Everything Is Just Fine

I forgot to mention in my previous posts of rich, thick, chocolaty information about myself that I have twice been mistaken for a lesbian, in my lifetime.
Once, when I still had hair down to my ass, I was kissing my girlfriend, who had long red hair down to hers. We were waiting for a bus, and the street around us seemed to erupt with the passion of Those Who Never Should Have Left Their Mommies. From the loudest to the meekest, each felt the need to share their little comments. Upon being approached by a group of teenagers, I finally removed my face from hers and skritched the hair on my chin. The chief idiot among them said, "Oh, it's a dude!", and that somehow made it okay.
But it wasn't. I wanted to follow his ass home and make a thorough report on all the things that might, perhaps, embarrass him, and go to his school the next day and ruin him. Then I'd really get nasty. Oh, except that as a good leftist, I'm supposed to be bigger than that; more mature. We must never let ourselves sink to the level of those cavemen on the other side, right?
Right? It happened again, in even less believable circumstances, two years later. By this time, I was sporting considerably shorter hair, and just happened to be walking with my then girlfriend, who also, fashion being what it was, also had short hair. A bunch of fine, upstanding young men drove by and informed us that we were dykes.
Well, no kiddin' huh? I mean, here we were, and walking down the street and everything in the town we lived in, and how dare we...Wait a minute. They were the variety of shithead who deserved a stomp on the neck, then I'd really get nasty.
And did I ever tell you about the 'gyppo' clause? Whenever there would be an environmental debate that would get nasty (here in the Northwest of the early '90's, mind you, when it became clear that we couldn't just keep cutting all the damn trees, or everybody would be out of a job), the girl I was dating at that time would be called upon to deliver her little stock speech: "Well, it isn't the big companies that's the problem. It's these little gyppo, fly-by-night outfits that come in, wreck everything and move on that're..."
And by that time, the entire room would be one in its sound condemnation of these words that they knew that they clearly couldn't be on the side of like 'gyppo' and 'fly-by-night'. Oh, are you siding with the gyppoes? Even though there are autobiographies published each and every day by people who grew up in such families, and are proud of being such, the last bastion of small business in the resource extraction game? Yes, yes, these 'gyppoes' (so reminiscent of 'gypsy') clearly needed to go. Oh-the environment? Which sustains us all and makes us so much more of a tourist attraction than say-Kansas? Yes, um, yes that should be preserved, and...
On these occasions, I saw why so many people think that we as humans are descended from lower beings. We just go "Ook ook!" when we think we hear what we need to hear, even though we aren't listening to what's being said. I saw a pretty good editorial cartoon the other day: a sign in front of a church that read, "In the interest of Fairness, it should be pointed out that what is preached in this church is only a Theory held by some."
Brilliant. I'd go farther: if we decide to start teaching the tenet that this god thing created the universe, and teach it right alongside evolution, then we need to teach astrology for every astronomy course, tarot reading for every piece of forward-thinking observation on politics, and chicken gut reading for each "weather" report. S'only fair.
I mean, since evolution actually is a theory, and not a belief, that means that one can study it , examine it, prove it wrong or right, perhaps one day. In the case of creationism, it's just Belief, and that's that. Teachers aren't there to tell us what to believe, last time I checked. For any right-wingers who wish to chime in at this point and tell me that 'political correctness' has overtaken the teaching profession, let me say: no, they've been trying to provide an alternate narrative to the not-exactly-truths of a couple centuries, in the meekest of ways, and it's no surprise that everybody (even the 'politically correct', if I may) still just wants to find the gyppo to blame.
I have been told here by the Standards and Practices boys (and girls! Whoops!) here at Bachelor central that the good, believing folk would like it to be called Intelligent Design, not "creationsism", which would sort of make them sound silly, or something. That would open the door to say, someone like me coming in to the situation of this, a Nation of Laws, Not Men (and Women! Whoops!) and saying, 'well sir, i believe that it was the enchanted pancake that hangs in the sky that all good people know is there and cannot lie as all of us good people who think like myself of course know because it's the truth sir, and how can you possibly teach that there is any possible way to give an earthly explanation for the growth of the dominant race of simians on this planet, sir? My Enchanted Pancake theory needs to be taught, too!'
But 'Intelligent Design', oh, that sounds pretty reasonable. Who's against intelligence? Who's for the gyppoes?
I leave you now with a little tale of participatory democracy. I once ran for student body president, and won, even though the electorate knew damn well that I'd be moving to this side of the mountains, and would no longer be there to rule. They voted for me because they liked the "This Is Bullshit" platform I had run on, being a distinguished representative of home room (whatever that was).
Since I won, despite the pleading of those who really ran the show, but nonetheless had moved to a different part of the state, the person who ended up being inaugurated was one of the savviest politicians I've ever seen: Wendy Redwine.
She always had this empty smile on her face, making one feel entirely at home with her, like she really cared what you had to say. She was also wise enough to note that I had seized the Middle on this one. Everybody knew that the student body president was a powerless figurehead, entirely beholden to the Administration. That doesn't mean that Wendy didn't crave the not-exactly-power conferred by her office.
In her speeches, she would make clever word play: "I DON'T WANT TO BE A BUTTERFINGERS OR ANYTHING..." and then she'd throw out a Butterfingers brand candy bar, which the electorate would almost rip each other in half to take posession of. "AND I KNOW THAT IT'S GONNA BE A ROCKY ROAD...", and she'd toss out a Rocky Road, you get the picture. Her other challengers learned this trick sort of: after a lack-luster speech by their candidate, the handlers would then drag a bag of candy on stage, and toss it indiscriminately to the crowd.
I can almost envision the heated political debates that followed: "Well, Wendy just seemed to believe it so much more when she was hucking candy at me..."
"Yeah, but Tana threw so much more of it..."
"I'm still for the 'this is bullshit' ticket..."
Ah. People barely deserve to be called people, and the most brilliant politician I've ever seen in my life was Ernest Green, of Pendleton, Oregon. He ran for President of the United States in 1980. Unlike his challengers, Mr. Green, formerly of the state mental hospital, promised each and every one of us (in his radio ads, and broadsides sent to the local paper) a million dollars.
Isn't that so much better than patent lies like, "I feel your pain," or "It's morning in America", or abstractions like "A chicken in every pot", or "A return to normalcy"?
Or-"We're bringing Democracy to the world." Oh what, you're against democracy? No one who uses that word would ever lie. What are you, a gyppo? Are you not gonna give me a million dollars?
And candy?
This is bullshit.