Hurricanes, Gay Marriage, Grammar, and Money
Envy, and its green-eyed conjoined twin Jealousy, are prominent among the Seven Deadly Sins presented so eloquently by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy.
Envy is the itch to grab for oneself something of value that somebody else possesses (like a boyfriend, a lobster-salad sandwich, or an iPad).
Jealousy, is the desire to strip from another something of value regardless of whether you want it for yourself or not (like a boyfriend, a lobster-salad sandwich, or an iPad).
Many of the world’s woes, especially the internecine warfare waged by Out-Groups against In-Groups, can be laid at the feet of these human but reprehensible sins.
Let’s spell out the characteristics and nature of Out-Groups and In-Groups so that we’ll know what we’re talking about.
● An Out-Group is a subset of humanity that either Envies certain perceived Assets that an opposing subset, the In-Group, is believed to have or else works to strip the opposing subset of certain perceived Assets of which the Out-Group is Jealous.
● Out-Groups need not be Minorities nor do In-Groups need to be Majorities. For example Females (an Out-Group majority) vs. males (an In-Group Minority). Similarly, the so-called Underdeveloped World (an Out-Group majority) vs. the Developed World (an In-Group Minority).
● A significant factor is that whether or not the perceived Assets that an Out-Group craves are genuinely valuable has little to do with the intensity of the Out-Group’s passion to possess them.
● To sum up, the one constant in the whole affair is that Out-Groups, like children, want whatever they don’t have regardless of the importance, merit, or objective worth of the objects of their desire.
Here are some current examples of the Out-Group/In-Group dichotomy.
Gay Marriage (Homosexual Out-Group Vs. Heterosexual In-Group)
As all but the comatose know, the gay community has been hissy fitting for a decade or more over the non-burning issue of same-sex marriage.
For reasons that neither gays nor straights nor any sane human being can comprehend, homosexual men and women are demanding the right to parade down the aisle in white chiffon and/or lavender tux, swear ever-lasting fealty to their sex partner of the moment, and immediately become entangled in the hellish legal web that has been plaguing the heterosexual community (or as New Yorker magazine would say, the heterosexual "institution") for centuries.
Are starry-eyed gay couples aware that the right to marriage comes hand in glove (or foot in mouth) with the right to divorce?
I mean it’s wrenching enough to split with someone you’ve been screwing for a month or a year or ten years without having to cough up a hefty tithe to the courts and the lawyers when one or both of you get tired of the same old same old.
But what the hell.
None of that matters. The Out-Group wants what the In-Group has, no matter how pointless or disastrous. That’s what she wrote and that’s all she wrote.
Hurricane Names (Female and African-American Out-Groups Vs. White Male In-Group)
Once upon a time hurricanes were named after girls ─ Suzie and JoAnn and Beatrice and so forth. The supply was endless what with all the different possible spellings. I mean, like, Caitlin alone could supply several hurricane seasons with Kaitlyn, Kaitlin, Katelin, Katelyn, Catelyn, Caitlyn, Kaytlin, Kaytlin, and Caytlyn.
Alas, the activist class ─ led by such stalwart harridans as Betty Frieden (who is still alive). Bella Abzug (who is dead, but is expected to rise from the grave at any moment), Erica Jong (who is currently in a clinic for the terminally asinine), and Gloria Steinem (who graduated from ignoble bunnyhood into radical bitchhood) ─ marched on Washington shortly after the bra-burning epidemic of the ‘60s and forced the weather bureau to include boy names such as Bruce and Hugo.
Apparently this coup did so much to advance the cause of woman’s lib and world peace (as well as draw attention to the fact that topnotch female editorial assistants were paid far less than mediocre major league outfielders), that leaders of the African-American Out-Group are demanding that Black names be included in the hurricane roster.
So all you white bigots out there, better brace yourself for the next hurricane season. Duwayne, Tyrone, Tonisha, Plaxico, Woopie, Shaquandra, and Tawana are on the way.
Uh-Oh...I just got word that the Arabs want Anwar and Osama added, the Jews want Moshe and Hyman, the illegal- aliens are demanding Diego, Jose, Encarnacion, and Manuela, and the Thais threaten a boycott of American goods if Sukhon, Ngam-Chit, Phassakorn, and Khemkhaeng aren’t included.
Y’know, I just thought of something. The female Out-Group wanted male names included because using female-only names was insulting to women. But Blacks want African-American names included because not using Black names is insulting to Blacks.
See what I mean? It’s all such crap. The fact is that Out-Groups don’t give a shit whether what they want makes any sense. They merely want whatever they think the supposed In-Group has.
Miss, Mrs, and Ms (Female Out-Group Vs. Male In-Group)
On or about the time that activist women were demanding non-equal representation in the nomenclature of tropical storms, other activist ladies were focusing on gender discrimination implicit in the area of titles.
Why, they asked, should the marital status of females be identified by the labels Miss and Mrs. while males got off scot free with a universal "Mr."
Why, indeed? The solution was clear to the avant garde. A third modifier must be created that could proudly stand alongside "Mr." on the podium of life leaving everyone unsure of the marital status of double-X homo sapiens sharing the dais.
Thus "Ms." (pronounced "Miz" for some reason) made its appearance on the world stage forcing 90 percent of the male population as well as Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres to glance at a chick’s ring finger before hitting on her.
And so today’s liberated woman is now blessed with three titles to choose from rather than two. However, outside of spicing things up (rather like having a choice of dress-style, shoes, lingerie, hand bags, and hair-dos), it is hard to see just how the introduction of "Ms." improved the lot of the average housewife, career girl, or unwed welfare mother.
Moreover, if by some historical quirk men had happened to be identified as, say, Mouster for single men and Munsteroo for married men and women had been identified simply by Mosh, you can be sure that female activists would have demanded equivalent sobriquets for themselves, say Moshamoiselle and Muasha.
Equal Opportunity Grammar (Female Out-Group Vs. Male In-Group)
My friend from Reader’s Digest, Sally French (I hope she’ll still be my friend after this post), introduced what I call equal opportunity grammar to the Digest when she was editor of such massive best sellers as How to Do Just About Anything, Practical Problem Solver, and Household Hints and Handy Tips. (Our redoubtable art director, David Trooper, liked to call the last of these volumes, "Household Hints and Handy Tits.")
At the time, I was in charge of the company’s line of instructional books (Law, Cooking, How-to, Gardening) and stirred myself sufficiently to review the progress of one of the books Sally was putting together. What I discovered was that she was employing the pronouns "he" and "she" randomly throughout the text. Thus on one page the reader might be advised to "See your plumber, he will solve the problem," and several pages later the reader might be advised to "See your plumber, she will solve the problem."
I don’t know what to say about this sort of thing except to note that these dancing pronouns make me vaguely uncomfortable ─ not so much because they violate hoary grammatical convention, but rather because I found I was continually having to re-image the book’s anonymous plumbers and other characters to suit the shifting whim of the editor
I should point out that the reinvention of conventions is seldom a good idea. I also wonder if traditionally female objects ─ like ships and cars and cats ─ are positives or negatives in the view of the weaker, I mean stronger, sex.
In conclusion, let me ask if it really improved the lot of the world’s majority type of human being when the poetic meter of the somewhat ungrammatical Star Trek intro was ruined by changing "To boldly go where no man has gone before" to the insipid "To boldly go where no one has gone before?"
Gimme Your Money (Third World Out-Group Vs. Developed World In-Group)
Unlike the other cases I’ve listed, there is a modicum of logic to the demands by the poorer nations of the world to get their hands on as much of the wealthier nation’s money as they can.
Rather than calling this Thievery, the process is usually referred to as "Reparations" since it is accepted Liberal doctrine that America, Australia, Canada, and most of Western Europe are wealthy only because they stole the resources of the other nations of the world and enslaved their populations. (For reasons I do not understand, Japan, Finland, Sweden, and Monaco are exempt from these charges.)
Now, I certainly agree that the average Ugandan and Zimbabwean man or woman in the bush is entitled to live as well as, say, Yoko Ono and Susan Sarandon.
But what about me?
I mean, hell, I’m kinda like a small underdeveloped nation myself and I want, in fact I DEMAND, that Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros, Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand, Michael Moore and all the rest of them there fat cats cough over a few million bucks of their loot to me without delay.
What’s more, I don’t give a shit if they claim they worked for it, inherited it, stole it, or won it in the lottery.
I want half!
And if they won’t give it to me nice-like, I’ll picket their damn homes and piss on their damn lawns and crap on their damn BMWs and then I’ll get on the horn and hire goddamn Barney Frank and have him legislate it away from them.
So there!
Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net
Categories: Social Commentary, Satire
Tags: envy jealousy women aggrieved groups
...Duwayne...
Friggin hilarious! Love you Pop
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