Behavior and its 'Isms

As little kids, we find the world to be a generally incomprehensible and often hostile place. So we make quick and comfortable affiliation with other kids who are equally clueless and fearful, and form clubs, gangs, and Cub Scout packs. We meet in tree houses or playgrounds, and beat up on or malign anybody who seems different (and thus threatening), like grownups, girls, and the kids who live on the other side of the tracks.

As compared to being totally ignorant or totally informed, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and we can trace the social consequences of information with our growing maturity. Thus, as infants, no social knowledge makes you needy, but as kids a little knowledge makes us precocious self-centered snots. However, when our social knowledge is ‘complete’, we know better than to trumpet our specialized knowledge on how to drive cars, shop for groceries, and put on our pants (one leg at a time usually).

When knowledge is universal and easily accessible, and its authors are obscure, forgotten, or dead, then we forget about the controversy that once surrounded it, and simply use it, as if it was as mundane as a wheel or a fork. That is, when special knowledge becomes ordinary, then we forget about all the contentiousness about who thought it first, the ideas it replaced, whose feelings got hurt, or why it was unique to begin with. Thus, we don’t know and don’t care about why our ancestors got bent out of shape when confronted with the flat vs. round earth controversy, evil spirits as the cause of disease, or why Noah left behind all those dinosaurs.

Ultimately, the mystery of knowledge surrenders to the mastery of knowledge, and we achieve mastery through various schooling or through the school of hard knocks. Yet because there is so much to know, and we have scant time and capability to know it all, we rely upon experts to dispense and utilize this knowledge for us. This is an economical way of going about our business, and the business it engenders is accordingly, economics. Thus the privilege of knowledge, and the tokens or currencies that denote the exchange rates of knowledge enable us encourage those folks who do mysterious things, like calculating income taxes, fixing auto transmissions, and throwing footballs well.

Knowledge is power, but specialized knowledge is where the money is. So to keep the power, and more importantly, the money that goes along with it, the incentive is there to keep one’s wisdom to oneself, and ration it out to those who are willing to pay the price. So like medieval guild members (or kids in a clubhouse in a tree), we get certified, specialized, and form interest groups or ‘schools’ of thought that have their own special languages and buzz words, and are lacking only super secret decoder rings. Like a Rumpelstilskin spinning gold out of linguistic straw, one can talk about oblong rotating spheroids (i.e. a wheel) or four pronged mastication utensils (i.e. a fork), charge folks again and again for reinventing something they pretty much know about already. Luckily, the reason why knife and fork consultants do not exist is that we can easily explain and use knives and forks. More specifically, the technical details of knifes and forks yield to the simple instructions that describe their use, since simple uses are all that we require.

Ultimately, complexity of explanation depends upon the accuracy demanded by the questions one asks, and it is here where the experts creep back in. Simple questions and simple answers are the province of common sense, which is free to all. However, it is often complex notions that give birth to simple truisms, and when we want our answer to be precisely true, then we rely on a certified master of detail. Thus to know when an action is precisely legal, whether we are precisely healthy, or how to precisely land a man on the moon, then we consult properly certified and registered experts in law, medicine, or physics. Normally, we use only one type of law, engage in one type of medicine, and use one set of uniform mathematical principles to do physics because our knowledge of them is complete or near complete. A lawyer does not choose between English and Napoleonic law, a doctor between faith healing and biological models of disease, or a physicist between the physics of Aristotle and Galileo because experts have settled upon a common sense of principles that drive these disciplines. However, when knowledge is incomplete and unintegrated, then science becomes beholden to the particular school of thought with the greatest claim to precision.

The contentious squawking between rival schools of thought peppers our intellectual history, as knowledge, in its beckoning incompleteness, is championed by different schools of thought that aim to show us the way. Of course, in an incomplete world, the seemingly proper way to determine and use knowledge often crowds out other ways that are less productive, or just get in the way. Like little children in an exclusive clubhouse, there is little or no place for deductive/inductive, subjective/objective, value laden/value free, or other differing methods of knowing on the same intellectual page. Thus philosophy, and its step child psychology is populated be a raft of ‘isms, particular and parochial ways of looking at the world that have individual claims of completeness, rightness, and unerring precision.

These idiosyncratic ways of looking at the world can reflect the general ways we determine facts (deduction vs. induction), the perspectives (microscopic/macroscopic) that we employ to view facts, the ways we interpret facts (subjective vs. objective), the time frames that facts take place (past, present, future), the rules whereby one may use facts (moral, amoral), and the methods (between vs. within group experimental design) and methodological tools (microscopes, Skinner boxes, projective tests) that one chooses to use to ascertain facts. The permutations of these intellectual foci and the degree that one embraces each of them determine one’s school of thought, or the intellectual clubhouse where one and his or her likeminded peers may secret themselves and their semi-secret wisdom, content in the knowledge that they have the key to the ways of the world. In a fractious intellectual climate where knowledge about the mind is boundlessly (and redundantly) rendered by numberless data languages, methods, and points of view, the social sciences have seen a multiplication of the ‘isms that have fractured language into more incommensurate tongues since human language after the fall of Babel.

Slant	Type	Subject
Wacko	Radical	behaviorism
Hot buttered	Methodological	psychoanalysis
Ironic	Biological	humanism
Puerile	Teleological	positivism
Scatter brained	Classical	utilitarianism
Incomprehensible	Phenomenological	pragmatism
Rude	Logical	Cognitive science
Bold	Evolutionary	neuropsychology
Mundane	Empirical	darwinism
French	Rational	idealism
Tiny little	Inductive	materialism
Sentimental	Deductive	reductionism
Fuzzy	Multi-cultural	Holism
Convoluted	2nd generation	Solipsism (or is it just me?)
Nifty	Mathematical	Elminativism
Islamic	Physiological	constructionism

Figure 1. A Universal Subject Matter Generator

So, what is the cure for this plague of 'ism's that is drowning psychology in a sea of redundant and often useless jargon? Whether our ailment is logorrhea or diarrhea, the best remedy to useless thinking is to simply follow the model that our doctor uses. This medical model comes to quick and sound conclusions by its simple recognition that the human condition is best understood through a respect for all ideas, and a recognition that ideas, when viewed in concert, have a way of sorting each other out. This leaves us with the refreshing clarity of bare facts, simple theories, and effective procedures. But as we will also note, the medical model in its early development was also infected with a predilection for 'isms.

The Medical Model

Nowadays, when we talk of awfully complex human bodies, there are precious few 'isms that dictate how we think of them. For biology, and its practical applications in medicine, all perspectives on body and soul are in harmony. And so we universally admit that people hurt, and that they have physiologies and genetic codes, and that health and infirmity, suffering and wellness reflect on matters both mechanical and spiritual. And so we can move from subjective to objective, molar to molecular, depending upon the questions we ask. Thus we know all the mechanics of our bodies and all of its rules, and still have room to believe in consciousness, good and evil, supreme beings, and life after death.

Unfortunately, as we have noted, prevailing interpretations of the workaday behavior that keeps our kidneys humming, our legs moving, and our brain thinking aren't so married to such catholic and egalitarian principles. It owes not to human stubbornness and stupidity, although that's a large ingredient, but rather to the fact that up to now we didn't have the tools available to ascertain the true facts of how our brains actually worked. It owes to the mystery, which opens doors to new knowledge, and unfortunately, the endless production of a rich ore of inferred knowledge that is more often than not mere fools gold. To see the path psychology must take to easily assay the validity of what it thinks it knows, it is instructive to note how medical science, and the science of biology, performed a similar task that was just as daunting.

Before the 17^th century, 'doctors' were uneducated or self-educated priests, barber surgeons, or quacks. Medical science at the time 'knew' how our bodies worked, since without a venue to microscopic causes, macroscopic events were the only reality available or even conceivable. So the nature and workings of the human body, the causes of health and the remedies for its misfortunes and malfunctions were a matter of ascertaining which large scale cause, from spirit forces to bodily fluids to atmospheric vapors that was responsible. But, in the meanwhile people got sick and died, ate and drank the wrong things, and dropped like flies.

Before the advent of microscopic models that provided the genetic and biochemical codes for the molecular processes underlying our biological existence, the mediational events that lay between different actions (drinking too much beer) and reactions (getting sick), were macroscopic and metaphorical. That is, they used common concepts (wind, vapors, fluids) as proxies for the actual events. The human body was not so much a black box as a Pandora’s box, that was filled (we were assured) with numberless creatures, phantasms and forces. The metaphorical representations of human health and infirmity could easily account for every aspect the human condition, and their predictive power was a matter of adjusting them post hoc to meet every eventuality. Thus, if you died of the plague, it’s just that you didn’t sacrifice enough chickens to placate the Gods, or perhaps didn’t drink enough chicken soup. However, when medical science finally developed the tools that enabled the determination of the actual biological sources of disease, and as importantly the development of easy metaphors that could describe those sources, then the notion of evil spirits, noxious humours, and mysterious forces died a quick death. Because they could not translate down to the most elemental level of human reality, mediational forces that translated input (causes of disease) into output (disease symptoms) were finally reduced to those metaphorical descriptions (I hurt) that could reliably map downwards to simply describe realistic elemental causes (I have an ear infection).

A psychology without ‘isms

A psychology without ‘ism’s is inevitable, since at present simple and workable models of the brain are being rapidly developed that are grounded in actual observations of the brain ‘in action’, hence eliminating the need to have some privileged psychological viewpoint. Since psychologists as a whole (and this includes humanist, social, and behavioristic psychologists in particular) are coming rather tardily to the rather common sense notion that to understand the workings of a mind, one must first understand how biologically minds work, it will be interesting to see how the fur will fly as logic (and an informed public who will be less inclined to put up with nonsense) compels psychologists to finally make sense.

A Letter from Csikszentmihalyi

A tale of a Quixotic Quest for a straight answer

As the writer of a popular website (drmezmer) in psychology of uncertain worth, from time to time. I receive an often plaintive request and a question. .Please sir, or so it goes, may I please ask you a question? It strikes me as odd, ironic, and a bit sad, since if you know something, and trumpet the fact, questions should be a compliment and a pleasure, and hardly an intrusion. At the very least, questions keep you on your intellectual toes, and provide a correction to the hubris that often befells the intellectual mind. So, in correspondence, how does this fearless intellectual gadfly bite into his academic prey? Well, with a plaintiveness that would do any character from Dickens proud.

The question's the thing, and beginning with Socrates, the western intellectual tradition wasn't the same without it. For us common folk, answers are easy, metaphorical things, hardly demanding of a minute's reflection. Of course it starts with a simple question. What are apples made of? How do engines work? How does the solar system move? Generally, any of us can oblige an equally simple answer, as we can encapsulate the workings of the universe in a phrase. But simple explanations hinge on observations equally simple. Glance at the innards of an engine, or with microscope or telescope in hand examine the structure of a molecule or a far away planet, and the explanations handed down to us would have to cohere. This can be a real pain for those experts in the 'know' since they have to account for new and plain facts. A fable provides the best illustration, as the proverbial emperor, parading around in the finest raiment, had to answer to the simple observation of a child that he had no clothes. A truer and notorious example of this is in the experience of Galileo, who chafed in rage at the obstinence of the prelates of his day, who refused to look through his telescope at a new picture of the solar system that bespoke a reality that they could scarcely explain.

"I meant, point it at the sky!" Galileo fumed.

Which of course brings this writer to his own Galilean experience, one of several actually, wherin I presented simple facts to a different sort of priest who would scarcely look into them, let alone explain. This story, which is quite true, predates the age of the internet and email. It begins with myself, a naive business student (FSU, 1979) eagerly fumbling about for answers about human nature and the nature of the job market. At the time, human nature seemed more scrutable, and as an act of intellectual fancy, I chanced upon and thought about a simple observation, namely that an attentive absorption in any demanding act (e.g. creative or sporting activities) will result in a feeling of great pleasure. I was delighted to find that my observation was not a solitary one, but was researched and named by a certain Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, then a psychologist of growing repute. So I sent to him my imperfectly typed explanation of this 'flow' experience. Given that my own theory of flow differed from Dr. C's own pronouncements on the matter, steeped as they were in the New Age metaphors of higher consciousness and transcendence, I expected at most a polite dismissal of my ideas. Quite surprisingly, he responded with a complimentary and non-dismissive response. Few if any, he said, had ever responded with such thoughtfulness to his work, and he granted that my explanation could even be right. A charming response to an explanation that was simple, logical, and utterly wrong. My explanation of the flow experience simply stated that situations that demanded but did not surpass one's full attention, muscular relaxation would occur as an 'operant' beahvior and allow one to be more resistant to distraction from the task at hand. Of course, it didn't occur to me at the time that muscular relaxation is not generally perceived as an ecstatic state, and that relaxation is not a behavior to begin with, but rather denotes non-activity, namely the muscules not 'doing' anything. These observations came painfully to mind as in the 1990's, psychology entered a new era when the actual neural processes that underscored learning and motivation began to be displayed by a new generation of tools (fMRI, in vivo neuronal modeling, etc.) that would provide observational grist to a hundred household Galileos that perchance would take a look. For the flow experience, it was childishly simple. Take a picture, an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance image) to be exact, of an individual mind (brain that is) immersed in a video game, artistic pursuit of other flow inducing behavior, and the subjective impression of interest and pleasure was uniformly matched to a shadow of brain activity, namely an increased production of a certain brain chemical, the neuromodulator 'dopamine' for short, that accelerated or modulated the firing of arrays of neurons, thus serving to fix or 'reinforce' attention. Funny thing though about this master molecule of attention; if its release is high and sustained, an individual will report a state of great pleasure. Thus, pleasure can only be maintained if the dopamine is, and dopamine requires an elicitor, which in layman's terms is no more than a high, positive, and sustained challenge. So the flow experience fits the science in a way not more remarkable than the simple neural mappings that occur when I stub my toe in pain. I thought thus that, if brains in flow release dopamine, and dopamine release is sensitive to a positive challenge, would not this simple observation be greeted as warmly as my naive and unreferenced hypothesis of two decades before? Well, no. A simple letter to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi brought no response, and letters to the dozen or so researchers on flow brought a mere scattering of replies that protested their ignorance or disinterest in the neurological facts of the experience. Neuroscientists were not different. What's a flow experience and who cares anyways came the paltry response. And so I tried, and tried, from simple letters to complex articles written in journalistic style. And still not the slightest acknowledgement of what seemed to me to be a simple and obvious observation. And on and on it went. As a curious and inquiring layman, the same pattern of silence repeated itself with my simple reinterpretations of other unique behaviors that subserved special and unique processes (hypnosis, meditation, intrinsic motivation, relaxation response, incest aversion, etc.) , with the former reducing them to a simple permutation of common neural events, like reducing the myriad colors of the rainbow to the mere blending of the primary colors of red, blue, and green. As an inquiring plebian in the world of patrician science, one can at least find some fatalistic justification in such silence, but other learned voices I found said the same (e.g., Gerald Edelman, Antonio Damasio, George Lakoff). In particular, the distinguished neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, in an essay of eloquent despair, sadly predicted that psychology would be forever enveloped in pseudo-scientific obscurity unless and untill social scientists of all stripes confronted the working reality of the human brain. But of course, the converse is also true, as neuroscientists must also confront the linguistic milieu that gives metaphorical meaning to minds. In Galileo's time, the discovery of the solar system humbled philosophers and vaulted physicists to sages. The tools of astronomy leveled natural philosophy, and forced philosophers at least to nod to the facts of the physical world. Likewise, the tools of neuroscience have begun to level philosophy, and force social scientists to take a look, and one hopes, neuroscientists to consider philosophy. When that happens, I will know, perhaps from a long awaited response to a simple question.

Introduction to Bad Psychology

(1999)

The French philosopher Voltaire said that if we just bothered to define our terms, all argument would be settled simply or rendered moot. Defining our terms does not tell us where their use will lead, but it allows us at least to determine the rules of that argument, and that in turn permits us to use those rules to do and discover new and interesting things. For example, a football game results in first downs, touchdowns and field goals, but the game becomes a drudge if the players didn’t read or understand the rules, disagree with their interpretation, or ask for unending instant replays with a new interpretation for each angle of vision. The use of quick and decisive argument applies of course to football referees, who know and apply the rules. But it also applies to knowing moms, high school algebra teachers, and physics professors. It does not of course apply to politicians, lawyers, and psychologists, whose livelihoods are founded and sustained by the incentive to do anything but describe facts clearly. And that’s the point. If you’re going to precisely define what you’re talking about, the incentive has to be there to take the pains to do it. For physicists, architects, and physicians, clear thinking permits practical procedures and positive results which in term exclude you from the types of ideas that you otherwise would consider entertaining. Thus a rocket scientist wouldn’t for a moment reconsider the theory that the earth is flat and is circled by the sun, since it would render rocket ships useless and him unemployed.

Winning an argument is important, and if we can do so easily, it ironically gives us the incentive to argue. That’s because when an argument can be easily won, then the losing ideas can be safely archived in dusty texts, thus reducing the clutter of ideas which can make thinking so onerous, and allowing you to finally get somewhere*. Thus by tossing aside half baked ideas found in such classic works as Aristotle’s Biology (which showed how, among other things, the brain cooled the blood), Newton’s Treatise on alchemy (or ‘How to make gold from lead in 12 easy steps’), and Ptolemy’s Almagest (which decisively proved that the sun orbits the earth), you can learn and do real science, and have a realizable hope to a find a cure for cancer, create wonder drugs, and fly to the stars.

In itself, truth is uninspiring, and that’s good, for the simple allure of just the facts would make subjects like Guatemalan tax law and the DNA sequence of a frog as alluring as watching a ball game or reading a novel. The choice of what facts we will entertain does not derive from their mere validity, but rather from what they do and what they could do. We are not seekers of truth, but of interesting and comfortable things. If truth gets you there, that’s fine, but truth is only the light that traces your way to a valuable end, and that end may be no better realized than as a clutch of possibilities. Ironically, uncertainty can be very rewarding, since it allows us to model all of the events that could occur. Thus, we would be aghast if we were told before hand the final score of a game before it had been played, our ultimate career and mate before they have been found, and our dying day long before it has been reached. A fork in the road can make us happy because it doubles the possibilities, and happiness can be boundless when we estimate the infinite permutations of existence.

To do things with certainty, we have to get our facts straight. However, to do hopeful things, the facts can be anything we say they’ll be, since after all, the goal is by definition a matter of faith that will be always in the future, and the reliability of faith a mere matter of interpretation. For example, Incan priests and Franciscan friars couldn’t fudge the star charts which plotted the movements of the heavens, since it would throw off their prediction of the onset of the seasons and the time of the year. On the other hand, the correlation between the stars and human fates was far more uncertain, and the inferred influence of these astrological correlations could be anything you wanted them to be, with poor predictions conveniently rationalized or forgotten, and correct ones exaggerated and emphasized. In astrology, the imagination of patterns in random events is validated by the their comfortable, albeit uncertain results. We continue to follow the uncertain implications of rabbits feet, dice rolls, and prayer, because their possible benefits make them worthwhile.

Ultimately, the reason why many arguments cannot be settled is that we often cannot abide certainty, since certainty seems to eliminate all of those comforting possibilities. The uncertain motives which guide our lives are sustained because they vouchsafe the possibility of comfortable realities that are dismissed or ignored by the impersonal logic of science. The primacy of human virtue, the value of music and art, and the love of God, family, and country withstand the cold consolation of reason because we can simply ignore reason. But of course, if reason demonstrated that you must be good for goodness sake, that life has true meaning, and if it enhanced the possibilities of God and resurrection, we would all take equal portions of logic with our religious testaments.

What I intend to do is demonstrate that reason leads to those comfortable truths after all. Now this of course is the mother of all ironies, since geometrical logic is a most unlikely foundation for what amounts to Christian values. But it is, and may no better be proven than through an assembly of ironies. An irony is merely a sudden shift in meaning in an argument, statement, or phrase that catches the listener in a sudden paradox that demonstrates, if only for a moment, that he or she is an utter idiot. Now to prove that you’re not a fool, you take pause and give the paradox a little thought, or more likely make a startle reaction that marks your sudden surprise and interest. This is called laughter. A sudden shift in meaning can come as easily as when we repeat such commonplace phrases as army intelligence, criminal lawyers, must see TV, and U. N. peacekeepers, and are told that they represent oxymoron’s, or in other words, self contradictory statements. This rude intrusion of another way of interpreting the same old facts shows you that your prior reasoning was faulty, and yourself stupid. This of course gets your attention, since you can’t turn away from even a momentary challenge to your good sense.

Now, when you string along a lot of little ironies, like a musical score of dissonant notes, you can either come up with something that can be sound like fingers scratching a chalk board, or perhaps a great ballet score like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Either way, you’re paying attention, and for good or bad, your attention is what I want. This string of ironies, when it underlines a greater and more profound point, is called satire. Of course satire alone doesn’t work if all that kidding sets out to demonstrate the hidden value of virgin sacrifice or of eating brussel sprouts. So, amid all of the humor I will provide procedures that I hope are a little unique and useful, and ideas that confirm your gut feelings that the world can and should be a warm and fuzzy place after all.

Now, to blaze a path to good psychology, you have to hack and slash your way through the mind numbing jungle of terminology, statistics, and half digested theory which is modern psychology. Sadly, much of psychology has become, like modern jurisprudence, mainly a torturous exercise in explaining the obvious with the most convoluted reasoning possible. As such, bad psychology, like the fields of law and politics is unintententially ironic, or should I say, funny. The first step to discarding bad psychology is to reveal its intrinsic foolishness. Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, its fun to look at the pretentious garb of modern psychological thought, and discover that most psychological theorizing is cut from a cloth of hot air. And like the fairy tale, the scientific nakedness of much of psychology can only be pointed out by those who think with the innocent simplicity and candor of a child. Of course, a childish candor can put you at risk to being roundly swatted, but I’m willing to risk it.

Chicken Poop for the Soul

(from 2001)

Gramps

It was a dark and stormy night. Gramps lay on his bed, deathly ill from acute dryrot. Grieving for him, during TV commercial breaks I would visit him in his room. Not dwelling on his own condition, he would turn his grizzled head to me, and tell me inspiring stories about his hardscrabble life as a fisherman, made all the more difficult due to the fact that he lived in Kansas. Aspiring to leave these cruel fishing fields, he joined the army just in time to fight in the Coffee Wars of 1936. Suffering a grievous head wound while leading a charge in the battle of Mocha Grande, he still found the stamina and will to run for and win a seat in congress, despite the fact that his left cranium had been replaced with a small shrubbery. My troubles seemed puny in comparison to his suffering and triumphs. I nodded to him with a brave smile and thumbs up, knowing that I too could behave like I had half a brain. I gently patted him on the shoulder to reassure him of my love and confidence, and then his head fell off.

I am Somebody!

They always said I couldn’t accomplish much. I heard the same old story time and again. Me and my people were sticky fingered hoarders, practitioners of a secret rite who would callously buy cheap and sell dear. Frankly, we had no stamp of approval, and many of us went postal due to an indifferent society. Yes, we were a different breed of people, and in my little village, I think a very special type of people. We were Sioux City philatelists!

Ignored and shunned by the local numismatists who ruled our town, we had faith in our calling, and knew that we would earn a place in God’s album of the righteous. But yet, something in my soul stirred me to demonstrate to the great unfranked masses of society that we were a different and exalted breed. In my heart, I felt a calling from the Great Postmaster to become a shining beacon for my people, and to do it all before the coming rate increase.

With single minded determination I pushed the envelope of accomplishment, and was cheered by philatelists everywhere. I became the first Sioux City philatelist to fly across the Atlantic (in coach class), the first to buy an Elvis Stamp, and the first to drive across the entire USA, and that with only seven rest stops at Shoney’s. I felt that I could do anything, anywhere, as long as they took my VISA card. With an air of great triumph, I said to myself: Nobody can stop me now! I am a philatelist, hear me roar!!

Frankie Come Home!

Frankie always had a penchant for doing foolish and hair raising things. While other kids played with toy cars, Frankie played in the traffic, and instead of playing ball with the guys, he would play Russian roulette. He would always sooth my worries by coming home to greet me with a big smile as he asked for another helping of his favorite apple pie. My Frankie was brave, bold, and fearless, or in other words, a true idiot. But I loved him for it, even though he acted as if he had only four active brain cells. I knew that he wasn’t quite wired properly when he decided to reenact the story about some guy named Icarus, who in a feather suit flied like a bird until its waxy stitching melted when he got too close to sun. Frankie was too smart to repeat this mistake, and wove his feather suit with the finest chicken feathers and heat resistant super glue. Poised over a ledge on the Grand Canyon like a proud mascot for Chick-fil-et, he launched himself into a rising gust of wind, and promptly plunged straight down.

Splattered over an acre of the rocky canyon floor, there was not much left of poor Frankie save for a few bone fragments. But luckily the rescue team found four viable brain cells, and my heart leapt with joy and hope. Sending out for only a few spare parts from the local Radio Shack, I knew that the surgeons could rebuild Frankie into something maybe even useful. Still, the doctors shook their heads in despair, but I know that Frankie could come out of this Ok. I just knew he could make it. Pondering the remnants of Frankie as he lay in a petri dish, I knew that if he could talk he would say "Mom, I coming home! No matter what it takes I’ll be home for apple pie!" The doctors worked feverishly for ten, maybe twenty minutes. Then, with a triumphal grin, they handed me the ‘new’ Frankie, Version 1.0.

As a walk into my kitchen, I know now that my son had become more than what I had ever hoped he could be. Looking at at the LCD screen on the shiny box below my microwave, I see his happy face and pixilated smile. Yes, my Frankie had become an information appliance! Hello Mom! it said in a tinny yet endearing voice. "How about a nice apple pie? Simply take 4 ripe apples, 1 cup of sugar, preheat your oven at 350 degrees…." I turned away as I brushed aside a tear. My little Frankie had indeed come home!

Bambi

He was such a cute little deer! He was a shivering pencil legged fawn when we found him huddled under the culvert. Looking at us with his big doe eyes, it was love at first sight. We nursed little Bambi back to health, and soon he became part of the family. As little Bambi grew he ate the lawn, the shrubbery, half the siding from my house and caused four road accidents as cars veered into trees to miss him. But every time I came home I knew that Bambi would be waiting for me in the middle of the road, transfixed in the glare of my headlights.

I knew deep in my heart that Bambi was ultimately meant for a special calling. And now as I sit around with my family at dinner, we hold each other’s hands in a prayer of thanks for our good fortune. I would look at my dear wife and say: "Honey, can you pass me the venison cutlets?"

Dick Job: Untroubled Guy

For most of us, our daily troubles can often wear us down But not Dick Job. He knew that bad things only happen to those who interpret them as bad. It was really all a matter of opinion. He knew better, Changing your opinion was just like changing the channel, just stay on ESPN and you’ll be fine. So Dick was untroubled, and as his mind buzzed with NHL factoids, he knew he could rise above daily troubles, and those very uncomfortable responsibilities. Quite unexpectedly, and unannounced by the sports channel, his wife left him for the milk man, his children volunteered to become poster children for the Christian Children’s Fund, and he lost his job as a paper collator when his boss began to use paper clips. But Dick rose patiently above it all. He would take all this in stride, and with chin up and eyes to the sky, he took a proud and defiant step forward. Strutting across the street like some proud drum major, he was promptly flattened by an 18-wheeler. His remnants were sucked down a drainpipe, and mashed beyond recognition at the county water treatment plant. All that remained of him was a crumpled pile of debris in the corner, with a soda straw feeder exiting the lint like but proud, if ground, mound. Always the one to make the best of any situation, he felt himself the Mt. Kilmanjaro of dust piles! Even better, Job knew that the worst was finally behind him, save perhaps for a rogue vacuum cleaner now and then. And besides, who says your luck can’t turn? As he figured with a sunny confidence, they can keep me on life support for decades, or at least until my insurance runs out. I can be a pile forever. Life was indeed good!

TIMMY AND THE WELL

Yesterday, while playing pitch and catch, my little boy leaned over too far while trying to catch a fly ball, and fell six feet down into my water well. His legs tangled in one-foot tall crab grass and up to his ankles in muck, I had to get Timmy out now, or at least before the meeting of his Pokemon users group.

The news of Timmy’s plight spread fast. Banner headlines filled newspapers from coast to coast, and the will and compassion of our great people was marshaled to save my little boy from this harrowing inconvenience. But, as I read the bold print headlines in the New York Times, I knew I had to keep all this in perspective.

So as I read on, I saw in the fine print of the news that the God fearing Christian Serbians overran some small, insignificant town, and massacred 20,000 men, women and children of some infidel faith.

But they weren’t like my Timmy.

I also learned that a monsoon washed over three provinces in overpopulated, pagan India, killing thousands, and making a million people homeless.

But they weren’t like my Timmy.

Also, I read that in some backward, useless African nation, some tribe of stupid, illiterate Hottentots killed three million of their neighbors over the last few weeks over some silly cultural differences.

But they weren’t like my Timmy.

All over the country, we came together like family. Because we all knew that as one caring nation, there is no one like my Timmy. Today, as the fire department hoisted Timmy out of the well to the applause of hundred tearful onlookers, and millions of apprehensive TV viewers from across the land. I know that we should feel mighty good about ourselves. I am sure God will bless us all, as even HE knows there is no one quite like Timmy.

An American Success Story

My dad Jack Hoff is an American success story, and I am so, so, proud! As an employee of the Benadryl corporation, life was one headache after another. So, looking forward to better the lives of his family, he took a correspondence course in toaster repair. Always the tinkerer, his new found knowledge led him to design a new revolutionary invention that would lift us from our upper middle class desolation: the diesel powered riding vacuum cleaner!

Always thinking of the little people, my dad decided that his new invention should be shared first with those forgotten folks who lacked the essentials in life, or at least the essential appliances. So he sold his machine door to door to, the illiterate, the senile, and the brain damaged. He made payments reasonable so that all could afford. Indeed, the small $700 monthly payment was easily covered by a pensioner’s social security check, and the machine was soon paid off in a decade or so.

In time, dad founded a new corporation, the Ponzi Vacuum Company, to market his vacuum cleaner all over the world. Soon we had over 300,000,000 customer reps marketing our Suk-U-Vac, or SUV, to the great upswept masses of the world.

Now, as I gather with my family in the living room of my 200,000 square foot mansion on my private Hawaiian island, I look with moist eyes at my wife Kimmy, my little Girl Meg, my son Trav, and my precious little newborn son Arty. As I throw my table scraps to my 250 indentured servants, I stand tall as an exemplar of the American way. And so, the whole world knows this coda for the American dream, the one phrase that stands for what America is, and how we spend our time and energies.

And I am proud to say, it is JACK HOFF!

Trent Lobb: Your Home Town Representative

I am Trent Lobb, your Congressional Representative, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Patriot. This past year was full of challenge and triumph, as I helped to guide several major pieces of legislation that benefited all our people, and kept our country strong. Let me list just a few of my achievements.

Lobster fisherman in Maine have been faced with a baffling 50% decline in their lobster harvest after a 50% increase in the number of lobster traps laid offshore.

I felt their pain.

Thus, I helped to secure a $50 million appropriation for the Trent Lobb Lobster Research Center, to be opened this fall in my home town of Pascagoulpa, Mississippi.

For the fourth consecutive time, the International Olympic Committee passed by the United States as the local venue for the winter games.

I saw a need.

Thus, I successfully spearheaded a bill to build the $500 million dollar Trent Lobb Olympic facility to lure the 2005 games to our fabled shores. The ice rink, grand slalom, and Olympic Stadium should be completed in Pascagoulpa just in time for the games.

The United States will in the future be endangered by nuclear missiles fired by deranged dictators from sub-Saharan Africa or Switzerland.

I will defend my country!

Thus, I have included $500 billion in my omnibus defense spending bill provisions for the construction of the Trent Lobb orbiting space station/deathstar/anti-missile defense system. This state of the art facility will be built and launched from the Cape Lobb command center in Pascagoulpa, Mississippi, and will provide an effective missile defense for the USA, and also present a defense against killer asteroids and alien lizard men from the planet Mongo.

Just thought you'd like to know how I have selflessly served my country. For I am Trent Lobb, a loyal American, and just a home town guy from Pascagoulpa, Mississippi.

Upon discovering Beethoven’s 10^th Symphony

A few months ago, I made a miraculous discovery while rummaging through an old chest belonging to my great-great-great-great uncle Anton Spelunker, student and bunkmate to the great musical genius, Ludwig Van Beethoven. In the chest was my uncle’s meticulous copy of Beethoven’s long fabled 10^th Symphony! It was a sublime and moving work, full of splendid melodies, powerful and assured orchestration, and a fugue for combined chorus and orchestra that seemed to sing to the heavens. With anxious anticipation, I brought my find to the Wolfgang Zaimond, professor of Cacophony and Grating Music at the John Cage Conservatory of Music. Alas, he rightfully dismissed the symphony out of hand. The work it seems was shamefully derivative of the work of late 19^th century composers such as Brahms, Mahler, and Rachmaninoff. It was a hardly original counterpoint to Beethoven’s revolutionary works that sparked the Romantic revolution. Sad too that the manuscript wasn’t even in Beethoven’s hand, since that would have given it at least some value.

And now, as I line my garbage can with this now worthless reminder of a long gone past, it is nice to know that as we enter the new millennium, we still have some faith in progress, secure in the knowledge that the new will always surpass the old fashioned. I take to heart the adage that those who do not remember the music of the past are condemned to rewrite it. Thus, I am so, so glad that we will never need to hear the likes of Beethoven again!

Procrastination!: The ….(well I’ll get to it a little later)

In this age of plenty, we have all come to be aware of the truly great problems that beset our people. From epidemics of stress, addictions to fast food and video games, to the creeping corpulence that causes our behinds to widen alarmingly, it has been one major worry after another. Yet there has been one problem that outweighs them all, a problem that we have been very late to confront. That problem is the disease of procrastination. We all know someone who has suffered from this painful and embarrassing malady. Yet in spite of this fact, we are near unanimous in besetting its sufferers with disapproval and disdain. This shows in how disgracefully we treat procrastinators. Procrastinators always get the worst seats in football games and cinemas, suffer painful late fees, and get terrible parking spaces. Wives nag them, bosses reprimand them, and the IRS audits them. And yet, as procrastinators surely know, in an inner agony few share, that they really couldn’t help it.

But there is hope. Last year, the late congressional representative I.B. Tardy authored a bill to set aside ten percent of parking spaces, concert tickets, and Pokemon trading cards for procrastinators. It looks certain to pass, as soon of course as congress gets to it. But we can do our own part as well in confronting this dread disease. As researchers close in on the genetic cause of procrastination, we can take steps now to reduce the wall of prejudice and misunderstanding that separates procrastinators from the more timely among us. If all us, just once a day, gave an extra ten minutes to those who ask for it, it would sooth the suffering that procrastinators endure as the struggle to be on time.

We have to act now, or at least tomorrow. For as the saying goes, it’s better late than never.

Dana Valangio: A Valuable Life

Yesterday, our fellow Benadryl employee Dana Valangio caught her skirt on the print tray on a Hewlett-Packwad printer, and was collated to death. In her short 20 years of existence, Dana did little more than take up a parking space, and fill the day with vapid yakking. But life is what we make of it, but all of the things that had to be made to make you. For, if you don’t have a personal impact, at least you have an environmental one. And that’s a legacy that we shall all share. But what gave her life value? It is what the world has invested in her. In her lifetime, Dana consumed enough newsprint, diapers, and tasteless furniture to denude a patch of rain forest the size of Rhode Island. Her passion for lucky dogs, chicken nuggets, and double-stack burgers caused the needful sacrifice of 3500 pigs, 4200 cows, and 12000 chickens, and her obsession with watching teen soap docu-dramas helped keep our vapid pop culture vibrant and growing. So as we bemoan the sunk cost of an unfulfilled life, we are nonetheless inspired by the fact that Dana made a mark in reducing species, global warming, deforestation, and in perpetuating bad taste. Dana, and the millions like her, will leave an environmental and social impact that will never be forgotten.

True Love

Harry Lupton was in love with pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, Peggy Sue. He had the looks, he had the brains, he had the style, but unfortunately he did not have the cash.

So Harry worked hard, and collected accolades as a classical pianist, skate board champion, and Pokemon grand master.

But unfortunately, he did not have the cash.

So Harry worked hard, and soon learned how to sing Grand Opera, cook gourmet meals, fix broken toilets, and kill spiders.

But unfortunately, he did not have the cash.

So Harry worked hard, and found a cure for cancer, solved Fermat’s last theorem, composed three symphonies, and invented a perpetual motion machine through the deft use of smoke and mirrors.

But unfortunately, he did not have the cash.

So Harry worked hard, and scraped enough money for a bouquet of flowers for his beloved Peggy Sue. As he walked up to her porch, he saw Peggy Sue in the arms of the local slaughterhouse magnate, Mel Porcine. Peggy Sue turned to Harry and said: Sorry Harry, you just don’t have the cash.

The Big Game

It was the year that our school Sasquatch State joined the Big Enchilada Conference. It was our time in the sun. As coach of the SSU Turnips, we plowed through one opponent after another. Teams like Comatose State, Tiktok Tech, Wassamata U, and Vassar fell before our stunning aerial and crushing ground games. Finally, in a close match with the Springfield School for the Blind that was decided only when their field goal attempt went wide wide wide wide left, the conference championship was ours!

Now we had to prepare for the big bowl game, where our season was on the line. We had spirit and spunk, and we just knew our hard work would pay off in a stunning victory that would catapult Sasquatch State into the big time, and bring home the laurels of victory, a lucrative TV contract, and our pictures on a cereal box.

Finally, the big game arrived. I told my team to accept nothing less than victory. We burned with determination, and failure had no name. Victory was to be ours, and we saw our team as beginning a football dynasty like no other. We reveled in our glory to come, and saw ourselves as towering above all others like pigskin supermen. It was victory or death!!

Florida State pulverized us 400-0

As I’ve always said.

It’s not winning that counts, it’s rather how you play the game.

A Prayer to St. Judy

They said that nobody could sail off the summit at Pike’s Peak in a paper mache hang glider and live to tell the tale. They said I’d have to be a hopeless case to try that. But I have a personal friend up there who looks out for folks like me. She is my heavenly protector, the blessed St. Judy, the patron saint of hopeless cases. Every time I needed her, St. Judy has come through for me, and as I look down to the rocky valley below, I remember all those times when St. Judy answered my call.

St. Judy came through when I had the bad case of sniffles. The aspirin didn’t work, but after prayer, in six days, I was healed!

I was having a hard time at the slot machine, and had lost $20,000, but following a prayer to St. Judy, after twenty or so hours on the slots, I won $1,000!

I could never reach the tenth level in the video game Pac-Man, but after a prayer to St. Judy, my little Pac-Man was able to munch down the secret banana orb and propel me to the next level. After 1,038 previous attempts, only St. Judy’s intercession could have helped me.

But I also have to thank St. Judy for the time my team came from behind to win the big game, for that great job I have as a hamburger flipper, for the spacious slot I have at the trailer park, for the chance to live in the great town of Freezerburn, North Dakota, and for the near miss of Halley’s comet some years back.

St. Judy has always come through for me, and now as I plummet to the rocky cliffs below, I know that St. Judy will intervene, and save me in the next two seconds from being utterly squashed. I just know….….

Lady Dew

Lady Dew was our inspiration, our light, and our clotheshorse. Plucked out of the Home Depot finishing school to be the consort of the Crown Prince of Listerine, she was every girls fantasy of a story book princess. We thrilled when she accepted bouquets from dignitaries, marveled when she waved to the crowd, and beamed with pride when she spoke in complete syllables. Lady Dew was a true princess, just like the ones we remembered from Disney cartoons, and was just as colorful and deep.

She cut lots of ribbons, patted the heads of children, read forty-five word speeches to politicians, and thought about world peace. A grueling pace to be sure, but she was cruelly treated by her husband, who deserted her for the attentions of the more intellectually stimulating company of his long time mistress: Amanda the Polyethylene Love Doll.

She took comfort in the arms of Ibn Ass Ol Shazzam, Prince of the oil rich Sultanate of Yabadabadoo, and we were thrilled to see her find true love at last. Through the wonders of the printed word and telephoto lenses, we followed her as she cruised to Morocco, window shopped in Hollywood, and orbited the planet on the space station Mir. Sadly though, the fates conspired to keep her from true happiness.

While reviewing a Snak-Time dessert company assembly line on the company go-cart, she put the cart in high gear as she sped away from yet another photo-op. Tragically, she skidded into a pylon, and was ejected into a vat of pudding. She instantly congealed to death in a dreadful chocolicious and lip smacking end.

The outpouring of grief was unprecedented. Balloons and flowers and teddy bears and condolence cards festooned the gates of her castle. Under the summer sun, the whole pile soon melted into a pyramidal blob of color and goo. And now, as I make my annual pilgrimage to the Lady Dew memorial and soon to be theme park, my little daughter is naturally inspired as she points to the pile of refuse that will always remind us of the glorious princess that will live in our memories forever. "Look mom at that pile of doo doo!" I wiped a tear from my eye as I smiled at my daughter, hoping that maybe someday she too may be as lucky to be memorialized by such a pile of doo doo.

Bubba Goes to Heaven

1933

Here in Yahoo County, drought has turned the fields to dust, forcing folks to move out to the big city.

It ain’t no problem of mine, but at least I said my prayers.

1942

Heard about some ruckus in Europe, and that lots of folks are volunteering to get in the fight.

Just mindin’ my own business, but at least I kept the faith.

1969

I was told that man had landed on the moon, and heard of computers and lasers and theories of the universe.

Don’t concern me much, but at least I read the holy words.

2001 and beyond

And now that I’ve made it to the green pastures of Heaven, as I amble towards a shady tree while I chew my cud, I am happy, and am without a thought of the world.

A Brave New World

They said I was fat

But now I know that I have the disease of obesity. So everyone knows better, and now the law requires that they build for me on-ramps and big seats, and they all look past my corpulence to see my inner beauty.

They said I had bad taste because I liked televised wrestling, grunge rock, and Gilligan’s Island.

But I’ve got the Emmy, TV Guide, and Peoples Choice awards to vouch for my preferences, and demonstrate the good tastes of the masses.

They said I was lazy.

But it was actually my self esteem that was being damaged by unreasonable demands that I learn how to read, write, and know useless facts like where Europe was. But my self worth was held sacred, and I got my college degree anyway.

They said that folks like me will be forgotten the moment we pass away.

But I know that we are all special because we say so. And it is a brave new world that has such people in it, and I know that our kind will be the standard bearer for our culture and our future for thousands of years to come.

Uncle Bill’s Knob Job

Uncle Bill got three knob jobs the other day, and the house is in an uproar.
Aunt Hillary was supposed to do knob jobs, but she stopped doing even simple things like screwing years ago. I really couldn't understand the ruckus, cause the doorknobs in the house were pretty old anyway. Besides, his friend Dick Monica was accomplished in such things, and gave him knob jobs for free. Uncle Bill felt that knob jobs weren't real carpentry, and denied that he had any wood-work done. Nonetheless, members of the house were horrified at this awful fib. How could he do other house repairs if he lied about basic things like his shiny knobs? So they all got together and tried to throw Uncle Bill out of the house. Uncle Bill complained that he still had two years to go on his rental agreement, and besides, certain members of the house had it in for him after he tried to put them under an expensive health care plan. Meanwhile, as all this was going on, all work in the house
stopped, the place got dilapidated, and was invaded by red army ants. Then
we got fed up and evicted all the squabbling house members. And so we
thought all was right with the world, and then the house fell down.
Ely, The Little French boy
He was found all alone, unattended for a minute or two in the jungle
adventure cruise at Disney World. A thoughtful worker plucked him from the
jungle boat just as he approached the scary robotic hippo. He was Ok, but
his parents were lost at the concession stand.

Swiftly, little Ely was put in the care of his loving fourth cousin who
lived in Yahoo City, Mississippi. He was introduced to cable TV,
Pokemon toys, and super-sized fast food, and he squealed with delight as he channel surfed to his hearts content. Ely soon settled down to a fun and fulfilling life of inert activity.

During all this, his relatives protested, to no avail. After all, they were from France.

So little Ely grew up American, and began to appreciate the subtle pleasures of driving sport utility vehicles, attending tractor-pulls and wrestling matches, and having intimate e-mail conversations with his friends about sports and the weather. He learned that there was no better country than the USA, and that no other countries even existed.

The French government protested, and orchestrated massive protests. But our government stood firm. Besides, they were French.

And finally, after a speedy twenty year appeals process, the courts said he had to go back to France. In a daring daylight raid, crack commandos whisked him from his sofa, with the remote control still in his hand. The American people were saddened and aggrieved at this great injustice, and amazed as the sheer stupidity and ignorance of their government. And then, in their wisdom, they asked, But what and where is France?

A Fate worse than….

I was just reaching for my bowling ball in the upper shelf of my closet, when it rolled off and fell on my head. The next thing you know, there was Gramps with a steaming hot cup of mocha grande, uncle bubba looking strangely bovine, my cousin Frankie flapping away in his chicken outfit, and my dear deer Bambi. Hovering above them in the clouds was Lady Dew in a cumulus go-cart, and attended by cherubs dressed in Armani. Looking out into the distance, I saw a colorful landscape of flowers, windmills, and waterlillies that looked like a French impressionistic painting. But I was in no mood to be shown the Monet, as my eye moved to other delights, like that concession stand offering all you can eat barbecued chicken, pork rinds, and fried pickles, and a beckoning hammock under a shady oak tree equipped with a built in TV with a 500 channel remote. Of course, life was not all eating, napping, and channel surfing. There was work to do, and I dove in to my new job as team coach, doctor, and masseuse to the Swedish bikini team.

Then before you knew it, I fell into a strange fog filled tunnel, and a figure clad in white beckoned to me.

The surgeon beamed as he told me that the operation was a complete success, and that my new titanium noggin would give me a new lease on life. Now I could return to my job as an assistant chicken plucker, with knowledge in fact that I have at least 50 good and productive years ahead of me, a far better fate than remaining in the coma from which he had just rescued me.

Erin Broccoli: Consumer Advocate

You know, I would have normally gone about my life as check out clerk at the local Quickie-Mart without a care in the world. But then I noticed a frightening thing happening to the kids in our town. Daily, I would see little kids, some as old as a few months suffering from sniffles, temper tantrums, and diaper wetting. Then I noticed the one hidden link that tied these mysterious symptoms together. All of the parents were buying carbonated cola products, and as I later discovered, were giving this stuff to their children!

I doggedly interviewed five families in our town, and found that all of the little children had suffered from time to time with head colds, constipation, and crankiness. This resulted in terrible family stress and sleeplessness, as parents had to forgo their beloved soap operas and game shows to attend to their squalling babies. After putting my evidence in front of the law firm Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe, we assembled a crack team of lawyers to bring

Big Cola to justice. Armed with the smoking gun of the USDA nutritional label and internal memoranda from the Betty Crocker cookbook, we discovered that cola officials years ago knew that cola could lead to weight gain, tooth decay, and a certain bloated feeling. And God knows what the long-term effects are of an exposure to carbonation. Indeed, evidence is mounting that a build up of carbonation in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming and a melting of the polar icecaps.

After presenting our evidence to our family court in Kangaroo, Michigan, the local judge agreed with us, and awarded 50 billion dollars in damages to the afflicted citizens of our town, subject of course to our modest 99% contingency fee. But in spite of our victory, we know our fight has just begun, since Cola makers continue to market to children, export their product to helpless consumers in the third world, and bundle their insidious product with ‘Happy’ meals worldwide.

But of course, in our continuing struggle, I still have a few guilty pleasures. But as I take a gulp from my $59.95 bottle of coke, I know that Big Cola is finally paying for its crime, and that there is justice for the little guy.

A Czikenfri Stake

As president of the national academy for the advocacy of Czikenfri people, I speak with a message of hope. Czikenfri have suffered from centuries of oppression, neglect, prejudice, and underexposure in TV situation comedies. Our people deserve a greater stake in America’s future, and I am happy to report that we have recently made some very substantial progress.

Our lobbying efforts have resulted in many real gains. Due our national boycotts, letters to the editor, and mass whining, elite schools such as Harvard and MIT have agreed to annually enroll the top ten illiterate graduates from Czikenfri high schools. We have also raised Czikenfri awareness by renaming all interstate service roads after our late esteemed leader, Kernel Sanderz, and by creating an annual Kernel Sanderz holiday that all Americans devoutly celebrate as they romp on the beach.

We have also won cash reparations of $1.50 apiece to all those 12^th generation descendents of those Czikenfri who were ignobly shipped off to America from the principate of Slobbakia in the 17^th century by evil King Popeye.

Finally, since it is well known the French have an aversion to anything Czikenfried, our people have developed an allergic reaction seeing any symbols of their hated repression. Thus, congress has passed laws barring the display of the French flag on our public facilities.

Now that we have addressed our problems by banning all jokes, innuendoes, stereotypes, and bad puns about Csikzenfri, and as we fine and imprison those who think we are a bunch of dumb clucks, we will be on the road to getting the respect we deserve.

Fishing on the Information Superhighway

It’s the year 2501, and we finally got it all hooked up. It’s a super-broadband world, a hyper-connected universe we live in, and I feel so fortunate!

Upon my barest whim, I can be instantaneously provided in 3D and super-surround sound all of the knowledge ever created by man. That means that all the music, all the art, all the literature, and all the science is here for me to explore and wonder.

But I’ll get to that later.

I can also virtually teleport myself anywhere in the universe to meet strange alien civilizations, explore strange new worlds, and go where no man has gone before.

But I can’t be bothered right now.

I can also transport myself to higher dimensional planes, visit deceased relatives, time travel to visit long dead civilizations, and pet my late dog Spot.

But I don’t have the time at the moment.

In the meantime, I can indulge my interest in what is truly important to me: bass fishing! I’ve configured my information portal to receive 500 bass fishing TV channels, 12 all bass radio feeds, 7 bass chat rooms, and a virtual lake full of infinite fish. But I’m not alone in my joy. All over the world, folks are setting up individual information portals that allow them to indulge in their own needful obsessions, like soap operas, cookie jar collections, and foot fetishes. Thanks to the universal information super-highway, we can all focus on the things we know are important to us. As for the rest, I am sure we will all still spare a minute or two, but we’ll get to that later.

A National Crusade

Every day, hundreds of thousands of little children get up at six o’clock in the morning to live cruel and traumatic lives that can only end with a tragic sense of individualism and a misplaced feeling of self reliance. These poor little kids are often forced to cut the heads off chickens, shoot poor defenseless ducks, and carve up helpless pigs. Among countless other chores, they carry buckets, sweep floors, and are often up to their ankles in animal doo-doo. Living in isolated houses that are tucked away on desolate prairies, they are miles away from other children and the stimulating pulse of civilization. Heaven knows how many lives have been ruined by the pathological work ethic, Christian fundamentalism, and libertarianism that this lifestyle has wrought.

But there is hope. Aided by the American Factory Farm association, we have convinced the Congress to increase tax subsidies and to reduce harmful environmental restrictions to international food processing conglomerates. That has empowered us to liberate these rural sweatshops. Sometime soon, we all can say with pride that we had a hand in finally ending this shameful American institution, the family farm.

Apologies are in order.

Today, as we live in a modern civilized world, it’s hard to believe that our recent ancestors were so insensitive, cruel, and really mean. Recognizing this, our government will soon apologize for the dreadful and appalling actions of our ancestors of a hundred years ago. But we know that a simple ‘We’re sorry!’ is not enough. Thus, plans are now in the works for sizable cash reparations, national holidays, monuments, and special edition postage stamps for all offended parties. We hope all this will make amends for our terrible discrimination against ugly fat bald men, our senseless slaughter of 57 trillion chickens, the extinction of the mastodon and dodo bird, and the thoughtless cancellation of Gilligan’s Island midway into its fourth season. Now as our nation enters the 22^rd century, we can finally complete the process of healing to remove the lingering sore of guilt, and prepare the way for our evolution to the next level of conscious: that of super-intelligent spineless jellyfish.