Month: July 2017

The last election was so much fun that I thought it was time for another one.  This time, we’ll be voting on the “Hypocrite of the Year” award.  There are 5 worthy nominees, so pick up your ballots and put on your hip-waders.

Nominee 1 – Serena Williams, for criticizing McEnroe for suggesting that she couldn’t beat top male tennis players, four years after she admitted in a Letterman interview that she would be destroyed by a top male tennis player. (I wrote about this one in my last CO column.)  Serena gets a hypocrisy two-fer: She implies that she could defeat the best male players while having already admitted that that’s not the case, AND she pleads for privacy during her pregnancy while also doing a nude Vanity Fair cover photo in what appears to be her 14th gestational month.  (I might be speaking only for myself, but the last time I was trying to keep a low profile in my town, I arranged to have a nude photo of myself – holding the strategically placed trophy I won in Men’s Singles at Wimbledon in ’92 – on the front page of our local paper.  Now I feel like all of the women at the grocery store are undressing me with their eyes.  Needless to say, I’m horribly offended.  Won’t anyone please just give me my privacy?!  And my eyes are up here, thank you very much.  And yes, I have been working out lately.  Why do you ask?)

Nominee 2 – This nominee is a horrible mother.  And before you can guess, no, it’s not Hillary Clinton. (Though don’t get me wrong, she was a horrible mother, who enabled her creepy husband to victimize many people, and helped to create what appears to have been a miserable childhood for her daughter, who is now showing signs of the damage, in the sense that she seems to have become a bit of a creep herself.)

No, this mother is 30-year-old Floridian Colleen Walker, who left her 5-year-old son in a hot car for 30 minutes while she shopped in a Dollar General.  And I know what you’re thinking:

1.None of these geniuses who leave their kids or pets to broil in their cars are ever parked in front of a church, or a library, or an opera house or an art museum.  It’s always a strip club, or pawn shop, or a Dollar General.

2.What could possibly take 30 minutes to find in a Dollar General?   Did she get distracted while comparison shopping among several varieties of off-brand shampoo, expired medicine, and “beef” jerky (small print: “Contains no actual beef.”)?

Fortunately an alert bystander – and we really should be posting alert bystanders outside Dollar Generals for just this very purpose – noticed the 5-year-old crying, and police and firefighters intervened and got the kid out.  The temperature inside the car when they did so was 107 degrees Fahrenheit.  (That’s 210 Celsius, or the square root of 14 Kelvin for all I know, in case you’re a self-loathing metric-system-using Canadian or something.)

Anyway, the kid’s okay, and mom gets to take a ride in the back of a cop car.  On her way to the jail, she complains to the officer because …

Wait for it…

IT’S TOO HOT IN THE COP CAR!

If I were that cop, I’d make sure that my seat belt was on, and that her seat belt wasn’t, and then I’d drive into a cinderblock wall at 80 miles an hour.  Then, when I pulled her out of the car to see if she was okay, I would bounce her face against the hot concrete repeatedly, while whispering into her ear, “How’s the temperature of this concrete?  Just about right?”

And that’s why I washed out of the police academy in my first week.

(It had nothing at all to do with my nude photo on the cover of the Police Gazette, which accompanied my editorial protesting how little respect is given to the privacy of police cadets.  Those rumors are very hurtful.  And I’m super offended.)

Nominee 3 – National Democrat leaders, for whining that the GOP healthcare plan is being written behind closed doors, without any of the transparency and openness that they hold sacred.

You read that right, and once again I know what you’re thinking:  It seems like only a few short years ago those same Dems marched through an elaborate series of Maxwell Smart-style doors into a secret chamber carved deep into a mountain, sequestered themselves there for months, only to emerge and begin bribing every senator in sight, from Louisiana to Nebraska.  Then they showed us the cover of a 2000+ page bill and scheduled a Senate vote on it for Christmas eve.  (I’m not making that up.  They voted to destroy 1/6 of our economy.  On. Christmas.  Eve.)

Sure, they left about 4 hours for debate.  During which they filled the air of the capitol with a heavy, malodorous fog of lies and obfuscation, and then hammered down a few pitiful GOP objections.  And San Fran Nan said that we could learn what was in the bill AFTER it was passed.

At least I think that’s what she said.  After that much Botox, she always looks like the Tin Man to me, speaking through one pinched corner of her mouth.  She could have said, “Oil can,” for all I know.

But whatever she said, it came just before they rammed through the hilariously mis-named, “Affordable Care Act.”  (Do you remember the old joke about the Holy Roman Empire – it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire?  Well the ACA was not affordable, and it prevented people from getting any care.  But it was all an act, so I guess one out of three isn’t bad.)

And now those same Democrats are offended because the GOP’s attempt to replace the “Dumpster-Fire Train-Wreck Hindenberg New Coke Edsel Peace-in-our-Time Act” (Obamacare, for short) is NOT transparent enough.

Nominee 4 – Media goofs at CNN (new slogan: “Where weapons-grade ignorance meets bone-deep dishonesty!”) claimed that Trump re-tweeting the wrestling meme video is going to get journalists killed!  Killed, I tell’s ya!!!

And you know, they’ve got a point.  Because just last month a right-winger inspired by Trump went to a DC baseball field, and asked if the journalists playing there worked for CNN. When told that they did, he opened fire with a rifle, nearly killing—

Wait. What’s that you say?  That wasn’t a right-winger Trump supporter, but a left-winger Bernie supporter?  And he didn’t target a bunch of CNN journalists, but a bunch of GOP lawmakers?  Huh.

Nominee 5 – GOP knuckleheads who promised for years to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare, but have proven themselves to be barely more honest and transparent than the Democrats.  (That’s the worst insult I could think of, without using the kind of vulgarity that will arouse the FB censors.)   “But we need the House,” they said – so they got the house.  “But we need the Senate,” they said – and they got the Senate.  “But we need the White House,” they said.

Now they have all three, and they punt.  Bah!

Please register your votes now.

My choice, if it won’t taint the judging, goes to the GOP, for several reasons:

1. Serena is a dope who doesn’t ultimately matter to the nation. Plus, she’s about to give birth to what appears to be octuplets, so she gets some sympathy from me.
2. Creepy mom is an evil dope who matters even less than Serena. (Though her child should be taken from her and given to a loving family to raise.  Or even an apathetic family.  Or, if none of those are available, a family of raccoons.  Or even a single-mother raccoon, if she’s got her GED and is trying to get her act together.)
3. & 4. The media and the Dems (but I repeat myself) are 50 shades of awful, but we expect no better. After years of (insert your own examples here) — Clinton preaching feminism while he chased women around every desk he’s ever had, Obama promising the most transparent administration in history and then fighting off every FOIA request with both hands and a broadsword, Bernie criticizing the rich while buying 3 houses – we know that they are hypocrites.  Giving them a hypocrisy award would be like giving a life-long Spanish speaker an “A” for minimal competence in a first-year Spanish class.

But the GOP should know better, and their appalling lack of adherence to what they’ve called their bedrock principles is doubly galling.  As a conservative who is registered as a Republican only because there is no viable Conservative party, I want to support Republicans whenever I can.

But these idiots seem determined to screw this up.  So, sadly, they are my Hypocrites of the Year.

A lot has happened in the world since my last piece for Cautious Optimism.  The Supreme Court temporarily backed Trump’s travel ban, with all indications pointing to a permanent smack-down of the dopes in the 4th and 9th circuit courts later this year.

Elmo went to Jordan, and is back to report that Syrian refugee kids are just like other kids.  (Even Jewish and Christian kids, whose lives are routinely threatened by at least some of the parents of the Syrian kids.)

Trump posted a juvenile but hilarious wrestling video of him pummeling a CNN figure, after which CNN pulled its collective dress over its head and stomped around in a room full of rakes – “This video constitutes a threat to journalists’ lives!  We must find the meme-maker and give him the Otto Warmbier treatment!” — making themselves look much worse than Trump.

Jamie Galioto captured a much-deserved CO Follower of the Month award, to the acclaim of a grateful nation.

But one story captured my attention, not because it was the most politically significant, but because it might offer one of the most painfully indicative “sign of the times” in terms of our society’s growing insanity when it comes to issues of gender and sexism.

This was the mind-numbingly stupid controversy over John McEnroe’s comments about Serena Williams’ hypothetical competitiveness against the top male tennis players in the world.  There were three parts to the story:

Act 1: The Interview.

In the course of an NPR interview with someone called Lulu Garcia-Navarro, McEnroe praised Williams as probably “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”  Ever vigilant for sexist thought, the interviewer said, “Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world.  Why qualify it?”

McEnroe was apparently too stunned by the weapons-grade obliviousness of the question. “Oh!” McEnroe replied. “Uh, she’s not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?”

“Yeah, the best tennis player in the world,” Garcia-Navarro said. “You know, why say female player?”

Luckily, McEnroe wasn’t drinking anything at that moment, or he could have done a classic spit take, drenching Lulu, as she so richly deserved.  He said that he thought she would be ranked around 700 if she played against men, which led to howls of outrage from those who are perpetually on the verge of howling with outrage.

By the way, you’re probably asking yourself if interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro is the same Garcia-Navarro who won dozens of professional women’s tennis tournaments, and for whom the oversized crystal trophy awarded to each year’s Wimbledon champ – “The Lulu” – is named.

No and no.

First, there is no Wimbledon trophy called “the Lulu” – I made that up.  You should be a little embarrassed if you believed me.

Second, my extensive research – by which I mean, two minutes of Googling Garcia-Navarro – shows that Lulu has never played professional tennis.  Or, as far as I could tell, college tennis or high school tennis.  She may never have picked up a tennis racket in her life.

Which might start to explain – although a room temperature IQ might also be a contributing factor – why she thinks that there is no reason (except sexism, of course) to say that a female tennis player might be better than any of the male tennis players in the world.

I’m going to mention a few biological facts now.  So, I guess… trigger warning for those of you who cannot tolerate reality?  For the rest of you, stand back while I blow your mind:

Males are physically larger, with more muscle and less body fat than females.  They are faster, and hit the ball harder than females do.  Extensive research (i.e. another 90 seconds on Google) shows that the top 20 male serve speeds range from 144-163 miles per hour, compared to the top female speeds from 124-131, and that the average male serve speed is around 30 kilometers per hour faster than the average female serve speed.  (I don’t know how much that is in miles per hour, because I’m not a commie who uses the metric system, except when buying a gun or tools.  But I’m guessing that it’s a significant difference.)

These aren’t insults; they’re facts.  And there’s no reason for a rational person to be offended by them.  But sadly, it’s the mark of a certain kind of feminist to not be able to acknowledge the most basic biological differences without being angered by them.   (Full disclosure: I consider myself a feminist, but not the “all men are horrible, and women are superior” kind.)

My wife is good at many things that I’m not.  Though I sometimes envy her for that, I can’t imagine getting angry about it.  And if I point out that I can do many more pushups than she can, I don’t have to worry that she’ll go off on a spittle-flecked rant insisting that I take that back or she’ll kill me.

That was an old girlfriend.  And things didn’t end well.

Anyway, it’s a very bad sign when our society can’t acknowledge the naturally differing abilities of both genders without being infuriated by them.   I hope that one day we’ll all meet at a big Cautious Optimism convention, and if we do, I expect that many people will say things to me like, “Wow, you smell nice.” Or “I noticed you doing many one-armed push-ups earlier. Impressive.”

But if one of you – say, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, if she somehow snuck past CO’s security – were to say something like, “Simpson, you think you’re so great, with your Nobel prize in ornithology and your fashionable tuxedo.”  (I picture all of us at a Cautious Optimism convention in formal wear.) “But you, sir, are horrible at lactating.  In fact, I bet I could lactate circles around you!”

I might respond in several ways, including wondering who this crazy woman was, and how she got in here, and what circular lactating would look like.

But do you know how I would NOT respond in a million years?

I would not get defensive and say, “Oh yeah?!  Them’s fightin’ words!” And then I would NOT ball up my fists and flex like Hans and Franz, grunting loudly while I tried to force myself to lactate on cue.

Because men don’t lactate nearly as well as women.  (Cue the NBC “The more you know” theme music.)  We also don’t tend to listen as well as women.  Or have as much emotional intelligence as women do.  Or exercise basic common sense when it comes to things with motors in them.

And that doesn’t make us less worthy as human beings.  Any more than the fact that the best male tennis players in the world would dominate the best female tennis players in the world.

Act 2: The Coerced Apology

Well, that’s it, you’re thinking.  Garcia-Navarro is a dim bulb, but an idiosyncratic one.  Surely no one else could be stupid enough to–  Wait.  This just in from an Inside Edition interview with McEnroe a few days after the controversy broke.

Co-host Gayle King complains, “I think it belittles what women do on the tennis court, that’s why people are upset,” she said.

Because stating an undeniable truth is seen as “belittling.”  Duh.

McEnroe tries to explain himself – that is, tries to explain the obvious – when Norah O’Donnell chimes in with, “I’m just waiting… would you like to apologize?”

When McEnroe says, “No,” Charlie Rose says, “Why was it necessary to say that?” and the three hosts badger him for several more painfully comedic minutes.

In recent years everybody seems to be getting awfully sensitive on various topics, but it seems like we’ve really lost our mind when it comes to gender (and race, too).  I can’t imagine, for example, similar comments being made about someone on the Senior PGA tour, which is a league in which famous pro golfers over 55 compete against each other.  But if a commentator mentioned that he thought that some old guy was the best golfer on the senior tour, no “journalist” would be goofy enough to say, “Why do you qualify that?  Why best ‘senior’ golfer?  Why not just say that he’s the best golfer in the world?”

If anyone WAS dopey enough to say that, the commentator would say something like, “Because he’s 86!  His drives go as far as Dustin Johnson’s 7 irons!  Are you nuts?  Hold on, let me take a long drink, so you can ask that question again, and I can spit it on you in disgust.”

Act 3: In Which the Poor Victim Proves to be a Hypocrite

So after McEnroe initially refuses to apologize for saying something that is obviously true, the empty heads work on him for a few minutes until he cracks, mumbling about not wanting to upset Serena while she’s pregnant.

But as part of the Inside Edition piece, they quote a tweet from Serena herself: “Dear John, I adore and respect you, but please, please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based.  Respect me and my privacy as I am trying to have a baby.”

By the way, my favorite part of the Inside Edition piece was that the story cut immediately from Serena’s plea for respecting her privacy as she has her baby to – wait for it – “Speaking of her baby, look at this provocative new Vanity Fair cover: a very pregnant Serena!” Sure enough, they plaster a big nude photo of Serena in what has to be the fourth trimester, at least.

Because nothing says, “Why won’t anyone give me my privacy?!” like a nude cover photo on Vanity Fair.

Anyway, look at her tweet one more time: she objects to McEnroe’s “statements that are not factually based.”  Does that mean that she agrees with Lulu that she could beat the best male players?  It sounds like it.

But then, Serena’s appearance on Letterman from four years ago surfaced.  Letterman talked about the Billie Jean King/ Bobby Riggs match, and asked Serena, “What would happen if something like that happened today?”

Williams said essentially what earned McEnroe such scorn.  Her answer, which I’m not making up, was, “Andy Murray [at that time, the 3^rd ranked men’s player in the world] has been joking about myself and him playing a match… For me, men’s and women’s tennis are completely almost two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe ten minutes…. The men are a lot faster, they serve harder, they hit harder.  It’s a different game.  I love to play women’s tennis, and I only want to play girls because I don’t want to be embarrassed.  I would not do the tour or Billie Jean King any justice, so Andy stop it, I’m not going to let you kill me.”

Hypocrisy, thy name is Serena.

So what have we learned from this?  Maybe that men and women are different?

If you still needed to learn that, you should sue the Gender Studies program from which you received your degree.