I can’t help but wonder: what kind of idiot do you have to be to believe that Bill Gates has nothing better to do than follow you around while you schlep to Wal-Mart, pick up your dry cleaning, and eat the free breadsticks at Olive Garden?
I’ve always got my cell phone with me, and when I get an idea, I’ve been known to record it with the Voice Memos app rather than wait until I get someplace where I can write it down. Such was the case with the above thought about the anti-vaxxers making the news this month.
There was a time—not too long ago, in fact—when we’d pretty much eradicated polio, measles, and smallpox. I say “pretty much” because, thanks to a few quacks and nutjobs (and the inevitable grind of poverty), we’re not 100% out of the woods on anything except smallpox.
If You Can’t Call Them Mo-rons…
I got started on this anti-vaxxer tirade when I saw an article about it, but I didn’t actually write anything on the subject until I had the above thought. Sometimes I save such things for a character’s dialogue—and I may yet put those words in the mouth of someone in my current WIP—but for now, I thought I’d claim them as my own.
The reason I’ve tied the anti-vaxxer movement to the idea of, uh, let’s call it mental feebleness, came about this weekend. I’ve been reading through a song-by-song analysis of the works of the late, great Frank Zappa, a big influence on my sense of humor when I was growing up.
In this particular forum, the moderators are very strict about using language they deem offensive…which could make it pretty difficult to discuss Zappa! Well, one of the posters wanted to use the word moron, but found it was verboten on the site…just like four-letter profanities.
But smart people have a way of getting around such things, so he tried writing it as mo-ron, and voila! It worked. This made me smile. In fact, it made me laugh out loud.
And I decided to use it myself. So I have to ask: if we can’t call these anti-vaxxer types wack jobs, religious fanatics, or loony tunes, can we at least call them idiots or morons?
Okay, okay: mo-rons. Got it.
