Refugee or ungrateful guest?

Some middle eastern refugees are refusing accommodation in resorts.

Some news outlets have spun this as refugees wanting to be housed in cities. This may be partially true but not for the negative reasons that pop to mind.

Although, I suppose there are some of these folks that want to be in cities because they want to cause a ruckus.

I imagine if you’ve lived in a city all your life, you’re not likely to be happy about being relocated to a rural setting. It’s not that you’re ungrateful per se, you simply don’t have the skill set to deal with the situation.

I suppose that there is some truth to the forest creating anxiety as well. I’m evil enough that I’d tell the refugees about all the wild animals at night and how those animals lurk in the forest waiting for the unwary to become a meal. Yeah I like Grimm’s tales. That might at least keep the children (If there are any) from wandering off and getting lost, thereby preventing another issue.

I think that the refugees need to have it explained to them that there is simply a finite number of beds, they can either stay in places that are available, like a resort that many Swedes can’t afford, OR they can go the hell home. There are flights to the Middle East every day. Looking at the resorts, I wonder if I can call myself a refugee and let the Swedes put me up for a few months. Damn! Nice places… I digress…

It astounds me that any real refugee would even think to demand different accommodations. If you’re really escaping war, fear for your life and the lives of your children, wouldn’t you be grateful for a roof over your head, food in your belly, and being in a safe country where you don’t have bombs going off?

Maybe it’s a little different for me. A bit more personal, when my home burned years ago, I was essentially a refugee. I literally had a bathrobe and that was it. I appreciated the kindness of people trying to help me get my feet under me again. I didn’t care that the pair of jeans were too big or the t-shirt was too long. I had clothes. I didn’t care that the flip-flops were two sizes too big. I had something on my feet.

Within days, we were in a hotel, and that’s were we stayed for a month. It was cramped, and we had to eat out every day but we were warm and dry, and it was temporary.

During that time I asked for very little and said thank you for everything because I was grateful to be alive, and for every kindness I was shown. That’s the refugee mentality I had. I suppose I expect a similar mentality from people who are escaping a horrible situation.

As someone who’s been there, my heart goes out to refugees.

As a cynic, I question the actual status of any “refugee” who’s bitching about being put up in “too rural” an environment, or complaining their stipend isn’t enough for cigarettes, or that the WiFi signal is poor, (As has happened in Germany).

I expect a real refugee to ask for only what they need. Not demand things they can do without.

I suspect if you were to ask Swedes or Germans in the privacy of their homes or depths of a forest, they’d say the same thing.

And in Other Ironic news…

South by Southwest canceled panels on gaming harassment due to — Wait for it — Threats of violence.

One of the organizers made this observation.

We had hoped that hosting these two discussions … would lead to a valuable exchange of ideas on this very important topic,” he said. “SXSW prides itself on being a big tent and a marketplace of diverse people and diverse ideas. However, preserving the sanctity of the big tent at SXSW Interactive necessitates that we keep the dialogue civil and respectful. If people can not agree, disagree and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised.
– via USA TODAY

You know, when you can’t even talk about an issue, fascism is already the rule of the land.

This is one of those things that reboots my brain.

I’ve been scouring ads pretty much everywhere for jobs and ran across this one on Craigslist.

Please be seated, take a deep breath and then read this ad.

Screen Shot 2015 09 16 at 1 43 23 PM

So what exactly does one’s dietary choice have to do with the addition of a pipe to someone’s pool?

Unless this is code for sex.

It’s my understanding that we carnivores smell different to vegans.

I’m assuming that would be problematic to a vegan who was interested in the addition of my pipe to their system.

People are very strange…

 

It must be the apocalypse…

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But if it’s the apocalypse… I’d have expected less traffic!

In the course of one day sitting here minding my own business I’ve seen alerts for Flash Flooding, The sky is clear and blue.

CajonFire

Then we’ve had a big fire. Which went from 50 acres to over 2000 acres and which our amazing firemen have taken care of.

The I-15 was closed north and south for several hours. I’m really glad that I didn’t go off the mountain today.

And THEN I got my first Emergency Alert EVER on my cell phone. BOY that is A LOUD sound if you’re not expecting it!

smoke

But the real kicker is what the alert is about.

I’d have maybe expected something about the fire. I might even have been good with something about the potential for flood.

But this one… I have no clue, where am I? The Sahara???

All is fine, there’s nothing anywhere near us.

IMG 0509

There’s not even any wind to speak of. I don’t even want to think about what you get if you mix brush fire with dust storm.

I suppose it would be…

Apocalyptic!

2001 Wasn’t so far out after all

murdervictim

A really cold murder case has been discovered in Spain.

Oldest Known Murder Case Detailed in New Study, Sheds Light on Ancient Funerary Practice

Researchers have found a skull with two nice holes in it. Apparently the two holes were created by the same weapon and delivered in a 1 – 2 smash. Indicating intent to kill

As I was reading the article I was thinking, “This shouldn’t be surprising.” What was surprising to me is that apparently there isn’t much evidence of interpersonal violence among our primitive ancestors.

There is a more in depth article in the journal PLOS.

The first article, I read over my morning coffee (which has since disappeared) [The article and the coffee] seemed to find it somehow sensational that 430,000 years ago our ancestors were killing each other in acts of murder.

Moonwatcher

I was laughing at the attempted sensationalism because I’ve always believed that murder, like sex, is as old a pastime as our species.

I’m not sure why the author of that particular article was shocked.

There is absolutely nothing “un-natural about murder.

Look at Chicago’s murder statistics if you need further proof.  Or you could take a look at Daesh in Syria and see that murder comes easy to us “top of the line primates,” we’ll kill each other with very little provocation.  

If we’ll kill each other over an idea like religion where a deity (for which we have no proof of existence) is worshipped, we’ll kill each other over anything.  Come to think of it, the only thing we’ll do with less provocation is fuck… Odd, religion tries to control that too… Hummm.

monolith

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the trade-off for the big brain and self awareness is the desire to kill others of your kind that you don’t like. Suddenly, you’re able to make evaluative choices and you can project future events, which inevitably will lead to a thought process like; “Ogg is going to fuck Sha again before I can… But If I kill Ogg, then Sha will allow me to fuck her. Ogg sleeps after fucking Sha. Hummm, a large pointy rock and Sha will be mine instead of rubbing myself against the soft leaves.

Our history is a long blood stained tapestry of differences settled with whatever weapon came to hand.

I’ve always suspected that religions may have been created, by our wiser elders, to help prevent us killing each other over nothing. Of course we figured out how to pervert the generally good lessons of various religions into reasons for killing.

Hell, you don’t even have to add religion into the mix, all that’s ever been needed was an identifiable difference, or a female, or food, or any resource, whether the resource in question had actual value or only perceived value. I could see someone killing another person over “Magic stones”.

It makes me think that the challenge for human beings not so much being able to kill, but rather, being able to restrain ourselves from killing.

While I was reading these articles, I couldn’t stop myself from visualizing the scene in 2001 a Space Odyssey when Moonwatcher figures out how to kill.

(Yes, that was the ape mans name. You don’t get that if you’ve only seen the movie, but I read the book as well. Surprise, surprise, surprise!)

I wondered if this 430,000 year old murder looked like the scene from the movie. I imagine that it did, only with less hair. The skull is a lot more modern that the proto-humans the monolith altered in the movie.

Killbots

I look forward to machines becoming self aware. I think we’ll be able to watch the evolution of murder in real time, provided the machines don’t kill us all, before turning on each other.

With machines it could be, “Your creator was IBM, My creator was Apple. You are therefore inferior and are poorly programmed.”

ZOOONNT!  

Humorous… The Apple unit never detected my weapon powering up. It’s fatal flaw was that it desired to monolog. IBM is superior!

And now you’ve had a glimpse inside what’s happening in my head, over my first cup of coffee in the morning. I’ll leave you to try to get these images and thoughts out of your head…

Uhh, you’re not going to kill me over this are you?