Saturday, February 07, 2009

Stop That Stimulus Vote! I Want To Add A Few Billion To Combat Rampant Stupidity

All right, everyone. The time has come for the Dept. of Nance to answer the call of duty...er, hold on. Make that The Call Of Duty (there, that's better; if ever the shift key were called for, this is it). There is just way too much Stupid going on out there, and it is High Time that someone did something about it. It's patently obvious that no one else is stepping up, so once again, I am offering my services. Certainly, President Obama can do far worse than to offer me a position in his Administration. My credentials are above reproach, my wardrobe is impeccable, and my admiration of President Lincoln and his wife is indisputable.

But I digress.

My point, and I am well on my way to making it, is this: Stupidity is once again running free in America, and the media is perpetuating it as a legitimate news source rather than calling it what it is or, better yet, ignoring it because it is...stupid. My job, which I will eagerly and cheerfully undertake, is to smack down the stupid. Immediately and with great zest. If necessary, I will provide intelligent commentary, replete with polysyllabic words just to counter the effect that the stupidity may have had.

Had I already been on the job, here are a few Stupid Things I would have already taken down.

Item: The No-Jacket VS. Jacket in the White House Controversy. "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for coming. Let me assure you, President Obama is never unaware of the gravity of his responsibility, both to this great nation and to the Office of the Presidency. His sartorial presence is but a miniscule part of the Oval Office, a room in which the defense of your rights, the Constitution, and the refurbishing of America's image across the globe must take priority. At this epoch of economic distress, it may be that the visual metaphor of your leader sitting down in shirtsleeves, ready to roll them up and engage in hard labor to get you back to work, is perhaps more encouraging than you know. Now haven't we all got something far more deserving of our distress? Because, really, this is, in a word, stupid. Good day."

Item: "Everything I've ever needed to know I learned through sports," chirped Sarah Palin to Esquire magazine. Among other g-dropping, folksy, inexplicably goofy things. Really, Sarah? Everything? You know, Esquire, after she said that, I would have stopped the interview. Because that's just stupid. I've never played sports in my life. Millions of people, millions of them much smarter than both Sarah and I are, never did either. This quote is the equal of Sporty Sarah's avowal to Katie Couric that she did, in fact, read "all of the newspapers." Why is the media still covering this woman? I'm torn here, you know? On the one hand, she's a complete embarrassment to the republican party, and if she's their face and frontrunner for 2012, I couldn't be more delighted. On the other hand, however, she sets Women back about 200 years every time she opens her mouth. She might need a little Back-Room Stupid Smackdown: "Look, Sarah. I know you cannot possibly help yourself at this point, and I appreciate any woman trying to run a little game on the Big Boys in politics. But do yourself a favor and read a hardcover book, subscribe to a newspaper and read it, and since I know people like you subscribe to Reader's Digest, start doing the "Word Power" section. If possible, try not to speak any more until you perform these small tasks. Thank you."

Item: Octuplet Mom Is Swamped With Media Deals. Because so many people want to know how they can be the unemployed single parent of 14 kids, and live with their parents, yet claim that their childhoods were "dysfunctional" and that they "just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that [they] really lacked,...growing up." That they "...didn't feel as though, when [they were] a child, [that they] had much control of [their] environment. [They] felt powerless." Remember, this woman's parents (who perpetrated the claimed dysfunction) now live in the home and provide child care! The Octomom, 33-year old Nadya Suleman, is now being repped by a public relations group who is sifting through book and TV deals. The PR firm has already had to discount published reports that one offer was for Suleman to host a television show on parenting. Now that would really have been the Epitome Of Stupidity. But this whole thing is stupid, stupid, stupid from beginning to end. And don't even start with that "Who are you to judge" bullshit. I'm a rational, sane person, that's who. And if you're 33, living in a house with your parents, have no job, already have SIX KIDS, then you don't go and have EIGHT MORE. PERIOD. Especially if part of the reason you were out of work is because of anxiety over the last time you had a baby. And because your back is injured. Do you know how much backwork is required in being pregnant and caring for SIX kids, let alone EIGHT? And what the hell happened to Doctors' Ethics? A big dose of STUPID, that's what. I don't know if a plain old Verbal Smackdown will do it in this case. I might just have to get physical.

LINE 'EM UP !!!

Ahem.

This is only a small sampling of Recent Stupidity that needs to be smacked down. Michael Phelps, grab a towel and get over here. Your poor mother.

21 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:47 PM

    Choking with laughter here. Absolutely brilliant.

    (As I was reading, I also couldn't squelch the thought ¡Qué imbéciles! Whaddaya reckon? Should we reincarnate the word imbecile? I think it could fast become the buzzword of the year. And there are probably a lot of imbeciles who would promote it, heh, heh...)
    ;-)

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  2. All you need to do is watch one episode of Jay Walking on the Tonight show to be convinced we are turning into the stupidest nation in the world. As a retired teacher, I cringe every time a college student hoping to become a teacher doesn't know that Paris isn't a country or that France isn't a city, has no idea who fought in the Civil War, or can't identify a photograph of the president.

    I loved this post. I suggest a weekly or bi-weekly update. You'd have plenty of material for a daily STUPID post.

    My nomination for STUPID: last week on Oprah Ted Haggard claimed he is a heterosexual with "issues." At least he admitted the devil didn't make him do it.

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  3. Bravo, Nance!!

    No jacket vs jacket ... yeah, Bush almost always had on a jacket--and that really worked for us, didn't it? Good grief. If only being a good president, were that simple ...

    Sarah ... somewhere along the way, somebody gave Sarah a famous quotations book and she fixated on the sports section. Or maybe she picked it up from one of her kids. No, wait, she probably actually got that quote from the Reader's Digest. (For the record, I never understood why anyone would read RD condensed books and when one friend gave me a subscription to RD, she saw my reaction and immediately cancelled it. We went out to lunch instead ... an hour of pleasure vs 12 months of being irked just by each issue arriving in my mailbox, not even getting to any "reading.")

    The mom ... I can't even imagine that woman interacting with even one child. She acted "removed" when I saw her. Maybe she was on happy pills for the bit of the interview I saw, but she's clearly in some major la-la land. Her parents will have to leave to get away and they'll be slammed for it.

    Michael ... I immediately thought of his poor mom, too.

    While in the dentist's office waiting room on Thursday, I was subjected to Faux News. Good Lord, Karl Rove as a political commentator. And, Dick Cheney (who at the inauguration looked remarkably like Lionel Barrymore playing Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life) is now giving more advice to our country. Stupid.

    Shirley

    P.S. Love the shot of Fluffy!

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  4. You know, I really like sports, but I thought college was a better source of education on things like history, education, science, and governance. Sarah doesn't really seem to know much about any of those things.

    Totally with you on octomom. Why, why, why did the doctor who implanted her go along with it? I don't think there's any ethical obligation to implant 8 embryos in such a woman.

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  5. S.-Nice to see you here at the Dept. I enjoy watching the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team. I have nothing against sports in general, and as a high school teacher in an urban district, I see how maintaining eligibility can sometimes be the only reason some kids do well in school. I get the whole "it teaches teamwork and discipline" thing, too. But the blanket 'everything' crapola is truly idiotic and pandering. She's a political automaton who is obviously following a script, even now, since she's formed her PAC. And the Octomom's doctors should have their licenses revoked immediately.

    Shirley--Thanks for the kudos. As always, they are unnecessary, but since I am a shameless and vain writer who lives on praise, I'll take 'em. I would venture to say that every single mom in the universe, upon hearing the Phelps story, immediately thought of Mrs. Phelps and her selfless devotion and sacrifice to that brat. And those of us who are teacher-moms said this: "And she is a middle-school principal! Can you imagine the crap she had to put up with from those kids? What in the hell is WRONG WITH THAT BOY!? PUTTING HIS MOTHER THROUGH THAT!

    CJ--Welcome back to the Dept! The Jay Walking thing is exactly what I hate to see on TV. I am sick of showcasing the Idiocy Of America. It's bad enough that we have shows like Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and all the clones of those that do this already. Why do we have to put our own Stupid out there on display? We did that for the past 8 years by giving it the Big Chair in the White House, and for the previous 6 by letting it have control of the Congress. Good Heavens! Let's start valuing BRAINS by illuminating the Smartness Of Our Society.

    Ortizzle--Oh, thanks. I do like the word "imbecile" but I hesitate to haul out the big guns until entirely necessary. LOL

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  6. I don't know what to say that hasn't been said already, except amen to it all.

    The woman with the kids didn't bug too much at first, but the more I hear, the more it bugs me. Ugh. Solution? Stop hearing about it. That's what I'm going for, at least.

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  7. Anonymous5:48 PM

    You should definitely be in Obama's cabinet! As long as the person who gets to do the Backroom Stupid Smackdown on Palin...is me.

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  8. Anonymous8:17 PM

    Hallelujah! Bravissimo! Huzzah! for this gem of a blog! I couldn’t agree more. (Is it wrong that my inner-Clampett really enjoys the Reader’s Digest “Word Power”?)

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  9. Bellezza--merci beaucoup. And you go right ahead and enjoy Increasing Your Word Power. It's the single best part of the RD. Waiting patients everywhere need to stop marking the answers, though, and tipping other people off...LOL.

    apathy lounge--oh, no. if I get the nod from Barack, the SP Smackdown is one perk I'll be looking forward to for myself. That and possibly shoe shopping with Michelle.

    J.@jj--ahhh, the Thomas Gray philosophy!

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  10. Nance...this is GREATNESS, AWESOMENESS, and FANTABULOUSNESS all rolled in a ball...I heart you and your splendid candor (I guess one could arguably say candid splendor?)!

    I digress...

    Thank you for always saying what the average person won't...this post made my day. And seriously when Octomom (which giving her that name is itself like she's some kind of super hero was sheer stupidity) is mentioned on TV...I change it. And doesn't she live in a 2 bedroom house with her parents?

    I recently heard news that a girl (back home) is 23 with 6 of her own...no diploma, no job and is supposedly pregnant again...this kind of stuff infuriates me! When will we begin making laws that deal with stupidity???

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  11. Tera--Erm...I gave her the name "Octomom" because I was trying to be clever and was also trying to avoid using her name too often in the post in order to avoid coming up in searches for stories about her. I don't want my post to add to the din of publicity for her. So, you called me "stupid!" LOL LOL LOL. But that's okay. Now, back to your comments. Thanks for the compliments otherwise, and the person you mentioned "back home" could be an army of anyones. That scenario is unendingly common.

    EVERYONE--I realize that I had not done my due diligence in providing my sources for my info on the Octomom section, and the one story I did link to wasn't really the correct one. Oh, hell. But really, there are so darn many that you can google an entire page of them and get what I got. But in the interest of accuracy, here's the "portal page" for my sleuthing, which is the New York Daily News' series on the whole tawdry deal. Clicking any of their sidebar articles gets you the info I used.

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  12. When they first broke the story about the 8 babies, the family was keeping really quiet about it. Almost like they were...embarrased. I thought, "How nice! They know this could become a media frenzy and are trying to avoid it." But I guess once they started having money thrown at them, they just couldn't resist. The whole story, frankly, makes me sick. And getting implanted is EXPENSIVE. I would think feeding and clothing six kids already would have had an unemployed mom pretty strapped for cash!

    Finally, Michael. *sigh* He's not a child and should really know better. I love the line in your link that he's made so many bad choices that the Bengals don't want to hang out with him!

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  13. Man. Do you feel better? I do. Thanks for venting for me!

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  14. Nina--Better? Not really. Just smarter and more vindicated.

    J.--And I'm disappointed in Ann Curry. Why is someone so classy and bright doing this interview with Octomom? Leave that to Kathie Lee or Mary Hart.

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  15. Oh so cute bunny!

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  16. Ahhh Nance, you are glorious in your rage!

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  17. Gina--Oh, I don't think I've approached "rage." I don't get that keyed up about anything except the republicans. I prefer to think of it as "outrage" or "indignation."

    Nina--Isn't he?

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  18. you leave michael phelps alone.

    my world stopped for him all summer and gave me something to look forward to during a tough summer. so back the F off.

    he has vaulted himself to the top of THE LIST.

    let him smoke a little pot. who cares.

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  19. Nance...you TOTALLY did not make that up...they've been calling her that from the beginning on TV and on the Radio...seriously! LOL!

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  20. tera--holy crap. i had no idea. i honestly didn't ever hear it. and i never heard anything about this woman; all my sources were print or Interwebs, who never used it. sigh. again i overestimate my genius. but how do you know they didn't get it from me here at the Dept?!!!

    JPD--I don't give a crap if he is an intravenous drug user or chases after whores or has a chihuahua fetish. I care that he's STUPID ENOUGH TO DO IT IN PUBLIC and EMBARRASSED HIS POOR MOTHER WHO SACRIFICED PLENTY AND HAS BEEN WITH HIM EVERY STEP OF THE WAY AND HAD TO FACE ALL THOSE JUNIOR HIGH MORON KIDS WHO PROBABLY TAUNTED THE HELL OUT OF HER AT SCHOOL FOR WEEKS.

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  21. Well with all the other stuff going on in the Tie Report...they just may have! :)

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