We Have Signs by Rubin 110

Silly Hats Only

The lady posed with the illuminating sign depicted not a wilderness expert in the middle of the wild (I assure you that parts of California are quite civilized these days). Her hat could be called inappropriate if we failed to accept the reasonableness of the message she is trying to impart.

In fact, that she is wearing a hat while female is rather odd when compared to the vast majority of U.S. females her age and socioeconomic status. Is there a value to wearing silly hats?

Her sign does not contain a rigorous defense of her position, so we must examine the possibilities as best we can without her assistance.

Why Silly Hats?

As anyone with a lick of sense can tell you, hats are one of the most commonly abused accessories in the male fashion quiver. In fact, whoever gave men the permission to wear baseball caps whilst not participating in that ‘sport’ and the right to do so in a non-ironic manner is truly an enemy of humanity in general and of human fashion in specific.

Some brave young men have attempted to reclaim the baseball hat by wearing it too large with the authenticity stickers still attached or by putting ‘trucker style’ baseball hats on the children of yuppies. Unfortunately, this attempt at subtle derision was taken at face value by hordes of what might be called chavs were said hordes in the U.K. rather than the U.S.

If wearing actively silly hats gave the impression to impressionable youth that perhaps their self-serious fashion attempts were patently absurd, the notion would have more than enough merit to stand as the highest maxim of tolerable polite society.

Counterpoint

In our shared culture, wearing hats at all is only slightly less silly when males do it than when females do. All hats are, in essense, silly. Umbrellas for the rain and warm toboggans (admittedly a hat, but one with a particularly specialized usage) for the cold. Beyond this, hats are pointless and infrequently used.

The lady above would have appeared no less silly wearing a bonnet. In fact, she may be making that very point: wearing hats is silly.

This doesn’t mean that wearing hats is wrong. Some of the most sober societies have been dreadfully silly but with far less purpose than the admirable young woman we speak of today.

Several admirable faiths hold that silliness is integral to the journey toward enlightenment. Arguing against enlightenment recreationally would be silly, but arguing against it seriously would be foolish.

Summary

If there are any un-silly hats, don’t wear them. Wear the silly ones instead. Eris, Bob, and Connie would approve.

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We Have Signs by Rubin 110

I Have A Sign

I see what you’re trying to do there. You’re trying to get me to say something absurd like “Oh, you don’t have a sign” so that I can look totally foolish because you totally do have a sign and here’s the photographic evidence for it staring me in the face!

Well, I won’t fall for it, mister.

You do have a sign. Sort of.

Quantum

Quantum is an inaccurate title for this section, but it’s catchier than “time is an illusion” which really doesn’t work at all without “lunchtime doubly so.” That would make for entirely too long a title.

In A Brief History of Time (greatest book ever), Stephen Hawking spends some time discussing the fact that we have no idea why we perceive time forward. Why not backward or perpendicular? Well, as your mom probably would have said if you’d asked her when you were three, because.

The simple fact is that time is probably an illusion. It’s a helpful illusion. Keeps us from ending up suddenly in some time when Earth wasn’t in the exact position that it is as you read this. You could end up floating in space with no air!

Recreational ignoring of this illusion leads to several interesting possibilities. Imagine all time was stacked on top of all other time and nothing really happened because it is simultaneously: in the process of happening and not happening.

This is pretty much the case already.

The percentage of ‘time’ in which you don’t exist greatly exceeds the percentage of time in which you do.

And the time in which you have that sign is somewhat less substantially exceeded by the time in which you exist but do not have that sign.

So, yes. You have the sign. Chances are good that you have lots of signs. But you also don’t. In fact, you mostly don’t. You also mostly don’t exist.

Other Thoughts

Just because you mostly don’t exist doesn’t mean I have no admiration. Most of the people I admire mostly don’t exist and I’m only saying ‘most’ instead of ‘all’ because I have no proof that I don’t admire any immortals.

Ignoring your hideous red shirt (careful if you ever find yourself in the Star Trek universe, dude), your sense of style is admirable.

Trenchcoat and that totally bitchin’ hat? Well-played, sir.

Maybe your shirt wouldn’t look so bad if it didn’t clash with the color of your sign. But I think gray and red are a generally inadvisable combination.

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We Have Signs by Rubin 110

God Loves the DELICIOUS Taste

The gentleman in the photo above purports that God loves the delicious taste of a particular brand of macaroni and cheese. But does God? There are, thankfully, a limited number of possibilities.

In this week’s article, I’ll examine just that.

God Loves

As anyone who is sensible and aware of the Bible knows, the list of things God hates is rather short. Lying lips and Esau are the most obvious parts, but we’re pretty sure the part about Esau was facetious. Because we’re sensible.

If you don’t put beef in your ‘mac, even most of the stricter folks wouldn’t claim God even disliked this brand of ‘mac.

Furthermore, thousands of U.S. Protestants and Catholics eat this brand of ‘mac every week. What more evidence do you need?

God Is OK With

I won’t argue with those who say that God doesn’t hate this brand of ‘mac. They mean well, and I’m pretty sure God saves hate for things really deserving of it. Like hippies, Liberals, people who help the poor, health care, and Keith Olbermann.

But does God really love this brand?

Well, let’s think about it. There’s pretend cheese in this brand. A lot of recipes made by people raised on this brand of ‘mac call for “cheese product” with parenthetical explanations about what they mean. “Cheese product” is made by the same company. Fake cheese. Faaaake.

God doesn’t hate fakes. Jesus let his disciples use bread and wine in lieu of a cannibalistic Last Supper. But authenticity—where it won’t cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease—is clearly better. God is not a man that God should lie … or resort to fake cheese.

There’s a better way.

God Prefers

So, if God doesn’t actually love that brand of ‘mac, is there a brand of ‘mac that God loves?

On the same basis that most religious people interpret the will of God, God loves Grandma Sue’s macaroni and cheese. I’m still trying to find the recipe for that, but this one might not be too different.

Grandma Sue’s macaroni and cheese is the best ‘mac. Obviously, God would love the best the most. So, God loves Grandma Sue’s ‘mac the best.

Is It OK to Go for Second Best?

This is one of the interesting theological questions that haunt young Evangelical Protestants in a different contexts.

Is this person you like a lot the one God wants you to marry? Would it be horrible if you marry them anyway and then it turns out they aren’t the one?

Really scary stuff when you’re fourteen or fifteen.

Since this is my article, I’ll use the same privilege to interpret the mind of God that everyone else does: sometimes what you really want is that one chicken fast food restaurant that’s not open on Sunday but it’s Sunday. Just because you want that one place and can’t have it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat some at some other chicken place.

It won’t be what you’re craving, but it’s not like you’re only allowed to eat at one chicken place.

Don’t use that excuse to cheat on your spouse. You’re only allowed one spouse. Until the gays accidentally allow polyamorous marriage.

APOCALYPSE! Just kidding.

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We Have Signs by Rubin 110

Build Prisons on the Moon

I know what you’re thinking. “Prisons on the moon? Absurd!” It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

There are so many great reasons to build prisons there.

Proximity

The trouble with prisons is that they’re kind of like nuclear power plants and landfills. Everyone wants one, but no one wants one close by. It’s easy to understand why. Power plants are dangerous, landfills smell bad, and prisons have a disproportionately impoverished population.

We clearly need a place that is close but not so close that it’s in any of our backyards.

The moon is pretty close on a cosmic scale. It’s not as far away as Mars and it’s not as skin-roastingly hot as Venus. We could send our prisoners on prison ships hurtling through the cosmos, but that would be inhumane and give an odd first impression of humanity. How would you like humanity to be represented by Australians?

No, the moon is the perfect distance.

Escape Proof

Sure. You could escape from a prison on the moon. If you were a moron or suicidal. The moon has no oxygen of its own, and you can’t build a rocket or some sort of space raft to escape the moon either. It’s pretty much foolproof.

Tourism

Alcatraz prison has one million visitors a year. If we assume that each visitor generates $10 of revenue (an assumption we must make since someone stole Alcatraz’s actual revenue information from the internet), that’s 10 million dollars of revenue.

The problem with the revenue is that Alcatraz also has a lot of upkeep costs and it’s notorious for polluting the bay. It might still be profitable, I’m not sure. But it’s not as profitable as it would be if it wasn’t sitting on sea water and poisoning fish or whatever.

What if it was on the moon and instead of $10 profit per visitor, it was making $100 profit per person?

It’s clear we’re going to need some high visibility prisoners to warrant that sort of fee, but I have a few in mind. Who wouldn’t pay a thousand dollars to go on a space flight that ended in a visit to the cell that once held George W. Bush when he was serving a reduced sentence (time off for good behavior) for declaring war on everything? Who wouldn’t pay a thousand dollars plus liquor money to view the cell where Paris Hilton served time for being herself?

Exactly the kind of party pooper we’re not counting on, that’s who.

Minor Problems That Need Addressing

Since most of the people that go to prison are poor and their families are generally pretty poor too, we’re going to have a hard time drumming up revenue any time real soon. It would probably help to decriminalize being non-white, but I’m guessing that’s asking too much.

It costs a lot of money to put stuff on the moon. Like huuuge amounts of money. Like more money than movies on Blu-Ray. Upside, it’s way better than 1080P and doesn’t require quirky firmware updates that take hours and hours to install every time you need to buy a new movie.

Obviously, the prisoners should have to grow their own food and oxygen and what not. Our previous experiences with biospheres on Earth haven’t been too promising. We should probably leave them some backup air and food just in case.

The last problem is the hardest: How are we going to spend all that mad loot? I’m thinking hamburger shooters.

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