The Scorpion and the Frog

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
Replies the scorpion: "It's my nature..."

-Aesop's Fables

A Perfect Friend

A perfect friend...

Will be there for me every time I need them
Will answer the phone every time I call
Would never argue with me
Would never get mad at me
Could never get hurt by something I said
Always be willing to do whatever I want to do
Likes all the same people I like
Dislikes all the same people I dislike
Always agrees with what I have to say
Never gets offended
Forgives me instantly
Realizes I am always right and they are always wrong
And never gets their feelings hurt by something I've done

A perfect friend...
I'm glad I don't have

Weird Sex Laws

From Bert Christensen's Truth & Humour Collection


No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth.

Warn your hubby that after lovemaking in Ames, Iowa, he isn't allowed to take more than three gulps of beer while lying in bed with you-or holding you in his arms.

Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown-if they're nude. (Apparently, if you wear socks, you're safe from the law!)

During lunch breaks in Carlsbad, New Mexico no couple should engage in a sexual act while parked in their vehicle, unless their car has curtains.

In Cleveland, Ohio women are not allowed to wear patent-leather shoes.

Clinton, Oklahoma has a law against masturbating while watching two people having sex in a car.

It's safe to make love while parked in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Police officers aren't allowed to walk up and knock on the window. Any suspicious officer who thinks that sex is taking place must drive up from behind, honk his horn three times and wait approximately two minutes before getting out of his car to investigate. [Hmmm... okay, there's one place with a law that makes sense... -psl]

In Connorsville, Wisconsin no man shall shoot off a gun while his female partner is having a sexual orgasm.

In Detroit, couples are not allowed to make love in an automobile unless the act takes place while the vehicle is parked on the couple's own property.

A law in Fairbanks, Alaska does not allow moose to have sex on city streets.

In Florida it is illegal for single, divorced, or widowed women to parachute on Sunday afternoons.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania it is illegal to have sex with a truck driver inside a toll booth.

The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.

Another law in Helena, Montana, mandates that a woman can't dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing.

A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.

An excerpt from brilliant Kentucky state legislation. "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club".
The following important amendment however is to be considered here: "The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to male horses."

In Kingsville, Texas there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city's airport property.

Any couple making out inside a vehicle, and accidentally sounding the horn during their lustful act, may be taken to jail according to a Liberty Corner, New Jersey law.

In Los Angeles, California, a man is legally entitled to beat his wife with a leather belt or strap, but the belt can't be wider than 2 inches, unless he has his wife's consent to beat her with a wider strap. Consent should be given prior to the event, as is carefully stipulated. [Not to be confused with the myth about "rule of thumb"'s origin -psl]

In Maryville, Missouri, women are prohibited from wearing corsets because "The privilege of admiring the curvaceous, unencumbered body of a young woman should not be denied to the normal, red-blooded American male."

In Michigan, a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission.

In Nevada sex without a condom is considered illegal.

An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store's walk-in meat freezer!

In Norfolk, Virginia, a woman can't go out without wearing a corset. (There was a civil-service job-for men only-called a corset inspector.)

In Oblong, Illinois, it's punishable by law to make love while hunting or fishing on your wedding day.

In Oxford, Ohio, it's illegal for a woman to strip off her clothing while standing in front of a man's picture.

In hotels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, every room is required to have twin beds. And the beds must always be a minimum of two feet apart when a couple rents a room for only one night. And it's illegal to make love on the floor between the beds!

Tremonton, Utah law states that no woman is allowed to have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance. In addition to normal charges, the woman's name will be published in the local newspaper. The man does not receive any punishment.

Utah state legislation outlaws all sex with anyone but your spouse. Next to that adultery, oral and anal sex, masturbation are considered sodomy and can lead to imprisonment. Sex with an animal - unless performed for profit - however is NOT considered sodomy. Polygamy - provided only the missionary position has been applied - is only a misdemeanor.

(The following was received from Patrick Clark unterhund@mailcity.com a resident of Utah: "Unfortunately, your page on weird USA sex laws ( http://www.bertc.com/sexlaws.htm ) has some errors. Utah law does not consider masturbation to be sodomy. Specifically, Utah Code section 76-5-403 ( http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_05048.htm ) defines sodomy to include the mouth or anus of one person, and the genitals of another. Near as I can tell by reading the law, both are guilty of the misdemeanor, unless it's without consent. Then it's a felony for the aggressor. I can't find anything making private masturbation illegal. In public, on the other hand . . .Also, "polygamy" is actually "bigamy" in Utah law (section 76-7-101 at http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_09002.htm), and it's a felony. Of course, adultery and fornication are both illegal, but there's no mention of position in the Utah Code anywhere.Finally, regarding sex with animals, it's not "sodomy," true. It's "bestiality," which is a misdemeanor (section 76-9-301.8 at http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_0B015.htm). If done for pay--in fact, if any of the legal or illegal things listed above (aside from bigamy) are done in public--it's lewdness or sexual battery, depending on how willing any other person involved might be (section 76-9-70 at http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_0B037.htm).Yes, it's anal of me to call this to your attention. I'm a picky sort, especially when my state's already, um, interesting reputation is unfairly attacked.')

In Ventura County, California cats and dogs are not allowed to have sex without a permit.
The only acceptable sexual position in Washington D.C. is the missionary-style position. Any other sexual position is considered illegal.

In Willowdale, Oregon no man may curse while having sex with his wife.
In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances. (Including the wedding night).
---anon---

And in a similar manner:

In Lebanon, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but the animals must be female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is punishable by death. (Like THAT makes sense.)In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman's genitals, but is prohibited from looking directly at them during theexamination. He may only see their reflection in a mirror.Muslims are banned from looking at the genitals of a corpse. This also applies to undertakers; the sex organs of the deceased must be covered with a brick or piece of wood at all times.The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.

In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands.!! The husband's lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired. (Ah! Justice!)

Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England - but only in tropical fish stores. (But of course!)In Cali, Colombia, a woman may only have sex with her husband, and the first time this happens, her mother must be in the room to witness the act. (Makes one shudder at the thought.)

In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, it is illegal for a man to have sex with a woman and her daughter at the same time. (I presume this was a big enough Problem that they had to pass this law?)

In Maryland, it is illegal to sell condoms from vending machines with one exception: prophylactics may be dispensed from a vending machine only "in places where alcoholic beverages are sold for consumption on the premises."

To Shake Off Mortal Coils

An Argument For Suicide
(Author unknown)



A permanent solution to a temporary problem - that is what the wise and good people state to help. The way they make suicide look like a decision based on cowardice is remarkable, when in the end it is a clear statement of one's strength - at least mine. I cannot speak for all those others.
For all those others that take sleeping pills to attract attention.
For those that wait on the roof of a skyscraper until someone notices them to call the cops.
I can only speak for myself, and my decision is not based on weakness but on absolute power. Hamlet said it, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre considered the question.
It is not based on weakness but on a free will, the liberty to contemplate the unthinkable. It is a question only the strongest can face.
They say it is easy to escape life but hard to go on with it. What fools. How many people can hold a gun to their head and pull the trigger?
How many can cut a knife into their arms to pierce arteries and veins?
How many can make the little step off a skyscraper?
How many can swallow the cyanide pill?
Small movements, a jerk of an index finger, a cut, a step, a swallow.
How many think they can do that but have to face their weakness on the doorsteps of a mysterious, scaring new existence?
How many have the mental strength to deal with such a decision?
How many can question their lives?
How many can face the fact that all they have done is useless and that there is no use apart from procreation -and what kind of a goal is that? Fucking, as the meaning of life. A goal for rabbits, for sheep, not for humans. And yet it is good enough for most.
To wait, to wait for something to come, to save them, something that does not exist, something that does not come. And so they keep on giving birth while standing on their graves, waiting like sheep.
How many can ask those questions?
How many can draw the consequences?
Those mentioned philosophers did not. None of them did agree to it in the end. None of them. Because suicide is wrong? Because as Nietzsche stated, the philosopher has to live his thoughts and hence set an example in dying. None of them were strong enough to do that. Whimps. Intellectual wankers, smart asses, suckers. Unworthy to have been read by me.
It is easy to live, to go on with it, to stand the treatmill. All you have to do is switch off your brains, not think, do what you are told and expected to and you will get old. There is nothing easier than living. Man is built to endure pain. He can easily bear the whips and scorns of time as long as he doesn't question them, and as long as he is not confident enough to wonder whether it is worth suffering. All it takes is to stick to the routine. There is nothing simpler than that.
Yeah, sure they will find reasons when they dig in my past. They will say: He could not stand the pressure his profession had put on him, he had always suffered from depression, he was suffering from a broken heart when his girlfriend left him. He could not stand loneliness, unrequited love of all sorts. He was too sensitive.
Those would be their words.
Bullshit.
And they will be feigning sympathy and compassion, they will look at the art, the literature and state how great it was, what a loss it is, what a great future lay ahead of him.
The sympathy of the deaf, dumb and blind, the braindead, the sympathy of the hens in the battery.
This is not the reason.
Sure, I am bleeding all over the place, sure I am suffering from pressure, sure I have always been depressed, sure all of this is true. But it is not the reason. I am not doing this out of pain. This is a decision based on positivity. Lust for life. But not that stale and dull life. Real life, genuine emotions.
To shake off this mortal coil,
To step up to the Gods and to spit in their faces,
To make the final decision, the only one that cannot be undone.
Knowing that it might be a terrible mistake, a Faustian mistake, a bargain with the devil.
A voluntary step into something unknown.
Emptyness?
Heaven?
Hell?
Suicide is not based on weakness, it is based on absolute power - at least in my case.
Imagine:
To stand on top of the highest cliff.
To feel the wind tearing at my clothes, the elements.
The only truth left in a world of lies and hypocrisy.
The beauty of the abyss.
The anticipation, like anticipating the greatest sex, an existential foreplay. Looking down into oblivion and voidness.
The ground far, far away as it seems from here, but in reality only a couple of seconds away.
Standing there.
Feeling eternity in a restricted world.
Feeling a decision in a prefabricated existence.
To draw the final breath,
To make that little step,
To know, that for once a decision was made,
To feel one foot above the abyss,
To think for a split second you can float in the air like the cartoon characters on TV,
To feel losing balance,
To fall,
To gain speed,
To have the air tear at your hair and clothes,
To feel the cold wind violently caress you,
To see the ground coming closer,
To scream in orgiastic excitement,
To know what you have done,
To know that you have done something for once.
Maybe even: To doubt,
To regret,
To wish yourself back to the top of the peak that you are pacing away from.
Mercilessly
To fly into annihilation,
To see the truth, whether it is a beautiful or an unbearable truth for the fraction of a second only.
Those 10 seconds would be - must be - will be much more revealing than 10 years of most other people,
Than the whole life of most other people. More true, essential, focused, divine. Purer. 70 years forced into seconds. Refined into pure knowledge and truth.
Those 10 seconds would be - must be - will be worth a lifetime.
A worthy payment for endless agony
No more endless, unbearable pain.
No more routine.
No more repetition.
No more
-- Peace.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
To give in to the tiredness.
To fall asleep.
To find solace.
No more agony.
To end.
The end.

What is Real?

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

-Velveteen Rabbit by Margaret Williams

Wayne Dyer Quotes

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

There's no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.

As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind. Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts. Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind. Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts. For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior. Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.


-Wayne Dyer 1940-, American Psychotherapist, Author, Lecturer

An Uplifiting Poem by Max Ehrmann

Max Ehrmann


Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.


Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.


Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.


Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.


You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.


Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.


Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.