Mountains, the great hardwood forests of eastern North America would fall away before you as far as the eye could see. But now those forests are the great plywood subdivisions.
So ingrained is it in us to plow up and violate anything flat, that positive images are almost never associated with the word flat. We always use one of flat’s synonyms: level, smooth, or even. A calm unflappable person is referred to as level-headed or even-tempered, never as flat-tempered or flat-headed. If the Flathead Indian of North America had only called themselves the Level-headed Indians, they could have been one of the great tribes. In the board room, if sales are level, that may not be good, but it isn’t bad either. If sales are flat, that’s bad. Why does it have to be smooth sailing? Why can’t it be flat sailing? And what’s wrong with flat-chested women? We men might like them better if we just referred to them as smooth-chested women.
I've become enamored of the beauty of the southwestern desert. My favorite use for mountains is to be to climb to the top of one so that I could look out over the expanse of the Great Sonora Desert, but I can hardly stand to do that anymore. Subdivisions made of termite food are springing up like mushrooms and ruining the view. I’m not a canyon man, but I wouldn't advise becoming too enamored of the beauty of the Grand Canyon either. Eventually we’re going to run out of level terrain, or discover something really profitable in the Grand Canyon. And once that happens, just see how quickly we flatline that sucker.~~ back to table of contents
SAY IT LOUD. I'M THE L WORD AND I'M PROUD!
I’m a liberal:: a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic, if-you’re-a-conservative-you-can-kiss-my-ass-twice liberal in the tradition of other famous liberals like Jesus Christ, Gautama, and Thomas Jefferson. OK, I know that these days, Mohammed kind of blows, but 1500 years ago, even he was liberal for his time. Liberals have something worthwhile to say, so why can’t I turn on the TV, just to see what President Obama is up to, without being deluged with diatribes from the likes of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and John Boehner.
As an aside, did you ever notice how straight-as-a-rod Ann Coulter looks like a penis, while Rush Limbaugh looks like a big old, shaved vagina? Maybe if we could get these two together, they’d leave the rest of us alone.
Since liberals are supposed to be tolerant, I have tried being tolerant of conservatives because they’re stupid. A person can’t help it if they’re stupid. Most stupid people are born that way. But there is no excuse for being ignorant, and what conservatives don’t know would fill up almost all the books ever written. In fact, what conservatives don’t know is already filling up every book ever written by the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The real reason right-wing, fundamentalist assholes have gotten on my last damned nerve is that they are willfully ignorant, meaning they don’t want to know the truth about anything. I guess they’re afraid of truth, which makes sense. People fear what they don’t know. I’ve checked out other liberal blogs on the net and these blogs speak to the issues, but they try to be nice. Now just listen to your average conservative radio talk show host. Do they sound like somebody who understands nice? Of course not! We liberals need to put a toe tag on nice and start getting verbally medieval on their asses.~~ back to table of contents
DIETRIBE
It seems like dieting has invaded every aspect of our lives. The other day, I went to the circus and the sword swallower wouldn't swallow anything larger than a butter knife. He said he was eating smaller portions. And the knife had to be butter free. The fire eater smoked a Camel and called it quits. He was on a diet too. I couldn't even find the fat lady. She was on Oprah bragging about losing weight.
It's getting ridiculous. I put odor eaters into my shoes and they only nibbled at the odor! Everybody at work is on some diet or another. And these diets all have names, as though they are Hollywood celebrities or military exercises. I exercise, but I'm thinking about dieting just so I'll have something to talk about around the water cooler.
All this dieting has gotten out of hand. The word "Diet" is plastered on everything except where it should be. I see cans labeled Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, or Diet 7 Up. Why don't I ever see diet water? Isn't plain old water a diet drink? If bottled waters were marked "diet", maybe people would drink more water.~~ back to table of contents
BEST POPE EVER
I miss Pope John Paul II. I was truly sorry when he died and it bothered me that the cardinals went and elected a successor. Why didn’t they just re-animate the pope everybody liked? The idea came to me while I was watching TV and the cardinals were solemnly filing past the Pope's body. John Paul II's feet were sticking out from under his cover and I thought what if they just started moving of their own volition, kind of like Steve Martin's feet did in "The Jerk"? How cool would that be?
Why does the pope have to be alive anyway? He preaches in a dead language and he's trying to run things according to a philosophy that was made up thousands of years ago. I mean, isn't this stuff written down somewhere by now. All the pope has to do is lip sync. Instead of burying JP the Deuce, the body should have been sent to PIXAR Studios.
After they get through with him, he'll be much more marketable and sales of Catholic toys and paraphernalia will skyrocket. He'll probably have the voice of Eddie Murphy or something, but c'mon, all popes need to lighten up.I never understand why a pope dies anyway. Isn't whatever he decrees on Earth supposed to be decreed in heaven as well? If I were pope, the first thing I'd do is decree myself immortal. Of course, JP the Deuce didn't declare himself immortal, and now we're stuck with Pope Benedict XVI.
Just as I was getting some traction in my campaign to make John Paul II pope again even though he’s dead, Pope Benedict XVI goes and insults Mohammed. Before he made that gaffe, who even knew who Benedict XVI was? People thought Benedict was something between the legs of a Latin lover. Now everybody knows who he is, and his popularity is going to skyrocket, because all the Christian fundamentalist assholes are going to circle the wagons around him.
The next time I talk to God, I’m going to suggest that for future generations, he make assholes square, with a flap, so that it will be harder to circle the wagons around them. As things stand now, the bigger the asshole, the more fundamentalists, of one ilk or another, who will be pulled into its orbit. I certainly don’t consider myself a fundamentalist, but even I find myself rising to Benedict XVI’s defense in this case, because he was quoting from a medieval text.
It seems to me that Islamic fundamentalists want to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages anyway, so what’s the problem? The Pope was only saying what a lot of us think:: that Muslims are violence prone, woman abusing, religious relics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Give those Muslims a Bible instead of a Koran and they’d fit right into any Southern Baptist Congregation in the USA.
The problem is that The Pope claimed that he was merely eschewing violence in the name of religion because Muslims are fire-bombing churches and killing a nun in Somalia. One person with some sense in all of Somalia and they had to go and kill her. Pope Benedict XVI is certain to ride a wave of sympathy in the West. The next thing you know, he’ll be releasing an album of German folk songs on his way to celebrity status. Everybody will forget about my guy, John Paul II. It’s kind of hard to keep JP the Deuce before the people when he’s dead. I wonder how Elvis’ manager does it.
I have to hand it to John Paul II for not taking advantage of the eternal life loophole. When it came time to die, he just died. He didn't hook himself up to a lot of tubes and machines and such and run up the cost of everybody else's health insurance. He died like a man and there's no denying the impact of the first pontiff of the a-gazillion-pictures-and-a-sound byte era. Easter came and went and went and drew about as much attention as a poot in the Pacific Ocean, but John Paul II dies and the entire world is in tears. If we do re-animate him, we must make certain to put a name tag on his vestments. We wouldn't want to confuse him with Jesus Christ.~~ back to table of contents
KING KONG'S SHORTCOMINGS
You know how you’re just sitting around sometimes and a puzzling thought that you just can’t shake hits you. Well, what exactly was King Kong planning on doing with Faye Wray, Jessica Lange, and Naomi Watts? I didn't realize The King's limitations until I was sitting in a dark theater watching the great ape throw a real chest thumping, Whirling Dervish, trees-ripped-out-of-the-ground temper tantrum, and from the back of the theater came the weak and innocent voice of a small child, "Ohh loook, Daa-Dee, he's got no balls!"
From the mouth of a babe, but son of a gun, the kid was right. OK, I'm lying about the kid, but that doesn't change the fact that King Kong gave up a great job in show business and an endless supply of bananas for a blonde. Granted there's not much difference between a blonde and a banana. They're both yellow until you peel them and then they're white, except there's always a big-old dark splotch on them somewhere. (But you can always eat around that part.)
At least in the 70's version, the Kongster copped a major feel on Jessica Lange, but it takes a lot more than that to make the average guy jump off a building for a woman. There has to be some hidden meaning here that we guys