SOME ADMIN
I have lost my zest for this once again because I'm pre-occupied with this and that. The NCAA Handicapping Contest of course is sacrosanct, but my useless crap opinions will be found only on THE PITCHFORK in comment form for the time being.
Kelso's Nuts love you
15 comments:
Kelso, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment on my blog. I am, indeed, honored to be your "DUDE of the week!"
BTW, I couldn't agree more with your statement, "The way I see it coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, endo, yeyo, vicodin, ecstasy, K, whatever are neither morally good nor morally bad. They are psycho-active agents. That's it." Some of them ARE, however, bad for one's health, e.g. cigarettes and alcohol, in excess.
Enjoy your "vacation," Kelso. I will miss you.
Why do you think I don't drink or smoke?
Well, Z, it's not really going to be a vacation. Some kind of sad things have happened to three friends and I'm powerless to help. So, I'm going to work and contemplate and reflect a bit. I don't feel like writing this stuff right now, but THE 'FORK always has provocative stuff which inspires me a little.
You are the DUDE of the week because you boldly crossed the last line (ha ha). The hypocrisy involved in that topic is crazy. The same people who grow the tobacco give copiously to the Republican party which makes sure that the Equatorial and Andean people know full well that it is the CIA's leaves that are growing on their trees and thus it continues and continues and continues. Meanwhile, if you're planning to build a lot of private prisons your sure need warm bodies in them, hence your "war on drugs."
Other than the poor wretches who are in the slammer for nothing, the people I really feel sorry for are the young professionals in America's big cities who would like to meet and form families and that sort of normal thing but while they can drink themselves into liver failure or smoke themselves into lung cancer, to enjoy some other psychoactive agent is usually grounds for immediate termination of a relationship. Years ago, it was often the grease that made the gears of the relationship mesh smoothly.
I know I'm inviting all sorts of bullshit anecdotal sob stories but that'll just be great fodder to hurt some feelings when I get back to blogging. I like to do that sometimes. Especially when I'm sad because one good friend has the world of legal problems and another has a brain tumor. So, I'm not really in the mood to hear about Len Bias of somebody's brother-in-law's friend's overdose. Irrelevant to me. I don't care. I suggest people read the current issue of FOREIGN POLICY, plus the works of MASSING, SIEGEL, SOLOMON and ANNE MARLOWE on the subject. But no one will because inside every American, even leftists, lurks a scolding Condi Rice. I become more convinced of this by the moment.
I don't approve of that sort of closed-mindedness but I do understand it. Life's hard and short and terrifying and chaotic and people need something to hand their laundry on. For most people it's work and family. But for far too many the Zero Tolerance Maximum Punishment War On Drugs works a charm for both Right Wingers who like to punish and earnest naive Left Wingers who think they're saving the inner cities.
Not like that anywhere else in the developed world. People enjoy themselves in moderaton and in cases when things get out of hand, proper treatment under medical supervision, not 12-step religious stuff, is available for free. Everywhere else.
Dude you are so full of piss, vinegar and 40 grit and I love you for it. Of the old adage "You learn something new every day" I'd say folks could get their money's worth from the Nuts. I don't frequent many other personal political blogs, so I can only graze lightly from context what kind of "trouble" you get into. But my instinct says we're better off with the Kelso who does not behave.
Stay loose and not gone too long.
Oh dear! I didn't say you don't "drink or smoke!" On the contrary, you have mentioned that you do. I just said what I did, because I know people who have suffered as a consequence of over-indulgence in those habits. Of course, the same could be said of over=indulgence in almost anything (notice the "ALMOST"...).
Iagree with everything you say about "the Zero Tolerance Maximum Punishment War On Drugs." It's insane! And hypocritical, as you point out. If I had to be a passenger in a car driven by: (a)a drunk or (b)a doper, I would choose (b), without hesitation. I could mention many other scenarios with the same options and my choice of (b). Yet, (b) would be thrown in jail for his high, and (a)would be free to err again. That's life in the U.S. of E.
OT:
I'm not in any trouble. My life might be considered wild by American standards but quite normal by Panamanian ones. I work very hard. I eat pretty healthfully. I invest in stuff. I go out and have a laugh or two.
"Behave" where you live is very different from "Behave" where I do. American adults are required to pretend their lifestyles are not a great deal different than those of their five-year old children. But horrible things like firearms, cigarettes and alcohol in copious are just Georgia Peachy.
Outside of the USA, people aren't really required to act this way or that so long as basic courtesies are observed. There is an emphasis on public politeness that far exceeds the USA. And at the same time there is a tolerance and hedonism that is perfectly acceptable socially.
I'm blue because two guys who were extremely good to me in down periods (one in NYC and the other here) are in a world of hurt. Moreover, an acquaintance of mine was shot and killed in a robbery in NY last weekend. I'm bummed out. That's all. And unlike the believers I don't have a higher power to pray to to make one guy's prison sentence shorter or another guy's brain tumor go away. Or raise the third guy from the dead. I just stare into the abyss and bounce from worrying about them to thinking better them than me. Such is the life of the atheist.
Funnily enough, I don't think I'm that full of piss n' vinegar. I write what I feel and try not to put too many filters between my viewpoints and emotions and the page. I always try to follow a consistent them and make a point. Most times, few understand and that's fine, too, because this is a hobby not a vocation. I'd write it if not a single person came to read it. Statisitically speaking, the traffic I get is not significantly different from 0 anyway. Mostly, I want to have a diary and a set of opinions on matters of the day so someday when he's older my son can have a glimpse into what his Dad was like.
I don't usually stay away too long. These things stay with me acutely for three or four days and then I emerge from my tortoise shell.
I do nobody any favors by just saying that I hate Bush. Which I do but so does 100mm other people. I try to present things that interest me. Usually, they bore everyone else.
You are one of the few who enjoy it and for that I couldn't be happier.
Peace.
Really Z:
I dont smoke cigarettes or pot. And my drinking is confined to a cold beer outside on a hot day.
I drink a lot of water, soda, tea, hot chocolate. I like the selection of fresh tropical juices too.
I'll get high now and then but as few readers as I have, I don't want to get deeply into discussing it because it's not anyone's business and I know how reflexive most people are on this topic. Truthfully, my worst vice is work. I work 7 days a week at least 12 hours a day.
It just so happens that your post caught my eye because it was so odd to read an American writing something like that. You (collectively) are so paranoid. Probably with good reason.
I'm not big on hippie woo-woo stuff but I think if everyone just took a step back and realized a few things, life in the US would be a lot simpler: (1) Human beings do human things; don't dwell on guilt feelings (2) However screwed up you think your are whether in your eating, drug or sex preferences, the guy next door is always more twisted (3) you'd be amazed how far good manners take you.
You know I follow you around Hell, right?
Talk soon, I hope.
D-CUP:
I had no idea. Seriously. I'll give you a call.
I guess I got my "blog buddies" mixed up. :-(
It's d-cup who smokes cigarettes. Mind you, I have no MORAL negatives about smoking or drinking. Just practical ones. Smoking makes a person sick and drinking TO EXCESS hurts the drinker and others. Working "7 days a week at least 12 hours a day" is probably not real good for one's health either. But then, I'm retired, so any kind of work seems annoying. Go have a cold beer and get some booty, Kelso. You'll feel better.
My point exactly. Look I was a very happy investor in Altria and RJ Reynolds. Just so long as I don't have to smoke them, I don't mind if anyone else does as long as they don't leave a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray near me.
Kelso -
Mi Hermano! Que pasa? Oye, 'mano.... I just memed/tagged you.
As far as stepping off the BS (blogsphere), I just want to know who else is going to step for me when I get tired of slapping no_slappz. BTW, the dickhead is at it again.
But even if you end up in Hell, I'll just have to follow you there.
Peace!
i guess i just have to follow you around for now -- just be a kelso - stalker
you have no idea how much you have informed and taught me.....
your fellow liberal NY jew....
(who has be so bad in writing back to all his new found friends and intellects out there - especially about CDOs)
Kelso, YOU must to do a post on Norman Mailer. It's only right, now that he's gone. (Or, as Mailer referred to himself back in the day, 'Left Conservative').
giddy up now !!!
;)
SPARTACUS:
Para ti pue' como quisieras; tu diras. Respondere a su tag o meme o sea. Cierto porque eres mi hermano de veras. Estoy un poco deprimido del muerto del senor Frank en NY y todo eso del encarcelamiento del otro boy pa'alla y las enfermedades de mi pana de aca. Por eso me cae muy mal el Johnny Wingnut del Jonestown. Es durisimo leer tonterias por el parte de un maleducado en estado com'asi que siento. Mira, llevo el reloj de mi amigo que esta encarcelado. Vaya a ser igual como el reloj de Pulp Fiction o sea. Jajaja. Y claro que mis verdaderos trabajos no si fueron cuando llegaron mis afuera. Pero volvere a mi blog de repente o en un ratito nada mas. No te preocupes.
DcNY:
Glad you've been digging it. I'll be back sooner rather than later. These down periods pass in a few days. I'm always happy to discuss finance at any level you wish, in fact it's one of my missions to break this idea that finance/econ/biz and progressive politics are mutually exclusive. If that were true there would be no Ed Herman (Chomsky's co-author), Doug Henwood, George Soros, Greg Palast, Paul Krugman, John Meriwether, Carl "The Chief" Rosen...I could go on.
AXN: I'll do the Mailer post soon but it's crucial to me to get that one right because of his importance to me.
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