What Have We Learned From Mocking Others?

I reviewed the results of Troll Poll #2, and reread last week’s posts pertaining to Florida news stories (because I sometimes write these in a semi-conscious state) in order to tease some valuable lessons out of what is otherwise cacophonous jibber jabber. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Sometimes journalists are lazy. Especially when they quote someone for the sake of having quoted someone. Or when they write sentences like, “The accident was apparently a freak accident.” And then aim to improve it by changing it to, “The incident was apparently a freak accident.”

2. Sometimes journalists are magicians. Especially when they use linguistic sleight of hand to gloss over otherwise inexplicit claims begging for clarification, such as, “The trappers decided the female had to be euthanized because she was too big to be relocated…” Does too big mean too old? Or too long? Or too heavy to carry? And what is the numerical value of “too big”? Seven feet? Six feet eleven inches? Five hundred and twenty-three pounds? And relocated to where? A local zoo? A theme park boastful of their ability to rescue wild animals? The next neighborhood over?

3. Sometimes no news is NOT good news. Especially if you work in the PR department of a large Midwestern beer company and are tasked with managing a potentially damaging crisis, and in the first twenty-four hours there are only two brief articles written about it, so you’re like “woo-hoo!” but then some jerfkoff blogger posts a thrown together rambling tirade that accuses your company of hypocrisy, which he only expected five people to read, and because there aren’t any real articles about the accident available, the jerkoff’s rantings continue to show up on the first page of a Google search, and now you have to monitor the jerkoff’s blog in case he ramps up the negativity in the comments, and so you keep coming back, hour after hour, day after day, until finally more articles are published and they knock the jerkoff’s post down in the search result rankings, but by this time you’ve reached the point of obsession and you. Just. Can’t. Take. Your. Eyes. Off. The. Screen. Because you’ve been drawn in by all the other brilliantly pointless things the jerkoff has to say. When you find yourself in this predicament, dude, just relax. It’s Miller Time.

4. Truck Nutz are dumb. Really no need to elaborate. But the ball ban measure failed to pass, so on the one hand, it’s a victory for Floridian freedom of expression, on the other hand, it’s business as usual. Yes, you read that right. Having failed to limit the public’s exposure to fake nuts, they’ve gone and legislated a reverse rain dance holiday instead. For the second year in a row. Here’s the text:

WHEREAS, we, the Florida Senate, are a bunch of opportunistic fartknockers, and WHEREAS, we continually strive to improve our re-electability while failing to address a majority of important issues and mucking up the ones we do tackle, and WHEREAS, we get a kick out of dressing up our insanity in fanciful clause-ridden language punctuated by capitalized WHEREASes which most people have trouble following, NOW, THEREFORE,

Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida: That, in recognition of the People’s failure to keep close tabs on us, we will continue to passively insinuate we deserve credit for things no person has control over, such as keeping the State of Florida hurricane free, until such a time that our blatant Misuse of Office is apparent to a two-thirds majority of the People, or our ridiculous agenda driven gamble is discredited by the landfall of a named tropical cyclone, at which point we will henceforth proclaim that “God works in mysterious ways.”

5. Polls are silly. (See Troll Poll #3 (Yes, #3!).)

Oh yeah, today’s Cinco de Mayo. So all you Americans out there don’t forget to celebrate Mexico’s victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla by drinking Mexican themed beer and/or margaritas while eating nachos. Their victory delayed the French from supplying the Confederate Army with weapons which would’ve, at best, prolonged our Civil War, and at worst, who knows? So it’s the least you can do. Plus, it’s good for the economy. I plan to drink my Mexican beer while swinging a pair of plastic bull testicles over my head and daring the Lord God Almighty to throw a Cat 5 our way.

P.S. Linky Linky: Don’t forget to check out Author’s Week over on Chris’ blog.

And Precie's got her first contest of the month up.

And as if waking up to discover you’ve survived to live another day wasn’t enough, Protrudio beckons you to participate in Abysswinksback’s first writing exercise, which we hope will become a regular event.