2/03/2004

Boobs Are Poppin' Out All Over:
Man, don't you just hate it when boobs show themselves? Goddamn, you can't sit still for a minute before some boob pops up, rearin' its dark nipple eye towards your children.

Take, for instance, Georgia Superintendent of Schools Kathy "It's My Name, But I Never Suck" Cox, and her concerted efforts to change the vocabulary of science when it comes to the schoolkids of the Peach State. See, here's a boob bursting out, saying that if one eliminates the "buzzword" of "evolution" and replaces it with "biological changes over time," like a breast that goes from being perky and scoop-shaped to saggy and flapjack-shaped later in life, then one will eliminate the "controversy" over the teaching of evolution in the classroom. One can imagine Cox, Republican, denying any motivation beyond what's good for the parents of the kids (who, of course, aren't the ones who will have to go to colleges that presumably will call things by their fucking names), sitting in her office, Confederate flag of Georgia flapping in the background, thinking, "What can I do that won't make us look too stupid?" And, of course, as all boobs will, failing. (Cox isn't alone in her Peachtree boobery: the Republican minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, J. Glenn Richardson, is introducing a bill to mandate display of the Ten Commandments in all Georgia county courthouses. Without a hint of irony or self-awareness, commenting on the "role" he believes the Jewish tablets played in the formation of the country, Richardson said, "We should not shy away from it, but should make our history public and teach it," which makes you wonder all kinds of cute things like if J. Glenn - please, Lord, let him be "Joe-Glenn"- wants us to shy away from things like the truth about Christopher Columbus, the real treatment of blacks in, say, Georgia, and on and on.)

Once you allow one boob in public, it's a slippery slope, as they say, to complete anarchy with boobs a-flyin' everywhere we look. In Olympia, Washington, Republican State Senator Alex Deccio called Republican Representative Tom Campbell a "nigger in the woodpile" in a discussion about, what else?, health insurance reforms. Now, the Rude Pundit is not ignorant of history: the phrase has been used often with no "racial" connotations, it has been claimed, although, really, and c'mon, intention is not the issue here. The definition? "A concealed motive or unknown factor affecting a situation in an adverse way," and it was used by Woodrow Wilson, that noted civil rights activist. Oh, by the way, both legislators are really, really white: here's Deccio; and here's the "nigger". Since sometimes boobs need a little support, here's an image of the nigger in the woodpile -- seems it was a phrase used against the Republican Abraham Lincoln when he was running for President. A little extra history lesson? It was also the title of an Irish tune and an early racist American film. Deccio has not resigned and his friends say he is not a "racist." That's the problem with boobs - when you think they're hidden, that's when you can see them all.

Certainly these days we have to trace things back to the alpha boob, the boob that opened the door for all other boobery in contemporary America. Our boob-in-chief, nipple erect with the thrill of war and violence, is doing everything possible to undermine any "independent" investigation by appointing the members himself (something not unakin to telling a mobster on trial to choose his jury). Our boob-in-chief says that Congress, who he lobbied to the point of criminality to get his prescription drug benefit, underestimated the cost (which, truth be told, Democrats said during the debate). The thing about boobs? They have no minds of their own, even if they seem to sometimes, puckering and unpuckering, sending tingles at inconvenient times. Anything a boob does, there's gotta be something else going on. Boobs do not act alone. The history of boobery demonstrates that when a boob is exposed, the exposure means far, far more than the boob itself.

A Quick P.S. on the Real Boob:
When Janet Jackson's breast was revealed to the millions of people watching the Super Bowl, the cry heard 'round the world was "Why couldn't that have been Britney?" As the FCC promises to launch an investigation into Tittygate, no less an authority than Howard Stern, who knows something about the FCC wasting time and money on "standards," said this morning that he couldn't understand how the public could be calling for an investigation of Janet Jackson, CBS, and the piercing/pasty controversy when no one is calling for an investigation of the Scalia/Cheney duck hunting trip. Strippers, retards, and dwarves aside, ya haveta admit, Stern's got a point.

Lastly, All Around the Country, Familes of the Dead and Wounded Wonder Why:
Colin Powell told the Washington Post that he's not sure he would have recommended war if he had known that Iraq did not have stockpiles of weapons. Let the lawsuits begin.