Keeping the Customer Happy. Very Happy.

My dad promised when my brother Bunce, younger than me by sixteen months, turned 21, he would take us to Las Vegas. I had never been there before, and actually had no interest to go. I didn't know the first thing about gambling, and I had no desire to add to the coffers of the Mob. But I was always up for a new adventure.

We got to O'Hare Airport, checked our bags, and walked to our departure gate. My dad said we should hit the john before boarding the plane. We headed into the public washroom, and my dad was saying, "The one thing you have to watch out for in these public bathrooms is the dirty, old perverts." Then he pointed to some poor schlub standing by himself at the row of urinals, and shouts out, "Like that guy!"

I thought, "Oh my God! We're gonna get in a fight before we even leave the ground."

The guy whipped his head around, and my dad started to laugh like a hyena. It was our good friend Harold Lieberman, the father of classmates of ours from Congregation Beth Jacob. Hal started calling my dad names, but I was trying to figure out how my dad had recognized him.

A few hours later, we arrived in Las Vegas, took a cab to the Stardust hotel, and left our bags at the front desk. Even before checking in, my dad needed to try his luck at the craps tables. He staked me and Bunce with twenty bucks and we started to go with him, but he said, "No!" We couldn't watch him play, like we would jinx him or something. So Bunce and I got some chips and some tokens for the slots and headed off on our own.

We were just getting settled down at a blackjack table, and Bunce was explaining the basics of the game, when my dad came up and said, "Let's go." Bunce and I shrugged. We retrieved our bags, and a bellhop led us out of the main casino and hotel complex to a row of rundown, shabby units behind the building, lovingly referred to as "the barracks," although any soldier placed in such quarters would have immediately shot his superior officer.

My dad said we had to meet his friend Tony. We went out to dinner with Tony, a nice enough fellow, but after dinner, instead of heading back to the Strip for some more gambling, we headed into a dingy area called North Las Vegas. We pulled up in front of this sleazy dive named the Palomino Club.

The inside was raunchy, smoky, and crowded. A hostess seated the four of us around a tiny, sticky table. A few minutes later, a waitress came up and informed us that there was a three drink minimum. We ordered our drinks, I asked for a 7 & 7 - a Seagram's Seven and 7-Up. A short time later, the waitress came back and placed our entire order in front of us. So now there were twelve glasses on this wobbly, little, round table. I took a sip of my drink. The pop was flat, the whiskey was watered, and the drink was warm because there was no ice.

A bargain-basement, Don Rickles wannabe took the stage. A cheap hairpiece had slid to one side of his head, and he wore a tux that looked like it had come off a corpse that had been underground for a while. He started banging on the microphone and said, "Good evening ladies and gentiles, I'm Artie King."

Now, I had been joking with Bunce the whole time out there that I wanted to see the worst comic in Vegas. The old phrase, be careful what you wish for, proved prophetic that night. I can't remember a single joke he told, but the act quickly deteriorated into heckling back and forth with the crowd, and insulting people who got up to leave. Needless to say, my dad laughed like a jackass at every bon mot.

Finally the estimable Mr. King left the stage, punctuating his class act by flipping off the audience. Next, a series of bare breasted women, accompanied by hoots, whistles, banging feet, and catcalls, swayed desultorily across the stage, their faces displaying a range of emotions from boredom to outright hostility. I looked at my dad, I looked at the glassy-eyed faces around the room, I looked at the dozen untouched glasses on the table, I looked at Bunce, and said, "I'm outta here."

My dad wanted me to stay, but I was 23, not 13, and I'd seen enough. I went outside and got in a waiting cab. I told the driver “the Stardust,” and he started to pull away, but he said, "Do you know this guy?" I glanced out the window, and there was Bunce running for the cab.

Back at the hotel, Bunce walked me through the various games, and a couple of hours later, my dad came into the casino, and suggested we get a few hours sleep. Saturday morning we hopped a cab farther down the Strip to the famous Caesar's Palace - far too pricey to stay at, but worth splurging on for a breakfast. We finished up, after being served by some spectacular looking women in Romanesque costumes that would make a centurion fall on his sword. I happened to sport a mustache at the time, and in the hallway, an artist was displaying some black velvet paintings, several of which portrayed Wayne Newton.

Sure enough, my dad called out, "Hey, those pictures look like Steve. Steve looks like Wayne Newton. Hey, Wayne Newton's over here. It's Wayne Newton!"

In a matter of moments, a large crowd formed, jostling for a chance to see Mr. Las Vegas in person. The elation and excitement quickly turned to disappointment. "That ain't Wayne Newton," the crowd grumbled, shooting me dirty looks. An old lady approached me and said, "You should be ashamed of yourself young man," and whacked me on the arm with an autograph book.

I was going, "Hummida, hummida, hummida," and again my dad was off in the corner laughing himself silly.

Our vacation was a Mr. Travel, no-frills, weekend junket - fly in on Friday afternoon and fly out Sunday morning. Bunce and I were ready to get down to some serious gambling, but my dad suggested we go "casino hopping." The thing is, the Strip is miles long. The hotel/casinos are gigantic properties. It takes more than half an hour to walk from one to another, and it's too expensive to keep getting in and out of cabs. So off we went, only spending a short amount of time at each casino. We noticed my dad was not gambling.

As the afternoon passed, my dad said we needed to meet Tony again. But Bunce and I put our feet down. The amazing time Bunce and I had gambling downtown, and then at Circus Circus, where I parlayed my twenty dollar stake into a five-hundred dollar poke playing craps all night was the stuff of legend, but best saved for another story.

Sunday morning, we stumbled back to the barracks at the Stardust to get ready to catch our flight. We figured my dad would be sleeping, but the room was empty. My dad had made arrangements for Tony to drive us to the airport. We packed our bags, including our dad's stuff because of the early check-out time. We left our suitcases at the desk. The room was already paid for, so we grabbed something to eat, I spent some of my winnings on souvenirs, and we played around at the tables. But pretty soon we retrieved our luggage and met Tony out front. There was still no sign of our dad.

It was well past the time we needed to leave, and we were getting desperate. Tony, Bunce, and I resigned ourselves to making the flight without him, and just as the valet pulled up with Tony's car, here came our dad running down the Strip with this devilish grin on his face.

(I later learned from Bunce that my dad's strange behavior in Vegas was due to the fact he had lost all his money in the first fifteen minutes of arriving at the hotel. He had a small reserve he dipped into Sunday morning and got on a hot streak he didn't want to break.)

We made the plane with seconds to spare. I plopped down in the window seat with my dad next to me on the aisle. Bunce was a couple of rows ahead. All I wanted to do was sleep. The stewardess (they were not flight-attendants yet) was coming down the aisle doing a pre-takeoff head count. As she got closer, counting off forty-one, forty-two, forty-three to herself, my dad spouted out fifty-four, thirty-seven, sixty-six. All at once she got this startled expression, then stared directly at my dad, and if there was ever an embodiment of "looks could kill," that was it.

Nowadays, he would have been escorted off the plane in handcuffs, arrested for interfering with a flight crew in the performance of their duties, and held indefinitely as a domestic terrorist. Instead, she turned sharply around and stormed back to the front of the cabin to restart her head count. As tired as I was, I got up and moved to an empty seat as far away as I could get. If I ordered a drink, I wanted to make reasonably sure it wasn't poisoned.

We finally lifted off and meals were served. My dad had made prior arrangements for him, me, and Bunce to have kosher dinners. I don't know what Bunce did, but I ordered off the menu. I had no sooner taken a bite, when I heard my dad blabber so the whole plane could hear, "Wow, this kosher food is fantastic. It's way better than what the rest of you are eating. You should all order kosher meals next time!"

Suffice it to say that when my dad deplaned, the stewardesses did not say thank you for flying with us and please fly with us again.

There are schmucks in the world. There are biggie schmucks. But my dad is the biggiest schmuck of all.

By the way, just for kicks, I googled the Palomino Club, and it's still there and going strong. Artie King is still performing nightly, and I think I recognized some of the same dancers.

Keeping the Customer Happy. Very Happy.

I Think This Might Make A Good Blog

I can't really say exactly what catches my eye when scrolling through my news feed that makes me click on a link to read a story. I'm interested in politics, science, sociology, humor, and especially anything that I think might make good material for my blog.

I saw an article on Slate.com that showed a picture of a pretty, young woman (that in itself usually enough to pique my interest) with a nose ring, and under that, the caption, "A woman tweets #KillAllWhiteMen and the Internet explodes."

The page opened up to a story by Amanda Hess about a college student who was quoted out of context and vilified in the troll-ridden webosphere. It sounded like another of the never-ending "people gonna hate" episodes that turns the Internet from a free and open forum of differing thoughts and opinions into a no-man's- land (no pun intended) of violence and vitriol.

I myself constantly worry in the back of my mind about what I may post that triggers a backlash of hate mail and death threats. Before I started my blog, my family held a discussion in regard to the possible ramifications of putting myself out there, and we came to the decision that I shouldn't be intimidated into silence.

Actually, I wasn't even going to comment on this story until I read to the end and found this paragraph, "This is the time we live in: Thousands of people have signed a petition to unseat a woman they’ve never heard of from a position they don’t understand at a school they’ve never visited over a tweet they’ve never seen."

"Nutshell," I thought. This explains what the Net has become.

The story itself involves a student named Bahar Mustafa, a self-proclaimed “queer, anti-racist, feminist killjoy.”

Mustafa holds a Master's degree in gender and media studies from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she just won re-election to her post as welfare and diversity officer for Goldsmiths’ student union. Mustafa was organizing a protest over upwardly spiraling tuition costs, and in a Facebook message to her friends to help spread the word, she wrote tongue-in-cheek, “If you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME. [But] don’t worry lads we will give you and allies things to do.”

A recipient of the message published the comment on a student news site, where it was quickly picked up by the local tabloids who in short order stated that Mustafa had used the hashtag, "#KillAllWhiteMen," on her personal twitter account.

As the story spread out of control, a Change.org petition emerged demanding that Mustafa be arrested on charges of hate speech and terrorism.

Among the elegantly phrased suggestions (from, presumably, a white male in fear for his life from the hedge-clipper wielding, lesbian hordes), was to “rape her in the cunt with a chainsaw.”

In view of this and other such comments, you would think the police would take an interest in this situation, and indeed they did, although not in the way you might suppose.

"This week Scotland Yard told reporters that after receiving a tip, its officers had launched an investigation into Mustafa’s social media activities, searching for evidence of a 'racially motivated malicious communication.'”

As opposed to the Internet itself.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

The Allies were losing the war. England was starving. Vital food shipments from the U.S. were being sent to the bottom of the Atlantic by German U-boats. Men, women, and children scurried underground as sirens blared, mere moments before the Luftwaffe rained down terror from the skies. Country after country in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa fell before the advancing panzer blitzkrieg. Jews, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and the physically disabled were being rounded up, and shipped in cattle cars to the horrors of the concentration camps.

Orders and messages from the German high command were relayed through the Enigma, a machine whose encrypted codes could not be broken. A daring operation succeeded in England getting their hands on one of the machines. Now all they had to do was crack the encryption.

In stepped Alan Mathison Turing (the 'Math' in Mathison foreshadowing his destiny at birth), born 23 June 1912. Turing was a mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and a Cambridge and Princeton University scholar. He quickly came to understand that only another machine, faster, nimbler, more powerful could defeat the Enigma. He conceived of and built the first digital computer, a huge conglomeration of rotating cylinders and wires.

I am bisexual. Anyone who knows me, or has read any of my writing, knows this. Had I not been born this way, I would still be outraged and heartbroken over what happened to Alan Turing.

We finally got around to watching The Imitation Game last evening. I took note of the film when it was released late last year, but it was not a movie I wanted to see in the theater. Due to my limited mobility, I usually reserve my theater-going to big budget, special effects laden, pyrotechnic, action adventures, preferably in 3D.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who I enjoy in all his roles - Sherlock Holmes, Khan, Smaug - portrayed Turing, the father of the computer. The plot centers around Turing's work in England during WWII where he headed a small unit of men - and one woman - tasked with breaking Germany's coded messages. The key was breaking the "Enigma" machine which encrypted the code.

Cryptologists (code-breakers, not tomb raiders) of the day, approached the problem through traditional, human based analysis using mathematical algorithms. However, the Enigma possessed a possible 159-million-million (!) possible combination keys, which the Germans changed every twenty-four hours.

It is estimated that the successful cracking of the Enigma, which went undetected by the Germans, shortened the war by two to four years, and saved an estimated 14 million lives. Had the war dragged on, it is conceivable that Germany would have developed atomic weapons before we did. England would have had no choice but to quickly capitulate to Hitler's demands. Russia would have fought on, even as Germany blasted Moscow and Saint Petersburg back to the stone age. Germany certainly would have supplied Japan with the bomb, and Pearl Harbor, San Francisco, and San Diego would have disappeared in an atomic conflagration. From bases in England, German aircraft carriers would have laid waste to our eastern seaboard.

In 1951 England, homosexuality was a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment. After the war, Turing continued his research in computer science, developing the concept of artificial intelligence, but he was arrested and subsequently convicted of "gross indecency" for having a brief affair with another adult man. He was given the choice of serving two years in jail, or voluntarily undergoing chemical castration.

This highly controversial practice consisted of a series of injections of synthetic hormones which rendered him impotent and artificially repressed his sex drive. It did nothing, of course, to "convert" him to heterosexuality, it merely suppressed this aspect of his psyche.

The conviction also resulted in Turing losing his security clearance, and he was thereafter barred from his work for the government.

Turing was discovered dead in his bed, by his housekeeper, on 8 June 1954. His death was ruled as a suicide by cyanide poisoning. A half-eaten apple was discovered near his body, and it was thought that he had ingested the poison thereby. One biographer, David Leavitt, even went so far as to suggest that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the 1937 Walt Disney film Snow White, Touring's favorite fairy tale. Leavitt stated that Turing took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew."

An alternate theory proposed that the death was accidental, because Turing kept a supply of cyanide in his small apartment as part of his experiments. But the romantic notion that Turing took his own life, a broken and despondent genius, has won out.

After his conviction, Turing became an outspoken advocate of lesbian and homosexual rights, and traveled to other countries that were more open and tolerant, although he was denied permission to enter the United States. The recognition that Turing's work during WWII saved countless American lives was never taken into account. The theory that Turing was "silenced" by British Intelligence which considered him to be a security risk was never pursued.

Turing was shy as a boy, and was ostracized by his schoolmates. He formed a romantic relationship with a classmate who died from tuberculosis, and Turing named his first code-breaking computer, Christopher, in honor of his lost love.

One of Turing's legacies is the so-called, "Turing Test," the benchmark for Artificial Intelligence. According to Turing's philosophy, true AI could only be reached when a machine was capable of "thinking" so that a human could carry on a conversation, not knowing if he was speaking to man or machine. Turing called this test, "The Imitation Game."

60 years after his death, Turing received a royal pardon of his "crime" by Queen Elizabeth II. Turing has become a folk-hero of sorts. Numerous awards have been bestowed on him posthumously. Historic landmarks, plaques, and statues have sprung up in his honor, and celebrations are held in his name. He has become a rallying point for LGBT rights.

This short blog does not, and cannot, explore in-depth the issues raised within it. The Turing Test, chemical castration, the Enigma machine, "Christopher," and the life of Turing himself are subjects worthy of heavily researched books and academic papers. I entreat you to explore these areas of interest further online or at your local library.

Turing was also a marathon and ultra-distance runner of Olympic caliber. In fact, Benedict Cumberbatch trained before filming to make the running sequences believable. Turing remarked that hard running so freed his mind that his brain would fill with computational ideas. More than anything else, this pushing of mind and body beyond human endurance, best sums up his life.

When asked why he punished himself so, Turing said, "It’s the only way I can get some release."

A Tale of Two Shitties

Boy, did I get two strange phone calls yesterday afternoon.

I posted the other day about taking one of our cats into the vet to have her spayed. As part of her follow-up, the doctor wanted a stool sample brought back to the clinic.

Also last week, I had an office visit with my primary care physician. He sent me home with a test kit to check for prostate cancer and other colon health issues.

You guessed it.

Our cat has hemorrhoids, and my doctor wants to know why I've been using a litterbox.

Thank You For Choosing Our Service

I picked up the phone yesterday morning at 11:00 sharp to wish my Mom a happy Mother's Day. I punched in the number, the phone rang once, then switched to an automated voice message which said:

"Ha, ha, you schmuck. Every idiot on earth is trying to reach their mothers at this time, so due to unusually heavy call volume all our circuits are busy. You should have sent a card. Please try your call again later."

Kitten Face

We were up early here today. We took our adorable, little, kitten-face Mew to the vet's to have her spayed.

In late August of 2007, the Chicago area was experiencing several days in a row of torrential rainstorms. Rivers overflowed their banks, streets were closed, backyards and basements were flooded. We actually still have the unfinished ark I started to build in our garage.

One evening, my wife was sitting in our screened-in porch during a lull in the downpours. She thought she heard what seemed to be a kitten calling from somewhere nearby. Since we have a good number of feral cats around our neighborhood, she ignored it. Eventually the sound quieted down, and my wife headed upstairs. She came into the bedroom and told me about what she'd heard, but I told her if it was a feral cat its mother would come for it, and she should leave it alone.

The next evening, my wife was once again on the porch, and she was sure she heard a young cat crying directly across the street. Our son happened onto the porch, and he also heard the cries. My wife said it was the second night she'd heard it. Our son became concerned and went for a flashlight. At first, he stood on our front lawn and shined the light across the street. He exclaimed there was a tiny kitten on the sidewalk. My wife assumed he was describing a kitten of four or five months, but he kept saying it was very small.

He went across the street to check out the kitten closer. He came  back very upset, and said it was probably not even weaned yet. Now my wife became upset because our street is extremely busy with heavy traffic and trucks at all hours. They were afraid the kitten would try to follow him across the street and get hit by a car.

Sure enough, not ten minutes later, the kitten was crying at the porch door. Now that it had crossed the street, my wife and son were certain if left alone, the cat would try to cross again and not be so lucky the second time. My wife took one look at the little thing and couldn't leave it outside. Needless to say, small kitten or not, it was wary of people, and led them on a merry chase around our property, winding up underneath our car. After fifteen minutes of coaxing and cajoling, our son was able to distract the kitten long enough to grab her and bring her onto the porch.

Through a series of circumstances, we already had five cats living with us, and I insisted we could not take in any more. They reluctantly agreed, and we decided to take it to the animal shelter in the morning.

Being a feral cat, we didn't want to expose it to our cats. Plus our cats, like all cats, are territorial by nature, and we didn't want to endanger the small thing. Our son put food and water out and went to bed.

Thus far, I had avoided our new guest because I was adamant that we couldn't keep it, but after getting ready for work in the morning, I went onto the porch to take a look. My wife tried to head me off because she knew I had a soft spot for animals, but I wanted to see what the cat dragged in, so to speak.

I didn't want to spook the kitten, so I quietly sat on the couch. It was hiding in a corner, but after a few minutes, the wretched, half-starved, half-drowned waif hesitantly crawled onto my lap. It began to purr and tried to suckle, but it was barking up the wrong tree there. I have a way with cats, however (my wife always says, 'What is it with you and cats'?), and it was soon fast asleep in my arms.

That was it. I knew the last thing the shelter needed was another charge, and even if the precious thing was adopted, that could mean another orphan animal might not have the chance to find a loving home. Besides, what was one more mouth. My wife came onto the porch, and I said, "Forget the shelter. Take it to the vet."

The vet identified it as female, and surmised the kitten had been born a few weeks before the storms, and the flooding must have washed away its “nest.” It had become separated from her litter mates and mother, and after two days of calling, the mother was too far away (or worse) to find her. The vet said at six weeks old, the kitten probably wasn't weaned yet, but we should start her on kitten chow and canned food and see how it goes.

But, the kitten had fleas, ear mites, conjunctivitis, and an upper respiratory infection. Thankfully she tested negative for feline leukemia or other life-threatening conditions.

We brought her home and I took on the task of dosing her with oral medication and applying ointment to her eyes. The vet recommended we keep her separated from our other cats until she was completely healthy and acclimated to us. We set up the porch with a new litterbox, and after a few mistakes, she learned to use it.

My wife toyed around with a few typical cat names for the bedraggled, gray tortoiseshell, long-haired fuzz ball, but I suggested Mew because of her constant mewling. Mew had unusually large paws, and we thought she might be a Maine Coon (there are Maine Coons in the feral population in our area), but she never did grow into her paws. In fact she's the smallest of our cats and was probably the runt of the litter.

Mew has never outgrown her kitten phase, and she is impossibly cute. She loves to have the top of her head kissed, and her way of showing affection is to lick the tip of your nose with her raspy tongue. She also loves to sit on your chest and knead with her big paws splayed out.

Mew has suffered through many misadventures, including being shoved out a second floor window by one of our other cats, but that's another story. What concerns us here is every month or so, she goes into heat. We should have had her fixed long ago (all of our other cats are spayed females), but at first we didn't want to traumatize her with surgery, then there wasn't a convenient time, enough money, and other excuses for procrastination.

Also, we put it off for a very selfish reason. When Mew goes into heat, her entire personality changes. She becomes super affectionate and loves to be brushed, which she usually doesn't tolerate. She trills and preens and begs to be petted and cuddled. But she also spots and marks, and the vet said having the procedure done will even out her mood swings, and prevent other health issues down the road.

In the time it took me to write this, the vet called and said Mew was fine and we could pick her up after noon. The recovery period will be about two weeks, and she'll have to wear a plastic cone to prevent her from biting at the stitches. We set up the master bedroom to keep her segregated from the other cats while she heals.

She's home now safe and sound, but she's not a happy camper, and we all have sad faces on. Prepare to say, "Awwwww!"

Pillars of Salt

There are assholes. There are serious assholes. There are dangerous assholes. And there are seriously dangerous assholes. Matthew G. McLaughlin is all of the above.

Write him off as a crackpot. Dismiss him as an ignorant bigot. Explain him away as a sad product of our times. But if you do, you do so at your own peril.

McLaughlin, an attorney from Huntington Beach, California, an Officer of the Court, has introduced a proposed initiative to the State of California Attorney General entitled, "The Sodomite Suppression Act."

The purpose of the measure states that, "the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method."

Essentially he wants to deputize the entire state to legally participate in the murder of gay people.

McLaughlin also wants to put a stop to any discussion of pro-gay rights. 

His proposal goes on to say, "Sodomistic propaganda is defined as anything aimed at creating an interest in or an acceptance of human sexual relations other than between a man and a woman. Every offender shall be fined $1 million per occurrence, and/or imprisoned up to 10 years, and/or expelled from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life."

Border states should plan in advance for an influx of rainbows, unicorns, and glitter.

McLaughlin likens our current state of affairs to Sodom and Gomorrah, "seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst."

The response to this obscene proposal was swift. Calls immediately went out to disbar McLaughlin. A letter to Craig Holden, President of the California Bar, on Change.org states that, "calling for the legalized murder of the LGBT community makes Mr. McLaughlin unfit to practice law. We are demanding the California Bar Association to immediately disbar Matthew G. McLaughlin to prevent him from practicing law in California."

LGBT groups pointed out, contrary to McLaughlin's assertions that homosexuality "is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction," that members of the LGBT community are our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, neighbors, friends, and co-workers.

The Change.org petition points out that "lawyers are a critical part of our judicial system. They help ensure our legal system is just and fair," and such a man who promotes the legalization of genocide and the mass murder of our loved ones is unfit to stand in a court of law.

McLaughlin would need over 365,000 signatures to place the voter initiative on the 2016 ballot, and even if somehow passed, the California Supreme Court would rule it as unconstitutional.

I think something that needs to be said though, is that such blatant homophobia as demonstrated by McLaughlin, the Boy Scouts, and recent legislation in Indiana and elsewhere, should come as no surprise in the face of the LGBT mafia's public agenda and tactics.

I understand it is politically incorrect to say so, and that is exactly the point. In it's striving for legal equality and acceptance, LGBT political action groups have rammed homosexuality down the throats of middle America. I, myself, fall somewhere under the LGBT umbrella, and no one has been as outspoken for so long a time as I have in breaking down the barriers of misinformation and intolerance.

It galls me when I perceive all the hard work and sacrifice of myself and others being undermined by zealotry, no matter how well-intentioned.

McLaughlin uses the term "buggery" (which does not refer to the procreative habits of insects), and Carol Dahmen, the sponsor of the Change.org petition, responds by accusing him of "moral turpitude" (which actually sounds more like the act of anal sex than "buggery"). None of this sits well with the majority of Americans who just want to go about their lives without having all this shoved up their butts.

Yes, Mr. McLaughlin's proposal is "disturbing," "outrageous," "immoral," and "disgraceful." It smacks of anti-gay sentiments in Russia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The acceptance of gays into the heart of our society should be a discussion based on love and compassion. Instead it is just another divisive issue based on fear and hate.

Yin and Yangyang

Yangyang greeted an adoring public at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing, China. The pretty, auburn haired, young woman with expressive brown eyes behind designer framed glasses, spoke with reporters, shook hands with well-wishers, and hugged her mentor, scientist Song Yang. I should probably mention that Yangyang is a robot.

Song Yang, whom Yangyang is modeled after, said, "At present this robot has 43 degrees of freedom across her whole body, most of them concentrated on the face, because of this, her expressions can be very varied."

Yangyang is the product of China's Shanghai Yangyang Intellegent Robot Science Service Centre and Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. Their stated objective is that Yangyang will help popularize robotics among the general populace and young people in particular. At this time the robot is controlled remotely, but the goal is to create an autonomous unit.

The "female" humanoid robot is constructed out of a special type of silica gel that feels like human skin. Members of the research team explained that robots like Yangyang could be used as sales assistants, or body doubles for celebrities.

Yes, and perhaps more. Robots as sex slaves has been the fodder for science-fiction writers for generations. These authors asked the question, can and should morality apply? This question is not as academic as it seems in view of Artificial Intelligence (AI) right around the corner.

Then there is the other side of the coin. Ishiguro's ultimate goal is to transfer human consciousness into a fully articulated android body.  “The most important concept is to extend someone’s life. If we have an android, we can extend our experience and do several things simultaneously,” he said, but then added, "However, this is probably a luxury concept more for the well-off in life."

Ishiguro has been awarded a $16 million grant by Japan’s Department of Science and Technology to take his robots to the next level, in which he hopes to instill them with the notion of “intention and desire.”

Will we create a race of android sex slaves who can think and may become self-aware, but deny them free will?

Yangyang and creator Song Yang

Bugaboo

"I'm not going down there alone," I said.
"Come on. Man up," said my boss.
"No, I'm not going down there alone," I repeated.
"What a pansy," said my boss.
"If you're so tough, you go down there by yourself," I challenged.
"Fine," he said, and called out, "Hey Larry, go down to the storeroom with sissy boy and bring up the supplies."

The storeroom was in the bowels of Chicago's Union Station, and it was not the rats that bothered me - it was the roaches. I have lived in cockroach infested apartments in the city, and aside from having to keep foodstuffs in resealable storage bags, and covering unattended drinks, we coexisted with minimal intercourse.

But the cockroaches that lived in the cool, dank, subterranean basement were different. When you unlocked the storage room door and flicked on the light, they stared at you. These suckers were four and five inches long, and they would turn their heads as one and look right at you. They did not run, they did not hide, they watched you, and you could see them watching you.

They also refused to budge. When you tried to brush them away, they would hold their ground and tickle the hair on your arm with their long, wriggling antennae. The first time I went down to the storage room, by the time I had retrieved the supplies I needed, several of them were crawling on me (I swear one of them was trying to pick my pocket). That was when I vowed never to go down their alone again.

Now a team of scientists have proven that cockroaches have individual personalities - and in certain ways they exhibit the same traits as human beings. I have long maintained that animals have individual personalities, but I was referring mainly to mammals, and certain species of birds. Friends who have snakes and lizards contend their pets also display individual personalities. But I had never extended this courtesy to insects.

Personality is defined as the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual, especially in relation to others, including the set of emotional qualities, the individual's character traits, attitudes, or habits, and the totality of an individual's behavioral tendencies.

That's a mouthful to attribute to a bug.

The species is over 300 million years old, possesses the ability to survive a nuclear blast, as evidenced in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are predicted to replace man on the evolutionary scale, and even have their own theme song, "La Cucaracha."

Previous studies had demonstrated individual personalities in other invertebrates, but unlike ants or bees, cockroach societies are not based on hierarchical caste systems. Isaac Planas-Sitjà, a behavioral sociologist at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and the lead author of the study, stated, "No one had looked at the American cockroach. They are all independent, even though they are gregarious."

Planas-Sitjà also explained that cockroaches made perfect test subjects because of their decision-making abilities, and the extensive research that already exists. "Cockroaches are a simple animal, but they can reach a complex decision," he said.

The researchers attached radio frequency identification (RFID) chips to the thoraxes of 304 Periplaneta Americanas and introduced them to new environments to observe their reactions.

The scientists divided the animals into 19 groups of 16 individuals and placed each group in a brightly lit, plastic circular arena. The arena contained two identical Plexiglas disks raised on short legs. The disks were covered with red filters the light-phobic insects perceived as shelters. Each shelter was large enough for all 16 cockroaches to gather beneath.

The scientists monitored their behavior and determined the cockroaches exhibited such traits as boldness, shyness, sociability, and aggressiveness. The shy roaches ran for cover as soon as they entered the arena, whereas bold individuals spent more time exploring.

As Planas-Sitjà further explained, cockroaches are known for their aversion to light and their affinity for protection and groups, so it might be surmised that all the cockroaches would immediately gather under a shelter. But this was not the case. He attributes this result to the differences in individual personalities and behavior.

Another startling revelation was by the end of the test, the cockroaches displayed a group mentality where all the insects gathered together under one of the Plexiglas shelters.

“There is a collective dynamic — a social influence — that dilutes the individual personality differences,” Planas-Sitjà says. “So in the group, you end up with a similar behavior in everyone.”

Planas-Sitjà surmises this could help explain cockroaches amazing survivability. As more aggressive individuals explore potential areas for colonization, shyer individuals maintain established nests. Odile Petit, an ethologist at the French national research agency CNRS in Strasbourg, said, “They’ve shown that individuals and their personalities matter even in simple animals."

Planas-Sitjà said what surprised him most was that no matter what combination of personalities existed in the group, by the end of the experiment all of the cockroaches ended up beneath the same shelter. "We have a group of equal individuals that reach a choice, and have consensus decision making as we can see in sheep, bats, monkeys, fish, birds, or also humans in this case," he said.

So the next time you think about stepping on a cockroach, keep in mind you may be committing pesticide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VILr1xH3io

Gipsy Kings - La Cucaracha

Be Careful With the Clippers!

Now this is a holiday, if you'll pardon the expression, I can get behind - Annual World Naked Gardening Day.

The holiday is celebrated globally on the first Saturday of May (this year on May 2nd) by tending to your portion of the world's garden as nature intended.

WNGD is a collaborative project founded in May of 2005 by the Body Freedom Collaborative.

Of course, the first celebrants of WNGD were Adam and Eve in a little plot of land called the Garden of Eden.

John Muir, the great naturalist, responsible for our national park system, and founder of The Sierra Club said:

The body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable.

Global Post (www.globalpost.com) puts it this way:

Why garden naked? First of all, it's fun! Second only to swimming, gardening is at the top of the list of activities people are most ready to consider doing nude. Moreover, our culture needs to move toward a healthy sense of both body acceptance and our relation to the natural environment. Gardening naked is not only a simple joy, it reminds us - even if only for those few sunkissed minutes - that we can be honest with who we are as humans and as part of this planet.

WNGD has no political agenda, nor is it owned or organized by any one particular group. All people are encouraged to celebrate the day as they see fit.

Naked gardening enthusiasts suggest that on the first Saturday of May, find an opportunity to get naked and do some gardening. Do so alone, with friends, with family, or with your gardening club. Do it inside your house, in your back yard, on a hiking trail, or at a city park. Stay private or go public. Make it a quiet time or make it a public event. Just get naked and make your part of the botanical world a healthier and more attractive place. (Although I'm not sure if seeing me naked would make any place more attractive.)

Secondly, they recommend you tell someone about your participation. Tell your friends about your day of naked gardening; write about what you thought of your experience, and email it to your local newspaper; and post your thoughts and images onto an Internet site.

It is also a good idea to be aware of thorns, thistles, briers, and burrs, and especially poison ivy!

Barbara Pollard of Abbey House Gardens says, "When you're out there with a gentle breeze on you, every last hair on your body feels it. You feel completely connected with the natural world in a way you just can't in clothes."

World Naked Gardening Day epitomizes the spirit of communion and back-to-basics living.

Just remember the sunblock.