Might as well Jump!

When I wrote my blog about women drivers, feminists went into attack mode. It ranged from attacking me on Twitter to complaining to my boss. I made some generalizations about females, but no one bothered to ask whether it was about one woman, all women, a few or could the behavior also relate to men?

In truth, I didn't mind the fuss because controversy gets read. I always think about Mick Jagger stating that you get noticed by being a bad boy and by destroying that hotel room (or something like that). After all, blogs are all about generalizations.  Otherwise we’d call them news stories. How people react to a blog will determine its success.

What it boils down to though, is someone reads that generalization and makes a determination about it and its author. This usually means not bothering to do much more than making a quick read.  Skimming it.  Not investigating the point made nor read more about the person who wrote it. In other words, the reader makes a jump. Jumps to a conclusion.

We all do it.

For example, I often use pictures of scantily clad females in my blogs. So when this happens I get a number of females letting me know that I'm a sexist pig and that I objectify women. I've blogged before along these lines, that many women don't know the difference between sexism and sexuality. 

That I am attracted to a woman in a bikini doesn't mean I think she's incapable of being a lawyer, a doctor, etc. It's just easier to jump to the conclusion that I'm a pig then to look deeper. I often point out to the offended female that if a women drools to her BFF about Justin Timberlake, it's not sexism, it's just that she's expressing her inner feelings and innate sexuality.

Anyway, there are a lot of incidents we commonly encounter of people jumping.

All men know that women will fall over themselves to meet that guy driving the Corvette, even though he's a scumbag (if they were to really get to know him). While the guy driving a used VW bug just isn't worth the time, no matter that he's the type who devotes himself to just one woman. They jump thinking that money/wealth equals quality.

Along the same line, if a guy sees a hot female he immediately jumps to the conclusion that she will not only be hot in bed, but also a great lifelong companion.  This even though she may really be the woman who jumps to a new guy every time a new car rolls by, or has a gigantic collection of Raggedy Ann dolls at home (and normally dresses that way too). In other words, the guy jumps that external beauty also extends to the internal too.

Very similar to the car situation, is that if a woman meets a male who has a prestigious or professional career, he's a good find. So the plastic surgeon will attract a big female following, while the electrician in the dirty blue jeans and T-shirt is a loser.

A jump by men similar to the beauty queen syndrome above, is if a guy encounters a woman in provocative clothing. A woman in a halter and tight pants is the woman of a man's dreams (or at least fantasies) and would make a worthy companion at all social gatherings. A woman in a T-shirt and blue jeans won't get a second glance when near the former, even though she might be the most provocative and exciting woman the guy might ever meet. It's too late. The guy has made the jump and hasn't bothered to look a little further.

Let me jump in here and promote my recent book, SEX and the AMERICAN MALE. When I first began promoting it on Facebook, a number of crazy feminists who had been electronically stalking me on FB and Twitter immediately began blasting to their cohorts on my evilness. 

They believed I had attempted to expose my students to raunchy stories about lurid sex acts. They jumped to the conclusion that my book was all about illicit sex by a debauched male sex fiend. Of course, SEX and the AMERICAN MALE (still just $2) is NOT about SEX at all—although the main character does wish he had it now and then with his girlfriend. The book is a social satire about American society.

Along those lines, a large number of the folks who have "liked" the SAM FaceBook page do so thinking it's about sex. I know this because if I look at their “likes” and they all seem to be about sex. Such as "Hot Sex Singers," "Sexy Women," "Wild Sex Nights," well, you get the idea.

 
Some more common jumps we see include women who think that single men have messy houses. Likewise, men often jump that all women will have a clean house. Men who see a woman sporting really short hair will believe the female to be a lesbian. Similar, a woman who sees a skinny guy with short hair and a mustache jumps that he's gay. I have been told by many people that when they first noticed my Van Dyke they assumed I was evil/mean. Of course, I'm actually a pretty laid-back, goofy guy. Trust me.

Sure, many people think that jumping to conclusions is the same as stereotyping. However, I think the latter is more of an ingrained, long-term character flaw, while the former is just lazy thinking.

Both men and women jump. It's normal (not necessarily right).  Who does it the most could be debated, as could which jump is more devious. 

So in the future you may continue to jump to conclusions about something I’ve blogged about or some picture I’ve tucked into the piece, but keep in mind that it might give me more fuel for a future blog as well as enable me to write a few more snide tweets about people like you.

(My editor and I writing another evil blog/Tweet)

Women Say the Darndest Things

When I wrote my blog about women drivers, feminists went into attack mode ranging from attacking me on Twitter to complaining to my boss. I made some generalizations about females, but...

We interrupt this blog for sports!

This is Coach J and although I hate to jump in here during this exciting and stimulating blog in which I am sure the writer is going to say something controversial in an attempt to make some people angry and garner more reader interest (he thinks), this is much more interesting and important.

 The Women's World Cup has begun!

The USA Women's National Soccer Team needs to reclaim their rightful place as the premier force in the world, and I believe this year they will do just that. Led by Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe, and bolstered by a great back-stopper in a Hope Solo this will be a team to be reckoned with.

They begin play in one of the toughest groups, the Group of Death, Group D. Here are the teams:

This is the USA's schedule:

 

A big controversy to keep an eye on are the fields themselves. For some odd reason FIFA has set all the games to be played on AstroTurf. A terrible surface for soccer and there is no way this would happen if they were men's teams. No, this probably isn't as big as giving the Men's World Cup to Qatar, but it's close.

So don't miss out on these exciting games. Tell your boss that Coach J has said it's the Patriotic thing to do to take time off to go watch the USA team at a nearby sports bar.

 

Now, back to the regularly scheduled blog already in progress. 

So although I know this might really inflame those crazy radical feminists once again, they can't deny the truth. Now, aren't you glad The Thurber Brigade got back on topic and didn't succumb to another sidestep about something like the latest police malfeasance?

(Okay, I love soccer. I've played, coached, reffed and even wrote a book about coaching. Next time, I'll really get back to the usual blog stuff. Really)

Resistance is Futile

Another Thurber Brigade Sidestep

Okay, by now you're shrugging your shoulders and saying, "oh great, once again he proves he can't stay on topic." Well you're right, but it is with just cause. As you know, I've done a lot of research on police violence, tried to get a book published, settled for an article. So you'll have to excuse me if I go off topic when confronted by police malfeasance. And if it seems like I'm doing it more and more it's because it seems to be making the news more and more.

Police bad behavior isn't new. In fact, I believe it's been at a pretty high level for some time. It's just that now it seems to be reported more often. This is largely because people are reporting it more and more on social media. This makes it hard for the mainstream media to ignore it as they did in the past.

They ignored it in the past because they subscribed to the police motto "To Maintain and Control." Maintain the status quo, control the population (serve and protect is just a PR campaign). After all, since the mainstream media is corporate controlled they are part of the status quo.

So I don't intend to mention the recent Baltimore murder of a civilian whose only offense was running while being black. Nor will I go into the case of yet another cop killing an unarmed civilian (so common now it's like reporting about a traffic accident. Yawn). No this blog is about the fake crime of "resisting arrest."

Resisting arrest is one of the police’s favorite charges against a "perp." However, in probably nine out of 10 cases it doesn't make sense. For example, a year ago the Austin police arrested a female teenage jogger for jaywalking. Yes, two burly cops stopped this young girl for crossing the street and when she began to complain they cuffed her. She was resisting arrest. 

 But wait you say, jaywalking isn't an arrestable offense. You give the person a ticket. So since there wasn't a crime to arrest her for, and because they got pissed off at her complaining, they said she was resisting. Okay, they also said she “failed to identify.” This is just as illogical, since I don’t know many joggers who carry their wallet while running, but maybe that will be another blog. 

(You are probably also saying to yourself, "wait a minute, weren't Austin Police recently asking for more money?" Yes, they need more money to stop the lawless jaywalkers of the city. A big crime here in Austin. Violent crime must be down so they need more money to police people walking across the street. Sorry, got carried away)

Over and over we see this in the news. Someone arrested for resisting. However, the majority of the time there is no crime. It's not like the person robbed a bank, then ran as the police came up. No, it's that the police pulled someone over for a broken taillight, the person gave the cop some lip, and next thing we know: resisting arrest.

To me, they might as well be honest and just say they are arresting the person because he/she pissed the cop off.

I’m lucky they haven’t pulled me over lately because surely I’d be “Arrested for Sarcasm,” or “Arrested for Making a Snide Remark to an Officer” or even worse, "being flip with a law enforcement person."

It would help the average civilian if police wore some sort of device that would indicate the mood the cop was currently experiencing. You know, something like those devices you can wear to see how much you are being exposed to radiation. These would instead indicate the emotional state of the officer.  

This way if you were stopped by a cop and his mood badge if bright red, you’d know that his wife just screamed at him as he left for work and you don’t want to say something snarky to the guy.

 
In other words, we would nearly wipe out the bogus charge of “resisting arrest” if we only knew how angry or demented the person stopping us had become.

 
I have to admit I’m also glad that the NSA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies haven’t tried to arrest me for “satirical tirades aimed at the law” via their wiretapping programs. Yes, I’d be locked up for a lonnnngggg time.

Yet again The Thurber Brigade would like to apologize for once more veering off the road of the War Between Men and Women. The Brigade promises everyone that it will return to the straight and narrow soon. Well, we'll see what happens next. 

THURBER!

She Can, He Can't

What comes to mind when you see a man walking around the women's wear aisle of a department store? The guy is a pervert, right?  I blogged about this a while ago.  Women can get away with browsing in men's underwear at Target, men cannot do the same in the women's underwear section.

Lately, I realized there are quite a few things that women can do that men cannot.

For example:
• Man can’t stand beside a car with a flat and wait for someone else to fix it.


No, he can't bend over to show off his butt when a car passes, can't look to be near tears, can't even look pensively at the flat tire and try to elicit sympathy. Any guy who would even try those would be hounded the rest of his life by the thought of inadequacy and impotence (yeah, it's a tough club we're in). People who drive by the scene wouldn't even give it a thought, assuming the guy was going to fix it himself.




• Man can’t wear shorts into a biker bar

You've probably seen movies where a guy walks into a bar and orders a glass of milk and within a few minutes a bar fight ensues. This is basically the same scenario. It wouldn't matter if it was 100° outside, if a man walks into a tough place in shorts it's a clear sign he wants trouble—and will most likely get it.

• Man can’t complain about getting bumped on bus/train

If a man were talking to his buddies and started to complain about someone jostling him on the train the other day, the immediate reaction from his friends would be to ask if he shoved the guy back and if it led to a fight. If he didn't give the appropriate response and continued to complain, the other guys would stare at him in disbelief or would assume he was kidding. More than likely, if a guy did complain about an incident like this, he'd be called one of numerous names used by females to denigrate men (as blogged earlier).

• Man can’t cry about anything in public (even though women wish men would show emotions)

Of course, the exception is Speaker of the House Boehner, but every other guy may not cry. A man caught showing such an emotion would forever be branded a non-man and shunned in future social occasions. The exception of course, is when the team you are rooting for in the Super Bowl loses the game by calling the stupidest play in the history of football and loses the game. But that is about the only exception. The odd thing though is that men are probably more emotional than women. We dare not admit it in public though.

• Man can’t wear different styles of clothes at work (no colors, floral designs, etc.)

Men's fashion has not changed in several centuries. In the 1800s if a man worked in a bank, he wore a suit and tie. As far as I can tell, the only change since then is that the collar is a little less restrictive. Oh, the tie or lapel might be a little thinner every now and then, but not much else has changed. Casual wear hasn't seen much of a change either.


• Men can’t use a girls bike even though it’s physically better for them

This is rather obvious. Men's junk is much more exposed then women's. For some reason whoever designed bikes decided that men should have a bar running from the seat to the handlebar that could basically make a guy squeal if he landed on it after a bump. For the females, that bar gently runs lower. My guess about this design is that in the old days, people believed women may not be athletic enough to get a leg over a bar that high up off the ground. Or maybe it was that women needed to be more demur and not lift their legs up that high. No matter the reason, a guy may not ride a more appropriately designed bike without receiving an overwhelming about of attention and verbal abuse.


• On a coed sports team, man cannot slap woman’s butt

As I've blogged countless times, men are much more aggressive and physical than women.  We naturally need to elbow a buddy in the side after a funny joke, slap on the back the guy who did a great job on winning that debate, or in sports, slap their friend on the rear end in excitement after scoring that goal.  If a man were to do that to a female he is not related to/dating, then he can expect to be slapped in the face or relegated to the bench for being a sexist pig.

• Man can’t talk trash to a woman without repercussions

This is very similar to the butt slap. Guys love to talk trash to their friends to either get the person's goat or to build up their own self-esteem. We see this mostly at sports events, but often at work or when having a beer at a bar.  If a guy were to do the same to a woman it would surely bring verbal hell fire and maybe result in some nearby hulk coming to the woman's defense.

• Man dare not complain about women drivers

 I learned about this the hard way. Although it's fine for women to mention how men never ask directions or drive like a demon from Hades, if a man does this he risks nation-wide ostracism. When I wrote a blog about this, not only did some radical feminists begin to attack me on Twitter and other social media, but acquaintances shunned me and tried to convince others to do the same. The odd part was that I saw the blog as a bit of a joke. No matter, don't do this.

So although most men know about the above actions/events, for the rookie or uninitiated I hope this proves to be helpful. Think of this as just a friendly warning.

North Charleston Murder: The Thurber Brigade once more goes wildly off topic

If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you’ll know that occasionally it will take a slight side-step and discuss something other than relationships or the differences between men and women.  This happened after the Ferguson incident and so, for pretty much the same reason (I’m agitated about bad police behavior), we’re going off topic again. 

 As a writer it’s my passion to tell stories (Jay's Place) and when watching a TV show or movie mystery, I try to guess the outcome or perpetrator.  So here's a dramatization of what I have theorized happened in North Charleston on Saturday, April 4th.

The Players:

Policeman— Michael Slager

Victim—Walter Scott

On a cool spring night in North Charleston, Walter Scott is calmly driving down the street listening to the local news on the car radio.  Police officer Michael Slager notices him as he drives by his parked patrol car. The first thing Slager notices is that the driver has a very, very dark tan.  He then carefully scans the driver’s car and discovers it has a broken taillight.

Within minutes Slager has pulled over the car and told Scott to get out of the vehicle.  The two men are soon standing face to face.

“What you doin’ on my street, boy?” Office Slager asks.

“I’m just driving home from work,” Scott replies.

“Welp, ya’ll got a broken taillight,” Slager says sternly.

“Oh, sorry, but that is a minor thing. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow,” Scott answers.

“You talkin’ back to me *black person?” Slager said, raising his voice.

“Hey, don’t be a *jerk, man.”

Officer Slager becomes incensed at this blatant resistance to his authority and pulls his Taser stun gun off his belt.

“What you doin’ *man?” Scott asked.  “I ain’t done nothing. There’s no reason for that.”

This really inflames Officer Slager’s mood and he shoots Scott with the stun gun.  This hurts Scott and knocks him to the ground, but it also energizes him enough that he understands this could get a lot worse.

Scott jumps up and turns away from the policeman and begins to edge away. “Man, you *evil guy.  I can’t believe you shot me.”

“That’s right *dark-skinned person, you better run,” Slager sneers. “I’m going to shoot your sorry *black person ass!”

Scott begins to run as fast as he can, but as he’s still sore from being stunned, he can barely limp away. Slager pulls his service revolver and fires repeatedly in the back of the fleeing Scott.

Scott falls to the ground mortally wounded and Slager hurries to his position.

“Told you *black person. Now put your hands behind your back!” Slager shouted.

“Ahhhhhhhh,” Scott replied softly as he slowly lost consciousness.

Slager handcuffed the lifeless Scott, then noticed he had forgotten to bring his stun gun with him. He quickly retraced his steps, retrieved the stun gun and brought it back to the body of Scott and dropped it beside the corpse. 

Very shortly, a second police office arrives.

“God, I was so frightened,” Office Slager told the other policeman. “I thought for sure this guy was going to harm me. He was almost like a wild animal!”

More police eventually arrived and wrapped up the event in standard procedure. Slager continued to state how he feared for his life and filed a report attesting to that. Since the other officers believed him and didn’t believe any thing was out of order (as this sort of thing happens often with *dark-skinned men they told themselves) so all carried on with their usual lives.

Of course, unlike other situations, this one was filmed. Luckily, the person who filmed it was brave enough to release it to the public. Normally this can be a very risky business as many times the witness can become a victim too. Eventually the evidence became too overwhelming for authorities to ignore and so many days after the incident, Office Slager is arrested for murder.

And so ends our little dramatization.  Of course, this is just conjecture, but more than likely, something very similar to this transpired. Will Officer Slager be convicted of taking the life of an innocent, unarmed man?  If history is repeated, probably not. However, that may be a future tale for The Thurber Brigade.

* Colorful metaphors have been replaced with less offensive words

The Thurber Brigade apologizes for once more veering off the road of the War Between Men and Women and assures everyone that it will return to the straight and narrow soon. Um, maybe. 

Ahhh, James Thurber

Mr. Hyde visits the Thurber Brigade

While jogging through the greenbelt near my home I encountered three kids huddled around a broken toy guitar. It looked like one of those things that if you push a button it would play a song and the user could pretend to be playing that song. Basically, a visible air guitar.

Anyway, it obviously was not working and the kids were trying to fix it. There were two boys and a girl. As I drew nearer I could hear them and the girl wanted to take it to her Dad to fix. However, the large boy to the right of her thought by banging it on the sidewalk it would fix it. The girl protested vigorously but as she was much smaller, and the other boy was rather muted (probably fearful of the larger guy), the big boy prevailed and proceeded to bang the thing on the cement.

Of course it didn't fix it, and for all I know (I had run past them) it broke even more.

Now, before I go further, let me state that I often do my best thinking while jogging. My mind seems to clear from other things and I can meditate on things I believe important, or can delve deeper into philosophical thoughts. On this occasion, it was the latter.

As I continued down the green belt I thought how those children were the perfect representation of our society. The female a representation of reasonable thought, the smaller boy just like the masses that go along apathetically, and the bigger boy the typical male who believes force can solve everything.

For years I've postulated that our society advances by male and female working in tandem. The male is the wild stallion whose muscle can be used to build; the female, using reason, must tame the stallion so that his work can be productive. 

In a previous blog I mentioned how often women think men are childish when we males begin to jostle and elbow each other. This isn’t childish behavior, this is male behavior. We’re a much more aggressive species and it’s natural for us to use this aggressiveness. But I’m not going to rehash that thought.

No, I just wanted to point out along similar lines that men often think it’s reasonable to use force to fix things. A guy is making too much noise at the next table? Shout at him angrily to get him to quiet down. A cop encounters a man sleeping on the sidewalk where he shouldn’t be?  Kick him in the side.  A guy cuts in line? Push him violently out of it.  A dictator of a country gives the president the finger? Bomb the hell out of that country.  Okay, this last one is taking it to extremes, but you get the picture.

We guys like to use force.  Some might say we're violent, often evilly violent.  I don't think we're inherently violent, it's more that we're aggressive and sometimes can take it to extremes if not controlled.  We’re bred and taught this at a young age. If you accidentally break the lamp while running through the house, Dad will spank you to teach you not to be so reckless. If you want to impress your friends at school, you have to prove your physical prowess, either through sports or pushing that little guy into the locker.

So this is where women fit in the society equation. They must tame that wild stallion.  Instead of letting Dad paddle Junior, maybe she can get him to talk to the tyke instead. Explain how the boy must be more careful. 

When rough-housing between men begins to escalate, instead of egging their men on to teach the other guy a lesson (think bar fight), maybe the women could urge both men to calm down and think of the consequences.

When wars are going on, men on the front line dream of going home to their wives.  Wives of men in power can often open those men’s eyes to the suffering of the men on the front line.

I mentioned this before in a blog too, one of the best episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 involved women in power. They were space refugees looking for a new home. When asked why men were not in charge, the answer was: oh, no, men are far too emotional.

What I am getting to in all of this is that as much as I think it’s funny to talk about the differences between men and women, to point out the goofiness, bad habits and traits of each, it’s quite clear that men and women belong together as a team.

Humankind has made some amazing advancements over the centuries and it’s all because the stallion and the horse trainer worked together to make it so.

Oh, I will keep making fun of women drivers, keep pointing out the mixed messages we guys get from women and probably irritate one or two feminists in the future, but rest assured I understand how the game is played.