I am the wet dream of conservative nightmares…
Like our foreign-born President, Barack Obama bin Laden, I am a radical militant of both the Islamic and Socialist varieties. This means that I hate anyone who doesn’t believe in Allah because I’m a devout Muslim, and I hate Muslims because I’m an atheist who doesn’t believe in any god or religion. Presumably, this means I hate myself, which might explain my fondness for suicide bombings…
People who are accustomed to thinking for themselves often experience confusion upon visiting the virtual salons in which Arch-Conservatives share their erudite observations concerning history, science, and current affairs. This confusion stems in large part from the vastly different evidentiary standards by which Far-Right Wingers tend to evaluate different beliefs. Some beliefs require no supporting evidence at all to be accepted as Truth in the Uber-Conservative Consciousness. But there are other beliefs for which no amount of evidence can ever suffice. For instance, no evidence is necessary to support the belief that Barack Obama is an illegal Kenyan immigrant born in Mombasa. But no amount of evidence is sufficient to support the belief that Obama is a U.S. citizen born in Honolulu…
Read the rest in the Clockwise Cat…
It has become a rather stale mantra among progressives that the ideology of the Republican Party in the Obama Era is reducible to a single word: “No.” However, if you take the time to peruse the party’s website, you will find that the GOP’s brand of intransigent denialism is far too complex to be captured by a mere monosyllabic utterance. In fact, on a page entitled “What We Believe,” you will learn that Republicans embrace no fewer than seven tenets of historical revisionism and socio-economic fantasy that would give even the most skilled psychiatrist a run for his money…
{…first appeared in the Clockwise Cat…}
I was a bland and humorless child. The causes of this condition are legion. Start with the combed-over, slicked-down hair, parted just above my left ear and extending in a single horrifying mass all the way to my right ear. Throw in debilitating shyness, paralyzing social anxiety, and a genetic inability to catch, hit, throw, or run while holding a ball of any kind, and you have the makings of one sorry specimen of American boyhood—me. And it was all down hill as I made my way into an awkward adolescence and dysfunctional young adulthood: glasses with lenses as thick as bricks, volcanic pustules of cystic acne, and a nearly terminal case of protracted virginity…
Read the rest in The Cynic Online Magazine…
While familiarity may breed contempt in some social circles, most people who get to know me are more commonly afflicted by morbid curiosity. It takes only a few conversations of any depth before I find myself confronted by an inevitable question. “So, what was it that turned you into such a depressed and bitter drug addict?”
For many people, this might be a complicated question, if not offensive. Who can say with certainty what twists a normal human mind, full of potential and promise, into a mangled mass of neurons such as mine. Genetic defects, perhaps; a brain born incapable of producing that optimum mix of neurotransmitters essential to a happy and fulfilled life. Or a half-buried childhood trauma that wordlessly drives one into a self-destructive cocoon of chemical isolation. Or, conceivably, being smarter than most of one’s peers and capable of recognizing the tortured hypocrisies that fill the world we inhabit…
Read the rest in the Clockwise Cat…
{…excerpted from a longer piece which first appeared in the Clockwise Cat…}
I was a bland and humorless child. The causes of this condition are legion. Start with the combed-over, slicked-down hair, parted just above my left ear and extending in a single horrifying mass all the way to my right ear. Throw in debilitating shyness, paralyzing social anxiety, and a genetic inability to catch, hit, throw, or run while holding a ball of any kind, and you have the makings of one sorry specimen of American boyhood—me. And it was all down hill as I made my way into an awkward adolescence and dysfunctional young adulthood: glasses with lenses as thick as bricks, volcanic pustules of cystic acne, and a nearly terminal case of protracted virginity…
Read the rest at The Short Humour Site…
I was a bland and humorless child. The causes of this condition are legion. Start with the combed-over, slicked-down hair, parted just above my left ear and extending in a single horrifying mass all the way to my right ear. Throw in debilitating shyness, paralyzing social anxiety, and a genetic inability to catch, hit, throw, or run while holding a ball of any kind, and you have the makings of one sorry specimen of American boyhood—me. And it was all down hill as I made my way into an awkward adolescence and dysfunctional young adulthood: glasses with lenses as thick as bricks, volcanic pustules of cystic acne, and a nearly terminal case of protracted virginity.
As if I didn’t have enough somatic and psychological barriers separating me from the rest of humanity, I also had the misfortune of being born to parents who refused to lie to me. From the moment I was old enough to ask questions, they heartlessly provided me with real answers. “Where do babies come from?” “Who puts the presents under the Christmas tree?” No stork or Santa Claus; just sexual intercourse and rampant consumerism. Like a little missionary, I brought my joyless brand of objectivity to the juvenile masses…
