A Dear John Letter to Corn Farmers

Dear Corn Farmers,

What the fuck?

Seriously, I thought we were cool, guys. I thought we had something together. Those summer evenings by the barbecue, shucking corn... mornings in the kitchen making johnny cake (fuck you, it's not cornbread, it's JOHNNY CAKE)... heating up some frozen corn for dinner during my bachelor days... Jiffy Pop by the fire with that special someone.... special memories, all of them.

But then you bend me, and all of the other American consumers, over the proverbial grist mill. How could you? After all we've had together?

How could you raise the price of my beer?

It's true. There's a worldwide hops shortage going on. Bad weather killed the crop last fall, and inflation in prices for glass, aluminum, and fuel isn't helping. And now I find out that the rising prices of not only hops, but also barley and wheat, are due to farmers opting to use their land for corn instead of these other, get-me-drunker grains.

Don't get me wrong, I still love corn. Who doesn't? But do you really need to fall all over yourselves responding to the ethanol push, when turning corn into ethanol fuel actually takes more energy than the ethanol fuel itself can produce? Why would you encourage the government to do something so short sighted? Can't you make enough just selling your delicious corn to gluttonous consumers like myself?

It wasn't enough that I spend more on beer every month than I spend on my student loans. Now they're asking me for another dollar for every pint at my favorite brewpubs, and soon that's going to spill over into my favorite mass-marketed craft beers. Eventually, even the shit beer I have to drink when my credit card gets rejected will go up in price. And then what will I have to do? Switch to wine? What am I, some kind of fruit?

Two can play at this game, Cornholers. (See what I did there? Ha!) I was all set to unleash upon the world my greatest invention, one that was sure to revolutionize nutrition and keep you swimming in filthy lucre until the end of time. I'm speaking, of course, about The Corn Diet.
You'll need TP for your bunghole!

The Corn Diet would encourage followers to substitute towards foodstuffs that pass through the digestive tract largely unchanged - things like corn, carrots, peanuts, and Legos. It's pretty clear that there aren't too many calories actually consumed by these foods, since there's little difference in their constitution before and after they enter one's body. Then, we can all fill up on these things, tricking our stomaches into thinking we got the calories that our evolutionary biology still thinks we need (despite the fact that most of us sit around watching TV, masturbating, and writing blogs instead of hunting woolly mammoths and dancing around strange black obelisks like in the good ol' days). Finally, a diet plan that truly can't fail!

And to think, I even gave you the top billing. Millions of fat (need I say "American"?) consumers would only have read as far as, "eat all the corn..." and you would have made out like bandits. But our deal is off. Keep an eye out for the Peanut Diet, coming next year to self-help websites and Oprah. You can find me at my mansion in Georgia, draped in a Confederate flag and being fellated by lovely Southern debutantes while I dance passionately with Mr. Peanut.

He's so classy. Who wouldn't want to screw him?

There's still time for you to reconsider. All that needs to happen is for the price of beer to fall back down to what it was at this time last year, and all will be forgiven. I need to trust you again, Corn Farmers. Please let me trust you.

Regretfully yours,
RT

We're assailing our own faiths now, too....

We're likely to talk a lot about religion around here, led of course by Lex "Just Because You're An Islamophobe Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You" Lesotho. Talking about religion makes a lot of people uncomfortable... and we strive for making people uncomfortable, in all facets of life.

As all four of us are of Irish and/or French-Canadian blood, we grew up primarily in the Catholic faith. Like many people our age, though, none of us are what one would call "devout"; Cartola had a head start on being a heathen as his family was never the churchgoing type, Lex thinks he's Christopher Hutchins, Keyser isn't allowed back after that incident with the altar server, and I go only on those Sunday mornings when I'm not massively hungover (read: just Christmas and Easter). Still, we feel like we can assail the Catholic Church more than all others (except Lex and Islam) because we're one of them, sort of like how black folks are the only ones that can drop the n-bomb.

Three incidents have recently reminded me why I have such a problem with Catholics. (And yes, all come from the world of sports, because I get all my news from sports blogs.)

First, and most egregiously, comes this quote from the Archbishop of St. Louis, Raymond Burke, regarding SLU coach Rick Majerus' support of abortion rights and stem cell research at a Hillary rally:

It's not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions. When you take a position in a Catholic university, you don't have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can't make statements which call into question the identity and mission of the Catholic church.

(emphasis mine) Now, it's been a while since the last time I was excommunicated (the Jesuits really didn't appreciate my feces sculpture of St. Ignatius Loyola), but I'm pretty sure I'm still a Catholic. Was I not supposed to stand up for the rights of pregnant women? Was I not supposed to push for medical innovation that can potentially prolong the lives of sick adults? I can understand disagreeing with Majerus and Clinton - though the pro-life stance makes much more sense to me than the anti-stem cell research stance - but just because you're a Catholic doesn't mean you should have to take every word from a very conservative Vatican as (pardon the pun) gospel. I expected more out of you, Roman Catholicism; this kind of opinion squashing I saw as the purview of some organization with far less intellect and smart governance, like the Bush Administration.

(A related, possibly apocryphal story from a few years ago: Back when my wife was in law school, she had a professor that was on loan from BC Law. Apparently the president of BC, Father B. L. Zabub, S.J., had asked the then-dean of the Law School how many practicing Catholics were on the Law faculty. When the dean didn't know, he was let go. I didn't realize that BC Law was only concerned with canon law, and not the laws of the secular, godless world.)

Incident number two:

Fuck Notre Dame!
Fuck Touchdown Jesus!
Fuck Jesus!

Now, I can totally get behind those first two sentiments (though fucking Notre Dame would feel a little like getting with the girl who has had WAY too much to drink, what with the state of their football program). And I've been known to jokingly curse out God and His Son and, yes, His Holy Spirit, on occasion if properly motivated. But here's the key: jokingly. Even Lex's favorite imams give props to Jesus as a great guy. Dana Jacobson was clearly kidding; it was a roast, for Christ's sake (ouch). People make crazy exaggerated (drunken) statements at those things. But that doesn't mean that Christ's One Representative On Earth, Bill Donohue, from making wild pronouncements and demanding more than just an apology. Perhaps a crucifixion is in order? That would even the score.

Finally, something closer to home for me. The town-versus-gown battle never stops around Boston College, but some BC fans took it too far when they made anti-semitic comments about some of the Brighton residents who are in opposition to... well, pretty much everything involving BC. I'm no fan of the Brightonians (and there's no way I'm linking to their blog), as they're petty, ridiculous, and want nothing less than BC to move back to the South End, but this kind of statement on the BC message board makes no sense:

If it was Brandeis looking to move into this neighborhood, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The Holocaust stuff, that's (hopefully) just bad luck; people use Nazis as imagery for overly strict people all the time, and the fact that one of the Brighton No-Goodniks is related to a Holocaust survivor is probably only a coincidence. Still, the anti-semitic sentiment wasn't necessary, as it's hard to make the case that religion is the reason for their constant opposition to BC expansion. But accusing people of being anti-Catholic in Boston? The city of Boston is more pro-Catholic than the Holy See. It's been a long time since Catholics were discriminated against in Boston - even the old money Brahmins have an Irish brogue these days. Lots of people can feel discriminated against in Boston - blacks, Hispanics, blacks, Republicans, blacks - but Catholics are the last group that should feel that way.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling like the Catholic Church and its more outspoken lay members are doing all that they can to drive me away. And they wonder why Mass attendance is still trending down, churches are going belly-up, no one signs up for Holy Orders anymore, and "lapsed Catholic" is a widespread stereotype....

This Week in Righteous Indignation: Ashura in New York City! (Party like it's 999)

Nothing says "multiculturalism" like forcing fucked up festivals of self-mutilation celebrated by a very small percentage of your population while at the same time spinning the news like this sort of thing is OK and shame on everyone else for "misunderstanding" the "Religion of Peace".

This year the main stream media covered a beautiful Shia holiday known as Ashura. Perhaps some of you have seen the "celebrations" on TV in previous years. Perhaps you even said to yourself, "that's fucked up." Perhaps you fucking cried on your lesbian sister's shoulder not because the women are excluded from celebrating and children 4months and older are forcefully cut with razorblades, but because when 2% of your population can pull the wool over the eyes of 98% of the rest of the country it may mean that they'll also warm up to two unshaved dykes eating each other's asses on the back of a Harley.

Ashura is well-known because of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad and the third Shia Imam, along with members of his family and close friends at the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (AD 680 to all you Islamophobes and Kaffirs). (Thanks wikipedia) It's good to note that Husayn, innocent women and children, and his small army were massacred, which is still a common practice of modern muslims when they disagree about something. I suppose I can also mention that since 9/11, there have been over 10,000 deadly attacks committed in the name of Allah by Muslims.

So, in hopes that if we keep giving out money, hugs, and Korans that Muslims will stop being unruly barbarians stuck a thousand years in the past with no legitimate scientific or otherwise world helping invention since Mohammed the pedophile subjugated an entire region, we have shed some light on Ashura in America. Now, I have no problem with Islam in itself. I have a problem with it being forced on everyone because the modern civilized world has a problem with suicide bombs, misogyny, homophobia, FGM, self mutiliation, extermination. We are called "Islamophobic", a 10-cent assfuck word developed by the same twats that beat their wives and extort millions from their kool-aid drinking followers *cough* CAIR *cough*. So, without further ado, take a look at some of the beatiful multicultural photographs from this year's Ashura in New York.

When you get to the photo of the guy covered in his own blood twirling a sword around, please not he is not part of an NYC stage show and that is his own sword that he keeps somewhere in his house with the soul purpose of drawing blood out of human flesh.

Here are the photos of New York City

And if you want to say that Christians are just as bad with their mock crucifixtions in the Philippines and parts of South America, please note that these people represent a far smaller percent of their religion than Muslims celebrating Ashura.

And if you want to say that Christians commit just as many attacks against civilians, please show me 10000 religious attacks against other people in the last six years. That's 4.5attacks per day that caused death.

And we're back!

Dear Readers (i.e. my three colleagues and probably my wife),

We'd like to apologize for the lack of posting lo these many months. I can't speak for my co-bloggers but my schedule was crazy-busy, and on top of that, I felt like the only one contributing. But Worcester Tango 2.0 promises to be a better and funnier and more active experience, with regular features like these:

This Week in Righteous Indignation
Rather than sending vitriolic IMs and links to YouTubes we'll never watch, Lex will have a forum here to express his hatred of Moslems, liberals, liberal Moslems, and his latest Friday night transvestite conquest. Guaranteed to angry up the blood or your money back!

Impugning with Impunity
What good is an anonymous blog if you don't use it to spread blatantly false rumors and insult irritants?

The Shit List
Going a step further, we'll identify which graves you'll find us dancing on, assuming we outlive these enemies. If bile doesn't inspire us all to post more, I'm not sure what will.

Keyser's inKoherency Korner
He can't help it, he's a fraternity-alumnus engineer. Just be glad his posts aren't just a jumble of grunts and Greek letters like his former blog.

Our Heroes
Finally, some positivity. We will expound the virtues of all the people, places, and things that inspire us. My epic 12-post Tribute to Cheez-Its will probably fall under this category.

What Cartola Does Instead Of Doing Work, Improving His Life, Or Writing That Great American Novel That He's Been Talking About Since High School: A Continuing Saga
Or maybe he'll be so picky about what he writes in his posts, trying to write The World's Greatest Post EVA, that he'll never actually hit send. That might be more likely.

And of course, more Man on Man Action!

We should probably also put more politics, sports, and tits in here too. People like politics, sports, and tits.

Watch this space for more hilarity. Or at least a mild chuckle.