Word (or rant) of the Week

Come and Get Your Brexit

jhider Word (or rant) of the Week Tags: Leave a comment

I personally love how the media latches onto something with pitbull determination and refuses to let it go. Sure, the term Brexit sounds pretty stinking cool, but why do we have to hear it every second of the day. Can’t we at least take the time to say, “the British exit from the European Union” every hundredth utterance.

Granted it isn’t every day that a country decides to take what appears to be a giant leap away from a New World Order that was supposed take root in the heart of Europe and spread across the globe. We should have seen it coming because the Brits have never been much on the status quo, and like us Americans, they like to forge their own path even if it means ruffling feathers. That is perhaps the one big personality trait that both Anglo based countries still have in common. It appears to me that the attitude of a whole lot of Americans is much the same, but  those bully Brits just beat us to it.

I was thinking the other day that we really shouldn’t waste a word that has so much potential on just one thing. To me it is right up there with anachronism, polymorphic, gargantuan, and a host of other words that roll right off of the tongue. Let’s not just shelve a brilliant moniker when this whole mess dies down. We need to use it in other ways, and here are a few suggestions.

            “Talk to your doctor about Brexit, a topical, orally taken pill that must be taken on a full moon and accompanied by a silver flask full of holy water laced with prune juice. You must not take Brexit if you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, a lady with lady bits, a man with man bits, any type of child or smaller version of a child. Side effects include double vision, triple vision, hot sweats, cold sweats, tingling in the hands and feet, numbness in the extremities, massive boners, no boner at all, headaches, body aches, ear aches, tooth aches, aching in the space directly behind the eye, enlarged breasts in men and women, nipple sensitivity, loss of teeth, loss of hair, loss of eyesight, massive bowel evacuation and maybe most importantly becoming a dead person.

            Of course, the benefits out weight the side effects in most people in perfect health who happen to have really good insurance. So for a smile a mile wide give Brexit a try. (By the way, if any of the bad stuff happens neither Glexo Smythe Gleen Elvis Von Lillian Pharmaceuticals, their R&D guys, their shareholders, the shareholder’s wives or any of the little shareholders are responsible. If anything happens sue the guy who prescribed it to you and hope his malpractice insurance is paid up).”

            Maybe it should be used as the name of a great new breakfast product that is harvested immediately after it exits the south end of a north-moving cow. Brexit is loaded with beneficial fiber and tons of bacteria; some good, and some that is perhaps not so good. In its unpasteurized form Brexit can help in the cure of many stomach maladies, as well as cause just about as many in the process. The guarantee (disclaimer) says that It will automatically make your breakfast exit your stomach after taking your first bite, thus contributing to the great wheel of life (not vegan approved).

            Just to keep in the European spirit, Brexit is a Dutch holiday celebrated every four years on the fifth Saturday of February. It is to commemorate the storming of the local hash store right after it was made legal. Festivities include clog dancing, riding around on bikes totally hammered on Heineken, crawling in the gutter totally hammered on hash, asking a woman twice your age to dance and throwing up on her, and taking your special lady out for a nice seafood dinner and skipping out on the check. Of course, no actual restaurants will be open that day, there will be a massive police presence standing on every corner, and you would have a much better time not celebrating Brexit at all and doing what Dutch people usually do with their ample spare time.

            I could go on, but I am afraid that whoever actually made up the name Brexit is applying for a patent as we speak and I will have to pay six thousand dollars for each use of it in this post. I am just praying that the next imminent threat to the economy or national security has as cool of a name, and that it remains public domain.  

 

 

Probability

jhider Word (or rant) of the Week Tags: Leave a comment

I wish that we all had a heads-up display like on those new Cadillac cars that would give us the numbers for every action that we take in life. For instance, every time that we climbed behind the wheel our little HUD would inform us of the chances of us making it to our destination alive. As we went down the road and started to speed our little computer would recalculate our new chances of survival for every mile per hour we went over the speed limit. Have a drink with a friend and our little buddy would do the math for us when we decided that we were “good” to drive home. Have more than a couple and those numbers would edge up into a place where only those with a death wish would attempt the journey home.

What we need is the numbers. People that have any sense at all will look at a betting line, and if the odds are stacked against them, they will refuse to lay their hard earned down. Unfortunately, they will gamble more on their lives and those of their fellow man before they will risk a buck. If the HUD gave them three to one odds on killing themselves, five to one of killing someone else, six to one on being in jail for an extended amount of time, or even money on hating yourself in the morning most folks would just call a cab or pass on the Jim Beam.

We now come to a reasonably new term where probability plays a huge part and that is “rape culture”. I am not absolutely sure what that moniker even entails to be honest. Ask any of the twenty thousand Chinese women and girls that were violated by Japanese soldiers in Nanking and they would undoubtedly say that it was a “rape culture”. To those  now days that understand the term it is taken to mean that men in particular are not being held as accountable for their actions in certain social situations than they should be.

In other words, it is simply when a man takes advantage of a situation where a supposedly lucid woman has impaired herself to the point of inactivity. The feminine argument, as I see it, that she should be able to dress in the manner of a prostitute, drink enough to inebriate a dozen monkeys, find a place to pass out away from prying eyes, and then expect nothing untoward to happen while said female is indisposed. Mind you it is my assumption that she is basically saying,”I trust a total stranger who may or may not have come to this gathering to find a victim in this exact situation to act like a gentleman even though my actions are confirming that I neither look or am acting like a gentile young lady”.

Hypocrisy finds many forms and it can be so easily tied to our friend Probability. One definition of hypocrisy is “a pretense of having a character or beliefs or principles that one does not actually possess”. The young woman that are placing her nethers in harm’s way is expecting others to have a et of values and mores that they themselves do not possess. They are more than willing to tease the pit bull and not expect to get bit. In the way they dress, in the way that they flirt, and in the decisions that they make when it comes to the consumption of mind altering substances their actions do not inspire their would be suitors to treat them with the respect and restraint that they somehow think that they deserve.

Let’s get back to our HUD display in this case. Just by being at a party where drugs and alcohol are being consumed your probability of being violated increases drastically. Add a provocative ensemble and the numbers go up. Find an out of the way place and pair off with a stranger and the computer goes wild. Lose control of your faculties and no odds maker in Vegas would take the bet on you making it home without something bad happening.

So we all have a choice to make when it comes to probability. We could be killed in our cars any day of the week, but if we are as safe and sober as we can be then our percentages look pretty good. Go to a party with trusted friends, don’t overindulge, never take anything handed to you by a stranger, and keep your wits about you, and “rape culture” would soon be a thing of the past. None of us want to see a young lady raped or murdered by a degenerate who is taking advantage of a situation. I in no way think that rape is ever a good thing. It destroys lives and makes the victim’s existence a living nightmare, but just pay attention to our old pal Probability and it doesn’t have to happen to you.