SAT 08 FEB 2003

In Memorium

Creative Dynamix™ honors the memories of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia. They were true pioneers, whose heroic efforts expanded the boundaries of human knowledge and experience. We offer our sincere condolences to their families, friends, and colleagues, and hope that all possibilities will be investigated to avoid future tragedies in the exploration of space.

The Case for War
Colin Powell has presented convincing evidence to justify the Bush administration's reasons for war on Iraq. Liberals may claim it's all about oil, but loyal Americans know it's really about fighting terrorism and bringing our form of democracy to the Iraqi people. We have garnered the international respect and support we need for a quick and easy victory over Saddam Hussein, whose connection with Osama bin Laden is clear. With all they've accomplished so far, we know we can trust our leaders to keep us all safe and secure from terrorists and those who aid them.

Cold Enough To...
During our recent spate of frigid weather, I was informed by a well-meaning acquaintance that a commonly used expression, often thought to be an anatomical reference, was actually an old nautical term. The purported explanation goes something like this:

Back in the days of sailing ships, vessels were often equipped with cannons for protection. Cannonballs were stacked next to the cannons in a square pyramid, with 16 balls on the bottom, then nine, then four, then one on top, for a total of 30 cannonballs. But how to keep the balls from rolling around the deck in rough seas? The answer was a flat metal plate with 16 rounded indentations to hold the bottom layer of cannonballs. The metal plate was called a "monkey." Sailors soon found that iron "monkeys" had a problem -- the balls would rust into place. So they started making the "monkeys" out of brass. This worked well most of the time, except when the weather became extremely cold. Since brass contracts more quickly than iron, the cannonballs would sometimes pop out of their indentations when temperatures dropped well below freezing. Thus, the expression: "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."

Fascinating as this etymological history may be, it is unfortunately dubious and inaccurate. On the bright side, however, temperature-sensitive brass monkeys are now available to the public.

Thought for the Week
"You tell me, just look all around
At the past and the present, the cross and the crescent,
The signs and the planets are lining up like before.
There are souls on fire in the day and the night,
On the left and the right, in the black and the white,
You can see it burn in the eyes of the rich and the poor.
Rumours of war, rumours of war."
-- Al Stewart

Thanks to SuperWavyDavy • Poster by Mad Magazine

More Departures
In the late 1970s there were at least two simultaneous currents of music that appealed to vastly different audiences -- the punk/new wave genre, and disco. Most people who liked one couldn't stand the other; I recall denouncing disco at the time as being "utterly devoid of meaningful lyrics, creative percussion, and extended guitar leads." But within the last month, two muscians whose work exemplifed those cultural endpoints of punk and disco -- Joe Strummer of the Clash and Maurice Gibb of the BeeGees -- departed to the great beyond. I saw the Clash perform live on several occasions, and while I never much cared for the BeeGees, I found myself feeling nearly as sad to hear about Maurice as I did about Joe. As much as I tried to avoid it, disco was ubiquitous during my college years, and as much of a backdrop to those times as the Clash or the Sex Pistols or the Ramones. It really doesn't feel like all that long ago, and it just seemed a little soon for it all to start turning to dust. Chronos vincit omnia.

On Some Faraway Beach
On a group of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people are suddenly stranded by, as you might expect, a shipwreck:

2 Italian men and 1 Italian woman
2 French men and 1 French woman
2 German men and 1 German woman
2 Greek men and 1 Greek woman
2 Bulgarian men and 1 Bulgarian woman
2 Japanese men and 1 Japanese woman
2 Chinese men and 1 Chinese woman
2 American men and 1 American woman
2 Irish men and 1 Irish woman
2 English men and 1 English woman

One month later on these same absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a ménage-à-trois.

The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

The two Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cooking and cleaning for them.

The two Bulgarian men took one long look at the endless ocean, and another long look at the Bulgarian woman, and started swimming.

The two Japanese men have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, a liquor store, a restaurant and a laundry, and have got the woman pregnant in order to supply employees for their stores.

The two American men are contemplating the virtues of suicide because the American woman keeps endlessly complaining about her body; the true nature of feminism; how she can do everything they can do; the necessity of fulfillment; the equal division of household chores; how sand and palm trees make her look fat; how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do; how her relationship with her mother is improving and how at least the taxes are low and it isn't raining.

The two Irish men have divided the island into North and South and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets sort of foggy after the first few liters of coconut whisky. But they're satisfied because at least the English aren't having any fun.

The two English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.

 Thought for the Week
"What would Jesus do for a Klondike bar?"
-- various locations in cyberspace, including here

Revised Map of Middle Earth Released

Update
Added Weathering the Storm to Explositions.

Tell This Joke and Go To Jail
According to this source (take it as you will),

On Friday, December 6th, 2002, Richard Humphreys of Portland, Oregon was sentenced to 37 months in prison for "threatening to kill or harm the President" after telling a joke during a bar room discussion. Here is that joke.

A Muslim, a Baptist, and a Catholic walk into a bar.

The Catholic says, "I heard President Bush is giving a speech here this week. I wonder if he'll be using an interpreter."

The Baptist says, "Yeah, to translate it into English."

They have a few more drinks and the Baptist says, "I wonder if they'll show it on a wide screen television. They call him the 'Big Picture President' you know."

The Catholic answers, "I doubt it. His 'big picture' could fit on the head of a pin."

After few more drinks, the Baptist comments, "Maybe someone should shove that pin up his ass."

The Catholic responds, "He'd squeal louder if they shoved a jalapeno pepper up his ass."

The Baptist says, "Yeah, a jalapeno. Talk about a Burning Bush!"

With that, an FBI agent arrests the Catholic and the Baptist for threatening bodily harm to the Sole Commander in Chief of the United States, and takes them both into custody.

The bartender looks at the Muslim and says, "Wow! Can you believe that?"

The Muslim replies, "That's nothing. John Poindexter was convicted of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, and destroying Federal evidence about the criminal conspiracy to sell arms to Iran, and Bush just appointed him Director of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Office."

Thought for the Week
"Lincoln said, 'With malice toward none, with charity to all.' Nowadays they say, 'Think the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights outta you.'" -- Lionel Barrymore as Grandpa Martin Vanderhof in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Happy Holidays from Creative Dynamix™

Parallel Hell
Lately, some people have been drawing parallels between Adolf Hitler and G. W. Bush, particularly in regard to the 1933 Reichstag Fire and the 2001 WTC attacks. For instance, this article notes that:

In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the way a seemingly democratic president kept his nation in a continual state of repression was by having a continuous war. Cynics suggest the lesson wasn't lost on Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, who both, they say, extended the Vietnam war so it coincidentally ran over election cycles, knowing that a wartime President's party is more likely to be reelected and has more power than a President in peacetime.

Similarly, Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building by a deranged Dutchman to declare a "war on terrorism," establish his legitimacy as a leader (even though he hadn't won a majority in the previous election). ...

[Hitler] used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their "evil" deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first prison for terrorists was built in Oranianberg, holding the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the nation's flag was everywhere, even printed in newspapers suitable for display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation, in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it, that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism. ...

Within a year of the terrorist attack, Hitler's advisors determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, including those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist sympathizers. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the Fatherland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single powerful leader.

Most Americans remember his Office of Fatherland Security, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and Schutzstaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

And, perhaps most important, he invited his supporters in industry into the halls of government to help build his new detention camps, his new military, and his new empire which was to herald a thousand years of peace. Industry and government worked hand-in-glove, in a new type of pseudo-democracy first proposed by Mussolini and sustained by war.

Of course, some people have objected to such comparisons, pointing out significant differences between Hitler and Bush. But history is history, and even some prominent conservatives have expressed concern about proposed new security measures. The solution, of course, is to implement security in a manner more consistent with the American spirit, but given the track record of the current administration, this outcome appears unlikely. Ah well, happy holidays anyway, and don't forget the toys for the little ones.

"I'm a uniter, not a divider...."

Southern Fried Santa
Memo
From: Santa Claus

I regret to inform you that, effective immediately, I will no longer serve the States of Georgia, Florida, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas on Christmas Eve. Due to the overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was renegotiated by North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. As part of the new and better contract, I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies so keep that in mind. However, I'm certain that your children will be in good hands with your local replacement, who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of the family is from the South Pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all the good boys and girls. However, there are a few differences between us.

Differences such as:

1. There is no danger of the Grinch stealing your presents from Bubba Claus. He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper sticker that reads: "These toys insured by Smith and Wesson."
2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave an RC cola and pork rinds (or a moon pie) on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn't smoke a pipe. He dips a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy.
3. Bubba Claus' sleigh is pulled by floppy-eared, flyin' coon dogs instead of reindeer. I made the mistake of loaning him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen's head now overlooks Bubba's fireplace.
4. You won't hear "On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead, you'll hear, "On Earnhardt, on Andretti, on Elliott and Petty."
5. "Ho, Ho, Ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!" And you also are likely to hear Bubba's elves respond, "I her'd dat!"
6. As required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus' sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam safety triangle on the back with the words "Back Off."
7. The usual Christmas movie classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" will not be shown in your negotiated viewing area. Instead, you'll see "Boss Hogg Saves Christmas" and "Smokey and the Bandit IV" featuring Burt Reynolds as Bubba Claus and dozens of state patrol cars crashing into each other. And finally,
8. Bubba Claus doesn't wear a belt. If I were you, I'd make sure you and the wife and kids turn the other way when he bends over to put presents under the tree.
   

Thought for the Week
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday