How I Called Ms. Tiscareno a Pussy and Have So Far Lived to Tell About It
My article on Roe V. Wade attracted more attention than anything I've ever written. Even more than my USENET classic, "Defenestration in Film". I got a great deal of positive responses after the excellent Jane Galt linked it in her blog-study of abortion, and I got lots of angry email, too. If I were a sour-faced Perfesser of Stuff at the University of Michigan, like Juan Cole, I'd be suing a bunch of people.
In short, my little salvo set off rather more secondary explosions than I expected, especially for something that I had never intended to blog about as long as I lived. It was a rather passing fancy that made me shell that day-care center, and it must have been a Palestinian day-care center because there was a freaking ammo dump inside of it.
Anyway, of all the places for me to turn up, the article turned up on rense.com, the website of the Jeff Rense Radio show. The government of my beloved United States of America (Love it or get your butt out of my amber waves of grain, and stay the hell out) does not entirely approve of rense.com. The State Department describes it as a "conspiracy theory website" which contains "a great deal of unreliable information".
I don't know what is on rense.com that required government attention. There seems to be a lot of UFO speculation, and the State Department is certainly courageous enough to stand up to fleshy-headed alien trespassers, so long as none of them turn out to have a Saudi passport. I didn't ask to be there, but now that I am, I've asked the Foggy Bottom Boys to amend their description to read: "a great deal of unreliable information, and a few bits of deeply moving prose."
Anyway, some responsible person at rense.com should have thought twice before dumping my cogitations on a bunch of people who get all their information from The X-Files. Many of these people do not even have "Net Nanny" installed and are more or less at the mercy of anybody with a keyboard. The victim in this case was a Ms. Tiscareno, who went into convulsions after being exposed to me.
Ms. Tiscareno exhausted the entire Planned Parenthood vocabulary in ripping me a new one, even the rarely-used word "Mommy". She accused me of being against birth control, of failure to use prophylactic devices, and of taking a jovial view of coat hangers and abortion clinic bombings. And so on and so on. But what really made her mad was:
Okay, so I called them pussies. It's probably not a good idea to call people "pussy", as it leads to playground accidents and fraternity drinking fatalities. But I did Roe V. Wade fans the courtesy of assuming that they were more responsible than that. I was just snapping their jockstrap a little. Ms. Tiscareno had no cause to take it personally - for all I know, Ms. Tiscareno killed her last boyfriend with a carpet razor, and has not a single pussy bone in her body.
But I'm not a pussy either (in spite of what my last girlfriend thinks) and I'm not intimidated by the litany of accusations that the Roe V. Waders hurl at anybody who questions their Sacred Writ. I am particularly unmoved by the "argument" that I am not entitled to even have an opinion because I'm a man. This is the United States Constitution we're dealing with, not "Hints from Heloise". I regard such intellectual bluster as mere bullying, and if you scratch a bully you'll find a pussy every time.
They could all prove me wrong - and someday they may have to. When Roe V. Wade goes to the ash-heap, like Communism and Disco did before it, they'll have to take their case to the state legislatures and fight the democratic fight. They'll win some and lose some, and we'll find out what they're really made of. So screw your courage to the sticking place, pussies.
In short, my little salvo set off rather more secondary explosions than I expected, especially for something that I had never intended to blog about as long as I lived. It was a rather passing fancy that made me shell that day-care center, and it must have been a Palestinian day-care center because there was a freaking ammo dump inside of it.
Anyway, of all the places for me to turn up, the article turned up on rense.com, the website of the Jeff Rense Radio show. The government of my beloved United States of America (Love it or get your butt out of my amber waves of grain, and stay the hell out) does not entirely approve of rense.com. The State Department describes it as a "conspiracy theory website" which contains "a great deal of unreliable information".
I don't know what is on rense.com that required government attention. There seems to be a lot of UFO speculation, and the State Department is certainly courageous enough to stand up to fleshy-headed alien trespassers, so long as none of them turn out to have a Saudi passport. I didn't ask to be there, but now that I am, I've asked the Foggy Bottom Boys to amend their description to read: "a great deal of unreliable information, and a few bits of deeply moving prose."
Anyway, some responsible person at rense.com should have thought twice before dumping my cogitations on a bunch of people who get all their information from The X-Files. Many of these people do not even have "Net Nanny" installed and are more or less at the mercy of anybody with a keyboard. The victim in this case was a Ms. Tiscareno, who went into convulsions after being exposed to me.
Ms. Tiscareno exhausted the entire Planned Parenthood vocabulary in ripping me a new one, even the rarely-used word "Mommy". She accused me of being against birth control, of failure to use prophylactic devices, and of taking a jovial view of coat hangers and abortion clinic bombings. And so on and so on. But what really made her mad was:
I wouldn't be so mad right now, if this A...Hole wasn't so insulting by directly calling us Pussies.
Oh yea, final line, "Sisters are supposed to be doing for themselves, you Pussies."
Free speech or not, that is out completely out of line.
[signed] A very angry Ms. Tiscareno
Okay, so I called them pussies. It's probably not a good idea to call people "pussy", as it leads to playground accidents and fraternity drinking fatalities. But I did Roe V. Wade fans the courtesy of assuming that they were more responsible than that. I was just snapping their jockstrap a little. Ms. Tiscareno had no cause to take it personally - for all I know, Ms. Tiscareno killed her last boyfriend with a carpet razor, and has not a single pussy bone in her body.
But I'm not a pussy either (in spite of what my last girlfriend thinks) and I'm not intimidated by the litany of accusations that the Roe V. Waders hurl at anybody who questions their Sacred Writ. I am particularly unmoved by the "argument" that I am not entitled to even have an opinion because I'm a man. This is the United States Constitution we're dealing with, not "Hints from Heloise". I regard such intellectual bluster as mere bullying, and if you scratch a bully you'll find a pussy every time.
They could all prove me wrong - and someday they may have to. When Roe V. Wade goes to the ash-heap, like Communism and Disco did before it, they'll have to take their case to the state legislatures and fight the democratic fight. They'll win some and lose some, and we'll find out what they're really made of. So screw your courage to the sticking place, pussies.
posted by Glen Wishard at 6:32 AM
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