Author Archive

Well, almost a semester has passed and we have covered some real issues here in the Great Divide. Save for a few naughty topics, though, nothing has been done for the sake of comedy and the odd-ball. So despite the protestations of my editorial board this week the Great Divide will cover the topic of which is scarier; a zombie apocalypse or a robot apocalypse? Enjoy the absurdity of this read.

I assert that a zombie scenario is far more frightening than robots taking over the world for three reasons. One is my belief that the forces unseen in this universe are far more powerful than the scientific ones. Second, my belief in the effects of entropy on machines and lastly the power of the allegory between the living and living dead.

Admittedly, a robot take-over is right around the corner at the rate we are headed. Robots are faster and stronger and more easily repaired than human beings. All it takes is A.I. Soon the average cell phone will be smarter than the average astrophysicist. Believe me when I say they passed the point of being smarter than the rest of us years ago. Robots would master our tools and then master us. Sure it is a totally scary scene, but it is no zombie apocalypse.

The dead rising is some seriously mythic ideas. How many major world religions have some kind of reference to some kind of undead action going down? I can think of three. Robots are probable and zombies are impossible. It is the impossible that really scares us. It takes fact to defeat the improbable monster, it takes faith to defeat an impossible one.

The fact is that machines break down. Mankind would find a way to exploit this. One good world-wide E.M..P. and then enemy is defeated. Fry everything with a circuit board and we turn technology back into our tools instead of our masters.
The real scary part of zombies comes from the allegory between what life and un-life really mean. Zombies were once people. Consider the horror of having to fight off our own son as he tries to eat your face. It could be your boyfriend really does want to take things to the next level, the one where he eats your brains.

The things we the living do for survival might make us no better than the monsters we fear. After enough time has passed in a zombie apocalypse it might be hard to tell who the real walking dead are.

In the end both zombies and robots should be marked off on the things we should mess with column. There would be no easy fix for either problem. But it is a simple truth that dead flesh reeks more than motor oil. For the olfactory horror in itself I am going to have to say a zombie apocalypse is the more bleak and hopeless future. Just ask yourself which movie was scarier; I, Robot or Dawn of the Dead? What movie offered more hope; the Matrix or 28 Days Later?

As the closing of the spring semester rapidly approaches, it is time to consider what you might want to do with you summer break. A whole three months of time for you to decide how to fill it. Many people will tell you that summer school is the way to go. Those people are over-achievers in a race to the grave.

Here is why you should skip summer school: so you can live life instead.

Most folks have no choice over what they do. They have to work full-time jobs. After a certain age summer becomes nothing more than the hottest working season. If you have kids then it is even more of a problem because then you have to figure out what to do with the little beasts while you are putting in your nine to five. Summer vacation becomes nothing more than a week in the Ozarks while you max out your credit card and nearly die from heat-stroke.

The truth is that if you are the average college student between the ages of 18 and 22, then these summers are the prime of your youth. This is your time to climb mountains and swim across oceans. This is your time to live and love and laugh as hard as you can. Why sit in a stuffy classroom throughout the wild summer heat just to speed up to your adult professional life?

With modern medicine, there is a good chance you might live to 100, so there is plenty of time later to make the money. It is going to be hard to climb Mt. Everest in Depends, though, so now is probably the best time to give it your shot. It is said that “youth is wasted on the young.” Don’t prove it to be true by going to summer school.
If instead of indulging in drunken depravity you really feel the need to feed your academic bug, then at least do something cool and cultural like the semester at sea. There are any number of college programs that will take you to exotic locales and give you credit for it. How about going south and studying Español? Or taking in the Mediterranean with a stop in Greece?

Why rush to grow up when you could take the last years of your youth and innocence to sow wild oats and swing from chandeliers? Why not live life?

By the time you read this I will have maintained a vow of celibacy for nine months. I am aiming for a year.

I will tell you why this is significant.

When I was four years old I was molested by a seven year old girl. I never looked at it that way or even saw it as anything bad as I was growing up. It mostly just involved stripping off our clothes and lots of little kisses to the places that were different on the two of us. There was no use of force or coercion, we looked at it as a game. She called the game “Humping.” I was fairly enthusiastic about it and to this day a small part of me still loves her. Wherever you are Rachel, you changed my life.

Now with the knowledge of psychology and endless hours listening to Dr. Drew’s Loveline on the radio, I know that it was molestation. It had a lifelong effect of hyper-sexualizing me. Although I played the difference for my friends, after that I knew girls really didn’t have cooties, and although I had no name for what they did have, I knew I wanted to see one again. The thing that makes me the most sad is that she probably learned that behavior from some adult teaching it to her. Often I still cry for her.

As soon as I hit puberty I was off like a rocket, grinding my loins on anything that would grind back. Statistics show that the average man thinks of sex seven times a day, for me it is just once. One long perpetually sustaining thought that occasionally gets interrupted by reality.

For me, sex was my everything. Luckily in this perverted weird world we live in, I knew I was not alone.

People are crazy about sex. It is the biggest business there is out there. For every one normal web site there are five porn sites. Sex addiction is not just an addiction for Tiger Woods. We all have a bit of the bouncing bed beast inside of us. All my life I have embraced that beast.

Now I have it on a leash.

After nine months I can see things differently than I have before. I see how many people have an addiction to touch and a neediness for company. Most people cannot sit alone in their thoughts for longer than five minutes before grabbing their phones. We rush from lover to lover these days in such a whirl that the term “serial monogamist” has become a part of the zeitgeist. We work so hard to find that happiness that happens during the three to five minute afterglow that comes with the little death. Because the truth is when that bit is done right, it is amazing.

So why resist? Because it makes those moments of passion that much more precious if they pass less frequently. Because the perspective you gain about the way people move and interact and touch is mind blowing. Because learning to live with the world without wanting to mount it is very enlightening. Because celibacy helps you see the world without living at the sexual demands of anyone.

Oh and the national infection rate of herpes is 26 percent and condoms suck. Also you can get mouth cancer through performing oral sex on someone with HPV. Might as well just keep it in your pants.