Rhinocrisy

Wow! I can’t believe I went so long without knowing this existed. Here’s a handy archive. And a funny sample for you lazy types:

I recently pawed through my parents’ Drawer of Important Documents, in search of my Social Security Card.^* Therein I came across many old and wonderful memories, including old stories I and my siblings had written, my various graduation certificates and diplomas, letters my parents had written after they had fought, etc. There was a fairly representative history of my development as a cartoonist, which demonstrated to me that I have squandered a lot of talent.

I also found my journal from first grade, in North Plainfield, N.J. Therein is recorded my great love for He-Man and Transformers, a chronicle of what I accomplished in art class earlier that day, and the anticipation, aftermath, and enjoyment of the spoils of Christmas. The modal entry was “Yesterday I was bord.[sic] I had nothing to do.” I seem not to have mastered the distinction between “b” and “d” by that point.

In a separate pile I found a much later product, a bit of humorous writing from after I had overcome my b/d handicap; I believe I was fourteen. I am somewhat dismayed to see that neither my wit nor my diction has grown any sharper in a dozen intervening years. Anyhow, I include it here, for your delectation:

Vacation
We, being the human beings that we are, frequently need to urinate. This often causes stress in the form of bladder trouble, which is mistaken for stress at work. Then we become nervous wrecks (also attributed to stress at work) and shoot dead skunks with tin cans. This, too, is mistaken for stress at work. We then decide to leave work, and take a vacation.

So you make elaborate plans to go on a cruise to the Bahamas, but this will invariably be “rained out” by “rain”. So you must make plans to visit another pleasant place, like grandma’s house. This will usually mean a lot of cheek-pinching, and comments on how much little thirty-year old Timmy has grown.

You could visit someplace better, such as the Grand Canyon. This, we hear from our friend Mr. Alfred Geologist, is a tectonic formation resulting from erosion of the landscape due to the action of the Colorado river. To me, it looks like a big red ditch. A beautiful big red ditch, mind you, but a big red ditch nonetheless. Don’t tell this to Alfred Geologist, because he is liable to hit you with an uppercut to the jaw.

Another delightful place is Grand Teton, which is just the opposite of Grand Canyon, being a mountain range. This wonderful area features such attractions as large rocks standing majestically in the background, making it the headquarters of half the world’s postcard companies, and strange animals called moose which look and sound like cows but are not. One of the more interesting sights here is Jenny Lake, a three-mile wide lake which is remarkable for its clean water. Take many pictures of this water, especially if you live in New Jersey. This will tide you through the long months of drinking leaded water between vacations.

Of course, if you don’t like nature, you can visit an amusement park, such as DisneyWorld, and get yourself chopped into little itty bitty pieces as the roller coaster mows over you where you fell onto the tracks after you went over that last loop.

Another alternative that I have not yet mentioned is a tropical vacation. This is simply where one takes a vacation in an area characterized by good climate and nice beaches. It is a good idea to bring with you a pair of sunglasses and a bag of Tostitos, because sunbathing is pretty boring, and you might as well make some money filming commercials while you are at it. It is also a good idea to bring items such as long underwear and a heavy parka, in case there is suddenly an Ice Age.

You can have your vacation where you pretend that you are doing something exciting for about a week, and then you must invariably return to your job, and do work. I find it deplorable how few children are willing to do work. They all want to relax, have a good time, have some grown person do the work. I think all the grown people should revolt, and overthrow their nine-year-old masters, and dump them in the Thames river to dissolve. I know this has no relevance to this article, but don’t you think it’s true?

At your job, you will of course be asked by your boss how your vacation was, and then sent to work photocopying a mound of papers big enough to fill the Titanic and enough typing to give you arthritis of the clavicle.

At this point, it would be a good idea to take a vacation.

(Continued)

---

^* Which I was seeking because I finally decided to get a cell phone^†, and they wouldn’t give me a credit check without it.

^† I acknowledge that I am betraying some sort of principle by succumbing to social pressure and getting one of these things, but I am no longer certain what that principle is (willfulness?).

By all accounts this is a low point for this country.

Many people in Europe were upset to find out that some European countries may have been hosting secret CIA detention centers, implicitly condoning the legal and probable human rights abuses going on there. Some EU officials even went so far as to threaten sanctions against any countries that had been found to have aided the CIA in such a fashion. (Strangely, no one seems to have suggested sanctions against the United States itself, which, presumably, was the most responsible party.)

As if that weren’t enough, the American president seems to be the worst one ever. He has now admitted to what is surely a flagrant violation of the law, for no other apparent reason than the fact that he could.

Never fear. I have devised a way for all of us to profit from these developments.

In fact, you might say my revolutionary scheme will solve a great number of problems for the entire world, like that whole ‘peak oil’ business we’re always worried about here at Rhinocrisy. Things are going to start looking up for humanity. Way, way up!

Like most good ideas, this one came to me on the pot. I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that this is a place where a lot of good thinking can be done. (Garbage out, garbage in, as they say.)^*

Although I have not provided any working prototypes of my idea, I think the concept is fairly straightforward and doesn’t require extensive proving. The basic premise is this:

Over the years empirical observation has taught us that outrages committed that offend the memory of the deceased causes them to revolve in their graves. (I’m a bit rusty on my Maxwell’s equations, but the direction of rotation should be given by the right-hand rule, or something.) Since we know there is conservation of angular momentum, this means over the years some of our ancestors will have acquired quite a high rate of revolution. Someone like Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson is probably running at a good two or three million RPMs.

This is a huge amount of stored rotational energy that needs to be tapped right away. A simple belt and turbine device, as illustrated, will suffice to capture the energy.

Even if it is not very efficient, I think it will be hugely beneficial, since this will basically result in another energy boom comparable to the discovery of petroleum. (Even better, this one produces zero emissions, and it’s renewable, to boot. We’re putting more dead people in the ground every day.) The great thing is, everything you do will outrage SOMEONE. Gays being persecuted? Harvey Milk is incensed! Fags getting hitched? Richard Nixon just sped up by a few hundred clicks.

There’s only a few problems I can see with my scenario. One is that my own country will be at a distinct disadvantage, since we’re in the habit of burning our dead and have no buried ancestors to exhume and strap into a generator device.^†

The other is that people will probably end up trying to increase ancestral outrage in order to increase power production. Funerals will be disrupted by people pissing on the casket during the eulogy. Babies will be given absurd names like “Mushelda” and “Smelly Poopy Pants”. Carrot-Top will be elected Pope and will do prop comedy on the balcony of Saint Peter’s basilica.

In the extreme, we might see the development of “outrage factories”, where electrical workers would have orgies featuring farm animals, copious quantities of Johnson’s baby oil, and the current crop of Mouseketeers, all while reciting the Lord’s prayer backwards. Parents would strive to raise the most ill-mannered, loutish children they possibly could.^‡ In other words, the immoral will become moral, and there will be an almost total breakdown of the social fabric. However, this all becomes worthwhile when you consider that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to fill up your tank of gas in fifteen years.

Finally, it should be made clear that this boom time won’t last forever. We can expect the law of diminishing returns to apply, as existing generations suffer from “outrage fatigue”, and later generations will be forced to do more and more outlandish things to outrage the deceased. It’s possible there will be breakthrough advancements in outrage technology (e.g. mime cloning), but we shouldn’t count on these.

---

^* Fortunately I had the good taste and presence of mind not to run out of the bathroom, half-naked, shrieking “Eureka!” when I had my idea, unlike SOME people I could mention.

^† Note that while cremation seems like a bad idea in general, some laid-back people who are not easily outraged (e.g. stoners) are just a waste of valuable graveyard plots and definitely should be incinerated at death. This probably comprises a good portion of my readership, but there’s nothing for it.

^‡ I know it seems like parents are already doing this, but this is apparently an unrelated phenomenon.