Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Mad World

The world is talking about the Virginia Tech tragedy that occurred yesterday. It has become the only news story in America and the gun control debate is running rampant among the related topics. As is usual, many "experts" are appearing on one show or another and show that they are in fact far from experts on this subject. I feel that this issue is to be divided into two clear problems, gun control and the American society and culture.

To preface my own commentary I would like to first lay out some plain and hard facts that speak to both of these issues. These statistics can be verified and cited in too many places to name and you can feel free to do this research yourself if you doubt any of the following numbers:

Myth :Gun ownership is not the cause of America's high murder rate.

Fact : Gun availability is highly correlated with murder.Sensible, Federal Gun control laws make the murder rate fall.

According to a 1992 review of the scientific literature, most studies find that gun density is positively associated with the murder rate.

The National Institute of Justice, for example, reports a study of U.S. cities which found a positive correlation between gun ownership levels and felony gun use and felony murder.

Many people who own firearms do so for reasons of self-defense and home protection. Although the some researchers claim that uses of firearms in self-defense outnumber gun deaths each year, the surveys used to determine this information have been widely criticized. In fact, a gun in the home is 7 times more likely to be used in a homicide of a family member or friend than it is to be used in self-defense. In addition, a gun in the home is 11 times more likely to be used to commit or attempt a suicide than it is to be used in self-defense.

The presence of a gun dramatically increases the chance that a domestic violence incident will end in murder, often within seconds after a gun is brandished. One Atlanta study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (1992), concluded that family and intimate assaults involving guns were 12 times more likely to result in death than family and intimate assaults that did not involve guns.

My final point comes from the "pro gun" argument that any gun control at all would be a violation of 2nd amendment rights. To this day constitutional scholars debate about the 2nd amendment and weather or not it is referring to the formation of a National Guard and it's right to bear arms. If this was in fact the intent it calls the entire notion of the populace at large owning firearms into question. If we put this debate aside as most in the mainstream Media already have, the right to bear arms is to only be given to a "well-regulated militia". As all wording in our constitution is deliberate, the term "well-regulated" should be noted here and can only imply that our founding fathers clearly understood the necessity of "gun control" and expected it.

These statistics should speak for themselves and frankly no debate for gun control or any commentary is necessary. The gun shop owner who sold the Virginia Tech shooter his gun stated that the sale took "only ten minutes". I would like to add that in order for someone to by the medication pseudophed at the local drug store you must provide an ID and sign a ledger, this process typically takes more than ten minutes.

The problem that isn't receiving any media coverage for the most part is the social problem at work in this tragedy. I feel there is a darker side as work here that is deep and subtle and more a subconscious result of the outward presence of violence and death. Death is big business in America. The profits of the war in Iraq are too great to mention and the tragedy at VT yesterday is but a fraction of the violence that occurs in Iraq daily. The video game "Grand Theft Auto" series is the largest selling video games of all time.

The point this brings me to is one that will likely offend many but is the unspoken truth behind much of this. While we all will make statements about how tragic and sad this event is we are all strangely drawn to it. Why do you think that CNN and the rest are playing nothing but coverage of this act? To put it simply because when tragedy like this happens the ratings go off the chart. The money to be made by advertising is enormous when something like this happens and the result is countless news stories covering every angle and many angles that are frankly redundant or complete nonsense to keep the story alive. If the news networks were truly concerned with informing the public in the wake of a tragedy wouldn't they stop playing commercials every 10 minutes? The darker part of this is that we all, myself included, watch the news and the many stories and after our initial shock why do we obsess? Because as much as none of us want to admit it, these kind of things have become exciting to us. There is an exhilaration to it. What does that say about us? Could it be possible that the same dark place that gets a rush from this sort of thing is the same place that people who commit these massacres allow to get out of control? Will be ever be able to have the honesty to confront this part of ourselves and our society and admit that we have become "fans" of mayhem and murder? We need to ask these questions and more, if a person goes mad he goes to a therapist who seeks out the truth to heal. If there is a therapist for the planet we need it, we are in a mad world.



Friday, April 13, 2007

I am a bad, bad, blogger....

I wanted to give this blog thing a shot and I have found it more and more difficult to maintain the pace that clearly is nesseary to have a decent and read blog. While I have seem many an active blogger who somehow manage to maintain a very busy life and a very busy blog I don't seem to have it in me. This paired with the fact that my wife is a fantastic blogger who I typically have to pry from the keybord with a crowbar and I am by no means a blogger who has something new to offer every day.

I think that for those who are passionate about writing this medium is an amazing new outlet and is exposing so many people to ideas they might not normally get to hear. My passion, however, is music and writing music. If I had the time to devote I would use music as my only creative outlet. For me the energy needed to write a song is seldom left over after a day in the Army. So, a random smattering of my brain cells on the information superhighway is all I can manage most of the time. Kudos to those who are making the world of blogs an important and relevant way to get thought provoking ideas out there.

In leu of having a regularly occuring blog, I will encourage anyone interested to visit my Myspace page as it contains my most successful attempts at recording some of my musical work. www.myspace.com/deanmuchmore

Feedback is welcome and appericiated since it is the goal of most artists to convey a feeling to their audience and the only way to be better than that is to get an honest response to thier art.

Until whenever I get the blogging urge again......

Monday, April 9, 2007

Won't somebody save this rich bitch!?


In our current celebrity obsessed culture where weddings and the adoption of 172 babies from Africa trump the fact that our young and not famous Americans are being blown up daily, I feel we have neglected one person who is in desperate need of our help.

Poor Katie, you poor rich and beautiful brainwashed little thing.

Is it not obvious to anyone else that this woman is being held against her will by the formerly sane turned completely coo-coo for coco puffs crazy assed Tom Cruise? Does no one think that mabye we must all unite to reclaim this woman back to the world of the normal and save her from the couch jumping lunatic that believes that we all are possesed by the souls of centuries old alien ghosts?

For those who do not know, Scientologists in fact believe that we are in fact all possesed by the forgotten souls of aliens long ago murdered by some evil alien name Gorgonzola or some such bullshit. L. Ron Hubbard, thier prophet, apparently wrote the basis for this absurd belief in several works of science fiction that some klingon speaking trekkie freak decided was a damn good idea for a religion. Then they set thier sights on the weakest among us, the actors. These members of our society that clearly have deep rooted insecurity issues and too much money to blow on nonsence became prime targets for this cult. Tom Cruise and John Travolta fell to the clutches of this bizzare madness long ago and we can all asumme they are too far gone to be saved.

But Katie, Poor Princess Katie, it is not to late for her.

It is time for all the Star and Us weekly readers to put down their bag of chips and stop if only for a moment from living through the lives of the rich and fameous and band together to save this bright shining star.

DOES NO ONE REMEMBER DAWSONS CREEK FOR CHRIST SAKE!!! RISE UP AND REVOLT!!

SAVE THE BITCH..... I MEAN, SAVE KATIE HOLMES BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! WE MUST FREE HER TO BE ABLE TO ONCE AGAIN LIVE A NORMAL RICH BITCH LIFE FULL OF ANOREXIA AND PRADA!!

Send your donations to the Free Katie fund to my paypal acount at dean.muchmore@us.army.mil*

*dean makes no claim that any funds will be actually used to do a damn thing.






Saturday, April 7, 2007

Who the hell are these people??

I have decided that I must lack some basic trait of people. I go to work and often I work very hard under the wonderful Army system of "Work hard or we will make your life a miserable pile of shit". Most everyone responds to this tactic. However, I see people who fill thier off time with activities and sports and a lot of other things that, frankly, I have no desire to do. In fact, I have 4 days off, yesterday until monday, and my primary goal is to not leave the house and do nothing. I NEED to clean my house and do laundry and I know I will ultimately do those things but I have no interest in managing my life whatsoever. I cannot find any motivation. I have been diagnosed with "severe depressive disorder" and I take paxil in an attempt to curb my dark and broody personality, and while I now spend less time feeling like Batman without the suit and gadgets, I still cannot get myself to get off my lazy ass and do anything. I see other people who have some reserve of energy and motivation and I feel like there is something wrong with me. Even when the Army got me addicted to Adderall, that is basically legal precription meth, I found my self with more energy with wich I used to sit around until later at night than before.

I will go now and insist that I must do some housework, but weather I actually get anything done will be a toss up as it always is.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Remember when we were kids and the lovable yet completely bizarre looking Sesame Street puppets would sing that "Who are the people in your neighborhood?" song? Well I'd like to think I've met my fare share of people in my life and I think there should be an adult version of this song as I have found many types of people that frankly annoy the living shit out of me and should be the butt of my ridicule. So....

Here are the people in my neighborhood. You might recognize a few yourself.

The Bullshit Artist: Everyone knows this guy or gal. Anytime anyone has something remotely interesting to say the bullshit artist will have a story to match and will attempt to, in some absurd ass way, top the true story of the previous person. The bullshit artist is a complete ass because they can be spotted from a mile away and yet they are completely oblivious to the fact that everyone sees them as the dumb-ass liar that they are. No matter how completely random or rare the story they try to top is, they still will make the attempt. If by some strange freak chance you had a squirrel fall from the sky onto your windshield on the drive to work that morning and amazingly bounced off onto the road and ran away unharmed the bullshit artist will feel the compulsive need to for some retarded reason pipe up. This person's story will sound something like this, "Thats funny cause last week I was driving to work when a squirrel fell from the sky onto my windshield but the squirrel didn't get up so I got out of the car and preformed CPR on the little guy until he was revived. And a bus full of nuns just happened to be passing by and saw what I did and now the Vatican is considering me for sainthood." It doesn't take long before every time the bullshit artist opens his or her mouth the others within earshot will automatically tune them out or let out a grumble or a sigh as they begin their bullshit. Remarkably the BS Artist remains unaware.

The Overly Nice Person: This person really pisses me off. They are soooo damn nice that it is nauseating. To make matters worse the whole thing is as phony as a WMD in Iraq. These people must apparently be liked by everyone and must never be angry or upset. It's all sugar and spice and everything nice. I would like nothing more than to completely fuck up this persons day, but in a weird twist of fate to do so is completely taboo. While most everyone knows that the Overly Nice Person is full of shit, should anyone actually verbalize this obvious fact and attempt to bring down this persons wall of crap they will be immediately labeled an asshole and get treated like shit by all. If not for this strange and hypocritical rule I would wait for the Overly Nice Person to give me the fake ass smile and a big fake ass, "GOOD MORNING!", and would then promptly drop kick the fucker in the face. I don't smile at 6:30 am asshole, so fuck off.

The "Pity-me" Prick: I don't know if this person's mommy didn't hug them enough or if they just have to feel like a victim, but seemingly run-of-the-mill problems for you and me become the fucking Armageddon for these people. These folks will goddamn create a scene because they got a painful hang-nail or perhaps they had to wait in line longer than usual for gas. You would think that their fucking parents died by the way they go on and on over some meaningless crap. This ass-wipe behavior is typically encouraged by the Overly Nice Person because they will inevitably come to console this irrational tragedy over and fucking over again. I would love to see what would happen if these two people got trapped in a well somewhere. I wonder how long it would take for the Overly Nice Person to drop the act and tell the "Pity-me" Prick to shut the fuck up. We could probably get Don King to promote the eventual slapping and hair pulling brawl that would result. That would be some goddamn real American entertainment by god.

The Macho Man: Where to begin with this pile of human crap. For starters, this guy somehow has always been born apparently with shoulders that are disproportionately larger than the rest of them because they walk around puffing out their chest with there arms somehow dangling off their shoulders several inches away from what would be considered normal. Furthermore, these people have only 2 major responses to anything that is said by anyone. These two default responses are, " I'll fucking kick his ass." or some variation on someone being a "Fag". Really piss this guy off and you're in for the double whammy, "I'll fucking kick that guys ass......Fucking faggot." This persons range of conversational topics are also quite limited. You can be sure that if the Macho Man strikes up a conversation it will be about cars, car parts, or bullshit stories of bullshit races at red lights. There is also talk of bitches, babes, hoes, or some bullshit story about some bullshit sexual romp with said bitch, babe or hoe. If your particular brand of Macho Man is from somewhere rural you can add guns or bullshit stories about killing various creatures with said guns. Oh and don't forget the topic of "Kicking some Faggots ass."

I could name many many other people that are from the neighborhood that piss me off but instead I will allow anyone who wishes to contribute to this list to do so in a comment. Bonus points will be awarded if you can get one of those ugly Muppets to sing about your person from the neighborhood.


Fucking Muppets.