Tag Archives: CNN

How To Replace Democracy

Stanko & Tibor - Gapplesoft & Democracy

Dateline: Early December. Wet weather lurks outside my door, while inside, it's getting mighty steamy. I left the shower running and the door open. I am trying to wash off the residue of democracy.

How To Replace Democracy

Does it sound like this post is anti-democratic? Do you think it will spiral into a rant about the failings of our democracy, where your fellow citizens, rich and poor, smart and dumb, well educated and not well educated (note to reader: being educated doesn’t mean you’re smart – look at that interracial-loving, open-minded, all-inclusive Bannon fellow), smelly and perfumed, hairy and non-hairy, are given the freedom and privilege to choose their leaders, no matter how well or poorly they are informed (I’m looking at you Facebook)?

It’s kind of ironic that some of the people who don’t like freedom of speech an despise the press, and are skilled at starting race wars, somehow got elected to powerful positions in the US of A. Especially that tanned, manicured and coiffed hairball, Mr. President Elect. He’d sue you nine ways from Sunday for calling him a short-fingered vulgarian (great blog). And his staff would have you water-boarded, electrocuted and deported just for saying he’s a nut bar. But that is the irony, or better yet, the sick coincidence of democracy.

So, What Are Our Options?

Having just reviewed Ancient Greek social and power structures and the democratic process they applied (I was helping my kid with her homework), it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, but the Greeks kind of had segregated democracy.

If you were a natural citizen, male over the age of 18 and had done your military service, you could vote. Not the women, though. That would have been too progressive for a warrior-based society that was probably hairier and smellier than an Albanian metal worker’s armpit at the end of his shift. There were also other citizens who had to buy their way into voting. And of course there were the slaves and they had no right to vote ever.

Seems like a good idea, but not everyone is happy with it.

So what are the options for replacing democracy?

Pick From 5 Hardships

  • Dictatorship/Fascism – Not as good as the marketing department makes it sound. Sure, the rallies are fun, but there are silly uniforms, secret police and usually some form of ostracization by the world community, which makes it hard to get Tom Jones to come to your country to sing at your leader’s wedding.
  • Communism – Usually results in bad haircuts, crappy clothing options, terrible shopping hours, and you’re made fun of by the rest of the global community, including the Chinese, for drab clothing.
  • Anarchy – Seems appealing at first, especially where inflexible work hours are concerned, but it makes getting an Uber really difficult because the driver is probably going to robbed or crashed into by some post-apocalyptic vehicle driven by a person with (see a trend here) a bad haircut. And good luck try booking an appointment to get a driver’s licence.
  • Monarchy/Oligarchy – See “Dictatorship”, subtract the global ostracization and add high fashion, probably some inbreeding and a lot of castles and oodles of snobbery based solely on being part of the “lucky sperm club.” Usually good for some tourism if it’s a monarchy (see England), and great for commercial thuggery if it’s an oligarchy (see Eastern Europe).
  • Domination by aliens – If they don’t do anal probes, enslave us or eat us for breakfast, this may be the most acceptable alternative to democracy. Would certainly spare us having to deal with the humans who call at all hours from call centers asking us if we’d like to pay more for cable and phone service.

So as we can see, all of the above suck just as badly as democracy, except with the current form of democracy in practice in some parts of the globe, chances are you can buy your way into power more easily, and your vote might count if it’s limited to your house.

With that in mind, I will expound at length in my next post about how and why warm sheep’s cheese is superior to most elected and appointed officials, and way better than a kick in the private parts with a steel boot.

Philosophically spent, and morally bent,

Aristotle “The Arachnid” Druker

How should we govern ourselves?(required)

Panic In the State of Travel

Stanko & Tibor - The Fake Diaries

Travel Panic

My Dearest Readers,

Many of you thought I was dead or buried or lost in the woods again. Some of you even had a party to celebrate the fact you hadn’t been bombarded by a comic/blog in months. The tears of joy were flowing like beer at a keg party. Well, it’s time time to disappoint you and at the same time spin a yarn of truth from my past travels. You can read it here or read the comic first, shake your head in disgust and then read the blog. Pick your poison.

As I was exiting the metro the other morning, I had a near death experience that involved another human being. OK, “near death” might be too strong, but there would have been a head wound, or massive contusions had I not ceded to the greater force, bi-pedally barreling toward me. Like most people, I wanted to beat the rush up the escalator so I could walk relatively unimpeded toward my place of work another 10 minutes away. You know what I mean, you are going somewhere, fighting the current of humanity rafting along at different speeds, each to his or her own, and sometimes, there is a counter-swimmer coming at you, unswerving, unflinching, filled with primordial purpose and not letting anything or anyone get in her way.

Yes, I said ‘her’ because it was a person of the female persuasion who nearly steamrolled me as I exited the metro car. Her height matched mine, her girth I would estimate was slightly greater by a percentage of 10-15%, despite wearing slimming black clothing. So much for that fashion theory. Regardless, gender isn’t important to the story, but it does give me some time and material to work with as I fumble for the next sentence.

Out-thought

You know there are those computers like Deep Blue from IBM that can out-think humans, as if our mushy brains were mere amoebae? Well, in this particular instance, I can tell you Deep Blue would have lost to me on this do-or-die calculation. It took less time than an electron traveling at the speed of light for my addled brain to recognize, calculate, panic, interpret and react to a ‘what if’ situation that, had I misread, would have left me bloodied and in a wheel chair with severed tendons, and no doubt with months worth of psychological scarring requiring some kind of therapy (either drug, shock or both) to cure.

Traveling Electrons Or Packets of Data Stupidity

Just before leaving the metro car, I thought for a brief second that we desk drones are not unlike a stream of data packets or random electrons being magnetically sucked along by the great universal nuclear forces of nature — namely, work, debts and the need to get laid, promoted or not fired so we can afford to eat Pop Tarts and buy useless electronics that discourage copulatory activities in the bedroom. We course along from place to place, occasionally bumping into other electrons, usually with a purse or a backpack and questionable hygiene. Like packets of data following an Internet Protocol through some giant metaphoric coaxial cable controlled by a soulless cable company gouging us monthly, we live only to reassemble at another end place, as biological data, semi-ready to spew out baseless facts, questionable opinions, faux expertise and highly unworkable ideas. Kind of like CNN since Ali Velshi left.

When that moment of deep thought passed like methane from my behind and the doors slid open and I leapt out of the metro, I was confronted at that very next moment by a woman, large of breasts, dark of dress and quite cross-eyed, wearing a tight bun hairdo that only emphasized her pale-skinned face thusly emphasizing her dark pupils peering at the bridge of her nose as she focused intently, crazed, maniacally on getting into that metro car I had just got out of so she could make it presumably to her place of work, or more hopefully to the eye surgery clinic.

Calculations, Calculations, Calculations

In that fraction of a second it took to realize at a primordial level, a level that is probably beneath that of the synapse and maybe even molecular, I was facing down a force with bouncing, prodigious breasts that needed a higher cut top or a tighter bra, and laser-focused eyes (one of them being particularly askew) with beady, robot-like middles. Somewhere a calculation took place in my cerebral cortex, and maybe a partially shrunken frontal lobe, involving force, velocity, height, weight, violent determination, body mass index and body hair.

The interpolation and extrapolation of these variables resulted in a part-cerebral, part gut-level decision. You see when two utterly opposing forces confront each other, with one of those forces barreling ahead like a runaway locomotive and the other convinced he’s justified in cutting off the dude to his right in that hipster suit with those massive headphones on, something elemental happens.

What that was I’m not sure, but a recessive gene kicked in that made me deft like Baryshnikov for but a moment, able to avoid potential disaster, and I twisted my body and slid aside at a 63º angle to the left purely out fear and knowing I would get tackled, crushed and trampled by someone whose sole intent was to make it to that metro car before the doors closed.

Nature’s survival mechanism worked flawlessly that day. There was no male hubris (I lost it in a poker game when I was 16. I bet the house when I had a pair of twos, a 3, a 7 and that card from the manufacturer with the rules of poker on it) to cloud my vision, and thusly butt heads (or in this case, breasts) with a dominant life form where the outcome was certain. Discretion wasn’t so much the better part of valor, rather it was the only way I could make it work relatively unscathed.
Lovingly,
Sir Monty Halfwit of Bumspankashire