economy – Page 5 – Hopeful Romantics

The Civil Rights Lesson from a Randy Chinese Swinger

When you think of China, you don’t think of it as a particularly sexy place. Probably the Chinese don’t even think of China as a particularly sexy place as they tend to take their lead in sexual conduct from the West. Nevertheless, with nearly 1.5 billion people, China is the most populated country in the world. All those babies have to be coming from somewhere.

In truth, the citizens of China have practiced pre-marital sex for quite sometime now. They may not have the long legacy of erotica found in the West, initiated since time began and fortified by the art and literature,and ruminations of the Victorian Era, leading up through the pornographic “French Decks” of playing cards to the grand institution or erotica we extol today. The Chinese may not even share the Japanese legacy, the artful and colorful paintings of lovers in bold colored silk robes contorted in every imaginable position, most of which having their visage in defiance of logical perspective.

Beauty shops and massage parlors permeate most Chinese cities, with each being the code word for a brothel. While technically against the law, Chinese authorities tend to look the other way when it comes to the long stand presence of “beauty parlors,” kind of like what California does with its medical marijuana shops. And like the medical marijuana shops, unless there is political pressure from a self-righteous group of do gooders with too much time on their hands, or the owner of the “beauty parlor” manages to upset someone in the bureaucracy, business goes on with little fanfare.

There is a preponderance of “adult health stores”. These health stores are not to be confused with American health food stores where you can buy your granola in bulk. Chinese Adult Health store is the given name for purveyors of every imaginable type of adult sex toy. To say these stores are easy to find, is to equate their proximity with the nail salons of American. If there isn’t one on every corner, then the sex toy shops are ubiquitous enough to assure no one will be waiting in line. As for pornography on the Chinese Internet system, that is also forbidden. But needless to say, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and with necessity being the not only the mother of invention but a matter of getting off, the Chinese can acquire software that can circumvent the government blocks.

As with most countries on an economic upswing, social regulatory efforts, if not necessarily the actual letter of the law, tend to liberalize in practice as well as theory. When people are starving and struggling to survive, they have little time for sexual diddling. Or if they do have time, it is because it is there only diversion from a dreary life, and those impromptu episodes usually result in the begetting or more children, which puts even more pressure on the family and its struggles, and makes for far less time in the exotic pursuits. A win-lose situation, for sure. But when the good times are rolling, leisure and vice become a heady pursuit.

So what’s the big deal over the Chinese college professor, Ma Yahohai, who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for having the temerity to engage in sex orgies and practice sexual partner swapping.? Ma and his girlfriend were members of a group of 22 persons that had some 35 swinger sessions over a two year period. Frisky devils. Ma participated in about half of these sessions. Most of these sessions took place in Ma’s two bedroom apartment. Ma shared the apartment with his girlfriend and mother. What the adventuresome couple did with Momma during these libidinous occasions is anyone’s guess. Maybe she took video. Or like a good caring mother, washed off the sex toys to eliminate disease. One can only imagine.

But the fact is that out of the twenty two arrested and charged with Criminal Law 301, Sexual Law 301, Crowd Licentiousness, eighteen of these randy souls were sentenced to prison. While the defiant Ma was sentenced to his three and a half years, others were sentenced up to two and a half years. No slap on the wrist, and no mention whatsoever about community service or making an anti-sex film. The Chinese prison system has never been known much for luxury living. So a couple of years in jail can give you a lot of time to ponder wistfully the sex orgies you will be missing. As for the three defendants who got off without a jail sentence, I have no idea how they got so lucky. Maybe they were only there to watch or serve hor dourves.

It could be worse for Ma and his swinging associates I suppose. Back in the good old days of Chairman Mao and his successors, various types of sexual congress, including group sex, could be construed as “hooliganism.” “Hooliganism” was catch all charge for crimes that made you realize you were in big trouble. Big trouble meant a lengthy jail sentence at a slave labor facility not of your choice. You were looking at possible execution. So by those draconian standards, I suppose, a couple years in jail is a slap on the wrist.

Today, yohimbe extract is a common ingredient added for the preparation of weight Check Out Your website viagra tablets in india loss products. However, scientists and speviagra in india ts have been unable to find an appropriate treatment for ED. In such difficult situations, people generally opt to use alcohol that keeps you away from the sexual issues. purchase levitra online wouroud.com Therefore, a high creatinine level in the blood can be an overseas multi-level promoting firm acquiring areas in cheapest price for levitra addition to offers weight loss, eating routine, in addition to natural skin care items internationally. According to reports, there are 100, 000 alleged swingers in China out of the 1.3 billion population. In terms of Chinese population this is but a measly few. The measly few engage in group sex and brag about it by posting on the Internet. Many more beyond the 100,000 read it as it provides if nothing else some vicarious thrills in a country that has yet to develop the 900 sex number. But still, we are talking a small group of enthusiasts. Not particularly threatening. I would consider the group grope of twenty odd people in a two bedroom apartment more of a threat to the integrity of the carpet than to the burgeoning Chinese economy.

Other groups are considered far more threatening. There are all sorts of radicals and terrorists groups who actually blow up things and don’t just brag about some sexual exploits on the Internet. There are people trafficking in illegal everything, from counterfeit prescription drugs to counterfeit invoices. There are myriad labor strikes and worker unrest, including violent demonstrations. The citizens of the more rural provinces are restless and prtoesting the state appropriation of their lands. This has resulted in massive riots. In one riot recently, hundreds were killed in Sichuan Province.

There is airline corruption and all sorts of financial swindling. Chinese law enforcement has been very busy as the nation pays the price of progress. Even the questionable menace of the Chinese Uighur population would present more of a problem than a couple bunches of swingers. There are many millions of Chinese Uighurs, a Muslim group that is viewed by the Chinese Government as a radical faction and periodically subjects them to surveillance and harassment. In Xinjiang Province alone, nearly half the population of 23 million are Chinese Uighurs. I would venture very few Chinese Uighurs are swingers, but that is another story. The fact is the swingers of China make up but a small but determined faction that you could probably fit into the Beijing Subway. A chance at getting off at every station.

To be sure, I am not promoting swinging. I am not promoting it in China or anywhere else. In fact, mere photos of the swinging Internet set threatens to drive me to the monastery for contemplations of semi-theistic metaphysics and far less carnal pursuits. Watching the few happy partner swapping examples on the Jerry Springer Show made me seriously consider celibacy for the next millennium,. Fortunately, reason took control of my senses. I only took a shower, instead. Here in America, swingers can live large and lounge about in communal congress inside the often tacky but spacious environs of a split-level sub-tract with enough garage and driveway space for all those Toyota Camrys. Meanwhile their kindred Chinese swingers must dangle their dongs in a measly two bedroom apartment. Here you get to be on Jerry Springer or at least have your fat, naked ass plastered all over the Internet. But in China you get a couple, few years in jail.

To loosely paraphrase Voltaire, I may not like swinging and partner swapping, but will defend to the death your right to engage in it, no matter how nauseating it may appear. Alright, maybe I won’t defend it to the death, as I have better things to do than defend the randy rambling of a bunch of refugees from Wal-Mart looking for distraction in a down economy. But at the very least, I will give it lip service, even when I grimace and fumble with the shower faucets. Why?

Because everybody should have the right to get laid. It is a right, after all, and not a privilege. Okay, so maybe sometimes it is less of a right and more of a privilege, a treat even, a pathetically rare one, depending on the disposition and predilections of your spouse or lover. I realize that sometimes your significant other does not find either you or your entreaties as significant or otherwise as you might either hope for or come to expect. So I guess like other debates over rights and privleges, there is at least a little wiggling room. But once you do work it out with your lover or significant other you have the freedom to fire away, anytime, day or night. Even if twenty two people are involved.

But as in China, there are some here and in parts of the world who don’t really see it that way. They allude to some intelligent design and a divine plan where you must only do it with restrictions. They ascribe the damning words immoral and degenerate to a variety of sex practices that were apparently never detailed in the master plan. Otherwise, I suppose, the master plan would have been just plain old porn and not some divine edict from the heavens explaining explicitly where Daddy and Mommy or Daddy and Daddy or Mommy and Mommy may put their thingies and Woo Woo’s. In some cases they want to rearrange your thinking; they want to straighten you out.

Oppression always begins somewhere. Usually in the stupid places, the places that make us wince. But then they graduate to places where we are concerned where transgressions are made against our privacy and thought process. We suddenly find our rights intruded upon and threatened by a group of ideologues who truly believe in this world of infinite choices they are so graced with absolute answers. We find ourselves being subjected to embarrassment and thrown in jail for acting out on our natural impulses. Oppression begins in the dumbest of places, and it ends somewhere else. And we don’t know how we go there.

Chinese Professor Ma Yaohai has resigned from his teaching post. He now lives off his savings and his mother’s pension. He is appealing his sentence of three and a half years for “group licentiousness,” which translates into getting his rocks off with a couple dozen people. As we have seen recently in this country, some of our own social issues that we thought were long put to rest, sexuality, racism, the right to live and breathe as you so choose, have resurfaced and been challenged by perhaps a well intentioned but vehement minority. Given that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we should never take the good professor’s condition all that lightly. No matter who you are or where you sleep, something may be lurking beneath the sheets. Something besides your partner’s cold feet.

Botox And The Things We Do For Love

Emotionally speaking, we are a schizophrenic society. Perhaps we are a schizophrenic world. Quite often we have incredible needs where romance and sentiment are concerned, but we mitigate those needs with the crassness of survival in the modern context. While we recognize a deep seated need to satisfy our emotional requirements we obscure these sentiments by approaching romance and marriage, even relationships with our families, as some form of corporate merger or social detentes. To our most romantic and sentimental instincts we add complex layers of material opportunity and the cultural acceptance.

We buy into the movies, and the romance novels that manipulate our sentiments. In media world, as opposed to the real one, couples from the opposite sides of the spectrum, different cultural interests, ethnic backgrounds, economic stations, find themselves linked eternally. The normal obstructions of social norms and divergent interests, to say nothing of peer pressure and cultural prejudice, withdraw from the sexual battlefield as love triumphs over all. We can’t get enough of this stuff and buy into it, hook, line and sinker.

Media feeds on our romantic idealism. It manipulates our sentiments. Now in the digital age we are bombarded with these paint by numbers constructions from every possible angle. We walk the streets and stand in lines, surrounded desire in fact our insistence on romantic denouement. Often in paint by numbers, formulaic arcs, the illusion of true romance is served up to us at ten to fifty bucks a pop. We wait in knowing anticipation while the fated lovers stumble over themselves and respective situations, overcome peer pressure and cultural differences, to finally reconcile their desire for each other so we the audience can reinforce our illusive pursuit of pure romance. We buy greeting cards and watch endless maudlin commercials where parents race across the world to be home for their kid’s debut in their grad school play. We watch endless commercials where families come together as one for that happy holiday meal. Where they hug and eat and never argue.

In quest of love we do many things to ourselves. We say things that we really don’t mean or even care about. Sweet nothings, or broad generic terms of world peace and humanitarian considerations while berating the busboy for not cleaning our table. We wear funny outfits that we hope make us attractive and then we become disgruntled when people are staring. We once smoked cigarettes to look cool and sexy. Now we smoke because it is a habit. We take drugs, drink too much, eat too much, and more often than we care to remember we find ourselves in the sweet embrace of the toilet bowl at three a.m.

If you are male, you preen and shine and hope not to look as awkward and as uninvolved on the first date as you most certainly will on the fourth or fifth date down the line. If there is a fifth date. You dress like a boy and think you’re a man and hope that you can somehow discover the equilibrium between looking like schlep and a cardboard cutout from Details or Gentleman’s Quarterly. You get pierced and tattooed and claim it is not really an esteem issue but an expression of your individuality. You bathe in cologne unaware that you are the only one who knows that smells like a men’s room at fifty yards away.

If you are a male, you try to show that you are sensitive and caring, but that you aren’t just another pussy. You avoid like the plague being categorized as a guys’ guy or a ladies man. You try to be different from the pack, but not so different that your date or your lover starts to think you are strange and burdened by a hidden agenda where you secretly boast of a butterfly collection or bury skulls in your flower bed. You go to the gym and run for miles, claiming it is all about our health when you know damn well you are far more attractive with an athletic physique than the slob who sits in the cubicle right next to yours.

You get your penis enlarged by adding fat tissue and cutting tendons that make it dangle more than nature may have first intended. You do this to impress yourself and to impress her. You wonder if you have impressed her enough that she will go to bed with you. And then you worry if you were good in bed and and if you measure up to her previous experience. You wonder how in the hell you can leave in the wee hours and not look like a shopworn cliche. After all this, you visit your shrink who invites you back for another year of analysis.

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You get stitched and sewn, tanned and tailored. You wear clothes too tight and shoes too small. You go blond, brunette, step it out as a redhead for a minute and a half and wish for the day when you can say “screw it,” I’ll leave it gray and live with those oh so natural, murky yellow highlights. Like men you date and you wonder if you are attractive, if he really wants to go to bed with you. You wonder if you are good in bed, if you measure up to his other lovers, or if his previous lovers were of the barnyard variety. And then you wonder how in the hell you can leave in the wee hours of the morning and not look like a shopworn cliche. And then your remember, it’s your place, so there is no escape. After all this, you visit your shrink who invites you back for another year of analysis

You worry about aging, whether you are still attractive, and whether you are a sexual being. You start worrying about this when you are eleven, and you don’t stop worrying until they put you in the grave. You worry so much your brow wrinkles. And then you get your Botox shots. You realize Botox is not the best thing for you as the secret ingredient causes Botulism, a deadly poison. A deadly poison that may in the long haul cause nerve damage. But who cares? You look better and this is then and later is later. And by then you are dead anyway, so who cares?

So now what did they do? New studies have discovered a relationship between paralyzing your nerves, which Botox does, and your inability to express emotion. People on Botox are slower to smile or frown or show anything other than the stoic expressions the ancient Greeks used to proffer as a viable lifestyle. According to the recent study, some of it summarized in the Los Angeles Times, among other place, Botox shots will confuse the brain. Botox Shots, researchers discovered, block facial nerve impulses, seemed to slow the ability to comprehend emotional language. Emotional expressions apparently send feedback to the brain. It is a combined effort between smiling and frowning and our awareness as to whether we are having a good time or a lousy one.

Simply put the reaction time between the stimulus and the emotion takes longer than it does for a senile geriatric to cross the street in St. Petersburg. Facial expressions make the brain make sense of the world around us. No facial expressions the world around us is tough to grasp, as if it isn’t tough enough already. Stuff happens to you, and you don’t know what you are feeling. Good times, bad times, there you be, unable to grasp whether you are ecstatic or really pissed off. Or at least, according to the study, it may take awhile before the brain gets the message.

If we extrapolate this study, then for all we know, Botox could affect our sexual congress. Enough Botox could freeze the facial expressions and delay the sensory signals to the brain. It would be the orgasmic version of the late arrival. It’s like showing up for the banquet when they have already removed the dishes from the tables and folded up the chairs. The Botox orgasm. Between the big sensation and the “Oh God” screaming, hours may have passed. By then it is Sunday morning. Your neighbors don’t know if you had an orgasm or you were getting ready for church.

Anyway…it’s not that I am critical of our vanity. Observant, maybe, but hardly critical. It is what it is, and far be it for me to provide any meaningful alternative where I don’t sound like a rescued speed freak from an abstinence ministry. Besides, I am too vain for that. People need to do what they do and in a world of chaos and uncertainty at least try to have a good time.

The only thing is, if you dose yourself with Botox, how will you ever know it?

When Drivers Can’t Drive Their Cars

We all think the other guy is a lousy driver. What’s odd, is that at least one out of five times. According to an article in Media Post a new report from the2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test we are correct in our assessment. At that is before we delve into our biases in the way we rate our fellow drivers. Add in some of the more obvious and extenuating factors and a great many of us should never be anywhere behind a wheel. Quite a few in fact shouldn’t be allowed to pull a little red wagon, yet alone power a three thousand pound automobile.

The recent report from the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test contends that one in five drivers, nearly 38 million drivers in all would flunk the written driver’s test, if it were given today. The test incorporated basic driving questions that were culled from the driving manuals in the fifty states. Nothing too arcane or esoteric. Just stuff you maybe need to know before you head off for your bag of Doritos and double Mocha Latte with your cellphone in your ear and your makeup in your lap.

Okay, so maybe in addition to the twenty basic questions there were some other, more directed questions. There were questions related to the texting while driving. You know, difficult interrogations that are only slightly less challenging than reading the fat content in a Denny’s Grand Slam. Questions, from what I gleaned, like whether or not you should duck your head back into the rear seating area for a quick peak at the monitor where Finding Nemo is preventing your kids from beating each other with their Young Einstein action heroes.

The study indicates that a number of licensed Americans continue to lack knowledge of basic rules of the road; the national average score decreased to 76.2% this year from 76.6% in 2009. No need to convince me we are dumbing down. About 85% could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a steady yellow traffic light. Many drivers remained confused by safe following distances. This would require math, not a strong suit as of late. Hell, we can’t even estimate correctly how much oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis. Small chance we can estimate how many feet it takes to stop a car. And then there is the matter of reading, actually understanding the questions that were being asked. Other studies report that fifty percent of our citizens are functionally illiterate. Perhaps we should have left our more serious reading to the dinosaurs who lived with us in domestic harmony a mere 6,500 years ago.

The drivers in some states did better than the drivers in others. Kansas may not have grasped entirely the radical theory of Evolution, but at least as a state it came in first on on the written driver’s test with an average score of 82.5%. New York State finished last with a 70% average score. That means three out of ten drivers in the Empire State should always be taking the subway. In general, drivers in the Northeast may not be as well informed about driving regulations as their Midwestern counterparts. The Northeast had the lowest average test scores (74.9%) and had the highest failure rate (25.1%). The Midwest region had the highest average test scores (77.5%) and the lowest failure rates (11.9%).

Not surprisingly, the older the driver, the higher the score. The aged are still able to read, which is probably their greatest advantage. Males over age 45 earned the highest average test score. Males also outperformed females overall in terms of average score (78.1% male versus 74.4% female) and failure rates (24% female versus 18.1% male). I suppose the one caveat about the vaunted elderly drivers is that you can also see him driving down the street with his turn signal flashing and a shopping bag perched on the roof of his car. Then it might be wise to think differently.

As for female drivers, overall, a significantly higher percentage of females than males reported engaging in the following distracting situations: conversation with passengers, selecting songs on an iPod or CD/adjusting the radio, talking on a cell phone, eating, applying make-up and reading. We are talking multi-tasking. Not always easy at sixty miles an hour. And then every once in awhile you do need a hand on the steering wheel, whether you want to or not. The other day I watched a woman in an SUV while she juggled muffin, coffee, makeup and cell phone, while trying to negotiate the traffic in Beverly Hills. It was almost an art form, until her one angry bite severed the muffin so it fell out of her mouth and into her lap. The look on her face was priceless.

George Carlin used to comment in his comedy act that the driver poking along ahead of you and who won’t let you pass is an imbecile. On the other hand, the driver whipping around your slow and sorry ass and blazing on up the highway, well that driver is a maniac. Everyone else, I suppose, is somewhere in between. And where is in between? Cutting corners so tightly that they clip the car in the left turn lane who was just sitting there waiting for the light to change. Trying to figure out how to parallel park sometime before the second coming. Or not knowing that four wheel drive can help you drive through the ice and snow, but it doesn’t assist much in the way of stopping.

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This report may go a long way to explaining the forty thousand people who die every year in car wrecks, and the couple, few million who are injured. These figures are actually down from a decade ago, but you can attribute that more to the safety of the vehicles than our collective driving prowess. I suppose, if you want to get picky, you can also remove from the list the false claims of injury and incapacitation that are mounted to sustain the driver-lawyer-quack doctor menage a’ trois. Most accidents are not of the gnarly paralyzing and dismembering type that will get you a prime spot on the late night commercials sponsored by your local ambulance chaser.

Now bear in mind, the GMAC Insurance is just that…an insurance entity. Their job is to sell insurance to drivers. This is where their money is. And despite the fact that they need and want to sell as much car insurance as possible, they are contending that one in five drivers shouldn’t be behind the wheel. I would think this is a conservative estimate. Should we ever get realistic about these estimates, auto sales would plummet even further, insurance policies would go wanting, and the country would have to actually do something about viable public transportation. Ancillary benefits would mean less of a dependence on oil, and possibly in urban centers you could actually breathe the air. We can’t have that.

But we all know there is no such thing as reality anymore. Pragmatism is a thing of the past. If we had common sense, knowing the destruction they cause from distracted driving, we would be draconian in enforcing laws about cellphone use in the car. In my humble opinion, instead of some measly fine, for first offense they shove the phone where the sun won’t shine, and for the second offense, they remove it with a chainsaw. But I am being moderate here. Oprah Winfrey is spending real bucks on commercials where she is dragging out the victims and survivors of victims killed by distracted drivers. She admonishes us about using driving and cellphone use, and she is a national icon. Tears fall. Voices tremble. This is Oprah., for god’s sake. Everyone adores her. Everyone listens to her. Except when she tells us that when you are driving put down the damn cellphone. Then even Oprah is a just another pain in the ass.

Perhaps it is wise to use the GMAC Insurance estimates as a base figure and take a closer look. By utilizing some of the GMAC survey questions we can start to approach the truth. On the survey, only five percent admitted to texting while driving. So we are not only a nation of lousy drivers, we are also a nation of liars. Couple that with the fact that, according to reports, fifty percent can’t read and understand the survey anyway, so there answers may be more guess work than actual comprehension. Add into this mix those out there who are driving without a license. There are more than a few. So this group wasn’t even asked to take the test. And if you still think it is only a mere twenty percent of the driving population that shouldn’t be behind the wheel, I have one final suggestion. Take a trip to your local DMV. Look around. Then tell me how safe you feel with some of these people motoring down our highways.

By no means does this make us the worse drivers in the world. Americans are merely the worst drivers in the United States. Anyone who has driven anywhere else knows the tribulations of, say, the Indian National Highways, or the vagaries of traffic rules in South America. We can’t all be Canadians, after all. Even in the South of France, unless you demonstrate you are committed to running over pedestrians, it is nearly impossible to get from here to there. And these are places where they have some semblance of highways. Or paved streets. There are many parts of this world where even the Yak is ill informed to who has the right of way.

And then, despite our whining and sniping, we Americans are pretty much a tough breed. Come some national holiday where perseverance and John Wayne’s rectitude are compulsory, before we head out on the highway with a six pack of beer, and a bevy of off-road vehicles trailing behind our four miles per gallon bargain RV. We are a nation that meets its challenges. Well, sort of.

Well, there are many challenges ahead of us. The least of which is being able to read the driving manual. As John Kennedy implored as President, about our reaching the moon in ten years, we have to continue moving forward. Which is fine with me. As long as we don’t have to drive there.

For the curious sort, you can take the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test by clicking this link.

The Grand and Gruesome Tradition of Spousal Murder

Anybody married has at one time or another pondered however briefly the idea of doing away with his or her spouse or long term lover. It’s natural. You can lie about it and claim self-righteous indignity, but I seriously doubt if your spouses demise wasn’t at least cause for a flash of speculation. Except maybe if you are Mother Theresa. But then, she wasn’t married.

Let’s face it, killing one’s spouse is an historic tradition. It has peppered history. It has moved fortunes, and it has realigned nations. It has also disrupted families and left us to ponder the illogical. But prevalent. As it is difficult to pick up a paper and not discover the periodic and often sensationalized story of one significant other reaching the dramatic conclusion that the other significant other is not so significant, after all.

Spouse killings are big news. Scott Peterson, a pathetic nebish of a man with a lust for other women, a deep seated hatred for his wife, and a bad murder plan, made headlines for months on end, after he killed his eight months pregnant wife, Laci, and tossed her body into the San Francisco Bay. His turgid story practically made careers. Talking heads babbled on and on as if this idiot had killed the Archduke Ferdinand and set off the First World War. But interest in that little catastrophe in distant Europe pales in the face of spousal murder.

I remember as a kid hearing my parents discuss Ethel Kravitz who awakened her husband one morning with five shots into his sleeping body. She was early in the game and didn’t get the headlines, the book and movie deal she would have today as she explained to all who would listen of her mental torture at the hands of what’s his face. And then not long ago there was the woman in Texas who as taped by security cameras running her Mercedes over her cheating husband’s body. Like fifteen times. Surely her way of declaring the marriage was over.

But then Texas has always been intriguing with its spousal murders. I remember living there some decades ago when the “crimes of passion” ruling was still hanging around. Come weekends you would get the murder scores like the ball scores. The first being how many drunken rednecks not yet accustomed to urbanization shot up the bar and killed some other barfly in a heated dispute over the superiority of the Ford or Chevy truck. I remember one incident where one shot another for taking his hat. Not quite like taking his horse or his truck, but it got him shot just the same.

But that was nothing when compared to the time honored Texas tradition where spouses who shot the wife, husband, lovers, whatever, claimed they did it in the heat of passion. The heat of passion laws were still on the books back then, and more than a few judges paid homage to custom and gave the heat of passion plea notable credibility. The loving couple may have not spoken to each other for months, not had sex for decades, but suddenly that old passion blazed inside and blammo, there was blood on the Karastan carpet. I remember one husband shooting his wife’s lover because he thought he was a burglar. A burglar standing naked over his straying wife. And these, mind you, were hardly the trailer trash whose collective insignificance meant their tales of murder and betrayal was a mere footnote to the upscale crimes of passion. It wasn’t like today where any half-assed ne’er do well could make big headlines by only killing his or her spouse. If you were of the lower classes you had to at least kill a whole bunch of people and not just your spouse before any self-respecting journalist would waste news space or air time on your sordid and pathetic story. But then, that was before there was a 24-hour news monster that had to be fed.

Yes, more than a few of the wealthy and successful have traveled the rickety path from the appearance of reputable citizenship to homicidal celebrity. There are any number of physicians who choose to do in their wives to avoid the inconvenience of divvying up community property. Sometimes there is a lover involved, and sometimes it is just a stand alone venal gesture. Such was the recent case where according to the Los Angeles Times, a man was charged with arranging for his wife’s murder back in 2003. Only now, are they bringing charges, which speaks well of the tenaciousness of the Los Angeles Police on this murder case. The murdered spouse was one of their own, after all, and had been a secretary in the Internal Affairs Division. Police considered among other leads the killing was job related. But ultimately the motive enveloped the estranged wife discovered assets her husband didn’t declare in what had initially been an amicable divorce. It came to light that it was a hired gang member who murdered her with a shotgun, outside a Mexican Restaurant. At the alleged behest of her husband. Her husband had taken there because a friend had told him the guacamole was something special.

But speaking of killings, there are the celebrity murders that seemed wrapped around restaurants. Something about eating a decent meal that makes one want to kill their beloved. There is the Robert Blake who was brought up on murder charges for allegedly killing his wife in North Hollywood, outside their favorite Italian restaurant. He wasn’t convicted. O.J. Simpson, was also found not guilty, wink-wink, was charged with killing his wife after she, too, returned from a then trendy Italian restaurant in Brentwood. But Phil Spector was found guilty. Took two trials to make it happen, as the evidence of his having blood all over himself, powder burns, and claiming to his driver “I just killed someone,” made it a tough call for the jury. Alright, technically she wasn’t Spector’s wife, but some woman he had picked up in a restaurant. Nevertheless, Spector deserves some honorable mention here, if for no other reason than his past exploits with former wives and girlfriends. All those years of trying shouldn’t go unnoted.

There was the celebrity chef, Juan Cruz, who was arrested for arranging his wife’s murder. And now Mexican authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Bruce Beresford-Redman, former producer of “Survivor,” some irony there, in connection with the killing of his wife. Beresford-Redman has denied any involvement with his wife’s death. Saturday Night Live featured player, Phil Hartman, was shot by his drug addled wife. Years go, women were best known for poisoning their victims. But now they have modernized and have exchanged poison for bullets. And you get to know the outcome of your actions much sooner than poison would allow. You’ve come a long way, baby.

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Age doesn’t seem to be a factor when it comes to killing your spouse. Spousal murder is fun for all ages. The young do it, think of Ryan Jenkins, former reality show contestant, who killed his ex-wife, Jasmine Fiore, a former swimsuit model. Brain child that he was, Jenkins pulled out her teeth and cut off her fingers to keep the police from identifying the body. He forgot about the serial numbers in the boob job. Oh well. At least Jenkins had the decency to hang himself in a Canadian motel and save the state some desperately needed bucks.

And then there is my former neighbor and strange but brilliant fellow, Ira Einhorn. Combining actual research with actual bullshit, Einhorn was a charismatic soul despite the fact he appeared to wash every new moon and gave Mr. Dirt a serious run for his money. Nevertheless, he captivated the new agers, academicians, and corporate folk alike with his mighty spiel about the expanded mind and the future of everything. Even when convicted, many still backed him, in fact supported him with money and other assistance as he eluded authorities for close to twenty years. In fairness, Ira didn’t kill his spouse but the young woman who loved him and then found him overbearing and controlling once she grew up and out of her infatuation stage. Ira didn’t like that, couldn’t stand the fact that she had left him, and forever sealed their bond by beating her to death with a hammer and then keeping her desiccated body in a trunk inside his funky apartment. He had convinced the more gullible it was all a set up. That despite the smell coming from his apartment, he was working in mind manipulation and telekinetic communication. But the less gullible, like the jury for instance, wasn’t buying it, and convicted poor Ira in something like two hours. They probably took so long because one juror had lingered in the bathroom.

Okay, enough of the gruesome facts. There are certainly enough to get the picture, and the list or spousal and lover murders is far too long for any reasonable person to want to absorb. Beside, I will live that up to Nancy Grace and the Crime Network. But spousal murder still remains its own kind of killing. Jealousy and avarice may be the top two ingredients to set someone off to killing their spouse, that’s true. But, still, we are referring to a pretty dramatic and reprehensible act here, all to save a few bucks or justify a lover on the side. Or to nullify that lover on the side. Whatever. It is some recourse for what appears an intractable condition.

While we have for the more religious the Biblical depiction of fratricide, there is little I can think of that explains in any detail the killing of one spouse or another. You can find it in blues songs and in country music, but not in the Bible. But then I have never been much of a Bible reader, so I might have missed something in class. And then if I had missed the spousal homicide bit, pop culture would have reared the parable in whatever dumbed down lyric form so I would at least be aware of it. No going there. But then not everything in the Bible. I am Western and think in Western thoughts. There are special creeds where the ultra religious somehow still feel justified, in killing their wives. But say no more as they tend to get upset when you remind them of it.

Was spousal homicide just inconceivable back in Biblical times? Doubtful Or was it that women were considered property or chattel and their sudden demise at the hands of their self-righteous husbands was nothing to write verses about? I don’t know. But then there is no real Biblical listing of wives killing husbands, either. And they might have been more justified, given the oppression of the times.

And what prompts one spouse to kill another? Rich and intelligent people commit to spousal murder the face of all probability they will be caught, convicted and sentenced to a place far removed from the golf course? It is amazing that to avoid giving up material possessions one would stoop to the unthinkable. Or because they want to leave their spouse for another lover. Or the spouse doesn’t want them leaving for another lover. It”s a stone, cold fact yet still amazing that greed and jealousy leads to the kind of thought that leads to murder.

I can understand the true crime of passion when in a jealous rage one spouse or the other snaps out and stands there with the smoking gun or dripping knife. Dumb but understandable. But most often jealous rage is not the the case. Most often spousal murders are premeditated and calculated. Most of the time there is a trail. There are motives and documents, telephone records and complicit email. There is often the actual killer, the guy who did it, arrested on a different charge and now willing to tell all for a lighter sentence. Or for an appearance on Larry King. Few get away with it. But still the beat goes on.

I would love to attribute it to our social programming and blame the media for egging us on. I would love to cite loose morals, the ever growing need for self-aggrandizement. I could opt that we read enough headlines, see enough movies, and read enough books to perhaps make some of the more demented start to think spouse killing is an easy fix to a bad marriage. But it is not the media. The media may fan the flames, but there is something inside us that leads the charge. There is that chemical impulse that leads to premeditation, that causes some to cross the line between rational thought and plotting and scheming their spouse’s murder. Yes, it is in our chemistry. Damn it.

So I guess we should take into consideration the old Dupont slogan, “Better Living Through Chemistry.” Or not. Perhaps it is better said that we are just dumb enough to be human.

Buying Into the End of the World

People have been preaching the end of the world since there were…well…people. Over the centuries, you have everything to ruin your sleep from the dire predictions of Nostradamus to the guys with sandwich boards warning in ugly painted lettering of the impending Armageddon. We have had in the Cold War the ever present fear of nuclear annihilation. Now we have the fear of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

We also have the Mayan Calendar, which purportedly ends in December 2012. Many see this as Doomsday, the end of the world, the end date of a 5 thousand odd year cycle. A cottage industry has grown around the fact that the Mayan Calendar does not extend beyond December, 2012. It is the end of the world, see the movie, buy the cookies, wear the tee shirt.

Maybe the end of the Mayan Calendar has nothing to do with the end of the world. It may mean nothing more than they foresaw the end of political sanity as a bunch of mediocre candidates may be running for office. On more mundane levels, it may mean the Mayans were bored with their lives and found that one day ran into another there was no pressing need to chronicle their lives through time and space. So instead of extending their calender, it was a symbolic rejection of their future as that future only mimicked present and past–same crap on another day. Perhaps, after a long, spiritual consultation with their gods, where they sacrificed their last remaining virgins, Mayan priests saw in their future a world of MacDonald’s and Wal-Marts and figured the hell with the chronicles of history, not with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin coming online to get it all wrong.

I don’t know. I don’t even pretend to think I know. I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and that was no joke. The specter of apocalyptic reality did indeed hover for those 13 days. Couple that with the insipid high school air raid drills where behind the closed paper window shades we gathered in the hallways, no talking, no chewing gum, to accept our fate of collective incineration. Easier that way, as for those who survived the nuclear holocaust would only have one hallway from which to sweep up the ashes. But as the Cuban Missile Crisis was averted, we were left only with the only one residual epiphany, that doomsday renders high school even more irrelevant than we had originally supposed. At least that was the value I took away, that no funky, out of date textbook could ever hope to refute.

But now here we are. We have any number of doomsday predictions. Pick your pet scenario for impending disaster. There are certainly enough to go around. Global warning has its virtues, and of course the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. Those Mayans again. Nostradamus. Although you haven’t heard much about him lately, at least not since the movie flopped. Talk about lack of star power and box office draw. If you go out on the limb, like Nostradamus, you have to be at least somewhat on target about doomsday to keep them coming back for more. A couple of flop predictions and those eponymous tee shirts are remaindered to to the bargain racks at Ross Stores, before you can say “Von Dutch.”

So now you have some entrepreneurial soul who is selling bunk beds in a converted bunker out in the Mojave Desert. AT&T had a bunch of those bunkers stationed around the country. They were designed to withstand a nuclear blast and keep the communications open through secure microwave technology. The bunkers are around 14,000 square feet, which is roughly about the tenth the size of your average Kroger or the size of a modest supermarket. Not real big. But then, back when these bunkers were built they were constructed so wires and diodes would remain intact and not people.

But here we are in a frenzied world with frenzied headlines and hysteria about one thing or another at every turn. It’s an odd world that way. One minute we are told to relish the Hallmark moment, and the next we are warned about the reality of impending doom. Yes, odd. Buy stocks and prepare for retirement in one life’s breath and in the other just kiss your ass goodbye. No wonder people are confused, frustrated, and not sure which way to turn. If it’s all over twenty minutes from now, why even bother going to the gym? It is almost as stupid as going to high school. Well…maybe not that stupid.

So here they are out in the Mojave Desert, selling sanctuary from the end of the world. It could be all yours for a mere $50,000 in cash. Blast proof doors and a bunk in a room with three other people. Yes, you will have one of the four bunks. Kind of like a youth hostel with freeze dried food that may be slightly worse than the culinary mystery you buy off a roach coach. Just you and two hundred other people in your 14,000 square foot collective space. Cozy.

You get to sleep in the same call as three other people. This means a cacophony of bad breath, stinky feet, snoring, and the occasional sneaky night fart. This is what you get for your fifty grand. Not the Ritz, and not the Four Seasons. Not even the Holiday Inn. Naw, not even the Motel Six where at least a wall separates you from the commotion next door. After awhile, it would stand to reason you would be hoping a hundred megaton bomb would relieve you of your last bad decision. Just throw back the blast proof doors and release yourself to the refreshing embrace of nuclear radiation.
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Okay, so maybe after some deep contemplation the $50,000 investment for a berth in the bunker does not seem like the world’s greatest investment. Maybe the end result seems more akin to being stuck on a tarmac for several decades while the apocalyptic pilot waits for the nuclear radiation to reach half life. Maybe, like me, you would rather be swimming with barracuda than cramped in a tight space with vacant humanity for any time longer than it takes to go from here to there. So it’s possible sitting in a jail cell with a lounge chair is not the best way to slip past the apocalypse. Maybe you are not that eager to survive, after all.

There is another factor. Nuclear war happens fast. Missiles travel at high speeds. By the time you know the show is in its final run, the missiles are launched and it is a long drive to the bunker that is outside Barstow, California. Even if you live in Barstow, it’s a tough drive. And if you live in Los Angeles or any of its suburbs, traffic is at a standstill twenty of its twenty four hours. So when they announce on talk radio that your life will be over twenty minutes from now, I would venture getting from wherever to some dirt road outside of Barstow ain’t as easy as, say, resolving the national debt. The little venture gives true meaning to getting there is half the fun.

So there you are, sitting up to here in bumper to bumper traffic, forty three miles from sanctuary, listening to dire warnings from talk radio that the end the world missile is being delivered toasty warm just moments from now, in a big insulated pizza box. You didn’t make it to your rat hole. You are dead, thinking to yourself, damn, instead of this bunker, I could have bought a Winnebago.

But for those who are a bit more upscale and choosier about their apocalyptic digs, someone out of Kansas may soon be offering underground survival condos for a mere $1.75 million apiece. There you may have your much desired exclusivity and languish in the comfort of your Lazy Boy, oblivious to the pounding of scorched hands from those less fortunate than you. Never think of them as the unfortunate, but view them as fertilizer for the future landscaping you plan once the radiation has diminished. Those fatty food diets they probably ate will play off big time as they replenish the ground.

The condo does have its drawbacks. Yes, you might survive, but it is a long way to commute to anywhere. You are in Kansas, after all, and being some wigged out survivalist in Kansas should be punishment all to itself. In the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust you can be pretty sure you won’t have decent reception on your flat screen TV.

Look, this is a variation on an old theme. People have tried this before and rather than go the collective or condo route, they dug bomb shelters into their backyards. The stocked them with weapons, food, clothing, batteries for emergency radios and flashlights. The shelters maybe weren’t blast proof but what Russian in his right mind was dropping a nuke on Maple Shade Lane in Levittown? So blast proof wasn’t the issue. You only had to survive the radiation, Grandpa’s senile reminiscing, and the fact that one nuclear family member may croak, causing you to live with the stench until the radiation outside reaches half life and you can venture out into that brave new world of devastation.

But…many did consider the bomb shelter a worthwhile investment. There was a technical name to these people, attributable to their ability to see into the future and after careful contemplation realize what action needed to be taken. A very precise and technical name. Schmucks. But then after awhile even the schmucks discovered it might not be the end of the world and started using the bomb shelter for more worthwhile purposes. Like turning it into a sewing room, or the kiddies recreational room, or since there were beds there for having undisturbed sex with the pool boy or maid. Practical application. We are Americans after all.

As for the end of the world being imminent…two very basic and visceral responses pop into mind. Not likely. And if that is wrong…then…so what? Yes, so what? People are idiots and they ended the world. They were too dumb to live and something else will come along to take our place. Maybe enlightened protozoa. Hard to say. Such is life. Such is death.

Besides, have you ever been to Barstow? Imminent death may be a lot better than sitting it out in Barstow.