Thursday, June 4, 2015

Do You Hate Piñatas too?



You are blindfolded.

You swipe and hit nothing.

You figure out where the Piñata is, and give a mighty swing. The trouble is the game is rigged. Just when you swing, some sadistic person pulls the rope holding the Piñata. It jerks up out of your reach, and you hit air—again.

Finally some smart or macho or small child they feel sorry for is allowed to hit the Piñata.
It breaks—they are so tough they take quite a beating--there is a mad scramble for the candy. The aggressive kids grab the most, the timid ones get a measly amount. Sharks and guppies--again.

Wow. Isn’t this fun?

Is this to teach kids about life?

And what might those lessons be?

When my kids were young, and being in San Diego where Piñatas were abundant, we would often get one for a birthday. Usually I chose a cute animal, and my first born child wouldn’t let us break it. Instead, we performed a cesarean section. We would open a small hole in the belly, the candy would pour forth, the kids got the candy, and Viola' the Piñata lived to see another day.

It lived out its life as a bedroom decoration.

Well, see, there is a solution.

We can make our own rules.

Isn’t it about time?!


P.S. Okay okay, I love Piñatas, I just don't like hitting/breaking them. Look at that cute donkey face.

Monday, June 1, 2015

This is for The People Who Haven’t Given Up


This is for the people who still believe that the Universe conspires to do them good.

You are the ones who know we have problems, but as John Kennedy said, "Man's problems were created by man, and can therefore be solved by man." Did I quote him correctly? You get the gist.

You are the people who are not numbed by naysayers, by the doomsday ones, the media, television, periodicals, books on horrors. We have heard so many horrors they doesn’t shock us anymore. We can have endless hours of brain-numbing television. Do you watch some of those commercials? Cars that turn color, fly, suggest that they will improve your sex life, and your family life, yet, cars these days are boring, with few exceptions they all look alike. Talk about sizzle and no steak.

Oh yes and movie previews are so gross I forget what movie I came to see. “Can you amp it up a bit I ask sarcastically after I have endured ear-splitting sound, computer generated monsters, mechanical gear, space ships so complex you know that the special effects people are trying to out-do each other, and shootings, poundings. Amp it up. Be bigger, bolder, more shocking.

We can spend hours on video games that keep us addicted to movement and challenges that are not solving the situations outside our doors. A great amount of brain power here, but people feel stymied—they try to find jobs, they try to be entrepreneurs, they try to sell, to market, to create the life they want, and after awhile give up in frustration.

Are we supporting our arts? Are we supporting the scientists that are giving us a better day? Have you heard that with 3-D printing they can take a 3-D printer to third-world countries, and fabricate an artificial limb especially suited for that individual? Whoa. Let’s not sit around with our fingers up our noses.

We hear of space aliens, solar flares, vampires, chem-trails, and any number of conspiracies—don’t get me wrong I believe some of the conspiracies, we just can’t let them demoralize us into zombies, needing constant influx of food, drink, sodas, medications, anything to sooth the savage beast that threatens to take us over. You have heard the old joke, “Died at 35, buried at 85.” Don’t do that.

And stop dinking with our food! Turn your genetic engineering brilliance someplace else—like curing cancer. You are making us fat.

Okay, okay, I know I am preaching to the choir—no, I’m venting, and yes, I am motivated by the movie Tomorrowland. See it and decide that you are the ones that have not given up.


“Homo sapiens,” said Dr Who in The Ark in Space, “what an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to out sit eternity. They’re indomitable.”