At least somebody’s got their eye on the ball.

A happy holiday to you and yours.

One of the things I like best about the news are the old people. They’re rather cute, in their puttering little way. They’re constantly on about something, like the absurd price of Ovaltine or the yellow peril. It’s presh.

No topic exercises old people quite so much as us. By us I mean, to put it perhaps indelicately, not-old people. Call us young, relevant. Sane. Whatever you like. We aren’t them and so it’s very important that they teach us everything they know, so we avoid their mistakes, like appeasing Hitler. (By the way, my ancient and venerable friends: check.)

Today RealClearMarkets has an article by a man called Bill Frezza, who would probably qualify as “old” even if he didn’t begin his articles with a reference to “my 26 year-old son.” Props to your fecundity, sir. My mother would probably describe it as a mixed blessing, but different strokes, right? Anyway. Bill – Mr. Frezza – sir is very concerned about Social Security. It’s “eat[ing] the young alive.” I know this because his article’s entitled “Watching Social Security Eat the Young Alive.”

His son got this letter – why do all old people’s stories begin with something that happened to their children? Things must happen to them too. Like when Mavis played a perfect game of shuffleboard until she slipped on Sidney’s umbrella and knocked away her last puck. Man, good times. I’m off-topic. Now I know how it feels.

His son got this letter from the Social Security Administration. Sinister, as all communications from the government are. The letter talked about his social security, and informed him that payments go into a “Trust Fund” which pays the people already in it. Mr. Frezza is shocked: “Paying off early investors with funds taken from later investors is precisely how Wikipedia defines a Ponzi scheme.” My word! Do you see how hip he is? He’s on the interwebs! Sadly he’s clearly not attended college in the last thirty years, as professors are a bit wary about accepting internet sources as credible. He missed that.

But I’ll humor him – so much of dealing with the elderly is – and look it up. The first line of the Wikipedia article as it now is reads:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned.

Since he used the term first, for comparison:

In common law legal systems, a trust is an arrangement whereby property (including real, tangible and intangible) is managed by one person (or persons, or organizations) for the benefit of another.

Wow. The definition of “trust fund” is pretty similar to that of Ponzi scheme. I think he’s on to something. That government, with its tricks and its Jell-O and the whoopdee wootchow.

Except. Ol’ Hickory here overlooks a word. That word is fradulent. A Ponzi scheme is fradulent. It is built on a fraud. A trust fund, on the other hand, requires that I – to put it in my hippest terms that Bill could understand, let’s call me Dude A – know that I am putting the money forward to the benefit of somebody else. Dude B. (What a loser Dude B is. Yeah, dude. I mean you.)

So, for instance, if I were running a Ponzi scheme I would probably not send out a letter which reads

Dear Sir

You are paying a great deal of money that is going directly to beneficiaries who are not you. You are doing so in a manner which will not allow you to recoup these monies but, if you’re lucky, will create a situation where other people pay for you to get money back. But probably not, despite the impression I earlier gave you on the phone.

Yours

Peter

This would be silly, and against the spirit of the Ponzi scheme. It would also expose the recipient to their own stupidity in a way that buying into a business strategy constructed by Underpants Gnomes had not already, which is foolhardy.

(I provided the link for you, Bill, in case you got confused.)

After taking a sideswipe at the health care bill – which he’s also concerned about as everyone knows all young people are born with perfect health so why should they pay for insurance? – he gets to the root of the question. (Not before time, as Matlock is coming on.)

“An entire generation is being systematically robbed by their parents with nary a peep. Why aren’t they marching in the streets like we did? [...] There only conclusion I can come to is that we Baby Boomers have infantilized our children into idiocy.”

Or your generation’s comprehensive failure to create either lasting prosperity or a durable welfare state means we don’t have the luxury of spending our twenties engaged in nakedly-frivolous acts of rebellion against generations past. Or perhaps we’ve been robbed of all our collective wealth by the inscrutable machinations of venture capital firms – like the one you work for, Bill! – so that the deregulation you pushed for has resulted in the funds we built up being liquidated in favor of bailouts subsidized by my tax dollars to save the money I put in the bank in the first place. I don’t know though, I’m kind of shooting in the dark. Us kids! No spirit.

This is not the first such article I’ve lately come across. As if the constant hand-wringing about our children (of which I was lately one) by anyone with a stake in politics is not enough, we have to suffer the constant attacks of old people who, having fucked comprehensively the society and indeed the planet they so callously inherited, are now intent on foisting upon us their jerryrigged fixes in an effort to preserve their aged social fiefs under the guise of altruism. Hence the Bush-era hundred-billion-dollar giveaway to AARP, and the stunning duplicity involved in simultaneous whining over cuts to Medicare in the light of the possibility of the introduction of general health insurance.

Who’s behind this? The old people lobby. You laugh, but the average age of a Congressman is presently 56; of a Senator, 62. There is one congressman in his twenties and only a handful in their thirties. Hardly surprising, when the “decentralized,” “local” and “bipartisan” nature of our politics means the most important thing is a lot of money (or friends with it) and no political background, if it can be avoided. No inconvenient principles to get in the way of caring for our children. We – the not-old – could always influence the process, of course, but there’s not much room for us because none of us have any money to donate. Which is why we’re so busy working, because our parents… You get the idea.

Now, you’re going to think that, on the reverse side of the coin, I blame old people for all of our problems. Considering they have all of the power, money and well-tailored lobbyists, yes, I do. But this is beside the point. I am looking instead for that rarest of qualities which my generation apparently lacks: responsibility.

You see, I’m tired of being hid behind. I’m tired of old people justifying their policies – or tragically more often, their rejection of policies – as a necessity for our children’s future. Or not passing the buck to future generations. Or whatever. Because the very ironic thing is that in so doing that is exactly what you accomplish. You’re saying, implicitly, that we should wait until future generations have their say – that they, or we, will make the decision when we’re ready. And you can say the same during the next one. And the next. There’s always a future generation that needs to be given its say, that can be used a shield to perpetuate the status quo in the name of generational justice. There is always an excuse not to choose now, because it is unfair, because it does violence to some as-yet unheard group.

I am aware of this difficulty. There’s even a term for it. It’s called governing. And by blaming your inaction and worse, your bad, self-serving ideas on the need to protect future generations – to protect me – you’re not only failing to govern and paternalizing us in the same way your parents did you, you’re guilty of those cardinal sins you accuse us of: Irresponsibility. Bad grammar. And cowardice. Moral, and political and practical cowardice.

So I say stop worrying about me, Bill. Look to your own defenses. I do not need to be protected, thank you. All the “coddling” you and people like you whine about isn’t helped by the prospect of the failure that is your ruling class taking it upon itself to engage in decades of hand-wringing – or worse, a radical rollback of the “failed” benefits system – based on your idea about what I need and how I need it. I can’t help notice, Bill, that the one thing your article doesn’t include is the part where you ask your son what he thinks. Maybe he agrees with you. But I don’t.

Because you’re right about one thing. There is a problem with how this country is run, with the people who run it and with the worldview you represent. It’s old and stale; it’s dying. And the solution lies not with the people who brought us to this pass. It is to let a new generation fuck it up all in its own unique way. When you finally get out of the way, Bill, I look forward to the opportunity. It probably won’t be the America you know anymore, but I don’t mind. I no longer care for yours. And generational justice is not about your fear and trembling over my future – it is letting me live my present.

That might not be a bad thing. Anyway, I’m pretty sure we can’t do as badly as you did. We think too much. Just not like you.

I mean you, Sepp Bladder, you awful manbearpig

Before getting to the World Cup draws themselves, I want to make clear that I will not christen a group of death.  FIFA has made groups of death obsolete.  Nothing like 1986 can happen again; stage management from continental leagues on up is such that no win will be terribly surprising, no loss so unexpected. It takes something away from the spirit of the game, but there you go. It’s not as if there’s no hope. Even 2006 managed a Group E.

Group A

One is tempted to be uncharitable and say that once again a biased and corrupt seeding system has worked to the benefit of Les Snooze. One is tempted to be right. Coach/offense to football Raymond Domenech bitched and moaned about his team being excluded from the top flight because of do-you-know-who-I-am? as if it could be thought fair for a qualifying group runner-up to be ranked in preference to the winner, Serbia. He can stuff it.

That said, even if they stumbled upon a path France remains to escape the woods. I learnt my lesson in the qualifiers when picking them, despite truly horrendous play, to come atop a Serbian team that not long ago would have been comically easy. A lot of better teams failed to get to Jo’burg and it slightly maddens me that the consensus is already to award the group to France. (No offense, Jon.)

I respectfully dissent. My money is on a good Mexico side, who don’t have to stretch have to beat France. They can tie or lose and still put away Uruguay and probably the unfortunate South Africans, who have Pienaar and some guys he met at a bus stop Friday afternoon.

France’s native skill is enough to see them bumble through, so I’ll nod them for the second spot, despite more hot-headed predictions. No mistake I’d like to see them punished, but they’re lucky. For now.

Group B

The Greek national team

An interesting collection. Nothing really bad here, though Greece doesn’t inspire and Argentina’s ailing with a deficit of talent on the field matching that in coach Diego Maradona, who scraped them through the qualifiers with an anemic 8-4-6 record. We were speaking of losing teams being seeded higher – Argentina was South America’s lowest automatic qualifier and only then thanks to a late goal by Mario Bolatti. (Who?)

South Korea (which is a Republic, in case you didn’t know) weren’t able to replicate their success in 2002, crashing out narrowly in the group stage, but rallied to win the Asian Cup the year after and pipped Japan to win the East Asian cup. Doubtful competition, to be sure, but talent like Park Chu-Young makes them a threat. Nigeria overcame traditional African powerhouse Tunisia to get here but haven’t thrilled.

In Nigeria’s case I would ask whether Obafemi Martins or Victor Obinna can be their side’s Drogba or Eto’o. I’m doubtful.

Argentina to top the group only narrowly. South Korea to go to the sixteen with them.

Group C

I spoke of mistakes. I’ve made a few. One was predicting Slovenia to lose their second-place draw. I have seen the error of my ways and I’m attempting to atone.

As such, though you’ll think I’m crazy and you’ll be right, either England or the injury-plagued United States are going home with Algeria.  Slovenia have something, you see. Call it fortune. Call it God. Call it the fussballgeist. Whatever. Like Turkey in 2008 they should not by any means be winning, and have no right to be, but are. In Slumdog Millionaire they would say it’s because “it is written.” Whatever it is, it is.

Who are their players? How’s the back-four? What about possession? Don’t know, don’t care. Many very silly people are dumping on them – while tweeting during the Guardian’s minute-by-minute someone remarked that they weren’t better than anybody – and these people are right. Slovenia weren’t better than the Czechs; or the Poles; or the Northern Irish; or the Russians. And yet all are long gone.

Of the big two even if the US had the talent and depth to make a go of it the injuries sustained towards the irrelevant end of qualifying will probably mean we see a substandard side. And the US wasn’t that good to start with. A strong but not superlative England will qualify at the top and Slovenia will take the second position. America, thanks for playing.

Group D

Germany, to a lesser degree, also cannot catch a break. No one ever thinks they’re very good and I can never tell why. Their qualification record was flawless; they placed third in 2006 and second in 2008; and have talent like  Podolski, Ballack and Schweinsteiger at the front and little Philipp Lahm at back. They’ve had some internal issues, and some tragedies, under coach Joachim Low – my reply is “Yeah and?” Every team does. If they’ve suffered I just don’t see it. Go on all you want, but look at the matches. Their performance is, indeed, German: maybe not inspiring, but solid and stalwart and always where it needs to be.

They’re in a tough group, too; far worse than immediate collective Group of Death G. Australia and Ghana are arguably the best in their leagues (for Oz their move to Asia means that’s no longer a sneery boast) and feature marquee players at their head. Serbia is a reviving powerhouse who bested a group including France, Austria and nominally-superior Romania, and unlike other small countries they did so without resorting to a single star hopelessly trailed by the rest of the team. Not for nothing, too: this is the only group where all four teams appeared in 2006. All but Serbia cleared the groups, making it the most collectively successful, too.

I can’t see Germany failing to qualify, though it’s conceivable they might not top the group. Any of the other three could go forward with them. This year I’ll give Australia the edge over both thanks to a tougher qualification run than the others got.

There’s no group of death. But if there were… the fireworks would be here.

Group E

As a Danish fan I was not displeased: this was a better draw than one might expect. The Dutch cruised effortlessly through qualification even if they let a disappointing friendly draw with Paraguay reward their loss of Van Persie to injury. (A blessing in disguise? He’ll be well-rested in plenty of time to train for South Africa, and being out means he’ll be less exhausted from constant league and European matches until then.) Denmark had little more difficulty, losing only to Hungary in their last match in a group that included Portugal and Sweden.

As for Japan, though they apparently have a strong midfield they were badly drubbed in 2006, lost the Asian Cup the year after and lost every game in last year’s Olympics, which is not known for exhibitions of great footballing skill. They also have only one player on their squad who currently plays outside the J-League, which points to a deficit of international experience. Though cultural homogeneity can perhaps be a strength, their recent friendly records are decidedly mixed, with wins over Ghana and Scotland  balanced by a 3-0 failure against the Dutch.

Cameroon, meanwhile, crept through on the strength of Samuel Eto’o and his many watches. They offer a good record and have an unusually deep bench with lots of players in the top flight, and though they’ve little World Cup experience they took second at the 2008 African Cup of Nations and perenially feature well there. Too Africa is not the football backwater many once thought. These were real challenges they faced.

Won’t do them, though. The Dutch will clear, maybe with three straight wins, and on low points the resurgent Danes will follow. Japan will fall bottom. Cameroon will miss out narrowly, but have a young team and bright future.

Group F

My Slovenia rule somehow doesn’t extend to neighboring Slovakia. As a fourth-seed their qualification would have been the talk of UEFA if not for Slovenia’s success; but unlike their close neighbors they didn’t clear anybody really tough to get here and impressed less despite a superficially better line-up. The moral value of a scalp like Russia’s makes a big difference.

Same with New Zealand. It’s exciting for them just to be here. Presumably they’ll be allowed to stay and watch all the way to the end.

It is hard to imagine the Azzurri coming below Paraguay, who nevertheless offered a strong performance in tough marathon qualifying. And Italy had an easy-ish group. And really didn’t do that well. So maybe not impossible. And oddly satisfying.

In the interests of contrariness, then: Paraguay come top. A weakish Italy at their backs.

Group G

BIG SCARY GROUP OOOOOH.

Snore.

Oh my Ronaldito, there there...

To make up for all the ink yet to be spilled on this collection: Brazil qualifies. North Korea does not. Real race falls between Portugal and Ivory Coast for second. (I know it’s Cote d’Ivoire,  and I’m switching back and forth… but only so much can be expected of Americans.) Portugal had a badly flawed qualifying run in a difficult group while Cote d’Ivoire had a faultless one against pedestrian opposition.

Cote d’Ivoire, then, as Cristiano Ronaldo pre-emptively bursts into tears on which Simao subsequently slips and misses a penalty. Plus their flag is pretty.

Group H

Interesting one, this. Perpetually overrated Spain (it’s their year – really!) face Chile, Switzerland and North American dregs Honduras. The latter’s schizophrenic performance in the qualifiers and the old age of their recent call-ups suggest to me little threat. Probably ageist, especially given that a good many pros are already younger than me… but then none of these people play for Honduras. So then there were three.

Snide at Spain though I may they qualified perfectly, and indeed beautifully, refusing to give up any pointless games simply to protect themselves from injury like some European teams I can think of England. It would be almost an injustice were they not to go far in the World Cup. They’ll at least beat the group.

After Spain there’s a real dogfight for second-place. But Chile, who qualified second on tiebreaks with Paraguay, are a formidable team with a deep bench who handily took recent friendlies against Paraguay, Denmark and Slovakia while the Swiss are le sigh with the added stain of the hypocrisy of a deeply xenophobic country relying on a Turkish Muslim halfback and a Congolese striker for a high proportion of their offensive oomph.

So in the spirit of football my second place is Paraguay. Think of it as my contribution to ending racism. I’ll accept my Commentators’ Fair Bray award now, Sepp. You bastard.

Thoughts? Comment’s free.

No thanks. We’ll call back later.

underage girl,  under age girls,  underage girls,  underage facial,  reginald veljohnson

Harrumph.  I don’t remember writing anything about Reginald VelJohnson.

That’s right. Buses. Buses for sale. All kinds of buses. On the internet. You can buy a bus on the internet.

Now I don’t know about you. But I find it next to impossible to see a billboard reading “Busesforsale.com” and not go to it. So I did. To spare you, a screenshot:

You can buy school buses. You can buy transit buses. You can even buy Van Hool buses. I don’t know what a Van Hool bus is – but why wouldn’t I buy one? Maybe I’ve always wanted a Van Hool bus. Maybe that’s what been missing from my life and I’ve never known it. Busesforsale.com sure thinks so.

Actually they have Van Hool buses available started at $89,900. Which is quite reasonable. For a Van Hool.

Of course there is a little gainsayer inside me. “Why would you need a Van Hool bus?” it asks. “Wouldn’t you want to see the bus first? Wouldn’t you want to buy it from someone with a face and a name?”

The answer, naturally, is no. I find dealing with people firsthand detestable. Not to mention that I cannot imagine a bus salesman having a particularly commendable deportment.

But of course now I wonder. What else can I buy online? Snakes?

Too easy. Reptilesncritters.com lets me buy snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and spiders online. And I’m talking some obscure shit. Albino banana Cal king snake? Check. Giant desert hairy scorpions? Check. Bumblebee poison arrow frog? Oh yeah. And they have a a very helpful FAQ section explaining what happens if a shipment arrives “DOA” and why it’s “very difficult, if not impossible, to sex baby reptiles or amphibians.”

That got me thinking. I do so much of my banking online: could I do my sperm banking too?

Why yes. Yes we can.

The California Cryobank is one of several American institutions that allows you to order sperm online from the comfort of your very own home. They walk you through the entire process from account creation through the “insemination countdown,” which sounds enjoyable. You can profile and select donors recruited from graduates of some of the country’s top universities. You can even comparison shop!

Too institutionalized for you? There are of course freelancers aplenty on the World Wide Web. They even include actor, musician and raconteur Vincent Gallo, otherwise famous for being fellated on camera by Chloe Sevigny in a movie everybody but the French hated. For $1,000,000 US, Gallo will “will supply sperm for as many attempts as it takes to complete a successful fertilization and successful delivery,” though he seems keen on a few, shall we say, racial restrictions. Of course one cannot be totally sure this is a good faith offer (and it certainly would require some offline preparations), but nothing else about the man’s web presence appears to be funny and the Internet, as we all know, is a deadly serious enterprise.

There are restrictions, of course. In the UK rules were introduced in 2006 to forbid “fresh sperm” sales and require six months of freezing prior to sale, largely in response to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State being bored at work. In the Netherlands sperm donation is no longer anonymous. But this is no real obstacle to my impulse buying as America has not yet fallen to European commufascism.

Every four year-old who watches GI Joe, of course, knows that freedom is not just the ability to create life. It’s the ability to destroy it. The internet will show me the way here, too.

This is the website of the Iranian Defense Industries Organization. On this website you can register and place orders. What kind of orders? Oh. Well. How about a Taftan Mine Cleaner? But you’ll need to protect it. We have T-72S main battle tanks for that. You’re going to want to clear the area first, so a RAAD-2 155mm self-propelled artillery piece is in order, as are some nuclear-biological-chemical protective gear and a patrol boat for water transport. Missiles optional.

In case you’re wondering, they do accept Visa.

But what will I do with all of this? I’ll tell you. I have to because that’s how movies work.

Not necessarily representative

I am going to splice the sperm of our nation’s best and brightest with the poison arrow frogs. I will create a super-race of poisonous, super-intelligent frog people capable of jumping twenty feet in the air, living off flies, doing long division and loving me just the way I am. Of course the government will try to stop me, but with the help of my super-soldiers/new best friends and the finest munitions Islamic theocracy has to offer, I will fight them off – and eventually, take over the world.

And then?

Then I’m going to buy a specially-modified Van Hool bus. My frogpeople and I will start a family band. We’ll do covers of Journey and Raffi’s greatest hits. Everyone will have to watch us. It’ll be awesome.

And I will live happily ever after. On the Internet.

]]> http://peterwahlberg.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/how-i-will-enslave-the-human-race/feed/ 0 peterwahlberg busesforsale buseshome http://peterwahlberg.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/geeks-and-gaga-a-gay-romp/ http://peterwahlberg.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/geeks-and-gaga-a-gay-romp/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:39:18 +0000 Peter Wahlberg http://peterwahlberg.wordpress.com/?p=569 ]]>

First things first: I was incredibly pleased to see that one of the five hits I had today was from a Google search for Reginald VelJohnson. Does he have a fan club? I might start one.

But this is not about that. Instead it is about a little liberal boy in Arkansas. This little liberal boy decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance because of the failure of the Several States to grant gay marriage. In his own words:

I looked at the end, and it said ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ and there really isn’t… gays and lesbians can’t marry, there’s still a lot of racism and sexism in the world.”

[...]

I eventually, very solemnly, with a little bit of malice in my voice, said, ‘Ma’am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge.’

Now I’m not going to fisk a ten year-old boy. I’d be lying if I said part of me didn’t want to, since he’s clearly very confused about the role of ideals in public life and needs to read Paul Ricoeur. But the risk that he might find this and engage in a public and humiliating internets debate with someone more than twice his age, and that I’d lose, is just too great.

However. There is something I’d like to say to him. Do you know what I’d like to say to him?

Hey, kid. You’re ten. Chill the fuck out.

I say this, you see, because I was exactly like this kid. When I was ten, and he a mere glint in his father’s eye, I read Time and was desperately concerned about the Embassy bombings and the Lewinsky scandal. I spared no effort in ruthlessly boring my conservative Catholic school peers with these views, turning every carpool home into a valiant rear-guard action for the forces of the International Left. I even wanted to be a lawyer.

In keeping with the era – gag me with a spoon.

I’m glad this kid feels passionately about the issues of the day, I guess. But for his sake I’d prefer he felt passionately about Taylor Swift. Or Taylor Lautner, if those be his druthers. Caring about politics so deeply at such a young age presages the development of a very boring character animated only by some kind of deep-seated sexual perversion featuring choke play or airport restrooms. I think I’m living proof that the cost of a little bit of ignorance at ten is the avoidance of thousands of man-hours worth of therapy, a diffident attitude towards human suffering and an unhealthy relationship with Dr. Pepper.

But of course I don’t get therapy. That’s why I have you, dear reader(s?… oops, no, never mind).

Pain me as it might to say it, there’s a reason that the kids in his class call him a gaywad. It’s because it’s true. It’s not because he’s standing up for gays. It’s because he won’t shut up about gay marriage and had to go give the backwards substitute teacher a red ass when she otherwise would’ve left them alone to play DS and talk about Hannah Montana. Now he’s on TV being annoying on a grand scale. (And as usual thanks for being so hard-hitting, CNN.) They might think he’s cooler for it, but I’m doubtful. Very few ten year-olds want to be at the center of a political scandal. But there’s always one. And that one is a gaywad.

Now my radiclib friends (who are nevertheless less radical than I, as they’ve failed to embrace the importance of tyranny) will object to this. He’s taking a stand, which is noble and part of the great struggle for equality under the law.

Perhaps. But if one does not deconstruct a ten year old’s argument, because he’s ten and it’d be ridiculous and unsporting, why would we hold him up as a paragon of democratic virtue either? Especially given what it says about people of, uh, voting age, that we require a midwestern pre-teen to fight our battles for us. Doing one better we’ve taken this poor kid and now pretentious sacks of anus pus all over the country are writing blog posts about him.

(Hi.)

So I’m going to stop. Right…

after this really creepy new Lady Gaga video. Which could be construed as either an argument for or against gay rights. I’ll let you decide. I’ve got to return a $5 bill to the bank in protest at our failure to realize the ideals of the Gettysburg Address.

• Sometimes, when I don’t feel very clever, I read the comments on YouTube videos.  This invariably makes me feel better. Consider the retort of a Grecian on this trashy Eurotrance video, which boldly asserts “i can bet that i am more human than u are by the fact that i have a phd and emotions.” Indeed, sir.
• Systems of taxation are, invariably, simultaneously fair and totally nonsensical. One is liable to dismiss the former as a result of the latter. Especially when one is essentially extending  a no-interest short-term loan when one’s own debts cry out for payment.
• For the reasons above, I intend someday to nationalize the GM corporation, engage in a campaign to make it radically unprofitable, and then sell it to a wealthy dilettante, preferably a foreigner. This asymmetry will please me.
• Have you ever noticed that Sarah Palin supposedly “transferred schools” shortly after Andy Kaufman allegedly died of cancer?
• I have come to believe that I occasionally lose consciousness and do a great deal of work for persons unknown. If you are persons unknown, please come forward in order that I might be able to more adequately complete my tax information.
• As a result of all of the above, I am reconsidering grad school.

Et'whoa

This weekend the tiny (tiny?  I don’t really have much point of reference) African nation of Cameroon completed its World Cup qualifying run, thanks in large part to the efforts of world-class player Samuel Eto’o.  But the team-spirited Eto’o didn’t want his team to feel overshadowed.  So he bought them watches.

$50,000 watches.

From his own line of specialty watches.

I think the world here is – baller.

There is apparently some phenomenon whereby people across the country find an excuse in every single arbitrary temporal phenomenon to take leave of their senses and create a hideous fad.  (Generally this is college students, as they are the only ones both underoccupied and overstupid enough to embark upon such fetishes.)  What am I talking about?  Today, No shave November.

I'm getting ED just looking at them

What is no shave November?  The fact that you ask fills me with bile.  Essentially, come November you don’t shave.  That’s it.  The point of it to the best of my knowledge is to drive me still closer to the inevitable mental breakdown that began when I didn’t get a Power Wheels at three. They were awesome. Katie Gardner had one. I didn’t. I didn’t even have one of those stupid plastic cars you pedaled around in yourself like a fucking Flintstone. Seriously, I could’ve just walked. It was indoctrination into car culture. Fortunately Captain Planet deprogrammed me.

How serious is “No shave November”? Check out the beginning of this post by a self-identified participant:

Yes, it is time for me to earn some more points to my man card.

And now my eyes are bleeding.

This gentleman goes on to describe “NSN” and even provides a helpful video of his 2008 effort in case you’ve never been to a bowling alley or sexual assault trial and so don’t know what an unkempt mid-twenties Caucasian man looks like. (Though, since he may have linked here, I don’t mean to imply that this unkempt mid-twenties Caucasian man either bowls or sexually assaults. But I don’t know that he doesn’t. Why won’t he tell us? I’m just asking the question.)

Incidentally when I went to search for this episode of South Park to use as a comic aside I got a post on the Atlantic blog about the episode, which complains that

it starts off quite violently, with a shooting at the school that resonates a bit differently in the wake of Ft. Hood.

This is unadmirably ridiculous. Not once when watching the episode did I make that connection, nor did anyone else watching with me; and the idea that an actual (and deplorable) massacre at a US Army base has any relationship to a man mistakenly shooting dead a nine year-old boy because he confused him with a forty year-old trucker who’s sleeping with his wife, or that a person would or should feel some sense of connection between the two, is not just ludicrous. It’s not just actually insensitive. It’s anti-comedy. It’s the sort of connection Glenn Beck himself would make, which sort of proves that South Park’s point is not exclusively about Glenn Beck.

The worst part about No shave November is that invariably the people who participate with the greatest vigor are those who have the least capacity for facial hair. (If I lacked moral objections, this would be my fallback position.) At the adjacent computer – not the girl working on a program for the first meeting of the “Lusty Lady Book Club,” which is pleasantly to feature Lawrence and Dangerous Liaisons, the other one – is a kid my age who looks like Timothy Hutton. In the late 1990s. In his made-for-TV movie about Aldrich Ames. That’s bad.

And indeed, within the space of a week, a crowd of otherwise normal-looking men (and one must imagine some very questionable women) are suddenly sprouting similar patches of SOS pad all over their faces.

You know. This guy.

Why do you do this?  Why? It doesn’t make sense. It’s not right. Why do otherwise normal people suddenly look like that evil security guy in Richie Rich after Professor Keenbean sticks a burlap sack with sticky solution over his head. Remember that guy? In Richie Rich? Do you even know what I’m talking about?

Whatever. It’s immaterial. What happened to our morals – our values? Why can people walk around all day long not shaving their beards and looking ridiculous and getting Power Wheels and nobody does anything?

So here’s what I’m going to do. (Because I’m a citizen. It’s my duty.) I’m making a new tradition. I’m making Forced Relocation February. I’m making a list of everyone I see participating in No Shave November and I’m going to have them deported to Greenland. I have this power. Citizen-power. Obama said I can. And I do.

ROSEBUD

This will be a much more wholesome tradition than stupid No Shave November. It will bring us together, as we slide the burlap sacks over the (awkwardly-bearded) faces of those to be moved. It will be constructive, socially. We’ll get to do this together and the deportees will get homes. And health care. In Greenland. And Greenland will, I don’t know, maybe get a soccer team. And I will get what’s mine. At long, sweet last. You hear that, Katie Gardner? MINE.