Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [57]
And this is all a legal process that somehow fits within the confines of our Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson is not only rolling over in his grave right now, he wants to donate some semen.
American Vadge. Good name for a band.
As is Wang Chung.
Lisa Switzer may have been unable to have a baby even if she had started out trying when she was eighteen years old. And you have to give her credit for not stopping in her quest to be a mom. But passing the sperm of her puffy white husband Brian through an egg implanted in an Indian woman has all the potential of producing another kid who looks "different."
Different from its parents when it's dropped off at school.
Puffy? Maybe. White? Probably not.
The bullies and the mean girls and everyone else in between will be lining up to make fun.
And America is already full to popping with kids who don't like the way they look and moms who freak out because they are so concerned about it.
CHAPTER 10 - Self Esteem This
Let's face it-kids in Africa and many other piss-poor places are concerned with one thing and one thing only-are flies food? But here in America-the land of plenty-it's all about looks. Kids here get inundated with reasons to hate themselves-skin too dark, nose too big, legs too thin. Magazines, TV, more magazines, more TV-even on the Internet-kids are shown how not beautiful they are and how easy it will be to fix that problem. And moms buy right into it.
Get this through your thick skull-it's okay to hate yourself. Your nose your legs your ass your tits etcetera etcetera. Chicks-moms in this case-seem to think that hating parts of your own body or the way your voice sounds or the way in which you run or dance or sing or whatever is a sign that they have somehow been robbed at birth and therefore have a God-given birthright to have it fixed or somehow praised into the positive by other chicks who will tell them and their kids how perfect they are. Bullshit.
There has always been an unwritten rule among men and boys-nicknames are applied by everyone other than yourself. Women don't understand this. Women call each other by their first names-Ellen and Annie and Steph. Guys call each other by their last names almost from the moment they meet. Then-after they start hanging out-nicknames get invented. In a woman's world, if there are two Ellens in the same group of friends or co-workers-they refer to each as redheaded Ellen or Ellen Insert Last Name Here. Among men-redheaded Ellen would become Red or Carrot Top, shortened to CT or Carrot. Or she'd be Redbush. Or Helen Reddy. Forever. You know the much maligned freaky-looking redheaded prop comic called Carrot Top? That ain't a stage name. He got that moniker in the school yard five seconds after his parents dropped him off on the first day of kindergarten. (If you think Mick Jagger would not have been called Niggerlips if he had gone to grade school in America, you just ain't living in the real world.)
And to break it down even further-among men any physical inability or shortcoming would eventually-on the ice or the playing field or in the workplace-be part of the nickname process. A guy who can't run very fast becomes Pokey or Fatass or Snail. Or the opposite-Speedy or Bullet or Jackrabbit (if his given name is Jack). The unfortunate guy with glasses gets the classic Four Eyes or Xray or Ray Charles (Ray for short). A guy with no left leg becomes Righty.
A buddy of mine knew a kid whose brother was sent to Vietnam in the sixties and only a couple of days after landing there was killed in the line of duty. When the news reached home this kid's reaction was to shake his head no over and over again. For days afterward he walked around shaking his head no. After a few weeks it appeared he was going to do this forever. One day he was walking down the other side of the block-lost in his own thoughts and shaking