Ode to the Fox

They dress all in their jack-booted finery, mount their battle steeds, and aided by their duty-bound dogs of war, do give chase. But what did the fox ever really do to those equestrian brutes in their fancy coats? Ah! The fox, you see, is clothed in beauty bestowed by nature. S/he may appear diminutive, but is illusive, ever so quick and surpassing in intelligence. Catch her/him if you can. A crafty one, that fox. Forever challenging fools to abandon their careless errands. But at what price comes the coveted trophy pelt? The murder of beautiful things for mere sport is never rewarded with the kind of wisdom that is ultimately robbed of the world when the primitive ones slake their thirst for innocent blood.

To thine own country be true

Before you "dis" (or let anyone else disrespect) your own country, you may just want to shut your mouth, and learn a little about what's really going on outside (or even and especially within) your own borders. There's never any grass greener than what you can take your shoes off and walk in, right smack dab in the place you were born. Because as always, there truly is no place like home.

The Edification of Friends and Foes Alike

Sometimes friends are hidden enemies. Sometimes enemies are hidden friends. Be grateful to all for the lessons that they may teach you.

Don't Be a Bully

 Might does not always make right. Sometimes it just makes you a self-righteous bully.

On the Nature of Intimidation and Ever Bigger Fish to Fry

Those who rely on violence, or the threat of violence, and intimidation never really win. They just create more enemies and even a host of imaginary potential foes. Being too obsessed with self protection doesn't necessarily make one more secure, but usually increases the likelihood of attack from without; not to mention self defeat from within. In other words, if you're always painting targets on others, then you yourself may inevitably end up becoming the biggest mark of all. Remember, there is always someone out there with a mightier sword. There is always a bigger fish, and eventually, even the biggest fish can end up being consumed by a superior number of smaller ones.

On the Nature of Pain

Whatever you do, don't hurt yourself today. There are always people out there who are just waiting to do that for you. Because they too are in pain.

Disco was a gazillion times better than hip hop or rap will ever be!

Brace yourselves, self-righteous hipsters, because I for one simply cannot stand Hip Hop, aka "Rap," so-called "music," and right here, right off the top of my head, are just the first ten easy-peasy reasons why I have never liked it, and most likely never will.

1) Most Hip Hop and Rap songs give me a screaming headache. And before you even go there, I don't even care what the race, ethnicity, national origin, or what have you, of absolutely any given Hip Hop performer, or that of any of his, her, or their fans, etc., might actually be. I just don't. Because it's entirely beside the point to begin with. In fact, I'm a connoisseur of almost every type of music, but I personally find Hip Hop to be particularly discordant, derivative, and just plain disturbing in most cases. And that's it. That's all there is to it, plain and simple.

 2) I am sick to death of all the mindless hand gestures and the goofy shoulder shrugging that most Hip Hop performers tend to shamelessly parrot and propagate. What the hell does all that mean anyway? No, no! Forget it! I really don't want to know, because quite frankly, it looks D-U-M-B dumb, and that type of groupthink behavior often has the effect of instantly reducing the so-called "individual" modeling such absurd body language to the decidedly unglamorous level of uncouth caveman.

3) And seriously, what's with the cock-eyed ball cap routine, the goofy looking baggy pants, the ridiculously oversized belts (if one is worn at all), and all that shamelessly garish "bling" adornment? I mean, did the English language really need a brand new word for "tacky?"

4) I am way past the point of being infinitely revolted by the often violent, filthy lyrics, and the degrading and therefore downright depressing ideas and imagery that tend to be invoked by this particular style of so-called "music."

5) Whether most folks realize it or not, the F-word is still classified as a vulgarity in the English language, and slipping such foul terms into every other word or phrase in a given Rap song doesn't really change that fact. In other words, frequent swearing doesn't actually do much more than make the practitioner look and sound particularly simple, poorly educated, and thus, downright low class.

6) I can't stand the phrase, "In da house." Yes, I know what it means, but as a longtime ESL/EFL teacher, I tend to despise intentionally misspelled and/or mispronounced words and catchphrases. Thus, supposedly "clever" little pop cultural sound bites like that often just come off as really asinine to me when people attempt to use them in everyday conversation. Worse yet, it's especially disturbing when non-native English speakers model such blatantly erroneous lingo, as if talking that way were actually a good example of proper colloquial English (which it clearly is not).

7) Likewise, the goofy looking misspelled and pathetically shortened pseudonym style names of many Hip Hop stars are sometimes interesting and even quite creative, but... come to think of it, not all that much, really. No. Uh-uh. So by all means, somebody please tell me how on Earth looking and sounding illiterate ever got to be considered cool. Nah. You know what? Never mind. I don't even want to know.

8) The term "gangsta" is just plain grotesque. It's pathetic and downright annoying. Because simply put; being a gangster is, in fact, not something that one should actually aspire to become. Psst! If you happen to have been born within just the past few decades, and you haven't quite figured that one out yet, you might want to do a little reading up on the subject. Seriously, folks; in most cases, gangsters are bad. Sure, Al Capone was definitely "living large" for a good long while, but he also ended up in prison, and although he may not have technically died from syphilis, well... yuck! Just yuck. I mean, if the mere idea of being forcibly incarcerated for any appreciable length of time, or the hopefully sobering notion that having unprotected promiscuous sex might mean that one could very well end up contracting even just one of the many venereal diseases, if either of those sad outcomes don't sound absolutely atrocious to you already, then dudes, and dudettes, I really don't know what to tell you.

9) Likewise, the term, "bitch," used in reference to women in general is abhorrent and just plain wrong. Wrong with a capital W. In fact, "bitch" isn't just a bad thing to call members of the fairer sex, it's also a terribly inappropriate label to arbitrarily slap on anyone who may simply not be deemed an "alpha male." If anyone is not yet abundantly clear on this particular subject, please kindly crack open the nearest English language dictionary to confirm that this term (when not applied to female canines, aka dogs) is very much a vulgar, and therefore wrong, expression to use in most cases.

And last but certainly not least:

10) It's really not a good idea to call pretty much anyone that isn't actually a canine, a "dog." In fact, just read the Merriam-Webster definition of the word dog, and hopefully you'll be able to readily see that it's almost always in extremely poor taste to call someone, any human being really, a "dawg."

And there you have it. If you're offended, well... okay, I guess. More power to ya. Be offended. See if I care, dude. After all, your lousy excuse for "music" offended me first. So there, doggone it! And as I always say, "Ah, being offended! It's the most fun that the human race ever had. Until early mankind learned what defense was to begin with, that is."