Racially tinged
Very fine remarks
Heritage-loving remarks
Remarks that seem anxious about the economy
Remarks that would be upset if you called them racist
Remarks that some people still think would make a good Halloween costume
Remarks that march to their own drummer against the tide of political correctness
Remarks that would still be acceptable as a logo of a major sports franchise
Remarks that, if Disney had made them into a movie, would have been put into a vault and sealed forever from public view except that they are hinted at on certain theme-park rides
Racially cloudy remarks with a hint of controversy meatballs
Remarks that if they were a soup, George Wallace would eat that soup and go “mmmmmm I love it,” but we can’t specify why
Polarizing remarks, in the sense that if they were a magnet, the things that would be stuck on one end of the magnet would be racists although it might be a coincidence, who can say!
Maybe these remarks were born with it, maybe it was racism, don’t make us pick!
Remarks that, if they were printed on a T-shirt, might sell well at Trump rallies, hypothetically
Forgotten American remarks
Remarks we would do well to listen to before the next election
Remarks capable of summoning dogs from many miles away, and when surveyed you discover that all the dogs are racist but who can say there was any correlation
Remarks that Starbucks will need to have a Conversation about
Remarks not out of place coming from the mouth of the president of the United States
May 29, 2018
So, You Must Speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones
“How to Talk to a Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones” is advice that exists, thanks to something called TheModernMan.com. But it does not go far enough! Anyone who wishes to attempt this must be fully prepared.
SO IT HAS COME TO THIS.
You must speak to the woman who is wearing headphones.
I am so, so sorry.
You must pray that she is single and looking and will wish to hear your words.
It is not enough for her to be single.
She must also be looking, or there is no hope for you.
But you already know this.
You have seen what happened to the other men who tried to speak.
The whole Panera is littered with what remains of the men who came before you.
They tried to speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones.
They failed.
Remember the training and you may yet survive.
Remember what they told you.
You must be confident, relaxed, and easygoing.
You must show no fear.
If you show fear, she will strike.
Speak calmly, they said.
Show confidence.
Do not blink.
If you blink, she will know.
If you blink, she will move much closer, so close that you can hear the whisper of what is in her headphones.
That is much too close.
You have no choice.
These are your instructions.
You can talk to anyone, you tell yourself.
It is only a woman, you tell yourself.
But you know that it is not.
Women were something different.
Your comrade made the awful mistake of talking to the Woman Who Is Reading a Book on the Subway. You watched it happen.
He made her look up from the book and her basilisk eyes fell on him, unblinking, and he melted.
You still remember the screams.
They were so horrible that the city lay awake for days trying to forget them.
You do not know how it happened.
But the women who stood there politely and were receptacles for your words are gone.
They once smiled politely and they laughed even and sometimes they would make a spark with you.
But something changed in the air or perhaps the water and the women do not stand there and listen any longer.
The city is full of men who have been turned to stone.
You opened the door to your neighbor’s apartment and there was a startled deer standing inside wearing a college sweatshirt. You think it used to be your neighbor but you are not certain.
You have changed your route to work so that you do not have to pass the stone men with their open, screaming mouths.
Yesterday half your comrades were ordered to shout “Smile!” at the Woman Who Is Walking.
And the woman did. Too wide.
So wide that her mouth engulfed the street and became a vast cavern.
Six of your friends were devoured.
You could hear the unladylike slurping sounds from blocks away as you beat a hasty retreat between the Scylla of the Woman Who Has Put Her Bag Next to Her on a Bar Stool and the Charybdis of the Woman Who Is Just Jogging.
You did not attempt to speak to either of them.
They passed you.
You were left unscathed.
But that was before they came to your apartment and gave you the orders.
So here you are.
It has come to this.
You are about to talk to the Woman in Headphones.
My God, I pity you.
You are close now. Almost in range.
Before the Woman and behind her the ground is littered with shoes and hats and pick-up manuals and AXE body spray.
She sits patiently gnawing on a thigh bone.
You do not think she is single or looking.
You cannot make out the words she is listening to.
You know how this will go.
You know what the headphones mean.
You know what will happen when you ask her to remove the headphones.
August 30, 2016
Part VI
FINALLY, WE HEAR FROM MEN, MEASLES, AND A PIGEON
OH NO! I HAVE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE! I HAVE not exposed you to a sufficient diversity of viewpoints, which has been quite naughty of me! Indeed, I have been doing the unthinkable all this time, for this whole book. I have not let you hear from Men! I have, but I have not done so exclusively, which is also a very bad form of oppression. Although it is always unfair to speak broadly of an entire set of people, I do not think it is inaccurate to assert that Gentlemen have a Lot to Say, and that all of it is Good and Worth Hearing! If a Gentleman is even briefly asked to hold his peace, it is a country-ruining mistake, up with which we must not put. Oh, forgive me! Forgive me! Please, feast your eyes on all of these wise things, a broad range of remarks from the very finest male minds, a wide diversity of opinions from many wise and temperate men, and also a pigeon and a measles germ!
Please Stop Vaccinating Your Children. I Want to Go to Disneyland.
ARE YOU THINKING OF VACCINATING YOUR KIDS?
I wish you wouldn’t.
I know what you’re going to say. “You’re a measles germ. You’re biased.”
But maybe you’re the one who’s biased. Ever thought about that?
I see your charts. I hear you calling the resurgence of measles “devastating.” That’s hurtful.
“There’s more measles now,” you say. “That is a bad thing.” Maybe it’s a bad thing. Or maybe it’s a GREAT thing. Maybe a beautiful specimen that was hunted almost to extinction is making a surprise comeback, and you should be a little more supportive!
I mean, when someone hunts down all the spotted owls you’re like “Oh, boo hoo, we’re wiping out a species, waaah, conservation, blaaah”—but suddenly it’s okay to destroy measles and its whole microbial culture and you’re all congratulating yourselves? Do you see the inconsistency here? Come on.
I think there are two sides to this issue, and it is important that we hear both of them out.
After all, you’ve heard Jenny McCarthy on this issue, and she is definitely a human person, not a
large number of measles viruses cleverly disguised as a human person by standing on each other’s porous membranes under a big coat. The idea that she is not a human person is completely ridiculous. It is just another lie spread by scientists, like the idea that having measles is somehow “bad” or “lesser” than not having measles. But just so we’re clear: Jenny is definitely one of you. Would talented human actor Donnie Wahlberg kiss a bunch of measles viruses? I rest my case.
“You should be exterminated,” you are saying. You know who else said that? Don’t make me say it. He had a mustache.
I know there are scientists saying things like “YOU NEED TO GET VACCINATED.”
I’m like, “Whoa, scientists! Cool your jets!” I think we can all agree this is no time for panic. Maybe vaccination is completely safe and keeps you from catching diseases and maybe there are lots of facts that support that, but maybe we’re all putting too much emphasis on facts and not enough emphasis on Anecdotal Feelings That Some Parents Told This One Doctor About.
In that same article, doctors call people who don’t get vaccines “stupid.” That sounds like bullying to me. These “doctors” sound less like medical professionals and more like MEANIES. And I don’t listen to MEANIES. Do you?
Sure, the connection between autism and vaccines has been disproved by science, but you know what else has been disproved by science? Dragons. And who wants to live in a world without those? Not me(asle). These are the same scientists who say that having measles, mumps, or rubella is bad. And we know that’s not true. Some of my best friends are rubella viruses, and they are delights to be around. I think if you took the time to get to know rubella, you would see how wrong you are. (Mumps can be a drag, though. I’ll give you that.)
Besides, you let chicken pox and the flu just ROAM FREE among you. You even have a season where you celebrate flu and pass it around to all your family members. And suddenly MEASLES is the villain here? Um, prejudice, much?
People are even saying that they don’t want measles in Disneyland. Excuse me, but the last time I checked, Disneyland was a dreamworld of magic that welcomed EVERYONE, and your narrow-minded judgments have no place there. I’ve never been, myself, but it’s on my bucket list. Frankly, I do not get out as much as I would like, having been contained in a glass vial until just recently.
Listen, the science on vaccination is very, very unsettled. Super unsettled. I bet if the Senate voted on the science of vaccinations right now, they would be about split down the middle. That’s how unsettled it is. People who believe in vaccines probably think that Earth is more than 6,000 years old or that evolution is some kind of weird conspiracy, and, hey, I’m pretty sure there is room for discussion on both of those, and we should have a full debate. Debates are good. The more debates the better, I, a measles germ, say.
January 22, 2015
Sorry, I Obey the Billy Graham Rule
A wise Mississippi gubernatorial candidate refused to allow a female journalist to join him in his truck, on the grounds that he obeyed the Billy Graham Rule—a wise and correct prohibition on ever being alone at any time with a woman who is not your wife, whose necessity is explained below.
NO! NO! I CANNOT BE alone with a woman! Please! I beg of you!
Nothing will happen, of course. I hope. I pray. But please, let us not test it! My truck, my rules. I took a vow.
You do not know what I will become! You have not seen the horror that I struggle at all times to contain.
If you were in a situation where you had to move a cabbage, a fox, a woman, and myself across a river, I would beg you: Take them, take them and go! Leave me alone on the shore, where I can do no harm. Build a tower around me. Let thorny vines grow up all around it, until it is obscured from view. Forget the location of the tower. Burn all maps containing it. Then, only then, can women be truly safe.
Oh, this curse, this curse! I cannot bear it.
What I would give to look at a woman and see a person. I am told that is what others see. If only—if only—
You understand, I have this horrible condition. I have had it for years. I am incapable of seeing women as people. It used to be possible to get by in political life in this country with this condition. You would just move around a smoky room, speaking only to men, and you could have a nice career. But now, oh, these things, these things are everywhere. Holding elected office, performing jobs, playing soccer! You must understand my agony when I behold this. So much good meat, delicious meat, wonderful meat—
It is with difficulty that I shamble into the company of people every day. It is with difficulty that I convince people that I am, after all, a human being, not a wild animal, the mad, helpless victim of an uncontrollable lust. I cannot, I dare not—oh, it is with difficulty that I write these words now, knowing a woman may read them. The mere thought of my words moving before her unprotected eyes sends me into a frenzy. Ffffffft rrrrrrrrr graaarrrfll rrrrrr.
No women in the truck!
My truck is my sanctum sanctorum, my place of rest and quietness. But it is a struggle. Once a leaf landed on the window that looked like a woman’s profile, and I had to brake abruptly. Someone left a file folder with suggestive curves on the passenger seat, and I nearly drove off the road. I saw a picture of Hillary Clinton on a roadside billboard and I had to pull over immediately. Such is my struggle. I am scarcely fit for human company.
If you know of anyone who can break this curse, oh, what a relief it would be. My wife, too, could be alone with people! We would both be free from this agony. But as it is, I am a wolf bundled in an ill-fitting button-down shirt. I am a wild beast. I am a pestilence. Perhaps, in fact, I should not go out in public at all.
Do not let me out of the house! Or if I am so honored to be elected by you the people, the governor’s mansion!
July 11, 2019
I Am a State Legislator and I Am Here to Substitute-Teach Your Biology Class
HI KIDS! I’M A STATE LEGISLATOR—male, naturally—but really, at heart, I am an expert on the female body. You may know me from some of my work in Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio.
Ms. Roberts is out today, so I am here to cover the basics of reproductive anatomy. Which, again, I am expert in.
I am very excited to teach you about the reproductive system. We see here on this chart a body with a womb. The amazing thing about this body is that, unlike your body, which contains a person 100 percent of the time—you!—it only contains a person SOMETIMES.
One of the most common misconceptions people have about women, especially at your age, is that they are people. The idea that women are people is actually a relatively recent innovation, but my extensive knowledge of science—I once heard Ben Shapiro lecture!—reveals that actually they are vessels that may potentially contain people. Like a decorative fish tank, right after you have put the little diver in, but before there is water.
This is the womb. When a woman becomes hysterical, it wanders about the body. A woman is often hysterical, as when she shouts at you that this is not valid science. In such cases just say, “Lady-part, lady-part, fly away home!” and wait for it to return to its home (you will know that it has returned when she is finally, blessedly, silent). The womb is the only part of a woman that counts.
The female also possesses something that looks almost like a mouth, and something that looks almost like a brain, which some suggest it uses to attempt rudimentary communications; we have discovered writings and recordings made by females, but we have yet to decode them or, indeed, determine whether they make any sense at all. It is doubted by the Learned Scholars (in whose number I count myself) that they are decipherable at all.
This part—I don’t know what this part is. It probably is not important to the woman, whose body is a big Pandora’s box full of mysteries and ghosts. It looks sort of like a lung but I don’t THINK girls have those—or if they do they are probably decorative pink lungs as opposed to the functional salmon-colored lungs possessed by men.
Very little is understood a
bout what mechanism powers the woman. Steam? Coal? White wine? Humors? The important thing is that there is this—sort of—place for a baby, and amazingly, through some sort of miracle, beneath it are legs to help this empty vessel walk around on the land. And, proteins, I think?
So, uh. Processes. Ovulation is a very convoluted process which it is not necessary to understand. It takes no time, or perhaps a lot of time? Anyway, in this process the egg promenades lustfully along a stretch of uterus to see if she will catch the eye of any venturesome and praiseworthy sperm. It happens either monthly, annually, or never, and it makes women irrational and causes their sanguine humors to predominate, which is what gives them the ability to control the tides, become werewolves, and make cats their familiars.
The woman is full of eggs. This can be confusing. Where does the shell go? What does she do with the shell? Is that why she is always so upset when you try to explain to her how she is doing something wrong? Because there are little bits of shell inside her? Science cannot explain this.
The beginning of life is the result of two people performing a sacred act that is usually reserved for marriage, or if the president of the United States has become acquainted with an adult film performer and formed a special bond. Don’t worry, the female body has ways of shutting the whole thing down. Or is that ducks? I might be thinking of ducks. It doesn’t matter.
So uh you see here this sort of eggplant thing, that is . . . gross and we need not give it a name! Probably it is either the uterus, the cervix, fallopian tubes, or the clitoris?
The female body, like the Internet, is a series of tubes. Fallopian tubes are some tubes that are there; sometimes an egg will be careless and get itself fertilized in one of them because it has not been taking proper precautions (the egg ought to take precautions!), and in that case you can just kind of grab it and put it where it is supposed to go, but first you should give it a stern talking to. This is science, and we are trying to make it law, also.
Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why Page 13
