What would Imus Do?

The vaguely libertarian hoonyack, Don Imus, whose contribution to American thought is somewhat less than that of George Will (although more coherent and generally more humanitarian) has gotten himself into a huge amount of trouble by referring to the Rutgers Womens' basketball team as "nappy headed ho's," apparently because they lost a game. This is what passes for logic on the talk radio circuit, I guess. Anyway, the following 1999 WCA article is the closest thing I could find to a related topic -- pretty thin, and the reference at the end is to Columbine, which makes it not especially funny, but you can always petition MSNBC to have me fired, right along with Imus.

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19990421

IMPLICATIONS, ASSERTIONS

Ann Arbor: So, we saw a fascinating bumper sticker this week: "Kids who hunt, trap, and fish don't mug old ladies."

Now, they couldn't put it on a bumper sticker if it weren't true, so we guess we must have missed the write-up -- probably it was that issue of American Demographics that we loaned to the neighbors -- on the research behind this striking fact. We assume it was survey-based, probably one of those questionnaires that say: "Please respond with a number from 1 to 10, where 1 indicates strong disagreement and 10 indicates strong agreement with the following statements: When I feel angry, I relax by visualizing small, furry animals caught in a steel trap until they drown or chew their leg off. I prefer to visualize old ladies drowning or chewing their legs off. If there are any legs to be chewed off, I prefer to do it myself..." You get the idea. Clearly, the outcome showed that killing small, defenseless creatures releases a substantial portion of the natural antipathy that most kids feel toward the elderly, and acts as a healthy, cathartic outlet for their entirely understandable disdain for persons of longevity.

Now, before any of our flannel-shirted friends start foaming at the mouth, let us hasten to point out that Wood-Charles is not agin a bit of huntin', no indeed. Nor are we supporters of that somewhat extreme group whose name a famous Ann Arbor system administrator paraphrases as People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Nor do we condone the clandestine release of thousands of farmed mink into the peaceful English countryside, no matter how terribly, terribly funny ... sad! Sad, I mean, it might be. But we are and have long been keen supporters of People for the Profitable Use of Social Science, and barring a few quibbles about reproducibility, we see this as just the tip of a large, lucrative iceberg: consider the money to be made with bumper stickers of the form, " who do X, don't do Y."

"Code that checks return values doesn't seg fault."

"Presidents who bomb third world dictatorships are probably too tired to fondle the help."

"Kids who mug old ladies don't need to write stupid bumper stickers for a living."

"Old ladies who hunt, trap, and fish are too well- armed to get mugged."

Now, the above was written before this week's events in Colorado. Wonder if those boys were outdoorsmen?

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The WCA News Service has been brought to you by the Odd Town Tavern in foggy, damp downtown Ann Arbor, where the bumperstickers read, "Mini-vans don't drive the wrong way down Ashley: young parents with 3 children, a Chihuahua, and a cell phone do," and "When Volvos are outlawed, only people congenitally unable to drive will have Volvos, um, kind of like it is now, I guess, oh, never mind."

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