Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Man Plan

This one's mine
You know how something seems unthinkable, and then someone thinks it, and then more people think it, and after a while it starts to seem normal? Like mass shootings. No one used to think about that at all, but somebody got the ball rolling and now it's a Thing.

So I really resisted a lot of what Trump was saying but now I'm kind of getting the hang of it. Sometimes the simplest solution really is the best solution. And it doesn't get any simpler than defining your enemies using the broadest brush possible, and walling them off, registering them, killing their families, and otherwise making them all really sorry for frightening you. How hard can it be to get a handle on a billion Muslims when they all have to kneel down and pray five times a day?

Well, I don't have much of a grudge against Muslims, but it doesn't take much thought to look around at all the threats in the world, large and small, with a clear eye, and recognize the common denominator. Men. We need to do something about men. They're scary. Not all of them, but until you know for sure it's best to just lump them all together and keep an eye on them. Worst thing a woman's ever done to me is compliment me on my haircut and not mean it. But the stalking and grabbing and raping and bombing and torturing and general death kind of scary--it's pretty much always men.

Decorative
A lot of the good old strategies are making a comeback. Newt Gingrich, an antique pasty white guy, just suggested we should bring back the House Un-American Activities Committee, for instance. His activities put him in no danger, since there's nothing un-American about infidelity, or, as he prefers it, "proactive engagement with future wives." He also complains that America has become too secular. He's already been Lutheran, Southern Baptist, and Catholic, himself. The man really can't get enough sects.

There were so many good ideas from back around World War II. The most promising for today's problems has to be the Japanese-American internment camps. That wasn't a popular idea at first because for the most part people in the western states were fond of their neighbors, but after Pearl Harbor, those same neighbors began to look a whole lot hinkier. They were easy to round up, too, because the Census Bureau ratted them out, even though the information was supposed to be confidential. The Census Bureau flatly denied doing it, however, until 2007, in a fit of retroactive truthfulness. But they still probably know where all the men are.

Even with everything that's happened, a lot of us would probably balk at stashing all the men away somewhere--a lot of us find them highly decorative--but all it will take is one more Pearl Harbor moment and we'll get everyone on board. Where to stash them, though? We want to avoid cruelty--that's not who we are, inside. We just want them quarantined for our safety, and maybe we can make off with their stuff, too. So I suggest some kind of cave. Men like caves! There's already a huge cave under Missouri that they use for cheese storage. Men like cheese!

I'm telling you, we're one cable hookup and a taco shipment away from solving the whole thing.

34 comments:

  1. Will the men be allowed out when we need them for things like lopping trees, replacing roof tiles, pouring concrete foundations? Because I sure as heck don't want to be doing those things myself.

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  2. And killing roaches and scary spiders! Don't forget we need to retrieve a guy from time to time for killing things, but not for killing humans, thank you very much.

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    1. Not spiders either! Hey! We loves spiders, remember?

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    2. I suppose some spiders are ok, but have you ever met a Camel Cricket? They are evil. If they find one of their own alive on a duct tape trap, they eat him alive! And they jump at people. I know from experience....

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    3. I had to Google them.... Is that what they are?! I get them in my basement, and didn't know what they were called. My husband and I call them "spider-crickets" because they look like a hybrid made from the two insects.

      Maybe they're putting the live one out of his misery. Glue traps are not the most pleasant way to go....

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    4. Yes, they are when you've never heard of them and the first one you come across has a body twice the size of a large roach and legs that could wrap around a tennis ball and it jumps over a foot in the air AT you and you are sure it's a poisonous spider that is going to bite you and then you die!

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  3. At the risk of sounding like a male sympathizer (which in this context could get me in a fuckton of trouble), if it were men saying similar things about women (in a facetious way, of course), would we have a sense of humor about it? I'm thinking, probably not. Everyone knows women don't have a sense of humor. (Hey, we're painting with a WIDE brush here, right?)

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    1. I know I certainly do not have a sense of humor.

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    2. That's pretty much already been done -- and continues to be done in some of the more "manny" places on the planet, though.

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    3. One of the main differences between men and women is that men think the Three Stooges are funny.

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    4. Yeah. Holds true in this house.

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    5. And men make booger jokes. Men also like to blow things up when they can.

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    6. I like a good booger joke but I'm not that keen on the combustibles.

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  4. I love your posts--you always tell it like it is!!

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  5. For a change I am thinking your brush is (perhaps) a bit too broad. I would go with a subset who are also almost all male. All politicians and religious leaders. And ensure that your cave is wifi free.

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    1. Which would keep the cooks and the menders where we could make use of their talents.

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    2. If they get restless we could install a glass ceiling on the cave so we could keep an eye on them and they can (ahem) keep an eye on us. A lot of them would like that.

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  6. I would like to hear Dave's take on this solution!

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    1. Oh dear. Well he's unavailable at the moment but I'll see if I can get him on the phone tomorrow.

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  7. I've already thought that this is the ultimate end of the argument Trump is proposing. But I'd rather give everyone a chance. I think I've had a happier life under the philosophy that I'll give everyone a chance to screw me once. But ONLY once.

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    1. Once or twice, depending on how forgetty you are...

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    2. And how much you enjoyed the experience. There's one man who screws me fairly regularly, and we both sleep well afterwards.

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  8. Do I hear someone talking about *men* and *screwing* in the same blog post? Well, heck.....I'd offer my expert opinion on these issues, but while I'm figuring out what to say, let me remind you all that public opinion on these matters was once far different than it is today. To wit: https://youtu.be/l5aZJBLAu1E

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  9. Lissen...wondering if we can't do some negotiating here....I'll work couple days a week seeing patients, and wear a ankle monitor. How bout' it, I mean, seein' as how I'm an Oregon native......

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    1. Fill out the form. The essay portion will count half.

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  10. If there are good Chinese and Mexican restaurants in your internment cave I would probably sign up. A large screen TV with 24 hour NFL and NASCAR events would probably lure most of the rest of the men. And Beer.

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    1. You set with PBR? We need to keep most of the good stuff topside.

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  11. Now THERE's a young man's game.

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