Archives for June 2013

My uncle Gary was a decorated pilot in the Viet Nam war. My uncle Gary was a homosexual. My uncle Gary was a pilot for Flying Tigers after the war. My uncle Gary made the best Bloody Mary you ever could have tasted, had you been honored to know him. My uncle Gary loved me and let me stay with him one summer when I was having severe, teenage, emotional problems. I was not a perfect kid. Actually, looking back, I’m glad I was raised by Hillary Clinton’s proverbial village because anything else would have resulted in a prison sentence. Our lives diverged as I got older and the last time I saw him was a couple of years before he passed away due to AIDS. But I was always in his heart just as he was, and is, always in mine. His true love, Joe, was with him until the end and, last I checked, has not been with anyone else since Gary died. If you read this and the most important fact you glean was that my uncle Gary was a homosexual then you have severe problems. You’re a stilted, broken, human being. You want to take the Christian attitude? Please do. Jesus hung out with 12 sailors and a hooker. You could do well to follow His example.

I am not gay and, despite the demise of DOMA, have not been offered gay marriage. Not even a gay one night stand. Given the phobia surrounding the decision I’m mildly disappointed.

I mean I’ve lost weight, have a job, most of my own teeth … you could do worse.

Moving on.

If you read the title of today’s blog you either realized that it’s not today’s date or one of the most significant dates in LGBT history. The fact that both are true shows you how little facts mean taken out of context.

In 2009 About.com memorialized the Stonewall riots, also known as the Christopher Street Uprising. Since they did such a good job I’m going to share their efforts with you today.

The Stonewall is an unassuming little bar in Manhattan’s West Village that has become a true landmark in gay history. Forty years ago, the New York gay community rose up here in a riot that sparked the modern gay rights movement.

The Stonewall Riots

In the summer of 1969, the New York gay activist movement was born when a group of gay New Yorkers made a stand against raiding police officers at The Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Village. In those days, gay bars were regularly raided by the police. But on June 27, 1969, the patrons of The Stonewall Inn had had enough.

As the police raided the bar, a crowd of four hundred patrons gathered on the street outside and watched the officers arrest the bartender, the doorman, and a few drag queens.

The crowd, which eventually grew to an estimated 2000 strong, was fed up. Something about that night ignited years of anger at the way police treated gay people. Chants of “Gay Power!” echoed in the streets. Soon, beer bottles and trash cans were flying.

Police reinforcements arrived and attempted to beat the crowd away, but the angry protesters fought back.

By 4AM, it looked like it was over. But the next night, the crowd returned, even larger than the night before. For two hours, protesters rioted in the street outside of the Stonewall Inn until the police sent a riot-control squad to disperse the crowd.

On the first night alone, 13 people were arrested and four police officers were injured. At least two rioters were said to be severely beaten by the police and many more sustained injuries.

The following Wednesday, approximately 1000 protesters returned to continue the protest and march on Christopher Street. A movement had begun.

The Stonewall Legacy

Stonewall turned out to be a pivotal moment in the gay rights movement. It united the gay community in New York in the fight against discrimination. The following year, a march was organized in commemoration of the Stonewall Riots and between 5,000 and 10,000 men and women attended the march.

In honor of Stonewall, many gay pride celebrations around the world are held during the month of June, including New York City’s Gay Pride Week.

Today, the Stonewall bar is once again a popular gay night spot in New York City. Occupying part of the original Stonewall Inn, the bar attracts plenty of locals and out-of-towners aiming to pay tribute to a gay New York landmark.

Here’s the deal; homosexuals bleed red, just like you, love freely, just like you, shop at the Jewels, just like you, have friends, just like you and want to be treated fairly, just like you.

Simply put, you are one night of gay sex from being just like them.

And they are one night of straight sex from being just like you.

Since no sane person defines themselves solely by the sex they had let’s just admit we’re alike.

I know an old man named Joe who would approve of that thought.

The Fortune Teller: 50 Yrs of Gay in 5 Mins, By Leo Herrera from Herrera Images on Vimeo.

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You’re an adult. I make that bold assumption based on the fact that kids don’t wander over here. At least not on purpose. Which, given the numerous references to boobs and penises that festoon this site, I find kind of perplexing. I guess they’re getting their boob and penis needs fulfilled at some younger, more hip, site. Besides, the one time a teenager did send an email to me it was to complain that I used too many words. In other words, this is probably all for the best. Nevertheless, as I noted before, you’re an adult. You do adult things. You have adult needs. If you want a bourbon fro breakfast then, BY GOD, you’re putting away the pop tarts and having at it. Lord knows you deserve it. In fact, go ahead and pour another, I’ll wait. Because when you read today’s blog you may need it and more.

For those who have missed the last 20 or so years, allow me to fill you in. In Asia there is a phenomena called Hello Kitty. It is a mouth-less toy that has no special skills whatsoever. The creators license the cute image to anyone with money, so you can buy a Hello Kitty 9mm Revolver, a Hello Kitty Vibrator, a Hello Kitty Wedding Dress, in case the vibrator isn’t satisfying enough, and, of course, a Hello Kitty Vajazzle Kit. Before you click that last link, note that the word Vajazzle is a blend of Bedazzled and Vagina.

Think Amanda Palmer without the sense of humor.

But, for whatever the reasons, the damn thing is wildly popular over there.

Another thing that is popular over there is McDonald’s.

So, naturally, these two evils needed to be marketed together. And the result was predictable.

Riots and violence.

Eveline Danubrata reports from Singapore.

Singapore residents braved hazardous air, bid hundreds of dollars and queued for hours to lay their hands on a special Hello Kitty stuffed toy, swept up in a craze for the mouthless Japanese cat that peaked this week in the city-state.

The frenzy began at the end of May, when U.S. fast food giant McDonald’s began selling the toys in outfits inspired by fairy tales, such as “The Ugly Duckling”. The six toys were released in phases, at S$4.60 ($3.63) each with a meal, or S$10 on their own.

But it was the final offering, the “Singing Bone” toy – a black Hello Kitty with a white skeleton and pink bow, based on a German tale – that set the hearts of Kitty lovers pounding.

Hundreds lined up to get first crack at the midnight launch of the toy on Thursday, with police called in to control shouting and queue-jumping, but stocks ran out in a day.

“I am speechless,” said university student Quek Hui Ying, 22. “In some cases it turned quite ugly and people argued with each other.”

On McDonald’s Facebook page a customer lamented his failure to get one of the toys for his 3-1/2-year-old grand-daughter.

“I am one unhappy grandfather! I had deliberately taken public transport in the haze to buy the ‘Ugly Duckling’,” he wrote, referring to hazardous levels of smog from Indonesian forest fires that recently wreathed Singapore before scattering.

“I tried 3 outlets without success.”

With all versions now sold out, a market in the toys has flourished on the Internet, with some sellers demanding hundreds of dollars on auction sites. One fetched S$126,000 on eBay, but it is not clear if the bid was genuine.

In a statement, McDonald’s said the demand had exceeded its expectations and it would take steps to improve its services.

Singapore’s previous mania for Hello Kitty, put out by Japanese toy firm Sanrio, was in 2000, when McDonald’s sold the toy in wedding dresses.

Really? A hundred grand for a freaking doll? If you’ve got that kind of money and you spend it on a doll you should be neutered immediately.

Never mind. That almost seems redundant.

And, McDonald’s has to be kidding. Having a business in Singapore and claiming not to know Hello Kitty is popular is beyond dense.

And I’m sure they were upset by all the free publicity this little stunt generated.

Not that I’m cynical when it comes to the motives of multi-national corporations.

But, before we condemn their faddish devotion to a soulless toy, keep in mind we have Honey Boo Boo.

Hello Kitty Little Taps from Hello Kitty Junkie

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I woke up this morning and noticed that ‎بشير غدير احمد was now following this blog and its Facebook page. He is from Algeria and now lives in Iran where this whole Facebook thing is new. This blog also has a bizarre, and yet beloved, small fan club in India. If you visit the Rob Pongi site in Japan you will find us mentioned from time to time. Also in Japan we get love from the glorious techno pin-up model Julie Watai. We get fan and hate mail from Africa, Egypt, Siberia, Australia, Finland, Russia, Canada, and, believe it or not, Chicago. I point all this out to remind you that the world is round and no longer are places as distant as they once seemed. When I was a young man being visited by, or even talking on the phone to, a relative from Ireland was a huge deal. Now there’s Skype and cheap air fare everywhere. Which means you have to watch what you say so that you don’t insult our international brethren.

The same applies to our fellow citizens. Each of us comes from a place and a generation that has had its own issues with relating to others. When I was about 4 my grandfather told a black man, and he meant this as a compliment, that “(he) was the nicest nigger (he’d) ever met.” I was too young to understand why the man was insulted but I never forgot that he was. For my grandfather, an immigrant with a limited education, that was an unfortunate incident. To his credit he did learn that that word was not acceptable and I can’t recall hearing him use it again.

If I was 4 at the time Paula Deen was 18. Old enough to see that the Old South was dying again and that the woeful and ignorant excuses for racism were dying with it. She has proven that she is capable of learning. After years of foisting lard based sugar bombs on unsuspecting idiots and pretending they were recipes she made adjustments to her cook books to reflect a healthier lifestyle.

Well, technically, they were recipes, they were just deadly ones.

And, let’s be honest, her idea of health food is like your Uncle Earl’s; it involves beer.

Still, it was a step in the right direction.

After the contents of her deposition got out Deen began being dropped by sponsors faster than limbs falling off a leper. David Bauder has been keeping score.

Paula Deen was dropped by Wal-Mart and her name was stripped from four buffet restaurants on Wednesday, hours after she went on television and tearfully defended herself amid the mounting fallout over her admission of using a racial slur.

The story has become both a day-by-day struggle by a successful businesswoman to keep her career afloat and an object lesson on the level of tolerance and forgiveness in society for being caught making an insensitive remark.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday that it ended its relationship with Deen and will not place “any new orders beyond what’s already committed.”

Caesars Entertainment Corp. said it had been “mutually decided” with Deen to remove her name from its restaurants in Joliet, Ill.; Tunica, Miss.; Cherokee, N.C.; and Elizabeth, Ind.

At the same time, Deen’s representatives released letters of support from nine companies that do business with the chef and promised to continue. There’s evidence that a backlash is growing against the Food Network, which tersely announced last Friday that it was cutting ties with one of its stars.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Deen had called him and he agreed to help her, saying she shouldn’t become a sacrificial lamb over the issue of racial intolerance.

“What she did was wrong, but she can change,” Jackson said.

During a deposition in a discrimination lawsuit filed by an ex-employee, the chef, who specializes in Southern comfort food, admitted to using the N-word in the past. The lawsuit also accuses Deen of using the slur when planning her brother’s 2007 wedding, saying she wanted black servers in white coats, shorts and bow ties for a “Southern plantation-style wedding.”

Deen said she didn’t recall using the word “plantation” and denied using the N-word to describe waiters. She said she quickly dismissed the idea of having all black servers.

Deen told Matt Lauer on “Today” on Wednesday that she could only recall using the N-word once. She said she remembered using it when retelling a story about when she was held at gunpoint by a robber who was black while working as a bank teller in the 1980s in Georgia.

In the deposition, she also said she may also have used the slur when recalling conversations between black employees at her restaurants. Asked in the deposition if she had used the word more than once, she said, “I’m sure I have, but it’s been a very long time.”

Her “Today” show appearance was a do-over from last Friday, when Deen didn’t show up for a promised and promoted interview. Deen told Lauer she had been overwhelmed last week. She said she was heartbroken by the controversy and she wasn’t a racist.

“I’ve had to hold friends in my arms while they’ve sobbed because they know what’s been said about me is not true and I’m having to comfort them,” she said.

Looking distressed and with her voice breaking, Deen said if there was someone in the audience who had never said something they wished they could take back, “please pick up that stone and throw it as hard at my head so it kills me. I want to meet you. I want to meet you.” It’s an apparent reference to the Biblical passage about whether a woman guilty of adultery should be stoned: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

“I is what I is and I’m not changing,” Deen said. “There’s someone evil out there that saw what I worked for and wanted it.”
An uncomfortable Lauer tried to end the interview, but Deen repeated that anyone who hasn’t sinned should attack her.

Asked by Lauer whether she had any doubt that blacks consider use of the N-word offensive, Deen said: “I don’t know, Matt. I have asked myself that so many times, because it is so distressing to go into my kitchen and hear” what some young people are telling each other.

Deen said she appreciated fans who have expressed anger at the Food Network for dropping her, but said she didn’t support a boycott of the network. Through social media, the network has been attacked by people who said executives there acted in haste to get rid of Deen.

Save for the brief announcement late Friday that it wasn’t renewing Deen’s contract, Food Network executives have refused to discuss the case publicly, or say whether the network plans to address Deen’s fans. There have been online reports that the Food Network removed Deen’s programs from the air as early as Saturday; the network wouldn’t speak about what it has or hasn’t put on the air.

Starting last weekend, there has been a steady erosion of support for the network. The YouGov Brandindex, a measurement of how consumers perceive a particular company or product, said the Food Network’s score — which had been generally positive — had dropped by 82 percent in a week. The network has a negative image in the South and West, spokesman Drew Kerr said.

Deen’s case has also attracted some odd bedfellows. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck said the network has “contributed to the growing un-American atmosphere of fear and silence. Hello, Joseph McCarthy.”

Meanwhile, liberal HBO host Bill Maher also said Deen shouldn’t lose her show. “It’s a wrong word, she’s wrong to use it,” he said. “But do we really have to make people go away?”

The Food Channel, a food marketing agency based in Springfield, Mo., said it has been flooded with angry messages from people mistaking the company for the Food Network. There have been so many that the agency posted a message to Deen on its website that it would be happy to work with her if possible.

Among the companies expressing support for her via her representatives was Club Marketing Services in Bentonville, Ark., which helps companies sell products at Wal-Mart, and Epicurean Butter.

All well and good, let the discussion begin. But, and this is a BIG BUT (I cannot lie), this discussion must include the topic of hypocrisy.

Of the top 6 African American chefs in the media only 2 are employed by the Food Network, Patrick and Gina Neely, and they come as a husband and wife team. The Food Network web site lists only one other black man, Athen Flemming, who is not a chef but is, I kid you not, the guy who cleans the kitchens for the chefs and steps and fetches what they need.

He has a nice uniform.

I mention that in case you were wondering why Deen fit in so well there.

And how about those fun kids at WalMart?

I’m just going to limit myself to recent stories, you have a life to get back to.

They had a white man arrested for having biracial children. They assumed he was a child molester. You know, because all child molesters take biracial kids to WalMart.

Had a black teen arrested because she left her line to stand in line with her cousin. Of course the white people in the store who shoved and tried to beat her were never even mentioned in the police report. Of course, that makes sense when you learn the cops told her to “go back to the ghetto.”

Let us never forget this gem; “Attention Wal-Mart customers: All Black people must leave the store.”

I still think the lawsuit that eventually followed is frivolous, but that kid didn’t get the job without meeting with someone.

Of course any article about WalMart wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t mention how it’s okay to smoke cigarettes and avoid work, but not to pray. Well, at least not to Allah.

Villainous NASCAR-branded trinket retailer and employer of last resort Wal-Mart is being accused of firing ten African employees in Colorado in order to give their jobs to “local” people (whites). Also, Wal-Mart hates god but loves cigarettes. Allegedly.

According to the NYT, “All 10 complaints also stated that West African workers, who are Muslim, were refused short prayer breaks. White and Hispanic workers, they said, were permitted unscheduled cigarette breaks.” Together Wal-Mart and the Marlboro Man will slay the Muslin terrorist “Allah.”

You still need more? Click here to wander through millions upon millions of dollars that WalMart has paid out in race based lawsuits.

That’s right, Paula Deen was too racist for them.

Sorry, not buying it. Deen’s firing just happens to be the first good PR they’ve gotten in years.

Just FYI, casinos, who are also dropping Deen, have been paragons of equal opportunity since the 80’s. They don’t care what color you are or who you sleep with, they just want your money.

I didn’t say they were saints, just that they are the most moral of the groups involved thus far.

Yeah, it gave me pause to write that too.

Anyway, I hope Paula learns from this and gets back to work. She’s dense and antiquated but she’s not a terrorist.

UNCENSORED – Put Em On The Glass by LittleGouda
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So, it’s Friday. Just like it is every seven days. And you, being a respectable member of society, decide to emulate the legendary Stephen Gough and rip off all your clothes and walk around in public. And because you’re a family person who has all the attenuate responsibilities that come with a spouse and children, you decide to spend your life in jail rather than put your clothes back on. And, somehow, if you click the link and read his interview, he makes it all sound like a rational choice. Seriously, here is his fist experience walking to town naked after his wife left him for breakfasting naked and he was staying with his parents. “Nothing really happened. There was one man who shouted, ‘That’s disgusting!’ but he was eating a sandwich so I think that’s why. I was about to go into the covered market when the police arrived in a big rush.” Ah yes, it was the sandwich that did him in. Just FYI, there are many places on our fun planet where you are welcome to be as naked as you want to be. Where I’m eating lunch isn’t one of them.

Laila Kearney says that a guy in Frisco wasn’t content to just wander around in public naked. Nope, he also had to do gymnastics and terrorize a subway station.

A trained gymnast whose naked acrobatics and harassment of passengers at a San Francisco public transit station were captured on video and circulated widely on the Internet is facing criminal charges over his antics, authorities said on Tuesday.

Yeiner Alberto Perez Garizabalo, 24, was caught on video doing handstands and contortions on turnstiles and front flips off a concrete newsstand – all in the nude – at a Bay Area Rapid Transit District station on May 10.

Video that drew more than half a million hits on YouTube shows dozens of people watching idly or ignoring Garizabalo as he accosted at least three passengers during his gymnastics routine, putting a man in a headlock and charging two women before being arrested by BART police.

Garizabalo was committed to a nearby hospital after his arrest but no police report was filed and he was released the following day, said Stephanie Ong Stillman, spokeswoman for the San Francisco district attorney’s office.

He was rearrested on Monday, more than a month after videos of the incident went viral, on charges including felony false imprisonment, misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor sexual battery. He was being held on $100,000 bail and was due in court on Tuesday afternoon to face the charges, Stillman said.

Garizabalo was a member of the ClownSnotBombs Circus, an acrobatic performance troupe in Berkeley. He dropped out of the group shortly before the BART station incident.

“(Garizabalo’s) memory of the incident … does not match what happened in the video,” Kristen Parks and other members of ClownSnotBombs said in an email to Reuters.

“When asked to describe what he remembers in his own words, he describes being in a play where everyone was actors. (He) does not remember attacking anyone,” she said, adding that the troupe believes Garizabalo may be suffering from a psychological disorder.

Parks said Garizabalo had since watched the video of his behavior at the BART station. “Now that he has seen the video and understands the gravity of what really happened he feels both guilty and horrible for what he has done,” Parks said.

Officials from the public defender’s office were not immediately available to comment, and the office could not confirm that his case had been assigned to one of its lawyers.

Okay, I have no idea what was going on in his mind or what wonderful substances he’d ingested to get to that happy state of being, but he really should have shared.

CBS News in Albany New York says that getting naked with adults is so passe. Aydrea Meyers upped the ante by getting naked while dancing with children at a school.

Police say Aydrea Meaders, a mother who allegedly got on stage and started to strip during a school assembly, is facing child endangerment and lewdness charges.

Albany police say the 24-year-old Meaders was arrested at North Albany Academy on Friday morning.

They say school staff told them the assembly was halted and the cafeteria cleared after Meaders began dancing onstage and took off some of her clothes.

She is charged with seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of public lewdness.

An Albany City Court clerk says Meaders was arraigned Friday afternoon and ordered held on $3,000 bail. She doesn’t have a lawyer yet.

The North Albany Academy is a prekindergarten through eighth grade school in the Albany district.

On the plus side, I bet that got kids to talk to their parents. On the downside, that conversation is going to redefine the word “awkward.”

But it’s still an easier conversation than the one our next story inspired.

Robby Soave reports that a teacher was conducting an experiment on the effects of sexual arousal and vocal chords.

However, since the experiment was limited to one student, he was fired and is being sued.

A vocal instructor at a community college in Washington allegedly asked a female high school student to remove her clothes during lessons, and later masturbated while she played the piano.

The woman, who was 17 years old at the time and earning college credit as a high school student, sued the teacher, Kevin Gausepohl, for taking advantage of her sexually. She also sued the state of Washington on the grounds that Tacoma Community College (TCC) failed to protect her.

Gausepohl claimed that he was studying how sexual arousal interacts with vocal range. The woman said she removed some of her clothes and touched herself upon his request.

At another session, he masturbated while she practiced the piano, she charges.

The college investigated accusations of sexual misconduct made by several students against Gausepohl in 2011.

“These students became concerned that defendant Gausepohl was sexually exploiting the plaintiff, and they reported it to TCC authorities in the spring of 2011,” the lawsuit says, according to The Bellingham Herald.

Officials concluded that he had likely violated the college’s sexual harassment policies, and terminated him. Criminal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges if he broke no more laws for a year. Gausepohl complied with the orders, though he vigorously maintained that he was innocent.

Most students gave Gausepohl positive reviews on the teacher rating site ratemyprofessor.com, though one accused the vocal instructor of having “a problem with disciplining his class and being a friend instead of an instructor.” Several other reviews mentioned that he behaved more like a friend than a teacher.

Gausepohl is also a religious leader at Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, according to The Daily Mail.

Seriously, don’t do it again and all is forgiven? Is the Washington State legal system run by demented howler monkeys?

Kids, a bit of advice from your weird uncle Big Bad. If an adult, who is not your doctor, asks you to remove your clothes, you are allowed to say no. If any one asks you to touch yourself, or to be allowed to touch you, then you are allowed to use that ubiquitous cell phone you use to pollute Facebook with duck face photos and call the cops.

Cops are happy to answer those calls. Really. That kind of stuff makes their day. So, avoid being assaulted by making a cop happy.

And happy cops mean less crazy naked people walking around your mall.

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If you search for the terms “Armageddon” or “Apocalypse” on this web site you will be reading for hours. Granted, it will be enjoyable reading, but it’s still going to take a while. And yet, somehow, the topics never really get old or go away. For example, biochemist from the University of Saskatchewan has recently released a hypothesis that says eating boogers may be good for you. If you don’t think that portends doom tell me what your mother would have done to you if she caught you eating your boogers. Or, if that’sn’t apocalyptic enough for you, what about UFO’s buzzing the Church of Scientology’s British HQ? Oh sure, the 3 UFOs were all reported by real pilots, who also reported they were probably toys, but that’s still kind of end of times kind of stuff. Keep in mind that pilots report these things because any idiot with an RC plane could fill it with explosives and crash it into the plane. They aren’t really saying there are aliens over Sussex. But alien invasion or home grown terrorists, the results could be the same; the end of all things.

Fortunately for you, assuming you have the I.Q. of a turnip and way too much money, there are people ready and willing to exploit you.

No, I’m sorry.

What I mean is they are willing to help you meet like minded people who want to live in tunnels. It’s like a very expensive version of EHarmony.com (these people don’t let gays hang around with them either).

Bill Draper says that Robert Vicino is the latest person who is willing separate the hopelessly paranoid from their money.

After most of the world’s population is wiped off the map by a wayward meteorite or hail of nuclear missiles, the survival of the human race might just depend on a few thousand people huddled in recreational vehicles deep in the bowels of an eastern Kansas mine.

That’s the vision of a California man who is creating what he calls the world’s largest private underground survivor shelter, using a complex of limestone caves dug more than 100 years ago beneath gently rolling hills overlooking the Missouri River.

“I do believe I am on a mission and doing a spiritual thing,” said Robert Vicino, who has purchased a large portion of the former U.S. Army storage facility on the southeast edge of Atchison, about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City, Mo. “We will certainly be part of the genesis.”

Before it comes time to ride out Armageddon or a deadly global pandemic, though, Vicino says the Vivos Survival Shelter and Resort will be a fun place for members to take vacations and learn assorted survival skills to prepare them for whatever world-changing catastrophe awaits.

Jacque Pregont, president of the Atchison Chamber of Commerce, said some people think the shelter plan sounds creepy or that Vicino has “lost his mind,” while others are excited because they will finally get a chance to tour the property.

Atchison is known as the birthplace of Amelia Earhart and one of the most haunted towns in Kansas, Pregont said, so the survival shelter is likely to add to the town’s tourism draw.

“It’s quirky, and quirky gets attention,” she said.

Recent Hollywood movies have done big business exploring themes about threats to the human race, either through climate shifts, meteor impacts or zombie invasions. And the National Geographic Channel show, “Doomsday Preppers,” documents the efforts of Americans who are preparing for the end of the world with elaborate shelters and plenty of freeze-dried rations.

Paul Seyfried, who belongs to a group that promotes preparing for manmade or natural disasters, said Americans have become complacent ever since the death of John F. Kennedy, the last president who urged people to build fallout shelters.

“There has been no war on our soil in over 100 years, so the horror of war is not stamped indelibly in Americans’ minds,” said Seyfried, a member of The American Civil Defense Association’s advisory board.

Ken Rose, a history professor at California State University-Chico, is an outspoken critic of underground shelters. Though he acknowledged that interest in underground shelters is growing, he called projects like the Kansas facility a “colossal waste of time and money.”

“Some people are just obsessed by this idea,” Rose said. “… Without minimizing the terror threat here today, the threats were much greater at the height of the Cold War. At least then anxiety was based on a realistic scenario.”

The Kansas caverns are 100 feet to 150 feet below the surface and have a constant natural temperature in the low 70s. They are supported by thick limestone pillars six times stronger than concrete and will have blast doors built to withstand a one-megaton nuclear explosion as close as 10 miles away, Vicino said.

Other than being surrounded by more than a mile and a half of 6-foot-high chain-link fence topped with sharp rows of barbed wire, the land above ground isn’t distinguishable from expanses of hills and trees that surround it. The proposed shelter’s entrances – nondescript concrete loading docks tucked discretely into the wooded hillside – are easily defensible against any potential intruders provided there’s not a full-scale military attack, Vicino said.

The Army used the caverns – created by limestone mining operations that started in the late 1880s – for decades as a storage facility before putting them up for auction last year. The winning bid in December was $1.7 million, but financing fell through and the site was put up for sale again.

Springfield, Mo., investor Coby Cullins submitted his winning $510,000 bid for the property in early April, and he immediately started looking for ways to use it. One of his ideas was to lease the land to a company that builds survival bunkers.

Vicino, whose company is based in Del Mar, Calif., said he received an email from Cullins and flew to Kansas two days later to check out the property. Vicino agreed to purchase 75 percent of the complex, rather than lease it, while Cullins retained the rest and is marketing it to local businesses.

The complex consists of two fully lighted, temperature-controlled mines with concrete floors. The east cave, which Cullins owns, encompasses about 15 acres and contains offices, vaults, restrooms and other developed work spaces. The much larger west cave, which covers about 45 acres, is mostly undeveloped and will be converted into the Vivos facility.

The shelter will have enough space for more than 1,000 RVs and up to about 5,000 people. Members will be charged $1,000 for every lineal foot of their RV to purchase their space, plus $1,500 per person for food. That means a person who plans to park a 30-foot vehicle in the shelter with four people inside will pay $30,000 for the space and $6,000 for food.

Actual sales won’t begin until a “critical mass” of reservations are received and processed, Vicino said, which hasn’t happened yet at the Kansas shelter.

Vivos also owns a shted bomb shelters is becasue freaking Russia had elter in Indiana with room for 80 people to live comfortably for up to a year. There, members pay $50,000 per adult and $35,000 per child, so a family with two adults and two children would have to come up with $170,000 to be part of the post-apocalyptic generation.

Purchasers will be required to pay for the full balance before taking possession of their shelter space, though the company has offered limited financing in the past with a sizable down payment.

Vicino says he won’t say specifically where the Indiana shelter or any of his smaller facilities are located because he fears there would be anarchy in the event of a world-changing catastrophe.

And it doesn’t matter who comes knocking at the “moment of truth,” Vicino said, they’re probably not getting in.

“I’ve heard people say, `I will just show up at the door,'” he said. “Our response is, `great, where is the door?’ At our secret shelters, you don’t know where to go, and your cash will be worthless at that time.”

Keep in mind that you would spending a lot of time with people like that.

Also, as noted above, the reason Kennedy advocated bomb shelters is that Russia was trying to store nukes in Cuba (which is close to us for you Fox viewers) and had a intercontinental missile program that could wipe out Chicago. The still do in case you’re curious.

If you’re not sure what it was like to live in those times, see the movie Fail Safe.

It’s not like that now.

Terrorists, as evil and scary as they are, can only harm a location or two at a time. They do not have, and are nowhere near even imaging having, the capability to take on a country in any meaningful way. Yes, Oklahoma, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Park_bombing>Atlanta, 9/11 and Boston were all terrifying, but they did not destroy our country. They didn’t even destroy the cities they occurred in.

Let me put it this way, if you don’t like the way the country is being run, find a viable candidate who doesn’t talk to the imaginary toenail people for medical advice and run him or her out there. That’s one of the joys of living in a constitutional republic. You can overthrow the government by voting.

Because, aside from saving me from having to deal with your brain crushing stupidity, you aren’t really accomplishing anything else.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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