Stuff like this just pisses me off
Think for a few moments about how many times in your life you've cared enough about something to start a petition. Not many, right? Maybe even zero?
Suppose you had to start one today. With all the grief and turmoil and strife in the world, what issue would you choose to take on? It's hard to know where to begin, isn't it?
I know I should just ignore this, but I find it both infuriating and depressing that no less than 503 idiots (at present) think it's a high priority to ban the sale of Napoleon Dynamite talking pens.
Why? Choking hazard? Lead-based ink? Guess again. According to this story, it's because one of the phrases in the pen's repertoire is "You guys are retarded."
The Wethersfield mother of three, who has a 3-year-old with Down syndrome, recently learned about pens from the popular film "Napoleon Dynamite," which has a recording that says, "You guys are retarded.""There's a lot of kids starting school [for the first time]; there's enough pressure out there [to fit in]... .kids don't need to be challenged like this," Hart said.
Groups all over the country have been pressuring the makers of the pen to cease production. For her part, she contacted all the schools in town, and she heard back from three already, saying that they would confiscate the pens from children if they were seen with one. Hart notes that the pens violate a zero tolerance policy on student harassment.
Now I know that a talking pen doesn't amount to much in the overall scheme of things, but it's not really about the damned pen. It's about how many people in this country have such repulsive, totalitarian tendencies as to try to ban everything they fine personally distasteful.
I wish I could see the names on the petition. One can always hope that about 490 or so of the 500 belong to "Hugh G. Rection" or the like. That would make me feel a bit better.
(HT: Radley)
Comments
I find Napoleon Dynamite offensively stupid. If Tom Arnold, Randy Quaid, Yahoo Serious, Gilbert Gottfried, and Pauly Shore were to write, direct, and star in a musical production of "Ishtar", it couldn't be as offensively stupid as Napoleon Dynamite.
I wish terrible, lingering, and ultimately fatal maladies on those who would purchase this product. And their families, yea, unto seven generations.
But don't BAN it, you idiots. If you eliminate all the stuff in society that seperates the irretrievably stupid from the rest of us, you make viable targets that much more difficult to isolate.
Posted by: apotheosis | October 12, 2005 03:01 PM
Oh dear God! Why'd you have to remind me of Yahoo Serious? Your idea of a musical Ishtar is too depressing for words. I'll bet you could sell it on Broadway.
Posted by: Barry | October 12, 2005 04:18 PM
Know what's more depressing than the idea of selling something like that on Broadway?
The knowledge that someone would buy it.
And then someone else would pay to see it.
And then someone in some NY newspaper would review it with words like "edgy" and "counterculture" and "parapostmoderntastic".
...ok, maybe not that last one.
Posted by: apotheosis | October 13, 2005 09:27 AM
Gah!!
Posted by: ortho | October 13, 2005 10:33 AM
No, definitely that last one too.
Posted by: That Guy | October 20, 2005 05:03 AM