I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain'a? And yes, I may be thinking of throwing up my hat into the ring-ka-ching-ka-ching to be your junior senator from America's Derriere-land. And yes, I may be available to be your institute of some-kind-of learning's commencement speaker (50 bucks and a case of ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon could clear my calendar for any given day). And yes, when our fruitcake legislature passes this concealed-carry malarkey and Governot Snidely Whiplash signs it, I will be first in line to purchase the biggest badass side-weapon of a fire nature so's to protect myself from all the knobshine Wyatt focking Earp's out there in Honky-sha County protecting themselves from the daily rape, pillage and plunder they've suffered from, lo, these many years.
And yes, it occurred to me the other day that the first essay I wrote to be published in the Shepherd was conjured in May 1986, twenty-five focking years ago, back when Ronald Reagan was pumping the federal debt through the roof while the Milwaukee Bucks were coming off a 57-25 season on their way to be swept by Larry Bird's Beantown Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, I kid you not.
And after twenty-five focking years of whipping out these essays from off the top of my head, I could abso-focking-lutely pony up to a new challenge: chief editor and correspondent of the “science section” this newspaper so sorely needs for the enlightenment of its readers.
Enough with the entertainment and restaurant dishes. For christ sakes, the discipline of science has been getting crucified by your Christian nutbags and I say it's high time that “The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena” (i.e. “the criticism of myths”) gets some ink spewed from an objective source, like me, ain'a.
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Cripes, I'd never run out of material, and I'd make sure to make my coverage nice and lively if not dang near practical, to boot. It wouldn't at all be like the butt-boring science they tried to cram down your throat in school 'til you could barf lunch's pigs-in-a-blanket, no sir. I'd give you who's hot/who's not on the latest Periodic Table, photos with captions on anatomy, cutting-edge info on the science of statistics you could use on your next Vegas junket.
Or take a branch like entomology, the scientific study of insects. I'd like to delve into reasons why on the TV pest-control commercials, the bug guy driving the snappy van wears a white shirt and tie on the job. Is this some kind of weird-ass psychological ploy? Do bugs dish up extra respect to a guy in a shirt and tie and simply vacate a premises on their own accord so that Herr Death won't feel the need to unleash his secret chemical vapor storm right there in the kitchenette—a storm that could otherwise reduce a Southeast Asian rain-focking-forest to pure pud for the next two, three millennia?
And I'd give you top-dollar anthropology and botany coverage, you betcha. Jeez louise, I'd sure like to tell you about a Letter-to-the-Editor from some public sensitivity fruitcake-expert I read in a newspaper a while back. This hosebag was absolutely divined to inform us that “All of the earliest indigenous peoples of the world treated the Earth as a living, breathing... [blah-blah]. They did not 'rape' the Earth as modern... [blah-blah].”
Hey buddy, of course they didn't “rape” the Earth. They didn't have focking time. They were too busy raping each other, hell, raping anything that moved. How the hell you think evolution happened, what the fock?
Then Dr. Tinkerbell shovels on about the reason ancient peoples were so groovy was because “they practiced animism—the belief that everything has a soul: people, animals, plants, trees... [blah focking blah].”
Plants have souls? What next? I'll tell you “what next.” I heard some English doctor say he's recorded the “screams” of plants when they get chopped, diced or minced. Now, the conclusion I reach here is that those people who do not eat the meat for soulful reasons—and I'm hoping that includes the letter-writer—will now have to starve to death if they have any shred of self-respect. Well, see you in hell, along with the rest of us.
And naturally, there's political science. The old-fart Greek Aristotle wrote, “Therefore, the good of man must be the end (i.e. objective) of the science of politics.” Hey, nice try, Ari. But simple observation has surely proved you were full of crap on that one. I never bought the term “political science.” Combining something so pure with something so foul always sounded like bullshit to me, but of course if “politics” is involved, what the hell else could it sound like? You tell me 'cause I'm Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
