Thursday, July 27, 2006

Letter to the Editor of the Orlando Sentinel

Dearest editor:

Our country is in the hands of ruthless nincompoops responsible for the ongoing horrors in Iraq, Israelis and Lebanese are killing each other and bombs are going off occasionally in subways. Amidst all this proof that humans, including Americans are, by and large, a horrible species, it is very hard to find kindness. If you do, don't tell the Orlando city council about it, because if it's in their jurisdiction, they'll squash it like an Iraqi bug.

Petty and small-minded has been redefined by our city. While the civilized world is in chaos our local rulers have managed to ferret out our most pressing problem - the program to feed the homeless in Eola Park. By God, let's hear it for the Gothics. They sure dress funny but it appears they have a foundation in what is called decency. Decency is bad for Orlando's image, offends developers, who have only profit in mind, something a city council can better relate to than an empty stomach.

Anyway, really, look at these compassionate ones. If they would wear business clothes or belong to the Jaycees, well, it might not look so bad. But Food not Bombs? Come on. Not only are they against hunger on their doorstep, but war as well. What kind of creeps are these?

If Orlando had no houseless people, they should be imported just so we can sit back and watch these radicals take care of them. Because, especially nowadays, it feels good to see a little organized kindness. And we should be proud to have such people in our midst. But we have a city council that feels inclined to squash them. Our city council would have outlawed the bread lines of the Great Depression.

Forty-five people spoke against the ordinance to ban feeding the homeless within a two mile radius of city hall and four spoke in favor. So, by democracy, it passed. No wonder Iraq is in no hurry for it.

Before it was just a bad joke. Now Orlando's city council is a disgrace.

-- Tom Levine

Monday, July 24, 2006

The Thought Provoking Mudfish

Jack London despised the domestic dog, naturalist Ed Abbey urinated on ant hills and Mark Twain had only poison for the French. These eminent literary outdoorsman scorned three widely diverse creatures innocently born into what they are. For sure they had one sentiment in common though.: a deep and abiding loathing of the bowfin.

Yes, the blameless bowfin, finning gaily here and there, opening his toothy mouth occasionally to briefly thrill an angler thinking he has hooked something else, anything else. The bowfin has been more kinds of fish initially than any other and is never himself until the evidence is undeniable, for no one fishes who is not an optimist.

Its identity is so tenuous in fact, that it is never called by its given name. Bowfin is not spoken - only written. Generally any amount of swearing will locate one. Recently I chanced upon Andy Rooney sitting under a frayed straw hat, cane poling in a roadside ditch. I inquired about the fishing.

“I don’t know why,” he whined, “you can’t just ask me how many mudfish I’ve caught. That’s more to the point, isn’t it?”

“Alright. How many bowfins have you caught?”

“You know, I’ve never cared for the name. It doesn’t tell you what you want to know, does it? Is it half mud and half fish or is it three quarters mud? Some people think they’re completely mud. I like that.”

How the Mudfish might have got its Name

Two old gents were angling down in the old slough. One of them pulled up a bowfin. “Whatchew got there?” said the other.

“I don’t rightly know,” said the first. “I think it’s a fish.”

“No, look to me you jus’ caught a gob o’mud.”

“It’s a fish.”

The other leaned over squinting. After a time he concluded, “Nope. That’s jist the durndest gob o’ mud I ever did see.”

“It’s a fish.”

“Mud.”

“Fish.”

“Mud.”

Then they looked at each other and smiled. “It’s a fishmud, ain’t it?” said the first.

“Durned if it ain’t.”

Does the bowfin deserve all this ill will? The name “mudfish” always seemed unjust. Although they can inhabit muddy water, I have not found one in solid mud, seeing them often in clear, flowing streams. It’s true they do not suit the palate. After throwing them back for years, it occurred to me to be open minded and try one. I can report that the very filleting of a bowfin is disgusting, the flesh slimy and putrid. Not one to be put off by trifles, I sauteed a small piece and upon eating it learned the origin of its name. The rest was offered to the cat who instantly ran away from home, proving that this ancient fish does have a useful application.

In Florida the conversation often reaches another of Mother Nature’s children who obliviously inhabit human thoughts, the manatee. The vast majority of opinions emanate from compassion and appreciation. The rare empty headed view is always the same: “I hate manatees.”

It is hard to imagine anything less hateable than a manatee but here it is again - the general slander of an innocent race. Perhaps these individuals are all eminent literary outdoorsmen. On hearing it the first time, I thought, horrified, “Oh, man. Her family must have been slaughtered by manatees.” Loathe to learn the truth yet spurred by morbid fascination, I asked why.

“They’re so ugly.”

The answers can be classified by gender. Women who hate manatees always give this reason. Based simply on looks, one would expect women to love the manatee, as it gives them all a favorable comparison. But perhaps they can’t stomach someone going around looking like that without doing something about it. The men are likely to hold against them the government regulations instituted for their protection, which sometimes interfere with high speed motorboating.

“Pardon me for being protected,” I heard a manatee mumbubble once in passing.

“Excuse me for being endangered,” another apologized.

Ever the scientist I continue to ask why when I hear it and finally was rewarded with that invaluable aid to research, the anomaly. I swear that the following quote is absolutely true and that it came from the proprietor of an investment firm in New Smyrna Beach. We were in his office and I never will forget it because I wrote it down. I said, “Please can I have a sheet of paper and a pen? I wish to record those words you have said.”

Pleased as punch he handed them over. The following is a word for word transcription. I never would tamper with such a pure example of whatever this is: “Well, you know - all the government red tape and bullshit. Manatees are dinosaurs. If you had elephants walking on I-4, do you think they’d close that? No way.”

After recovering the facility of speech and requesting writing tools, I said, “Thank you very much. Everyone I meet from now on will seem quite sensible because I will compare them to you. Let me further congratulate you, a financial advisor. I have heard many stupid things said about manatees, but yours is the undisputed champion. You are indeed a rare individual to volunteer such damning evidence about yourself. If knuckleheaded remarks about endangered species becomes an Olympic event, and it wouldn’t surprise me, then you, sir, are the horse I will back. For training I will find a spot on the bank of Blue Springs Run where you can sit and constantly be reviled by these monsters and inspired to your greatest elocutionary heights.”

I am not so sure of the accuracy of my comment because I wrote it down much later. However, the spirit is intact.

While the bowfin is despised universally by fishermen only, the manatee is despised only by knuckleheads. If there is some kind of a connection here, it escapes me. I chanced to spy Mr. Rooney again, on a bank of the St. John’s River and asked if he had spotted any manatees. He turned to look at me, then his shoulders slumped as he sighed in apparent exasperation.

“Why does everybody have to call them “manatees”? Sea cow was good enough when we used to grill them. Everybody knew what you were talking about and it’s certainly a more picturesque name. Maybe I’ll just go to the movies and see a matinee. I think I like that.”

We all have our little prejudices. Mr. London and the manatee haters occupy small, bitter minorities. We are left to wonder if he hated manatees also, because they have the quizzical, friendly look of the domestic dog. And the manatee is the rare wild animal that will seek us out and accept food and a scratch on the belly, the very behavior he seemed to detest so in the dog. Mr. Abbey persecuted the pismire for its neurosis and Mr. Clemens loathed the French for their cruelty. If there is a common thread among the ant, the Frenchman and the bowfin, it is too fine for me to see. Perhaps there is a little mudfish in everybody.

The life of a man can be ruined by the eating of a single aunt

In the beginnin’...

In one corner of a long ago whitewashed room is a small table with a banana on it. Both banana and table are underneath a fly. The fly knows shape - nothing else. He thinks he’s sitting on a turd. The fly is not wrong because he has recently crapped on the banana.

A gunshot is heard and the dead fly tumbles to the table top. His shit remains on the yellow fruit, a monument to where he had been. A demure curly headed little girl sidles into the corner and without noticing the monument, lifts the banana from the table and shoves it up her ass.

These proceedings have been totally witnessed by God Almighty who puts it all down to Genesis and the governor of Mississippi Frogfart Pondodor who says, “What fly? I don’t see no fly.” Probably Governor Pondodor shot the fly.

Governor Pondodor and God Almighty are heard breaking into a chorus of “I shot the sheriff but I did not shoot him in the fly.”

The fly fails to see the humor in any of this because he is dead. But he is not dead because he had no sense of humor. He is dead because an assassin failed to see the human in a fly sitting on a banana.

Flies make people look like shit. They have many ways of doing this, the most common of course being hypnosis. They congregate in the morning and hypnotize each other toward this end. It’s a sort of fly humor. When you walk amidst flies feeling very godlike, swatting them as you go, have you never wondered why they keep trying to land on you?

In the days of Abraham Lincoln people knew how to leave pins sticking out of their butts.

Miss America or leave it. There was a time when people knew better than to leave pins sticking out of their butts. There was a time when spaceships ruled the toilets and submarines the sky. But no more. “The sky is underwater!” cried the fly. “How do I swim and keep me dry?”

Thursday, July 20, 2006

And yet another from Arnie

Bush vetoed Stem Cell Research
Because...........he can't spell it.
WAR..............that he can spell

Friday, July 14, 2006

Yet another from Arnie

Shiite Happens! W
Thanks to you!

3" x 6" Color: White on Black with Red W
Vinyl $ 1.75 each. Quantity 50+ $1.25 100+ $1.00
Bush lovers won't love this one.Too bad!
It looks wonderful on my car.
For more ordering information E-mail Alevine99@aol.com

Another submission from my brother Arnie

To Be A Bleeding Heart
You Gotta Have One!

Buckwheat is better than Alfalfa at sports

Once again science has discovered what everyone already knew, and acknowledged that Buckwheat is better than Alfalfa at sports. This establishes the wisdom behind the historic exclusion of Negroes from Major League Baseball and many colleges and universities (so the white boys'll get to play). Now that it's official, it's time to do something about it.

With the physiological superiority of the Negro documented, there is no reason why athletes of other races need to continue competing with them. It is time to reestablish the Negro leagues. The existence of gender separation in sports sets the precedent. The frustration of female athletes having to compete with men is identical to that of white men against black. These days young white men no longer dream of a career in sports. It is simply too unlikely with their standard issue. Instead they must turn to sedentary goals. It is the optimistic white boy indeed, who works toward an Olympic gold medal. He has little chance.

We must read the graffiti on the wall. Basketball, football and now baseball are becoming "colored only". Hispanics are today's white baseball players. Let's change the national poem to "Ramos at the Bat". With the New Colored Leagues, we can once again look down a baseball roster and read names we can pronounce.