Daddy on the Edge of a Rebuttal

Daddy on the Edge doesn't get a whole lot of feedback.

It happens, and I've come to accept that.  While I know there are a pretty fair amount of people that come by and read the posts here, the comments section remains fairly bare (which I gotta tell you, can sometimes feel like having sex with a mime - in the dark.  You think you're doing pretty good, but it's always hard to know if you have truly "satisfied" with your "content".  Was she thrashing in pleasure, or pretending to be assaulted by the wind, holding on to an invisible rope so she wouldn't be blown away?).

But today, Daddy got a comment; here's a bit of it  -

"I read your most recent blog post from the 9th...you speak of charity and then deride conservatives for not giving to charity.

I find this humorous and uninformed since study after study (including Pew Research, whom I am sure you find more palatable than say Breitbart) have all concurred that conservatives consistently give more to charity than liberals."

I have not found a study that supports this idea - not exactly, anyway - I have found studies that suggest that "Red States" give more to charity than "Blue States", but I know lots of Democrats who live in Red States and vice versa for the Republicans, so it's not so easy for me to buy into that argument.  And besides, that's not the argument I was making.

While I did use the word "Charity" in my last blog post, what I was driving at was the idea that we should care for each other, that whatever we do for the least of us, we do for Christ; that helping the least fortunate among us is a major theme in many, many different religions. The idea of "giving to charity", while it should be synonymous with what I'm saying, can often times...not be.  It's easy to say that Republicans give more to charity, (and my critic did indeed provide me with articles - one from 2006 and one from 2008) but what are we really talking about?

From Wiki - A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on non-profit and philanthropic goals as well as social well-being ( e.g. charitable, educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good)

Like these guys - The American Family Association (AFA) is a United States non profit organization that promotes conservative fundamentalist Christian values. It opposes same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion.  It also takes a position on a variety of other public policy goals and has lobbied against the Employee Free Choice Act. The AFA defined itself as "a Christian organization promoting the biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary emphasis on television and other media," later switching their stated emphasis to "moral issues that impact the family." It engages in activism efforts, including boycotts, buycotts, action alert emails, publications on the AFA's web sites or in the AFA Journal, broadcasts on American Family Radio, and lobbying.  The organization is accredited by the Evengelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) and posted a 2011 budget of over US$16 million.  AFA owns 200 American Family Radio stations in 33 states, seven affiliate stations in seven states, and one affiliate TV station KAZQ TV) in New Mexico.

AFA has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center as of November 2010 for the "propagation of known falsehoods" and the use of "demonizing propaganda" against LGBT people.  AFA has been criticized for its opposition to LGBT rights.

Annnnnd... it's a Charity.

The AFA is but one example - the Southern Poverty Law Center lists 18 Anti-Gay Hate Groups and their Propaganda that all claim non-profit, tax free status, and any donation you make to them can be claimed as a charitable contribution on your 1040's.

Then there are the environmental charities.  Nope, not Greenpeace - these non profit organizations are "sock puppet groups" put together by the Koch Heads and their ilk to counter rational, scientific conclusions regarding climate change with their own brand of...methane.

In February of this year, The Guardian posted a story that talks about these organizations, which you can read in it's entirety here - the following is a snippet of that article...

" As the Guardian revealed last week, two secretive organisations working for US billionaires have spent $118m to ensure that no action is taken to prevent man made climate change.  

The two organisations – the Donors' Trust and the Donors' Capital Fund have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action.

Among them are the American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, Hudson Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Mont Pelerin Society and Discovery Institute. All pose as learned societies, earnestly trying to determine the best interests of the public. The exposure of this funding reinforces the claim by David Frum, formerly a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, that such groups "increasingly function as public relations agencies"".

The Westboro Baptist Church is a charity.    The Ku Klux Klan has enjoyed tax free, non profit status.  Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network is a charitable organization, (despite the fact that Roberston used CBN money and equipment to aid his diamond mining operation in Zaire).  There are volumes of  charities, 501c3s, non profit organizations - countless groups, (all tax exempt, mind you) that, while charities in name and filing status, are in no way charitable.  Now, if you want to tell me that Republicans lead the way in giving to those types of organizations, well then I'll have no trouble believing that.

But again, what I was referring to were actual works - things that you do that directly help or hurt the poorest and weakest among us.  When sequestration was put on the table, the cuts were designed to be so unpalatable that no decent person could actually let such a thing happen, and that Republicans and Democrats would do whatever was necessary to avoid them.  Now that obstructionist Republicans have blocked every attempt at actual progress, this is what will happen to the poorest among us; 

From Mother Jones; 

Public housing subsidies:  $1.9 billion in cuts would affect 125,000 low-income people who would lose access to vouchers to help them with their rent.

Foreclosure prevention:  75,000 fewer people would receive foreclosure prevention, rental, and homeless counseling services.

Emergency housing: 100,000 formerly homeless people could be removed from their current emergency shelters.

Educational programs: Learning programs for poor kids would see a total of $2.7 billion in cuts. The $400 million slashed from Head Start, the preschool program for poor children, would result in reduced services for some 70,000 kids.

Title I Funding: The Department of Education's Title I program, the biggest federal education program in the country, subsidizes schools that serve more than a million disadvantaged students. It would see $725 million in cuts.

Rural rental assistance: Cuts to the Department of Agriculture would result in the elimination of rental assistance for 10,000 very low-income rural people, most of whom are single women, elderly, or disabled.

Social Security: Although Social Security payments themselves won't be scaled back, cuts to the program would result in a massive backlogging of disability claims.

Unemployment benefits: More than 3.8 million people getting long-term unemployment benefits would see their monthly payments reduced by as much as 9.4 percent, and would lose an average of $400 in benefits over their period of joblessness.

Veterans services: The Transition Assistance Program would be forced to cut back some of the job search and career transition services it provides to 150,000 vets a year.

Nutritional Assistance for Women & Children: The government's main food stamp program is exempt from cuts, but other food programs would take a hit. Some 600,000 women and children would be cut from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which provides nutrition assistance and education.

Special education:  $978 million in cuts would affect 30.7 million children. For example, the scaling back of federal grants to states for students with disabilities would mean that cash-strapped states and districts would have to come up with the salaries for thousands of teachers, aides and staff that serve special needs kids.

Job training programs:  $37 million would be slashed from a job retraining and placement program called Employment Services, and $83 million would be cut from Job Corps, which provides low-income kids with jobs and education.

Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa) said that the $85 billion in cuts "would really help a long way and get us on a sustainable fiscal path."  Hmmmm...so would only fighting the wars that we really needed to, as well as not paying for antiquated weaponry that is obsolete to our current military needs (and is expensive as hell); so would abandoning your parties repeated attempts to repeal "ObamaCare" (which as of July 2012 had racked up costs of approximately $48 million) and constantly defending the Defense of Marriage Act ($ 3 million so far) -  then there's that pesky notion of paying salaries, health care, personal protection, ground, air and sea transportation, pension and rent to a bunch of Congressional jack-wads who would rather propose 694 Anti-Choice bills in three months (!) than actually sit down and work with the President to tackle the serious problems still facing this nation and this planet.  I'd much rather give that money to Head Start kids or homeless Vets than to a bunch of self aggrandizing K Street whores who don't seem to have a fucking care in the world about ANYONE but themselves.  And yeah, I'm talking about you, Toomey.  Weenie.

So, in conclusion - thanks for the feedback.  Glad you found some humor here, and I hope you come back.  And honestly, I love feedback - I would be thrilled to hear from anyone and everyone who's got something to say, but know this - this blog is the radically amplified, barely censored, oft times caustic opinion of a self proclaimed ludicrous asshole who goes by the name of  Daddy on the Edge. The fact that you call me uninformed frankly makes me giggle, but you go right ahead and call me that if it makes you feel better.  Facts are facts, and even blind guides and blind fools can see that your GOP brothers wailing for this to be a Christian Nation are about as Christlike as a post Purim nosh at the 2nd Avenue Deli.

I'll wrap this up with a few words from the biggest Liberal I know; Watch...

Go with God, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Jesus, Muhammad and The Common Good

"This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the"common good". . . for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors.” ~John Chrysostom

Did'ja know that Daddy is an ordained Minister?

Yep - signed, sealed and delivered us from evil honest to God fearing Man of the Cloth, courtesy of The Universal Life Church Monastery.  I also signed The Big Book in NYC (seriously - no joke - it's this massive, leather bound tome that they pull out and have you sign - this after you've been sitting in the main waiting area of City Hall, listening for your name to be called and watching couple after couple coming in to get married - the whole afternoon was like some sort of college film, but I think I can say quite honestly that it was the best time I have ever had in a government building), which means I am able to marry people in Manhattan and all the Five Boroughs.  What could be better than having Daddy on the Edge officiate at your wedding?  Well this, for starters...

This is salted caramel ice cream, hot fudge, peanuts and caramel corn.  The creator of this concoction, Felicia Day, calls it a Cracker Jack Sundae.  It is delicious sounding, decadent looking, and it is consuming most of my thoughts this evening.  This needs to find a way into Daddy's mouth by the end of the week or bad things may occur. I might even accept this as payment for performing your wedding ceremony - that's how badly I want this thing.  Will marry for food?  I might, rabbit...I might.

But I digress (ya think???).  Salted caramel ice cream and all the fixin's is not the topic of today's foray into Daddy's brain.  Today, Minister Daddy, (nah...Papa Padre?  Father Father?  Eh, screw it) - today, I want to talk about The New Testament, The Qur'an, and The Torah.

I'll take "Religious Best Sellers" for $1,000, Alex!  Yep, these are three of the big boys - the play books, the instruction manuals, the veritable "eHows" for being the best darned Christian, or Muslim, or Jew you can be.  Throughout the centuries, they have been used to highlight our differences (usually to point out how one is so much better than the other two), but Preacher Pop (still not quite right...) is looking to focus for just a moment on one of the similarities of these three Holy Books - one of the main, central tenets that they all share -

Charity.

2 Corinthians 9:7 - Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

Deuteronomy 15:7 - If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.

 The Noble Qur'an -By no means shall you attain to righteousness until you spend (benevolently) out of what you love; and whatever thing you spend, Allah surely knows it. (3:92)

Mark 10:21 - Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

Leviticus 25:35 - If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.

We could be here all day highlighting how religions share a common belief in the importance of charity to their spirituality.  I've touched on three, but Hinduism practices a "daily morality" based on Karma and Dharma, Buddhism says that there must be joy in every act of giving, the Sikh Guru Amar Das says, "Blessed is the godly person and the riches they possess because they can be used for charitable purposes and to give happiness."  - On and on and on.  I've saved this one for last, because I thought it was excellent -

The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Charity is a necessity for every Muslim.'

 He was asked: 'What if a person has nothing?'

 The Prophet replied: 'He should work with his own hands for his benefit and then give something out of such earnings in charity.'

The Companions asked: 'What if he is not able to work?' 

 The Prophet said: 'He should help poor and needy persons.' 

 The Companions further asked 'What if he cannot do even that?' 

 The Prophet said 'He should urge others to do the good.' 

The Companions said 'What if he lacks that also?' 

 The Prophet said 'He should hold himself from doing evil. That is also charity.'

If you can't do anything good, at least stop yourself from doing evil.  That is also charity.  Congress could learn a lot from the Prophet Muhammad.

Day after day, I hear a growing number of our legislators and lawmakers calling for this to be a Judeo-Christian Nation, a nation that embraces Christianity - truly, One Nation Under God (the GOP God, of course - kinda looks like a cross between Charlton Heston and Jerry Garcia - loves assault rifles, hates gays...surprisingly runs hot and cold on Ted Nugent.)  But their words and their actions don't match.

From the book of James - "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ..."

What do the latest "works" of Congress, specifically that God fearing, Jesus loving Right Wing of Congress - show us?  Attempting to restrict voter rights, cutting food programs for the poor, refusing to raise an anemic minimum wage, countless campaigns and measures unleashed daily for the seemingly sole purpose of  hurting the least of us.  That's not Christ talking, that's someone else.  Please, please show me one bill, one proposal that has been suggested by anyone in the GOP that could even be considered the least bit "Christlike".  I'm here to tell ya, they don't exist.

Meanwhile, the folks that we have been told to revile; well now - they seem to be walking the path of the righteous a lot easier than the self-righteous whack-a-moles of Congress.

Compare and contrast with me for a moment, willya?  While House Republicans recently proposed cuts to nutrition assistance that will kick 280,000 low income children off automatic enrollment in the Free School Lunch and Breakfast Program, The Imperial Court of New York

was hosting the 27th annual Night of a Thousand Gowns, a gala fundraiser, this year raising funds for GMHC and GLAAD.  In their history, the court has donated over a million dollars to worthy LGBT and HIV/AIDS related causes.  Seems that crossdressers, drag queens and "sodomites" (as many a Republican has referred to my gay brothers) are being a whole lot more "Christian" than all you good, morally bankrupt upstanding GOP mothers. (PS:  The folks on the right are newly crowned Emperor XXII Wen-Dee Bouvier Pinkhouse and Empress XXVII Gracie Steeles - word is the house was royally rocked at their coronation, and all of us here at Daddy on the Edge wish them a most epic reign. Link to ICNY will be on the sidebar - go get involved and be frigging fabulous!).

Here's another one - while Paul Ryan and his holier than thou GOP Cabal are still trying to cut $1.4 trillion from Medicaid over a ten year period (way to sock it to those "takers", Paul Ryan, you Social Security Recipient you) prison inmates in various correctional facilities were helping charities through several different methods.  At The Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, CA, a group of inmates known as "The Longtermers Association" has raised and donated over $150,000 to charitable organizations.  In Key West, FL, "Art Behind Bars" is a program that provides inmates with art classes, whose work is then exhibited and sold with the proceeds given to charity.  Since 1994, the group has donated over $100,000 to 400-plus non-profit organizations.  You can read about more of these organizations here.  These folks are amazing to me.  Prison can tear you down; it can eat you up inside, leaving you with nothing but darkness - or a person can choose, even in their darkest hour, to find a bit of light...and make it brighter.

The Republicans in Congress snuff out that light, or they try to.  They decry, defund and destroy every charitable program that doesn't fit with their way of thinking (ACORN, Planned Parenthood, anything "gay"), all the while making poor people poorer and rich people richer and THEN claiming that somehow, that's the way God wants it.

God doesn't want that.  Jesus doesn't want that.  Muhammad, Moses, Buddha - they don't want that either.  Saying that they do; saying that you act in Their names, is the mark of a False Prophet.  Worse - it is the mark of a Pharisee.

Jesus was not a fan of the Pharisees.  He called them blind fools, serpants, and hypocrites, accusing them of saying one thing but doing another - accusing them of making heavy burdens for men to carry, without lifting a finger to help.  He accused them of making a show of their faith, but doing very little to back it up with works.  The Pharisees, like our present day GOP, cared little for "the common good".

Who but demons would demonize the poor and the defenseless?  In every religion, save the religion of Greed and Avarice, what the Republicans are doing to the poor, the hungry, the homeless and destitute are some of the greatest sins imaginable.  And when we give in to their constant mantra - when we allow ourselves to believe, even for a moment, that it's the poor and their "entitlement programs" that are to blame for our current financial situation - then we have succumbed to the teachings of False Prophets.

This callous, malevolent, evil attitude toward the poor in this country Must End.  It is an empty, fruitless, heartless endeavor and we are simply better than that.  We Must be better than that.  How do I know?  Jesus told me.

It's sad that I have to look to a fictional character to wrap this up - how extraordinary would it be to hear one of our elected leaders speak these words, or words anywhere close to these?  Thank you, Charlie Chaplin - for reminding me that the Kingdom of God is within every one of us.  Watch...



  Can I get an Amen up in here?

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge - The Expiration of Inspiration

I don't breathe much, really...lately.

I mean, obviously I breathe enough; I'm walking and talking, doin' my thang in the blogopolis, so I must be getting enough O2 in my system.

But it's not the real thing, y'know?  What most Americans (and probably folks in a whole lot of the world) pass off as breathing is actually this shallow, ragged push me-pull you between oxygen and carbon dioxide - it's just about enough respiration to keep us conscious and alive, but not a helluva lot more.  It's like duct taping the hell out of that broken mailbox post so it'll stay upright a bit longer- it ain't the right way to do it, but it gets the job done, know what I mean?

And the real kicker is that it should be so easy!  It's breathing, for crying out loud!  But when work, and bills, and work, and taxes, and work and the dog and work and broken appliances and work and health issues and work and work and work...(whew...head rush)...yeah, when the pressures of life get to rest too heavily on one's chest and one's mind, this simple thing to do ain't no longer simple, and we suffer from a lack...of inspiration.

Isn't that great?  The art of the inhale is called inspiration.  Daddy loves unexpected words like that - for instance, the french word for "Warning" is "Advertissement" (which makes perfect sense if you've ever listened to the litany of nasty side effects in one of those Cymbalta commercials).  The french word for "gasoline"?  "Essence".  Isn't that awesome?  "Will you be home in time for dinner?"  "Sure - just gotta stop for some Essence and then I'll be there."  Filling your tank sounds downright sexy when the french say it (although at $4.00 a gallon, it still feels like you're getting mugged at the pump, no matter what you call it).

So, I've been suffering from insufficient inspiration.  The flip side of Inspiration (breathing in) is Expiration (breathing out), hence the title of today's post.  I'm not sure where I first heard the term, but I wrote it down immediately because it just tickled the hell out of me.  I didn't take it to have anything to do with breathing, although that is how it had been introduced.  To me it seemed like speculating that there could be an expiration date, a finite period of time - a limit to one's inspiration, or perhaps to the usefulness of such (use it or lose it, as it were).

We've all seen that happen, so there must be something to that - my great ideas, your great ideas - they don't die if we don't act on them - only our time to act on them expires, and they go on to someone else.  Years later, we see our ideas being sold on TV, or Bill Gates is unveiling them, or someone else opens that coffee shop, and we sulk quietly, jealous of all the attention our ideas are getting, up there with those other people who actually used them.  Song about The Twilight Zone?  My idea.  "Yadda, yadda, yadda"?  Swear to God, it was mine before it was Seinfeld's.  I tell ya, you've gotta copyright that shit the second it pops into your head, 'cuz you never know how long you're gonna have it.

Inspiration - it begins.  Expiration - it is over.  We live and die in a single breath, to be born again with the next, and the next, and the next.  Every breath an opportunity to be inspired anew - to go down another path, make another choice - live another life.  Not these half assed, token sucks of air like people drowning in oceans of their own design - but real, clean, deep down in your toes, get you high kind of breathing.  Do this with me right now - Exhale; whatever breath you have in you, force it out of you - empty yourself - push it all out...every last bit.  Now, deep and steady in through your nose, inhale as much air as you can comfortably take in , and then take in just a little bit more, and hold it. Hold it in for four times the amount of time you took inhaling...and then release.  Exhale normally, and let your breathing return to normal.

How'd that feel?  Did your teeth tingle?  Feel a little bit high?  I know, I know - it's nothing new.  Y'all do this in yoga and meditation - but for many of us unenlightened ones, this is not something we come by naturally, because we're stressed beyond belief, because there's too much noise and not enough sound, because there's too much doing and not enough being - because sometimes life...makes it hard to breathe.

But it's not life that makes it hard to breathe - it's all the crap with which we clog up our existence and refer to as life.  Life is not our job, or our political affiliation; Life is not our house, or our car, or any of the material possessions that we hold dear.  Life is expression.  Life is inspiration realized.  Life is every unencumbered, unstressed breath that we allow ourselves to take.

We can breathe; we can absorb inspiration freely and easily; we can be divine and mystic and extraordinary and epic...we just have to get out of our own way.

Observe your own body. It breathes. You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer conscious of your own ideas of self-identity. Who, then, is breathing? The collection of information that you mistakenly think it’s you is not the main protagonist in this drama called the breath. In fact, you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening to you. You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot purposely keep your own life going. The expression, “My life” is actually an oxymoron, a result of ignorance and mistaken assumption. You don’t posses life; life expresses itself through you. Your body is a flower that life let bloom, a phenomenon created by life.” 

~ Ilchi Lee

Breathe easy, my friends.

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Believing...

My daughter was in a recent episode of the award winning web series "Haywire" .  She had some very basic action - be chased from one room to another.  I was at rehearsal and watched her pretend to run from someone, causing the person chasing her to slow down and end up pretending as well.  I asked the director if I could speak to my daughter for a moment.  He agreed and I quickly walked over to her and said "I'm chasing you - don't let me catch you!  RUN!", and I chased her at full speed.  Now that she was actually being chased, it was real for her, and the pretending was over.  Because acting is not ever about pretending...

Acting is about make-believe.

Some would call pretending and make-believe the same.  The Free Dictionary lumps make-believe together with fantasy, unreality, charade - even mock and sham - and a host of other terms that would regulate it to the world of the imaginary, the unreal...the false.

I disagree.  In Daddy's lexicon,

Make-Believe = Making the viewer Believe.

It's not about pretending; it's about convincing.  And to truly convince someone else, you first have to convince yourself.  Great actors immerse themselves in a role, losing themselves, so that they might become this other person, and convince you that they have done so.  Acting is like sales; the first step is that you yourself believe in your product. You have to make yourself believe, in acting, in sales...in our everyday lives - and sometimes that last one is the toughest - can you make yourself believe...in you?

Sometimes, that's a tall order.  Sometimes Conventional Wisdom, The Powers That Be, or the so-called Experts will make it almost impossible for you to believe that something is possible.  They'll call you a dreamer, or worse - a fool for believing what you believe.  Can you still overcome?  Can your belief system overcome theirs?  Can you make yourself, and others believe what, up until now, was wholly unbelievable?

Let's ask this guy...




Thank You, Arthur Boorman - for your service to our country, for serving as an amazing inspiration, and for making Daddy cry those good tears, those happy tears...those tears that flow every time I watch you run...

You Make Me Believe.

Thanks, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of a New Year

The Mayans were wrong.

Cool, 'cuz Daddy had a full Saturday planned and a Friday end of the world would have really futzed thangs up, ya feel me?  But it's cool, because they were wrong.  We're still here.  Glad I didn't tell people what I really thought about them.  ;)

Still though, plenty of people bought into the whole Mayan calendar thing - We're a people that likes to buy into things, don'tcha think?  It's like we groove on the danger - "Y2K!!!  End of the world!!"  "Rapture coming 'cuz some Baptist Minister said so!   End of the world!!"  "Snookie's having a baby!!  End of the world!!!!!!!"  Any excuse for us to stock up on bibles, guns and canned goods - we're in.

And we play that damned REM song 'til it can't play no mo'.

You know the one.  I know the one.  I think even my mother knows the one I'm talking about, and my mother still thinks that Jim Nabors is a great contemporary artist.  The song is "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I feel Fine)" -

From Wiki - "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" is a song by the rock band R.E.M. which appeared on their 1987 album Document, the 1988 compilation Eponymous, and the 2006 compilation And I Feel Fine...The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987. It was released as a single in November 1987, reaching No. 69 US Billboard Hot 100 and later reaching No. 39 in the UK singles chart on its re-release in December 1991.

The song originated from a previously unreleased R.E.M. song called "PSA" ("Public Service Announcement"); the two songs are very similar in melody and tempo. "PSA" was itself later released as a single in 2003, under the title "Bad Day". In an interview with Guitar World magazine published in November 1996, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck agreed that "End of the World" was in the tradition of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues

The music video was directed by James Herbert, who worked with the band on several other videos in the late 1980s. It depicts a young skateboarder, Noah Ray, rifling through an abandoned, collapsing farmhouse and displaying the relics that he finds to the camera.

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the song was placed on the list of post 9/11 inappropriate titles distributed by Clear Channel.

It's a fun song; I'm sure it's a favorite at karaoke bars, and it's probably the only reason you will hear entire rooms of adults shout out in unison, "LEONARD BERNSTEIN!!"  But I think there's a little more to it than that...

The lyric is, "It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine".  Prepositional phrases are such important things, don'tcha think?  The end of the world...as...we...know...it.  Did you know that the world as we know it ceases to be, completely and utterly, in the half of a half of a nanosecond after we've known it?  Human beings, the planet that we live on, the animals that share it with us and the atmosphere and the stratosphere and the universe - we are all in a constant state of regeneration.  Life in transition.  Life is transition. The atoms that make up your body once made up the body of Christ.  I didn't say that - Deepak Chopra did. We are ever changing, living in a universe that is never the exact same from one millisecond to the next - matter and energy ever changing, ever transitioning, ever Becoming.  That's the good news - we are always becoming something new, something different; often times, something wonderful.  But only if we allow it.

Y'see, the universe is simple, in a way.  It listens, and gives us what we want; kinda like a cosmic McDonald's counter person.  If we see ourselves as a standard hamburger, and believe ourselves to be a standard hamburger, then when the Cosmic Counter Person asks us what we would like, we confidently (and all too routinely) answer, "hamburger, please."

Yum.

And why wouldn't we?  It's what we've known; it's all we've known.  It's what our family and teachers and friends and work associates know us to be, so it must be true, and therefore must be continued.  But, what if we ignored our history, our daily adherence and belief in what we are, and all the evidence it provides to our senses that we are merely - the standard burger.  What if we allowed ourselves to dream for a moment, to go wild in our fantasizing, and imagine ourselves to be... the Number 1 Combo Meal - the Big Mac, large fries and your choice of an icy soft drink!  What if you ordered that from the Cosmic Counter Person?  Hell - why limit yourself to the McDonald's menu?  Why not order the Mascarpone Enriched Chestnut Agnolotti from Per Se?  Why not embody Del Posto's delightful Pumpkin Cappellacci with brown butter and biscotti?  Or Amber's Hokaiddo Diver Scallop with Jerusalem Artichokes, green apple, 56 month old Patanegrade bellota ham & white alba truffles (which I understand pairs magnificently with the 2003 Chateau Larrivet Haut-Brion Blanc,  Pessac-Leognan, Bordeaux) ??

Or a banana?

My point is; change is inevitable.  Why do we not take active control of that change, instead of leaving the choice of who we are to be made by the powers around us?  A rudderless ship will still be carried by the ocean's currents, and will find itself arriving at a destination that it had no say in choosing, or worse yet, may just become lost at sea, never finding it's home, it's true destination...it's destiny.

We have a rudder.  We have a wheel.  We have a choice.  The Status Quo was built and is powered by people and organizations that profit from The Status Quo remaining as it is - unchanged.  Since we have established that everything changes, then the only thing that maintains The Status Quo...is our belief in it.  Our belief that we are what they say we are, and that we are powerless to change it.  Such myths are the stuff of fairy tales.  We have had, and always will have, the power to change our worlds in an instant.  What we have lost is the desire to do so, and the belief that we are able.

Tonight marks the beginning of a new year. My wish is that it truly is a "New" Year for us all; unlike the old years of compliance, complacency and acceptance of the unacceptable.  In 2013, may we be unconventional in the face of conventional wisdom, may we rise up and challenge inane notions that we can be categorized by percentages, or antiquated belief systems; may we see the dronings and squawkings of Television News Puppets as the silly, nonsensical noise that they are and not for a second take them seriously; may we begin this day to become something completely new, something superior to what we have ever allowed ourselves to be before.  In 2013, may we be Magnificent.  It is the End of the World as We Know It...and I Do Feel Fine.  How 'bout you?




Happy New Year,

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Imagining...

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, 
 Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too, 
Imagine all the people, Living life in peace...




I was gonna spew some pompous shit here, but then I realized there was no need.  Just watch this guy...


    


Pretty fucking cool, right? Now watch these people -




How amazing is that?  Wanna see something even more amazing?  The Iranians responded (this is even more amazing because the Iranian government could show these people a world of hurt for participating in such a video) - watch -

And Ronny isn't done - now he wants to get the new message - "Not Ready to Die in Your War" - up on billboards in Tel Aviv.  Wanna help?  Check his indiegogo page - http://www.indiegogo.com/peacefactory and give what you can.  Or go to the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/israellovesiran or just share the videos above.  Can we tell the politicians to shut the hell up?  The people are speaking, and the people are calling for Peace.


What would happen if they threw a War and nobody came?

Imagine, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Chicken Shit

Sometimes Corporate America pisses me off.

Why?  Oh, so many reasons, but the first is that they screwed up my blog.  If you came looking for the last blog post, "Daddy on the Edge of a Musical Interlude", you may not have been able to view the second video that was featured, because the idjits at Vimeo put some stupid subscription lock on it.  So, screw Vimeo.  I went to YouTube and got a replacement which seems to be working fine, so if you tried to view the last post and were running into problems, please go back and see the whole thing as it was meant to be seen - there's really some amazing music there.  As for Vimeo, I know you were trying to gain subscribers, but instead you got me telling folks how much you suck, so job well done there  Maybe in the future, you won't put content out there as something good only to later turn around and change the rules...weenies.

Which brings me to This Asshole!  Yes, Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A is back in

the news and back on Daddy's shit list.  As you may remember, Dan Cathy caught a lot of heat for funding anti-LGBT groups.  Protests, counter-protests, boycotting Chick-fil-A, Mike Huckabee calling for a day to support the chickenhawk or something like that - all the whack-jobs came out for that one...

It got nasty for the Chicken Head, because he wanted to build a new Chick-fil-A coop in Chicago, and Alderman Joe Moreno basically said that he wasn't gonna bend the zoning laws required to let Cathy's homophobic chickeny goodness come to Chicago's North side.  So, there was no joy in Mudville...until this story came out (credit to Yahoo News - written by Dylan Stableford)...  

Chick-fil-A agrees to stop funding antigay groups, Chicago alderman says

Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chain that sparked a firestorm earlier this year after its president made public comments against same-sex marriage, has agreed to stop funding antigay groups, a Chicago alderman says.

Joe Moreno, the alderman whose opposition of a proposed Chick-fil-A on Chicago's north side helped fuel the controversy, told the Chicago Tribune the company has pledged to include a statement of respect for all sexual orientations in a memo to staffers, and has promised that the WinShape Foundations, its not-for-profit arm, would no longer contribute money to groups that oppose gay marriage. Moreno said he will recommend that Chick-fil-A's construction plans be approved.

"Last week, I met with Chick-fil-A executives for the second time this month," Moreno said in a statement on Wednesday. "These meetings cap 10 months of negotiations with the company over concerns about fair and equal hiring and serving practices within the company. Before now, Chick-fil-A had no formal message as it related to the fair treatment of all citizens in our great democracy. Now, for the first time in the company's history, Chick-fil-A provided an official company document, which clarifies their new policies to ensure equality at Chick-fil-A facilities."

The memo, "Chick-fil-A: Who We Are," will be distributed to all corporate employees and restaurant operators, encouraging them to "treat every person with honor, dignity and respect—regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender," Moreno said.

In a letter to the alderman, the company wrote that WinShape is "taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas."

Since 2003, the nonprofit has donated millions of dollars to groups that promote "traditional marriage," including Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage. According to the Civil Rights Agenda, a Chicago-based LGBT advocacy group that worked closely with Moreno, Chick-fil-A executives "clarified that they will no longer give to anti-gay organizations."

A Chick-fil-A spokeswoman declined to comment to Yahoo News but forwarded a statement the company made in July:

"The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect —regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender," the statement reads. "Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena."

Now, let me tell you - Daddy was frigging ecstatic to read that.  Giddy as a school girl I was, and I posted this story immediately on my Facebook page, praising the company for reversing their discriminatory stand.  Unfortunately, that was all too short lived.

Days after Dan Cathy himself said he wouldn't give any more money to anti-LGBT groups, he tweeted this - 

"WinShape Ride for the Family bikers locked and loaded for 200 mile ride to Wilmington out of Charleston."

This event was to raise funds for the Marriage and Family Foundation.  This is the exact group he promised not to support - y'know, the one he's proudly tweeting about supporting right here.

Before, I was pissed at Dan Cathy because he was cherry picking the Bible, and because he and his company were supporting charities that actively wage war against the LGBT community - that's doubly annoying because the idea of a hateful charity seems like an oxymoron to me.

But now, I have to wonder how stupid Dan Cathy thinks we are?  I have met some brilliant liars in my day and, while I don't believe that lying is a good thing, I can't help but appreciate watching a master of the craft weaving a tale of deception that, while being completely fictitious, rings with an undeniable sound of truth. Dan Cathy and others of his ilk are bush league liars; they don't do it well, and they don't even seem to care.  They bullshit for just as long as they have to to get what they want and then act like they never said any of that, that you imagined it, or misinterpreted their words, or the all too popular, "took my words out of context".

Well Dan, you lied.  Simple as that.  Now, I was about to hope that Joe Moreno rescinded his permission to let you build your new store, but the more I think about it, the more I think you should build that store.  Building that store will mean construction jobs, tax revenue, and salaries for your employees.  So build that store.  In fact, build two.

But know this - we're gonna keep reminding people to never eat at your Hate-Shack.  We're gonna keep up the campaign that lunch tastes better without homophobia. Until you stop funding your Anti-LGBT friends, we'll do our best to make sure that your employees always outnumber your customers.   "Eat Mor Chikin"?  How about "Keep the Hate Off My Plate"? That's a slogan I can get behind.

My thanks to Willam Belli, Detox and Vicky Vox for providing the following Chick-fil-A theme song...

 Chow Down, Cathy. 


 Daddy