Don't Choose Your Battles

Bosworth: An Online Humor Magazine Brimming with Unearned Self-Importance

Vol. 2 No. 6

June 2008

Iowa City, IA

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Bosworth Magazine

Women and Doctors: What Do They Know?

After decades of marketing success, in the 1920’s, the electric car suddenly became unpopular and impractical. The dainty socialites of that time had been buying electric cars, which were quiet, environmentally clean, and elegantly designed. But most people were suddenly forced by economics and the abundance of crude oil to buy the cheaper and faster Model A Ford (propelled by a combustible fuel engine). The times dictated a decision to mass market gasoline powered automobiles so people could drive to work. Oh great, just when the horse and buggy were finally obsolete (and so the need for professional human pooper scoopers was also eliminated), a new form of pollution was being introduced into modern life to replace the
ever-present, common “horse-pie.” Women and doctors had been buying electric cars, and had preferred them, but blue collar men wanted a quicker method of getting to work, so they opted for the cheaper, faster, less fashionable alternative -- vehicles propelled by fossil fuel .

Well, it’s time to stop the madness! We cannot sustain our present transportation system of gas guzzling s.u.v.’s and jet planes flying all over the globe with dire consequences, that is, certain unsustainable by-products, namely, the costly upkeep of a collapsing infrastructure and the threat of terrorists putting explosives in our toothpaste…anymore than we can afford to have a bunch of women and doctors deciding what’s good for us. There’s more to life than just going where you want to go and doing what you want to do. If living were easy, we’d all be singing along with Julie Andrews in a meadow on top of the Alps instead of slogging through the mud, perspiring…and crooning “I owe my soul to the company store.”

Are we all supposed to be having a roaring good time working for minimum wage, buying gas guzzling cars, eating junk food, and seeing computer generated movie images? Take the movie TITANIC, which is a complete rip-off and scam…all mushy and gushy, with all these rich people sinking on a luxury ocean liner when really, the TITANIC sank to the bottom of Davy Jones’ locker a hundred years ago…and all you are really seeing is an illusion that fools you into thinking it’s an ocean liner when really it’s just a pile of staging bleachers in some dinky gym reconfigured with special effects in a computer lab by some geek using Photoshop. Would you want to eat a computer generated picture of apple pie, or do you expect a real slice of the American dream? In the olden days, a movie about the TITANIC would have had a model or “to scale” miniature floating in a swimming pool…and nobody would have taken it seriously. (It would have been a frivolous mock-up, like you would see if you watched the original KING KONG.) We’d all be roaring with laughter at the ridiculous image it projected. But, now we are totally deceived by superior technology and realistic, but completely phony, special effects.

Next we’ll have a movie about 9-11, with computer generated images of the Twin Towers…blown up by poorly trained Saudi dimwits who don’t even use toilet paper and still don’t have flushing toilets. What a heap of twisted cultural factoids hung out to dry on the fantastic premise that any idiot with a few lessons could fly a 707 into the Pentagon. No wonder my readers are roaring with laughter and not sitting still for puerile platitudes about protecting the homeland from icebergs!

After the revolution in Cuba, Fidel Castro kicked all the gangsters out of Havana…He shut down the casinos, prohibited prostitution and executed all the drug dealers, thus cancelling out the era of the Roaring Twenties. To counter the boredom and the malaise among those who spoke Spanish as a first language, the U.S. government came up with a failed invasion in the Bay of Pigs, and then mounted an international crisis which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Castro responded by growing a beard, refusing to play golf, and declaring himself “El Presidente for Life.” But the U.S. established GITMO, and reinstituted torture, declaring “the homeland uber allis,” and they came up with a whole new way of circumventing constitutional rights.

Of course, what happened in the Roaring Twenties created a mythic culture typified in the 1950’s by nauseating Neil Sedacka songs and the inane promise of having “fun, fun fun ‘til daddy takes the T-bird away.” Well, the party is over and we are now a global society of mobile monoxide users, poisoning ourselves with every mile of road we travel. Frankly, I’m fed up with pork-barrel highway projects which create long lines of cars waiting for the paving machine to do another inch of blacktop. And they always get sexy blondes to wave the caution flags at construction sites and hold up the traffic flow with signs that say “SLOW.” And they’re always pointing out to you which lane to use when there’s only one lane anyway…Talk about a cush job!

Then there’s all that NASCAR mania and paraphernalia. What could be more boring than sitting in front of your TV watching cars drive around and around and around, and they never get anywhere. 500 miles later, you got six crashes, two pile-ups, a car on fire, and two drivers on their way to the hospital.

So, what can you do about it? Take action. Stop driving now! Join Ambulators Anonymous (A.A.). Refuse to take the wheel or be a passenger in a car. Become a proud member of a group which meets weekly and offers a vast support network of former jalopy junkies. There, among other addicts and friends, you will be able to confess, “I am a road hog and an automobile junky, but I haven’t driven or ridden in a car for two years.”

For hard core users, a transitional period may be necessary. One might keep their car in the garage, and only use the back seat for a hot date to “neck.” Of course, there is the obvious danger that you might be tempted to start the car, and asphyxiate yourself, so better to avoid this transitional stage of the cure if possible.

Or, for those who want to take a more socially responsible role, you could march and demonstrate with “Pacifists for a Highway-Free World.” Put your body on the protest line…prostrate yourself on the roads and freeways and intersections of busy cities in the noble cause to stop others from continuing their evil ways…Carry signs like “No More Bumper Stickers!” or “Driving Is a Dead End” or “Toll Roads Suck!”

“Touring” is no longer a tenable endeavor nor is it environmentally friendly.
Road rage episodes are all to commonplace, and Someone may yet get the bright idea to charge an amusement tax for spectators who enjoy people beating each other to death in the middle of a traffic jam.

And there’s also one’s image to consider. Being a road hog or “roadie” is passé. It just isn’t hip or cool. Aren’t you tired of being on the wrong side of the road?