THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN

Each year more laws are passed to protect us from injury or death.
We must build our domiciles with stair treads and risers just so, the handrail at a certain height, spiral stairs have to be large enough to make them impractical.
We are being overprotected by our government because we somehow have become to believe that we can't get hurt, that we won't die, and if any of those should happen, why we just hire a lawyer to sue whomever we think was responsible for our hurt.
Now I'm thinking these thoughts while I'm traversing a 12" wide wilderness trail cut into a steep shale slope that falls off about 1,000 feet, no handholds or any such thing to arrest my descent into oblivion. Across the valley I see the rock climbers creeping up huge awesome vertical faces like tiny spiders with very little to keep them from being smashed onto the rocks far below but their skill and daring. I see the hot dog skiers and racers ply their particular kind of skill racing downhill and risk being maimed or killed during the winter season. I see auto racing where one false move or freak mechanical thing will cause a man's car to slide, smash, roll and as if that wasn't enough, break into a high octane ball of fire.
Is there some strange dichotomy operating here? Is there some mechanism in man's psyche that has to go out on the limb, take those chances, and not be confined to the dull world of "safe"?
I believe that the more we mandate that the world be "safe" we must go out and do things that will challenge that dullness, because we are more aware, are living a fuller life, have temporarily escaped from the clutches of dullness.
If I want to build a stair (for a private home) why can't I design it without an outer rail? If I want to buy a "Samba Stair" for an industrial storage mezzanine why can't I use it? It may be safer but unorthodox.
The list goes on and on but the main question here is who presses for these changes, who spends the vast sums of money to get these various things approved and adopted by our code agencies?
As soon as some child gets his head stuck in a baluster or man-
ages to slip all the way through and get hurt then from then on all balusters will be a certain dimension or you can be sued by the lawyer lurking around the stair.

Mobocracy

MOBOCRACY
Well, here it is election time once again. I’m not sending a letter about it to the Press Democrat this year as they never have printed my letters, anyway.
We Californians are being asked our expert opinion on how to spend 60 billion dollars on several bond issues! What in hell are our legislators doing in Sac? Diddling the pages? Has anyone thought of firing them all and how many billions would that save us a year? Hell, we’re doing all the work.
Virtually unknown to the American masses, there are actually more than two political parties in the United States. As much as we would like to think that our newspapers' sole purpose is to inform us we certainly become political idiots if we are to rely soley on them when it comes election time.
The American voter, (unlike his European counterpart, who demands several viable parties from which to choose) if he can even be motivated to vote at all, seems to be satisfied being spoon fed on Republican/Democrat pablum. Ignoring the main issues that face us: like the tremendous debt of trillions of dollars, some kind of Foreign Policy, being the world’s policeman, the out-of-control drug problems, our massive prison population, welfare abuse, etc., etc., we must know if our candidate is morally fit to represent us and what his abortion preferences are as a good Christian. Yeah, that does a lot of good. Look what happens in the oval office!
This puritanical program neatly sidesteps any real issues before us, so we can sit back in comfort knowing we have elected a Christian saint to lead us (Onward Christian Soldiers!). Then they can pass more laws to modify any behavior patterns they don't like, such as helping us stop smoking, telling us we are too fat or use of our property for "Politically Correct" uses only.
Voters! It may damage your brain a bit but find out what other choices you have. It will actually take a little work on your part to find a candidate that has the same ideas you have on freedom or not so free, from Socialist to Birchers to Libertarians. But stop whining that you don't have a choice. The choice is there, if you'll only make some kind of mental effort.
It wasn’t too long ago that political parties had what was called "a platform". This spelled put the various ideals each party stood for. All you had to do was find the one that fit most of your ideals and vote for the person who represented yours. Now it’s merely a popularity contest to see which Hollywood actor is going to be the most presentable.
As for me, I’ve been happy with the Libertarian platform, although I must admit that I have never ever voted for anyone who had won in all these 20 years or so. All I’m really doing is making a statement that these are my ideals, and I won’t compromise by supporting "The Lessor of only Two Evils". Anyway, ask yourself, who in hell would want to be the next president who would be facing the god awful catastrophe in Iraq?

I STILL HATE THIS

LAUGHING GAS
In the early days of smoking grass, the only available stuff came from the lower reaches of Mexico. Long before our local hippies (& Beatniks) knew you could grow your own, we few hard core (artists, jazz musicians & a few scattered derelict) had to find sources from Michuacan. At that time there were various strains of pot but it was basically what is called "shake", just the leaves, stems & seeds. These days all you can buy is just the bud of the plant, no leaves at all. Well, the gist of my problem is that the old stuff transformed one into a totally hilarious state, rendering everything extremely funny. (& I mean extreme!). My problem is that nowadays all one can get is these powerful BUDS that makes you a total zombie & that may be f ine for some folks, but I would rather retain some sort of ambulatory control. It can be so much fun! Well, forget it, I’m getting too old for this stuff, anyway.
BUMPER STICKERS are such a pathetic method of expressing your views. Do people really think they are changing the world when their only type of voting is sticking clever slogans on the back of their car, so I have to get an insight ot their miseraqble concept of life? Most of these poor, misguided creatures believe the old adage that there can be "Peace on earth & goodwill toward all men". Wouldn't that be just wonderful, except for a couple of reasons; since the recorded history of mankind, say, from 8000 BC, we have been killing, raping, maiming our fellow man for a few reasons, like religion, land or because I wanted you to become my slave. But let's be real. Nowdays it's mostly religion that is responsible for all the mayhem. And not just one religion against another, but the same one (Christianity,(Cathlics vs. Protestant) Islam,(Shiite vs. Sunni) Biddhist’s fighting each other due to some abscure concept of the other's dogma.
Let's try an experiment. Everyone just forget about their religion for a while. Would there be much to kill your neighbor about? Well, sure, his wife, his land, his Porche.
Would the British be able to let the Irish govern their own country? Would Pol Pot have killed off so many millions if their ethnicitiy was not connected to a different religion?
MAGAZINE INSERTS - the very first thing I do when I receive a magazine is go thru it and tear out all the damn HEAVY PAPER INSERTS ADVERTIZING SOME Fabulous deal that I don't give a damn about. Does anyone really send any of these things in? If so, they are contributing to my misery by supporting this insidious form af advertising.
NEWSPAPER HIDE 7 SEEK - My mornings are pretty routine but very special as I dress, complete my toilet (A pretty quick routine) get the cappucino going, pick up the paper in the drivway, when I hit the wall as I struggle to separate the real meat of the paper from the shit I am not interested in. Here's where I meet my nemisis every bloody morning of my life, the cretin who's sole job is to comlicate my life, the miserable person who figures out how to stack the sections of the paper so that I have to handle the adds, separating the wheat from the chaff, sorting this from that. They must stay up nights figuring new ways to frustrate us readers. The worst part of all is the partial overlay of the FUNNIES! Then every once in awhile he/she/it will install a piece on the funnies (I find them funny especial if they're political) that I have to actually try to tear it off but it never quite tears evenly and I lose the punch line of Doonesbury that I ripped off unevenly.
THE LOTTERY - The anti-gambeling Christians (Anti Fun) have been able to keep that horror of morality away from us unknowing souls for so long until the American Indian got his revenge and sidestepped deftly any laws that prohibited having fun. First of all, let me say that I don’t gamble. But, if I was running a lottery, I would only give away minimum amounts of say, 2 million. That would mean you would end up with less than one mil after Uncle Sam got his cut, but hey, that could enhance my life. But in reality, lotteries are run by giving away millions in $5, $10, increments to sucker in all the poor souls, giving them the illusion that they have won something due to the fact that all gamblers automatically forget all the money they've lost beforehand. So the concept is that the dough is saved up until there is 20 or 30 MILLION that someone will win. It makes the bookkeeping easier for Uncle Sam who will reap more that half of that, but it usually demolishes the poor winner who trades in his broom or dishwasher job for being an instant millionaire. Doesn't anyone get it that when the pot gets that high that everyone else buys tickets so that the odds (This is gambling, right?)go up and your chance of winning are even less than when it's a low pot? Probably not. I don't participate in games of chance except trying to make a good living as an architect, which is chancy enough
FOOD & WINE PAIRING;
We've alll been brainwashed all our lives about how you must drink white wine with fish & red with steak. Now I see that the experts are telling me what kind of beer to eat with fish or meat. Give me a break! What's next? Pairing all 20 flavors of vodka with your favorite dish? I find white wine rather insipid unless it's 100 degrees in the shade, and if it's that hot, I'll make sangria. In fact, I relish those days as it forces me to whip up a batch of some real stuff that has rum, Triple Sec as well as the usual suspects of wine & OJ in it. I got this direct from a sidewalk cafe in Barcelona, where Columbus returned from his gutsy journey over the edge of the earth.
But I digress.
Actually, it's about time someone put something in vodka, as up till recently, it was pure ethanol, you could probably burn it in your Formula One race car. I've always wondered how in hell they were able to do vodka tastings, differentiating one ethanol from another & getting blotto in the meantime. Now if they put a flavoring in it at least the graphics on the bottle is improved. But I feel good when I can get a bottle of potato juice from Trader Joe's that has a Russian label on it and has not been manipulated. It still tastes like nothing but has the advantage that my wife can't smell it on my breath.

THINGS I HATE

Now maybe you might think me some kind of professional grump or curmudgeon but as I go through life I am absolutely incensed by certain behaviors and objects that seem utterly useless to me. Let me give you a few examples.
Probably first on my list are one-sided towels. Now look, if your going to expend all that effort to make a towel, why not make both sides with a nice thick nap? But no, they have to make one side absolutely useless by making it almost smooth and non-absorbent. I won't go into who's responsible for these design abominations at this time as I must go on with my list.
How about people who immediately freeze as soon as they step on a moving walkway or escalator? Why do they do that? These machines were designed to assist us , not incapacitate us! To add insult to injury, how many people have to block the left side of the walkway all the while listening to a recording telling them to keep to the right so I can pass. But no, I've got to yell "track" to get their attention and then they act insulted because I want to move by them on the left
When was the last time you were in a bar where you could actually hear another person carry on a conversation as well as order a drink without being blasted out of your hearing because the stereo and/or TV was turned up to full bore? There was a time when conversation was kind of important, but now, it's pretty hard to discuss the nuances of existentialism in a loud holler.
While we're still in the bar let's talk about the universal problem of setting your drink on a napkin. I really hate this! Now you think this might be a small item but you can't get away from it. Whatever happened to the fine sound of the glass being set down on the mahogany bar top? But no, you've got to keep your napkin under your glass. Just try to sneak the napkin out from under the glass, the bloody bartender puts another right under your glass! Come on, let's get normal again!
How about those idiots that have those big white letters on their tires? They really think they are cool while it's pretty obvious they are imbeciles. But then, it’s no worse than the big black "Bra" some wear on the front of their cars as if they are driving a Lamborghini on a gravel road instead of running over to the local Safeway.
Check out the taxicabs, buses and streetcars in Europe to see how much advertising is hung all over the exterior of them. Virtually none! Some tasty stuff inside works fine, but no! We have to plaster all our modes of transportation with all kinds of crap on the sides, back, front ,tops (of cabs) and all this in the name of financial viability. Let's face it, you're going to lose money on these systems no matter what, so why make it ugly? Europeans go one step further, they will make the entire tram (several cars long) into a well designed graphic of one advertiser.
And you wouldn't believe how many people (designers included) seem to think you need a window in front of the kitchen sink. Come on! The best kitchen I ever had was buried in a dark stone walled house. If it has enough character you don't "need" the window at the sink.
Then there’s always the person that still has to tell you to "have a nice day". Jeez, leave me alone. I'm doing the best I can and no idiotic phrase from a stranger is going to change that.
Then there's always a clod who wears his hat while dining in a restaurant. I can understand if it's a cowboy hat (They don't know any better), but baseball caps? No shirt, shoes no service. Hat on, no service!
Next we'll have to get into Lite beers and saccharin.
Have an awful day!
Lamont Langworthy, Curmudgeon First Class