The Power of Preference...

The following is a not so direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/the-eu-referendum.html

Humans are simple people.  Some of us are really simple people, I know it, you know it...
We make our decisions on a whim, we're all lazy on the inside, we're all selfish and greedy.  It's okay to admit it, we were made that way.
If you've studied your history, you know that humans have had to struggle.  Like, really, struggle.  Many of us throughout time have starved to death, some of us have had to eat the corpses of other humans or worse, simply to remain upright and breathing.
Some of us drowned because we overfilled a little rubber boat and so desperately needed to leave the place where we're from, that simple wind and waves were our destroyers.
And sadly, some of us are still struggling with no end in sight.

When I consider racism, I can understand.  It's no different than the other many experiences in our lives, shaping our views.
If you tried some vanilla ice cream then some chocolate, who can blame you for likin' one more than the other.
If you've had some friends who were Christian and some who were Muslim, who can blame you for siding with one or the other.
The intensity that you feel towards one side or the other may be different but the end result is the same and again, we can't fault people for having preferences.

Consider for a moment that you've had some rich friends.  Okay, praps not "rich" with a capital "R".
But you've had some friends who have a nice house, a swimming pool in the backyard and their kids have things, you know like shoes and clothes, mabes a pair of glasses.
Now consider that you've had some poor friends.  Like really poor.  Mabes they're homeless, they don't have a vehicle, their kids are missing a shoe here, a shirt there.
Which do you want to be more friendly with and before you answer, consider that my family and I are pretty stinkin' poor and if you want to be our friends, type to me and we'll find a way to hang out right.
My son has both of his shoes still and thank the gods he doesn't need glasses.

I don't have a real job and that really stings my person, deeply.  Where I live, no one seems willing to give up their jobs so that others can have some.  Sometimes I wonder why.
Are they racists..?  Are they the so called "job lovers"..?
Because wowzers all the sudden, does that put it into a fancy box with bow, perspective..? Yet?

To say that we will look at others with special new labels because of a political agenda, one in which you can hardly believe anything anyone says anyway...
Oh to the Em and the Gee, are my neighbors filthy money lovers.!?
How dare they like vanilla ice cream, it's bland it has no flavor, it's WHITE..!

I've never voted, I don't believe my voice counts.  I don't believe in the system and I'd like to meet the people that actually get to count the votes and declare a winner.
If you held that power, would you let the simple humans beneath you make the all powerful decisions about what kind of ice cream is the best for all?

A Time for Anger...

The following is a not so direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/murder-for-religious-or-political.html

Some more bad guys did some more bad stuff huh.
I don't know if I'm supposed to drip a few tears or fall from my chair and mash my fists into the ground.
As Nik pointed out, it happens every day.  Every freakin' day and the only difference is the location and the size.

I was born in the seventies and grew up in the eighties.  I was told that the Koreans were bad, the Vietnamese, the Japanese bombed some of our stuff so we bombed them in return.
The Russians were our enemies for a bit, the Germans before that and man did they accomplish some bad stuff.  Then it was Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan and the Al-Qaeda (the same guys we helped fight the Russians then turned on), the ISIS and I'm bettin' there will be more after that.
There is no end to the amount of bad guys in our world and I'm pretty sure there never will be.

Do we really think that one day, one special miraculous day, that these evil wishing people are going to, wait for it, "learn"..?
I've typed at length about the stupidity in people, I've typed about the worth of a human life and I've typed about greed and selfishness.
I don't think I can spell it out any clearer.
We do not live in a safe society.
The idea that we are invulnerable to random murder comes from that stamp across our foreheads, the one that reads "stupid".
If we have clean (ish) water and as much electricity as we can afford, there will always be some people wanting to take it from us, the ones with the stamp on their foreheads that reads "selfish".

We can't trust in our government and lawmakers to make better laws to protect us.  Their stamps all read "liars".
Some even say "professional liars"...

If you don't own and carry your own gun, go buy one (or three).
If your kids don't own and carry their own guns, buy some for them too.
You should probs try to acquire some hand grenades too.

If anyone ever tries to take your weapons of protection from you, know that they are the bad guys and you should shoot them many times before they can shoot you.
Should you or your children die in a hail of gunfire someday, know that this world is no longer a place anyone would want to exist in anyway.

My sincerest apologies go out to anyone who has ever lost a loved one.
If there were a better time to be angry, I don't think I could recognize it.

To Advertise or Not...

The following is a direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/bodyform.html

Wowzers, what a topic..!
I feel a bit challenged by this one.  As if I were given some little plastic strap-on butterfly wings and told I couldn't fly to the moon and back.
Don't tell me I can't do something!

So okay Bishop, search that thing you call a brain cabbage and come up with "something" right.  Write..?
Yeah there's nothin', big vacant parking lot upstairs eh, it's a freakin' Wednesday!

I know nothing about the issues related to menstruation and I think that's the first time I've ever attempted to spell that word correctly.
Nik's right, it's something the male population gives very little thought to and when we occasionally do, it's usually a put down or used as ammunition.
Which is sad, it seems like it could be related to a female making fun of a man's impotence.  Also sad...

But I think what her article was really about, was perception and that happens to be a staple of my typings so, buckle yourself in, it's probs going to be a bumpy ride.
I have thought for quite some time now, that nobody believes in advertising anymore.  I don't care how many times I see the McDonalds commercial and it doesn't matter how very appealing they make their food look.
On the tele, sure it looks yummy.  In my belly an hour later and yep, lesson learned.
No amount of repeated advertising is going to make me want to consume that poop for the soul, I don't care if their commercials are five minutes long and feature the ultra sexy Ronda Rousey eating chicken nuggets in her body paint "suit".

On the other side, I happen to be a struggling-to-quit alcoholic and if it's been a rough day, if I'm really craving a beer or three and an alcohol commercial comes on, yes it reminds me of how badly I want to run to the store and just buy one more...
But I'm smart enough not to be convinced by my tele and if you've made it this far in life, you're probs smart enough too.

We aren't fooled into buying products because of the advertising.  Our general perception of just about "everything" in life is:
People lie to us.  People try to trick us.
It's just like what our mothers tell our daughters when they're young concerning "boys".  They only want one thing.
Your money.

But another side of me says, hey Bishop, what about the new products that are introduced?  What about the new inventions, the products we've never seen before and how else should we "find out" about them?
I recently noticed a commercial featuring a robotic lawn mower.  Have you seen these yet?
A lot like the fancy little robotic vacuum cleaners that scurry around your carpet and floors on "autopilot", these babies can save you oodles of time and energy.
I mean you schedule a lawn mowing once a week, you ensure your robot has the necessary fuel and blamo, that droid goes out on his own, mows your lawn to your specifications and returns itself to your storage unit without needing any motivation.  Without complaining.
And jeeze, if I happen to be driving by the rich people's neighborhood (these little guys sell for more than two thousand, like fourteen hundred for my British friends)...
If I see a little droid bot out there mowin' someone's lawn, I'm going to be pretty tempted to pull over and kidnap that puppy.
Not because I have my own lawn to be responsible for, my family and I live in a crappy apartment situation.
I'm just too enthralled by the technology, the innovation that can program a self thinking machine to do what humans have been burdened with for, how long now..?
And one more straw just in case that camel's still standing.  I actually enjoy mowing the lawn (you know, if it's not "required").
I'd probs be out there side by side with my little buddy, both of us enjoying the thrill of a job well done.  I'd also name my little friend so I could feel like I was treating him (or her!) with respect.

So old products being "thrust" upon us day after day, nopes, no sale.
A new product that is incredibly cool and intelligent, ding ding!

As a man, and a married one, I can say one thing about my wife's menstruation.  One brief little tid bit, you know, when am I ever going to type about this topic again..?
When she's having her period, I do a little dance inside.  It means she's not pregnant and we won't have to be responsible for another life for the next eighteen years (or more...)
It means I can have all the sex I want (and all the sex my wife wants) and there's no babies ploppin' out.  Big fat "yes" in my book.

An Education in Rape...

The following is a direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/twenty-minutes-of-action.html

I have to admit, I hadn't heard about the Brock Turner case yet.  Praps I'm a bit out of the loop or mabes its because these sort of crimes happen all the time; everyday the news is full of 'em right.
I can't type much about being raped because I'm a male and it feels really hard for a male to imagine being raped and the horror that ensues for some reason.  That is, unless it's happened to you, or me.
I can address my friend Nik's spelling of the word "jail" however.  As in, what the heck is that, jail with a "G"..?

I think as humans, our common sense tells us enough about the way the world works.  Rape is bad, rapists should go to jail, even the one with the "G".
Rape is even worse when people attempt to cover it up, when they fail to punish appropriately, when people don't believe they did anything "wrong".
I can't type much in the way of "new" thoughts there.  It's been a problem in our society for so long, that my little voice doesn't seem to have enough oomph to make any real dent in the depravity of male humans.

I can type about jail though.  Prisons, incarcerations of any kind, they're all the same.  When you take a human and stick 'em in a cage, well the reaction is all the same.
That human fights for every little scrap of "everything".  Any comfort is strongly desired and sexual pleasure, well it might be the most desired, mabes a second close behind drugs and alcohol.
Lock a human in a box and it'll start masturbating when bored enough.  It could almost be a science experiment.  How long does it take a human to...

So the thing we have to realize, is that there's a secret little society in jails and prison centers.
There are people that have been there longer than others, people who have organized partnerships and gangs, people who find loopholes and guards that can be affected, bribed sometimes.
It's a nasty little society in there and there's nowhere to hide.  Nowhere to run.  Perchaps some occupants beg to be unconscious.

At the top of the totem poles, the "thrones" if you will, are the murderers of other humans.  The cop killers, the bank robbers, the assassins for hire.
You know, the real animals.  The ones with the big fat life sentences.  The ones with nothing to lose.
At the very bottom of the pole, are those that preyed on the helpless.  The child molesters, the rapists, the kidnappers.
They even have cute nicknames for the bottom dwellers.  They call them "chomos".  It's short for "child molester".
If you're one of the newly arrived chomos, you try your hardest to convince everyone else, that you had a different crime, praps you were a common thief or a music downloading pirate.

Because to admit, or to have it discovered, that you are a chomo, means you now have a giant bullseye on your forehead.  Or other parts of your body...
And the guys on top, the ones with all the internal power, well they like to think that it's their responsibility to help "reform" the bottoms.  They look at it like it's a form of redemption, to help punish the bad people of the world, even if they themselves were "once" a bad person.
A chomo has no friends, no one that will stick up for them and most guards will turn the other way while the beatings (and other activities) commence.
Look up some of the reports from the inmate Jared Fogle, the Subway spokesguy who turned chomo.

If you're a famous chomo, they pass you around like a special desert at a rich white-people's party.  As in, umms, that's some good chomo huh.
I do believe Brock Turner's sentence could have been much worse.  I'm not sure if I'd go castration or just execution but that's because I believe in teaching by example and if rapists were given the guillotine, I think the world would have a lot less rapists eh.
I also believe that he'll receive his fair share of rape education in whatever cage he finds himself in.
It takes less than twenty minutes to kill oneself and six months is a long time to a little rich-kid white boy.
Should he survive, praps he will have truly learned his lesson.
Ariel Castro didn't last one month and that guy was a true animal monster.

Great article once again Nik, even with your soft "G"s huh.

For all to see...

I want to type about my son.
If there's a gigantic wall the size of the interweb and my words can be wait, theoretically, is that how you spell that one, jeeze..!
If my words can be written for anyone and everyone to see, for possibs, "the duration", I suppose I could some day erase it, or possibs the Blogspot I use, could go out of business...

Think about that for half a second.  In the old days, humans had to build statues and pyramids to leave their thoughts for all to see, for eternity.
But now, all we have to do is have an internet connection, and a clunky keyboard to bang away on.
And we can say our piece, forever.
Huh.

My son dislikes confrontations.  He thinks that everybody should just be friends and try to understand one anothers differences.
He's seen his mother and I argue, he tries to get in the middle and shout us both down.
He's grown up with violence in video games all his life, he's seen it on the tele and he believes, strongly, that it is not real.
And that his real life, should not contain any sort of violence, unless it's in his video games or as super heroes in movies with people in cool costumes.
He does enjoy a good verbal sparring however.
At every opportunity, when someone says something to him, his natural reaction, before his conscious mind ever contemplates it, is to disagree.
And sometimes its a rather poor disagreement because again, it's not his real mind thinking it.
He tries to elaborate when I challenge and his front brain usually has something clever or weird to say.  Because he wants to be a better speaker, he knows that there is no real "ceiling" to this talent and that the more efficient he can speak, the more he might accomplish in his lifetime.

He reacts to audio stimuli on autopilot.  Then, once the opponent is engaged, he brings out his weapon and hopes that whatever he reached into and pulled outta his bag first, is a little bigger than a popsicle stick.
I try to teach him that he should not be on autopilot, like ever.  Because to improve, means he must not grunt in a knee jerk reaction and have to "recover", someday.
That praps he could have a decent weapon ready first, mabes even keep that weapon on the standby, always.

He laughs a little bit and I have to remember how proud I am of him.
In my bag, there's only popsicle sticks.

The Price of Life...

The following is a not so direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/incidents-and-accidents.html

We live in a world where life is cheap.
Sometimes there are sales, a coupon here or there, you can occasionally get ten lives free with the purchase of one, they even throw in a kid's toy.
When it comes to the lives of animals, the price drops even further.

If you know me at all, you know that I am a strong supporter of fairness and equality.  I try to speak loudly and proudly for those that can't speak, can't organize their thoughts as well perchaps.
Kids in general, get my support as I believe they are innocent.
Animals, across the board, get my support, even though it might not be extremely helpful.

In the news recently, I was stunned by the four year old boy in the Gorilla cage in Cincinnati story.
Reading those words hurt me deep inside and thinking about what must have happened, it scars me.
It makes my faith in humanity shrink to almost "unrecognizable".

I can't see how a zoo, or any other organization, can pay to train and maintain, a "threat and emergency response team".
I mean they're spending money!  Remember the cost of a life..?
They're spending MONEY!  Above and beyond..!
Is this not absolutely crazy, does this not reach into your mind and squeeze until gooey bits leak from your ears.!?

But wait, mabes my holiday weekend and all that entailed has sun burnt my brain noodle a bit.  Let me try to elaborate...
A zoo has a trained staff that try to protect their animals and the humans that come to visit those animals.  They spend lots of money building huge enclosures, there's bars and fences and "protective" measures right, "lots" of money right there eh.
Then they go above that and train their people, people who become "specialists", to react and respond to any type of unpredictable happenings.
As in, if something should "come along" and threaten the well being of their animals, they should respond and do what they can to protect their investment.
What was their investment again, you're going too fast, flying too low Bishop, even it out a keel or two huh.

Okay, okay, where was I.  Ah yes, their investment.  The cost and time and energy required to build and maintain those bars and fences and protective measures.
Not the animals within, nah!  Animals are everywhere and people can look at them all they want.  All it takes is some cable television or an internet provider.  People can watch videos of animals all day, every, should they want.
What keeps a zoo in business is the bars and the cages, that's where the juicy money's at.

So when "an event" happens, the emergency response team scurries out of their little bunker, they see a kid being dragged through the water by it's leg, by a four hundred pound gorilla...
And they do what they're taught.  They shoot, repeatedly, until the gorilla is dead.
They save the human.

Because to them, the human life is worth "slightly" more.
It makes me wonder how they would respond if someone threatened to destroy their precious bars, their concrete walls, what if someone drained their moat...

So I know, here comes one of Nik's patented Snarky Rants.  Here comes the fourteen paragraphs about what the Bishop would have done, how many humans would have been shot and how the gorilla would have had years of intensive therapy to repair the damage done to it, having witnessed all those messy executions...
But I think I will skip it today, no offense to Nik.
It's easy to criticize and see the stupidity in zoos, any smart human can do it.  I can go on for days about the standards in circuses and don't even get me started on the western rodeos or even pet stores for that matter.

I think instead, I'll focus on what really matters.  The money.
As in, are we really, as a race or a species, too simple minded to see the profitability in animals..?
I think in the future, looking forward with a positive, hope-filled vision...
We should make zoo customers take an entry test, sit at this desk and fill out the following questionnaire.
If you pass the test and are found too competent, you don't get to enter, sorry about that.

If you are just that kind of ignorant human, ding ding, you get to enter.
But this zoo is a little different, the cages are larger and there's no bars nor moats.  No "walls".
Instead, there's a little door with a latch on the outside.  And a sign that says "gorilla petting".
And if you want, you can waltz right in.  There's even a smaller door next to the regular one for "kids entry".  Praps there'll be a smaller, younger gorilla inside.
Cameras posted at every angle will capture your interaction with the animals and broadcast it on the big bad interweb, for a price.
Monthly subscribers can log in, pay their dues and watch as human after human gets the "toy doll" treatment.  You can even leave comments or vote for your favorite animal, mabes make an extra donation to have the next human smothered in honey before entering.

Because I know I'd watch, I'd pay.
I wouldn't worry either because I'd know that the staff of this kind of zoo would be well trained and well prepared, should a mangled human not be able to remove itself from a cage.
I know that they'd come a'runnin' and that poor human would be tranquilized, mabes even tazed a time or two...
But that in the end, the carcasses would be dragged off site so that more stupid humans and their offspring could be allowed entry.

That right there is what I call a positive message Bishop.
And what others call a financial gold mine which is the opposite of, a life.