When learning to write, you have to learn the rules. And then you start writing, and you learn that you have to break all the rules to do it well. But what do I know? You have to be pretty desperate to get your writing advice from a Mickey. After all, it’s not like Mickey was a writing teacher for over thirty years… oh, wait a minute… yes, he was.
Okay, so I decided to write today about the K.I.S.S. rule of writing. That’s right, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Other writing teachers tell me it should be, Keep It Simple, Sweetie, because you can’t say “stupid” to a kid. Okay, that’s mostly true. But I use “stupid” when I use the rule myself. I’m talking to Mickey after all.
So, I better stop “bird-walking” in the middle of this essay, because “bird-walking”, drifting off topic for no purpose, is the opposite of keeping it simple.
I try to write posts of no more than 500 words. I write an introduction that says something stupid or inane that speaks to the theme I want to talk about. Then I pile in a few sentences that talk more about the theme and do a good job of irritating the reader to the point that they can’t wait to get to the conclusion. Finally I finish up with a really pithy and wonderful bit of wisdom to tie a knot in the bow of my essay. I save that bit for the end as a sort of revenge for all the readers who don’t read all the way to the end, even on a short post like this one. Of course, I could be wrong about how wonderful and pithy it is. What does “pithy” even mean? It can be like the soup in the bottom of the chili pot, thicker and spicier than what came before… or possibly overcooked with burned beans.
That was another bit of “bird-walking”, wasn’t it? See, you have to break the rules to make it work better.
So, in order to keep it simple, I guess I need to end here for today. Simple can be the same thing as short, but more often you are trying to achieve “simple and elegant” and pack a lot of meaning and resonance into a few lines. And I, of course, am totally incapable of doing that with my purple paisley prose. And there’s the knot in that bow.
Sometimes all you want to do is doodle-bop!… To draw in pen and ink and post your derfiest doofenwacky doodles so you can just make your way through another danged day.
Catch a Falling Star 
Opinions Are Like Onions
“Why does something always smell bad when I am talking?”
Opinions are like Onions.
All you have to do is subtract 3.141592 and they are exactly the same.
The people that like the way they taste like theirs a lot.
They want you to try them.
And if you don’t like the taste, then you just don’t know what’s good for you.
Onions are good for you. They make you fart and they clear out the bad gasses made up of methane and other toxic waste from your colon and digestive tract.
Opinions are good for you too. They make you fart out of the mouth, clearing bad gasses made up of stupidity and toxic ideas out of your little old brain. You should not be holding that stuff in. It is poisonous and it could potentially explode. Not something you want to happen in either the colon or the brain. Only stupid people hang on to them in the face of contradictory evidence. (It makes me nervous that I don’t see people exploding more often, because I hold the opinion that there really are a lot of stupid people out there. I, too, am probably in danger of exploding at some point.)
And see, that’s the important point here. Opinions are only as valuable as fart gas. For the all-important progress of ideas to really happen, opinions have to be tested. And I don’t mean opinions like whether or not you like the taste of onions. I am talking about opinions that lead to policy. Politics are crammed full of opinions. (I got that right, didn’t I? I didn’t say “onions” when I actually meant “opinions”, right?)
Hillary Clinton is apologizing now for the opinion-based fart-gas of saying that “half of Donald Trump’s supporters are deplorable people”. The facts are that the KKK has voiced support for Trump, as have a number of immigrant-hating racists like Ann Coulter who will tell you in detail about all her onions concerning Mexicans and brown people. People at Trump’s rallies have physically assaulted black people and protesters of any variety. And to “deplore” someone is to speak out against their ideas or actions. So the critical word that is not a fact, but rather an onion, must be “half”. This is the word where Hillary went wrong. I am sure that “half” is an under-estimation.
And Mr. Trump, as a connoisseur of truly stinky onions has said that Clinton and Obama are literally the founders of ISIS. And in his onion, Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than President (of this country) Obama. One wonders why no one has really sliced and diced these particular onions. One imagines that if Hillary were the chef serving these onions, no one would be willing to have them in the dining room, let alone eat them. Onions need be tested for flavor and rightness long before they are served.
So, to close up this onion-smelling essay before it makes me fart again, let me just say, we need to not get stuck in the onion patch and mistakenly convince ourselves we are smelling roses. Roses shouldn’t make you cry.
1 Comment
Filed under angry rant, commentary, goofy thoughts, humor, memes, metaphor, Paffooney, politics, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, humor, onions, opinions, paffooney, politics, politics and goofiness