Hey Religious Extremists, Why is Your god Such a Wimp? (or, A Male's Guide to the Impending Lesbian Apocalypse)

I've never understood the common usage of the word macho.

To be clear, I'm referring to the dictionary definition (ultimate masculinity) and not the informal one popularized by The Village People (ultimate gayness.) The word macho is intended to define the pinnacle of tough, but it ends up representing supreme insecurity.

Understanding that contradiction, it's clear that extreme religion is precisely macho. Because I live west of the Prime Meridian, extremist Muslim behavior is more easily noticed, since Islamic tradition isn't intertwined with our culture and considered a part of just how things are. Examples of Islamic macho/insecurity may be more obvious to us Westerners, but anyone who opens their mind even slightly will notice there is little if any difference among Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the extreme.

At their distant ends, all three focus their restrictions on women. When it comes to the religious fringe, it's all dudes all the time. Yet these are the same people who are also violently homophobic.

Another paradox, yes, and it gets worse. Even the gods of extremism reflect the bi-polar nature of macho. A classic example is when the Taliban claimed they had to destroy Buddhist statues in Afghanistan because the statues were just too much for the mighty Allah to gaze upon. (Link.)

Now I'm just a mortal, but I'm proud of the fact that I'm secure enough not to demand my friends blow up anyone who doesn't worship me. Hey, that's their loss!

So here's my question for religious extremists: If your god is such a badass, why does he need mortals like you to fight his battles? Why is your god scared of statues? Or cartoons? Or same-sex love and marriage? Or women thinking, saying and doing what they want?

Silly extremists! Either your faith in your god's power is lacking or your god is a total wimp.

Actually, we all know the real reason for macho's split-personality, why men (and male-like gods) talk tough but act fragile. I'll break the rules and say it out loud: Because females have all the power. They can do anything a male can except make sperm.

That's not to say I would complain if the world was taken over by women and we men were used simply for sperm harvesting. To the more sultry and flexible of our female conquerors, I say harvest away! Sadly, with advances in reproductive technology, even sperm isn't necessary.

A lot of reports and studies appear to support the idea that extremism is on the rise. How much is being fueled by insecure men, aware of their accelerating (or already present) obsolescence? I swear it's only a matter of time before lesbians take over. Name me a single lesbian that isn't damn good at what she does. You can't do it! That's right, men. We are biologically useless! Accept it! Or make a fool of yourself by acting macho.

One who works against the efforts of power-hungry people of their same "race" are often referred to as race traitors. So, being a male who admits to male pointlessness, does that make me a sex traitor?

I hope so, because frankly, I'm down with that. Oh wait, I thought you said trader. Dang it.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

What Would Martin Do?

It began with the earthquake in Haiti (Jan. 12.) Then Pat Robertson told a bizarre fiction that blamed the suffering of the quake’s victims on the victims themselves (Jan. 13.) Over those insipid comments, I flew into a rage which sustained itself until today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Jan. 18.)

As usual, on this day, I wanted to say a few words about how much I respect Dr. King. I couldn't help but wonder how King would handle the cruel comments of Mr. Robertson. King was an advocate of ignoring critics as much as reasonably possible (See the opening paragraph of Letter from a Birmingham Jail) but still, I needed him for guidance.

It is clear that Mr. Robertson did not (and does not) give any consideration of the clever Christian guidance question, What Would Jesus Do? Then again, if honoring Dr. King was so important to me, why didn’t I give any thought to What Would Martin Do?

I mean, chances are pretty good that King never referred to someone he disliked as a "douche bag asshole," and that was among the more mild of my critiques of Robertson lately.

If I want to communicate that Dr. King has inspired me, then I need to show it. So my tribute to Dr. King this year is to slip into his shoes, imitate as flattery, select him as my avatar. Dr. King sought to inspire and so he did. He made me realize my rage at Pat Robertson was far less productive than a challenging examination of ourselves in the wake of the disaster in Haiti.

I don’t want to be Dr. King. I don’t want to think about what words he would say. I want to write the words that he inspired me to say. I can think of no greater compliment.

So, here we go, some thoughts on the Haiti quake. Inspiration by Dr. King, perspiration by Mr. Nocella.

Ahem.

We’ve all seen the pictures coming out of Haiti. We’ve heard the terrible stories, and in addition to the horrors, what's most disturbing is that they look so familiar. We've been here before. Another region teeming with poor, left by man to teeter on the brink of destruction, has been stricken by nature, completing its final push into the abyss.

No one will fault us for what we cannot control. While this disaster cannot be blamed entirely on poverty, its magnitude can. Imagine the quake striking a suburban American neighborhood equipped with well-worn roads, telecommunications, radios, sturdy housing, food distribution centers. The devastation would be greatly reduced.

With each disaster, the might of our electronic networks is brought to bear. At least financially, humanity is able to respond to need faster than ever before. Of course that's going to feel inadequate. Even if we were on the ground, handing out food and water, that would be inadequate. The dead are gone and nothing anyone can do will bring them back.

So we cannot stop here, proud of our ability to move money en masse to relief efforts, or we will forever be working on cure and neglecting much more effective prevention.

As Haiti staggers back from chaos to its mere edge, let's not allow fate to decide the next focus of our concern, let's focus ourselves. Let's note what other areas in the world are poor and prone to natural disaster. Let's go there next, giving and assisting the poor in establishing themselves a viable infrastructure before the inevitable strike of nature's wrath.

Imagine that in turn, those people assist us with the next region. On and on until there is not a single corner of the world that is ill-equipped to endure the lashing our mother earth always inevitably delivers.

You might call that impossible. It might be impossible, but when the task is caring for our fellow man, we cannot let the odds of our success limit the soaring ambition of our noble dreams.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Your Resolution for the New Decade

New Year's Resolutions often follow three steps. A person comes up with a goal. They assign themselves that goal. The goal is adhered to for the coming year or (more likely) dropped before the year ends.

I'd like to rework the whole thing. I'll design a goal and have others help me, and by others I mean all of humanity. Lastly, instead of for the coming year, our challenge will span the entire coming decade.

So it brings me great pleasure to announce that as we transition from the roaring zeroes (200x) to the swingin' ones (201x) I will be assigning all of humanity a new decade's resolution.

All right, already! If you've read this far, you're okay with my being pompous (I prefer the term BOLD) enough to give a decade long homework assignment to all of humanity. You're getting sick of the pointless verbosity (What is this? A James Joyce novel?) and just want to know what the hell the resolution actually is so you can get busy working on it, or get busy laughing at me. Okay. Here it comes.

Adapt.

That's it? One word? You could have been reading World Net Daily's tabloidian eVomit and I give you one stinkin' word? Well, packed into that one word is a lot of suggestion, so I'll elaborate.

Here's what I want to happen: I want humanity to stop approaching the inevitable changes, surprises and revelations of life with fear, hatred and anger. Instead, I want everyone to approach those events with curiosity, enthusiasm and love. Can a brotha get a witness for the Serenity prayer?

Yes, "adapt" is rather general and I'm not a conservative teabagger, which means my ideas don't reside solely in a world of abstract labels, oblivious to what they mean in the real world. So I'll get specific about two of the many items that led me to suggest this assignment. Our assignment. I refer to The Kindle and The Gays.


The Kindle

The most obvious source of scary change today is technology. Advancements in gadgetry and medical tech come faster and faster. Before Windows has fully slowed down your computer, a new version is available to slow it down in cool and innovative ways.

As a writer, the recent 'thing I could not change' (as the Serenity prayer would say) was the advent of eReaders and eBooks. I'm often asked, 'Hey writer stud, are you scared about the impact that eBooks will have on writing?'

I was at first, until I realized that someone still needs to write the books, whether they are delivered on paper or on a screen. In fact, a strong argument can be made that eReaders are good for authors. They provide wireless on-demand bookstores, which means fewer barriers between hearing about a cool new writer (like this guy) and having an opportunity to buy his or her work.

Sure, there will be problems with piracy, and that could render the standard business model of book publishing (sell zillions of copies) obsolete, but the technology is not going away. The publishing business will have to come up with another structure for supporting itself. In a word, adapt.

Xbox Live had an interesting solution to the piracy problem: banning the systems on which it detected pirated software. (Story here.) Perhaps Amazon could imitate that for The Kindle. Upon detection of a pirated book, it shuts down your Kindle, or auto-downloads romance novels until it fills up. That'll learn ya! So yes, the details need to be hashed out, but the bottom line is, the technology is here, it's near, get used to it. Speaking of...


The Gays

What's another phenomenon of recent human history that reminds us our species needs better adaptive skills? The stampede of gays coming out of the closet, followed by the counter-stampede of ignorami who want to shove them back in.

Apparently what consenting adults do behind closed doors is of utmost concern to some. Of them I ask, 'Can you find something better to do than worry about who is getting naked with whom?'

It's entirely probable (almost certain) that over the last week, some people living near to us all have had a different sex partner every night, penetrated every orifice on their person with every appliance they own, and performed all kinds of other sexual stunts with other consenting adult(s) of the same or different sex. Somehow, this has failed to open up a fiery chasm beneath our feet.

Some people act as if gays 'decided' to be gay with the sole purpose of throwing a wrench into several 2,000-plus-years-old mythologies. Wrong! What happened was those worldviews were revealed as inaccurate. It's nothing to get upset about. Try adapting.


The Conclusion

There are many other things to which our New Decade's Resolution applies. For example, religion totally needs a makeover. That shit has jumped the shark more than Tiger Woods has jumped hotties.

So the world isn't like you thought it was. All of reality hasn't bent to your every assumption. The way you envisioned the world is off from the way the world really is. There's no need for alarm, hatred, or anger. It's a cause for celebration. It means you're learning.

So that's what I mean when I say adapt. Accept that your worldview is incomplete and have the right attitude when you find another gap. Just don't automatically reach for the hate button, okay?

I've got a bottle of champagne on ice for New Year's Eve 2019. We'll see how we did then. Happy New Decade!

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

All the Glamour, None of the Work: Can I be James Bond's friend?

I hate those abstract questions that sometimes pop up in job interviews: If you could be a vegetable what one would you be? Sounds like something from an annoying Facebook poll. (Redundant, I know. All Facebook polls are annoying.) Sadly, one of those questions did manage to worm its way into my brain's busy schedule: If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?

My first impulse was to say Jesus. That would get me into trouble, one for claiming he was fictional and two, for claiming I could be anything like him. The problem as I see it? Jesus was only half god, so I'm over-qualified. Plus, as much as I like to make a point, I'm not willing to be tortured and die for it. Blogging is martyrdom for sissies.

So with Jesus out of the running, the question persisted. If I could be a fictional character, who would I be? I want to be James Bond's friend.

If you've seen one James Bond film, you've seen them all. The only thing that changes is how exotic (as compared to your average Englishman) is the babe who teams up with Bond. Will she be Near Eastern European or Far Eastern European? Or will they really mix it up and make her Latina? Or African-American? The JB writers must be nearing the end of their Encyclopaedia of Ethnic Hotties. You'll know the franchise has jumped the shark when he's banging an Eskimo named Fukluk.

Another Bond stock character is the poor woman I refer to as the "throwaway babe" for her sad predictable destiny. She's just a working English lass who realizes it's part of her job as a temp at Her Majesty's Secret Service to service James and immediately get murdered, so the audience can hate the bad guy even more and James doesn't have to run the risk of her turning into a stalker.

Bond confronted by all his ex-partners (assuming any of them lived) would make for an entertaining daytime talk-show marathon. Gadget your way out of that one, Bond!

Whether it's killing or fornicating, James never takes a break. He's a workaholic. M and Q are always getting annoyed at James, which is also a full time job. Seems like everyone has a tough job in the Bondiverse, except for James Bond's friend. Most of the time he doesn't even have a name, but he's the guy I want to be. He gets all the glamour with none of the work.

He's the one always chillin' at his estate on the Mediterranean coast, lounging in the sun among several smokin' hot babes who have no purpose other than to be smokin' hot babes. Actually they do have one other function: to leave the deck in a huff when I tell them to amscray so I can talk to my boy, JB.

Job responsibilities include hanging out with hotties, drinking fine wines, and spending five minutes every couple of years saying, "The guy with the eye patch went that way."

Sound easy? Hell yeah! But being JB's BFF is not without its occupational hazards. Sometimes the Bond movies really jazz up the formula and James Bond's friend gets killed (in addition to the poor English throwaway babe) which causes Bond to go on a murderous rampage. Yeah, like he wasn't going to already.

That will be my out. "Colonel Russkibad, you don't have to shoot. James is coming after you whether you kill me or not. Now try some of my vodka..." Then I'll be back to my dream job: doing nothing.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.