Friday, April 26, 2013

That's the Ticket

If I was lovely Rita, meter maid, I would be ticketing all the Red Box subscribers. I would issue tickets for general mopery. For some reason, when their subscribers see that big Red Box, they all lose any concept of 'parking lot'. They will be in the middle of acres of empty parking spaces and they will be unable to recognize a parking space. They park up on the curb. They will block store entrances. They will park in fire lanes. They will leave children in cars with the motor running. They will pets in cars with the windows closed. They will lose all ability to walk in order to get to that big Red Box.

I would like to see a study to decide if Red Box subscribers are a self-selected group of idiots or if the Red Box itself mesmerizes the weak minded.

Friday, April 12, 2013

If I Was A Teacher

When prayer is brought back into the classroom, I will get my teacher’s certificate and begin every day having my class recite the rosary. I don’t think the proponents of prayer in schools meant that the prayer would be the rosary, but that’s what you get when you don’t think it through.

I am old enough to remember prayer in public school. We began the morning with prayer. I do not believe that prayer in school was detrimental, but I had the advantage of a homogeneous neighborhood; I lived in a predominately Catholic neighborhood, where many of the teachers we saw in church on Sunday lived within the school boundaries. I am a contemporary of the children of Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Vashti McCollum. Long after the Supreme Court’s ruling on prayer in school, my high school, which had a history of anti-Catholic acts, was still teaching the King James Version of the bible, only this time in English class.

I do not believe in prayer in the public school. Those who want to see it are wrongheaded and shortsighted. They will open their children up to unexpected religious experiences. They will find that they cannot fire a teacher for their religious views and teachers will find themselves in danger of explicit and implicit disciplinary action because of their religious views.

Me, I am going to teach those dear little children the roasary.

Friday, April 5, 2013

If I Was A Lexicographer - Or Intercourse the Penguin

If I was a lexicographer for the OED I would reclaim "intercourse". It is not just for coitus anymore, it is any interaction between people. I shouldn't have teenagers giggling when I say, "In my daily intercourse with foreign businessmen…"

The transition should not be a problem since there is a perfectly acceptable substitute: congress. Sexual congress is much closer meaning of the common Anglo-Saxon phrase.