inherently different

I’ve been at various times been accused of being elitist, racist, republican, classist, classless, rude, vulgar and once, upon calling someone a moron, mentalist…

I don’t think I fit into any one category to be honest. I have moments of clarity that sometimes people find off-putting. What it all boils down to is that I don’t mind being the voice of dissent or reason while those around me insist on failing to grasp the obvious.

I’ve been asked my opinion at various times and quite often the person asking the question has been sorely disappointed by my answer. I am not a doom and gloom type of guy and won’t readily agree that the world is ending tomorrow if I decide against recycling. I don’t believe that Bush’s lies in order to invade Iraq were any worse than the lies any other American leader has told in order to keep America a world power. I also don’t believe that war is a bad thing nor do I believe that it should be neat and tidy with few civilian casualties. Nor do I believe in a god that would condemn non-believers (that includes both muslims and christians), which by extension means I can’t subscribe to the two largest modern religions.

I guess I just don’t believe in anyone or anything so intensely that I’m willing to forget that I have a responsibility to myself that precludes doing things just because others demand that I tow the line. I’m not a follower, but I’ve spent a good portion of my adulthood avoiding leadership roles.

I shudder to think what would happen if I was suddenly thrust into a leadership position…

I’m not sure about the rest of you cats, but I’ve often wondered about the myriad of beauty products sold to women. There’s lotions, peels, scrubs, masks, ointments, salves, salts, dyes, and a few others I have no way of categorizing without a degree in chemical engineering.

The Red Queen is an esthetician by trade and our bathrooms (yes, we have two) are filled to capacity with just about every known beauty aid ever invented. While her constant pursuit of beauty is admirable, the fact that I barely have room in the bathroom for my razors is a testament to how seriously she takes this particular addiction.

This is an area where men and women differ, of course. A guy might NEED a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a razor, deodorant, some soap, shampoo (if he has hair), some conditioner (if he believes the hype about the two part process of hair maintenance), and a towel. For the most part, guys are low-maintenance, unless he’s a metro-sexual, then he might NEED some lotion, one or two different colognes, and a luffa. I’m of the former group. Which is to say I’m about as low maintenance as you can get without being in a coma. Sure, I’ve got some level of vanity… I mean, I’ve shorn off all my hair rather than watch it all fall out on its own. I’ll admit that I took my queue from Bruce Willis, but the truth is my options were limited: it was either the comb over or invest heavily in Minoxidil. The bottom line, and the one I’m trying to get at here, is that men use a fraction of the personal care products that women do.

Women will buy just about every crackpot invention ever made so long as it claims to either beautify or restore her skin, hair, nails, or teeth to their pre-pubescent splendor. I know there are a few of my regular readers, women anyway… and maybe limey, who pay an extraordinary amount of attention to their appearance. I would imagine that it probably started shortly after they found their first gray hair or crowsfoot near the eyes. I know that the women’s magazines (which for the most part are produced, written, and edited by women, for women) tend to push the younger is better line and mostly because they are in part funded by the advertising dollars paid by the manufacturers of the very products that promise women they’ll feel and look younger and better if only they would buy their products. It’s horseshit really.

I mean, I think every guy looks at pictures of hot, young women in magazines, but it isn’t because they’re better looking than you… it’s because we’ve been trained from an early age to be attracted by women in magazines! Mostly from our experimentation of masturbating to pictures of hot, young women in magazines.

Anyway, I bring this up because today some woman at some spa called to inform me that my girlfriend’s order of some sort of unguent arrived special order. My girlfriend’s bathroom already looks like a mortician’s lab with all the various potions, lotions, and sprays… the only thing that’s missing is an embalming table. Luckily, the Red Queen doesn’t use many cosmetic products, but I wonder what would happen if she stopped using the products she does use… Which is a thought process that probably started the horror movie genre.

Depending on who you ask, the civilian death toll in the first two years of the Iraq war might be 100,000, 194,000, or 1,000. The latest issue of U.S. News & World Report has an editorial (Fun With Numbers, August 1, 2005) that tries to ascertain the validity of statistics that are gathered by groups with an agenda.

The article goes on to say that the numbers vary depending on whether or not the source is anti-war. A team of Johns Hopkins University scholars conducted a survey and published their findings in the Britsh Medical Journal Lancet. This particular “non-partisan” survey found that 100,000 Iraqi civilans had been killed, but before you swallow that figure like oprah swallows cake, know that the report was issued just before the election and it was conducted by an anti-war group. Greenpeace had the numbers closer to 15,000 dead, while the American Friends Service Committee/Red Crescent claimed the number was actually closer to 300,000 civilian deaths. Later a Foreign Policy Magazine report fixed the number at closer to 1,000. Whose telling the truth? Unless you’re out counting bodies in Iraq, any guess will do apparently.

Any statistical figures released by any non-profit organization that counts on public donations or government grants for the balance of their operating income should immediately be discarded without much investigation.

I guess from my perspective I’d rather know about civilian lives “saved” from various conflicts… that would be a much more telling number… for instance, if the population of a neighborhood in Tikrit on Friday was 100,000, then the US bombed some terrorist cocksuckers in Tikrit back to the stoneage on Saturday, and the population of Tikrit didn’t decline by more than 1% by sunday, that would be ok in my book.

I’m sure a few of the misguided liberals who frequent my blog might be appalled by my thinking, but so the fuck what. I for one am all for erradicating anyone who thinks that everyone should be worshipping allah or else.

It had to happen eventually, right? I mean, kids grow up, right? In case you’re absolutely clueless, I’m talking about Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince and the fact that the lead characters, Harry, Ron & Hermione, spend a good portion of the book hooking up with whomever will have them and eventually, each other.

I picked up the 652 page book on Saturday morning and was finished reading it by Sunday evening. I can read pretty fast, but the fact that I read that much in just under 12 hours shows how quickly this story moves along. I’m pretty sure there are others who finished it much quicker than I… in fact, 6togo read it in like 20 minutes or something.

Now, I’m guessing if you’re reading my review of the 6th book in the HP series, you’ve already read the book and any information about the plot, characters, and ending won’t be news to you… if you haven’t read the book and don’t want to find out what happens, or couldn’t care less about Harry Potter, stop reading right now. If you’re interested in my thoughts, read on…

Like the first five books in the series, Harry Potter & The Halfblood Prince (HP&HP) focuses primarily on a year in the life of Harry and his attempts to avoid being killed by Voldemort or his cohorts. Unlike the previous books though, this book is much darker. Everything happens pretty much according to what you might expect if you’ve read the five previous books: Harry has run-ins with Snape (who is now, finally, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher), has conflicts with his friends who have a hard time believing what he’s saying, and must hear constant comparisons to his parents. HP&HP would be pretty boring if it failed to go in a different direction and thankfully, it does.

In fact, HP&HP went someplace I didn’t think it would ever go… killing off a major character who has played a significant role in the previous five books (Albus Dumbledore). That’s pretty edgy stuff, but even more so when it’s in a book primarily aimed at children. Shit like that could fuck a kid up for life. The focus of HP&HP becomes more personal as Harry must battle evil on two fronts… his school nemesis Draco Malfoy as well as the possibility that Voldemort and his Death Eaters might try to kill him at any time. To throw things into complete chaos, Harry must also deal with the unwanted attention of a name-dropping potions teacher who would like nothing better than to add Harry’s name to his stable of famous or infamous wizards and witches. All in all, HP&HP delivers what fans expect as well as setting the stage for what fans will want.

By that I mean that Harry, Ron & Hermione are now teenagers and any story that didn’t explore their budding sexuality would be pure speculative fantasy. In HP&HP, Harry, Ron, & Hermione all succumb to the call of the wild, “snogging” with abandon. Harry finally has a girlfriend (Ron’s sister Ginny) and Ron and Hermione finally get together. Anyone could see that coming from a mile (or five books) away. Even with the hormones racing, the book still manages to stay on track and keep things moving.

As far as the big surprise promised by Rowling while she was making the publicity rounds for HP&HP, I was having an email conversation with 6togo about this and we both came to the conclusion that the death of Dumbledore might be a plot gimmick. Something to lead you down a different path than the one you’re clearly walking down. Perhaps Dumbledore wasn’t really killed by Snape, just pretending to be dead only to reappear in book 7. Like how Gandalf was “killed” in Lord of the Rings and reappeared later, bigger, badder and whiter… At least that’s what 6togo surmised and I get the same feeling, except for one thing… the price of immortality according to HP&HP is splitting your soul and the only way to split your soul was murdering someone… maybe there is yet another way, but if there is, I’m not sure what it might be.

Did you read it? If so, let me know your thoughts.

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