The hour badly spent

A Blockbuster Customer who had kept a movie so long enough that it was automatically sold to his account brought it back to the store to complain to my friend, the Intimidator, who listened and quickly tired of Customer’s whiney bullshit.

At that point, the Customer — who is always right — punched the Intimidator in his shoulder. Intimidator reached under the counter to that space where the can of whoop-ass was kept, sprung it open, grabbed the Customer’s punching arm, elbowed the Customer — who is always right — then knocked the Customer down with a counterpunch.

"I’ve been wanting to do that shit for so long," reported the Intimidator. He cracked his knuckles and let out a belly laugh. "They always expect us to take their shit."

"Aren’t you gonna get in trouble?"

"No. He punched me first."

Thing is, the Intimidator really does think he’s a superhero.

When I worked retail, I thought I was a ninja. Things like this never happened to me. I was so cool, so in control, so handsome and muscular; incidents always just fizzled out, like a fart in the wind. Stuff would happen during other peoples’ shifts; shoplifters, credit card fraud, back-room blowjobs; but I always miss the good shit. Except for the blowjobs. I never miss a blowjob, unless I’m in Kansas.

When I was talking with the Saucy Aussie the other day we both noted this one quirk of Kansas: people here tend to say the same things Stephen Colbert would say on his show, except when Colbert says them, it’s satire. The title of this post is a direct quote from a local gun nut. I was hoping that all the gun hoopla floating around campus lately was just whacko buffoonery that would die out if I looked the other way. Surely no one would seriously entertain the paradox that bringing guns to class would prevent school shootings. Enter the Collegian.

Last week they ran two front-page articles on the "debate" hosted by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. And by "debate" I mean "no one opposing carrying concealed showed up to argue, because as students, they’re probably worried more about writing term papers and shit than waving pistols around." Naturally, I stayed at home to watch porn. But Terence, a K-State senior, diligently went and observed.

The worst problem, and the reason I left, was what this particular audience member said. The question was about the difficulty of identifying the ‘real’ killer if other students were armed and firing. The man’s answer was basically, "If you have a classroom full of students that look like you and you and you, and then a guy in a black trench coat with an AK-47 comes in, you’ll know who the killer is."

When this kind of ignorance and narrow-mindedness is allowed to be spouted, it’s not a debate - it’s propaganda.

Duly noted. SCCC president Ryan Willcott said "the only reason people carry guns on campus is for self-defense purposes. He related carrying a gun to wearing a seat belt in that people wear seat belts in case of an emergency - he said it’s the same with handguns."

While Ryan raises an excellent point, the analogy breaks down in that people don’t use their seat belts to fucking shoot other people.

But why do these emergencies happen in the first place? Why, indeed, are gun-toting crazies springing up on universities? Do they just pop up out of nowhere? Is there a training camp somewhere in Texas? Is it remotely possible that when you tell alienated sociopaths that having and using lethal weapons is the truest expression of your liberty, that it makes you a responsibly functioning citizen, that it connects you with the soul of our nation’s heritage, blah blah blah, well what the fuck else will the frustrated triggerhappies do? Volunteer at a soup kitchen?

Nevertheless, the SCCC seems to have a strident following. It’s inevitable; the struggle between two factions will dominate this campus. On one hand, limp-wristed crepe-chomping femicommunist pacifist Jewish furries; on the other, us, the rugged, individualist protectors, who are really just following the 67th book of the Bible: the Constitution. That’s right; I said us. Between the team that’s armed and the team that’s not, which side did you think I was gonna be on?

"People have the right to defend themselves," said Concealed Carry Instructor Patricia Stoneking. "To post any place as a gun-free zone is to basically pose them as a target."

There you have it. Hordes of bloodthirsty villains lie continuously in wait for the chance to pick me off. With my back to the wall and all hope lost, I’ve got no choice, only one chance to take back control. And this has to be subtle. If it’s overdone, I’ll be posed as a target. Therefore, nothing fancy; just a couple of gats, a bandolier (looks like a seatbelt!), and some surface-to-air missiles slung tastefully across my back. Hell, if you’ve got a problem with my Second-Amendment rights, I’ve got a problem solver. Its name is revolver.

Jimmy Carter recently began an attempt to reach out to Hamas, an inveterate and influential foe of the Middle East peace process. The logic is that since Hamas has enough power to disrupt peace talks by blowing shit up, making them a party to peace negotiations might discourage them from blowing shit up, which would be smarter than ignoring them and hoping they go away. The talks failed, of course, but in his latest Collegian column, Brett King honored the elder statesman for his courageous idealism:

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of senile is "relating to, exhibiting or characteristic of old age: exhibiting a loss of cognitive abilities."

With this definition as the base of examination, it is time for the family of former president Jimmy Carter to call the men in white pants and jackets to escort grandpa back to the home.

In 1979, Carter was successful in orchestrating a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel that has since held strong, but even a blind kid hits a baseball every once in a while.

So there you have it. Old men are useless, so you probably shouldn’t vote for one in November! The blind, too; not much point in having them around, tripping over shit and bungling foreign policy the way they always do, unless it’s to the point when you reach the 8th inning and you’re really counting on a long flyball deep into right field, cuz the blind can swing those stripey canes like they’re bats, and even if it’s not a home run, you can have the runner on third tag up and score. Back to the point: a peace agreement? Not historic at all. In the scheme of things, really no big deal.

Due to the Bush Doctrine and years of commitment to Israel, the United States has avoided communication with the Hamas government. But have no fear, here comes President Carter with hopes of orchestrating a peace deal to fix the whole situation.

Khaled Mashaal, a top Hamas leader who met with Carter, said the group was prepared to offer a "10-year truce if [Israel] withdraws from all lands seized in the 1967 war." How gracious of the murderous thugs to offer peace for only 10 years as long as Israel gives up half the city of Jerusalem and other land holdings it acquired from a war it did not start.

Palestinians didn’t start the war either, but that’s irrelevant to diplomacy. Continual suicide bombings is apparently better than 10 years of peace. Calling names and then leaving the room is the new "diplomacy." In a world where peace is insane, the Bush "Doctrine" is the only thing that makes sense. This is how you decide the future of nations:

Hamas: "American foreign policy has left our people destitute and angry. We will go to any lengths to get attention for our plight."

Bush: "Whatever. Hey Jeb, pull my finger. Heh."

 

"The week passed for most citizens of the United States with little awareness of the powder keg ready to blow in Europe." And so begins this week’s issue of Neocon Weekly in the Collegian’s Op Ed page.

Brett King’s article focuses on the release of Fitna, a 15-minute documentary made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, that reportedly shows video segments of militant Muslims declaring war on Western civilization, in addition to Quran quotes encouraging violence.

(As if those particular soundbites are the entire Quran. Like they’re even put into context in their respective passages).

In 1984 (what, don’t you fucking read?), Orwell writes about a daily ritual called the two-minutes’ hate, in which the ruling political party gathers all of its members together in front of a bigscreen TV and makes them watch a video depicting an Enemy of the People maligning the nation. Whipped into senseless fury, the party members shout and throw shit at the screen, expressing their surging rage against whoever the authorities tell them to.

 

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

Sounds like their team is winning! So why, exactly, are they so pissed? Their authoritarian government has made almost every aspect of human nature illegal (especially fucking); the people come to the two-minutes’ hate so they can expel the violence and humanity simmering beneath their consciousness. That way no aggression will remain to direct against authoritarianism, the true enemy of humanity.

 

"The only hate speech which seems to be spread is coming from the radical Muslims themselves," wrote King, failing to grasp in the slightest how this film is patently offensive. That, presumably, is always the problem: willful ignorance.

The film is a one-sided portrayal of the Muslim world; a view that panders to racism and fear. Flyover-state neocons will see this and take this video to be the truth about all of Islam. They will write op-ed columns in newspapers across America that will marginalize all Muslims based on this small, vocal segment. I know how it works all too well; in L.A. we’ve all watched "Bowling for Columbine" ten thousand times. We think all Midwesterners are exactly like Tim McVeigh. Also: I learned all about women from 2 girls, 1 cup.

"Racial divides in Europe have increased substantially over the past decades as Muslims have immigrated to many European countries," writes Brett. "Refusing to integrate to European society and committing themselves to continue the practice of Sharia law within the borders of their host country has produced a difficult situation for many." Solution: strike down freedom of religion. Replace it with a border fence!

"Film should not be condemned but studied," reads the column’s headline, somewhat awkwardly. Yes, the video should be studied; but not in isolation, like a formula that purports to tell us exactly how all Muslims supposedly tick. Rather, it should — wait for it — be put into context with the rest of Islamic society.

An enormous portion of Muslim society has been quick to try to distance itself from the rhetoric on Arab TV stations. Yesterday, Radwan Abu Ayyash, deputy minister of culture in Ramallah, was quoted in the New York Times on this exact issue:

What is not fine is to build up children with a culture of hatred, of closed minds, a culture of sickness. I don’t think they always know what they are creating. People use one weapon, language, without realizing that they also use it against themselves.

Seriously man, front-page story. Don’t you fucking read? Of course you don’t. "The week passed for most citizens of the United States with little awareness…"

Although aluminum doesn’t normally burn, Professor Sorenson demonstrated in physics lecture that if you take a strip of it - with a wide surface area - and toss it into a bunsen burner, you will yield a nice dramatic poof, with an explosion as big and bright as fireworks.

Sorenson thought explosions are so kewl (because face it: they are) that he did it again. And again. After his third go, however, the fire alarm activated: flashing lights and a faraway whistley noise. Peter, a physics GTA, stuck his head in the door to see if we were still alive.

"This the only room it’s going off in?" asked Sorenson.

"Whole building," Peter said.

And so we filed outside, hung out with everyone else who was in the building, and waited for the fire department to swing by to take care of the alarm thingie. After we had been out there for 15 minutes, Sorenson disappeared inside with one of the firemen. When he came back, he addressed the cheering mob of students who could not wait to get back to class:

"I was burning aluminum in a bunsen burner, and apparently the smoke from the demonstration activated the fire alarm. The problem now is that we can’t shut the alarm off. You know, when my smoke alarm goes off at home, I just grab my ball pein hammer and beat the shit out of it. But it looks like we can’t do that here."

"In other news, this will be my last semester at K-State. Just kidding."

Professor, don’t toy with our emotions like that. And when you really do have to go, don’t half-ass anything; be sure to leave with a bang. 

According to Brett King’s latest right-wing ejaculation, gun control was a measure Nazi Germany took to ensure ethnic minorities were powerless when the government wanted to haul a bunch of them off to death camps. Gun control in America will be like Nazism in America. Get it? GUN CONTROL = NAZISM.

Brett, if you vote Democrat and elect a leader who’s black or a woman, you won’t have to worry about it.

Nevertheless, the central issue remains: will violence be stamped out if we let students with conceal-and-carry permits take guns around school and into classes? You bet it will! It’s like with the atom bomb; when only one nation had it, those white people basically blasted whatever Asians they wanted to; now that a whole bunch of people have nukes, the world is a much safer place! Still not convinced? Consider this chart:

As you can clearly see, the more guns in circulation, the fewer deaths. Until everyone gets them and we all kill each other. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The important thing is to take the first step and arm as many people as we can.

Enough quibbling over figures. Why stop with just letting students pack heat? I say we split the campus up, let the elites carrying concealed each be responsible for a different "territory," and the rest of us can just pay protection money!

Also: thanks for sharing that "Hearty Stew" recipe. But I’m kind of a city boy, so instead of venison, I use the flesh of urban schoolchildren. The only drawback is that it tends to be high in crack. On the plus side, it’s high in crack.

In Tuesday’s physics lecture, Sorenson explained that while sugar water is electrically bland, salt water is conductive.

"Say you’ve got an electric shaver while you’re in a tub of salt water. Say you drop the shaver. What happens? Well, you stop shaving."

Duh.

"Here. I’ll prove it."

Now I sat up. Sorenson strikes me as the type of drunk old man who casually hunts and kills angry hydras for breakfast. Was he really about to hop into a tub of water hooked up to electrodes and have nothing happen to him? I wouldn’t have been surprised, but as it turns out, he just had some hookup to get electricity from a small vat of water. The drunk old man theory, however, picked up weight as he entreated us to further ponder the concept of solubility:

"Do alcohol and water mix? You bet. They’re in my beer."

After he finished the lecture, he decided it might be fun to show us some real mixin’. So he made us cluster around a table and started pouring shit from bottles into beakers that had other shit in it.

Nothing happened.

"There’s some rule about solubility," he explained. "Either you’re supposed to add acid to water or water to acid. I’ve never been able to remember which."

At this, he re-did the procedure correctly. Meanwhile, we all started inching away in terror. "Yeah, you might wanna stand back," Sorenson advised. Chuckling.

Thanks for the tip. But teacher, seriously, why do you have on those enormous fucking goggles, and will the rest of us need a pair?

 

I volunteered to go on-stage for Fred Winters’ hypnotism show last night, and it was so educational! He sat the volunteers down on stage, 18 in all, in a semicircle. He talked with a pleasant kind of authority to his voice, and played some 80s music to relax us while he spoke.

It was nice! It was working! I was relaxed - not as deeply as the other recruits (the kid sitting next to me - dressed like Mystery - fell asleep with his head in my lap) - but I felt completely at ease. I didn’t feel the stage fright I usually feel, oh, all the time. I knew the audience was out there laughing at me, but that didn’t seem so important. "Nothing you feel is wrong," said Fred, rightly. They were still laughing, but it was like they were far off, behind a glass wall, up in space. Their volume was turned way down. Everything was fine. There was only music and the Voice of Fred. My feet were on the floor. My hands were in my lap. My eyes were closed. The Voice went up, it went down, it stayed the same, all at once. He counted to ten.

Suddenly, "Sleep!"

The way he said it, fast and powerful, like getting socked in the head; the same jolt, the same flash of white light at the moment of impact, but no aggression, can’t hit back, don’t even want to, just wanna sink into the chair.

"Sleep!" Pow!

My breathing was slow, steady. My head tilted forward toward my lap. Everything was so heavy. Everything just wanted to stay put. Everything was fine.

At first.

My arms and legs felt like cinderblocks, just like he said they would. That was nice. But the part of my brain that connects dots, articulates nuances, makes jokes, appreciates art; that part was turned off. Shut down. Out of reach. As though I could touch it, but the part I could touch was only a memory. I get that same stupid feeling from weed, which is why I hate being high.

After that his suggestions got hairy. Deep down, I didn’t really wanna dance, I didn’t really wanna see Fred naked, and I didn’t wanna act like Fred was invisible. He commanded us to forget our names. Yeah, right. He went to each recruit and asked them, one by one, "What’s your name?" Some were silent. Some stuttered. They even bantered with Fred about shit I’ve forgotten. But they. Just. Could. Not. Say. Their. Names. What gives? I could remember mine, "Hyper-literate Bastard," but it was distant, like the audience, up on a high shelf. I could just reach up and grab it - that’s all! Fred kept going. Students kept forgetting. Until Jeff.

When Fred asked his name, it came out right away, not even missing a beat. "Jeff." Suddenly the spell was broken for me, too. The microphone came down in front of me. I reached up to the shelf and gave Fred what I found: "Hyper-literate Bastard."

These things happen, he said.

From then on, the audience and the lights still had that same distant quality, but not as much so as before. The spell was broken. I didn’t feel like dancing anymore. Earlier, Fred told us that all he does is suggest; that hypnotism won’t work if we don’t open our minds and just let it happen. Well, it wasn’t happening. Maybe I had other things on my mind. Or maybe it’s because I was waltzing with a fat lesbian (Actually, I didn’t mind that so much. By the way, what is it with me meeting all these gay girls? Last semester I couldn’t meet a minority to save my life. Now they’re multiplying like goblins). At any rate, when he told me to act like I had laid an egg, I faked it.

The awesomeness of my physics lecture soared to new heights today. Professor Sorenson, an old-fashioned raconteur, likes to pepper his lectures with cunning insights ("Homework: it’s a good way to learn shit") and instructive metaphors ("Atoms are ticklish, and start to pair up because of chemical desires"). But today, he finally went the distance and just blew shit up.

He filled up a steel bulb with water and let it sit in a vertical cylinder. Then he doused it with a vat of liquid nitrogen. "Watch what happens," he said, ducking out through the emergency exit. "I’ll just wait over here," he snickered.

So we waited.

And waited.

Pow!

 

As the water in the bulb froze, it expanded. And expanded some more. At last, the steel - notoriously weak compared to my pecs - couldn’t take it any more, and the bulb exploded (a metaphor for my heart on Valentine’s Day!). The tube shat steam and shrapnel up 20 feet. It was pretty rad. Sorenson let me keep some of the bomb fragments. I took them home, melted them down, and forged Excalibur.

 

Because of the hot weather, a pressure valve normally closed to make heat circulate throughout Hale opened up, and out whooshed a whole lot of steam. The valve closed promptly at 3pm. It sounded like a thunderclap. No kidding.

Okay, I was kidding. I totally snuck up the stairwell to get high. My 50-foot bong went ka-boom right next to a vent, obvs. At the time, it was pretty funny. Get me?