What Assange Needs Now is a Magician

Posted on 22 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Preferably Assange needs a real magician with a specialty in teleportation. But I, like most of you, have heard that all magicians are quacks so this ideal situation may never come to pass. Alright then, unleash the stage magicians.

Stage magicians are said to be masters of misdirection. Master manipulators to the core, they allow us to think that perhaps so and so did vanish, perhaps so and so did get teleported. Well in Assange’s case the appearance of teleportation might be just as good.

I can imagine that magician’s arrival to much fanfare (actually protesters and riot police doing their thing). Perhaps the magician will have a trailer from a large truck which will be parked on the Ecuadorian embassy lawn. On the trailer will be the magician’s set.

Perhaps the magician will ask Assange to step onto the trailer. Perhaps the magician will ask Assange to step into a box that will be closed. Maybe that will be the last anyone sees of Assange on British (or Embassy to British) soil.

Now I have quite an imagination. I see 20 holograms of Julian Assange, each turning on for a few seconds till the police realize they haven’t got their man.

I imagine 20 Assange doppelgangers each bravely showing up at this time. They will each deny they are the real Julian Assange but it will take police manpower and fingerprinting to prove it. I say brave doppelgangers because who knows how long the police will hold these men out of spite.

I imagine 20 cars all taking off from the scene, after Assange’s disappearance but before the police can shut down the roads in the area.

Any magician capable of pulling off this stunt successfully will be instantly worldwide famous. The risks might be many but the payoffs will be many as well. Step aside Criss Angel, the world wants its real mindfreak.

And perhaps all this isn’t completely necessary. Perhaps one well placed doppelganger in Ecuador, with seeming control over Wikileaks would be enough. Do you really think this double will allow himself to be fingerprinted or have his retina scanned? Not likely. Pressure would build on the UK police, not to squander so many huge resources near the Ecuadorian embassy when obviously Assange had escaped. Perhaps then, the fiction would become reality.

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Months Long Vampire Party

Posted on 18 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

The months long vampire party should just be winding down at the South Pole. The vampires had thrown off the shackles of the daylight cycle and escaped past the Antarctic Circle for the months of permanent darkness. So freeing was this that they partied at will. How many penguins lost their lives to the vampire bloodlust? How many Antarctica researchers fell to the vampires’ need to feed?

Some may say that the vampires can’t stand the cold. But I say creatures that can kill intelligent, feeling prey willingly and often, know something about cold.

Indeed, I doubt that even one of those wintering Antarctica researchers will remain untouched. A second reason for us humans to not winter in Antarctica.

But the sun approaches and at the equinox not even the South Pole itself will remain free of daylight. Those creatures of the night will have to again deal with the tyranny of the day/night cycle.

But not so long from now, the Arctic will turn into permanight for its few months.

The vampires can feast on caribou, wolf , even polar bear. But far more satisfying will be the Inuit peoples.

The northern vampire party will not be able to last as long in a few years as it is expected the winter ice will only last a decade or so longer. Land in the north does not reach the north pole, so Greenland and other northern islands will be the best that partying future vampires will be able to do. Still I imagine there will always be some form of a northern months long vampire party.

Maybe the vampires will be after my head for alerting readers to their habits. But I have my own trick.

I will lay in wait in my lair with many panels of mirrors and my trusty wooden stake crossbow. Any vampire that enters my lair will see 30 images of me and not know which is the correct one. I will see just one vampire.

Around the equinox, I expect my lair will smell with the death of the undead. Where’s your pseudo immortality then, vampires?

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Bars and Leaf

Posted on 15 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

The Americans have a number of nicknames for their flag. “Stars and Stripes”, “The Star Spangled Banner”, and “Old Glory” are the three that I know.

I’ve lived my whole life in Canada and not once have I heard someone use a cute nickname for our flag. I think it is as unique a flag as the American one but still no one has been inspired to make it as familiar as Americans have done with theirs. That ends now.

Now I don’t want it to sound like an abstract painting’s title. Like “Two Bars Surrounding Pointy Maple Leaf on a Field of White”.  So I propose “Bars and Leaf”. Unfortunately this title brings up the following image in my mind:

Or maybe 25 years from now (you older druggies must know by now that it’s always 25 years from whatever year it is):

Maybe the solution is to steal “Old Glory” from the U.S. After all Canada has managed to last a full 145 years, now.

I’m hesitant to suggest my last offering because the term was coined by an American. How be we nickname the Canadian flag “The Maple Leaf Rag”? Scott Joplin (American ragtime musician) may have never lived to see the flag but maybe he would be proud to be part of  the historical story surrounding it.

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All the World’s a Factory Floor

Posted on 11 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

All the world’s a factory floor, and all the men and women merely robots.
They don’t think they’re robots, nay they are far superior,
For they have emotions, the thing that separates man from machine.

If they are sad then they mope, if they are sadder then they even cry,
If they are sad for a long, long time then they have depression.

If they are angry then their faces turn red, if they are angrier then they threaten,
If they are very angry then they smash things, if they are angriest then they resort to violence.

If they are happy then they smirk, if they are happier then they smile,
If they are very happy then they laugh, if they are happiest then they spread the joy/joke.

If they fear then they cower, if they fear a lot then they retreat,
If they are embarrassed then they blush, if they are very embarrassed then they retreat.

Because all the possible if/then statements fit onto over one piece of paper,
The robots just say it’s incomprehensible.
So sadly they work long into the day and sometimes into the night,
Ripping off Shakespeare or whatever else they do,
Oblivious to what is really going on.

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The Case for Vampires Staking Vampires

Posted on 8 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Since vampires do indeed exist, let’s look at them a bit more scientifically than they usually get looked at. First of all we know they feed off human blood. And those bodies they have fed on turn into vampires. This is how vampires reproduce.

Now let’s say that the fit vampire can go without feeding on human blood for a full week. So at the end of week one, we have two vampires – the original and the new vampire created by the feeding. During week 2, the pair of vampires each finds a victim to feed on. At the end of week 2 there are 4 vampires. We can keep going with this progression of vampire numbers till we get to week 34 when all the human prey in the whole world has been used up and every person is now an undead vampire.

In the prehistory of vampires, populations remained relatively stable because the bodies were left outdoors after being drained of blood. Daylight would destroy the new vampires who would take a day or so to undergo their transformation.

But in modern times it is considered unseemly to leave bodies lying around until light. So nowadays these bodies go right to the morgue. Morgues usually do not get much daylight. Thus all the kills of a vampire will turn, leading to the frightening overpopulation outlined earlier.

What can we do? Well the cross thing is obviously a myth as pointed out by this earlier comic strip of mine. If crosses killed vampires, they could not exist in our world of right angles everywhere. So the next anti vampire weapon is holy water.

Now the definition of holy water is really fast and loose. Is it the water used by churches for baptisms? If so is any water that’s in a church holy water? What about water in a church’s rain barrels? Is holy water that water that has been blessed by a priest, a pastor, or a reverend? Wouldn’t the holiest of waters be Jesus’ tears? It is said that when you lie you make baby Jesus cry. If only we could harness that system for holy water.

And holy water doesn’t necessarily mean Christianity. What would make water holy in other religions?

Holy water is just a giant maze that I refuse to navigate. The next thing we know about vampires is that they shrink away from garlic. Now, I don’t think this is a self preservation thing. I think that vampires are just extremely cultured and thus hate to eat or smell garlic. I don’t think this will kill them.

So at the end of this list, we are left with using a wooden stake through the heart to kill vampires. Indeed, vampires live so long that I suspect each one has learned all about exponentiation and population growth. So however often they feed, they simply stake the victim, too. So this is birth control for the modern vampire.

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She Wants Those Glasses Off

Posted on 4 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Previously I’ve posted about my black cat, Bast. Pretty well when I first got her, she would chew and bite at my glasses when I picked her up and held her.

Then relatively recently she discovered my night hiding place for my glasses. My glasses are mostly metal with a plastic coating around the arms. The plastic coating extended further than the metal at the ends, helping to curl around my ears and thus kept my glasses on better.

Bast chewed off the end parts of the arms while I slept. In an effort to keep my glasses looking better and so they can’t scratch me, I melted the plastic at the ends with a lighter for smoother ends.

It was only the other day that I figured out what Bast was up to. She bit at my glasses even more than usual while I was sitting in a chair. This time she got a good hold and started to take my glasses off. I stopped her, but now I think that this is what she was after all along. She wants me to take my glasses off.

Perhaps she is embarrassed about the fashion statement I make with her. If you want you can see my glasses in the “about” part of this blog. I’m still wearing the same pair. They are the rounded type of glasses. They are currently out of fashion amongst the fashion many, who like the not very high but wide, almost rectangular lenses. Maybe I’m embarrassing my cat’s fashion sense.

Then too, perhaps Bast has heard the “Larry Potter” comments that some “witty” people have made to me. Perhaps that fashion leaning isn’t all a cat could hope for.

Maybe she just wants the glasses off completely. Now I don’t know what she reads while I am not home but it’s possible she has read the odd Superman comic book. Perhaps she thinks if I took off my glasses, I would be able to fly. Perhaps she needs me to have that super power so she can get me to fly her into high trees where all the tastiest birds sing.

Maybe Bast just wants to be a stylist. We’ve all seen those shows in the mass media where a beautiful person is hidden by glasses and a couple other bad affectations. Bast might want to transform me and thus add the before and after pictures to her portfolio.

It could just be her youth. Bast is only two and might not realize I need these glasses to see properly. Maybe I can convince her that I need them.

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Only 4 Continents

Posted on 1 August 2012 by Larry Russwurm

The lie has been spread for so many years that many believe it is true. That lie is that there are 6, or maybe even 7 continents on Earth.

But anyone with working eyeballs and a simple world map can tell you that there are only 4 continents. Eurasia-Africa is the largest of these continents. Next in line is the Americas. Third is Antarctica and finally the diminutive Australia.

What has led to these lies? Some say it is simple continentalism or nouveau racism. Proof of this might be that the International Olympic Committee is based in Europe(or Eurasia), yet strangely no Olympics in the past or planned for the future have ever been held in Africa.

More surprising is the Western Muslim/ Eastern Muslim schism. But to this very day many Eastern Muslims claim they are Eurasian and are not part of the same continent as Africa.

There is also a schism in the Americas. It blatantly exists between rich North America and poorer South America. Right here in Canada, it has paid off in the past to be in the US sphere of influence, rather than, say, the Brazilian sphere of influence.

There is a surprising twist, here too, as Spanish speaking Mexicans say they are North Americans and thus cut themselves off from South American brethren like say Columbia who also speak Spanish.

This nouveau racism isn’t so new. Over a century ago Africa was physically cut off from Eurasia by the Suez Canal. And similarly the Panama Canal now physically divides North and South America.

Don’t believe the subterfuge being told that these Canals are important for world trade. That is just a convenience being told to downplay continentalism. The primary purpose of those canals is to divide the continents.

Mark my words, in the future there will end up being a huge, huge canal separating Europe and Asia. There will be some trumped up commercial reason for it but really it will be about having 7 continents at long last. If this becomes reality, continentalism will finally win.

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Blood Red Toothpaste

Posted on 29 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

With current levels of vampire mania, I think it’s only a matter of time before some company capitalizes on it all and comes out with a blood red toothpaste. First-on-the-block-Johnny when he gets home from the store will immediately brush his teeth halfway (with it dripping down the corners of his mouth) and then go to the parent who didn’t buy it and say “I bit off bro/sis/friend’s ear and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Of course the bottom will fall out of the fake blood market. And thus absolutely everybody will be doing the fake blood thing. You won’t know if it’s day one of the zombie apocalypse or Saturday.

But the stink of mint will become a buzz kill for the true believers. Eventually there will be more call for blood flavoured, blood smelling, blood coloured toothpaste.

And what had started out as mild amusement for true vampires (where they just nodded and said “easier prey”), will become something of incredible value. With the true look, smell, taste and feel vampires for the very first time can see what its like to not feed.

With their guard down, some vampires can actually afford to fall for their would be victims. True love would come about as prophesied by some of the vampire stories. True love, from killer to prey.

Then to be considered anything of a sex symbol, women would have to show up with their emaciated lovers (they would be wasting away from improper nutrition). Normal males would find they could have any lover at all that they wanted as long as they were willing to become anorexic.

Perhaps the populace would become trimmer and we’d hear less about obesity in the modern era. More likely the range would be from the deathly obese to the deathly thin.

Would all the good vampires eventually waste away so much that they die out? Maybe. So all the remaining vampires would be pure evil. In fact, we may find that this was the plan all along. The truly evil vampires had started the blood red toothpaste for exactly this reason. It was only a natural reaction to the ‘sissifying’ of their reputation that the modern era’s vampire stories had brought about.

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The Green Card Riots

Posted on 25 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Many of the readers of this column are not Canadian so they probably never heard of the Green Card Riots back in ‘Ought 8. Well let this article be sort of an overview of this deep subject matter.

Green cards are of course that valuable creation that Americans give out to their most valuable friends and collaborators. One green card allows a visitor to work in the United States of America doing a variety of jobs in that country for good old American Greenbacks.

Canadians, being so close, realize the importance of such an offering. After all, we too, realize that employment in the US is of course a zero sum game. That is for a Canadian to be employed in the US an American has to be unemployed. This dark side of the green card has been known to raise its ugly head especially around economic downturns.

Thus in ‘Ought 8, the huge financial downturn in the States meant that not only were projects not given over to the lowest bidder but instead to the most American of the bidders. Of course sights were next set on green cards. Thousands of green cards were slashed and made void, many of them to Canadians.

Now I don’t have to tell you what a blow this is to the Canadian psyche. Imagine losing all hope of spending a much warmer winter in balmy Buffalo or warm Minneapolis. Riots began in some of our largest cities, like Yellowknife, Pickle Lake and Waterloo.

In an effort to stem the violence it was suggested that the remaining green cards could get doled out via a fair lottery. The highest echelons of American power got wind of this plan. They not only rejected it but took back all those green cards which were going to be vied for in the lottery.

The riots spread to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. There were calls to invade the States. But eventually the protests quieted down. And it became clear what was really happening. Canada wasn’t hit as badly as the US and the brain drain reversed. Even Conrad Black, Lord of all the pretentious things Canada isn’t, came back.

With all these ‘prize economists’ that returned, Canada now has to begin watching ten times as hard for securities and packaged investment products to be on the up and up. Sorry USA. We hadn’t realized the threat you were under all along from these so called ‘brains’. Maybe they’ll come up with a way that jobs aren’t a zero sum game. But I doubt that. I hear economists enjoy it most when they put fear into the heart of the populace.

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Cal I. Fornia

Posted on 21 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

For the ten millionth time I ‘ve seen an ad for Flo Rida’s latest album. The Flo Rida where the capital F is the state of Florida with two bars attached to finish the F. Normally I would try my best to ignore such a commercial but this time I wondered what other people in other states were going to do to wrap themselves in patriotic regionalism to get a recording contract.

The first state I thought about trying to be similar was California. Similarly, my division, Cal I. Fornia, almost makes sense, has the first syllable of a name and almost sounds sexual. Best of all the state of California lends itself well into making a capital C with the addition of two bars.

As a Canadian and thus always thinking about getting a green card (that card that allows non US nationals to work in the States) I realized my idea might not get me an actual green card but who in the US would throw me out when I wrapped myself so strongly in the American flag, even if it was just a regional flag?

So I’m gonna call myself rapper/singer/songwriter Cal I. Fornia and head south. I can show them my novelty song on Youtube: Time for an Old Fashioned Folk Off.

Here’s how I think it will go down. I will steal jobs willy nilly from promising American acts. “But look how patriotic this guy’s name is!” will be brought up every time there is a question about my American origins. So I will go unencumbered from state to state till finally I end up in the great state of California.

Others in California will be just as patriotic about that state and will want to check out how much competition I offer. Immigration officials will come but won’t kick me out of the states right away. Instead they’ll take their time hemming and hawing.

Until an immigration security officer comes around who has a bone to pick with me because I got a gig that his brother wanted. He will come up to me and say “Baja!”

“Aha?” I will ask. “What do you got.”

“I do have something, but I said Baja. As in California.” From there he will proceed to make a Baja California, Cal I. Fornia logo as pictured below. “You’re just another queue jumping Mexican. I need to see your papers.” The anti patriotic logo will of course be my undoing.

They will mistakenly deport me to crime riddled northern Mexico. Hopefully I will have made enough money to fly back to Canada.

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