Planetary Observation Report Transcript 101-07

Universe: MMM – GH998-98756-234586-376453-9875768-2

Range: 78/04/30*45/15/12*20/59/13*166/06/00 PRT – 10

Subject Age:  4.5*10⁸

Present:  Mission Captain, Agent Facilitator, Agent Alpha, Agent Beta

Commence Transcription

Captain:  The transcription has commenced.  Please proceed, Facilitator.

Facilitator: Very well, Captain.  Alpha, I think we should begin with you.  Please start by reminding the Captain what your specific objective was.

Alpha:  Yes, Facilitator.  Captain, I was charged with Observation Protocol 1.  All of my data pertains to evaluating life on the planet.  I’ll tick through the top priority items in order if you don’t mind.

Writing this article is the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done.  If the editor of the op-ed site that I send it to is a man, publishing this article will be the most difficult thing HE’S ever done.  I just want to establish these two facts up front so that anyone actually seeing this will appreciate the immense amount of courage that was required for it to make it to the Web.  Maybe credit can be given for bravery and the anger my words will generate can be abated.

I guess it will be helpful to start at the beginning.

Janet Rodriguez, the first female President of the United States, during her first term of office in 2032, proposed legislation that would allow any woman in the nation at any time and for any reason to kick any man in the crotch as she saw fit without any legal recourse being granted to the man.  The female-dominated US Legislature added a provision for a woman to call on the assistance of other women in the execution of any particular crotch-kicking (affectionately called the “You Hold Him While I Rack Him” provision) and the President enthusiastically signed the bill into law within her first 100 days.

Have you ever noticed that you can always tell when things have gotten really desperate?

The signs are the same, really, wherever you go.  Maybe it starts with your immediate boss spending more time with his door closed than he used to.  Requests that were so routinely approved that approval seemed like a ludicrous technicality are more and more frequently denied.  Then policies are sold to you as measures to fix things that you hadn't been aware were even broken.  Policies that appear to any sane person as the kind that might achieve superficial or short-term gains while ensuring long-term losses.  Yeah… that's when you know that somebody in the stratosphere needs to show somebody in the exosphere that things are getting done.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

This is the text of the second amendment of the US Constitution.  The bit about the militia has motivated quite a bit of debate.  Specifically, the question is raised as to whether or not the amendment really guarantees the right of individuals to bear arms, or does it merely guarantee the right of “the people” (in the form of “the state”) to form militias?

It seems to me that a superficial reading of the text suggests that individual rights are being asserted.  At the time the second amendment was penned, for a government to call up a militia wasn’t just a matter of collecting men.  It was also the way the state collected arms for the conflict; the men who responded to the call were expected to bring their own guns.  So what the amendment is really saying is that the Constitution must guarantee the right of individuals to bear arms or else the states to which those individuals belong will have no firepower with which to defend themselves.

I just called it the beach.  I knew it was completely unoriginal, but what did it really matter? It was the only beach I ever visited.  I suppose true beach aficionados would think me a Philistine for believing that when you’ve seen one beach you’ve seen them all, but… that’s how I feel about it and my opinion counts for every bit as much as another guy’s.  And on that beach, of course, my opinion counted for more than anyone else’s.

It was comfortably warm and breezy, the sun only an hour up off the eastern horizon.  I didn’t walk too near the waves gliding across the white sand.  I wasn’t there to play, obviously.  I was only having the meeting there because I thought it would help me stay calm during the whole ordeal.

I've never done this before, but there have been so many updates to the site lately it may be that some of you, my generous readers, have had trouble keeping up.  So please allow me to list here some of the things that have been going on, just in case you've missed anything.

First off, after a lengthy hiatus Stuck is back with several new strips!  Have a look and enjoy!  (Please rate and make comments!)  And don't forget to vote (sidebar to your left) for which Stuck character you'd like to see as President of the USA!  (Campaign buttons for some characters already available here.)

Not so long ago in a land not so far away, there was a village wherein resided no professional tailors.  Instead, each family was responsible for making its own clothing and it was forbidden for any person to create clothing for anyone other than direct relation.  Each family was required to use cloth with a pattern unique to them so as to make themselves easily recognizable to other families.  Were a person to show himself in public with a pattern in his clothing that did not match that of his family he would immediately be exposed as a fraud and a thief.

Now in this village lived a woman named Claire who was greater at crafts than any other villager.  In particular, her clothing was of a quality that far surpassed all others.  So amazing were her skills, in fact, that her neighbors insisted on taking instruction from her.  And taught them she did with an enormous sense of pride.

So I’m in the supermarket and I see that People Magazine has selected Matt Damon as “the sexiest man alive”.  This is fine as far as it goes.  I couldn’t care less, really, who People Magazine thinks is “the sexiest man alive”.  But that title… “sexiest man alive”… raises a number of questions.

Consider that a year ago George Clooney was proclaimed to be “the sexiest man alive”.  In fact, my sources indicate that he joined his other “Ocean’s” co-star Brad Pitt as a two-time winner of the honor.  Am I the only one who thinks none of this makes sense?

To begin with, my research indicates that Matt Damon WAS alive last year when George Clooney was dubbed “the sexiest man alive”.  What’s more, Matt Damon was alive the previous time George Clooney was so named… and BOTH times that Brad Pitt was called “the sexiest man alive”.