I promise you, this is not going to become a regular feature, but I got so many encouraging comments about the last one that I just had to post another. Warning, some of these are off-color.
The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are the 2009 winners:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly..
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer, right?
12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.
The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj.. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokémon , n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
At the independent-living senior complex I manage we have an employee whose job it is to look after the general welfare of the residents. One of the ways he accomplishes that is to keep them informed on current affairs that impact their lives. Earlier this week, he passed out a list of myths about the current healthcare debate. The list came from the AARP, and was absolutely non-controversial-unless you happen to believe in one of these myths.
This morning, a lady (ok, a female; lady has all sorts of connotations.) called me demanding to know the name of the person that was passing out these scurrilous lies and “frightening the residents.” She claimed to be the daughter of one of the residents, but declined to tell me which one for fear that I might retaliate in some way. She told me that this frightening of the residents must stop, and that she had called her Congressman who would shortly contact me. These were not myths, she stated with fire in her voice, these were facts.
It appears that, in her world, facts are only facts if they agree with her world view. It also appears that neither I nor my employees, however qualified, are allowed an opinion that is at odds with hers.
I have this to say: Lady, get a grip! First, calling the patently false fears debunked by the AARP article facts relegates you to the fringe element. Second, I spent most of my youth in one jungle or another with armed combatants. I taught unarmed combative measures to the 1st Air Commandos. I am not easily intimidated. And finally, I’ve had residents accuse me of having an affair, accuse me of allowing the theft of huge amounts of money, and denigrate my humor. Irritated as I might have been, I didn’t retaliate against any of them. Asking you for a second opinion about a discussion of proposed healthcare legislation hardly trumps any of those offenses. So, learn to distinguish between fact and myth, and stop butting your head against a stone wall. (That would be me.)
Tags: healthcare
It appears I was a day or two behind the curve when I said there is no healthcare bill. H.R.3200, as ammended, was orderded to be reported to the House on 7/31/2009. I stand by the rest of my comments. Whatever the Congress passes (and they will pass something), it will not look much like H.R.3200.
I recently sat in a meeting where a perennially politically active person said, “I printed the healthcare bill, all 1200 pages of it.” I have heard that the bill will ration medical care, encourage euthanasia, and deplete veterans’ health care. We know with a moral certainty that it establishes panels with the power of life and death over the elderly and chronically ill. Guys, THERE IS NO BILL. There isn’t even a cogent proposal. President Obama has outlined broad guidelines for healthcare reform, and asked the Congress to propose a bill. So far, they have failed. Opponents have made up problems out of whole cloth, based mostly on their own worst-case fears, and a general distrust of the federal government.
Unfortunately, the very lawmakers that should be forging a bill with bipartisan input and support are holding town-hall meetings at which people behave like striking longshoremen. (My apologies to the International Longshoremen’s Association) One does not produce a balanced healthcare bill by impugning the intelligence, ancestry, and personal hygiene of your elected officials. Physics notwithstanding, in the political arena, heat does not often produce light.
Sadly, the ignorance of the protesters often drowns out any point, valid or not, that they are trying to make. I saw a well-drawn poster showing President Obama as Adolph Hitler with the single word “Socialist” written beneath. Although Hitler’s party was officially the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the party had more in common with fascism than any other ideology, and actively opposed what we now think of as socialism. Hitler would have thought the idea of universal healthcare-care for Christian and Jew, straight and gay, black and white, able bodied and handicapped-beyond incomprehensible.
If you have a constructive proposal, by all means make it. Make it wherever and whenever possible. Do your research. Hone your English (the debate is largely in that language). The chief advantage that Barack Obama has over George W. Bush is articulate speech. Go and do thou likewise. But please, please, don’t try to debate a nonexistent bill.
Because of various schedule conflicts Ruling & Reigning Training is on hold at least until Fall.