• 3Oct 09

  10/3/09: What's Mine is Mine, and What's Yours is Mine

  About six months ago, in my interminable search for a CD burner for my planned Belch Dimension compilation project, I asked one of my old friends and Herald coworkers Mark Berky for assistance.

  

  Berky, as my readers well know, was the man who got me my start as a Herald columnist. Since he currently holds the post of archivist in the AS(S)U library and it's good to have someone on the inside, I thought perhaps I could count on him for assistance. Below is the sightly-excerpted text of his e-mail response, dated Mar 30, 2009:

  We've covered this ground before, but apparently you need to be reminded of the facts once again.
  I don't understand why you keep contacting me because I am one of the people that documented your plagiarism. You seem to have forgotten that when you were confronted by The Herald staff -- that includes me -- you confessed to deliberately plagiarizing ...
  I have no intention of jepordizing my job at ASU by bringing you on campus. You are personna non grata at ASU. You are officially not allowed on campus. You are not allowed on campus because you came up with this fantasy that you did not plagiarize and that various members of The Herald staff and the faculty advisor had formed a conspiracy against you and you started harrassing them. But your column is still here, still proving that you were not conspired against, but rightly fired from The Herald for plagiarism.
  You do not need to come to ASU to use a CD burner...
  Do not contact me again. Ever.
  Allow me to repeat myself, just to make sure you understand me -- DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN.
  Get over your obsession to come back to ASU. You can't come back. As you say, the past is past and you should put that grudge behind you.
  ...If need be, I will send a copy [of this e-mail] to the Jonesboro Police Department, the Arkansas State Police, and the the Missouri State Police.
  Have a good life, don't cross over into mine ever again.

  Quite frankly, this is nasty, disrespectful, and huirtful. It misreperesents, insults, and threatens me at every turn. If this is how Herald advisor Bonnie Thrasher encourages staffers to treat people they don't agree with, perhaps it's time to reexamine its publishing licence. She forgets that the newspaper exists to serve the A(S)U community--not her--and that includes all students, present and former. Further, if this is how AS(S)U teaches its faculty to treat its alumni, it's little wonder they're hemhorraging money. Any University employee who is this rude to an alumni's request for help should perhaps have his contract reexamined as well.

  But I'm not here to pick Berky apart (specifically)... rather, I want to use this to illustrate the hypocricy of the left's drive for wealt redistriution. (P)resident Barack Obama calls for "redistributive change" in America...a war horse he's been riding since his days as an obscure U.S. Senator seven or eight years ago. He claims those who don't wish to pay hire taxes are "selfish" and asks that Americans "sacrifice". He famously told Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher last November "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

  What Obama--and all liberals--means is that we cheerfully give up everyhing that makes us happy and prosperous. They want us to rip out our souls and hand them right over to the American government.

  But try asking a liberal to surrender his goodies for the sake of this noble notion of "sharing the wealth", and they immediately turn into retarded three-year-olds at the toy shelf. "No! How dare you! Them's our perks! D-uh! You not good enough to haves that! I's not gives you nothin!" I notice that the left doesn't seem to be giving up anything. In the midst of 9.8% unemployment nationwide, Michelle Obama takes sumptuous vacations with her husband in private jets which presumably leave all sorts of carbon footprints, wears expensive tailored suits, and takes a limosine a block to buy fresh kale at an organic market. Most people don't drive fancy cars to the market to buy kale. Hell, I wager most people don't even know what kale is.

  Obama talks a good game on equality--but he can't fathom that everybody isn't the same.We all have different talents, work ethics, and pocketbooks. The only way to really make everyone equal is to grab from everybody's hands so no one has any more than anyone else. In other words, make everybody equally poor, miserable, and essentially reduce us all to a bunch of animals fighting for a handful of scraps.

  Liberals talk an equally good game on charity, but it's well proven that Republicans give more charitable donations anually than Democrats. Former veep Al Gore's charitable offerings are downright pitiful. Vice-President Joe Biden is litle better, he has has been shown to give a mere $300 or so annually on average to the needy. Barry and Michelle gave about 5% percent of their yearly income--barely half the Biblical tenth--while Sen. John McCain gave nearly 30%. Bill Clinton once gave away some old skidmarked underwear to the Salvation Army so he could declare it on his taxes. And Sen. John and Mrs. "Ketchup Queen" Kerry? Goose eggs for 1991 and 1995 (though he did manage to cough up just under four Gs for charity in '03, or about 11% of his Senate salary--though not a penny of the vast store of Heinz moolah). So...total disconnect here? Yes.

  Why? Simple. Though it's well-know liberals hate the rich, they don't really like the poor either. The so-called Party of the people can't go about giving its own money to the needy, because then they would no longer be needy--hence, they would no longer be dependent on the Party for its happiness, thus, liberalism would become obsolete. Helping poor people would be tantamount to the left cutting its own throat. So they give people just enough to keep them alive, no more, while at the same time killing their drive to succeed on their own, creating a nation of entitlement and victims--all under the guise of "compassion". There's the dirty little secret of social(ist) welfare programs for you.

  Reconstituting wealth is a game akin to running a fan in a stuffy room, or a small child pushing his hated peas about on his plate to make it look as if he's eaten them--all you get is the same stale dead air recirculated, and a bunch of unappetizing mush on the plate. A liberal would never even consider giving a dollar of his own money to anyone; rather, they want to push your money into the pockets of those they arbitrarily feel is more deserving than you are. They work to kill American initiative, discourage small business and private ownership through punitive tax codes, and impose government control over manufacturing giants like GM.

  As for Berky, like any good little rank-and-file liberal he fails to get it. It isn't just about the CD burner. If it was I'd have simply bought one and been done with it. I would like to visit ASU again, see some of the changes, and touch base with my literary roots. I care about those students. I write of, for, and about them. If I had had someone like me writing honestly about AS(S)U issues, I might be better off today. I wouldn't have made many of the mistakes I did, if someone was there to warn me of the many pitfalls of demanding college careers and illusitory relationships. I'd certianly be much more physically and emotionally happier now. I want to sit down and talk to these kids. I want to listen to their struggles, share stories, and see what I can do to help them through the same pitfalls that once tripped me up. College is a woefully understudied part of a young person's life--it's as if parents plunk their teens down in the ivy jungle for 2-4 years and are completely ignorant of what wild things really go on in there. I want to be the one to expose the largely misunderstood world of sexual debauchery, socialism, entitlements, free no-questioned-asked sex, and rampant drug and alcohol abuse to students and parents. I would like to live in or near the Sodom of the South in order to gather material for my books and to better get a handle on the problems faced by the student community ...but as long as Thrasher, Lee, and that useful idiot Berky remain fixtures at AS(S)U they will continue to be roadblocks to my dream. I have now lost all respect for this man. He may not lose any sleep over that, sure, but if his bosses get a look at this blog entry and see how bad his attittude makes them look, I wonder just what he will end up losing...?

  Next week: the truth about Obama's vision for America and just why I hate change so much. Till then, adios.

  • Posted Oct 3, 2009 3:24 am PT
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• 4Sep 09

  9/4/09: Neverland, Camelot, and All Points Between

  This past summer we saw the passing of two public figures who couldn't be more different--Michael Jackson (Jun 26).and Ted Kennedy (Aug 25). (Incidentally, I never did like the term "pass" to describe death--to me it sounds like the deceased just farted. Which, actually, they do, becasue as their bowel muscles release upon death they soil themselves one last time. Plus air and water builds up in the tissues, causing bloating of the face and chest, and I have heard corpes have been known to burp or squeak one off as they lay in repose because of trapped gas. Anyway.)

  However, as we look closer, we might see a few striking similarities between the prominent 77-year-old Democratic statesman and the 50-year-old man-boy.

  • Both came from large families of boys, with great legacies, lorded over by a father who by all accounts was a hardnosed old bastard.
  • Both were men (though in Michael's case it's debatable) who lived a lifestyle of means, often plagued by scandal. Teddy had Chappadiquiddick and a few "waitress sandwiches" to his credit, Mikey kept getting into trouble with little boys. Both also had to pay out hush money--er, settlements--to their victims' families.
  • Both lived in a land named for a fairy-tale. Mikey had his Neverland Ranch; Teddy was the last knight of Camelot. Both watched their worlds fade and crumble in their hands as their health failed and their personal and finacial problems mounted.
  • Both had substance abuse problems. Teddy liked to throw back the hootch; Mikey had a laundry list of drugs that showed he--like his onetime father-in-law Elvis Presley--was a firm believer in self-medication.
  • Both has a well-known favorite pet. Teddy had Splash, his dog, who "wrote" a children's book about his adventures in Washington D.C. Mikey had his chimpanzee Bubbles. To my knowledge the monkey never wrote a book, although I rather think that'd have been interesting to see.
  • Both enjoyed a funeral that was a masive media circus.

  Of course, what got to me was the politicising of the event, which Democrats will inevitably do every time--look at Paul Wellstone's memorial, or that other fellow in Missouri who died in a plane crash (his name escapes me for the moment). The big issue is socialized health care, which (P)resident Obama and his minions are feverishly working to push through, and these jackals see no shame in appending old Teddy's name to it--even getting Kennedy's doe-eyed waif of a grandson to lead the church in a prayer right in the middle of the funeral to ask God to bless the passage of this noxious little piece of legislation. What next, putting Mary Jo Kopechne's name on a bill to allocate money for historical bridge repair? Putting John Wayne Bobbit's name on an amendment for distrubuting free Viagra? Putting Michael Vick's name on a spay-and-neuter law bill? Putting Terri Schaivo's dad's name (he recently passed--er--died) on an assisted suicide amendment? I could go on.

  I do want to discuss my objections to government health care, separately, another time--I may do it as a letter to the local paper first, and then post it here.

  What made me even sicker was some of the phrases used to eulogize Kennedy.

  • "The lion of the Senate". So, what, the females of the family do all the hunting while he sits back and then reaps the spoils later?
  • "No matter what their political differences, he was always one to reach across the aisle to his fellow Senators.." The only thing that fat Catholic bastard ever reached across the aisle to do was grab a beer in one hand and a cocktail waitress' ass in the other. If he ever reached across the aisle to a Republican, it was to give him a black eye. Sometime I want to take a closer look at Kennedy's scathing remarks about Robert Bork. Stay tuned.
  • "He was always up for a good Chappadiquick joke." Um, wow. If a Republican were to make jokes about a woman's death--especially one he caused!--the feminists would tear him a new one. Surprisingly the mustache brigade had nothing to say at this revelation. I wonder if Kim Gandy Goose, President of the National Organization for Women, or Cow-Patty Ireland, former N.O.W. head, or Gloria Stained-em, shrill feminist author, were even invited to the funeral?

  In local politics, the Memphis mayorial race is also turning into a three-ringer. Willie Herenton stepped down as mayor this summer, then announced his intention to put his name back on the ballot to run this fall. After the initial outrage over what can best be called a political tantrum died down, he then did another 180 and said he didn't really want to run, he was just doing this to prove a point . What, that he maybe took one too many blows to the head back in his boxing days? Doesn't he have a son or a nephew or a cousin he could put up as a puppet ruler? I mean, the Ford entended family has a tentacle in every branch of state and national office. When a Ford woman takes a poop, she doesn't flush it; it goes up on a Memphis ballot.

  Plus The Big-Bellied Rapist who plagued Memphis and surrounding areas this past summer has just been caught, it seems. And none too soon. Rumor has it the MPD had an A.P.B out for the Big Fat Fartknocker from the Mo' Money Taxes commercials.

  I haven't blogged much lately as I have been terribly busy with the comic since round about May. I don't know what possessed my ass to do a three-issue arc, a triple-length-issue, and another two-issue arc, plus a TV issue and a Woodstock retrospective, back-to-back...but I am happy to say that I am finally catching up. I still have a few finishing touches to add on #53--including a dedication to Kennedy, whom I've caricatured twice in the series--which I promise will be up at the website Friday. It was supposed to be there last Friday, but, hey, as Eastman and Laird, the Ninja Turtles comics guys, used to say, if it ain't late, it ain't a true Mirage.

  Next week I plan to address the hypocricy of the left and wealth redistribution, in "What's Mine is Mine, And What's Yours Is Mine". Next month is Belch Dimension's Halloween issue, featuring school uniforms, superstitions, and psychotic killer dolls....November has an homage to the Doberman Gang film trilogy called "The Case of the Beagle Burglaries"...and, wrapping up the year with our Christmas issue, a slightly belated but still funny Halloween tale about Buddy and Brandy going trick-or-treating.

  Adios for this week.

  • Posted Sep 4, 2009 10:33 pm PT
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• 21Apr 09

  4/20/09: The 420 Show

  Today is Apr 20, or "420"--a popular symbol of stoner culture. Of course, the left--in conjunction with the dirty mutant hippie drug subculture, has been working to get marijuana legalized for a number of years now. These diseases passing themselves off as human beings seem to have a response for every argument against the anti-pot laws, so rather than rehashing (no pun intended) the tired diatribes in favor of making marijuana illegal I thought I would try a different tact.

  Now as you may well know, I am the founder of the Red, Yellow, and Blue Movement, dedicated to, among other things, rewriting and improving the copyright infringement laws in America. I feel they are too broad and often net the minnows along with the whales. Plagiarism is an odd duck of an offense. It falls under the umbrella of theft, yet unlike taking an automobile or money or a TV, there is no physical evidence of a crime. You can't dust an idea for prints. You can't stash it in a garage or closet or a drawer. You can't stamp your name on it. An idea is nebulous and impossible to hold, to possess. Yet an accusation of stealing one comes with a number of penalties: legal fines, damage to reputation, loss of credibility, suspension from school, expulsion, or termination from one's job. Some universities will retroactively strip a student found of plagiarism of their diploma up to a year after graduation! They don't do that to pot users. "Uh, sir, we have evidence you smoked a joint a year ago. You'll have to come with us."

  Do you realize plagiarism is the most difficult crime to prove, yet the easiest accusation to make? Often the person who filed the charge needn't even appear at the hearing. You don't even have to show proof. Often said hearings, particularly at the academic level, are perfunctory and slipshod at best; the accused is presumed guilty even before (s)he comes before the board, and the charges are read with no opportunity given to the accused to make or prepare a defense beforehand. Dropping the p-bomb is about the worst thing to do to a student or newspaper staffer. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the more left-leaning professors or college newspaper editors kept a fake plagiarism charge tucked away just in case a conservative in their course or employ got a little big for their britches, they felt, and needed to be removed. Yes, I wouldn't put it past the left at all.

  I'm being ridiculous, you say? Well, consider the case of one Ben Domenech, a conservative blogger who had perhaps the shortest journalism career ever. In 2006 Domenech resigned from the Washington Post's blog after a record three days for plagiarism accusations which were at least six years old. (The question of statute of limitations never came up, I suppose.) Domenech first denied, then reluctantly admitted (though I suspect he or his lawyer was bullied to make that mea culpa) to over three dozen counts of plagiarism--though he added, "Virtually every other alleged instance of plagiarism that I've seen comes from a single semester's worth of pieces that were printed under my name at my college paper, The Flat Hat, when I was 17." University of Tennessee law professor Glenn H. Reynolds suggested that Domenech was railroaded simply "because he was a conservative and he was given real estate at The Washington Post. Their goal was to find something they could use to get rid of him, and they succeeded." In other words, he was too controversial and it made him a lightning rod for liberal wrath. I know the feeling. There is, then, precedent for my concerns.

  With this in mind I want to use the 420 crowds' own arguments to try to make the left see that what they are advocating is far more harmful than what I believe.

  Users aren't all losers. A lot of famous people smoke pot, and look at how successful they are.

  Sure. A lot of famous people have been accused of plagiarism as well. Some notable names:

  • Jason Blair, former New York Times columnist
  • Joseph Biden, U.S. Vice-President
  • Dan Brown, novelist
  • Ward Churchill, former University of Columbia professor of Ethics
  • Dan Fogerty, singer
  • Alex Haley, novelist
  • George Harrison, singer
  • Helen Keller, author and activist
  • J.K. Rowling, author
  • Sadam Hussein, former Iraqi President
  • Lyle Menendez, accused murderer
  • Vladimir Putin, Russian President

  So I'm in (more or less) good company.

  Using marijuana doesn't automatically make you use harder drugs.

  Okay, I'll concede there's no conclusive link between pot smoking and using coke, meth, heroin or other so-called "hard drugs". Most of the evidence is ancecdotal, including my own writing about my brother Tim, a.k.a "Captain Stupid". One liberal informs me that he "smoked marijuana tons" as a teen and never felt the urge to graduate to the hard stuff. (Though I wonder if a message board post like that, if traceable, would be admissible in a court of law?) Okay, fair enough. I was (falsely) accused of plagiarizing one column, and I am now regularly told by the left that I am "immoral", that I deserve to die, and that I "crossed [the line] before" and that I'd do it again if given half a chance. So according to the left, pot is not a ticket to a life in an opium den...but one incident of plagiarism and you're branded as a criminal for life? See how knee-jerk and backwards they are?

  We should legalize pot in order to cut down on street crime.

  See, I never saw the merit in this idea. It's like saying, "Hey, if we legalized incest, there's be less rape." Sure, I suppose a few potheads would stop holding up liquor stores and bashing in ATMs to get cash to feed the monkey, but what about coke fiends, crackheads, meth uses, and horse jockeys? I'm sure they'll step up to fill in the gap. Are we going to legalize those too? And besides, there's always your good old-fashioned revenge killings, with no aid from drugs or booze whatsoever. Who needs it? Sort of hard to plan a decent vendetta when you're baked.

  Cigarettes and alcohol kill more people than pot.

  Okay, fine. Tobacco and alcohol are, in their own right, terrible vices responsible for many millions of deaths a year combined, including cancer, heart disease, automobile mishaps, and untold millions in health care costs. However, barring long sustained use of either, the body does recover. The liver can regenerate if not too heavily compromised, and so can the lungs. However, brain cells do not replenish. Pot may not be as bad as LSD, but it can remain in the fat cells and bodily fluids for some time after use, far longer than booze or cigarettes. Plagiarism, on the other hand, never killed a single person. A career, perhaps, and certainly a few good names have suffered. I can't say, however, I ever saw a police or medical show in which someone looked at a stiff and said, "He died of plagirism causes."

  There's worse crimes out here. The penalties for being caught using marijuana are too strict. Why lock me up for four months for catching me with a dime bag while killers run free?

  But you don't have a problem with punishing me for the last twelve years for something I didn't even do? If you're caught with marijuana or marijuana pariphanalia, yes, you go to jail. You deserve to. It could be one night, a few months, or even a year, but you eventually get out. I will never get out. I was "caught", and for it I will pay for my mistake in perpituity. I will foever be a pariah, stripped of my humanity, all my friends forsaking me, never allowed to set foot in their precious little school. There is no release, no parole, no leniency waiting for me. Not as long as this old bat is in power at AS(S)U.

  

  Tell you what: you see fit to relaxing American plagiarism laws, Smokey, and maybe I'll look the other way while you stick that bong in your gob. Sound fair?

  Well, the May issue's due out in just under two weeks...so I'd better get cracking and wrap up this arc. At over 60 pages and spanning five months ,"Up the Demi-Jon Staircase" marks the largest BDC story to date, topping previous contender the "SweetTart" arc (May-Jul 2007). Though even that behemoth will soon be overshadowed by "The Case of the Shanghaied Streetwalkers", the longest single issue, at a whopping 72 pages and a $2.98 cover price. I hope pencilling that sucker doesn't kill me. Adios for this week.

  • Posted Apr 21, 2009 1:43 am PT
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