What? Again with the weather?

Yup. It's cold here... about 2 degrees above zero F. That counts a very cold in my book. It might not be in Jody's book or in Jackie's book, but they're in Alaska, and I'm in Kansas. Shelly is in Kansas too, and she thinks it's cold. And Shelly doesn't think that weather talk's boring. But then, she and I are usually talking about the same weather, so we're more interested in what the other has to say about it.

But I'm not really affected much by the weather; all I have to do is go to work and come home, about a ten-minute trip each way. Some people, like my buddy Bob, have to spend a lot more time out in it. Bob works for the phone company, and they have tents and heaters, but all the same...

Of course, outdoor work people reap the benifits when the weather is nice, and the rest of us are in our climate-controlled offices and hospitals....

When the weather is nice, though, I would rather be out fishin' than workin'... like I'm telling you something that you don't already know...

Words...

Something that has bothered me all of my life... words, and people's reactions to them. My reactions to them, too. I've always been amazed that some words are "bad";"fuck" is one of them. What is so scary about fuck? It's a word that is used for emphasis more than for any other purpose. In most cases, the sexual content is gone. Like, someone doesn't say "fuck you" and want for you to have a good sexual experience, right? And they don't say, "You're fucked!" and mean that you had a good sexual experience. No, they want to emphasize that they want something really bad to happen to you or that you had something bad happen to you.

So why say "fuck" at all? Well, why not? Many people are still shocked and offended by the word, and that's a good enough reason in and of itself.

The problem is... it's become common. I still haven't seen in in the Topeka Capitol-Journal, but I expect to any day now. I've seen it in other papers, though, and always in quotes; remember the "explitive deleted" of the Nixon era? Do you think that there was anyone in the world that couldn't properly fill in the blanks?

What really amuses me... is to see the horror on a parent's face when his/her little boy/girl says "fuck" or "shit" for the first time. Like, what is the big deal? Don't wash their mouths out, teach them how to use the language properly, and under what circumstances they should utter certain words and phrases.

Words aren't bad; people who use words aren't bad; only ignorance is bad.

But while we're on the subject... my opinion is that the priests (and preachers) are responsible for a lot of the "bad" words. (Of course, I had to work an anti-religious theme into this... this is still nilknarf, y'know!) I'm not really sure how this works, but when I was growing up, "hell" and "damn" were bad words. At the time, I had never heard any worse words. Some way or another, these were not bad words when coming from the pulpit, only out of the mouths of the unwashed populace. God had made it this way. Thinking back on the situation, it still makes no sense... as most religious things. Let's see, we are all god's chillun... but god likes them better than he likes me, so they can use words that I can't? Or they know what they're talking about, and I don't? Ahhh... that's probably closer to the truth... if I used those words, god might think that I knew what I was talking about, and maybe listen to me instead of them?

Fear is an amazing thing, isn't it? If you are afraid of my words, you are much more likely to kill me.

And if this all seems a bit anti-moralistic.... wait, there's more!

Verbal prudery, that's what we're talking about. Prudery is quite simply denying the fact that we are human animals; denying that we eat, drink, urinate, defecate and mate like all of the other animals in the world. So why are people prudish? Well, we have to elevate ourselves above the animals, you see, so we can go to heaven. 'Cause if they all went to heaven, too... well, there wouldn't be enough room. Besides which, we would have to feel bad about killing and eating them.

So... next time you see yourself or someone else behaving prudishly... ask yourself why?

I have to admit being somewhat of a prude myself... I was raised that way, it's ingrained into my very being. I try to get away from it, but I can't. Or maybe I don't really want to... it's too comfortable. Especially here in Kansas. Some places put up with non-prudish people better than Kansas does...

A thought for tomorrow... what role does fashion play in all of this? No, I don't know either... give me another day, and I'll let you know how god rules the fashion industry...

And that's quite enough for one day.