The Flippant Philosopher

I’ve never been much of a “D’Oh!” user. Not because I don’t love The Simpsons, because I do, but because I never identified with Homer. Sure, I laugh at him, but it is laughing at him. Not with him.

My exclamation of dismay for many years (in addition to simple profanity and extreme vulgarity; appropriate or not) has been: “Ack!”

All these years since the end of Bloom County, I still miss Bill the Cat.

“U Stink…But I Luv U” –Billy and the Boingers

-Demonax

A tip from my wife: It’s not so hard kicking the coffee habit when you already feel sick. You don’t even notice the caffeine headache, she says.

-Demonax

I can so understand why there would be a major world religion (or two) that frowns on shaving. I think it’s a sin too. A painful, time-wasting, annoying one.

19th century medicine got it wrong: Our “evolutionary appendix” isn’t inside us, it’s hanging off of us, making us fuzzy in various, unattractive places.

Can you imagine what the Intelligent Designer who invented backhair must look like?

-Demonax

Thanksgiving tries to be a Modern American Holiday, really it does. Its mix of gluttony and religious overtones has a distinctly American feel. But the holiday is suffering an identity crisis and fading into obscurity.

Oh, sure, there’s Black Friday, a big part of the Thanksgiving Weekend–but that’s not even considered a part of Thanksgiving any more. Nope, Black Friday is now the official opening of the Xmas Shopping Season.

If Thanksgiving was a Real American Holiday, it would defend its turf and not abdicate a single day to another holiday’s celebration.

Does New Years give up a day to Xmas? Hell, no. It took the end of the Xmas holidays as its own. Does Easter let Memorial Day have even a minute of its time? As if.

July 4th, Labor Day, even Halloween, all of these have carved out a niche–and their own brands of rampant consumerism with specials, sales, and unique offerings. This year, though, Thanksgiving barely got a nod, as after Halloween the Xmas decorations came out at every retail store. An occasional pilgrim, turkey, scarecrow, and pumpkin display, usually tucked away in  a back corner, were all the acknowledgement Thanksgiving received this year.

What’s a beaten down holiday to do? I think the answer is clear: Thanksgiving needs to expand its retail focus from turkey and dressing to something with more zest, more pow! Parades and football used to bolster Thanksgiving’s status as a Great American Holiday, but even those venerable institutions are getting plowed under…or slept through in a turkey-gorged haze.

It’s the sedentary, self-congratulatory nature of Thanksgiving that’s getting in the way. Black Friday is lost forever at this point, but that still leaves Monday through Wednesday of Thanksgiving Week. Borrowing a page from the Xmas playbook, Thanksgiving could institute a Four Days of Thanksgiving, expanding its focus to include both thanks (as per tradition) and giving.

It’s the giving that opens up the retail opportunities. Giving means buying, and buying useless crap to give to people who already have a standard of living well in excess of anything the world has ever seen is what America is all about.

And while we’re at it, the color scheme of Thanksgiving needs an overhaul. Seasonal or not, brown and orange are just not very exciting. Red, white and blue, red and green, black and orange, even the pastel pastiche of Easter all have more umph than brown and orange.

It may be too late, though. Even FDR, arguably the greatest President the United States has ever elected, failed to help Thanksgiving. His 1930’s era effort to move Thanksgiving up by a week to better separate it from Xmas was thwarted by agents of the Xmas Monopoly.

Let’s face it: Xmas has Thanksgiving under its thumb. But there’s hope yet, if Thanksgiving can pull itself together and grow a pair of balls. Only Thanksgiving can help Thanksgiving. It has to recognize that it’s enabling Xmas and muster the guts to leave on its own.

You can do it, Thanksgiving! Believe in yourself!

-Demonax

I used to assume that only people who learned to type on typewriters (remember those?) still had the habit of space-spacing between sentences in a paragraph. After all, modern word processors actually prefer if you don’t insert the extra space. I broke myself of the space-space habit back in 1993 when I started using Word for Windows 2 (arguably the best version of Word ever released: fast, functional, no paperclip).

Recent experience, though, has made me wonder if high schools in the US are still teaching such outdated habits.

Maybe there’s a Crisis in Education, after all.

-Demonax

PS One typewriter habit I still retain is indenting the first line of paragraphs (I suppress it for email and  blogging). And I still have a fondness for serif fonts.

And they do. Me too (obviously).

-Demonax

And in case you forget, they have reunions every few years.

-Demonax

Gotta admit, though, the new name “intention-manifestation” sounds so much more scientific and modern than “Name It and Claim It.”

Brings back memories of being dragged by my parents, along with my younger siblings, to hear faith teachers in the early 1980’s:

“Intention-manifestation” (IM) is the same old same old, just with a shiny new name and the appearance of secularity and scientific veracity.

The core of IM is that you “intend” something to happen, and then just let it happen. You don’t make plans or set deadlines. You just…go with the flow.

Bizarrely, IM places itself as an alternative view of the universe from the normal “cause and effect” view (ignoring that the intention would be the cause, and the effect of that intention would be the, well, the effect, but that’s beside the point). I guess this allows the IM guru to promise abundant riches without the need for the acolyte to actually do anything. Now that has to be the pinnacle of “telling people what they want to hear.”

“Yes,” the guru says, “you too can be rich and healthy and wise, and all you have to do is open yourself up to the possibility. Intend to be all these things, and then let the power of your belief bring them to pass, free the power of your belief to change the universe.”

Oh, and if you want more wishes, sure, just wish for more.

-Demonax

The goal of the many dating sites on the Web seems to be: Find someone exactly like you!

Too much more of this and we’ll be able to retire that old chestnut: “Opposites attract.”

-Demonax

Wherever you go, the worst drivers in the world arrived just before you got there.

-Demonax