The purpose of this particular portion of the second amendment was to ensure that the population could put together a resistance force quickly in the event of invasion. At the time, guns were the peak technological invention for killing people and common ownership put folks on par, at least in terms of equipment if not training, with any malevolent force. People super into guns still cite this as a solid reason to keep an armed population, even though any internal or external hostile force is likely to have things like fighter jets that make your guns, even the automatic ones, worth bupkis. I’m not sure who they think they will be fighting anyway; we haven’t been invaded since the War of 1812 and if the paranoid set is under some illusion that Obama is going to unleash a totalitarian dictatorship using the US military; I dare say the latter will defeat them with ridiculous ease.

                What makes these irritating assholes super into guns anyway? Yes, it can be argued that they can be beautifully crafted pieces of equipment, but so can kaleidoscopes and you don’t see many people so fanatic about them. People still seem to hunt for some reason, so I can kind of see some functional reason there if you are batty enough to get meat by sitting still in the freezing cold for hours on end instead of going to Wegmans. Most of them though just seem to like guns, unlike the Hesston types who seem more fanatic about having them on hand for the prospect of shooting people. That is what it really comes down to; people super into guns are really super into the notion of possibly being able to shoot someone with it.

                How often does someone really run into the opportunity to shoot someone else, even in a lifetime? Most people I know have never had this. I have once and I’m reasonably confident that if I had a gun, the dude would have shot me as he clearly had the drop. Unless you live in a crack house neighborhood, the streets really don’t seem to be crawling with gun toting criminals, and yet these obsessive boobs often insist on owning several and are probably harboring some kind of mental image of them simultaneously firing from both hands as the incompetent bad guys run toward them to be blown away. They say if they are taken away, only criminals will own guns. So what? They are a lot less likely to shoot your niece Suzie in the face due to a zany midnight misunderstanding.

                Living in Buffalo, you are bound to encounter a lot of Italian Americans. Every single one of them, upon meeting them, will find a way to bring up the fact that they are Italian. The guy can be the postcard of Sicily, introduce himself as Rocco Delveccio and within a matter of moments will work into a conversation about computers that, “well, I’m Italian, so of course I like …” If you happen to be in a meeting or conversation with two Italians who previously didn’t know each other, inevitably they will figure it out in short order and the pure delight that lights their faces makes everyone’s eyes roll. It’s as if they are the last two of their kind reunited by the kind hand of fate. This area is a full quarter populated by people of Italian descent, yet still encountering each other by chance just makes their day.

                Back in the 80’s and 90’s, people were annoyed by the whole ‘Guido’ movement, by which the younger generation insisted on adopting exaggerated mannerisms as if they were bravos prowling the streets of Palermo and mimicking the speech pattern of Rocky. A new trend has come to pass that is actually worse. It probably didn’t originate with her, but I noticed that out of nowhere Giada from the Food Network began over pronouncing every Italian origin word she uttered. Spaghetti suddenly became “shpa-ghett” and pancetta, “paan-cheet”. All of a sudden they all started doing it. You don’t see the German American’s adding hard guttural tones when talking about hotdogs, or the Irish getting all Gaelicky about cabbage, but the Italians are all over this mother tongue bullshit.

                Doing this for everyday vernacular was bad enough, but they pushed on. Anywhere you want to go to eat now that has rigatoni on the menu is no longer a restaurant, but a ‘ristorante’. Only Olive Garden managed to remain as American as the Croissandwich, but I’m sure the days are numbered. They continued by updating the menus to include headings that say ‘insulate’ and ‘pesce’ instead of salad and fish. Next came the dishes themselves and I no longer know what the hell to order because I don’t know what it is. If I ask the waiter, he’s just going to sneer and explain in Italian anyway. What the hell is going on with these people? Oh wait, there is something I recognize. I’ll have the “shpa-ghett” there Guido.

                It is true; life lessons in the Peanut’s world were difficult to receive from adults as they were contractually kept off screen and utilized actors with nearly unintelligible voices. The day Linus explained the true meaning of Christmas, however, started the media down a slippery slope that has just become ludicrous. The worm turned and today we are deluged with smarmy little characters with a far better grasp of complex socio or political matters than the bumbling adults around them. What motivates directors to utilize this plot device to spread an ill conceived message?

                Real life children are now encouraged by their on screen counterparts to engage in all manner of reckless or unlawful behavior. If convinced Santa or an invisible dragon is real, there is justification to disobey parents, run through the streets of dangerous cities at night, and tie up the whole NYPD on a wild goose chase with big hugs for all at the end. Divorcing parents? Well, just skip school, get your dad almost fired, and engage in a zany unlikely caper to drive them back to together. Never mind that dad was plowing his secretary and mom is an abusive alcoholic. Trouble brewing? Go ahead and directly engage psychotic felons who would kill you for a Klondike bar; you can easily outwit and defeat them in short order.

                I’m not saying go back to the days of showing Suzie Lou unable to sit for a week because she was trying to get the tooth fairy out of a jam, but a little responsibility! The myth of these unnaturally wise moppets showing the adult world what it’s like can only bring bad things. It’s the writers I should really hate, but when little Timmy is on screen explaining to his dolts of parents what true value of family really is, I just can’t help myself.

In summary, you are not fooling anyone; we know what you have chicken little.

These things are a well understood part of society and have been reluctantly accepted by the male population a long time ago. Yet still we occasionally bear witness to some over masculinized oaf whining to his girl that he doesn’t want to be seen holding her bag. I just don’t get it. His worry is clearly that he thinks people passing by are going to think it is his and render unto him some silent judgment that he is clearly a sissy who likes to prance around the mall twirling a bag that doesn’t even match his shoes. I’m certain he’s the same fellow who won’t pick up tampons out of fear that the cashier will think they are for him.

That this fool is so clearly ignorant of the bag holding role men in relationships are expected to endure is astounding. First off, no one is going to have the tiniest impression that he might be a bit fancy standing there in a muscle shirt with the barb wire bicep tattoo, dirty jeans with the big wallet chain and shitkickers on his feet. A quick look around will reveal that there are 6 other dudes standing mere feet away already clutching bags. Does he think these guys constitute some unusual transvestite club with a bag only fetish and convenes for their weekly meeting outside the women’s dressing room at Macy’s? If he’s at all worried about his sexuality being questioned, can he take one second to think that this side of a wedding ring, holding a purse is the number one indicator that a guy is in a heterosexual relationship and that she’s simply trying shit on?

I’m always tempted to walk right up her, the unfathomably hot pleading girlfriend, and advise her to stop wasting her time; he’s obviously in the closet and that holding her bag will unleash his inner queen. My only hesitation is that latent homosexual or not, he’s universally someone who looks like they can kick the crap out of me, and those guys I hate even worse.

                Walking around the Allentown Art Festival or Taste of Buffalo it is an exercise just to get from point A to B due to the enormous number of individuals who flock to them. Buffalo has like 6 nice weeks of summer and everyone is anxious to spend as much of them as possible out of doors, and thus the plethora of summer festivals mid June through mid August. Making your way about can be hampered by both strollers, an understandable and necessary evil, and people who for some reason insist on bringing their dogs to these events. The average size of these beasts tends to draw comparisons to Clydesdales and they are almost universally decorated with neck bandanas; the jolly roger of the inconsiderate dog owner.

                What makes people think bringing ‘Ol Roy to an event people can barely fit into? Relegated to the lower level of the thoroughfare below eyelevel, they are subjected to unintentional kicks, being stepped on, burned by dangling cigarettes, and grabbed and pulled by inquisitive little hands jutting from the aforementioned strollers. Making it worse, they appear half crazed by the smell of delicious food permeating the atmosphere yet forever out of reach. My own dog goes crazy over a single sesame seed being dropped in a room she is gated off from, so for these it must be pure hell. Then there is the heat. Ginormous tongues lolling out behind huge anguished pants, straining against the leash just to hydrate with a tiny patch of spilled lemonade, they seem on the verge of collapse and sometimes even do right before me.

                I think the matter speaks for itself. We certainly don’t want them there, and if the body language can be read correctly, they would rather be half crushed beneath the tire of a Kia than being dragged along on this Bataan Death March. Leave Bowser at home douchebag; we’ll love you, he’ll love you, and that is far from the case right now.

                I know I’m playing in Bill Maher’s backyard with this but too much can’t be said on the subject. I don’t hate them for being fundamentally religious or even close minded – it goes well beyond that. I hate them for the same reason I hate people who still don’t think OJ did it. You are faced with absolutely overwhelming evidence in favor of something being true, no evidence at all for the competition aside from a really old book with dragons and witches in it, but remain adamant that what you see is not true. It’s like catching mom and dad in the act of loading the presents under the tree Christmas Eve night, having them fess up, but still writing a letter to Santa the next year because you are dead sure that is the real deal.

                Aside from being deliberately ignorant, they understand their position is batshit crazy enough that they feel very threatened by the mere mention of the dreaded ‘e’ word, especially in schools. Rather than quietly accept that rational people are unlikely to come over to their non-reality based belief system, they mount fear based campaigns in order to increase the chances that the young and feeble minded can be brainwashed to validate their own highly suspect stance. I can’t help but think that these people, along with exuberant rednecks, go far toward coloring the perception of our nation abroad in a manner much different than we see in a mirror. Please, keep your tooth fairy beliefs to yourselves and stop making an ass out of the rest of us.

                I am the very first one to say that a wealthy society such as ours really should do the right thing and help out our fellow countrymen who are in need of a little assistance. By and large the vast majority received some kind of raw deal well outside their control or ability to recover from on their own. Shit happens to good people and bad; there is no just world. Most of these people are just looking for just enough help to live another day. The ones I have trouble with are those who espouse some grand notion of equal distribution of wealth and resources when unwilling or unable to at least make a stab at making their lot a bit better. By and large they tend to be college students or graduates still manning the counter at Seven Eleven because they don’t want to be a ‘tool of the man’.

                In this world, here in America, Soviet era Russia and even Afghanistan, you are either the man or a tool of the man; there are no two ways about it. Either you put in the hard work necessary to get into a position where you get to make decisions or you are someone who follows them. This pipe dream where people work their ass off in medical school or claw their way up the corporate ladder just hand half their shit over to your patchouli smelling lazy ass is not going to happen. If you worked just a little bit harder, get bumped up to assistant manager at DQ and can move out of your mom’s basement, I think you will be singing a different tune.

                Unfortunately, I was exposed to one of these on a daily basis back in college. This big dreamer of social equality worked the least number of hours a week out of all of us, created enormous messes, never cleaned up, and late on rent and bills every single month. Clearly he was deserving of full asset equality as the rest of us had much more ability to wash dishes for food service or package up jelly rings at the candy shop and should naturally use it to make up his shortfalls. I hear he’s in his late 30’s and still works at a record shop, no doubt dreaming of the great revolution that will land him in his well earned McMansion while still pushing old Beck albums for 16 hours a week. Asshole.

                An aside to the problem at large, I can’t understand why they had to go and adopt a name for their legion as annoyingly lame as ‘cat fanciers’. The name itself conjures up an image of a group of little old ladies, sitting around at a tea party wringing their hands in delight as Bootsy bats at a bit of string one of them is holding out. It may have originated there, but now you see all types, even people who have skulls on their clothing, subscribing to the quarterly magazine or showing off pictures of their Main Coon stuffed into a miniature Buffalo Bills sweatshirt. It’s as appropriate as calling Hell’s Angels ‘motorcycle enthusiasts’.  

                How did this happen? Yes, the old widow or spinster aunt in need of some kind of low maintenance companion and nothing else to do I can see. That only accounts for like two percent these days. In the old days, cats were used as pest control and allowed to roam the farms and neighborhoods at will keeping the rodent population down and giving squirrels a really hard time. If yours got hit by a car, you just grabbed up another one – they bred like rabbits and the nights were filled with the endless screeching that made you think the baby woke up yet again. Out of nowhere they managed to acquire names, posh indoor only situations, full medical and dental care, and even clothing. All because of the damn fanciers.

                The clothing I can get behind; I have never seen one wearing anything that didn’t look like it was pissing the beast off mightily. The rest though has become a billion dollar industry spawning cutesy calendars, posters, books, and even server clogging ‘viral’ emails called lolcatz. People gripe about subsidized medical care that costs the taxpayers an extra five bucks a year so our homeless children can better avoid early death, but will shell out hundreds of dollars per household a year for these mangy pricks who have long since lost their primary functionality. Yes, you have to hate them.

                Why do people think it is clever to go and preface a statement in which they are going to utter something obviously well known with a droll little build up like that? What is the expected reaction supposed to be? It would seem they are aiming to surprise us within one sentence as they throw out a little misdirection like a third grade magician, then wallop us with a big surprise. “Wait a minute…. little town… New York City… hey, I have heard of that!” They always look around a bit as if hoping to catch the moment on our faces when we realize they fooled us, for even half a second.

                I find this almost as clever as most knock-knock jokes or a rousing game of ‘got your nose’. I don’t know how it got started, but I find it used all too frequently and usually by folks like old sweater vest there. I could even see if were common for people to say things along the lines of, “I hail from a little town you might have heard of called Scabby Knee’s, Kentucky.” and have it followed by puzzled looks. The first time someone turned it around in the form of a quick zinger a very brief moment of amusement might follow, but only the first time anyone ever did it; after that, the joke is dead until the very end of time.

                People would be far less hated, especially in dreary circumstances, if they would avoid using tired old attempts at being clever no one ever found so to begin with, even in the best of times. Now because of ol’ dough boy sweater vest, I’ll never submit an application to HP, I company I probably would have liked to work for. I just can’t take the chance of having to work with, or worse for, that guy.