The Other Side Weighs In

Dear most honorable Mr. Stupidocles,

My husband Mr. Hoyteetoytee and I wish to gratefully thank you for your
exquisite online advice column, "Smileys:  Is More Really
Better?".  We'd been at a loss
lately what to do with our little boy, Smedleykins Cuisinart®
Hoyteetoytee.  He just turned two and a half, and has been getting
ever so restless!  Whilst flying aboard our Goodyear™ blimp,
Stewart happened upon your site (we have a wireless internet
connection) and your wonderful article about boarding school for
toddlers.  We'd registered Smedleykins for Sunbeam YuppieKids
Academy this fall, but your shining words of wisdom pierced our
hearts.  We pulled him out immediately and put him into Dunbean
Hockingsworth College for Toddlers, the most prestigious boarding
school in the nation for children ages 2-4.  Only toddlers from
the most qualified and pedigreed families are accepted, and the hypoallergenic robot
staff have all been certified and tested by
Dr. Cray Zelune.  Now we can be assured that Smedleykins will be
taken care of and
properly challenged; coursework at Dunbean Hockingsworth includes
Advanced Potty Training, Improvisational Play, and Fingerpainting 201: Transcending Gender Stereotypes.  Some might
wince at tuition, room, and board totalling $2 million dollars per
year, but we would spare no expense for the good of our child. 
The peace of mind is priceless, and we'll be free to blimp about the
countryside night and day, without a care in the world!

All of this would never have been possible without your wonderful and
insightful advice.  Perhaps you may tell us something about
Goodyear™ blimps?  I am sure you can, since you are so smart and
wonderful.

By the way, you handled that nasty letter from that dreadful straw man
very well.  You have to wonder about a person who would stand in a
field scaring crows all day long.  I'm sorry you have to deal with
such a person.  Well, thank you again for bringing our lives to
perfection.  You certainly are a tool, a most blessed tool of
Providence.

Your friends for life,

Mrs. and Mr. Stewart Hoyteetoytee

Dear Hoyteetoytee family:



Your son must be a sharp lad!  People like you are a breath of fresh air.  Your kind words warm my heart. 



Sincerely,

Stupidocles

P.S.  Can I borrow some money?

What's the Point?

Dear STUPIDocles,

Ha Ha, you jokester!  You're so clever.  You absolutely skewered
all those hoity-toity rich folks who don't have time for their own
children.  I wish I were just half as clever and gracious as you,
assuming the worst about people you know absolutely nothing
about.  How about you actually take the time to talk to people and
ask them why they use daycare?  Have you ever heard of the single
mother?  The family who needs two incomes to stay afloat? 
And why are you telling
parents how to raise their kids, are you some kind of
expert?  You don't even have any!  I've always been one to
call a tool for digging, typically
having a long handle and a narrow, flat metal blade that can be pressed
into the ground with the foot a spade; and you sir, are not a spade, but you are a tool (or fool, you choose!).  Consider yourself  <<<<<<<<<<FLAMED!!!>>>>>>>>>>

                       
   
*** The SCARECROW ***

Dear Mr. Scared-Cow,

I
respectfully ask that you refrain from making fun of my name.  I'm
afraid you read a little too much into my last post.  I was not in
fact scaring anybody (it's spelled s-c-a-r-e-d, not
"skewered").  You did have a good suggestion to talk to
people.  You might want to use it yourself, and find out what I
really meant by my post.  You have "cleverly" and "graciously"
assumed the worst of me who(m?) you know absolutely nothing
about.  I don't have a child, but I'm certainly entitled to an
opinion about them.  I don't have a Goodyear™ blimp either, does
that mean I can't have an opinion about Goodyear™ blimps?

I
am glad to hear that I am not a spade.  Perhaps I am a crescent
wrench or a saw.  Tools can be used to do good work as well as
bad.  And you, my friend, are a rebellious hammer that struck my
thumb instead of the nail like it was supposed to (bad tool!).

      How about a little fire, ScareCrow?    Get a brain!  

Smileys: Is More Really Better?

I got a haircut today, but not because my fortune cookie told me to.  I was going to get one anyway.

On a serious note, I saw a patient yesterday who teaches at a preschool where the tuition is $8000 per year. 
This sounds ridiculous until you realize that it is year-round and also
serves as a daycare, with hours from 6 A.M. to 6:30 P.M. (the preschool
portion being a mere 7 to 4), five days per week.  So that's 62.5
hours / week for $154, rounding up to only $2.50 per hour.  A
small price to pay, right?

To some, a bunch of 3-year olds spending 12.5 hours per day with each other might seem excessive.  There's probably a lot of negative peer pressure that goes on when all of those terrible tykes get together.   But on the other hand, that still leaves 11.5 hours that their parents have to deal with them!   
Wouldn't a boarding school be better?  It would improve their
socialization skills and adaptability so it wouldn't be such a shock
for them when they finally leave home and head off to college. 
Obviously room and board would increase the overall cost, but what
better way to ensure the kids are in a safe environment while enabling
the parents to maintain an optimum lifestyle and pursue other
challenges and goals without undue burden?

That's just my opinion.  Please feel free to share your thoughts on the matter.  That's what this blog is all about...sharing.  And caring.               

This is What My Fortune Cookie Said

Where Have All The Activists Gone?

When in the course of human events, a stirring call for revolution goes unanswered, one must consider why.

Why would millions upon millions of readers of this Xanga react with
ambivalence when confronted with unsubstantiated, yet crushingly
overwhelming claims of anecdotal evidence for the evils perpetrated by
a certain internet map provider?  Why, oh why?

Perhaps they are satisfied with the
status quo.  Perhaps they are consumed by fear.  Perhaps they
have blinders on and prefer to stay ignorant and uninvolved.  Perhaps they are just dumb as a box of rocks!


Please don’t misunderstand me here.  I ’d never suggest the above
describes you, my loyal reader, but I do ask you to look inward and
ponder these words*:

* Adapted loosely from a quote attributed to Martin Niemoller

A Sense of Direction

Believe it or not, I have been blessed with a perfect sense of
direction.   If I can't find a place, it's not my
fault.  It's because it's not where it's supposed to be...or
MapQuest has messed up again. 

The latter occurred on my way to a rare morning C.E. event in
Effingham.  Heading north on I-57, I followed MapQuest's
instructions to take exit 160.  I soon discovered that all
subsequent directions were completely wrong.  The street names
didn't match up at all.  Those incompetent MapQuest fools! 
This wasn't the first time I had received bogus directions from
them.  It was only by virtue of my aforementioned perfect sense of
direction that I arrived in time for the lecture.  

I knew that the restaurant catering our post-lecture meal would be
the site of another C.E. meeting in the near future, so afterwards I set out to find
it.  After a casual tour of many picturesque areas, my keen
navigational skills enabled me to locate the building (well north of the
ophthalmology practice where today's C.E. was held).  Imagine my
surprise when, heading north, I went past another,
completely different interstate exit 160!   Funny that there
should be two...when I had exited at 160 further south, there had been
no indications of a 160A or 160B.  To cap it all off, on the way
back home I observed that my original exit 160 (where I exited on the
way there) had been switched to 159!

This can only mean ONE THING:  The MapQuest folks are going about
and maliciously, capriciously changing exit number signs!  They
apparently take a perverse pleasure in disorienting innocent
people.  Well, this time
they've bitten off more than they can chew.  It's time someone
took a stand against those MapQuest miscreants!  For me it was
just a minor annoyance, but to those lacking my perfect sense of
direction, the consequences could be much more serious.  Who knows
how many others have been led astray by their vile, MapQuest-y
ways?  I am calling for an independent congressional investigation
into MapQuest and its corrupt administration, as should any thinking
citizen.  Who among you will join me?

To Serve the Common Good

While the purpose of most blogs is to say "Hey, look at ME! 
Aren't I so clever?", mine has always been about
unselfishly serving the common good of humanity.  It is in that light that I
submit the following graphic novella (unpretentiously untitled):

"What is that racket?  Sounds like a job for..."
 

"Oops, better ditch this suitcase somewhere."



"Young man, you must learn to take care of your ears...if you plan to hear."


"Always wear ear protection when operating noisy machinery."
"rrrrrr!"

Happy Independence Day!

Dear Stupidocles,

I am writing to inform you that your inflammatory blog cartoon of 6/28/06 qualifies
as hate speech under article 25:1b of the International Mulleter's
Code.    You, sir, are obviously ignorant of the
historical and cultural value of the mullet and its wearer or else you
wouldn't disparage it so.  I demand you publish this letter as a
rebuttal, but a weaselly worm like you probably won't have the guts.

So here's the deal:  I'll educate you and any of your readers who
perhaps weren't paying attention in school either.  Perhaps you'll
then be more inclined to show the proper respect due to wearers of the mullet (WOMs).

The Mullet in History

Some cave art discovered in some place indicates that cavemen revered
the mullet, seeing it as a symbol of masculinity and virility
comparable to the woolly mammoth and giant sloth.

Later, in ancient Egypt, the mullet was a status symbol.  Many
pharoahs sported one and it is a common feature in Egyptian art and
mummies, even to this day.

During the dark ages, the art of mullet-wearing was forgotten. 
Marco Polo was said to be stunned by the beauty of the mullet upon his
trip to the courts of Kublai Khan, and he brought it back to Italy,
where it was considered somewhat of a delicacy.  During the
Enlightenment, appropriately, the mullet surged in popularity thanks to
the wildly popular adventure novel The Three Mulleteers by Alexandre Dumas.

The mullet then crossed the Atlantic (on tall ships) to the colonies
where a group of brave mullet-wearing soldiers known as "mulletmen"
turned the tide in the Revolutionary War.   These soldiers
have their heirs in the countryside "mulletia" of today.

Understandably, our founding fathers had a fondness for the mullet, to
whose wearers we Americans owe so great a debt:  Benjamin Franklin,
Davey Crockett, George Washington, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tommy Jefferson,
John Adams, and Thomas Hanks number among the great mullet-wearing
patriots of our great nation.

George Washington sporting a mullet (It's back there somewhere, trust me)

While the mullet's popularity peaked in
the 1980's, it has lately undergone a renaissance, and in hip rural
regions has never gone out of style, heavily influencing (and being
influenced by) Nascar culture, that most American of institutions.

Given all of this rich history, Mr. Stupidocles, you could do far worse
than wear a mullet.  It would behoove you  as well to remove that
immature and insulting cartoon from your website, four-eyes!

God bless the United States, and God bless the mullet!

--James "Bubba" Worthington III, esq.
             "Mulleted and Proud"

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Salem, IL

Imagine you are a studly runner man.  You are not daunted by
nearly 90 degrees and high humidity but instead take it as a challenge
and go out for a seven-mile run.  Mere mortals would call you an
idiot, those timid souls who dare not leave their soft couches while
watching TV except to go to the refrigerator or the restroom,
comfortably relaxing in their pansy "air-conditioning"  instead of
exerting themselves in the heat of the sun.

Anyway, imagine that you are prancing studily through the woods on this
warm, sunny day, proud of your manly toughness and the health benefits
you will reap from the exercise as long as you don't collapse from heat
exhaustion.  As soon as you exit the woods towards the end of your
run, a strange smell vaguely like gasoline wafts up from some
indetermine origin, seemingly everywhere.  Your route takes you
down through the city park and the smell becomes stronger and more
defined.  Just as you recognize the odor as bug spray, you see a
truck ahead driving on grass between the trees, spewing a thick cloud
of the vile stuff directly toward your projected path.  By picking
up the pace you get through ahead of the dense cloud but likely inhale
enough of the carcinogenic crud to negate any health benefits you may
have gained from the run.

What lesson have you learned from this experience?  What future action will you take?

1)  The City of Salem needs to be more environmentally
conscious.  Write a letter to the editor protesting the city's
inhumane treatment of mosquitoes and their larvae, apparently arising
from an irrational predjudice against West Nile Virus.  Emphasize
the need for biodiversity and the equal value of all living creatures
(as opposed to  narrow-minded species-ism).
        Turn to page 23.

2)  Running in the late afternoon is
idiotic.  Run in the morning instead.  It's cooler and they
don't spray for bugs then (but it could mean less
sleep).         Turn to page 81.

3)  Why suffer needlessly?  Running in the late afternoon is
idiotic, but so is running in the morning.  Stay at home in the
air-conditioning and watch TV from your soft couch.  Avoid
carcinogens, unpleasant exertion, and potential heat
exhaustion.          Turn to page 6.

4)  There is no choice 4.  Choose choice 4 and you will die.  Eventually.  (But there's no page to turn to, since this isn't really a choice).