The citizens of my little slice of Oklahoma are once again being their entertaining selves.
The Family Shouts Together…
Recently I was hanging out at a state park near where I live that was built around some natural springs in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (oh, those vile liberals). They dammed up one of the springs and turned it into a smallish, three- or four-acre lake. It’s very pretty there, with trees of all sorts—Chinaberry, Sycamore, Hackberry, Walnut—and fauna galore. There’s a mama muskrat I particularly enjoy watching while she cuts cattails to line her den.
Anyway, I was having a nice quiet time. Too bad some extra members of the local human population had to show up.
There were six of them in all, Mom, Dad, and four kids, three girls and a boy, ranging from around three to around seven, they were enjoying a family outing on the other side of the lake from where I sat in the shade, but the Katzenjammer-like volume of their voices made their conversation impossible to avoid. And right out of The Family Circle it was, too. I recorded it here, with all the fidelity I can muster…
Little Boy: Lookit the turtle!
Mom: Hurry up, it’s time for dinner.
Little Boy: Lookit the turtle!
Mom: What’d I just SAY? Get up here!
Oldest Little Girl: It’s a turtle, Mom!
Mom: No it ain’t. Both of you: move!
Middle Little Girl: But Maaaaaaa’aaaaaaahm!
Mom: I ain’t gonna say it again. Move your asses right now or we’re gonna leave you here!
Little Boy: It IS a turtle! Lookit it!
Mom: God dammit! That’s not a fuckin’ turtle! It’s a big god damn stick!
Little Boy: Huh uh! It’s a¬¬—
Mom: Stop it, or I’m gonna paddle you! You hear me?
Dad: Hey, it IS a turtle.
Mom: And you shut the fuck up, too! Jesus CHRIST!
On that note they departed, the Model American Family, back up the trail to whatever carney conveyance had delivered them there. And from all around me came the unmistakable sounds of Nature applauding.
Ah, Prom!
I thought my little town was the Center of the Redneck Universe, but it turns out that there’s another, even smaller, town about twenty miles from here that takes the redneck cake (or, rather, cornbread). For proof, we need look no further than their recent Senior Prom.
The theme was “A Ride in the Country.” Their colors: Mossy Oak hunter’s camouflage…and pink. The centerpieces were tumbleweeds…with pink ribbon. The drinks table (no alcohol of course, only punch) was decorated with mason jars, mason jars filled with dirt clods, topped with tumbleweeds, and festooned with what can only be described as fluffy stuff…in pink. Many of the boys wore Mossy Oak hunter’s camouflage vests with their tuxedos. One boy’s tux was done entirely in Mossy Oak hunter’s camouflage. The commemorative T-shirts were Mossy Oak hunter’s camouflage with a design on the front; a drawing of a pair of hunter’s boots and a pair of high heels…in pink. Instead of a red carpet for the King and Queen to stroll down, they made a carpet of Mossy Oak hunter’s camouflage Duct Tape. The catering was by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not a buffet. Big buckets on each table.
My friend Cal believes the kids were making a statement and being ironic. I, on the other hand, not being anywhere near as gracious or reasonable as Cal, believe they were just being hillbillies. Seventeen-year-olds don’t do irony. Irony is the privilege of the old and grouchy. Like me.
Redneck dorks.
Losing It Be Not Proud…
So, I’m at the movies the other night. Went to see Red Riding Hood. The eight-pound Oreck vacuum doesn’t suck as much as that movie does, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Just about the time the house lights faded, three kids dive-bombed into the seats in front of me. I’m going to put their ages at eight (a boy), ten (another boy) and eleven (a girl). They began chattering as soon as their narrow little butts hit the cushions. Someone a few seats down from them leaned over during the previews and told them to shush, which did about as much good as begging a puppy to file your taxes. I was to discover later that the daring shusher was the owner of the smaller boy, which rendered her ineffectual shushings all the more bothersome.
But, OK, look: I get it. They’re kids. Kids talk. Kids talk loud. It in the nature of kids to be annoying in public. But I do wish, just occasionally, that I would encounter some of them that conducted themselves as if they had parents at home and not abettors. Mini vans needn’t necessarily be get-away vehicles.
Anyway, the kids kept tittering and giggling, as the collar of my shirt grew tighter and tighter. The movie started, and even though I sensed from the very start that my money would’ve probably been better spent on a good rectal scouring, I had paid for it, and wanted to hear it, such as it was. So I assembled my best “Cool Uncle Rich” smile, leaned forward, aimed it at the trio, and said, “Hey, guys. Chill out. People are trying to watch the movie.”
Three small pale faces turned toward me, three small pale round big-eyed faces, like three juvenile dugongs investigating an X-Box. But, wonder of wonders, they did stop talking. For perhaps eleven seconds.
Time passed. Their voices and their twitching, OCD, antics grew louder and more feral. Had there been a runt in their litter, they would’ve eaten it and rolled around in its blood. The ineffectual shusher shushed them again, eliciting not even a pause in the gale. A lady in the row in front of them offered her own shush, which was also completely ignored.
Believe it or not, I don’t usually shush people during movies. Most of the time they shut up on their own. But these three hellhounds, well, I figured they deserved special attention. So, I leaned forward again and stuck my face right in their business.
“Shut up,” I whisper-hissed. “I mean it. You’re pissing me off.”
My abrupt arrival on the scene startled them and the little girl sort of “eeped” as they all faced me once again.
“Please,” I said. “Just be quiet. OK?”
Interestingly, the ineffectual shushers, both next to and in front of the wee terrorists, each turned and said “Thank-you.” And the wee terrorists ceased jabbering, too, for an period of time that lasted at least fifteen seconds. Then they were right back at it, full speed ahead.
And now we are entering the section of my narrative which some might find offensive.
When the creatures resumed their gabbling and honking the youngest of them (who’s name I later learned was, of all things, Traven) looked back at me and said,
“Hey. Gimme some of your popcorn.”
That’s all he said, but I…what’s the word I’m looking for? Snapped! That’s it. I snapped.
“Listen to me, you little sack of shit,” I growled. “Shut the fuck up. Shut your fucking mouth, right fucking now, or I’ll climb over this seat and shut it for you.” He started to say something smart-alecky, but I didn’t let him. “Don’t you wise-ass me, you little fucker. Do you understand? Do you hear me, you little cunt? Shut up. Shut. Up.”
For the next hour dear Traven made exactly two sounds. Neither was very loud or particularly disturbing. Part of me hopes he had nightmares when he got home, about a fat bearded giant who wanted to throttle him; my Anti-Hagrid to his Anti-Harry.
When the movie was over, Traven’s mother thanked me again. She apologized for his behavior and finished up by saying “I just don’t know what to do with him.”
“How ‘bout next time you’re pregnant, you lay off the meth,” I responded.
Now, even a rock will have noticed how much my tantrum resembled Mrs. Katzenjammer’s in the first story. I am, apparently, turning into one of these people. All that’s left for me now, I guess, is to buy some Wranglers, a Tap-Out shirt, some long-cut Copenhagen and a goat to cornhole.
And that’s the latest from Freak Central. Please, someone rescue me, before it’s too late…
Cheers.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
These Are Not Intended to be Factual Statements
Thank the heavens for Arizona Senator John Kyl. He has opened a whole new and wonderful world of public discourse when he said that his asinine comments about Planned Parenthood were “Not intended to be a factual statement.” Because of his brave stance on what other, less-well-informed, people would call “lying,” it is now possible to stand up in front of the American people and say pretty much whatever comes trickling across your mind.
I have a few items of interest to impart, none of which are, of course, intended to be factual statements.
• That revolting thing on Donald Trump’s head is a Tribble.
• Rush Limbaugh plays violent S&M games with Beanie Babies.
• Michele Bachmann is amazed at the way rivers miraculously conform to state lines.
• “Every time a poor person dies, an angel gets its wings.” Christmas Eve at the Koch Brother’s house.
• Anne Coulter eats kittens. Raw. And when she is finished stripping each little carcass she cracks the bones with her teeth and sucks out the marrow.
• Pictures of cancer patients give Newt Gingrich a boner.
• Geraldo Rivera thinks John Wayne movies are documentaries.
• Sarah Palin has fangs in her honey-hole.
• Every member of the Arizona State Legislature is easily distracted by shiny things, like when cats watch a laser-pointer dot.
• Clarence Thomas has lawn jockeys in his yard.
• Larry, Mo and Curley, the three hosts of Fox & Friends, are the monstrous offspring of Kathy Lee Gifford and a Cabbage Patch Doll.
• Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker regularly has sex with boxes of aloe-infused Kleenex.
• Paul Ryan doesn’t have enough electricity in his head to fire up one of those potato clocks.
• Whenever Sean Hannity goes in a church the holy water boils.
• Glenn Beck thinks there are socialist messages encoded in the mating songs of humpback whales.
• Bill O’Reilly has a tattoo on his chest of Phyllis Schlafly wearing a strap-on.
• Brit Hume sells his blood to pay for illegal Canadian anti-wrinkle cream.
• The only way Karl Rove can achieve an orgasm is if the music from The Exorcist is playing.
• Pat Robertson’s secret NAMBLA web handle is “Slippery Fingers.”
And…
• Ninety percent of the Tea Bagger’s yearly operating budget is ear-marked for the hunting down, stuffing and mounting of Mexicans.
Thanks again, Senator Kyl! And I hope you get help with that paint-huffing problem soon!
Cheers!
I have a few items of interest to impart, none of which are, of course, intended to be factual statements.
• That revolting thing on Donald Trump’s head is a Tribble.
• Rush Limbaugh plays violent S&M games with Beanie Babies.
• Michele Bachmann is amazed at the way rivers miraculously conform to state lines.
• “Every time a poor person dies, an angel gets its wings.” Christmas Eve at the Koch Brother’s house.
• Anne Coulter eats kittens. Raw. And when she is finished stripping each little carcass she cracks the bones with her teeth and sucks out the marrow.
• Pictures of cancer patients give Newt Gingrich a boner.
• Geraldo Rivera thinks John Wayne movies are documentaries.
• Sarah Palin has fangs in her honey-hole.
• Every member of the Arizona State Legislature is easily distracted by shiny things, like when cats watch a laser-pointer dot.
• Clarence Thomas has lawn jockeys in his yard.
• Larry, Mo and Curley, the three hosts of Fox & Friends, are the monstrous offspring of Kathy Lee Gifford and a Cabbage Patch Doll.
• Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker regularly has sex with boxes of aloe-infused Kleenex.
• Paul Ryan doesn’t have enough electricity in his head to fire up one of those potato clocks.
• Whenever Sean Hannity goes in a church the holy water boils.
• Glenn Beck thinks there are socialist messages encoded in the mating songs of humpback whales.
• Bill O’Reilly has a tattoo on his chest of Phyllis Schlafly wearing a strap-on.
• Brit Hume sells his blood to pay for illegal Canadian anti-wrinkle cream.
• The only way Karl Rove can achieve an orgasm is if the music from The Exorcist is playing.
• Pat Robertson’s secret NAMBLA web handle is “Slippery Fingers.”
And…
• Ninety percent of the Tea Bagger’s yearly operating budget is ear-marked for the hunting down, stuffing and mounting of Mexicans.
Thanks again, Senator Kyl! And I hope you get help with that paint-huffing problem soon!
Cheers!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Of Small Boats and Cows
There are certain people in the world who simply should not be left to their own devices out of doors or in the company of cows. I, as it happens, am one.
Recently, I entered into possession of an eight-foot aluminum johnboat. It’s hoary and dented and kind of crappy, but with its flat bottom and light weight, it’s the perfect vehicle for plying the winding, narrow, tree-limb-strewn waters of my favorite fishing hole. It’s major problem was that several hull rivets had become loose, allowing a completely unacceptable amount of water to gurgle in for a frolic. I asked around for advice on stemming the unwanted flow, and the consensus among people who are smarter about such things than I am was marine caulk; just put a dollop on top of each faulty rivet, let it cure, and see what happens. So, a few days ago, I performed the dolloping, and yesterday it was time for the maiden voyage of the newly refurbished good ship Lookslikeshit.
Now, I didn’t just shove the boat in the water and hop aboard, which, in light of what happened later, represents one of my few acts of good judgment. Instead, I dragged the boat to a level bit of shoreline, scooped water from the lake with an empty coffee can, and poured it in. A few short minutes monitoring, and…hey look at that! No leaks. Cool.
A quick word about the shoreline of this little lake. At the end where I was effecting repairs on the boat, the water is very shallow; the ground sloping gently downward from the bank for maybe fifteen feet before it drops off into deeper water. It’s also very muddy and peppered with hoof prints made by cattle coming down to the pond for a restorative slurp. A few hundred yards to the south the banks narrow into a sort of canyon, the remains of a very old creek. Here the bank has a steeper incline and the is water deeper, making it easier, I reasoned, to enter and exit the boat without getting overly cozy with the muddy bottom (it’s all thick and squelchy; that black muck that invades your skull with an entire battalion of hideous scents, and clings to your shoes like a frightened first-grader). So my plan was to schlep the boat down to the narrows, and set sail from there. Preparatory to the schlepping, I took my fishing pole and a small box of lures down to the presumptive embarkation point, and deposited them on the bank (the rest of my tackle I left in the repair area), so as not to be encumbered with too much stuff.
I lifted the Lookslikeshit and stared along the shore, not looking forward to the trip at all. And hindsight tells me that it was right about here that the day started going all sideways.
Hmmmm, I thought (or something to that effect). If I drag the boat down there across the uneven ground, I run the risk of ruining the work I did on the rivets, and if I flip the boat upside down it’s gonna bounce and rattle the whole way and I could damage the stern and who knows what else. With some rope, I could have floated the thing along, pulling it behind while I walked the along bank, but I didn’t have any rope. Better, I thought (or something to that effect) to just hop aboard right here and paddle down to where the banks narrow. And hey, if all went according to my mental blueprint, I would be able to grab my pole and get right to pestering the fish.
Now, in addition to rope, something else I didn’t have, I should mention at this point, was a paddle. (You can go ahead and wipe that smirk off your face right now.) But my six months of Boy Scout training kicked in, and I located a suitable substitute in the form of a thickish stick, about three feet long, with which I figured to row/pole my way through the shallows. So, feeling pleased with my ingenuity, and altogether the rugged man of action, I stepped carefully aboard the Lookslikeshit.
She wobbled freely from side to side, and my forward momentum pushed her away from the bank, the overall effect being that of a rubber duck in a Jacuzzi. Feeling almost completely at the mercy of the fickle laws of physics, I quickly sat down on the boat’s sternward bench and waited for things to stabilize.
There are all sorts of good reasons why you paddle a boat with a paddle and not with a thickish stick, the most basic of which is that thickish sticks, while thickish, are not so thick as paddles, rendering your progress rather slow. A particularly sluggish glacier would’ve moved at a friskier pace, but with some effort I managed to bob along in a positive direction.
Two calves wandered down to the water, presumably because they were thirsty, but all they did was look at me in that bovine way they have, until I got too close, startling them, and they ran back up the hill to the safety of their mothers. A small turtle poked its head up and gave me the ol’ reptilian once-over. (I can’t say for certain if it was the sociopathic beast that had plagued me in the past, but I wouldn’t be surprised.) Looking over the side of the boat I saw a happy sight; a small school of inch-long bass fingerlings. I’d been worried that the superabundance of turtles in the pond had been wrecking havoc with the yearly fish hatch, but at least this few had made it. A good omen for the future. If, of course, their cousins didn’t dine on them between times.
In any event, about ten minutes after setting sail I alit at my destination, pleased enough with the experience to take a crack at some actual fishing. But first I had to retrieve my gear. With a minimum of splashing and flailing, I maneuvered the Lookslikeshitaround and ran the stern (where I was sitting) toward the bank. It is in the nature of boats that they don’t really take to remaining stationary, and every time I went to stand up, this one skittled backward into deeper water. Three times this happened before I hit on the idea to jab my thickish stick into the bottom as a makeshift anchor. It worked well, until I had to let go of it to stand, at which point the boat and I once again went rocking and rolling off into deeper water in a funky sort of spin.
OK, I thought (or something to that effect), here’s what to do. Use the stick as a pole, build up some steam, and really plant the stern in the shallows. Then I can hop out before it can run off again.
You can’t really build up any decent momentum with a three-foot stick, thickish or otherwise, but I gave it a serious go. The stern oozed up into the mud and achieved a tentative brand of stasis. I lurched onto my knees, one hand on the port side of the boat and the other on the stick, and heaved myself upward and forward toward dry ground.
Two things happened at this point, and they got together and resulted in a third, larger thing.
The first thing was, the Lookslikeshit left the mud behind in a rush, aiming merrily for open seas, and the second thing was that the stick, with my weight pressing down on it, sank deeper into the mud and abruptly tilted sideways away from the boat. I tried to wrestle with the boat’s sudden violent motion, but I grossly overcompensated and—here’s the third, larger thing—flipped the boat upside down. And what’s really funny is that, as I spilled into the water, I yelled “Here we GO!”
I came up spluttering, with moss in my hair, but somehow with my sunglasses still firmly astride my face. Planting my feet on the bottom, I stood up in about four feet of water, which suddenly became five feet of water when I sank to the middle of my shins in goo. A few feet away, the Lookslikeshit was three-quarters of the way submerged, and striving with all its might to go all the way under. Hauling my feet from the muck, I grabbed the last remaining bit of metal still showing and dragged the boat ashore, where I heaved the traitorous vessel onto its starboard side and leaned it against a cottonwood stump to drain and dry.
Standing there dripping and spitting pond water, I was glad I had left my tackle behind. I don’t know if I could’ve faced, at that moment, having to go for a snorkel to retrieve my stuff. I wasn’t at all glad, however, to discover a few of the things I had brought along for the ride: my car remote, my wallet, my cigarettes, my Zippo, and my cell phone, all of which were now thoroughly water-logged. I began spreading these items out on a log in the sun, but stopped when I heard a noise from the high wall of the creek bed about twenty feet above.
Looking down at me, in perfectly symmetrical attitudes, were nine cows. About half of the group were calves. In so far as you can read a cow’s body language, I felt that these found my antics quite bemusing. “Hey down there,” they seemed to be saying. “Whatcha doin’? Looks all sortsa stoopid to us.”
A guy’s outlook is not improved in any way when he finds that he is viewed as an object of derision by cows.
“Go away,” I said. “Take a hike.” They steadfastly refused to hike, so I called them some rude names like Big Mac and Veal-on-the-Hoof. They still wouldn’t scram, but having zinged them with my wit and proven my intellectual superiority, I felt better.
The cows continued their observations as I continued laying out the contents of my pockets on the log; phone, bits of soggy paper from my wallet, etc. I blew the excess moisture from my Zippo, located the least sodden of my cigarettes, put fire to it, and inhaled several lungsful of pond-water-flavored tobacco. (Not all I had hoped from the experience, but in such circumstances we take what we are given.) Then I sat in the grass, kicked off my muddy tennies, and arranged myself in the sun to dry.
Eventually, the cows grew bored and went back to the business of being cows. It turned out, however, that they still had roles to play in the ongoing drama of my afternoon.
Perhaps an hour later I felt dry enough to sit in my car without befouling the upholstery, so I collected my fishing pole and small plastic tackle box, and headed back along the shoreline to tidy up the repair area, grab the rest of my things, and get the hell home. As soon as I rounded the bend, though, I saw immediately that things were amiss down there. The contents of my tackle box were strewn far and wide and the box itself, which is actually a Nylon bag, was smashed flat in the mud. Closer inspection revealed that all of my little plastic bins and boxes full of lures and hooks and things of that nature, were smeared with globs of frothy yellow-white foam. Calf snot. Thick as the meringue on a lemon pie. Some overly curious bovine wastrel had slobbered all over my stuff. And it had been there a while, too, a fact made plain by the general solidity of the slobber, and its obstinacy over being scraped off.
I wondered what had possessed the animal or animals to drool on my belongings, but ultimately lacked the energy for pondering the mental intricacies of cows, so I just shook the mud off the tackle box, crammed everything back inside, and tromped up the hill to my car. Arriving there, I found that my tackle box hadn’t been the only target of the foam-spewing beasts. Oklahoma is made up of red dirt, so cars are often coated with a layer of fine red dust. Mine was. But all up and down its sides, on the hatchback and the hood, there were damp streaks in the dust; swooshes and swirls of snot and gooey spittle.
The cows had been licking my car. Why? Who the hell knows. It’s white. Maybe they thought it was a giant salt-lick.
Muttering to myself, I stowed my tackle and got behind the wheel. I made a U-turn and started back toward the pasture gate, following a pair of well-worn tire ruts left there by years of farming activity. Up ahead, a single calf stood in the way. It was very small, and so obviously very new to the world. It stared at me as I approached. I slowed. It stared. I continued to slow. It continued to stare. I slowed to the point that I was moving at about a half-mile per hour, but still it seemed as though I was bearing down on the little idiot at speed. A moment later I could look into its eyes and it could look into mine. Then, finally, at the last possible second, the calf leaped out of the way. Well, I say “leaped” but that’s not entirely accurate. What it did was totally freak out. All four of its hooves came off the ground at once as it spun in mid-air and let out for friendlier environs, for someplace, perhaps, where giant salt-licks didn’t inexplicably attack innocent young cows.
He left me a parting gift too, the little bastard. Just as he spun out of the way and my car rolled by, he lifted his tail and jettisoned a great geyser of liquid brown shit all over the hood of my car. I mean like three gallons of it. It spattered the windshield and clogged the air vents, filling the car with the enticing aroma of digested cow-cake and wet hay. Coupled with the scents of pond water and black mud that already clung to me, the interior of my car now smelled like a redneck’s wedding reception.
I sighed—what else was I supposed to do?—unrolled the windows, and motored for home for a shower that lasted about ten months.
Is there a point to this story? Yes, I think so. Three of them, in fact.
The little boat is sea-worthy. I am a poor sailor. And cows do not like me.
Cheers.
Recently, I entered into possession of an eight-foot aluminum johnboat. It’s hoary and dented and kind of crappy, but with its flat bottom and light weight, it’s the perfect vehicle for plying the winding, narrow, tree-limb-strewn waters of my favorite fishing hole. It’s major problem was that several hull rivets had become loose, allowing a completely unacceptable amount of water to gurgle in for a frolic. I asked around for advice on stemming the unwanted flow, and the consensus among people who are smarter about such things than I am was marine caulk; just put a dollop on top of each faulty rivet, let it cure, and see what happens. So, a few days ago, I performed the dolloping, and yesterday it was time for the maiden voyage of the newly refurbished good ship Lookslikeshit.
Now, I didn’t just shove the boat in the water and hop aboard, which, in light of what happened later, represents one of my few acts of good judgment. Instead, I dragged the boat to a level bit of shoreline, scooped water from the lake with an empty coffee can, and poured it in. A few short minutes monitoring, and…hey look at that! No leaks. Cool.
A quick word about the shoreline of this little lake. At the end where I was effecting repairs on the boat, the water is very shallow; the ground sloping gently downward from the bank for maybe fifteen feet before it drops off into deeper water. It’s also very muddy and peppered with hoof prints made by cattle coming down to the pond for a restorative slurp. A few hundred yards to the south the banks narrow into a sort of canyon, the remains of a very old creek. Here the bank has a steeper incline and the is water deeper, making it easier, I reasoned, to enter and exit the boat without getting overly cozy with the muddy bottom (it’s all thick and squelchy; that black muck that invades your skull with an entire battalion of hideous scents, and clings to your shoes like a frightened first-grader). So my plan was to schlep the boat down to the narrows, and set sail from there. Preparatory to the schlepping, I took my fishing pole and a small box of lures down to the presumptive embarkation point, and deposited them on the bank (the rest of my tackle I left in the repair area), so as not to be encumbered with too much stuff.
I lifted the Lookslikeshit and stared along the shore, not looking forward to the trip at all. And hindsight tells me that it was right about here that the day started going all sideways.
Hmmmm, I thought (or something to that effect). If I drag the boat down there across the uneven ground, I run the risk of ruining the work I did on the rivets, and if I flip the boat upside down it’s gonna bounce and rattle the whole way and I could damage the stern and who knows what else. With some rope, I could have floated the thing along, pulling it behind while I walked the along bank, but I didn’t have any rope. Better, I thought (or something to that effect) to just hop aboard right here and paddle down to where the banks narrow. And hey, if all went according to my mental blueprint, I would be able to grab my pole and get right to pestering the fish.
Now, in addition to rope, something else I didn’t have, I should mention at this point, was a paddle. (You can go ahead and wipe that smirk off your face right now.) But my six months of Boy Scout training kicked in, and I located a suitable substitute in the form of a thickish stick, about three feet long, with which I figured to row/pole my way through the shallows. So, feeling pleased with my ingenuity, and altogether the rugged man of action, I stepped carefully aboard the Lookslikeshit.
She wobbled freely from side to side, and my forward momentum pushed her away from the bank, the overall effect being that of a rubber duck in a Jacuzzi. Feeling almost completely at the mercy of the fickle laws of physics, I quickly sat down on the boat’s sternward bench and waited for things to stabilize.
There are all sorts of good reasons why you paddle a boat with a paddle and not with a thickish stick, the most basic of which is that thickish sticks, while thickish, are not so thick as paddles, rendering your progress rather slow. A particularly sluggish glacier would’ve moved at a friskier pace, but with some effort I managed to bob along in a positive direction.
Two calves wandered down to the water, presumably because they were thirsty, but all they did was look at me in that bovine way they have, until I got too close, startling them, and they ran back up the hill to the safety of their mothers. A small turtle poked its head up and gave me the ol’ reptilian once-over. (I can’t say for certain if it was the sociopathic beast that had plagued me in the past, but I wouldn’t be surprised.) Looking over the side of the boat I saw a happy sight; a small school of inch-long bass fingerlings. I’d been worried that the superabundance of turtles in the pond had been wrecking havoc with the yearly fish hatch, but at least this few had made it. A good omen for the future. If, of course, their cousins didn’t dine on them between times.
In any event, about ten minutes after setting sail I alit at my destination, pleased enough with the experience to take a crack at some actual fishing. But first I had to retrieve my gear. With a minimum of splashing and flailing, I maneuvered the Lookslikeshitaround and ran the stern (where I was sitting) toward the bank. It is in the nature of boats that they don’t really take to remaining stationary, and every time I went to stand up, this one skittled backward into deeper water. Three times this happened before I hit on the idea to jab my thickish stick into the bottom as a makeshift anchor. It worked well, until I had to let go of it to stand, at which point the boat and I once again went rocking and rolling off into deeper water in a funky sort of spin.
OK, I thought (or something to that effect), here’s what to do. Use the stick as a pole, build up some steam, and really plant the stern in the shallows. Then I can hop out before it can run off again.
You can’t really build up any decent momentum with a three-foot stick, thickish or otherwise, but I gave it a serious go. The stern oozed up into the mud and achieved a tentative brand of stasis. I lurched onto my knees, one hand on the port side of the boat and the other on the stick, and heaved myself upward and forward toward dry ground.
Two things happened at this point, and they got together and resulted in a third, larger thing.
The first thing was, the Lookslikeshit left the mud behind in a rush, aiming merrily for open seas, and the second thing was that the stick, with my weight pressing down on it, sank deeper into the mud and abruptly tilted sideways away from the boat. I tried to wrestle with the boat’s sudden violent motion, but I grossly overcompensated and—here’s the third, larger thing—flipped the boat upside down. And what’s really funny is that, as I spilled into the water, I yelled “Here we GO!”
I came up spluttering, with moss in my hair, but somehow with my sunglasses still firmly astride my face. Planting my feet on the bottom, I stood up in about four feet of water, which suddenly became five feet of water when I sank to the middle of my shins in goo. A few feet away, the Lookslikeshit was three-quarters of the way submerged, and striving with all its might to go all the way under. Hauling my feet from the muck, I grabbed the last remaining bit of metal still showing and dragged the boat ashore, where I heaved the traitorous vessel onto its starboard side and leaned it against a cottonwood stump to drain and dry.
Standing there dripping and spitting pond water, I was glad I had left my tackle behind. I don’t know if I could’ve faced, at that moment, having to go for a snorkel to retrieve my stuff. I wasn’t at all glad, however, to discover a few of the things I had brought along for the ride: my car remote, my wallet, my cigarettes, my Zippo, and my cell phone, all of which were now thoroughly water-logged. I began spreading these items out on a log in the sun, but stopped when I heard a noise from the high wall of the creek bed about twenty feet above.
Looking down at me, in perfectly symmetrical attitudes, were nine cows. About half of the group were calves. In so far as you can read a cow’s body language, I felt that these found my antics quite bemusing. “Hey down there,” they seemed to be saying. “Whatcha doin’? Looks all sortsa stoopid to us.”
A guy’s outlook is not improved in any way when he finds that he is viewed as an object of derision by cows.
“Go away,” I said. “Take a hike.” They steadfastly refused to hike, so I called them some rude names like Big Mac and Veal-on-the-Hoof. They still wouldn’t scram, but having zinged them with my wit and proven my intellectual superiority, I felt better.
The cows continued their observations as I continued laying out the contents of my pockets on the log; phone, bits of soggy paper from my wallet, etc. I blew the excess moisture from my Zippo, located the least sodden of my cigarettes, put fire to it, and inhaled several lungsful of pond-water-flavored tobacco. (Not all I had hoped from the experience, but in such circumstances we take what we are given.) Then I sat in the grass, kicked off my muddy tennies, and arranged myself in the sun to dry.
Eventually, the cows grew bored and went back to the business of being cows. It turned out, however, that they still had roles to play in the ongoing drama of my afternoon.
Perhaps an hour later I felt dry enough to sit in my car without befouling the upholstery, so I collected my fishing pole and small plastic tackle box, and headed back along the shoreline to tidy up the repair area, grab the rest of my things, and get the hell home. As soon as I rounded the bend, though, I saw immediately that things were amiss down there. The contents of my tackle box were strewn far and wide and the box itself, which is actually a Nylon bag, was smashed flat in the mud. Closer inspection revealed that all of my little plastic bins and boxes full of lures and hooks and things of that nature, were smeared with globs of frothy yellow-white foam. Calf snot. Thick as the meringue on a lemon pie. Some overly curious bovine wastrel had slobbered all over my stuff. And it had been there a while, too, a fact made plain by the general solidity of the slobber, and its obstinacy over being scraped off.
I wondered what had possessed the animal or animals to drool on my belongings, but ultimately lacked the energy for pondering the mental intricacies of cows, so I just shook the mud off the tackle box, crammed everything back inside, and tromped up the hill to my car. Arriving there, I found that my tackle box hadn’t been the only target of the foam-spewing beasts. Oklahoma is made up of red dirt, so cars are often coated with a layer of fine red dust. Mine was. But all up and down its sides, on the hatchback and the hood, there were damp streaks in the dust; swooshes and swirls of snot and gooey spittle.
The cows had been licking my car. Why? Who the hell knows. It’s white. Maybe they thought it was a giant salt-lick.
Muttering to myself, I stowed my tackle and got behind the wheel. I made a U-turn and started back toward the pasture gate, following a pair of well-worn tire ruts left there by years of farming activity. Up ahead, a single calf stood in the way. It was very small, and so obviously very new to the world. It stared at me as I approached. I slowed. It stared. I continued to slow. It continued to stare. I slowed to the point that I was moving at about a half-mile per hour, but still it seemed as though I was bearing down on the little idiot at speed. A moment later I could look into its eyes and it could look into mine. Then, finally, at the last possible second, the calf leaped out of the way. Well, I say “leaped” but that’s not entirely accurate. What it did was totally freak out. All four of its hooves came off the ground at once as it spun in mid-air and let out for friendlier environs, for someplace, perhaps, where giant salt-licks didn’t inexplicably attack innocent young cows.
He left me a parting gift too, the little bastard. Just as he spun out of the way and my car rolled by, he lifted his tail and jettisoned a great geyser of liquid brown shit all over the hood of my car. I mean like three gallons of it. It spattered the windshield and clogged the air vents, filling the car with the enticing aroma of digested cow-cake and wet hay. Coupled with the scents of pond water and black mud that already clung to me, the interior of my car now smelled like a redneck’s wedding reception.
I sighed—what else was I supposed to do?—unrolled the windows, and motored for home for a shower that lasted about ten months.
Is there a point to this story? Yes, I think so. Three of them, in fact.
The little boat is sea-worthy. I am a poor sailor. And cows do not like me.
Cheers.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Some Thoughts on "Intelligent" Design
Somehow, over the last fifty or so years, America has gone from being proud of its scientific knowledge and accomplishments, to being, at best, suspicious of science, and at worst, hostile toward it. Mostly, though, what Americans are is grossly ignorant of science. In 1997 we ranked 11th in the world. By 2007 we had dropped to 24th, well behind every other major country on the planet. (At the same time, when questioned about their self-esteem, 96 percent of American students now say that they are “special” and “important” people. In other words, they are really fond of themselves for no reason whatsoever.) Way too many people in this country today are better versed in those dimwitted Kardashian twats than they are in science, and that’s a sad, sad thing.
Anyway, it is no secret that among the major sciences none are treated with more fear and contempt by certain segments of American society than are the evolutionary sciences.
The attack on evolution is three-pronged. On the left, you’ve got the “postmodernists” (read: fatuous gasbags) relentlessly bloviating about the alleged subjectivity of facts. They desperately need evolution to be disproved, otherwise their entire philosophical project sinks into the sand on which it is built. Then on the right there are the creationists, blindly waving the bible and caterwauling in everybody’s face. (More on these guys below.) And in the middle, you’ve got a bunch of harried, three-job, parents who are too exhausted at the end of the day to adequately assist little Susie with her biology report. The most dangerous of these foes are, of course, the deceitful, frightened Christian hordes; the evangelical snake-talker types. Most parents, even the busiest, really do try to help their kids learn, and given how hard it is to earn a living today, we can cut them some slack. And as for the “postmodernists,” they are largely confined to college campuses where they can’t hurt anybody. The creationists, however, are well-funded, sneaky, and louder and more rank than Limbaugh’s OxyContin farts.
These days, the creationists’ favorite line of bullshit is to demand, shrilly and incessantly, like spoiled toddlers shrieking that they want a GODDAMN TRANSFORMER DOLL NOW!!! that schools “teach the controversy.” The “controversy” they refer to is the one they claim exists between evolution and Christianity. It is completely imaginary. Like angels, trickle-down economics and the Great Pumpkin, it exists only in the cobwebby recesses of their befuddled minds. “Teaching the controversy” is nothing more than an attempt, by a group of people who think the Dark Ages were a funky good time, to force Christianity into the classroom, in direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
But hey. Just to show how giving I can be (heh), I say this: teach creationism. Teach it in a religion studies class; teach it in a philosophy class; hell, teach it in a sociology class. Do not, however, teach it in a science class. Know why? Cuz it ain’t science, that’s why. Not even when you dress it up in its go-to-meetin clothes and call it “intelligent design (ID).”
ID exists only to disprove evolution. Its adherents perform no experiments. It’s doubtful they’ve ever even proposed one. They publish no peer-reviewed papers. To my knowledge, they have never penned a single document that wasn’t intended for dissemination strictly among members of their weird and narrow little club. They ignore the scientific method by coming to their conclusions first, then winnowing out a few bits of “data” to “support” their claims. They hate actual experts in the field, while at the same time nothing gives them a boner quite like quoting those same experts, albeit out of context, to bolster their “arguments.” Along those same lines, another of their favorite tactics is to cherry-pick information that is many decades out of date, such as the revolting role some evolutionists played in the eugenics movement, and present it as cutting-edge evolutionary thinking. For examples see Expelled, a propaganda piece funded and hosted by Ben Stein, wherein he informs us that “evolutionist” is code for “Nazi,” and every biologist in the world is lining up to open his own Death Camps R Us franchise. The out-of-context game in Expelled is so glaring that I made up a drinking game based on the movie’s innumerable goofy mistakes and inaccuracies. (Play it with shots and you’ll be shitfaced in about fifteen minutes.)
Another bit of chicanery ID-ers use to prop up their make-believe controversy is to play pocket-pool with the semantics of the word “theory.” Give an ID-er a dais and the first words out of his mouth will likely be “Evolution is only a theory!” Delete the word “only” and the doofus would be quite correct. Evolution is a theory. A damn good one, too, that is supported by millions of hours of experimental data and tens of thousands of items from the fossil record. (None of which can be said about the existence of god, by the way.) What our hypothetical ID-er means to howl is that “Evolution is only a hypothesis!” And no matter what you do with the word “only” he is utterly, completely, totally wrong. Of course, if he were to bawl “Intelligent design is only a hypothesis!” he would again be quite correct.
In any event, the ID crowd is up to their usual crap, with anti-science bills galumphing thick-wittedly through legislatures across the country—Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and Kentucky. (One in New Mexico was, thankfully, killed in committee in March.) Proponents of these laws want science teachers to show “both sides” of complex scientific issues. In other words: teach the “controversy.” Oddly (or perhaps not so much) the only scientific issues they consider “complex” enough to warrant instructing students in “both sides” are evolution, the chemical basis for human life, cloning and climate change. Not quantum mechanics, or superstrings, or chemical neurology. Just those areas that they believe will interfere with their ass-smooching the Invisible Sky Man. Now, do you think they are interested in what students learn or are they just playing politics? Golly, I wonder…
To sum up: There is no controversy. Creationists, you need to stop misleading people about it, not even the ones who are foaming at the mouth to be mislead. In fact, stop meddling in areas where you have no expertise, or even a limited amount of education. Go back to doing what you do best—making money and hiding in your caves from the lightning.
Cheers.
Anyway, it is no secret that among the major sciences none are treated with more fear and contempt by certain segments of American society than are the evolutionary sciences.
The attack on evolution is three-pronged. On the left, you’ve got the “postmodernists” (read: fatuous gasbags) relentlessly bloviating about the alleged subjectivity of facts. They desperately need evolution to be disproved, otherwise their entire philosophical project sinks into the sand on which it is built. Then on the right there are the creationists, blindly waving the bible and caterwauling in everybody’s face. (More on these guys below.) And in the middle, you’ve got a bunch of harried, three-job, parents who are too exhausted at the end of the day to adequately assist little Susie with her biology report. The most dangerous of these foes are, of course, the deceitful, frightened Christian hordes; the evangelical snake-talker types. Most parents, even the busiest, really do try to help their kids learn, and given how hard it is to earn a living today, we can cut them some slack. And as for the “postmodernists,” they are largely confined to college campuses where they can’t hurt anybody. The creationists, however, are well-funded, sneaky, and louder and more rank than Limbaugh’s OxyContin farts.
These days, the creationists’ favorite line of bullshit is to demand, shrilly and incessantly, like spoiled toddlers shrieking that they want a GODDAMN TRANSFORMER DOLL NOW!!! that schools “teach the controversy.” The “controversy” they refer to is the one they claim exists between evolution and Christianity. It is completely imaginary. Like angels, trickle-down economics and the Great Pumpkin, it exists only in the cobwebby recesses of their befuddled minds. “Teaching the controversy” is nothing more than an attempt, by a group of people who think the Dark Ages were a funky good time, to force Christianity into the classroom, in direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
But hey. Just to show how giving I can be (heh), I say this: teach creationism. Teach it in a religion studies class; teach it in a philosophy class; hell, teach it in a sociology class. Do not, however, teach it in a science class. Know why? Cuz it ain’t science, that’s why. Not even when you dress it up in its go-to-meetin clothes and call it “intelligent design (ID).”
ID exists only to disprove evolution. Its adherents perform no experiments. It’s doubtful they’ve ever even proposed one. They publish no peer-reviewed papers. To my knowledge, they have never penned a single document that wasn’t intended for dissemination strictly among members of their weird and narrow little club. They ignore the scientific method by coming to their conclusions first, then winnowing out a few bits of “data” to “support” their claims. They hate actual experts in the field, while at the same time nothing gives them a boner quite like quoting those same experts, albeit out of context, to bolster their “arguments.” Along those same lines, another of their favorite tactics is to cherry-pick information that is many decades out of date, such as the revolting role some evolutionists played in the eugenics movement, and present it as cutting-edge evolutionary thinking. For examples see Expelled, a propaganda piece funded and hosted by Ben Stein, wherein he informs us that “evolutionist” is code for “Nazi,” and every biologist in the world is lining up to open his own Death Camps R Us franchise. The out-of-context game in Expelled is so glaring that I made up a drinking game based on the movie’s innumerable goofy mistakes and inaccuracies. (Play it with shots and you’ll be shitfaced in about fifteen minutes.)
Another bit of chicanery ID-ers use to prop up their make-believe controversy is to play pocket-pool with the semantics of the word “theory.” Give an ID-er a dais and the first words out of his mouth will likely be “Evolution is only a theory!” Delete the word “only” and the doofus would be quite correct. Evolution is a theory. A damn good one, too, that is supported by millions of hours of experimental data and tens of thousands of items from the fossil record. (None of which can be said about the existence of god, by the way.) What our hypothetical ID-er means to howl is that “Evolution is only a hypothesis!” And no matter what you do with the word “only” he is utterly, completely, totally wrong. Of course, if he were to bawl “Intelligent design is only a hypothesis!” he would again be quite correct.
In any event, the ID crowd is up to their usual crap, with anti-science bills galumphing thick-wittedly through legislatures across the country—Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and Kentucky. (One in New Mexico was, thankfully, killed in committee in March.) Proponents of these laws want science teachers to show “both sides” of complex scientific issues. In other words: teach the “controversy.” Oddly (or perhaps not so much) the only scientific issues they consider “complex” enough to warrant instructing students in “both sides” are evolution, the chemical basis for human life, cloning and climate change. Not quantum mechanics, or superstrings, or chemical neurology. Just those areas that they believe will interfere with their ass-smooching the Invisible Sky Man. Now, do you think they are interested in what students learn or are they just playing politics? Golly, I wonder…
To sum up: There is no controversy. Creationists, you need to stop misleading people about it, not even the ones who are foaming at the mouth to be mislead. In fact, stop meddling in areas where you have no expertise, or even a limited amount of education. Go back to doing what you do best—making money and hiding in your caves from the lightning.
Cheers.
Friday, April 1, 2011
More Fun with Stupidity
It’s getting to the point that I don’t even want to look at the news on TV, read the online breakdowns, or turn on the radio, for fear of the unbelievable gibberish that comes shit-storming at my face in 3D and THX.
The Tea Baggers must be reaching some sort of Critical Mass of Stupidity. There simply can’t be that much more space in the public sphere to contain the river of molten idiocy they puke forth every day. Richard Nixon is probably thrashing in his grave like an electric weasel, screaming “I’m vindicated! I’m vindicated!,” thrilled by the knowledge that he is no longer the poster child for crooked, self-serving dementia.
President Michele Bachmann?
Oh my. For the most part the very idea gives me the creeping horrors, but that tiny sliver of anarchy deep in my heart really wants to bear witness to a train wreck of such epic proportions. But, here’s the main thing. I don’t want to be smarter than yet another president. Eight years under Shrub was more than plenty. My president doesn’t have to be a genius, but it’d be swell if he or she had, oh say, a 5th grader’s grasp of past and present events, so that he or she would have certain salient facts about American history immediately at hand. In the latest in a long, scary line of vapid comments, Bachmann, speaking to a ‘Bagger rally in Vermont, informed her audience that they were part of history since it was their state that hosted the “shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington & Concord—which is, of course, in Massachusetts. Now, making such an idiotic gaff is forgivable—once—but Bachmann repeated her remarks, verbatim, the next day. Now, who was responsible, Bachmann herself or her staff? Knowing her inability to admit any wrong, I’m gonna go with Bachmann. She’s a salt-lick in a power suit.
Grand Delusions
As Palin’s presidential aspirations grow increasingly untenable (even traditional GOP-ers are coming to grips with the fact that she’s a dangerous basket case) ‘Bagger pundits are flailing around trying to re-spin her national profile. Their latest attempt is to claim that Sarah the Psycho shouldn’t become president, because it would be a step down for her. Anne Coulter, who herself is about one misfiring synapse shy of babbling in the streets and eating her own feces, said that in the role of kingmaker, Sarah is much more powerful than the President of the United States. See, it seems that President Obama was purely the creation of Oprah Winfrey, so with Oprah moving on to newer and better dog-and-pony shows, Palin is perfectly poised to take her spot, and do for ‘Baggers what Oprah has, allegedly, done for liberals. What kind of whack-job shit is that? The only kings Sarah Palin will ever make will be wearing crowns from Burger King. If she can keep her idiot flapping slug-tongue out of the deep-fat fryer. Bitch.
Virgil Peck: Peckerhead
Last week, this Kansas state representative suggested that the best way of dealing with his state’s illegal immigrant problem was to shoot them from helicopters like feral hogs. And he wasn’t, you know, just kiddin around. When asked to explain his madness he remained stiff in the face of outrage, saying he was simply “speaking like a person from south Kansas.” Really? I know at least ten people who live in south Kansas, and not one of them would say anything that COMPLETELY, SATANICALLY, FUCKING WRONG! Virgil, ol pal, ol buddy, you are a worthless slice of Klanicana. Normal society has more use for colorectal cancer than it has for you. Get fucked you sick bastard.
The Dish on Guns in Montana
A Radio Shack super store in Hamilton, Montana, really wants people to subscribe to Dish Network. To boost orders, the sign out front of their store offers prospective customers the following enticement: “Protect Yourself with Dish Network. Sign Up Now Get Free Gun.” We all know that guns give Montanans a big stiffy, but damn. And it’s also true than many of us who have been forced to slog through the hateful quagmire that is Dish Network customer service have wished we had a gun, but damn. I mean doesn’t it seem that the very sort of people who would cash in on this sort of offer—militia types and so on—are the very sorts of people we really don’t want bustling about the countryside fully armed? Just asking.
John Stossel is a Giant Pussy
It seems that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is looking to hire someone to manage their Facebook operations. The job will pay, depending upon experience, around $115,000. This led FOX News commentator (read: purveyor of bullshit) John Stossel to declare that Indians are the most coddled group in America. Uh, OK. For real? More coddled than Wall Street executives? More coddled than the auto industry? But whatever. I had been laboring under the false, if happy, assumption that Stossel had slithered back under his rock never to return, yet here he is again, Freddie Mercury moustache and all. Alas, however, his greatest televised moment is well behind him. Back in 1985, Stossel was “breaking” the “incredible story” that professional wrestling is fixed. (My God, what a staggering intellect…) He got in Dave “Dr. D” Shultz’s face about the industry’s fakery. Shultz slapped the living shit out of him, and he cried like a little girl. Predictably, Stossel sued. Even more predictably, he won. That still doesn’t make him any less than what he was and what he remains: a GIANT PUSSY. C’mon, John. Scrape the sand out of your vag and join the real world.
And a Note About Liberal Bullshit: The San Francisco Meat Cutter
Just to show I’m not completely biased, I’d like to close by attacking a douchebag named Lloyd Schofield. He’s running rampant in San Francisco, circulating a petition to get a law on the November ballot to ban male circumcision in the city, an act he refers to as “genital mutilation.” Let’s go ahead and pass over what this law might mean to the Jewish community (“pass over” get it?), and to those who are simply interested in good hygiene, as well as the fact that circumcision becomes way more painful and dangerous the older a fella gets. Frankly, my biggest problem with this bullshit runs along these lines: with everything that’s going on in the country—anti-union hysteria, FOX “News,” the ‘Baggers ongoing jihad against everybody not like them, an earning disparity that makes ancient Rome look like a Marxist’s wet dream—and this, THIS, is what Lloyd Schofield wants to squander his time on?? If liberals are going to effect any real change in America, we have got to get OUR SHIT STRAIGHT! Pick fights that are worth fighting, otherwise you’re just jerking off. JESUS CHRIST! Lloyd Schofield, you sir are a fuckwit.
And that’s it for now. I’m all out of breath and in desperate need of many, many cocktails.
Cheers.
The Tea Baggers must be reaching some sort of Critical Mass of Stupidity. There simply can’t be that much more space in the public sphere to contain the river of molten idiocy they puke forth every day. Richard Nixon is probably thrashing in his grave like an electric weasel, screaming “I’m vindicated! I’m vindicated!,” thrilled by the knowledge that he is no longer the poster child for crooked, self-serving dementia.
President Michele Bachmann?
Oh my. For the most part the very idea gives me the creeping horrors, but that tiny sliver of anarchy deep in my heart really wants to bear witness to a train wreck of such epic proportions. But, here’s the main thing. I don’t want to be smarter than yet another president. Eight years under Shrub was more than plenty. My president doesn’t have to be a genius, but it’d be swell if he or she had, oh say, a 5th grader’s grasp of past and present events, so that he or she would have certain salient facts about American history immediately at hand. In the latest in a long, scary line of vapid comments, Bachmann, speaking to a ‘Bagger rally in Vermont, informed her audience that they were part of history since it was their state that hosted the “shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington & Concord—which is, of course, in Massachusetts. Now, making such an idiotic gaff is forgivable—once—but Bachmann repeated her remarks, verbatim, the next day. Now, who was responsible, Bachmann herself or her staff? Knowing her inability to admit any wrong, I’m gonna go with Bachmann. She’s a salt-lick in a power suit.
Grand Delusions
As Palin’s presidential aspirations grow increasingly untenable (even traditional GOP-ers are coming to grips with the fact that she’s a dangerous basket case) ‘Bagger pundits are flailing around trying to re-spin her national profile. Their latest attempt is to claim that Sarah the Psycho shouldn’t become president, because it would be a step down for her. Anne Coulter, who herself is about one misfiring synapse shy of babbling in the streets and eating her own feces, said that in the role of kingmaker, Sarah is much more powerful than the President of the United States. See, it seems that President Obama was purely the creation of Oprah Winfrey, so with Oprah moving on to newer and better dog-and-pony shows, Palin is perfectly poised to take her spot, and do for ‘Baggers what Oprah has, allegedly, done for liberals. What kind of whack-job shit is that? The only kings Sarah Palin will ever make will be wearing crowns from Burger King. If she can keep her idiot flapping slug-tongue out of the deep-fat fryer. Bitch.
Virgil Peck: Peckerhead
Last week, this Kansas state representative suggested that the best way of dealing with his state’s illegal immigrant problem was to shoot them from helicopters like feral hogs. And he wasn’t, you know, just kiddin around. When asked to explain his madness he remained stiff in the face of outrage, saying he was simply “speaking like a person from south Kansas.” Really? I know at least ten people who live in south Kansas, and not one of them would say anything that COMPLETELY, SATANICALLY, FUCKING WRONG! Virgil, ol pal, ol buddy, you are a worthless slice of Klanicana. Normal society has more use for colorectal cancer than it has for you. Get fucked you sick bastard.
The Dish on Guns in Montana
A Radio Shack super store in Hamilton, Montana, really wants people to subscribe to Dish Network. To boost orders, the sign out front of their store offers prospective customers the following enticement: “Protect Yourself with Dish Network. Sign Up Now Get Free Gun.” We all know that guns give Montanans a big stiffy, but damn. And it’s also true than many of us who have been forced to slog through the hateful quagmire that is Dish Network customer service have wished we had a gun, but damn. I mean doesn’t it seem that the very sort of people who would cash in on this sort of offer—militia types and so on—are the very sorts of people we really don’t want bustling about the countryside fully armed? Just asking.
John Stossel is a Giant Pussy
It seems that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is looking to hire someone to manage their Facebook operations. The job will pay, depending upon experience, around $115,000. This led FOX News commentator (read: purveyor of bullshit) John Stossel to declare that Indians are the most coddled group in America. Uh, OK. For real? More coddled than Wall Street executives? More coddled than the auto industry? But whatever. I had been laboring under the false, if happy, assumption that Stossel had slithered back under his rock never to return, yet here he is again, Freddie Mercury moustache and all. Alas, however, his greatest televised moment is well behind him. Back in 1985, Stossel was “breaking” the “incredible story” that professional wrestling is fixed. (My God, what a staggering intellect…) He got in Dave “Dr. D” Shultz’s face about the industry’s fakery. Shultz slapped the living shit out of him, and he cried like a little girl. Predictably, Stossel sued. Even more predictably, he won. That still doesn’t make him any less than what he was and what he remains: a GIANT PUSSY. C’mon, John. Scrape the sand out of your vag and join the real world.
And a Note About Liberal Bullshit: The San Francisco Meat Cutter
Just to show I’m not completely biased, I’d like to close by attacking a douchebag named Lloyd Schofield. He’s running rampant in San Francisco, circulating a petition to get a law on the November ballot to ban male circumcision in the city, an act he refers to as “genital mutilation.” Let’s go ahead and pass over what this law might mean to the Jewish community (“pass over” get it?), and to those who are simply interested in good hygiene, as well as the fact that circumcision becomes way more painful and dangerous the older a fella gets. Frankly, my biggest problem with this bullshit runs along these lines: with everything that’s going on in the country—anti-union hysteria, FOX “News,” the ‘Baggers ongoing jihad against everybody not like them, an earning disparity that makes ancient Rome look like a Marxist’s wet dream—and this, THIS, is what Lloyd Schofield wants to squander his time on?? If liberals are going to effect any real change in America, we have got to get OUR SHIT STRAIGHT! Pick fights that are worth fighting, otherwise you’re just jerking off. JESUS CHRIST! Lloyd Schofield, you sir are a fuckwit.
And that’s it for now. I’m all out of breath and in desperate need of many, many cocktails.
Cheers.
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