RSSRidiculous and Ridiculous-er
Gene Lalor | January 30, 2010
If Lewis Carroll could make up the word curiouser I’m entitled to use ridiculous-er which is sometimes the best way to describe the goings-on on our planet.
For example, across the Pond in not-so-merry Ole England they’ve long been ahead of the Political Correctness curve–as well as the Death Panel and other such curves–but even Brits can run PC-amok.
One poor soul discovered that when she tried to place a classified want ad for a housekeeper in a UK employment office.
Now, such a position doesn’t demand an awful lot aside from reliability and some degree of a work ethic but this was a government-run employment office, which explains what happened.
Ms. Nicole Mamo was offering the Brit equivalent of about nine bucks an hour, which isn’t a bad wage except in VAT countries where a basic computer can cost a grand in our money. But it was after all a job, not designed for a rocket scientist but a job for someone who could use a few extra quid.
Mamo did have one requirement, that the applicant “must be very reliable and hard-working,” and therein lay the rub, as the Bard would say. The government functionary declined the ad because someone could find it offensive.
Mamo wasn’t advertising for a nude housekeeper or for someone who would paint the house in between cleaning the loo and dusting the antiques. It was the wording of her want ad that the ninny recruiter thought was over the edge. Mamo insisted applicants “be very reliable and hard-working.”
Those words sent the ninny into a tizzy and “When Mamo called the job center to find out why her ad wasn’t posted, an employee told her they could be sued for discriminating against unreliable workers:” http://bit.ly/bv0CsL
That all goes to prove one thing, that political correctness can make people lose their minds.
Over on our side of the Atlantic, we’re no slouches either when it comes to being ridiculous and ridiculous-er. And when it comes to anything smacking of a violation of the non-existent separation of church and state clause of the Constitution, some people can be absolute loonies.
The USPS 
likes to issue commemorative stamps so they can pay mail sorters $70,000 per annum and avoid raising first class postage to a dollar, the price our kids will be paying some day at the current rate of increases.
Commemoratives are often collected rather than used as postage which earns the PO a nice penny for this lucrative sideline business because a Seinfeldian Newman isn’t forced to deliver some letters.
In the past the PO has commemorated everyone and everything from Elvis and rock and roll (1993), comic strips and Marilyn Monroe (1995), Bugs Bunny (1997), and insects and spiders (1999).
Some commemorations apparently are verboten to some people, namely a stamp honoring a nun named Mother Theresa.
Never mind that she also tirelessly and selflessly tended to the poor, sick, and orphaned of Calcutta for almost half a century, was awarded the Nobel Prize for her efforts, and was beatified by the Church–a prelude to sainthood–six years after her death.
She was deemed guilty of a couple of unforgiveable sins, however: Catholic proselytizing and a visceral opposition to abortion. Still, that was not the reason offered by “The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a leading atheist organization that is organizing a boycott and letter-writing campaign against the stamp.”
The atheists base their objections on the Postal Service’s own rule for “stamphood:” “Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can’t really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did:” http://bit.ly/c1fdHU
And you can’t really separate the Indian parapalegic syphilitic she aided from her commitment to them nor can you separate idiots from their idiocy.
Politicians and hangers-on have raised the ridiculous to a virtual art form by virtue of their avocations but sometimes they achieve new heights, or depths.
Two quick examples which demand no elaboration:
Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, has proclaimed that United States senators are “terrorists” when they disagree with him on passage of the “Card Check” bill, aka the Employee Free Choice Act.
“Free choice” my patoozie!
That bill would deprive workers of secret ballots in union elections, assign government regulators/arbitrators to monitor private businesses, and impose harsh penalties on businesses, but not on unions, for alleged violations of the voting process: http://bit.ly/4xSKCZ
It’s beyond ridiculous to think that Stern can’t understand how blatantly unfair Card Check is to workers and businesses, except that it does nicely jibe with Stern’s socialist idea of a worker’s paradise and Obama’s ideas of government intrusion into every area of American life.
Finally, how could an article on the ridiculous not include our president?
Obama out-ridiculoused himself when addressing, correction, lecturing to, House Republicans in balmy Baltimore this week. Their choice of Baltimore for a winter retreat was bad enough; inviting the president made it even worse.
If Republicans expected Obama to reach across the aisle to glad hand them and work on bi-partisan compromise, they were sadly mistaken.
If he had reached across any aisles, it would only be to pull their arms out of their sockets and mercilessly beat them over their heads with them until they submitted.
That wasn’t the ridiculous part of the Baltimore summit, though. The ridiculous part was Obama’s saying, “I am not an ideologue:” http://bit.ly/cBFYeb
Righhhht . . . Nor were Lenin and Hitler ideologues.
How ridiculous. How truly absurd.
Contributor's website: http://www.genelalor.com/
Content posted by users from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use and each author is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or its owner.
Leave a Reply
Loading ...Recommended Reading:
