Grizzly's blog: "Rants and Ravings"

I wrote this weeks ago, but got busy and never put it up. Then something happened last week that added to the article which was good that I waited. Then I got sucked into this game that I can't stop playing during any and all free time I have. But I finally got my ass off of it (at least for a few minutes) to write this piece. First and most importantly, a farewell to Christoper Reeve. If anyone in the world deserves the title of Superman, he does. I even thought I'd get to see him walk again. I watched all the coverage about his death and no matter what they showed him doing, all I can see is Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman. He may not have fully beaten his injury but he didn't give in to it. And he inspired many others with similar conditions to live their lives and not just sit back and watch it pass by. And the plays into what the main focus of this article is about. Gene therapy coming from Stem Cell research, which is opposed and fought against by Bush. This research could help thousands, if not more, of people that have been in accidents or have been born with depilitating conditions. A friend of mine at work, Kathy, has a friend who was in a car accident a few years ago. She's paralyzed from the waist down. About three weeks ago, Kathy was telling me that her friend had been chosen to go to Canada for Gene Therapy treatment that may help her to walk again. It's still to early to tell if it worked or not. But at least there is the hope that it will. And if it doesn't, then maybe some scientist in Canada or somewhere else will be able to figure out why not and make it work. I understand the people that oppose it, is based on the fact that most of the research is done from stem cells from aborted fetus', and they feel strongly against abortion. But since abortion is still legal, then why not at least let some good come out of it. Yes, it's terrible that a woman has an abortion, but why not at least let some good come out of it? Would it be so terrible that someone who is stuck in a wheelchair might benefit from it? I'm not a rich person, but after a friend of mine, Joseph died of cancer, I started donating to the American Cancer Society (after I got above my hatred for the medical profession). But now after hearing about Kathy's friend having to go to Canada and Reeves passing away because all these moral assholes don't give a shit about anyone else unless everyone agrees with them, I'm going to split up my small donation each year between the ACS and Reeves Foundation that sponsors Stem Cell Research and the continuing fight to make research available here in the U.S. We can go half way around the world to liberate people that attack us more after we do, but we can't work on research that will benefit us and the entire world. Maybe if Bush sr. had been in a car accident instead of going to Iraq, Bush jr. might be fighting for the research instead.

I was having dinner at a fairly swank, pricey restaurant, and availed myself of the facilities. Staring down into the urinal I couldn't help but notice a slogan staring back up at me: ``Say No To Drugs!'' printed on the rubber urinal-cake holder. Which I found puzzling. So as I was standing there I kept trying to follow the money in this transaction: the restaurant had to pay for the urinal deodorant, obviously. So these particular ones must have been cheaper for some reason. Do manufacturers of cleaning products get a federal grant if they print War On Drugs propaganda on their wares? Does the restaurant get a tax break for placing a ``public service announcement'' in a (ha!) conspicuous public area? (Pubic area?) In what way is the deluded notion that seeing a vague feel-good slogan beneath a puddle of pee might affect my behavior costing me money as a taxpayer? Was it some kind of attempt at Pavlovian conditioning? Were we to subconsciously associate the relief of "no longer needing to go" with this message? What Would Freud Do? Then it occurred to me that I was standing there pissing on Nancy Reagan's life work, and that made me feel better about it.

You know what be awesome? To find out you have superpowers. You know what would suck? To find out you have superpowers postmortem. This is honestly a serious concern of mine. What if I’ve just never put enough effort into flying? All this time, I’ve been flying coach and I could have been whipping around the globe superman style. And what about reading minds? Maybe if I just gave up coffee and aspirin, I'd be able to figure out the ending to every single episode of "Law and Order"- "What? Steve's the killer? Jesus, he seemed like such a nice guy." So far though the biggest problem has been testing my superpowers: “Babe, what are you thinking about?” “Ah nothing. Just trying to move the table with my eyeballs... What are you thinking about?” Day One: Table refuses to budge. Day Two: Unable to levitate garbage on out of apartment. Moving on to something smaller. Day Three: Float you fucken cat. Float goddamn you. Pleaaase float. I'll give you $5. Day Four: Levitation attempts unsuccessful. Moving on to flight. In preparation for testing my ability to fly, I’ve already purchased 4 sq-miles of sumo mats and a life insurance policy w/ suicide coverage. I will say though that if I had my choice of super powers, I’d have to go with laser eyes: This speaker is so boring 50 minutes for Chinese food! Are you mad??? God that family of four is so annoying Laser eyes are definitely where it’s at- don't let Superman tell you otherwise.

1) Men are DIFFERENT than women. Men and women are two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together, but just like the puzzle we are not mirror images. Don't ever assume that he sees the world as you do ... or the exact opposite, either. He sees things DIFFERENTLY. 2) Men are 35% ego, 15% combat soldier, 20% intellect, 10% emotions and 20% the sum total of all that we possess. Sometimes less, sometimes more. 3) Men are creatures of struggle, competition and combat. Even in the womb, the fetus is basically female. If the chromosomes are right a long struggle begins to create maleness. If any one of a million things go wrong in early pregnancy nature just gives up and the fetus, complete with X-Y chromosomes, reverts to female. That struggle is programmed into out genes. What you see as being stubborn and pig headed, we see as survival instincts. We don't like to give up. 4) Men were brought up to be brave and strong. Big boys don't cry. They are never afraid. "Be a man" we are told. We were taught to go out and fight for what we want, that no one would ever give us anything unless were fought for it and earned it. Even then we learned that bigger and stronger kids would try to take it away from us, so we learned to encourage our primitive instincts to fight hard, out maneuver the other guy and win at all costs. Every one of us was told "show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser." We were never taught to handle our failures except to be ashamed and to try harder next time. 5) We see every problem as a tactical situation that we have to overcome. If you tell us about a problem you're having, we tell you how to solve it. If you don't want our solutions, don't tell us your problems. If we tell you how to fix it and you blow us off, we figure you are just bitching for no reason. 6) We conquer everything we see. Oceans, mountain ranges, other men ... it makes no difference. If it stands between us and our goal we go into battle mode and try to overcome it. Don't get between us and what we see as a goal. What you see as friendly advice, we may see as interference and very much like the warlords of old .... try to kill the messenger. 7) We want everything we see. Our instincts try to tell us that if we don't acquire something we want, some other man will. We don't like that. When we stare at the blonde with the big tits, we tell you we're just `appreciating' her. We're not - we want her. We learn from trial and error that perhaps we shouldn't try to HAVE her ... but we still WANT her. It's the way we are. Just accept that and stop blaming the compass because of the direction the needle is pointing. 8) We learn by trial and error. Women are often the errors. We like women, but they confuse us. 9) Men and women were meant to be together, but it's not so clear that we were ever intended to `relate'. We rarely think about `the relationship' ... and when we do, it's usually figuring out how to get it to include your good looking girlfriend from work. It may be only as a fantasy - just working the problem to see if we have `what it takes' to make it happen, but that's what we do. 10) Don't think that we're freezing you out if we don't want to talk about our day with you. We already fought those battles and we're ready to move on. Telling you about it makes us have to re live it. 11) If we're going somewhere and we say we don't care what you wear, it means we don't care. Get dressed and let's GO! If we do tell you what we want you to wear, put in on and let's GO - you came to us for a decision, we made one and it's DONE! It's not an open invitation to discuss your wardrobe and whether or not what we want you to wear really flatters your butt. Never ever EVER point out your figure flaws to us! If we don't already know, just be happy. Also know that if you ever DO succeed in making us see them, it may be ALL we'll see. Having said that, no matter what our words tell you, the truth is that unless it's scuba diving or mountain climbing, we want you to wear heels. 12) Dogs are better than cats. Period. Dogs are friendly, loyal, trustworthy and we always know what they're thinking. We never have to guess how they feel. Cats are independent, aloof, subject to wild mood swings and we can never be sure what they're thinking. No matter WHAT we think they're feeling, we're wrong. 13) Substitute `Men' for `Dogs' and `Women' for `Cats' and you see why we have problems dealing with women. We carry our feelings differently than women. We have them, we examine them and decide if we have a problem to solve and if we do, we set about to solve the problem. If we don't we shove the feelings deep down inside and move forward. We don't constantly drag them out for the world to see and we NEVER `share' our feelings unless it's part of our trying to solve a problem with them. We don't like to share our feelings because we're afraid that they'll reveal a weakness inside us that WE can't stand to accept, let alone that someone else would see the weakness and exploit it. 14) The women who love us are constantly telling us that we shouldn't be afraid of letting them see our weaknesses and that they'd never exploit them. We think they're lying because in our world, it is absolutely UNTHINKABLE to not consider taking a tactical advantage when we have one. 15) Men spend a great deal of their lives afraid. We survive primarily BECAUSE we don't let it show, but we struggle every day to keep our fears from taking control of us. 16) When you ask us a question, you're going to get an answer. We see questions as a method for obtaining information that we do not have. Don't ask a question unless you're prepared for every possible answer and NEVER ask us a question if what you really want is reassurance - it would never OCCUR to us to make that connection. If you want reassurance from a man, you have to ask him for it specifically. 17) We like and want what pleases us and we don't like and don't want what doesn't. If we keep calling you, dating you or living with you .... infer from that that we care for you. Don't keep asking if we love you - besides perplexing us with the repeated question, it makes us feel like you don't believe us when we have to keep telling you. 18) Ideally, all men would like to possess more than one woman. Don't take it personally, it's simply a conquest and acquisition thing just like owning all of the best marbles because a part of us feels that we are the sum total of what we possess. As a practical matter, we know that even if our women survived the initial cat fights and power struggle, you'd all eventually unite against the common enemy and we know in our hearts that that would be us. 19) Men never heal from past relationships. Each one pierces us like an arrow. We try to be strong and we break the arrow off at the shaft and toss it aside, but the arrowhead remains lodged forever. It eventually scars over, but it remains are part of who we are for the rest of our lives. If you value us like you say you do (and possibly your own life) DON'T PICK AT OUR SCARS! 20) When we fight with you, we worry that we've hurt you too deeply and that the scars will never heal. 21) When we finally win you, we hope that you'll never change. But you always do. Men are PIGS. Just deal with that fact, plan around it and don't let it ruin your life.