Dogs. Are they in Revo, Evo, or Devo?

I've been looking into a rather odd subject over the last 12 years or so. I've been carefully looking into the possibilities of dogs achieving total evolution and cognitive skills on par with humans. Doggie-volution, you'd call it...I guess.

I became interested in this field of study in the year 2000, after coming across a song called Where are Your Dogs? Show us Your Ugly on the internet. Well, maybe it is not exactly a "song" but more like an audio story tune, or an audio story dirge...or something.

It's an audio story tune about this dog who escapes from a plastic surgery test lab on Christmas Day (and is thus referred to as The Santa Dog). While he was in the lab, the Santa Dog got injected with human growth hormone and soon after his escape he began walking around town on his hind legs...and the "ugly humans start staying home in record numbers" in fear of the Santa Dog.

This whole concept of dogs evolving was something I found really interesting, and after being introduced to the concept, I naturally began a thorough investigation soon afterward.

From Wolves to Dogs: The Birth of the Dog

Dogs back in the day...used to be feral, vicious, ravaging beasts who traveled in packs who killed and ate all kinds of birds and deers. No one called them "doggies" back then, they were called "wolves" and everyone was dirt scared of them. You had to be scared of wolves because a pack of wolves would fuck you up back then.

It is theorized that humans thousands of years ago, in different spots of the globe, came upon wolf packs where the all the old wolves were dead and the only survivors were wolf cubs who could not fend for themselves. Humans adopted these wolf cubs and raised them and the wolves grew up to consider humans as friends and not food. Soon the wolves bred more baby wolves and the humans kept the friendliest ones in the human tribe and kicked out the ones who were too violent and feral. Basically, thanks to human influence, only the friendliest and least violent wolves got to breed and pass on their genes. Scientists call this phenomenon artificial selection.

After humans and doggies became fast and bestest friends, humans began to breed doggies more methodically. They got the dogs with the maddest skills (like hunting, smelling, running, seeing, etc.) and mated them with other dogs who displayed the maddest of skills in hopes that the puppies would be born with even madder skills. Often the puppies were indeed born with the sought after mad skills (as such).

Now we have huntin' dogs, seein' eye dogs, smellin' dogs (bloodhounds), racing dogs (greyhounds), and all kinds of skilled dogs. We even have funky dogs and nasty dogs and Dogs...woooooo!

These bad boys were being selectively pushed by humans to get better and better and in only about 100 years of breeding (1750-1850) dogs were gaining skills at alarmingly bad ass rates. In fact, with human help dogs were evolving super fast. You might go as far to say that dogs were not going through evolution...but revolution. 

The Decline of the Dog in the Victorian Era

The British Empire's Victorian Era and its legacy was notoriously bad. The English Royal Family applied all kinds of silly and odd rules to speech, writing, diction, fashion, manner, behavior, and everything else you could possibly think of. For example the measuring system they created (the imperial system) measured a unit of length known as a "rod" in regard to "the length of the left feet of 16 men lined up heel to toe as they emerged from church." It's almost as if the dumbest people in society were running it.

The field of dog breeding had the same silly and odd rules applied to it in the Victoria Era. Dogs stopped being bred in hopes of getting puppies with mad-ass skills, but instead dogs started to be bred in hopes of getting a dog who's teeth were 0.01 "rods" apart, or who's eyes looked really funny, or in hopes of getting a dog who's hair looked retarded. Basically, they bred dogs for novelty and social status reasons. It was really in style to have a dog with little beady eyes who's legs didn't work...it meant you were richer than your friends.

Another huge factor that helped the decline of the dog in the Victorian Era was the notion of "pure breeding" which was big in all of Europe back then. It's not a secret that Royal Families in Europe engaged in incest and brothers, sister, mothers, and fathers all mated with each other (I'm talking about humans now, not dogs by the way). Incest in the British Royal Family is the reason they all have fucked up teeth and are morons.

Charles: a Pure Bred creature.

The current Queen Elizabeth and her husband (Phil) are both descended from Queen Victoria. They have the same blood (source). It is said Royals have to inbreed because their blood is pure and better than commoner's blood but let's be sane for a moment...inbreeding makes fucked up kids.

Take Liz's son Prince Charles for example, that's what "pure breeding" does to offsprings...it makes them look awful and have the intelligence of a peanut.

Pure Breeding when applied to dogs was not a good idea (just like it wasn't a good idea for humans). The Victorian Era bred dogs with their sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers in order to keep their genetic features "pure" and fashionable and in accordance with the silly rules they invented for dog breeding. Pure bred dogs are dumber, and far less healthy (they have all sorts of genetic problems which lead to health problems and shorter lives) than dogs who were bred for mad skills.

British and other Euro-Trash Royalty stopped the Doggie-volution (which I may remind you was no longer an evolution but a revolution) and turned it backwards. You might even say that the Euro-Royals selectively de-evolved our canines.

Oh shit. Wait a sec, that would mean we have a concrete example that devolution actually is possible and is not just a theory! AHHHHHHH! BOOGIE BOY WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! IT'S TRUE GENERAL DAD! WE REALLY ARE ALL DEVO!!!! IT'S POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE TO D-EVOLVE!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!

OH NOOOOOOO! WE ARE ALL DEVO!!!!!

Poor Doggies...What did we do to em' ?

To sum it up so far, humans put dogs into selective Revo, and then as quickly as we did we snapped them back and put them into selective Devo...and all these poor little puppy wuppies ever really wanted was just to naturally Evo.

100% De-Evolution Completed...

Poor Doggies, now that the Doggie-Volution is over, they have been reduced to pulling our sleds or being fashion accessories for skinny blonde bimbos.

The purse dog (as they are known) is a dog who is 100% de-evolved thanks to selective human breeding. It's sad, it really is. I hate seeing purse dogs, it's so stupid and it really represents the hallmark example of how humans have fucked up our doggie pals.

Dogs had no choice to team up with us. Humans are mean creatures, we would have just killed all the wolves if none of them agreed to befriend us. I wonder, on a hypothetical alternate time line, one which humans didn't survive the ice age and died out...how wolves/dogs would have faired. If humans didn't make it out of the ice age, but if every other animal did...I bet things would have been different for wolves/dogs.

Wolves would have continued hunting, foraging, and ravaging in their ecosystem for aeons and would eventually have evolved naturally with no human aid. They would have lived proud lives as warrior dogs, tailor dogs, doctor dogs, and other noble lives.

My Bias

At this point in the article, I must admit that I have a personal bias in favor or doggies. When I was a young boy, my best friend was a dog named Cubby. Me and him was tight, he was like my little brother, I even nicknamed him "Little Brutha." Me and him used to be together all the time, running all around town pulling all sorts of hoodrat stuff. Me and him played ball together and all those things. I grew up with that dog (I had him from the age of 5 to 19), he was a good dog.

So when I look at what humans are doing to our dog pals, I take it seriously because my best pal as a child unit was a dog.

What if Dogs Manage to Evolve Despite Our Efforts to Stop Them?

What if dogs are just one or two positive random mutations away from hitting a massive evolutionary growth spurt? Walking on their hinds legs, opposable thumbs, vocal chords for speech, brain development. What if dogs who display and excel in those traits manage to breed with each other for a hundred years or so? Wouldn't they gradually keep building on those mad skill sets?

Say by the year 2400, despite human efforts to make them our sled pullers, sheep herders, and purses...doggies still manage to level up a few evolutionary echelons. Would they still be our friends?

Would the dogs look at what we are doing the planet and approve of it? Would they approve of us doing everything in our power to pollute and ruin up our home? Would evolved dogs band together in tribes and launch a rebellion against humans? I dunno, but that would make a really good movie though (anyone readin' this can steal my idea if they want, I don't care).

Should we be living in fear of the inevitable doggie-volution, and their righteous and justified rebellion against human-kind? Should we ugly humans lock ourselves in our homes in record numbers? Is Santa Dog really out there waiting.....biding his/her time....for the Doggie Revolution?

......?

(This dog is walking on its hind legs because she was born without her other two...so, it's not like they can't already figure out how to walk on their hind legs. Maybe it is just a  fleeting and a sleeting scene of snowness and of sleeves. Will dogs have a presence in the future? More importantly will these highly evolved Santa Dogs have presents in the future? I dunno.)

Comparison and Contrast of two Baseball Owners: Bill Veeck (the legend) and Bud Selig (the bum)

Veeck as in Wreck (or Cheque)

I've read a lot of books over the years, I like to throw in a baseball biography book every so often. I recently read Bill Veeck's "Veeck as in Wreck." In it, Veeck states that he began reading at a young age and by his teenage years until his late years he read at least five books per week. Judging by his insight, I believe that Veeck did indeed read five books a week throughout his life. This guy was a real renegade and it's too bad that all real renegades brains operate 20 to 50 years ahead of their time.

Backstory on Veeck

Veeck's father (Bill Veeck Sr.) was a sportswriter who in 1919 wrote a critical article of how the owner of the Chicago Cubs (Phil Wrigley Jr.) was operating his club, the article was poignant and sharp-cutting to the bone, enough so, to land him a phone call from Wrigley stating that if Veeck Sr. thought he could do a better job than why doesn't he come down and do it. Veeck Sr. did, and Wrigley hired Veeck Sr. to be president of the Cubs.

Eddie walked on 4 pitches...

Veeck Sr. gave his son (our protagonist Bill Veeck) a job counting tickets. After the years Veeck Jr. was promoted by Phil Wrigley into higher and higher posts with the Cubs. Veeck was in charge of all concession operations at Wrigley. According to Veeck, he was the one who had the idea of putting the now-iconic vines on the Wrigley Field brick outfield wall.

In 1942 (five years prior to the fall of segregation in baseball), Veeck had a great idea, he wanted to gather up some investors and pool up money to purchase the struggling Philadelphia Phillies. The team was horrible, posting only 43 wins and 111 losses in the previous 1941 campaign, and only drawing 231,401 fans for the entire season. Veeck knew he could get the club cheap and had a brilliant idea to turn a last place club drawing only 0.2 million fans into a first place club who could draw 2.0 million fans. What was his brilliant idea? After he purchased the club, he planned on stocking it with superstars from the Negro Leagues (Paige, Doby, Robinson, etc.).

Now, the color line in baseball was never written in any rule books. Black players were playing in baseball leagues with other white players with no problem in the late 1800's. The color barrier arose in 1884, when the premier white star player Cap Anson refused to take the field when his team signed a black catcher named Moses Fleetwood Walker. The league responded to Cap's protest by forming a "gentlemanly agreement" made between all the owners to not sign black players. The owners, being very racist but also men of their word it seems, kept their "gentlemanly agreement" in effect for over 60 years.

So, in 1942 as stated above, Veeck (who was also the midwest promoter for the all-black Harlem Globetrotters basketball club) wanted to buy a Major League Baseball club and load it with superstar black players from the negro leagues. How do you think the stuffy, conservative, old boys club, owners felt about this suggestion?

Charlie "Tokohama"

The only previous attempt to break the "gentlemanly" agreed upon color barrier, was in 1901 (as written about in Robert Peterson's book "Only the Ball was White") when Baltimore manager John McGraw tried to sneak a quick one by baseball's stuffy owners. He wanted to get second baseman Charlie Grant onto the Baltimore roster and his plan was to tell the owners Grant was a Cherokee Native American. Other Native American players were on rosters in that era (including Chief Bender, Bill Phyle, and Louis Sockalexis), only players of African decent were systematically kept out of baseball. McGraw listed Grant on his roster as "Charlie Tokohama" and hoped he could sneak him past the league officials and onto the Orioles. Unfortunately, McGraw's guile didn't slip past the stuffy owners, and his clever ruse ultimately failed.

Larry Doby

The same end met Veeck's attempt to sign black players. Since black Americans were fighting for their country in World War II, Veeck felt that times had changed and the owners wouldn't mind if baseball's 60 year color barrier was broken. He was confident enough to let the cat out of the bag too early, by letting the owners in on his plan. The crusty old commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and the owners took over the Phillies before Veeck could buy the club. The owners jointly owned the club running at a loss until a new interested owner could be found (one who wouldn't sign black players). Eventually they found a stuffy old businessman named William D. Cox to purchase the league owned club and Cox surely did not sign any black dudes.

Max Patkin

Veeck eventually did purchase a team, the Cleveland Indians. After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 with Branch Rickey and the Dodgers, Veeck was able to sign black players and did so by adding hard hitting lefty Larry Doby and 50 year old legend Satchel Paige to the Indians roster.

Veeck went on to stints operating the Browns, and White Sox as well. He did not have an inherited family fortune like all the other owners, he had to keep his clubs afloat the old fashioned way, by giving his customers entertainment and satisfaction. Over the years he sent a midget to pinch hit, he hired colorful ball players like Max Patkin and others to play or coach bases, installed a fire works spouting "exploding" scoreboard, and accidently caused a punk rock riot at Comiskey Park by holding "Disco Demolition Night," where the blowing up of disco records turned a little unruly (as shown in the video below)...

With all due respect, credit for this idea should go to Canada's own punk rock icon Joey "Shithead" Keithley of D.O.A. who one year prior in 1978 held a "Disco Sucks" rally in Vancouver, Canada...

Ahead of his Time

Veeck brought up all kinds of things at owners meetings that were laughed at and scorned at by the stuffy shirted and cranky pantsed owners.

He had the foresight to see that the reserve clause (which kept players as being owned by their team) was not right and wanted to take it out of baseball. He even testified at Curt Flood's Supreme Court hearing when Flood challenged the reserve clause (Flood called the clause similar to slavery).

(newspaper article on Veeck's testimony at Flood's anti-trust suit)

Veeck proposed things from alterations to the minor league system, inter league play, and a slew of other things which were adopted by baseball 20 to 50 years later but at the time he proposed them they were considered as the ridiculous ravings of a jerk.

At the end of Veeck's book, "Veeck as in Wreck", there is a very omnious portion which sheds light on present day problems in baseball. After being out of baseball for years and finally returning as owner of the White Sox in the 70's, Veeck held a press conference in a hotel lobby and let in all the fans to chill and sell wares and whatnot. The new owner of the Milwaukee Brewers (a city where Veeck operated his first club, the minor league Brewers back in the early 40's and laid the ground work for baseball there), one Bud Selig, a young ugly punk, told Veeck that he is ruining baseball and turning it into a "meat market." Veeck knew that baseball may have had some new younger owners, but he realized that they were as stuffy and narrow minded as the old ones.

20 to 50 Years Later

Fast forward to the year 1997, and Bud Selig unvails the revolutionary concept of Interleague Play and the orthodox fundamentalist owners faction proclaims him a renegade genius who's "outside the box mousy radical" thinking is saving the game. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea from? 

Selig has been the commissioner for over over twenty years now, and the last twenty years is where baseball has gotten out of control. Salaries are out of control, steroids are out of control, the inequities between small and large markets are out of control, a World Series (1994) was cancelled, and a slew of other nonsense. He is the first owner to be commissioner which is an obvious total conflict of interest. Baseball really is a "meat market" now, but it wasn't Bill Veeck who made it this way, it was that bum Selig.

I think Bill Veeck is still alive somewhere having a beer with Elvis Presley, Andy Kaufman, and Bigfoot. I think he's taking cabs around whatever town he's in, hitting all the local bars, trying to drum up support from investors to buy a club. I hope he's telling them it's all in debentures and they'll get half their returns next quarter and the other half when "they can catch him." 

Who Selig? Yeah, we should jerk the bum.

Here's an ending quote to conclude this article from Mr. Bill Veeck himself,

"And who knows, the status quo of baseball might just look at the track record the next time I push for something like interleague play and say, 'alright let's humor this jerk for once.' And you know something? That's when it's time to start worrying. When they listen to your ravings with indulgence and, heaven help me, affection, you know you've joined the herd". 

-Bill Veeck

How to Turn the Montreal Student Strike Lemons into Montreal Student Strike Lemonade

The face of Education is changing, many US and UK universities make all their curriculum and research available online (a year ago I wrote about this on this blog: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-educationget-it-while-it-hot-and.html).

Coupled with BOINC (the combined hive-computer/voltron synthetic super computer), the educational value of the internet trumps traditional universities and may make them extinct in the future. In fact, universities of the old age are nothing more than mere glorified book clubs where snobs mentally masturbate all over each other.

Oh my Gawd! I hate school...I'm going on strike you guyz!

Knowing that, I find it harder and harder to care for these greasy students (who are all liberal art students or other hipsters anyway). They are fighting over an increase of about 400 bucks...and with the tuition credits they'll get on their federal and provincial taxes when they join the real world will absorb those costs anyhow. Do they really have to block all the roads and mess with the metro (subway) over this?

One of the sillier demands of one of the student groups behind the strike is to cut funding to universities research budgets. This is so strange in the fact that Quebec universities have made significant discoveries (including these last year alone: http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/decouverte2011), and the student groups want to pull the money out of research so every little hipster can go to mental masturbation liberal arts book clubs for free.

The politicians and cops have made matters 1000 times worse by being so violent in their handling of this strike (as stupid as is it) that they have made more members of the public support the students than ever before.

This toy for example, the ARWEN 37mm Less Lethal System, that fires huge hard plastic "batons" at 242 feet per second should not have been used under any circumstances against citizens. Whoever gave the order for the police to use this weapon should be fired. The plastic batons, tear gas, sound cannons, and non-bodily marking torture techniques have only made things worse.


Now, how can you take a lemony situation such as this and make it into a lemonade situation?


...By Creating the Newest and Kewlest Spectator Sport the World has Evar Seeeeen!

This strike has made world wide news, and you know what they say..."all publicity is good publicity." Thus, someone with ingenuity must devise a way to turn this heavily publicized kerfuffle into something that is fun for everyone and a boost for the economy.

The Montreal Canadiens didn't make the playoffs this year, so we have a totally vacant arena with the seating capacity of 21,273. So, all they have to do is, pass an emergency law that states that all protests must be held at the Bell Centre. Then you sell tickets at $20 a pop, hire a bunch of concession and beer vendors and bam you got yourself some lemonade out of this nonsense.

What is the sport you ask? It's called Extreme Evasion and is heavily based off of the greatest TV show of all time, American Gladiators. The police are in essence the American Gladiators and the students are the contestants. If you've never heard of it before, this is a short briefing...

That video displays my man Wesley "Two Scoops" Berry running through the "gauntlet." Now picture a student trying to break through a police kettle formation for cash prizes! It's genius, it really is.

The police will get paid good money for taking part, the students will compete for luxurious prizes (free scholarships for breaking a kettle? How 'bout that?). The public will love this shit because it would be as entertaining as hell, and it would create jobs for vendors, ushers, scalpers, and a whole lot of other folks.

To include the politicians in this too (bums like Jeans Charest, and Pauline Marois), the Extreme Evasion halftime show will feature a dunk tank where a politician will be placed upon a board above a tank of water. Lucky spectators chosen at random will be brought down to the playing grounds and be given three chances to hit a target with a ball...if they connect the politician will fall into the water and get all wet. How's that for entertainment? Am I right or am I right?

Healthy Life Tips: How to Breathe Right! The First Step on the Path to Healthy Livin' !

People ask sometimes, what the necessities of life are. Most would answer: Sleeping, Eating, and Drinking. It seems the most basic of life's necessities, the act of breathing, is never discussed at length. I'd go as far to say that we as a human race are taking breathing for granted, and we shouldn't be doing that.

You can eat right, exercise, and take your vitamins...but you have to ask yourself at some point, "am I breathing correctly?"

Breathing is an art and science that we are only beginning to comprehend. Only by getting down and in-synch with your breathing can you begin to get down with your bad self.

So let's talk about breathing...at length.



What is Breathing?

Breathing is the act of sucking in oxygen and releasing carbon. Oxygen is what keeps our asses alive and without it we suffocate and die. All humans are oxygen junkies, we are so addicted to that shit that if we don't get our oxygen fix for even 10 minutes we will drop dead and die.

Oxygen is such a long stuffy word, it has 3 syllables (which is ridiculous) and has stupid letters in it that nobody likes, I'm talking about "x" and "y" of course, I mean, what, are we plotting a Cartesian plane here? No. So what's with the axis letters? Someone at some point got sick of saying this ugly-ass word and replaced it with the word "Air" which is a nice word.

I love air. Ever since I was a little kid I liked air...I think it was this song in particular that won me over on air:

Air...air...air...air...It is everywhere!


How to Tell Time by Counting your Breaths

If you can get in-synch with your breathing then you can know exactly how many breaths you take in a day, and that is really useful for you. You can tell exactly what moment of your cyclical day-routine you are currently situated in. Ahem...let me explain:

Breathing is like an inherent time measuring stick. Everyone's time measuring stick is customized to their own life cycle and/or micromanaged routine-cycle. Once you set your base unit for 1 personal breath you take, then you can start stratisfying your mental time units in accordance.

For my personal human routine-cycle, 1 unit of "inhaling of breath" is roughly ~0.556 moments of elapsed "time", and 1 unit of "exhaling of breath" is roughly ~0.661 moments of elapsed "time". Your body has a built in subconscious breath counter that records this, there is no need to literally count breaths (that's cumbersome and mentally crazy, do not count your breaths with words)...therefore...I can know exactly and precisely how many moments of time has elapsed by my breathing and I never ever check clocks or time pieces.
 
In accordance with my base time units, I measure "months" by a 1000 "day" cycles, and "days" are measured on a 10,000 unit cycle which consists of isolated "moments" which are measured in a 100,000 unit cycle of 1.217 fixed quantity per unit (0.661 + 0.556).

If you get down with your breathing, you can do this too!

...But, Don't Get too Down with Your Breathing

Some people take it too far. For instance, the Breatharians, take the idea of getting down with their own breathing, way too far.

Brooks only eats sweet tasty Air.

Similar to how a vegetarian only eats vegetables...a Breatharian only eats breaths. Its founder and lead breath researcher, Mr. Wiley Brooks, teaches that you can live a healthy long-lasting life by casting off food and drink and maintaining sustenance solely through the consumption of air.

The following is a rather insane excerpt from the Breatharian Institute of America:

"Wiley has been a Breatharian for some 30 years and has been giving seminars and teaching his intrinsically learned philosophy for over 20 of those years. A Breatharian is a person who can, under the proper conditions, live with or without eating physical food. Wiley was first introduced to the world back in 1981 when he appeared on the national TV show "THAT'S INCREDIBLE" demonstrating his strength by lifting 1100 lbs of weights, nearly 10 times his own body weight. When in a non-polluted environment (air or electro) he sleeps 1 to 7 hours a week. Althought Wiley is now 74 years old (young) he teaches only Empowered Ascension to a very few pre-qualified applicants.

"EARTH PRIME" OR ''THE NEW EARTH'' IS LOCATED IN THE 5TH DIMENSIONAL WORLD. THE WORLD WITHOUT THE VIBRATIONS OF PAIN AND FEAR. YOU FEEL ONLY INCREDIBLE LOVE, PEACE AND JOY. LOVE AND JOY YOU CAN ONLY DREAM ABOUT IN THE 3rd DIMENSIONAL WORLD YOU LIVE IN AT THIS TIME.

[Wiley's] goal is to populate EARTH PRIME with as many people as possible before March 20, 2013.
 
Wiley Brooks, Breatharian and teacher from the 5th Dimensional worlds

Wiley has had past lives as:

ADAM, ZEUS, ENOCH, JESHUA (JESUS THE CHRIST), JOSHUA, ELIJAH, JOHN THE BAPTIST, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, KUTHUMI, BALTHAZAR (KING OF SYRIA), MUGHAL EMPEROR SHAH JAHAN (Builder of the TaJ Mahal in Agra, India), JOSEPH SMITH AND WILLIAM MULHOLLAND."

(See: http://www.breatharian.com/wileybrooks.html)

The 5th dimensional world of Earth Prime sounds awesome and everything, but I'm not sure I believe Wiley when he talks this gibberish.

Wiley is a nice man, I think he just enjoys breathing a little too much. Movin' on...

Does Air Care?

We humans have a love affair with air, we cannot live or breathe without it. Yet, is this love affair mutual or totally one-sided? Sadly, it's hard to admit but entirely true that air does not love humans back.

Check this shit out....

That's a high pressure air vacuum (or sumthin') that is ripping shit apart like an unstoppable freight train of destruction. Air is not a sentient thoughtful creature like us, it is a mindless killing machine. Air does not care, it just doesn't care about the consequences of its actions.

Conclusion

Humans have a love affair with the air...but air just doesn't care. It's a sad story when you think about it, no?

After 34 years the Serious Heart Attack Fires still Burn Strong...

Mr. Expo

The Spaceman Bill Lee called him "The Moderator of the Conclave," and the leader of the Montreal Expos teams of the glorious era of the late seventies and early eighties. This man in 1979 proclaimed that the Montreal Expos were "for real" and "as serious as a heart attack."

Who is he?

The legend...Warren Cromartie. Who else?

Today on April the 4th of 2012, almost 34 years after proclaiming to the world that the Montreal Expos are for real, he's back to let 'em know that even though they are gone...they are certainly not forgotten and may one day live once more. The Cro came back to Montreal to announce that he is heading a group who's purpose is to revive the Expos.

(press articles: 1. Video from the Gazette.com, 2. TVA Article, 3. TSN article)

Why do I care? Because baseball reminds me of a simpler time. When April came around in the old days it used to mean that I got to play baseball all day, watch Expos games at night, then read the boxscores in the mornings and absorb all those wonderful numbers into my brain. Now, I work all day long and don't have time to play baseball, the Expos are dead, and in the morning there's nothing to look at the in paper except boring political and business articles...no more boxscores. To each his own, you know? It reminds of a simpler time and it gave me something to believe in.

Circa 1979.....for real

Cro stated in his press conference that this has got to start at the "grassroots" and that it's gonna take a "unit" of people with a positive attitude. It's a baby-step but everything has to start somewhere...and if I may say, this baby-step is as serious as a heart attack!

The Montreal Baseball Project will be holding a charity golf tournament on June 15th, 2012 for the Cedar Cancer Institute and the MUHC in memory of the Great Legend Gary Carter who passed away earlier this year from brain cancer. The game will feature many of Carter's teammates of the 1981 Expos (including the Great Legend Tim Raines and the Great Legend Andre Dawson).

My Thoughts

People are saying that Montreal is too accustomed to big league attractions and will never support a minor league team, but I'm not sure about that. I think a minor league team could work here. Personally, I would use some Bill Veeck-ian gimmicks to sell the game. I would keep open 4 of the 25 roster spots for the following:

A) Two Quebec born players in order to have hometown players on the team for the fans to support.

B) Two women players in order to break some ground (this gimmick will get some headlines for sure)

The 21 roster slot system won't fly with the MLB players union, so a triple-A team (or any other MLB affiliated team) is not in the picture. The best idea would be a Can-Am team, where the Quebec Capitales play and thus a rivalry can start between Quebec City and Montreal. With a Can-Am team the 4 reserved roster slots for seat-filling reasons will be able to fly.

Who is the prime candidate to be the female star of the Montreal's hypothetical Can-Am team?

Eri Yoshida

Yoshida is a side-arm knuckleballer from Yokohama, Japan. She has pitched professionally against men on several occasions, including as a member of the Kobe 9 in Japan, and the Chico Outlaws in the U.S of A.

She has trained extensively with knuckleball sages such as Tim Wakefield and seems to have perfected the technique at a very young age. Some claim she has mastered 36 divine deception techniques and 72 earthly ones, giving her more than enough deceptive notes in her pitch sequence to fool almost any batter.

Would Yoshida sign on to pitch for a Cromartie led Montreal minor league franchise? Yes, she would in a heart beat. The Cro is a MUCH BIGGER legend in Japan than he is in North America and is a baseball icon over there.

I think women would flock to see her throw and make men look foolish with her deceptive knuckleball, I think she would be an instant-star in Montreal.

Montreal was where the first black player gained confidence to smash the color barrier in Major League Baseball...could it be the place where the first woman player gains the confidence to strike out men in Major League Baseball? I don't know...I think it would sell tickets though.

I want to catch baseball fever again...

On Civil Disobedience...

Montreal Student Protest

Lots of students filling the streets this week in Montreal to protest tuition hikes. Yes, it's annoying that they are non-violently protesting and blocking streets off...but I can't be mad at them because I know that non-violent civil disobedience is one of the major factors that made Canada what it is today, and although it is a little annoying, I respect the students.

Canada has a long history of non-violent civil disobedience and it's pretty interesting.

History of Canadian Civil Disobedience

This got really big in Canada after World War I, when all the veterans came back bloodied, tired, and broken...to nothing. They were thanked for "Fighting for Freedom" and then forgotten about. Out of the 500,000 (est.) that returned home from WW1 many were disfigured or amputated, and a person with no arms has no chance of finding a job.

"Returning soldiers were angry. They had risked their lives for their country and now were returning to economic chaos. They had great difficulty finding jobs. They sometimes saw them occupied by immigrants. They bristled at annual inflation rates of about forty percent. They heard tales of people who had profited immensely from the war. " 

(http://canadachannel.ca/HCO/index.php/1._Strikes_and_Labour_Disputes_1918-1920)

It's hard to find a job when you have no legs...

People were starting to notice that maybe World War I was more about sending poor people to die off and making rich people more "war-bucks" than it was about "freedom" or some bullshit word...and so they got really really mad.

You can search "Winnipeg General Strike" or "On-to-Ottawa Trek"  for some good examples, or read through the link after the quote mentioned above...but to sum it up, Canadians protested like crazy and won all of the gains we take for granted today. All the social gains we have today were won from the powerful elite class by unions, veterans, and regular folks who practiced civil disobedience in the streets. That is not mentioned very often, in fact, usually when they talk about something we have in Canada they tell us it was given to us from an elite, like a God giving his peons something.

Take medicare for instance, in the interest of the history of medicare, we are told a horribly sappy story about how Tommy Douglas was once treated for free by a doctor and he decided that one day he will give everyone free health care. This is bullshit, Douglas was a crazy Christian preacher who wrote essays in support of eugenics and establishing a "Canadian Master Race." This crazy fool didn't just hand Canadians health care like some sort of God. Real Canadians took to the streets and fought for these gains.

Similarly in the U.S.A. veterans came home to nothing as well, and at some point must have said to themselves "fuck this shit, I went to kill other poor folks over the pond for what? To come home and live in the fucking street? Fuck this."  In 1932, a group of 17,000 veterans (plus their families and supporters, which in turn made the group total about 43,000 people) marched on the White House demanding compensation and a better life. This protest did not sit well with the Americans in power at the time and they ordered the protesters removed, President Herbert Hoover told the guards to use force if necessary and two veterans were shot and killed by police. So basically, two people who went to "die for their country" did indeed die for their country...but in their country and by their country. That's fucked up. (see: "Bonus Army" for details)

Civil Disobedience All-Stars

NVCD Icons of Yesteryear

The two most iconic faces of non-violent civil disobedience are Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

If you are interested in knowing about these two men and their methods please by all means use the power of the internet and research them. Putting their names into a search engine will give you all you need to know about them...also having King's "I Have a Dream" book in your library (either print or digital) is a must have.

(I might fill this blog out more after, but that's the basic reason I'm not gonna hate on the students for blocking off the roads even if it is annoying. It's good to keep pressure on your government.)

Ammendment (May 27, 2012:)

After 100 days of greasy students and crazy cops fooling around in the streets, it might be time to end this silliness.

Think about this...

As more US and UK universities are making their research and curriculum available for widespread free use online (example: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/)...it looks like the whole face of education is changing.

Michael Geist argues that Canada should catch up to the US and UK on this matter: (http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1177735--is-canada-lagging-behind-in-online-education)

For the record, a full year ago I wrote about free internet education in my blog: (https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-educationget-it-while-it-hot-and.html) 

Online free education is really good, you can pause the lecture (to open a new tab and search for a term you didn't understand), you can rewind it to see a part over again that you didn't quite get. It's so convienient and free.
 
Right now, for instance, I'm watching lectures on computer programming as presented by the notorious mutha fuckin' Paul N. Hilfinger.

(http://webcast.berkeley.edu/playlist#c,s,All,EE65657BC5C79469)

...and it's FOR FREE! You can do this for any subject! You people are fighting for an ancient educational model that is going extinct fast. It's pointless...

An open letter to Montreal Canadiens fans...

...Chill out and let the team grow. That's not only the fans but the media too. Chill out and let this team grow.

The next 2-3 years are "rebuilding" years. We got to finish at the bottom in order to get higher draft picks, and by 2015 we will be serious serious business. This team has a lot of talented young players and will have a few more with the draft picks of the next two years. You got to chill and let these kids grow, you can't scare them out of town, you can't use them as the scapegoat of the week, or any of that crap.

Look at these guys, you got Pacioretty who's already got 25 goals this year. You got P.K. Subban who will probably be the first black captain of the Canadiens and who has merchandising potential to make the team millions and millions with his popularity. You got Price who is looking really good and will probably get better. You got Lars Eller who is huge and skates like a bat outta hell. These young guys are good. Let them develop, grow, and meld as a functional human unit.

This is what I think the respective parties involved should do:

The Front Office's role:

Don't waste money on tempting free agents. You will need a lot of dough to sign these youngsters longterm when they get real good so do not use up your budget signing washed up guys like Gomezes or Cammaleries.

The Coaches role:

Don't interfere too much if ever. You don't play as big a role as you think you do. Just let these kids get out there and do the do. Your egos can do more damage to a team than good, and in no way can your ego make players play better unless you're super-chill and cool like a Reggie Dunlop type guy.

The Young Playas roles:

Don't over-indulge. Montreal is a fun city, it has lots of dance clubs, strip joints, massage parlors and all kinds of cool shit. You kids cannot ruin your lives by wasting all your energy on Montreal's slut population. Yes the sluts are bangin' and good, but their pussies will not win you a Stanley Cup. Plus, there's plenty of time for them in the off-season.

The Media's role:

Shut the fuck up. You make a new scapegoat every other week, and make mountains out of mole hills in the space between those weeks. Let these kids play hockey.

The Fan's role:

Enjoy this shit. It's just a hockey game, it's not important and not anything to get too crazy over. You don't have to riot, but if you think you do have to riot when they win the cup in 2015 then please keep the damage to a minimum. The city should invest in what I would call "Riot Domes" or "Designated Damage Areas" where enclosed spaces are closed off with ply-wood walls and filled with old beat up cars and plate glass windows where rioters can go and smash junk up without damaging public or private property. The fans could thus punch and kick cars like Guile off of Street Fighter with all the gusto they want, but nothing of value will be lost or damaged.

Animated Gif. Click to animate.

Is Facebook Fucked Up?

Facebook gives users webspace to upload pictures of themselves, write crap, and whatever. It's like Geocities or Fortunecity used to be except Facebook has a very odd ulterior motive behind it.

It takes all your data and sells it to advertising firms who use that data to figure out how to sell products to you. It sells everything you put on it, even your personal private messages, and even the stuff you deleted. The ad agencies then crawl through all the data and draw up battle plans. I really hope this is done by a program which searches out popular terms used and compiles them, I hope ad firms aren't paying people to read everyone's status updates and private messages to figure out how they should make their next commercial. A theoretical conversation at an ad agency could be something like this:


"Hey Gordon, did you know that Susie Q. Pollyanna prefers the color blue to the color green? She just stated it in a private message to Gilberta Sanchez while she was at the Slurp N' Save on LaQueen avenue."


"Woah David! That puts the tally of people who prefer blue over green at 1,233,121 and the people who prefer green over blue at 910,236!"


"Wow Gordon! For our next ad, our product should have more blue in the background and the actor should display our product while wearing a blue shirt!"

"Great idea David! You're so cool!"

Oh shit man. I think those conversations really are happening and that's sad. Can you believe those people get paid huge salaries at those fucking agencies. My lands...my motherfuckin' lands, this is a crazy world we are living in.

In the FAQ published by facebook, they have an entry for the question "Does Facebook sell my information?" and they answer it like this:


"No. You have control over how your information is shared. We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want. We do not give advertisers access to your personal information. We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone"

The lead-off NO is a very misleading one. I find the "you don't want" part to be odd. By that statment they are telling you that they share your personal information (so the "no" is a ridiculous lie) but only with "people you want." You know when they ask you before you install an app if you will let the app have access to your information and you accept? That's all it takes for that service to become someone/something "you want." Say you signed up to allow New York Post stories on Facebook with their app, well, the New York Post is now someone "you want" to have your information.

Basically, they don't sell it in a legal sense (in a way that you can sue them), what they do is: they state that any info you share is up to you, then they take a lot of money from 3rd party companies and let them put apps on facebook for you to use, the trade-off for using those apps is to share your info with them (they even straight up tell you that when you install them). They are "sharing" your info with the parties you allow them to.

Oh and why are "advertisers" even mentioned in that FAQ answer? It wasn't asked in the question, kind of odd...isn't it?

How do you think Facebook is a billion dollar corporation? By magic? It doesn't cost anything, sell anything, or make a profit in any possible way. How can it be a billion dollar business? Only by selling (sorry I mean "sharing") your info with other businesses and agencies who want to research their target markets.

Personally, I use Facebook, I think it connects a lot of people and I don't think another network will get off the ground any time soon that will have billions of users (that's a lot). I like to communicate with writing because I write better than I talk. I think I grind my teeth too much when I sleep and my jaw is kind of messed up from that, but with writing you don't have to move your jaw...only your fingers and hands. I can just go on the facebook after work and take a few minutes to socialize, comment on shit and not use my jaw.

I know they got algorithmic robot compilers scanning my stuff and throwing my tastes into some huge Taste-O-Base Database but I don't care. You want to know why? Because I am immune to advertising!

Back when I was an ugly teenager, I was into that buddhism shit. Especially the mantra chanting. A mantra chant is when you repeat the same sentence over and over in your skull ad nauseum until it's engraved and tattooed into your memory. I started with "Namyo Ho Renge Kyo" like Willie Davis and the guy who looks like Lu Da from Suikoden II used to say, and it means that all things that happen have an equal and opposite reaction. Then one day I made a fire in a fireplace and I was listening to a CD called "Repeater" by this band called Fugazi. A song called "Blueprint" came on and I listened to it while I gazed fixated at the flames in the fireplace. The fire made my eyes hot and I put my face really close to the fire and absorbed all the colors and heat with my eyes, and then the chorus of the song went like...

Never mind what they're sellin'
It's what you're buyin'
(...and receivin' undefiled)

Never mind what they're sellin'
It's what you're buyin'
(...and receivin' undefiled) 

Never mind what they're sellin'
It's what you're buyin'
(...and receivin' undefiled)

That was a mantra, man. A mantra you listen to while you look at stuff burn, a mantra you say while wood burns away. That mantra is engraved in my skull just as the fire is engraved in my eyes.

That shit is true too! I don't care what anyone tries to sell me! I only worry about what I am buying. It's my action of buying something that's important...not the trickery, gimmicks, and tactics of the people trying to sell me shit! I don't care what tactics the ad agencies devise to try and get me to buy things because I am in control of what I buy, and that's that.

Everything is streamlined now too I think. Like if you buy something on Amazon, that purchase will go in some big ad agency database and next thing you know I'm seeing ads on my facebook or on google adsense for "similar purchases" to the thing I bought on Amazon. I don't care if Gordon and David know that I recently purchased The Dolemite Total Experience off of Amazon. I bought that because I wanted to, Dolemite movies are one of my many bibles and I wanted to have a hard copy of it. You're not going to get me to buy other DVDs you consider similar to that by throwing them in ads on the right hand side of every website I visit.

Anyways, I use the facebook because I don't think the downside outweighs the upside, but I am aware that it's a data farming tool for ad agencies. Your opinion might be different than mine, if you don't want Gordon and David or whoever reading your statuses, looking at your photos, and snooping through your private messages to figure out what ads to throw at you while you browse the internet then you should use another social media service (or if you're really smart and a real go getter...just invent and program a new better one).

Honestly, I think it's kind of sad, I really do. Ad agencies are shelling out billions of dollars to study you, and figure out the best way to trick you into buying some garbage. Me? I don't care if you know I like Dolemite and wear jeans in my photos...you're not gonna get me to buy NOTHING. I don't care what YOU ARE SELLIN'...because it is what I AM BUYIN'....and I buy my Dolemite movies UNDEFILED...you no business, rat-soup eating, dilapidated, born insecure, AD AGENCY MOTHA FUCKAHS!