Bonobo Diary

November 4, 2010 - Just saw where a blogger was "incensed" about a football rule. Now, this is important stuff. Talk about opiate of the masses.

But I know the recent human elections are troubling some of you. The most frequent question I get is, "Why didn't they elect all certifiable lunatics?" All I can say is that, at the last minute, there was a modest sanity backlash. Very modest. Don't worry about that. The humans aren't about to embrace reason.

Another question I get is, "Aren't these the guys they just threw out two years ago?" In a word, yes. Only more so. Since they were booted out for being evil, greedy, and heartless, they have repented. They promise, as Jesus is their CEO, that they will be way more evil, greedy, and heartless. If they did nothing constructive before, they swear to do much more of the same. And the American human electorate heard this and replied, "Sounds good to us."

Some of you - but not very many - ask if humans are really that stupid. Again, yes. You need look no further than the election results.

And one small bit of guidance on human intelligence, which is a fairly hot topic among humans themselves. They believe their "intelligence" is what separates them from "the animals," which they fancy they are not. Here is the measure of human intelligence: They are intelligent enough to figure out how to destroy themselves, but not intelligent enough not to do it.

August 15, 2010 - A lot of you are very confused about all this "building a mosque at Ground Zero" stuff. I will try to explain. I mentioned something called "religion" before, but perhaps not enough. Religion is the belief that there is a big human in the sky who punishes the little humans eternally for pissing him off and rewards the humans he likes, also eternally, for behaving the way he tells them to. There are usually vague instructions in a big book. The difference in religions is over the details of the behavior (desired or proscribed), which big book is the right one, and (most importantly) who it is that gets to tell everyone else what it is that the big human in the sky wants.

In 2001, several humans flew airplanes into big buildings in New York, blowing them up and killing thousands of people to teach them what their version of the big human in the sky wanted. The religion of these servants of the big human in the sky was "Islam." Adherents of Islam are called "Muslims." The several thousand people who died professed a lot of different religions, including Islam, but most of them were "Christians," as are most of the people in the United States of America. The place where the buildings were blown up is called "Ground Zero," which is a military term used for the point of bomb explosions. Most of those, having been sanctioned by governments, are perfectly ok.

Now, some Muslims want to build an Islamic cultural center in the vicinity of Ground Zero. They claim that it is to promote tolerance and understanding, but opponents know that Muslims blow up buildings and Islam is evil. Some non-Muslims, including the President of the United States, think that there is religious freedom in the United States. They think this because a document called "the Constitution of the United States" says so. The opponents say that the President is "out of touch" with the desires of the humans of the United States. And they are absolutely right. The humans of the United States are driven by hatred, fear, and intolerance. They don't give a fig for that "Constitution" thing, except when it comes to protecting their guns.

July 11, 2010 - I have come to the conclusion that Homo moronis is insane. Consider the following evidence. Insanity is not a scientific/medical term because the scientific-minded consider it too vague. So there is no such diagnosis as "insane." There's schizophrenic, psychotic, bipolar, neurotic, and a bezillion other things, but no insane. In law, however, there is something called insanity. It relieves humans of legal responsibility for their actions. For a determination of insanity, the courts rely on psychiatrists, who never give a diagnosis of insane. Now, that's what I call insane.

But consider this. If insanity is too broad to apply to an individual, maybe its proper application is to a species. I think the main criterion for determing species sanity or insanity would be how they react to reality. For example,

1. Accept it - sane
2. Try to change it - sane
3. Ignore it, make up a new reality, and live in it - insane

And imaginary friends. Big clue. Playing with them is one thing. Giving them power of attorney is another.

July 4, 2010 - True patriotism. The Nation magazine just asked its readers to offer their definitions. I think I'll just submit mine here. And isn't it fortunate that I just explained baseball to you?

There is a venerable old baseball saw that goes, "Always keep your eye on the ball." Ok, now suppose you are playing baseball. You are batting in the bottom of the ninth. Your team is trailing by one run. They tying run is on third, and the winning run is on second. There are two outs, and the count on you is 3 and 2. (And you may have noticed that I am suddenly assuming a lot more knowledge than would, strictly speaking, be warranted under my premise for this site. Let's just skip by that.) As I said, 3 and 2. The pitcher winds up and throws. The catcher says, "Hey, your fly is unzipped." You look down for a split second, as the ball zips by for a called third strike. Game over. You lose.

That's patriotism. Patriotism is a device for getting you to take your eye off the ball. When you could be asking yourself, "What are we doing, sending kids to kill and die half way around the world," your eye is drawn to the guy frantically waving a flag.

Notice this: the "debate" over patriotism ... true patriotism ... is about the definition of the word, the true definition, i.e., my definition. But debate about the word itself is prohibited. It is stipulated that Patriotism is Good (upper case mandatory). Everyone is for patriotism ... whatever it is.

Well, patriotism means "love of country," of course, you jackass! Du-uh! Meaning what? Du-uh, indeed. This might be clearer if you remember the Prime Postulate: "We are the Good Guys." (From which follows, as the night the day, that They are the Bad Guys, and You are either with Us or against Us.) The Good Guys can do no Bad. The Bad Guys can do no Good. It's simple. The way humans like it. Patriotism is the fairest-haired of the children of the Prime Postulate. What Better Guy is there than one's country? We live in it! It embodies all of our highest principles ... whatever they are. It has very clear borders. Usually. All of its people share the same culture! More or less. Usually. We all speak the same language! Sort of. Sometimes. Maybe. We all believe the same things! Well, maybe not, but for purposes of this argument ... We share the same ideals! More or ... ok, that's a lie, but at least, we believe in the same kind of government ... sort of. We support our government, and it represents us! Almost couldn't get that one out. We may have irreconcilable blood feuds among us, but by God, they're our irreconcilable blood feuds, and We are the Good Guys. And if you aren't patriotic, you aren't one of Us.

June 9, 2010 - I didn't want to have to tell you about baseball, brethren and sistren, but this is just too illuminating. Baseball is a "team sport." Team sports are human ritualized warfare substitutes. Baseball is one of the best, because hardly anyone gets killed playing baseball. The object of a team sport is to "beat" the other team by scoring more points than they do. How points are scored, and what they are called, vary with the sport, but the ... goal is the same.

In baseball, one human (called the "pitcher") throws a ball, and another human (called the "batter") tries to hit it with a stick (called a "bat" - not the winged creature). If the batter hits the ball, and no human on the pitcher's team catches it before it hits the ground, the batter (now called a "runner") tries to reach a sack (called a "base" ... or "sack") before someone on the other team throws the ball to the base. If the runner gets to the base before the ball, he is "safe." Otherwise, he is "out." Whether the runner is safe or out is decided by an impartial person called an umpire. Without umpires, the two teams would argue forever. After a while, a runner may score a point (called a "run"). Not gonna get into that. Each team gets three "outs" per turn. A turn is called an "inning." Then they change places so that each team gets its chance to score points. There are nine innings per game, so a pitcher has to get 27 "outs" before he can win. Losing requires many fewer outs.

The very best, most wonderful, incredible thing a pitcher can do is get 27 straight outs without any opposing batter getting to a base at all. This is called a "perfect game." Perfect games are rarer than hen's teeth, or were until this year, when they suddenly seem to have become as common as houseflies. But I exaggerate. A little.

Anyway, here comes the good part. A few days ago, a human pitcher named "Andres Galarraga" was pitching a baseball game. He had gotten 26 straight outs. He only needed one more for a perfect game. The 27th batter hit the ball and ran for the base. A player threw the ball to the base. It was close! The umpire said the runner was safe. There went the perfect game. h Galarraga then got the next batter out.

Every second of every ("important") baseball game is recorded. Even before the last out, the humans could see the play where the runner was ruled safe. The umpire was wrong. The runner was out. h Galarraga had not only pitched a perfect game, he had pitched a ... super-perfect game, maybe, because he got not 27 straight outs, but 28. Everyone agreed on that. The umpire said he made a mistake. The runner said he was out. Everyone could see the video. So ... perfect game, right?

Here's the good part: Wrong! The Commissioner of Baseball would not change the "official" scoring. The game was recorded as an ... imperfect game because ... it was recorded as an imperfect game. The umpire made a decision, and the decision stands, even though it was wrong, and everyone in the world knows it was wrong. There, my kindred, you have humans to a tee. Reality comes a poor second to the stories they make up.

May 27, 2010 - Time for a lesson in human state psychotics (or politics, as they like to call it). Every two years, the Texas state legislature meets for the Biennial Surprise Multi-Billion-Dollar Shortfall Celebration. You would think that, after a decade or so, it would cease to be a "surprise," but no. It is always a big shocker. No one can figure out how it happened! Again.

The Biennial Surprise is always accompanied by the ritual screwing of state employees, known as the "Pick Your Poison Jamboree," in which the missing billions are painfully extracted from the aforementioned target population. And I do mean "target." If you're ever in Texas, keep an eye out for the humans with gigantic concentric circles painted on their backsides.

"Picking your own poison" is thought to be the height, zenith, and apex of fair dealing. And no individual need be disappointed if the majority does not pick the individual's favorite poison. Two years later, they will. Or two years after that. Every poison will have its day. An alternative description of "picking your own poison" is "bend over and tell me where you want it."

May 19, 2010 - I have been posed a poser, O my Kindred! What, you ask, is representative democracy? I can tell you that it is a human psychotical institution, but it will help if you are familiar with the human playwright, William Shakespeare. h Shakespeare wrote a play calle King Lear, and humans based their representational democracy on that. In the play, King Lear has three daughters, whom asks, keeping inheritance in mind, to tell him how much they love him. The first two, lying like 2-dollar whores, tell him he's wonderful, he's marvelous, they love him like ... whatever he wants to be loved like. The third one, who actually cares about him, tells him the truth. He promptly kicks the honest one out on her patoot and lavishes wealth and affection on the other two. The lying bitches, of course, screw him over royally. (He is, after all, a king.) In the end, King Lear figures out who his friends are ... in time to die ignominiously.

Human representational democracy is like King Lear. Humans choose the lying-bitch daughters to represent them and spit on the daughters who tell them the truth. (Remember: humans are delusional.) The difference between King Lear and human voters is that Lear figures it out in the end. Humans never do. They love being lied to and abused. Once in a long, long while, the truth gets so large and gruesome, and the lies so crude and obvious, that they throw out the Designated Lying Bastard and elect a truth-teller. This is very rare. Usually, they just elect another lying bastard. But if, by happenstance, humans do find themselves with a truth-teller, they get rid of him (or her) as quickly as possible. Usually, they need a two-year retoxification period.

If you are not familiar with h Shakespeare, I will offer another analogy. Suppose you are choosing a tree for the night. You would look for one that suits your needs. For example, it should be high, strong branches, not easily accessible to predators. That is not how humans would do it. They would expect the tree to sell itself to them. They would want the tree to tell them, objective evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that it was the tallest, strongest, smartest tree in the forest, that it had the most correct opinions about important matters, that it agreed with you on everything, and that the other trees would sell you out to predators.

May 2, 2010 - Here's another question I am often asked: What do humans mean by "fiscal conservatism?" Fortunately, I am in an almost uniquely favorable position to answer that. As luck would have it, I live in a fiscally conservative state with a fiscally conservative governor, a fiscally conservative legislature, a fiscally conservative human population, fiscally conservative dogs and cats, fiscally conservative flora, and fiscally conservative rocks and stones.

First, it is important for you to understand the difference between Good words and Bad words. "Fiscal conservatism" is a Good word. Or two of them, actually. But together, they're really good. The opposite of fiscal conservatism is "tax-and-spend." That is a Bad word, and it really is just one word because it is always said as a unit, without breaks.

Now, back to fiscal conservatism. This is how fiscal conservatism works. First, you call a press conference to refuse half a billion dollars for unemployment from tax-and-spenders. Then you borrow 2 billion from the tax-and-spenders and double taxes on employers when your unemployment fund goes dry, but without - and this is critically important - without the press conference. Then you accept about another 14 billion from the same bad, stupid tax-and-spenders to extract your ass from the cesspit when your state goes bankrupt. Bonus question, to see if you have been paying attention: When you accept the 14 billion buck, do you do that with or without a press conference?

On an unrelated topic, we now have proof that the liberal doom-sayers who are always going on about there not being enough oil are wrong. Apparently, just one gulf oil spill will keep the entire east North American coast from Texas on up to Maine covered in oil for covered in oil for years.

And let's not hear any whining from the usual malcontents about the dangers of nuclear power production. Nuclear power is safe. The nuclear energy industry has safeguards, just as the oil industry does. What could possibly go wrong?

April 25, 2010 - Today, brethren and sistren, I must comment on the British human debates, as I have been receiving anguished emails begging for elucidation. Here is one:

"I heard that the British humans had a three-person debate, and everyone agrees that the human Clegg won. Excuse me, but I thought the definition of debate was 'An oral competition between two humans in which a moderator asks questions designed to test the disputants' ideological and/or religious purity, and the disputants vie to be the one who does not say something that will be plastered all over the news media in six-inch bold-face the following day. The winner of a debate is subjectively determined to be the human who is in one's own political party.' I ... am ... confused!!! Sincerely, Ook-ook."

Ok, now, don't go all giant robot on me, Ook-ook. I can clear this up for you. Your definition is accurate for Homo moronis americanus. What you are missing is that the anglicanus subspecies is a slightly different animal -- same species, of course! But remember, Dachshunds and Great Danes are also of the same species. Breeding matters.

I will start with the most important difference between the americanus and anglicanus subspecies. This is it: The americanus subspecies cannot count higher than 2. This explains the bulk of the discrepancies between the two subspecies. To americanus, a three-person debate is an absurdity. In England, a third party can walk in and say, "Hey, you lot have been screwing things up for donkeys' years. It's our turn now." And they'll probably be just as bad as the others have been, but the truth is, they haven't done anything bad yet. So an objective observer might have to allow as they've got the better of the debate.

Now, in the US of A, that could never happen. Remember: can't count past 2. So there are only two parties and two arguments. If you are Out, you say, "They're screwing up the country! Elect us!" If you are In, you say, "They screwed up the country when they were In. It's their fault. Elect us!" That's the whole debate. And maybe something about lapel pins. When the discourse is at that level, there can't be an objective "winner."

April 21, 2010 - I am feeling so vindicated today. The authorities who grounded the airlines because of the eruption of Impossible-to-Pronounce Volcano are now under fire from airline execs because the airlines lost money. Their line of argument is of the "flawed data/unwarranted fear" variety ... pretty much what I have outlined below.

Here's another Understanding Humans Hint: If it costs them money, not only are they against it, but it is wrong - morally, scientifically, logically, you name it.

Let's give Homo moronis credit, at least, for consistency.

April 18, 2010 - I was frankly astonished by what looked like aberrantly unhuman behavior following the eruption of the Unpronounceable Volcano in Iceland. As the skies above Europe filled with volcanic ash, the humans closed their airports because the pilots wouldn't be able to see well enough to fly safely. I found this puzzling, but I think I have figured it out. That was the more benign European subspecies of Homo moronis. The majority of my experience has been with the americanus subspecies. Had the Too Many Letters Volcano spewed forth in the middle of Texas or Kansas, as it would have, if the human belief in a just, vengeful god were true, the campaign against flight cancellations would have gone like this:

1. There is no such thing as a volcano.

2. Ok, maybe there is such a thing as a volcano, but there is no proof that the volcanic ash in the atmosphere was caused by a volcano. Anyway, there is no volcanic ash in the atmosphere.

3. Ok, maybe it is a bit overcast, but certainly not enough to cancel flights.

4. Possibly, visibility is zero, but let's not be hasty. Any responsible plan for delaying flights must take economic impact into account. It must balance plane loads of dead people against bucketfuls of profits. Body count and bottom line. Your body count and my bottom line. Oh, no, no, no. Not my bottom line at all. I'm worried about you. Because if I lose a penny, you know whose hide I'm going to extract 10 bucks from.

5. This requires a lot of study. Research. Committees. Time. In the meantime, I can keep raking it in.

I'm still a little surprised. "If you can't see, don't fly." I didn't think humans were capable of grasping anything that obvious.

April 14, 2010 - Understanding Humans Hints.

UHH 1. Asked to decide between two courses of action, one that results in a perceived material benefit for the human, and one that does not, the human will not choose the second. Not only will the human choose the course that promises a material benefit, he will build a logical justification for why it is best for everyone. The humans who are cleverest at doing this are called "judges." Clarification: I use the term "clever" in the American sense. That is "sneaky-smart; so sharp, you're likely to cut yourself."

UHH 2. Unfortunately, humans aren't very good at spotting what's good for them. They will go for the shiny nickel over the dull dime every time.

April 11, 2010 - Hail, brethren and sistren! Some of you have been asking, "What is socialism? And why is it so bad?" I am at last ready to answer those questions. First, allow me to explain that the authority on what is, and is not, socialism is something called "the Republican Party," so I have studied their utterances on the subject to divine its meaning. I have discovered the following:

1. Socialism is evil. I don't mean that "evil" is a characteristic of socialism. I mean "socialism" and "evil" are the same thing. Socialism is the psychotical (humans say "political") aspect of evil. A good way of understanding this is by analogy to the Christian concept of the trinity. According to Christian theology, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons composing a single substance. ("Person" is not to be understood here as an individual; that would be a corporation.) But each "person" in the trinity is God, and God is each and every "person" in the trinity. It is the same with socialism and evil. Understand?

2. Socialism is anything that is done by something called "the Democratic Party." This is a very simple way of knowing what's what.

3. Whether something is socialism or not depends on who does it. This is the tricky part. Something that is not socialism when done by a "state government" may be socialism when done by a "federal government." I know this because the state of Massachusetts has a healthcare system that is virtually identical to the one just passed by the human US government, but the first is not socialist, and the second is. And how do I know that? Because h. Mitt Romney, former governor of this "Massachusetts" and a member of that "Republican Party," the one that is the authority on what is (and is not) socialism, assures me it is true. He says the two plans are nothing alike, but the only substantial difference is that one is "state" and the other is "federal."

April 10, 2010 - Mea culpa. I have defamed all weasels - indeed, all rodents, and I apologize. A few months ago I wrote an allegorical story about the health care brouhaha in which weasels represented the cynical, greedy, mendacious insurance/drug establishment who fought reform with lies and manipulations because the abusive status quo was personally profitable. And I still think I nailed it pretty well, but here's the problem. The point of allegory and analogy is to use a case that is easy to understand to illuminate one that is difficult to understand. My problem is that nothing beats a human for greed, selfishness, cruelty, and disregard for everyone else. So asshole humans is the simple case. Evil weasels is a harder sell. If you're a prey species, you may fear weasels, but you know they're just looking for supper. They don't expect you to skin yourself or present yourself to them in a pleasing culinary pose or to bite the kid who's trying to chase off the weasels. Only humans do that. Or buy that.

April 4, 2010 - It rained last night. Quietly. Like a shy stalker, stealthily approaching his victim's door, and then losing his nerve. After a week of dire predictions, it looked like we were going to escape scot dry. But no. And that's good. Because I'm really pulling for the trees. When Homo moronis stupids himself off the planet, taking all or most of us with him, perhaps there will still be trees. And some different, less suicidal, less murderous, less insane species will have a chance.

I have been thinking about what Homo moronis adds to the universal culture. What is he good at? I can think of two things:

1. Killing things. He's a past master of slaughter. There might be something more ingeniously bloodthirsty somewhere, sometime, but I would have to see it to believe it. In the dim past, this was called "hunting." Then it was called "war." Now, it's called "patriotism" and "piety."

2. Subjective logic, which they call "common sense." Here are examples. First example: "You hit me with rock. You bad. I have to kill you." Second example: "I hit you with rock. You bad. I have to kill you."

April 3, 2010 - Disturbing news today. It seems that a human feral district court - or "federal," I think they call them - has ruled that genes cannot be patented! Can you imagine that? This casts a decided monkeywrench into my plans to patent the heart, liver, lung, kidney, and anus. I was so looking forward to receiving royalties any time anyone took a dump. Plus I was planning to copyright the letters A, B, and C (both upper and lower case) and the numerals 1 and 2. That would get me a good cut of the corporate profits made on patented genes, which all seem to have names that are some combination of those characters.

However, I still have hope. The feral decision is being appealed and, since there is a great deal of money in this, I have every confidence that the case will go before SCROTUS. (That's Supreme Court Redesign Of The United States. I say "redesign" because (a) it certainly doesn't bear much resemblance to the institution I remember from my humanhood, and (b) I have a good local model for inserting whatever damn-fool word may be required to get the acronym you want. And "SCROTUS" sounds right.) But I digress. The point is that I have complete faith that the SCROTUS Gang of Five will overturn that anticorporate decision so that I can make a killing on human body parts.

April 2, 2010 - I have been getting questions about human "government," O, my kindred. "What the bleep is it?" you ask. Some of the confusion arises from terminology. For example, what is the difference betwee "government" and "gummint?" (Hint: "Gummint" is "government," only worse.) The rest of the confusion arises from the fact that humans are idiots. Have I mentioned that before?

To begin at the beginning, government began when a human picked up a big stick and discovered that it was a lot easier for him to persuade other humans to do what he wanted them to do and to give him what he wanted them to give him, if he was holding the big stick. Let's call this "Big Stick Government." With a few refinements, and many encrudements, it is still the preferred model of human government.

Later on, some humans thought up a different kind of government. Their idea was that a government could serve the common good. That is, it could do the complicated, difficult, and (above all) expensive things that one or two humans couldn't do by themselves. I should remark that this kind of government was (and is) favored by the humans who don't have the big sticks. Those who favor it generally do so while maneuvering to gain possession of bigger sticks. Once they have bigger sticks, they become Big Stick Government practitioners, and the humans who then have smaller sticks pretend to like the other kind of government.

If this doesn't make sense to you, remember the Prime Postulate! Come on, get it right. If humans understand it, it can't be that difficult.