LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Sociopaths live in white houses.

-Bumper sticker of the week: Believing bullshit will not make it come true.

-Quotes of the week: “It’s universally wrong to steal from your neighbor, but once you get beyond this one-to-one level and pit the individual against the multi-national conglomerate, the federal bureaucracy...or the utility company, it becomes strictly a value judgment to decide who exactly is stealing from whom. One persons crime is another persons profit.” Abbie Hoffman

“America’s one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.” Bobcat Goldthwait

-George W. Bush wants to take democracy to Iraq, as though we have a surplus of it here. Ends up being the perfect tragedy, with 4000 of our soldiers dead, countless tens of thousands injured, an unknown amount of Iraqi civilians dead, (estimated in the hundreds of thousands), torture being sanctioned by our government, executions in the field, and about half a trillion dollars spent. Recession hell. It’s the war, stupid.

-An odd thing happened on the way to 60:

* We slept on our bellies in lead painted cribs.

* There were no child-proof lids on medicine bottles.

* We had no car seats, no air bags.

* Riding in the back of a pickup was a treat, especially on a hot day.

* We ate homemade cake, drank koolaid with a ton of sugar in it, and scarfed down white bread with plenty of real butter on it. There weren’t many kids overweight.

* We left home in the morning and sometimes didn’t get back until dark. No one ever bothered us.

* We got BB guns for our birthday, played ball all day with a rubber ball and bat, and fought like cats and dogs. Hardly anyone ever got hurt.

* Not everyone made the Little League team, but no one shot anyone or sued or otherwise made much of a fuss. Maybe a few tears. You had to learn how to deal with disappointment. Not everyone was athletic.

* The town cop took care of minor infractions of the law. A wack along side the head put a damper on many a would-be criminals young career. And our parents backed him.

* We drank water from the well, the sink, or a garden hose, not from a plastic bottle with a nipple.

* We spent hours raising pigeons, building go-carts, playing basketball and baseball, fixing our bikes, hiking, swimming in the creek. We hardly ever sat on our butts. We entertained ourselves.

Somehow, we made it. Maybe we were lucky. There were not so many rules and regulations. I guess as we begin turning sixty, we should congratulate one another. Apparently we beat the odds. By God, we made it.

-China stomps on Tibet, again: You don’t hear much about our eagerness to defend Tibet. We wouldn’t want to make our Chinese buddies made. After all, just about everything we buy nowadays comes from China. Seems they have one of capitalism’s most prized possessions: cheap labor. And to top it off, Bush and Co. just took China off the “human rights violators” list. It’s all just more of the same. Insanity.

-Speaking of sociopaths. How to spot one:

* Many sociopaths are salesmen. If it don’t bother you to take money from a person who can’t afford what they are buying, guess what?

* Lying and cheating are second nature to a sociopath. Refer to number one as an example.

* One of the diagnostic criteria for a sociopath used to be if a person had over two tattoos. Now it’s 22.

* If a person is charming, but has a criminal record, go figure.

* A lot of sociopaths like to live on the edge. Rather than finding that enticing, you should push them over.

* I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Sociopath.

* Secretive, authoritarian, cunning, manipulative, a liar, incapable of real human attachment, extremely narcissistic and grandiose, drinks too much, lacks empathy, lacks remorse and feelings of guilt, possesses superficial charm, and may state readily that their goal is to rule the world. Remind you of anyone? Hint: He lives in a white house.