When you think of China, you don’t think of it as a particularly sexy place.   Probably the Chinese don’t even think of China as a particularly sexy place as they tend to take their lead in sexual conduct from the West.   Nevertheless, with nearly 1.5 billion people, China is the most populated country in the world.   All those babies have to be coming from somewhere.

In truth, the citizens of China have practiced pre-marital sex for quite sometime now.   They may not have the long legacy of erotica  found in the West, initiated since time began and fortified by the art and literature,and ruminations of the Victorian Era, leading up through the pornographic “French Decks” of playing cards to the grand institution or erotica we extol today.   The Chinese may not even share the Japanese legacy, the artful and colorful paintings of lovers in bold colored silk robes contorted in every imaginable position, most of which having their visage in defiance of logical perspective.

Beauty shops and massage parlors permeate most Chinese cities, with each being the code word for a brothel.   While technically against the law, Chinese authorities tend to look the other way when it comes to the long stand presence of “beauty parlors,” kind of like what California does with its medical marijuana shops.  And like the medical marijuana shops, unless there is political pressure from a self-righteous group of do gooders with too much time on their hands, or the owner of the “beauty parlor” manages to upset someone in the bureaucracy, business goes on with little fanfare.

There is a preponderance of “adult health stores”.   These health stores are not to be confused with American health food stores where you can buy your granola in bulk.  Chinese Adult Health store is the given name for purveyors of every imaginable type of adult sex toy.   To say these stores are easy to find, is to equate their proximity with the nail salons of American.  If there isn’t one on every corner, then the sex toy shops are ubiquitous enough to assure no one will be waiting in line.  As for pornography on the Chinese Internet system, that is also forbidden.   But needless to say, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and with necessity being the not only the mother of invention but a matter of getting off, the Chinese can acquire software that can circumvent the government blocks.

As with most countries on an economic upswing, social regulatory efforts, if not necessarily the actual letter of the law, tend to liberalize in practice as well as theory.   When people are starving and struggling to survive, they have little time for sexual diddling.  Or if they do have time, it is because it is there only diversion from a dreary life, and those impromptu episodes usually result in the begetting or more children, which puts even more pressure on the family and its struggles, and makes for far less time in the exotic pursuits. A win-lose situation, for sure.  But when the good times are rolling, leisure and vice become a heady pursuit.

So what’s the big deal over the Chinese college professor, Ma Yahohai, who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for having the temerity to engage in sex orgies and practice sexual partner swapping.?   Ma and his girlfriend were members of a group  of 22 persons that had some 35 swinger sessions over a two year period.  Frisky devils.  Ma participated in about half of these sessions.    Most of these sessions took place in Ma’s two bedroom apartment.   Ma shared the apartment with his girlfriend and mother.   What the adventuresome couple did with Momma during these libidinous occasions is anyone’s guess.   Maybe she took video.   Or like a good caring mother, washed off the sex toys to eliminate disease.  One can only imagine.

But the fact is that out of the twenty two arrested and charged with Criminal Law 301, Sexual Law 301, Crowd Licentiousness, eighteen of these randy souls were sentenced to prison.   While the defiant Ma was sentenced to his three and a half years, others were sentenced up to two and a half years.   No slap on the wrist, and no mention whatsoever about community service or making an anti-sex film.  The Chinese prison system has never been known much for luxury living.    So a couple of years in jail can give you a lot of time to ponder wistfully the sex orgies you will be missing.   As for the three defendants who got off without a jail sentence, I have no idea how they got so lucky.  Maybe they were only there to watch or serve hor dourves.

It could be worse for Ma and his swinging associates I suppose.  Back in the good old days of Chairman Mao and his successors,  various types of sexual congress, including group sex, could be construed as “hooliganism.”     “Hooliganism” was catch all charge for crimes that made you realize you were in big trouble.   Big trouble meant a lengthy jail sentence at a slave labor facility not of your choice.   You were looking at possible execution.  So by those draconian standards, I suppose, a couple years in jail is a slap on the wrist.

According to reports, there are 100, 000 alleged swingers in China out of the  1.3 billion population.  In terms of Chinese population this is but a measly few.    The measly few engage in group sex and brag about it by posting on the Internet.   Many more beyond the 100,000 read it as it provides if nothing else some vicarious thrills in a country that has yet to develop the 900 sex number.   But still, we are talking a small group of enthusiasts.   Not particularly threatening.  I would consider the group grope of twenty odd people in a two bedroom apartment more of a threat to the integrity of the carpet than to the burgeoning Chinese economy.

Other groups are considered far more threatening.    There are all sorts of radicals and terrorists groups who actually blow up things and don’t just brag about some sexual exploits on the Internet.    There are people trafficking in illegal everything, from counterfeit prescription drugs to counterfeit invoices.   There are myriad labor strikes and worker unrest, including violent demonstrations.   The citizens of the more rural provinces are restless and prtoesting the state appropriation of their lands.   This has resulted in massive riots.  In one riot recently, hundreds were killed in Sichuan Province.

There is airline corruption and all sorts of financial swindling.   Chinese law enforcement has been very busy as the nation pays the price of progress. Even the questionable menace of the Chinese Uighur population  would present more of a problem than a  couple bunches of swingers.   There are many millions of Chinese Uighurs, a Muslim group that is viewed by the Chinese Government as a radical faction and periodically subjects them to surveillance and harassment.   In Xinjiang Province alone, nearly half the population of 23 million are Chinese Uighurs.    I would venture very few Chinese Uighurs are swingers, but that is another story.  The fact is the swingers of China make up but a small but determined faction that you could probably fit into the Beijing Subway.  A chance at getting off at every station.

To be sure, I am not promoting swinging.  I am not promoting it in China or anywhere else.  In fact, mere photos of the swinging Internet set threatens to drive me to the monastery for contemplations of  semi-theistic metaphysics and far less carnal pursuits.  Watching the few happy partner swapping examples on the Jerry Springer Show made me seriously consider celibacy for the next millennium,.   Fortunately, reason took control of my senses.  I only took a shower, instead.   Here in America,  swingers can live large and lounge about in communal congress inside the often tacky but spacious environs of a split-level sub-tract with enough garage and driveway space for all those Toyota Camrys.     Meanwhile their kindred Chinese swingers must dangle their dongs in a measly two bedroom apartment.   Here you get to be on Jerry Springer or at least have your fat, naked ass plastered all over the Internet.   But in China you get a couple, few years in jail.

To loosely paraphrase Voltaire, I may not like swinging and partner swapping, but will defend to the death your right to engage in it, no matter how nauseating it may appear.   Alright, maybe I won’t defend it to the death, as I have better things to do than defend the randy rambling of a bunch of refugees from Wal-Mart looking for distraction in a down economy.    But at the very least,  I will give it lip service, even when I grimace and fumble with the shower faucets.  Why?

Because everybody should have the right to get laid.   It is a right, after all, and not a privilege.   Okay, so maybe sometimes it is less of a right and more of a privilege, a treat even,  a pathetically rare one, depending on the disposition and predilections of your spouse or lover.  I realize that sometimes your significant other does not find  either you or your entreaties as significant or otherwise as you might either hope for or come to expect.   So I guess like other debates over rights and privleges, there is at least a little wiggling room.  But once you do work it out with your lover or significant other you have the freedom to fire away, anytime, day or night.  Even if twenty two people are involved.

But as in China, there are some here and in parts of the world who don’t really see it that way.   They allude to some intelligent design and a divine plan where you must only do it with restrictions.   They ascribe the  damning words immoral and degenerate to a variety of sex practices that were apparently never detailed in the master plan.  Otherwise, I suppose, the master plan would have been just plain old porn and not some divine edict from the heavens explaining explicitly where Daddy and Mommy or Daddy and Daddy or Mommy and Mommy may put their thingies and Woo Woo’s.   In some cases they want to rearrange your thinking; they want to straighten you out.

Oppression always begins somewhere.   Usually in the stupid places, the places that make us wince.   But then they graduate to places where we are concerned where transgressions are made against our privacy and thought process.     We suddenly find our rights intruded upon and threatened by a group of ideologues who truly believe in this world of infinite choices they are so graced with absolute answers.   We find ourselves being subjected to embarrassment and thrown in jail for acting out on our natural impulses.  Oppression begins in the dumbest of places, and it ends somewhere else.   And we don’t know how we go there.

Chinese Professor Ma Yaohai has resigned from his teaching post.  He now lives off his savings and his mother’s pension.   He is appealing his sentence of three and a half years for “group licentiousness,” which translates into getting his rocks off with a couple dozen people.  As we have seen recently in this country, some of our own social issues that we thought were long put to rest, sexuality, racism, the right to live and breathe as you so choose, have resurfaced and been challenged by perhaps a well intentioned but vehement minority.  Given that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we should never take the good professor’s condition all that lightly.  No matter who you are or where you sleep, something  may be lurking beneath the sheets.  Something besides your partner’s cold feet.

We all think the other guy is a lousy driver.   What’s odd,  is that at least one out of five times.  According to an article in Media Post a new report from the2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test we are correct in our assessment.  At that is before we delve into our biases in the way we rate our fellow drivers.   Add in some of the more obvious and extenuating factors and a great many of us should never be anywhere behind a wheel.    Quite a few in fact shouldn’t be allowed to pull a little red wagon, yet alone power a three thousand pound automobile.

The recent report from  the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test contends that one in five drivers, nearly 38 million drivers in all would flunk the written driver’s test, if it were given today.    The test incorporated basic driving questions that were culled from the driving manuals in the fifty states.  Nothing too arcane or esoteric.   Just stuff you maybe need to know before you head off for your bag of Doritos and double Mocha Latte with your cellphone in your ear and your makeup in your lap.

Okay, so  maybe in addition to the twenty basic questions there were some other, more directed questions.   There were questions related to the texting while driving.   You know, difficult interrogations that are only slightly less challenging than reading the fat content in a Denny’s Grand Slam.   Questions, from what I gleaned, like whether or not you should duck your head back into the rear seating area for a quick peak  at the monitor where Finding  Nemo is preventing your kids from beating each other with their Young Einstein action heroes.

The study indicates that a number of licensed Americans continue to lack knowledge of basic rules of the road; the national average score decreased to 76.2% this year from 76.6% in 2009.   No need to convince me we are dumbing down. About 85% could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a steady yellow traffic light.  Many drivers remained confused by safe following distances.  This would require math, not a strong suit as of late.    Hell, we can’t even estimate correctly how much oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis.   Small chance we can estimate how many feet it takes to stop a car.   And then there is the matter of reading, actually understanding the questions that were being asked.  Other studies report that fifty percent of our citizens are functionally illiterate.   Perhaps we should have left our more serious reading to the dinosaurs who lived with us in domestic harmony a mere 6,500 years ago.

The drivers in some states did better than the drivers in others.   Kansas may not have grasped entirely the radical theory of  Evolution, but at least as a state it came in first on on the written driver’s test with an average score of 82.5%.   New York State finished last with a 70% average score.    That means three out of ten drivers in the Empire State should always be taking the subway.  In general, drivers in the Northeast may not be as well informed about driving regulations as their Midwestern counterparts. The Northeast had the lowest average test scores (74.9%) and had the highest failure rate (25.1%). The Midwest region had the highest average test scores (77.5%) and the lowest failure rates (11.9%).

Not surprisingly,  the older the driver, the higher the score.  The aged are still able to read, which is probably their greatest advantage.   Males over age 45 earned the highest average test score. Males also outperformed females overall in terms of average score (78.1% male versus 74.4% female) and failure rates (24% female versus 18.1% male).    I suppose the one caveat about the vaunted  elderly drivers is that you can also see him driving down the street with his turn signal flashing and a shopping bag perched on the roof of his car.   Then it might be wise to think differently.

As for female drivers, overall, a significantly higher percentage of females than males reported engaging in the following distracting situations: conversation with passengers, selecting songs on an iPod or CD/adjusting the radio, talking on a cell phone, eating, applying make-up and reading.   We are talking multi-tasking.   Not always easy at sixty miles an hour.   And then every once in awhile you do need a hand on the steering wheel, whether you want to or not.    The other day I watched a woman in an SUV while she juggled muffin, coffee, makeup and cell phone, while trying to negotiate the traffic in Beverly Hills.  It was almost an art form, until her one angry bite severed the muffin so it fell out of her mouth and into her lap.    The look on her face was priceless.

George Carlin used to comment in his comedy act that the driver poking along ahead of you  and who won’t let you pass is an imbecile.  On the other hand, the driver whipping around your slow and sorry ass and blazing on up the highway, well that driver is a maniac.   Everyone else, I suppose, is somewhere in between.  And where is in between?   Cutting corners so tightly that they clip the car in the left turn lane who was just sitting there waiting for the light to change.   Trying to figure out how to parallel park sometime before the second coming.    Or not knowing that four wheel drive can help you drive through the ice and snow, but it doesn’t assist much in the way of stopping.

And drinking.  Let us not forget drinking.  I used to live in New Mexico where the rules were such that you could pull right up to the drive-through liquor store without having to suffer the inconvenience of staggering out of your car.   Small wonder, the Land of Enchantment is the number one state in single car fatalities.   Miles and miles of open spaces.  Nothing to hit, really.  But, still, they manage.

This report may go a long way to explaining the forty thousand people who die every year in car wrecks, and the couple, few million who are injured.  These figures are actually down from a decade ago, but you can attribute that more to the safety of the vehicles than our collective driving prowess.   I suppose, if you want to get picky, you can also remove from the list the false claims of injury and incapacitation that are mounted to sustain the driver-lawyer-quack doctor menage a’ trois.  Most accidents are not of  the gnarly paralyzing and dismembering  type that will get you a prime spot on the late night commercials sponsored by your local ambulance chaser.

Now bear in mind, the GMAC Insurance is just that…an insurance entity.   Their job is to sell insurance to drivers.   This is where their money is.   And despite the fact that they need and want to sell as much car insurance as possible, they are contending that one in five drivers shouldn’t be behind the wheel.   I would think this is a conservative estimate.    Should we ever get realistic about these estimates, auto sales would plummet even further, insurance policies would go wanting, and the country would have to actually do something about viable public transportation.    Ancillary benefits would mean less of a dependence on oil, and possibly in urban centers you could actually breathe the air. We can’t have that.

But we all know there is no such thing as reality anymore.  Pragmatism is a thing of the past.   If we had common sense, knowing the destruction they cause from distracted driving, we would be draconian in enforcing laws about cellphone use in the car.   In my humble opinion, instead of some measly fine, for first offense they shove the phone where the sun won’t shine, and for the second offense, they remove it with a chainsaw.   But I am being moderate here.  Oprah Winfrey is spending real bucks on commercials where she is dragging out the victims and survivors of victims killed by distracted drivers.   She admonishes us about using driving and cellphone use, and she is a national icon.   Tears fall.  Voices tremble.   This is Oprah., for god’s sake.   Everyone adores her.   Everyone listens to her.  Except when she tells us that when you are driving put down the damn cellphone.   Then even Oprah is a just another pain in the ass.

Perhaps it is wise to use the GMAC Insurance estimates as a base figure and take a closer look.    By utilizing some of the GMAC survey questions we can start to approach the truth.   On the survey, only five percent admitted to texting while driving.  So we are not only a nation of lousy drivers, we are also a nation of liars.    Couple that with the fact that, according to reports, fifty percent can’t read and understand the survey anyway, so there answers may be more guess work than actual comprehension.  Add into this mix those out there who are driving without a license.   There are more than a few.   So this group wasn’t even asked to take the test.      And if you still think it is only a mere twenty percent of the driving population that shouldn’t be behind the wheel, I have one final suggestion.   Take a trip to your local DMV.  Look around.  Then tell me how safe you feel with some of these people motoring down our highways.

By no means does this make us the worse drivers in the world.  Americans are merely the worst drivers in the United States.   Anyone who has driven anywhere else knows the tribulations of, say, the Indian National Highways, or the vagaries of traffic rules in South America.  We can’t all be Canadians, after all.   Even in the South of France, unless you demonstrate you are committed to running over pedestrians, it is nearly impossible to get from here to there.   And these are places where they have some semblance of highways.  Or paved streets.   There are many parts of this world where even the Yak is ill informed to who has the right of way.

And then, despite our whining and sniping, we Americans are pretty much a tough breed.   Come some national holiday where perseverance and John Wayne’s rectitude  are compulsory, before we head out on the highway with a six pack of beer, and a bevy of off-road vehicles trailing behind our four miles per gallon bargain RV.    We are a nation that meets its challenges.  Well, sort of.

Well, there are many challenges ahead of us.  The least of which is being able to read the driving manual.  As John Kennedy implored as President, about our reaching the moon in ten years, we have to continue moving forward.  Which is fine with me.  As long as  we don’t have to drive there.

For the curious sort, you can take the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test by clicking this link.

People have been preaching the end of the world since there were…well…people.   Over the centuries, you have everything to ruin your sleep from the dire predictions of Nostradamus to the guys with sandwich boards warning in ugly painted lettering of the impending Armageddon.   We have had in the Cold War the ever present fear of nuclear annihilation.  Now we have the fear of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

We also have the Mayan Calendar, which purportedly ends in December 2012.   Many see this as Doomsday, the end of the world, the end date  of a 5 thousand odd year cycle.  A cottage industry has grown around the fact that the Mayan Calendar does not extend beyond December, 2012.   It is the end of the world, see the movie, buy the cookies, wear the tee shirt.

Maybe the end of the Mayan Calendar has nothing to do with the end of the world.  It may mean nothing more than they foresaw the end of political sanity as a bunch of mediocre candidates may be running for office.   On more mundane levels,  it may mean the Mayans were bored with their lives and found that one day ran into another there was no pressing need to chronicle their lives through time and space.   So instead of extending their calender, it was a symbolic rejection of their future as that future only mimicked present and past–same crap on another day.   Perhaps, after a long, spiritual consultation with their gods, where they sacrificed their last remaining virgins, Mayan priests saw in their future a world of  MacDonald’s and Wal-Marts and figured the hell with the chronicles of history, not with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin coming online to get it all wrong.

I don’t know.   I don’t even pretend to think I know.   I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and that was no joke.  The specter of apocalyptic reality did indeed hover  for those 13 days.  Couple that with the insipid high school air raid drills where behind the closed paper window shades we gathered in the hallways, no talking, no chewing gum, to accept our fate of collective incineration.   Easier that way, as for those who survived the nuclear holocaust would only have one hallway from which to sweep up the ashes.    But as the Cuban Missile Crisis was averted, we were left only with the only one residual epiphany, that doomsday renders high school even more irrelevant than we had originally supposed.   At least that was the value I took away, that no funky, out of date textbook could ever hope to refute.

But now here we are.   We have any number of doomsday predictions.  Pick your pet scenario for impending disaster.   There are certainly enough to go around.  Global warning has its virtues, and of course the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.  Those Mayans again.   Nostradamus.  Although you haven’t heard much about him lately, at least not since the movie flopped.     Talk about lack of star power and box office draw.  If you go out on the limb, like Nostradamus, you have to  be at least somewhat on target about doomsday to keep them coming back for more.    A couple of flop predictions and those eponymous tee shirts are remaindered to to the bargain racks at Ross Stores, before you can say “Von Dutch.”

So now you have some entrepreneurial soul who is selling bunk beds in a converted bunker out in the Mojave Desert.     AT&T had a bunch of those bunkers stationed around the country.  They were designed to withstand a nuclear blast and keep the communications open through secure microwave technology.   The bunkers are around 14,000 square feet, which is roughly about the tenth the size of your average Kroger or the size of a modest supermarket.      Not real big.   But then, back when these bunkers were built they were constructed so wires and diodes would remain intact and not people.

But here we are in a frenzied world with frenzied headlines and hysteria about one thing or another at every turn.   It’s an odd world that way.   One minute we are told to relish the Hallmark moment, and the next we are warned about the reality of impending doom.   Yes, odd.   Buy stocks and prepare for retirement in one life’s breath and in the other just kiss your ass goodbye.   No wonder people are confused, frustrated, and not sure which way to turn.   If it’s all over twenty minutes from now, why even bother going to the gym?   It is almost as stupid as going to high school.  Well…maybe not that stupid.

So here they are out in the Mojave Desert, selling sanctuary from the end of the world.   It could be all yours for a mere $50,000 in cash.   Blast proof doors and a bunk in a room with three other people.  Yes, you will have one of the four bunks.   Kind of like a youth hostel with freeze dried food that may be slightly worse than the culinary mystery you buy off a roach coach.   Just you and two hundred other people in your 14,000 square foot collective space.  Cozy.

You get to sleep in the same call as three other people.   This means a cacophony of bad breath, stinky feet, snoring, and the occasional sneaky night fart.  This is what you get for your fifty grand.  Not the Ritz, and not the Four Seasons.  Not even the Holiday Inn.  Naw, not even the Motel Six where at least a wall separates you from the commotion next door.    After awhile, it would stand to reason you would be hoping a hundred megaton bomb would relieve you of your last bad decision.   Just throw back the blast proof doors and release yourself to the refreshing embrace of nuclear radiation.

Okay, so maybe after some deep contemplation the $50,000 investment for a berth in the bunker does not seem like the world’s greatest investment.    Maybe the end result seems more akin to being stuck on a tarmac for several decades while the apocalyptic pilot waits for the nuclear radiation to reach half life.    Maybe, like me, you would rather be swimming with barracuda than cramped in a tight space with vacant humanity for any time longer than it takes to go from here to there.   So it’s possible sitting in a jail cell with a lounge chair is not the best way to slip past the apocalypse.   Maybe you are not that eager to survive, after all.

There is another factor.   Nuclear war happens fast.  Missiles travel at high speeds.   By the time you know the show is in its final run, the missiles are launched and it is a long drive to the bunker that is outside Barstow, California.   Even if you live in Barstow, it’s a tough drive.  And if you live in Los Angeles or any of its suburbs, traffic is at a standstill twenty of its twenty four hours.   So when they announce on talk radio that your life will be over twenty minutes from now, I would venture getting from wherever to some dirt road outside of Barstow ain’t as easy as, say, resolving the national debt.   The little venture gives true meaning to getting there is half the fun.

So there you are, sitting up to here in bumper to bumper traffic, forty three miles from sanctuary, listening to dire warnings from talk radio that the end the world missile is being delivered toasty warm just moments from now, in a big insulated pizza box.  You didn’t make it to your rat hole.      You are dead, thinking to yourself, damn, instead of this bunker, I could have bought a Winnebago.

But for those who are a bit more upscale and choosier about their apocalyptic digs, someone out of Kansas may soon be offering underground survival condos for a mere $1.75 million apiece.   There you may have your much desired exclusivity and languish in the comfort  of your Lazy Boy, oblivious to the pounding of scorched hands from those less fortunate than you.   Never think of them as the unfortunate, but view them  as fertilizer for the future landscaping you plan once the radiation has diminished.  Those fatty food diets they probably ate will play off big time as they replenish the ground.

The condo does have its drawbacks.   Yes, you might survive, but it is a long way to commute to anywhere.  You are in Kansas, after all, and being some wigged out survivalist in Kansas should be punishment all to itself.  In the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust you can be pretty sure you won’t have decent reception on your flat screen TV.

Look, this is a variation on an old theme.   People have tried this before and rather than go the collective or condo route, they dug bomb shelters into their backyards.   The stocked them with weapons, food, clothing, batteries for emergency radios and flashlights.   The shelters maybe weren’t blast proof but what Russian in his right mind was dropping a nuke on Maple Shade Lane in Levittown?    So blast proof wasn’t the issue.  You only had to survive the radiation, Grandpa’s senile reminiscing, and the fact that one nuclear family member may croak, causing you to live with the stench until the radiation outside reaches half life and you can venture out into that brave new world of devastation.

But…many did consider the bomb shelter a worthwhile investment.  There was a technical name to these people, attributable to their ability to see into the future and after careful contemplation realize what action needed to be taken.  A very precise and technical name.  Schmucks.   But then after awhile even the schmucks discovered it might not be the end of the world and started using the bomb shelter for more worthwhile purposes.  Like turning it into a sewing room, or the kiddies recreational room, or since there were beds there for having undisturbed sex with the pool boy or maid.   Practical application.  We are Americans after all.

As for the end of the world being imminent…two very basic and visceral responses pop into mind.   Not likely.  And if that is wrong…then…so what?  Yes, so what?   People are idiots and they ended the world.   They were too dumb to live and something else will come along to take our place.  Maybe enlightened protozoa.  Hard to say.  Such is life.  Such is death.

Besides, have you ever been to Barstow?   Imminent death may be a lot better than sitting it out in Barstow.

Everyone tries to declare how special they are.  While various groups debate their differences, define their histories and otherwise demonstrate their significance on what is becoming a very small planet, there is one undeniable fact that lingers in the back of our brain.   We are all going to die from something.   We may die quickly and violently, or we may linger and suffer before we pass on.  But the stark fact is sooner or later we are checking out of here.

It is almost funny that this is perhaps the one remaining single fact where there is little or no debate.  We argue about everything else.   We argue about the big stuff, and we argue about the little stuff.    We argue about global warming.  We debate the merits and deficiencies of race, gender, and sexual preferences.  We argue about gravity and the age of the Earth.   We can spend hours debating the morality of everything from where to buy the best pair of jeans to driving an SUV.   We argue whether we  Darwin evolved or were a product of a divine plan explained to us ever so precisely through umpteen religions and secular theories.    We argue whether cow farts and bottled water will hurtle out planet to its impending doom.

We argue incessantly.  Taking sides and shouting each other down  has become a major industry.  You can’t market complexity and nuance, because thoughts that are complex and nuanced are disturbing and prey on our insecurities.   We are more secure with crackpot theories than we are with uncertainty.    So we argue in absolutes,  and even then we prefer to keep our absolutes simple.   If they are not simple, you can’t buy the books, go to the lectures and otherwise listen to the pundits and politicians who cater to our particular set of beliefs.   Simply put, if you can’t put your thoughts on a tee shirt, they probably ain’t worth remembering.

But then every once in awhile some actual facts escape from spin cycle and we are confronted with their statistical reality. These are not the speculative statistics or manipulated statistics, positioned just  to validate our point of  view.   No.  Instead these are the types of fact that are actually hard to argue with.   The ugly truth as it is sometimes known.    These are the simple numbers that lay reality at your feet like an abandoned child that nobody wants to nurture.    These are facts that remain consistent regardless of the cause , blame or subjectivity.  These are the facts that leave little wiggle room, that are distinctive in their certainty so that debating them appears more like futile  buffoonery than rational argument.

Such facts?   Not only are we going to die, but we are actually killing ourselves.   Maybe it’s the lemming concept or the human version of the long march to the elephant graveyard.   Maybe its gross denial mixed with complex mixtures of stupidity and ignorance.   Maybe deep down we just don’t care.  Maybe our compulsion toward self-indulgence is so great that nothing, especially common sense, will get in the way of our collective suicide.

I am not talking here about the macro levels, the easy stuff, nuclear war,  global warning, and the death of the planet.  I am not even speculating on the probability of the sun eventually burning to the cinder or a meteor clipping us when we least expect it.   Even global starvation and massive pandemics are not on the table here.   Being invaded and eaten, as Stephen Hawking recently predicted, by aliens from another planet; we can forget about that, too. I am talking about how through our lack of responsibility we are in fact taking responsibility for doing ourselves in.

New studies report that nearly half the adult population in America has high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes.  One in eight is playing the quinella, where they have at least two out of three of these diseases.   According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, 15% of us are walking around unaware we are afflicted with at least one of the three diseases.   Which means to me,  folks can pontificate authoritatively about everything from the rash on our ass to the Rapture and the End of Days, and yet still walk around having no idea they are seriously ill.    We talk about lofty things like taking care of the planet and taking care of the poor, but yet we can’t seem to take care of ourselves.

What is even more interesting that certain diseases plague certain ethnic groups more than others. In America, African-Americans are prone to high blood pressure.  Those of European descent find high cholesterol gets in their way, while Latinos suffer more from diabetes.   Surely, there is some extension of these disease from one ethnic group to another, hands across the water so to speak.  Also, there are other serious diseases that afflict different groups.  I realize their are environmental concerns and individual or familial congenital defects.    And then, in terms of health and fortune, it sometimes boils down to nothing more than the luck of the draw. But for our purposes we can stick with the article and just these three diseases.

While each ethnic group seems more in peril from a particular affliction, the causes for each of the diseases are pretty much the same.   Mainly the causes revolve around smoking, a junk diet, obesity, and physical inactivity, better known as the sedentary lifestyle that makes the purchase of one of those fat mover electric scooters almost irresistible to some of the late night cable crowd.   I would think no irony should be lost on the fact that our true common ground is our self-indulgence and bad health.

I have often found it just a tad specious that just about every ethnic group likes to brag about its past.   Each ethnic group and nationality can go on for days about its glorious heritage and its contributions to civilization. There is no end to their performances and days of  glory.  Then.    It is not that a disbelieve their claims.  But often find myself searching for their particular relevance in the modern world.  I wonder if all the casting back to the past serves as a distraction from the vagaries of our present times.   I realize others will view a world through a different prism, but I tend toward the pragmatic and prefer to see how those past achievements can best be put to use in the modern day.   How do we put them to use, and where does it leave us now?

From the looks of things, it leaves us obese with hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol.   All represented in one form or another in the same collective rut.   So in existential terms, regardless of  specific achievements attributable to one group or another, we are all sitting here, living in denial and dying sooner than we should.   If there is any consolation; it’s all pretty democratic.   No matter what our ancestry, half of us are taking the decided inaction to let the quality of life slip out of our reach.     We talk grandiose about saving the planet, but according to the recent study, we are having a tough time saving ourselves.

We talk about being sensitive to our surrounding, aware of the environment, our fellow creatures, and the challenges we are faced with.  But yet in terms of our own well being, fifty percent of us can’t get out of our own way.  We can’t hurdle our indulgences or come to terms with the realities of our own health concerns.     Yeah, sure, we like to talk about it.    We talk about the junk food, our carnivorous habits, and the polluted air we breathe.  We even see the doctor.  Yet here we are.

So I guess at the end of all this I am forced to wonder how are we doing to do all this planet saving when we can barely hurdle our personal afflictions?   Is there any real logic to fending off hunger, water shortages, and global warming, while we continually ignore the factors causing our own demise?   Here was are, ethnically speaking, all stuck with some kind of health burden and the best we can do is to skew the statistics to our own disadvantage.  Maybe in the face of loftier ideals, the notion of the best example is the way we take care of ourselves.

The book has been described by critics as quirky, personal, and darkly humorous.   It is not your typical spy tale but tells an intimate story about what it feels like to suddenly be thrust into the world of espionage.

“The Guys Who Spied for China,” was a quarter finalist in the recent Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition.

To hear the interview live you can click on this link for David Ewen’s Today’s Author

The show will later be available for download at this following link.