If you feel uncomfortable, it's someone's fault

Political correctness is stretching into higher and higher levels of absurdity. The latest big bad wolf to dare chomp on the precious consciousness of mankind (and womankind) is . . . college reading material.  

"Trigger warnings" are now issued before assigning such radical books as The Great Gatsby (drinking and caterwauling make non-drinkers and non-caterwaulers feel inadequate); Catch 22 (soldiers portrayed as depressed and non-heroic undermine the very sanctity of society),  and Dr. Susan Love's Bre__st Book. (For obvious reasons, ooh).

This bothers me. I suppose not to the level of pointing fingers or losing sleep or giving me nightmares or being lawsuit material. It makes me feel like we’re headed toward a reverse Darwinism. Let the weakest, dumbest, most sensitive, least capable humans run the world. (I know some would say that’s already happening.)

Others defend the practice saying that if we’re always attentively attuned to the slightest possibility of offense to anyone at all times, we will become a kinder, gentler nation. Looks pretty good on paper, doesn’t it?

I don’t think so. 

There will always be someone willing to push the limit. There will always be someone who, if their current anxiety is acknowledged and stroked and dutifully tsk’ed tsk’ed, will find something even more ludicrous to declare to be offended by. If they’re shredded by hearing a swear word or by reading about a bitchy woman, their next step will be cowering at a walk light that suddenly turns. “I was all ready to go, and BOOM, the light changed. I am so upset and discombobulated and insecure and I’m afraid to take ANOTHER STEP. EVER. What other changes will confront me?!! I shouldn’t have to suffer so.”

I don’t think “trigger warnings” do anything to promote strength, confidence and well-adjustment. If we’re not trying to encourage those fine attributes, what exactly are we encouraging? 

The One Major Barrier to Winning the Presidency

As everyone knows, your average joe-in-the-bowling-alley is not apt to make it to the Presidency. First, he's likely too smart to want the job, but also he's not keen on anything cutting into his lengthy bowling schedule.

On the other hand, if he truly dreamed, craved, and worked hard for the job, he has a shot.

Unless he has a young son, then he can just forget it.

Having a boy child is the number one impediment to winning the Presidency. Think about it. In my lifetime, there has never been a President who had a young son living at the White House. JFK was there for a tiny period before he was eliminated, but maybe (and I've always wanted to use this in a sentence that made sense) he's the exception that proves the rule.

So, I've wondered Why? What is it about young sons that precludes an otherwise completely qualified person from winning the Presidency? I've come up with a few theories:

1.  Maybe the man, and so far it's only been men, who has daughters feels incomplete as a man, and that inadequacy drives him even more fiercely toward the Highest Job in the Land. Where you live real close to that tall, majestic, pointy, white thing.  I'll call that the Freudian reason.

2.  Maybe the man with daughters and a wife, being surrounded by so much female awesome-ness, naturally and easily rides the wave of that support, brilliance and nurturing straight into the Great Beach House. Let's call that the Friedan reason.

3.  Maybe it's because boys are just such little doofuses. (O.K., I'm speaking generally, am not talking about your precious son, g-son, nephew, neighbor, boyfriend, etc.) A little American boy tends to be harder to control, more likely to be caught sticking a french fry up his nose, re-arranging his crotch, looking stupid when he should be angelic, and so forth. The candidate "arrangers", and later, the White House "arrangers" have a hard enough time keeping tabs on the President, let alone a pre- or post-hormonal boy. This is, of course, the French Fry reason.

4.  Maybe it's because, well, just because. The Fickle Hand of Fate reason.

If anyone has any other theories on this apparent phenomenon, I'd love to hear it!

It's tough to be perfect in a world of A-Holes

I'm sure all my FB friends can relate; we're all perfect in our own inimitable ways, aren't we? :)

I've been busy spending the past few months immersed in domestic husbandry of various sorts.  But an event happened this evening that compelled me to break my silence.

Hubby and I were walking home from a great (and cheap) local happy hour. It was raining and we had no umbrellas but were mostly afraid of getting our library books wet. I know, sounds like I'm piling it on, but this is really our life. (I've got to hurry this along so we don't miss Jeopardy). 

There's always a long line of traffic along Sunset in Issaquah, every evening, no fail. Hundreds of cars, just moseying along, hoping to be among the 7 or so cars that make it through the next green-light cycle. I have to believe that the drivers subject themselves to this torture every evening, because maybe it's the only time they have to themselves. I don't know. 

As we walked past this line of cars, suddenly one pick-up truck, one hopped-up, morbidly obese, bottom-dwelling, black behemoth revved his engine, spewing out a black cloud of fetid smoke. He moved maybe 10 feet, spewed out another cloud. An identical white truck behind him, then did the exact thing. Hubby walked over to white truck and just shook his head, white behemoth opened the passenger window and cackled at him.  

We both wondered, why would anyone do such a thing? In my infinite wisdom, I came up with 3 possible theories:

1. Of course the obvious: "My penis is only 2 inches but when I'm smokin' I feel like John Holmes." 

2.  "Who needs a high school diploma or heaven forbid a degree when I can spew black smoke from my bottom-dwelling truck?"

3.  "I wish they'd bring back the draft, so I could learn to be a humble, life-fearing, respectful human being and learn some perspective about important things instead of just being an a-hole."

OK, that third one is just pie-in-the-sky. (But makes you think, don't it? [Mmmm, donuts. But I digress])

When we got home, hubby googled it and by gonads it's an actual phenomenon. Apparently it's called something like "Rolling Coal" and it's supposed to be the ultimate expression of displeasure with all things Obama and liberal. Wow, blow me over with a feather. How could I not have immediately associated such an action with its intended, uh, intention? Such power, such masculinity, such sweaty-hold-me-down 'til I scream virility. How could I have missed that?! 

I guess when you have nothing but black smoke going for you, you have to use it to your best advantage.