2008? No, It's 1984

Here's something that happened to me today that caused a rant in me containing a burning anger of a thousand white-hot suns. E-mail quarantine.

I was writing a particularly gripping piece to my sister today on the concept of the collective unconscious. It's a theory developed by Carl Jung and proposes that not only do we have an individual unconscious unique to our own experiences, but also a collective unconscious shared by every human being since the beginning of time. I applied that theory to receiving messages from dead people through dreams.

As you might imagine, the note I wrote to my sister was quite complex, containing detailed theories regarding the human psyche, the afterlife, and the paranormal. It took me quite a long time to articulate what I was trying to convey. Finally I was able to click "send."

Within seconds I received a message from the e-mail quarantine center stating my message was deemed racially discriminating and it was not only quarantined but obliterated completely.

Now I can understand if my employer doesn't want me writing personal e-mails on work time or on the work e-mail network thingy. I was in error doing that. I will punish myself for not being more sneaky. But to take a piece of writing, copyrighted merely by its creation, and not only block it from its intended recipient but completely destroy it on the basis of a keyword which may have been construed as racially discriminating? That's out and out censorship. Even if my subject matter had been racially discriminating, I think it's wrong for anyone or anything to delete it from existence - well, my existence at least. Reprimanding is one thing. Being the judge of all things written is another.

So I'm pretty down on Big Brother today. I'm down on the fact that nothing is private. I'm down on the fact that my intellectual ramblings are deleted by my employer, and yet the dozens of people who can't/won't do their jobs aren't being fired. Where will the line be drawn? When will people be able to express themselves as themselves without being censored by political correctness? When will the people of the world just lighten the hell up and leave each other alone?

Geez!

The 2008 Pee-On Tour

Ruthie and Ray came to visit Boyfriend and me this past weekend. We indulged in many glasses of chocolate cherry wine, and other assorted libations. As you may know, drinking chocolate cherry wine makes for some pretty aggressive talk accompanied by laughter most likely to cause one to wet one's pants. I managed the Kegel pretty well, but there is a suspicious spot on the couch where Ruthie was sitting.

One thing I learned about Ray is that he hates Bing Crosby. He doesn't avoid Bing Crosby. He doesn't dislike Bing Crosby. He can not stand (read: hates) Bing Crosby. Why Bing Crosby? I have no idea. What's not to like? Except for the fact that he was a known child abuser to his kids. Ray can't stand to watch him in movies and I'm guessing he throws up in his mouth a little when White Christmas plays on the radio. In fact, Ray got so agitated over his hatred for Bing that he declared his wish to go piss on his grave. And not just piss on his grave, piss on his grave after drinking forty-seven cups of coffee. Ray wants to make the old corpse float away.

Bing Crosby? Piss on his grave? That's just weird. Pretty damn funny, but weird.

The more we talked about peeing on Bing's grave, the more we came up with other names of people we hate. (So much for goodwill feelings of the holidays.) We decided to organize a Pee-On Tour where we map out the graves of these despicable people and pee on their graves. Unfortunately, the people we came up with aren't in graves yet, except for Bing. Ray decided we could just knock them over and pee on them while they were on the ground.

Our list so far:

Bing Crosby (of course)
Rachel Ray
Oprah Winfrey
That icky football player who's too full of himself (Ruthie's pick, but I can't remember his name)

Now that I'm putting this in print it seems really stupid. Peeing on people. Peeing on graves. It's pretty twisted, isn't it? I can't make it sound as funny as it actually was. Oh, just go drink a bottle of chocolate cherry wine and read this post again. Then add some people to the list. I know you'll want to.

Up On The Housetop

It was many years before I realized reindeer had hooves. You know, because of that song:

Up on the housetop reindeer paws...

Songs are written to reflect the times. Up On The Housetop takes me back to a simpler time when there was no such thing as soccer moms or the obsessive-compulsive overprotectiveness we see hanging like a black cloud over little kids who just want to play and pretend. Take, for example, the booty little Will gets:

Next comes a stocking for little Will
Oh just see what a glorious fill
Here is a hammer with lots of tacks
Also a ball and a whip that cracks.

Will doesn't get these things in modern times because Mom figures he'd probably bonk himself repeatedly in the head with the hammer and swallow the tacks. God only knows what he'd do with the whip.

Hey Mom, do your research and make sure that toy isn't painted with lead! Watch out for those button eyes on that stuffed animal! Don't forget the knee, shin, elbow, and head gear to go along with that new tricycle!

Oh, the good old days, when his whip was a boy's best friend.