The Recreational Nihilist Articles

I was watching Richard Dawkins’ documentary/polemic on religion, “Root of All Evil?” the other night when I was struck by an interview with a young man who converted to a zealous Islam from a loose Judaism. The hatred that animated him – a hatred for atheists (of course), a hatred for infidels, a prediction that one day Islam would spread across the globe – was terrifying. It was even more terrifying given a context in which Israelis pursue their interests with a singular moral blindness and Christians struggle with a history of crusades and imperialism. This led me to think of a solution for the problem of who should have Jerusalem. Hint: It involves applying some rather twisted Solomonic wisdom.

The recent shooting death of a chimpanzee gone viciously wild has certainly struck a nerve – yet another story of an individual caring for an animal thought to be domesticated, only to suddenly turn aggressive. Just the other day, Ron Reagan was discussing with callers whether or not non-domesticated animals should even be allowed as pets. My answer: Let’s abolish all pet ownership.

Capitalism as we know it is bad for the economy. Yes, it’s more successful than communism. And yes, there are obvious benefits – stocks and bonds are useful instruments to fund risky endeavours. But there is something profoundly wrong with an economic system that is also prone to catastrophic failure…

The economy is like the ocean – beautiful in its bounty, terrifying in its temper and more fickle than the media in its love affair with politicians and celebrities. And with all the fancy-pants – you know, the ones who can explain things like why swaps have legs – setting up a nice crossfire of advice, recommendations and dire warnings of doom, it’s time for yet another monkey with a keyboard to offer some thoughts. So this week I give you…Frédérik’s Guide to Giving Good Stimulus (to an Economy That Needs It).

What do you call it when a couple has one child? Sensible.

What do you call it when a couple has two children? Understandable.
Three kids gets to be a little antisocial.

Which means that the woman who gave birth to octuplets (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090130/ap_on_re_us/octuplets), after already having given birth to six children, isn’t only antisocial but downright misanthropic.

I know a thing or two about inflicting pain. No, no, I wasn’t a junior torture-cadet at Abu Ghraib. I did, however, study Kung Fu for a few years, which isn’t to say I learned about torturing people – martial arts aren’t about that, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know Kung Fu from noodles – but that part of defending oneself involves knowing how to neutralize an opponent quickly and effectively. Sometimes that involves pain, whether through a strike, a joint lock, or a pressure point attack.

So the Vatican is opening up the doors to a secret organization most people, myself included, never knew existed (which is the point of making it secret, of course): the Apostolic Penitentiary. Contrary to its name, it’s not a prison for Apostles or part of some extraordinary papal rendition program at the Vatican. The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary is the Pope’s means to handle sins far too grave, too serious for minions lower down in the Vatican hierarchy. “’…so serious that a local priest or bishop is not qualified to grant absolution,’ said Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary.”

After a self-imposed partial news brownout – an attempt to regain some sanity after suffering post-election information withdrawal – Israel’s assault on Gaza inevitably made it through my anti-despair filters. And the more I learn, the more it’s clearly the same folly repeated over and over again. A few snippets from the Jan. 9 headlines at Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/9/headlines#1) highlights the horror of a situation that we, comfortable in our living rooms, can scarcely take in:

It’s easy to be vegan at home, when you have total control over ingredients, recipes, and cooking methods. Hard, as my wife and I expected on our recent trip to Napa, is venturing out into the world where eating is left to restaurants who are very much geared towards the fat-laden, meat-heavy, dairy-heavy, “Western” diet. Fortunately, we are what I’ve come to term “baseline” vegans, or bVegans, which means that while we use the vegan diet (no animal products) as a daily standard for what we eat, we have the ideological flexibility that allows for pragmatism – ethical, nutritional, and so on. Typically, this means that we normally eat vegan, but we’ll go to vegetarian, or sometimes further (only to fish, however, and only rarely), depending on the occasion.

With the Christmas season comes all the usual ornaments and traditions including, of course, the biggest tradition of all: spend money. We could consider renaming the holiday “spendmas,” especially when the news reminds us about how much we’re doling out for stuff in comparison to past years. Outlook: not so good. Says the Front Page’s favourite punching bag, the L.A. Times: “The International Council of Shopping Centers has estimated that in November and December, sales at stores open at least a year may decline as much as 1 percent. That would be the largest drop since at least 1969, when the New York trade group starting tracking data.”