Category: Opinion

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Embrace Crap

macaroni-and-cheeseI call it crap because that’s what other people call it, but that’s just a label, a convenience for conveying judgment. I don’t really think it’s crap, but I do think calling it crap is crap. I’ll let your noodle noodle through that one.

You see, I’m sick. Not permanently! Just a small cold, or flu or cancer or something. I’m not sure. Started a few days ago, scratchy throat, and has moved out of my throat into my head. My theory, based on my medical degree, years of research, successfully guessed and executed experiments, and my extremely high IQ, is that I over did it (running), and along with allergies thanks to a few days sunshine, my immune system took a hit. Opportunistic bugs brought home by my wife (who works in the filthiest place a human can work: hospital) pounced and thus I’m feeling purty low.

And I’m craving macaroni and cheese. And not just any: Kraft Mac n Cheese. And not just any: K M&C eaten straight from the sauce pan. Which I’m told is crap.

Cause that’s the world we live in, where every time a person describes a thing, there’s a bunch of people ready to jump in and call it crap: “My gramma made the BEST mac and cheese. She used REAL cheese, not that fake crap Kraft uses. Corporations ruin everything. What you need is an herbal tea infusion and lots of rest. Go to bed and read that author who writes about prisoner rights in Indochina. At least you don’t have it as bad as they do!”

Yes I do. I have it worse than they do. I’m sick, god damn it, and I feel like crap. I don’t like books about prisoners. Herbal tea tastes terrible. Corporations employ thousands of people, and processed cheese “food” is made of the same carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen as that so-called real “crap” your gramma used. And screw your gramma—I heard she was a racist and a homophobe.

You see what this cold/flu/meningitis has done to me? Turned me into a republican hipster. @#$%^&*

Anyhoo, I just want to encourage you to ignore the idiots, and embrace crap. You like Vegas? Go to Vegas. You like watching CSI? Get it on DVD and watch the extras and outtakes. You like Coors? Drink your Coors. And I apologize for all the times I call your joy crap.

I could try to say, now, that people are judgmental because they’re insecure—but that’s a load of horse shit. People are judgmental because they’re assholes. I mean, yeah, maybe they are insecure, and they’re hypocrites, and cynical to the point of killing hard-ons. But who cares: ignorning them is easier than understanding them.

Embrace crap. Life’s too short. Your time on earth is no Sistine Chapel, and you’re no Michelangelo—and even if it was and you were, that just means you’d wind up with fat tourists stomping around in your memories. Screw that.

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Unsolicited Advice to a 12-Year-Old Writing Genius

(An open letter to a friend of mine).

Once again it has been brought to my attention your ability with writing, more importantly your love of writing. So I thought I would take it upon myself to offer some advice, along the lines of “things I wish someone had told me sooner.” Of course, I expect you to take all of this with a grain of salt, indeed, to ignore most of it. Remember, Mr. Edwards is a curmudgeon and a cynic, a bitter old man, a wannabe-dissident, a malcontent, never published, and wont to submerge himself in self-indulgent dissatisfaction. On the other hand, I have written well over a million words of fiction, some of which, I’m sure, your mother will let your read when you’re well into your twenties.

  1. Don’t bother trying to make your writing “good.” You’re old enough to understand words like gestalt, zeitgeist, and paradigm. These are the factors that will determine if your writing is considered “good” or not, and you don’t really have any control over them. So just write.
  2. But if you still insist on getting “better,” here’s a trick: help other people first. Help your sister and brother, encourage them and tell them what you like about what they’ve written. Help your cousins, your friends. Yes, you can help adults as well, if they have written something they want to share. Hey, look at this, this essay I’ve written. Want to help me make it better? I welcome your suggestions.
  3. Don’t try to fix the first sentence until you finished the last sentence. This goes for paragraphs too, and pages, and chapters. Have you ever watched a movie for the second time? Notice how the beginning is different, since you know how the film’s going to end? How can you know how to fix the first chapter if you don’t even know how the book ends?
  4. Don’t listen to anyone’s advice or criticism. Well, it’s okay to listen, and consider, but don’t worry about what they say too much. This goes for spelling, punctuation, and grammar, as well as voice, tone, characterization, and plot. People have a billion ways to tell you what’s wrong, but so few ways to tell you what’s right. Don’t let them bog you down with those billions.
  5. Ignore the so-called “write what you know” rule. It’s poppycock. Most of the time we write to discover, so of course we have to write what we don’t know. Can you imagine how many fantasy or sci-fi books would have been written if people had followed this absurd rule? Certainly there is a place for writing what you know, and some people do like that kind of autobiography, or expertise. But there’s no sense in limiting yourself. Write about whatever you want, and if you don’t know it, make it up.
  6. Ignore, also, the “show don’t tell” rule. You’re going to hear this one a lot. It’s such nonsense. It’s vague advice from people who don’t care enough to read what you’ve actually written, trying to sound all wise and useful. Showing versus telling depends entirely on the tone you’re trying to set, the mood, even the themes involved with what you’re writing. It has everything to do with the situation at hand, and you are on control of that in your writing, you alone.
  7. You don’t have to show what you’ve written to anyone, ever. Writing begins as a deeply personal act, and I wish someone had told me this, a long time ago. I self-censored myself, eschewing certain topics, ideas, even words, for fear nobody would like them. And in doing so I limited myself, I left whole parts unexplored. Don’t worry about anyone’s judgment—not even your own, if you can help it.
  8. However, once you do share your writing, it doesn’t really belong to you anymore. Sort of. People bring all kinds of things with them when they read, and you can’t control that. If someone reads your story and it reminds them of something, how can you tell them they were wrong to have a memory? It’s okay to explain yourself, but someday you’re going to write things that will be read by people you’ll never meet. So, once your done with a story or a book, let it go.
  9. Write every day, if you can. But if you can’t, don’t give up. If you find you haven’t written in days, weeks, months, years, that’s okay. You can always come back to it. Always. Writing is going to be something that stays with you forever. It can be your best friend (and sometimes your worst enemy), it will always be a part of you. Cherish it, nurture it, trust it, rely upon it. And when you write, write about anything, everything. Break the rules, be silly, see how hard it is to make no sense at all. Every word you write is exercise, and exercise will only make you stronger.
  10. Don’t only write, however. Yes, exercise can make you stronger, but it can also make you tired. It’s okay to not write sometimes. To do things, to explore the world, explore your friends, to have other interests. The great thing about writing is that it’s compatible with everything, so you don’t have to worry about choosing between writing and something else. So feel free to try as many something-elses as possible. At the very least, that will give you something to write about.

I could go on, (ask your mother, she knows how I tend to prattle) but I think that’s a good start. The truth is, everyone should write, not just geniuses like you, but everyone, all the time. Writing is a gift, a wonderful gift, better than any other gift I’ve ever received, and it’s free for everyone. And you know I’m always available to discuss writing, (at your mother’s discretion of course), whenever you like. Which reminds me—your mom’s no slouch either, when it comes to pen and paper; you’ve got more than one gift there, it seems, so use them well. And thanks for listening to an old man babble.

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Random Coincidence Usually Isn’t

Here’s this: “Not Allerigc to Adventure” to run-inspire you, write-inspire you, and love-whatever-you-do-inspire you. It’s the blog of ultramarathoner Sabrina Moran, and if you don’t delight in her running 100 miles or 24 hours at a time (guess which one is longer) then delight in how funny she is. Know what’s funny? I wrote the above before reading her post called “You’re Not an Inspiration.” Ha!

I have been lax in my writing. So what I’m doing is taking an email I wrote to someone and using it to write a blog post. I don’t know if that’s kosher, but I just read a quote from Johnny Depp who said “Just keep moving forward and don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks.” That resonates with my favorite Robert Downey Jr. quote: “Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.”

You see what I’m doing there? I’m associating my attitudes with the attitudes of two very talented, very good-looking men. (Both of whom are older than me! But can you guess who of the two is oldest?)

Speaking of kosher, we had Hebrew Nationals last week. True Story. Here’s an ironic link, brought to you by Yahoo, now run by my wife’s sister’s old boss, who I have never formally met, but who I walked by once as she entered a house I was exiting, all 300 million dollars of her. (You see what I’m doing there?)

I’m sleepy. We went to Portland on Sunday, and I opted to drive back rather late instead of crashing and driving back the next day. It’s getting harder and harder as I get older and older to recover from bad or no sleep. While I was there, a friend of mine (call him Charles) told me about a friend of ours (call her Hanna) who had a severe psychotic break as a result of a misdiagnosed bipolar disorder and a serious case of sleep deprivation. Not that I’m at risk of that, but still. Sleep is so needed.

I know I’m not sleeping well when I have vivid dreams. I don’t like having them. Not because they’re bad, as such, but just because the imagery lingers and it makes the day’s thoughts cloudy. I read a theory that dreams are an interpretation of your brain re-arranging neurons to move memories from short-term into long-term. Last night I had a dream I was running around a deserted vacation resort, and then it turned into a casino and I saw an old (ex) friend and then another (current) friend chased me because he thought I was ignoring him. He caught me, and said “stop, damn it.”

That dream has no meaning; more telling is how vivid it was, that the resort was sort of all bed-rock and tarnished brass, the casino was plush red velvet, and my friend’s hands were very strong. And what it tells me is I am not sleeping well, probably because I’m drinking too much caffeine. But Ragnar is in a few days, and I’m excited, and I won’t be sleeping well that night, or the next night. Isn’t it weird how having a bad night’s sleep can make you have another bad night’s sleep the next day? It’s silly.

And lends itself to… a thing that there’s a name for, when you start seeing coincidences all over the place. For example, on Boing Boing, there was a post about Nocebos which are like placebos but make you feel bad, not good. Add to that that ultramarathoners blog, where she in a post mentions “Doxastic penetration” which “refers to when your beliefs color your perceptions.” Now can I add those ideas to a TED talk I saw the other day, by the founder of SuperBetter, and to that add a blog post at the Happiness Project called “Want To Have More Fun? Go On a Mission.”

And shall I add to that those quotes by Depp n’ Downey? And you see where I’m going with all these? Can you see what I am doing there? WELL I CAN’T BECAUSE I HAVE NOT SLEPT ENOUGH.

But I don’t care because Ragnar is in a few days. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I will not sleep well but so what: I’m on a mission, a mission to do one of things that makes me happy like no other, and I think Johnny and Robert would approve. No, really, I genuinely think they would provide applause.

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Guest Post: Dan Edwards on “Why Basketball is Not a Sport”

What’s a sport? How is it different from just a game? I took the following from a discussion my dad was having on this difficult topic. His name is Dan Edwards.

I would argue that basketball is not a sport.

When I played I was 5’7″ and the basket was at 10 feet. Trying to get the ball into the hoop was definitely a sport.

In today’s professional basketball, the average height is about 8’7– they have arms that are longer than I was tall. How tough is it to look down into the basket and drop the ball through?

For these monsters shooting a basket is about as tough as dealing cards.

We were allowed only one step on a layup. The pros are allowed to do the Merengue on the way to the basket and then do the Teaberry Shuffle as well. It’s not a layup, it’s sprint.

And what they call a foul is ridiculous. In my day, if it did not require stitches or a splint, the ref let it go.

The phrase “No Blood No Foul” was a chanted by our mothers.

Now, if a player is looked at crossly on his way to the basket, the ref blows the pea out of his whistle in horrified disgust.

These people make two billion dollars a year, not including shoe endorsements. Let them get a few bruises.

And speaking of money. I you get paid, it’s not a sport. It’s a job.

Otherwise why isn’t writing software a sport? It takes skill, and training, and if you’re really good you can drop out of college before you get your degree and make tons of cash.

Don’t get me started on football.

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So I Read The Back of a Book about Marxism…

Dusk; another wonderful day ends in corporate America. The sky is on fire with reds yellows and purples, or golds and royal plums if you like. The chemicals dumped into the sky by the industries that bring you everything you love make the sunset as glorious as the amazing life you live on the backs of peasants. Your masters in the oligarchs are pleased with your contentedness…

But lo, what is this? Across the twilight sky arcs a brilliant flash of light. What is it? You have no idea, maybe an airplane, maybe a meteor, a bolide, maybe an alien in a spacecraft. You don’t know what it is, so it is an unidentified flying object. The irony here is that you’ve given it a name, even though you don’t know what it is, so you can return to the task of removing your workshop pajamas, to put on your nightclub pajamas, in the hopes of meeting someone and eventually waking up next to them in your birthday pajamas.

A UFO, then, is just a way to explain something away. A lightning bolt kills your favorite sheep, you need to believe it happened for a reason, lest you becoming bogged down in an existential depression. So you invent and blame gods. A light flashes in the sky, and you need to make sure it’s not a hallucination, lest that good looking sex-companion in the designer pajamas turns out just to be a figment of your imagination as well. So it is a UFO.

The thing is, you are Ugly, Fat, and Old. You are a UFO as well.

I happen to know, for fact, that you’re not really ugly. You may not be on the cover of magazines, you may not star in movies, but you are not ugly. The lack of prettiness that you think you possess is not your sole identifying feature. When people think of you, you are not filed, in the network of memories their brains maintain, under connotations of ugly. I know this for a fact.

Same for how fat you are. Maybe you don’t have an athlete’s body. You’re not appearing on a box of Wheaties any time soon. According to that work of fiction called “BMI,” you are technically “overweight.” But again, the sum total of your being, in the hearts and minds if your friends and family and even the people who don’t like you, cannot be captured in the word “fat.” Maybe you think you could lose a few pounds. But you do not personify Platonic “fatness.”

And then there’s your age. Sorry, you’re not “old,” either. Age is relative—a mayfly is “old” after only 20 hours. A tortoise is not “old” even after 75 years. If you think you’re “old” it’s because of context, and trust me, there are much “older” people in the same contexts. You’re maybe not the youngest, but you certainly don’t represent all of the negatives attributes associated with “old.”

But you still consider yourself a UFO—why? Because that’s how you explain things, how you explain why you’re so unhappy, why you can’t have the things you think you want. You see what corporate America feeds you: visions of success from hard work, and the rewards are pretty, slender youths. Again with the irony—nobody who works as hard as we’re expected to work stays pretty, fit, or young. Nobody.

What am I asking you to do, here, is to quite calling yourself ugly, fat, and/or old, because every time you do, you are accepting the gestalt that your slave owners are foisting on you. The problem is, you’re a slaveowner too—you too benefit from the hard work that the unrewarded poor contribute to our gross national product. If you justify your misery by calling yourself a UFO, you also justify the crimes you commit against the poor. Stop making excuses. Accept how gorgeous you are. Own it, and let it motivate you to go get the things you deserve. The final irony: if you do, you’ll be stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. That flash in the night sky was just your imagination, internal inspiration, a spark urging you to recontextualize your existence.

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I Am Stupid

Here’s a quick personality test for you: go read this article, “Apparently This Matters: Paging Dr. Mario,” and then answer the following question.

Does this article

A) make you mad because people get paid to write drivel like this and you could do that so why isn’t someone paying you…
B) make you happy because people get paid to write drivel like this and since you could do that maybe someone will pay you to do it someday.

Personally I would answer A, and I am really trying very hard to convert to B. I am. I want to stop being such a bitter, cynical grumpy old man. It’s not even a matter of “not taking things so seriously.” Trust me, I don’t take anything seriously. But I want to stop being so darn snarky.

(And for the record, it is snarky, and not sardonic. Only very attractive women can pull off sardonic. The rest of us are merely snarky, and if we’re not careful, we might even be snidey).

A few years ago I pledged that I would stop making people feel bad for liking things. And it’s been going fairly well, except that I’ve been shifting my judgment from “you’re stupid” to “that’s stupid.” And it is such a worthless evaluation. At worst it comes across as condescending, at best, patronizing. “That thing you like, I think it’s stupid. But it’s okay that you like it! I like really stupid things too!”

Sorry, to those of you who’ve had to hear me say that. Not cool.

Who am I to judge? Well, I can judge, you know. I got credentials. I have taste (I married into having taste, anyway) and an education and enough lifetime experience that when I think something’s dumb, it’s not just a knee-jerk reaction.

But that’s not the point. Just because I think something is stupid, doesn’t mean it is, and even if it is stupid, what benefit comes from my evaluating it as such? Whatever injury I feel is being done to me by experiencing the stupidity is only made worse by my complaining about it. It takes less energy to change the channel, put down the book, click on the a different web page. Way way way less energy. I’m the one’s who stupid.

Seriously: it takes one to know one. The truth is, Jarrett Bellini had an experience and shared it and that he gets paid and I don’t is irrelevant. Entirely pointless. If I get upset, that’s on me, not him, is a reflection of me, not of him. I’m the one who’s stupid.

Which is not to say I should just be all hippie-dippie lovey-dovey about everything. I should have standards, and set expectations for high quality. But getting upset doesn’t make anything better at all, so why bother.

Instead, I should try to take inspiration from things. I should use my well-earned powers of judgment to find what is useful and good—and if I don’t find anything, then at least I got the benefit of exercising my abilities.

Or, at the very least, I got an excuse to write my own drivel and post it too. And yes, I am available for paid writing positions, if anyone’s, wondering.

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Couldn’t Disagree More, Runner Ted

Over at Runner’s World Ted Spiker’s written a little ditty about being true to himself, and not letting summer indulgences ruin his goals. Getting in his runs and not letting the weather stop him, not eating too much. Good for him. But I couldn’t disagree more.

Let me quote the lad:

Manage Indulgences: Vacations should be fun and relaxing and, at times, rule-breaking. But you’ve got to get out of your mind the fact that a couple of bites of a coconut-covered something-or-other means you automatically go all in. Bite, enjoy, bite again, step away. Eat right 90-some percent of the time; feel no guilt the rest.

Oh god, no. It’s not that you get to automatically go all in, you get to go all in by virtue of having lungs and a heart i.e by virtue of being alive i.e because you #$%^&* want to. Eat till you pop! That’s what vacations are for!

Rock the Mornings: You have to start every day strong: Get your runs and lifts done early and you won’t feel like ruining it with a frozen drink that has the caloric equivalent of an entire grocery-store aisle.

Won’t feel like ruining it? Ruin a run with a frozen drink, Ted, seriously? Sometimes the only reason I run is for the beer afterwards. Which is why I try to drink them on my non-running days, too, for the sake of consistency. And yes, that means I drink them in the morning. But it’s summertime, which mean the sun is out early, so it’s not like I’m drinking vodka shots in the gloom of a winter morning. Not in the summer, anyway.

Step Back: We know, we know. You stopped weighing yourself this spring when you grew frustrated with a plateau. But you know what? You’re going to step your cheese-loving arse back up on the scale to keep yourself accountable and gauge your progress. Because you have made some, and you’ll tell these good folks about it soon. You are—are!—going to come out of this tempting (yet glorious) seasonal stretch with a smaller number than where you started.

What’s this accountable nonsense? Are you running to lose weight, Ted? You little cheater! Running’s not for losing weight! I’m not saying you gotta gain when you run, I’m just saying: the run should be enough. You know those commercials: What’s your Anti-Drug? For me it’s “What’s your Anti-Diet?” Running! I run so I don’t have to weigh myself.

In Ted’s defense, he does title the blog entry “Letter to My Summer Self.” And I’ll never begrudge a man his inner dialogue to get himself going. Probably, Ted’s better looking than me, faster than me, thinner-even-when-he’s-fat than me. (He’s certainly a better writer than me and more famouser).

But he’s delusional. Eat the coconut thing, Ted. Drink the frozen drink. Smile while you do it, love the calories, and go bust out a fartlek. Not because you have to, but because you can. Attaboy.

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The Little Things are Big Things

Call me silly, but I just noticed that the time and date on the Mickey Mouse watch on the Ipod Nano page is current and correct. The second-hand moves and everything. This is 100% unnecessary and 100% awesome.

I only noticed this because I was at the website to have a gander at the font they used, to sketch an image in my paper journal. My own Nano started acting up a few days ago, so I had to schedule an appointment with the nearest Genius Bar. I was chronicling the experience.

Which was this: I made an appointment, went over there—a fella poked at my Nano for a few seconds, took into the back, then returned and said “Yep, it’s busted. Yep, it’s under warranty. Here’s a new one. Have a nice day.” I’m streamlining for the sake of brevity, of course, but my point is: wow. If only all customer service experiences could be so smooth.

I think for the most part, the vast majority of the time, customer service experiences are just fine. It’s only the one terrible one in a hundred that gives customer service, in general, a bad rap. This is why we somehow feel like excellent customer service is a gift.

As for me, I’m not such a power-user that any one device is going to suit my needs better than another. Price is going to be the main deciding factor, but I’ll tell you this: with customer service like that, Apple can continue to count on my custom, even at higher prices.

Same’s true for restaurants with a friendly waitstaff. There’s no food so delicious that it makes up for indifferent hosts and rude waiters. And personally, a PBnJ-fan like myself can eat just about anything, if it’s served with a smile.

I’m just assuming that whatever ethic at Apple established that kind of customer service is also behind the watch face on the website showing the correct time. Attention to detail, considering the experience from the customer’s point of view, balancing respect for the bottom line with a long term vision of brand loyalty.

Yeah, I’m coming across as a total fanboi right now. What can I say. That watch thing totally charmed me.

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What Would Andy Rooney Write? (Or: My Transistor Radio is a Cat)

Remember Andy Rooney? I think he died. Not sure. After I write this I’ll go to Wikipiedia and link his name. But by then I’ll have written this, and I don’t feel much like editing. Which might be more introspection than is readable, but then that’s the point of this post.

I saw Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes a few times, and my point of view on him is the one of the popular and uninformed, the PoV fit for creating parody: that he was a rambling bafoon. Part of that is a reactionary disposition, one that rebels against good old fashioned Americana. You know, the same PoV that makes fun of Norman Rockwell and members of the VFW who wear suspenders. We’re such (young) curmudgeons (we’ll be fun to make fun of when we’re old (if we don’t all die of heroin overdoses first (or limp bizkit overdoses (because it is now ironic to listen to limp bizkit (good god time is getting compressed, innit))))).

My transistor radio, which I bought just to listen to AM stations, doesn’t get the best reception all of the time. Or any of the time, now that I think about it. Sometimes, the only place where it doesn’t whine and click is sitting right in front of me, between me and the keyboard. Which is fine if I’m just surfing. But if I want to type (crap) like right now.

“So turn it off!” I can hear you say (and here “you” is a fake person, since no one reads this blog, and if someone does, that person is a crazy person, who understands a little well why the radio can’t be turned off). Well, that’s not going to happen. I abhor silences. One of the (many) reasons I talk all the time.

The point of all of this of course is that I need to write more, a common lament that comes from me, a chronic dirge that comes after a derth of blogging. Blogging… that’s just extemporaneous writing that I’m not ashamed enough to not share in a publically accessible way. And yes, whining that I whine too much has become de rigueur of late as well. So what. Would that have stopped Andy Rooney? A veteran of opinion writing, a professional, a man with a storied career and thousands of fans possessed of and respectful of his intelligence?

I have no idea; I have not read that Wikipedia article yet (and this one-line Dave Barry wannabe end of article zinger is hereby ruined by my pointing out that it’s a failed Dave Barry-esque zinger, if only to say next time: instead of not writing anything like Andy Rooney I’ll try and I’ll fail at emulating Dave Barry).

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I Saw One of Sofia Vergara’s Nipples (and I Liked It)

Trying to think of a good title for this essay. Maybe “The Day Janet Jackson’s Nipple Destroyed America,” or “Nipples Don’t Nourish” or even “Down with Women, Their Parts, Their Agenda.” Something ironic is what I’m going for. I just can’t think of any non-ironic reasons why people get so upset over nipples.

I hopped on the internet today to check the news about the May 1st riots, you know, the ones the police and the terrorists are getting ready for. Doesn’t really affect me, since I work from home in a quiet suburban area; but my wife has to drive to work, and my parents are celebrating their anniversary today by driving into their local city (Sacramento), so I wanted to read up and give them warning about where the tear gas clouds were going to be most concentrated.

I was distracted, right off the bat, by an article about Sofia Vergara. Apparently she recently posed for some foreign-language magazine in a see-thru top. I scanned article quickly until I found what I wanted: a link to the uncensored photo. Score! Nipples inbound!

I looked at the picture for about three seconds. There was the nipple, hooray! I think Sofiia is an attractive lady, and she’s hilarious on Modern Family. In this picture, I didn’t care so much for what the make-up artist and hairstylist had done. Another quick glance at the nipple, then I turned off the computer and went for a run.

First run in almost a week. Cold, windy, hilly, brutal.

And the whole time I ran, I thought about how ridiculous all of the nipple nonsense is. Back in whatever year it was at the Super Bowl halftime show, Janet Jackson flashed her nipple for about a tenth of a second. Nevermind who’s idea it was, or if it was an accident. The result was that conservatives went crazy, and were able to shove their agenda forward that much further. And while I don’t have the exact statistics at hand, I’m pretty sure that meant more kids went hungry than would have otherwise.

I am totally serious about this. Conservatives hate welfare and other entitlement programs. When they get their momentum up, funding to feed people who can’t feed themselves gets cut. Maybe not directly, but it’s my firm opinion that conservatism in general is bad for this country. That’s why I vote the way I do.

But what I want to know is, what’s the rationale for getting upset over a nipple? What are we protecting children from? Let’s just say they’re right, that if a kid sees a nipple, he’ll grow up to hate women and rape them. So? Don’t conservatives hate women anyway? They want women to have unwanted babies, to be probe-raped if they’re going to have abortions, to register as card-carrying prostitutes if they want to insurance for birth control.

(And if you’re going to try and tell me that’s NOT what conservatives believe, conservatives are doing a horrible job of marketing their agenda.)

Why do people get upset when they see a nipple? Because it serves their purpose, that’s why. You might as well blame the month of May for the protesters today. Nipples have nothing to do with, well, anything. At the end of the day, it’s not about the nipple, it’s about using conflict to one’s advantage.

Well, I’m not buying in. I’m not going to let them goad me into a fight. A nipple’s just a nipple.

And much like that nipple, these ideas didn’t occupy my attention for too long, as I ran. More than anything else I ended up thinking about how cold it was, how windy, how much I hate hills, how out of shape I am. I purposefully didn’t look at my GPS watch as I went, because I didn’t want to be disappointed by how little I’d done. Finally, a block or so away from my house, I glanced at: three and half miles. Oh well. At least I didn’t pass any riots while I was out there.

When I got back home, I went to my office to check email real quick before a shower. Turned on the computer, and there was the nipple, waiting for me. But seriously, who did her make-up? Do not like.