Tag Archives: money

Big Oil Tells the Truth

Big Oil Tells the Truth


What is truth? Is it merely a concept? Does such a thing exist? It is true to state, for example, that pretty much every month the government commits a form of financial rape on me and my pay check and shows no sign of letting up with this abuse while I pile up debts to rival a small African country.

But truth is a slippery and illusive thing, something that changes with the seasons, the reasons, the tides and the wind. It changes to meet our needs, especially when confronted with the fact we have just been caught naked and being intimate with another who isn’t legally bound to said person through ceremony, or via contract, or even via a bug hunk of see-through, hardened carbon that you paid WAY too much for and thereby enabled the jeweler to finish the deck behind his house all paid for in cash.

And truth, or the notion of it, comes in many seductive forms.

We know that the concept of “truth in advertising” is akin to saying “you’ll only feel a slight discomfort” when the doctor does a rectal exam with his caveman fingers. Advertising by its very definition (“adjectival noun, referring to the art and skill of separating consumers of low to moderate intelligence from their hard-earned money by convincing them with fancy words and images to purchase something they really don’t need at all as it is utterly essential to their very survival, nay, to their very sense of self, and was likely manufactured by Chinese slave/prison labor so someone else could make his quarterly numbers to maintain his bonus, thus maintaining his drug habit”) a concept that does not lend itself to truth.

Which brings us to the comic that really is the only harbinger of cosmic truth, if you don’t count those religious nuts at the airport or sporting events.

So rarely is truth told by anyone because if we did there would be less war, fewer conflicts, fewer self-help books and lots pf people with low self-esteem crying and on big meds. Thousands of marketing and spin doctors would be out of work or homeless.  If we were told the truth all the time, we’d lose that comfortable feeling of being lied to, which is like mental comfort food for many of us. We need the greed-based lies of the oil companies in particular, because it gives my father a reason to utter the term “whore masters” while at the dinner table or the wheel of his car or in social situations.

But for the rest of us, all I can say is, it’s true, we need oil because we won’t give up driving, because it’s needed to make plastics, packaging, junk food, some inferior forms of chocolate and cake.

Hostage 2 Big Oil

Hostage to Big Oil

It’s with a heavy heart and crusty eyes due to a lack of sleep and some kind of pollutant in the air that I say to all and sundry, we have to get rid of big oil. And replace it with lots of little small oils, so I can choose between any number of gasoline-producing and refining joints that will actually compete on price and and not bend each and every one of us over harder than a forced colonoscopy administered by a brusque colo-rectal surgeon.

Which is what filling up at the gas station is nowadays.

But there are those of you who says this will spur innovation and invention to rid us of the fossil fuels that pollute our lungs, our air, our rivers and countless other things I am too tired to think about without a good night’s sleep. And I say to you, stop smoking that bad weed, you hippie. Let’s face it, petroleum products, be they gasoline, jet fuel or fast food from McDonald’s disguised as a hash brown is necessary for our way of life. If we didn’t depend on it, what would the US foreign policy be apart from “attack Canada, those socialist bastards!” How many military industrial complex jobs would be threatened if they didn’t kick off wars on countries for the black gold where the US army doesn’t really like the local cuisine? The US economy would grind to a halt.

No, being a hostage to oil is like being a hostage to chocolate or beer or greasy burgers or freshly baked danishes with some kind of cinnamon sugary goo that could have only been invented in a lab with an evil scientist and massive R&D budget. It’s something we like being held hostage to, it gives us a reason to complain to moan and to bleat, so we can distract ourselves from the real problems facing all great nations, all great civilization since the dawn of time – namely, why are there never enough cashiers at the checkout counter when I want to just buy a damn carton of OJ, and some high fat yogurt when the idiot in front of me is arguing  over a 2-day old zucchini that isn’t scanning through at 99¢?!!

Religion – More Of It

Religion

If you’re still following this delicately and artfully illustrated chronic of the human condition as depicted by gargoyles with stunted growth, then you have way too much time on your hands because you’re in prison or an insane asylum. And that is a great segue to this installment of the comic that does not take prisoners.

Because there is mention of Robert Mugabe and Hitler and both of those men should have been imprisoned and tortured. But I am not sure how the Gandhi reference got in there as he was on the other extreme of the spectrum, especially where fashion was concerned.

Why is it that the most fervent and fundamental followers of any religion have to wear a special garb or have a freaky hair-do? I mean, think about it. There is always some kind of furry adornment, like a hairy, furry streiml or some kind of lengthy beard like Osama or Khomeni had that looked like an insane religious barber had tended them. I won’t start on the Pope’s dress, sorry, cassock. Come on, you can’t tell me Jean-Paul Gauthier or Coco Channel didn’t have a hand in decorating that thing? And those Buddhists monks are just a layer of fabric away from walking the catwalk New York this fall.

But I digress.

It seems that the myth of religion is as critical as the traditions built in to it. And that you can’t have a good religion — you know one that spreads around and probably leads to a war and a conversion or two, not to mention some crazy garb worn by its most ardent practitioners  — without a heck of a good back story, some fine threads, and some weird hair action.

And Francylvanian Reform does that for those of you tired of the run-of-the-mill religions that preach peace and violence in the same breath. This one has wombats, inner peace and I think a lot of meat and soup. Probably not vegan friendly, but vegans are just as ardent a religious group as any organized set of preachers and followers, just with way worse food and far too many clothes made of hemp. Have you seen these people? It’s way more than a lifestyle choice.

So choose what religion you will, whatever makes you happy. And if you’re an atheist, keep sneering, keep eating, and watch stuff on YouTube til your eyes go buggy.