MattMaroon.com

There are certain groups of people I categorically mistrust. At the top of my list (and, I imagine, everyone else’s) are proctologists. That’s a career choice that makes no sense at all. I guess the costs involved in starting your own practice are minimal, since their only equipment is a rubber glove and a flashlight, but that still doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me. Six years of school, three years of residency, and a hundred grand in tuition to do a job that I would consider daily proof that there is a God and he hates me? I hear Wal-Mart is hiring.

Second on the list, and also in the medical profession, are male gynecologists. I always wonder about them. I can just picture their middle school career day.

Teacher: What do you want to do when you grow up Billy?
Billy: I LIKE BOOBIES!!
Teacher: Yes, but what do you want to do for a living?
Billy: BOOBIES BOOBIES BOOBIES!!
Teacher: I might have just the job for you. Do you like vaginas too?

Then, on what I assure you is a totally unrelated note, the next group on the list is people who don’t like pickles. There aren’t many of them, but the few there are should be deported immediately. Pickles are crunchy and sour and generally perfect in every way. Anyone who doesn’t enjoy one with their hamburger must be a communist.

And last for today, but most common, are guys who don’t follow proper urinal etiquette. Most of society’s rules are capricious and arbitrary, and we would all be better off without them, but I’m pretty sure it is written in stone somewhere that taking an unoccupied stall directly next to one already in use is verboten.

A guy came into the bathroom at a restaurant this evening and occupied the urinal between me and someone else (which is a major infraction in and of itself) and then tried to start a conversation with “what’s up?” Who does that? Everyone knows you stare straight ahead and don’t say a word. If you really must talk, save it for the hand washing phase. You don’t just unzip your fly and say “what’s up?” I have my dick in my hand, that’s what’s up, and that means I don’t feel like chatting. I can’t think of one time in my entire life where I was holding my penis and thought “gee, this would be a lot better if I could talk to some guy I don’t know.”

A commenter in my last post asked a question that I think is worth a standalone discussion because it is applicable to much more than just the Iran problem. It was whether or not I think the terrorists are “winning”. Definitely. There isn’t any conceivable measure by which they’re not.

Economically it’s no contest. They’ve wreaked fiscal havoc on our country. Nobody disputes that. The stock market lost over a trillion dollars in the week following 9/11. It plunged us into a recession and kicked the airline industry square in the testicles. They hit us really hard there. They have no economy for us to destroy. We freeze some of their assets, but as long as governments like Iran keep funding them we can’t even slow them down.

Politically 9/11 served them extraordinarily well. It emboldened the Bush administration and provided them a power base, which they’ve used to utterly and completely destroy our foreign relations. I won’t even get into the many ways (economically, environmentally, and otherwise) in which Bush’s reelection is destroying our country domestically, but it seems most likely that without the terrorist attacks catapulting him into the highest sustained approval rating ever he would not have been reelected, unless maybe he didn’t start the war in Iraq. Either way our country would be much better off.

It definitely struck fear into the hearts of Americans, which was their stated aim. Despite the fact that the direct damage done was relatively trivial (losing 3,000 lives and a few billion worth of buildings and 747s is, from a sheer economic standpoint, virtually unnoticeable in our economy) the fallout has been one of the most significant events in American history. We still hear about it every day. Hurricane Katrina killed almost as many people and caused something like 30 times more property damage, and it was more recent, but it has been all but forgotten.

Also, we lose an ungodly sum in productivity with all of the new anti-terrorism safety measures taken, most of which are largely useless. I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of dollars ridiculous inconveniences like increased lines at the airport or having to put our toiletries in plastic bags cost our nation every year, but I do know how many lives they’re saving. Zero.

So terrorists achieved a lot that day, and with only a handful of lives lost and a few hundred grand in cash. That’s pretty impressive. It’s not a TKO, but it definitely put them ahead in the decision.

What’s even more impressive is that terrorist attacks against us have gone largely unpunished. The Iranian government funded, sanctioned, and helped plan the attack (carried out by Al-Queda) on Khobar Towers, killing 19 American Air Force soldiers. We knew that Khamenei approved it and high ranking military officials planned it. Nothing was done.

They blew up a couple embassies in Africa, killing hundreds. We took out a couple meaningless buildings in Sudan with cruise missiles and called it a day.

They bombed the USS Cole, killing 17 of our sailors, we blew up two guys in a Jeep. Who is winning there? Certainly not us.

Is it any wonder they got up the nerve to fly some planes into our buildings? They attacked us over and over, and over and over we did nothing. And then, when they finally hit us on our own soil, we let Osama go and didn’t finish off the Taliban, who are now working their way back into power in Afghanistan. The only thing we did do in the name of the War on Terror was topple the one government in the Middle East that didn’t participate in terrorist attacks on American targets. Brilliant.

Our own government creates commissions to study 9/11, figure out what happened, why, and how to prevent a recurrence. And what do we do? Ignore them. We’ve implemented virtually none of the recommended safety measures, instead choosing asinine ones like making everyone put their hair gel in a Ziploc bag. But fear not, nobody with a 4 oz stick of deodorant will be aboard your flight. That is, not unless they just stick it in their pocket and walk through the metal detector with it like I do. Surely no potential bomber would have cargo pant technology.

Terrorists are winning in every way in which it is possible for them to do so. They haven’t won the war, and they won’t because we’re far too big, but they’ve won every battle so far. I wish I saw that changing, but it won’t until we get a President who is serious about the war on terror. Bush is, through incompetence and stupidity, simply aiding them.

And now, given our history, and given the unpopularity of the war in Iraq here and abroad (and therefore our current reluctance to fight any wars at all, even the necessary ones) I think it entirely rational for Iran to believe that if they gave Al-Queda a dirty bomb, and if that bomb happened to be detonated in Times Square, that there would be no repercussions for them. I believe it myself, since that’s been the precedent for over a decade. And that’s why we have to stop them from enriching uranium and we have to do it now. Otherwise prepare for the inevitable catastrophe.

The Zelda Wii

One strange thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I seem to have an overly-sensitive palate when it comes to sweetness. It has a lot of advantages and a lot of disadvantages, so on the whole I find it quite bittersweet, pun intended.

For one, I can’t tolerate high fructose corn syrup. It’s so sweet that it literally makes me nauseous. That means that most bottled beverages these days are out. Oddly enough the rise in gas prices might fix that for me. Corn syrup is the sweetener of choice for most beverage makers due to the high price of sugar, which is caused by ridiculous tariffs, which in turn were inspired by agribusiness lobbying money. But as gas prices rise and corn farmers are able to fetch higher and higher prices from ethanol manufacturers the price of high fructose corn syrup goes up, and presumably the lobbying money from corporations like Archer Daniels Midland that realize that farmers can now make more from fuel anyway, evaporates like spilled Coca-Cola on hot pavement. I read somewhere that the magic gas price is $2.75. At that point corn prices are high enough that it is more economical for beverage makers to use sugar, even with the tariffs in place.

So, while it sucks to spend $60 to fill up my tank, it does mean I’ll be able to drink Doctor Pepper. In fact, I was looking at a can of pop the other day and where I had never seen anything but corn syrup listed before it now said “high fructose corn syrup and/or cane sugar”. Soft drink manufacturers respond quickly.

I also can’t eat chocolate. I like it in small doses, but I could never just eat a fudge brownie without feeling sick. And I pretty much can’t stand cake of any sort, as the icing is a killer, but a chocolate cake would probably send me into a coma. This perhaps doesn’t sound like much of a disability, but I’ve learned that the easiest way to make people think you’re a weirdo is to tell them that you don’t like chocolate. Try it some time, I promise you’ll get the same look you’d receive if you said “I just moved to a new house. Tomorrow I have to go door to door and tell all the neighbors about my past.”

Luckily all of those things that I can’t eat are pretty bad for me. If I had to pick something to have an aversion to, it would be sweets. I’m sure Pepsi is wonderful and all, but a 150 calorie beverage is the last thing I need to acquire a taste for. If I were overly sensitive to leafy greens, then I’d really be screwed.