Good Citizenship through Paranoia

I’m not a good person. I leave 12% tips on adequate service. I drink. I lust. I sloth. (slothe? Sloath? Sloth.) I don’t envy, but I’m jealous of those who can. I speed (more than the courtesy 10mph), I don’t use blinkers, and I make sure that if ever my wipers are on, my lights are off. And if I were alone, and had free time, in a room with a puppy and a knife… well… only one of us is walking out. And if you think I’m alone, well, maybe you don’t realize how evolution happened and why *they’re* *our* pets.

That being said, some things can scare me straight. The first time I meet a future mother-in-law (or as is more accurate, a soon-to-be-ex’s mother), I am on my bestest behavior with a cherry on top. I try to keep my swearing to a minimum in front of Friars, Fathers, and Nuns. And whenever I see the tell-tale markings of a lightbar on top of a caprice or a Crown Vic with governmental plates, I am the very model of Driver’s Ediquette.

The problem, of course, is that these markings are tell-tale. The silhouette of a bacon-mobile is easily recognizable, and radar detectors are a dime a dozen. This means that I am only in accordance with the laws and regulations of the road/municipality when I am being directly observed. All memory high school run-ins with the fine ladies and gentlemen of the New Providence Police Department to the contrary, cops have better things to do.

So, take this under advisement, procurement personnel of law-enforcement agencies across our fair land: branch out. Don’t restrict yourself to American sedans. Buy anything with 1.5-7 wheels, and use it to scare the shit out of us. I mean it: your job’s hard enough. Why not play with our minds?

Imagine if every Hyundai Boxy-wagon or Alfa Romeo roadster pulled to the side of a road were potentially a speed trap? No longer could you whiz by a Winnebago doing twice its speed: they might be SWAT team members on their way to see the Grand Canyon. Every impounded car or bicycle should be turned into another tool for enforcing ridiculously low limits on our ability to endanger myself and those near me.

It used to be that this was easily taken care of: every red-blooded American was decent and God-fearing. But the idea of an omniscient being who can see your every thought just isn’t as surprising in age of cell-phone cameras, surveillance photos, orbiting satellites, gossipy blogs, and attorney general Gonzales/PATRIOT act enforcer cyber-John-Ashcroft. So instead, instill fear in us with a reconstituted fleet of mopeds and Yugos with sirens hidden inside.

-D”I didn’t think I was even fighting the law, and the law won”an

The Challot

Ha! Wandering in the wasteland that is MY DOCUMENTS folder, I came across these articles I slipped under the noses of an oblivious administration in the April Fools Edition of my high school newspaper. Tell me folks, have you ever known a blogger who is so paradoxically both a smartass and dumbass?


STUDENT TOURISM TO LEBANON INCREASES 6430%
Dan Australianforbeer

Public opinion of Lebanon amongst RHS students has increased nearly seventy-fold in the past several years on the strength of a frenetic word-of-mouth campaign to encourage patronage in the war-torn Middle Eastern Nation.

"Beirut is the best! Woo-hoo!" screamed a sophomore girl who was reached for comment last Saturday night at the house of an anonymous senior whose parents were out of town. The girl’s speech was slurred and she walked with a noticeable disorientation, but even that couldn’t undercut her intense enthusiasm for Lebanon’s capital city.

"Everyone loves Beirut," remarked a prominent senior and organizer of several Beirut trips curiously referred to as ‘tournaments’. "After a hard week’s work you just want to unwind with your friends and have some fun. Beirut is the best thing for that, especially if your house is empty anyway." Trips to the Arab nation, located directly north of the troubled Israeli-Palestinian region, are sometimes planned and carried out with only a few hours notice, but some can last all night. "You don’t stop till you drop," claimed another RHS senior.

Many past and present tourists agree that all one needs to have fun in Beirut is several large plastic cups and a ping-pong ball. "Just don’t drink the Beirut water," one warned. "That’s just nasty."

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ADMINISTRATION CENSORS ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF [CENSORED] AGAIN
Smoove D

In the latest case of the incredible [censored] down in the [censored] department exerting their [censored]-like power over the ranks of RHS students, Administration officials have forbidden an article titled "[Censored] gerbils: A tale of [censored], [censored] and candlelit dinners" from running in the spring issue of The Yak.

When asked what he thinks about the re-[censored]-diculous censorship, Executive Editor Dan Foster responded, "I think it’s a bunch of [censored]ing bull[censored]." He went on to add vehemently, "If I had just one [censored] I’d grab them by their [censored] [censored] and drag them down to the nearest [censored] so I could [censored] them to the [censored] with their own [censored]. Then I’d really get angry."

This sanction is just the latest in the months long campaign of censorship by the [censored]faced administration. One senior official, clearly seen to be wearing a frilly [censored] beneath his three-piece suit, stated that the administration’s intentions are simply "to create a cleaner, more decent student-[censored] and a better learning environment." Also deemed indecent by the higher-ups was the AP Biology unit titled "The Descent of [censored] sapiens and How Man Came to Stand [censored]."

A group of students protested outside the office of one senior official, who’s home is reportedly heated by a stack of burning books, but their demands went unheard as a swarm of censors flanked them on all sides with Parental Advisory stickers.


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Why the Eagles will win the Super Bowl

The Eagles will win the Super Bowl this year. I know this not because of sports certainty or information gleaned from analysis of marketplaces acting as conglomerators of insider knowledge. No, I know it for a stronger reason: narrative necessity.

Just look at the backstories. The Patriots have... what, exactly? They're Goliath. The favorites. They've won 2 out of the last 3 years. If they win, it's just setting them up as the mini-Yankees. And with the Red Sox already sucking up all the Miracle that the greater Boston Area could expect for the next three centuries.... No magic there, my friends.

But the Eagles are underdogs writ large. Terrell Owens managed to turn his privilege into a handicap by breaking his ankle or tibia or fibumacallit at just the right time to make his return triumphant and daring. Who can imagine any ending to this day other than him pushing himself harder than he should, extending a distressed joint just a bit more to make the catch. Sacrificing his body for the game. Wait, no, sorry: Sacrificing His Body For The Game.

But the real glory is Jeff Thomason: the assistant project manager at a Philadelphia construction company is back in the saddle. We all know the story: a has-been or a never-was that is suddenly thrust into the limelight. He wasn't even expecting to be playing, and here he is... The whole stadium starts chanting "Rudy". I mean, what the Eagles have is the destiny of every cliché sports feel-good movie.

The Patriots have two options to pursue if they want half-a-shot at the Lombardi Cup. 1) They could fire all their starters and replace them with a motley mix of cripples, orphans, and three-legged puppies. This unfortunately would start a bidding war with the Eagles, and end up with next year's top draft pick being used on a 7-year-old albino forced to enter the coal-mines to feed his family asbestos (the only thing he can afford on his meager wages) who has both emphysema and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.

Or, 2) they could up the ante and return the Eagles' dramatic story with a buddy comedy. Hire as their new wide receiver: a midget. A funny one, suitable of being in Jack Ass or Yet Another Mike Myers Movie. And aside from the physical humor of his lowered Hummer that has platinum-plated phonebooks for him to sit on, he contributes to the playing: the quarterback gives him the ball, then engages in everyone favorite illegal sport, midget tossing, and picks up a decent 7 yards.

So, keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground, and maybe we'll find out that this Sunday, we'll see not a matchup of the NFC and the AFC, but instead of tired heart-wrenching/tear-jerker vs. odd-couple/fish-out-of-water/Adam Sandler vehicle.

-D"Oh, and of course, everyone's actual favorite illegal sport is cockfighting"an

On Porn, Psuedo-Porn, and Pornicular References.

We're never happy with what we have. And just as it's true with mates, so it's true even with fantasies. If a woman's panties are bikini, we want them thong. If they were to magically become thong, we'd be unhappy because they're crotchful (the opposite of crotchless). Why, even if a woman is going the other way, hoping to lure us with the sex appeal of the librarian-type that appeals to the bibliophile in each of us, we need her sweater's neckline higher and its fabric fluffier. Why aren't we ever satisfied?

I do, from time to time, imbibe. And Thanksgiving last, I may have hit several bottles too hard. So I did what every red-blooded pseudo-intellectual does in this circumstance: I pointed my browser to magazineline.com and subscribed to, in order of increasing trashiness: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Playboy, and Maxim. I have yet to receive either hard-hitting journalism or cutting-edge fiction/not-nearly-witty-enough poetry/extra umlauts. But their absence has given me time a-plenty to examine the latter two.

And they lust for what they cannot show. Maxim, bless its heart, self-flagellates whenever it misses an opportunity to convey the presence of nipple. And Playboy's id comes out in cartoons that depict what its suggestive photospreads never can: that intercourse occurs. But allow me to point out a few techniques I have identified across these fine wastes of paper:

• The holding-of-boobs: What bra is sexier than other flesh? In this strategy, a model obviously has bare breasts, and you can imagine that if you were to throw a ball at her, she might instinctively catch it. And haha: tatas! Plus, if she has oversized knuckles, you might be able to make out aureola behind those slim digits.
  

• The untying-of-strings: I believe it was Xeno who first examined the paradoxes of catching motion in the still. But it was Plato who first took pictures of naked boys, so I don't know whom to credit. But in this scheme, the model is shown untying her bottom, leaving the reader to fast-forward the scene but five precious seconds, allowing gravity to exert its sworn influence and remove the offending items of cloth.
  

• The doubling-of-porn-implied: This is my favorite. The previous devices have aroused imagination (and other things, yes, you perv) by making the mind's eye envision what probably didn't actually happen in these clinical-and-awfully-contrived photoshoots. But by taking a model, and hiding her "goodies" by having her stand against a mirror, over water, or in relation to some other reflective surface, the brain behind the camera makes that literary metaphor turn into the mind's cross-eyed: in the lecher's thoughts, there are now TWO naked women! And if only one would turn, there would be doubly-exposed pubic hair! Oh paradise!

Oh, and a note to Enfranchised followers: you may have noticed that our Crossfire like segment is entitled "Pissing in the Wind", and that last week it centered around issues of gender. This produced a notable upswing in traffic, almost entirely resulting from yahoo! searches for such esteemed subjects as "women pissing", "men observing men masturbate", "johnny carson ringtone", and the ever-popular "PISSING ON MEN." Now, I am not one to take advantage of hapless travelers. So I would be the last person to advertise this as the best site for "donkey punches." But if someone were to take "free golden showers" out of context or misinterpret the occurrence of words such as "ass rape with head in toilet.mpg", would I be taking advantage of them per se, or human nature?

And on a personal note, I guess I'm a bit... disappointed in the allegedly depraved nature of the web if such oblique references can boost me to the top of the hill for such specific queries. Obviously, our nation is in trouble if the above is the best hit it can produce for "urination olympics."

On Morality, Mortality, and Mor....pality?

Death's a funny thing. And I don't mean ha-ha funny (though which of us could stifle a laugh when James Cameron inflicted blunt emotional trauma on a computer-generated passenger in Titanic by having her fall onto one of that grand ship's propellers and tumble end over end to her icy demise?). I mean it makes people act funny in that crazy-if-poor/eccentric-if-rich kind of way.

Take the case of Michael Bruce Ross, a Connecticutian condemned to die. He has decided to stop appealing and face his punishment. Sounds reasonable enough, but it has spun up positively a tizzy in this small state already rocked by gubernatorial resignations and cancer.

Catch-22: some people think he's stopping his appeals not out of a recognition of guilt, but a desire to commit suicide by bureaucracy. Of course, suicide is illegal, so if this is why he's doing it, then we can't kill him.

Catch-23: Apparently T.R. Paulding (a man I can only imagine, from his name, resembles an egg in shape and gait), Mr. Ross's lawyer, is not a good attorney. You see, a good attorney would have exhausted all his appeals, done research, established his client's sanity before this point, and so Mr. Ross could be executed without hold-up. But the chief federal judge in Connecticut chewed out Mr. Paulding for errors that I'm guessing are legalistic and mundane in detail. This means that Mr. Paulding can no longer represent the dead man walking. Which means Ross has no counsel. And so can't be executed. The end result being that the only kind of lawyer who can save your life is not a Harvard Law, Yale undergrad lawyer. Instead, if you want to get off scot-free, you should hire an alcoholic child-beater with a sub-clinical case of kleptomania who is more likely to be passed out in a bar than to pass the bar exam.

"No, no. Dick is my MIDDLE name."

I was recalling a bit of witty dialogue I had with a one-time friend of mine the other day (and by the other day, of course, I mean nearly 5 years ago. Memory is a funny thing.) Anyway, the conversation was about the resplendence of our respective todgers. You see, I was trying to ball his girlfriend at the time (or, more appropriately, she was trying to ball me and I was feeling terribly sixteen about the whole thing), so of course it makes sense that our simian minds would find some verbal sparring about the worth-and-girth of our junk to be in order. I'll try to reconstruct the crescendo here:

One-Time-Friend: My dick is so big it has several distinct climate regions.
Yours-Truly: The US Congress appointed a committee to study the matter of my dick further.
OTF: My dick is visible from low orbit.
YT: My dick is the obscure Sumerian god "Absu".
OTF: My dick has consulates in all the world's major cities
YT: My dick is responsible for 20% of the volume at NASDAQ.
OTF: My dick needs a crew of fifty stout men to sail it.
YT: My dick made the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs.
OTF:...touche.

Here at the Enfranchised, we like a good non-sequiter almost as much as we like the 1991 Don Johnson/Mickey Rourke classic Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. So I invite my fellow bloggers and our readers to make appendages to this post about your appendages. How big is your dick?