Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

Mud Season cometh and I'm off to Costa Rica

Stephen Fay, a Brattleboro Reformer editor from the murky past, once told me never to criticize the customers. In line with my lifelong policy of eschewing sound advice I have some comments on last Wednesday's letterbox literati.

I think it is the petulant tone of two of the letters that is irksome.

Each of two writers chooses one word from the paper and then launches upon a harp-a-thon of criticism.

Vile is verboten, apparently, when applied to nature, according to a local scribe. Its natural and wonderful even if you're up to your armpits in snow, apparently.

I have snowbanks as high as Shaquille's eye on my deck, we won't get baseball till July and mud season is going to be apocalyptic around here. Vile doesn't approach how I feel about that hag-ridden, festering Mother Nature.

Don't criticize Mother Nature, you say?

Well she started it.

Another picayune pettifogger decries the decline of Western Civilization due to the misuse of the word 'incidence' in the paper. Well, Mr. Roget, you try writing umpty-squillion words a day and not make any errors. Incidence, schmincidence.

Boy that felt good.

Predictably, now that elections are over, Bush's faith-based initiatives are coming under fire.

This is his plan to turn over our tax dollars to religious institutions for charitable works. It is a plan that is ethically bankrupt and open to such egregious abuse that we would need to have an oversight police department bigger than the FBI to control it.

Guess what groups are opposing Bush's Godly giveaway with the most vigor?

Why, it's our pals on the Christian Right.

What? Aren't the Swaggarts and the Robertsons hot to get their holy hands on wads of our tax money? Not if it means giving some of it to the Hari Krishnas, the Moonies, the Muslims. or the Jews. I think they have to hand over some money to the Atheists as well.

Don't they have faith that God doesn't exist? Plenty of evidence.

Apparently. our Christian fraternity would rather take vacations in the Berkshires rather than the south of France if it means denying the opposition something. Careful that Cross doesn't catch fire, Jerry. Why the post-election criticism?

Because if this idiotic plan had been criticized during the election campaign, Bush and his party would have labeled dissenters as anti-God and recommended that they be burned at the stake. It's a rule – don't oppose religion, the flag, the military, or the apple pie industry before the election. The print is barely dry from the last atrocity committed by our Navy when another one hits the wire services. Now, six more deaths are attributed to the incompetence of the Navy.

This time a Navy pilot dropped a bomb on an observation post. This cannot be the cost of doing business. We should not expect soldiers to be bombed during peacetime or fishing boats to be wrecked by submarines.

The Association of Drunken Landmine Defusers has a better safety record than the Navy.

Lately, I have seen more than the usual spate of recruitment ads on TV. Could this be because the Navy is losing sailors more quickly than they can recruit them? Join the Navy and see the world? How about: Join the Navy and see the inside of a pine box.

Finally, several of our knuckle-dragging reps in Montpelier are persisting in their attempts to outlaw gay marriage, now and for all time.

They have made it clear that they want to craft a bill that can never be overturned. They ignore inherent inequities with such a bill in their embarrassing haste to ram something through the house.

This has one purpose, so they can return to their districts and crow about how they stuck it to the queers.

The future will highlight these jackals for the bigots that they are. Somewhere along the line a percentage of these Neanderthals will discover that the gay gene exists in their families as well. Will they be so quick to deny their own children equality? My guess is a resounding yes. Really finally. I hope you all enjoy the NCAA tournament this year. At this writing I have watched two games and lost them both. I'll be out of print for the next two weeks as I am leading a trip to Costa Rica with ten college students.

While I am rubbing sunscreen on the coeds I'll be thinking of you. Remember to tie a board to your butts ,Vermonters -- this could be the mother of all mud seasons.

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