You Need a Butterfly Knife, Don't Delay!

So after a few conversations, I've felt forced to answer a question that should answer itself: Why should one prefer butterfly knives? Now honestly, this is a question so silly that no one else would entertain the thought of answering it, but since I'm such a kindly fellow I'll take a stab at it.

Pun intended...

It should seem obvious that this is like asking why men have nipples, even though the obvious answer is "how else can one tell if a man is cold or not?" Sure you could ask, but that's just odd and off-putting to have another person walk up to me like a bolt of lighting from clear blue skies and ask if I'm cold, or excited, or craving sexual satisfaction that I have yet to attain that day; this, provided she is not some type of samba girl or rap video model of course. Forgiving my digression from the point (pun intended), allow me to answer with a question or two.

Let's take a look at conventional knives: They don't fold, and are therefore inconvenient. You could put it in a sheath round your belt, but unless you're Rambo you're going to have your admission withheld at the door to the strip club, and there's nothing more embarrassing than being turned at the door of a titty bar. Furthermore, they're difficult to conceal. How in the hell am I to swiftly mug you in an alley on the fly? Now I'll have to plan for it in advance, and opportunity comes when one least expects it, so I'd be missing out which simply can not stand. I mean, have you seen someone flip a butterfly knife out in front of you? That's some intimidating shit, you'll have their wallet in no time. A note to the reader: Try the line "scream and I'll cut ya" after whipping it out; never fails. 

Folding knives, while easier to conceal, more convenient in carrying and far cheaper in most cases seem to have the following issues:

It's bad enough I need to pull this thing out, this folding knife, but to use both hands to open it? That's just madness. True, there's always the assisted unfold, but you still need both hands to close it! What the fuck is this? You mean to tell me, my stout chap, that I must condescend to using two hands to close it? I thought we were past this.

But fortunately we are. Enter the "Balisong" or "butterfly knife."

Originating from the Philippines and to date one of the few good things to come from that island apart from -I can't think of anything- the Balisong can be used anywhere a folding knife can. The difference being that it is approximately twenty-percent "cooler" (which is just science)  when unleashed upon an unsuspecting block of cheese or an unfaithful spouse who can't keep it in his pants, tricking around the neighborhood and thinking you'd never find out, that cad.

I'm so sorry, you're better off without him...


I hope this answers the question for those of you still holding out on an answer. To be honest, knife manipulation and implementation with a butterfly knife is just better and easier. Some even speculate that OJ Simpson would have gotten away with double homicide within a shorter period of time had he mercilessly butchered his two victims with a butterfly, ask any attorney! So if the increased likelihood of getting away with the wanton slaughter of a person isn't enough incentive, I don't know what to tell you. You must live a lonely life, enshrouded by confusion and doubt.

FLATWARE: NOT AS WELL REGULATED AS YOU MAY THINK

In the wake of the obesity epidemic gripping the United States, have we overlooked the main accomplice to the sometime friend and enemy, food? Moreover, have we actually asked ourselves the hard question: Can flatware be the blame?

With the increasing prices in high-grade, high-performance, high-capacity food rich in nutrients our eyes have been blinded by costs. It begs to be asked however if we're actually seeing the farm beyond the dinner table, but in fact the dinner table may hold the key to the issue. Utensils otherwise known as flatware are responsible for the vast majority of the food we eat. Food -as has been well documented- is one of the major factors contributing to obesity. Looking at the sum of its parts, flatware seems to be a dangerously overlooked factor. Flatware is imperative in bringing most foods to our mouths, but those who suffer from obesity may very well be abusing such a major tool in eating, resulting in their higher chances of suffering from diabetes and heart failure.

This is not to say that all flatware is bad, and that anyone who uses flatware will inevitably use it to make themselves obese, though it may be time to ask precisely what level and how strictly flatware should be issued to the general public, if issued at all. Flatware has had a long history of going without regulation. According to the Sheffield Knife Book (Tweetdale, 1996) flatware's use and inventory has been documented in British Tax Records as early as 1297. But in our modern times, why have we failed to heed the lessons from our past and not maintain register and accountability of our flatware? Instead, the populace has been roving about, utensil in hand and ready to give themselves a hard case of indigestion at the very least.

High-capacity kitchen utensils are not to be ruled out, as was mentioned in a previous article. It begs to be asked why so many people wish to have restaurant-grade cooking implements in their house. True, some may enjoy the thrill of cooking and the security that you can prepare haute cuisine in their own home at their leisure. On the other hand, is it really necessary when there are fully qualified culinary specialists able to make better use of it? Even if the restaurant is closed, there's always prepared meals to be had from the grocer's freezer.  Not to mention, the multifunctional mass murder machine known mainly as the "spork."

As a people, we'd ought to count the gravestones of those who've died from obesity-related disorders. Can it not be asked if there was limited access to flatware, these people would be living fulfilling lives instead of the dreadful fate they've met? But without doubt, it can be said that in the defense of regulating and limiting access to flatware, "forks can, and will, make you fat."

War is Inevitable? Says Who?

Having a fondness for political lectures, I've noticed another troubling pattern in the rhetoric of Right-leaning speakers to the tune of "war is inevitable." In most cases, I would brush this aside as another scare tactic employed to shake up the base in their faction. Unfortunately, it has become endemic and the rhetoric is slowly crossing party lines. The question is, how can we as a species abide this?

There are lots of things that are inevitable: The collapse of a star, the expiration of our lives and hell, the expiration of milk. Birds fly, fish swim, and we try to kill as many of each other as one can in their lifetime? Really? The impermanent nature of being is one we become acquainted with early in our childhood, though at such an age we are unable to articulate our opinions on the subject concisely. We understand that there are things we simply have no control over unless technological, economic and social advances manage to overcome them. But in terms of war, an event reliant on the perogative of the aggressor to take effect, it is hard for me to see the parallel.

When a person says "war is inevitable," it sends a clear message that it is no one's fault. The language, even in legalese, implies that no one is culpable. From the voter who cast their ballot for the warhawk head of state to the head of state himself, anyone involved can be held responsible, could they not? The question of whether or not we are going to admit where we as a people come to take ownership in this.

National defense spending in the United States, regardless of figures and times after the Second World War, remains the highest of any one nation on this planet. This tremendous and ever-increasing sum seems to be spurred on by the perceived inevitablity of war, but why is no one stopping to take a look at the root of the problem? John F. Kennedy may have said "It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war" but is he not the same man who said "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings"?

Humbly though I submit my opinion, I would dare to say that war is a man-made problem, a dreadful invention that at this point in our history as a species, can destroy the world at the turn of a key and recitation of code. Keys, codes, buttons: All of these things are made by us, for us or more accurately, in spite of us. I challenge anyone to deny this; I challenge you! Could not the world be a better place were we to deny ourselves the indulgence of this dark fantasy? Can our curiosity for how much destruction we ourselves can wreak on our own planet not be sated?

But what of this dread-fascination? This death-preoccupation? I have seen it in religion too, as I can't shake the feeling that though many on the religious front may be expecting an apocalypse. Unfortunately, since I don't believe in such things, this appears to me as a self-fulfilling one if the wrong person gets their hands on the right means. Even in some polytheistic religions from antiquity, there are deities exhalted as patrons of war. Ares, Tyr and Mars to name but a mere fraction of the tie-ins between religion and war.

No, I say no to all of it. No to the foolishness of waiting for war. What is there to wait for? If the desire to see bloodshed is in the heart of men with the means to do so, it will be done. What we as a species must do is surpass this. War is not "inevitable," it is the perogative of a mere consequential few.