My thesis today is that we have lost our freaking minds.
Not every single one of us, obviously. I mean, I’m writing this masterpiece, and you are reading it and nodding your head in agreement, so the two of us are good.
But everybody else? They have either lost it, or are in the advanced stages of losing it.
And I don’t just mean the obvious crazies, like Joe Biden. Right this minute he’s in the District of Columbia in 2019 having some vegetable soup that an aide prepared for him, and spilling most of it on a bib which that same aide put on him. But he thinks he’s in Vermont, and that he’s still vice president, and that he marched with Martin Luther King in 1987, and this lobster bisque doesn’t taste quite right.
Or Don Lemon, who thinks he’s a journalist.
Or Chris Cuomo, who thinks he’s Michael Corleone, and why does everyone keep calling him “Fredo”?
Or our president, who could earn a black belt in judiciously targeted trollery, but instead thinks it’s a great idea to fire off an entire full-auto clip of free-associated tweets in all directions, because suburban soccer moms love that stuff!
Or Robert DeNiro. (Enough said.)
No, I’m talking about nearly everyone else in our society.
“Do you have any evidence for such a wild claim, Martacus?” you are probably asking yourself. Or, I guess, you are asking me.
Unless your name is “Martacus.” Which would be weird.
Well thanks for asking, faithful reader, because I have only one bit of evidence, but I think it will be more than enough to prove my point.
It is this story from Campus Reform — https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13661 — about how all across our great nation, colleges are scrambling to get rid of their horribly offensive mascot names. At first I wanted to give the colleges the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there are still some left-over offensive mascots, from back in the bad old days.
I mean, if U Mass still has “The Virulent Anti-Semites” mascot, I am against that. I am also unhappy with The Portland Pedophiles and the Washington State Ted Bundys. Not to mention the Boise Bidens.
But no. Here is the list of “controversial” mascots listed in the story, none of which I am making up:
The GW “Colonials.” Because how terrible were those colonials, pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor just because they didn’t want to continue bending the knee to their English overlords? Ugh!
By the way, this university is called “George WASHINGTON University”! And it’s located in WASHINGTON, D.C.!! But we cannot have it associated with any colonials!
Next up: the University of Denver “Pioneers.” Because, I guess, most pioneers were red-state workaholics who clung to their god and their guns, and shockingly few of them were gender-fluid disabled people of color. So begone!
Cal State Long Beach “Prospector Pete the 49er.” The sin here is that those old miners were greedy for gold. And greed is terrible! At least according to the Cal State Board of Regents — who took a break from holding taxpayers upside down by their ankles and vigorously shaking them until enough cash fell out of their pockets to provide a raise for anti-American profs who have been enduring brutal 7-hour work weeks for a salary barely into the six figures — long enough to vote to condemn the greed of long-dead prospectors.
The University of Wyoming Cowboys might be the most offensive, because they launched a successful campaign touting their mascot last year, with the motto, “The World Needs More Cowboys.” Which it manifestly does, judging from the reaction of at least one mewling professor, whose complaint I swear to you I am not making up: “the word ‘cowboy’ invokes a white, macho, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, U.S.-born person.” (And if you conclude that this professor necessarily wants more non-white, effeminate, non-male, handicapped, homosexual foreign nationals in our country, you would not be wrong.) (Also, good luck, future Army Ranger and Seal Team Six recruiters!)
Finally, with too many universities to mention, comes the most offensive of all: Native American team mascots of all shapes and sizes. No more Indians, or Warriors, or Chiefs. Or Braves. Or Seminoles or Sioux or Mohawks.
Or Fightin’ Warrens. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)
The only two examples I’m almost willing to concede to these goofballs are the Washington Redskins and the U of Illinois mascot Chief Illiniwek.
“Redskins” is rough, I’ll grant you. But now that these hysterics have made such an issue of it, we have to hold onto it doubly hard, just to avoid appeasing these loons. Plus, “Washington” doesn’t seem so bad now – when compared to “redskins” – does it, you whiny oppression-studies professors?!
And the Illini Indians have the most unfortunately unimpressive tribe name ever. And then they steered into the skid by naming their chief “Illiniwek,” which is the sound made by a TB patient with hay fever when he simultaneously coughs and sneezes.
But come on, Illinoisans. Don’t throw the Blackhawk out with the Illiniwek! (It’s a cliché for a reason.)
Speaking of Blackhawks, would any goalie ever feel the same fear up his spine if Stan Mikita was skating full speed toward him, with a “Chicago Pacifists” jersey on? Okay, maybe he would. But that cool Blackhawk image was still the icing (HA!) on the cake.
Fun fact: Stan Makita was from Slovakia, and he was deaf. And yes, the Deaf Slovakians would make a great punk band name, and an even better team name. Naming your team The Deaf Slovakians would be an offend-your-administrators two-fer, and they would immediately convene a meeting to try to push through “The Hearing-Impaired Peoples of Eastern European Origin” counter-proposal. (And just try working THAT into a fight song.) (I mean, if fight songs hadn’t already been banned on grounds of toxic masculinity.)
In fact, “Deaf Slovakians” would also make an amazing army name. Because when the Deaf Slovakians are marching on your border, you know that they will not listen to your cries for mercy. (HA!) And do some Biblical scholars believe that when the Deaf Slovakians meet the Color-Blind Slovenians on the field of battle, we will know that Armageddon is upon us?
Well, no they don’t, actually. Did that idea come to me because I sometimes daydream of Melania Trump – in thigh-high black leather boots and a shining gold breastplate, naturally — leading a Slovenian army into battle? Um, yes. Yes it did.
Wow, I just went down a rabbit hole, didn’t I? So where was I?
Oh yeah. Indian team mascots.
Lighten up, you perpetually offended jerks! How can you not see that it is a compliment to have a mascot named after you? We choose mascots because they embody admirable qualities. We pick animal mascots that suggest strength – lions and tigers and bears – not ones that we look down on. (That’s why there are no Washington Weasels – except in congress. Boom! – or St. Louis Skinks, or Rapid City Remoras.) We choose occupations that we at least used to be proud of – there were Houston’s Oilers and Pittsburgh’s Steelers, not Houston’s Oligarchs and Pittsburgh’s Pimps.
And we chose Indian mascots because we admire warriors, and respect chiefs, and would like our children to be brave.
Finally, if you fancy yourself a compassionate leftist who sympathizes with the downtrodden and wants to solve our society’s problems, God bless you. But do you really think that changing team mascot names should be your top priority? Have you not noticed that you’ve been running a lot of cities for decades, and they are not doing super-duper well lately?
Have you heard that San Franciscans are paying $2.3 million for a two-bedroom with no parking on a street down which they have to wade through an ankle-deep soup of human waste and dirty syringes?
Are you aware that Detroiters have to run serpentine from one burned out building to another to get to work, like it’s Beirut in the late 70s?
Do you realize that when mothers in Baltimore hear “back to school sale” they think about shopping for child-sized Kevlar vests in a variety of gang-graffiti-tagging-resistant colors?
Wake up, wokies! If you win the next election and then tank the economy, finish off the last vestiges of quality public education, drive out anyone who pays taxes or wants to start a business, and then start a race war by imposing reparations and discriminating against some people because of their skin color, the voters are not going to be assuaged because you’ve passed House Bill 328 to change the name of the 49ers!
Can you PLEASE try putting out all of the raging social fires that you’ve started, before voting on the motion to change “firemen” to “firepersons”?!
Avenatti/Social Justice Warriors 2020!
Martin Simpson 