Drawing Attention … February 20th, 2019

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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How I See Me

(tap the picture to see the video)

art by smarrttie pants

Music: Make An Idea Do Something by Jonathan Richard Cring

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The C Word … February 19th, 2019

THE

WORD

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When I sat down to consider “the C word,” many grotesque possibilities came to mind. I will not go into the ones I rejected. They are obviously repugnant or too controversial to even give utterance.

Instead, I chose a peculiar one because it is subtle and might even seem to be positive until you carefully study the history of its drastic devastation.

So the C word—the word that should never be used again or even spoken—is CULTURE.

For eighty-five years in this nation, we fostered, promoted, advertised, argued and finally fought over a fictitious cultural difference.

Here was the contention:

Mason liked fried potatoes. Dixon preferred grits.

Yankee Doodle drank beer and brandy, while Johnny Reb preferred whiskey and moonshine.

The North favored a Union. The South touted states’ rights.

Missy, a woman living north of the line, spent time working in the fields with her husband, planting, while the Dixie chicks pretended to be more fragile, appearing dainty.

Mason didn’t have slaves. Dixon did.

But Dixon didn’t call it “slave labor.”  Working under the guise of business, these folks who were shipped in from Africa were addressed as “field hands,” for it was the commerce of the South—and King Cotton required serfs to work, and black ones seemed to be more suited for the heat and the burden.

For eighty-five years, we pretended it was a “cultural difference.”

Men we extol as the founders of our nation, ignorantly hid behind debate, hoping it would disguise the atrocity.

It came down to a simple question:

You say slave, I say worker—almost a member of my family.

You say a person and I claim property.

You interrupt my culture and I wail and squeal about states’ rights.

We thought we could compromise, tolerate, negotiate and even appease one another. There were so many compromises that we started naming them after states, like Missouri. There were so many times we thought we had it worked out on paper, negotiating a deal or producing a favorable agreement, that many people were shocked when this “culture problem” created a Civil War which killed three-quarters of a million people.

And the fires of that conflict still smolder to this day.

We thought we could handle cultural difference. We believed we could let bygones be bygones.

But a cultural crisis was brought on by the crisis of culturing.

The truth is, human beings become viable to one another when they insist on similarities and pursue commonality.

You can eat your potatoes and drink your liquor any way you want.

But free will, justice and equality cannot be negotiated.

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1 Thing You Can Do This Week To Be More Balanced

Watch Your Mouth

You see, your mouth is the problem.

Because what goes in your mouth makes you fat, and what comes out often makes you sound like a fat-head.

So here’s the key:

Purposely Talk Less

And while you’re at it, eat a little less, too.

Counteract those two by laughing more and forcing yourself to speak kindness.

Because what have you got to lose but a few pounds and the ugly nickname, “Grouchy Stiltskin?”

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Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

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Sitting Seven

Karin Koulyea was a reporter at the local newspaper. She was American educated, a tad Bohemian for the surrounding elders, very independent and unwilling to cast her lot with either Arab or Jew.

She dubbed herself “the Bedouin Babe.” After many confrontations and disagreements, the title had deteriorated among her male counterparts at the water cooler, into “the Bedouin Beast.”

She was over-qualified for her job and certainly not on the fast track for promotion in a Middle Eastern culture that viewed women with a similar worth as a stinky herd of goats.

She refused to wear the traditional veil and covering, even for special occasions when her editor felt it would benefit the image of the paper. She wasn’t tempestuous. Perhaps in any other situation in any other city of the world, she might be viewed as a rather dowdy wallflower, but in this war-torn, religiously burdened town, she was Margaret Sanger with a little bit of Bonnie Parker thrown in.

It was ten o’clock in the morning and Karin was bored. She didn’t like coffee, although she drank it. She was on her third cup of the unlikable fluid when a slender boy walked in carrying a note. He placed it on her desk and turned to leave. She attempted to communicate with him verbally, but every hackneyed dialect she knew seemed to perplex him more. She finally let him go and decided to read the note.

To Paper Lady: There are two boys living in the desert, one a Jew and one an Arab. They will not go home. They are dangerous.

There was no signature.

She read it over twice. Two boys. Desert. Arab and Jew. Dangerous? It seemed like a practical joke. Or perhaps worse—a trap.

There was this one photographer always taking pictures of her, minus the necessary veil and covering. He giggled and wagged his finger at her, taunting, “I’ve got you now!”

It was bizarre and disconcerting. Maybe this was just another chance for a “photo op” by Raoul the Ghoul.

She threw the note away, paused, and then chased it to the waste basket, where it was stuck to a half-eaten Danish. She needed a story. Nothing else had come in. She popped up, strolled out of the room, stopped off at her editor’s office and said, “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“Here’s an idea,” stated the gruff voice from the other room. “How about you bring back a story?”

Karin laughed. “What? And make you go over to a second page of print?” She quickly scurried down the stairs and out the door.

Of course, the first question was, where in the desert? “Desert” by its very nature opened up too many possibilities. She decided to go back inside and grab the keys to the old jeep the paper used for transportation, and start riding around asking people if they had heard or seen anything.

It took half-a-dozen or more confused passers-by, but eventually a bus driver told her that he had seen two boys—just yesterday. Karin put together some rudimentary directions from his memory and headed off toward the location.

She shook her head. How could two boys in the desert be dangerous? Should she take some sort of weapon? But why? Was she going to kill them? She thought not. She could read the headline: “Newspaper Woman Slaughters Two Boys in the Desert Because Not Wearing a Veil.”

She picked up a little petrol and supplies and was on her way, feeling a bit foolish, but intrigued, all in the same thought.

Hot day. She stopped for more water and bread. Who knows? Maybe this was her big story.

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Cracked 5 … February 16th, 2019

 

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Valentine’s Day gifts that are leftover because for some reason, they didn’t sell well

 

A.  A mega-20-pack pregnancy test

 

B.  A six-month gym membership

 

C.  Certificate for mole removal (limit 2)

 

D.  Magical potion to eliminate halitosis

 

E.  Four weeks of lessons on pole dancing at “The Jumping Pussy Strip Club”

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Sit Down Comedy …February 15th, 2019

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Even though it was his last name, all the folks called him Baker—mainly because he owned a little shop which sold pies, cookies, cupcakes and cinnamon rolls.

Baker was a big man. That’s what his wife said. His mother said he was just chubby. But his enemies called him downright fat.

Baker did real well as a portly man, selling sweets. But one day he woke up and realized he wanted to do some self-improvement, trim his waist and certainly improve his bottom line. He lost one hundred pounds and started trying to pass along his healthy lifestyle by inserting all sorts of new ingredients into his pastries.

His profits began to match his weight loss. Nobody was coming—especially when he came up with a way to use low-calorie cricket flour, freshly ground from dried-out crickets.

One day a friend stopped in and said, “Baker, you need to do yourself a favor. Stop selling cupcakes. Everyone’s thrilled that you’ve lost weight, but the people who want to frequent your business have no desire to hear about healthy cupcakes. You don’t believe in cupcakes anymore so stop selling them.”

Likewise, Bill was a Congressman in Washington, D.C. He’d been elected four times. He was quickly becoming a professional politician who knew the ins and outs of the system. He was fully aware that the American way of governing was more about discussing the philosophy of an issue and supporting a political party than it ever did making progress. Matter of fact, Bill never passed a bill.

It’s time for us to walk up to Bill and say, “Stop being a Congressman. You’re not good at it. Get somebody else in there who still believes something can be done.”

The Reverend just got his third doctorate in theology—this one on the Greek translation of the New Testament. He has more books on his wall than the local library. He has some of the prettiest robes to wear on Sunday morning that you’ll ever see. But when Margaret came into his office, needing a word of encouragement over a difficulty she was having, the Reverend was at a loss on what to tell her. You see, the Reverend doesn’t really believe in God anymore, which means he really doesn’t believe in people that much, either.

“Reverend. Stop preaching! Sell insurance.”

Mark writes books about relationships. He thinks he’s got a best-seller because it talks about men and women—how different they are and how it’s natural for the sexes to be at war, and that through this war we still manage to come up with a way to continue the human race. You see, Mark is a chauvinist. He really thinks men are better than women, but he believes that a man’s smartest move is to pretend a woman is superior and then do whatever the hell he wants behind her back.

Mark is an asshole. Mark needs to stop writing books about men and women. They actually need to hear about the commonality between them instead of constantly being bombarded with their differences.

“Mark, maybe you could start writing for a newspaper. Or join the Reverend in the insurance game.”

Some people need to stop doing what they’re doing because they’ve stopped believing what they’re doing has any value or has potential to make things better.

Are you one of them? Are you like Baker, Bill, the Reverend and Mark?

Do the human race a favor—don’t pursue what fails to give you hope. And if you want to go on a diet, by all means stop selling cupcakes.

 

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3 Things … February 14th, 2019

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To Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

 

1.  Isolate your real abilities and be totally honest about your limitations

 

2.  Quickly find an environment that is free of intimidation

 

3.  Never leave happiness out of your decision-making

 The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity