Blog the ZenDogBlog

Yeah-ya, I was. Can you imagine? I’m not a resident of Burlington, but I was in town having coffee, enjoying the sunshine, you know, and it was a bit chilly out, not much was happening and that gave me time to consider carefully a movement underway in the State Legislature. It seems the former president of Middlebury College wants to change the drinking age in the state from 21 to 18. I don’t like that idea. I think it’s a bad idea. In fact, I think it’s such a bad idea that I’d really like to punch John McCardell in the nose just to watch it bleed. It seems he is not only former president of Middlebury College, he is also founder of a group called Choose Responsibility.

Sounds repelican doesn’t it.

Too bad they can’t adhere to their own goddamned advice.

Why would such an issue bring me to the Burlington Mayor’s office? The explanation is really quite simple. Burlington as a community will be the first affected by such a change in policy. There is a certain, what they call “Town / Gown” friction that exists between the residents of Burlington and the high concentration of college students in the area; students of such prestigious institutions as UVM and St. Mikes, along with several other lesser known monoliths of ivory. Much of that tension has a direct relationship with alcohol consumption. Both the City of Burlington and the University of Vermont have a vested interest in the maintenance of a certain level of tranquility between these two subgroups of the area demographic, and it seems that should make them natural allies in an effort to defeat this utter nonsense parading behind a label of responsible choice. In addition, all three representatives of the state at the federal level have both offices, and I presume some close connections, to Burlington. Our junior Senator, Bernie Sanders, began his political career in that very same Mayor’s office, and I am quite certain he is intimate with the issue of friction generated in the Burlington community by late night college binges.

So I thought I would stop by and see what the current Mayor had to say.

He wasn’t in. In fact, the office was nearly empty. Not quite, and that means that I did get to speak with an assistant to the Mayor of some kind, a gentleman whose name I have now forgotten. We did introduce ourselves, and had a pleasant chat for a few minutes. It seems he hadn’t heard of this issue, though it was announced on the evening news Thursday and in the Burlington Free Press on Friday morning that John McCardell had appeared before the State Legislature to discuss the topic.

The conversation was brief, pleasant, and he thanked me for bringing this to his attention when someone else walked in and stood some distance behind me. Perhaps I’m a bit oversensitive but it seemed to me that shortly after that he became a bit nervous, and anxious to have me out of the office, perhaps even out of the building. Seems a shame really, after all, until that point we had been having such a pleasant chat - and so naturally my imagination conjures images of the man behind me, using non-verbal communication skills, to indicate to the gentleman with whom I was conversing that I’m a whack job, coo-koo, lun-a-tic, and quite possibly armed and dangerous . . .

Well why not. After all, I am a whack job, and one need search no further for proof of that fact than this mass of verbiage before you today.

Ah well. So much for my venture to the Mayor’s Office.

One may be tempted to inquire just why it is that I find this issue so inflames my sensitivities. I would be tempted to ask the same of that nitwit McCardell. The evening news did indicate that he was a passionate advocate before the legislative body. “Are we a nation of outlaws?” he did implore his audience. This hardly seems an adequate defense of his view that we should lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. He seems to suggest that by reducing the drinking age we will eliminate altogether any form of illegal experimentation with the fruit of Bacchus. Bacchus it should be recalled is that ancient figurehead of wine, and of drama, and of orgiastic, irrational fertility.

Never mind that five of my friends were involved in a horrific accident in a VW on the eve of high school graduation many, many years ago. Never mind, for they all, by some miracle or twist of fate, did survive. It is not this that tempts me to fits of rage over this issue. Not at all. Rather, it is the utter certainty that a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18 will increase the availability of alcohol to the entire high school population, and not just at graduation. This cannot be without consequence.

Changing the law will not eliminate the problem, it will simply change the demographic.

Obviously, as a former head of such a prestigious university as Middlebury College, McCardell is not a complete moron, on the contrary. In fact we must presume, that after having received a salary of six figures in that occupation, the man is not only not a moron, but rather that he is a man of substance; a man of property and possessing a stock portfolio of some note. While I am most anxious to review what that portfolio might contain and whether or not any of his interests are financially entwined with the outcome of this legislation, it must be seen that any inquiry along these lines can hardly explain his apparent passion on the issue.

After all, if financial considerations alone were sufficient to arouse his emotions then surely he would not have entered the field of education at all, but rather would have become ensconced on Wall Street, where he would have no doubt learned to keep his passions to himself.

Perhaps the man’s passions lie more along the lines of drunken co-ed freshmen, but who can say? In any case, the man was astute enough to found a non-profit dedicated to the issue, and has now presented his case before the legislature at a time when tax revenue has fallen sharply, creating difficult budgetary decisions; and so while the man may be a nitwit, we cannot comfort ourselves with the thought that he is simply a dimwit. And someone, McCardell or someone else, has presented a couple of other related legislative issues before that August body. One is a measure seeking a federal exemption to states who lower the drinking age; current law allows the withholding of ten percent of the federal highway funds, and thus an exemption would permit the state to retain something like $27 million in federal funds for highway projects. The other is the consideration of a new penalty for DUI, and that is the installation in the offender’s vehicle of a breathalyzer tied into the ignition. Failure to pass the breath test results in a vehicle that won’t start.

Not a bad idea that, but it does leave me with a question, and that is: How difficult is it for the average drunk to bypass the system with a pair of wire cutters and some electrical tape? Or better still, get his eight year old to take the test for him? I digress . . .

Friday’s paper also notes that the governor’s plan for State spending on higher education is set to increase by $5.5 million, or roughly %5.8. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that investing in education is a wise choice; and yet in this case it seems to smell of pay off. It seems that neither UVM nor its president Dan Fogel are in position to advocate in their own interest on this matter, given an increase in state funding. An increase at a time when every other single area of government spending is in decline - if not simply cut altogether.

And now it seems I don’t want to punch McCardell in the nose at all. Rather I want to cut off his head with an ax, mount it on a post, and use it for target practice - with a shotgun - and then post the video on YouTube; in protest of what now appears to be a done deal.

But how? How can this be? How can a man, one who is well educated and who has dedicated his life to the cause of education; one who, it must be presumed, has had ample opportunity to witness the differences in maturity levels between 17, 19, and 21 year olds; how can such a man justify the sacrifice of a random selection of the high school aged population on the state’s highways - in the interest of increased tax revenue?

For let there be no doubt, that is what this is - human sacrifice. The statistics, I believe, make that quite clear.

Perhaps it is not the illegal consumption of alcohol behind a locked dorm room door that so concerns this former university president, but rather the inherent danger of international travel in an era of terror by co-eds during spring break seeking the pleasures of Bacchus wherever it may be lawful to do so. If by some strange chance this should prove to be the case, then let me recommend another course of advocacy. Let me suggest an examination of the growth and spread of social unrest in the face of bad government policy . . .

and public corruption.

© D. Winter
January 23, 2010

I sent the following to Vermont governor Jim Douglas this evening, in response to comments he made at the funeral of Brooke Bennett. Brooke was a 12 year old girl who disappeared about two weeks ago. Her body was found in a shallow grave not far from her uncle’s home, and her uncle stands charged with her abduction. 

Dear Sir,

I am writing in regard to comments you made today at the funeral of Brooke Bennett, which aired on WPTZ, where you said something to the effect that you want to be able to look in the eyes of the victims of cases such as this, with the knowledge and reassurance that we are and have done all that we can to eliminate this kind of conduct from our society.

You should know at the outset that the author of this note is a life long resident of the State of Vermont, one who is not affiliated with either political party and who rarely votes republican. I became a supporter of the Honorable Jim Jeffords in the 1990’s, and though I did not agree with every policy position he took during his career my support never wavered. His change in political affiliation in 2002 was an act of such great courage and integrity that it brought tremendous legitimacy to our political process. Likewise the manner of treatment he received from Vermont republicans on that momentous occasion was appalling, it was a blot upon the name and reputation of every Vermonter who upholds the republican cause.

You might also choose to consider that I will not be voting for Mr. Polina in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Rest assured, I will be voting.

And so to your statement and the purpose of this note, that you want ‘to be able to look in the eyes of the victims of cases such as this, with the knowledge and reassurance that we are and have done all that we can to eliminate this kind of conduct from our society,’ or words to that effect. Such a statement gives me pause, sir. It gives me pause because it did indeed seem sincere. Such a sincerity is of course only reasonable. Any individual possessed of a modicum of compassion must feel tremendous grief when confronted with such senseless loss, to say nothing of the cause and manner in which innocence has, in this instance, been so coldly trampled. And so I must proceed with this underlying premise as a given, that the desire to so act is indeed sincere.

But can this sincere desire translate into concrete action?

Some might suggest, as I have myself in the past, that the problem is simply one of sentencing. The act of abduction and rape speaks of such a callus indifference toward the suffering of others, and suggests such a lack of compassion and empathy for the human condition that it is difficult to envision how someone might conclude any kind of treatment could ever possibly be effective. No sir, I do not believe treatment for such individuals is ever likely to succeed. I believe such a suggestion is a fallacy, a red herring, clothed in the vestments of ‘tolerance’ and ‘understanding’ which shroud a convoluted path of reason and justification for the methodology of behavioral conditioning.

Let us have sentencing. Let us have sentencing that is appropriate. I would indeed suggest hanging, but I note the Supreme Court recently issued a decision on that matter which would seem to forestall the possibility.

If such an approach seems in your view too simplistic; if to revamp our sentencing procedures to ensure that such individuals never return to society where they may prey at will seems too medieval for this enlightened age, then let me suggest a further course of action which may help illuminate how we came to be where we are, which may in its turn suggest a way forward.

I do not believe it is sufficient to examine our ‘treatment methodology’ without also examining the entire breadth of research into human sexuality that has taken place within the last twenty or more years. Such an examination must include not only what has been learned, but how has this knowledge been gained, and to what applications has this knowledge been put.

These questions arise due to an event that I witnessed on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, in 1997.

Three college aged women were walking toward me. I distinctly heard one of them say a single phrase, three times. Each time she said it, her pronunciation changed slightly.

“Sex experiment.”

“Shex-speriment.”

“Shakespeare-ament.”

In the days that followed I seemed to be surrounded by cameras, various ‘flags’ colored red, vague and anonymous verbal suggestions, visual stimuli sexual in nature. I also noted certain areas surrounding Church Street seemed to be papered with billboards urging women to ‘take back the night’ as if these areas were ‘hot spots’ where rape was becoming a common occurrence. Clark Street for example, which as it happens was only one block away from the location where a young woman from Barre, Vermont had her life changed completely and forever as a result of brain injury sustained in the course of a brutal sexual assault.

In the weeks and months that followed I witnessed many things, and I heard many more. But what I heard most clearly was the deafening silence surrounding behavioral conditioning and human engineering.

Were I an individual of some other character, then I would suggest the possibility of behavioral control through human engineering, and such a program would necessitate a deep understanding of human sexuality and sexual expression. Such an understanding would be fundamental to this kind of program, and for very good reason. Such a program would be anathema to a society ”dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Therefore the program itself must in so far as possible, render itself completely deniable. It is always thus in the most elegant of seductions.

I am not of some other character and so I will not make such a suggestion. Nor is there any need. I am neither a genius nor a visionary, and what I will not suggest has already been done. Those who have embarked on this course are a thing more vile, more reprehensible, more reprobate, than the sexual predator himself.

I do not suggest that Brooke Bennett was victimized by such a program, for I do not know. I only know that with any complex piece of machinery, timing is everything. I also know the Supreme Court issued a ruling very shortly before she disappeared. Sexual predators will not hang on the branch of Justice.

Perhaps these eminent scholars of law prefer the fruit of lynching.

Sincerely,

D. Winter

http://www.zendogblog.net

It seems ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson will be appearing on NBC’s Today Show on Thursday, May 15, 2008. NBC wants to know if we, being the audience, have any questions for the executive in the ten gallon hat.

Well.

If I were to send a note to the CEO of ExxonMobil it would read something like this:

Hi Rex.

I was wondering a couple of things -

– Has ExxonMobil ever paid the court mandated fines and restitution for the Exxon Valdez spill up in Alaska? and if not, do you think, given that we are at or somewhere past peak oil production, do you think there will ever be a better time than now, to pay up?

– Given a) American energy dependence, b) recognition of global warming as a phenomena likely to produce the extinction of species by the Bush/Cheney administration - do you see any hope that your industry can lead the way in changing where American energy comes from and how it is produced? Or do you, do executives such as yourself, envision a world where fossil fuel dependence is maintained until every last drop of crude, and every last nugget of coal, has been extracted, processed, and sold? If the latter, how do you imagine that will impact our national security?

Lastly, Rex, do you have any kids?

That’s right! I’ve been SPAMMED! Does that mean my blog the dog blog has hit the big time?

It does seem a bit unfortunate, but for the time being I think it best if folks are required to register and login to leave a comment, perhaps in time the spammers will shrivel up and blow away . . . 

I’ve created an optical illusion using nested div tags formatted with css - it’s an interesting novelty I hope you will enjoy. The original I posted yesterday had a little bit of a browser compatability issue related to the css behind it, and that issue has been solved. I hope you’ll stop by,

Every Corner

have a look, and drop me a note here to let me know what you think of my latest nonsense. You don’t have to sign in to leave a note, you are free to leave as much or as little personal information as you like. Just skip the form boxes if that happens to suite you best - as you like.

I Will Bear Witness

A modern day cartographer has come
to delve so deep within the human mind
his delving cracks below the cranium.
I never thought of man as so unkind.

To render from within and break apart
that slender thread of reason all must grasp;
with malice and aforethought from the start
has come a mockery of language, laws and facts.

Proclaim: psycho-social sabotage
is but a crime unto our human sense
that only BFSkinner would applaud.
Of this I do aver: it makes no sense.

I watched them on the street incite disaster -
minions of the modern slaver’s master:
 he raised his hand up high, salute
 to shade his brow; this signal passed, he turned
 on heel in sharp precision as she passed
 and so she turned, and came as if in chance
 upon two ’subjects’ sitting on a bench.

 These ’subjects’ occupied the lowest rung
 of social stratus and they coupled young
 to birth the child now clasped within his arms.
 Her approach upon this seated pair, unarmed,
 unwarned of her advancing stimulus,
 nipples thinly veiled and breasts so pendulous
 as to incite a riot in the heart
 and loins of saints once chaste, even in the dark.

 She leaned over just to coo and cluck
 the infant bundle swaddled in his arms,
 exposing cleavage deeply cleft, and lust
 that did uncoil to this young couple’s harm.
 
 She left these ’subjects’ seated there to chew
 upon this thing so wickedly inspired -
 beneath a noon time heat in envy stewed;
 this young mother’s jealous rage did flare.

Not privy to this sum in caution rent,
I had but one small glimpse of stimulus
- subtle as to craft, nature, and intent -
instilled with an immediate effect.

Because of this: a mad magician’s art,
To your attention must I now direct:
The human engineer assails the bastion
with ruler, compass, weighted line and chart,
whereon he makes and will destroy his mark -
our humble anchorage, the sound of reason.

© D. Winter
November 2, 2007

A Barking Dog

two people with a dog
a dog’s toy
and a stick

“jump, boy, jump”
the dog jumps
the other kicks it

they switch
jump, boy, jump
the dog jumps

the other kicks it
this goes on
and on

the dog of course
gets confused
and howls

the dog growls
and jumps
and howls

the dog howls at nite
does he wake the neighbors?
do they know?

the cruelty of fools
they get a mate
they get their cameras

and the comic strip
in the paper
alien breeding farms

cameras at the ready
anticipation steady
but the dog won’t mate

instead he howls
and growls
and tries to wake the neighbors

this cannot continue
someone
anyone

should call the U.N.
before the next s election

© D. Winter

November 26, 2007

One small voice of American dissent - zendogblog - launched into the void of cyberspace in late March, 2008. “Just a little bit of poetry, and a little bit of art, with themes of psychobable voilins are found inside . . .” Bring your coffee, relax for a bit, while I engage your conscience. “The human engineer assails the bastion, with ruler, weighted line and chart, . . .”

All the world’s an oyster,
all the world’s a pearl.
You may be:

an oyster
or a pearl
or a grain of sand.

Credibility -

is only a matter
of perception.

Truth -

speaks for itself.