Lexicon of Stupidity

What is the deal with scooters? I don't get the appeal. If you are of the female persuasion, especially in college, then it is kinda hot. Or if you are Italian, (like in Italy…next to the Vespa factory) I guess it is a cultural thing. But for all the non-Italian Dudes out there, there is just no excuse.

Why would you want to spend cash on a scooter when for the same price, maybe a little bit more, you could get a crotch rocket? Just think to yourself for a moment, do you want to “scoot” or “rocket”? If you still have your nads in your possession,(I recognize that some of you don’t and your excused.) then you will have said “rocket” and you may have said it with exclamation. Scooting is for dogs with an itch.

All that being said, please don’t misunderstand me. I do not hate scooter owners, they are just mislead motorcycle riders.

You are going to die. You are dieing right now. Every cell division in your body brings you one step closer to the end of your genetically possible lifetime. Was this shocking to you? If it was, you are not alone.

For some reason the TV, my newspaper, government agencies and their neophytes have been trying to convince me that I want to live forever and that I should spend my whole life aimed at that goal. I thought that this was an odd idea seeing as I have come to the profound realization that everything dies. I don’t like it, but pretending won’t really change it and spending my whole life vying for a completely impossible goal doesn’t sound like a good idea either.

That leaves me in an awkward place when I am approached by the flavor of the month life extending strategy. It always seems to follow this pattern. Give up previously benign and enjoyable activity forever and you may possibly get a mystery box full of time added to the end of your life if the current research is correct and not the research from twenty years ago which indicates the opposite, but really what did they know they were old and old things are always bad. It sounds like a sales pitch. “Taxes titles options extra, some restrictions may apply.”

It’s not that I am a hedonist either. If you eat the whole pig you are going to puke. And I don’t want my brief stay on this rock to be plagued by physical misery. I just don’t want to have to get out the Healthfood Desk Reference every time I eat. I also don’t want to feel like I’m some sort of freak because I want a Coke with my pizza.

The really crappy part is I know that I’m jaded and I am pretty sure that somewhere, deep beneath the mountain of crap, there are some actual good ideas. Nuggets in the pile. I just don’t have the tools nor the inclination to go diving in.

Ok, so my life has been full of confusing situations lately. Most of them seem to involve me speaking in logical terms to an emotionally driven person. As I understand, this problem is only supposed to get worse as I am on the cusp of the emotional generation and as the rest of the “feel good, nobody looses*” generation gets older I can only expect more of this. You know them. This is the generation that makes decisions based on how special it makes them feel, or how closely aligned it is with their, admittedly, variable definition of what is right. Who makes this crap up? I have the end to every argument for subjective/relative truth. There are absolute truths. Don’t believe me? Contradict me. Just try. Anything you say would be a truth you believed to apply to everyone and is therefore absolute. Even the statement “There are no absolute truths.” is in fact a statement of an absolute truth. However, because you are arguing with emotion you would want to hold on to your relative truth anyway, because it makes you feel better that you can do whatever you want and logic doesn’t even faze you, which is really the heart of my issues.

When they go down the emotional argument road I am totally derailed, because in my humble upbringing I was taught that appeal to emotion is a fallacy and has no place in an argument (and that it is irritating and should be put down with force). …which is why I’m getting a gun.

I decided to watch people who were good at manipulating appeals to emotion and fallacies in general. Politicians are to be my archetype. They weave fallacies like a skilled craftsman. As we all know fear is their favorite fabric and ignorance is the thread. I am in no way conceded enough to believe that I have that much skill with politics. Luckily, a chap named Sam Colt has given me another alternative. I figure a brief allusion to my firearm of choice should be enough to throw my emotional combatant off balance. Something like “I understand you how you feel. I feel the same way when I miss an ammunition sale.” ought to do the trick.

Now, I understand that I am bluffing. Should the conversation go much farther or if they have predicted my stratagem and purchased a weapon of their own, I will be unarmed, so to speak, for the bathetic onslaught. All I am looking for is a fighting chance in an arena I am unfamiliar with.

But really, even if this only saves me from finishing one in five emotional arguments, I think it will be worth it. Also, please don’t misunderstand me, I would never openly threaten to hurt them. I just want to allude to the fact that there is more underneath the surface than meets the eye. If you happen to live in a country where firearms are strictly limited to criminals and big brother, consider replacing “an ammunitions sale” with “a sword sharpening seminar” or something to that effect.

If this strategy does work for you remember that it is to be used sparingly, only when you are sure that all logical options have been exhausted or if it makes you feel special.

*The phrase “nobody looses” should be read: Nobody wins either, socialism rocks, don’t ever try harder because you will just get the exact same thing as the guy who is milking the system, we couldn’t think of a good way to motivate you because we are so afraid of lawsuit happy parents that we are only marginally distracted by trying to get through our curriculum so we can grab a smoke break under the guise of checking on the mimeograph machine while the “classroom monitor” keeps the peace with the threat of “I’m telling” hanging heavy in the air.

I am growing a little weary of the uncanny insightfulness that I have been finding in the news lately. Today’s installment was the tome: "Lebanese-Americans upset with Israel’s assault on Lebanon”. No way! Someone was pissed that there is a big smoking hole where their grandma's house used to be? Why is this news?

Could we get some history on the situation? Maybe what the various governments involved in this remote controlled war are doing to end/encourage it. Telling me that people are upset that their relatives’ homes were leveled isn't really giving me any new information or insight.

Do the editors really think that readers are that mentally deficient? It's not a isolated incident either, page 2 held a delightfully informative guide on how to use a photo booth. (I wish I was kidding about that part.)

I predict that eventually they will just stop bothering with words at some point and just show pretty pictures. When pretty pictures get too "heady" maybe we will all just sit down to look at the Sunday morning color. "Oooh, Me luV pERpls dAy"

On the front page of this mornings paper was an image with one of the more thought provoking captions I had ever read.

"ON THE STREET: As many as 3,000 people, mostly high school students, marched through downtown Santa Ana on Monday, protesting immigration legislation in Congress. Many are worried about attempts to make it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally."

At first glance, it makes sense. The headline might as well have read, "Teens protesting flavor of the month political issue" (read "found an excuse to get out of school"). Hey, it must be time for another election. Enough said, right?

The part that screamed "I'm the editor cuz my dad owns the company" was this, "Many are worried about attempts to make it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally". I'm not talking about a blurb between Dear Abby and Little Orphan Annie on page 11 of the entertainment section, this was the front friggin page.

Maybe this is just a problem of semantics. Is "illegal" a new hip complement and I just haven't been told. "Dude that is so popin' fresh it is illegal, yo. It's off the wiggity wack, bling bling, synergy, mission critical!" Or is there a new tiered value system that distinguishes something that is illegal from a crime? Does it go, Annoying, Frowned Upon, Illegal, Occasionally Enforced and then Crime. Does anything come after "Crime" like "Super Crime" or "Offending a Rich Person Who Can Afford 'More Equal' Justice"?