Top 10 signs your escape from a maximum security prison isn’t going well

Top 10 signs your escape from a maximum security prison isn’t going well:

10 Your sustenance is pop tarts

9 You actually tunneled to the guard’s parking lot

8 Unable to shave, having a beard, people think you are a hipster; would rather be back in prison

7 Being on the lam reminds you: what you wouldn’t give for a gyro

6 Didn’t realize which way Niagara Falls flows

5 Getaway car is an 88 corrolla

4 Accidentally ate the file in the cake

3 Able to steal power tools but no extension cord

2 Warden’s favorite movie is How To Torture a Guy in 10 Days

1 Pining for cable tv

Bitter, Justified

He woke up happier than usual. Usually, as a result of his childhood, he was mad at the world first thing in the morning and then the day would proceed to incite full blown bitterness by 11am. Not today. Maybe it was good dreams, maybe it was solid sleep, whatever it was he was pretty chipper. It wouldn’t last.

He woke up pissed off. Maybe it was bad dreams, lack of deep sleep, whatever it was, he was growling by 7am. He wasn’t usually this way. He was typically upbeat with a positive outlook. He never had a hard day as a kid, unlike his partner in fate.

It was a left turn. Sure the signage wasn’t great but 99% of people made the turn without incident. Mr. happier than usual was returning home from a Dunkin Donuts run and given that he usually didn’t have to yield at this turn, was about to speed through per the usual. Mr. pissed off was about to make his own left but had to lock em up because of Mr. happier. Both cars screeched to a stop. Mr. happier looked out at Mr. pissed as if to indicate my fault, so sorry, mea cupla, this is on me, got lazy, again sorry. His right hand came off the steering wheel and formed an amity-style thumbs up – a peace offering, a dove for Mr. pissed. Mr. pissed flipped. 

He got out of his car, walked over to Mr. happier, pulled him out of his vehicle and eventually rendered him lifeless.

It seemed to be a clear case of road rage. But law and justice being the dicey things that they are, the case turned out to be a cascade of human fallibility. 

Here’s essentially what happened. It was established that Mr. happy was rendered lifeless by Mr. pissed – not in question. But, Mr. pissed lied, under oath, to his lawyer, to his wife and kids, to himself. He said the Mr. happy flipped him off. There was no act of contrition on the part of Mr. happier, no thumbs-up; no, there was defiance, there was  a i-don’t-have-the-right-of-way-but-i-don’t-give-a-fuck-so-fuck-you, as portrayed by Mr. pissed. The lie worked. 

People wondered if the rendering lifeless of Mr. happier was justified. He did give him the finger after all. He didn’t have the right of way. He was probably speeding. Didn’t he previously have a run-in with the police? “I mean, who does that?” people said.

The court case wrapped up by 11am one cold, windy November day. Had Mr. happier been alive, he would have been full-blown bitter and he would have been justified feeling that way.

SCOTUS with the MOSTUS

So the SCOCTUS with the mostus went and legalized same-sex marriage. Like you I am reading and listening when I came across this tidbit from 2016 Presidential hopeful Ben “Don’t call me Jonny” Carson on NPR

Ben Carson:
"While I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court's decision, their ruling is now the law of the land.
I call on Congress to make sure deeply held religious views are respected and protected. The government must never force Christians to violate their religious beliefs.”

Now let us focus on this portion:

“I call on Congress to make sure deeply held religious views are respected and protected. The government must never force Christians to violate their religious beliefs.”

Why would beliefs of any ilk need to be respected and protected? Believe 2+2=5 if you want or that god created the world in 6 days or that Jonny Manziel is a viable NFL quarterback. No person or government can change your belief. I think what is implied here is that Mr. Carson doesn’t want any competing beliefs and that my friend you can’t have. Why? Well how do we decide which beliefs should have no competitors? And isn’t it competition that keeps the economy going? Neeeeeeeeeeeeeext.

“The government must never force Christians to violate their religious beliefs.”

What would this look like? Seems like if you had a moral qualm with gay marriage and the government forced you to marry someone of the same sex, then this would be violating your religious belief. Is allowing people that don’t have your particular belief a violation of your belief? Again, seems like Mr. Carson doesn’t want any “belief” competition. 

You don’t really want that Ben, do you? Do you want a theocracy with no belief competitors a la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy#Islamic_states_or_Islamic_theocracies?

 No rights have been violated with the legalization of gay marriage. No religious beliefs disrespected and unprotected. You can still have your jesus, your belief that homosexuality is a sin, or that Jonny Manziel can be the next Tim Couch…no government is taking that away from you.

What the government can’t guarantee is that you won’t be offended.

How could it?

Something Of A Cult Hero

It was the speech to end all speeches. And it went something like this. Well wait hold on a sec, before we get to the speech, maybe I should just interject that, maybe even preface, that what I am about to tell you is of the best stories ever. Ever. So listen up punchie.

He was your classic nerd, geek, dweeb and he was picked on mercilessly by the jocks, the teachers, the teacher’s pets, the pets, the girls, the cafeteria workers, and even the kids in marching band. But he never broke. He was chipper and had vision; he knew it was temporary and that someday they would all  a)work for him b)get fired by him c)owe him d)bow down like the serfs and peons he knew they were. But before all that could happen he would have to survive. 

To survive he would need a speech. A speech to match Roosevelt, Kennedy, Churchill, and “you can’t handle the truth!” He would search YouTube, listen to podcasts, take a public speaking course at the local community college, join toastmasters, referee little league, recite the sermon on the mount in front of a Wendy’s, whatever it took. It was painstaking, it was exhausting, and it was a nightmare on par with Game of Thrones. He got better, …and better, and finally was ready to rock.

But when? How about the talent competition? Too obvious. How about usurping the mic at a football game? Too fascistic. How about prom? Can’t afford the tux. That left graduation. It would be harder in that cap but doable. 

Because the teachers didn’t like him he didn’t get valedictorian because of an A- in AP Nuclear Engineering. This meant he was going to have to bum rush some unsuspecting speaker and knock the wind out of them with a stiff bolo punch to the floating rib. That or pepper spray. Or a tazer. A tazer it is. On Ms. Remenschneider, the Asst.Principal who was to wax about blah blah blah right before the valedictorian. 

Getting Ms. Remenschneider out of the way was going to be easy. The tazer was LA police department endorsed; but he would have to win the crowd quickly if he wasn’t going to be immediately removed by security. He told an usher he “had to take a dump” and moved closer to the stage, slowly, carefully lifting the tazer out of his undies under a cloud of oboe laden classical music. Stealthy, tactful, under the radar he loomed ever so close to the stage as Ms. Remenschneider rose to the podium.

Zzzzt! She was a lump of jostling electricity next to the podium. Before even a shriek could get out he pounced on the mic. “Residents of Barberton,” - but before he could even get the next word out he was tazed…and a heap of jostling electricity on top of Ms. Remenschnieder. 

What he didn’t know was that the only person more despised than him was Ms. Remenschneider. Apparently she had been blackmailing students, faculty, and staff for years and spending the money on Nickelback meet and greets. And while he never got to give the speech he practiced for an entire school year, the street cred he earned from tazing Mrs. Remenscneider made him something of a cult hero. 

And while they never bowed down to him like serfs and peons, the video of him tazering Ms. Remenschneider did get 1,000 hits on youtube.

I'll Be Damned

Consider this from George Saunders' Essay The New Mecca in The Braindead Megaphone:

“And the kids keep coming. On their faces: looks of bliss, the kind of look a person gets when he realizes he is in the midst of doing something rare, that might never be repeated, and is therefore of great value.”

Heaven is commonly understood as eternal life and moreover, constant, immediate wish fulfillment.

Now contrast Heaven with the logic in Saunders. 

If your life never ends it isn’t rare – at all. If you can do anything, have anything, immediately, forever, none of these doings can have value. Time isn’t rare and fulfillment isn’t rare in heaven. 

What is rare in heaven? The damned. The only damned thing of value in heaven is the damned. 

Well I’ll be damned, just not in heaven.

(Something is of value if and only if it is rare. Value and rarity have the same truth value. Therefore if it isn’t of great value, it isn’t rare and if it isn’t rare it isn’t of value.)