Category Archives: Humor

The New Red Scare

It could happen here:

BOBBY

Look, Johnny… we saw what happened in History this morning. Maybe you got off to a rough start, but you’ve still got a chance to fit in. Why don’t you join one of the after-school clubs? There’s the Diversity Club, the Peace-a-longs, The Diversitarians, Feces Art Society, The Multidiversies…

DEBBIE

…don’t forget the Multiculturalettes!

BOBBY

And how, sis! What do you say, Johnny? It’ll be swell! And all our clubs have full federal funding. If you wash that greasy kid stuff out of your hair, I think you might even be FTCA material!

JOHNNY

No dice, Daddy-o! Taxes are for squares.

Bobby and Debbie look at each other quizzically

DEBBIE AND BOBBY

“Squares”?

JOHNNY

Yeah – L-7s. Cubes. Melvins. Nosebleeds.

DEBBIE

Bobby… I think he means he doesn’t like them!

BOBBY

Johnny! Keep it down! Do you want the Hate Speech monitors to hear you? That kind of language could be interpreted by as illegally offensive! They could send you off to Juvie for that!

JOHNNY

Ha! There ain’t no such thing as illegal speech.

BOBBY

What!? Says who?

JOHNNY

Sez dis.

Johnny whips out a laminated card from his dungaree pocket, close up of the Constitution

HORNS

bomp bomp BAAAAAAAAH!

NARRATOR

And so it begins. What Debbie and Bobby don’t know is that “John Smith” is actually Johnny “Snake” Republico, secret agitator for the forces of International Constitutionalism — the insidious extreme rightwing ideology that seeks to bring America to its knees by enslaving our helpless unsuspecting government, and stop it from giving you all the things that you want. It spreads like a cancer, slowly driving victims into violent, racist, anti-tax madness. It takes a strong will to resist the Consties’ hypnotic sales pitch — are Debbie and Bobby up to it?

Find out, after the commercial.

Low Self Esteem

Frank J. says that we should pity the pirates, and ask ourselves why they plunder us:

…for a change, let’s really look at pirates. You may just see how they are the victims in all of this. That may seem ridiculous to you. After all, aren’t they the ones taking hostages? But ransoming hostages is just how they make their living. Do you get angry at an IRS agent or a lawyer for just doing his job? The issue is why pirates find pillaging and plundering their only options.

It’s not going very far out on a limb to say that pirates suffer from low self-esteem. They often have inferior prosthetics, such as hooks and peg legs, and that alone makes them feel disconnected from “normal” people. Then there is the scurvy and the inevitable depression that comes with it. Throw in the addiction to rum, and it’s obvious to anyone that we have individuals in severe need of help. Just look at a pirate’s choice of a pet: the parrot. It’s an aloof animal that does nothing but repeat the pirate’s own words in a mocking tone. If that were not enough of a cry for help, there is also their habit of burying treasure. It’s like they don’t even feel they are worthy of the fruits of their plundering and murder and thus deny it for themselves.

We have to help them. Do it for the children. As one commenter notes, pirates are people, too.