Category: Social Media

Trending Now — AquaNots

waterThe question is, just who are these so-called AquaNots?  Apparently, AquaNots (media name: not mine) are people who refuse to use water in any form.  They believe that human consumption of water is not only killing our planet’s fish habitat, but, if left unchecked, will eventually destroy the Earth’s entire ecosystem.  Sounds legit.  However, based on the information I can find (which isn’t a lot) their practices including not washing their clothes, their dishes, their hair or themselves, not using flush toilets (according to their information sheet, American toilets alone consume 23 billion litres of water every day) not cooking with water, not using water-based products and, in some radical cases, not even drinking water.  Wow!  It sounds  pretty harsh to me, but before we rush to pass judgement, let’s see what the AquaNots have to say for themselves.

“We totally reject the accusation that we are extremist.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Our planet is in crisis, and if people are too stupid to understand that this is the only solution, then they need to be re-educated.

“We want to effect lifestyle change.  We need to end our dependency on the hydro-industrial complex.  Do you know the flush toilet is less than 200 years old?  Obviously, for the vast majority of human existence, people merely squatted in the woods.  We need to bring that natural experience into the 21st century and the urban environment.

“Fashions change so quickly these days it doesn’t make any sense to actually wash your clothes.  We just give our dirty ones to poor people and buy the newest, latest look.  This way, we’re always in style.”

“Eight glasses a day?  I’m laughin’.  People in desert countries don’t drink eight glasses of water a day.  They don’t have any water at all, and they’re always runnin’ around fightin’ and blowin’ shit up.  I seen them on TV all the time, and I’ve never seen them drinkin’ water.”

“It’s all about raising awareness.  An international Aquagarchy controls most of the world’s water, and their corporate profits are fueled by constant in-your-face advertising.  Look around!  Soap, soup, shampoo, tea, coffee, wine, organic gardening, outdoor recreation — I could go on and on — and their subliminal message is always “Use water.”

“Washing dishes is no problem for us.  Normally, we eat fast food and simply throw the wrappers away.  Of course, in the summer, we barbeque a lot and use paper plates.”

“We are definitely tolerant of other points of view, but we refuse to allow flushers and bathers to spread disingenuous information.  They clearly hate our planet and we must stand, as a group, to stop this kind of hate speech.

“We are a growing grassroots organization.  Yes, right now, our membership is mostly from private schools and universities, but we have followers –of all ages — on four continents, and we’re reaching out to get our message to people of less privileged economic backgrounds.”

“Our community has always faced discrimination.  Many of our followers have lost their jobs because of coworkers’ complaints about personal hygiene. We are all working very hard for the day when Mother Nature’s perfume will be accepted in the workplace.”

There you have it.  Make up your own mind.

* Disclaimer
It’s a sad commentary on our times that I have to even write this, but … so be it.
This is a satire.  It is meant to lampoon how genuinely good ideas get hijacked by idiots.  The AquaNots do not exist, and any relationship between them and any real activist group is purely coincidental.

There’s Gold In Them Thar Phobias

protestIn the 21st century, grievance is a growth industry — worth billions — and activists are the new entrepreneurs.  All hail the post-industrial economy!  However, milking White Privilege has become such a cash cow that’s it’s getting very crowded at the high end of the social justice and awareness trough.  To put it bluntly, there are only so many dollars Western society is willing to pay to ease its liberal guilt.  So in order to survive, activists are beginning to specialize.

For example, generic “anti-discrimination” branding simply doesn’t work anymore.  It’s too vague.  It’s got too many syllables, too many letters, too much going on, too many things to think about.  It just isn’t sexy.  It smells like pro bono law students and low-rent housing.  Sting and Susan Sarandon are never going to show up to raise awareness (read: money) for “anti-discrimination.”  However, rebrand it as, say, Anti-Islamophobia  — and now you’ve got something a creative activist can sink his (or her) fangs into.

First of all, adding somebody else’s religion to your cause is always a good idea* because everybody knows that only fascists and assholes are against freedom of religion.  So not only do you prove you stand for tolerance and diversity, you’ve also designated your opponents fascists and assholes.  Clearly, a twofer.
*except Christianity — Social Justice Warriors hate Christianity the way Satan hates the wafer.

Two, ya got the whole “phobia” thing going on.  We’ve been programmed from childhood to distrust phobias.  They are, after all, an irrational fear of things like spiders, #13, closed spaces, etc., etc. and people spend years in therapy, trying to get rid of them.  Thus, in one fell swoop, you’ve  declared that anyone who disagrees with you has a serious psychological disorder.  They’re not just voicing a different opinion — they’re sick.

But, I’ve saved the very best for last:

Ya want sexy?  Nothing feeds middle class imaginations like the tale of the helpless victim being rescued by the powerful hero.  This is the stuff Scheherazade and Disney built their careers on: the psychological territory that bodice ripper novels and Michael Moore documentaries are made of — and it runs deep, deep, deep in our subconscious.  So if you want to get into the worthy cause business, the formula is simple: identify a metaphorical damsel in distress, market a rescue mission and people will pay you big bucks for the privilege of being part of it.  Why?  Because, stereotypical or not, The Rescue is a very, very powerful sexual fantasy (on all sides of the gender equation) and people, especially here in the 21st century, desperately want to feel sexy.

Stuff We Don’t Know

thinker-1294493_1920One of the great ironies of human existence is that, as we increase our knowledge of the world around us, we’re also discovering that — uh — we don’t actually know dick — about tons of stuff.  I’m not talking about quarks or gene sequencing or quantum physics or all that other scientific hocus pocus.  That’s for people who are interested such things, and we generally have to take their word for what works and how.  No, I’m talking about everyday occurrences.  Stuff that just happens and nobody really knows why.  Of course, there are theories, but — so far — we’re still guessing.  Personally, I think Mother Nature is just giving her smarty-pants children a smack to remind us to stay humble.  Anyway, here are three examples, and if you have another theory, feel free.  I’m always open to suggestions.

Yawning  — We yawn when we’re tired.  We yawn when we’re bored.  We yawn when other people yawn.  We yawn when we’re about to commit a felony.  (Didn’t know that, did you?)  Even animals yawn.  But nobody knows why.

Dreaming — Everybody dreams and everybody from Sigmund Freud to the guy who cuts your hair has a theory about why we spend our sleeping hours creating fiction.  Unfortunately, these are all just theories, and at last look, even Stephen Hawking doesn’t have a clue why we dream.

But, my favourite is:

Gravity — Everybody knows what gravity is until you ask somebody to explain it.  Try that, and you’re going to get a bunch of mumbo jumbo that ends up with Isaac Newton.  The problem is Newton never explained gravity; he just said it existed.  Here’s the deal.  The sun has enough gravity to keep the Earth from wandering off into space like a lost puppy.  The Earth has enough gravity to keep the Moon spinning around us.  And the Moon has enough gravity to affect the tides back here on Earth.  However, go 200 kilometres straight up from where you’re sitting, and there is no gravity — none!  Where did it go?  That’s a good question that I don’t think even Einstein ever attempted to answer.