A Polar Bear Tale

By: Knife Revolverbomb

I love reading the paper in the morning.  This morning, as per my daily routine, I slid down the banister, landed comfortably in my slippers, and walked out to grab my copy of The Daily Herald.  As I walked to the breakfast table, I began leafing through to the “Neighbor” section.  The cover story on this chilly morning held me frozen in awe!  In my hands I held the answer to the question pressing heaviest upon the nation: what’s the latest buzz in an affluent Cook County neighborhood?!

That’s right, columnist (luminary) Robert Sanchez has generously removed his finger from mother nature’s pulse long enough to pen an astounding tale of human-animal synergy.  The headline read: Winfield woman studies polar bears in Arctic.

Mr. Sanchez had opened my eyes and jerked tears from them before I even had time to run the eye-crust from them.

A polar bear strolls along the ice-free shores of Hudson Bay near the Canadian town of Churchill waiting for the freeze-up that’s critical to its survival.

It’s early October and the animal hasn’t eaten in months.

Perfect use of “strolls”, Roberto.  The proud creature is clearly trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but on the inside he’s melting faster than an icecap 😦

Agnes Kovacs watches the scene with the knowledge that the polar bear’s wait is far from over. Kovacs, a Chicago Zoological Society employee, knows the sea ice that polar bears use as a platform to hunt seals won’t return for weeks. She also realizes climate change is causing the delayed freeze of the sea ice.

“It was very different seeing them on land knowing they had not eaten since July… They literally were waiting for the ice to freeze so they could go eat.”

Bravo!  No doubt this noble member of the esteemed CZS has been monitoring the bears’ diet for months since she knows it hasn’t eaten for weeks.  What dedication!  In fact, she probably could have pet the progressive bear while it patiently refused to eat anything outside of its normal diet and feeding schedule.  And a blue-ribbon bonus to Kovacs for clarifying that the bear waited “literally”.  Polar bears are notorious for using figurative and symbolic actions to mislead top-notch Zoological Society employees.

“Gee,” I wondered, “how could this local story get any more relevant?”

Then it happened.  No kidding: Kovacs and a polar bear literally looked at each other.  Literally!

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Kovacs said. “The female came up, put her paw on the side of the Tundra Buggy and looked up. I was looking down at her, and she looked into my eyes. I was like, ‘Wow.’ You can’t do that anywhere else.”

To which I was all like, “Let’s make it a true daily double, Alex. What is… a zoo?”

When it comes to bringing the news home, you still got it Sanchez, kid…you still got it.

You gonna use the rest of that dental floss?

By: Knife Revolverbomb

While carelessly flipping through a recent Reader’s Digest, I landed on a particularly digestible morsel titled “Next Big Things”.  Needless to say, I was instantly riveted by the prospect of such scintillating glimpses into the future!

A four-day workweek, a soccer ball that can charge a light for (almost) three whole hours after extensive use, hope for heart patients (note: hope is something other people owe you, remember?), better (we just say “subsidized”) cars (we just say “rickshaws”), and the good folks at Reader’s Digest were just getting started!

The clairvoyant responsible for the prognostications continued: Greener packaging, spray-on solar panels, and sex pills for women – our problems are as good as solved!

And then, just when I thought I could bear no more brilliance, I struck the crown jewel, a gem so flawless that it could only have been mined from the Plymouth Rock of pot smokers: Boulder, Colorado.

Nestled in this nexus of clear-headed innovators is transportation-solutions company IntraGo, for whom Dan Sturges acts as both chairman and oracle to the great gods of progress.

So sayeth Dan:

“Soon you’ll drive yourself to the train station, and someone else will pick up the car and drive it to the store and the doctor. Then you’ll find a car at the station that night. It might be a different car, though – unless you spend a little extra for the original so you can leave you tennis racket in the trunk. Large numbers of people will have to participate for this to work, like the fax machine, which didn’t make sense until everyone had one.”

Amen, Dan, refreshing stuff. To be frank, the only reason I bought a car is because my selfish neighbor refused to share his with me. I even offered to pay him a little more to let me keep tennis racket in his trunk and still he refused!

And that parallel with the fax machine – wow! Even though Dan neglected to touch on the fact that people don’t share fax machines with total strangers, at least it sounds like he’s really put his heart into trying to make sense!

To be fair, pilgrims for progress are best understood by their actions, not words – no doubt a visionary like Mr. Sturges also cleans his used floss and leaves it on the counter in public bathrooms.

At this point, I was forced to end my foray into “Next Big Things” upon accidentally depositing it into a nearby raging bonfire.  Good thing I did or I might have succumbed to an overwhelming urge to begin a contact lens share-a-thon in my neighborhood.  Anyways, if I ever need another copy of the article, I’m sure I can borrow Mr. Sturges’s.

Don’t Bully Me, Bro

By: Knife Revolverbomb

For the past two years, much of the media has been crowing about the progressive approach to life, love, and politics.  However, the progressive approach has failed to work (the only thing it always does successfully), so its proponents have gradually fallen into silence, right?

Well, not really. Jib-jabberin’ is just too much fun.

Instead of a breather from progressive moralizing we get…warnings about bullies.  What’s that?  You didn’t know that bullying is a super huge issue right now?  Typical Tea-Partier.

Wake up and smell the fair-trade coffee, peeps: bullying is a big deal.  I mean, it certainly is according to Justin and Ellen.

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At 21 years old, I’m somehow already a member of the old guard who clings to the antiquated notion that there needs to be at least a hint of “new” in news.  No, I know: Ellen does not claim to be the news.  But the cultural bullying about the problem of bullying in the culture is everywhere right now – even my own house.

My younger sister is currently required to read the national best-seller, Please Stop Laughing at Me, in one of her classes.  I envision an over-educated school administrator leafing through the book at Borders and upon completion of the text, descending into a guilt-laden book-buying binge, purchasing thousands of copies and mandating students to read them.  A mere glance at the book’s tag-line, “One woman’s inspirational story,” sends my eyeballs rolling back into my skull to make sure my brain is still there.

Why so sour, you ask?  Because it’s old hat.  I’m no rook’ when it comes to sob stories.  One more won’t increase my awareness of bullying; I’ve been awash with tales of its horrors for at least the past decade.  If you’re over the age of 6, and it’s just now dawning on you that kids pick on each other, you’ve been sitting in the back of the class. Additionally, public school kids have heard this message more than anyone else, and they certainly don’t want (and/or need) to hear it again. They aren’t fixed disposal units for teachers and school administrators to stuff with their moral candy wrappers and the old receipts of past experiences that jaded them when they were in public school.

Despite my better judgment, I did, in fact, peel back the cover, let some of the excess sap drain out, and sit down to decode Please Stop Laughing at Me. After many-a-battle with the increasing weight of my eyelids, I finally managed to drag my eyes across the entire text.

The message: it is a cardinal sin to disrupt the high-held chin of a proud, powerful, young woman, no matter how she behaves in public, because the slightest dip in self esteem reduces the entire courageous edifice to rubble.  Note: bullying may produce New York Times best-selling authors who peddle their childhood misery for king’s ransoms.

What a regular heart-wrench.  As I set the book down (into the garbage), I was moved to indulge in a little introspection.

Why am I not sobbing for the plight of bold tweens?  Then it hit me.

First, the public school system disavows and disallows any allusions to moral instructions based in religion.  Telling kids to be nice to each other but not why (beyond “Because Oprah said so”) is unconvincing to say the least.  And second, I don’t take the calls to “play nice” from educators seriously because I was bullied by (sniff) my own teachers!  With ham fists they battered an endless assault of progressive plights into my poor, developing brain.

Before long (sniffle) I grew completely calloused.

I should to write a book about it!

Prop 19 Prep

By: Knife Revolverbomb

The kids are turned off from politics, they say. Most of ’em don’t even want to hear about it. All they want to do these days is lie around on waterbeds an’ smoke that (gosh-darn) marrywanna.

– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

Sounds like in 1972 politicians couldn’t convince kids to invest any of their highly-prized interest in politics. In 2010, politicians have turned the tables and invested politics into the kid’s interests. The brilliant scheme grants citizens permission (like they need it) to smoke pot on the condition that it be taxed. To be more precise, they will impose a levy of $50 per ounce (black market dealers currently divide 1 oz into eight parts to be sold at $60 apiece) and in doing so generate almost 1.5 billion dollars in tax revenue.

Such is the claim. Should the pot smoking community feel that it can achieve some sort of societal validation by the government condoning its habits, Prop 19 will pass. Assuming that it will pass, I have constructed a rough (hypothetical) timeline of the upcoming “legalization bonanza.”

Nov 1 – Pot? Check. Lighter? Check. Permission? Nope. Rats! I guess people who will smoke when it is legal have another day or so to wait.

Nov 3 – Cross advertizing begins. This week only: Buy Spiderman 4 (a straight-to-DVD sequel of that timeless classic, Spiderman 3) and receive an additional dime-bag from Government Ganja free of charge!

Nov 4 – The marketing sages who brought us the Kia Soul and Chrysler Breeze get in on the game. Pot smokers unwittingly find themselves getting high off of herbal blends named things like “conscience”, “unobtainium”, “redemption”, and other keywords from James Cameron flicks.

Nov 5 – The lucrative weed industry has grown so much that it has almost saved the bankrupt (25 billion times over) Cal-E-conomy!

Nov 6 – The initially strong weed industry is no match for the economic buffoonery of the California State Legislature. The volatile state economy has the “suits” at Big Marijuana feeling increasingly uneasy.

Nov 7 – Dear Leader Barack Obama declares several key firms of Big Mary “too big to fail” and a tax-payer bailout of the cannibus corporations is announced.

Nov 8 – Pot re-illegalized. Makers of the film “Social Network” begin work on a screen play of the week’s events.

Hard Knocks: Social Justice 101

By: Knife Revolverbomb

This past Thursday evening I had the pleasure of hearing from social justice advocate Jim Wallis – a regular “Little John” in his own right.  In front of more than 1,000 people in a crowded auditorium on the campus of Wheaton College, Wallis “outlined” the biblical approach to wealth re-distribution. Assuming the stirring in my bowels to be the spirit of sharing, I then and there committed a day of action to the Wallis-themed approach.

As luck would have it, the very next morning, I came upon my first opportunity.

Whilst skipping to the bank (while my electric car charged), intent on liquidating my assets to better re-distribute, I happened upon a mendicant homeless man. The poor soul pleaded for anything I was willing to spare, but for all his whining I couldn’t but notice that there was a loud jingle emanating from his cup.

The sound was surprisingly loud.

I rushed forward and pried the McCafe out of his skinny fingers, spilling its contents everywhere. Pouncing upon the mess, I collected and counted the change coin by coin. With a triumphant, “Aha!” I thrust a total of $2.46 under the startled man’s runny nose.

“Do you know that most people on the planet survive on only two dollars a day?!” I bellowed triumphantly. Stuffing the surplus 46 cents into my pocket, I whirled around and stomped off, chin held high. Indeed, the good work had left me giddy in its incontrovertible fairness, but my elation was soon to plummet.

No more than a quarter mile away, an icy notion stopped me dead in my tracks. Said I to myself, “Surely I have done a good deed to this poor beggar by righting the selfish err of his ways. As such, I will surely be rewarded in heaven – another jewel will be placed in my crown! And what if…” the color began to drain from my face, “what if someone else in heaven will now have less jewels than I do?!?!”

Mortified with guilt, I sprinted back towards the curb where the man had once stood, resolved to undo my act of kindness. Upon seeing my rapid return to his section of sidewalk, the man shrieked and bolted off in the opposite direction, leaving his change and jacket on the ground.  I tried yelling for him to stop, but it only seemed to cause him to run faster. Nuts!

This whole social justice thing is going to be harder than I thought.