captaincliff

Masters of decapitation and Hollywood-style marketing, ISIS, the marauding band of black-clad Jihadists are said to be in high level talks with Disney execs regarding plans to partner in a one-of-a-kind theme park joint venture near Bagdad. Negotiations continue while ISIL troops mass on the outskirts of the Holy city and deploy heavy artillery and mortar fire. The theme park is tentatively to be called “Jaffar: Bad-Ass Thieves of Bagdad”. Sales and marketing teams hired by the highly ambitious terrorist group have conducted numerous surveys and focus groups just prior to burning and beheading dozens of Kurdish militiamen, Syrian clerics and human rights workers.  Social media has also been utilized to identify the features target consumers associate with “Radical Islam”, “religious zealotry”, “ritual slaughter” and “evil incarnate”. So far a general vision for the entertainment facility involves an IMAX theater-sized depiction of ISIS brigades rising out of the desert sand to destroy the three-headed dragon of Capitalism, Zionism, and Obama.

ISIS reps and Disney production staff claim to be “100% committed to a full-scale digital domain and action arena”; one that will serve the comprehensive needs of their radicalized brethren and the many demented European tourists who will predictably romanticize brooding terrorists. Such grand Disney-esque aspirations not only inspire great fear and trembling among it’s imperialistic enemies but also considerable anticipation and excitement in young and impressionable schoolchildren as full-scale mock-ups of hand-to-hand urban fighting, mass killings, live beheadings and regularly scheduled raping and pillaging of secularized women is likely.  While still in the planning stages, a slew of Hollywood actors, agents, directors and social media specialists have already applied for information regarding future job openings. One applicant who wished to remain anonymous commented, “At first I wasn’t used to the core competency application questions like, “Have you ruthlessly and violently killed anyone before?” and “How often have you personally carved the turkey at Thanksgiving?”, but once I got the hang of what they were looking for it wasn’t so bad.”

Is it true that ISIS and the growing Ebola health crisis are actually changing our routine social discourse with one another? Could our culture be significantly affected in a way that eclipses even 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? I wonder if this one random example from an online forum might help illustrate how fear and uncertainty certainly do influence and impact the kind of choices we make and the places we choose to travel.

Dear OnlineArchitect, I was wondering whether the upper cantilevered deck at Fallingwater could handle the additional weight of a 50 caliber gun mount taking into account additional load factors such as ammunition, gun crew (average weight 170 lbs), and vertical as well as horizontal recoil? I’m also thinking of using two 10 ft long 8″ by 8″ horizontal i-beams sitting on four additional RC columns resting on pad footings. I’ve heard that Frank Lloyd Wright sort of fudged the structural engineering data just to keep the aesthetics in keeping with his architectural vision but the sight of projectile vomiting Ebola zombies and ISIS brigades wading Bear Run creek in my direction makes me think I’m wiser to risk some major cracks in the hydraulic cement by dynamiting the reservoir upstream, jack hammering rifle and RPG ports straight through the stucco walls and blowing them all to Hell. Looking forward to your reply.   Thanks, Pennsylvania Guy

Some of you may have heard that the first non-isolated case of Ebola virus has been identified in Texas. Maybe you were too busy buying up shares of Alibaba, purposely bending your new iPhone6, or trying to outrun the rash of storms devastating both coastlines. It’s hard to concentrate with the polar ice caps melting and displaced species like wolves and bears wandering through gated communities looking for garbage and small pets to feed on. I know I’ve been distracted by ISIS and all the beheadings taking place in the Mideast and Oklahoma. It’s beginning to look like the backroom wall at Party City and early Halloween in Iraq with all the freakish heads propped on fenceposts and scattered in front of nicely tended public parks and government buildings.

Meanwhile, ISIL, the rag-tag group of homicidal Jihadists are apparently already on the outskirts of Baghdad with future plans to invade London, Paris, Atlanta and Detroit.  They can have Detroit but I really wish they would spare Atlanta and take Augusta instead. The place smells like a perpetual garbage dump and has only two existing weather patterns…driving rain and magma hot/humid. As a doctor of Psychology I feel it is my duty to inform the public, maintain calm, and attempt to preserve order in the midst of all this COMPLETE AND UTTER CHAOS!! Taking in a deep mindful cleansing breath and letting it out slowly I am suggesting at this point in time that we all….Run for our lives!! Save Yourself before it’s too late!! Leave the sick and injured, it’s too late for them!!

Ok, I’m just kidding. Seriously, there is no reason to panic (yet). Both the President and the CDC told us that Ebola is “very unlikely” to show up or spread to the United States and that “careful measures” have been taken to protect the American public.  Of course this is the same President who has a cadre of “dedicated and determined” Secret Service around him who it appears are dedicated and determined to KILL HIM or at least allow any lunatic within a stone (or shoe) throw of the Oval office to gut him like a fish with a rusty pocket knife and/or blow up the First Family by hopping a fence and sprinting like a rabid deer into the White House unmolested. Yes, I realize that today they are reporting another security “incident” at the CDC (of all places) where the Secret Service allowed a “disturbed man” on the elevator with the POTUS who happened to be “acting funny” and carrying a gun. At least it wasn’t a Bowie knife and a vial of Ebola……. Can you say “Grassy knoll”?

Let me end by describing simply what we can all do in the current state of madness and mass paranoia. There is no need to freak out. I’m going to show you how life with Ebola will not substantially change anything. I also have several photo illustrations below that appeal to our basic psychological need to “think positive”,”visualize the future” and “just know” we will be ok. Consider this a kind of subliminal survival slide-show that will helps us all to adjust to the “new normal” that is life with Ebola in 2014. I actually hate that term “new normal” and wish whoever invented this particular lame-ass meme starts bleeding from every orifice. Ok now,  just relax and look at these color photos being careful to read the accompanying captions.

The good news: No need for clothing. Everyone will wear Hazmat suits that circulate a mixture of Lysol, ammonia, and Bacitracin mist around your entire body 24/7. CPAP wearers can plug their machines into the extra intake opening. Another plus, evacuate anytime you please.

Normal routines like cooking and sharing meals in the kitchen remain the same. Of course the refrigerator will need to be retrofitted with bank vault apparatus and Outbreak sterile chambers to prevent fatal contagion. I still recommend LG over Subzero or GE. Blending all meals including steak, ribs, and buttermilk pancakes into a puree mash so that they can slip seamlessly into the suit’s “stoma bag” will be, let’s just say “different” but hey, you can still maintain your “Paleo diet”!

Shopping for the family is virtually unchanged. American ingenuity allows family traditions like taking college-bound kids to Ikea to go on as always. Here is IKEA’s prototype dormitory bunk bed called “Ebola-kklatu-barata-niktu”. It’s a beauty and the chance of infections (STDs or Ebola) is almost nil.   Good luck trying to put it together.

Wondering about me? Will I continue to see clients and provide patients with supportive psychotherapy and empathic regard? Of course I will but only after they are fully strapped into this “safety” harness to prevent them from spitting on me or somehow transferring their infectious bodily fluids onto my new berber carpet or white noise machine. To be honest if their eyes start to roll (or go “zombie”) or their ears begin to bleed its going to be a much shorter session than 50 minutes and the last thing they will “remember” from their dream is the barrel of my shotgun pressed against their temple…..

So the youngest smart-mouth son Benjamin’s fiance Megan converted to Judaism this past weekend. She did it quietly and gracefully and without much fanfare. She took her ritual mikvah dunking in the synagogue in Augusta, Georgia and emerged not just ritually clean but spiritually pure and forever joined to a religious faith that is thousands of years old. She also picked up a new Hebrew name in the process. Megan is now also Esther. Not to honk my own horn people, but that’s two out of two brand new Women of Valor for the Tribe (see earlier blog about Eli’s fiance Ashley who is now also Leah). With so many Jews today assimilating or no longer remaining meaningfully connected to their Jewish heritage and religious identity, shouldn’t I get some kind of special “badge” or gold pin for raising sons who know how to find beautiful and smart shiksas and lead them joyfully into the bosom of Abraham? In addition, the mixing of fresh DNA into the Mazer family gene pool (one hopefully not teeming with Ashkenazi related ADHD, mental illness and motion sickness) is a noteworthy secondary perk. Anyway, such momentous events often lead to philosophical and/or cosmological reflection. That means some of us just cant help but ponder the big picture and what all “this” means.

Last time I published Ashley’s written response to why she chose Judaism as her identified faith. This time I am posting Benjamin’s thoughtful response to a very religious friend who was assertive enough to ask him a challenging yet quite appropriate question about his concept of God. I thought it was a pretty damn good answer for a 24 year old (soon to be 25) punk-kid med student. Here it is:

I’ve been thinking a lot about bacteria lately. Bacteria and viruses really bug me. For some reason these pesky pathogens just wont leave human beings alone and are always getting us sick. The War on Drugs and the War in Afghanistan are miniscule conflicts compared to the Lysol Wars which have raged on for centuries. Sure we can kill 99.9% of the sneaky little bastards but apparently, somewhat like the Taliban and the relentless waves of Chinese foot soldiers during the Korean War, they keep coming back for more.  Think about it. In the classic Sci-fi book by Jules Verne (that nobody reads today) and the crappy remake of the movie War of the World, what was it that finally wiped out the marauding space aliens? Hint: it wasn’t Tom Cruise. Our nuclear weapons arsenal and bloated military industrial complex? Nope. The Commander in Chief? Nein. Dick Cheney? Negatory.  It was the nasty viruses and yucky microscopic bacteria that hitched a ride on one of the Martians spaceships and turned them all into stinky orange goop. I’m not talking about the innocuous Nickelodeon kind of brightly colored goo, but what your internal organs look like after a soaking for a week in a bath tub full of Coca Cola and/or sulphuric acid. You think those noro-viruses on your last cruise to Mexico were bad? How about if the Carnival Triumph came back to port next time in Miami not just listing badly due to its bimonthly engine room fire and full of dehydrated diarrhea-ravaged vacationers but a literal ghost ship of dead and dying Poseidon people with plastic champagne glasses and color-coded wristbands? It could happen. Of course their surviving next of kin would still be offered 20% off a future cruise….