WHAT IS A DUMBASS?

For years I've wondered what it is exactly that make a person a dumbass. I admit that I don't know what small bit of DNA contributes to it. I don't even need to know. But I know one when I see one. To wit:

A. The woman who used to be my demonic neighbor

B. The kid who drives slowly waiting for me to pass, then does anything to prevent my passing, or even getting back into the right lane (two times, weeks apart)

C. The stopped driver who waits and waits for me so he can pull out, then pulls out in front of me just before I get to him

D. The high-school teenager who does what driver C. does as she coaxes her little 4-cylinder up the hill that I'd already sped up for, then flips me off because I only had choices to pass her or take the ditch

E. Drivers who roll through a 4-way stop....because I'm already stopped

F. Slow, inattentive drivers who wake up when I pass, then are hell bent to stay on my back bumper

G. The driver who's in such a hurry to pull out in front of me to do 35 in a 55

H. The ignorant driver suicidally pulling into 60 mph traffic and thinking they can get to 60 in 2 seconds, but it takes them a minute and a half

I. The cell phoner who knows they have to stop at the light - but it's green

J. The so very cautious driver who waits and waits and waits for the oncoming car to pass by, the oncoming car that is 3/4 of a mile away and obviously doing 30

K. The "look at me" driver who just installed illegal bright-as-the-sun, purple HD headlights......aimmed higher than everyone else's, then gets road raged because you flashed him

L. The "pet lover" who lets her cute Fifi drive while she's on her cell phone

M. The "empathetic" driver who wants to let someone out of the parking lot, but it's just us two in line

N. The person who puts out garbage on Monday for it to blow into my yard before Friday pickup

O. The rocker down the street who wants to entertain the entire neighborhood with his new stereo

P. The payables clerk who relies too much on her out of date 'database' that didn't post my payment

Q. The banker who want ME to pay for doing my banking with him

R. The grocery sacker who put my chips in the bottom of the bag, under the gallon of milk

S. The chump who panhandles for chump change, then drives home in his new Caddie (maybe this one's not a dumbass)

T. The cop who assumes everyone's got a bale of cannabis in their trunk

U. The Democratic Party

V. The Nobel prize panel that chose the Democrat's 'change' president

W. The University of Colorado's Ward Churchill

X. The "global warming" chickens

Y. Anyone who characterizes a person attending a "tea party" as a communist

Z. Anyone who voted for 'change'

I'm out of letters, but I'm not out of dumbasses. Please Comment with your own list.

Cops Are In Control in Cambridge, and Everywhere Else

The highly educated and respected Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., just learned something that he apparently didn't already know...when the cops show up on scene, they are boss and the ones in control, or will quickly attempt to gain control. It works that way in Cambridge Massachusetts and everywhere else I've ever been.

I was not at the scene, the President of the U.S. was not at the scene, and you were not there, either. We can form any kind of opinion we want, but it won't be based on what we saw. Gates' neighbor, the woman who called the police, could barely see the scene herself, and didn't mention race in her call, according to the 911 tapes' transcript, which I have not seen.

What do we know? Only what we have been told. So we don't know much. Gates said that he and his driver had difficulty with the house key and had to force the door. We know the cops showed up, and we know Gates was arrested and taken to the pokey. He was later released and disorderly-type conduct charges were dropped.

On Monday, July 27, 2009, eleven days after the incident, Cambridge city officials released the tapes of the 911 call. The caller on the July 16 tape repeatedly told the 911 center that she could not see what the two men trying to get in the home looked like. "I just saw it from a distance" she said. She wasn't even sure whether she had seen a crime, or just the resident trying to get in. The caller's attorney has said, and this is a salient point, that the tape shows her client's call was not racially motivated. "The truth is she couldn't see their race, therefore she didn't know their race and she didn't call police because of their race, which is the most important point of all," the caller's attorney said. "She called because of behavior."

This is what I call a "BINGO" moment...the point where the sum is more important than one element. It says to me that Gates had a huge, stinking, and racially-motivated chip on his shoulder. A chip that had grown ever larger for years and had never been knocked off. Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, the arresting officer, not only knocked it off, he kicked the stinking thing all the way to The White House where it landed in the office of another guy with the same kind of chip on his shoulder. So that guy, a buddy of Gates, said that the officers acted "stupidly". Of course cops certainly have that capacity - we all do, but for the Prez to say so for all the world to hear is stupid. He wasn't there, which makes his buttinski remark stupid.

Respected journalist Juan Williams said on a FOXNews program that he had a simple way of dealing with police, even to the point of teaching his children his method, a method that most of us would be wise to employ: when a police officer asks you a question, answer it respectfully, then be quiet. If an officer directs you to do something, do it, then be quiet. The police are not Gods, but they certainly have the means to really mess up your day if you prefer it that way.

Comply and then be quiet is exactly what Gates should have done. The man was seen forcing the door, and then the police showed up. Gates should have done what a reasonable person would have done. As soon as the police got there Gates should have had his smile and I.D. ready. He did neither, apparently. His pride and ethnic baggage wouldn't allow it.

And that's how Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. learned a lesson.

WHO IS THE AGGREIVED, HERE?

Just what on Earth is going on in this country?

In just one generation many of us have experienced a virtual turnover of values, mores, and fingerpointing. Fingerpointing?

Perpetrators have become victims and victims have become perpetrators. My God in Heaven Above, just what on Earth is going on? Social scientists (yeah, those people) can explain it much better than I can; or claim they can. But UP is now DOWN and DOWN is, well, you know.

The poor, misguided murderer kills because he (or she) is a victim of, well who cares what. The actual victim no longer matters much. All the attention, aid, and resources are now lavished on what was once the perp. Alice in Wonderland all over again.

To wit: This past week I was headed home from work on a two-lane county road, my daily route. I am driving the road's speed limit, 55 MPH, when a young female twit (I really want to use a different spelling) runs a stop sign, turns in the same direction I'm traveling, and gently urges her four-cylinder car up the steep hill just beginning ahead of us. Remember, I'm at road speed - 55 - and just beginning the double-yellow-line uphill climb. My car has good brakes and I could have locked them up, but who knows whether the driver behind me observed the instant change of events, and whether I could have avoided the young, ah, twit's car's rearend that was just a headlight away.

I consider myself a good, defensive driver (as everyone thinks of themselves) and had already observed that there was no oncoming, downhill traffic. Rather than braking, I whipped into the left lane to pass her quickly. Speed was my ally since her little four-cylinder, high-yellow wanna-be 'sportscar' was struggling to gain uphill speed. "Good manuever", I thought as I whizzed past her, about to give her the evil eye, when I INSTANTLY BECAME THE PERPETRATOR RATHER THAN A NEAR-MISS VICTIM. The young twit (it's taking all I can muster to not change one letter here) has dispensed with her evil eye and is flipping me off. Ahhhhhhh, I see now! SHE HAS INTERPRETED IN HER LITTLE BLONDE HEAD THAT SHE IS THE VICTIM of my overzealous and bully-like passing! Well bull-ull-ull shit! She's wasn't even old enough to change her own crap-filled panties that day, much less old enough to interpret anything of driving value (no offense meant to you, Granddaughters. Just don't be like this twit).

I guess I was expecting her to just shrug an "I'm Sorry", but I didn't realize I'd become a perp by avoiding a potential mess - and passing on that double-yellow (not a really good idea, anyway). All I could do was shake my head as I drove on home, with her behind me, variously from 3 car lengths to half-mile back.

While I was doing a bit of figurative Fingerpointing toward her, Ms Twit was doing it literally toward me. Just what on Earth is going on in this country?