The other day I was talking with my friends about stupid people that are famous- say the drama queen housewives of whatever city a team of producers and camera crews of a given network decided to descend upon. We lamented the fact that entertainers today seem like talent-less knuckleheads. I had a thought: When in history have things solely been done on merit, especially in such a way that would hold up in history through out the ages? As if people have ever been selected, by a committee of nonexistent totally unbiased experts to be judged on their merit? No! that has never happened. Idiots have always managed to get attention!

In fact one has to remember some of the stupid things done in the past for famous people. Lets consider the case of Helen of troy, “The face that launched a thousand ships.”
People were very uppity about how good looking she apparently was, and there were lists of suitors that would make one think that drafting Andrew luck was a far easier feat. I think this is solely due to the parochial knowledge of the women at the time by the gossip writers of the day. Think of it this way. Even if 1% of women are attractive, and lets say there were a billion people alive at the time? How many people did those famous writers even see in their lifetime? Helen of Troy, for all we know, was not even the most attractive woman alive in the world at that time! It could have been a not very well known fisherman’s daughter.

Chew on this: The average American 17 year old male with access to broadband internet and a knack for using Google has, in his short time on the Earth, seen dozens to hundreds of models (And other ladies working in less than gentlemanly professions) who are technically employed due to being  professionally good-looking. That is to say they earn their living by being attractive. He has seen a great deal of these good looking women. By his early 20s at the great crossroads of college, his field of study will advance further. Heck my friend’s email account was hacked, and judging by the email list in his computer he could teach a doctorate level course on this stuff. Guess what. The famous writers who bloviated about the astonishing looks of Helen of Troy were probably charlatans when compared to the average American 20 year old. That’s an amazing thought right?

Helen of troy might not be famous in today’s day and age. Given how anti-religious (But not really anti-Islam) the press and Hollywierd is,  no one would believe she’s half Zeus.

More silly thoughts: Due to our bitter political differences, it would be very hard to launch our Navy and go to war over Helen of Troy. One side would say she’s a terrorist sympathizer, the other would say she doesn’t pay high enough taxes. Gridlock: The American achievement.

So instead of massive wars being fought for famous pretty people, now what we do? Watch these people wreck their lives like a package of peeps in the microwave on TV. That’s it. I’ll pick the version we have now.

The civilized world today is much safer right now than it used to be.
In several posts on this blog I’ve talked about diseases conquered, technologies invented and then spread widely across a large amount of the public, etc. I’ve brought up thoughts like this: “In the cave days, the guy who held and kept the best cave for himself had the best shelter, no one else could have it if he could defend it. He may have even been able to attract more mates due to the fact that he was “cave-rich”, and some would argue, unfairly so. Now housing is standardized, and options for it are enormous, it’s to the point where we’re extremely competitive on how to decorate them.”

Despite this people are, without a doubt, still being born with less than advantageous situations, and accidents do happen. Yes! Despite our technological advances, life still is not fair.

As you read this, there are people who are blind or deaf. People of all ages will be diagnosed with cancer. Parents will find out their child is developmentally disabled this week. A couple will find out they cannot naturally have children. Someone will find out their relative now has aphasia, likely due to a head injury, and they will have great difficulties communicating with others, probably for the rest of their lives. Some are born mentally handicapped. Some will be diagnosed with a rare disease, perhaps one that eats their flesh. You would think those with good health and blessed to be in good situations, especially in today’s world where we have so many goods services and systems to explore- would be  appreciative of what they have? (I mean, really appreciative, not paying lip service to the idea in conversation). You would be wrong in that assumption.

There are many videos on the web of idiots doing dumb things. But this one, for some reason sticks with me. Skip to about 25 seconds if you don’t care to wait:

I don’t understand why people take their good health for granted, their fortunate situations for granted, and begin to risk it, for what? It’s one thing to be horribly injured, and to risk it in pursuit of an achievement. Things like this happen on the battlefield. Many of those things you can read here, where you can see the Medal Of Honor Citations: http://www.history.army.mil/moh.html To a lesser extent (To be fair here just about, oh, almost anything-else is going be lesser by comparison)  we have sacrifices in professional sports. Shown here is Matt Stafford suffering what could be a grievous injury and playing through it. (Skip to 3:40ish if you’d like).

In stories like these, sacrifices were made for a reason- such is understandable and often admirable. But when you’re say, jumping in front of a bus, for no reason? I can’t help but shake my head.

“Oh my Science, Captain Obvious you’re down to Origin stories- are you out of ideas like Hollywood already?!” Rest assured readers, I have 10 unpublished drafts saved as of right now. This category is one I’ve been planning for awhile. It’s very simple: All things considered? We live in an amazing time.

-In America, many of our poor are actually obese. Yep. Also, many families below the arbitrarily set poverty line have cable TV, microwave ovens, and air conditioning. These things would have been foreign even to the very, very wealthy in 1912. Less than 100 years ago, and people living in that era would have gladly handed over a king’s ransom for your busted microwave. Too bad a king’s ransom in those days would have probably amounted to $28.50 in today’s dollars amirite?

-The fact that we have the Jersey Shore is a sign things are going well. Because we can spend time doing nothing but watching “Italian” teenagers puke on TV. F**kin wow.

-We can complain about cruise ship rescues (even ones with a 97%+ survival rate) for not being good enough or fast enough. People who came to rescue you when your ship went down in the year 1300: No one. Maybe Gus the janitor with the eye-patch who survived “something like this one time” is your best friggin hope, being the person most experienced in these matters. Helicopters that flew to you carrying professional rescuers who do this full time: Zero. By the way, Amelia Earhart, flew off in 1937? Gone. Poof. Disappeared forever. Under 80 years ago.

-Polio? Gone. Bubonic plague, the black death, that thing that killed like 1/2 the population of Europe in like 5 years? Some villagers probably thought it was “magic”, not having any idea why it was happening- none the less how to cure it? Well, today’s 3rd graders know how it spread. We know what causes it, how to cure it, and China’s probably got a .50cent version of the cure.

-Bitten by very poisonous snake? Yep we have medicine for that. Almost any other time in history: Total and complete death sentence! That’s it! Your card is punched! You win nothing! Good day sir!
Now you have a chance of survival.
That makes you think… What do we have today? Drunk driving, an elective activity. People who have complications related to smoking, and smokers in this generation are aware it will kill them. I wonder what a one armed caveman would think when a drug addict told them “I ruined my perfectly healthy body with recreational drugs.”

-Books are so available that we consider them BORING! 100 years ago one may have spent a lifetime trying to track down a single book for its knowledge. Now we complain if we cannot find a free version of said book.

-Birth control. By the way we have a medications, and widely available mostly inexpensive ways of actually STOPPING the reproductive process entirely. No big deal. It’s not complex, doesn’t involve rituals, or magic, none of that. I’d venture to say 99% of the sex in this country is now recreational. The process by which we populated the planet is now a game! We’re actually now in a pissing contest over who should pay for it- we apparently have that kind of time!

-Power structures are not controlled by monarchies, (save the creative writing psuedologic horses**t, we do not have real feudalism style monarchies or dynasties in today’s western world, get f**ked) complete with oppression enforced by armored trained knights. S**t, even if someone were to even try this, in say, Canada? And they were brutalizing their own people? Their new Dictator/King saying, “America is now property of Generallisimo Joffrey Lannister”… You’d hear an army of Ford diesel engines idling and guys tuning their damn banjos. We wouldn’t have even heard the President’s reaction address before the first “Dada ningning-ningning-ningning-ninggg”  pierced the night air. Sales of a few things would go up very quickly: Ford trucks, black rifles, and replica civil war hats. As they say on some image sharing sites… ‘merica.

-Terrorist figurehead not killed fast enough. Think back in history for a moment. How common do you think it was for some warlord to travel to a faraway land and brutalize/kill people for their territory or supplies – and then get away scott-free? He crosses an ocean, sits home in a castle, has paintings of him, songs about his deeds, etc. First rate jackhole, and the guy that got away. The people who were hurt? Also have tales; bad ones.
Osama Bin Laden. His terror network was shattered. Most everyone who served under him was shot to pieces or blown up by missiles they never saw coming. The guy ended up sitting in a room graying and watching reruns of himself on tape. All this was done by people who live a world away. This roach was stomped out via bullets to the face. The guy who did the stomping likely never has to buy another beer in his life.
Qaddafi? Raped with a knife by a guy wearing a stupid hat, after his women’s sunglasses were ripped off and he was beaten mercilessly of course.
Saddam Hussein? Hung. His sons? Dead after Special Operations Forces pelted their compound with .50caliber machine gun fire and anti-tank missiles for like an hour. We dragged them out on carpets. Google “Qusay and Uday Hussien” and click Images if you want to see it. Check this out- not only have these tyrants been killed? We aren’t stuck settling on hearing songs/tales about it and saying, “Wow that must have been a sight to see!” (With the exception of Osama, we can’t see his picture because a re-run of Jimmy Carter is currently playing in the Whitehouse) You can watch Saddam’s hanging or Qaddafi’s… whatever one would call that… on a video sharing site, right now.
Check it out, here’s an image of the raid that got Hussien’s sons, no big deal:

BTW check out the guys in the “black hockey helmets” near the front of the pack. I don’t want to violate “OPSEC” (OPerational SECurity) here so I will simply say: They’re “those guys”.

It’s a neat idea. Some of the baddest dudes to have ever walked the planet, with the most advanced war-fighting equipment in human history. Real stand up guys of good character too, noble men that live lives marked by sacrifice and commitment. And what they do professionally? Shoot bad guys in the face on the behalf of the free world.

If you live in this day, in this age, and all you can do with your time is complain about is how people can be “mean” to eachother, or you don’t have X Y or Z, or your feelings were hurt after you did a cursory glance over a history textbook? You’re such a sorry weak-kneed bitch that you’re very, very fortunate to live in this day and age because you’d be meat in any other. Now, as public events unfold and I find myself saying, “Oh for f***’s sake!” it may end up in this category here! Stay tuned!