A Celebrated Douche

Posted on 17 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Celebrated douche, John Edwards, made an appearance on the Dr. Oz show. He appeared in all his douchey glory and even cautioned that visiting a medium such as himself should be a lower priority than getting counselling for grief. How magnanimous of his doucheyness. Perhaps this concession made John Edwards palatable to Dr. Oz.

The tipping point for Dr. Oz allowing Edwards on the show, I think, was given in the stat he threw out. 74% of people believe in life after death. Perhaps that got Oz to thinking he could gain more market share in the daytime doctor game by appealing to the majority. I personally doubt that 74% of people believe in the lies John Edwards spreads. I doubt it’s even over 50%. His douchery has been exposed quite well on South Park.

If you’ve never seen John Edwards‘ act, here’s a clip of him on YouTube. As you will notice, the things he says he’s “hearing” aren’t that common. But when you do this act in front of 100 people, someone’s going to know a deceased loved one that his guesses fit. Notice he gets a no for half of his guesses. The idea is to leave on a yes. “I’m getting an “R”. Statistically he should get 4 yeses and maybe even more if you consider each audience member probably knows more than one deceased person. You can probably reason out the rest of the tricks performed by his doucheyness.

So if you want to catch a doctor show, might I suggest The Doctors. Dr. Oz isn’t just considering providing a stage for total flakiness, he’s outright embracing it. The pressure of competing against not just one, but four doctors has finally gotten to him.

So let’s hope that his royal doucheness, John Edwards doesn’t influence Dr. Oz unduly. Or else we’ll have two douches with a platform. Here’s hoping Oz remains just skeptical enough to keep doucheness out of his higher thought processes. And if anyone out there is still regarding John Edwards in a positive light, might I recommend seeing the South Park episode concerning this.

Update: I am really talking about John Edward. Note to self, when the first name is as common as John, be extra careful on the last name. I hope the profession of medium clued in most people.

Posted in Pseudo Science, Wee Bit O' Humour | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Bubble Wrap Addiction

Posted on 15 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

You know you’ve felt that hold once in your lifetime. Popping the bubbles in bubble wrap brought it on. Now perhaps your sheet was too small to turn into a full blown addiction. This is not so with everyone.

Some say it was a Harper Collins type company with planned obsolescence that originally brought about the addictiveness in bubble wrap. Perhaps it is the gas released from popping a bubble that is the truly addictive thing. I can see the company meeting where they realized that the bubble wrap they sold could be used over and over again until there was a shipping mistake.

Not liking those odds, top executives could have suggested that if only bubble wrap popping was addictive then they would have no such problem.

Perhaps there is a coating on bubble wrap that when squeezed becomes addictive.

Some have even suggested popping the bubbles alone is addictive. But where is the company culpability in that? Imagine a company happily going about its merry way and accidentally managing to produce one of the most addictive substances known to mankind. This site does not buy such “coincidences”.

Regardless, there is obviously a problem. Haven’t you noticed that panhandlers near to post office outlets keep multiplying? And these very outlets sell bubble wrap. And if you were to observe the transactions in store, you would find that some people buy the wrap and don’t wrap anything. They just take the bubble wrap and leave. To perform their sick, horrifying habit in privacy.

I wish to warn concerned parents in advance to be careful of any bubble wrap they may receive through the mail. Or else they may hear a disturbing, “Pop. Pop. Pop.” This could be the only cry you hear from a loved one in trouble.

It’s hard to gauge what is a safe amount of bubble wrap as some get addicted with the very first pop. With more hardy souls, it might take a giant roll. This condition is hard to treat and subject to relapse. The easiest way to control it is to never start in the first place.

Some of you are thinking that it is legal and thus not a big deal. For shame. Already the District of Keewatin in Canada has made bubble wrap illegal and there are efforts starting in some of the provinces of Canada.

Much myth surrounds bubble wrap popping, but it remains an addictive behaviour. Do not fall prey to this addiction. I wish good mental health to all of you out there.

Posted in Business, Humour, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ethnic Diminishing

Posted on 12 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I apologize for using the phrase “ethnic cleansing” in my last post. Thinking about it now, I object to that phrase which makes it seem like something positive is being achieved. Cleansing is usually a positive word (unless you are obsessive/compulsive about cleaning). This does not fit with the definition of ethnic cleansing, that is getting rid of an ethnic group in a particular area be it by genocide or expulsion.

This phrase was used over and over again in the newspapers to explain what was happening in Bosnia in the 1990’s. The phrase was the norm.

That’s the decade where I picked up the offending phrase. Because of all the resentment about political correctness at the time, I assumed that everything the official media used had been vetted by some sensitive people. That obviously was not the case. In fact, let me now push for more political correctness.

The phrase I used for the title, ethnic diminishing, is to my ear more neutral than ethnic cleansing. Similarly ethnicity lessening could also be used.

But still, I think that what was done in the nineties in Bosnia needs to have a more negative ring. How about ‘ethnicity crimes’? But this doesn’t fully make the perpetrators own up to their deeds. How about ‘full spectrum of ethnic crimes’?

In Bosnia they used genocide and the threat of genocide to make people leave. They also raped and assaulted you if you happened to be of the wrong ethnicity. And of course, when you left you couldn’t take everything with you so theft and other property crimes resulted. I stand by the ‘full spectrum of ethnic crimes’ tag.

Or how about the tag ‘total loss of humanity’ to refer to the Bosnian crisis of the nineties? That’s more like what really happened.

Hopefully I’ve managed to tip the description naming rights away from the perpetrators and more toward the victims. And that is how it should be.

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The Scourge of the Nineties

Posted on 10 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Some say the scourge of the nineties was Kim Jong Il or maybe ethnic cleansing, either Rwandan or Bosnian. I have a different thing to nominate and this will hit home to anyone who lived in the developed world in the nineties. Especially in city limits.

For my scourge, let’s look inside a small church somewhere in the developed world. It’s probably a Saturday because at the front of the church is a pastor with what can only be a bride and groom and a wedding party.

Everyone in the church is resplendent in fine clothes, clothes which may even be too good for Sunday wear. The pastor goes “I now pronounce you…”

This is followed by a loud “WEE OOH, WEE OOH!” that although it is coming from outside the church, drowns out anything inside.

The bride and groom try to stumble through the rest of the ceremony despite the continuous “WEE OOH, WEE OOH!” that drowns everything out. Guessing the pastor is done the groom pushes his head forward an inch before he realizes the bride is staring at the pastor. Unable to stop completely the groom’s nose touches the brides cheek.

The unexpected touch makes the bride pull back and turn to her man. She mouths an “Oh,” then finally the kiss comes. But it is not as pretty as prepared. The “WEE OOH, WEE OOH,” continues.

As the couple pull away from the kiss, a tear mars the bride’s face. A flash of realization is seen on the bride and she turns to the camera which is filming on VHS. Everyone can see her mouth ‘the video!’. She slumps and the groom and others of the wedding party make sure they catch her and take her to a bench.

The “WEE OOH, WEE OOH,” goes on for many more minutes. Finally the car alarm is silenced. If the alarm belongs to anyone at the wedding they do not show it.

The bride gets up and shouts “My whole wedding… ruined!” This time she does slump to the floor.

“$20 000!” Yells the groom who also faints.

Now some of you may say that this all sounds so contrived, the nineties didn’t happen like that. I say that car alarms were that bad.

Just imagine watching a favourite show on TV, perhaps a mystery. What do you do if, at the reveal, a car alarm goes off and you miss it. This was serious. TV seasons weren’t available on DVD back then. You’d find the odd show, packaged with one or two more episodes for the price of a new movie. So they sold horribly and were hardly available. Odds are you couldn’t find the reveal you missed anywhere.

Early in the nineties people would pass a car and if the car alarm turned on were worried they’d be attacked by the owner. But as that decade progressed it became common knowledge that the lightest breeze or even less, could set off these alarms. Guilt eventually passed on to the owners.

Seinfeld, that icon of the nineties, even commented on this. Jerry said the car alarm sounded like a crazy person in full blown distress. He preferred a car that would be more subtle and say something like a throat clearing “Ahem.”

This nineties answer never caught on. Even a couple of ahems followed by the full alarm if signals kept coming, wasn’t tried.

The real answer seemed to come sometime in the oughts. Apparently most alarms could be made to work fine, it’s just that people had been installing them incorrectly. That’s right, there are as many alarms in cars as in the nineties it’s just that they are now (mostly) working properly.

So if you are a youngin who has made it this far through this post, now you have something to say if you hear us older people talk about the good old nineties. Now you can say “Isn’t that the decade where people didn’t know how to install car alarms?”

All we’ll be able to say is “Yes. Yes it was.”

Posted in Geography, History, Humour, Science, Stage and Screen | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Crippling Ourselves

Posted on 8 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

There are anti bullying shows sometimes on television or in other media. Dr. Phil, for instance has made a couple of schools sign a pledge to intervene if someone is being bullied. The net outcome might be in a positive direction, but I don’t think bullying will end so easily.

Which is too bad, really because some of those who die might directly be the next great artist or scientist. Some might think the living bullied might become stronger because of the old saw ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’. I take offense at this statement because it is patently untrue. Some of the bullied might have been a great architect or engineer and end up craving obscurity and become a dishwasher in a restaurant.

I think that we are years behind in the arts and sciences and fine arts because we have let some bullying go.

It might be most obvious in technology where civilization could have taken us already. Space elevators might already exist to get us out of Earth’s gravity well. And if we were in a hurry, private rockets would take us into space that much faster.

Anti gravity belts might make us lighter than a bird so flapping our arms (in the correct way) would allow us to fly. Maybe this wouldn’t be as Utopian as we think, now having three dimensions to avoid having an accident in.

Invisibility articles already litter some of the science literature. By now maybe we’d have perfect invisibility for one and all. There might be downsides to this as well. Most magic tricks could be done with someone in an invisibility suit so this art (science?) might go down the crapper. Plus we would have many more ways to have accidents with a large percentage of the public invisible. True anonymity might be nice.

Obviously I know there will be downsides with almost every breakthrough technology. I still think the advantages will outweigh the downsides. Even if they cancel each other out, future technology will make the world more interesting.

So fast forward the future by taking a bite out of bullying (or the bullies!). And if the sciences change everything, imagine what the new marvels in the arts and the fine arts will be.

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Of Wolves and Coyotes

Posted on 5 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The coyote problem has been in the news in my area (southern Ontario) for awhile. The news outlets have said coyotes are nuisances that kill farm animals and might even one day kill a child.

It didn’t used to be this way. My area, much as the rest of North America, was originally inhabited by wolves. The wolves kept the coyotes out of much of North America excepting the deserts.

But European expansion into North America brought with it a hatred of wolves. Dirty tricks were used such as killing bison and lacing the dead body with poison to get the wolves. So all the densely human settled areas got rid of wolves.

Wolves generally do not attack humans. They might attack dogs or livestock but only a rabid wolf will attack a human. There has been grumbling that Eurasian wolves will attack humans but I don’t think it has been ruled out that these wolves are dog/wolf hybrids.

The theory about why dog/wolf hybrids can be dangerous is simple. Dogs are not afraid of humans but are tame. Wolves are afraid of humans but wild. When a dog/wolf mating has offspring, they might not be afraid of humans and be wild. So these offspring can be dangerous.

So we managed to get rid of wolves, an animal that avoids human contact and certainly does not stalk us. Instead we now have coyotes which will attack children.

A quick peek over at Wikipedia reveals that there have been non rabid attacks by coyotes on children, one resulting in death. And the fear of more child attacks has raised the cry, ‘Destroy the coyote.’

But if we decimate coyotes, what will take their place, and will it be more dangerous?

Perhaps Sasquatches will move into a new niche if the coyotes disappear. And I think that this will be mega dangerous. Why? Because Sasquatches are smarter than humans.

Obviously Sasquatches have managed to hide from us ubiquitous humans for thousands of years. The only explanation is that they are smarter than us and cover their traces.

Will humanity be able to survive the onslaught from the much smarter Sasquatch? I doubt it. Perhaps they’ll leave a small breeding population of humans in the deserts of the world, much as the wolves used to leave the coyotes a place a to live.

Posted in History, Politics, Pseudo Science, Science, Wee Bit O' Humour | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Nuke the Rain Forest

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Is there a dangerous cure for global warming? The following article says there might be: A Small Nuclear War Would Stall Global Warming. They specifically say that 100 Hiroshima sized bombs would result in fires where mega tons of carbon would reach the upper troposphere. From there, it would heat up and rise to heights where it wouldn’t easily come down. In the shade of this carbon barrier, the Earth would cool.

The astute of you are wondering, now, if setting off a hundred nuclear bombs could do this without killing anyone. Since the first atomic bomb, 2000 nuclear bombs have been tested. And guess what? Global warming still happened.

I’m guessing that the majority of tests took place in deserts where little fire would result. But still, to get fires from nukes, wouldn’t it be possible to set off 100 nukes in forests to get the same results without killing anyone? Could nuking the rain forest help in controlling global warming?

But cities and forests are not the same thing at all. Perhaps nuking all those cities is necessary to stall global warming. I see one resource that uninhabited forests wouldn’t have: human virgins.

You see, according to demographics, cities should have many people young enough to be virgins. And wouldn’t it only be proper that a mega virgin sacrifice offered to the gods of climate would appease – er- stall global warming. We’ve come a long way.

Of course if we overdo it by a few bombs, the gods of radiation and habitability might kill the Earth. That’s the chance you take in this mega virgin sacrifice. There must be enough virgin sacrifices to appease, not enough to anger.

Posted in History, Humour, Politics, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cousin Opie

Posted on 27 February 2011 by Larry Russwurm

A few years ago I did some cartoons for the Barn Dance Opera Journal.

The CKNX Barn Dance was a radio show aired every week from the Wingham station in southwestern Ontario. The actual show travelled from town to town, really arena to arena (which Country Music people meant when they said barn). It started in the mid 20th century and continues in stripped down form today – it’s no longer aired and it occurs less frequently than weekly. For more visit thebarndance.ca .

The show created some notable Country entertainers including Earl Heywood, Al Cherny and Larry Mercey ( of Mercey Brothers fame).

Just a few years ago, Cousin Opie would perform a comic routine at some of the shows. Really Lloyd Otterbein dressed outrageously hillbilly, it was thought that a comic strip featuring this character could be put into the Barn Dance Opera Journal. That’s where I came in.

Here are 5 of the comics I drew and wrote. The comic strip halted as I started to dry up in ideas from the Cousin Opie perspective. Remember he’s not my creation. Still we had some laughs and below are some of them.

Update: With the resolution it can be hard to read the cartoons. Click on each image to enlarge.

 

Posted in Art, Cartoon, History, Music, Wee Bit O' Humour | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Would Happen if the Tea Party Becomes a Real Political Party

Posted on 23 February 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I know there seems to be more animosity between the Tea Partiers and the leftish Republicans. It’s only a matter of time before Tea Partiers join with the Democrats to outvote the normal Republicans. So it would seem inevitable that Tea Partiers will form a new party.

Firstly the new Tea Party wouldn’t just draw voters from the Republican Party. Some voters might go “Ooh, shiny and new,” and come over from the fold of the Democrats. But that’s great, right wingers would say, more conservative voters.

But what they wouldn’t expect is the Canadian experience. Canada has 3 main parties (and the Bloc which only operates in Quebec and doesn’t necessarily support right or left objectives). Of the three main parties, 2 are leftish and one is right wing. Combined the 2 leftish parties get more votes than the right wing. But the right wing gets more total votes than any of the other two parties. So in our three party system, the right wing gets to form the government.

I predict the same thing will happen in the United States if the Tea Party becomes the third party. Only in the case of the U.S., the two right wing parties will lose to the left wing Democrats in the first past the post system.

So what will this lead to? I’ve gotten out my crystal ball to look far into the future. I see the left winning election after election in the United States. In about 100 years, the left will have almost run out of other left wing things to try and will resort to anarchy, the abolition of all government.

Meanwhile in Canada, the right wing will have won election after election and will have almost run out of things to try. So fascism will triumph. With a strong fascist army, Canada will invade the defenceless U.S.

But in order to retain its hold on the U.S., Canada will have to hold free elections. With three right wing parties and three left wing parties and the Bloc the vote could go either way. So past this political singularity, I cannot see any further into the future. Oh to be there in 2111, those will be heady times.

Or maybe Canada and the U.S. will abandon their first past the post political systems. Still that seems less likely than the 2111 political singularity. Imagine, bowing to the will of the people…

Posted in Humour, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

It’s True That Men Can’t Give Birth

Posted on 19 February 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It is true that men can’t give birth. It’s been the topic of whiny self examination before and I expect it to rear it’s head in the future, too. Women tell us we just can’t understand. We men nod our heads, obediently hiding our true thoughts.

Those true thoughts are of large, dense fecal forms which we sometimes pass when we are on the throne. Women have naysayed such a comparison, explaining that they have passed those same fecal forms and it is nothing like giving birth.

Do women truly know what they speak of? It could just be a play to make us have more sympathy for women.

Some of the men agreeing with me have gone through Lamaze classes and coached, supported and been beside their wives through the whole birth process.

And when these men were passing that rare massive turd, I have reason to believe they were thinking about those Lamaze classes. How to breath and other pain lessening approaches aided them in their own time of need.

Even though defecating is considered the ultimate private activity, I think great need creates great exception. Those husbands wouldn’t mind having their wives by their side, coaching and supporting them just as they coached their wives through child birth. .

And finally, after safe passage has occurred, do not all men turn around and look at their creation? Society (and cleanliness) prevents us from admiring and, say, measuring our creations.

It is with a heavy heart that we reach for the flush lever. All the while thinking of that old joke: “What’s the difference between the leader and a toilet full of $#!+”? The answer of course is, “the toilet”.

Our creation had so much potential, we men think as we flush the toilet. Finally all traces of our creation are gone. Except for maybe a lingering smell. The only thing allowing us men to get on with our day is knowing that tomorrow we will make another creation.

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