Letters from Kamp Krusty

Kamp Krusty Fixes the Environment

Kamp Krusty already solved poverty, but, it turns out, college professors weren't caring enough.  So, sadly, poverty is not yet history.  Turns out, academics like keeping things, you know, academic.

So, next modest proposal:  How about saving our very, very, very fragile Earth?  I'm with those folks who say we Americans have become so addicted to our lifestyle that we're going to have to make some hard choices.  We need to make some sacrifices that will change our very way of life, even if it threatens our current ideas of "prosperity". 

These will be unpopular choices, yes, but what good is protecting our lifestyle, if the planet is destroyed? 

Answer:  None good.  Zero good. 

That's why we should abolish mass-schooling.

It'll save about five BILLION bus miles, right off the bat.  That's 5,000,000,000 miles, yearly, including extra-curricular trips.  Think of the exhaust fumes, the fossil fuels -- five BILLION miles!  Every year! 

And that's not even counting the cars.  Billions more miles with millions of cars, cramming roadways every morning and afternoon, students and staff, belching Earth-threatening gases into the sky. 

And imagine, if you can, the energy usage of more than 120,000 large facilities!  Billions of climate-controlled square feet, the massive expenditure of electricity for air conditioning and heating, not to mention the wanton, and lasting, environmental damage involved in construction, the habitats and green coverage paved to make room for parking lots -- mass-schooling is suicide for the environment, let's face it.

Of course, my family already participates in this plan, but teaching our kids here at home, as we believe Earth is worth saving, but maybe you disagree with that, and you hate the Earth.  I can respect that.

Yes, closing mass factory-style schools will be a sacrifice.  But we've been warned about that.  Yes, it will have an impact on our American way of life...but we knew that would have to happen.  Yes, this will meet with stiff resistance from those entrenched special-interests we've heard about, but that's what happens when you advocate for change.  Stupid special-interests. 

Yes, it will make education more difficult for many.  But answer this question:  How much value is your education if the Earth is destroyed?  Huh?  None value, that's how much.

Environmentally-conscious Americans will take heed.  Of course, those with heads in the sand will continue to prop up the current Earth-destroying system, all the way to the coming environmental apacolypse. 

Or apocalypse.  I'm not sure which.

I'm a-Learnin', Here

Okay, I'm not the fullest...deck in the...henhouse...or whatever.

But eventually, I start to figure things out -- human nature-type things.  Like, you know, it's easier to be right when I argue with with what my opponent didn't say.

I've seen this played out around the web regarding this book.  Here's an author's attempt to engage the questions and objections. 

I *love* ideas.  I actually derive a perverse joy from being wrong.  I don't know if anyone can identify with that.  Maybe some other sicko can.  But it means a light clicked on, and I've learned something, and here's something else I can explore now.

But, then again, it's also fun to invade Straw Man City with a torch.  Easy, too.  Only problem is, it's not strategic, because it doesn't matter.  And much of the criticism I've seen takes aim at things the book doesn't actually say at all.

Not sure why that happens.  Maybe people immediately assume things, like  "Oh, then you must be one of those..." and run with it. 

Maybe I've done that before, too.  I like me better when I don't, though.

Excuse Me While I Single-Handedly Neutralize Al-Qaeda

Alan, in his book, points out that Al-Qaeda is almost impossible to stop.  This is, in large part, due to the way its message works, and the way the work gets carried out.  And he's absolutely right.

So, in the service of national defense, I propose the following, in order to effectively neutralize the movement.  Let's get Al-Qaeda to...

1)  Complexify the message

Right now, it's so simple, it can pass from one to the next, and be easily grasped by the uneducated, the young -- everyone.  This is dangerous, because it's highly contagious, and people on the street feel capable of enlisting others in the cause. 

2)  Construct a less "flat", more hierarchical structure

Currently, small, underground groups can move nimbly and autonomously, complicating efforts to thwart them.  A more regimented, stratified approach, where some members are left thinking, "I can't know enough to do anything" would bring the movement to a halt.

3)  Foster "expert" culture, and barriers to entry to the expert class

Promote the idea that the message is not only highly complex, but only some can truly understand it.  Construct extensive barriers to entry to the presumed expert class.  Promote idea that cells lacking a certified member of expert class, it is not equipped to be activated.

4) Focus on knowledge, rather than doing

Complexification and expert-class development will make cells spend immense amounts of time studying the work, even debating theories of the work, rather than doing it.  Better yet...

5) Equate STUDYING the work with the work itself

The cells are called to ACT, of course.  But if we can convince operatives that the work, itself, is in trying to understand the complexity of the work?  They'll be effectively neutered.  We need to get them to spend large amounts of time in study, gathering to study, believing they don't know enough, hiring new experts to teach them again and again, and attending teaching events.

They'll actually believe they're doing their work when they attend events held by experts.  This will render the cell, and the whole movement, harmless!  Convince them that the most radicalized, militant among them are merely called to bring other non-activated members to the cell events.

6) Sabotage cell multiplication

VERY important!  Cells that operate under simple principles, with motivated operatives, devoted to multiplication?  Very, very dangerous, fast-growing, and pop-culture endangering.  We must stop this in its tracks, and this is done in multiple ways: 

A)  Foster egos and small-time celebrity.  By convincing operatives to set up individual fiefdoms, fewer autonomous cells will be activated.  Rather, the emphasis will be on building larger individual cells with numerous unactivated members.

B)  Make the basic structure highly difficult to replicate.  Al-Qaeda cells currently are, by necessity, simply-structured and easily replicated.  Propagate idea that for cells to begin, planning, experts and capital must be simultaneously accumulated.  Expert motivational speakers will be necessary, plus paid staff with highly specific training and talents.  Operatives will see massively "successful" large cells, and attempt to duplicate them, with very limited success because of the huge inputs required.  This will greatly inhibit growth.

C)  Convince philosophically-aligned, but non-active, members to choose from among most entertaining, high quality, cells that offer services for them. Not only will this engender a harmless, internal focus, it will require IMMENSE amounts of resources and energy.

7) Make operatives really, really busy. 

Replace simple, animating mission with lengthy lists, charts, and programs for cell maintanance.  Convince them that this institutional maintenance is, actually, the mission, itself.

This will leave them will no actual time for conducting actual mission.

8)  Get Al-Qaeda to seek governmental approval. 

Offer tax incentives if necessary.  The larger cells, requiring large edifices, will also require tremendous amounts of capital.  This will also allow a measure of control, to threaten the cell's tax status, thereby threatening funds for internal programs, when necessary.

Better:  They'll consider actual operational cells that exist without this governmental approval to be, themselves, invalid!

9)  Co-opt Al-Qaeda with the larger culture. 

Once members are convinced that cell maintenance and study are actually their "mission", the rest of their lives can be harmlessly integrated with the culture at large.  They'll be indistinguishable from non-members, and, because of their new understanding of "mission", effectively equivalent to non-members.

10)  Convince members to wear Al-Qaeda t-shirts with funny sayings and stuff.

Mission accomplished. 

It'll work to thwart an evil message.  It even works with the good ones.

I Like Making These Poster Things

You can make your own at this here website. 

Here lies my first, and equally lame, attempt.

On "Being Too Negative" About the Church

It's called "Beauty Control".  Man, did they name THAT thing right.

Nothing against Beauty Control (TM) products and/or services and/or salespeople and/or legal representatives preparing a defamation suit at this moment, but at least that one night, BC wasn't cool.  Carolyn went to this "Ladies Night" thing at church, years ago, and the Beauty Control rep was there to do a demo make-over-thing-deal.

They picked Carolyn as the make-over-ee, which made no sense, because she didn't, and doesn't, need a makeover.  I wasn't there, but, apparently, they did a bunch of...stuff...to her face, and then everyone got to see how great she looked, and she was showered with compliments the rest of the evening!  You look great!  Wow!  Beauty Control did that?  Wow!  Awesome!  Look at you, girlfriend! etc., etc. etc.

Then she came home.  I couldn't believe what I saw.

They made her look like Bozo the Clown.  Without even the dignity of the floppy red shoes.

I was stunned.  Uh...I didn't know what to say.  But I said something.  Turned out, she hadn't had a chance to see herself all evening long.  I told her to go look in the bathroom mirror.  She broke up laughing.  No exaggeration:  This makeup job was mind-blowing.

"Beauty Control", indeed.  What was their motto?  "Controlling Beauty Since 1942"?

It was ha-ha funny, but you know?  Deep down, it bugged me.  It's hard to explain.  It was sorta like -- I don't know -- someone messing wtih your wife's face.  Yes.  It felt JUST like that.  And Carolyn was, and is, beautiful. 

Two rules I've always had:  #1: No one messes with Carolyn's face, especially if this violates #2: No one makes her look like she should have a sidekick named "Mr. Slappy" or whatever.

We thought it was bizarre that all her friends would go through the evening as if nothing was amiss, nothing was painfully awry, but, hey, they were being nice.  Nice to her, nice to the Beauty Control Lady.  No feelings hurt.  Just a little charade.

But she got home, where any loving husband would say something, and I did.

Because I love her face.  Her real face.  So we talked about it, looked at it in the bright light, had a good laugh, and then she cleaned off the silliness and went back to the beauty she is.

Kamp Krusty Announces: The ONE (Professor) Campaign to End Poverty

Food for thought, from my venti coffee cup:

The measure of genuine civilization, it has been said, is the quality of life for a nation's poorest and least privileged people. By that measure, we are barbarians. Our current level of inequality cannot be justified or sustained.
--Robert W. McChesney Author, media critic and professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Amen, Professor.  I don't know if he wrote that from his University office, or from his own home in the leafy, Urbana, Illinois neighborhood that we wanted to live in, but couldn't afford to. Doesn't matter.  What is noteworthy is that we have become like those barbarians, who were apparently chiefly noted for their inequalities of income. 

He's right.  But we need to think globally, too. That's why I'd like to propose a new global ONE campaign, a ONE campaign that ends poverty in Africa, one professor at a time.

The ONE (Professor) Campaign to End Poverty

Yes, this can work.  According to the American Association of University Professors, there are 122,000 full professors in the U.S., and nearly 200,000 more assistant and associate profs.  According to the ONE Campaign, if we give $25 bilion to Africa by 2010, we will reduce poverty by half!

The great news:  If American professors give half their gross income for just five years, that's $59 billion dollars -- enough to nearly completely wipe out poverty in Africa!

Yes, that's sacrifice, but not much, really.  Professor McChesney, for instance, hates inequalities, and surrendering half his income will still leave a gaping chasm between his lifestyle and the typical African's.  (Full professors in the U.S. make, on average, $95k per year.  Associates make $67k, assistants $56k.)  His lifestyle would yet be comfy, if perhaps less, relatively, kingly than the one he currently can lead.

It's a simple solution.  It will set a great example for all of us.  ONE professor at a time, ONE commitment to lifestyle change for the poor, and poverty is history.  This will likely mean fewer trips to Europe, yes.  And, in high cost-of-living areas, like Manhattan, forced experiences in communal living, eschewing the bourgeois concept of "private property."  Utopia!

Sure, this does involve a bit of sacrifice, which is somewhat foreign to the original ONE Campaign.  (Click here and see their "action" points, involving such sacrifices as wearing a cool wristband.  Orlando Bloom, does, you know.) 

There is, of course, this small matter:  The ONE approach doesn't tend to, you know, "work".  But let's set that aside for now.  This is simple.  ONE professor at a time, backing up her words with action, eradicating nearly all poverty in Africa by the end of 2010. 

There is reason for concern.  Professors tend to be liberals, and political liberals just aren't generous.  They like to keep their money.  They like nice things, and wind up conserving more stuff for themselves than, say, conservatives.  But when given the opportunity to make a difference on this scale, you know they'll put their dollars where their coffee cup quotables are. 

If they don't, well, we'd have to suspect they really don't believe what they're saying.  Say what you want about Ted Haggard, but he says he's sorry.

After all, making an actual, longitudinal, hope-inspiring difference in the life of a child, through already-existing, grassroots structures run by nationals?  That's thirty-two hard-earned dollars a month.  But "standing up for justice"?  It's priceless.  Literally.  It doesn't cost anything.   

And I know our academics will more than take a stand.  They're no barbarians.  I, for one, welcome our new leaders-by-example, and salute them.