The Urban Sherpa - a blog by Christopher DeWan

(imagining whirrled peas, and carrots...)

Featured "Blast from the Past":

Fortress of Solitude

Originally posted: April 17, 2008

Fortress of solitude

It was another routine day in Metropolis for Superman, the day he saved the single-engine jet from crashing into the city. The plane had lost power to its stabilizer and gone into a flat spin from which it surely never would have recovered, had Superman not flown in to save the day: the Man of Steel managed to grab the plane by its engine, arrest its spinning, and guide it to a safe landing in a nearby baseball field. The four passengers of the plane were grateful and in tears, while the Little Leaguers stopped their game to cheer.

Unfortunately, the force requ...

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Recent Entries:

This is the Enemy rating=3

March 4, 2010
File under: Politic License, Praxis Schmaxis
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The Real Dangers of Communism

America under Communism

Some warning signs that your government may have given over to Communism, or its less-understood cousin Socialism. If you detect any of the following, take up arms:

  1. Roads
    If your roads were paid for with tax money and built by the government—they are socialist. In a perfect, free market world, each stretch of road would be a privately-owned toll road, and you'd move around it like it's a Monopoly board, paying each property owner as you go.

  2. 911
    If your town allows you to place free 911 calls, then call 911 immediately to report Commies in your midst. If a private corporation isn't making money off of your emergency, then there truly is an emergency: the Reds have taken over.

  3. Medicare
    "Are you now or have you ever been on Medicare?" This government program poses as necessary relief for the elderly, but any red-blooded American knows that if you get sick or injured, it's only logical that your employer should pay the bill—not the government. Medicare reveals the elderly to be what they truly are: Communist sychophants who are useless to the free market society.

  4. Mortgages
    If you can't buy a house in cash, you shouldn't have a house. If you have a mortgage, it's because the government has intervened: they've incentivized it by offering tax breaks to you and to the banks. There is nothing free market about that. Keep big government out of your house! Pay for it in cash, and waive the tax break.

  5. Marriage
    If you are married, you're a Leftie pinko. Again, the government has intervened against the free market by offering tax incentives to marry: they've got their big government hands on your wife! Also: people who marry are choosing a life where they share with one another, instead of selfishly hoarding. That's the definition of communism.

  6. Public schools
    The only people who should be able to read and write are those who can pay for private education. Everyone else is a serf, and should stay that way. Educating the electorate is a luxury that should not be paid for by tax-payers. Instead, we should have a democracy run by illiterates, Tea Partiers, and Joe the Plumber.

It's not too late to save America. Act now!

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The exact moment rating=3

March 1, 2010
File under: Poetic License
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I am capable of great things
but only in the morning
on sunny days
when it's not too warm
after I've had my coffee
and a mango
if I'm well-rested
and then only for a minute or two
by accident
usually at the exact moment
that I've misplaced my pen.

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The Waitress rating=4

February 26, 2010
File under: Cogito Ergo, Praxis Schmaxis
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The Waitress

There's what you are, on the one hand; and on the other, there's what you think you can be.

No, let me put that another way: there is what you are, essentially, in your heart—the sum of all your capabilities; and on the other hand, there's the smaller set of what you've realized to date. There is You the Greater and You the Lesser. You whole, and you fractured.

Some people believe that you, the "real" you, is the lesser one—the tally of what you've achieved. "What do you do?," we ask each other at parties. "I'm a salesman," we answer, deftly swapping a verb of action with a verb of being.

Other people believe that you, the "real" you, is that farther-away idea: "I'm a waitress and an actress, but I also want to direct."

You snigger when she tells you this. "She's a dreamer," you think. "She's a cliché." (And these things, too, might be a part of who she "really" is.) But clichés are lazy shortcuts, a rubber-stamp version of the truth: the outline is correct and familiar, but the details are missing. The details are the essence. The details are the differentiators. In the mind of this waitress, what she wants to do is more significant than what she is doing. To know her is to know that she wants to direct. To know her is to know that she is a bundle of potentialities, and to know which potentialities.

[When robots can bring us coffee at restaurants, then we'll all be free to act and direct.]

[When we fall in love, is it not with a person's wants and with their potentialities?]

It is our dream that distinguishes us—the dream, and the degree to which we are willing to chase it: the degree to which we believe we are not the man sitting in the desk chair at the office, day after day after day. No. Rather, we are the brilliant burst of light, looming just on the other side of the horizon. We eagerly, lovingly chase ourselves, to find ourselves.

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Self-Expression is the New Entertainment rating=2

February 23, 2010
File under: Future is Now
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Sometimes people ask, "How come all these people want to write for free?" Right? Do you ever ask that question? How come people want to blog for free, or comment for free, or edit Wikipedia entries for free?

We need to understand here that self-expression, which has always been a big part of our lives, historically, is now bigger than ever. Self-expression is the new entertainment.

We used to never question that people would be sitting on a couch for seven hours watching bad TV. Nobody said, "Why are they doing that without anybody paying them?"

But we're still asking, "Why are people blogging?"

People want to express themselves.

- Arianna Huffington, "Publishing is Dead; Long Live Publishing!"

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Down the Little Red Lane rating=2

February 14, 2010
File under: Love Stinks, Poetic License
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Me and the cherry-red redhead
Out to paint the town red.
She's red-hot and I'm red-blooded and
She to me is like a red rag to a bull.
I spend every red cent to roll out the red carpet.
"Hey, babe, let's cut through the red tape
and go back to my place."
It's a real red letter day.

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