Graduation Day

----------Uke Man’s Generic Small Town/Rural* High School Graduation Speech
(as inspired by the underlying, but unspoken, reality of life in the small town of Ellipseville, Ohio - where I live and where you will find Ellipseville High School and its Fighting Lhasa Apso’s)


Hey Graduates!! Congratulations!! You made it.

Oh yes, I know that even as you wait excitedly to throw your caps into the air, you are wondering: “ Golly, what now? What lies ahead?”

Hmmmmmmm. Two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and I’ll (yes, I’ll) take the one less traveled by, and that’ll make all the difference.”

Yeah . . . uh-huh.

Well, I’m here to say, like Yogi Berra, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” You see, Yogi lived on a street that forked before it reached his house, but it soon came back together. Whichever road you took, it really didn’t make any difference.

It’s the same for you, graduates (although most of you – not to mention your English teachers - have likely misread Frost’s poem - read the poem again when you’re forty, and if you’re still puzzled, e-mail me).

What I mean is, everything’s pretty much already been decided for you by now. And better yet, you don’t really have to worry about it. You’ve been to High School!!! Just think back! All the answers to all the major questions are there!
You know where the railroad tracks are; don’t you? And you know where you live; don’t you? Well, that’s the main thing.

That should tell you something, make my job today a lot easier, and help get your individual self on the road to adjustment and acceptance.

You losers out there – you know who you are – you should since you’ve had it hammered into your heads, probably since elementary school : “dummies, dorks, slackers, dopers, burn-outs, goths, punks, geeks, nerds, porkers, wallflowers, skanks, spastics, and speds.

Well, you’re on your road already, and the rest of the class intends to keep you there. At least, they’re not going to help you get out of that rut (yours is a tough life, but they insist that somebody has to live it).

Get used to it. Put your nose to the grindstone. Work hard. Save for a rainy day, Take an entry level job, work your way up to cashier, and salute the flag!

No. Today I am not talking to you, you vast assemblage of losers, begrudgingly sitting out there in the sun – although I may share a few beers with you after the ceremony. You already know what you have to do: the same thing you’ve always had to do - for twelve years – survive! Get used to it. Embrace it. It is your destiny.

Ah, but you winners!! Fear not. You have the answers; you know the rules; you learned them in school.

Well . . . you certainly have assimilated them, but probably you didn’t actually learn them in any academic sense. So, just to be sure, let me enumerate them now:

Number 1. You were born to rule (remember the railroad tracks, and count your dividends).

Number 2. If challenged, point out how much better dressed and coiffed you are (let ‘em deal with that!).

Number 3. Failing that, your parents do have power, money, and influence. Crush the upstarts.

Number 4. Never forget that the socio-economic- political system will always support you in this effort since it is run by people who are winners too, people just like you !

Number 5. (To state the obvious) Intelligence, talent, insight, energy, and altruism are unnecessary – and, perhaps, even counter-productive ( as everyone knows, a large portion of you cheated your way through “Honors” classes for four years and are still considered “gifted” ). Dexterity and cunning uber alis!

And, last but not least, a valuable corollary: While those sitting around you have muddled through in obscurity, you’ve done well for yourself here. But don’t over-reach. Raised in a small, conservative, heartland environment, you probably already appreciate being a big fish in a small pond and are understandably hesitant to expose your shortcomings by trying for too much more. Good idea! The bigger fish, bigger than you, know the rules too and frown on helping “the world” even more than you do (and they consider you – yeah, I know that’s hard to imagine -as part of “the world").

Now, I know a lot of you “gifted” folks out there are a little nervous and asking yourself, “Does this jerk really know what he’s talking about?”

Yeah, it is hard to believe. You know that you’re not particularly special. You know that your parents and class-conscious teachers got you by, while the system selectively ground down the “beaners” and “sweathogs” and “hippies” and “dweebs.” You know that you’ve had all the advantages that the losers lacked – through no fault of their own - that you’ve been arbitrarily lifted up while they’ve been relegated to obscurity. And you wonder if they resent you.

Of course they do, but they can’t do a damn thing about it. Can they? Remember “THE RULES”!!! Rules are rules, and as the ruling minority you’ve taken the road less traveled by. It’s your job to keep it that way.

Perhaps you find this new responsibility daunting, but don’t worry. Our great democracy is based on the principle: “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and - with control of the media - those are pretty good odds.”

That bedrock foundation will always sustain you. You might be - by any objective measure - incompetent, a fool, and a failure; but with the right parents, the right attitude, the right clothing and grooming, and – perhaps – with a little golf; the system will take care of you.

You’ve got it made. Never forget that the world is run by pompous little self-serving bullet-headed winners - just like you - and they won’t let you down . . . (unless they can make a few bucks out of it).

Congratulations!! And may you always get what you so richly deserve!!
-- Thank You
--------------------------------- Uke Man

* If you find this address suitable to your town (small, rural, or otherwise), I am available (fees may vary with location and the relative likelihood of facing angry mobs).

Columbus Arts Festival!! Uke Man!! Friday! 11:30 a.m. Broad St. Stage! 

Columbus Arts Festival Friday, June 3, 11:30

Hey Folks,
Friday, June 3, the whole Bamn Dand (all 7 of us) will be at the Columbus Arts Festival !! We’ll be appearing for the Lunch Crowd from 11:30 until 12:45 at the “Broad Street Stage” (on Marconi BLVD., just off Broad St. in Downtown Columbus. Order and bring a Hoagie, some fried rice, a Whopper; or bring a brown bag and share the moment!!
If you have a long lunch, you can also check out the neighboring art booths, all of which are anxious to assuage your demanding aesthetic urges.
Come share the moment! Columbus: "The Art of it All"
Be there!!
(with Uke Man, ALL things are possible!)

Check Out the Audio Posting Below

Hey Folks!

Below you will find an experiment in uke-insanity!
I "called in" my newest creation. The sound isn't that great, but I think it's fun. I may do this again and attempt to improve the quality - it's no Laughingboystudio with my good pal Pete, but it's handy and immediate.

- Uke Man

"Hablah Upsidowndo?" 

Should thata been "for"?

Bush: "And that's why I'm talking about Social Security. And the debate has only just begun. (Applause.) But I believe the side of reform is going to prevail, because the American people now are beginning to realize we have a serious problem when it comes to Social Security. And that problem begins with people like me."

READ THIS!!!

Carpooling with Eichmann

May 20, 2005 Joe Bageant

"Adolf Eichmann was thoughtful, orderly, andunimaginative. He had a profound respect for system,for law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithfulofficer of a great state. He served his governmentvery well. The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanitywith a sense of justice, with humaneness, withprudence, with the capacity to love and understandother people. We rely on the sane people of the worldto preserve it from barbarism, madness, anddestruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that itis precisely the sane ones who are the mostdangerous."

--From Thomas Merton's "Raids on the Unspeakable"

One of the most unsettling things about this country is that the following people are considered perfectly sane by American standards: Dick Cheney; Arnold Schwarzenegger; Deepak Chopra; Bill Clinton; Oprah Winfrey; Pat Robertson; Grover Nordquist; Michelle Malkin (though she does get points for her tush.) See anybody in that list even remotely normal? Every one of them lives in an egomaniacal la-la-land of his or her imagination and manages to get paid to do it. Believe me when I say that just about any face you see on your television or in the newspaper is a nutjob. I used to interview such freaks for a living.

Of course, given that American journalists and interviewers have become mindless suck-asses, I understand that I may have a credibility problem here. But onward!

Any culture that spends as much money as we do on ugly cars, fast food and liposuction cannot possibly be sane, and is certainly adrift from the naturalworld...

Unfortunately, our national sanity is of the thoroughly dangerous sort -- the Third Reich sort. Remember that even Adolf Eichmann was determined to be completely sane by a panel of medical experts. At least as sane as you and me and if you would like to be excluded from this comparison, you may be excused. Like the other good Nazis, ole Eich would have easily made a respected member of American society today, probably as a Republican judicial nominee. He would have fit quite well into a nation ofAmericans going about its daily business caring for and protecting the homeland's security and profitability.

Eichmann slept well at nights, the same as most of us, unaffected in appetite. He would have made a good carpooler, telling us all about the kids and grandkids as we commute the monotonous asphalt strips to and from our jobs, creating the paper work and the information products and the commerce of the fatherland, that great sprawling circuit board one sees from airplanes. Like Eichmann, we are efficient, productive, and most terribly of all, untroubled by guilt. Oblivious as gravestones. Sane.The politicians and generals and bureaucrats and soldiers who planned all of our modern wars were also sane. As are people like Colin Powell, Stormin'Norman and Tommy Franks, and those unnamed legions busy planning the next ones for us.

No one seems particularly upset. Daily life in theU.S. is as usual. Sure, we have some frightening new national enemies, but the government is dealing with them. And sure, there are little state-sponsored tortures and murders abroad, a rash of prison construction both inside and outside the country,and some incremental incursions on our civil liberties-- a small price to pay, considering the danger all around. But what the heck...the NBA playoffs are just around the corner. Interest rates are at an all time low and the Sox won the pennant.The stores are full of shoppers and the congress is full of shit. Can things really be much different than ever? Nah.

Besides, why would the government be interested in nobodies like you and me? Totalitarian state? Here?That's insane.

"What no one seemed to notice. . . was the everwidening gap. . .between the government and the people. . . And it became always wider. . . the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think forpeople who did not want to think anyway . . . Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated . . . by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little,all around us. . . Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion,'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these'little measures'. . . must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . .Each act. . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others,when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone. .. you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' . . .But the one great shocking occasion,when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you,never comes. That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring,the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms,is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear,and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. . . .You have accepted things you wouldnot have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father. . . could never have imagined."

---From Milton Mayer, "They Thought They Were Free,The Germans, 1938-45"(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

Few of us believe that it is ordinary folks who sell a nation into hell, cast it in infamy. In a democracy,"the people" supposedly cannot be the problem. Right now some of the smartest people I know are more convinced that the problem is George W. Bushand the dysfunctional little Addams family he has created (or who created him, no one is quite certain.)

The problem being of course that they are a danger to human civilization and the planet. The fallacy however, lies in believing they are more insane than the rest of us (although a couple of them probably are.) Not many healthy, well-adjusted people look at Karl Rove or Donald Rumsfeld without a small flinch of horror and pity. The kind of fear one has of snakes and the kind of pity one has for peoplewho appear congenitally deformed in character. Rather like the kid I knew in grade school who poured lighter fluid on baby birds and lit it. Now we know what such kids grow up to become.

Yet a walk through an American suburb or one of our bland "office campuses" can throw a thinking person into a darker funk than Rummy or Karl "Toad ofDarkness" Rove ever will. We should be far more worried about the Good Germans with orderly lives who populate all those office complexes here in the suburbs of our nation's capitol. They are designers at the defense company in my office building who create control systems for missiles, or the government contracted psychologists in the building across thelawn who help write what are essentially military torture manuals and killing protocols... Or, for that matter, all the people at my own magazine publishing office. We specialize in military history magazines that glorify all wars American and create the state sponsored mythology of our "heroes fighting for democracy around the world." Meanwhile, company 401-Ksare invested in Halliburton, Raytheon, massdistributed mind suppressants such as Prozac and the like. Thus, from my building I can see the sprawling workplace of other "Little Eichmanns" of which Ward Churchill spoke, and cannot delude myself that I am not one of them.

When and if America is ever hauled before the tribunal it is so richly earning with every Iraqi child mangled and every soul it ships to Egypt to be tortured in unspeakable ways, out of sight of the world, what will be my excuse? Will it be: "I only generated the propaganda because I needed the health insurance that came with the job." Will that be an acceptable answer before the world? Who among us is guilty and who is innocent? Is the person who makes the night goggles for the American sniper on a Baghdad rooftop guilty? Is the person guilty who made Lynndie England's CD player, the one they played while leading those naked weeping men around on dog leashes and in hoods? What about American workers who make Kevlar vests? Are they saving lives, or are they enabling killers to do theirwork more safely? And this is to say nothing of theAmericans who wipe the Doritos crumbs from their double chins, lean toward their televisions and cheer on the young "heroes."

Many of us can remember during the cold war when we all feared the "mad man with his finger on the nuclear button" scenario. Let us be honest here, Nixon's face did not inspire confidence in such matters. Who would stop a mad president from hitting the button that opened the missile silos under North Dakota's barley fields? Who would stop Nixon if he got on one of his benders and said, "Hell, Spiro, let's toast the fuckers!" Saner heads of course. Precautions were inplace, we assured ourselves---or tried to anyway. At the same time we accepted that there were perfectly sane reasons for the existence of those tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. And in doing so weaccepted as justifiable the potential radiation deaths of millions, perhaps billions. We willingly became engaged in the most ghastly game of global nuclear blackmail imaginable, one that continues even now,haunting us in North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, andIsrael. And somehow the American public's acceptance of that provided our sane leaders today with logical reasons for firing depleted uranium shells in Kosovo,Iraq and Afghanistan, where the landscape will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Here we are using nuclear weapons for the fourth time and nobody finds it one bit odd, much less frightening. Sort of nuclear weapons creep.

Some, however, find it as exciting as hell. ThePentagon and the administration hail depleted uranium shells and armor as a breakthrough in modern warfare. U.S. Rep Christopher Shays said that any health effects the Iraqis suffer from depleted uranium --kidney damage, lung cancer, mounting birth defects --"pale in comparison with the benefits of regime change in their country." Well then! Fry my ass on a plutonium skillet! Bring on the bunker busters! Iraqi and Afghani mothers seem unimpressed with regime change, even as they weep over twisted, blind infants.

All this sanity is killing some of us. To my mind, it is killing the best of us. It drives the artist and the philosopher, dancer, the psychiatrist, the homosexual torch singer and the spiritualist dishwasher toward the cliff with its macabre drone. Most of the genuinely beautiful minds and souls I know are in the deepest sort of despair. Rather like the cabaret society of 1930s Berlin, you can hear the high whine of hysteria behind their drunken revelry,their bitter laughter in the face of such black folly.Some people I know do not even bother to get out of bed on weekends. I am serious. I am "seeing the best minds of my generation..." etc. right before my eyes. And like that magnificent old faggot who saw the same vision years before we did, I often find myself sobbing on the steps of a madhouse called America.Meanwhile, I ask my doctor for Prozac, and he says: "Joe, the solution to every problem is not a drug." That has not been my experience by any means.

What do we prize? Rote sanity? Practicality? Efficacy?Ants are all those things. So are lizards. Perhaps what is lacking is religion. Yet both Eichmann andHitler were Christians, as were the German people. Tamerlane was a Muslim. And it was Buddhists who conducted the Rape of Nanking. It was Christian America that practiced genocide on the Red Indian and chopped off the feet of Negro slaves so they could not run away from their appointed duties building the"City on the Hill." Chopping off their feet was practical, sane, clever even. We are all richer now for our ancestors' cleverness and sanity. Right now it is a dusky Semitic people and their oil that occupy our cleverness.

In any case, there is no lack of religion. We are seeing more of it than ever as it promises to swallow up our judicial system and entire government. Bin Laden, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, Jerry Falwell, and a hundred million Christian pod people are proof religion alone cannot temper our relentless "sanity"into something more deeply human. So what is lacking? My god! No, this cannot be! Is it possible that even leftist intellectuals and educated liberals, are goingto be forced to admit it? Admit that "without love, we are nothing?" That without empathy and charity we are doomed?

If in the end the American empire continues pursuit of this awful thing we seem so determined to carry out,we will learn the answer to that question. Assuming it can be found amid the ruin.

P.S. To Ward Churchill and Vine Deloria: Ya see guys,we white people even KNOW we are doing it and still can't help ourselves!

Security or Freedom?

As stated in the 1998 film “The Truman Show,” “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” In so doing, however, I believe we take too much for granted and too often fail to address the contradictions and discrepancies society inevitably displays. We tend to unreflectively accept the “conventional wisdom,” the “dominant paradigm,” the underlying “myths” of our birth society – the official gods, the official “history”; the accepted economic, political, and class order.

Of course, no society can sustain itself without some degree of support by its citizens; so, if maintaining the system is the major concern, blind allegiance is very desirable. On the other hand, if “freedom” is a major concern, unreflective acceptance is utterly destructive. Indeed, at the end of “The Truman Show,” the main character must decide between the security of continuing the charade of his “show” and the insecurity of living “freely” in a more real world. He strikes out on his own and, in so doing, destroys the entire “society” in which, until then, he had lived his life. Without his naïve participation, there could be no show. It was over.

This tension between the system and the individual is raging today. Within the so-called “culture wars” there are those who demand “faith” and those demanding “science”; those who look to the gods and those looking to man; those who fear losing the security of “received truth” and those longing for the uncertainty of seeking “the truth.”

History shows that some things are certain. No civilization, culture, or society has ever been very accurate in its particular representation of reality. No one any more, I think, has faith in Athena or Osiris or Thor. Not many consult oracles or believe that cattle die from the machinations of witches. Few believe that the earth is flat and hangs from a chain anchored in heaven. Most people, I hope, no longer believe in “the white man’s burden” or in eugenics or in slavery. The continuation of a social order requires allegiance, but that necessity does not guarantee the validity of that allegiance.

For my part, I put my “faith” in humankind to struggle with the daunting reality of this short existence we, the living, share. I would rather make my own mistakes and, if I live long enough, correct them.

To me that is preferable to clinging blindly to an arbitrary tradition that someday, inevitably, shall be considered as irrelevant as Greek cosmology, as inaccurate as a flat earth, and as self-serving as slavery.

Perhaps I am deluded, and mankind’s only hope is the continuing hallucination that each and every cultural system in which we find ourselves represents the ultimate truth, demanding fealty – if for nothing else - to preserve the “perfect” system into which we have been unwittingly delivered.
Nevertheless, I cannot believe that; and, if I am wrong, it is a mistake I freely make.

Yeah, Right!!

What a joke!!

Is there sanity in this nation? Some gay-bashing former state legislator on the west coast, now a mayor, is found out to be gay, and his earlier, diabolical hypocrisy in denigrating gays is NOT the issue. No! The issue is that the PRESS found out the facts in an improper way and, so, "victimized" the gentleman. Those evil reporters!!

Just like when reporters found out that Ronnie Reagan had imported and sold crack cocaine to pay for arming the Contras – it was nothing more than evil reporting.

Just like when reporters found that a Cincinnati millionaire had screwed South American peasants and broken American and international laws to make a killing with his Cheeky-ita Bananas it was evil reporting that came under scrutiny! The newspaper gladly paid a fine, and the reporter was fired!

Just like when W avoided going to Viet Nam and that fact was reported by Dan Rather. It was true, BUT the questionable validity of the source (not the factuality of the story) was the crux of the matter!

NOW! “Newsweek” prints a story that NO ONE in the Administration has said is not TRUE, but since the source (after pressure has been applied?) says he MIGHT have had the wrong report in mind – NOT that NO report said it, just that he might have CITED the WRONG report – “Newsweek” has retracted part of the story, and the White House is demanding further fawning.

Yeah, right!

Don’t you think it’s time we woke up, folks, and quit killing the messenger!

- Uke Man

Three-Sevenths of Us 

Five-Sevenths of Us 

Trying to Add Something to the World

Hey Folks!!

The Homeless Awareness afternoon was wonderful. I got to hear the Dublin Scioto, Upper Arlington, and Columbus Fort Hayes jaz ensembles. The sax player with Fort Hayes was an eighth grader and sounded like an old hand who’d developed his skill playing jazz clubs for twenty years – unbelievable.

The band and I had a good time – it was great!! I love my “Prodigals,” and they love me, and we love what we do! And if for no other reason, it was a great afternoon because it gave the old Ukester a chance to grind on the system and what it does to people!!

There is NO good reason, absolutely NO JUSTIFICATION as to why ANYONE should be homeless in this country if it is as wonderful, rich, “god-fearing,” goody-good, etc. as it is claimed to be. I guess it isn’t. I guess it ought to be!

Yours - Uke Man

Free CD 101 Ice Cream for All!! 

The Old Guy and the Prodigals Speakin' Out!  

Benefit - Goodale Park May 15 

Homeless Benefit - Goodale Park -Sunday, May 15

Hey Folks!!Sunday, May 15, at the Gazebo in Goodale Park, Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons will be playing a benefit for the Coalition for the Homeless. We are going on around 3:00 after three excellent young Jazz Bands.The reality and the plight of the homeless is too easily overlooked, forgotten, or denied. Come help assert reality.Everything begins at 1:00 and runs to 4:00. There will be food and drink, poetry, speakers, and informational tables.Please come by and participate.- Uke Man

Gracie - 92 Years Young 

Gracie

While my Mother was in the nursing home, I visited most days and took my uke along – more for me than for Mom. When she was busy with any of the necessary regular routines, I’d sit in the little rotunda or vestibule just inside the front doors and play and sing.

Early on, a sylph-like sprite, attracted by the unnatural sounds, stood transfixed, leaning against her scepter, smiling at me as if at Orpheus. She was a Muse, and a Grace besides.
Oh, she loved to sing; and so we did – each time I visited - and when the gods decreed a competition among their brethren and demanded participation, we fearlessly stepped forth.

Fear? The Muse was with me and I would sing with Grace. Thus armed, I knew I faced naught but fame and glory.

And so it was. My sprightly patron won the day! And I basked in her smile and the First-Place Blue Ribbon she received.

I’m sure my Mom would have been pleased.

- Uke Man

"Springtime [and smiles] in the Rockies"  

Sky Pilots for Patriotism

Today the Columbus Dispatch reported that Monday the Reverend Rod “Turnip Seed” Parsley, pastor of the Harvest Big Bucks Church (A.K.A. the Canal WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL) along with Secretary of State J. Kenneth “Uncle Tom” Blackwell; U.S. Rep. Pat “Pillsbury” Tiberi; former U.S. Rep. Bob “For Christ’s Sake! Get This Coat Hanger Outta My Mouth” McEwan; Russell “You Can Call me Ray, or You can Call Me Jay, but You Doesn’t Have to Call Me” Johnson (pastor of the Fairfield County Compound for the Religiously Insane), and Roy “Fuck the Law – I Want My Stone Tablets” Moore greeted the 1,070 Christian Zombie “Sky Pilots for Patriotism” who had shuffled into the Big Bucks Cathedral.
I, too, had been scheduled to speak, but owing to our local trash day I was unable to attend. Here’s an outline of the sermon I’d hoped to give:

God’s New Plan for Purity

I. The Ten Commandments

_____A. Judge Roy Moore’s Incomparable Contribution

__________1. Job Creation for Stone-carvers and Piano-movers
__________2. Sex is Satan’s whorehouse
__________3. Prurient cheerleading routines
__________4. Sponge Bob Square Pants
__________5. The secret significance of “Yyyyy, Mmm, CA”

_____B. Adultery

__________1. n “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man or
woman and someone other than his wife or her husband,
respectively.”

__________2. Involuntary and unmarried sex is NOT adultery

_______________a. The Commandments don’t address involuntary sex
_______________b. The Commandments don’t address sex between unmarried partners

II. Marriage Laws

_____A. Secretary Blackwell’s Incomparable Contribution

__________1. Nailing Gay Marriage

_______________a. No Marriage
_______________b. No Civil Unions
_______________c. What next?

__________2. The End of Marriage as We Know It

_______________a. Governor Blackwell can Do It
_______________b. Rush Limbaugh Welcomes the Effort
_______________c. J.Lo on board

III. The End of Adultery

_____A. No Marriage: No Married Man can Have Intercourse with Someone Not
His Wife.

_____B. No Marriage: No Married Woman can Have Intercourse with Someone
Not Her Husband.

IV. A New Day !

_____A. Only Nine Commandments to Worry About !

_____B. At Last !! All the Blessed Sex (and Partners) a Christian Could Want

_____C. Actually Only Eight Commandments to Worry About.

__________1. Without Marriage, No One can Covet His Neighbor’s Wife

__________2. Still OK to Covet Thy Neighbor’s Goods* (just not his Ass)

V. As They Say In Wisconsin, “Praise Cheeses!!”



- Uke Man



* the American “Christian Capitalist” dispensation (not applicable to Jews, Muslems, African Americans, Latinos, illegal aliens, and other foreigners – some blonde Latinos may qualify)

Stave off the Rapture: Eat Pope Cookies Now ! 

Special Offer!! Race the Rapture!!!!!

Having been inundated by the demand for Pope Cookies ™ , we here at “The Uke Man Speaks” take this opportunity to express our grattitude to the thousands of customers who have already ordered our fledgling product.

Although our handmade delicasies require hours of craftsmanship, we are making every effort to maintain our schedule and to serve you in a timely way. As you read this, we are seeking assistance from no less than four Asian and two Central American nations that, unlike here, have millions of unemployed workers anxious to work for subsistence level wages.*

As our valued customers, we want to make it up to you for any past delays; so for the next 1,000 customers ordering the world’s one and only, icing-smothered Pope Cookies ™, we will include in your VIP package one (1) genuine, officially blessed certificate of authenticity attesting that each and every Pope Cookie™ represents the unauthorised efforts of a lapsed resident of the Honorable Archdiocese of Columbus – a value of $29.95 - but YOURS for simply ordering one dozen delicious, incomparable Pope Cookies™.

AND!!! For the first 100 customers we will also include one (1) plastic egg of genuine “Angel Snot”** (while supplies last).

So, folks!! Don’t get caught with your vestments down. Order today before the rapture leaves a bad taste in your mouth!

- Uke Man

* Please do not assume that our investigation of “off-shore” opportunities indicates we hate America or that we are money-grubbing bastards who are only interested in ourselves and who will be very happy once Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, the inheritance tax, progressive income taxes, capital gains taxes, gay marriage/domestic-partner options, a woman’s right to an abortion, minority rights, public schools, the post office, unions, separation of church and state, public libraries, helmet laws, speed limits, and restrictions on automatic weapons are eliminated.

** “Every time an angel sneezes, an oyster makes a pearl.” - Andorran proverb

Let the Pope Cookies Soar !! 

Bush says Poor & Elderly are # 1 

They Always Hurt the Ones We Love

A while back (May 1) I posted a commentary on how the richest 6% of Americans could “solve” the Social Security “problem” simply by paying taxes on their entire earnings just like the rest of us do. That, however, will not happen, as I said then, since neither the rich nor their media will allow it. After all, one of our Founding Fathers said, “This country should be run by the people who own it.”

Today a new twist on that appeared in the Columbus Dispatch via The New York Times. The 3.5 column-inch story reported: “WASHINGTON – Elderly people with low incomes might lose some of their food stamps if they sign up for the new Medicare.”

A document sent from Bush’s Health and Human Services Department to congress and “addressed to elderly and disabled people” says, “If you qualify for extra help, your food stamp benefits may decline.”

There you go. We have to have a drug plan that will cost trillions of dollars so that the poor, elderly and disabled can afford their meds. Then, when they sign up for it, we put X dollars in one of their hands and take X dollars out of the other.

How is that helpful? And where do you think all the money spent to not really help the poor, elderly, and disabled actually ends up?

Hmmmmmmmmmmm . . . probably the pharmecutical industry will plow it back into research to further benefit the poor, elderly, and disabled.

If not, I’m sure the media will scream bloody murder – don’t you think?

- Uke Man

Not Sold in Any Store!!! 

Pope Cookies are Here !!!

Well Folks!

What you’ve ALL been waiting for!!!

POPE COOKIES!!!

Hey!! We’ve all seen the photos of the late John Paul!! Is there ANYONE among us who – having honestly consulted his or her subconscious gastronomical psyche – HASN’T thought:

“Jesus!! He looks like a COOKIE!!
A giant, luscious, red and white, icing-glommed COOKIE!!"

It may have been the foreshortening angle of the photos; it may have been the outrageously seductive, icing-like vestments chosen for his “showing”; it may have been his Pillsbury Doughboy complexion; but whatever the case – Mama Mia!!! – didn’t the photos scream, “I’m a Cookie!!” ?

Well, NOW he IS !!!

Yes Ma’m!!! Yes Sir!!! Pope Cookies are real and available to the general public!!!

Order a dozen today! Hand crafted cookies - individually mixed, rolled, cut, baked, iced, and packaged by partisan creationist, homophobic, pro-life, bare-backed, authoritarian, capitalistic, anti-feminist, Jew-baiting, entrepreneurial groupies of Mel Gibson and Karl Rove .

Only $120.00 per dozen.

Place your order now at: tom@ukuleleman.net

“Jesus!! He looks like a COOKIE!! A giant, luscious, red and white, icing-glommed COOKIE!!"
 

COMING SOON to a Blog Near You !! 

And That's the Truth

There Is Such a Thing as Truth
by Errol Morris
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4620511

All Things Considered, May 2, 2005 ·

I believe in truth. And in the pursuit of truth.

When I was 10 years old, I asked a neighborhood kid who was older than me, "Which city is further west: Reno, Nev., or Los Angeles?" The correct answer is Reno, Nev. But he was convinced it was the other way around.

He was so convinced that Los Angeles was west of Reno that he was willing to bet me two bucks. So I went into the house to get my Rand McNally Atlas. The kid looked at the atlas and said, "The map is drawn funny." It wasn't. Was his argument that the map didn't preserve east, west, north and south? What kind of map would that be? I showed him if you trace down the 120-degree west line of longitude -- which runs almost directly through Reno, Nev. -- you end up in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere west of Los Angeles.

He replied that lines of longitude don't cross the ocean.What? I told him that the lines of longitude were there to indicate how far west or east some location was, regardless of whether it was on land or on sea.

There was one insurmountable problem, however. He was bigger than me.

I drew a number of conclusions from this story.

There is such a thing as truth, but we often have a vested interest in ignoring it or outright denying it. Also, it's not just thinking something that makes it true. Truth is not relative. It's not subjective. It may be elusive or hidden. People may wish to disregard it. But there is such a thing as truth and the pursuit of truth: trying to figure out what has really happened, trying to figure out how things really are.

Almost 15 years ago, I stumbled on a story about an innocent man, a man who had been sentenced to die in the Huntsville, Texas, electric chair. And through hard work, luck and a certain amount of pathological obsession, I was able to make the movie The Thin Blue Line and to help get him out of prison.

What kept me going was the belief that there had to be answers to the questions "Did he do it?", "Was he guilty or innocent?", "If he didn't do it, who did?" and that I could find an answer to these questions through investigating.

It's not that we find truth with a big "T." We investigate and sometimes we find things out and sometimes we don't. There's no way to know in advance. It's just that we have to proceed as though there are answers to questions. We must proceed as though, in principle, we can find things out -- even if we can't. The alternative is unacceptable.

I will never know whether the neighborhood kid really didn't understand the logic of my argument about Reno, Nev. Or whether he understood it completely and just didn't want to admit it. Or whether he understood it and just didn't want to pay up. I'll never know.

All I know is I never got my two dollars.

-------------------I'm with this guy!! - Uke Man

COMING SOON ! To a Blog Near You ! 

Too Hot for a Little Stiff-necked Newspaper - Politicians over Kids

Below is an essay submitted to the Circleville Herald, where supposedly I am a “Guest Columnist.” Guess not. I presented the column way before deadline and called in three times - stopped by once – and the new editor was never in. I left a message and my number each time, but I never heard from him. Must be too busy investigating spelling and grammar.

It’s not too difficult to figure out why I got dissed. The last editor was fairly liberal – he disappeared pretty quickly. The owner of the paper is a conservative businessman dedicated to overtaking the “Dispatch.” He or the editor or both insist on running a column two or three times a week by a grinning, moronic, ultra-conservative state legislator who apparently has nothing better to do than pen vapid ads for his reelection. They DIDN’T print the column below. Politics first, children and the community later.

I just checked the net, and the Circleville City and Logan Elm school levies failed. The Herald and the people of Circleville – if not the children – got what they deserved.

The politician’s picture will still be smiling, though, when it appears tomorrow, along with more of his bullshit, in the local rag.

- Uke Man

What Kind of People Are We?

Hey Folks, I’m not teaching anymore. I have no kids in school. I’m no longer a member of the “evil” teachers’ union, will NEVER run for school board again (or any other office in this town), have had a lot of experience with public education and politics, and am to the point where I don’t care if that makes any difference to anyone.
So, for what it’s worth, I’ve got this to say:
We deserve what we get! WE know what people in other places want us to have. George Bush wants us to leave no child behind, but don’t ask him for a helping hand – he’s got tax cuts for the wealthy and a foreign war on his mind. Don’t ask the state legislature for help; they’re cutting taxes for the well-off – just like the President - and ignoring the law and the Supreme Court (Tom Delay gives his blessing). And don’t ask Governor Taft; he’s stimulating business – cold showers for kids and folks on Medicaid.
WE know what people in other places want for us! It’s clear. They want our local plants to close. They want our jobs to be “rendered” to foreign countries where they don’t have to be as minimally humane to their workers as they are still required to be (at least for a while) here. They want us to beat our children into “satisfactory” performance on tests and within programs that THEY impose on US, but which THEY refuse to fund and pay for. They threaten our schools but do not help. They want what they want, but they demand that the children pay for it.
The question is: “ Will we give them what they want? Will we sacrifice our children to their selfish demands? What kind of people are we?” Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves.
Mr. David Sadler had it exactly right in his letter a while back when he pointed out that we keep electing these grinning morons, one of whose pictures appears in this paper almost daily, allowing them to lead us and our children down the path to a degraded future.
When will it stop? We can wake up or we can continue to take it, and – if we choose the latter – we can kiss our young people goodbye. One member of the Circleville School Board should have been happy the day after the levy failed in November. He’d spent his time coordinating the re-election of George W. Bush. The levy failed, but Bush won. Will Bush help us now? No, but he’ll give us the business if our kids don’t do better on his mandated tests than he could do himself.
So, what does this angry writer suggest? I say we vote “Yes” on all the school issues coming up and “No” on every lying, smiling, self-serving politician now holding office. It’s clear that they don’t care about us or ours and are bent only on duping us into another knee-jerk vote for their continued employment. The question is: “What kind of people are we?” If we are stupid enough to sell our children down the river, we deserve what we get.

- Uke Man

p.s. I guess we got our answer !

COMING SOON ! to a Blog Near You ! 

Benefit Sunday, May 15  

Sunday, May15 - Goodale Park - Homeless Benefit

Hey Folks!!
Sunday, May 15, at the Gazebo in Goodale Park, Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons will be playing a benefit for the Coalition for the Homeless. We are going on around 3:00 after three excellent young Jazz Bands.
The reality and the plight of the homeless is too easily overlooked, forgotten, or denied. Come help assert reality.
Everything begins at 1:00 and runs to 4:00. There will be food and drink, poetry, speakers, and informational tables.
Please come by and participate.

- Uke Man

A Fair and Balanced Salute !!  

May Day History

From http://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/m/a.htm#may-dayMay Day (May, 1) - Celebrated by workers around the world as an expression of their international solidarity and shared political aspirations for freedom.

History: The first of May was originally celebrated by pagans throughout Europe as the beginning of summer, which was recognised as a day of fertility (both for the first spring planting and sexual intercourse). A maypole was oftentimes erected for young women and men to dance around and entwine the ribbons they carried with one another to find a mate... at least for the night. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated the day as Beltane, the day of fire, in honor of the god of the sun; beginning their celebrations at midnight; soon acquiring the label Walpurgisnacht, or night of the witches.

Persecution of May Day began as early as the 1600s; in 1644 the British Parliament banned its practice as immoral, with the Church bringing its full force to bear across the spectrum. Governments throughout Europe were largely ineffective in outlawing these celebrations, and thus the Church took a different approach — it attempted to assimilate the festivities by naming Saints days on the first of May. These efforts led to the destruction of May Day in some places, but the traditions and customs of May Day continued to remain strong throughout much of the peasantry of Europe, whose ties to one another and nature were far stronger than their ties to the ruling class and its religion. Celebrations became increasingly festive, especially at night when huge feasts, song, dance and free love were practiced throughout the night.

After the revolutions of capitalism, the roots and principles of the tradition survived to various extents, with workers across Europe celebrating the first of May as the coming of spring and a day of sexual fertility. Most mythical and religious sentiments faded away, but the spirit of the festival in expressing the love of nature and one another gained strength.

Haymarket massacre: In 1884, the U.S. Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions had passed a law declaring that, as of May 1, 1886, an eight hour workday would be the full and legal workday for all U.S. workers — the ruling class had that much time to recognise this new law and put it into effect.

The owners refused.

On May 1, 1886, workers took to the streets in a general strike throughout the entire country to force the ruling class to recognise the eight-hour working day. Over 350,000 workers across the country directly participated in the general strike, with hundreds of thousands of workers joining the marches as best they could.

In what they would later call the Haymarket riots, during the continuing strike action on May third in Chicago, the heart of the U.S. labor movement, the Chicago police opened fire on the unarmed striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Works, killing six workers and wounding untold numbers. An uproar across the nation resounded against the government and its police brutality, with workers' protest rallies and demonstrations throughout the nation set to assemble on the following day.

On May 4, Chicago members of the anarchist IWPA (International Working Peoples' Association) organized a rally of several thousand workers at Haymarket Square to protest the continuing police brutality against striking workers on the South Side. As the last speaker finished his remarks that rainy evening, with only 200 of the most dedicated workers remaining at the rally, 180 armed police marched forward and demanded the workers to disperse. Then, deep within the police ranks, a bomb exploded, killing seven cops. The police opened fire on the unarmed workers — the number of workers wounded and killed by the cops is unknown to this day. Eight anarchists were arrested on charges of "inciting riot" and murder. The retaliation of the government was enormous in the days to follow, filling every newspaper with accusations, completely drowning the government murders and brutality of days past.

Eight workers were convicted as anarchists, were convicted of murder, and were convicted of inciting a riot. Only one of the eight men accused was present at the protest, and he was attempting to address the crowd when the bomb went off. In one of the greatest show trials in the history of the working-class movement no evidence was ever produced to uphold the accusations, though all eight were convicted as guilty. Four of the prisoners — Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fisher — were executed, Louis Lingg committed suicide, and the three remaining were pardoned due to immense working class upheaval in 1893.

On May 1, 1890, in accordance with the decision of the Paris Congress (July 1889) of the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs, mass demonstrations and strikes were held throughout Europe and America. The workers put forward the demands for an 8 hour woring day, better health conditions, and further demands set forth by the International Association of Workers. The red flag was here created as the symbol that would always remind us of the blood that the working-class has bleed, and continues to bleed, under the oppressive reign of capitalism.

From that day forward (starting in 1891 in Russia, by 1920 including China, and 1927 India) workers throughout the world began to celebrate the first of May as a day of international proletarian solidarity, fighting for the right of freedom to celebrate their past and build their future without the oppression and exploitation of the capitalist state.

- Uke Man

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You !! 

“Fool me once, shame on . . . you. Fool me . . . You can't fool me again - he he"

Dubya’s still grinding away on Social Security, gonna save it, yep, gotta help the poor, gotta make it fair for African Americans, gotta have an “ownership” society - like in 1776 when rich white men literally owned Black people and figuratively owned poor white people .

Like one of our “Founding Fathers” said, “This country should be run by the people who own it.”

Well, while we are “fighting for Democracy” in Iraq, it might serve the general good to start fighting for Democracy here at home. Case in point: Social Security.

According to Edmund L. Andrews and Eduardo Porter of “The New York Times,” what Bush calls “generous benefits for low-income retirees” designed to “grow faster than benefits for people who are well-off” will yield a typical low-income worker earning $16,000 a year about 49% of his or her wages ($7,840 per year, or $653 per month, or $150 per week), which is the same amount they would get without Bush’s “plan.” Moreover, Dubya believes that with the generous sum of $7,840 promised per year, low-income workers “will not retire into poverty.”

Yeah, you can live really high on the hog with $150.00 in your pocket every week.

So, where does “Democracy” come into this? Well, to “pay” for this “no-increase/just-keep-the-same-‘generous’-$150/week benefit for the poor; the middle class benefits will be cut severely. Those earning an average income ($36,500) will have their benefits cut from 36% of their income ($13,140) to 26% ($9,490). Those earning $90,000/year (the ceiling income after which no payroll taxes are paid) would drop to $10,800 /year.

In addition, under these “generous” changes designed to “save” Social Security, the cost of living increases will be tied to a new factor that will decrease the rate of increase; and even THEN “other” additional options need to be exercised to “save” the system.

Ok, but where does “Democracy” come into this?

Well, the poor get to keep the paltry amount they get now, and other workers earning up to $90,000 per year are cut, and all these folks (94% of all workers) will face declining standards of living as the newly-reduced increases lag behind more and more, year after year.

Here’s the Democracy (or lack there of): having everyone pay payroll taxes on all their wages (not stoppin