The Cynic Express(ed) 2.03: Mental Barnacles

     I was just to lazy to think on my own and come up with a coherent column in the traditional paragraph fashion, so...

     How can a columnist be defended by being called sloppy and lazy, and the sum of this addition be that the columnist not be fired?

     Someday I'd like to see the Pope appear on his balcony and announce which of his cardinals had scored.

     Given the fact that one of the two young women currently suing the National Honor Society because their local chapters barred them for being unwed mothers at seventeen is named Chastity, am I the only one who laughs until there are tears in his eyes?

     Could you diagram that sentence for me on the board?

     But seriously, employees in many of the jobs that I have worked have been subject to termination for sloppiness and laziness that could have lead to a thousand dollar fine from the local health board or OSHA. How come a "lazy" and "sloppy" columnist like Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe, who has in the past opened his employer up to lawsuits for defamation of character, gets off with a one month suspension when he advertently or inadvertently lifts one-liners from a book by George Carlin? Anyone with less of a sense of humor than Carlin would have sued.

     If we really wanted to make indestructible planes, we would not need to use the material used in black boxes. We could use a couple layers of reinforced concrete separated by alternate layers of steel, titanium, and sand. And maybe a coat of lilac paint and a corporate logo.

     What's with Faith Hill, missus "I went on a tour all year and all I got was this wonderful husband?" Who does she think she is, Shania Twain?

     Why do people like Don Imus think that laziness and sloppiness are not causes for termination from a job? What would do it for him if he were an employer instead of a highly visible employee?

     Is it just me, or could the Goo Goo Dolls current hit, "Iris," be feasibly renamed or subtitled "The John Hinkley, Jr., Song" or the "Psychopathic Mass Murderer's Boogie?"

     How much integrity can we assume a man has if he recommends a book as a yuk on every page without having read the book? Was he talking about its aesthetic appeal on the shelves of books that one has not read?

     Could he have meant Mr. Yuk, the green poison face I remember from childhood? Were it so, he could have simply flipped through the book and confirmed there was a Mr. Yuk on every page without reading a single word. Mr. Yuk, after all, was designed for recognition by the illiterate.

     Real men eat Snickers, not Baby Ruth.

     Perhaps, sometimes maybe being a columnist is more about achieving a readership and keeping that readership and the nicey-dicey salary with the paper than about thinking, writing, and expressing one's opinions clearly. Maybe it goes from being a podium to an altar for the cult of personality.