How to talk to-

One of the finest things in life is moving. From the packing up of your various loads of detritus, to the carrying of such, to the innumerable hoops landlords demand you jump through, it’s free sex and ice cream the whole way. It’s even better when you get to have your bitchy, half-senile landlady crawl around on the floor looking for any trace of human habitation, each of which takes 25 bucks off your deposit. Our current landlords are just so: 60-something micromanagers positively humming with smug self-righteousness and condescension, every riverine wrinkle in their faces a censure of our sinful, irresponsible, filthy lifestyle. As great as this would normally be, doing it while ill, during the last week of the term, with papers, tests and presentations looming (not to mention the slave-drivers down here at the Vanguard cracking the merciless whip on their poor overworked writers), is not so fun.

Long story short, I’m pissed off. This puts me in a perfect mood to pillory those gutless, wishy-washy, plastic-smiling fucks who, when confronted by a focused, aggressive Republican political attack, basically bent over en masse and handed the Crisco back to the neo-cons. Oh yes, Democratic Party, it’s time I school Portland State on your kitschy little language. After all, you assholes handed us Dubya two elections in a row!

You’d probably guess that the Dems have been around for a while, given their senescent inability to come up with anything exciting, unifying or new, and you’d be right. In fact, the Democratic Party is one of the oldest political parties in the world, tracing its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and his (what?) Republican Party. Soon this was known as the Democratic-Republicans. After decades of tooth-gnashingly complicated, unnecessarily confusing twists on the theme (the Whigs, at least, thought up a sexy new name), that true patriot and enlightened pacifist Andrew Jackson re-named his party the Democrats. Perhaps he was unable to remember its previous longer name.

Infighting and disunity have ever been hallmarks of the Dems, and their inane squabbling cost them the election in 1860 – thank goodness! – when Lincoln, the first Republican president (and the last good one), was elected. This was the election that gave us our two-party system – thanks, guys. After the Civil War the Democrats were the clever authors of the intimidation tactics and brutal legislation that were a blatant attempt to take the vote away from the newly-enfranchised black population in the rural South.

Now, some water’s gone under the bridge since then, and there have been a few good Dems come down the pipe. OK, there’s only Barack Obama, but Clinton shore could blow a mean sax (skill borne of his unparalleled ability not to inhale). Regardless, they’re out there, and, though lately not as responsible for environmental degradation and the deaths of thousands in stupid, unnecessary wars as the Republicans, you might still want to give them a piece of your mind. To that end, here are a few pieces of their’s:

Politics

The art of removing all style, substance, or wit from the presentation of oneself to one’s peers in the hopes of being “elected” to some “public office” or other. Technically considered bulimia of the personality, “politics” is not to be confused with the more general “prostitution,” except in New Jersey, Delaware and the intermountain West.

Political correctness

What started out as a nice idea – a way, basically, to try as hard as possible not to offend someone, but has since run rampant, much like a colony of harmful bacteria left to boil and blossom in a rotten barrel. The linguistic equivalent of “all things to all people,” “political correctness,” left to continue on its perilous course, will eventually reduce the English language to 20 or fewer words, all of which will be synonymous with “OK.”

Hillary

A fierce she-devil, an iron-nails conservative in liberal sheep’s clothing. Deadly smart, and dead serious, this one Dem-juggernaut is in many ways the antithesis of the Democratic Party. Just don’t expect universal health care or the end to all wars any time soon after Her election. Synonyms: “queen,” or, in Portland dialect, where “queen” has a variant definition, “empress.”

Platform

Though other political parties have what they call a “platform” in which they codify and express their beliefs and agenda in clear, coherent fashion, what Democrats call “platform” is actually a super-sophisticated listening device hidden in the volume button in TV sets. “Platform” is used to get a basic, general idea of the prevalent thoughts, hopes and appetites of “voters” whom they hope later to encourage to participate in the empty sham of “voting” (i.e., “Diebold”) for Democratic candidates, who will then dick around with such blatant incompetence as to basically hand these offices to murderous Republican overlords in the next election cycle.

Hey – happy summer, ya’ll! And remember to register to vote!