Briefly, on the handicapped

I have a "complicated" spine. Lots of twists and turns and curves and broken things and inflammation, you name it. As such, I often require a wheelchair for events in which I have to be standing for a while or walking for a while (where "a while" is between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on something I haven't figured out yet).

I guess my mother, when I was younger, told me it was impolite to stare at people in wheelchairs or to make fun of people with disabilities in general, whether it's a creatively modified spine or ALS. So I am amazed at the things people will say about me or even to me when I'm in the chair. I've had kids ask their mothers, clearly within audible range of me, "why is that man in a chair?" and the mother (more than once) has said "because he's a [or is] cripple[d]." I'm not sure what the appropriate terminology is, never having really identified with the "disabled community" despite various things (head injuries...) that pretty squarely place me under the auspices of ADA.

Why are people so atrociously rude to people in wheelchairs? I've never done, had I children, I would certainly not allow them to grow up thinking it's okay to make jokes or refer to someone as "a cripple," but why is it that I seem to be in the minority? I'm asking for everyone to help me in and out of the car or to the bathroom or anything; I've got fucked up spine, and wheels are better locomotion for me, at least right now, than my legs. I can use my arms a lot better than my legs right now.

Seriously, folks. If you have kids, don't raise them to be assholes. We have enough assholes already. I'm not "crippled," I don't believe that I will "need" the chair for that long (although they're cheap enough I am actually considering buying one), so one day I'll be just another guy walking around, and nobody's going to say that I'm crippled, even though I've got the same spine today that I'll have in a year.

Can you even say anything to these people? I mean, that seems like it would even make it worse. I have no problem with "timmah!" or "jimmah!" because comedy is satire. When you look at me, and tell me that I'm "crippled," that's not satire. That's an ad hominem, very clearly.

Perhaps I should give them business cards and say, "you know what, I'm actually a fucking rocket scientist if it's alright with you." But this is goading them, and the situation is bad enough without escalation.

People are such shitty parents. It seems that generation after generation, people are born with worse manners, less integrity, less ability to  be consistently honest, or even form sentences properly and pronounce words with something approaching proper diction. Stop breeding, you assholes, when you multiply the number of assholes on the planet by squeezing out fuck-trophies, you make the whole goddamn planet less likable for the rest of us.

Jesus. Just go and get a fucking vasectomy. Do it for your country. Do it for the fucking Redskins. But please, just stop having kids. You're fucking failing. Miserably.

Has anyone noticed

That the civilian paramilitary organizations, like DEA, FBI, and CIA, use the almost exact tactics that the terrorist/mujahedeen types do? They want to strike at eight separate ecstasy distribution points, armed with body armor, semi-auto "street-sweeper" shotguns, very, very serious .308 rifles in choppers, door demolition charges, tear gas, and they look exactly the same? When did this become okay? The posse comitatus act prevents our military from behaving this way on American soil. But these civilians are allowed to buy the same weapons and body armor I am, and they go in, armed to the goddamn teeth, to drug busts, INS busts, parole violations, bail jumpers, and so on.

These people make me fucking sick.

My wife noticed it first

That she was no longer "up" on the gossip at work or parties and things of that nature. I find myself only discovering now that people I wanted to hear more from were already talking their jaws off on said unholy website. I really, really hate it, but how do I keep in touch with my brothers and cousins and (even my father) if they insist on using it?

What the hell is wrong with email?