Do the Residents Call Themselves "Fuckers?"

The concept of profanity is one that has always interested me greatly. The fact that a word, a sound or combination of sounds that symbolizes a meaning, can cause offense, simply because of the pleasantries of a particular society, is simply astounding. Discussing the subject with my boss, an Englishman hailing from Liverpool, he volunteered a supremely nasty English euphemism for poor, unwashed and generally disliked foreigners: wogs. The word derives from the heady days of Queen Victoria’s grand British Empire, when a single woman ruled over nearly a quarter of the human population and %33 of the Earth itself. This era of unprecedented imperial expansion, know ironically as “Pax Britannica,” was also marked by Britian’s subjugation of numerous “less-advanced” races and peoples for the purposes of physical labor. Today, we call these unfortunate souls “slaves.”

The poor bastards were required, with the help of British technology (mainly the muskets pointed at their backs) to build the infrastructure needed to make the land they called home worthy of forceful suppression by the British Empire. While on the job, these workers were sometimes required to wear green jackets with the letters “WOG” written in big white letters on their backs, meaning “Worker of the Government.”



Thankfully though, much like the employees of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, free range was given as to what kind of shoes they could wear.

When Crispin, my boss, was explaining this interesting bit of history, he seemed to flinch each time the story required him to say the word “wog.” This term is so offensive, and caused him such discomfort, that he eventually started referring to the word as, “Well, you know.” In an effort to communicate the gravity of the word, he said, without a moment’s hesitation, “It’s sort of like the American word “nigger,” but a little worse.” Despite my best efforts, the surprise of hearing my quaint English boss say the word “nigger” caused me to flinch, while it caused Crispin no discomfort at all.

The word “wog” means nothing to me, much like the word “nigger” means nothing to Crispin, much the like the word “fuck” means nothing to a Japanese person, while the word “kusottare” means nothing to the rest of us. (Except, of course, I had to ask a Japanese friend for a bad Japanese word for the sake of this blog entry.)

The concept of profanity is clearly arbitrarily defined not just by cultural traditions, but also by fashion and modern culture. One of my favorite television programs of all time is Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit!” The reason they named the show “Bullshit!” is not just because it’s patently offensive and bound to get some attention, but also because it perfectly communicates the attitude of the show and its hosts regarding things like Feng Shui, UFO abductions, recycling, PETA and even profanity. Another reason the show is called “Bullshit!” is because of Harry Houdini.

Houdini, later in life, committed himself to debunking the modern fad of the séance and the charlatans that claimed they could communicate with the “other side.” That’s right, this parlor trick has been around for about a thousand years before John Edwards and James Von Praagh. Houdini, on a well-publicized quest to expose these frauds as the thieves and liars they were, called their claims “humbug.”



Did you flinch? Of course you didn’t, because the word “humbug” isn’t offensive, at least not to us. In Houdini’s time, saying “humbug” was about as bad as saying “horse shit!” in a room full of grannies at tea-time. Sort of gives you a new take on Ebenezer Scrooge, huh?

The concept of the “profane” varies from country to time period to language to ethnicity, except for swinging your cock in public like it was a dead chicken, that’s considered “profane” pretty much everywhere. So why get offended when someone on television says “poop chute?” Why get up-in-arms when a billboard has the word “snot” written on it? Come the fuck on, people, it’s time to lighten up.

Assholes.

In Austria, there is a town called Fucking. As best the elders of this small village can remember, their community was founded by the Fuck family, and the suffix “-ing” was added, as it commonly was, to signify it was as settlement. Their small town is frequently visited by tourists from the English-speaking world, driving up from the nearby city of Salzburg, simply to take photographs in front of their municipal signs. The city of Fucking has recently issued a public announcement: Please stop taking our Fucking signs.



At the end of the article where I read this amusing story, the following appears:

“…when someone asks them [the residents of Fucking] where they come from they are a little ashamed to say it."

Residents of two other Austrian communities, Windpassing and W**k on the Lake, suffered a similar reluctance, he added.”

I get “Windpassing,” and frankly, that’s pretty funny. Who doesn’t love a good fart joke every now and again? But what the fuck is “W**k on the Lake?” What naughty word are they omitting from their article? Week? Work? Wonk? Can anyone think of an offensive word in the English language that might fit?

Heck Is For People That Don't Believe in Gosh

In an effort to deeply and profoundly offend, not just my readers, but the general public as well, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and acquire a tasteless t-shirt. While the visage of Che Guevera on my chest would be of ultimate affront, I’m going for more of an outward offense, and I’m frankly concerned that his scraggly beard would cause my chest to itch.
I’ve narrowed down my choices to the following four designs, and I need your help to decide which is mot likely to make strangers form a mob to burn me at the stake. I’m not merely looking to offend, I’m looking to get a law passed against whatever I wear. (Although, with the hippies and busybodies of Portland constantly trying to make all our lives “better through legislation,“ that may be easier than I would like to admit.)



Having a laugh at the disabled has always been a standby for the patently offensive, but I think this particular design takes it a few labored and shaky steps too far. That’s why I like it.



Cancer, always a crowd pleaser, but combined with the humorous thrill of child abuse, you arrive at a joke funnier than the sum of it’s parts. I think I’ll especially enjoy the looks of joy, and then the squinted eyes of derision only moments later. Cancer makes me laugh.



This is a style of humor known as the “double entendre.” I’m afraid, however, that the intricacies of French comedy will be lost on most people, but at least will still have the hilarity of cancer to fall back on. Cancer still makes me laugh.



This one, even I must admit, might be a few yards out of bounds. I mean, sure, cancer is funny as all get-out, but starving children? Let’s just say a shriveled, malnourished boy from Zimbabwe won’t be making an appearance on Saturday Night Live anytime soon, unless they can really play up those flies around his nose and eyes. Now that shit’s funny.

Please cast your votes for the most personally affronting of the bunch, and if you have a spare moment, check out T-Shirt Hell, they’ve been on a mission to offend for years now.

Wookin' Puh Nub...

A police officer was strolling down the sidewalk on his late night beat. He came around the corner to see a man on his hands and knees, shuffling around under a street lamp with his face inches from the ground. The man was wobbling and smelled of liquor, and was even heard to hiccup every now and again. The officer approached the man and said, “Good evening sir. May I ask what you’re doing?” The man looked up at the officer and said, “I’m looking for my *hic* car keys…” and went back to the job at hand. The officer, perplexed, asked, “Well, where did you lose them?” The man straightened his back, pointed towards the pitch darkness to his right and said, “Oh, about three blocks that way.” Even more confused, the officer asked, “Why are you looking for them here?” The man cocked his head at the officer and responded, “The light’s much better here.”

Today, Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon has signed into law a bill that will require the citizens of Oregon to obtain a doctor’s prescription in order to get any product containing pseudoephedrine, which includes the most popular heretofore over-the-counter cold and allergy remedies like Sudafed, Benadryl and Claritin-D. The purpose of the bill was to curb the manufacture of methamphetamine in the state of Oregon, of which cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine are a necessary ingredient. The state house and senate, ignoring the usual laments of “government overstepping its rights and responsibilities” from the unwashed masses, overwhelmingly passed the bill. One lawmaker (who remains conveniently unnamed in every report on the bill) even referred to opposition to this bill as “ridiculous.”



Governor Ted Kulongoski sucks. Governor Ted Kulongoski sucks badly and has been really bad at virtually everything he’s done since being elected, all with the aid and abettance of the Oregon legislature. It was less than a year ago that the Governor signed into law a bill that required drug and grocery stores to keep products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter, forcing citizen such as myself to spend twenty minutes with Ray the cashier pointing to the box of Sudafed four feet away saying, “No, that one. No, that one. Higher… two to the left. Not that one, THAT ONE!” and then filling out a registry with my name and address, just in case Steven Wu wants to call me at home to wish me a quick recovery from my crippling head cold.

Ted’s last little plan obviously didn’t work, and only made the purchase of fairly common and benign cold medicine much more trouble than it was worth for the average, law-abiding citizen. All of us in the minority here in Oregon, that is, with functioning frontal lobes, said as much, but Ted’s not a quitter. He came up with this last plan about six months ago, and we all thought it was a big joke.



We’re not laughing anymore.

Unfortunately, methamphetamine IS a problem in Oregon, and if Ted wants to be re-elected next year, he’s got to pretend to be doing something about it without looking like a “hawk,” a.k.a. someone who believes in arresting criminals when they commit crimes. Ted is like that drunk looking for his keys under the street lamp, sure the problem is way over there, namely meth being manufactured in Mexico, slipping through our porous national border, but he’d much rather be trying to solve the problem here, where the light’s much better and he can get brownie points from his constituents for “cracking down.” The problem is, however, the real “cracking down” is being done to folks with allergies and sinus infections who now have to switch to another drug that might be less effective, or pay their doctor $75 for a visit to get $2.99 box of pills.

Government sucks. Government sucks badly. Government is really bad at virtually everything it’s supposed to do, and even worse at the stuff it has no business doing. The founding fathers of this great nation saw government as a necessary evil and formulated a document, only the second of its kind in the world, which was legally enforceable and designed, first and foremost, to limit the power and breadth of influence of the federal government. This concept is known as “Federalism.”

Government never gets smaller, just ask the citizens of Multnomah County about the income tax that was supposed to expire last year. Without real outrage from the citizens of Oregon, this bill will remain law, even if the limited manufacture of meth in this state remains exactly the same. Government is like a destructive toddler, when it fucks something up, it’s always us adults that have to make sure it gets fixed, invariably at our expense, after all, government has no money of it’s own.

What’s next? If this bill has no effect on meth in Oregon, will Ted ban hydrogen peroxide? Will he limit the amount of iodine or ammonia someone can legally purchase at one time? Will Ted launch a campaign to make pressure cookers and camp stoves illegal in the Pacific Northwest?

Ted Kulongoski has the best of intentions, but is a moron because he actually thinks this will work. The legislature of Oregon are assholes for passing this law, just going to prove how out of touch representatives are with their own constituents, even in a small state like Oregon. Unfortunately, the liberal majority here in The Beaver State, like liberals across the globe, will invariably see a problem, no matter the nature, turn to the government and ask, “What are you going to do about it?” thereby empowering government to grow bigger and impact the lives of more and more citizens with half-baked schemes like prescription over-the-counter drugs, which are happily passed into law despite the lack of even the tiniest shred of evidence that the plan might work.



This summer, in an effort to reduce the amount of electricity used by the populace, the Japanese government dumped the equivalent of millions of dollars into an ad campaign playing down the importance of dressing formally at the office. The logic they used was: People dress more casually, less energy is used for air conditioning. What was unforeseen, however, was that sales of dress clothing, specifically neckties, would suffer accordingly. The biggest necktie manufacturers in Japan are formally protesting the ad campaign, and even threatening to file suit against the government for damages incurred. In response, the Japanese government has decided to dump several more million dollars into a study to determine any impact on businesses their campaign might have, and pay losses accordingly.

It’s not a coincidence that The United States of America, the greatest, wealthiest and most successful nation on Earth, is the ONLY nation on Earth that features a Constitution that works specifically to limit the power the federal government can exercise over the states of the union, and the citizens therein. Government is bad for you and should be taken in very small doses. Vote Libertarian.