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REIGN OF IDIOTS

[Warning: the following is an outrageous, unbalanced exercise in demon-purging, possibly dangerous, and thoroughly unfit for children or any of my neighbors. Persons in either of those categories should hit their browsers' "back" buttons immediately! -- JHF]

They're everywhere, it seems!

Just a couple of hours away from here over in Washington, idiot zealots are trying to drive the Constitution over a cliff. They probably won't succeed, but it might not matter even if they do. There's hardly anything left of it by now anway, thanks to the library administrators in Carroll County, Maryland, and their damnable Internet filters!

This past Saturday's edition of the Baltimore Sun has all the gory details. If you live in Carroll County and agree with this nonsense, you won't like what I'm about to say and might as well stop reading right now. Then again, if you're sitting in your local library surfing the Internet, you might never get to read this column in the first place!

(Watch this: penis! There, that should do it.)

Yes, the Carroll County Public Library has installed filtering software on all its publicly accessible computers, not just the machines in the children's section. Most Maryland libraries have no filters at all, fortunately. Some have filters on the children's computers, but the installation of the software has at least produced a hero or two: in Allegany County, when the library board voted for the evil junk, library director Jane Rustin resigned in protest over the shredding of the Constitution. (Kudos to you, Jane!) No heros in in Carroll, though. Listen to what Scott Reinhart, associate library director, told the Sun: "It's the right thing for Carroll County. We're politically conservative, religiously conservative -- in many areas we're pretty conservative." He went on to say that the "bottom" line (is that dirty?) for Carroll County is that "the board really didn't want pornography on the library screens."

"Pornography," uh-huh: sit down at one of the terminals in the Carroll County Public Library and try to visit a Super Bowl website. You can't! Not if "Super Bowl XXXIII" is mentioned. (Get it? Triple- X???) A similar software program previously used in Baltimore County prevented access to a local library's own website! Where? In Essex, of course. (Don't try typing the URL on a Carroll County Public LIbrary machine, you might be arrested.) And Lord help you if you want to find some vital health information on the Internet. (I don't have to tell you what typing "breast exam" into a search engine will do.)

Let me see if I have this straight: we're talking about a public library, paid for out of everyone's taxes and donations from volunteers. How can they justify putting limits on a cultural revolution? And it is a revolution, this explosion of information that can change lives. Anyway, never mind the revolution, what about freedom of expression and freedom of the press? What about your simple and clear right to read or look at anything you want? There are plenty of Carroll County residents who object to the filters, thank God. For these people, librarians will actually turn the filters off, though not as a matter of routine. Oh, no. First you have to submit to an interrogation: "If we can tell it's legitimate information for people to know," then the filters can be overridden, according to one head librarian. Well, "Sieg heil," sister. Way to go. I'll bet I can still call up a website that tells me which doctors to murder, filter or no.

I'm going crazy here, peering into a deep, dark pit of despair. Where do these people come from? Hell, forget that, when are they going back? Oh well. Let me tell you another story or two, this one about a different variety of idiots.

When I first moved here a little over twenty years ago, there were huge flocks of geese. They would arrive in early fall, the large v-shaped formations filling the sky. You could drive along the freshly harvested cornfields and see them milling, resting, eating, squawking, all the things geese do. A fine sight. It made a person proud to be alive, sharing the world with God's creations. The honking, bleating swarms were a wild force of Nature swirling through a landscape marred only by the puny works of man. The arrival of the geese was a seasonal harbinger, a yearly bookmark, something to love and identify with. Why, these birds had come all the way from the frozen North, up in Canada, land of wolves and bears and people who talk funny. They were beautiful, interesting, and in my own back yard! And then. . .and then. . . BANG! POW!! BANG-BANG-BANG!!!

Folks would begin killing them.

I don't care if it was "sport," I don't care if it was "traditional," I don't care if my friends actually ate them, and I especially don't care if the local economy got a boost from catering to rich idiots in silly clothes from the Western Shore or out of state who clogged the restaurants and bars and talked too loudly: it was always sad.

Hunters would talk about "busting" up the flocks, and bust 'em they did. The large, graceful formations always disappeared after the first day of hunting season. Instead of long lines of birds against the horizon, there were only scattered bunches of terrified refugees, flying hither and yon, croaking and exhausted, looking for a safe place to land. I always hated that. I hated the ugly transformation that took place every fall. I hated the silly, mud-covered, big-tired trucks parked all over town. I hated being part of a culture that took its identity from killing animals for fun. I hated the noise. And not a day of hunting season passed that I didn't hear "sportsmen" blasting away after dark when they weren't supposed to, though I couldn't imagine how they could see well enough to shoot. But most of all I hated seeing a few harried, frightened birds pass over a field I knew was full of hunters standing in pits or hunkered in blinds every hundred yards or so. Shots were fired, birds fell, men whooped, and big useless dogs barked and ran around in circles. A great time was had by all, I suppose. But I hated it.

Over the years, it eventually got to be like the Serbian army going after teenagers, and people wondered where all the geese had gone. The wildlife authorities gradually reduced the "bag limit," but the splendid flocks never returned to the skies or wheeled down to land in the fields next door. The most I saw at one time was maybe ten or twenty. Very sad. Yes, there was trouble at the nesting sites in Canada -- bad weather, too many foxes, that sort of thing. Maybe the surviving remnants of the great flocks were too demoralized to mate, who knew?

At some point a few years ago the so-called "authorities" actually took action, and unbelievably, goose hunting was banned! Oh, you should have heard the screams: a culture under attack! A "way of life" threatened! Guides and "pickers" out of work! Me, I was turning cartwheels, giving thanks to God. I could hardly believe it: someone had stopped the slaughter while there were still a few birds left! Unheard of, probably un-American, and certainly very un-Eastern Shore.

As it turned out, there were immediate benefits. For one thing, you could go to a local restaurant, find a table, and not be embarrassed by nearby drunk-at-noon buffoons who thought they owned the place. A few locals lost their jobs, but the rest walked a little taller, I thought. It had always been shameful, the way the influx of hunters turned the county's inhabitants into simpering, scurrying, sycophantic mush-for-brains. "Hunt here, park here, eat here, drink here, whore here!" Ridiculous. All a wealthy outsider had to do was put a dollar bill up his you-know-what and fifty people would line up for a chance to pull it out with their teeth. "Land of pleasant living," indeed.

After the ban, slowly but surely, the geese came back. Each year the flocks have grown larger and larger. Not only are there more and more geese, but the birds are happy, I swear. You can feel it. The fields are full of milling, resting, eating, squawking geese. When we walk down the road near our house and pass a group of them, they take off with a thunderous honking roar, circle around for fifteen minutes or so, and gradually spiral down into another field, maybe a half-mile away. In the evenings the flocks gather together, arriving in waves hundreds at a time, to settle down for the night. All is well with the world, God's creatures alive and thriving in their own natural habitat. And so. . .and so. . .

So now it's time to start shooting them again!

The long-deprived hunters can start blasting the birds out of the sky next year, just like before. Next fall the formations will be shattered by shotguns, birds will fall, men will whoop, useless dogs will bark and run in circles, drunk-at-noon buffoons with big wallets will drive mud-covered, big-tired trucks up and down the streets and swagger through the restaurants and bars, daring locals to pick dollar bills out of their you-know-whats. And pick they will, make no mistake about it.

Finally, the other night a Baltimore television station was interviewing boat people at a local marina about what they thought of the governor's recent Chesapeake Bay cleanup ideas. The video began with a shot of a man sloshing a bucket of soapy water over the side. His gripe was that he wished the water were cleaner. . .

"E pluribus idiotae." I rest my case!

Don't forget, the Farr Site Forum is a good place to leave a message.

John H. Farr also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com) and welcomes your comments. His own website, the ZOO ZONE, has actually been called "satanic" by yet another breed of idiots. . .

OFFICIAL FARR SITE FEEL-GOOD ADDENDUM: Don't get me wrong! The folks at Goose Valley are very fine Eastern Shore citizens who will treat you right if hunting is your thing, and they're not the sort of people to give my blowing off steam a second thought! A damned good thing, too, because I still live here.

While we're on the subject, check this out. Very strange!

DISCLAIMER: Attention, librarians: note that I did NOT actually call anyone a Nazi! I know you meant well. Unfortunately you came down on the side of ignorance and repression, and I'll rail against that until they fire up the crematorium and turn me to ashes. Live different!

May 16, 2012