A Dream Short-Circuited

Meyerson is editor-at-large of American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly
Meyerson Special to The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- On March 28, Circuit City announced that it was laying off 3,400 of its salesclerks. Not because they had poor
performance records, mind you: Their performance was utterly beside the point. They were shown the door, said the chain,
simply because they were the highest-salaried salesclerks that Circuit City employed.
Their positions were not eliminated. Rather, the store announced that it would hire their replacements at the normal starting
salary.
One can only imagine the effect of Circuit City's announcement on the morale of the workers who didn't get fired. The
remaining salesclerks can only conclude: Do a good job, get promoted and you're outta here.
It was, in short, just a normal day in contemporary American capitalism.
Over at Wal-Mart, the employer that increasingly sets the labor standards for millions of our compatriots, wage caps have
been set for certain jobs, and many longtime employees are now required to work weekends and nights in the hope that
they'll quit. A memo prepared by a Wal-Mart executive in 2005 for the company's board noted that "the cost of an associate
with 7 years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, yet there is no difference
in his or her productivity." (That, of course, is because Wal-Mart does nothing to raise its employees' skills lest it have to raise
their wages.) Coincidentally, in the same week that Circuit City axed its clerks, an analysis of Internal Revenue Service data
from 2005 that became available showed that the bottom 90 percent of Americans made less money that year than they had
in 2004. According to a study by economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of
the Paris School of Economics, total reported income in the United States increased by 9 percent in 2005 over 2004. All of that
increase, however, went to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, and the wealthiest 1 percent experienced an increase of
14 percent. Among the remaining 90 percent, income actually decreased by 0.6 percent.
And 2005, let us remember, wasn't a year of economic downturn. The American economy was humming along. It was only
the American people who weren't doing very well.
What all this amounts to is a triumph of corporate and financial power, and of the conservative economics that shores it up.
Once upon a time, American prosperity actually benefited Americans. From 1947 through 1973, U.S. productivity rose by 104
percent, and median family income rose by an identical 104 percent. Those were also the only years of real union power in
the United States, years in which one-quarter of the workforce, and in some years one-third, was unionized. Apparently, this
level of worker power and mass prosperity proved intolerable to our financial elite and their political flunkies.
Since the '70s, American business has generally done its damnedest to keep its workers down. Employers routinely opted
to pay the negligible penalties for violating the National Labor Relations Act rather than permit their employees to join unions.
In 1969, according the National Labor Relations Board, the number of employees who'd suffered illegal retaliation for
exercising their right to join or maintain a union was just over 6,000; by 2005, that number had risen to 31,358. According to a
study out this January from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, fully one in five activists on unionization campaigns
are illegally fired. And as worker power declines, so do living standards. Secure retirement pensions are history;
employer-provided health benefits are going fast.
To all of this, conservatives offer no remedy whatsoever save to make things worse. Employer-provided pensions
collapsing? Let's gut Social Security, too. Health insurance tottering? By all means, let's preserve our private, for-profit system,
which currently fails to cover 47 million of our fellow Americans. Income increases going only to the rich? Let's switch to a flat
tax (Rudy Giuliani's most recent brainstorm), which further shifts the tax burden from the upwardly mobile rich to the
downwardly mobile everyone else.
And restoring the right of workers to join unions, which is the key to rebuilding a vibrant middle class? There's a clear way to
do that. Next week, the Senate will take up the Employee Free Choice Act, which the House has already passed. By
compelling employers to recognize unions if a majority of their workers sign affiliation cards, the legislation would bring a
modicum of balance to workplace relations and to the American economy as well.
Business, the president and the Republican leadership are fighting the measure with everything they have.
What they don't have, however, is their own theory of how to regain mass prosperity. How could they? Mass prosperity is
precisely what they've labored mightily, and successfully, to destroy.

Beezin hell

Drones can fly away
Even worker bees can leave
The queen is their slave

Love is in the air

It was a spring day like every other. Cool morning, limited sunshine, and me in the throws of spring fever. In short, a blah day. Then I got this in my mail and laughed my ass off.
Thanks Rita. You happily give predictable a bloody nose.

rappin rove

Watching this is like watching your parents disco dancing in front of your friends.
How embarrassing. To think this man is the man behind the prez. Oh, the humanity... It's like this unwilling, voyeuristic glimpse into the abyss. You can't take your eyes off this, but it hurts.

This is like watching your grandparents have sex.

rage against the machine

To a coffee drinker, life is nonexistent when you wake up to a dead coffee machine. Life gets fucked up when you can't have your morning coffee. You start off with 2 left feet, one eye and half a brain. As Bob Richards says, what a way to start the day. It only takes a couple hours before the caffeine deprived headaches begin and it's downhill from there.
The point is, I want my caffeine now, the way I want it, ie, to taste good and give me a decent rush of adrenaline to propel me through the days events.
That didn't happen this morning. Mr. Fuckin Coffee took a dump right on my coffee nook before the first cup of cold sludge came oozing out. By nine o'clock I not only realized I forgot my socks but my shoes were on the wrong feet and my underwear was on the outside. How embarrassing. Does this ever happen to you?

I saw the light was on in Mr. Coffee but obviously, no one was home. I begged and pleaded with this infernal machine to do something. Please, just one cup. Comeonnnnnnn.......
JUST ONE FUCKIN CUP, DAMN YOU! I Knew it was hopeless. Pleading with a coffee maker is below pity. I then looked it straight in the carafe and said, "Look. Work properly or you will end up in the meadow with the rest of your planned obsolescing ilk."

After work I went out and got myself a brand new Hamilton Beech carafe-free coffee machine. What a cool piece of machinery! And what a great buzz! What a fuckin great buzz, pardon my french. What was I thinking, buying all those carafe-leaking, coffee-dribbling, essence-leaking pieces of Mr. Fuckin Coffee crap. I, too, was sucked into thinking I needed the originator of easy coffee making machines to make my life more pleasently easy. I admit, I was wrong. Mr. Coffee sucks. All their carafes leak, the coffee leaks out of the bottom, it tastes like shit, and they live on Joltin Joe's commercials, and he's been dead for years.

The bottom line is, all things manufactured now days is shit and will all end up in a landfill within a few years of purchase.

That's why I decided to have a party at my place as soon as it gets warm. Bring your coffee makers that took a dump, as well as other appliances that no longer serve your best interests, such as VCR's, cell phones, electric toothbrushes, computer monitors, electric shavers, alarm clocks, DVD players, computers... you get the picture.
Bring em all and we'll let you rage against the machines with your weapon of choice. You have your choice of calibres, shotgun gauges, black powder, thermite. Yes, we'll have thermite and we'll blow the shit out of all this stuff.

AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!

To be announced. Be there.

The Big Lebowski in 5 seconds

The title says it all.

Beware The Average

The Presidential Lottery

There's talk of getting a new U.S. president soon. Hilary is getting ready to make a fool of herself and every other potential candidate is chomping at the bit. All will say they are the best for the country, they represent your interests, and you should vote for them in November. This next presidential election will be a colorfully, monochromatic one for sure. Obama is white on the inside and black on the outside and Hilary is white on the outside and black on the inside. Giuliani, Richardson, Edwards, McCain, Romney, Biden........It's so confusing. It's selling toothpaste. Crest? Pepsodent? Preparation H?

First of all, anyone who wants to be president so bad that they'd kiss a million unwashed asses, live on a bus for a year, spend a fortune prostituting themselves to the highest bidder, and pretend they enjoy dropping their pants and exposing their genetically deformed, disease-ridden testicles to this endless ocean of slack-jawed voting rabble, like some demented used care salesman on an evangelistic, bad acid trip road show, is exactly the person you DON'T want in that position. The end result isn't getting the best man for the job but getting the lesser of two evils. We no longer vote for the best candidate but to keep that other waste of semen out. Ya call that democracy?

I have a better idea.

Let's do away with this system and start up a presidential lottery. Each district draws a slip of paper representing every voter in that district. One paper has a black dot on it. That's the candidate. All the districts then submit their black dots for the state drawing, where a state champion is chosen. On election night they can have all 50 state lottery winners assembled in one place for the presidential lottery, where one person is filtered from the whole country to represent the nation as The President.

Hilary and Obama will co-host the show. They can have witty banter like, "Obama, you misinformed negro" and "Hilary, you ignorant slut." They can have awe-inspiring acts like the Osmond and Brady Bunch Jello wrestling extravaganza and Billy Greenbush could sing God Bless America while all the living former presidents can take turns doing stand up comedy. Networks will scramble for this. The ad revenue alone will be enough to balance the budget. A 50 share rating, at least.

Of course, at each step the winner could always step down and allow a re-drawing, allowing someone else to take his place for the district or state. No one's going to force you to be president. After all, this a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people... or did I get that part wrong on my history test?

Isn't that what democracy is in it's purist form? Isn't democracy what we sell to the world as the best system on Earth? Isn't it about time we walk the walk instead of getting the same career politicians, election after election, doing the same insane things in the same insane way expecting different insane results with nothing to show for the effort but higher taxes, longer work hours, less pay, and more governmental intrusion?

Before you completely put this idea down maybe you should think back to all the insane ideas our past presidents came up with and how you said if you were in that position you'd do things differently. Well, here's your chance.

If this were anyone else I'd be concerned

'Well, what?' I said, smecking. 'Are you not satisfied with beating me near to death and having me spat upon and making me confess to crimes for hours on end and then shoving me among bezoomies and vonny perverts in that grahzny cell? Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?'
It'll be your own torture,' he said, serious. 'I hope it tortures you to madness.'
And then, before he told me, I knew what it was. The old ptitsa who had all the kots and koshkas had passed on to a better world in one of the city hospitals. I'd cracked her a bit too hard, like.

just a gastronomic thought

I like to cook. Not just to make something to shove down my throat to refuel but the creative act of selecting ingredients, chopping onions, cutting meat with a razor sharp cleaver, and selecting spices to satisfy not only a basic, primal, urge of survival but a specific chemical need my body is relaying to my brain in the form of appetite communication. I've always believed a picky eater is an underachiever but more importantly, if you eat something you like that you never had before you'll live a hundred days longer. My goal is to live forever and if I try something different every 99 days and like it I'm ahead of the game.

As I was preparing a gulyas the other day, I realized two things.

1. I'm a godam good cook.
2. Smokers make better cooks.


First of all, I don't measure anything. A pinch of this, a handful of that, dump in some of this, taste and adjust. In the case of the gulyas I started with a bunch of chopped onions, clarified and slightly blackened in olive oil, A bottom round roast cut in 1/2" cubes, washed and salted and dumped in the pot with caraway seeds, a bunch of hot paprika and a couple handfuls of sweet paprika, and water to cover after it browns. By the time it was ready for the spuds, the gulyas was developing a truly spectacular flavor. Then it dawned on me... If a non-smokin' me were to make this stuff it wouldn't have near the flavor it has now. See, nicotine reduces the sense of taste so non-smokers don't require as much flavor. It's been said you can pour a pint of Irish whisky in one end of Loch Ness and a non-smoker can taste it at the other end. Is that the kind of person you want to flavor your food? Someone who can taste .0003 parts per million? Or would you rather have a gastronomic experience prepared by someone who compensates for a diminished sense of taste by creating a fully balanced, sumptuous flavor that would make a Hungarian cry?

This explains why nuvo cuisine, wheat grass, and sawdust is so tasty to all those people who want a non smoking world.

I hear Julia Child used to smoke cigars with Paul Prudhomme. Is that true?

Say it ain't so, Joe

I was just researching Joe Papp's noble gas plasma engine and I can't for the life of me understand why I didn't know about this stuff before. I looked into room temperature nuclear fusion, hydrogen power engines, orgone, vegetable oil diesel engines, Joe Neuman's energy machine, the 60' drinking bird, and tons of other lesser-known contrivances doomed to the mists of forgotten perpetual motion antiquity but this noble gas plasma engine is, for lack of a better term, the tits.

Here you have Joe Papp, a pilot and microfiche technician who escaped to Canada in 1957 during the Hungarian revolution with plans for a revolutionary engine given to him by a scientist rather than letting it fall into the hands of the Soviets. Joe was no scientist but in 1966 managed to build a submarine and supposedly traveled under the Atlantic and was found bloody and battered on a life raft off the coast of France, 13 hrs after he left the North American coast. The sub was lost at sea, never to be found, and Joe was looked at as a stunt making jerk. Some 20 years later he developed and built a car engine. This engine is a multi-cylinder piston and crank design like today's car engines, but each cylinder is sealed with a charge of helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon. It has no intake or exhaust ports, nor even a radiator. Its outside temperature was about 140 degrees F and generated no pollutants, not even CO2. It was totally clean and could run for an estimated 10,000 hrs for about $1.00 worth of fuel in the form of inert gas. The engine could run smoothly down to 100 rpm and developed hundreds of horsepower at only 1000 rpm and had torque in the hundreds of foot pounds.

Imagine an engine that could run for 10 years with no fuel, no emissions, no cooling system, no heat, no exhaust, very little maintenance, only one moving part, and a fraction of the cost of a conventional engine.

This isn't just another cold fusion fantasy. Joe Papp managed to get 3 patents that could realistically transform the world as we know it.

* "Method and Means for Generating Explosive Forces," applied for on November 1, 1968, granted as U.S. #3,680,431, August 1, 1972, assigned to Environetics, Inc. of Gardena, California; Papp declares the general nature of the noble gas mixture necessary to produce explosive release of energy. He also suggests several of the triggering sources that may be involved. There is little doubt that Papp is not offering full disclosure here, but there is no doubt that others who have examined this patent and followed its outline have already been able to obtain explosive detonations in noble gases. Caution: Anyone who undertakes to try to duplicate this process must be very careful about safety issues.

* "Method and Means of Converting Atomic Energy into Utilizable Kinetic Energy," applied for on October 31, 1968, granted as U.S. #3,670,494, June 20, 1972, and assigned to Environetics, Inc.

* "Inert Gas Fuel, Fuel Preparation Apparatus and System for Extracting Useful Work from the Fuel," applied for September 4, 1980, granted as U.S. #4,428,193, January 31, 1984, and assigned to Papp International, Inc. of Lincoln, Nebraska. This is a very lengthy patent, filled with many insights about how his sealed, non-cooled engine process may have worked.


Unfortunately, Joe Papp was a paranoid asshole who was in constant fear that someone wanted to steal his invention so he chose to destroy his research shortly before his death.
What loss to humanity. If not for greed, scientist egos, and neutralization from the powers that be, we might be enjoying free energy in every form without being chained to Mobil/Exxon's gas pumps or our local power grid.

We can't expect GM to market this technology. They'd rather cut their own throats. The government? Fugetaboutit. And in today's climate of constantly chasing the dollar, it looks like the individual will have to develop this himself... and probably sell out to the highest bidder.
Is it any wonder we still use fossil fuels?

It seems to me the only way to get this technology out and to keep it in the hands of the people is to give it away and don't expect a profit. We're already stuck on this monetary merry-go-round with bleak prosperity, higher heating bills, and smaller cell phones to look forward to.

Wouldn't you rather have a total electric home, never have to buy fuel, and have a check from the electric company every month? Or would you rather be a mule?

metro driving 101

We used to drive like this when were kids and no one thought much of it. That's what steel bumpers were for. Try it nowadays and you can look forward to a substance test, loss of license, impounding of your vehicle, loss of your insurance, 30 days in the grey bar hotel, and a $2500 bill for every car you stick because the bumpers are made from plastic with the tensile strength of a potato chip.
Do I wish for the good ol' days when bumpers were designed to bump? Nah. We're much better off with plastic cars made from an ever renewable and plentiful resource... oil.

neighbors

A few phrases come to mind. Anger management, potential stroke victim, BPD, cruising for a coronary. The road to good mental health is right around the corner.

I feel a slight wave of nausea, don't you?

If your goal is to push the bile to the tip of my throat, mission accomplished.
Way to go John.

RAW

Robert Anton Wilson left this Earth January 11, 2007.
Author, visionary, scientist, teacher, philosopher, historian, guerrilla ontologist, and guru. He was one of the greatest thinkers of our time and his passing will bring immeasurable loss to humanity.
He taught me the map is not the territory, the menu is not the meal, and "maybe" is a better discription than "is". He broadened my reality tunnel and opened my mind like a can of worms on steroids.

Thanks for the enlightenment, Bob.

freedom to fascism

Has anyone noticed a difference in life lately? Sort of a cloud over everything... a sense of seriousness that wasn't there before? Maybe you don't notice it because it's been part of our lives for so long and we're getting used to corporations, politicians, and "terrorists" continually coming up with more and more ways to make our lives oppressive, bit by tiny bit. Hidden charges on your phone bill and electric bill. Insane interest rates on credit cards. The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, I.R.S. Needing permission from the government for virtually every transaction from health care, putting gas in your car, starting a business, or buying a home. Quality jobs in America going south of the border or overseas while China provides nearly everything manufactured. A "war on terror" where phones are tapped, e-mails read, a national ID card due in May 2008 embedded with radio frequency identification that will replace your drivers license so you can be tracked anywhere. At the same time, our southern borders are open to illegal immigration but it's illegal for our border patrol to stop them. Americans work hard their whole lives to retire on social security while illegal immigrants are granted social security free of charge. You can try to vote these guys out of office but electronic voting is becoming the standard. It's well documented that electronic voting machines can be programmed to pick a winner before the election by whatever margin they want with no paper ballots for back-up.
The list goes on and on, and with each addition to this list we lose a little more of our freedoms until our freedoms are in name only. Some lofty, idealistic ideas our founding fathers thought was a good idea and the Constitution will be what GW Bush once said, "Just a goddamned piece of paper", and the Bill of Rights should be changed to reflect our "modern world", and the cover story is, "war on terror", "war on drugs", democracy for all. Bullshit! And we hear it so often we're starting to believe it.
Were you aware on October 17, 2006 there was a public signing of 'The Military Commissions Act of 2006' which suspends Habeas Corpus?
The 'Military Commissions Act of 2006' is a violation of Article 1, Section 9 of the U. S.Constitution which states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Is there an invasion? Yes! Our country has been invaded by 30 million illegal aliens, but you can rest assured that the Military Commission Act is NOT about them . . . it's about YOU!
On the same day, in private, Bush signed into law "Public Law 109-364, or the 'John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007' (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a 'public emergency' and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to 'suppress public disorder'.
If you think these two signings are no big deal then you don't understand them. Simply put, it gives the president power to evoke martial law for whatever reason he wishes. Total suspension of our Constitution. All that stuff we fought a revolution over 200 years ago will be lost in the mists of antiquity.

Here is a list of your rights as an American citizen that you will lose if the president, whoever he may be, gets a feather up his ass.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Just a goddamned piece of paper, huh? These are your rights. If you lose them you'll never get them back.

Check this out.

http://www.stopthenorthamericanunion.com/videos/America_-_Freedom_to_Fascism.html#start

traditions

What a merry Xmas! It's my personal tradition that every December 25th I pop a bottle of cheap champagne and imbibe before sunrise as I contemplate the end of the giant consumer season and the birthday of the celebrated carpenter/philosopher known as Jesus.
This fluid didn't come from the Mumm cellars in Rheims or from Dom Perignon's monestary. It came from the J. Roget Champagne Cellars of Canandaigua, NY and cost about 4 bucks a pop. Yeah, baby! That's what I call cheap champagne. Fortunately, I know how to handle bruts such as this. A sugar cube at the bottom of a flute glass with a dash of bitters makes the most vile bubbly a tasty, mind-numbing experience. As I sat in my easy chair with crystal vessel in hand, watching the bubbles drift upward in my champagne cocktail, I realized the significance of it all.
Making a champagne cocktail out of cheap champagne is like taking a bum, bathing him and dressing him in your dad's new suit. He may look like your dad but he's still just a sweet-smelling bum. But... If the clothes make the man then adulteration makes the drink. It's not Crystal, but if I could afford such luxury I wouldn't be drinking J. Roget champagne cocktails.
Of course, man cannot live by champagne cocktails alone. Soft-boiled eggs followed by biscuits and gravy and another bottle served as the morning feast even a Methodist could love. Dinner consisted of crab legs, drawn butter, biscuits and the last of the champagne. Pighin Pinot Grigio, and Cavit Pinot Noir were drained next and my living quarters were littered with dead soldiers.
The messiah's birthday and dead soldiers as far as the eye can see. I guess there IS balance in the universe.
I'm so glad the age of Pisces is over.

it's not just a car...

Just an update on the engine thing. As promised, the car was finished by 5pm friday. I stopped by the shop on my way through town, about 4pm, to check things out and the new engine was humming along perfectly. I was impressed and even more so when I realized what these guys had to do to make it so. Intake and exhaust manifolds had to be changed as well as all the other periferal appliances and a few small parts that no one thought about. All it needed was a thermostat and hood but here was my baby, the angry car, joyfully excersizing all 100 horses in a symphony of Mopar harmony. The mechanic told me Mike, the owner, said a car will be coming in thursday morning for an engine swap and had to be finished by friday night. He said, "Are you nuts? It can't be done". The owner said, "It WILL be done". Well, he was pretty damned pleased with himself when the job was completed on time. After he took it for a test he came back and told Mike what a fun ride it was and insisted he take it for a spin, too.
Since I got this machine there have been only 5 people who had the honor of sitting behind the wheel and all of them climbed out with smiles and positive comments. Mike said it best... "Anyone can get a car but when you find one that you love ya gotta take care of it." At that point he realized why I opted for an engine swap over buying another vehicle. I guess that philosophy applies to any relationship whether it's your lover, your friend, your job, or yourself.

Saturday morning Mike called me at home to see how the car's running. When was the last time you got a call from your mechanic just to see if everything's ok?

Some valuable lessons were learned through this experience.

1. Convincing a mechanic to complete an engine swap in half the time really boosted my managerial ego.
2. These guys became better mechanics by doing, what they thought was, an impossible task by over-riding common sense with directed, positive, willpower.
3. Their customers will benefit and Mikes business will prosper because if it.
4. Relationships, whatever they may be, are pretty damned important and ya gotta take care of em.
5. The karmic implications were more widespread than I could've imagined and further reinforced my belief that I can get whatever I want.
6. At long last, I found my mechanic.

Godam, do I feel blessed!

what's with this fortune?

Long story short, I blew a head gasket in my car a few weeks ago. White smoke, erratic engine behavior and cold air coming from the heater was the tip-off, and it was obvious I wasn't getting through this winter without some major auto headaches. In our age of planned obsolescence, the majority of car owners in this country would simply scrap the car and get another, due to the cost of repair compared to book value. Well, I happen to like this particular vehicle. A '94 caravan 2.5 means fixing a head gasket isn't as easy or as cheap as it was repairing the same problem in a 318 or slant six. This fix requires removing the head and taking it to a centralized shop that specializes in magnaflux and checking the head for warp and microscopic cracks these little engines are famous for. Gone are the small shops in the rear of auto part stores that do it while you wait. Now, you need to take it to a larger shop that will keep it at least a day and up to eternity simply because they can. After the testing they determine if the head is still good, in which case you can spend a couple hundred to rebuild it, or if it's bad you can buy a remanufactured head for an average of $450. Even if I found a remanufactured head, this process could take 3 days, at the very least, with a cost of around $750. Ouch!
The yuppie garage I took it to first gave me the impression they didn't need my business because "It's the busy time of the year" and they have enough SUVs, Hunmmers, and bourgeoismobiles to keep them going with tune-ups, oil changes, tire sales, and other easy, high profit jobs to keep their sales staff in good position for bonus time.
A little bit about where I live... Rural yuppie central. Picture Green Acres with half the farms bought by the Douglas's friends, and Hooterville still has the same one-room post office and you can't get ahold of the police department until after 4pm., 'cause there ain't no crime in the valley, but town meetings are still filled with Oliver Wendell Douglas clones wanting more cops to protect their estates and better roads for their $80,000 off-road SUVs and a full-time fire department to instantly put out fires in their McMansions in the remote possibility of emulation from chestnuts roasting on open fires. And these are the major clients of the garage I took my car to for engine work. What was I thinking?
Ralph told me Chas knows a guy in Berwick who can do this kind of work without a backlog of bullshit, so I gave him a call. After discussing my options and cost we settled on a plan. I always figured rebuilding the head without rebuilding the bottom end of an engine was asking for trouble. If the engine is wearing uniformly, rebuilding half the engine will only increase the other half to go 3 times faster, and the last thing I want is to do a ring job six months from now -- and I know there's been damage because of all the water going through the cylinders, and half my oil is water. Another engine is the only fast solution and the least cost. The funny part is an engine replacement will be almost $300 less than just doing the head gasket. Go figure.
Wednesday night I got Mary to follow me to drop off my car in the dead of night and to get us home. Needless to say, the ride through town in this smoke-making machine was interesting. I had to take side streets to avoid going down the Christmas boulevard, which meant stopping at every light and stop sign in town. Just sitting at the red light at 2nd Street created a cloud so thick you couldn't see the light, let alone the cop car on the corner. By the time I got to the shop and shut off the engine I could see this undissipating mass of white the size of a city block gently floating west. I was expecting the fire department to show up.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with the title. Be patient. I'm getting to that, ok?
We decided to get some Chinese at Jumbo Buffet, and after a half dozen plates of stuff we got out fortune cookies.
I'm not sure what the odds of this is, but this was the first time I got a fortune cookie sans fortune. I mean, just a cookie without a fortune. What does this mean? Do I have no future? Did the cook spit in my food? Was that really pork I ate? When the Chinese waiter came over I asked if he was spiritual. He gave me this look like, "I'm an athiest. What do I know about spiritual?" I then told him I got no fortune in my fortune cookie and asked what he thought it meant. I guess I was expecting some sage Chinese philosophy such as no fotune means vely, vely good luck. You open to all possibilities. But in a very good English accent he said, "Would you like me to get you another cookie?" I suppose expecting all Chinese people to be philosophers would be like Chinese people expecting all Americans to be Elvis. I said, no thanks. This non-fortune is perfect. I took it as an excellent omen and expected the best in a completely unexpected way.
I called the mechanic the next morning, and he had the engine out. It was just nuts and bolts now, and I fully expect to be driving my baby before the weekend.
I guess that WAS a good fortune after all.

If I read Steinbeck in jr. high I'd be in prison by now

What does it take for you spineless lower sub-strata life forms to stand up and do something besides roll over and play dead? Huh?
I just saw the theatrical version of John Steinbeck's The Pearl and I concluded that these mexicans have alot more on the ball than you do.
These ignorant, water dwelling, primitive, social bottom feeders managed to totally beat and humilitate evil in their midst. Why can't you? Here these people are eking out a living by diving for pearls and you people go to Walmart and buy pears. Talk about pears before swine.
These ignorant half-breeds knew enough about evil to kick it out of their village, no matter how much they wanted the payola from the pearl. What are you guys doin? You're inviting it in the front door and bending over for it to inseminate your already pudrid alementary canal.
I'm not talking about everyone. Just the ones who follow the herd out each morning and back in the gate each night. The people who put up with "the way things are". Well, the way things are has turned into crap because you ARE the way things are. You've turned this world into a fat, complacent, non-thinking, fear-driven, hell hole of banality because all you want to do is go to McDonald's, buy recliners, make money and watch football on tv while you beat off to Jerry Springer. No wonder your wife thinks you're such an asshole.
What do I think you should do? How bout give up the cheetos and locate the nearest soup kitchen and go there and fill up some bowls for a change? Ya into selfish gratification? Try giving to someone else who's not aware of it. The karmic implications are huge. Ya want reward for your servitude? Ain't no better way. Ya wanna fix things? There ain't no better way than starting with YOU. Ya wanna fix the world, get off your dead ass and start doing things besides sucking your own dick, not to put too fine a point on it.
It's alimentary, Dr. Watson.