I stopped uploading entries even though my brain and fingers continued to write... I wanted to leave the results of my blogathoning up for a while so all of you would see it and hopefully find time to read all the rambling from the beginning all the way through, if only for yourself, but maybe also to tell me what you think...

and help the causes...

but then, that might seem phoney cuz it sure isn't me to try to seel myself covertly (no, I just blatantly throw myself at your feet and beg for attention, adoration, undying love, and unbelievably unconditional trust... oh, and respect (live long, prosper, and mock the self) and as usual I just have to ramble on and continue uploading entries and hopefully that doesn't always mean that something grand slipped by when you weren't looking...

que sera sera, I guess...

so onward through the mirrors and mazes of my mind and we find me doing something I do not do too often in recent years, a venture into the minds of others as if I can read them and figure them out like some psyche pop psycho drama queen yenta, if you know what I meant... right?... of course right...

anyway, this is what came of that venture...

in a move that gives Looking for Mr. Goodbar a whole new meaning, I was inspired to contemplate comedy... I mean, what is comedy?... what is funny? (Mr. Data, please report to the bridge)... I think about that particular android character on ST:NG (that's Star Trek: Next Generation for all you non-Trekkies out there) and his quest to understand what is funny? and the various aspects of being human...

obviously, Mr. Goodbar did not see the humor in the banner or the diary it came from or the person he attempts to eviscerate... it might have been more or less funny to substitute Dear CIA operative for al-Qaeda and some equally mundane tasks the CIA operative's wife and kids want to have done around their house while the CIA operative is busy blowing up some other country or spying on some other man's wife and kids... I'd have laughed either way...

the point I got out of the humnor in the banner was that men are all over the world taking their hate for other men more seriously than the supposed love for the families and properties and homes they claim to be protecting...

kind of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater...

anyway, my concern is that any apparently intelligent and creative person would miss the very serious point behind the humor based on his own bias or prejudice... mocking racism and hating someone because they are a different race are two very different, even polar things...

Dear President Bush: Your oil wells are mucking up the environment and we're still waiting word on those weapons of mass destruction. Also, please stop spending our tax dollars on your personal vendettas. Get your rocks off at home.

sarcasm is an interesting comedic form... but then, perhaps any comedy is mocking something or someone... slapstick is risking physical pain or injury in order to amuse...

Mr. Goodbar suggests an incongruity between the banner and the support of an anti-poverty organization... perhaps if all the al-Qaeda operatives went home to their families, worked in their own home towns, paid taxes or something, and brought home the al-Qaeda version of the bacon, there's be a little less poverty for his family...

but as long as politicians and concerned citizens play terrorist games, sneak around in other countries under false pretenses, and try to control people outside of their own homes, then they are open to literary pot shots that point out the foolishness of their actions...

Perhaps Mr. Goodbar did not notice the goat in the banner... perhaps Mr. Goodbar does not know that baby goats are called kids... perhaps Mr. Goodbar thought the banner was suggesting that men of the al-Qaeda marry goats and that was a picture of a wife... I really couldn't tell you what Mr. Goodbar saw in the banner...

but I can tell you that Mr. Goodbar chose to lash out at a person who created the banner... he chose to take someone's joke and turn it into a club and proceeded to try to beat them over the head with it... not a horribly mundane thing to do in your blog, to be sure, but certainly not a positive or helpful way to get any point across other than your closed mind can not see beyond your own point of view...

Mr Goodbar chose to follow up his condemnation of the banner and the person and her life by including a banner, or cartoon, that he suggests is more humorous than the banner he did not like... and again, I ask what is funny?...

perhaps all the people who believe in God might find the cartoon quite insulting, even downright racist... religious persecution has been a common theme when looking at history... it seems that mocking religion and religious people is getting so common place that it is no longer something extreme or shocking, but can be used in the context of a blog in which the author gets excited over touching some's titties. So excited that he puts it in his online bio... it just seems ill-fitting to have a sexist statements mixed in with religious attacks...

one person's mundane is another person's excitement... one person's insult is another person's comedy... the difference is the intent behind the words or actions... I don't pretend to be able to read minds, so I would not presume to assume to know someone's intent, especially not a complete stranger...

I mean, Mr. Goodbar went so far as to mock, or perhaps or desparage, someone for taking shopping seriously and enjoying stuff... even writing about it, as if it was beneath someone as erudite and wise as Mr. Goodbar to do...

one person's Ikea catalog is another person's laptop, either way, it's an entry in a personal blog reflecting the person writing the blog, a person, presumably, with no intent to harm me in their attempt to share themselves and maybe make a few friends...

besides, we can assume that the fact that Mr. Goodbar openly admits that he doesn't vote to demonstrate that he obviously he knows nothing about al-Qaeda or goats...

again, I wonder... what is funny?

or perhaps what I should be asking is, what is irony?... the fact that everyone is online writing about themselves and whatever interests them and looking for some feedback, attention, and maybe even popularity (if your ego is big or pompous enough) and one person will spew personal negativity about another person's description of their life and fun, well, that is ironic...

what might be even more ironic is that everyone involved will probably get more attention simply because one made a funny banner, another misinterpreted it and verbally attacked the person who made it, and a third pondered what is funny in an oblong monologue about the other two...

in any case, I look forward to future banners...

from all of you J

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)