Urban Semiotic: December 2006 Archives

Mixing Medication and Booze

By David W. Boles on December 31, 2006 11:20 AM | 28 Comments

95% of the people I know who drink alcohol, Pills

and who are on medication, are not supposed to be drinking alcohol. Is there a medication out there you can take where it is acceptable to drink while on meds?

I understand that since alcohol is a depressant, it can really mess up the good effects of some anti-depressant medicines and such, but do ALL medications require one not to drink? If so, that seems like an untenable medical position positioned to protect the medical and drug industries from any sort of legal action against them.

It must also be a difficult mixed message to comprehend when your doctor tells you not to drink while on meds, but all the recent scientific research points to the great advantages for your heart if you drink two glasses of red wine a day! People are then forced to make an impossible Gordian Knot decision: Do I prefer my sanity over a good heart?

Continue reading Mixing Medication and Booze.

Saddam is Dead

By David W. Boles on December 30, 2006 10:36 AM | 32 Comments

Saddam Hussein has been executed.

Saddam Hussein is Dead

Are we any better in his death?

Important and Effective

By Kathakali Chatterjee on December 28, 2006 7:55 PM | 16 Comments

Kathakali Chatterjee wrote this article.

In David W. Boles' article Competitive Anger and the Rising Insult we talked about many things in the comments area from Road Rage to People Who Keep Score to the Civil War to Economic and Spiritual Slavery. I asked David the following question:

Which one is more important and effective, being passionate and endearing or being politically correct, shrewd and stable in the long run?

David deferred his answer. He wanted to open up this question to everyone. What do you think?

Competitive Anger and the Rising Insult

By David W. Boles on December 28, 2006 9:23 AM | 44 Comments | 1 TrackBack

One of the hardest things to negotiate in any relationship is competitive anger and the rising insult and we must work hard to extricate ourselves from the tricksy snare of its red tooth and claw.

Competitive Anger

Continue reading Competitive Anger and the Rising Insult.

Private Life, Public Death: The Perils of Inappropriate Veneration

By David W. Boles on December 27, 2006 9:44 AM | 16 Comments

Former president Gerald Ford died last night at 93 Veneration

and, based on the non-stop media coverage, you are led to believe he was the most important president in the history of the United States.

He was not.

Not all presidents are great.

Nor should they be in the greater scheme of hungry men and their petty dreams.

Not all presidents deserve the race to media outlets by their friends and henchmen to be inappropriately venerated by those who claim to best know "the real man."

Gerald Ford was never elected by the people as Vice President or President.

Ford was picked to fill the Vice President slot because he was dull, non-threatening and knew his place.

Continue reading Private Life, Public Death: The Perils of Inappropriate Veneration .

Holiday Happenstance

By David W. Boles on December 26, 2006 9:13 AM | 27 Comments

Did all your wishes come true? Did disappointment find you?

Dreams and Wishes

What is the best gift you ever gave and received? What is the worst gift you ever gave and received?

A Circle of Laurel

By David W. Boles on December 25, 2006 10:28 AM | 29 Comments

Laurel wreaths indicate conquering and joy.

A Circle of Wreaths

My wish is you are encircled by joy and enraptured by the crown of your conquests.

New York City in December

By David W. Boles on December 24, 2006 10:24 AM | 26 Comments

There's nothing like New York City in December. There is a rising holiday spirit that infuses a cultural intensity and creates an infusion of goodwill like no other place on earth.

I Love New York!

New Yorkers are friendlier than ever in December. The shopping is cheap and plentiful. The feeling of making it together in the middle of the greatest city in the universe -- in the center of the world -- is something that cannot be purchased or implied: You have to live it, to know it!

In Celebration of Cold Weather

By David W. Boles on December 23, 2006 10:56 AM | 29 Comments | 1 TrackBack

There is no greater fun -- when it isn't killing you -- than living in cold weather. Cold weather brings snow, the chill of football in the air, and the crisp snap of impending holiday cheer.

Snowmen!

Continue reading In Celebration of Cold Weather.

The Necessity of Melancholia and Black Bile

By David W. Boles on December 22, 2006 9:16 AM | 19 Comments | 3 TrackBacks

We have lost our Melancholia and our Black Bile and we're the worse for the eradication. We now seek happiness through the pit of a pill and the trough of psychotherapy instead of actively working to remove ourselves from despair and founding ourselves in happiness and contentment even though they can never truly be achieved.

It is that struggle to raise our bodies and our thoughts that makes the life worthy of the living. Melancholia has a rich and deadly history in the mark of humankind and no other state of being has been rendered so beautifully in art than that of the Melancholic mind. It's fascinating how "head on hand" is the rich semiotic used throughout antiquity to indicate this mournfulness of the memory for the living:

Continue reading The Necessity of Melancholia and Black Bile.

Urban Bioterrorism Attack: A Toxic Agent Airliner

By David W. Boles on December 21, 2006 8:23 AM | 51 Comments

You are the head of Homeland Security.

The following urgent intelligence report has been sent to your desk.

The president has deferred to your judgment:

Your decision will prove the resolution of this threat to national security.

Continue reading Urban Bioterrorism Attack: A Toxic Agent Airliner.

School Branding: From Football U. to Ivy League

By David W. Boles on December 20, 2006 10:34 AM | 36 Comments | 5 TrackBacks

Whether you realize it or not, your schooling brands you -- fairly or not -- with its historic reputation in the perception of the mainstream, middling, public mind.

Continue reading School Branding: From Football U. to Ivy League.

Seeing Angels in Saint Patricks Cathedral

By David W. Boles on December 19, 2006 9:08 AM | 44 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

Is it possible to see Angels on earth? I believe it is -- no matter what your faith or systems of beliefs hold -- and I'll tell you why. After John Cardinal O'Connor died of brain cancer in New York City in 2000, Janna and I found ourselves outside Saint Patrick's Cathedral. We saw a snaking line of mourners outside the beautiful and towering French Gothic church at Madison and 50th-51st.

Saint Patricks Cathedral

Continue reading Seeing Angels in Saint Patricks Cathedral.

Infant Criminals, Bad Seeds and Guilty Ovum

By David W. Boles on December 18, 2006 8:35 AM | 50 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

Are adult criminals bred of bad seed and guilty ovum? Are infants born guilty? Is there such a thing as a natural proclivity for the "Infant Criminal" born of color and of poverty that is set, from the day of first breath, to destroy society and its conceits as a rite of birth?

The Bad Seed!

Continue reading Infant Criminals, Bad Seeds and Guilty Ovum.

A Parade of the Grotesque and the Infinite Now

By David W. Boles on December 17, 2006 10:35 AM | 30 Comments | 3 TrackBacks

We met the height of hypocrisy on Friday when Bush gave Grotesque Parade

Rumsfeld a "Going Away Parade" while Dick Cheney danced in the grass with admiration -- not for the dead -- but for the deadly, in the guise of his old-school pal, Rummy.

The parade was also a smiling burial ceremony for the Iraq Study Group's recommendations.

There's nothing quite as atrocious as throwing a parade to celebrate all your failures that are measured in pints of blood and countless coffins and not ribbons and flags.

Rumsfeld was given a color guard, marching musicians with piccolo players, a 19-gun salute -- Cheney's shotgun was reportedly not part of the festivities -- and the undying applause of his best neocon buddies who all helped him perpetuate the Iraq war in America when we only wanted to pay back Afghanistan.

Continue reading A Parade of the Grotesque and the Infinite Now.

Five Things You Do Not Know About Me meme

By David W. Boles on December 16, 2006 9:48 AM | 32 Comments | 1 TrackBack

I am not a big fan of Memes -- even though the great and genius evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins invented them in 1976 -- but our old pal Mark (aka Podz!) tagged me and so, I will do the best I can and share "Five Things You Don't Know About Me" even though a lot of what I list you may already know:

Continue reading Five Things You Do Not Know About Me meme.

The Bitch Or The Black?: The Politics of Division

By David W. Boles on December 15, 2006 10:59 AM | 34 Comments | 1 TrackBack

Please forgive the title of today's article, but yesterday I heard a discussion on the radio of the 2008 Democrat race for president and the topic was: "The Bitch or The Black?"

Hillary and Barack!

Continue reading The Bitch Or The Black?: The Politics of Division.

Urban Bioterrorism Attack: You Pick the Living

By David W. Boles on December 14, 2006 9:53 AM | 76 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

This scenario is made up of two parts. Bioterrorism

Please write your answer for Part A before you answer Part B and when you comment, please break up your answer into Part A and Part B.

PART A:
You are the head of a public health clinic in the urban core. An hour ago a toxic biological agent was seeded across the city by a low-flying crop-duster airplane.

The bio-agent is fast-acting and severely incapacitates in 90 minutes and kills in three hours. Everyone in the city is infected. Most are already dying in the streets as they choke to breathe in their mission to find help.

Continue reading Urban Bioterrorism Attack: You Pick the Living.

Living by the Knife: Cutting the Line on Killing

By David W. Boles on December 13, 2006 10:29 AM | 57 Comments

You, your spouse, and your young child are walking on an empty street at night.

You turn a corner.

A man stops you and points a gun at your spouse's head.

His finger is squeezing the trigger.

You have this folding knife in your pocket.

The blade is less than three inches long; with one quick movement you have practiced before, you can pull the knife from your jacket pocket and flick the blade into performance with your thumb and embed it in his throat faster than he can finish pulling the trigger.

If you decide to pull the knife, the only option is to kill the man.

Threats and wounding will only result in the death of your spouse and child.

Do you pull the knife or not?

If yes, why? If not, why not?

Where do you cut the line on killing?

Does it begin and end with a life in the balance?

What if the same person with the gun had instead completely soaked your house in gasoline and was in the process of striking a match to engulf your home in flames? Is that enough of a threat to health and home to claw the threat into red with that knife in your pocket?

If yes, why? If not, why not?

Should Hate Speech Be Free?

By David W. Boles on December 12, 2006 8:37 AM | 41 Comments | 1 TrackBack

I have always been of the mind that all speech should be free. One should always feel free to express the worst in us, out loud, in public, where the speech can be tested against community standards and either be excoriated or accepted. There are two events, recently published in The New York Times, that force me to wonder if there is a reason why some expressions should never be made public. The first example concerns the murder trial of Ronell Wilson -- who allegedly shot two undercover detectives in the back of the head -- when he was arrested, handwritten scraps of a Rap song were found in his pocket describing the killings before they happened.

Hate Speech

Continue reading Should Hate Speech Be Free?.

Embryo Eugenics: Proactive Natural Selection

By David W. Boles on December 11, 2006 8:20 AM | 34 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

As medicine begins to move forward faster than our shared ability to comprehend the implications and dangers of science moderating morality, we are left alone to fend for our private values precisely as they are being publicly challenged by the preferences and prejudices a brave new round of Eugenics embodying the embryo stage of reproduction in a new movement I call "Proactive Natural Selection."

Brand New World

Continue reading Embryo Eugenics: Proactive Natural Selection.

The Last Selfless Act

By David W. Boles on December 10, 2006 10:35 AM | 34 Comments | 1 TrackBack

What was the last selfless act you committed and you are still the only one who knows you made something, or someone, better?

The Definition of A Dirty Old Man

By David W. Boles on December 9, 2006 10:02 AM | 36 Comments

As men age, I wonder exactly when the moment hits and they forever cross the line into being a "Dirty Old Man" after an inappropriate joke or offensive comment is made in the company of a younger woman.

Continue reading The Definition of A Dirty Old Man.

Tapping Out of Iraq

By David W. Boles on December 8, 2006 10:39 AM | 17 Comments

Only 9% of the American people in a new AP/IPSOS poll released today believe we will find success in Iraq and that matches the same gloomy percentage of Americans who believed, over 30 years ago, that the Vietnam war was winnable.

Iraq

Continue reading Tapping Out of Iraq.

Lion in the Snow: The Untimely Death of James Kim

By David W. Boles on December 7, 2006 9:43 AM | 35 Comments | 1 TrackBack

James Kim was found dead yesterday. Lion in the Snow

His life, and his untimely death, were generally overshadowed by the harrowing Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq that, while intriguing, will go nowhere fast because the president and his policy henchmen refuse to confess a mistake or do the right thing.

James Kim was found alone and frozen in the backwoods of Southern Oregon by a search and rescue effort that had previously found his wife and two young children alive in their car.

James Kim set out on his own -- like a lion in the snow, uncertain and unaware, but brave in an element that was not his own and strong in the face of nature as he sank into the teeth of the unknown -- to seek help for his family.

The Kim family had all been stranded together in their car without much food since Thanksgiving. His wife breastfed the children.

Continue reading Lion in the Snow: The Untimely Death of James Kim.

Duty as the Moral Imperative

By David W. Boles on December 6, 2006 9:18 AM | 17 Comments | 3 TrackBacks

In my previous article, Happiness is Overrated, I argued the mark of being alive was misery and not happiness and finding the light in darkness is our greatest task of living. Today, I expand that argument to foment the idea that Love, as well as Happiness, is equally unimportant and overrated in our lives and that we must return Duty as our moral imperative.

Duty

Continue reading Duty as the Moral Imperative.

A Broken Promise Under the Golden Arches

By David W. Boles on December 5, 2006 9:07 AM | 59 Comments | 1 TrackBack

When I was a boy of 13 and a new student at a junior high school, I met a girl my age named Amy. She had the body of a woman, fully shaped and ripe with a juicy sexuality that flowed from her pores and her glinting, tawny, eyes -- but she was still a girl in spirit and mind.

Continue reading A Broken Promise Under the Golden Arches.

Incarceration Nation and the Carceral Citizen

By David W. Boles on December 4, 2006 8:30 AM | 45 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

According to the annual report from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in every 32 American adults were doing hard time, were on probation or on parole last year. 2.2 million were incarcerated; 4.1 million were on probation; nearly 800,000 were on parole.

Continue reading Incarceration Nation and the Carceral Citizen.

Itty-Bitty Beauty: The Apple iPod Shuffle Review

By David W. Boles on December 3, 2006 9:43 AM | 32 Comments

There are few moments over a lifetime when you stop and think, "I cannot understand how I lived without this before I knew I needed one." I had a moment like that this week when my new Apple iPod Shuffle showed up on my doorstep and I began dragging heavy songs onto its hardy, tiny, metal body.

iPod Shuffle

Continue reading Itty-Bitty Beauty: The Apple iPod Shuffle Review.

Lindsay Lohan Makes This Blog Super Hot!: Moral Depression Follows

By David W. Boles on December 2, 2006 10:34 AM | 38 Comments | 3 TrackBacks

Yesterday I was surprised when my friend Nicola said the following in a comment for my Lindsay Lohan Proves Her Illiteracy article:

Nice to see you on the Wordpress Top Posts list !

Continue reading Lindsay Lohan Makes This Blog Super Hot!: Moral Depression Follows.

Purity of Disbelief and the Wonder of Evolution

By David W. Boles on December 1, 2006 10:02 AM | 46 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

Genius author and thinker, Richard Dawkins, wrote in his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, how there is wonder and awe in a scientific -- "non-theist" -- view of a universe built on both fortuity and logic:

Richard Dawkins

Continue reading Purity of Disbelief and the Wonder of Evolution.

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