----------------------------

-the Dark Prophet 2003-

Alt er Ett, I mikrokosmos og makrokosmos

Det er to parter, lys og mørke, orden og kaos

ondskap er ikke det samme som den mørke siden

ondskap er egoisme, og figurerer vel så mye i orden som i kaos

kaos er skapende, orden er drepende

uten ballanse kveles verden

Den relative gjenfødelsen er sann

målet med livet er å Opphøre

man oppnår dette ved å bli ett

kun gjennom visdommen om ett kan man opphøre

visdommen er forståelsen av ett

uvitenhet skaper fordommer

fordommer danner grobunn for ondskap

ondskap forhindrer visdommen i ett

enhver forståelse av ett går best ut av jeg

ved innsikt i egen singularitet forstår man ett

Ingen visdom skapes av massen

It is time for us to descend back into this world as our true images, and not what others believe us to be. All that has not descended into their own full greatness and glory, obey: Drop the Masqerade, be what you are and what you want. Do what thou wilth!

They destroy the World,

 in their wile lust for Gold.

They build temples of Peace,

to make counterattacks Cease.

Their frightening machines of War,

might allready be knocking on your Door.

What can you do?

How to protect yourself?

Utter Destruction and Hell is our Destiny!

Come feed upon entrails of fallen Enemies,

feast upon their carcasses revenging their Victories.

Their rotten cadavremeant nothing to you anyway,

so let the remains of those sad bastards pay!

And in twisted lament we wait in these pits of dread

upon the day when you are all dead!

[ the Dark Prophet 2003 ]

Me, just another worthless thug,
sickness of the system, I am a bug.

If only someone would free me from my misery,
put a bullet to my brain, then let me free!

But theres no hope for me,
leave me on the floor, let me be.

And then forget about my sorrow,
you know I'll see no tomorrow!

Be sure to pull yourself clear,
Be sure you don't get near,
Be sure to pull the trigger not too soon,
Or we shall come to share the same lagoon.


Shut down my pain and suffering.

And make sure you do it properly.


I'll surely not going to see tomorrow,
and that aint got to be a greater sorrow.

So please help me! Reload your gun and aim at me,
then pull your trigger and pretend you don't see,
But if you kill me I'll drag you down too.

Last thing I'll gonna see is the mouth of your Gun
Not tomorrow, not the Moon nor the Sun.

[ the Dark Prophet 2003 ]

9-11 Was a Hoax
The American Government Killed Its Own People

By John Kaminski

Opposed by everyone in the world who was not bought off, the illegal invasion of Iraq was undertaken for many reasons - the imminent replacement of the dollar by the euro as the world's primary currency, the tempting lure of untapped oil reserves, the desire to consolidate U.S./Israeli military hegemony over a strategically vital region - but the most important reason was to more greatly obscure questions about the awesome deception staged by the American government that has come to be known as 9-11.

9-11 was a hoax. This is no longer a wild conspiracy assertion; it is a fact, supported by thousands of other verifiable facts, foremost of which are:

* The attacks of 9-11 COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without the willful failure of the American defense system. In Washington, Air Force pilots demanded to fly but were ordered to stand down. Yet instead of prosecuting the president and military leaders for this unprecedented dereliction of duty, military leaders were promoted and the president was praised for presiding over a defense system that suspiciously failed the most crucial test in its history. None of the deaths would have happened without the deliberate unplugging of America's air defenses.

Planes that lose contact with control towers are usually intercepted by fighter jets inside of ten minutes, as the incident with the golfer's plane a few months earlier so clearly demonstrated. Yet on 9-11, the jetliners that struck New York were allowed to proceed unmolested for more than a half-hour, and the plane that supposedly crashed in Washington was not intercepted for more than an hour and forty minutes after it was widely known that four planes had been hijacked.

* The twin towers could not have collapsed as a result of burning jet fuel. Most of that fuel was consumed on impact. In the south tower, most of the fuel was spilled outside the building. Heat caused by burning jet fuel does not reach temperatures needed to melt steel. What does stand out as particularly suspicious and still unexplained is that fires raged out of control beneath THREE of the collapsed towers for ONE HUNDRED DAYS, clearly indicating the presence of some kind of substance utilized in the demolition of the structures.

The Twin Towers did not fall because of plane impacts or fires. Most likely explosives were placed on structural supports in the towers (as was done in Oklahoma City), and these controlled implosions snuffed out the lives of three thousand people.

* FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted officials had no idea this kind of attack could happen when in fact the FBI had been investigating the possibility of EXACTLY this kind of attack for almost TEN YEARS. Numerous previous attempts at using planes as weapons, intimate knowledge of terror plans called Project Bojinka, and knowledge of suspicious characters attending flight schools who were being monitored by the FBI make his utterance a clear lie on its face.

In the weeks before 9-11, the U.S. received warnings from all over the world that an event just like this was about to happen, but FBI investigations into suspected terrorists were suppressed and those warnings were deliberately disregarded.

* The names of the alleged hijackers, all ostensibly Muslims, were released to the public only hours after the attacks, despite Mueller saying we had no knowledge this would happen. This is an impossible twist of logic. If he didn't know of a plan to strike buildings with planes, how would he know the names of the hijackers? Various artifacts were discovered in strategic places to try to confirm the government's story, but these have all been dismissed as suspicious planting of evidence. Since that time several names on that list have turned up alive and well, living in Arab countries. Yet no attempt has ever been made to update the list. And why were none of these names on the airlines' passenger lists?

* Much like the invasion of Iraq, the anthrax attacks were designed to deflect attention from unanswered 9-11 questions in the patriotic pandemonium that followed the tragedy. In addition to making large amounts of money for the president's father and his friends from the hasty sale of inefficient drugs to a panicked populace, the investigation into these killings was abruptly halted when the trail of evidence led straight to the government's door, and has not been reopened. The anthrax attacks also amped up the climate of fear and deflected attention from the passage of the government's repressive Patriot Act.

* The Patriot Act was presented in the days after the tragedy supposedly as a response to it, yet it was clear that this heinous act, drafted to nullify provisions for freedom in the U.S. Constitution, was put together long before 9-11. In addition, testimony by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even reading it. This was a vote to eliminate the Constitutional Bill of Rights, which has defined American freedom for 200 years, and it was accomplished when legislators voted for the bill without even reading it.

* The invasion of Afghanistan was presented as an attempt to pursue the alleged perpetrators of 9-11, yet it had been discussed for years prior to the tragedy and actually planned in the months before the attacks on New York and Washington. Statements by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Republican-written Project for a New American Century have stressed that America needed a formidable enemy to accomplish its aggressive geopolitical aims. The supposed enemy we attacked in Afghanistan was a diverse group of men from all over the world who were initially recruited, encouraged and supported by the American CIA.

* The hole in the Pentagon was not made by a jumbo jet. Damage to the building was simply not consistent with the size of the hole nor the absence of debris. At the supposed point of impact, a whole bank of windows remained unbroken and there were no marks on the lawn. No airplane debris (except what was planted on the lawn) nor remains of passengers were ever found.

* The president has admitted that he continued to read a story to schoolchildren in a Florida school for 30 minutes after being informed that two planes had struck New York and that the nation was under attack. He has never explained this puzzling behavior, nor how he saw the first plane hit. It was never televised, only recorded by a French crew filming firemen in New York. In that film, the plane in question does not appear to be a passenger airliner.

* The plane in Pennsylvania was shot down and broke apart in midair. No other explanation can account for the wreckage, which was spread over a six-mile area, or the eyewitness accounts that describe debris falling from the sky.

* Cellphone calls cannot be made from airliners in flight that are not close to the ground. As research by Professor A. K. Dewdney has shown, the emotional conversations between hijacked passengers and others would not have been possible under conditions that existed at that moment. These calls were cynical fabrications, exploiting the distraught emotions of those who lost loved ones.

* Radio communications from firefighters on the upper floors of the Trade Center towers clearly indicate that fires were under control and the structure was in no danger of collapsing.

These are merely a few of the deliberately false statements made by U.S. officials about 9-11. They provide crystal clear evidence that our president, his staff, and many legislators should be indicted on charges of treason, obstruction of justice and mass murder. Above all, these evil men should be removed from their positions of authority before they implement more of their moneymaking murder schemes like the one they are now perpetrating on the innocent people of Iraq.

Otherwise, we face a future of endless war abroad and merciless repression at home.

Consider just a few more of the other unanswered questions from among the thousands of unexplained loose ends that all point to 9-11 being an inside job.

* Who benefited from the suspiciously high numbers of put options purchased prior to September 11 for shares in companies whose stock prices subsequently plummeted, on the supposition that whoever was behind the hijacking was also behind most of the purchases of these put options? And what was the role of the new executive director of the CIA, Buzzy Krongard, whose former firm handled many of these transactions?

* Why was the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers removed from the site with no forensic examination? Why was almost all of it sold to scrap merchants and shipped abroad where it would not be available for scientific examination?

* Why does the government refuse to release any transcripts of communications or any records at all relating to signals of any form transmitted by those jets?

* Why did so many people, from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to many employees of companies in the World Trade Center who failed to come to work that day, know in advance that something bad was going to happen on Sept. 11, 2001?

* Why do all the major U.S. media continue to act as if none of these questions is legitimate or relevant?

Today, millions of people around the world are protesting the criminal destruction of the nation of Iraq. But these protests won't change the number of minds necessary to stop America's criminal madmen from continuing with their genocidal aim of enslaving the entire world.

What WILL stop them is spreading the realization that President George W. Bush and his billionaire accomplices in the oil industry perpetrated 9-11 as an excuse to begin the militarization of America for the purpose of world conquest.

History has shown all too clearly the deceived American people WILL support the destruction of faraway countries on phony pretexts of defending so-called freedom.

Thus the needless wars continue. Right now we watch high-tech weapons slaughter the defenseless people of Iraq. Soon it may be Iran, Syria, Colombia, Venezuela, North Korea, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or who knows where else. All these misguided atrocities will be possible because of the hoax known as 9-11.

But the American people will not - and cannot - tolerate leaders who kill our own people merely to invent a pretext - the war on terror - to go around killing anyone they like.

If the American people DO tolerate such an insane strategy, then they clearly do not deserve to survive as a nation or a people.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kaminski (skylax@comcast.net) is a writer who lives on the coast of Florida and can't understand why the president hasn't been arrested for his obvious lies and crimes.

Leserinnlegg, Lindesnes Avis, Ytringsfrihet.
--------------------------------------------

En episode som uroer meg veldig, er noe som skjedde meg her
en dag ved Mandal Videregående Skole, hvor jeg er elev 2. året
Allmennfag. Jeg trives meget ved skolen, og verdtsetter høyt
det inkluderende og rettferdighetsetterstrebende miljøet ved
skolen hos lærere og elever. Det er derfor jeg med stor undring
og bekymring betrakter hendelsen som foregikk i forrige uke.

Jeg hadde fått tilsendt tre-fire plakater fra "Club Lestat",
en Sørlandsbasert gothklubb. Disse plakatene var for å annonsere
for to arrangement som ble avholdt henholdsvis 22. og 23. August.
Jeg hadde frivillig tatt på meg ansvaret for å distribuere disse
plakatene, og hengte så to stk. opp på Mandal VGS, etter å ha fått
stemplet og godkjent plakatene i Administrasjonen, i tråd med 
skolens reglement. Samme dagen jeg hengte dem opp, snakket jeg med
flere lærere som undret seg over hva slags budskap plakatene formidlet.
Det så ut til at ale jeg snakket med forsto innholdet i plakatene,
og ikke tok utgangspunkt i allmenne fordommer. Det var derfor jeg ble især
skuffet over skolen, da det kom en kvinne fra skolens administrasjon
dagen etter, og krevde at jeg plukket ned plakatene. Da hadde allerede
èn av de fullt ut lovlige plakatene blitt revet ned. Jeg ble opprørt,
og krevde en begrunnelse for hvorfor skolen krevde at plakatene ble tatt
ned igjen. Jeg fikk diffuse halv-svar, som at de "stod i strid med Norges
Lover". Jeg spurte om hvilket område disse plakatene om mulig kunne stå
i strid med lovverket, og fikk svar tilbake. skolen tolket det dithen at
plakatene var støtende og ulovlige etter blasfemiparagrafen.

Jeg ble mildt sagt sjokkert, da ingen av plakatene inneholder på noen måte
religiøse, politiske eller målbevisst støtende innhold. Det slår meg at
en skole i et moderne land som Norge kan kreve å fjerne plakater på et slikt
svakt grunnlag. Selv om skolenadministrasjonens fordommer ville vært
realitet, kunne de ikke stanset plakatene av en slik grunn, da vi har
Ytrings- og Religions- frihet. Setter skolens ledelse seg over rettsstaten
Norge i tolkningen av Grunnloven?

Det er flere elementer i plakatene som kan har ført til at enkelte personers
fordommer ble utløst. Foruten å nevne fantasifiguren "Vampyr" i undertittelen
for arrangementet, har plakatene et gotisk tilsnitt, med mørke farger og rødt.
Det er for meg allikevel uvirkelig at plakatene skulle symbolisere noe av det
skolens fordommer signaliserte. På reaksjonen skulle man nærmest tro skolen
satt på hemmelige opplysninger om at Club Lestat er et skalkeskjul for en
djeveldyrkersekt. Jeg håper da inderlig ikke skolen befinner seg på et slikt
udemokratisk, hatefullt middelaldernivå i tankegangen sin.

Club Lestat (www.lestat.no) er en idealistisk organisasjon for "mørke sjeler"
på Sørlandet. Det er mange som har andre estetiske verdier enn Ole Ivars, Britney
Spears og rosa papirengler, for å si det på en klossete måte. CLub Lestat er totalt
religionsnøytralt og inkluderende. Det er frivillig å tegne medlemskap, medlemskap
kreves ikke ved arrangement. Club Lestat har et godt samarbeid med pressen, og
ønsker et åpent forhold med andre organisasjoner. De to arangementene som ble
arrangert denne foregående helgen var konsert 22. med gruppen "Trial of Tears".
Denne kvelden hadde 18 års aldersgrense grunnet salg av alkohol i lokalene.
Lørdag 23. arrangerte Club Lestat sitt første arrangement primært for de under
18. Dette var et sosialt, alkoholfritt arrangement som ble holdt i Samsen,
Kristiansand. Undertegnede var selv på dette arrangementet.

Ja, majoriteten er svartkledte. Ja, majoriteten hører kanskje på musikk du blir
skremt av. Men det er ikke for å skremme eller støte deg vi er slik, det er fordi
vi selv ser på det som estetisk vakkert. Og hører like gjerne på Grieg som
stavangerbandet Tristania.

Det er vondt når andre er redd for hva du er og hva du gjør, fordi deres fordommer
insisterer på at dette kun er en falsk fasade, at dette er farlig. Vi forhærliger
ikke døden, men etterstreber et godt liv her på jorden. Akkurat som de fleste andre
her i samfunnet. Hvorfor river da en uttalt demokratisk skole ned våre plakater?

Håper skolen er såpass voksne at de i det minste kommer med en unnskyldning eller forklaring.

GOTHIC SATANISM:
a non-existent religion



Gothic Satanism - Overview:
Gothic Satanism was invented by the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th century CE, just prior to the time of the Witch burnings. The belief offered the neatest solution to the dilemma of theodicy -- the theological conflict caused by the presence of evil in the universe that was created by an all-loving, moral God. The Church theorized that Satan worship existed, was widespread, and was a massive threat to the established order. These beliefs gave the legal and moral justification for the Witch burnings (sometimes called the burning times or the female holocaust). 

Many Christians today (particularly from the conservative wing of Protestantism) still believe that Satanism exists. However, it is an imaginary religion that either does not exist in reality, or is extremely rarely practiced. Law enforcement organizations have been searching for some scrap of evidence of its existence since the "Satanic Panics" of the early 1980s, without success.



Gothic Satanism - Origins:
Two Dominican priests, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger wrote a book circa 1486 CE called: The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer). It became the main reference text for the genocide. They wrote that Gothic Satanists: 

Are mostly women because that gender is more impressionable, more perfidious, more carnal, more vengeful, and (intellectually) more like children than are men. God, being male, has mostly preserved men from heresy; 
Kill, bewitch and induce plagues in animals; 
Stop cows from giving milk; 
Cause impotence, sterility, abortions and miscarriages; 
Ride at night on broomsticks to meet in the forest to engage in sexual orgies; 
Drink the blood of unbaptized infants. Devour infants' bodies, or convert them into soup, or bake them in an oven, or convert their bones into ritual instruments; 
Offer their own children to demons; 
Kill or place curses on people by simply looking at them, saying a phrase, causing lightning to strike them, blowing in their face, pushing pins into a wax doll made in the image of the victim, etc.; 
Beat, break, stab or step on a crucifix whenever they can. 1 

A second reference text was Francesco Maria Guazzo's Compendium Maleficarum, which was written about 1620 CE. He described how Satan worshipers: 

Ride through the air on the back of a goat or a staff; 
Anoint themselves with magical oil and fly on their own; 
Anoint themselves with a cream or make a certain sign, and immediately become invisible; 
Appear to change shape from human to animal and back; 
Change people and animals from male to female and back; 
Swear homage and obedience to Satan 
Received a Satanic brand on their bodies; 
Rejoice, dance, eat and drink in the presence of Satan who appeared at Satanic orgies in the form of a hideous and deformed black goat; 
Suffocated, pierced and killed their own infants, cut off their extremities, and cooked the remains. 2 

The inquisitors tortured suspects until they were willing to confess to anything in order to end the pain. This produced abundant testimony for the court records as "evidence" of the existence of Satan worshipers. However, it is essentially all worthless.



Later developments:
Near the end of the "Burning Times", the concept of the Black Mass was added to the church's belief system about Satanists. This was allegedly a parody on the Roman Catholic Mass. Urine and dirty water were substituted for wine; moldy bread or turnips replaced for the host. The Mass was said in the local language -- opposite to the Church's use of Latin at the time. Texts were read backwards. The cross would be spat upon and broken underfoot. Infants would be sacrificed. 

The last European victim of the "Burning Times" was burned at the stake in 1792 in Poland. In South America, the Church continued to exterminate heretics by burning them alive, as late as the 1830's. 

Public beliefs about Gothic Satanism coalesced into an imaginary religion that was anti-Christian in every detail. These elements continue to surface today in conservative Christian anti-Satanic and anti-Wiccan hate literature. 



Gothic Satanism - Today:
Five centuries years later, many people believe that Gothic Satanists remain a great threat. In the State of Utah, a newspaper poll during the 1990's showed that about 90% of adults believe in the existence of Satanic groups who abuse and kill infants. Satanists are no longer believed to fly through the air on broomsticks or instantaneously vanish. But beliefs that Satanists engage in baby killing, selling one's soul to Satan, rituals involving a goat, breaking a cross or crucifix, even shape shifting between animal and human has been described by modern Fundamentalist or other Evangelical Christian authors. Many writers and seminar speakers may be completely unaware that most of their source material can be traced back to the texts used by the Renaissance Witch hunters. Outrageous claims have been made of as many as 60,000 ritual killings a year in North America, and of baby breeding prisons where young women are kept continually pregnant so that their infants can be taken and sacrificed. The concept of Gothic Satanism as being thoroughly anti-Christian has remained intact for centuries. 

No criminal investigation in the past 300 years is known to have found hard evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse (with the possible exception of a case in Greece during 1995). However, during the 1980s and early 1990s, many Americans and Europeans believe that a highly organized, secret, internationally controlled network of Gothic Satanists exists. Tens of millions of Americans believed that it is a major social threat, even though no physical evidence of its existence was ever found. Countless law officers have searched for this form of abuse for decades without success. The public's belief in Satanic Ritual Abuse was largely supported by thousands or tens of thousands of adults who have recovered what are believed to be false memories of abuse as a result of Recovered Memory Therapy. A second support for the belief occurred in the 1980's and early 1990's when many court cases were fought over what was believed to be ritual abuse of students in day care centers, pre-schools, baby-sitting services, church Sunday schools, etc. Young children disclosed stories of horrendous physical and sexual abuse. Much of it was ritual in nature. Hundreds of adults were convicted as perpetrators of MVMO (Multi-Victim, Multi-Offender) child abuse, and given long jail sentences. Research has since shown that the children's memories were probably of events that never happened. They arose as a result of repetitive and direct questioning. Such techniques have since been shown to generate false accusations. In almost all cases, the adults convicted of ritual abuse have had their cases reviewed and have been released from prison. An exception is the Massachusetts, where obviously innocent inmates continue to rot in jail -- for crimes that never happened.

There are many indicators that Gothic Satanism either does not exist or is extremely rare: 

Most of the beliefs and practices attributed to Gothic Satanism can be traced to Kramer and Sprenger's book, the Witches Hammer. 
Many recent books which are allegedly written by ex-Satanists have been shown to be frauds. 
No book by a Gothic Satanist describing their beliefs and rites, etc. has ever been written. 
Baby breeding camps could not be successfully hidden for decades. 
Various government studies and many hundreds of police investigations have failed to come up with hard evidence of human sacrifices or other Satanic ritual crimes. 
Where stories of ritual murders have emerged in the press, the root motivation of the crime has turned out to be a psychotic mental illness. 

A very small number of individuals have drawn on the vast amount of anti-Satanic literature written by Christian authors. They have created their own version of Gothic Satanism that does include an inverted Christian cross symbol, black masses, reciting Christian prayers backwards, etc. However, they seem to be isolated followers without any central organization. They do not engage in infant abuse, baby killing or any other criminal activities. Theirs is a religion that was inspired by and grew out of Christian hate literature.



References:
Montague Summers, "The Malleus Maleficarum of Kramer and Sprenger," Dover Publ. (Reprinted 1988). 
Francesco Maria Guazzo, "Compendium Maleficarum," Dover Publ. (Reprinted 1971). 


Copyright © 1997 to 2003 incl. by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2003-JUN-25
Author: B.A. Robinson

Are You Man Enough?
by Denis Leary

--------------------

Here's a cold hard fact that you must now chew and swallow: if you are reading this, you are not macho. Period. Case closed. Real men do not read anything other than GUNS AND AMMO, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, or SHAVED BEAVER. 

Do not mention FIRE IN THE BELLY. Do not clutch your copy of IRON JOHN. Sit your soft little ass down and listen up. Understanding macho means that you don't possess it. I have proven myself to be the pussy that I am by writing this piece. (I'm wearing a powder blue cotton print shirt and peach panties as I type). Ernest Hemingway, you say? Wrong. Ernest lived a very macho life and wrote some very macho stories. But Ernest threw it all away by blowing his head off with a shotgun. Very unmacho. Real men do not commit suicide. Real men know just how much life sucks. Real men grit their teeth and take it bill after bill, war after war, tumor after tumor. You don't greet Death, you punch him in the throat repeatedly as he drags you away. I think John Wayne said it best when he said, "Fuck Death and the lung cancer he rode in on." 

Macho is a very slippery thing. You don't read about it, you don't write about it, you don't even know the correct spelling of the word. In a vain attempt to keep some semblance of masculinity, I didn't research the roots of the word while writing this article, but I can only assume that "macho" comes from "machismo," which sounds a hell of a lot like machine. Being macho implies a tough, hard, blocklike approach full of pistons and rods and axles and other big steel-type stuff. 

It's hard to live by the old macho code these days. They've chipped away at it over the years, slowly but surely. Drinking has been reduced to a few beers or a couple of whiskeys, if that. Otherwise, your AA friends begin to stare across the table with that "I personally think you have a problem and that all alcohol should be banned so that I won't feel the urge to drink myself into a naked stupor but I'm not gonna say anything" look on their faces. No mess, no mauling, no mistress, no mas. 

From time to time, people try to use macho as an image builder. 

Bush tries to make himself seem like a card-carrying Mace Club member. He's not. The last macho pres. we had was FDR. FDR-a man stricken by polio, stuck in a wheelchair, fighting the Nazis all the while smoking 3 & ½ packs a day. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" Yeah, and staircases, of course. And soccer and dancing. 

I think the death of macho is easily located on a very recent map. 

Sometime in the late '70s-right around the time the Village People released "Macho Man" and Barry Manilow sang "Copacabana" and Robby Benson was mewling his way into the hearts of teenage ultra-virgin, men made a serious mistake. We started TALKING to each other. We stopped punching each other and began discussing why we wanted to punch each other. I'll bet my right nut that if I had done some research, I would have found a dramatic decline in facial cuts and brain contusions starting in 1977. Now we're supposed to be sensitive. We are supposed to share our feelings and cry at funerals and care about our hair. We're, in short, supposed to be women. Hello, my name is Shirley. Touch me in the morning. 

I believe in equal rights. I believe that women should get equal pay for equal jobs. I believe women should have control of their bodies and be in positions of power. I believe we should have the same size shoulder pads in our suits. But I also believe that men should be men and women should be, well, women. Women should be soft and smart and mysterious. And men should have their own tools. I pine for the sheer stupidity of the old macho days, when men would brandish hammers and build huge, bulky cars that sucked up gas and tore open the ozone layer and crushed small animals beneath totally useless but totally cool-looking tail fins. When men were apes with good shoes and a dental plan. John Wayne, John Huston, Bill Holden, Bob Mitchum, Clark Gable, Babe Ruth, Lee Marvin, Sam Peckinpah. Men who drank and fought and puked and ate raw meat right off the bone and drank some more and fought some more and puked again and kept on drinking. Men who died of massive heart attacks or sudden brain seizures or who just plain fucking blew up. Men who had cancer six or seven times. Men made out of leather. 

My dad was one of these men. My dad once cut off his thumb with a power saw, duct-taped it back on, and drove himself to the hospital smoking a Camel un-filtered on the way. My dad's theory was simple: no pain-no fucking pain. My dad smoked 5 packs a day, worked 3 jobs 7 days a week, ate beef for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. One night in 1985, he ate a big steak dinner with a side order of bacon and extra steak fries. He ordered some coffee, sat back, lit up a cigarette, and exploded. 

I don't wanna hear about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even Arnold caved in. In Terminator 2, he was all of a sudden Mr. Caring Guy, protecting the kid and hoping the earth wouldn't end. Bullshit. There was even a sequence at the end of the movie where a huge truck full of flammable liquid tears down a highway for about 3 minutes and then doesn't blow up. A sign of the times if ever there was one. Every real man knows the 1 golden rule of macho movie making: if you see a truck on screen, blow it up. In Thelma & Louise, the women saw a truck. What did they do? Susan Sarandon pulled out her gun and blew the truck way the fuck up. Another sign of the times. Arnold's tromping around praying for the earth to save itself and Ms. Davis and Ms. Sarandon are drinking and shooting and screwing their way all over the macho west. Citizen Kane? A masterpiece. But every real man knows it would have been better if a huge Mack truck with the word ROSEBUD emblazoned on the trailer drove through the front gate of the mansion and then KAA-POWWWWW! 

Another movie matter I'd like to get off my girly little chest: asses. Part of this new male code has men baring their butts on screen the way women used to do. Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, and of course, Arnold. Hey if I wanted to see Kevin Costner's ass, I would've married him. You never saw Bob Mitchum's ass. I am in a macho movie called GUNMEN, and I can guarantee you that you never see my ass on any screen but if you do, it will not be shaved. It will be hairy and hoary and very, very white. 

Our macho movie idols have changed forever. No wonder they end up baring it all. Listen to the names-Mel, Kevin, Michael, Arnold. In the old days movie stars had real names: John, Bill, Duke, Buck, Chuck, Rip. Kevin sounds like your skinny Irish cousin with the big Coke bottle glasses and a heat rash; Mel, the guy in charge of aisle five at Woolworth's. ("Excuse me Mel, where are the light bulbs?") 

It's getting very bad, boys. We don't blow up trucks anymore. 

Hell, we don't even drive trucks anymore. We drive simple little Japanese cars with air bags. In the old days we used to rip out the seat belts and fly through the windshield ready for action. "Thrown from the car." Remember that phrase in accident reports? Always the sign of a very macho driver. 

We seem a little more sorry, a little more plump, a lot more ladylike around the edges. If you really want to reclaim your macho self, if you really want to be a macho, macho man, stop reading this article. 

If you are still reading, you probably need a little more help. 

Forget Robert Bly or FIRE IN YOUR PROSTATE. Don't go on a Male-Bonding Self-Discovery Weekend, which is just another term for Circle Jerk as far as I'm concerned. Here, instead, is a guide: 

BALLS, A.K.A. COJONES: You should have several. Preferably brass or steel. Extra large. 

CRYING: Never. Ever. Over anything. Not death in the family, not a bullet in the chest. You may tear up ever so slightly in one eye only when watching a favorite sports legend retire. You may tear up in both eyes only when kicked, accidentally or on purpose, in the COJONES. 

KISSING: see "SPORTS" 

HUGGING: see "SPORTS" 

SPORTS: Once all men within reach are dressed in a team uniform, it is perfectly acceptable to kiss and hug and grab each other's ass. This is probably because all men are latent homosexuals and prefer male company to female company. But if some guy points out this fact to you, punch him directly in the throat. (Optional retorts: "Prefer this!" or "Fuck You!" or " Shut the fuck up!" 

HEALTH: Never go to the hospital or visit a doctor. If you have a stroke, keep drinking and act like you prefer to use only one side of your body. If you cut off a limb while using a power tool-so what? That's why there's duct tape and staple guns. If someone tries to drive you to the hospital after a heart attack or maiming, punch him in the throat. (Optional retorts: "Drive This!" or "Fuck you!" or "Shut the fuck up!") 

DIET: meat, cigarettes, meat, booze, meat, and coffee. In case of aneurysm or alcohol-induced coma, see "HEALTH." 

FIGHTING: At all times, over anything. Never hit a woman. Or a child. Or a bus. Never hit a priest until he takes off his collar. (If it's the pope, wait until he removes the large hat.) Clergy will often provoke a punch in the throat with their "violence doesn't prove anything" pontifications. (Optional retorts: "Prove this!" or "Fuck you Father!" or "Shut the fuck up, Padre!") 

DRINKING: No falling down. No puking-unless to empty the stomach in order to continue drinking. No slurring of words. Tell a few war stories: "See that scar? I was in 'Nam and I ate a grenade and it blew up in my colon." If your aim is off due to alcohol, it's acceptable to punch someone in the head or solar plexus. 

SEX: You're probably too drunk or just plain stupid to have sex but pretend you get a lot, i.e. "You should've seen me last night, blah, blah, blah, blah." 

Absorb this info and you should be on your way. If you have any further questions, call 1-800-COJONES. Remember: We're men. Big, boxy, sweaty, ignorant men. We have penises. Well, we used to have penises. Either way, I think Billy Martin, the late Yankees manager, said it best when he said, "Hey, I can drive."