Read The Tao of Hoik Ptui Page 5

never buy enough cookies because I also like to buy them from the kids in front of the grocery store. That’s always great fun, unless you inadvertently make one of the little rascals mad. One year, after I had just come from the Post Office, where the stamp machine gives change in Sacagawea dollars. I decided to pay for my cookies with Sacagawea’s. After all she was the original girl scout. Well the short person in brown screwed up her face in a look of anger and disdain that would have frightened the Grinch. In fear for my very life, I quickly reached into my pocket and produced some George Washingtons. Scary, yes, but what fun.~~ back to table of contents

  GO SONIA!

  It's time for my mid-life crisis, and any decent mid-life crisis involves having an affair. But cheating on my sweetie would leave me awash in guilt, and since I can't stand feeling guilty or having her angry with me, an affair is out of the question. It seems I’ve worked hard for four decades only to be denied my mid-life crisis. I feel violated. What I need is a guilt-free affair, so thank goodness for having three women; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, serving simultaneously on the US Supreme Court Since women make up over 50% of the population, we could use another two or three women on the Court, and once the ball gets rolling, maybe we’ll see an increase in the percentage of women for other important fields as well. I especially would like to see a lot more female doctors.

  Anything untoward occurring in a doctor’s office is automatically the doctor’s fault. Any time a doctor’s smock or frock—or whatever that little overcoat they wear is called—is unbuttoned even one button, the doctor, and the doctor alone, is to blame for any funny business. I see it all the time on those lawyer TV shows. The lawyer asks the doctor, “Was your smock unbuttoned?” and the doctor answers in the affirmative and the courtroom gasps in horror! Then the lawyer asks the alleged victim how they were dressed, and the alleged victim says, “I was butt naked.” and the courtroom coos in sympathy.

  So, if I had a female doctor, I could have an affair with her, and it would be all her fault. After my mid-life crisis was over, just to clear my conscience before going into my dotage, I could tell my significant other about the affair, and she would be like, “Oh, you poor sweet baby. You didn’t do anything wrong, but… I'LL KILL THAT STETHOSCOPE-WEARING BITCH!” The problem is that all the female doctors are taken. So many other middle-aged men have already had my idea that it’s not even worth getting on the waiting list for a woman M.D.

  I’m hoping getting women properly represented on the Supreme Court will be just the impetus that motivates women to increase their representation among M.D.s as well. All those new (and young and nubile) female doctors will probably come on line too late to help me, but at least future mid-life crisis'ers may benefit.~~ back to table of contents

  PRO CHOICE ROCKS! PRO LIFE SUCKS!

  Abortion is nothing but a non-issue “issue” fabricated by the wealthy elite for keeping their Christian, fundamentalist stooges frothing at the mouth with political support and attacking anyone with some sense like a bunch of rabid dogs, thus allowing a privileged few at the top of the economic food chain to plunder the wealth of the American people.

  No level of government has any compelling reason for intruding into the reproductive processes of any individual woman. The closest thing the Pro-Life bowel movement has for a compelling reason is the argument that a fetus is a human being. So? Who cares? This country is, as I write this, dropping bombs on people who are unquestionably human beings and blowing them into much tinier pieces than any aborted fetus because we have decided that it is in our best interest to do so. Abortion is like bombing, except on an individual or micro level rather than a macro level.

  If there is a core issue here, the issue is not whether a fetus is a human being, but whether a woman has sovereignty over her own body. The fact that a woman has a baby growing inside her neither helps nor harms society. The fact that a woman aborts the baby growing inside her neither helps nor harms society. An unborn fetus is not by any stretch of the imagination a member of society. It is a citizen only of its mother’s womb, and if she wants to execute it: Well, see ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya. That is what it means to be sovereign over yourself.

  Unfortunately all the Uncle Tom women in this country, who like being controlled by men, have obscured the fact that whatever goes on inside a woman’s body is nobody else’s goddamned business. I don’t care about the butt-sucking bitches of Pro-Life. If they want to be slaves, let them. But like crabs in a bucket, these women insist on dragging all women into reproductive involuntary servitude. Last time I checked, the 13th Amendment to The Constitution bans slavery except as punishment for a crime. Is getting pregnant a crime now, because a woman is a slave to an unborn fetus? In fact, a fetus is the dictionary-picture definition of a complete parasite. Forcing a woman to carry a fetus when she doesn’t want to sounds, to me, like the very definition of slavery.

  There’s not even a compelling religious argument against abortion, at least not for Christians. Jesus Christ didn’t say anything about abortion, and even if he had, there is no such thing as a Christian country. According to the gospel of Luke, no such thing is possible on Earth. These Satanists, doing business as fundamentalist Christians, are doing what followers of the devil do and deceiving people.

  At this point, I have to say that while I support a woman’s right to an abortion, I am not an advocate for abortions. I am for doing everything we can as a society and a nation to encourage women to have their babies. But I am for positive reinforcement, not negative reinforcement, and I don’t even want the positive reinforcement done in the name of preventing abortions. Why can’t we have a national healthcare system, so a woman can afford to care for her baby properly? Why don’t we have free higher education, so a woman can still achieve her aspirations, even with a baby? Why don’t we have free daycare, so a woman can pursue her career, even with a baby? Why can’t we create a system where it’s in the woman’s interest to choose life? Hell, we want to force a woman to give birth, but we won’t even force a deadbeat dad to pay up after she gives birth.

  When I look at the partial list above of what needs doing, the items look like liberal initiatives rather than conservative initiatives. Pro-Life, anti-abortion conservatives will never have the money for making the sort of efforts that I list because that would be funneling the earnings of the American worker back to the people who earned it. Yet these same “Pro-Life”, anti-abortion conservatives will always have money for another bomb or another aircraft carrier or agriculture subsidies or any other rip off that funnels money away from the people who earned it.~~ back to table of contents

  OUR SECOND AMENDMENT MADE EASY

  North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is a conservative fighting for his right to keep and bear nuclear arms. The policy of the United States is that he shouldn’t have the right to keep and bear nuclear arms. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a conservative politician who supports the right of his country to keep and bear nuclear arms. US policy is that the Iranian people do not have the right to keep and bear the same kinds of arms that we have. The case against allowing either of these two countries to obtain a nuclear weapon parallels the Second Amendment argument here in The United States. The Second Amendment is quite clear, and if North Korea and Iran could invoke it, the NRA would be helping them build nuclear reactors and missile sites. Yet here in the US, conservative politicians oppose, even to the extent of going to war, allowing either country to attain nuclear capability.

  Sportsmen, hunters, collectors, and even people stupid enough to think that owning a gun will make them safer, all have a legitimate, if sometimes hard to understand, reason for owning a gun. But only a pervert owns a gun just to own one, and for many of us liberals, there is something perverse and troubling about the proliferation of guns in America. We blame the availability of guns for the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech and most of the murder and mayhem extant across America every day. We need to let that go. The Secon
d Amendment says what it says, and we must accept what it says unless we change The Constitution. Instead of decrying guns, we must work on reducing the number of conservatives who want to buy a gun.

  We liberals need to understand that while we have a dream, conservatives have a nightmare. Just as we work to make our dream of America: the shining beacon on a hill, come true; conservatives work to make their nightmare vision of America, the oppressive wasteland, come true. In a time of serious terrorist threat, they vote for “good ol boy” politicians rather than competent administrators, and then when the US gets bombed by terrorists, they see barbarians at the gates and run out and buy guns. They vote against reasonable regulation and taxation, and then point to our crumbling economy and infrastructure as proof of the breakdown of authority and run out and buy more guns. They vote for conservative politicians, who rise to power on divisive issues. Then they run out and buy even more guns because they’re afraid of other Americans.

  We liberals need to stop obsessing about the Second Amendment and start winning more elections. Only when we have a firm grip on power, can we