The Invitational Week 69: The Trite Stuff
Replace some well-worn phrases with better ones. Plus winning neologisms.
Hello.
Welcome to Week 69, a new wrinkle on an old theme. We thought of it while reading a couple of news websites and being mildly nauseated by some of the tired, cliched language we saw.
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Replace “The devil is in the details” with “The devil is in the terms of service.”
Avoid like the plague > Avoid like a coughing dentist in 2020.
Breathed a sigh of relief > Chugged a phew.
Burst out laughing > Saw Trump’s hair in a stiff wind.
It’s so easy — and so lazy — to reach for some overused phrase when you’re writing. Not that we would do that even once in a blue moon. Cliches in our writing are scarce as hens’ teeth!
For Invitational Week 69: Choose any writing cliche and propose a funny replacement, as in the examples above. Here are just a few that came to mind:
Fall in love
It all boils down to
Frightened to death
In the wake of
Walk you through
Drill down
It remains to be seen
You can use any of those, or any other you choose, so long as it is overused in speech or writing. (We are not looking for aphorisms! Send us no replacements for “an apple a day…” or “a stitch in time…”)
Deadline is Saturday, May 4, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, May 9.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-69. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Format them as “Old saying > new saying” as in the examples above.
The winner gets a bright green plush, googly-eyed nerve cell, 1 million times actual size, which makes it about 3 inches long not counting its fringey feelers. If you’ve been singing “If I only had the noiv,” like Bert Lahr, you could find out. Donated by the chronically neuronic Dave Prevar.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.
Meanwhile, send us questions or suggestions, which we hope to deal with in real time. You do this, as always, by sending them to this here button:
Shift Happens: The back-to-front neologisms of Week 67
In Week 67 we asked you to choose any word or short phrase, move its last letter to become the first letter, then define the result.
Third runner-up: AWALL AWALL: There’s no “Welcome to” sign in this Washington town. (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)
Second runner-up: TAP ART MEN: The people who always seem to be living on the floor above you. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
First runner-up: EW: “I don’t see us as a couple.” (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
And the winner of the Nose Condom and some Loser Magnets:
BADLI: How one typically speaks when unprepared. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
As always, if you think the best entry is not one of those four, but one of the Honorable Mentions (below), tell us in the Comments.
Back Sassward: Honorable mentions
YALMIGHT: Introductory admonition: “Yalmight wanna get right with God before you wind up in a lake of fire, just sayin’.” (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
SVENU: The Norse love god. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Y’MAMA’S B.O.: A smell only a big baby like you could love. (Jesse Frankovich)
EAT ON!: What you really want to do on Yom Kippur. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
DADJUDICATE: “Because I said so. Case closed.” (Craig Dykstra, Centreville, Va.)
SHIT: All the Top 40 songs since I graduated from college. (Sam Mertens)
D’OH, GOO!: What Homer Simpson says when he thinks things are going great and then he steps in a pile of it. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)
EARS: “My words go in here, but they always seem to come right out your other end.” (Judy Freed)
EEW: A sheep that tried to cross the highway. (Barbara Turner)
GEDIT IN!: Sure, you have to order your reporters to be fair and accurate, but mostly … (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
GEMPHASIZIN’: Showing off one’s bling. “Wanda was wavin’ her hand so much while gemphasizin’ that engagement ring, I expected traffic to stop.” (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)
GLANS IN: The sex capital of Michigan. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
ALABI: “I would have found my way around there if only I hadn’t lost my glasses.” (Judy Freed)
GOBJECTIN: Viscous substance emitted during angry shouting. (Gary Crockett)
COPE: “Gas prices are going up again — deal with it.” (Sam Mertens)
D-DONAL: “With this name you’d think I’d give stutterers a break, but not me!” (Gary Crockett)
DEJA CULATE: The feeling that you’ve already finished. (Jesse Frankovich)
TAT-TEMP: Someone who’s just filling in at the body-ink studio. “Relax, I’m sure it will turn out fine. He took an art class at the community college.” (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)
RUBE: Someone who tries to hail a ride from New York to L.A. (Jesse Frankovich)
MIB: Men in Blue. (Craig Dykstra)
OGIZM: An extremely exciting thingamajig. (Pam Shermeyer)
‘NOPE’ RATIO: The fraction of men who will not even consider getting a vasectomy. (Gary Crockett)
O HELL: How you answer the phone when it’s your ex calling. (Jonathan Jensen)
OPREST: What it’s like to be a magician’s rabbit. (Craig Dykstra; Jesse Frankovich)
OSCARJ: Megastar actress who lives in a trash can. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
SCAT: A legendarily crappy movie. (Duncan Stevens)
SEXPENSE: Hush money — I mean “legal retainer.” (Leif Picoult)
SHERPE: A known virus carrier. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
AEROTIC: The kind of magazines they read at the Mile High Club. (Duncan Stevens)
SPLATYPU: Australian roadkill. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)
SUNDERPANT: To bust your rear — or long for a divorce. (Ann Martin, Brentwood, Md.)
TA-DA MAN: “See, I told you I could do it!” (Judy Freed)
TARROGAN: An assertive herb that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. “Jack was lots of fun at the barbecue until he started pouring on the tarrogan.” (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.; Jon Gearhart)
TEXCREMEN: Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, Ted Cruz … (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)
TEXT-ROVER: Someone who sends rambling updates overflowing with intimate details. (Jeff Contompasis)
TWINGLE: The glint in the sky from a falling piece of a Boeing. (Kevin Dopart)
USN AF: When a major command screwup causes service members to sigh and say, “That’s so Navy.” (Duncan Stevens)
Hllanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoc: Possibly something really insulting in Welsh? (Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)
The headline “Shift Happens” is by Jesse Frankovich; Frank Osen wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, April 27: our Week 68 wordplay contest to “breed” the names of this year’s Triple Crown-eligible racehorses and name the “foal.” Click on the link below.
Now we enter the real-time portion of the Gene Pool, where we take your questions and observations, and respond to them. If you are reading this in real time, please remember to keep refreshing the screen to see new stuff. So far, today’s Q&Os are a hodgepodge, with emphasis on our Tuesday tale of “flash” art, and last weekend’s call for childhood hijinks.
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Q: Regarding flash art:
Many, many years ago when I was in a cemetery in Guadalajara, Mexico (or possibly Cuernavaca), I saw a crypt that had the dead woman’s name and dates of birth and death, and an inscription, in Spanish, that said “No estoy muerto. Estoy en la cama a tu lado y no soy feliz. “I am not dead. I am in the bed next to you and I am not happy.”
A: That is truly flash art. It raises a lot of questions of backstory, not the least of which is, if we are reading the meaning correctly: Why did the mistrusted widower follow through with her wishes for that inscription?
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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. If you are reading the Gene Pool in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.
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Also, sometimes some people like to upgrade their subscriptions to “paid.” These are the same sort of people who despise Donald Trump and enjoy their families and don’t cheat on their taxes.
Q: Holy cow. The highest court in New York State just reversed Harvey Weinstein’s conviction! What do you think?
A: It does sound like the trial judge made a significant error, though it is not cut and dried because the vote was 4-3. But as I understand it, it is moot. Weinstein still faces a 16-year sentence in California, for rape. He’ll die in jail. (Er, unless THAT’s overturned. So maybe it’s not entirely moot.)
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Q: Regarding childhood hijinks:
I grew up with three older brothers who often resented the attention I was given as both the baby and the only girl. My brothers are two, seven, and twelve years older than me, and they considered me too young to play with them or tag along. I was excluded so often that it made me pretty mean.
They would have friends over and play hide and seek, but I wasn't invited because I was too young to hide properly. I cried and pouted until one of their friends invited me to play, much to the dismay of my brothers who called me a baby and actively tried NOT to find me.
I hid in one of their beds. I was tiny and when I smoothed out the blankets over myself, they couldn't tell I was under the covers. After everyone was found, one of their friends said "Where's your little sister?" Crap - we were supposed to babysit her and she's missing. They called for me and of course I thought it was a trick to get me to come out of my hiding place so they could tag me, so I stayed silent.
A long time went by with everyone rushing around the house searching for me, calling my name, and panicking. I stayed in hiding - I was only 4 but I was going to win the big kids' game no matter what. I was in a bed, so I was soon asleep.
What woke me was my mother screaming my name and yelling at my brothers about their impending punishments. I came out of the bedroom, bleary-eyed from sleep, trying to remember why I was even in one of my brothers' beds. My mother scooped me up and glared at my brothers, telling them to wait for her RIGHT THERE to wait for their punishment.
But my finest moment came later in the day after my brothers had their records and radio taken away. One of them came up and threatened to get even with me for this. For what? What did I do? I played hide and seek, like all the other kids were. And I was winning - I didn't fall for the "Where are you?" traps they were setting to catch me. Why did he need to get even with me?
The kids continued to play in the yard and I again was excluded, this time for 'getting everyone in trouble.' So I went into my brothers' room and did a preemptive strike. I put lumpy things between the mattresses and the box springs, Princess and the Pea style. Then, because I was four, I forgot all about it.
A few years later, one of my brothers said, "My bed is so uncomfortable. I need a new mattress." Ooops - now I remembered the sabotage from when I was four. I lifted the mattress and took the canteen from under it. I moved on to the other beds in their room and removed the cleats and the roller skates. For several years, my brothers had been suffering from the lumpiest beds imaginable, having pain in their backs, but afraid to say anything to our parents because mattresses were expensive. In my defense, none of them ever bothered to look under the mattress - they obviously lied to our mother when she said it was daylight savings time and the day to flip the mattresses to even out the wear and tear - if they had actually done what she asked instead of lying to her about it, they would have found the items I stuck under their mattresses.
But it was a nasty thing to do, even if I was four.
A: Long, but terrific. Thank you.
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Q: Speaking of flash art, as you did on Tuesday, we have a book, somewhere, called Novels in Three Lines. It is a collection of summaries of news items---crimes and so forth---by Felix Feneon all in three lines. They have been put into English. Some are funny, others tragic.
A: It is charming. I found some excerpts. Here is an excerpt from the excerpts:
Scheid, of Dunkirk, fired three times at his wife. Since he
missed every shot, he decided to aim at his mother-in-law,
and connected.
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"If my candidate loses, I will kill myself," M. Bellavoine,
of Fresquienne, Seine-Inferieure, had declared. He killed
himself.
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Nurse Elise Bachmann, whose day off was yesterday, put
on a public display of insanity.
A few entries later:
A certain madwoman arrested downtown falsely claimed
to be nurse Elise Bachmann. The latter is perfectly sane.
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Q: Tracy Thompson here. Regarding childhood hijinks:
One day when my oldest was about 13--just getting into those unruly teen years--the two of us were going to church one Sunday morning when we got into a fight, the details of which I no longer remember. I do remember that both of us were irate, and when we got to church Emma declared that she was not going inside. "Fine," I said. "You can just sit here in the car and wait for me"--figuring she would get bored and wander on in sooner or later. Nosiree! She decided to walk home!
But first, she left me a voicemail. I pause here to note that my younger daughter, a precocious tech whiz, had unknown to me programmed my phone to read voicemails aloud. This was fairly early technology, though, so it wasn't Siri, but a flat, robotic, female voice. There was also no sound modulation, or maybe I had the volume turned up, I don't remember.
Anyway, I'm sitting in church when suddenly my phone vibrates in my purse and I hear this very loud robotic voice saying, "I. HATE. THIS. FAMILY. I. CANNOT. WAIT. UNTIL. I GROW. UP. AND I. CAN. LEAVE. HOME. BECAUSE. I. HATE. YOU. ALL. SO. MUCH--"
And by now I am digging frantically in my purse trying to find the goddamn phone. It was in the middle of the morning prayer, too. Worst possible moment. I finally find the thing and turn it off and the lady in the pew in front of me turns around and whispers, "Well, THAT was exciting."
A: You’re STILL a fine writer, Tracy. (I edited Ms. Thompson at the Wapo years ago.)
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Q: My mother, now nearly 93, used to express her frustration and anger at something by saying that it gave her "hydrophobia of the rectum" - a bizarre phrase, and, I am certain, of her own her invention. She only said this phrase in private, but I hadn't noticed that. I had no idea of what the words meant, only the context in which they were used. When I was 5 or 6 (this was in the early '60s), my mother was speaking with a neighbor about something that made her angry, and I piped up and asked "did it give you hydrophobia of the rectum?" Absolute silence followed. I never heard that phrase again. – Mary Ann
A: Wow, let us parse this. Hydrophobia is a fear of water due to rabies. Now, the function of the large intestine, which leads to the rectum, is to drain feces of water so it exits the body, ideally, in a solid state and not a sluice of juice. (I believe I just invented that phrase as a physiological phenomenon). But the rectum is the last minute water drainer. That is an important part of its function. Should the rectum contract a case of rabies, and thus suffer from hydrophobia, it will be terrified of the still-wet poo and, instead of holding it until a critical mass collects, will expel it instantly! You will be constantly pooping, and the poop would be gluey. So your ma was on to something. It would indeed be very bad. You are welcome.
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Q: Our close friends, like us, were raising their toddlers without the benefits of any organized religion affiliation. Children of the 1960's, we all believed our kids would eventually decide what, or if, religion worked for them. At one point the mom began to worry that since they lived in the deep south their kids would feel odd given that many of their friends were of the bible thumping variety. So, she began taking the kids to Quaker meetings, where in particular they had sessions for the kids to discuss morality in general, without any particular religious flavor. One Sunday the discussion centered on why "threatening" was a bad thing and should be avoided. Their 5-6 year-old son took this discussion to heart and discussed it in the car on the way home with his mom. A few days later he was bugging his mom for some toy she was unable or unwilling to provide at that moment. She said "no", firmly and politely. He responded with "if you don't give that to me, I will threaten you!". Multiple life lessons were learned by both parents and kids. – Jim Sproules
A: You know, that is an almost brilliant tautology.
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Q: Two consecutive bad ideas by a little me:
The summer after kindergarten I thought it would be a great idea to hold in my poop so I wouldn't have to interrupt my playtime. It worked! So well that I ended up in the hospital for a week. The nurses were nice, but the daily enemas weren't. So I decided it would be a great idea to walk home. At that age I didn't quite conceive that home was 35 miles away. I made it about 1/4 mile and realized I'd never make it. While I was away someone at the hospital noticed I was missing. My reappearance was a bit of an event.
A: Thank you. I believe our poop quota for the day has been reached.
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Q: Peter Sagal here. One when my youngest daughter was about three, the entire family was outside at a block party, along with all our friends and neighbors. Circumstances led to me being at one end of the block, my daughter at the other, and we started walking towards each other, like gun fighters in the Old West. As we got a little closer, but not closer enough to speak quietly, she yelled, “Papa! I do not like your penis!”
A: Hey, Peter. Welcome. I don’t like your penis either.
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Q: The Bavarian pantsless protest looks like it might have been an April Fool’s joke, but German news media confirmed that the issue is real: https://www.swr3.de/aktuell/nachrichten/polizei-unterhose-uniform-bayern-video-100.html
A: Thank you for sharing. This is very helpful.
(Oddly enough, because of hearing Yiddish in my yoot, I kind of understand enough of the German to get the drift.)
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Q: You said this Barney and Clyde was just a “meta dig,” and not the result of a disagreement between you and your editor.
A comment at GoComics implies that the final frame may have been timed to coincide with Monday’s total solar eclipse. Is that true, or was that just a coincidence?
A: I have a very strange answer! I was going to say it was a coincidence, but then I realized that I didn’t put in that last panel. Amy Lago suggested the panel go dark, and I said sure, for narrative reasons alone. . I was sure it was a coincidence, but I called Amy and she said she was very aware of the eclipse date and that’s why she did it. Didn’t even think to tell me or take a bow, which is the sign of a VERY self-confident editor.
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Q: Two of your interests come together in a clip about an aptly named baseball manager temporarily losing his mind.
— Andy Schotz
A: This is spectacular.
An inaptonym, technically. Made me laugh several times. Oddly enough, Mr. Wellman did not lose his job, very likely because this was clearly an act. He was performing. That thing he did with the rosin bag was simulating throwing a grenade at the ump!
Just FYI He was protesting his pitcher having been thrown out of the game for using a foreign substance on the ball.
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Q: My mother was melting sugar in a pot on the stove to make homemade taffy. I was 4. Don’t touch that, it’s hot, she told me as she left to answer the phone. I looked at the white-ish looking semi liquid in the pot and thought : hot? How hot? Doesn’t LOOK hot. Even at that tender age I didn’t just want to accept unproven dogma. I was an empiricist, and it just so happened I had a measuring apparatus at hand, literally. I stuck my finger into the liquid sugar (melting point 367 degrees Fahrenheit). Also it sticks to flesh like napalm. Pretty hot was the answer.
A: This is from Tom the Butcher. I can confirm he is still an empiricist who never learns from his mistakes.
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Q: I have been pondering your comments on the student protests/arrests. Without getting into the question of when hateful/calls for violence against perceived aggressors "speech" crosses the line into threatening "conduct" -- a question far too complex for the limits of the Big Orange Button -- I think you are wrong about the arrests being a firing offense for the university presidents. As a threshold matter, while I'm fully with you (and was when this subject came up in the WaPo Before Times) on modern students protesting and drowning out "triggering" speakers because they are too fragile to hear things they don't agree without becoming catatonic, I don't t hink there is a concommittant right to disrupt the university's operations for everyone else in order to protest a "right" cause. And what is "right" is in the eye of the beholder. What would you have the university preseidents do, for example, if the administration buildings/dining halls/ etc. were taken over for days or weeks by a large group of students wearing MAGA hats and pitching MAGA-themed tents and being led in loud disruptive chants about immirgrants, led by Steve Bannon? Today's university presidents are also children of the protest era. They are walking a very difficult line. None of them talks like the university presidents of your youth.
But even for a just cause, there is difference between free speech/academic freedom rights and civil disobedience. You have the right to think and say whatever you want. You don't have the right to say it whenever/wherever you want, and you don't have the right to make it impossible for other students/faculty to go about their business for long periods of time without consequences. I was a student at Berkeley (Berkeley!) during the anti-apartheid protests in the 1980's, and even at the height of my most self-righteous youth I had to laugh at the protestors who proudly got arrested for blocking campus entrances and then earnestly explained to the judge that they expected to have the charges dismissed with no penalty because they were committing civil disobedience. As MLK, to cite one example, eloquently demonstrated -- the point of civil disobedience is to demonstrate your devotion to the cause by your willingness to break unjust rules or break rules in support of a just cause AND take the consequences for doing so. Today's high school students probably wouldn't be asked to read "A Letter From My Birmingham Living Room," even if it were just as eloquent as the one he actually wrote from the Birmingham jail.
A: Very well put, and I don’t disagree with any of it.
Two thoughts: They WERE willing to be arrested, and did not resist, and it was over an inarguably valid cause for protest. This WAS civil disobedience.
Second thought: The administrators were in a bind, I admit that. And yes, presumably many or most of them were products of the 1960s. I think the college presidents of the 1960s, particularly Grayson Kirk at Columbia, came to regret their knee-jerk reaction to call the cops – and at Columbia, buildings were taken over for five days in 1968. Kirk called the cops, took the heat, and resigned the next year.
Sometimes, waiting it out is the best policy, especially with impatient youths.
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This is Gene. Pat and I have just learned exclusively that the second-runner up, “Tap Art Men” ran in a previous contest: Week 917, aeons ago. It is not plagiarism, it is two different smart and funny people independently coming up with same joke. So you all are going to get to decide on its replacement for second runner up!! In the comments, send in you pick for what should win.
Q: Bad decisions as a youth: When I was about to turn ten and my younger brother was seven, we still shared a bedroom. One Saturday morning, my parents took our youngest brother with them on an errand and left me in charge. For some reason, I thought it would be hilarious if we surprised our parents by dressing my brother up to look like a little girl and he agreed to it. I put one of my school dresses on him, tied a scarf around his buzz-cut hair, and even put some of Mom's red lipstick on his mouth. We giggled and couldn't wait for them to come home so they could see him. They soon returned home and we excitedly called them in to see my brother.
I have never been so wrong in anticipating a result! After being told NEVER, EVER DO THIS AGAIN!! with no explanation whatsoever, they shipped my brother off to Al Minn's Fun Camp, an all-boys, all-the-time enterprise. Next, Mom made what had been an office into a very pretty bedroom for me. When my brother returned home from that camp, his favorite thing to do was to punch me in my skinny arms as a greeting. Following in our Dad's footsteps, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, began his career in the submarine force, and eventually retired as an Admiral. – Leslie Franson, Ellicott City, MD
A: You may have inadvertently chosen his career for him.
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Q: Embarrassing kids:
When the boys were little, we had three cats, named Whiskey, Bourbon, and Djinn. Going grocery shopping, my younger son was seated in the cart, when he started, very loudly for others to hear, asking for the cats.
“I want Bourbon!”
Was I horrified? No, I leaned into it.
“Bourbon is at home! You’ll have to wait until we get home for Bourbon!”
Somehow we managed to make it out of there without CPS being called.
- Sam Mertens
A: Very nice. You aggravated an embarrassment. Very daring for a parent.
Q: I wanted to answer that I'm not racist at all. However, I recalled an incident that occurred with my daughter. She was looking at one of those toy catalogs that comes around the holidays and she pointed to an ad for a baby doll. She pointed to the dark skinned one and said she wanted that one. Instead of giving her my usual, "We'll put it on your christmas list" with a reminder that not all things on the christmas list will be purchased, I asked her why she picked that one (when the one sitting right next to it had the same hair color and eye color she has). She looked at me puzzled and said, "the other one looks like the dolls I already have." Oh, of course. I realized, the fact that I had to even ask the question makes me a little racist. And yes, she got the dark skinned baby doll.
A: You’re definitely racist, but that’s not proof. You’re racist because everyone is.
I have told this anecdote before, but here it comes again:
One day a few years ago, I went to pick up my daughter at her day-care center. From the playground we went straight to the bathroom to wash up. This led to an impromptu discussion of the concepts "clean" and "dirty."
"I'm clean," she said.
"You are now," I amended.
"Laurean is dirty," she said.
I regarded her sadly. I'd been fearing this, or something like this, for some time.
"No," I said measuredly, "Laurean is not dirty."
There were 18 children in my daughter's class. Seventeen of them were white.
I hunkered down next to Molly, right there in the bathroom, took her by the shoulders and met her eyes, so she would know this was Important.
"Laurean is black," I said. "Black people are just like you, only their skin is darker. It's not dirty, it's just darker."
Molly's three-year-old eyes narrowed with skepticism.
"Look," I said, "there are black dogs and white dogs, right? White dogs aren't any cleaner than black dogs, are they? Well, there are black people and white people . . . "
My daughter seemed to be looking right through me.
I found my voice rising in exasperation.
"This is important. Laurean isn't dirty!"
The lecture would likely have gone on for some time, such was the strength of my white liberal rectitude, but there erupted behind me a small commotion. I turned. A teacher was hurrying toward us from the playground. She was carrying Laurean, at arm's length. The little girl was covered head to toe in mud.
"See?" Molly said.
Are you a racist?
Neither am I, I had thought. .
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And finally on this subject, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q. It’s well worth the five minutes.
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Q: Almost everybody knows that Mr. Hand is the responsible adult in the room; but, in their anger and disappointment and anti-establishment nihilism, they’re going to pull for Spicoli anyway
A: True, and might explain some affection for Trump. But who would the parents of Ridgemont High vote for for Principal?
This is Gene. Speaking of Trump, many people continued to write in with their analyses of the piece of work Trump is. The best I saw — it is, I believe, true genius — was this, from Facebook. It is about both Trump and his followers:
“Talented and well-practiced in every vice, a stranger to compassion or empathy, a liar and a cheat so complete in perfidy that he has elevated his dishonesty to hold it up as an ersatz moral principle. Violent, so long as he can order someone else to do the dirty work. Grotesque in body, graceless in action, in possession of a wounded self-regard so colossal as to smother any spark of grace. Treasonous, not only to country, but to every ally he has ever had, the poisoned fruit and rankest flower of racism and contempt for women, and utterly devoid of shame for his moral and spiritual bankruptcy. That is your leader. That is to whom you give your money. That is who you follow and laud. That is whose banner you willingly carry. Why? Because he is a mirror, not a lighthouse. You see yourselves in him. He is what you would be, if you had inherited money and could shed the last vestiges of conscience and shame. No, I do not “respect your choices,” nor do I admire your loyalty and dedication to this miserific, demoniac vision. You have demonstrated not only a lack of civic virtue, loyalty to the Republic and to the rule of law, but a willingness to engage in violence and sedition at his slightest expressed wish. And you will never, ever admit you were wrong. Because you see your dark, twisted, resentful dreams in him. And to renounce him is to renounce yourselves.”
~ Advocatus Peregrini
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This is Gene. I am calling us down. As always, I am begging you to keep sending in Questions and Observations. They all get read and the ones that come in earliest before the next chat get read and responded to the hardest.
Also, blah blah blah please:
See you all on the Weekend.
I would have chosen Pam Shermeyer's Ogizm thingamajig for the win!!!
Texcremen