Premature Emasculation

Down n' Out at the edge of Exurbia

2005-04-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for a long time. This is because there have been other things on my mind.

First, my boss found out I had a blog and fired me on the spot. He said my commentary on the Christian Right and Republicans offended him deeply, and that I was going to hell. So, I told him where to go, and he called security.

Then, my wife found out I had a blog and kicked me out of the house. My criticism of her, and her fanatical dealings with the Christian Right and Republicans, were not in-keeping with the family values I was supposed to uphold, so she threw my ass out.

Next, I was arrested for about 24hours for spying on my dickhead neighbor, Bob. I'd set up a camera to observe his suspicious activities with respect to a yellow Hum-Vee, body bags and hundreds of gallons of water I saw him handling a few months ago. Nothing much happened after I set up the camera -- except I spotted Bob and his submissive wife having sex through a hole in a white sheet once -- that was awful. Shivers up the spine. At any rate, my observations became more intense when my pit bull, Karl Rove, was seen sniffing around Bob's yard, and then stumbled home and died the next day. Bob killed Karl Rove. I'm sure of it. But, Bob somehow found out I'd been secretly filming him, so he called the cops, and I landed in jail.

Now I'm out of jail, but sequestered in a roach-infested EconoLodge at the edge of my Exurban paradise. I'm not allowed into Exurbia any more, because the Homeowner Association's Rent-a-Cops have been warned to keep me out. I found a Bible in here with what looks like smeared blood or chocolate all over it. A coin-operated, vibrating leather chair won't stop vibrating in a corner of the room. The bedspread is crusty in places. I saw two homeless people having wild sex near my parked car the other night.

I think I'm going to cry.

Bright Ideas

2005-02-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

It makes me feel so warm and squishy inside when I see how the right wing is tackling the big issues of the day. On behalf of all of us. For America. For freedom.

For instance, there was the Underwear Law. Virginia lawmakers in the House of Delegates set out to make sure that any kid vulgar enough to wear pants that hang low enough to reveal his or her underwear would be fined $50. Specifically, the law was aimed at anyone who publicly and intentionally "displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner." This important, groundbreaking piece of legislation, however, was killed by the Virginia Senate only a few days later. Not just because some ridiculed the legislation, but also because low-riding, underwear-revealing pants may not be in fashion today. How sad that fashion and ridicule intervened to prevent laws crucial to our country, to our future, from ever seeing the light of day. I'm just disgusted.

I've stumbled on other bright ideas circulating around. The World Nut Daily is usually a good place to go to find really intelligent ideas. Like this one: Conquer Mexico by Joseph Farah:

But the Mexican government has never believed in the will of the people or the rule of law.
So, I suggest maybe it's time to conquer Mexico. We're so intent on freeing 26 million Iraqis from a corrupt, barbaric tyranny. What about 100 million Mexicans? Don't they deserve a government of the people, by the people and for the people? How about truly free elections south of the border? Maybe it's time to free Mexico. And worse, Mexico is proving to be a more serious national security threat to the United States than Saddam Hussein's Iraq was.

Gosh, what a smart idea. This is going to set the UN on fire!

And finally, Otto's favorite doctor, Dr. Jack Wheeler, "intelligence expert" -- though he's going by "geopolitical expert" at least for the next few weeks -- has informed the world that Ukraine's Orange Revolution was accomplished, not by the Ukrainian people's yearning for democracy free from corruption and Russian influence, but by ... vodka.

"Eastern Ukraine is heavily ethnic Russian. The main industry is coal. The miners are rough, tough, and hate Yushchenko for wanting to take Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West," writes Wheeler. "It was arranged for more than a thousand of them to be taken from Donetsk, the capital of the coal-mining region, by bus and train to Kiev, where, armed with clubs and blunt tools, they would physically beat up the Orange Revolutionaries. Such mass violence was not only to disperse the demonstrators but serve as an excuse for the government to declare martial law, suspending the Ukrainian Parliament (the Rada) and elections indefinitely."
Now comes the secret weapon: vodka.

"When the miners got on their buses and trains, they found to their joy case after case of vodka – just for them. When they arrived in Kiev, trucks awaited them filled with more cases of vodka – all free provided by 'friends' of the Donetsk coal miners. Completely soused, they never made it to Independence Square. Too hammered blind to cause any violence at all, they had a merry time, passed out and were shipped back to Donetsk."

Writes the intel expert: "Just take a moment and reflect on how stone-cold brilliant this was. The forethought and planning it took, the innovative thinking. Bush doesn't send the Marines – he sends the vodka! – and achieves a democratic revolution. This is the sort of thinking, these are the sorts of tactics, that are going to be applied now for 'ending tyranny in our world.' Military force will be used only as a necessary resort."

Have you ever heard of anything so intelligent in all your life? Think of how many wars we could win, just by getting our enemies good and soused. Think of what we could do in N. Korea, Iran, Syria, just by sending over truckloads of alcohol. Brilliant. And it's so easy, too! I tell you, it takes someone like Dr. Jack Wheeler, "geopolitical expert," and self-proclaimed "Indiana Jones of the Right" to reduce centuries of history, politics, diplomacy and, well, reality down to something as basic as inebriating one's enemy.

I hope when we start with Mexico, there'll still be plenty of tequila to go around. I love a good margarita.

God bless the UCC

2005-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

At least some people still love SpongeBob.

"SpongeBob enters the UCC's Church House. Despite Cleveland's chilly temperatures, he knows he'll be greeted warmly inside."

How can we get the United Church of Christ to move into Steve's neighborhood, where they're so desperately, desperately needed?

BobCams and Karl Rove

2005-01-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

I've set up a camera -- I'm calling it my "BobCam" -- that I've pointed at my next-door neighbor's house. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw Bob unloading body bags and gallons of water from his yellow Humvee a few weeks ago, and I'm worried about what he's up to. If I was better at technical stuff, I could post a live feed on this site so everyone could monitor Bob's activities. But I don't know how to do that, so I'll just have to write what I see.

My dog, Karl, has been sniffing around Bob's yard lately. I wonder what he smells.

Karl scares me to death. Sometimes more than Bob. You see, Karl's a very intimidating pit bull that my wife got from a breeder in the mountains to protect our home. She named him Karl, after Karl Rove, because she thinks Rove is a wonderfully strong and aggressive male who knows what he wants and gets what he wants, when he wants it. She respects that, and she loves our dog Karl. Maybe more than she loves me.

In my opinion, that dog shits all over the place and ruins everything for everyone.

Hm.

Maybe his name is apt, after all.

Karl

SpongeBob Gaypants

2005-01-25T09:27:00.000-08:00

SpongeBob -- fighting the good fight...

The fallout from the SpongeBob Squarepants Fiasco has been interesting here in exurbia. Children all over the neighborhood are crying, distraught, tormented, looking on helplessly as their fundamentalist parents eradicate all SpongeBob Squarepants images from their homes. The children, I suspect, will never forgive them.

Parents are all fired up because the American Family Association, a few weeks ago, leveled a charge that SpongeBob -- who is A SPONGE -- is part of the vast, liberal, homosexual agenda and thus a danger to the nation's children. It has produced an eerie sort of insanity in my neck of the woods. I've seen trash bins overflowing with SpongeBob dolls, DVDs and imaginary underwater universe paraphernalia. Despondent children fill the streets, too tired from sobbing to play, grieving over the loss of their beloved SpongeBob. My kids have taken a new interest in their dear old Dad, since Mom, a proud AFA member, has sucked all the joy out of the house, destroying any hint of SpongeBob's existence with her frightening, passionate zeal to root out and destroy sin, even if sin comes in the clever guise of a household cleaning product. With eyes. And an annoying voice.

It takes a special kind of family values group to associate an imaginary, talking underwater sponge -- a sponge who has the decency to wear square pants, unlike other naked, libertine sponges -- with gay sex. I mean, we all know that Ernie and Bert are gay, Velma from Scooby Doo is a lesbian, and Rockie and Bullwinkle spend a bit too much time together trying to "pull a rabbit out of a hat." We're onto them. (Though I still don't agree with the accusations leveled at Tinkie Winkie.) But a sponge? When did we go so drastically off course?

But there may just be a happy ending for the children. Looks like the American Family Association is going to get sued over the flap they created. At least the We Are Family Foundation cares about the kids.

When right-wing assholes turn on you

2005-01-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

My wife, Barbara, is very upset and confused tonight.

You see, when Barbara heard that Harvard University's Larry Summers was of the opinion that women are innately disposed to inadequacy in science and math, she took it to be the "liberal left-wing's" view that women were inferior. It's Harvard, after all, a bastion of left-wing elitist education. She was delighted in a way, because Barbara was, before the kids came along, a very successful electrical engineer, and now she thinks of herself as some strong, right wing female advocate. Summer's opinion galvanized her belief that everything on the left was, well, very bad indeed.

But then she found out that right wing pundits, like Jonah Goldberg were of the same opinion -- basically touting the Harvard University view that women were inferior.

Here's what Goldberg had to say about it:

Doing remarkably little to combat the stereotype that women are emotionally frail and constitutionally incapable of dealing with stress, Professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT told the Boston Globe that she had to leave a lecture delivered by Harvard president Larry Summers because if she didn't she would have "either blacked out or thrown up."
...

When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Hopkins told the New York Times. "Let's not forget that people used to say that women couldn't drive an automobile."
That's true. "People" also used to say that women aren't as tall as men, that men are more aggressive than women, that women are the ones who make babies, that men are physically stronger than women, and all sorts of other things that happen to be true. The mere fact that "people" used to say some things that weren't true doesn't mean that everything people used to say is untrue — even if some of those comments offend Hopkins's delicate sensibilities.

Now Barbara's pissed. And perplexed. Her ideological sources have turned against her, acknowledging that women are too "sensitive" and lame because they lack a penis, and she doesn't know what to do.

I told her that she might look to people other than right-wing assholes to find a point of view. But she doesn't listen to me. So I guess all I can do is continue to sit on the La-Z-Boy, watch the news, and weep.

Maidens of virtue

2005-01-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

I take issue with Heather's ungenerous (to put it mildly) assessment of Bob's wife -- whom we will call "OfBob" for our purposes.

Heather may not believe that Bob killed his wife. I have my doubts as well. However, it is ludicrous to suggest that he wouldn't do it, because OfBob has submitted herself so completely to his will that she is "already dead." Indeed, Heather, I detect something in your tone hinting that she is not worthy of being killed. How unkind of you.

Heather normally is a cranky, indomitable sort of bitch -- one whose feistiness can only be tamed by one wielding handcuffs and electrical prods and applying them in an appropriate, satisfying manner. Not that she doesn't enjoy being tamed. Far from it. I believe Heather enjoys submitting to an older, attractive, dominating male (i.e., Professor Otto Van Zant) under the right circumstances.

Now, for some women, submitting under all circumstances to anyone with a penis is de rigeur. In some circles, these women are called "Maidens of Virtue."

A little blurb (emphasis added):

Through stories, allegories, illustrations, and memory-making projects, "Raising Maidens of Virtue" covers topics such as guarding the tongue, idleness, sibling relationships, honoring parents, contentment, modesty, purity, cleanliness, and feminine biblical beauty.

Clearly, these topics ("guarding the tongue," in particular) take on whole new interpretations on Heather's planet. The vast chasm between herself and "Maidens of Virtue" like OfBob, plus not a small dose of intellectual superiority, cause Heather to lash out in irritation and disbelief that women in this century wouldn't want more than what a book written thousands of years ago -- by men -- tells them to want.

At any rate, perhaps some of Heather's ire comes from the rather poor showing women like her made in the news this week: we learned that women make bad interrogators, are not as gifted as men in math and science, and are unlikely to get married. In a news climate such as this, it's no wonder Heather's on edge.

However, if she comes by my office during office hours tomorrow, I might be able to relieve her of some stress.

Rapture Ready

2005-01-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

Jesus, Hope. Why would Bob kill his wife? Didn't you see her at the Homeowners' Association Republican Victory Party back in November? She stood quietly at his side the whole time he was talking about smiting Blue States, clasping her hands in front of her, with her eyes on the fucking floor. She was an accessory -- like a belt or a purse. She probably doesn't even have a name, unless it's OfBob, or Mrs. Bob, or something. What would be the point of killing her, Hope? She's already dead. She's unworthy of any fucking attention, unless you're easily entranced by a woman with the face of a fish.

No, Bob's up to something else. Maybe he's preparing himself for the Rapture, who knows? Has anyone heard if there's a Rapture scheduled for this month?

Maybe we should ask the psychos at Rapture Ready -- they'll know. I'm gonna buy Bob a fucking t-shirt.

Oooh. Scaaaaaaary....

That chewy, Smiter-like filling

2005-01-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

Bob. Oh dear.

Bob. He's such a tough one for me.

I would like to think all those body bags and water Steve saw in Bob's Hummer are being collected to help the wonderful people who are part of the tsunami relief effort. But, even I have to stamp out that small, flickering flame of hope. Bob wouldn't do something like that. Well, then again, he might, if he were a prisoner/cheerleader at Abu Ghraib. But lucky for him, he's not.

Some people have "goodness genes," I've heard. They shovel your snowy walk so you don't have to, if only because you're on crutches and high on Valium. They don't answer their cell phones right in the middle of a quiet dinner with friends and patiently wait until they can excuse themselves to go to the bathroom. They don't necessarily "ooh" and "aah" at pictures of kittens and puppies, but they do wonder how you're feeling on a sad, gray winter's day, especially after you wondered out loud if killing yourself now might be better than enduring 20 more years of the same, boring job.

But then some people are like Bob -- they're Smiters. Apparently God is going to smite their enemies, or, if there weren't so many darned laws, they could smite the unholy in the service of The Lord at a more satisfying pace. So much smiting, so little time.

You can't take more than a few steps without tripping over a Smiter. The Smiter family can't stop talking about their values, scrutinizes the length of your skirt no matter what year it is, is always being "persecuted" by the liberal left minority for celebrating some extreme interpretation of a religious holiday, and votes for leaders who advocate their fundamentalist religious ideals. (Now that I think about it, you could find a Smiter in Iraq just as easily as you could find one living next door to you. Hmm.)

Anyway, Bob, the Smiter Next Door, is definitely not engaged in some humanitarian relief effort. That would be distinctly un-Smiterlike of him.

I do hope I'm wrong, though. Because...well...since Steve started watching Bob's suspicious activities a few days ago...um...has anyone seen Bob's wife?

What's Bob hiding in the Humvee?

2005-01-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

I'm not the kind of guy who, under normal circumstances, spies on his neighbors. I have to admit, though, for the past two days, I've taken to scrutinizing the suspicious activities of my next-door-neighbor -- Bob -- and I expect my surveillance to continue. At least for the near future.

Let me first say that I am in no way retaliating against Bob for reporting me to the Homeowners' Association on numerous occasions. OK, I was angry when I was slapped with a $500 fine because the pale, beige trim of my house did not exactly match the pale, beige trim of Bob's or the other neighbors' houses. And then there was the time we went on a family vacation and asked Bob to look after our lawn -- when we got back, we found out Bob had not only neglected to water our lawn (during August) for two weeks, he had also reported the sorry state of our lawn to the Homeowners' Association to cover up his neglect. That was pretty infuriating. Another $500 fine, $200 of new sod, and hours of backbreaking labor. I drank a lot and blacked out a few times then.

But I'm not a vengeful man. Not at all. I hate Bob and I want him to die. But I wouldn't do anything affirmative to make that happen, no matter how much I want it. I must be strong.

Last week, Bob drove home in a new, yellow Hummer H-1. My wife wants one, too, but I told her no, because I didn't want other people to think that I need to compensate for my rather average-sized, er... special friend ... with a ridiculously large car.

Ahh...Hummers. Popularized by Desert Storm, more popular still now that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is underway -- a romantic part of America's love affair with the road, grisley traffic accidents and, of course, getting a mere 10 miles to the gallon, Mideast Oil and your friendly neighborhood gas station. A testament to the almost eerie connection between American wars and impractical cars.

But I digress.

The strange thing is that the other night when I got home from work, Bob's garage was open, and I saw him unloading what looked like black body bags and countless jugs of water from the back of the Hummer. That was alarming. What was he doing? When he noticed the headlights from my car, he ran, top speed, to the front of the Hummer, hit the garage door opener and stayed out of sight until the garage door finally closed.

What was he hiding?

I'm keeping my eye on him. Bob's not getting away with anything this time around.

Nuke Mecca???

2005-01-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Speaking of "battle-hardened soldiers for Christ," I came across this little tidbit today.

"Has the US threatened to vaporize Mecca? Intelligence expert says nuke option is reason bin Laden has been quiet."

How extraordinary. Dr. Jack Wheeler, "intelligence expert," has figured out why there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11: Because the Bush Administration has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

"Completely obliterating the terrorists' holiest of holies, rendering what is for them the world's most sacred spot a radioactive hole in the ground is retribution of biblical proportions – and those are the only proportions that will do the job.

Osama would have laughed off such a threat, given his view that Americans are wussies who cut and run after a few losses, such as Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. Part of Bush's rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – obviously never expressed publicly – was to convince Osama that his threat to nuke Mecca was real. Osama hates America just as much as ever, but he is laughing no more.

Wheeler says bin Laden is "playing poker with a Texas cowboy holding the nuclear aces," so there's nothing al-Qaida could do that could come remotely close to risking obliterating Mecca.
Writes Wheeler: "So far, Osama has decided not to see if GW is bluffing. Smart move."

All I can say is "wow." Or, perhaps, "WOW!"

Dr. Jack Wheeler, "intelligence expert," has revealed the Administration's perfect plan to terrorize the terrorists by threatening to nuke Saudi Arabia.

It's brilliant in its dim-witted, wide-eyed simplicity -- awesome in its sophomoric, inane logic. This is no wussie War on Terror we're waging. No.

This is America's Terrible Holy Nuclear War on Terror: Watch out Mecca, move over Medina! If Bin Laden makes one false move, you and millions of innocent people are charred, extra crispy nuclear toast -- even if he's not there! Hell, we don't know where he is, but we sure do know where you are! Yee-hah! Perfect plan!

Why hasn't anyone spoken up about this before, one wonders? Obviously, because no one else is as smart as Dr. Jack Wheeler, "intelligence expert." I'm certain that the good doctor will explain to everyone how this perfect plan, like the Bush Administration's other perfect plans (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan), will work itself out in the end. I'm almost giddy with anticipation.

But think of the poor children...

2005-01-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

Steve's being too hard on home-schooled kids, I think. Sure, their parents took them out of school because the school -- strangely -- stressed academics. And their father takes classes from someone who teaches that being a slave in the South was, Biblically, not a bad thing at all, since both slave and master had such a close personal relationship. And then there was the thing about Christian soldiers for Jesus. And the being "taught to think" stuff.

Granted.

But think about the children! Please, think about them, Steve. Those poor home-schooled children would have no chance of ever connecting with people like you on a regular basis if it weren't for music, art and sports being available to them in the public schools. And if that weren't in their lives, well, then you can imagine more than a few doomsday scenarios. Why, they might grow up (unless they are killed for Jesus during some Christian war), move to a red state, find someone of equal character and then, gasp, reproduce. And then there'd be more of them. Then more Christian wars will ensue as their numbers grow stronger. And then...

Well, you can imagine. Your kids -- even though they're "messed up," as you say, though I would probably describe them as "intellectually challenged" -- might just save the world from the potential legions of home-schooled Christian warriors by nipping the problem in the bud. Your intellectually challenged children could become the first to introduce home-schooled kids to video games, marijuana and alcohol sneaked from the private stash of contraband and porn you keep hidden in your desk drawer.

You know what happens to them after that, don't you? No more Christian soldiers for Jesus, that's what happens.

And isn't that better for everyone?

Keep your freakish home-schooled kids away from my kids

2005-01-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

I know that title sounds a little weird -- you might ask, "well, home-schooled kids are kept at home anyway, so why would you, Steve, have to worry about them coming near your kids, who go to public school in an all-white suburb?"

I'll tell you why. Because I read this article: Parents want to control influences; critics see need for wide exposure, which suggests, toward the end, that parents of home-schooled children are trying to get their kids into music, art, lab science, and sports classes and activities in the public schools.

In other words, these parents, who've created little Frankenstein monsters over all the years they've kept them at home, away from different kids and any outside influences, now want to foist their monstrous offspring back onto the culture they've derided and isolated them from. Even if it's just for a few hours a week. Perhaps they worry that their children might become so freakish in those secluded little secret societies of people who home-school their kids, they'd never have a chance of getting a job when inevitably confronted with the world as it actually exists. The world in which everyone else lives. The world that they -- these parents, themselves -- were involved in for some span of time. The world that they have excluded their children from out of some misguided notion that the world can, in fact, be excluded.

Madness. Selfishness. Delusion.

And it's not just about them being obnoxious and imposing themselves upon us, just at the point in the day when we're trying to enjoy our culture and achievements and creativity through music, art, laboratory sciences and sports. No. That's annoying, but television advertisements serve similar ends.

The real question is: Do you really want your kids socializing with their kids?

To illustrate my concern (emphasis mine):

"Steve and Kerry Beck acknowledge that it is what many evangelicals call their "Christian worldview'' that drives them. The phrase means that all aspects of the universe owe their existence to a Christian God.

They said they pulled their children from private religious schools because teachers were stressing academics rather than building a religious foundation.

"We really want our kids to rule and reign for Christ. We couldn't do that on a haphazard basis,'' said Steve Beck. "The whole idea is we're training battle-hardened soldiers for Christ. The private Christian school wasn't going to do that.'' ... The influence has been profound. The family moved to Idaho in August so that Steve can study at a seminary run by Douglas Wilson, an outspoken critic of big government and especially public education. Wilson co-authored a book that argues that Civil War abolitionists ignored the teachings of the Bible, which recognizes slavery. Beck said Wilson's "main goal is to get people to think.'' The Bible urges good relationships between slaves and masters, and that's what prevailed in the prewar South, Beck said.

The South was fighting for states' rights, not for slavery, Beck said. Because the South lost, we now have the ``leviathan'' government intruding on all aspects of our lives. Public schools are an example, he said. Before public education was created in the 1800s, anyone who wanted an education could find one for free, and the literacy rate was much higher than it is today, he said.
Beck said that people coming out of Wilson's school are ``changing the culture from the inside out,'' and that Christians need to infiltrate the world.

``We're in the New Covenant. We're not using swords. We're using the Spirit,'' Beck said.
In his book, A Father's Stew, Beck writes that Christians must reject the notions that women need work to be fulfilled, parents should pursue careers by dumping their children in day-care centers (disparagingly referred to as ``concentration camps'') and education can be provided only by so-called experts.
The Becks want their children to go to college, but they have different aspirations for the three, depending on the gender. Steve Beck would like his son to become an engineer and wants the girls to get liberal arts degrees so they are able to ``have sons and daughters and teach them to think.'' ``I'm not keen on a daughter becoming a doctor and working 90 hours a week,'' he said.

There was so much to emphasize in that passage, I could hardly keep from underlining the whole thing.

Look, these people can isolate themselves as much as they want -- I'm happy to see them go. But bottom line is this: I don't want the progeny of such people to come anywhere near my children. My kids are messed up enough as it is.

"Actions speak louder than words" II

2004-12-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

At last, a contribution commensurate with the wealth and goodwill of our nation. Sickening that it had to come in the wake of criticism and pressure -- the Administration's first reACTION more sickening still. But, at least criticism and pressure worked this time around. The death toll from the tsunami is unfathomable, and it's time we did the right thing.

And how about the wrong thing? Hmm?

I wish I hadn't seen this but, unfortunately, I have. Via Raw Story, this extremely horrifying example of the evil that lurks in the Westboro Baptist Church of Total Motherfucking Assholes. The headline speaks volumes: "Thank God for Tsunami & 2,000 Dead Swedes!!"

Seriously -- FUCK YOU. You're a cancer. YOU HAVE NO FUCKING SHAME.

"Actions speak louder than words"

2004-12-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

Or, as reported in the Washington Post today (emphasis added):

Many Bush aides believe Clinton was too quick to head for the cameras to hold forth on tragedies [regarding the devastating tsunamis in Asia] with his trademark empathy. "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide said, describing the president's view of his appropriate role.

You know what? This "top Bush aide" is exactly 100% fucking right. Let's talk about what sort of "actions" we've seen in the wake of the disaster in Asia:

1- Steve sacrifices his kids' beloved X-Box to provide aid to charity organizations to help survivors. Kids revile and hate him, Barbara still won't speak to him, Steve drinks heavily, watches the news and weeps.

2-President Bush raises total of US aid to the region to $35 million, only after being criticized by the UN for being "stingy." Japan came out of the starting gate with $30 million; the US: $15 million. President Bush's inauguration ceremonies expected to exceed $45 million.

3-Bush does not cut his Christmas vacation in Crawford short to speak to the world about the tragedy for three full days. Instead, he clears brush on his ranch, takes long bicycle rides and "monitors the situation" from home. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder ("Old European") cancels his vacation and returns to work in Berlin when he hears of the disaster.

4-The only major US voice to be heard is Clinton's, who gives an opinion that relief efforts should be organized to maximize efficiency. Bush aides deride Clinton ("actions speak louder than words! hooray!"), implying that the former US president's comments are some sort of publicity stunt.

I don't know about any of you, but I'm psyched we have a President whose actions speak louder than his words. We'd be totally screwed without him.

Asia Crisis: Give 'til it hurts your kids

2004-12-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

The kids are mad. Really mad. In fact, they may never forgive me.

And that's too bad, I guess.

But, in the end, I don't care. They're just going to have to suck it up. I'm returning many of the toys we got them for Christmas (they don't need an X-Box as much as the kids in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka need fresh drinking water) and sending the money to some of these agencies who are participating in the relief effort in Asia. I urge all parents to do the same. You might just teach your kids a valuable lesson.

Of course, if you have kids like mine, they'll hate you forever -- but then again, they'll hate you anyway, so it really doesn't matter at all, does it?

A Theory of Negroid Ureao-Christian Dogma

2004-12-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

Steve,

Although you are a half-wit of average intellect, you have stumbled upon one of the more interesting controversies of Christian scholarship. Don't get too full of yourself, it was purely an accident, and given more time, I could prove to you to a scientific certainty that an inebriated babboon has higher cognitive powers than you.

Regardless of your shrill wife's lust for a white Jesus, according to many revisionist Christian scholars, Jesus was indeed very black. And his name wasn't Jesus. Nor was his last name Christ. His name, loosely translated from Aramaic, was Cletus Jefferson. He was not from Nazareth, but from what is modern day Detroit. And he was not a carpenter, but a chariot repairman. He was exceptionally skilled at fixing wheels. He ended up in Nazareth through a series of serio-comic misadventures involving the Loch Ness monster and a very shy and misunderstood yeti name Brell.

The early Christian Church had been very, VERY confused by who or what their messiah was. Moreover, somehow drinking their own urine became a staple of their early religious practies, and no one knew how (the current theory is that due to hanging around Cletus/Jesus and his endless supply of wine, the apostles and early Christians were raging drunks).

Around 60 AD, the early Christians had a make-over. First, they penned the Gospels and the other books in the New Testament (utter fiction, and over-wrought fiction at that). A couple of centuries later, someone got to Constantine when he was loaded on lead-laced wine, and suddenly this "Christianity" caught fire. Some confused Nordic-types decided to mix in tree worship and fat old white men, and, voila, you have "Christmas."

The black Jesus was accurate. Earl's urine, oddly prophetic. For in the original Christianity, urine will figure prominently in the Rapture. More on that another time.

Someone just had to go and kidnap Baby Jesus

2004-12-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

Before I tell my tale about How Christmas Was Totally Ruined, I thought I'd at least start off with the bright side: Barbara's brother, Earl, showed up for Christmas Eve dinner, stinking of alcohol, wearing nothing other than a Santa hat, clutching a half-empty bottle of Red Dog 20/20. I was quite amused and tried to keep him from coming in the front door, while the kids freaked out, and Barbara grabbed an old towel to drape over his dirty, hairy, noticibly shriveled bottom half. Earl likes to celebrate the holidays -- any holidays -- in the nude. Even when the temperature barely reaches 10 degrees. Something snaps in his head and he takes off all his clothes, leaves them somewhere he won't remember, and then walks the streets raving and spreading his special brand of holiday spirit.

It's actually quite impressive, though I don't think Barbara was very impressed. And she was even less impressed when he passed out, urinated all over our new Pottery Barn couch, and then refused to move so she could see to the mess. Barbara did admit that this Christmas Eve was better than the last, though -- I can't even mention what he did to the last Pottery Barn couch. I'll just say that some stains never go away. But that's Earl and, heck, Christmas is a time for family.

The part of Christmas I didn't enjoy came when we discovered that someone kidnapped Baby Jesus from the Nativity scene on our front lawn. Worse, that Grinch-y someone also popped my life-size, inflatable Homer Simpson Santa with a BB-gun. It was not that our Christmas decorations were vandalized and stolen that bothered me. Baby Jesuses are a dime a dozen at the Great Mall and are easily replaced (though most of the stores had run out of White Baby Jesus by that time, and so we had to put a Black Baby Jesus in the manger). And as for Homer, all he needed was a little Scotch tape and he was good as new.

The real problem was that Barbara, who loves and defends Christmas as if her very life depended on it, and as if everyone who doesn't celebrate it is doomed to burn in the fires of Hell, became insanely hung up on the symbolism of the Kidnapping of Baby Jesus. And, like most people like her, she immediately went to the Internet to read something that would reinforce, rather than challenge, her opinions on the matter, like this and this. So, I got to spend Christmas listening to her bitch constantly about how the Battle for Christmas is like the War on Terror, as some kook named Donald May told her in a dumb editorial:

If we allow Christmas to be taken from our public life and our educational system, if we allow our Constitution to be turned against us, if we fail to be a light of liberty unto the World, we will also deny freedom to a desperate World that will slip further into darkness. Just like the War on Terror, the battle for Christmas will be long and difficult.

Oh for God's sake. Look around. See if you can locate where Christmas isn't.

You can't, can you?

Anyway, she went off on every non-Christian on the planet, whom she described not only as "terrorists violently opposed to our Lord & Savior's birth," but also as stupid, poor, backward, and in great need of our "light of liberty" -- as if saying that would make up for the nasty epithets she used to describe anyone different from herself -- all while the kids were trying to enjoy opening their presents. That was fun. Then she threw out the egg nog once she found out that it did not originate in America. Then she accused me of not listening to her, not caring about her convictions, and loving the Black Baby Jesus more than the White Baby Jesus that was stolen from us. Then she saved Christmas for me and the kids by stomping off to our room and locking the door behind her.

Guess where I got to sleep? That's right. The Pottery Barn couch.

2005 is going to be long and difficult indeed.

How to wean your kids off Santa Claus

2004-12-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas is just about here, and it's utter madness at the malls. Or, I should say, The Great Mall that serves as the living, breathing center of our suburban utopia. Parking is hell -- who doesn't enjoy a little competitive, ruthless, barely-controlled-anger-laden holiday parking spirit?

I suppose it isn't all bad, though. Barbara and the kids are extremely excited about Santa's arrival on Saturday, and we've got the Christmas lights display on our house to beat all others, complete with a Nativity scene, reindeer, an inflatable Homer Simpson dressed as Santa, and huge, fake presents. I thought we might be going overboard, but Barbara was determined to compete in and win our Homeowners' Association Christmas decorations contest, and it got her mind off the homosexual agenda, so we're back to using soap and smelling clean again.

Anyway, I was interested to find out that Santa used to be one scary customer:

In Finland at least, the unthinkable is true -- the jolly old man has a dark past. The forefather of the portly, bearded man, known in Finland as Joulupukki, was not dressed in red, did not greet children with smiles and he certainly brought no gifts. Instead Joulupukki, literally "yule goat," donned horns and an animal hide and covered his face with soot or a bark mask. He traveled from house to house frightening children with his wild dancing and singing and expected offerings of food and booze. The form this Christmas-time character took varied greatly in different parts of the country. According to some versions of the legend he also brought sticks with which to whip naughty children. Stingy households suffered the goat's insults. No one knows exactly how or when, but as cultural influences from elsewhere spread into Finland, this beast transformed into the smiling Santa Claus that now meets children from around the world at his log cabin in Finland's Arctic Circle.

This Jouloupukki character sure sounds a lot like a bum...or...Barb's brother, Earl.

I thought the kids would get a kick out of this particular Santa story, then I could have Earl show up drunk, dancing, singing with no presents and a few sticks on Christmas Eve. I mean, he's coming over anyway. Wouldn't it be great to tell them their Uncle Earl is really Santa Claus? Think how much money we could save.

Boycott the Traditional Values Coalition

2004-12-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

Even though I find Otto to be a bit too negative and mean at times -- not that he's a bad person, he was beaten as a child, and that's sad -- I was really happy he did his part to help expose the homosexual agenda practiced by the Traditional Values Coalition. As if Will & Grace and Proctor & Gamble were not enough! I was surprised, and then not so surprised, to find out that the Traditional Values Coalition is doing so much to force homosexuality on everybody, and I urge everyone to boycott that organization, or coalition, or whatever you want to call that group of evil homosexuals.

And Steve, you have to do your part to keep Barbara safe from herself. It's your job, as a husband, to ensure that your wife does not become a gay man, no matter how much she wants it.

Thanks Professor Otto for your insight. I would have thanked you in person, but I heard strange screaming and slapping noises coming out of your office, not to mention the tell-tale humming and zapping of electrical prods. It scared me a little, so I thought I'd just thank you here instead.

The homosexual agenda is more sinister than you think

2004-12-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

Once again, I feel compelled to set Heather straight. Although I will grant that her very generous assessment on whether or not I can, in fact, "bring it," was correctly stated. I am well known for my "attribute," and not at all shy about it, as Heather knows given our common experiences during certain intoxicated, star strewn evenings last month, right after the Republicans soared to victory. Ahem.

Now, as for this "homosexual agenda" business.

Heather, you're incorrect in your assessment of Barbara, Steve's vile harpie of a wife. It is not that Barbara would like to be penetrated (I shan't use the Language of Heather during my missive, which I find horribly vulgar) by the Men from Oz. Barbara would, in fact, like to be a Man from Oz.

You see, Barbara's hatred does not stem from her disappointing sexual experiences with Steve. We acknowledge Steve's failings in this area (and there are so many more, but let's stay focused). However, her hatred of homosexuals -- homosexual men, in particular -- derives from her lifelong struggle to control her deep and unquenchable longing to become, and thrive as, a gay man.

Just look at her. Look more closely. Do the words "drag queen" pop into your head unbidden? Of course they do.

This should not shock anyone. Indeed, as Herman Hesse once said: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

How right he was. Indeed, one notes that this theory is borne out just by perusing that old Information Superhighway. The Traditional Values Coalition, for example, which enjoys "Empowering People of Faith through Knowledge" is supposed to concentrate on such issues as the right to life, fidelity in marriage, abstinence before marriage (how awful), pornography, patriotism, and civic duty, as well as homosexuality. However, one notes that nearly all of the current events at the site are directed at, yes, the homosexual agenda. Just look at how many articles and news bits refer to homosexuality. Just watch that news banner crawl by.

As Hesse teaches us, the Traditional Values Coalition is, therefore, run by a bunch of fags. Now if that isn't a slippery homosexual agenda, I don't know what is.

So, Heather, can you wrap your little mind around that? No? Then get your skinny behind over to my office right now. The Professor believes you're in need of a spanking.

Blah, blah, blah....

2004-12-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

Look, I'm not here to defend fruits, per se. But, you idiots are forgetting the best thing about shows like Oz ...well, Oz in particular. You have a lot of hot guys showing off nice cocks. Who cares if they are boning each other, they are still great looking and are well-hung.

And, Steve, that is your wife's concern. It is not that she hates gay men. I mean, at some level all of us women, straight or gay, do because they have better taste and are physcially stronger than us.

No, Steve, she's pissed because she wants that black junkie blowing the neo-nazi in the shower at OZ to be humping her like the dirty whore she is rather than her normal Saturday night joy of lying prone and pretending to be content while you give her two minutes of the short stuff.

You bore her, Steve, and she's turning her hatred at who and where she is in her life on others because you are too inconsequential to hate. Buy her some shit, so she'll drop the activism act-out and stop making your family look like a bunch of sanctimonius assholes.

Speaking of assholes, I think its time for Otto to give me my monthly humbling. He smells like Old Spice and is filled with empty pretentiousness, but unlike you, Steve, he can bring it.

Beware of the homosexual agenda

2004-12-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

I am saddened that Steve refuses to acknowledge Barbara's efforts to speak out against the homosexual agenda that plays out, night after night, on prime time TV.

As the American Family Association says, "The sitcom Will & Grace regularly promotes homosexuality and explicit sex-talk with jokes about male and female genitalia, masturbation, oral sex ... and even anal sex."

Gasp!

Clearly, Barbara is right. It is obvious how jokes about male and female genitalia, self-love, and oral/anal sex have nothing to do with anything but the sinful promotion of homosexuality.

Good, God-fearing heterosexuals never make jokes about such topics. Heterosexuals are above such things, because heterosexuals have no male/female genitalia, they do not masturbate, nor do they engage in oral or anal sex. Yuck! Boy, that homosexual agenda, in comparison, sure is bad news.

The American Family Association goes on to say that "The series' two male stars are both homosexual. From the beginning, the series has been about nothing but sex. Will & Grace is the program that showed two men passionately kissing each other."

I'm so glad the American Family Association has been there for us, watching Will & Grace "from the beginning," because I, never having seen the show, would know nothing about its evil homosexual agenda if they hadn't told me about it. Thank you, American Family Association, for keeping constant, observant tabs on prime time TV's efforts to force homosexuality down our throats. Don't let them get away with it!

People might think you're the ones obsessed with sex, but I think you're swell.

Steve, you should support Barbara's efforts to support the anti-homosexual-agenda agenda. And another thing, you shouldn't idly stand by and let little Bobby succumb to those crazy, rampaging homosexuals. That's not very nice. Make sure little Bobby doesn't watch one more second of Will & Grace, or any prime time TV for that matter. There are better shows on HBO anyway. I've heard Six Feet Under, Oz and Angels in America are very good programs without any homosexual agenda whatsoever.

Unwashed: At least Disney gives you soap

2004-12-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't blogged in quite some time, but I'm back. Back from the World of Disney, where Barb and I took the kids for what was undoubtedly the best time of their lives, and one of the worst for me. I suppose it's bad for me to say that Disney scares the crap out of me, how every experience you have there (aside from the long lines and high ticket prices) is basically stuffed down your throat -- no clocks, no exits, no problems, no reality-based commentary, just song after song of happiness and love, huge dancing puppets, and five million ways to part with your money. Ingenious. It's like Christmas. Or the Bush Administration.

At least we were clean in the World of Disney, though. When we got back, Barb joined a group called the American Family Association, which intends to "motivate and equip citizens to change the culture." Whatever that means. At any rate, it motivated and equipped Barb to change the culture of cleanliness at home. Because of Proctor & Gamble's supposed backing of the "homosexual agenda" (which, as far as I can tell, judging from Barb's rare moments of lucidity, is evidenced by P&G's advertising during Will & Grace) we have boycotted all of P&G's products. I never knew how far P&G's products go toward keeping you smelling nice and fresh, but let's just say that our house, our bodies, our children smell like a used jock strap in summertime, forgotten in a plastic-lined duffel bag for weeks in the back of the car you always park outside in the sun. Unzip that duffel bag, and you've got my house. The neighbors have started to complain, but tend to back off when Barb starts warning them about the homosexual agenda that is aimed at their kids. Too bad Barb doesn't watch more Will & Grace, or she'd know our little Bobby is turning into a little fruitcake under her watch. A smelly fruitcake, but a fruitcake all the same. I'm not going to mention it to her -- she'll murder me -- but I'm going to enjoy watching her fail to notice.

A Wrong Turn

2004-11-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Maybe he just got lost looking for the bookstore. Exurbs are spacious wondrous places where you can find everything from well maintaned grass to an Oran Julius. You just gotta keep your eyes open. Perhaps Brooks isn't talking abou a white flight as much as a middle class exodus to a land of plenty and contentment. I don't think moderate pleasures are a vice so much as a misunderstood virtue. To be safe, mono-orgasmic and fine is really what the American Dream is about. Too much of anything is only appropriate for junkies who don't know any better and billionaires who know what to do with it.

Get a life, Brooks

2004-11-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

You've really got to wonder about a guy who spends his time writing an entire book about what is just another case of "white flight," coining a new term for it ("exurbia"), and then trying to elevate it to the status of "culture."

Here's some news for ya: just because "white flight" has gone corporate and managed to become more insular than ever doesn't make it a fucking cultural movement.

More news: that you had a problem finding a bookstore in "exurbia" where you could do a signing is incredible. Where the fuck do you think you're going to find a Borders or Barnes & Noble Megastore, Dave?

Greetings from the "Exurbs"

2004-11-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

This post-election week has been such a blur. Barbara has been telling me -- fondly, which is strange -- that my strong support of the Republican party and my recent diatribes against Democrats this week have finally reinforced her faith that she made the right decision to marry me. She said that before the election, my doubts about the President (she puts George Bush and Jesus on the same pedestal, like they've got their hands down each others' pants while up on high) were slowly making her hate me. But now she sees that I'm not like a Democrat at all, and she's happy.

I have no idea what she's talking about. All I remember is going to our neighborhood Republican Victory Party, being really depressed but trying to act happy, pounding whiskey like I was dying of thirst, and then waking up naked next to Barbara. That, in itself was odd, because since Barbara had the kids, her body, frankly, repulses me. Anyway, I might have gone to work, mowed the lawn, or ignored the kids since then, but I honestly can't remember what happened this week. I guess time flies when you're bored.

I was reading the New York Times this week (on line, because Barbara doesn't allow that "liberal Jew nonsense" into our home) and was interested to see that David Brooks wrote an editorial and a book about "exurbs," which sound a lot like where I live.

Brooks says: The other problem I had is that I didn't adequately describe the oxymoronic attraction these places have for millions of people. On the one hand, people move to exurbs because they want some order in their lives. They leave places with arduous commutes, backbreaking mortgages, broken families and stressed social structures and they head for towns with ample living space, intact families, child-friendly public culture and intensely enforced social equality. That's bourgeois. On the other hand, they are taking a daring leap into the unknown, moving to towns that have barely been built, working often in high-tech office parks doing pioneering work in biotech and nanotechnology. These exurbs are conservative but also utopian - Mayberrys with BlackBerrys.

I think Brooks still has some research to do. What he doesn't mention (or maybe he does so in his book) is that out here in the "exurbs," the main motivating force behind a move to these supposed "utopian" enclaves is FEAR. Fear of crime, blacks, germs, terrorists, and anything you think you can't control. Fear of anything that is difficult or different, that doesn't comport with your idea of how the world is or should be. Brooks, that's the world I live in. You want to know how Bush and Rove got so many votes in my neighborhood? I'll tell you how. They scared the living shit out of us.

Democrats, The Lesser Race

2004-11-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

Based purely on the empirical data, it is clear that the Democrats cannot succeed unless they get whiter and straighter. The Democrats are the party of darker skinned, marginalized people with deviant desires. The Democrats are so fractitious that they probably wouldn't know what to do with true power if they actually got it again. After all, look at how successful they were during the Carter years when they controlled all the elective bodies of government. Hostages taken, inflation out of control, a wimp as president. Disgraceful.

Approximately 50,000,000 of the 60,000,000 who voted for Bush were White Protestants. They are clearly very civic minded and show a healthy appreciation for the President's clarity of vision and determinism. Darker skinned people are often too apathetic to vote, don't properly register or get confused during the actual voting process. These are facts people, no need to coddle any longer.

On top of that, the Democrats have this obsession with tolerance that borders on the pathological. As a consequence they find themselves pandering to gays who may make up 1-10% of the population, at the risk of alienating the overwhelming majority of the country. Or they push affirmative action for blacks and they make up 10-15% of the population. Their math is no good.

Look purely at the numbers, embracing fringe populations has not proved to be an effective strategy. Some Democrats I have spoken to say they are proud of their views (coddling the poor and pushing pseudo-socialism) and values (redefining devancy and acceptability in non-Western/Christian ways). The view from the bottom is not terribly impressive, and losing is not a value.

So says Dr. Otto Van Zant, PhD, M.D.

Submit. You'll be glad you did.

2004-11-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

Steve's blacked out again after having to put on a victorious, Christian face in front of all his Republican neighbors at the Homeowners' Association Campaign 2004 Victory Party. Heather appeared, rather expectedly, and really made his wife proud tonight. And Steve finally got laid after 3 months of being in the doghouse, because he was so very very manly.

But then there's always tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

I don't know about you, but I think Steve should just be happy with what he has, even if he's not that happy about it.

You see, Steve should stop worrying about right-wing Republicans gaining complete control of the most powerful government in the world, not to mention hypnotizing his neighborhood, wife, and young, impressionable children with their compellingly simple message. Instead, he should focus on things he cares about, like mowing the lawn twice a week so his next-door neighbor Bob doesn't report him to the Homeowners' Association, and scraping for change to buy gasoline for his Ford Expedition Superwagon. Those are really important things. We should support Steve when he tries to ignore the botched war in Iraq, his struggle in paying for health care for his family, and his queasiness with America's blind acceptance of right-wing, evangelical, Christian principles.

He should ignore all of that, and more, just like everyone else in his neighborhood.

After all, look how happy they are. They're good people, Steve. They're safe and secure in their suburban paradise, where everyone has 2.5 SUVs, 3.25 children and 1.65 primary residences. That's true happiness. Keep up with the Joneses, Steve. Don't trouble yourself with worries about the selfishness and stupidity of the American electorate. Just tune into a soothing episode of Survivor and let go. It doesn't really matter, Steve, and that's the best part of it. Submit, and you'll be so much happier for it.

Gutless Bitches

2004-11-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

Here it is, people: We Republicans won because Democrats are gutless bitches. How do you expect those clueless, dopey scumbags to fight the war on terror when they wet their pants over some tough election tactics. All they did was whine like punks, while men's men like Karl Rove ate their lunch and shat it back on their heads with an army of Swift Boat heros and leggy, outspoken bitches like Ann Coulter. I mean bitches who are bitchy in that good, freedom-loving way. God, Rove makes me wet.

Anyways, conformity is in. Everyone is going to worship our God and fucking like it. Our God does not have an elephant head, doesn't require human or goat sacrifice, and is efficent. No praying five times a day; once a week and you can do it pointing any direction you want. Tolerance is not freedom. It invites nonsense.

Be the American man you are supposed to be Steve. Be me.

It's a Republican Republican Republican World

2004-11-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

Barbara has dressed herself and the kids in American flag outfits. The kids are staying home from school, so that they can participate in a Republican victory party and parade that our Homeowners' Association is sponsoring today. My very happy family members, except me, are right now out on the front lawn with all kinds of Bush/Cheney signs, waving at people who drive by our house, who honk their horns and wave back. All is well in suburbia, everyone is smiling and high-fiving each other about the election results. Even our horrible pit bull, Karl, seems happy.

We've got four more years of Bush to look forward to.

I'm having some trouble trying to act enthusiastic, like all this...this outpouring of joy and triumph, sits well with me. Here's what I woke up to today, and maybe I'm overreacting, but this is what I've got:

Republican wife, Republican kids, Republican dog, Republican neighborhood, Republican state, Republican House, Republican Senate, Republican President.

I can't shake this feeling of impending doom I'm consumed with right now. Something, and I can't say exactly what, is wrong with my world. But all I can say today is "Yay! We won!" over and over again. If I don't everyone around me will probably kill me. Especially that damned dog Karl.

Suburban Voting on Election Day

2004-11-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I just went out and voted, though I lied to Barbara and the kids about who I voted for.

I shouldn't have to lie, I know, but Barbara is one of those "security moms" you hear about all the time. Not that it's a bad thing to be concerned about security. It's just that she believes everything Dick Cheney and His Boy say and, almost literally, thinks that there are al Qaeda terrorists camped out in the bushes outside our house, waiting for their chance to lob a bomb through our front window because they "hate our freedom." I personally think that's a whole bunch of bullshit, but you can't tell Barbara anything these days. She's so worried, she had us install a $10,000 electronic security system in our house, and we just bought a pit bull from a breeder out in Colorado. Incidentally, the pit bull hasn't sniffed out the terrorists yet -- much like the CIA and FBI and Department of Homeland Security -- though Barbara thinks it's only a matter of time, God willing. I'm more worried about the pit bull sniffing out joggers and young, defenseless children. That dog scares the shit out of me, but it sure does like Barbara.

Anyway, I just want to keep the peace at home, so I secretly voted for Kerry. I really hope other people like me will also secretly vote for him, even if the Homeowners' Associations in their subdivision have threatened to sanction them if they suspect a resident hasn't voted for the President. I won't say the name of my Homeowners' Association, because I don't want to get us in trouble. But I think they're a bunch of Nazis.

Please don't tell anyone I said that.

Beating our children is good for America

2004-10-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

It appears that Heather has once again underwhelmed us with her rather pedestrian and, dare I say, "colorful" assessment of Steve's predicament. And, thank you, Hope, for your Oprah-inspired bit of ridiculous cheerleading that utterly fails to provide any meaningful guidance to Steve, or us, on the subject of these demonic progeny.

Although I am loathe to say it, I am afraid I must side with Heather on this matter, though for more enlightened reasons I shall impart in language that is more intelligently set forth. While Heather is correct that Steve should have beaten his children to a pulp, it is not because Barbara (a truly despicable human being, by all accounts) has Steve by his proverbial "balls" -- whether or not these "balls" do, in fact, exist.

As one observes in China and India, it is quite clear that beating one's children when they act out in a societally reprehensible manner can produce objectively favorable results with regard to the children's future contributions as human beings. According to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, and others, Chinese and Indian children are poised to outpace American children in educational achievement, if they have not already done so. This will help propel China and India into the economic stratosphere, despite these countries' currently high poverty levels in comparison to America's. American children are, as a result of parental lenience and the brain-numbing effects of video games, becoming ever more obese and stupid, while Chinese and Indian children, forced to work long hours at early ages and subject to beatings by parents and school officials for even trivial derelictions of behavior, are becoming stronger and smarter. We must reverse this trend, and beat our children savagely when they show signs of joining this uniquely American downward spiral. It's for the good of our nation.

Otherwise, I'm afraid to say that our children will, unfortunately, manage to leave themselves behind.

No, Steve...I Mean Yes, Yes...

2004-10-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

Your kids were just trying to express themselves in nonconventional ways. Candy, to them, was the embodiment of their sweet, tasty dreams. Also, they probably felt neglected in some way. Not because you are a neglectful father Steve. You have it in you to be wonderful.

No, it is because we live in a hard world where we are constantly misunderstood. A world where it is increasingly harder to be understood. A world where verbal communication becomes harder, and nonverbal communication ever more important. Candy is love for them, Steve. Asking for it is saying, "I love you." Or "You can help me." Chewing a Skttle can mean more than a hug or an "I love you," from your or Barbara. It is just the way it is Steve, and it is ok.

Love them for who they are, Steve. One day, they'll be feeling sad and remember the time Dad and Mom gave them something sweet that made life better. You can always get new teeth, but you cannot replace those kinds of priceless memories. You and they will be allright, sweetie. We all are.

"Is it wrong?" You have to ask???

2004-10-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed that you even have to ask whether you should've beat your kids. What the fuck is wrong with you? Of course you should have.

But no.

Barbara essentially grabs you by the balls, gives you some bullshit mumbo jumbo garbage that she picked up on some asinine women's TV channel when all she really wants is some peace and quiet without having to do any active parenting, and you let her. The kids would've been psychologically damaged by your publicly embarrassing actions? Are you fucking kidding me? Have you looked at your kids lately? You should be psychologically damaged by the sight of your ugly ass offspring.

I was mistaken. Barbara couldn't have grabbed you by the balls. You don't have any.

I want to beat my kids -- is that wrong?

2004-10-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise when I logged on this morning and found so many comments on my blog! Wow. I want to thank everyone for checking my blog out, I really appreciate the attention. Although, I had hoped that your comments would have something to do with what I said. And that they'd appear in the "comments" section. In the future, if you wouldn't mind sticking to the "comments" section for your comments, that would be great. I don't know how you signed onto the blog, but I've asked BloggerHelp for some guidance on what I did wrong. We'll get everything cleared up. But thanks again, anyway.

This weekend went pretty well for me, except for one incident that I wanted to write about. (I got such a huge headache afterwards, I could barely see.) It has to do with my kids.

Barbara and I were in the supermarket with the kids on Saturday. Well, once they saw all the Halloween candy everywhere, they started begging us to buy some for them. We were going to buy them candy closer to Halloween, so we wouldn't have so much candy lying around the house for a week, and so the kids wouldn't get fat and rot their teeth. I thought Barbara and I had agreed on this beforehand. When we said "no" to the kids the first time, they started totally freaking out, screeching at the tops of their lungs and throwing everything out of the shopping cart. Everyone was looking at us, and they made a huge mess in the candy aisle by throwing a whole carton of eggs all over the floor.

Now, when I was a kid, my dad would've beat me into Tuesday had I carried on like that in a store. I know I'm not supposed to hit my kids in public, since some asshole is likely to call the cops and report me. But I thought I could just drag them kicking and screaming from the store and then discipline them in the privacy of our car.

Wouldn't you know it, though? As soon as I started to do something about my demon kids, Barbara grabs four or five bags of candy and gives it to them to make them shut up. And they did. They shut up immediately.

I was really pissed off. I told Barbara that we weren't giving them a good message (in other words, the louder you scream, the richer your rewards). But she put her hands on her hips and told me that on her Lifetime TV channel she learned that doing things my way only resulted in psychological damage to the kids, because they would have been publicly embarrassed by my actions. I've never heard anything so stupid in my entire life.

Is it wrong for me to want to beat my children when they're acting like little shits? Is it wrong for me not to give a rat's ass about their psychological well-being, when they're seriously in need of an ass-kicking?

Oh man. I shouldn't talk about my kids this way. Forget I said anything. Just forget it.

I don't know about....

2004-10-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Assyrians, but the only fecal matter I see is the shit coming out of your mouth, Otto. And, it's "Syrians," not "Assyrians." If you are going to make some shit up at least get the name right. The problem with "know-it-alls" is that they don't know shit.

2004-10-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

What's an "Assyrian"? Is it someone from the Bible?

I have to admit, Otto, that just the thought of someone wiping his feces on shards of earthenware makes me a little uncomfortable. But, then again, I'm sure this "Steve the Assyrian" had his reasons. In Biblical times, they probably didn't have decent toilet paper. We're all so fortunate that toilet paper has improved like it has over the past few centuries. So soft and cushioney, not at all like a broken piece of glass.

Did you know...

2004-10-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

There was once an Assyrian Prince named Steve? He developed dysentary from eating a rotten pomegranate and died of a lonely bowel. They recently excavated some earthenware with some of his dried fecal remains on it. It is really quite fascinating....

Pardon the interruption

2004-10-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Professor Otto Van Zant here.

As we all should be aware, I am, in fact, Steve.

That's all for now.

How wonderful!

2004-10-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

What a cute little toy! I didn't know what a...what do you call it? Oh yes, a "blog" (such a funny name!) -- well I didn't know what a "blog" was until today. This is delightful!

Anyway, I don't want to use this wonderful thing to make a fuss, but I just wanted y'all to know that, actually, I'm Steve. It's a little confusing, I know. Poor dears.

You see, I'm Hope. But I'm Steve, too.

Don't worry yourself about it. There's no need for anyone to fret about anything. Anything at all. Gosh, it's just so nice to meet you!

Fucking idiot

2004-10-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

God, he just goes on and on and on. And he's an asshole and he lies.

I'm Heather, and I'm Steve.

Don't believe one goddamned thing he says.

Hi, I'm Steve.

2004-10-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, since everyone seems to be blogging these days, I thought I'd start one, too. I'm a little nervous about it, since I'd be exposing myself to the whole world this way -- if the whole world cares to read, I guess -- putting down all my opinions, thoughts and feelings, and putting my entire life out there for everyone to see. But my life isn't that interesting, really, so maybe no one will care about what I have to say. I don't know. I suppose it doesn't matter.

Anyway, to introduce myself. My name is Steve Roscoe. I'm an accountant with a big company (probably shouldn't tell you which one). I'm married and have two kids. My wife's name is Barbara. We've been married for 10 years. My kids are Bobby (5) and Billy (3). It's crazy at my house, like a zoo where all the animals have been let out of their cages, but I guess that's true for anyone who's married and has two young kids.

Sometimes, I feel kind of low. Like I was supposed to do something more impressive with my life. But then I look around and am thankful for all I have. We're comfortable, and even if the job, the marriage, and even the kids aren't truly perfect, I guess we're pretty lucky compared to all those starving people in Africa you see on the news.

When I'm feeling low, I usually try to find a quiet place to just be by myself. But to tell you the God's honest truth, I think I BLACK OUT as soon as I find that quiet place. I used to think I just fell asleep, but when I'd wake up, I'd find myself far away from where I started. Now I'm pretty sure it's not sleep-walking. It's something else. I just don't know what's wrong with me.

Maybe that's why I started this blog, because I can't really talk about my blackouts with anyone. No one would understand, and I don't want to be poked at by some doctor or shrink. It's just not necessary. Anyway, Barbara would probably scream at me and tell me to stop being so stupid. She does that sometimes. She doesn't really mean any harm by it, she just wants me to be a better man.

OK, I'm getting upset just thinking about it, so I'm going to sign off now.

Anyway, I'm Steve, and this is my blog.