A Conservative Blog? Humbug!

One of the really neat things about Blogger is that Google has provided the writer with a cool bunch of fairly basic, but often interesting, analytic tools which can be used to track certain aspects of your blogs’ audience.

One of these is the “Traffic Sources” tool that gives you some information about how people managed to find you. There is a subsection of this analytic which is called “search terms” which details how many readers were directed your way by using various search terms within their web browser. Very often, people will enter a rather vague or strange search term, for example, the ever popular “Leslie Marshall Tits”, and lo and behold! They wind up finding the Lunatic’s Asylum!

Now, I have never written about Leslie’s hooters in a real sense, except in response to the apparently mammary-obsessed idiot who keeps coming here in the hopes, one would think, of seeing an image or perhaps reading a fascinating description of Leslie’s Sweatermeat, only to leave woefully disappointed.

In Defense of the Right to Offend...

Mark Steyn belongs on Mt. Rushmore. Click on the links contained within to gain the full context of the rather impenetrable stupidity on display all over the world, and then ask yourself this question:

How is it that the Western World, the culture that has invented just about everything that is useful or enriching, that fostered the spirit of unfettered free inquiry, ensconced in Law the principle of the fundamental rights of all Men, which first harnessed and then unleashed the energy that makes modern life possible and sustainable, has fallen to this astoundingly low level of petty argument within itself, about it's own validity, accomplishments and worth?

Probably because we live in an age where people freely claim the pretense to an intellect, but possess none of it's actual tools. A steady diet of Post-modernism and multiculturalism will do that to you, you know.

There is no progress, in any sense or meaningful way, without the ability to ask questions -- and thus find answers -- which will eventually offend someone on some level. Offense is a necessary evil if society or science is to ever evolve to another, perhaps freer, more honest, more inclusive, and higher stratum. One is left to wonder just what has been left undiscovered, unexamined, unsaid because someone who would have discussed, examined, or discovered was kept from the initial impulse by the thought "Better not go there; someone might be offended"?

Why is it necessary to punish people who speak things that others don't like? Why is it necessary for people to find ever more ways to whine and wear the mantle of victimhood, even when they have no call to? Why have we divided ourselves by race, sex or sexual preference, religion, political leanings or economic class? When will all the fucking snivelling end? And when can we get back to kicking ass and taking names as a Culture?

I'm reminded of a famous speech, uttered by one of the most offensive people to ever walk the Earth, if the history books are to be believed:

"I am Theoprastus, and greater than those to whom you liken me; I am Theophrastus, and in addition, I am monarcha medicorum and I can prove to you what you cannot prove...I need not don a coat of mail or buckler against you, for you are not learned or experienced enough to refute even a word of mine...As for you, you can defend your kingdom with belly-crawling and flattery. How long do you think this will last? Let me tell you this: every little hair on my neck knows more than you and all your scribes, and my shoe buckles are more learned than your Galen and Avicenna, and my beard has more experience than all your high colleges..."

Who said that?

Why, it was none other than Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known to history as Paracelsus. Who was Paracelsus? He was a chemist, botanist, mathematician, astrologer, theologian, doctor, Ur-psychologist and all-around Royal Pain in the Ass (some believe, wrongly, that his name was the origin of the English word 'Bombast') who invented the modern science of toxicology, and who is one of the Fathers of modern pharmacology and medical diagnostics.

Who was he berating? The medieval medical profession (the Doctors of Physic) of his day who still believed that disease was either caused by an imbalance of 'humors' that could be treated with bloodletting, sweating or purging (which often killed the patient in the process), or who were still attached to the superstitious Christian belief that diseases were the just rewards of a sinful life.

It almost sounds like ObamaCare.

Paracelsus drove his opponents crazy. Many thought him insane (and if you ever read about his life, he just might have been). He was ostracized, attacked, stripped of his posts, bankrupted, persecuted, publicly vilified and humiliated...and he was also RIGHT. He suffered because he dared to speak a truth -- actually, many truths -- that offended, well... basically everyone; the members of his profession, the Church, the Universities of Europe, the Rich and the Powerful.

He died penniless and discredited, an itinerant doctor travelling all over Europe -- on foot -- experimenting, treating the sick and injured for the sake of his belief that he was put on this Earth for just that purpose. He left his few remaining possessions (one legend has it these consisted of his writings, a cloak, and a pair of boots) to the poor. His reputation as a thoroughly disagreeable, arrogant, obnoxious -- and most offensive man -- meant that his methods and discoveries would be denied to medical science for many years after his death by his quite considerable number of intellectual, religious and scientific enemies.

The point? Just because you don't like the messenger, just because you don't like the message, it doesn't necessarily follow that either is wrong, and the message certainly should not go unexamined because it offended someones tender sensibilities, or threatened someones rice bowl. Even a really stupid idea presented by a complete asshole can sometimes reveal some drop of wisdom, if you can manage to strip away the bullshit and keep your feelings in check long enough to examine it.

Truth is truth -- even if it's delivered with a four-letter word, a racial slur, bad joke, or a gratuitous insult -- real or perceived -- attached to it.

All this sensitivity bullshit is leading us towards a less-cohesive, rather than a more-inclusive, society. This will slowly chip away at our veneer of civility and the bonds of friendship, and ultimately destroy what few notions of freedom and democracy -- you know, the remaining freedoms that haven't already been bastardized and destroyed by illiberal Liberals already -- that we might have left.

I really fear to live in such a world, and not only because it will be either really, really boring or exceedingly violent, but because it will be intellectually, artistically and spiritually sterile. What remains of Life after such a thing occurs would be hardly worth living, because the basic right of expression will have been excised from it. No exchange of ideas, no arguments, no jokes, no books, no trade, no art, no music.

All human endeavor would stop right in it's tracks, out of fear of giving offense and the retribution that follows.

The Word...

It was Saturday evening, and we're all sitting around the Lunatic's Sister's kitchen table. The cake has just been served, this day being her birthday (Happy Birthday, Dear Sister!). One of my nephews has just called another "retarded", as kids are wont to do.

What happened next was something that sent douchechills down my spine, and produced a violent urge to vomit.

"You know", The Lunatic's Sister says to her child, "you're not supposed to say 'retarded' to people, because it's hurtful. What did they tell you at school about that?"

"Why not?" asks the Lunatic, innocently, wishing he hadn't asked just as soon as the words are uttered, because it has just dawned upon him at that very second that he's about to listen to an explanation of why that word has become verboten that will be long, pointless, and...well...umm....rather retarded.

The Lunatics Sister, after all, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, he asked for it, the Moron ( I wonder: Am I allowed to use that word, if I apply it only to myself?), and by God, he's gonna hear it -- if only because My Sister sometimes behaves as if she's my Mother, as well. This pisses me off because:

a) I already have a Mother who lectures me (still) while having nothing intelligent or positive to say, and

b) Nothing pisses me off more than being lectured to in that annoying and condescending tone which both Mother and Sister adopt, as if they're talking to a wayward child, with that irritating habit they have of being unable to explain themselves without a lengthy pre-amble, a diversion to a parable which might only be tangentially related to the subject at hand, and that slow and deliberate diction that would make one believe that I'm a retard, too, if you'd ever heard it.

I can hardly wait.

It turns out that a child at my nephew's school is what they now refer to as "mentally-challenged". I happen to know the child in question; he's autistic, and is given to unpredictable outbursts. I disagree, strongly, with the label "mentally-challenged" when applied to the Autistic because of my experiences with several autistic people. I know autistics that would put the greatest mathematicians of history to shame, who hold down important and complicated jobs, or who are capable of doing anything most people could do, infinitely better, and with a level of precision that would give a German engineer a permanent hard-on.

I'm a fanatical believer in the theory that we, the Human Race, would not live in the world we do if it hadn't been for some autistic dude sitting in the back of a cave, spending hours and days flaking away at a pierce of flint to form the perfect spearhead. I believe that some of the greatest scientific, literary and artistic minds in human history were probably autistic, or at least possessed some of the same qualities that we ascribe to autistic people. Autism does not mean"challenged", nor does it mean"stupid". Anyways, back to our story.

So, The School recently had another of it's fund-raiser evenings -- why a public school, supported by tax dollars, requires an almost-continuous series of fundraising drives is a question that no one can adequately answer for me. It seems that while the City and State of New York see fit to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $14,000 per student per academic year, it does so without buying supplies for the classroom. The money raised, I'm told, often goes to buy the Basics: from art supplies to toilet paper -- and this particular child caused a commotion during the festivities.

This kerfufle caused the parent of another child to remark "I think that kid's retarded" , apparently whispered to another, but still within earshot of the autistic boy's mother. This observation, made by an ignorant clod with no social graces, apparently troubled her to no end because within days there was a PTA meeting where the subject of the word "Retarded" -- and the evil and incorrect applications and connotations connected with it  -- became the main subject of intense debate.

Some observations on the 'debate', as it was explained to me;

1. The child in question is NOT retarded, he's autistic. Most people do not make the distinction, or even know the difference. Mother-with-a-Stick-up-Her-Ass wants everyone to know that her son is Autistic and NOT Retarded. In the often-confusing world of politically-correct causes, Autism somehow rates higher than simple Mental Retardation. Angry Mother is offended that someone may have used a word that somehow downgrades her son's condition. Like being Retarded is akin to living in the ghetto to Autism's Gated Community? Autism is to Mercedes what Retarded is to Ford Pinto? By what standard we say that this particular affliction is more worthy or honorable than another is beyond me, and I think my head exploded when I heard this ridiculous 'argument' about a distinction most people are incapable of making without conscious effort.

It all probably has to do with some sort of competition between "Special Needs" childrens' parents for state aid, I'll bet.

2. The word 'retarded' is hurtful, mean-spirited, and damages an already-fragile child's self-esteem, and shouldn't even be used to describe a child who is, you know, actually retarded. Unless, of course, you -- as the parent of a retarded child -- choose to wear your genetic failure as a badge of courage, shout "RETARDED!" at the top of your lungs in order to get to the head of the line at Disneyland, or use your child's affliction to get yourself some charity money, taxpayer funds, special consideration, sympathy, or fake affirmations of your 'courage'. Life, and the vagaries of Genetics, have handed you a veritable Lemon; make Lemonade. Love your child, by all means, but don't expect that others should have to give you a medal or some special accommodation because of his/her condition.

That Society often does so is a matter of courtesy; you don't get to elevate that into a special set of extra-constitutional rights.

3. Henceforth, sayeth the School, the word "retarded" is hereby banned from the vocabulary of all the Inmates..errr...Students...and there will be a 'Zero-Tolerance' policy regarding the use of the word. Penalties are not specifically discussed, but promises are made by the Gods of Education that they will, indeed, be harsh. Just what 'harsh' means in the context of children between the ages of 5 and 10 is an open question. I rather doubt flogging is going to make a comeback, and quite frankly, expulsion would probably do some of the students more benefit than real harm. After all, this is a school which has a janitor with a huge yearly budget, but somehow he's not allowed to spend any of it on cleaning supplies, because parents are constantly being asked to send the children to school with all sorts of anti-bacterial products.

'Zero-Tolerance' policies, mind you, often trip over their own self-defeating logic; if the original argument was over context (as in this case), then the application of the policy must, by it's very nature, also trip all over context. Since no one feels capable, or willing, to make a decision regarding context the easist thing to do is to simply avoid the discussion altogether. One hopes. This is not an enlightened policy: it is an abrogation of responsibility. In the context of educators guiding and shaping young minds, it is a surrender of the intellectual to the emotional, and ultimately serves no one well. This should have served as one of them 'teaching moments' I keep hearing about; why not take the time to instruct the children on the differences between retarded and autistic, stress a little understanding, patience and courtesy, and then tell Mommy-Run-Amok to shut the fuck up and deal, like an adult?

Anyways, I listened to my Sister relate the whole sordid tale, and wanted to reach across the table and strangle the life out of her, because she swallowed the whole 'Zero-Tolerance' nonsense completely, and was determined to enforce it within her own home.

Okay, fine. It's your house and they are your kids, so do what you like, but you have, Dear Sister, missed the Bigger Point (this is, indeed, my Sister's greatest talent, so I'm not entirely surprised). Actually, she's missed a bunch of points.

The first is that a greater mass of people are being punished for the thoughtlessness of another. Some asshole with no class mutters something he shouldn't, and gives offense. In the Old Days when people simply sucked things up and soldiered on -- or just got into a fistfight and solved their problems Mano-a-Mano -- this would have been taken care of immediately, and would not have required a public meeting and a censorship regime.

The Second is that it's kind of ridiculous that one person should be allowed to impose this sort of censorship over hundreds simply because she was offended. How it came to be that we, as a society, began to empower those with often-petty axes to grind is something I often wonder about, and then fervently wish we could reverse with a carefully-planned program of street executions. Unfortunately, there are some people who haven't learned the very simple lesson that Life Sucks, and that on any given day, you will probably be offended at least once, and then there are other people who haven't learned the lesson that once you allow a petty grievance to become a Federal Case -- and then crafted an all-encompassing policy to address that specific grievance -- you've opened the floodgates to all sorts of stupidity.

Today, it's the use of the adjective 'retard' in an offensive context; tomorrow, it'll be wearing a cross or yarmulke to school, wearing certain colors on certain days, a particular item in a bagged lunch, or a student's superior fashion sense which will make someone, somewhere, groan about 'unfairness' and 'offense'.

The simple truth is that the majority of people who inhabit this Blue Marble are dumber than dogshit; addressing their petty concerns in such a sweeping manner only leads to a coarsening and constriction of Life for the rest of us.

The final problem I have with this is that a word, which is perfectly valid and has a meaning outside the context of handicapped children, is being taken away from other children at a point in their educational lives where they are forming the primary abilities they will need to express themselves later in life. They are learning to expand their vocabulary, they are learning the lessons of context and contrast within language. The word 'Retarded', in and of itself, is not offensive; it's an adjective. The only power it has to offend is the power that people choose to give it.

Banning it's use may make Mother-Mind-Everyone-Else's-Business happy, but she has done, I think.a great disservice to the other children in the school. What, for example, would happen if it should turn out that Shakespeare, or perhaps a Great Poet, happened to use the word 'Retarded' in their works? Should we ban Shakespeare? Should we rewrite the entire literature of the Western World so as to remove all the words that are personally offensive to her? What if the word appeared in a scientific treatise? Should we develop a new way to teach sciences with an entirely new and non-offensive terminology?

No sooner did I hear this sorry tale then I went right home and broke out my copy of George Orwell's 1984.

In that tale of Political Correctness run amok, the Protagonist, Winston Smith, is a newspaper reporter (in a sense; what he actually 'reports' is not 'news', but rather Politically Correct lies and a continuous rewriting of history for political puposes) is having a conversation with a colleage who is involved in the recrafting of the English language (called Newspeak in the book).

This collegaue is openly bragging about his work, which is the destruction of words;  especially words that have political signifigance. These words must be purged from the lexicon because they can be used to express discontent, to foment counter-revolution, or because they would expose some politically-inconvenient truths that The Party would rather keep hidden or obscured. This colleague postulates that in the future, the English Language will eventually contain but ONE word, and it's meanings and context would be rigidly defined and no other meaning or context could ever be permitted.

The ultimate purpose of the destruction of words was to deprive the people of the ability to communicate with one another, or to express dissent and discontent, as a means of keeping the directing brains of society (The Inner Party, i.e. The Government) in power forever.

Perhaps it is a great leap to make -- from the banning of a word in order to soothe one person's ruffled sensibilities to the loss of ability to express Political Dissent -- but the effect is the same. With each banning of a word, with each narrowing of the scope of thought, with each attack on the individual's right of free expression, we're one step closer to tyranny. Whether it's the tyranny of a panty-bunched school board, a hyper-sensitive Mother, or an overbearing Government, matters not: we're slowly being trained to avoid saying what we feel. When you forbid people from speaking freely -- even inartfully or meanly -- you no longer have the most basic of freedoms.

I can understand why a Mother with a difficult child might be offended by the insensitive comment of a total dipshit; I don't understand why it was that someone gave her the power to remove a word from the vocabulary of hundreds of children -- and though she may not have intended to do this -- given an unelected, and largely unaccountable,  school administration the power to limit the way in which people might choose to express themselves.

I also don't understand how it is that my Sister swallowed this dangerous precedent whole without thinking about it's implications. She's not THAT dumb, after all, but perhaps she's just been trained better than I have.

Before I get a flood of e-mail accusing me of being indifferent to the plight of 'challenged' children and harried parents, let me make it clear that I am not without sympathy. Let me also make it clear that your Autistic child's 'limitations' are mostly of your own making, and ultimately speak more about YOU than about HIM. The child in question is a sweet, loving, beautiful little boy -- I know him personally -- and I'm convinced that if you (his Mother) didn't dote on him, and try so hard to 'protect' him, he'd find himself a nice little niche in this society and be far more useful, productive and relevant than a goodly number of so-called 'normal' people.

The first obstacle that you -- as a parent -- have put in his way is to hide the truth from him; that this world is inhabited by thoughtless morons who learned how to whisper in a sawmill, and who have no manners, and now that you've taught him that to get ahead all he has to scream louder and brandish his 'disability' like a club, don't be surprised when he starts doing the same to YOU.

After all, he's not stupid.

I would wager that he's smarter than any ten people you know combined.

I would, however, hope that one day Mommy Dearest might realize what she has done, and how she has behaved, and come to regret it. Unfortunately, when that day comes it'll only be after someone has dictated how she should live her own life in much the same way that she has just dictated that others should live theirs.

Such is human nature.

That's far a more offensive possibility, to me, than someone misapplying the word 'Retard' in a way that you find irritating.

UPDATE: Edited for spelling and grammar. My apologies!

On Juan Williams...

...and no, I did not mean that the way it sounded, so get your minds out of the gutter, dammit!

So let me get this straight; Juan Williams, a journalist, gets fired by NPR for...having an opinion. I thought that was one of the things we usually paid journalists for. Not only that, but it's made abundantly clear that he's been fired for holding an unpopular opinion, at least it's unpopular amongst what passes for intelligent people at NPR.

I say "made abundantly clear" because the tap dance NPR spokespeople and management have been doing to explain the otherwise-inexplicable makes it obvious that Williams crime was to give voice to what everyone pretty much already thinks but would never dare say aloud for fear of being banished from smart cocktail parties. Or of having a Libtard get in your face. The explanations make no sense, and there's been a lot of lawerly talk.

Except for the one remark about Williams needing a psychiatrist.

When it makes no sense, there's a bunch of lawyers involved, and they accuse you of being crazy, then you know they're full of shit.

This is 21st Century America in the Age of Barack Obama and Liberal Pieties, where a government-funded media outlet (why the hell do we have those? It can't be that difficult to make money in media when my cable system provides 250 channels of absolutely nothing to watch, and charges exorbitant rates for it) can deprive a man of the right to express his opinions.

All Williams said was what we all think; he worries when he sees an obvious Muslim getting on the same airplane he does. Normal people do.

Juan Williams will survive. He's a wonderful journalist (even if I don't often agree with him), and he seems a very decent sort of man. National Public Radio, however, shouldn't survive. It's time for NPR and PBS to go the way of the Dodo. If both were forced to compete in the marketplace, we'd see NPR vanish completely.

PBS would stick around solely on the strength of Big Bird and Elmo, and actually make money, so they wouldn't have to try and sell those gay and pretentious tote bags, anymore.

"This episode of Masterpiece Theatre is brought to you by the Letter 'L', and the number '4'...."

This is censorship, plain and simple. NPR could not get Williams to stop giving voice to his opinions, so they fired him. That this censorship is being paid for by the American taxpayer, for the benefit of people who could not survive otherwise in the marketplace of ideas, or if they had to get a real job, is an outrage. Contact your Congresscritter -- the new one you're likely to be getting next week, I mean -- and make it known that you want to ensure that this abomination -- National Public Radio --is no longer going to be lavishly funded with your stolen tax dollars.

"...Hurling Frozen Pork Sandwiches At the Muslims..."

I swear, it wasn't me, but I wish I could have been there. Mark Steyn on the coming "Blasphemy Laws" that'll only make it blasphemy if you're talking about Islam, of course. Otherwise, you should feel free to urinate on a Crucifix, burn a Torah, or have your dog hump a Buddah.

On Busybody Moms

Today being Mother's Day, while we're all focused on the sainted ideals of motherhood, I'd like to give those Mothers who deserve it a round of applause; Motherhood is not an easy thing, and the successful mothers (defined as having raised anything that doesn't put safety pins through it's cheeks, doesn't screw daschunds, doesn't go on a killing spree, doesn't live on the public dole, and has at least earned a GED) deserve much credit and respect.

The Unsuccessful Mothers (defined as someone who simply happened to be in the room at conception and carried to term, but otherwise bore no responsibility for or towards her offspring) should be taken out and shot. Of course, that won't happen; to suggest it would have me identified as a sexist, and we know what happens to men who get the "sexist" label -- ugly, mental chicks and militant lesbians will refuse to talk to you, and might even call you names. This rather bizarre form of "punishment" almost invites more sexism, but most women were never exactly noted for their linear thinking skills (oh dear...I've gone and done it again!). I digress...

I would like to reserve a special brand of approbation, however, for a specific class of Mothers. Everyone knows one of these women...and secretly hates them. In fact, we harbor dark dreams about their untimely demise, or perhaps we have disturbing mental pictures about what we'd like to see happen to them (admission; the one I'm thinking about right now is the source of many a snuff dream!). I'm talking about the Busybody Mom.

The Busybody is into everyone else's business and uses her concern for her offspring as her justification. She does this because her own life is probably lacking in purpose beyond her children, or she's horribly stuck in the present, or she just needs a hobby. The worst sort is the Busybody Mom who turns this particularly horrible trait (i.e. annoying others by making impossible and ridiculous demands upon them) into a career.

To illustrate the point, how about a woman who decides that the local library is peddling smut to children, and having gotten no satisfaction by asking the library to engage in an act of unofficial censorship by pulling the "offending" books (or making certain they don't fall into the clutches of children) decides that the best thing to do is to check the books out of the library herself... and then never return them.

Problem solved, right? Well, no. The question of whether or not something is "smut" has already been answered; The Supreme Court of the United States basically said that one woman's "smut" is someone else's "Free Speech", unless it's so outrageous as to cause reasonable people to come to a consensus about it's potentially harmful effects. Now, as to the logic behind stealing library books I suppose it is better than burning them in the public square, but it is theft, and it presupposes that other parents and readers are unable to cope with the implications of a book that someone else has deemed inappropriate for them. She (the thief) presumes to speak for society based upon her own internal belief system. The example she's setting for her children -- that sometimes stealing is okay, so long as you use God or the cause of decency as your justifications -- somehow eludes her in her single-minded quest to make sure her pre-teen daughter doesn't read Judy Blume or something.

Usually these cases (the one above is a true story, incidentally) get some media attention; and the asshole who steals library books manages to turn her personal crusade into a career. She turns her new-found media stature into a gig as an overnight-expert on "smut" and library censorship, and then she gets it in her head to start a Foundation or Council or Commission -- which usually has the word "Family" or "American" in it -- so that dopey religious freaks, or ultra-left-libtards who both see it for the totalitarian organization it's really intended to be -- will fund it to the hilt, depending upon which side of the issue she's on. Thus, her momentary panty-bunching over a book becomes a lucrative career that doesn't result in much of a useful product or service.

This is but one example. There's a host of others, like the woman who continually shows up on FoxNews (Meme Roth. I call her the Sugar Nazi) to decry the outrageous amounts of salt, sugar, caffeine, MSG, cardboard, Styrofoam, rare earths, plankton and non-ferrous metals in everything we eat. This woman drives me absolutely batty because her answer to every question of good nutrition and better public health is either to outlaw something, or to put it under government control. It wouldn't surprise me if she was in favor of registering every Hershey Bar in America as a deadly weapon. She believes that because her ideas about health and eating are superior to everybody else's that the rest of us should be compelled (by law, if necessary) to follow her example.

I'd like to force-feed her Twinkies until her eyes burst from her head, personally.

You can usually tell the Busybody Mom from a distance; she's the one who's overly enthusiastic...about everything...and who is easily carried away by her own (one or more of the following): doubts, fears, ignorance, desire for complete safety, desire for attention, feelings of inadequacy, and total lack of anything more constructive to do. She's all about controlling your life and behavior from a distance for her own satisfaction and comfort. She hides all of this behind a veneer of apparently restless energy which is directed into campaigns "for the children". She's the Stepford Wife on Crusade. She seems reasonable, if over-enthusiastic, but you somehow "know" that behind closed doors she's probably this-close to taking an overdose of sleeping pills, and her husband is probably thinking about his secretary, the chick at the Coffee Shop, or basically anything with breasts and a heartbeat -- and maybe even other men -- so long as it's anyone who isn't his pre-occupied and perhaps-insane wife.

The Busybody Mom typically ruins her child's life in the process of trying to make it better. Mostly because she's a smothering presence. She's not only successful in imparting her neuroses into her own children, but in transferring them to other Mothers who will implant them into their children, too. If that wasn't enough damage done, occasionally these idiots happen to achieve a power far out of proportion to their actual importance, and get a law written, or changed, or even manage to have a government policy redirected to suit their tastes. Because one Mom might have an issue with her child drinking soda, now millions will have to suffer for it as she manages to get the government to put taxes on it, or worse, starts dictating to the soft drink industry what can and can't be in a can of Pepsi. If Pepsi should happen to go bankrupt in the process because they produce an inferior product no one will buy afterwards, or from lawsuits, a "greater good" will still have been served, and "Children" will have been "protected" from "poison".

And the world becomes a little less enjoyable and colorless for the rest of us, but it was never about us in the first place, so who really gives a shit? Nosey Nancy got her way.

The Busybody Mom also can't shut up. About anything. Even things she obviously knows nothing about. Not only is she an "expert" on whatever her pet peeve is, she's an expert on everything else, too, and just can't help but add her two cents to every conversation within earshot. I met one of those yesterday and I'd very much like to crush her skull like a ripe tomato. I'm pretty sure something resembling the jelly-like-seedy-pulpy mess that comes out of a tomato is probably the only thing keeping her own skull from caving in.

This woman's pet peeve was skateboards and scooters. She went on and on about them, telling me how, despite the fact that her child wears a helmet, knee-and-elbow pads, and probably five layers of bubble wrap, he still managed to fall off the skateboard twice, breaking bones in both instances. Instead of realizing the obvious -- her kid is a fucking klutz -- she's been lobbying to get the skateboard and scooter manufacturers to add "safety features" (short of training wheels what safety feature could you put on a skateboard? Seat belts? Air Bags?), but more than anything else, she's been lobbying YouTube to stop allowing people to post their skateboard and scooter videos -- because that's what inspired her son to go out and break his leg and his collarbone.

So, not only is he a klutz, he's probably a moron, too. Imitating the death-defying stunts on YouTube that require a lot of dexterity, nerve, and a high pain threshold is probably not the best use of your time, nor is it a test of genius. But now, according to his Mom, everyone else should have to suffer for it -- those who enjoy skateboarding and scootering, those who watch YouTube, those that design, buy and sell skateboards, scooters and the safety equipment -- all because her son is a fucking retard with less-than-optimum motor skills and no self-preservation instinct. The real solution (take the skateboard away from the kid) might cause him a trauma (and paint her as the bad guy in her child's eyes), and so the only "fair" answer to her dilemma is to fuck up everyone else's life and livelihoods so that her brittle-boned-uncoordinated-would-be-daredevil doesn't have his precious self-esteem damaged. In reality, he will be damaged because he'll be embarrassed and humiliated by a mother who continually overreacts and leaps to his (imagined) defense at the drop of a hat.

You'll be happy to know this particular woman is also an expert on ice hockey, terrorism, heart disease, interior decorating, home improvement and construction, and chemistry, because all of those subjects came up in polite conversation as well, and she always had something to say on them, too. None of it made any sense, but you were expected to take her word as Bible-Truth, in any case. Oh, and she had that vapid, vacant smile, and the most annoying laugh -- being half-screech-half-snort -- that would be considered a justification for murder in about 11 states.

So, to the Busybody Mom, I raise not my Champagne flute in homage, but my middle finger in rebuke to you this Mother's Day. And I would like to remind you that life is much easier for all involved when we all learn to mind our own fucking business.

Mark Your Calendars: May 20th is "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

A movement is afoot to support Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park who were recently threatened with death by an Islamic website for daring to poke fun at the wife-beating, felonious, mentally-unstable, child-molesting Prophet Mohammed, by having as many people as possible draw and display their conception of that Desert-Dwelling Douchebag, all on the same day.

It's called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day".

The idea is that if the response to an Islamic death threat -- and also a response to the censorship which some in America feel is itself the appropriate response to Islamic death threats (because they're pussies!) -- is mass ridicule, then the death threats will cease. That if there is pushback, these assholes will back down. Eventually, each threat is answered with a new wave of ridicule and blasphemy larger than the last, and the intimidation and attempt to censor Americans exercising their rights to Free Speech will come to an end.

It'll work, because at heart, all Islamic men are bullies, with very small penises, who have no guts for a principled fight whatsoever. They are nothing more than tiny little dictators, their little minds warped by endless hours of sodomy suffered at the hands of their imams in "school", who live in continuous, quaking, sweating, pants-shitting fear of The Vagina -- a fear so deep and terrifying, that they must wrap their womenfolk up in burlap, beat them regularly, hide them from public view and treat them like cattle. Then they go out and shag sheep. It's no wonder that as soon as Arab women hit the West they immediately "trade up" to one of us normal (usually white) guys -- assuming they aren't killed by their fathers and brothers first, or married off to a first-cousin in the sewers of Lahore, Aden or Damascus before they're old enough to realize that they're being oppressed.

Yes, ridicule and defiance are always effective against the bullies of the world. And besides, it'll be fun to finally get a chance to antagonize these turds.

Keep a lookout for a your local "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" gathering, and show up with your sign to show support for your country and your way of life. Let the pig fuckers...err..."extremists"...know that that this is OUR Country,and OUR Culture, and we mean to defend it and ourselves. Let them know that their ideas, ways of life, peccadilloes, vagina-phobia, and insane farm-animal fetishes count for absolute shit, and that if they wish to become true Americans, they'll just have to assimilate and learn to have a little tolerance, otherwise, they can just GO THE FUCK HOME.