More Than True

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Killing you softly with our love

January 15, 2017 My books

I wrote this to commemorate the death of Ronald Reagan.

It ran in a magazine in Texas. Still true today.  

Killing you softly

by David Raffin

Very rarely do people kill politicians. Especially given the fact that so many people fantasize about doing so. But Americans are apathetic; they often fail to follow through on things. Do you not have a list of things you have “just not gotten around to?”

People have a bad attitude about killing anyway. They don’t think killing is wrong, but they are wishy-washy about the whole concept. Some people think it’s all right to kill prisoners but not babies. Others think it’s all right to kill babies but not prisoners. (You may argue my semantics, but you cannot argue my logic. Or, you could argue my semantics and my logic; but you would be wrong. And you would have to face the possibility that I might kill you for that.)

Likewise some people think cops killing people is all right while being very adamant that killing a cop is always wrong. Still others think cops should not kill but it’s all right to kill a cop to stop him from killing.

If we were a less apathetic country this conundrum would incite vigorous debate and our streets would run red with blood.

But, as I said, hardly anybody kills politicians even though most would like to see many of them dead. Few people kill cops, even though they are all around and access to guns is easy. Cops kill people pretty often—but if you look at the large number of cops in any city and consider the number of people they would like to kill—the actual killings are a statistical blip; hardly worth getting upset about.

For a country obsessed about killing we are just not doing as much as we could be doing. We are a nation of slackers.

Sure, you think about killing politicians but do you ever bring it up for discussion? I have. And although people change the subject pretty quick, I can tell by the look in their eye that it intrigues them. After all, it’s quick, decisive, and smacks of frontier justice. It honors the past while addressing the present. Dare I say it’s patriotic? This country was founded on killing the British and destroying their tea—and sadly we have drifted away from these noble beginnings.

Now, some of you nay-sayers who like to argue are probably whining, “But we kill people in other countries. We kill lots of people. What about that? We kill more people before breakfast than many nations do all day.”

And I say, sure. We kill foreigners. But that is a separate issue.

Also, I admit that we kill each other more than other nations do, but not as much as we’d like; secretly want to. That’s what separates us from them. They want less. We want so much we set ourselves up to fail. That’s what I’m getting at. That’s what we’re discussing. Our defeatism. How you people are letting all of us down and sinking this country into the depths of apathy and defeatism, shirking your duty, spitting on our traditions, and leaving a few visionaries to pick up the slack. And complaining. Oh, how you all complain. Because you’re unsatisfied. Because you have all these urges to kill and you suppress them.

Granted, occasionally someone tries to kill the president. Rarely do they succeed. Some say it’s because they just don’t want it bad enough.

Do you realize that Ronald Reagan was in his nineties when he died of old age?

In a Viking culture this is a disgrace, a shame, and a slap in the face. With your help he could have died honorably in battle. Hell, every president could; and every city councilman, mayor, governor, and congressman.

Our politicians know we’re letting them down and they try to get us back on track by drafting worse and worse laws, more bizarre tax codes, giveaways to the rich and takeaways from the masses, and other efforts to try to enrage us into action. Our politicians want to die in battle!

I note this for those in the audience of Viking descent. Shame!

How can you Viking-Americans live with yourselves? Especially you Viking-American-Republicans? Triple Shame. You disgrace your own leaders. They ran because they had a lust for glory and the fight in their hearts. You have let them down. If I were them, I’d kill you. I hear they’ve been working on it.

Consider: politicians kill more people than people kill politicians. On reflection you’ll see this is true. Politicians of all stripes have worked hard to punish criminals with harsher sentences, including death. And they have worked to make death apply to more crimes and to carry out these killings with greater speed and less paperwork.

Really, are you willing to sit there and let them work harder than you; possibly outperform you for years before you are spurred to action?

These people are simpletons and yet they work steadily toward their goals. These goals happen to be more killing. Will you be left behind?

 

Burn this flag, please

December 6, 2016 My books Writing

I question all the proposed laws against burning or desecrating the flag. That’s bad for business; ergo it is un-American. Think of it: every flag burned is product moved. Flag burning should be encouraged. That’s good business.

Otherwise flags would have to be manufactured to wear out sooner. Or the design would have to change seasonally to encourage sales. Only a traitor waves last years flag. Displaying an old flag from the back of your pickup truck? Prepare to be pulled over and ticketed. It’s all about your safety. Security.

You’re either with us or against us. Remember, America is about shopping and turning in (on) your neighbor.

The media tells me about many things I need to buy. It seems my old toothbrush is not doing an adequate and hygienic job. There have been technological breakthroughs in the field of personal hygiene and I am being left behind. How can anyone love me; I live in the filthy world of yesterday.

Still, there is the hope of stability. We do not hope for peace, as the starry-eyed utopians, but stability—the utopia of the hard-hearted realist. War. It’s good for the economy they say; it sells American flags. They’re made in China, but still, business is business.

There has been much talk of terrorism in the last decades. I want to say this clearly so it will be well understood: Terrorism is peachy. Otherwise we would not have funded it. It’s stimulating the economy.

This country was built on terrorism. It was not for nothing our founding fathers stole and destroyed tea. It was so that we, their heirs, would be free to steal and destroy tea. Do not let anyone tell you it is not your right to steal and destroy tea! Our boys in uniform fought and died to insure that right. The stores are filled with tea. Go out and do your duty citizen! Anyone who tries to stop you is a traitor.

One principal of private property (the foundation of the Free Market) is that you have the right to slash your own tires.

They’re yours. You paid for them. How dare someone prevent you from slashing your own tires!

Friend, I will fight for your right to slash your own tires—just as I will fight for your right to burn your own flag. Remember, burning flags is good for the economy. Stimulates flag sales. Anyone who tells you otherwise is anti-business and anti-American. They are traitors.

You can either be pro-business or anti-flag burning. Logic dictates you cannot be both. Those who cannot choose are wishy-washy liberals. Which is just another word for traitor. Stand in the middle of the road long enough, buddy, and I will run you down.

I say defend your rights: Slash a tire today!

If you do not use your rights you will surely lose them. I understand you may not want to slash the tires on the car you drive to work. You shouldn’t let that stop you. Let me suggest that you slash the tires of city police or state patrol vehicles.

Do you not pay taxes? Are those not, in fact, your vehicles?

How could any politician argue otherwise? Do they not all promise to “slash government?” You are just doing your part to help. You are a patriot and you are defending your rights—as well as the rights of all Americans. Anyone who disagrees is a traitor.

Those tires are yours to give and yours to take away. If they don’t want you to slash them, perhaps they should have business pay for them instead. The businesses write the laws in this country, so they might as well write some checks for the upkeep of their government. They already give money to the politicians and parties, why not to the government? Why should they expect us to pick up the tab?

The business of government is the business of business. That is why businessmen run and control the business of government.

We hold this truth to be self evident: that the business of government shall never perish from the earth. To secure this truth, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the businesses governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of business to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The Pepsi generation is ready for a fight.

Will we leave the field scattered with paper cups and bottle-caps with “Sorry, not a winner” imprinted under them?

We may have no choice.

Thankfully, ideology only brings out the best in people.

December 3, 2016 My books Writing

Whenever terrible things happen the intelligentsia inform you the age of humor has ended. Because they don’t want you to have anything.

Will there be funny jokes during the suffering? Yes, there will be funny jokes during the suffering. But the laughter will be desperate.

This country used to have slaves. But the word was distasteful. So we replaced it with other words more socially acceptable.

Under the new regime poets shall be stripped of their words and forced to communicate via color wheel.

Why is there so much disaffection in the USA? Because people there have been trying to buy happiness for too long, and it isn’t working.

People always say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But they never say the reverse, “if it’s broke, fix it!”

You can’t buy happiness. Happiness is given away in exchange for personal data used for advertising.

After the terrible election fiasco, the USA is finally getting back to normal with another mass school shooting.

I have the best nightmares. They are the stuff other nightmares are made of. No one can defeat my nightmares. My nightmares are winners.

“All groups are inherently exclusionary or will inevitably become exclusionary.” I read that on a men’s room wall when I was 19.

‪Sometimes I am informed how lucky I am to be a man. Other times I am informed I am not a man. It’s a controversial definition. ‬

Honestly, when I was in kindergarten, first day, I couldn’t figure out which bathroom to use. But I got it eventually. Now I just go anywhere.

A sales circular says these are the final days. Apocalypse news filters through in store displays. Everyone pays in different ways.

‪”Only in America!” As Yakoff Smirnoff would say, would the phrase “water is life” be controversial.‬

It’s been a long emotional journey. But I’m ready to eat pancakes again. I just can’t afford them.

A meeting of the monsters

August 18, 2016 Books My books Writing

 

“No, I don’t like it,” said a monster.

“Then no one shall have it!” said another monster, who was a friend, a foul-weather friend, of the first monster. “Anyone who complains shall have their sanity questioned!”

“Hear, hear!” said the number one monster, who finally felt validated by taking pleasure away from someone else. Which is what monsters do.

A third monster was paid 200 million dollars for formulating a policy paper explaining, breathlessly, why pleasure was being, must be, withheld from a large segment of the population, and why there was nothing that segment of the population could do about it. In fact, explaining how they were lucky.

The third monster was that kind of monster.

There are many kinds of monsters. They are a lot more supportive of each other than you might assume. They have to be. To get things done.

Bear all

July 16, 2016 My books Writing

The bear ate a pear
You think, how debonair
But she wanted the eclair
Which was already eaten in a picnick-error
By a picnicker who was an au pair
But tasted like an upholstered chair
So the bear followed up by eating a pear
And slept that night without a care.

– From the little book of rhymes about well fed-up bears

 

Try not to be diminished

July 11, 2016 My books Writing

I like to do math
It puts me back
On that evil left handed path
For what is math
That Wicked art
Which reduces all to that
Numeric flow chart
It sets one and one apart
Ripped from each other
With a cold math heart
And joins together randoms
Thereby forced to work in tandem
For the sake of the equation
Where the means justify the ends
On paper everything’s good and right
For no one cares of the numbers plight.

 

It’s about time I wrote a love story

June 11, 2016 Books My books Writing

so this is chapter 1 of
Sex Robots at the Edge of Infinity

This art stolen from Richard F. Yates, C'mon, click it.

This art stolen from Richard F. Yates, C’mon, click it.

“You’re interested in sex robots,” said the manual. “And who wouldn’t be?” It was a rhetorical question. Who wasn’t interested in sex robots? “Fifty years ago they were the wave of the future and today they are what keeps humanity sane.”

The manual was outdated but it was still true. All of it was true. A manual doesn’t survive in today’s world to be an out of date manual, one which hasn’t been pulped and recycled many times over, if its contents are not true – unless its contents are meant to give hope. Real hope–false hope, and, as everyone knows, most hope is false hope. The occasional doling out of hope was an exception to the truism. Always has been. Always will be. It is a cosmic continuity. While the universe is not kind sometimes it can appear ambivalent. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes it will throw you a lifeline. By accident. Sometimes that lifeline will drag you down with relief. It’s a cosmic joke.

Friedman’s nose was in the book. He was a man very much interested in sex robots. And who wasn’t? Who wasn’t.

He owned an Avant-garde model. An antique. Interesting, if you’ve an eye for history. If you can be sold on tradition over functionality. If you are a nostalgic bent connoisseur of the past; like in olden times when a person would buy a fancy sport car which broke down all the time and wasn’t reliable at all and needed special tools. And owning it made the person feel happy even though it wasn’t functional and it did nothing to please, in fact quite the opposite. But the person would dote upon the car, where it inevitably sat in a climate controlled garage – safe from traffic, roads, pedestrians, and road wear. The person began to love the car, though the car had done nothing to earn the receipt of said love. And the car did nothing to give love back. Some historians declare that this nonreciprocal love is the purest love of all. Nothing to dirty it up. It was honest.

This was how men started to love machines. And when I say men love machines I say it in a universal way. Because women also love machines. And buy love machines to love. And men buy love machines to love. Sometimes they are the same types of machines and sometimes they are differentiated machines. Meant for one or the other. But sometimes with attachments. All the best machines have attachments.

It costs more. But it’s worth it.

The casual reader might wonder about the lack in English of more gender-neutral pronouns. Neuters. But the philosophers among you have determined that this book is about love. And philosophers have no idea what love is. It’s a dubious subject.
I ask only that you come with me on a journey.

Don’t look for the silver lining

March 30, 2016 My books Writing

I distrust people who see a silver lining in every cloud. I’m not a scientist but I’m pretty sure a silver lining to every cloud would be a sign of some serious ecological problem. I know the silver industry says up to ninety percent of the earth’s atmosphere can be safely composed of powdered silver, but I have lingering doubts. These doubts nag at me. The studies they cite, some of them, appear to be tobacco industry studies with the word “tobacco” crossed out and replaced with the word “sugar,” which was replaced with “saccharine” and then, finally, “silver.”

But they are conserving paper, and saving trees, so I guess I can applaud that. Let it not be said I am one of those nay sayers who are in it just for the opportunity to say nay.