Behold, the Power of Silence

As many of you know, this Friday is the national Day of Silence, in honor of all who lack the courage to come out of the closet, cuz in case you don't know, now is worse than ever for gays and lesbians. In response to this sort of discrimination, on April 15th, gays and their heterosexual allies must be silent all day.

Not gonna lie, I'm stoked. If you're the type of person who'll participate in this vow of silence, chances are, your classmates will hail it as a holiday.

Let's be real, if the Silent Minority walked into class and started yelling at the top of their lungs, it'd increase awareness substantially more than silence. Also, it'd attract more participation. If there was a day of yelling, I'd plunge in, no matter the cause. How often do you get to scream in class? What a feeling.

But no, verbalizing distress is taboo on this day. So what if this Day of Silence finally takes off? Will they expand it? Maybe to a Week of Silence? Maybe the Month of Silence? Onward, ho!

If they really wanted to get gay marriage laws passed, they'd join with Republicans and find ways to disenfranchise African American voters.

I'm not trying to downplay the horrors of being gay in America in the 21st century, but how often are gays denied business loans cuz of their sexuality? When was the last time gays were called terrorists for their belief systems? Do gays get pulled over at higher rates than straights? Are gays more likely to go to prison than college? Do gays get paid significantly less for the same labor as straights?

I'm not arguing on behalf of the status quo, and as a Libertarian, I believe government should have no involvement in marriage. I'm privileged to have grown up in a community where those who persecuted gays were themselves ostracized. Perhaps I'm spoiled. I believe any discrimination based upon arbitrary factors such as gender, race, religion, age, and sexuality to be abhorrent.

But when some gays try to relate their battle for marriage to the Civil Rights movement, I get irked. It shows either the sort of massive self importance that only I can identify with, or a complete disregard for history. It's like Tea Party members thinking they're on level with the American Revolutionaries. It's silly at best, depressingly stupid at worst.

What I'm concerned about are the naturally shy students. You know, those that just wanna keep to themselves, don't want any trouble or real interaction for that matter. Will these introverted intellectuals feel the need to pipe up for their sexuality? Or for once, will their silence be taken as participation? And if one such boy sneezes out a sentence in class, will he be mocked as only speaking to pretend he's not gay?

Alas, the unintended consequences of silence. Maybe they can bury their heads in the sand in protest as well, since that's changed the status quo as often as silence has. What a joke.

The Martyr of Jefferson Davis Park

Maynard was a simple man: he simply didn’t take bullshit, especially when his nephew was up to bat, and the umpire happened to be blind.

When the ump called that last ball a strike, even the other team’s parents gasped. It ended the game, and Maynard’s nephew stood like his childhood fell in the shitter.

It wasn’t even a choice for Maynard at that point. Now, it would’ve been stupid for Maynard to just charge the ump right after the game, since the ump would still have his mask and body guard on. So Maynard had to be clever and wear a grin on his face and have his hand outstretched as if to shake the bastard’s hand. The ploy worked.

In his statement to the police, Maynard was adamant about one thing: that he’d done it for the kids.

“The kids there, they know right well that fightin exists, that it happens and shouldn’t. But they don’t need knowing about lying and cheatin, especially during a fun game!”

Maynard, who was often described by family and friends as “below the poverty line” when it came to common sense, thought that the police were the thickest people involved, since they refused to see the bigger picture. Maynard kept asking them, “What’s worse to them’s futures? Seeing a scuffle ‘tween adults or losing faith in the very integgerity of lil league? Now if they can’t believe in lil league, ya might as well tell em that dino-sours roamed the earth and that we all evolved from chimps! It’ll ruin em!”

Maynard didn’t consider himself an overly religious man. That being said, Maynard knew he was about to understand full well what it was like for Jesus on the cross, to die for the sins of others or “take one for the team” as his dad always put it. Just because Maynard couldn’t spell martyr didn’t mean he couldn’t be one.

When asked afterwards if he had any regrets, Maynard was firm about not having any. “Even down to my clothes,” he responded, from his jean jacket to his torn jeans. It was a privilege for Maynard to stand up for justice, and to do so in his formal wear, well, that was just icing on the ice cream cake. 

The fight itself (or as Maynard called it, “the physical disagreement”) started when Maynard asked the presiding Umpire if he had eyes in the back of his head. Puzzled, the ump responded in the negative, and asked why he should. Maynard explained that the good Lord gives each man two eyes, and if God didn’t give the ump eyes in the back of his head, then that meant He had cleaned skipped over the ump entirely.

Calling into question the relevance of Maynard’s inquiry, the ump informed Maynard that he didn’t need eyes to spot a dipshit. Maynard interpreted this as intended, and beseeched the ump that if he knew what was good for him, he’d apologize to Maynard’s nephew. After all, Maynard’s nephew was near royalty in the town, what with being the son of the former Miss Teen MILF USA. The umpire’s callous actions were an affront on the crown, and couldn’t be tolerated.

The umpire told Maynard that if Maynard knew what was good for himself, Maynard would cut his “rat tail” so it wouldn’t get caught in the “tilt-a-whirl” at Maynard’s work. Finding this less than helpful advice, Maynard explained his irritation to the ump with his fists. 

Maynard was charged with assault for giving the ump what was colloquially known as a “nigger make over,” leaving the ump with a fat lip and a black eye.

Piss and Vinegar

Today we're going on a case study of why I don't have faith in government. If you're under the assumption that government knows its eyebrows from its asshole, you may want to skip this one. Also, if you're paranoid that every link I post will send you hurtling down the dark dimensions of Devin's internet porn, you might as well stop reading. This post will be interactive, but not a pain in the ass.

So I attend PCC. When I tell people this, they usually wince. What's especially cool is that after high school, I started at the regionally respected University of Nebraska. Realizing the weather is shittier than the weed, I left for Corvallis. Discovering I hate school, I tried dropping out, but since I'm such a fuck up, I failed even at that and wound up at PCC. At this rate, I expect to be on a play-doh diet in preschool in no time (if I pass the entrance exams. I will probably cheat, since I'm way too old to blow the instructor).

My lofty ambitions aside, I go to PCC Sylvania, which is a three minute drive from my house. During the first two weeks of a term, parking at PCC is like a shopping mall before Christmas, but without the warm holiday spirit. It takes me twice as long to find a parking spot than to drive to campus. Indeed, the surest way to find a parking spot is to tail some student, which creeps the Christ out of them (imagine a dude with large red hair and no shirt in a silver Ford Focus following you).

Needless to say, this is a bigger pain in the ass than a prisoner’s sex life. What’s a Reddish American to do? Carpool? Hell no, that’s socialism.

This brings me to what I have dubbed the Cervantes Secret. As those of you intrepid enough to click my links will notice, Cervantes is a road that runs adjacent (but does not connect) to PCC Sylvania. It's a light traffic street, off a minor artery, and is a full four minute drive from campus. During school days, it has maybe a dozen cars parked along its 500 yard stretch. Think about that. I'm including both sides of the street. If you don’t believe me, view it at the street level. As luck would have it, I was on a jog when I discovered that Cervantes is linked to PCC via a short path.

It didn’t take a high school diploma for me to figure out my next move. Starting this term, I’ve parked on Cervantes twice a week for my class at 11am, which is when a vacant parking spot is rarer than a case of bulimia in sub-Saharan Africa (too soon?). I'm happy that I’m able to free up a spot for someone living in like Newberg or North Portland, who has no idea of the Cervantes Secret. It should be noted that this is the closest I’ll ever get to charity. But it’s somewhat self serving, since the walk from Cervantes is quicker than walking to class from whatever hinterland on-campus spot I’d cut someone off to park in. The system might not work.

(This wouldn't be an issue had the Stimulus Bill been spent on more than horseshit, and the Feds had ponied up to improve the infrastructure of a community college whose enrollment increases ~15% each year. Alas, the fuckers couldn't be arsed to put up a parking garage. That's status quo I can believe in. Meanwhile Sam Adams is opening up bike lanes while closing schools. As much shit as I give Republicans, Democrats are beyond hopeless.)

Despite my charitable intentions, no good deed goes unpunished. In the past two weeks, I’ve received two warnings for parking on Cervantes. Who issued them? The relentless and indefatigable PCC Parking Patrol. Why? Because Cervantes falls into a blanket area that PCC students are prohibited from parking in. This no park zone ends, thankfully, a few hundred feet from my residence. Needless to say, I could have been in quite the pickle had my parents decided on a house in an adjacent cul de sac. I pity the poor piss ant who parks on the wrong side of his street and finds a $50 ticket in his mail box.

I got the warnings by being betrayed by my PCC parking pass, also known as "that $40 piece of useless fucking paper." But perhaps this is why they warned me, and haven’t sent me a ticket (yet). They might figure that I am parking on Cervantes out of necessity and not pleasure. Upon noticing my parked car, they might see my ornamental blue parking pass and, after hours of tense problem solving, arrive at the conclusion that nobody would spend $40 just to park off campus.

But even if the Cervantes Secret becomes common knowledge, there's no way someone from Newberg is gonna park on Cervantes as a first choice. This will only happen out of desperation, since Cervantes is not a street that's readily accessible from major traffic arteries. Speaking from an economics/Sim City background, the logistics simply don't support the phantom fear of congestion on Cervantes.

I understand that some nearby neighborhoods get overrun, leaving residents no place to park. That frustration is justified, unlike over reaction. Cervantes is a broad boulevard. Are the inhabitants simply sickened by the copious cornucopia of crappy community college cars? Was the land value adversely affected by Sylvania's sulking, spiritless students? Alas, we’ll never know, since I forgot to sign my name on my angry letter/brick that I “dropped off” through the window of PCC’s public safety office.