GREETINGS FROM THE FEDERAL CHANCELLOR FOR LIVING/DEAD RELATIONS

THE DEPARTMENT OF LIVING/DEAD RELATIONS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

By : Mr. Franklin F. Tottenham, Chancellor of the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations; J.D., Yale Law School (1989); Consulting Expert in Health Policy, The Brookline Association, Boston, Massachusetts (1991-2004); Deceased 2005; Vice President of the American Walking Corpse Federation for Fair Employment Opportunities in the Private Sector (2005-2008); Corpse (Living).

When President Barack Obama won the White House last autumn, he promised America “change we can believe in.” Unlike his predecessor, President Obama grounded his political philosophy in a society of inclusion, not exclusion. In short, President Obama ushered in a new day in American political life. Under President Obama, everyone has a chance to succeed in America. Everyone counts. The President’s own life story proves that anyone make it in this country. Minorities and historically-marginalized groups all over America wept for joy to celebrate Obama’s victory. For the first time in their lives, they felt real hope that America would finally make a place for them: African-Americans no longer felt that they were doomed to repression and “dead ends” in society; gay men dared hope that they, too, could marry; and immigrants proudly stood up to say that they had a place.

This is a new America. This is an America that believes in itself. This is change we can believe in. President Obama, you said: “Yes we can.” We say: “Yes we did.” We salute your commitment to the American dream for all Americans. You understand that everyone in America—even those without economic power or education—can contribute to our Nation’s success.

This is a significant achievement. All Americans means all Americans; that means both living and dead Americans. For too long, America has failed to consider the needs of the dead in political life. For too long, America simply buried its dead and moved on. It not only maliciously discriminated against dead people; it literally forgot about them. But President Obama understands injustice when he sees it. Freedom does not exist unless all people enjoy it. It does not matter whether a person’s cells have perished. It does not matter whether a person’s heart has stopped or his flesh has rotted away. It does not even matter whether a person died in 1694. Americans are still Americans—and Americans deserve freedom. That is why President Obama commanded Congress to pass the Dead Matter Too Act (DMTA). This act represents a gigantic step toward justice in the United States. For the first time in history, America told its dead: “You have a voice, too.”

Mr. President, as Chancellor of the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations, and as a dead man, I salute you for your commitment to American ideals. I speak for every dead body in America when I say: “We will help you realize the dream.”

But despite all the recent gains, our road has not been easy. We cannot guarantee immediate progress. For centuries, America has stamped the dead with a badge of inferiority. The living lived as if they were the only ones here. For centuries, the law permitted them to bury us, burn us, toss us into ditches and even sink us to the ocean bottom without so much as asking our opinion on the matter. The living branded us with epithets that cut deeply into our collective self-esteem: stiffs, stinkers, stenches, funeral parlor bait, coffin crud… the list goes on. Laws not only authorized this unequal and demeaning treatment; laws did not even mention us. From a legal perspective, we were not even second-class citizens; we were nothing at all. Although the living spent money on headstones and even set aside land for us, they simply ignored us afterward, leaving us to slowly decompose six feet underground. To add insult to injury, they took away all our property and distributed it to grandchildren, estranged wives and even creditors. In sum, dead Americans face a legacy of State-sponsored discrimination. We have been purposely suppressed, marginalized, demeaned and forgotten. In some cases, we are completely gone. We ask the President to remember our dead brethren who faced cremation, obliteration, vaporization or worse.

But those dark days are over. We are turning a new page in American history. Now, the Federal government has finally recognized that we deserve a chance, too. Despite all the historical prejudice against us, President Obama recognized that we deserve a chance to influence policy in the United States. Through the DMTA, the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations has two goals: (1) To help eradicate the practical handicaps created by historical discrimination against dead Americans; and (2) To make policy suggestions to living lawmakers concerning national legislative initiatives.

Today, I want to educate the public about our mission. Concerning our first goal, I want to remind all living Americans that dead people are people, too. We ask you to remember that President Obama promised a bright future for all Americans, whether black, white, Native American, Asian, immigrant, disabled, homosexual or dead. We recognize that it used to be “OK” to discriminate against the dead. In days past, polite people rarely invited dead neighbors over for dinner. Top-rate universities never accepted dead applicants. Living Americans assumed that all dead people smelled, were ugly, acted irresponsibly and looked like they were sleeping all the time. But that was pure bigotry. In 2009, we no longer make assumptions about people simply because they are dead. We evaluate people based upon their character and their achievements, not their cellular status or pulmonary/respiratory function. We do not stereotype about dead people, just as we do not stereotype about Hispanics or Asians. Today, every American deserves a chance.

We want to set the record straight about dead Americans. We are not sleeping. We do not smell. We are not ugly, even if we may have decomposed in whole or in part. Despite our appearance, we have achieved great things. Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and he is dead. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and he is dead. Dwight Eisenhower defeated the Nazis in Europe and he is dead. Henry Ford introduced mass production and revolutionized industrial society; he is dead, too. Thus, there is no substance to the claim that “all dead people” are irresponsible or lazy. To the contrary, many dead people have achieved tremendous things. Babe Ruth, for instance, is one of the greatest baseball players in American history. And he is dead. We believe America should open its mind to the reality that dead people have done—and will do—great things. We must move beyond superficial generalizations. We believe the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations will help living Americans cast aside their historical prejudices against the dead. After all, you likely have dead relatives. You wouldn’t treat them with disrespect, would you?

When Americans learn that the dead are people just like you, we are confident that dead Americans will overcome the practical roadblocks that have held them back for so long. When Americans learn that dead people do not just “sleep” or “smell,” we are confident that private employers will proudly offer them jobs. We are confident that dead Americans will prove their worth by their own merit and intelligence. For that reason, we do not advocate mandatory quotas to forcibly assimilate dead Americans into the workforce. We do not believe this because we fear that the United States Supreme Court will rule against us. Rather, we do not need quotas because dead Americans have the ability to succeed without additional assistance. Many dead people achieved success during life. There is no reason to think that minor impediments such as death should bar them from resuming their winning ways. All Americans face adversity. All Americans can overcome adversity. Death is no exception. A determined American dead person can get any job he or she wants, as long as she has the talent, drive and ambition to get it. In short, we are confident that dead Americans will soon be respected, productive members of American society, just as they were when they were alive.

Dead people want to work. They want to be responsible. They want to send their children to college. They want to pay taxes. We believe they should have the chance to prove themselves on a level playing field. Although we acknowledge the concern that living people may lose their jobs to the dead, we point out that death affects us all. Living people, too, will one day be dead. While a living person may feel stung to lose a job or university seat to a dead person, we merely note that for centuries the dead had no opportunity whatsoever either to work or study. In that light, we believe that living people can bear some incidental burdens to compensate dead people for centuries of unrestricted social exclusion. Colloquially, we also note that “what goes around comes around.” When a living person sacrifices for a dead one, he or she should do it cheerfully, for one day she, too, will be dead. Once she is dead, she will want all the same opportunities she had when she was alive. In this sense, it is only fair that both living and dead Americans enjoy equal access to every advantage in American society. And fairness is important in America.

Dead Americans also have a right to participate in the democratic process. The Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations gives substance to this right. Under the DMTA, the Department has authority to advise Congress concerning all legislative initiatives. This does not mean that the dead will dominate the national debate; it merely means that the dead have a right to be heard in legislative decisionmaking. This is not revolutionary. To the contrary, the dead have special insights into practical problems. Taken as a whole, dead people possess boundless wisdom. We have seen everything under the sun. This collective experience will translate well into prudent legislation.

Yet we cannot effectively consult on legislative matters until Congress recognizes that dead people have needs, too. We agree with Congress that health care must be reformed. But we will not solve the health care mess by ignoring the dead. We must take steps to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care, including American corpses in various states of decay. How is it just that only wealthy living people have access to top-notch treatments? How is it just that lower-income living people and every dead person cannot even visit a doctor when they need to? Both the economy and the government depend upon people. Without a healthy population, people cannot effectively serve either the economy or the government. We must find a solution to the health care mess that delivers compassionate, high-quality care no matter whether the patient is a wealthy living banker or a bankrupt dead day laborer. And we must do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

We believe that dead people can help end the health care impasse in many ways. For one, dead doctors can volunteer their time to treat living patients. Contrary to longstanding social prejudice, dead doctors can perform examinations, administer medications, write prescriptions and oversee surgery just as well as—if not better than—living doctors. In fact, many living doctors learned what they know from doctors who are now dead. Additionally, dead doctors have simpler salary requirements, do not require lunch breaks and do not suffer as much fatigue as living doctors. Second, dead financial advisers can help iron out solutions to funding national health care programs. Many well-respected dead financial advisers have key experience needed to balance the unique fiscal risks inherent in any national health program. We should harness that experience. Third, dead office personnel can handle the tremendous administrative burden that surely will accompany any national health plan. Millions of dead Americans lived their lives managing charts, organizing files, pulling patient records and stapling medical documents for hours on end. We should put their experience back to work to guarantee well-administered national health care for all. In a word, dead people have varied talents. And they all can help write America a clean bill of health.

As dead people, we just want to be heard. We acknowledge that there are certain questions in the national debate we may not be fully qualified to handle. For example, the death penalty perplexes us. After all, what good does the death penalty do for offenders who are already dead? In our view, the death penalty is no penalty at all for a dead American. Yet we acknowledge that we are not qualified to debate this issue. We are fully prepared to defer to our living colleagues to handle it.

All in all, we are happy to live in an enlightened era. For the first time in American history, we have achieved equal opportunity. We finally matter. We are not just forgotten relics. We are confident that we can contribute to American society. We salute President Obama for his commitment to freedom for everyone, including the dead. No longer are we condemned to a bleak future in caskets and urns. No, for the first time in American history, we have a chance to speak. We have achieved so much. And so has America. We truly now live in an era of freedom.

It is 2009. Discrimination is dead, not us.

WHAT I REALLY THINK ABOUT THE LAW (AND LAWYERS)

AN ESSAY

For almost a year now, I have written essays and satires criticizing “the law.” Some mock the legal profession. Others mock the inane factual intricacies of the common law. Still others criticize the unfair power relationships underlying so much contemporary legal doctrine. Still, when I criticize “the law,” I am not advocating anarchy. I am actually criticizing something much more subtle, including people who use law for bad purposes. When it comes to human law, there are men who win and men who lose. It is “game-like.” Some men sit as judges between other men who desperately want to win. It is not neutral because men are not neutral by nature. Men use the law to advance their own causes, whether to protect or acquire property or to condemn men’s bodies to pain. It is instrumental, not academic. Yet human law is supposed to be detached, at least in theory. It is supposed to represent larger principles, not petty interests. But in using law, men pervert principles for their own gain. They could care less whether they do “abstract justice.” This tension represents the focal point of my criticism.

Interestingly, I had to study law for years before I could safely formulate these views. I came from a family that ridiculed lawyers. I was told from an early age that lawyers were “sleazebuckets,” “liars,” “thieves” and “gladhanders” who said anything necessary to make a few dollars. My parents labeled them “rude,” “impolite,” “unscrupulous” and “mean-spirited.” My father had one encounter with the civil justice system in his life. He often recounted it to me. During a deposition about some air conditioning sale gone wrong, the opposing lawyer cast spiteful doubt on every single thing he said. He said it made him feel horrible. He said the lawyer gave him the impression that he thought my father was lying about everything, when in fact he was telling the truth. He also said the lawyer asked convoluted questions in such perplexing language that he could not even really figure out what he wanted to know. Then, after the deposition ended, the opposing lawyer and my father’s lawyer joked around and talked about playing golf on the weekend, as if the foregoing inquisition had been “just another day at the office.”

These pejoratives burrowed deeply into my consciousness. I did not harbor good impressions about lawyers. In my early experience, I did not know many lawyers firsthand. They seemed rather boring and aloof. More often, I saw them mocked in television shows, movies, jokes and literature. These lampoons commonly tracked my parents’ criticisms: lawyers were unethical, mean, ridiculous, fast-talking, text-parsing word-benders determined to make money no matter what. Even Shakespeare’s generation pronounced the dominant judgment on lawyers: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” King Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, sc. ii. Apparently, for centuries people have just not liked the way lawyers make them feel. In a word, my upbringing taught me that lawyers were “bad” because they condescended to any artifice to win arguments, all the while manipulating inscrutable language. In essence, lawyers were “bad” and “mean” because they did not speak plainly. And because they “did it all for money.”

But somehow I wound up in law school. Perhaps I was fighting against my own nature when I decided I would study law. At the time, I just wanted an income in life. I studied literature in college. To my chagrin, I found no “literature firms” that paid living wages. In my early twenties, I had knowledge—some would say “useless knowledge” because it did not readily translate into “corporate employability”—but no trade. Yet I needed a trade to pay rent and buy food. I struggled with this for a while. I bounced around doing translations and freelance German-language jobs. I jostled my brain to figure out how to bandy my existing knowledge into a paycheck. Ultimately, I settled on the law because it involved language, rhetoric, writing and—in some sense—government and principle. Despite all my childhood distaste for lawyers, I nonetheless came to understand that there was something redeeming about the law, something intangible and good. I always loved studying history, philosophy and government. I knew that law played a role in these disciplines. It may not have been obvious, but I knew it was there. There was a “hidden allure” in the law beyond mere squabbles for property. It could bring about positive social change and cut through injustice. I did not know how it did these things, so I decided I would learn how it did. At the same time, I said to myself: “I’ll find out what the law is really all about and I’ll get a paycheck in the end, too.” This is how I landed in law school.

Six years later, I can confidently say that you will never meet a lawyer who detests the law as much as I do. Yet there is more to that statement than meets the eye. I learned that the law does indeed prompt the criticisms my parents taught me as a child. But I also confirmed that there is a “hidden allure” in the law that undermines those criticisms. I came to despise the law because—on the whole—the law’s negative characteristics outweigh its positive characteristics. Practice wins over theory in the law, even though much legal theory is thematically pleasing. In short, there is profound tension in all legal discourse. There is tension between practice and principle. Principles transcend; practice does not. Principles exist no matter what result follows in a particular case; practice aims solely to achieve particular results. Principles work only when their adherents follow them; practice demands “flexibility,” even if that means abandoning principle to win. In my “legal career,” I fell in love with principle because principle represents something larger than winning. That made me a terrible practitioner. Law firms do not want discerning legal scholars who insist on adherence to principle. They want discerning legal scholars who are willing to ignore, manipulate and distinguish principle in order to win a case and make money for the firm. This is what repulses me about the law: Principles are all well and good; but principles don’t pay.

Still, not all legal principles are good. I do not restrict my criticism to shameless legal practice. The law indulges in pure intellectual foolishness, too. For example, many lawyers proudly say that we live under the “rule of law.” The “rule of law” requires that government reference written laws and follow authorized procedures before taking adverse action against men’s bodies or property. Government must act according to verifiable law or not at all. There are great advantages to this theory. It prevents “tyranny” because it stops government from arbitrarily imprisoning people or seizing property. It bars government from harming people based solely on individual caprice or ill-will. In that sense, the rule of law cuts down on arbitrariness and “unreasonable conduct” in government. Additionally, by imposing rigorous procedures on government power, everyone theoretically has a chance to defend themselves prior to adverse action. In theory, everyone can know the laws under which government acts.

But the “rule of law” can lead to absurdity, too. After all, if government can act solely according to law, what happens if laws are evil? The government can be evil? In short, the rule of law can insulate the government from internal challenge as much as it can help to ensure order and transparency. Lawyers tend to think that as long as something is “written in law,” it is “right,” even when common decency, intuition, conscience or natural feelings of justice might dictate a contrary conclusion. For example, the “rule of law” in 1954 dictated that government could lawfully segregate African-Americans and whites in public accommodations. Lawyers in the Brown v. Board of Education case could point to no written law requiring that blacks and whites enjoy equal access to public accommodations. In fact, written law explicitly authorized segregation. Yet the Supreme Court ignored the rule of law in that case. It said that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause did not tolerate “State-sponsored racial segregation” because such segregation stamps blacks with a “badge of inferiority.” I agree with the Court, even though no written law directly supported its conclusion. But under the “rule of law,” this was an abysmal decision. If the Court had been truly faithful to the rule of law, it would have followed precedent and applied the law as written. At the time the Court decided Brown, there was nothing in the law about “badges of inferiority” or “psychological trauma.” It made these things up. In short, the Court did not just look to the law to render its decision. It looked to principles beyond the law, or at least implied in the law.

To our ears, this sounds courageous. It even sounds noble. But as a technical matter, the Court disparaged the “rule of law” in Brown. In this sense, Brown provides a fine example for the proposition that the “rule of law” can enslave as much as it can protect. When it comes to the rule of law, the result depends on what the law says, not what conscience or justice says. When the law is bad, the result is bad. Viewed strictly, judges have nothing to say about it.

Yet Brown also shows that inspiring principles do sometimes penetrate the law. I love Brown because it testifies to the “intangible allure” hidden in the law. It shows that justice and “natural right” do sometimes prevail over unjust written laws. And more importantly, it shows that justice and “natural right” constantly pull against the law, even if they disrupt its “orderly administration.” Justice always looms in legal questions. Often legal rules are consistent with justice. Sometimes they are not. In theory, judges and lawyers are not allowed to consider anything beyond the law. That is another reason why I criticize the law: It makes it difficult for judges and lawyers to follow their conscience. Rather, it induces them into a “culture of compliance” in which wooden adherence to written requirements supplants principle. In Brown, the Court refused to “comply” with unjust written requirements. Unfortunately, that does not happen very often. More often, judges and lawyers simply follow the path written in the law; and most troublingly, it rarely bothers them.

My struggles with the law mirror the tension between written law and intuitive justice. I think the tension between law and justice fascinates many people, not just those who have studied law. Movies like The Dark Knight become popular because they tap into this fascination, challenging the idea that the law is supposed to deliver justice, or even cares about it at all. At the same time, people confuse the law with justice. They expect the law to deliver results that are consistent with their intuitive sense about what it is right. Often, they discover to their horror that written law dictates a far different result. Those unlucky to be caught up in civil litigation quickly lose all illusions about lofty principles as cases drag on for years, costing both sides millions while lawyers battle over schedules and copy costs. Moreover, when people “get to know” lawyers, they do not see men and women committed to finding justice. Rather, they see men and women committed to complying with technical requirements in precisely such a way as to avoid punishment and to maximize their chances of winning (and fees). Professional ethics rules provide the best example for the proposition that lawyers do not need a conscience to win: They just need to follow what the rulebook says, even if they have no respect at all for the spirit behind the rules. This is the spiritual and intellectual vacuum that flows from fanatical commitment to the “rule of law.” Justice has no place in such a technical maze. It is all about compliance. If compliance results in justice, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine, too. In both cases, it’s “legal.”

These are the reasons why I despise the law. But it is a selective repugnance. I do not like the law for its fanatical devotion to form, compliance, technicality and procedure. I do not like the law for its tendency to lure people to believe that its “administrative rules” lead to justice. I do not like the law because it teaches practitioners to ignore conscience and principle when pondering questions that involve both. I do not like the law for the “culture of compliance” it creates in order to replace intuitive justice. In short, I do not like the law because there is nothing noble about complying with rules, especially if they are bad.

Yet I love the law for the brightness it offers. There are principles in the law that offer avenues to justice. There are principles in our Constitution that exalt individual rights, conscience, belief and self-definition against government power. Daring judges and lawyers see the brightness in these principles and apply them to break stultifying legal traditions. While I believe in the rule of law to the extent necessary to protect individuals from tyranny, I do not blindly comply with unjust rules because they are rules. Nor do I feel just for complying with rules simply because they are rules. Rather, I put my trust in principles that may not find expression in written law. And I truly care about those principles, even if they are not profitable.

This makes me a renegade among lawyers.

TRAGIC NEWS FROM IRAQ

NEWS FLASH

BAGHDAD--Reason, Commerce, Justice & Free Beer regrets to report that an American soldier has died in Iraq. At 5:30 AM EST, the Pentagon confirmed that Private First Class John C. Earl of the Army’s First Division (The Big Red One) succumbed in a hospital after suffering injuries in a vicious firefight with Sunni insurgents near Baghdad. Pfc. Earl was 23 years old. We express our deepest sympathies to Pfc. Earl’s family and loved ones. When American heroes fall, we all feel pain.

Pfc. Earl was a model soldier and citizen. He hailed from Mansfield, Ohio, where he worked at a local car insurance company as an assistant claims representative prior to joining the Army in February 2008. Earl explained to his parents that he joined the army “because al-Qaeda [was] a real threat to all Ohioans.” According to friends, Earl also said that “Osama bin Laden knew Saddam Hussein” and that “Saddam [had] to be stopped,” even though Saddam had been hanged in January 2007. Risking all for his beliefs and his country, Earl left behind a promising insurance career and young wife to protect Ohio from international terror in Iraq.

Pfc. Earl conducted himself with great dignity and responsibility during civilian life. As a teenager, he financed his own high school education by taking out private loans (at 9% APR) from a local Ohio bank. He took out loans from another bank (at 7.6% APR) in order to purchase a 2005 Chevrolet automobile. Despite his early age, Earl worked hard to fulfill his financial obligations to his creditors. He studied full-time and held down three jobs at the same time, including a job at the local ice cream parlor. He never failed to make timely payments on his loans. Upon graduation from high school in 2004, Earl married his sweetheart, Joanna C. Edwards. Earl took out another loan (at 6.9% APR) to purchase a home for his new family. He never missed a mortgage payment, even when he needed to work seven days a week to satisfy his debt responsibilities.

Earl was just as responsible a husband as he was a debtor. He never cheated on his wife. In fact, he accompanied her to the Third Mansfield Methodist Church every Sunday at 10 AM. For Earl, fidelity was a virtue. He honored both the wife to whom he owed faithfulness and the banks to whom he owed money. Most importantly, Earl never even entertained bad thoughts. He took the Bible’s teachings to heart. According to acquaintances, Earl always said: “A sin in the mind is just as bad as a sin in deed.” Despite pressures, temptations and difficulties, Earl never shirked his responsibilities. He understood his place in society. And he worked hard to fulfill his obligations every single day.

Earl believed that military service was the best way to give back for his rewarding life in America. Earl was proud of his job at the Mansfield Property & Casualty Insurance Company, where he earned $23,300 per year with limited co-pay medical insurance (with in-network providers and subject to the company’s right of refusal). He was proud of his wife, mortgage, car and church. Earl was happy in his civilian life. But he understood that al-Qaeda could take it all away unless he stood up to protect it. He volunteered for active duty in Iraq, determined to stop the terrorists bent on taking away his job, church, wife and obligations. Over his wife’s desperate pleas to stay home to raise their child, Earl went off to war.

Not surprisingly, Earl lived military life with the same spirit of duty and responsibility that blessed him in civilian life. He manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an armored vehicle assigned to protect a fortified compound in Iraq that housed important American energy industry contractors. Within weeks, Earl had his first taste of battle. In a violent engagement known as Operation Purple Anaconda, Earl’s unit preemptively attacked an insurgent base in Baghdad, inflicting 5,612 enemy casualties without losing a single American soldier. Earl personally killed 672 insurgents, none of whom went to church, paid rent, filed income tax returns, owned automobiles, owed interest on back loans or held down responsible jobs. In fact, each insurgent Earl killed had sworn a vow to murder American children, disrupt American commerce, refuse to pay bills and kill American pets. Worse, every insurgent Earl killed had cheated on his wife, inhabited several addresses over the past six years and failed to return phone calls from prospective employers. In Earl’s words: “They weren’t just terrorists. They were irresponsible, too.” In that first battle, Earl served his country well.

Following his baptism by fire, Earl quickly became a veteran. In battle after battle, he showed outstanding valor by gunning down both actual and suspected terrorists, including veiled men masquerading as women. In each case, he showed great responsibility. Although he grieved when comrades died, he took solace in the knowledge that roughly 4,012 Iraqis died for every American who fell. And he took added consolation in the fact that every single Iraqi he killed was an irresponsible terrorist who threatened American jobs and investment ventures. If he could not save his buddies, at least he could kill thousands more insurgents to protect America.

Earl saw his final battle on July 10. While protecting a convoy of American natural gas excavators on a foray to locate fossil fuel deposits south of Baghdad, an enormous insurgent force—including terrorist raiders on camelback—swooped in from the desert hills. Earl laid down a curtain of fire with his 50-caliber machine gun, mowing down 982 insurgents and camels. His comrades called for air support. A-10 ground attack planes raked the terrorists with 30-millimeter cannon fire and deluged them with napalm. A-64 Apache attack helicopters hammered them with missiles. Over ten thousand extremists perished under the withering American fire, but they just kept coming. Like obsessed banshees from Muslim Hell, they charged Earl’s brave defenders, shouting: “Allah, ackbar!”

At some point, Earl ran out of ammunition. According to eyewitnesses, a cowardly insurgent fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the side of Earl’s armored vehicle, catapulting him from his position. He suffered injuries in the fall but kept fighting. He drew his sidearm and shot four camels, then killed their riders with his standard-issue knife. But there were too many insurgents. Taking meticulous aim, Earl fired his last shot into an insurgent’s head. Like all the others, Earl’s final victim—an Iraqi terrorist insurgent bomber named Ibrahim al-Khalifi, age 19—was a perennial marital cheater, credit dodger and deadbeat tenant who never paid rent or went to church. With his last bullet gone, Earl valiantly tried to fight his oppressors with his bare hands. Although he strangled six irresponsible terrorists, a cowardly insurgent blew himself up with a grenade less than 5 feet from Earl, sending lethal shrapnel into his chest. He collapsed to the ground. Minutes later, M1A1 tanks from the 1st Armored Division arrived, killed the remaining 75,000 insurgents and saved the natural gas excavators from certain death. Medics carried Earl from the field and transported him to a military hospital in Baghdad.

Earl put up a brave fight for survival. He endured for ten days before finally slipping into a coma. Immediately before his death, Earl told his commanding officer: “At least I took a few thousand of those deadbeat terrorist bastards with me. They might have taken my life, but they’ll never lay a hand on my wife or steal my job. And I made all my payments, too. I never missed one. I don’t regret anything. I made all the right decisions. I never cheated. I never asked anyone for help. Please make sure someone sends in the checks for July to GMAC and the bank. They’re in my knapsack. I even put stamps on the envelopes. I am proud to have given my life for a country where I could take out loans for my necessities.” In short, in his last moments on earth, Earl was thinking responsibly.

Back in Mansfield, George G. Custice, Earl’s former employer, reacted to news of his employee’s death with great emotion. Starting next week, however, he plans to honor Earl as an American hero by offering special “Hero’s Insurance Rates” for Mansfield residents. Those rates offer a 15% discount on collision policies purchased before August 31, 2009 (subject to special limitations; see store for details). “It’s the least we can do to salute a great American,” Custice said.

Earl’s wife said: “I’m sad. But I’m glad my husband protected Ohio against Saddam Hussein.”

TRUTH IN THE NEWS?

AN ESSAY

Last week, I read an interesting little article in the New York Daily News. See L.I. dad slain uptown, N.Y. Daily News, July 17, 2009. Newspaper reporting interests me not so much for what the writers disclose, but rather for what they do not disclose. Ironically, newspapers ask readers to accept their reports as “truth,” even though close inspection reveals myriad unanswered questions in every article. Even the smallest, most insignificant news stories often conceal luscious “subtexts.” In the past, I rarely thought about subtext. Now that I’ve gained some experience in life, I see that subtext is far more important than printed words. In the end, I never fully trust a news report. I simply use it as a basis from which to draw my own conclusions, applying my own experience and memory to the “facts” presented. In short, I do not rely on the news for “truth.”

So how exactly does “subtext” work? And how do news outlets warp perceptions? Let’s examine L.I. dad slain uptown. It’s a short article. The reporters tell us that a “motivational speaker from Valley Stream, Long Island” named Jeffrey Locker, 52, drove into Manhattan last Wednesday afternoon. He was white. We know this because the News includes a picture next to the headline. We then learn that two young “neighborhood people” in East Harlem (a largely black and Hispanic neighborhood) saw Locker walking into a Deli on Second Avenue at around 3 A.M. Immediately thereafter, they saw him exit the Deli carrying a bottle of water and “some Trojan condoms.” One witness told the reporters that he looked “cool, relaxed.” Two hours later, the same “young people” saw Locker in the driver’s seat of his 2007 Dodge Magnum. On closer inspection, they saw that his hands were tied behind him and there was a cord around his neck. He was dead. According to the “police report,” he had been “strangled and stabbed.”

Upon reading these “facts,” I made my own conclusions. Here was an affluent white man with a successful career as a “motivational speaker.” He lived in the suburbs with his wife and three children. So what could possibly draw him to East Harlem at 3 A.M., park his station wagon on the street, then buy condoms and water? The News does not speculate. But is it not obvious? It is a well-known urban truism that affluent white men often drive into “bad neighborhoods” for drugs and sex. They patronize prostitutes. They buy crack cocaine. They pay for all the “wild things” they cannot get in their “respectable neighborhoods.” They indulge. Then they get on the parkway and head back to their wives and “respectable lives.” Their wives inevitably ask: “Why are you so late?” To which comes the familiar reply: “Oh, I got held over at work.” Why else would this man have been East Harlem? And why else would he have bought condoms? To make water balloons?

You might ask how I know this. My answer: I’ve seen it happen. When I lived in Chicago, there was a “skid row” near my apartment a few blocks from some busy nightclubs. These clubs drew the seedy as well as the trendy. Not everyone went to the clubs; in fact, most came simply to “mill around the streets.” Some preyed on drunk kids staggering home. Women donned high heels and hot pants to attract “business.” And then there was a cadre of wig-wearing black transvestites who flagged down cars and hopped into passenger seats. Most of these cars were “suburban:” station wagons, family-edition SUVs, sports cars. The drivers were all white. They were suburban men who came into the city for “exciting hookups” thinking no one back home would ever know. In short, I know from experience that white men often visit cities in order to get “exciting sex” that they never get at home during their “respectable lives.”

I could not ignore experience when reading about Jeffrey Locker. Nor could I ignore my cynical assumption that suburban white men do not go to poor black neighborhoods for saintly purposes. Perhaps the News did not explicitly mention why Locker was in East Harlem at 3 A.M., but expected readers to make their own conclusions. That may be so. But the report contained some other “facts” that cut against this interpretation. These “facts” try to paint Locker as an “innocent victim,” not someone who knowingly put himself in a compromising position. For example, the article quotes Locker’s wife: “He was going into the city and coming home. He was supposed to be coming home…He was supposed to come home. He wasn’t there by choice.” See L.I. dad slain uptown, N.Y. Daily News, second column, July 17, 2009. It also quotes Locker’s mother-in-law: “He probably trusted someone…He was a very trusting person. That’s probably how it happened. You could sell him the Brooklyn bridge.” Id. Finally, it quotes a neighbor who “often took bike rides with Locker:” “He was a nice, really great guy…He was a really wonderful father.” Id. at third column.

Was the News mocking these people? Or was it genuinely trying to suggest that Jeffrey Locker was a “great father” who was not in East Harlem “by choice,” but rather because he was a “trusting person?” True, these people knew Locker from his “respectable life” in Valley Stream. They likely had no idea that he had secret sexual desires, or at least refused to acknowledge them. But they are the only people quoted. They did not even quote a neutral police source that might have shed some objective light on the reasons why a suburban white male was alone in a “bad neighborhood” at 3 A.M. on a weeknight.

If the News expects its readers to think that Jeffrey Locker was completely innocent and that some “evil minority person” took advantage of him because he was “too trusting,” then it is both racist and naïve. Jeffrey Locker was in the city because he wanted to patronize some prostitutes in East Harlem. He would not have bought condoms if sex were not his goal. He thought he would park his car, buy some condoms at the local bodega, invite some hookers into the car and do what he came to do. But he was playing a dangerous game. He was in a risky position by choice. “Reasonable people” do not go to “high-crime” areas late at night, let alone park expensive cars there. Apparently someone saw him as a mark and attacked him. We cannot know exactly why it happened, but it is not very surprising. It was a crime of opportunity. And it simply defies belief to suggest that someone “seduced” Jeffrey Locker. Did someone “entice him” on his way home to Long Island, convince him to drive all the way uptown, park his car in a “bad neighborhood,” then kill him? That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Moreover, the unbiased eyewitness statements contradict that scenario. According to the “neighborhood people” who saw him, Locker was “cool” and “relaxed” as he walked from a Deli carrying condoms. That does not sound like some overly trusting, misled soul to me.

In sum, this was a white suburban man who was unsatisfied with his boring sexual life at home, so he went into the city for some fast, anonymous sex with black and Hispanic prostitutes. This was a man with secrets. He was leading a double life. To his neighbor, he was a “really nice guy” and “a great father” who “rode bikes.” But the “neighborhood people” saw his dark side. Who knows how many times he had gone to East Harlem in the past? All this was clear to me when I read the article. I saw a sexually frustrated white middle-aged suburban man using lower-income city dwellers to play out fantasies that he could not indulge in his “respectable life.” It is not complicated. It may be embarrassing and pathetic, but not complicated.

Yet the article reported none of these things. To fully grasp what happened in Jeffrey Locker’s case, I had to apply my own experience and analysis. I could not rely solely on the information in the report. Still, newspapers claim to present “unbiased fact” so that we learn the “truth” about “what happened” in particular events. Newspapers report on “matters of public concern.” Murders concern the public. Nonetheless, the article about Jeffrey Locker does not remotely report the “truth.” No one will ever know the “truth” except Jeffrey Locker and the person who killed him in his car. A few witnesses saw Locker two hours before he died. Their sensory recollections provide us some insight about his motivations and why he was in East Harlem. But they know nothing about his final moments.

Despite the News' best efforts—and every reporting company like it—we can never really grasp the “truth” about events we do not perceive. At best, we can interpret what “may have happened” based upon our own experience, memory, intuition, impressions and emotions. When we do that, we do not actually perceive “what happened,” nor do we come any closer to the “truth” as an absolute matter. Rather, we create truth in our own minds. We hear recollections. We read details. We digest reports. These things interact with our own experience to create something we believe. We see events in our mind’s eye even if we never saw them with our real eyes. We think these mental images are “truth.” In fact, they are nothing more than interpretations based on our own experience. To that extent, truth is entirely subjective. And because it depends on experience, no two people will ever precisely agree on what is true. After all, we all draw on unique experiences to guide our interpretations.

At best, we can agree on certain “indisputable details” when analyzing events. Nothing can replace actual sense. But our society demands “truth” about events, even when no one was there to observe them. Our news media answers this demand. In so doing, it assumes a central role in our consciousness. If we cannot be present to experience every event that concerns us as a society, at least we can receive some information upon which to make our own conclusions. Still, how many people really draw their own conclusions from news reporting? After all, as the Locker case shows, news reporters have the power to selectively publish certain details about past events. Those details channel interpretation. Not everyone has the same life experience to tease out the subtleties concealed in a story. In fact, news stories lure the reader into feeling that he is reading “the pure truth” about a past event. But this is delusional. The mere fact that a newspaper describes an event does not make it true. Rather, the fact that a newspaper describes an event should make the reader even more suspicious about “what actually happened.”

I do not rely on any news media for “truth.” But I do not completely discount it, either. After all, news outlets perform an essential role in disseminating details about events. Without them, we would have no information at all about “things that happen.” Beyond that, however, it is up to me to sort out what “actually happened” based upon my own life experience. It is not easy; interpretation never is. Yet if we simply credit everything we hear in the news, we lend ourselves to deception far more than “truth.” After all, we humans have very limited sensory range. Our senses provide the best pathway to “truth” about the external world. Unfortunately, we can use them to grasp a comparatively minuscule proportion of all the things that happen during our lifetimes. For everything else, we depend on language, second-hand reports, stories, memories, distortions, recollections, biased impressions and legend. In all these cases, “we weren’t there” to perceive the event reported. Nor can we really say whether it “really happened.” We can choose simply to believe it did—or did not. And even then, we see something in our mind’s eye that might be totally different than what “actually happened.”

Is there any way to sift through language, fragmented details, memory and bias to find “truth?” Is it a hopeless endeavor? Or worse, do we just reveal our own individual biases when we try to “create truth?”

FINANCIAL UNION OF PEOPLE WHO GET TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT ALL THE TIME AND WHO COULD GIVE A SHIT WHAT ANYONE ELSE THINKS EVERYWHERE AND FOR ALL TIME

POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD

By : Mr. M. Myron Bird, Jr., Ph.D. (Leisure Studies), M.B.A. (Account Management); Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Short Hills Federal Savings & Loan Society; Avid Water Polo Connoisseur; Beachgoer; Honorary Chairperson, The American Relaxation Society, Age 27.

Many Americans face difficult times today. They worry about their jobs, finances, and even relationships. In challenging economic times like these, they wonder whether they will ever find happiness amid so much worry. After all, it is hard to be happy when banks threaten foreclosure, savings accounts dwindle and you lose your health insurance. Basically, many Americans face insurmountable problems. For these Americans, life is a wrenching struggle fraught with worry, pain, inconvenience, frustration, anxiety, uncertainty, heartache and indignity. For these Americans, joy is fleeting, if they ever experience it at all. They never get to do anything they enjoy because there are too many obligations. There is too much to do. There are too many people who expect them to get things done. There is never enough money to pay everyone who demands it. Who can feel joy under such pressure? Who can feel joy when so many other people dictate how you must act in life?

We can because nobody tells us what to do. We don’t feel pressure at all. We are the Financial Union of People Who Get to Do Whatever They Want All the Time and Who Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Everywhere and For All Time. Put simply, we are the guys who make life hard on everyone else. We impose obligations; we don’t live under them. Our fathers own massive banks, investment houses, insurance conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies. We employ people; we don’t work. We wear T-shirts and flip-flops. We stay at home. We hire and fire. We collect fees. We divide up partnership profits. We buy eighth houses and jets. We swim on Tuesday afternoons in beautiful pools. We drink pina coladas with topless blond models while Americans worry about health insurance premiums. People give us money, not the other way around. We own so much property we don’t know what to do with it. You don’t hear about us much, but we’re out there. And we’re having a fantastic time, too.

We find it strange to hear about all these Americans who suffer hardship. After all, we have it good. Every time we turn on the news, we hear about “problems” that Americans face. We hear about low-income women who abandon their children because they can’t afford to care for them. We hear about middle-class families that descend into chaos because they can’t afford an unexpected carburetor repair. We even hear about struggling young professionals who complain they have “no work-life balance” because they never leave their offices. Basically, it seems that every American is worried to death as they struggle to cope with obligations from all sides.

Sucks to be them: Too bad they don’t own banks and pharmaceutical factories. We are the guys who impose obligations; we don’t face them. The only obligation we have is not to murder the gardener or rape those hot Polish cleaning ladies. Even if we did that, I’m sure we could pin it on someone else; hell, we own law firms and our dads know all the judges. Some say that we don’t understand the term “consequences.” But “consequences” are for people with problems and obligations. We are the guys who give other people problems and obligations; we make others suffer “consequences” when they fail to adhere to obligations. So how can we suffer “consequences?” That’s like telling the king to punish himself; the king punishes, not the other way around. In a word, we shit on “consequences.” When you own banks and control currencies, you don’t worry about “consequences.” In fact, you don’t really worry at all.

That’s why we can’t understand why people whine so much about life being “hard.” For us, life couldn’t be better. We get up when we want, stay out all night, have sex with models whenever we want, drive cars, go on luxury vacation cruises at our sixth family beach resorts, drink specialty mixed drinks with friends and buy any car we see. We have fun from morning to night, 365 days a year. We never have to do anything; we only do what we want. Sure, we might defer to a friend’s suggestion to fly to Aruba instead of Monaco, but that’s just courtesy. We’re never bound to do one thing or another. Still, we are courteous people. We listen to our friends. After all, we all just want to have a good time. There’s no need to squabble when you already own everything. When you get to do whatever you want all the time, life is beautiful. That’s why we don’t really grasp all this talk about “hardship” and “difficulty.” If you were in our loafers, you would say: “I love my life!”

We recognize that many people don’t like us. They say we don’t belong in a society committed to equality for all. They say we should face the same challenges as everyone else. We disagree with these criticisms for two main reasons. First, our society is not committed to equality for all. Rather, our society is committed to rewarding those who provide value to society. Our families provide real value to society, and our reward has been to live happy lives without obligation. Additionally, it would difficult to imagine a society in which both “equality” and “obligation” could coexist, for obligations always involve a superior and an inferior party.

Second, even if “equality” really were a social aim, it would not include the requirement to “subject everyone to the same challenges.” Some people have tough luck. Others get good breaks. That’s life. Some people get chronic skin diseases and look like walking corpses. Others are born mentally defective. Surely these “equality critics” do not think everyone in society has to endure these challenges? Hey, it would be great if everyone were beautiful, well-formed and wealthy like us. But that just can’t happen. Some have it better, namely, us. Not everyone can be both beautiful and own JP Morgan Chase.

Still, most people fail to comprehend our responses to their objections. They say it’s “just not fair” that we get to sit poolside all day having sex with models while they have to trudge into an office tower and move paper boxes from one corner to another for $28,250 annually (less taxes). To this we merely point to our party name: “We are the Financial Union of People Who…Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Anywhere and For all Time.” You see, we really don’t give a rat’s ass that people are jealous of the way we live. You have your lot; we have ours. We are the ones who make your life difficult; we get to enjoy ourselves while you work. There’s nothing you can do to change the way we live, so there’s no point complaining about it. If you cared enough about yourself, you would stop complaining and work a little harder. This is America, after all. You can try to change your circumstances. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say you can’t get anywhere because you’re injured, you have debt, you have a family to feed, no one’s hiring, no one pays overtime, blah blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. Face it, you are who you are: A Loser. If you just tried a little harder you could make the next pay grade. You might never get to our level, but you could at least make a few more dollars if you just grit your teeth and worked until 7 each night instead of 5:45. But you’ll never get anywhere if you cross your arms and pout about us. No matter how much you complain, we don’t give a shit. You see, when you have as much property as we do, you have the freedom not to care. And let me tell you something: We don’t.

To be clear, we do care about some things, just not you. Specifically, we care about whether we have to wait for a runway to clear before our jets can take off. Or if we’ve planned an outdoor dinner bash at the Hampton House, we care about whether it rains.

Despite these occasional challenges, we can’t say we’re unhappy. Our life is good. It is hard to explain just how good to someone who wakes up every morning to face pressing obligations. We wake up any time we want. We get breakfast served. We can choose to drive the Aston Martin or the custom Maybach. We can party or we can stay home and watch a first-run movie in our personal movie theater. We never see a bill, let alone pay them. Basically, every day we can choose the best way to amuse and delight ourselves. We don’t have to think about anyone but ourselves. We don’t have bosses; we are the bosses’ bosses. Believe me, it is a great way to live. We don’t think about bank balances, child support payments, car notes, interviews, denied medical coverage, standardized test scores or school deadlines. If someone denies us something, we just make a phone call and it’s solved. We don’t worry because there is no one who has anything we don’t. In a word, we think differently because we own everything. When you own everything, you don’t stress.

We fought to get where we are. We are happy to be here. There is no way in hell we are going to share it with anyone else. We are the Financial Union of People Who Get to Do Whatever They Want All the Time and Who Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Everywhere and For All Time. Our membership is strictly limited. We control money; we don’t worry about it. We play by a different rulebook than the rest. You can’t join us unless you kill us and take our spots. If you try to do that, you’ve got a fight on your hands, because everyone works for us. And they don’t even know it. Everyone works and suffers so that we get to keep doing whatever we want, every day. It’s amazing what owning banks can do. Just ask us.

Problems and “consequences” are for little people. We love this country.

OFF FOR THE WEEKEND

I won't be posting this weekend. I'm off to see my dear old Mom in Connecticut. As usual, these breaks really help me regain my focus. Yesterday I battled a little stomach illness, and the rest will do me good.

Thanks again to all who stop to read! I'll have plenty more to share on Monday.

Best,

Oesterhoudt

I DON'T CARE ABOUT PLOT

A REFLECTION

I often talk to people about writing. Interestingly, I rarely get consistent advice. Some people say I should write less. Others say I should revise more. Still others think I should take everything I’ve written, put in on paper and turn it into a book. A few have even said I should write a novel. Basically, I can’t possibly accommodate all these suggestions at once. If I did, I would be contradicting myself.

I still learn from these conversations, even if I cannot follow them all. Most importantly, I have learned that “blogging” might not be the best medium for my writing. I turned to blogging without really knowing what it was. I just wanted a regular forum in which to post my thoughts, satires and views. My blog provided the discipline I needed to keep writing, as well as to develop coherent themes. After writing several hundred pages, however, I began to see that most “blogs” are not really “literature-based” or even “text-based.” To the contrary, many “popular blogs” are more picturebook than book. One successful blogger told me that internet users don’t want to read. Rather, he said they want to check, peruse, skim and maybe type LOL. He said that if I wanted more hits, I would have to write much, much less—and post more pictures.

This depressed me. I had more faith in people than that. I believed that people want more from life than to look at pretty pictures and laugh. I know that I like to read provocative essays and stories. I thought that people felt the same way. The day after hearing the successful blogger’s advice, I thought I had failed. But my spirit soon rebounded. No matter how well picturebooks work for the “successful blogger,” they don’t work for me. I declared my independence from “internet thinking.” I apologize to everyone who can’t read a page for more than 20 seconds, but I don’t write twitter-sized bites. If you want vacuous brevity, you won’t find it here. I write here as if I were writing a book. I am laying bare my thoughts about issues I care about. I can’t do that in 140 characters or less. If that makes me unpoetic, so be it. Still, I never feel that I waste words. I might write a lot, but only because there is a lot to say about important questions. Style is essential to me. It just isn’t a 4-word-per-sentence/quarter-page style.

I do not mind being an outlier. I eschew convention in most life matters, anyway. It should not surprise anyone that I defy internet convention, too. Nonetheless, I can be realistic when I need to be. I understand that my content would find better expression in paper form. In that light, I plan on printing out everything I write here, tightening it up and transforming it into a printed package. I like seeing words on paper more than on a screen. That might show my age. But it also shows my belief. I don’t shrink from it. I only have one opportunity to say how I really feel today. When I write, I take that opportunity. In this sense, I am taking the advice to turn my blog into a book.

This does not mean I will close the blog. To the contrary, the blog is my laboratory. Here, I merge my creative impulses with discipline. The blog gives me a ready forum in which to post my thoughts immediately after formulating them. That is a fantastic resource. My ideas first see light on the blog. I let them season here, then decide whether to tinker with them further. Ultimately, the well-seasoned stuff will make it into the book, with revisions and probably some additions. I want my book to present a relatively coherent picture about my views. To that extent, my blog archive is a huge help. In some sense, I have already categorized my thinking in many areas. I don’t like to say I am a categorical person. But I won’t deny that I can “categorize” subjects I like to write about.

I will not write a novel. At least, not a traditional one. I won’t write a novel because I don’t like writing plots. Plots are too ordinary for me. I will only dream up a plot to the extent necessary to create a framework for satire. I have always resisted entreaties to “think up cute stories” or “love tales.” I can understand why some people suggest this, because most “literature” and “entertainment” centers heavily on plot. Audiences take comfort in “exciting stories” about men, women, events, romances, turnarounds, developments and resolutions. Trash novel writers make millions writing insipid plots lines and banal dialogue. They know what people want. Plot pays.

But I need more than plot to get excited about writing. I need messages. I need criticism. I need observations. I need irony. I need opinion. I need ambiguity. If I want plot, I can watch the news or buy the New York Post. Plot is ordinary. It is about who, what, when, where and how. This is not to say that great novelists do not weave messages, criticism and observations into their plots. Dostoevsky did that masterfully. But that’s why they were “great novelists;” they did not just recite a plot line. The difference between “literature” and “plot writing” is the ability to make lasting observations about humanity while entertaining the audience with a good story.

Yet literature does not sell as well because it is harder to read: Grisham will outsell Dostoevsky any day. In that sense, literature mirrors the problems I face contending with “internet convention.” Internet reading parallels “plot reading.” Like plot readers, conventional internet readers want quick, easy-to-follow “factual” reports about people and events. Facebook and Twitter prove this. Most internet writing—and many blogs—discuss what some random individual “does” on a certain day; and there is nothing profound about it. “I went shopping.” “I saw Kim.” “Billy is soooo cute XD XD.” “OMG I have a math test next period.” This is internet writing. It is “plot-like.” It is easy to read. It does not dwell on lasting issues, nor is it intended to make a rhetorical impact. It just tells you what someone is doing. If you don’t know the person, you can be forgiven for saying: “Who the fuck is this and why should I care if they got a haircut today?”

I have the same reaction when I read plot-based writing. What do I care? What does this writer want to say? If I do not have an emotional or intellectual connection to the events being described, there is no reason why I should follow it. Hollywood makes money on plot by interspersing routine events with explosions, good-looking people, violin flourishes and special effects. But without the bells and whistles, most Hollywood plots are instantly forgettable. They don’t really say anything. They just provide easy-to-follow entertainment.

When I write, I consciously try to avoid that fate. I do not want my writing to last only for the brief moment in which I write it. I want it to make a statement on an issue that will be just as important next year as it is today. That is why I don’t write plots, unless I am satirizing conventions that use plot. I acknowledge that my writing may not achieve great “popularity” because it does not spin plots, but that does not bother me. I am content to put my beliefs, impressions and thoughts on paper. I comment on issues that confront us all. In the process, I challenge my own assumptions; in the end I usually conclude that I know very little. I prefer ideas to events, even though events in many cases provide the philosophical fodder for ideas. I take my time in developing ideas. If it takes five pages some days, then I write five pages. I cannot squeeze them into Twitter-sized morsels. That is just the way I write.

As always, I am thankful for everyone who takes the time to savor what I write. I know it takes time. I certainly make no claim to be a great writer, nor do I want fame. I just know that I care deeply about transcendent issues that go beyond “what I’m doing today.” It makes me feel good to inscribe my thoughts upon them, if for no other reason than to say: “This is what I believed; it doesn’t matter whether it’s right.” Whether I attack issues satirically or ponder them in an essay, my attitude toward them is the same. Genuine issues deserve genuine discourse. I use my blog to generate that discourse. I am developing a way to look at the world. I am using my time to understand what I really think. Amazingly, I really did not know that until I started writing in earnest.

I never would have discovered my own thoughts if I just wrote plots. That’s why I don’t like them. They contribute nothing to self-discovery, enrichment or individual personality. They just pass time. And we don’t have much.

STOP SOTOMAYOR : SHE DOES THINGS THAT YOU CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE

A MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE

By : Mr. John Cornyn III (R-TX), United States Senator; Member, Judiciary Committee; Former Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court; Member, Texans’ Alliance for Strong Borders and Marksmanship; Chairman, Lone Star Lethal Injection Fan Club, Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter; 1998 Champion Rifleman, “El Adios” Wetback Target Practice Gun Club; Believer in Christian Forgiveness (with qualifications).

Under our Constitution, the United States Senate has the power to confirm “Judges of the supreme court” following our “advice and consent.” See. U.S. Const. Art II, § 2, cl. 2. That means we have the power to interview the President’s nominees to the Supreme Court in order to determine whether they will protect our Constitution and the American people. Today, the United States Senate must decide whether Sonia Sotomayor has the requisite character and intellect to serve on the world’s most influential court. We must provide “advice and consent.” We face a serious task.

For two days now, Judge Sotomayor has given testimony concerning her abilities as a jurist. So far, she has entertained friendly questions from Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee. She has carefully refused to answer questions concerning her personal views about the Constitution, liberty, freedom and justice in America. She says she “respects the rule of law” and does not allow her “personal feelings” to interfere with her “legal judgment.” On the record, she puts on a good show. From her public testimony, it appears that she is thoughtful, circumspect, judicious and calm. If we had only her public testimony to evaluate, there would be no reason to say that she is not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.

But this “performance” is sheer theater. Judge Sotomayor is no detached legal technician like Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Thomas. She is a maniacal lesbian Puerto Rican communist determined to sabotage the United States with Latin perversion. Although several of my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have reminded the world that Judge Sotomayor belonged to the “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund,” no one really seems to notice how dangerous this is. The “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund” does not just pay lawyers to argue cases involving Puerto Ricans. It practiced—and continues to practice—voodoo. Its members, including Judge Sotomayor, take part in pagan Caribbean rituals to the grass goddess La Mama del Verde Eternal, during which they burn pungent incense, curse “gringos” and chant prayers to make “Boricuan” the official language of the United States. In short, Judge Sotomayor is deceiving the American people. She is no judge; she is a Puerto Rican radical communist witch doctor with plans to wage war on every white English speaker in America.

I am determined to set the record straight on Judge Sotomayor. I refuse to listen to her song and dance any longer. I know a Puerto Rican woman when I see one, and there is a Puerto Rican woman sitting before me in the halls of the United States Senate, not a federal judge. I am duty-bound to tell the American people that there is much more to Judge Sotomayor than meets the eye. Put simply, she does things that you can scarcely imagine. If I do not tell the world about this Latina viper, she will slither into the Supreme Court to permanently taint our constitutional order. Unless I speak, every American will soon be forced to sing salsa songs and drink mango juice every morning. As an American and a Texan, I refuse to condemn this country to lesbian Puerto Rican terror.

We should have known from the outset that Judge Sotomayor was not what she said she was. Although we could not locate many public statements revealing just how dangerous she could be, we did find a speech in which she called herself a “wise Latina” who could answer some questions better than a comparable “white male.” That should have immediately raised red flags. If George W. Bush were still leading this failing Republic, Judge Sotomayor would have faced impeachment, not elevation to the Supreme Court. But we live in perplexing times. How can we possibly revere a judge who claims that Hispanic women are “wiser” than white men? This is a proposition too outrageous to entertain. To be fair, perhaps Judge Sotomayor meant that “wise Latinas” could be wiser only on certain matters, such as the best place to watch the Puerto Rican Day Parade or how best to translate Spanish phrases, such as: “Ay papi!” After all, there is no way Latinas can be wise when it comes to deciding a securities fraud suit. They don’t even know what a security is. And how can I elevate someone to the Supreme Court if they don’t know that?

But this is not just about legal knowledge. This is about character. I am informed that Judge Sotomayor does unimaginable things. She is not the hard-working, careful jurist she leads us to believe. No, she is a monstrous racist devil-worshipper who dresses as a banana in her private chambers. She castigates white men in Spanish, calling them “pedejos,” “maricons,” “cabezas de vaca,” “coños” or worse. She carries on lesbian affairs with married women in nursing homes. She eats mice, broils frogs and casts Puerto Rican voodoo spells on white litigants before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She has lived at over 56 addresses throughout New York City since 2001. She has robbed banks while dressed in a Puerto Rican flag shawl. She drives a small Toyota automobile and blasts obnoxious Caribbean music through an expensive, bass-heavy stereo purchased with money filched from the Federal Judicial Fund. This is not the conduct of a prudent jurist. This is not even the conduct of a “wise Latina.” To the contrary, this is the conduct of a hateful racist criminal communist lesbian gypsy vagabond who is determined to undermine American society as we know it. We must stop her from wiping her culo with the Constitution before it is too late.

Judge Sotomayor’s jurisprudence is just as radical as her lifestyle. Although she would have us believe that she takes an “incremental” approach to deciding cases, I know better. So far in her confirmation hearings, she has refused to disclose her beliefs on abortion, choosing instead to say that Roe v. Wade is “settled law” before praising the importance of stare decisis to “careful judging.” But I know the truth. I know that Sotomayor hates children and belongs to the International Latin Fetal Roasting Society (ILFRS). That organization promotes the public disembowelment of pregnant white women, then the ritual boiling of unborn children in a skull-shaped cauldron—all conducted in the Spanish language. She not only supports abortion, but she verifiably boils children—then eats them. How can we defend children in America with an avowed child-eater on the Supreme Court? If we confirm Sonia Sotomayor, we risk enshrining child-eating as a constitutionally-protected right. Put simply, Judge Sotomayor doesn’t fool me when she says she will “carefully consider” abortion regulations. I know she secretly yearns to throw screaming white children into a boiling cauldron, then greedily devour them like scalloped potatoes. This should give us all pause before confirming her as our next Supreme Court justice. Liberal constitutional interpretation is one thing. Eating children is quite another.

But all these personal and intellectual flaws pale in comparison to Judge Sotomayor’s intention to interpret the Constitution in a “ compassionate, humanitarian manner.” In speech after speech and opinion after opinion, she has said that the Constitution should protect the weak and powerless. She has issued opinions granting asylum to Africans and faulting city governments for “not hiring more minorities.” She has freed criminals because the police searched them without warrants and she has said that public school students have a “free speech right” to mock their principals. She is prepared to open our borders to every foreign ruffian who shows up for welfare benefits, and she believes that major corporations should be subject to strict governmental review. In a word, these are dangerous sentiments. If we confirm Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, she will rule for freedom, not precedent. She will rule for justice, not procedure. She will rule for the individual, not the bank. And she will rule for compassion, not commerce.

This is simply unacceptable. Our Constitution does not stand for justice, compassion, freedom or sympathy. Rather, it stands for commerce, procedure, private property and banks. There are ways to interpret the Bill of Rights to protect commerce and banks; Chief Justice Roberts has already shown a marvelous ability to reconcile individual rights with the rights of banks and police investigators. In fact, in my view, a Supreme Court justice proves his worth by skillfully deconstructing dangerous individual rights in order to protect banks and police forces in America. If we protected individual rights too zealously, both government and industry would grind to a halt; every black fellow on the street could bring the police force to its knees simply by saying: “That cop beat me.”

This will not do. Our Constitution is not about sympathy, compassion, humanitarianism or justice. Rather, it is about order, procedure and commerce. Yet Judge Sotomayor threatens to bring sympathy, compassion and justice to the Supreme Court. That would betray the very ideals for which America stands. We must stop this revolutionary lesbian from destroying our country.

We still have time to stop this madness. If America knows the truth about Sonia Sotomayor, they will urge their Senators to vote “no” on her confirmation. At the moment, she is dangerously close to success. Unless we act now, we will promote an inveterate Puerto Rican child-eating communist to our high court. Unless we act now, the police will no longer be able to search people without warrants. Unless we act now, we will be forced to hold dinner parties at state expense for convicted Muslim terrorists. These are Sotomayor’s plans. We cannot allow her to bring her witchcraft to the heart of American government. We cannot allow her to hoodwink us with her calm, collected public demeanor. This is no detached jurist. This is an activist Puerto Rican voodoo dyke from hell who would rather castrate a white male this afternoon than have lunch with her immigrant mother.

For the sake of our Republic and our Constitution, we cannot allow Sonia Sotomayor to bring justice, fairness or “humanity” to the Supreme Court.

IT'S GOOD TO BE A LANDLORD

By : Mr. Marty H. Landsman, Owner of Seven Choice Apartment Buildings in New York City; Chairman and CEO, Landsman Management Group; Honorary Member, The National Association for the Protection and Dignity of Private Property in America, LLC (a for-profit Association).

It’s good to be a landlord. I don’t pay you; you pay me. It’s not your land; it’s mine. You spend your life working so you can pay me rent. I just sit here and collect your checks. Then I deposit your checks and buy expensive gifts for my relatives before going on vacation. Ah, yes, it’s good to be a landlord. Just say the word out loud: Land Lord. It’s my land. You’re on it. I’m your lord. Pay your lord or get off his stinking land. It doesn’t belong to you.

Yes, I’m your lord, all right. You might think you have some rights against me because you signed a lease before you set foot on my land. You think I’m required to make sure the land is safe. You think that I have to leave you alone while you pay rent. But did you ever stop and read the lease? Guess what, all the obligations are on you, pal. If you don’t pay, I get to charge late fees, penalties and hire a lawyer against you at your expense. If that doesn’t make you cough up what you owe, I can bring over the sheriff to forcibly eject you from my land. After that I can go to court and get a judgment against you for all the money you owe under the lease. Then I can garnish your wages, seize your pathetic household trinkets and take the shirt off your back—all with legal authority. You no pay, you no play. And me get all of your money. Silly tenant.

You think you have power? Think again. You can’t throw me out of my house, but I sure as fuck can throw you out of yours. It’s my land. It doesn’t belong to you. I’m just letting you stay there because I’m being nice and you’re paying for it. But you’d better not forget who holds the cards in this relationship, my friend. You’d better not cross me or forget to mail your check. Because if you do, I’ll sic the law on you faster than you can say: “Oh God, please don’t throw my clothes on the street!” And you thought the law was on your side. Ha ha ha ha ha! You naïve little renting person. Here’s a little secret: If you own no property, the law will not help you.

So you think it’s unfair that I get the money and you don’t, eh? Well that’s life. My dad owned this land and he left it to me. Your dad didn’t own any land and now you have to ask landlords like me to rent to you. What can I say? That’s the way the ball bounces, buddy. I am the landlord. You are the tenant. You signed the lease. You owe money. This is the way things are. There’s no sense complaining about it. Look, if you become successful and buy some land yourself, then you can be a landlord, too. So there’s something you can aspire to. You need goals, right? Hey, this is America. You can be anything you want. But in the meantime, send me your goddamn rent checks.

Tenants like you really make me angry. In recent years, you’ve banded together and lobbied lawmakers to impose new responsibilities on landlords. You’ve actually won a few court cases and communist judges have ordered us to keep our land “habitable” and “quiet” for your “enjoyment.” They say that when we accept your rent money, we “warrant” that the ceiling won’t collapse on your renting face, or that flesh-eating worms won’t burrow through the floor and kill your girlfriend when she sleeps over on our land.

This is total rubbish. We believe in contracts. The lease contract says you pay rent and we let you live on our land. It doesn’t say anything about protecting you from falling ceilings, flesh-eating worms or anything else. You’re a big boy. You can defend yourself against these things. I mean, worms move slowly; you can dodge them. It makes no sense to saddle landlords with additional responsibilities when grownup tenants like you are in a much better position to look out for their own safety. If America stands for anything, it stands for responsible, self-aware individuals who are mature enough to understand what they are bargaining for. We don’t “read things into” contracts. We follow them, because they represent responsible, free will. When the law steps in to modify what we bargained for, it assumes we are childish. Oh no we’re not. We know exactly what we’re bargaining for. We bargained to let you stay on my land for one year. We did not bargain to protect your lazy ass against collapsing ceilings or deadly worms. That’s your deal, not mine. My life is difficult enough as it is going down to my P.O. box to pick up checks. I can’t start worrying about worms in your apartment. That would seriously complicate my life; and I wrote the contract so I wouldn’t have to worry about shit like this. God damn judges.

Still, I can’t really complain that much. I don’t lose lawsuits against tenants. They either pay me or I evict them; it’s pretty simple stuff. I just don’t like the idea that the law has recognized some “tenant rights.” I mean, come on, part of the fun of being a landlord is that you get to do whatever you want, even fuck around with tenants without consequence. I mean, we’re land lords, just like the feudal landowners in England who got to snatch peasant wives from their tenants’ homes on their wedding nights. We are the lords; the tenants are our peasants. Since when did peasants have rights against their noble lords? This is just contrary to everything the law stands for. The law is about property, not peasants. We have property and we get to take what we want from it. But now these judges are actually giving rights to peasants? It’s just mind-boggling.

Rent control is the worst thing that ever happened. During the New Deal, State legislatures and city councils mandated that landlords were forbidden to charge more than a token amount for rent. Worse, these laws attached themselves to the property, so that even if a rent-controlled tenant died, the rent control continued for the next tenant. Never before has a law so dangerously impinged on the right of private contract in America. Never before has a law so insolently encroached upon economic freedom as rent control has. Rent control took power away from landlords and put it in the hands of pathetic wage-earners. It forced landlords to forgo potential profits in order to accommodate poor people. It thumbed its nose in the face of free market economics, maintaining artificially low prices even when the market clearly reflected demand warranting higher rents. In short, rent control waged war on contract, freedom and economic empowerment for landlords. And why? To help people “weather tough economic times” and to “make housing affordable for all.”

This is beyond stupid. Real estate markets are no different from any other private market. If a prospective tenant is willing to pay $4,000 a month for a single room, he should be allowed to bargain with me to pay that amount. But rent control laws mandate that I can only charge $50 a month for the property, even if the prospective tenant and I want to conclude a contract for $4,000 a month. This is sheer madness. I did not become a landlord for some lesbian city council commissioner to tell me I can’t maximize the profit I make from my land. It’s mine, goddamn it, not hers. Mine, mine, mine, mine! I have a right to charge whatever the goddamn fucking shit I want for my property. I have a right to make whatever goddamn fucking shit contracts I want with people who have the money to pay what I demand. Yet rent control takes away my freedom, and it takes all the fun out of being a landlord. America is supposed to be about freedom, not “affordable housing for all.” Worse, rent control takes away my freedom to provide “affordable housing” to someone who is willing to pay market rates.

I’m sorry, but this is unjust. It is difficult to pick up checks at the post office and evict delinquent tenants. Rent control adds insult to injury by: (1) Reducing the amount of my checks; and (2) Allowing tenants to more easily meet their financial obligations to me, obviating my right to evict them. I can’t tell you how many times rent control forced me to take a six-week cruise instead of a seven-week cruise, or buy a $45,000 diamond necklace for my wife instead of a $50,000 one. All because these communist laws trampled on my right as an American to charge whatever I want for people to live on my land.

Still, it’s not all bad news. Most State legislatures and city councils have abolished rent control. During the 1980s and 1990s, legislators came to their senses and realized that this country does not stand for “affordable housing.” They remembered that it stands for private property rights. So now I can basically charge whatever I want for my properties, with a few exceptions. I’ll be honest with you: The few old coots who still have rent controlled apartments really put a bug up my ass. I mean, how would you feel if you knew Mrs. Myriam H. Finkelblatt (age 90) is only paying $75 a month for a choice 2-bedroom apartment at 456 Park Avenue, while her neighbor, Mr. Charles G. Witherspoon, Esq. (Age 41), pays $6,700 a month for the same space? If the old hag would just hurry up and die in a pool of her own urine, I’d make an extra $6,625 every month; that’s $75,000 every year. People don’t earn that much slaving away at an insurance company every year, yet I would get it simply if the crone would keel over and exit my building feet first.

Polite society says it’s wrong to wish death on others. But I’m not afraid to defy convention: I wish death on every single last son-of-an-elderly-bitch who has rent control on my property. I hope they all die quickly so I can fill their apartments with young strappers with the money to pay market rates. And they’re out there, too. Demand is up and supply is short. I own the supply. I’m the landlord. You need to bargain with me for something you need. I set the price; you sign the lease.

And there is nothing wrong with this. You wish you could be me, because you’d be doing exactly the same thing if you were in my position. But you’re not, so you need to lick my boots to live on my land. You might complain that the lease is unfair or the rent is too high. Go ahead and complain; it’s a free country. But you need a place to live, don’t you? You won’t get to live on my property if you don’t sign. Don’t want to sign, eh? Then get the hell out, because there’s a guy right behind you with cash in hand ready to go. So would you please make up your mind? You are interfering with my right to contract and you’re really annoying the guy behind you who wants to contract with me. You believe in freedom, don’t you? Then sign or get out of the way.

Don’t hate me because I’m a landlord. I’m just living the American dream. Freedom is a wonderful thing, especially if you own lots of land. Praise the lord… the land lord, that is. And may I remind you that your rent is due on the 1st, no later.

LIFE, DEATH, HAPPINESS, SENSE, MONEY & OTHER UNCOMFORTABLE WORDS

AN ESSAY

Several weeks ago, I wrote about why human beings fear death. All living organisms cling doggedly to life. But only humans can articulate the reasons why they want to live. I concluded that people fear death because they are “sensory creatures” who derive enjoyment and meaning from their senses. Their senses allow them to stimulate their bodies, affording opportunities for pleasure and satisfaction. Death, however, causes “irreversible sensory shutdown,” precluding any further sensory input. Death cuts short our ability to experience the world with our senses. It eliminates our potential pleasures at the same time it spares us potential agonies. No matter the result, we fear it because we cannot imagine an existence without sense; we simply don’t know “what it’s like.”

Sense is everything. Generally speaking, human beings live for their senses. They want to see, hear, feel, taste and smell things that make them feel inwardly happy. Although some people profess to find happiness through the spirit or by some other intangible route, these are exceptions. For the most part, human beings work, struggle, contend, compete, strive and wrangle in order to bring joy to their senses. They engage in commerce to earn sufficient money to spend their time in a manner that allows them to positively stimulate their senses. Success in commerce allows “sensory success.” Of course, achieving success in commerce takes a very long time. Ironically, those who ultimately succeed in commerce usually do not have much time left to placate their senses. Life for most people follows a predictable pattern: Strive at all times to win in commerce, because success in commerce will provide a reliable means to positively stimulate the senses, thereby minimizing negative emotions and maximizing positive ones. Put simply, it is a race against time. People know that they only have so many days to find happiness. With every passing day, their potential for positive sensory stimulation dwindles. Life is a closing door.

This is why people fear death. Death cancels their ever-dwindling opportunity to achieve positive sensory stimulation and happiness. Death shuts down the senses: Obviously people will fear something that threatens the very capacity that makes it enjoyable to live. In modern American life, people do not just fear death; they try their best not to even think about it. They push it away with all their might. After all, American life follows a program, and death is not on the agenda. The program teaches worldly success, sensory satisfaction and happiness through material acquisition. Sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell are essential to find happiness along this path. American success means success in life and through sense. The tangible world before us is not opaque. In American life, the best things in life are right in front of our eyes: Houses, electronics, cars, bulging bank accounts, boats, overseas vacations. We can possess these things. We can see them; and so can others. Americans tailor every day in their lives to ultimately acquire these things. They work their whole lives without them for a chance to live with them. Sadly, most people do not get all the tangible items they want. But they don’t want to die because that would preclude their opportunity to get them. Still, even if they live, they probably won’t get them, either. But they can’t know that. So they prefer life to death. They want the chance to stimulate their senses in the way they always wanted—which almost never happens.

Death just does not fit in the American life program. Americans have too many other things to do. They have to get jobs, go to school, purchase land, impress their friends, make enough money to retire, go on the right vacations, find health insurance, buy the right stereo equipment, go to dance clubs, watch movies, save money on phone plans, buy a second home and send their children to college. Their goals lie in this world; they are right there for the taking. All these goals involve the senses. There is no time to think about death. It is incomprehensible. No one sees what happens after death, nor can anyone receive a report about it. Put simply, death cannot be achieved, won, savored, acquired or known. That is why it does not fit in the American life program. In a world stuffed with perceptible, achievable, tangible goals, death is the great unknown. It takes people out of the race for good. And when winning the “sensory race” is all that matters, is it surprising that death strikes terror into the competitors? People fear death because it forces them to come face to face with a startling new reality after living their lives believing that sense was the only reality.

Americans manifest their death fears in many ways, both overt and subtle. Overtly, they emotionally react when threatened with death. The law threatens death to the “worst criminals” on the assumption that death is the “worst thing” that could happen to anyone. Because no one wants to die, the law assumes that no one will engage in behavior that could lead to the death penalty. When Americans see violent events in which others die, they feel traumatized. It reminds them they don’t want to die, either. They recoil from the thought that they will not have a chance to stimulate their senses anymore or to follow their life program to potential happiness. Pain plays a role in this fear. But pain is not the main reason why people fear death. People fear death because death cuts short their anticipated life program and its opportunities for sensory stimulation. Americans overtly manifest their fear in this regard when they see others die.

Yet subtle death fears are much more interesting than overt death fears. To some extent, we can explain overt death fears on a crude biological level. Even dogs become terrified when some overpowering force threatens them with death. Self-preservation is not unique to lower mammals; human beings are no exception. Living organisms want desperately to live, and when they perceive that something might end their life, they manifest emotions consistent with a desire to live, including overt death fears. But human beings express their death fears in more subtle ways. We are the only species that uses the mouth, palate and tongue to create intelligible speech. We tend to presume ourselves “superior” to all other creatures because we can do this. We use our speech to do great things as well as treacherous things. We use our speech as much to inform as to confound. We use our speech as much to unite as divide. Although speech may set us apart from other life forms, we certainly do not always use it for abstractly beneficial purposes.

We voice our emotions through speech. Through the words we choose, we indicate how we subjectively feel about certain phenomena. We can use direct words, such as: “I am afraid.” Or we can “circumlocute” our true feelings because the truth makes us uncomfortable. We might say: “I am concerned” when we really are terrified. This is a conscious obfuscation, a self-delusion. But there are other ways in which language itself changes to reflect a pervasive, universal fear, even if the individual speaker does not experience it at the moment he says the words.

Death is a prime example. In recent decades, Americans have almost universally replaced the verb “to die” with “to pass.” George Carlin placed this “word shift” into the growing catalogue of issues about which Americans simply can no longer speak honestly. See Parental Advisory : Explicit Lyrics (1990). He was absolutely right, and for a significant reason: Because death is anathema to the American life program. American language has changed in order to express a prevailing social discomfort with—and even disapproval of—death. Because death stands in such stark philosophical opposition to the entire sense-oriented program under which most Americans live, Americans deliberately refuse to confront the uncomfortable implications. “To die” means to “cease to be.” It refers literally to the moment in which a living person—with senses, ambitions, dreams and a “life plan”—becomes a dead person—with no sensory capacity or potential for sensory stimulation at all. But “to pass” does not literally refer to that biological event. No, “to pass” implies “physical movement through, around, toward or beyond something.” It derives from the Latin word “passus,” meaning “step.” It refers to movement involving tangible objects, places or obstacles, as in: “I passed by the store this morning on the way to my mother’s house,” or “I passed through the door on my way into the office,” or “We passed each other in the hallway.” There is nothing biological or existential about it. It is about banal movement.

Metaphorically, “to pass” can also mean “to end.” But this meaning traditionally refers to events and circumstances, not to death. A wise uncle might say to his nephew: “Dear boy, fear not. For this, too, shall pass.” This did not mean someone died. It meant that some adversity would soon “go away.” And this metaphorical meaning derives from the “physical movement concept” implicit in the word “to pass.” Circumstances—like living beings—can “move through or beyond” fixed points or obstacles. In this sense “pass” does not have an existential meaning.

So Americans now say they “pass” to mean they “die.” Why? To avoid using the scary word “die.” “Die” is a simple word. But it is disconcertingly honest. It goes to the heart of existence and non-existence. It is too honest for American discourse, in which everything depends on life. Only the living can achieve success, acquire property, make lots of money, enjoy sensuous pool parties and go on vacation without financial worry. Only the living can reap commercial rewards because they have senses that those rewards can stimulate. Everything in America depends on life, because everything revolves around sensory stimulation. Death permanently removes a living being’s capacity to experience the world though the senses. Death ends any hope to achieve “success” as conceived under the “American life program.” Americans strive their whole lives to achieve that success; death undermines the entire enterprise. It even renders the enterprise absurd. It is thus little wonder that Americans refuse to even countenance the word when talking about the event to which it refers. So they choose a meaningless, harmless substitute: “To pass.”

I hate to break it to these folks. But when we die, we do not “pass” or “go” anywhere. When we’re dead, our passing days are over. Our bodies are done. They ain’t going noplace, at least under their own power.

Yet some Americans truly believe that “we never stop thinking about money or success.” Last week, I read a few pages from a book written by a “professional money coach” who counsels “executives” struggling to balance their obsession with money with “normal lives.” She wrote about some company Vice President who had to take a day off from work in order to visit his dying mother in the hospital. He felt guilty because he didn’t want to leave work or make a bad impression on the company President. The “money coach,” however, told him that his guilt was natural—and his mother would understand that he couldn’t stay long—because his mother hadn’t stopped thinking about money, either. “We never really stop thinking about money, no matter what our circumstances may be,” she wrote, referring to a dying woman she never met.

I found this shockingly asinine. As much as the “American life program” demands that we fixate our attention on “this world” and the “success” it can bring to our senses, death renders everything moot. I found it preposterous for this “money coach” to presume that a woman facing death had not stopped thinking about money when she was about to die. I can say that I do not always think about money or success, and I am not dying. And I was with my father when he was dying three years ago; I know for a fact he was not thinking about money, success or his job when confronted with non-existence. In fact, he entered an extremely reflective state in which he deeply questioned everything he had done in his life. He wondered why he spent so much energy chasing things that did not really matter. Money and success are among those things that “don’t really matter” when death looms. Yet they are the cornerstones of the “American life program;” and they entrench themselves so deeply in us that many people cannot fathom an event that makes them irrelevant.

But there are ways to accommodate both this world’s fixation on success and the existential fears that spring from contemplating death. Commerce and gain are not the only ways to stimulate our senses. We can achieve sensory happiness without material acquisition or winning a competition for limited resources. After all, these are merely external stimuli. If we can find strength within ourselves, if we can cultivate our own personalities and thoughts, then we might find value beyond commerce. To be sure, this is not a popular path to happiness. Like death, it does not rest easy with the “American life program” because it focuses on subjective meaning rather than objective material acquisition. But by looking within ourselves, we determine who we are, not what we have. And when we stop worrying about what we have, the thought of dying no longer seems so daunting. After all, if “having things” is not so important to us, what does it matter whether we leave “the world of having things?”

If we make that discovery, we are unafraid to say “die.” We do not need to delude ourselves by saying we “pass.” We “pass” the McDonald’s on the way home from work. We “die” when we stop breathing.