Sharing Chocolate

Here’s a fun technique that offers the advantages of both kissing and chocolate. All you need are two people and a candy bar.

Merely break the candy bar into a convenient length, insert one end into each partner's mouth, and start sucking and tonguing the candy bar and each other. Before long you will create a delightful melange of tongues, lips, chocolate, and spit. It’s a very intimate experience that’s also wonderfully ridiculous. (It’s good to laugh while loving each other.)

And, it tastes great!

Any position works well – standing up, sitting in a car, or lying in bed. We find it convenient to lie in bed with a small waterproof pad under our heads to catch any dribbles.

Sharing chocolate provides opportunities for developing relationship skills.  What if one partner prefers dark chocolate while the other prefers milk chocolate?  Compromise is the very essence of a successful relationship.

A Hershey bar is perfect for chocolate sharing, since it dissolves completely. Other candy bars contain nougat, caramel, or nuts. With a Snickers bar, for example, all the ingredients ultimately dissolve except for the nuts. The nuts can be gently chewed (watching out for your partner’s tongue!) and passed back and forth until they are finally swallowed, along with a healthy dollop of your partner’s spit.

After experimenting with a number of different types of candy bars, we have concluded that Hershey bars work best. Candy bars with multiple ingredients are designed to be chewed and swallowed the regular way, not dissolved one layer at a time. It’s a matter of esthetics, actually. If you enjoy ending up with a mouthful of peanuts, then have at it!

We hurled ourselves into our candy bar regimen with great enthusiasm at first, but soon decided it was more sugar than we preferred to eat. So now we are limiting our chocolate sharing to maybe a couple of times a week. Since we both enjoy kissing and chocolate, we find sharing chocolate to be an excellent way to satisfy our oral needs.

Love Affair

I must confess to being totally sidetracked lately.  This is why I haven't posted anything for the past month.  Why be satisfied with mere words when so much magic awaits?  As my 1989 song said, "Just open up to who I am/And love is always close at hand."  This is a noble sentiment worth devoting one's life to. 

Since I'm a writer, it seems logical that I'll start writing again eventually.  Maybe tomorrow, for all I know.  Or maybe next year.  In the meantime, may your lives be a continual blessing, dear readers.

Thank God for Democrats!

Yes, thank God for Democrats.  Because as pitiful as they might be, at least they're not batshit insane and promoting an evil agenda.

(I'm talking here about our New Mexico Dems on the state and local level.  Get them inside the Beltway and all bets are off.)

It looks like every state with a Republican governor and a Republican legislature has gone even more bonkers than usual this year.  It's like they're wearing t-shirts that say, "FUCK YOU, I'VE ALREADY GOT MINE."  It's ugly, living in a Republican-controlled state, like Wisconsin or Ohio or Michigan or Arizona or Idaho -- the list is long, unfortunately.  In those states, the rich are pampered and everybody else gets screwed.  But the red state rabble are so well indoctrinated that they eagerly vote to be screwed every time.  (You've got to hand it to the right-wing propaganda machine.  They really know their stuff.)

Even though we now have a teabagger governor -- Susana Martinez, endorsed by Sarah Palin -- both houses of the NM legislature are still controlled by Dems.  The Dems in this state have traditionally been corrupt, but in a petty, relatively harmless way.  Other states are contending with draconian anti-labor legislation, but in New Mexico, our biggest controversy was about giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.  And the legislature passed a budget that avoids the harsh slash-and-burn budget cuts of other states.  I've become a Dem fan of sorts, because they're the only alternative to fascism we now have.

Since the 2000 election, there has been an ongoing controversy, in the progressive world, between the idealists and the pragmatists.  The idealists say, "It's my vote, and I'll vote for whoever best represents my philosophy."  Pragmatists say, "The Dems may suck, but they're the only electable alternative to fascism."  To which the idealists say, "blah blah," to which the pragmatists say, "blah blah blah," and so on ad infinitum.  There's no resolution to this argument because at the end of the day it's your vote, and you can spend it any way you like, including not voting.  (There's also a lot to be said for curling up in the fetal position and sucking your thumb.)

I'm a pragmatist, of course.  My strategy is always to use my pitiful little vote to minimize the damage our flawed, archaic, winner-take-all political system can cause.  Which in practical terms means preventing Republicans from getting elected.  Which means voting for Dems, awful as some of them may be.  In a perfect world, there would be enough Progressives to elect decent candidates, and this may be possible in liberal bastions like San Francisco or Santa Fe.  But for those of us living in the more redneck areas, we're lucky to get any representation at all.

So yeah.  Weasel Obama sucks.  I dislike him on a visceral level.  But I'll be voting for him in 2012, simply because the Republican will be far worse.  But this time I'll be spending my contributions on local candidates.  Obama's got plenty of corporate sponsors, and doesn't need the likes of me.

IQ Test #2

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a 3.3 billion dollar waterfront makeover plan for his city.  The plan involves "building new parks and esplanades, creation of new ferry service, and revitalization of waterfront industries."

I hope they remember to include scuba gear.

IQ Test

Will the Japanese rebuild in the tsunami zone?

Why Susana Martinez is Governor of New Mexico

What I'm about to say is politically incorrect, but that's why I'm here.

I've lived in New Mexico for the better part of 50 years, and have gotten used to the idiosyncrasies of the Hispanic inhabitants of this state.  Like Anglos, some Hispanics are very racist, some aren't racist at all, and some are racist only part of the time.  The privacy of the voting booth is where a lot of secret racist behavior comes into play -- a lot of Hispanics will vote for one of their own if given the chance.  (Just like a lot of Anglos will vote for the teabagger even if they won't admit it.)

Choosing a candidate with a Spanish surname was a brilliant stroke for the Republicans.  Many Hispanics, who would normally have voted Dem, voted for Martinez because of her last name.  This was definitely a contributing factor -- if not the deciding factor -- in Denish's loss.  (Of course, Denish was saddled with the unpopular Bill Richardson, which made it virtually impossible for her to win in the first place.)

There has always been a minority of progressive Dems in the legislature, but for the most part the Democratic Party leadership in this state has always been corrupt, lacking in vision, and lacking the ability to generate enthusiasm amongst the faithful.  They've counted on their overwhelming registration advantage in the all-imporant northern part of the state to propel them to victory.

But as lame as the Dems in this state are, at least they're not batshit crazy in an evil way.  The Republicans would love to impose their harsh, Old Testament worldview on the rest of us, and in many states they're succeeding very well.  The only reason teabagger Governor Martinez (endorsed by Sarah Palin) has been relatively laid-back is because the Dems still have a slim lead in the legislature.  The Republicans hope to change all this in 2012, of course.  It will be interesting to see if New Mexico follows Wisconsin, Arizona, Idaho, etc. back into the 15th century or if, somehow, the Dems manage to eke out some kind of victory so that we remain in the 19th.

Fuck It All

I've been thinking about honest slogans for the Republicans.  ("Honest" and "Republican" don't really go together, but still...)

Republican politicians could wear different t-shirts depending on what bills were up for consideration that day.  Thus, whenever it's time to vote against the environment, they could wear FUCK THE EARTH t-shirts.  When it's time to vote against working people, they could wear FUCK YOU t-shirts. 

But for everyday wear, they could summarize their nihilism into just three words and wear their favorite slogan of all:  FUCK IT ALL.

Because for them, reality has no value.  Only money has value.  And they want it all.  So I guess the t-shirt would have to say:

FUCK IT ALL

(except money).

This Joke Says It All

A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across, takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea Partier, and says, "Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."

Solidarity

I've been meaning to get my thoughts in order and pen a few words in support of the ongoing Wisconsin revolution.  These aren't really those words, but I thought I'd write them anyway. 

We have finally reached our do-or-die moment.  After decades of disappointment I had given up on the self-satisfied progressive/liberal demographic.  These people are intelligent enough to have created a reasonable amount of fulfillment and happiness for themselves, and this was evidently enough for them.  The planet is dying?  So what?  At least I'm happy!  Want to hear about my latest trip to Europe?  And so forth.  This became very tedious for me about 30 years ago. 

At any rate, I've been pleasantly surprised by the bulldog tenacity of the Wisconsin protesters and their colleagues across the nation.  There was even a small group at Farmer's Market on Saturday, sitting on benches, holding a "Solidarity with Wisconsin" banner.  If anything whatsoever happens in Las Cruces, you can be sure that something big is afoot somewhere.

We certainly know who our friends aren't, starting with Weasel Obama, who is proactively capitulating to the Republicans yet again.  He is an embarrassment to himself and the nation, yet he's got us over the barrel, since the alternative would be far worse.  And of course there's the corporate media, especially national TV, who do everything in their power to trivialize and minimize what's really happening.  It always amazes me how we allowed ourselves to achieve our present pitiful condition, but hey!  Were the 90s great, or what?

Maybe I'll write those words of solidarity eventually.  But more likely, I'll write one of my 75-word letters to the editor that will at least be read by far more people than I could reach otherwise.   

Tax the Rich!

Books and articles and policy prescriptions all have their place, but finally, at long last, we have ourselves a slogan that works:  TAX THE RICH.  It's even more succinct than the Republican "Less government, lower taxes."

Cut Social Security?  No!  TAX THE RICH!

Cut education?  No!  TAX THE RICH!

Cut medical care?  No!  TAX THE RICH!

In our dumbed-down, sound bite era, a good slogan is a vital political tool.  People glaze over if you string more than 6 words together, so TAX THE RICH is just about right, and can be used in almost any situation.

Gosh, I think I'll go online and buy me a TAX THE RICH bumpersticker!

Thought for Today

"That's the great thing about science:  it's true whether you believe it or not."

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

Preparing for Collapse

The civilizational life cycle is a law of nature. The collapse is therefore predictable. It has nothing to do with our specific Euro-American now-gone-global deplorable civilization -- it has to do with any civilization that gets to a certain size. Cultures will vary, but the final outcome will be the same: collapse.

And that's where we are now.

We can write to politicians, we can riot in the streets, we can write learned tomes, we can cavort through the vast wasteland of talk radio, we can make impassioned documentaries, we can bring down Monsanto, we can put up solar panels and drink organic yak's milk. None of that will change the outcome one bit (as tragic as that may be now that humans have become a global force) -- because civilization is on a course prescribed by laws of nature which have no regard whatsoever for human wishful thinking.

It sounds grim, but what can we actually do? Well, once we recognize the reality -- but not until then -- we can act on it. As far as I can tell, acting on it means getting ready to live our lives within planetary means. It may be too late for that, as the climate prepares to rage wildly beyond livability, but let us try what we can.

Preparing ourselves is not a salve for the terrible pain of our current predicament, but it's about as good as it gets -- and is full of relationship and a renewed sense of community, so that we may, at the very least, as Elizabeth Kübler-Ross once put it, live until we say goodbye.

-- Adam D. Sacks