Love

Let's talk about love.

So much writing is about proving a point. Or getting things across. Or setting shit straight.

So rarely do we write about love.

And when we do, it's usually the flurry-romantic kind or the up-in-the-air God kind.

How about this one? How about, love is just the thing that is when you are still?

It wants you.

Dim Sum in my Couchette Please

This is pretty much the only way I would go to China. I'm looking forward to it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/05/10/china_mulls_construction_of_a_high_speed_train_to_the_u_s.html

Pull a Geography, You'll Feel Better

If you are a homophobe in the NFL, do yourself a favor, and leave.

If you are a woman in India, do yourself a favor, leave. I’m not kidding.

If you are afraid of the new home and vehicle sharing/renewable energy economy, get a time machine and leave.

If you are against the right for a woman to control her own body, leave immediately.

If you are racist, why don’t you leave?

If you are an anti-Semite, let me introduce you to my best friends on earth, and then, please leave.

If you hate free education for all and Obamacare (which is going to become a single payer system one day, let’s face it), please leave.

If you want cheap cotton t-shirts and chemical filled hamburgers at ridiculously low prices at the expense of legal slavery and a destroyed planet, please go to Venus. Leave now.

If your opinion is to make the government small enough to drown it in the bathtub, please take a shower, and then leave.

If all you believe in is competition and shake at night in fear that someone is going to break into your house and steal your golden goose, take your bird and leave.

Just leave. You hate it all so much? You think gay marriage is causing planetary collapse? You can’t stand the thought of paying for an old black lady’s mammogram? You think women are property? You want what you want and you want it now and you don’t want that freedom fucked with? Go find a place where you can go be that.

If you hate change because it might lead to a lesser material advantage for you, leave immediately.

Go. Leave. Leave us alone. You miserable lunatics.

Yes…that is how I really feel.

And, you are welcome for my share.

Happy To Shift the Talk

So, let's say the climate change we are experiencing is NOT being caused by human beings. Sure. Let's make that leap. "And keep the economy going." (As if you can only keep an economy going one way. Good Lord.)

Anyway--let's just say we are not causing it.

But let's look at the math and count the CO2 molecules. So, if the CO2 molecules in our atmosphere have measurably increased by almost 100%, then, wouldn't you just want to maybe even try an experiment that would reduce this just to see if things can change?

And while doing that, maybe try to have a new economy based on all sorts of new fun things?

So, for the other side:

1) Human Beings aren't causing climate change. Fine.
2) CO2 levels have greatly increased. (It doesn't matter how this happened. It just did.)
3) We all know the more CO2 crammed into a jar, or like in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, the hotter things get. No one can argue this measurable point.
4) So, why not try to reduce this mysterious ever-increasing CO2 level (Wherever the hell it came from?)

I appeal to your logic. I give into your understanding that we didn't cause it. No, we didn't. But we can do something about this pesky CO2 that we need a lot less of...

Come with me. Enjoy the challenge of a fun-as-hell new economy!

No Better Way

There was no better way to close out Mother's Day than to watch the finale of Bates Motel.

No spoiler alerts necessary since there will be no talk of plot.

I do not much talk about television shows.



Mother and Son, forever.

Decorator Admission

I just needed it to be really cold and really spare.

SoHo What Happened?

I can't really afford a lot of the stuff they are hawking on those half-mean streets of Soho. I mean, I can...but as I always tell my husband when looking at a price tag of something I want that is in the thousands, "I'd rather go to Greece."

I bought new glasses down there on Greene/Spring. And so, I go once a week, at least the first two weeks now, to get them adjusted. They are progressives. I don't really need them, but I sort of do if I want to keep the things on if I look down at a magazine or book to read. They are good out in the world. These secret granny glasses.

I remember being young in Soho. When it was cheap and about art. I had this short lived fling with an NBC exec/worker bee who slaved at SNL. It was all about him doing lots of coke and sweating all over me in bed in his lofty loft. I did not exactly understand what he did for SNL. I think it was a highly stressful coordinator position. He did do some serious star handling. He was probably the talent coordinator. He was a mess. I knew it was going to be short lived. This guy was a bit older than me, ten years?,  had trouble dating or being liked because of his excessive coke use and his profuse sweating, and was, overall, a bit grimy and repellent, but also tall. He was pretty disgusting, but at that age, I figured, if I have to fuck a little someone who is not so appealing but could get me into a good party or meeting, well sure. That's what young people do. It has worked out well for many a youth.

He took me to a taping one Saturday night that Matthew Broderick hosted. After the show, at a table in one of the restaurant things that are all connected around the ice rink, my overly energetic coke-date introduced me to Matthew. It was hard to talk because of the noise level and I was shy and at the opposite side of the round table and all I could get myself to really say to him, via my date--who passed it along amid the hubbub since he was sitting closer to him--was that I was kind of jealous him. And Matthew told my date to say back to me, "Well, you're younger than me. You can catch up."

There really was no need.

That was very generous of M.B. And whenever I go to Soho, I think of that sweaty coke fiend and his loft and NBC and what I thought it all meant. And whenever I walk by "The Rock", I think of how Matthew Broderick talked to me, by coke-fiend proxy, and was very kind.

I was thin and wore contact lenses then.

Now, I continue to go to Soho to get these glasses adjusted, these dang seamless trifocals.  I look at the big ugly Adidas store on Wooster and I wonder if the end is near. Nah, it's here. The end is here. Clearly, nothing new is going to happen on Wooster or Greene. Maybe more high-end furniture and eye-wear boits... Maybe even those could completely fall apart. Feels like the vendors are not that easy going. Can you imagine the rents?

Nasty town. Nasty, overpriced, uninteresting situation.

But when the ocean rolls in and takes over up to about 29th Street, well, we won't have to worry about any of it any longer.

Before then, I might end up buying some chairs. If I do, it just means I'll have to wait a little longer before I ever get my first glimpse of Mykonos.

Video Juke Box Night

My faves, for such different reasons, for a long time:

Well OK Honey -- Jenny O.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6VRVCsRDtE

Easy Easy -- King Krule

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRzlbh4or3c&feature=kp

Get Me Bodied (Timbaland Remix) -- Beyonce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNCC7tIcChY

Somebody That I Used to Know -- Pentatonix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKuAigsrec

Bridges and Suspense

It's closing: The Bridges of Madison County, the musical, that is.

So we went and caught it before it all went away.

The music is lovely. Some of the music is so beautiful, a grown straight man from New Jersey with a strong accent was crying next to me. Pretty sweet.

So, I suggest you listen to the Broadway cast album somewhere.

But this is the bad news: This play had very little suspense. And by suspense I mean the normal human tendency to focus on a story that is set up so that you just have to ask, "What is going to happen??"

It doesn't have to be a big thing. In fact, it can be super tiny. Like a kid wanting a bicycle. Will he or won't he get it on Christmas morning? We can all sit there and watch the whole story as we wait to find out.

Even in Waiting for Godot, a play with a plot that has been referred to as, "Where nothing happens. Twice."  (The twice refers to its having two acts. And they are similar.) Even in that play, there is suspense. What will these guys do next? As they wait and wait? How BAD WILL IT GET???

Great stories we all know:

WILL Dorothy get back home from Oz?

WILL the patient get better?

WILL the criminal be caught?

WILL the young lovers make it to the altar of marriage without too many people messing it up?

WILL she get a horse ribbon?

WILL Gregor Samsa remain a cockroach?


In The Bridges of Madison County, the question is, "WILL she run off with the hippie photographer?"
But you don't think, for even a second, she will. So, you don't ask the question. All you are left with is the beautiful music and a meditation on life: desire, connected-ness, family, obligation.

I like meditative things. But let's face it, whenever you meditate, there's a great chance of falling asleep.

So, my note to all writers:  If you are writing a play or a movie or almost anything else, try to make sure that you keep people wondering, WILL (s)he _______________ ?  At least that will give you a motor so then you can apply your amazing voice, skills, ideas, characters, actions, conflicts, humor sequences and musical numbers with confidence and abandon. The WILL (s)he question will hold it all together.

This is rudimentary. But it bears repeating.

My two cents on a Tuesday.

Enjoy it. Toss it. Live it. Have a sandwich.

Three Apps We'd Like to See

The first App we’d like to see is an obvious one. It’s called the “Warmer Warmer” App and it probably already exists or is in development so let’s see it on my big uncool Galaxy soon. Anytime you park your car (and stick a tracking label on it) or your kid (yeah, use another of the same ones from your tracking label pad) or punch in the needed address or have someone beam you where they are, you pick that for your app to follow and then it plays the game “Warmer Colder” with you.  Obviously more jubilant and frequent in its cheering “Warmer! Warmer!” as you get closer to your destination. And as soon as you veer from the path, “Colder” warns you coldly that you are not doing well. This way, no more maps or annoyances. Just warmer or colder.

I was walking West across the bottom floor of the South Wing of our romantic Port Authority bus station this evening, when an older man about fifteen feet in front of me heading straight toward me started to bob and weave. He did truly go into zombie movement. His feet gave out sideways as if a large hand had swept under him while a soft hand pulled his knees in together, folding them on top of each other. He fell, hit the ground hard, and began to bleed from his forehead (or ear?). Some money and coins fell out of his pockets. He had no control over any of his movement. I went to him.  First responder that I am. Others came over. I went looking for a cop while someone tried to call 911. I found no police out on the sidewalk. I came back in. The info booth had been informed. They called in a cop. The wait: probably only three minutes. He would survive.

But what we need?

An app that catches this guy’s seizure and injects, immediately, something into his system to counteract the seizure or at least blows up a lot of air bags in his clothing.

Right?

No one needs to fall that hard.

Side Note (or the main event): People were quickly concerned and helpful. It was sweet. The vulnerability of it all, watching someone’s body give out because of a brain situation and then slam the rock hard tile…well, the empathy was huge. One woman, with a strong foreign accent, was the one trying to get 911. They were asking her too many questions on the line and she didn’t really understand how to explain where she was. I said, “The South Street,” by mistake, instead of “The South Wing,” and she yelled, “South Street, South Street.”  Lawsy. But she was already fully doomed. My mistake sealed the deal. And here came the cops.

The 911 caller’s frustration, that they did not understand her, scared her. The police were calm and called an ambulance. The older fallen man said he was fine and wanted to go home. But the cops said, “You can refuse the ambulance once it comes. But we have to keep you here until it comes.”  The guy did need an ambulance. The blood was not spouting from his head. More like a small steady bleed.

The cops wanted us all to get away. Makes sense. So we left.

At the end, as I walked to the subway stair, a long haired man, young, about six and a half feet tall, sidled up to me and asked, “Did he have a seizure?”
I said, “Yeah. He was walking right toward me and started to seize and his feet went out and he went down hard.”

And he said, “Yeah. Yeah. I thought—”

And we both felt glad he was taken care of.

I preferred this guy’s calmness to any of the other emotionalism around the event.

There should be an app for the guy who fell so he doesn’t fall.

Another app we need is a “Don’t Even Start With Me” App.

Say you have a new career, gig, vacation touring group, volleyball team, band, marriage, or place of worship and someone close to you decides to cross a line. They want too much power or they are lying to you too much or they are trying to gaslight you or overthrow your position or diminish you in any way—you should be able to open up your “Don’t Even Start With Me” App and for just a few dollars added to your credit card, you can nip this bullshit in the bud. Once downloaded, account made, user name and password filled, and target defined, an anonymous goon delivers something disgusting to the personal residence or desk or hotel room of the offending party. There is no note. In fact, users must remain completely anonymous for this to work. There is just the satisfaction of knowing that you have sent something completely horrible to the person that will really upset them. It can never be traced back to you. In fact, it should have a Snapchat element built in so that all record of the transaction disappears. Your resentment will have found its true way out. You will be in charge, the place you always wanted to be.

You can even increase the frequency of these gifts of horrendosity if they don't get the message the first time, or as the need arises. Clam Puddings. Dead Cats loaded with Vermin. A controlled Tire Fire. A Ball of Hair with Broken Teeth in it.

What is fun, is, as their behavior gets worse, and your giving increases, the annoyer will know it’s you. But will never be certain. But you both know what's what. But you don’t talk about it because no one wants to break the anonymity because everyone loves using it so much and doesn't want to risk losing it.

These will all help.

Y?

The Y Chromosome has been getting a lot of press lately.

First of all, it is sturdier than they thought and is not degrading into nonexistence anytime soon. Luckily, we will continue to have men. (Or unluckily, if you like.) At least that is what the latest studies show. But you know how latest studies get usurped by even later ones.

Men came into being late in the game. You always had to have something giving birth for a species to continue. This just feels like a double X thing, or its equivalent.

The Y chromosome has evolved faster in the last six million years than any of our other genes. This most likely has to do with fertilization pressure or motility wars, if you will. The Y wants to win. It dukes it out with the other Y’s more intensely than the other genes are duking.

This is what concerns me about the Y chromosome.

I have an idea that nature likes stability, or at least that stable things don’t change that much for the reason that they are stable, they work. Circular thinking, but in this case, the gut feeling works here. We may be up against some sad things for fickle, fast-changing men, these flesh Gods that are Y driven.

As the climate changes and the air gets filled with more CO2 and the earth is swathed in greater detritus from plastic compounds and heavy metals, the funky, highly changeable Y, may change even more quickly, at an unstable rate, which could lead to more problems for men. I’m not talking only about lower rates of college enrollment and an increase of the male population on the autism spectrum; I’m talking about infertility and perhaps, extinction.

Women  used to say, “If men got pregnant, abortion clinics would be drive-thru and ubiquitous.”

Now, let’s think, “If the Y chromosome is so fragile and responds so quickly to change, is in fact so competitive that it could fight-to-the-death for its right to supremacy, maybe what men need is more environmental stability.”

The large oak falls. Its greatest strength is its demise.

Men, basically, need to be controlled less by this drive of the Y and to start driving the Y.

As we learn more at the chromosomal level, it should truly be applied to the macro level.

Don’t you think? Or is your Y making you too fidgety? Or have you become too dependent on someone else’s warrior Y?

Y?

Ten Hunches

1. There is no Right Wing equivalent to Karl Marx.

2. There is no anti-Christ prophet with as much reach as Christ.

3. Marx and Christ will be remembered because they were very clear and had impeccable timing.

4. Both men were dogmatic and did not fully understand the human condition. But we need our extremists to point the way.

5. Drug companies just make their prices up. It’s their way to suck money out of governments and insurance companies (since people can’t really afford the real high cost drugs).  Maybe, this is how our tax money goes to work. Though, the drug companies force this redistribution of wealth not unlike a band of thugs. It is organized crime. Don’t listen to their bullshit, no matter how much you believe in the right-to-profit, the right-to-freedom.

6. Eating a lot of baloney at an awards ceremony followed by three slices of pizza is a terrible thing to do on a Monday night. Christ and Marx help me. (I don’t want to deal with the drug companies tonight.)

7. There is no need for racism. But there is a need to have fun with different kinds of races. I would hate for my WASP husband to suddenly act like Beyonce—though he would love to pull it off, it’s simply not going to happen. Ever. (Okay, surprise me.)

8. I believe in the Einstein adage about creativity being better than intelligence. Intelligence can feel very solidifying. But it often does nothing more than succeed at organizing the past into a narrative. It is comforting. And, communicating this narrative is helpful to others. But this approach will never grab at the larger possibilities. However, it makes us feel safe.

9. See 10.

10. Sometimes, you choose an even number by habit. But you may run out of things along the way. Always be ready to revise.

Then, the Cherries

Let Ralph Waldo Emerson do the Blog Tonight

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Without Fear and Selfishness, What would Happen To Comedy?

Years ago, so many, I was an intern with the Manhattan Comedy Club run by the smart and helpful Steve Kaplan. Illeana Douglas got her ass over there first, after we all graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater, and very kindly did her generous best to pull in a few of her fellow Reality-of-Doing-Every-Moment-Has-A-Meaning Alumni. It was one of those rigorous internships where you had to do script readings, take improv classes and lo' and behold, do a tech assignment (the main slave maneuver). Attendance was key. Many didn't make it. Illeana did not last the year, moving onto other things. Patricia Heaton came in two times, got cast on a TV series and  never looked back. I, of course, did the whole thing, dutifully, and even ran the sound board as my tech assignment for the future creator of Nurse Jackie and gave out gag canned goods on our Sunday Matinee Easter show. I can still here Linda Wallem saying to me, "Oh Boya, thanks for the Goya."

But back to my thing, here.

What Steve taught us--in addition to what everyone knows about improv: Never say NO to what someone puts forth--and a whole bunch of other things, was, Comedy is basically selfish. If you want to be funny, you have to want something and you have to want it selfishly and just go for it.

Easy enough. We were all young actors looking to own the world. We did this trick and the scenes ended up being funny. It's just funny when people are selfish.

Without this selfishness of the soul, comedy would hardly exist. Think of guys and gals just going for their venal needs, without thinking of the welfare of others, and watch the problems fly. It is so recognizable and so humorous as shit hits the fans, relationships fall apart, fights break out, and revenge rears its funny fangs.

One of the things we did, too, was character work. But most of us were bad at it. I was terrible at it. I did not want to slant my eyes and go, "No ticky, no laundry," or anything like that. This was the late 80's and everything was thankfully changing, so making fun of hackneyed stereotypes was not really the way to go.

And so today, I was thinking about that. How, there we were, a few decades ago, already moving away from silly accents and regional tropes, but today, all you have to do is open up every third or fourth issue of The New Yorker, and you can still find yourself a cartoon of a thug, which is usually a depiction of a Goombah, which basically says, "Southern Italian American criminal" --and everyone gets a good laugh.

I do not get upset when I see louche-bitchy gay cartoons in The New Yorker because usually the cartoon is making fun of the privilege this class of gays have. Or the animals. Everyone loves funny talking animals. The only ethnic group, really, The New Yorker continues to make fun of, stereotypically, is the Guinea Gangster. Can you imagine if they were still doing Step-and-Fetch-It type characters or doing little quips about Jews sitting on pots of money? No, that would not fly. Or an Irish drunk singing to himself? Or, even, a Swiss person being all neutral? Okay, I went too far.

But the privileged editors of The New Yorker let these thug imagines go into print.

But let's face it. The Goombah cartoons are often, on average, as funny as the other cartoons. They are tinged with dark wit about the meaninglessness of life in the face of death. They are in the similar camp as The Grim Reaper character who continues to rear his dead head.

Basically, without TYPES, you can't have humor. You just can't. If you don't have things collectively defined, then you don't create a collective understanding and then, usually, a twist on that understanding. So you need a little prejudice. Which is really just fear. Fear of the other. So for now, we let the Greasy Goombahs slide because we need them so we can hear them do something UN-Goombah-ish so we can have a twist and a laugh. But I bet not for much longer. That type has disappeared in reality. Or, maybe, The New Yorker is going to stick with it and then, too, bring back a tap dancing Buckwheat? Or a selfish Shylock?

Or maybe fat opera divas?

Or let's not stop there...children with learning disabilities. We're all afraid of that. Where are those cartoons?

Our fears continue. It is interesting to note what we allow ourselves, publicly and collectively, to make fun of.

Sort of makes you want to find out where the Staten Island Ferry is...and then you hear the guy with the big limp wrist over his head, sashaying, winking and exclaiming in a lispy high pitched lust cry, "Over here!"

Easy fix to Income Inequality

Everyone should be rich. That's all. There is no need for this crazy income problem.

It is very easy to make all human beings rich and there is no reason to scare the wealthy into a corner, thinking everyone is coming for their heads to put be put on pikes. Plus, why should they be punished for being wealthy? It wasn't exactly their fault.

Here are my ten easy steps for deep wealth for all:

1. Create an atmosphere of acceptance. If we are all going to be wealthy, it is important to accept everyone, today, for exactly who they are and for what they have. This will put the wealthiest on the side of everyone else and so they become less afraid. We don't want our wealthiest people to be afraid.

2. Understand the math support. There is always some sort of pyramid that keeps a few people at top. Though, these days, the top of the pyramid does not need much support to be at the top--they are floating more than being supported--there is still the truth that SOMETHING has to be stable underneath that little plutopoint in order for it to exist at all. I would call that stability right now: law and order and easy tax laws.

3. Immediately let go of all law and order and go ahead and stop paying any taxes at all. Everyone. Stop. The wealthy hate taxes. We more Socialist types don't love forking it over, either. Just stop paying taxes.

4. After the collapse, a new world order will arise. This one, of course, will look just like the last one because nothing ever really changes.

5. Then, sterilize everyone.

6. As the population ages, there will be no possibility for anything new to happen.

7. The cycle will be broken.

8. At the last minute, let ten people have about ten babies. Do this in Southern California.

9. These ten will be equally wealthy because they will pretty much own everything on earth.

10. If this plan doesn't take, then just ask a rich person to fund your start up, make it successful, sell it, and stop complaining. Business ideas: Sex sells. So do services for pets. Aim low and stand back.

Easter Means a New Beginning

For everyone.

Or not.

But look at this magnolia.

The Bronx, 4-20-2014

Spring: The Equal Opportunity Energizer

Spring.
Surely, people dance more and fall in love more and get outside more and smile more.

This is a great thing.

But it increases other externalized behaviors. THE CRAZIES are OUT, TOO!

And don't get me wrong, I like the crazies. They're people, too, they're just a little crazier.

I saw three guys in some sort of guitar trio on the subway break out into a power struggle, with one guy accusing the other guy of going all gangster. It felt like something was about to go down. And yeah, someone threw a punch and the brawl went into full swing. I got off at the next stop and changed cars. Who knows who has a gun these days?

In the next car, a man spoke gibberish and sang loud and asked for money loud and blamed people loud for his misfortune. All of this, in a sort of growling howling, a cry against injustice. He was not dangerous. He was just exceptionally unhappy.

He was easy, compared to the prim guy sitting next to me, ninety degrees, with an instrument in a case between his legs...it looked trumpety. He had on ear buds. He smelled of a perfume spill at a Macy's counter. If you didn't have sinus trouble before meeting this guy, you will be needing an E.N.T. almost immediately after. So as the homeless man was wailing, and the entire inside of my skull was contracting in olfactory disgust like a beaked mollusk around an echinoderm, the smelly trumpeter, ear buds in, started in with his volcalise. Quiet, at first. But pretending the ear buds blocked his inability to hear himself so he could sing louder than he should, or he really could not hear himself so he just sang louder than he should, I eventually had to jump up and escape down the way. Monster.

I was like a man being controlled in an obnoxious live-action app game where foul asteroids or color blobs of hell were trying to kill me and I simply had to get out of the way.

I survived, of course. And clearly ready for more, when the final thing happened in the village, when a woman, in crazy black mules not made for running, ran past me just a few feet to the building we were both going to so she could stick her key in and not have to wait for me to pass?--or something, and then we both got in the same elevator and she was about to start a fight or a good cry or a big gas ball, or miss an appointment, who knows?--I decided to get out a floor early and just walk the last flight up.

Be gone crazy early bulbs!

Of course, I love them all and wouldn't have traded it for anything. They're just crazy. And there is nothing holding them back now. They are coming at you and you better bob and weave. No complacency as the daffodils send out their yellow warning signs. When summer comes, and the crazy rompers all get turned up to boil, the fun thing will be to watch whose carapace turns a bright red, who gets overcooked and who, simply, wafts away in a bloof of steam.

Ten Things to Buy with Your Tax Refund, for 99 Percenters down to .01 Percenters

1. A bus ticket to Nanuet, New York where you can go shopping at one of the many malls or centers.

2. A bus ticket from Nanuet, NY to Paramus, NJ where you can get all the things they didn't have in Nanuet.

3. Dinner with Chris Christie at one of the finest restaurants in Toms River, NJ called "Shut Up & Eat." And four Altoids.

4. A fur coat made from high quality fake fur. Underwear not included.

5. Two nights at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. With chocolate and seriously trendy California wine. Morning and evening massages. A muzzle for the guy in the man-moo who won't stop talking about fair market quinoa and the supremacy of bisexuality.

6. Four nights at The Pierre Hotel on East 61st Street in Manhattan. Dinner at Per Se. Lunch at Per Se. You and a rodeo clown get to round up all the horses in Manhattan and drive them out to Pennsylvania to cheering fans. Ellen Degeneres has you on her show as a hero.

7. A two bedroom apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement in Paris. Right across from the best petit-dejeuner place you've ever been to and now you get to chow there any morning you like. With a bidet, a concierge and the occasional visit by the Queen of Belgium.

8. Six highly trainable STD-free whores of your choosing, for six months for six hours every day (1 hour each. Why do I always have to do the math?)

9. The other part of the Ukraine that Russia didn't take.

10. An Israeli-Palestinian resolution, which will require the colonization of Mars.

11. Everyone else's money that you haven't yet taken. And you don't have to worry about air quality.

12. The seeable-to-the-naked-eye universe. And everyone tells you you deserve it.

13. And Lucky Thirteen:  Everything else that hasn't yet been claimed. Plus, anything you can invent as long as it is within reason. Surely, you'll have at least one 3-D printer for that job. And a dog. You'll need a dog.

Why Would They Lie?

Not that it ever makes sense to approach things logically with "the other side"---

But my big question is: Why would scientists the world over all get together and in a wacky consortium of deceit for some unknown gain, lie about climate change?

Why would they lie? Do they all want to keep their jobs or something? Who is employing them? Bosses above them who want, like crazy, for climate change to happen because these higher-ups are all jonesing so bad for nuclear energy?

If they are lying, then maybe, too, the moon landing never happened?

Floods and earthquakes and tornadoes and hurricanes and erratic weather, sure, these don't mean, necessarily, that we have destroyed the climate. Fine. But there are all these other measurements that are being taken. Ice cores. And water levels. And comparative temperatures. Why would they lie about those?

Could it really be collective hysteria that is making this all happen? That it isn't true? That a bunch of people just really want to take down the oil industry so they just keep lying through their teeth?

Lastly, by simply logic, wouldn't it make sense that now, since 25% of CO2 in the atmosphere is man made, that it would be a good idea to scale that back?

Okay, now really lastly, what's in it for you, other side, that makes you want to believe that all these people are lying?