e(n)tymology

Down in the colony, every worker is considered one of the queen’s sisters. They care for the little baby workers, their nieces. That’s why they are named ants. It’s spelled that way because there is no U in team, and these gals are nothing if not dedicated team players, spending so much time swarming on kitchen counters that we call them Formica. Then there’s this: Back in Bible times, ancient Hittite warriors who had successfully pillaged Israelite towns would get home and lord it over the rest of the folks, tending to act sort of snooty. Hence the term Haifa-lootin’.

the fine print

By reading any word in this sentence, you have agreed to the following statement: I accept the terms of the 100 Word Rant User Agreement, which I have never seen, including any and all future additions and changes. I further hold 100 Word Rant free from any legal, moral, ethical, or emotional liability for damages including but not restricted to hailstorms, papercuts, vague feelings of doubt and anxiety, mass extinctions, and unnerving encounters with extremely sketchy door-to-door roofing contractors. It is obvious to me that this contract is totally legit and would certainly be admissible in a court of law.

New jobs for unemployed ICE agents

A stay at Auschwitz, the global gold standard for shitty experiences, left Viktor Frankl with this thought: “Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” I say let’s build it.

Plus, who named this thing?

I’m unhappy to learn that the pink fairy armadillo may be threatened. You just need to look at one to know that it’s not going to threaten you back. It looks like a chipmunk on Halloween or a crappy cosplay gerbil at a rodent sci-fi convention. It has pink armor about two sizes too small just draped over its shoulders like those European guys do with their sweater. It’s got disproportionately large pink turtle feet, like a toddler wearing her dad’s sneakers. If hamsters ever decided to make a low-budget horror movie this is what the monster would look like.

Sit. Stay. Speak.

What’s so great about passive longevity, like “third generation farmer” or “family-owned in the same location for 75 years?” When you brag on how long you’ve stayed put, it seems to me you’re kind of saying, “My grandparents were driven by some blend of determination, desperation, grit, gumption, necessity and just plain stupidity to uproot themselves and start from scratch in a place where everything from the food to the language to the smell of the dirt itself was strange and new. But not me. I’m nothing like that.” Meanwhile, we got folks exactly like that waiting at the border.

Or must I knock up my solicitor?

Association football is the most popular team sport in the world. It is known in the United States as soccer to distinguish it from other games called football like Gaelic football, Australian football, Rugby football (League and Union), American football, and also Canadian football which features mayonnaise instead of ketchup. You know what it is when an American starts calling soccer football? It’s pretentious, that’s what it is, like a philosophy major at a Midwestern land-grant college smoking Gauloises. What are you going to do next? Start calling trucks lorries, cookies biscuits, fries chips, chips crisps? Stop it. Talk normal.

The coexistence of normality and bottomless cruelty

Want to understand what Hannah Arendt described as the “banality of evil?” Look at Jeff Sessions’ face, listen to his voice, as he declares war on children. It would be nice to think, “We’re better than this,” but the bare fact of it proves we are not. We build camps to hold undesirables. We huddle in craven acquiescence. This is what we are. This how we treat people. It’s pure-D meanness. If this is how we protect the land of the free and the home of the brave, why even bother? The free and the brave have all gone away.