Tan and Other Racial Things I Didn’t Know Were Racial

Posted on 24 April 2021 by Larry Russwurm

It just came to me the other day that the colour tan is racial. I just thought it meant light brown as a colour. It never occurred to me that this name had anything to do with the concept of getting a tan. It is whites who get a light brown tan. Brown people get dark brown tans. So tan for a lot of people would be dark brown.

Then it occurred to me that band-aids are tan. In other words they are the colour of whites in the summer time. I can’t believe this racial colouring wasn’t used to sell more band-aids in the winter time, especially years ago to the white majority of the first world. They could have made a soft peach colour for these other band-aids so vain whites would have on hand twice as many band-aids.

Since band-aids have been outed as racial in colour, I think the band-aid companies should solely make colourful designs. They could become the stamps of the body with packages aimed at collectors of all stripes. People could tell each other why they chose certain band-aids. This on top of making the world more colourful.

So what am I to do now that I’ve lost the colour tan? I could call the colour camel, but is this just painting the colour of camels with one brush? Are there no other colours of camel in the world? You would think there would be if something as drastic as a hump can come singly or in a set of two. Tentatively I will use camel as my word.

I am reminded of being a kid and never having a clue of any ethnic differences or stereotypes. Yet I was unknowingly using slurs. Gypped was our word for ripped off. When you went back on a deal, you welshed on the deal. When you bartered someone down in price you chewed them down. When you loaned something and the other party said they thought you gave something forever, you were an Indian giver if you said you wanted it back.

These are all ethnic slurs and notice that they all have something to do with money. Don’t use these slurs. I have managed to avoid these for decades because first of all I did know all were slang and just stopped using slang at a certain point. Now I will knowingly avoid these words.

Here I happened to be reading a Far Side collection from 1989 called Wildlife Preserves. On page 93 Gary Larson uses the word gyp. I’m not sure if he realized it was a slur – the big clue that it is racist is the spelling.

I can just see certain members of the right wing saying “Don’t cancel Far Side for one slur.” In fact, some of these people might search out Wildlife Preserves in order to “save” it.

I just think it telling that the whitest of the white used to name negative transactions after ethnic groups. Usually when whites had more money. Were they like Trump, trying to take the little money that group had away so they could swim in it?

By the way, the spellchecker I am using to write this recognized “welshed” as a verb and not welched as I originally spelled it. It also recognized gypped. Are spellcheckers racist? They have some power in this regard and I would say, yes, they are racist.

Regardless, those words have more or less fallen into disuse. Progress may be slow in racial matters but it is progressing.

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Superman Clothes Under Clark Kent’s Suit

Posted on 17 April 2021 by Larry Russwurm

How many times have I seen Clark Kent start to leap into action by pulling back his suit on his chest revealing the Superman S? Many times is the answer. I bet you’ve seen this before, too, dear reader. I never questioned it until recently.

Does Clark Kent wear this double suit home from the office during heat waves? That would be brutal. And before someone says that he has an alien physiology, remember this alien has been posing as human for decades with no one being any wiser. Surely Clark Kent has had many opportunities to sweat. I bet Superman can sweat and might have to sweat in order to avoid overheating.

Even if he doesn’t sweat, his body would become overheated in the heat. Surely Lois would have noticed this in the hundreds of times Superman has picked her up while rescuing her. She would have said something like “Superman, you’re so hot!”

Maybe the Superman suit has advanced technology to prevent the wearer from overheating. But could it cool under the conditions portrayed in all the Superman stories? Air conditioning creates more heat than cooling. The reason air conditioners work is because the heat is made outside the volume to be cooled. That suit stuck inside another suit is not going to provide any cooling. It’s waste heat would be trapped by Clark’s business suit.

So Superman would likely cook if he wears a double suit. I think we have enough knowledge now to call BS on the idea of Superman wearing his suit under a suit.

Even if we couldn’t, there is the little problem of wrinkling. If he is wearing a superman suit under a business suit the question is how does the cape fit in? The answer is that it doesn’t fit neatly inside. Instead it must be getting wrinkled in some obvious way. Obvious enough so people would notice.

The people around might start making jokes. “Superman’s good but he’s no Ironman.” Or “He’s like Dorian Gray. He’s been around since 1938 but all the wrinkles that should be on him are on his cape instead!” Or if a case is taking a long time to solve, “This case is going slow because of all the new wrinkles Superman finds.”

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Scourge of the Twenties

Posted on 10 April 2021 by Larry Russwurm

I guess I should have known that no good would happen when I let off some long pent up steam in one of my posts years ago. That post, Scourge of the Nineties, aimed to show modern people the problem with living in the nineties. That’s because car alarms weren’t installed properly and would go off at inopportune times. I naively thought this had been fixed everywhere simply because I hadn’t heard one for years.

Then someone moved in to the building next door with an improperly installed car alarm. I am well aware of this because my apartment overlooks their parking lot. I have heard it many, many times. And the owner can’t be bothered to get to it right away so it goes on for a couple minutes every single time.

I’ve racked my brain for a solution but haven’t been able to come up with a good one easily. First of all, I thought of assassination. But with the owner dead, that car alarm is going to just go off for an ungodly amount of time before someone figures out how to stop those horrible noises it makes.

My second idea would be to break in and disable the car alarm itself. What an ironic response to a car alarm. I was thinking of wrecking the alarm and leaving the car alone. It’s just that I don’t know that much about cars or car alarms. So even though the owner takes a long response time, undoubtedly they’d be on time to see me and my wrench working away on the car. I’d have to run to avoid being caught.

Remember I wanted to leave the car alone. But the irresponsible owner has painted me into a corner. I have to get the word out on the street that despite the car alarm it will be an easy to steal car in that parking lot. Yes, it has an alarm but everyone who might be able to stop the act of theft will not, as per usual, act. You see at this point, the car alarm is like white noise to the listeners, since they have heard it so frequently.

Anyhow a professional car thief will be able to turn off the car alarm and drive away with their prize. Long before Mr. I’ll Turn My Car Alarm Off When I’m Good And Ready gets to the scene.

I just hope the car thief doesn’t leave the car alarm installed in the car and leave my problem to a new neighbourhood. One where the paranoid, alarm loving owner buys hot automobiles (more irony). But hey, the problem will be out of my neighbourhood.

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The Space Escalator

Posted on 3 April 2021 by Larry Russwurm

By now, many people have heard of the space elevator. It is basically an incredibly strong cable that is attached to the earth at the equator, that goes past geostationary orbit and has a counter weight at its other end. The force on the counterweight matches the force of gravity pulling it down so the cable remains taught and goes straight up from the earth. To finish the space elevator, just put a car on it that is capable of climbing the cable.

Now, if we make the car see through, those that fear heights even slightly will be petrified of the ride. Considering the ride is going to take a couple of days we can’t allow the sheer terror of the ride.

Similarly, if we make the elevator car opaque, people with the slightest bit of a tendency toward claustrophobia will be rendered almost catatonic. There must be a better way.

I propose a space escalator.

A space escalator would be a stairway. The stairway wouldn’t have to extend all the way to the top of the cable. Nor would the stairs even have to move. As long as the stairway itself moves up, relative to the cable, we have our space escalator.

For efficiency sake, I suggest we make the stairway just one story high. It would have its own power source and could climb the cable.

I must admit, when I first thought of this I was a purist and thought that the passenger and payload would have to hold on for dear life. But I realize now that it is better for the stairway to have a floor and some walls to hold the payload in. At first I imagined the passenger in a space suit holding on to the hand rails.

I have rethought this. Since we are already using a floor and some walls, why not make those walls clear and also have a roof. Yes the whole opaque stairway would be fully enclosed with air to breath for the passenger. They wouldn’t need a spacesuit now, just for an emergency.

Notice how the opaque or see through elevator car has been solved for by the space escalator!

And many of you did not realize that this stairway to heaven was first proposed to us in the sci fi song Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. The only down side is that someone might play the music to this song in a loop for the whole couple days it takes to ride this space escalator.

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Meat For Vegetarians

Posted on 27 March 2021 by Larry Russwurm

By now everyone has had a Beyond Meat burger or other plant based replacements for meat. The taste is wonderful and I think meat finally has an acceptable alternative. My only problem with Beyond Meat’s offering is that you can tell it’s not as many calories as the meat, so you need more food to finish off the meal.

I imagine many vegetarians like this product. All those years of hating themselves for liking the smell of cooking meat can finally make sense. They were just preparing themselves for the dawn of true meat alternatives. Now, when they have a craving for meat, they can drown their sorrow in a meatless alternative.

Many vegetarians who are looking down the road, see the day when they can even have as many calories as with a burger. It of course will taste exactly like meat because it is meat. I’m talking vat grown meat. Scientists are sure they can produce meat without a mother, it’s just a matter of getting the cost down. That is likely in our future.

All that true meat flavour and calories – mmm mmm. But what if I were to tell you there was a way to get the meat taste, along with all the calories? And you could get it today!

The meat I’m talking about does indeed have a mother but the baby is never killed. Which ought to make it literally palatable to vegetarians. Some types of lizards can regrow their tails. Why not farm the creatures?

You wouldn’t even have to harm the creatures while harvesting their meat. There is a process called autotomy where the creature is scared so badly that it drops its tail. The tail then squirms and moves for a while which is supposed to distract predators as the rest of the creature gets away.

Imagine harvesting these tails every couple months in a farm situation. You could breed them for ease in scaring their tails off. You could place a giant gong in the barn and every couple months (because that’s how long it takes them to grow a tail) you could hit the gong as loudly as possible and then just harvest the tails.

This ought to satisfy most vegetarian concerns about killing or hurting the animals. There might be some risk of the gong causing so much fear it leads to post traumatic stress disorder. This, too, could possibly be bred out of the creatures.

And because eating the meat doesn’t kill the owner, you could introduce different diets to its owner until you get just the taste you want.

Then you could advertise with some famous vegetarian philanderer. He might say, “That’s the best piece of tail I’ve ever had!”

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Larry Russwurm – the Rapping DJ

Posted on 20 March 2021 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve always wanted to be a part of the music industry and now I think I have solved the mystery of how to be signed and trendy. I will call myself ‘the rapping DJ’.

Before watching the Ellen show a couple weeks ago, I would have hesitated to use the word ‘rapper’ to describe my style. But they had a young fellow on there and introduced him as a rapper and he sang a song. As he started to sing I said to myself ‘oh he’ll rap a a chorus or maybe a stanza’. I listened to the song all the way through and he didn’t rap anything.

Then I got to thinking about Drake and that he has put out music without any rapping whatsoever on it. He has complained that it is put in the rap category regardless. Since Drake outsells normal singers 2:1, I think this is a bankable injustice.

DJs also get caught not DJing. Moby made a lot of money selling his music. As did Fatboy Slim. As did the late Avicii. Ostensibly these three were DJs who ended up making millions off of normal music.

I guess, to the young ear, DJ is just a buzz word meaning cool. Rapping, too, has come to mean cool as well.

Just like Drake, those DJ musicians outsell normal musicians at roughly a 2:1 rate. So I think I will combine the two titles and hopefully outsell good musicians at a 4:1 rate.

Some might ask about my rapping skills. I will just say that I have been an unmetered, non rhyming rapper for 52 years. As for my DJ skills, I have, of course DJed with two turntables, a mixer and the whole bit. Because it wasn’t in public means nothing at all. I will say that I don’t wish to sully my skills by showing them off.

Then, to make sure no one is judging my rapping abilities by song lyrics, I will make sure I have no song lyrics. That is, I will put out instrumentals.

Really I think the sky is the limit for my music. I will make it true with my new titles.

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The Shadow of Modern Ninja

Posted on 13 March 2021 by Larry Russwurm

The Mother Earth Force decided that the 3 traditional ninjas were into expensive fine art pieces. And in fact were daring the Mother Earth Force into combating them for their next robbery. The time would of course be at night while Near Absolute Hero was needed to battle a fire. But there were no other centrally located premiere art galleries in the Big Smoke.

However, on the outskirts of town was the McDavid Collection, a quirky mix of Group of Seven art and the like, mixed with indigenous art. The Group of Seven were quite well known all across the nation and would have fans in the underground markets.

Which left Mother Earth and Modern Ninja to wonder about the extreme lighting of the three traditional ninjas.

“I can shed some light on the bright lighting of our ninja enemies,” started an image of Mother Earth’s face on Modern Ninja’s laptop.

“I might have an idea on that myself.” answered Modern Ninja.

“They want to see your shadow in a place they expect it to be.”

“Yeah, I had thought of that. Multiple lights from various angles can be confusing when they can only see your shadow and not you. If they have the brightest lights on their heads pointing in front of them, they will know by your shadow where you will be. They can thus attack you successfully.”

“Only because your own pixels of your suit would betray you. But you can program them, you see,” said Mother Earth.

“Then I can attack the 3 ninjas successfully yet again.”

“If things go as we have planned.”

“You’ll help me with the program?” asked Modern Ninja.

“Of course it would be my pleasure. We’re two of the best coders in the world. It shouldn’t take long.”

The next night, Near Absolute Hero had to help out at a fire around 2 a.m. The rest of the Mother Earth Force also got out but they headed to the McDavid Collection instead. They parked a block and a half away and hid in a stand of trees. The SUV that pulled up had them almost straining to attack. But they didn’t see anyone exit.

There were also no bright lights. They stared at it as it left hoping to see something through its dark windows.

Mother Earth was in their ears and said quietly, “Just a 2:30 check by a security company.”

As the memory of the security faded, in came a second SUV. Just as its bright lights went out, three new lights appeared. In an instant they were in a triangle formation lighting up everything around them.

Modern Ninja headed toward them as they smashed the entrance doors. Alarms went off as they stepped inside. As the lights entered the building, Tail headed toward the SUV.

Modern Ninja waited at the entrance. They would be back. Tail set off the SUV’s alarm as he broke in to the door. Of course thieves would try to guard their things. Tail turned off the alarm and started the SUV. He drove it to the far side of the parking lot.

The three ninjas came back, each with a couple paintings. They knew something was up with the SUV and thought they were ready. Modern Ninja took down the first of the three with a good roundhouse. She turned off the light of the downed ninja. The other two knew he was gone so they were back to back. They moved quickly toward the SUV.

Modern Ninja leapt and kicked as hard as she could at the closest ninja’s head. As she hoped, the first ninja’s head hit the second ninja’s head. But the second ninja didn’t go down. He spun and caught a glimpse of Modern Ninja who was turning off the second light. But a tail pulled him toward the ground.

Tail’s fists caught the last ninja while his tail was wrapped around the ninja’s upper arms. It was an unfair fight and finally the ninja slumped.

Sirens could be heard above the alarms from the building. So Tail and Modern Ninja slunk through the trees to their awaiting vehicle. They were gone in only a moment.

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Traditional Ninjas Again

Posted on 6 March 2021 by Larry Russwurm

“I think too many bad guys know the key to face off against Mother Earth Force. That’s to do it when there is a fire. That way Near Absolute Hero can’t attend,” said Modern Ninja as they raced to the Big Smoke’s premiere art gallery.

Tail said, “It might be our three ninjas again. Those three and Flame Tosser are the only criminals who seem to be in the know.”

Meanwhile Mother Earth was driving the car faster and more safely than any human could do it.

“Ooh it might be those three traditional ninjas. Prisons weren’t built to hold ninjas for too long.”

The sirens they had been hearing coming from another direction had stopped. Still their car drove wildly for another minute then slowed down as the lights of the police lit everything up in the area. They were a block from the art gallery and intended to stay there.

“That’s at least two directions they didn’t come from. Ours and the police’s,” said Mother Earth.

“And likely the police came from more than one direction. Perhaps you can look it up through various cameras in the vicinity.”

“Already on it,” stated Mother Earth. “I am also copying the art gallery’s cameras for the last half hour.”

“So we wait,” sighed Tail.

“Not too long,” said Mother Earth. It only took five seconds before she continued. “Out of 7 roads coming to the gallery, the police arrived from 3 directions and we came from a fourth direction. Likely the thieves disappeared in one of the other three roads. We’ll check those out but first we must find what the thieves look like.”

“We don’t know it was thieves, yet,” said Modern Ninja.

“Harumph!” shot back Mother Earth. “Breaking in to an art gallery? Of course it was.”

Modern Ninja wanted to say ‘assuming makes an ass out of u and me’ but Mother Earth already knew that little phrase and was busy speeding the work of the night along. So Modern Ninja just folded her arms across her chest. It was only another 5 second wait.

“Look on the center dash screen.” said Mother Earth.

Three dark figures got out of an SUV, then gathered on the art gallery side and suddenly they were awash in light. After being blinded for a few seconds the camera automatically changed its sensitivity and they could see three mining helmets, each with the light pointing perpendicular to each side of an equilateral triangle. This way the light was pointing in all directions. You’d need good luck to sneak up on them.

“Do you think it is our three ninjas?” asked Modern Ninja.

“Yes. But they seem to be throwing the ninja invisibility thing so far down in the trash that it comes out in Australia.” replied Tail.

The three bright ninjas entered the building at the old entrance where the older Kreighoffs were displayed. They each grabbed 2 of these each, then fled to their SUV. They were gone before the police even arrived.

The SUV went down the tiniest feeder street for a couple blocks and then was off camera. The SUV never came on camera again.

Mother Earth sighed, “We’re never going to catch them tonight. They stuffed the loot into another car and got away. But I tipped the police off to the rough location of the SUV. Maybe they left prints or other clues.”

And with that, Mother Earth Force was done for the night.

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Mother Earth Force: Wherein the Creator Realizes He Missed Something Obvious

Posted on 27 February 2021 by Larry Russwurm

Traditional Ninja contacted the Ninja league from the Kingston Jail where himself, Nuclear Submarine and Eagle were being held for their past crimes. The Ninja League managed to arrange it so that the three of them were moved to one big cell.

Under this cell, years ago, previous inmates had dug a tunnel to the outside. The league informed the three that these earlier inmates had indeed escaped but had been caught a week later. They were transferred and the warden promised there would be no more escapes. So he sealed the tunnel at both ends.

But the warden liked to save money. So instead of filling the whole tunnel with earth and tamping it down, he just sealed in air. The concrete seals were just a couple inches thick. It was thus, only a matter of smuggling in proper equipment. The three ninjas managed to work through the concrete seals, quietly, in only a couple weeks.

Free at last, they worked on deciding what was their downfall. Sure it was the Mother Earth Force but did that group have any weaknesses? So they discussed their encounters.

Modern Ninja was the biggest thorn in their side. So they got the Ninja League to get footage of their encounters with her. But in the footage, where the three ninjas had seen Modern Ninja from different perspectives, there was no Modern Ninja. Not only was she invisible to her intended target, but she was invisible from all cameras it seemed.

Eventually the three ninjas sat down in their new lair and decided that the recordings had all been tampered with and they couldn’t zero in on her weaknesses any further. Still they discussed their situation and what it was that someone had gone to such great lengths to hide.

Finally Eagle mentioned something about his experience with Modern Ninja that let in a smidgen of light. “You know, both times before I was attacked by her, I got an impression of darkening before I was struck by her.”

“No kidding?”asked Nuclear submarine. “Me too. But I can’t quite place my finger on exactly what it was. Maybe she becomes a shadow instead of a person?!

Traditional Ninja stood up with all the excitement of these memory fragments. “I know! She’s invisible from a point but she still leaves a shadow!”

“That’s what they were trying to hide in all the recordings. If we play our cards right, the three of us should be able to beat Modern Ninja and Tail.

They were excited to be viable again. So they planned and ingested drugs that only a true ninja can tolerate. After, they had a plan they could execute in the Big Smoke.

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Frank Bombs

Posted on 20 February 2021 by Larry Russwurm

Lately frank bombs have been going off. You know, like the ones in the Wizard of Oz. When the scarecrow is told by the wizard that he had a brain all along, the tin man had a heart and the cowardly lion had bravery. It had been shown all along they had these traits but the characters just needed to see this. The wizard was their frank bomb.

A frank bomb just went off in the circus around Britney Spears. The documentary, Framing Britney Spears gives a history of how things went wrong for Britney. It makes the media and others look bad, Indeed Justin Timberlake issued an apology for his post breakup treatment of Britney. (Timberlake even [finally] apologized to Janet Jackson for nipplegate, too.) After this documentary’s frank bomb went off, most are in agreement that Britney should be free of the conservatorship her father has her in.

Let’s be honest. The woman had mental health problems. That’s all. The press made it sound like chaos was imminent. The vast majority of those that have mental illness never have a conservatorship forced upon them. Even if it’s possible she needed one at the time, those with mental illness learn to cope. She certainly should be free of any conservatorship now. Boom! The frank bomb went off. Now most people agree with the slogan “free Britney”.

A frank bomb just went off for me living in Canada with the queen as my figurehead. They could have put that piece about Prince Phillip being in the hospital, anywhere in the newscast. Harry and Megan finalizing their rift with the royals could also have been in any part of the newscast, too. It’s politics after all. But they put both in the entertainment part of the newscast. I laughed. Boom! A frank bomb went off.

A frank bomb should go off around Donald Trump. This man never wanted to be President of the United States of America. He wanted the power he thought the president had. Which is really the power of the Dictator of the United States of America. After getting in office it was clear that Trump fawned over dictators like Kim Jong-un.

It was kind of like Britney’s song Lucky where she dreams of being a Hollywood actress. Then in real life gets to be a Hollywood actress in Crossroads. Well Trump dreamed about being a dictator. Then set it up so in real life he almost got to be one. But we know the insurrection failed. So far. Let’s not ever let Trump be in a position to be dictator again.

Some of his fans think they’d like him as a dictator. They’re delusional. If the United States became a dictatorship under Trump, in 10 years the US would be no more powerful than China. Indeed the reason why China is behind the United States, still, is because they are a dictatorship. Dictatorships don’t promote top of the line thinking. They promote survival thinking.

In short: Trump’s way leads to “we’re number two” for the US. The other way leads to the US keeping its position as top dog around the world. That is the frank bomb I think we need to hear.

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