from others. Coins were soon minted in various precious minerals, like copper, brass, gold and silver**.
It became a bit of a hassle to walk around with heaps of gold and silver in your pocket when you wanted to go shopping, so we collectively agreed we could make symbolic trade tokens of very specific values instead. And there you have modern paper money and coins.

But really, say you were the monarch of Guatemala or some such person. You couldn't just declare your paper tokens to be worth 5000 goats a piece.  You still went by the gold standard. Your country had this much gold and silver and such? Well, that's what your money represented and was worth.
Simple enough. But not very convenient if you were the monarch of Guatemala and had no gold but lots of goats. So we agreed that your country's currency could have a relative value. This relative value would be directly linked to some big solid currency, backed by lots of gold, goats and other natural resources. A currency everyone could trust. The mighty dollar. Your goat-backed Guatemalan lire is worth this much compared to the American dollar. Simple enough.***

Let's fast forward through some wars, and presidential assassinations to our old friend and all time favorite Tricky Dick Nixon, creator of masks, slogans and president of the USA. Also a fine magician. His greatest magic trick, was this. He told the world that USA would no longer base the worth of a single dollar on how much gold it would get you from Fort Knox. And the world said "Fine." We all went along with this idea of make-believe value of money, and an entire economical system that only works IF YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT IT. That is quite some trick.

So the next question is, what does the president of USA do, when his nation needs more money. Unlike his friend from Guatemala, he can't just ask the farmers to get more goats. We are no longer on a goat standard. We are on NO STANDARD. The president simply asks the big bank called the federal reserve to make him more money. He will promise to pay them back. This is a promise he cannot keep, but we all pretend otherwise. While the Americans are sticking their head in the sand, what do the rest of the international community do? We invest in their operation to ram our heads our asses and DON'T THINK, by buying USA's national debt to the federal reserve. I have frankly no idea why. It is like gentleman's agreement to not see what is in front of you and piling denial on top of that. There is an old idea that the dollar and capitalism cannot fail, maybe it just force of habit - invest in USA, invest in dollars, it cannot fail. It cannot fail. Holy crap. You remember when those big banks failed in 08? Because of bad debt? They were considered too big to fail. Remember the shit-storm that followed? We are still feeling consequences world wide from that. That was a cozy walk in the park compared to what is coming. Society as we know it might blogging end. We are FUCKING DOOMED. I'M NOT JOKING!****  We are all depending on everyone else not telling the king that his clothes are invisible and in fact not there at all. And you can tell that that one little kid with the stupid look on his face is about to start yelling. The signs that the age of denial is coming to an end. Maybe the crack in 08 paved the way for new thoughts. Authors, journalists and standup comedians are comfortably dropping references to the dollar being hollow in their material and books. The thought has made its way to popular culture.

American government  neither can nor will pay their debt to the federal reserve. Not a snowball's chance in hell. We are buying their debt. We are basing the world's economy on this debt. The sums are gargantuan.

We have an economical system that is based on eternal growth. Show me one single example of a closed system that can keep growing eternally. No? This is why nations have a license to print money. This is why we have inflation. This is why the smaller denominations of currency keep on disappearing and the numbers on the bills are getting higher.
We are clinging to a trickle down system of money that makes very, very few people richer and the rest is in fact getting poorer, in terms of divide. All this is of course false, because the money is not actually there.

Current world debt: 55 000 000 000 000$.
Over 95% of all systemized value in the world is debt. We are getting by on IOUs and money that don't exist other that theoretical numbers on screens and bits of paper. There are not enough goats in the world to barter you out of this mess, my friend. We are, in fact, utterly blogged.

I still fear I fail to make the point clear. This is because this issue is so spectacularly grand in scale, that I can't fathom it myself. I am myself a victim of this age of denial. My only weapon, the written word, isn't sufficient.. My disappointment in the powers that be, 99% of every person with a degree in economy, and people in general is too great a thing to put in words.
This cake is the biggest collective lie in our history.
Google is your friend.
Good night and good luck.




*General, vague details.
**Also, salt has been popular.
***Not really.
****Seriously.

The numbers game. (Stupid dogs, dying gorillas, we hate the right-wing politics. Also Jennifer Lawrence naked)

Yet another dark and rainy night, the man and the cat remains the same.

Cat: Get down on your knees and worship me. Also, it would make it easier for me to lick your ears.
Me: Not now, I'm not in the mood. My time these days is strictly for killing digital people online and brooding.
Cat: Your cooperation is appreciated but not necessary, I have these claws here...
Me: Oy, stop it, you little devil spawn! No means no! Are you aware it has been suggested that I add a dog to this blog? An idea that seems better by the minute, by the way.
Cat: What?
Me: Yes, introducing a stupid but lovable pup to counterbalance all your... devilry.
Cat: What?
Me: I admit, it sounds a bit like the "Get Fuzzy" comic, but I doubt it wo-
Cat: WHAT?!
Me:  A dog.
Cat: Here?
Me: I suppose so.
Cat: But you don't have a dog. You don't need a dog, it would be like clamp on your foot, making demands on you.
Me: Yes, not like you at all.
Cat: Exactly. And everyone knows dogs are stupid and they can't talk. It would be a burden in your life and useless to the blog. And introducing imaginary, talking animals is out of the question, right?
Me: Point taken, no dogs in Casa del Hate. Now, go away and leave me and my brooding alone.
Cat. Why the mood?
Me: The numbers. The dreadful algebra of necessity.



An article was recently pointed out to me as particularly good news. It was about various reports on how good life on this earth has become. Studies saying that life expectancy has increased. There are fewer wars. Less poverty. So as Potatobeak Cat would say*, I want to play a game. A game about numbers and logic and research.

There are more than 7000 000 000 souls on this planet, despite the 800 000 people taking their own lives every year. There is 326 million trillion gallons of water on Earth. 2-3% of this is fresh water. Most of it is frozen or too deep beneath ground to be utilized. Nestle is currently buying water rights left and right while claiming that fresh water is not a human right. The company themselves claim  "However, our global operations amount to only 0.0009% of worldwide estimated freshwater withdrawals." I can't be bothered to crunch those numbers or check what their own estimates of freshwater withdrawals actually are. It is, however, a lot of water. When the war for oil is over, I predict the war for water, if it doesn't begin before the oil runs out, that is.

Perspective is a funny thing. It's funny because it seems to be playing a game of hide and seek, often showing up long after the game is over. The United States of America is the protector of the free world, the champion of freedom and liberty. Our own government is looking to USA for direction and it seems that the parties currently in charge would like Norway to become a small-time version of our American friends. They seem to lack perspective, and so does USA.

In the land of the free and home of the incarcerated, one in every 31 adults was in jail, on probation or parole in 2008. Almost one in ten of African Americans were in jail or being monitored. In 2011 about 2,9% of all adults in the US were under correctional supervision. That's almost 7000 000 people, more than the entire population of Norway. Private jails, private security, private army contractors, what a great idea.
In the book The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, the author, journalist Matt Taibbi claims that "Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles.
Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail." , and that you don't have to read sci-fi to find a dystopian future, we're indeed living in one right now. Perspective and numbers, what a joy. Yes, the wealth of the world's population is growing, but the divide between the many just around the poverty line and the very few filthy rich on the top is bigger than ever. The richest 1% of the world’s population are getting wealthier, owning more than 48% of global wealth, according to an article in The Guardian. 

There is the great Ebola scare, and Ebola is really scary, yes indeed. So is HIV/AIDS.  The current Ebola epidemic might have killed as many as 18 000, but less than 5000 deaths are actually confirmed. There are currently 35 000 000 world vide living with HIV/AIDS. More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Death by lack of clean water, that is.***

We are not totally sure how many nuclear weapons are around****, but probably somewhere around  16 300. We can only hope the owners remember where they put them all.

There are 143 800 000 Russians, and 1 Putin to rule them all. He seems to want more. This is the guy who said that the greatest tragedy in newer history, was the fall of the soviet union. Think about that.

880 - the population of mountain gorillas left in the world.


Yes, there might be fewer wars between nations, but the world is actually less peaceful, due to internal unrest within national borders. I'll even throw in a link, something I rarely do, mostly to prove my point and don't have the patience to type it all up.
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/world-getting-less-peaceful-every-year-85360/

I like to get a feel for the broad perspective and let my guts come up with ideas, then let the brain do the mop-up work. As I've said before, hate with your brain and let your heart do other important things.**** So what is my gut and broad strokes-thinking  telling me?
Well.
I hate that saying "Things were better before." It seldom was. But how blogging terrible is it going to be when that saying is true? Because things are not peachy today. How far forward will we have to go for this to be true? Because things superficially might look good, but there are so many factors racing to a climax that we might not bare. There is a reason why physicists who kill themselves quote the laws of thermodynamics, the systems will deteriorate. If you are one of the privileged, maybe on the blue side politically, maybe fairly comfortable economically speaking, maybe even religious (and what a great safety net that is), yes, you'll probably be optimistic. I sense another trend. A very real fear that the world we know might collapse. The dreadful algebra. What will happen when the dollar implodes on itself? Because it will. What will you do when Nestle tell you to buy water from them because it is the only option? Because they might. Will we as a species feel lonely when we are the last big mammal on the planet? I suspect we will get additional existential angst. If our race doesn't crack first, that is. Then things will indeed have been better before. 


*And probably put on a mask and record the message.**
**It's a Saw reference, in case you didn't get it.
***Nestle is the world's largest food (and water) company in the world measured by revenues, btw.
****Strangely, the atomic powers are reluctant to give out exact numbers.
*****Like pumping blood.

The feminist problem and the lack of a final solution. (Mwahahaaha)

Time to get back on track, time to hate someone or something. So today, fine people, I shall hate feminism. Yes. I will hate the movement for equal rights. It annoys me. At the same time, I can't help but feel like I'm kicking a small puppy, it seems to be an easy target these days, and the movement has more schisms than a major religion. And yet, it annoys me. Probably because I'm a man.* Where is my world wide movement for equal rights? Celebrating manliness, beards and close study of the penis? Can we please get some focus on penis art? No, don't point at some phallic symbol, that doesn't count, I want some guy with a really long beard painting stuff with his schlong and naming it "Ode to my sack". That being said, there are plenty of women that are fed up by so called feminism, and different types of feminists that don't really get along with "those other feminists". That is usually a sign of something gone wrong. Not horribly let's-make-pipes-of-asbestos-wrong, but wrong enough to irritate the blog out of me. So let's have look.

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.  
― Gloria Steinem

In the developed western world**, women have in general, reached equality. Well, at least they can vote, and that's what it was all about back in the days. In a logical world, the movement should have ended right there, I mean, think about it. You want the right to this and that? Well, good for you women, so do I, so I vote for the politician or party that will give me that. Or something approximating this and that, as the world isn't quite ready to recognize my this and that needs. Anyways, seems straight forward to me. But alas, I hear you scream it isn't so, and the evil patriarchy has thwarted your plans. What, who? The freemasons? Illuminati? Men in general? In all fairness, there are some valid points when statistics show an overabundance of men in some key positions, the problem is that those key positions are niches that have precious little to do with most people. Those key positions will not magically be filled by women, just by shouting "No means no".

Yes, no does indeed mean no. That phrase shows that you have mastered 2 words and possibly the understanding of one, but I have already covered this topic here: http://ihatetohatethethingsihate.blogspot.no/2014/04/sex-and-violence-one-where-we-poke-bear.html
***
Anyways, it seems rather straight forward to me. Women are smarter than men. They are better students, they mature faster and they get a running start at school where the boys kind of come limping after them. It should only be a matter of time before women surpass men on most fronts, education (and voting) is the key here. I don't have the numbers, but I'm willing to bet my neighbor's life that the percentage of women taking higher education has multiplied a few times the last 50 years.

So what is my big problem, really?

It could have something to do with a society beating itself to death with political labels and slowly dying under the weight of it's own morality and hypocrisy. The front page of the Spider Woman comic got a lot of flak from various fronts. If you don't know about it, use Google. The cover was made by an artist well known for his erotic work. That must be why she (miss spider) most of all resembles a giant penis, but that was not what the complaints were about. The body is too well defined, the pose is sexualized, blabla. When has any comic book superhero not been wearing revealing super-tight costumes? Are you seriously trying to tell me that the super guys don't show off their firm, muscular thighs, abs and buttocks? You even get quite a fait amount of "junk shots" from time to time. You know what is going on under that well-defined bulge. If I remember correctly it was even an alternative cover.
And while I'm on that topic, I want to throw out some names of franchises, like 300 and He-man. I mean, holy cow, where to begin? In 300 every man is a muscle machine in a skimpy outfit.**** He-man and his crew of comrades and enemies all have one thing in common. They are insanely muscled and wear little clothing except for boots and some sort of furry loincloths, breastplate optional. Men are portrayed as bodybuilding killing machines, and not necessarily with a lot going on in the brains department, and they are just as easily objectified. The difference is that is only ok for women to publicly say they are objectified. The social stigma for a man to come out and say he is abused by a spouse, is huge compared to the other way around. If your girlfriend beats you, you would probably be told to hit back. What if you don't want to hit back? What if the abuse isn't physical. Manning up won't help.

Maybe my problem is Anita Sarkeesian.  Damn, she is clever. Or at least I hope she is, the alternative is depressing. Of course the amount of abuse and threats she has received is unacceptable and inexcusable. But was it unexpected? If you've played any games online for any time at all, you know what random abuse and threats you will get from random gamers. And that is for taking the wrong lane, shooting them or having a high ping. If I wanted controversy and media coverage, I would take on online communities and gamers in general too. Sarkeesian points to reddit and 4chan in particular, well big whoop, what a surprise. And what is it she wants exactly? Games for girls? Well, that is sexist. Less killing of random female npcs? They go in the same virtual mass grave as all the male npcs. Mario getting saved by the princess? Then I suggest someone makes a franchise of their own instead of making demands of fat mushroom-eating Italian plumbers. There is in fact, no one forcing women to buy games they don't like or keeping them from making the games they want to play. Is there a market for something, well fine, then the product can be made and sold. Last time I checked, the gender balance of active gamers was 50/40-something to the guys, so it can't possibly all be that bad.

Another problem could be the Radioresepsjonen debacle. It's a Norwegian comedy radio show, where one of the guys, yes, they are 3 guys, called a 19 year old so called "pink blogger", a fuck doll. Time to check our priorities. There is an ebola epidemic in Africa. Russia is semi invading Ukraine. People die from hunger every day. Some policeman, sorry, policeperson, probably shot another black kid in the US just now. Are we going to have a big discussion about this? They certainly have said far worse on many occasions. And let's face it, she really resembles a living doll. That you do stuff with. And the world has enough stupid blogs about fashion and cosmetics, bought and paid for by the producers of the products they recommend.
I'm not.*****

How about the stunt where a fictitious Norwegian 12 year old made a blog about how she was getting married to an adult. What if the feminist movement got behind those kind of things, wouldn't that be great? Maybe focus on female circumcision, the role of women in islam, the whole China and girls thing? But no, alas, it often comes down to men are evil, not enough female superheroes in practical body armor and no means no.
To me, the feminist label has become somewhat silly, outdated and hardheaded, all by their own doing. The same way I look at the animal rights label. You see I don't like the animal lovers either... I kind of hoped to smack them down too, but I see now I'll have to do that later. 

To conclude, I'll talk about my dear old grandmother again, gone for some years now, and a product of her time long ago. I recall her watching the news on tv and say in a somewhat incredulous  and surprised tone "Well this is something. I didn't know you could charge someone with rape when they are married to the "rapist". Tut, tut."
I think we all agree those times are behind us. Feminism, please become intelligent and relevant again.


*See what I did there?
**A stupid phrasing that doesn't really make sense, but people understand what you mean when you use it.
***I'm linking to my blog in my blog, hooray!
**** In real life they actually had armor. Because they were not Gerald Butler.
*****Any takers? Please? I'm cheap.

Riding the hippo and fisting the smoking pig. (Report from a rock festival)

It doesn't matter if it rains if you have 50 square meters of tarpaulin.

This isn't what I usually do, because I find that particular brand of blog (and most others) completely useless, navel-gazing and utter boring, but now I'll talk about what I did last week. If my hands will stop shaking.

I've done as I usually do, and spent my vacation in moderate discomfort at a music festival, as any sane madman indeed should do. The air is moist particles of filth, you are either hung over or insanely drunk, and there is a constant but somewhat pleasant ache in your body and soul. The smell is terrible outside and worse inside. If you are an amateur, your tent will be leaking and taking in water. You are either too hot, too cold and/or wet. If you are lucky you lose or break your stuff. If you are unlucky it gets stolen or someone else breaks your stuff. But god damn, I love that life. Yes, I use the "L-word". I'm not supposed to, but that is how strongly I feel about it, and Potatobeak the Hate-cat will forgive me in time.

Now, it might seem strange that I'm breaking out the big L gun for such a concept as festivals, especially when they do and are all the things I mention here, but I will attempt to clarify and also bring the hate back in.
First of all, I will say this; If you haven't been to a music festival, just stop reading, you won't get it. Just continue to molest goats or whatever it is you do with your time.
Secondly I will say that you have to stay in the festival camping area. Tent, car, trailer, it is all good. Hotels and such is cheating.
Then there is the whooper: Everyone should try to work as a volunteer at a festival at least once in their life. Not the crappy one or two days of serving beers or whatever, but the whole deal, getting the whole thing up and running and then tearing it all down again. If you are lucky, you can even get paid a pittance, and the serious work crew get the serious benefits and fun. There was a time when I did this, but it is a young person's game, and I'm not sure I could hack it anymore. Accidents will occur. There will be blood. Someone in the crew will get stuck between floors in a tiny food elevator.
Someone might get hit by Green Day's moving freezer. Stuff happens.* But all that and other war stories are in the past, so let's see what happened this year, with all play and no work.

Where and how.
So me and a couple of friends went to the getaway rock festival in Sweden. Why go all the way to Sweden for a festival that had a somewhat weak lineup? Sweden is cheaper than Norway, the food at the festival is awesome, and I had to book my vacation before the lineup was released, so there you go. Our heroic driver drove for 13 hours, we arrived after dark and planted our tents in the one random spot that was available. Our neighbors were somewhat skeptical to suddenly have what can only be described as  a waterproofed** cave on top of their tents, but the natives were friendly and soon sung us the songs of their people, and we got on superbly after that.

The music.
The biggest bands were probably Volbeat, Slayer and Dimmu Borgir.  None of them impressed, and I didn't stay for the full gig of any of them. Yet, all was not lost. Blues Pills delivered the best concert I've seen for many years. It was the closest I've come to dancing like a stoned hippie, and I don't even like hippies. And I don't dance. It was truly a wonder to behold, the purest form of old school rock, beautifully performed by everyone on stage.
Other bands that impressed the shit out of me were Black Star Riders, Big Elf and Skindred. Kreator, Opeth and Steel Panther was merely good fun. It is impossible to see all the band you want to see, and some of those you actually see disappoint. If I find a couple of new bands that surprise me in a good way, I count myself lucky.

The food.
Awesome. All of it.

What I've learned.
My faith in humanity has gotten a boost. Mostly because of the great people that hung at our camp, the camp that got so many name suggestions that no one stuck, but several were apt. Here are a few: Hate Camp (duh), The Hell Hole, Camp Issues, Little Norway, Fist and hippo Camp.
Anyways, stuff I've learned...
Riding a mechanical bull is harder than it looks.
Fresh pasta is the food of the gods.
Never touch Jesus' hair. Ever.
Fisting never gets old.
Swedes know Norwegian, it just takes some time for them to realize it.
There appears to be a huge market for frozen cubes of hippo sperm out there.
A good massage will take you a long way but not all the way.
Vegans can live a long time on bananas.
Never buy an expensive tent. You are going to ditch it in the end anyways.
You can get an awesome response of random people if you shout "do the thing!"
Always check that your ride home has not been dismantled by people who only meant to fix it.
Festival toilets and showers can be good fun.

So yes, I blogging love festivals. The high you get is awesome, but I hate the trip down when it is over. There is fear and loathing, shaking hands and paranoia. I suppose it is my meta drug of choice, and there is a flipside to everything.
Some of the people I met collected stuff. Scars, jokes, hugs, sexual conquests, other people's possessions and so on. Having the memory capacity of a hamster, try as best as I can to collect the memories of gigs and the people I met. They are the best. So thank you everyone, for sharing your warmth with me at that moment in time. I haven't laughed so hard for ages.

I am the hippo-whisperer.


*No one ever got killed on my watch. As far as I know.
**It doesn't matter if the forecast is hot and sunny, ALWAYS make your camp waterproof.***
***And how we laughed at the wet people when it rained.
****Really what is left of Thin Lizzy in disguise.