Kids or Poo?

An interesting etiquette question came up during a recent visit to a local coffee shop. In the men’s room there was a urinal and a sit down commode, without a separating wall between them, and the bathroom door was lockable. So, when using the urinal, do you lock the door?


It is conceivable that two men could stand and urinate together without being socially awkward. And it is a coffee shop, so it is polite to make as much room as possible. The bladder you save may be your own!


BUT! If you were defecating, would you want some guy taking a whiz right next to you as you do it? Um, no. That’s not Miss Manners. It’s just weird. You lock the door. So, after contemplation and referencing Miss Manners and the Cokely Stiffly Necking’s Guide to Deportment, I have ruled that in a bathroom with two conveyances unseparated by wall you may lock the door without shame or a black mark on your permanent record of decency and kindness.


And then I shot myself.


Why? Because I spent time that I could of used for pleasure or the killing of pain to think about proper method of the disposing of body wastes. I literally pissed my time away. You know, like watching reality TV.


Americans have set some records in the realm of hypocrisy, but they have totally raised the bar to new heights when it comes to sex and how we treat our sexual organs. Fortunately, this isn’t too new of a problem, as a good friend of mine, Montaigne, talked about a few centuries ago.


Each one avoideth to see a man born, but all run hastily to see him die. To destroy him we seek a spacious field and full light; but to construct him, we hide ourselves in a dark corner and work as close as we may.


Don’t worry if you don’t know Montaigne. He wrote books, not websites, and has never screwed Paris Hilton, so there’s no real reason why any American should know who he was. He’s got a hell of a point though, don’t he? There is a daily fight over how much we should talk about sex, but nobody fights about violence. That stuff is great! Give us more of it! Kids love it! Grandparents love it! The biggest office building in the world is dedicated to the successful and continuous management of it! While at the same time the leading lawyer in the nation is putting clothing on Greek statues.


A little more perspective: a neighbor might think twice about chastising another neighbor for striking their spouse or children, but you wouldn’t hesitate for a second to yell if that neighbor lowered his trousers and took a juicy crap on your lawn in full view of the entire street. Why? Because our feces is more important to us than our loved ones.


And I’m not kidding. Our way of life proves it.


Every major city in America is having problems funding their Child Protective Services, their Police force and all other welfare services, but those sewers are working great! Who gets paid more, plumbers or teachers? What is cared for more, our feces, or the impoverished sick? It is possible that a person can be so disgusting that they will be ignored, but even the smallest piece of crap will receive attention for someone, and eventually it will be put in it’s proper place.


In America, more money is spent on the proper disposal of feces than on the alleviation of suffering. We would much rather spend money on the maintenance of suffering, as long as it smells like roses. And even if every single American out there is okay with that, even if every single American thinks that’s a good thing, even if every American believes with all their heart that there crap doesn’t stink, it isn’t. And the dead laugh at what we cherish, and wait for the inevitable day when we will ourselves die and smell just like the feces we’ve avoided, foolishly, our entire lives.


Don’t forget to flush.

The magnitude of Justice

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”

P 28, Our Oriental Heritage, Will and Ariel Durant.



The proof of this lesson has a million legs, and it thunders like a herd through the annals of history, and any exception you offer would be swarmed and engulfed by the rule.

Let’s not engage in any petty listing of the wealthy and famous who have escaped justice. They suck, and that’s their mental enema to hold. They are not the problem. It’s all the people who just step back and let it happen that are the true problem.

Which people?

The Eskimos! They’re evil!!

That’s not true at all. I apologize to the Eskimos.

You and me are the people in a state of accusation here.

The blogger and the blogged.

But before I call you and me weak, vacillating weather vanes of morality, I should do some writer-ing to prove it.

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”

In the past, this Lesson would have referred to what we call the Lords of the Earth, those who owned the land and thereby also owned the right to say who lives and dies. As laws became written codes instead of personal whim, the last person held accountable by these new laws were these very same Lords. A marked sign of feudal kingdoms becoming modern states is the crisis where a Lord is forced to accept the same justice as a peasant; the beheading of Charles I is an example of this.


Meritocracy aside, legal theorists forced exemptions on behalf of modern lawmakers, to protect them from undue prejudice in passing laws. After all, if they actually had to follow the rules they set, no new rules might be passed. And without new rules society will. . . .that is without new regulations everyone will. . . um. . .be happy, content and self-reliant? It seems this legal theory is the opposite of the ideas currently dominating the management of children, lawbreakers, Heaven and Hell. Why congress commits actions exceptional to these things is a Historical mystery, but we know why they are allowed to:

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”


How many elected officials have been prosecuted for criminal behavior? How many have served time? How many have been served the same plate of justice that the poor man does when caught stealing food?


Why is this even possible in an age so publicly proud of its advances in social justice? It is possible by a little morality two- step jig we call The Lords of Ego Shuffle.


In the past a person would become powerful and thereby famous, but today a person can become famous, and then powerful as a result of the fame. This is a modern phenomenon. Antiquity and antiquity’s following decades don’t have the power-less becoming powerful as a result of their simply showing yourself to lots of people. Actual accomplishments were required, unlike today.


Lady Gaga is a good example. Nothing about her is original; an outlandishly extravagant pop star has been walking the stage since Sarah Bernhardt. The recent lawsuits brought by the 80’s Sarah Bernhardt, Madonna, further prove that even her music (which is the actual reason we forced to deal with her) is legally not different. So a we have singer who can’t sing without computer enhancement, who sings songs stolen from other music, and whose contribution to culture has been the ability to walk in heel-less high heeled shoes. Well, when she’s sober she can walk in heel-less high heeled shoes.


Her fans will bleat about the positive message of her music, which they claim is about love and acceptance of others and yourself. As an expression of this message, these fans call GaGa the Mother Monster, and they call themselves monsters. Do I have to even point out the lie here? Okay, I will. A crowd of people who emulate the fashion industries’ number one supporter are only Monsters in the hypocrisy of their actions and in their financial support of a person who would not piss on a guy in jeans and a t-shirt if he was on fire. Oh, unless that person had AIDS and there were TV cameras about.


Lady Gaga typifies the modern ‘magnitude’; a magnitude of nothingness.
These we will call Lords of the Ego. People like Oprah, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, P Diddy and Simon Cowell all contribute nothing to society but distraction and the hope to billions of sufferers of Capitalism that maybe, someday, they too will be paid three million dollars for two months work and not have to answer to anyone; although to do so goes against the ethics taught by every major world religion, just in case anyone was worrying about what the ‘right’ thing to do is.


Our civilization’s answer to this Lesson of History has not been to close the loophole, but to provide a way for the non-powerful to achieve this status, hence the creation of the Magnitude of nothingness and the Lords of Ego.

The masses will tolerate injustice, if they perceive they have a chance to reap the same unjust benefits in the future. Which is why OJ went free and Martha Stewart went to jail.

And, as the people agree to the Lords of Ego Shuffle, they can’t really protest when the wealthy and powerful escape responsibility illustrated by today’s Lesson, now can they?

Oh yeah, and just in case you were deluding yourself into innocence, you and me are those masses; even if you have a college degree.

People getting away with murder; as a metaphor or as a reality is frustrating as hell to witness, but it’s not impossible to fight. All you have to do is risk social standing, defy custom and refuse to yield to the Lords of the Earth and the Lords of Ego.

Which, though heroic, will not make you a hero.

It will make you a citizen.

It will be hard, and people will call you crazy for simply doing what all acknowledge to be the right thing.

But history is here for you, and so am I.