Stupidity Begets

(M)an: Dude! Would The New York Times have been any different if Edward Snowden were not White? Would business have gone on as usual and not a nod towards or against any system or order of justice if Snowden were a Middle Easterner?

(D)ude: Man! This is how stupidity becomes criminal! Edward Snowden is how stupidity becomes criminal. And The New York Times is how criminality becomes stupidity.

M: Dude! There is a political double standard in defining terms. When the Republican Party defines terms, it does so quietly and then jeeringly demands immediate alternatives and answers, if challenged. Then, like mafia bosses, the GOP demands an answer to whether the press and critics have attained the same level of comprehension as they certainly have.

D: Man! I think the American Press Corps has adapted well to the deliberate lack of comprehension on their part and on the part of excusing the Republican Party but holding the Democratic Party leadership accountable for every spoken and written word. Stupidity is the stew and the secret ingredient is evangelism. There is more chance for insight watching Joel Osteen reruns than the national news. Have you ever noticed how the critical issues are never genuinely covered in the national news?    

M: Dude! The weathermen and weatherwomen on the national news always choose a dangerous spot on an active highway that has suffered a pileup because of rain or sleet and ice. They look like children ready for a snowball fight or the chance to make snow angels in the treacherous conditions they managed to find for themselves or their audiences, probably both. Their bouncy quilted ski jackets give me the same sort of chills as Victorian porcelain dolls that cackle and blink uncontrollably and Lindsey Wagner’s promo to the Bionic Woman.  

D: Man! There was a knock on my front door yesterday morning and three Jehovah Witnesses carrying their personal Bibles wanted to share God’s words. I told them I preferred my personal copy of The King James Version of the Bible and started to share my perspectives on Proverbs and Psalms. I stopped suddenly when I realized my perspectives were too unique and distinct folly, which the three Jehovah Witnesses might divide and share amongst their brethren at their next assembly.      

M: Dude! How long were the three solicitors of Jehovah at your front door?

D: Man! Less than 9 minutes. I did all the talking, of course, and had a great time proselytizing my audience of three potential plagiarists. I still cannot get over the possibility of the three returning to their brethren with my words of wisdom.

M: Dude! You’re so vain! You’re still overcome by the threat of having your 9-minute sales pitch on behalf of a clearly evanescent Lord being reproduced!

D: Man! I’m so vain that I really think the Psalms are about me? Of course not! One of the three Jehovah Witnesses wrote down their numbers for me to contact them if I felt like discussing the Resurrection and the Afterlife, at least that’s what the brochures they wanted to tout upon told.  

M: Dude! I don’t like those brochures either! They now feature people with undecipherable ethnic identities and auburn hair with occasional blonde highlights. It’s like the parishioners are preparing for that time when we all shall be as one.

D: Man! Are they talking in terms of a smorgasbord or avatar?

M: Dude! Talking about descendants and reproductive freedom, the Affordable Care Act is destined towards success thus far. But with antiabortion legislation being enforced in states like John Boehner’s Ohio- where there is a law known simply as the “Heartbeat Bill” that sides with the life of the fetus over the decision of the mother- there is another trend that the Guttmacher Institute has revealed in its latest press releases.    

D: Man! The Guttmacher Institute? Wasn’t it founded in 1968 as result of the concerns of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon about unplanned and unwanted pregnancies throughout the United States and abroad? And just last year, the Guttmacher Institute was awarded a prestigious grant by the National Institutes of Health, becoming the second institution to be given such an honor without any ties to a University itself.

M: Dude! That’s the one! In its latest press releases, the Guttmacher Institute has found that the protections built in the Affordable Care Act that allow contraceptive coverage with no out-of-pocket cost for women has increased the use of contraceptives, like the birth control pill and the vaginal ring, significantly.   

D: Man! But what is that other trend that the Guttmacher Institute has highlighted in its press releases?

M: Dude! The women- who choose to keep their private health plans that are temporarily protected from the new rules of the Affordable Care Act, private health plans that are referred to in the literature and by the President of the United States as “grandfathered” plans- are being forced to pay for part of their contraceptive care out-of-pocket, specifically for injections and/or IUD forms of contraceptives.   

D: Man! The Republican Party is trying to move the public consensus against the Affordable Care Act, and is weaving religiousness in their tapestry of poverty and destruction that they want to throw over the eyes of the destitute. Haven’t they read American tragedies like Jane Hamilton’s The Book of Ruth or Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine?

M: Dude! Those are jarring accounts of what women without resources must endure in terms of the male authority they must defer onto their entire lives.

D: Man! Men are conniving and when men like Mitt Romney insist upon women staying home and raising families without any other avenues for intellectual growth and development for themselves, just tending to the growth and development of countless children in the home, you get enslavement of an entire people, the mother and her daughters and her sons.

M: Dude! Isn’t sex considered the poor man’s polo? It’s contemptible! But if we don’t vote out the Republican Party this November 4, 2014, we will have essentially handed our lives and our sisters and mothers to Robin Goodfellow, let the name and the money not deceive you! Robin Goodfellow will engage in many polo exhibitions. We must protect our daughters, sisters, and mothers as we drown in his vat of venom.