The Menu Is Not The Meal

Many years ago, famous bald-headed Irish singer Sinead O'Connor tore up a photo of the Pope on TV.

The gesture seemed pointless to me, but the reaction to the gesture seemed more pointless and completely baffling, because you'd have thunk she tore the actual Pope in half, instead of just a photographic representation of him.

"But how would you feel if that was a picture of your girlfriend?" someone asked me at the time.

"There's a big difference between my girlfriend and a picture of my girlfriend. My girlfriend has nicer tits."

So now we have some shithead in Florida who's even managed to get the fucking President of the United States, who ought to be thinking about important things, to comment on his proposed burning of the Koran. And while I tend to feel a bit ookie inside when book-burning happens, I get even more ookie inside when I think about people confusing a symbol of a thing for the thing itself. The menu is not the meal, a voodoo doll is not a person, and the flag is not a country. Quit. Confusing. Them. You. Unspeakably. Stupid. Assholes!

Bill Hicks did a fantastic "joke" about the US flag once. I put joke in quotes because to me, Hicks was more of a philosopher-comedian toward the end (in the mold of George Carlin) than a mere comedian.

From billhicks.com----[underlined emphasis mine]

Did you watch the flag-burning thing? Wasn't that great? Boy, everyone showed their true colors then, didn't they? Retarded nation that we are. Scary. People just - people acted as though the Supreme Court approved of flag-burning, you know what I mean? . . . People were just: "Hey, buddy. Let me tell you something. My daddy died for that flag." Really? Wow, I bought mine. Yeah, they sell 'em, you know, at K-Mart and shit, yeah. "Yeah? He died in the Korean War for that flag!" Oh! What a coincidence. Mine was from Korea. Wow, the world is that big.

. . . I don't approve of flag-burning. I don't wanna burn a flag, but if somebody wants to burn a flag, what business is it of mine? Is it my business if somebody wants to burn a flag? Is it? No. No, it's not. Is it my business what other people read or watch on TV? NO, IT'S NOT! Thank you! You see, when you talk these things out they come a little clearer, don't they? They do. That's called logic and it'll help us all evolve and get on the fuckin' spaceships and GET OUTTA HERE! Let's go!

They say the Koran burning (which, again, remember, I said is an empty gesture) will put US troops in danger. What, as opposed to the kind of safety they'd enjoy if they were merely in Iraq and Afghanistan getting shot at and blown up without a Koran burning? If you don't want them to be in danger, don't send them to a fucking war!

See, there's plenty of stupidity to go around, folks---no need to push and shove. You can get your share.

I'm going to write my own Holy Book. Here are my Three Suggestions:

1) Be nice to each other

2) Don't be so fucking scared of everything all the time.

3) Don't be stupid.