On the local access television station, late at night, you can watch videos of gurus talking to their flocks. These aren’t Indian gurus, they are from other places, and mostly from the USA; some from Wisconsin. I was watching one of these guys last Tuesday night when it dawned on me that it doesn’t seem to take much to just put up a shingle and say you’re a guru. There is a common thread to what they teach and how they talk. You too can become a guru with a little know-how and by putting your imagination to the grindstone, so to speak.

How do they talk, these gurus? If you want to be a guru, you need to know. They speak like they are a cross between a robot and a mental patient, not to demean mental patients. And they have a look in their eyes that is distant yet psychotic. On their faces they wear a plastic smile as if everything they are saying is brilliant and wise. They also speak in a monotone voice, very measured, not because they want to hypnotize you, but because they are insane. Read the rest of this entry »

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I wish I could include a couple of Disney drawings to illustrate this article, but alas, I fear they would send me to the hoosegow for copyright infringement. The big companies are very down on using their depictions even in the interest of science, which this article clearly is…

The title of this article, as you may have noted, is Can A Mouse Own A Dog? Is this such an unreasonable question? I submit to you the idea that Disney’s Mickey Mouse owns a dog named Pluto. And so we have the unique situation wherein a mouse has a dog as a pet. Now think about this: Mickey would either have to be the biggest mouse in the history of the earth, or Pluto would have to be the size of a small radish. Which is it?

I have often seen, in books and films, Mickey Mouse taking Pluto for a walk. Mickey has complete control over the leash, and Pluto looks pretty strong. Mickey speaks in a very high, squeaky voice, which one veterinarian told me, “sounds to a dog like a metal ball thrown into a steel drum.” Poor dog. Poor us, listening to this squeaky voice. The original Mickey voice, by the way, was done by Disney himself. If you are taking enough drugs, you can thoroughly enjoy listening to Mickey speak in the movie Steamboat Willie. It’s fun entertainment for the whole family, but put your dog outside where it’s safe for his ears. Read the rest of this entry »

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One of the oldest axioms (or is it axia?) is to avoid discussing politcs or religion. So I go out on a limb here. My grandfather used to say that you can’t rise to the top in politics without being tainted. Why did he say this? What did he know? Maybe he was right. Who would want to hang in there all the way to the top while being tossed around by criticism, slander, libel, dirty jokes, backstabbing and favoritism? It seems like too much trouble to the sane, normal person. Which leads me to believe that the ones who finally make it are neither. Any more.

Were things different in the days of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or even Churchill? I don’t know. But politIcs is a magnet for backstabbers and liars. It goes with the territory. So what kinds of people these days are the leaders of the pack? What do they do and how do they act, and knowing the answers to these questions, why would we want them to be our leaders? Read the rest of this entry »

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My mother was a great shopper. She excelled at it. Marketing Professors from Columbia and Harvard used to call her for clarification on weighty problems on how to handle a sale, how to allocate your time and how to avoid the pitfalls. They’d confer with her to explain the difference between a sale and a special, or how to recognize leather from vinyl from across a crowded plaza.

Now that the shoppers’ season is in full bloom, it might behoove all of us to understand the intricacies of this shopping behavior. Let’s begin with “The Sale.”

Do retailers cheat and lie? Yes. They say something is “on sale” when it is really just “for sale.” How do you know the difference? The answer is that serious people study this shopping thing and become experts. It’s like the stock market. They say you shouldn’t play unless you know the difference between a buy, a sell and a put. So, if there’s a shirt that is priced $40, you have to know whether that is the regular price or a bargain. Otherwise, you should stay at home and bake muffins. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you are from the US of A, then you’ve heard the official story of Thanksgiving a million times. Some pilgrims take a boat across the Atlantic. They get out of the boat, kiss Plymouth Rock and put their shoe buckles in the water as they make their way across the beach. They didn’t realize it would be so cold, so they didn’t bring any sweaters. They prayed to God to save them from the cold, but it didn’t work and most of them died. Very sad. Short visit. So long.

But there is far more to the story than we are led to believe. It began in England in the year 1610, on a Tuesday. A man named Eli Rappaport carried a large suitcase across the dank streets of London, hailed a coach at the corner of Lexington and Maybury, got off on the corner of Marple and Simmons, then walked into the nearest pub. There he met Jonathan Smythe, a tall, good looking, religious young man wearing a funny hat with a buckle on it. The conversation went like this: Read the rest of this entry »

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Parents. What would move them to say, “I’ll give you a reason to cry!” when a kid is already crying? Apparently, he already has a reason. A damn good one, too, if you would just stop and solicit his opinion. What if the kid was to say to his father, “I’ll give you a reason to pay taxes!”? See what I mean? Parents have all the power but make no sense. A lot like the Bush administration. Or a Porsche that you just drive around town.

When I was a kid, it was popular for parents to hit their kids. In today’s terms this would be called abuse. Back then there was difference between striking your child and abuse. Maybe the difference is in the frequency and severity. I was never beaten, just smacked. Not in the face, but on the ass. But between my mother and father there were belts, brushes, a full-sized plastic guitar and a strange looking farm tool passed down through the family. Don’t get me wrong though. They were fair. They would say, “I know your brother did it, but to be fair, we’re going to hit both of you.” My first inclination was to say, “You created both of us. That makes you equally culpable.” Then we’d both get hit again. Read the rest of this entry »

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I find it fascinating to read about men’s feelings and attitudes in and about romantic relationships, especially when such lessons are coming from a female writer or psychologist. Women writing about men’s feelings. It’s like me describing what it’s like to be a duck taking his first swim across a pond. I am no duck, so who am I to say? Before you ladies get out a meat cleaver, be aware that I am far from misogynistic in my views. I just think it’s crazy for women to describe the male thought process as much as it’s nuts for a man to fully understand a woman.

But Erica Rossellini, PhD, disagrees. In her book, How to Stroke His Ego While Wearing Evening Gloves, Dr. Rossellini says she has the secret on how any woman can please her man outside of the bedroom. So, right off of jump street, I am puzzled. What does Dr. Rossellini mean by “please”? Is she talking about sex? No! She says on page two, “Pleasing a man begins long before sex.” But she uses the word “please” and “bedroom” in the same sentence. After I read this I couldn’t think straight. I completely had to reread the next paragraph two more times. Hers was a tough book to get through.

Dr Rossellini is the literary equivalent of Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime. Read the rest of this entry »

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There is so much controversy over the God issue these days that people are having seizures in the streets. Evolution or creationism? What is the truth? Who has the best religion? Who can pee the farthest? How was the world created and who done it?

All of this debate forced me to leave the comfort of my small New England summer home and take a trip across the world. After a week of travel I ended up at the foothills of the Himalayas and led to a small hut miles from anywhere. Once in a while I’d see a shepherd or a young fellow pulling at the reins of a water buffalo, but besides this, the area I was in was pretty sparse. I sat in the hut for seven days. I made a nice fire and brought plenty of provisions. It was quite peaceful, really. Anyhow, at last, as promised by my sherpa guide, an old sage appeared at my doorstep bearing yak butter tea and a little drum. His name was Darmya. He told me the secret to the universe in simple words that would make the heads spin of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Darmya told me the world was created by a guy named Bernie. Some people call him God, but definitely not his wife. Read the rest of this entry »

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You hear so much about how upset people get every time an immigrant group comes into the country and takes over all the jobs. The big complaint is always that they are taking over everything and they don’t want to learn our customs or speak English. Well, I have news for everyone. I recently read a Secret document from the U.S. Government that should send these people into a tailspin. Essentially, the document is talking about using trained chimpanzees to take over a lot of human jobs. I’m not making this up, so if you’re a doorman, a delivery guy or a waiter, you better take note and tighten your belt. Otherwise, you can be replaced by a hairy stand-in named Bonzo.

The document of which I speak is called CWS-02. It stands for Chimpanzee Worker Substitute, and the “02″ stands for 2002, the year in which this document was drafted. The idea is one that was presented to George W. Bush and pushed through without Congressional approval. There was only one little line about it at the back of the Washington Post in which Bush said, “I’m not sure what all is in it, but if it leads to fewer hirers and firers, then it’s good for Americans.”

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What is a time warp? Is this real or a product of science fiction? Something you’d see on Star Trek? This is a question that nagged me in the middle of the night. Well, actually, in the middle of the night I’ve been nagged by a barking beagle, but this in no way diminishes my need to discover the meaning of a time warp, believe you me. People use the phrase “time warp” all the time now. It’s usually a term of derision, like, “Wow, that guy’s living in a time warp. He still watches television.” That whole diatribe could have been summed up in two words: “He’s old.”

A lot of science fiction is extracted from real science. But what about the time warp? A time warp has come to mean the exhibition of characteristics of an earlier era. Like you’re stuck in a certain period of time and cannot move forward. This seems to happen to older people. They keep talking about their younger days. And they wear clothes that are out of style by about 25 years. They also tend to eat with food on their lips, but this is something else altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

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