Men are sloth

I am worried about mankind in general… and men specifically.  I know you are wondering if world peace, nuclear meltdowns or excess body hair is raising the level of my concern.   I am afraid that men are getting lazy, perhaps to the point of sloth.  We are, apparently, unable to flush toilets.

It is true, with the wide spread use of automatic flushing urinals and commodes, men are no longer able to manually flush porcelain, at least out in public.  In my house all of the regular male lavatory users are able to flush.  The sampling is pretty small, so I am statistically unable to draw any conclusions. 

In restaurants, airports and other public venues, we have apparently lost the ability, or perhaps the will, to reach up and push the 4” lever to whisk our waste water downstream.  To be honest, it is kinda gross to step up to find a filled urinal.  I find myself obligated to flush for you before taking care of business and flushing for myself later. So any argument on saving water is invalid. And then the next level, finding an un-flushed commode, I am not even going there.  Wrong, very wrong. Guys, you don’t even have to bend over, just tap the handle with your foot.  You can make ninja swooshing sounds if that helps the process any. 

On side note, some of you need to drink more water.  You appear to be dehydrated.  Orange pee is bad.

I am trying to figure out if this is a left wing, right wing or communist conspiracy to render the American male useless.  It could be an alien conspiracy as well.  We don’t give enough credit to those pesky aliens taking over the world one task at a time.  I think it started back in the late 60’s with automatic transmissions.  We are now unable to manually shift a car.  I made sure all of my kids could drive a stick.   My middle child is still traumatized by me making her learn to drive in our 5 speed Jetta before allowing her to drive an automatic.  My oldest daughter’s first car was a Ford Ranger with a 5 speed.  Learning the hand eye coordination and timing necessary to drive a manual transmission is a life skill.    

There have been other attempts to render us helpless.  Happily the horrible trend of automatic seat belts failed.  I hated that ridiculous contraption running around my head.  I rode in a few cars that had them; I was hit by the damn thing every time I opened the door.  If we are too lazy to reach over and buckle our own seat belt, then we deserve to be tossed out of the gene pool. 

This is part and parcel of process making us the Jetson’s.  You know good old George Jetson, the alarm clock triggers the bed, launching him up onto the conveyor belt and into the machine that showers, shaves and automatically dresses him. That has to be in the not too distant future. Although I will happily trade dressing myself in the morning if I can get a car that hovers over traffic.  The future isn’t all bad.  

Tempest in a Tea Party pot

“A Christian should get very nervous when the flag and the bible start holding hands.  This is not a romance we want to encourage.”  Jesus wants to Save Christmas, Rob Bell & Don Golden

I have a multitude of problems with the Tea Party.  Starting with the minor complaints;

They felt compelled to add Patriots to their name.  This falls into the legal category of “puffery.”  Much like adding the word Estates to the crappy trailer park on the south side of town, if you have to sell it that hard, no one is buying.  

There have been some cries of racism which I cannot substantiate with the people I know who identify with the cause.  Because they are ultra conservative and mostly middle aged and middle class, by default this makes them white.  That is not to say there are not at least a couple nut jobs in the woodpile.  By in large though, they seem an open lot if you are part of their team.  I am sure an ultra conservative, middle class person of color would be welcome.  I suspect they would put you on the marketing material too. 

The Christian right wing is long on rules, condemnation and stone throwing.  They are short on compassion, and the basic understanding of their own religion, other than to carve out the sections of they like the most, then throw away the rest. Just so you know my scale of compassion, I have been told multiple times (mostly by my wife) that I have the compassion of a stump.  My idea of counseling is, “that was stupid, stop it.”

 This is the same type of people who excommunicated my brother from their Baptist church because he used drugs.  They would have had a fit had they found out he was gay.  This is the group of people who made a pregnant teenager get up in front of the congregation and apologize for having sex.   Here is how the right wing church works.  You get pregnant and are not married, you get the red A.  You have an abortion you are branded as a murder.  You do the right thing and have the child as an unwed mother, you are an outcast.  You get the “E” ticket to hell no matter what you do. 

 Jesus taught none of that.  This is the 21 century Pharisees spinning the rules; at least that is how it looks from my lowly desk chair.  But that is not my primary complaint about the Tea Party and Co. It is specifically the flag and bible going on a car dates and making out in the back seat.    

Rob Bell is a Christian author and pastor of a mega church in Michigan.  He accurately sums up my biggest fear with the Tea Pots.  They want to make the US a Theocracy.  Even though by most standards I would be considered a conservative and described by someone as a serious Christian (although I am not at all religious), I do not want to live in a Theocracy.  Not a Muslim, not a Christian and CLEARLY not a Tea Party lead government.  I like the idea of lower taxes and small government.  The idea of their government scares me more than I would like to admit. 

I am tired of my face

“Every man over 40 is responsible for his face.”  Abraham Lincoln

I am tired of my face. 

Seriously, I am tired of looking at ME!  This is not some transparent ploy fishing for compliments.  I am not talking about looking like Brad Pitt. There is nothing wrong with my face.  I don’t need plastic surgery or anything.  I am not misshapen, or asymmetrical.   I am talking about staring at the same stupid face in the mirror every morning, every time I wash my hands, every time I pass a reflective object. 

What do you do when you are middle aged, and bored with yourself?

I am getting a hair cut on Friday but that doesn’t change the basic issue. My face is still the same.  I trimmed my mustache back, but that doesn’t help. I may let it grow back out to resemble a small shrub. I have had a mustache for nearly 30 years.  Shaving it off is not an option.   I hate my face without the mustache (plus it feels really freaky).  I grew a “beard” around Thanksgiving.  It wasn’t much of a beard.  I don’t know why my mustache radiates out from my upper lip half way to my eyes, but I have a massive bald patch on each side of my face. 

I had the beard for about 3 months.  I would have shaved it off sooner, but it irritated my mother, so I left it as a public service.  She needed something new to complain about.  She said it made me look “dirty.”  She said dirty the same way she says “dirty Mexican” so I took it as a compliment.  She told my long haired, goatee’ed  son she like his beard better than mine.  She loathes the little patch of hair on his chin, so for her to like his better to the point of commenting says something. 

 But I digress.  I am still tired of looking at me.  After 51 years I am bored with me.  I cannot imagine how my lovely wife of 31 years feels.  She should be tried of me.  The good news is I am handy around the house, so my position should be secure.  Then again, I still enjoy looking at my lovely wife, so maybe there is yet hope for my mug?

I thought about guy liner, but in Ft. Worth Texas, that is pretty much a non-starter.  Especially since I work in the defense industry, where even the ladies are part of the old boy’s club.  Besides, that might lead to me shaving off my eye brows and redrawing them with R E A L L Y  high arches.  Adornment is out.

NO FACE TATTOOS. See the comments above. 

My face is neither too fat nor too thin.  No weird scars or oddities.  Maybe I need more character?  According to President Lincoln, I can no longer blame my parents.  It is all my fault.  I could accidently cut myself with my Japanese sword, leaving a really cool scar.  In addition to the mess it makes on the dojo floor, likely as not it would set my martial arts training back at least 2 years.     

Other men I know have grown tired of their face.  They dumped their wife, got the same model 10 years younger, along with a Corvette or some other tired cliché of middle aged men.  Years later the fundamental problem remains, the same old tired face is still there.  Only now they have alienated their family, friends and ruined their lives. 

In the end, I don’t have a really good answer. I am still working this one out.  This is a conundrum to be sure. 

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