Monday, February 25, 2013

Deer Crossing






*NOTE*

Last Friday night, as The Blog was about to post his latest, brilliant missive, his ancient computer attempted to set fire to itself, because, The PC figures, the old Mac had finally decided, in the words of "Lethal Weapon's" Roger Murtaugh, "I'm too old for this shit."

The old Mac goes into the Apple Genius Bar tomorrow night, where it will either be given new life or pronounced dead.

For now, The Blog has managed to rig Mrs. Blog's laptop to use an actual mouse and proper keyboard, so he can continue to deliver his, more or less, nightly views of whatever.

That brilliant missive remains trapped in a limbo of a working hard drive on a computer that no longer functions.

The following post is a condensed reconstruction of that original post.

Not as brilliant as the original. (Trust me.) But, it will do.

*End Note*

Back in the day, virtually every small town and suburb had a small, local newspaper, generically referred to as an "advertiser."

Usually four to twelve pages long, filled with a smattering of very local news, (school sports, local politics, local society and the occasional "Local Boy/Gal Makes Good" type stories) and a whole lot of ads and coupons for local businesses.

"Local" was the operative word.

The paper was available for free, or for a voluntary payment, usually around a quarter. Kids too young for a "real" paper route often delivered these papers to your home for the same voluntary payment, for which, the publisher would pay the child laborer a small percentage of his collections, or $1.25, whichever was higher.

(The PC knows this, first hand, as as a young blogling of about 12, he did this for a year or so. And THAT is a story for a future post.)

As far as The Blog knows, many of those papers still publish. Although, in the sorry state of today's newspaper publishing business, it's getting harder and harder to tell the "Advertisers" from the major, local papers.

But, a couple of years ago, some enterprising, internet savvy person or persons came up with the 21st Century, digital age answer to the local advertiser.

Patch.com is the modern, McDonald's franchise that has put the concept of the local, community advertiser on line.

Today, many communities from coast to coast now have their own local version of Patch.com. And with it, the "local" aspect has been forever changed.

About a week ago, The Blog learned of a blog post on one local Patch site that was so jaw droppingly idiotic that it went viral.

The post was from the Avon Lake, Ohio edition of Patch.

This is significant because Avon Lake, Ohio is the smallish, Wonder Bread, suburb(ish) of Cleveland that The young PC grew up in.

While The Blog hates driving traffic to odious pages, a quick Google search has shown me that that train has already left the station.

So, go ahead. Check out the post here....

Okay, you're back. Good.

What? You couldn't be bothered to go read the link?

Fine, I will summarize the story for you...

One Kathleen O'Brien Wilhelm, (who, I fear, may be related, by marriage at least, to an old high school pal of The PC,) begins her weekly blog post by complaining of the wasteful government overreach of placing "Deer Crossing" signs around town. Wasteful because, as she so astutely points out, "deer can't read."

Of course, this must be tongue-in-cheek satire, right?

A parody of the sort of witless, brain fart of a soccer mom with a "Palin/Bachman 2016" sticker on the bumper of her mini-van.

It just has to be.

But, alas, reading on, we discover that the paragraphs that follow move on, first, to a sort of Old Testament assumption that animals exist on this Earth solely for the benefit of the far superior humans.

From there, she shifts, not very subtly, into the mundane "hate Obama" rhetoric of a Sean Hannity fan.

You see, deer crossing signs are just another symptom of the liberal, "free abortions" Obamacare, nanny state, socialist agenda.

Seriously, if you didn't click the link to her post above, here is another chance to do so.

It won't take long, and you really need to absorb this on your own.

And even when you reach the end of Ms. Wilhelm's screed, your logical mind might scream, "This woman just has to be a modern day Jonathan Swift, because fuck!"

Again...

Alas...

Take a gander at some of her other posts.

Recognize her single minded theme.

Ms. Wilhelm sees today's America as a liberal dystopia, based entirely on her "gut feelings" absent of any sort of facts.

If you need, as The PC did, a bit of a palette cleanser, read the comments sections that follow her posts.

There is still hope for humanity in general, and the people of Avon Lake, specifically.

But Wait! (as they say on the informercials) There's More!

There is one small detail that The PC has not seen mentioned anywhere else.

The whole "futility of deer crossing signs" thing rang a bell in The Blog's sometimes defective memory.

But, thanks once again to the marvel that is Google, The Blog's memory has been refreshed.

About a year ago, a couple of scans/photos of "Letters to the Editor" of various newspapers turned up on some of the so-called "Fail" sites.




                                                                                     Like this one.

Do you see the similarities?

This means that Ms. Wilhelm isn't just an idiot.

She is also a plagiarist.

She seems to have looked at one of these silly memes and thought, "Hmmm! What a great point! I will make this the opening thesis of my next blog post."

The Blog hates to beat up on any individual just for being ignorant.

But, since Ms. Wilhelm has put herself out there, she is now, like it or not, a public figure.

So, she is fair game.

In The Blog's never so humble opinion, Kathleen O'Brien Wilhelm is, officially, The Stupidest Woman in America who has never appeared on "SNL."

                                                                                   If you get my drift.

I would be embarrassed for her, but I suspect that embarrassment is an alien concept to Ms. Wilhelm.

Because a week after she became a national laughing stock, (while dragging my  home town with her,) she was back, again, with another idiotic screed.

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