Scott Charles Adams' Blog

Remember this?

If you watch just the first few seconds, you see John McCain explaining to a crazy racist white woman that Obama is not an Arab during the presidential campaign for 2008. As Righteous Honkeys, we can say, “Well, he was only doing the right thing. That’s no big deal. Everyone should be expected to do the right thing all the time, in every circumstance.” (And honestly, you’d be sortta right.)

But if you keep watching the video, you’ll see newscasters talking about the political repercussions. The ring-wing nut jobs (yup, we had them back in those days) were already a little weak on McCain. He was having a hard time convincing the Sean Hannity’s and Rush Limbaugh’s that he was right-wing nut-jobby enough, and this move didn’t do him any favors. It’s Politics 101 — Rule 0: Never defend your opponent.

(Just as an aside, I never heard Obama mention this moment. He might have mentioned it and I missed it. It would have meant a lot. It would have added an unprecedented level of civility to the proceedings. But I recognize that he was in the fight of his life in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I recognize that it would have been extremely imprudent. Even while recognizing this — and that it would have violated Rule 0 — it still would have been nice.)

(Just as another aside, I don’t regret my vote for Obama. I loved having him as president. I loved having him as president more than I loved my own cock and balls — and I have considerable affection for my cock and balls. Just ask them. But I’d been married for eight years at that point and they were mostly just for decoration and they weren’t all that fancy …)

(Oh Jesus Christ now I’ve completely forgotten what I was talking about … oh yeah …)

But the political courage of this moment — and others that followed — aren’t what I’m here to address.

Ever spoken in front of a big crowd before? Like, a really big crowd? There’s a rush you get when you’re pleasing a crowd that’s difficult to describe. Just ask Lady Gaga. Or Jerry Seinfeld. Or Cher. Or Nickelback. (Why does everyone hate Nickelback?) It’s intoxicating. It robs you of common sense. It’s the pinnacle of the mob instinct — you’re more than a part of something larger than yourself, you’re at the head. Point at someone in the crowd and command, “He must be destroyed!” and the crowd will rip him to pieces. Hitler allegedly had orgasms during his speeches, and I believe it. When you’re in the groove and you’re telling the crowd what they want to hear and they’re in the palm of your hand, it’s that good.

Which is the reason why Donald Trump peddled racism during his campaign. Shit. That should have been an aside.

(Just as an aside, which is the reason why Donald Trump peddled racism during his campaign — the cheering crowd made his enormous pants get tight in the crotch. Well, maybe not tight. Those are some big pants. I’m not a fan of fat-shaming, but Trump is a fat fat-shamer. That makes it okay.)

(Fat Trump! Fat Trump! Fat Trump! Okay. I’m done now.)

(Fat Trump! Shit, I wasn’t done.)

By this time in the race, many of McCain’s followers were racists whose primary intent was to make sure the Yoo Ess of Murika didn’t put a n****** in charge. Although McCain presented himself well, spoke well, and had experience as both a politician and a war hero, a lot of the serious republican voters were put-off by the extremely off-putting Sarah Palin. They were staying home in droves, and McCain’s town halls were filling up with racists. It would have such an easy thing to say, “Yeah, he might be Arab. We just don’t know, do we?” That would have been enough. The crowd would have gone wild and they would have lifted McCain onto his shoulders and marched to the poor section of town and killed anyone with a darker skin color than mocha with bats and the lid of Hitler’s box would crack with the mighty force of the powerful corpse-gasms.

But John McCain couldn’t do that. It wasn’t in his character. Instead, he did the unthinkable. He not only violated Rule 0, he did it in front of a crowd. They fucking booed him and he didn’t back down — because fuck you, crowd. I’m John McCain. I survived a POW camp, and I crap bigger than you buncha whiney Tea Partying bitches.

I’ll confess I didn’t vote for him. The possibility of “President Palin” saw to that. (Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.) I’ll also confess that I don’t always agree with every single thing he says. But I don’t have to agree with every single thing he says for me to acknowledge him as a hero — as one of my heroes.

Oh, and I didn’t even mention this speech …

… that sealed a deal that didn’t require it.

Watch the entire speech.

You didn’t watch it. Watch. The. Entire. Fucking. Speech.

I would have preferred if this blog had been a touching, dignified tribute to John McCain. But I think I used “shit” and “fuck” a few too many times, and I think I made a reference to my cock and balls somewhere up there. That hardly seems dignified.

Plus, that’s not the sort of shit I would ordinarily fucking do.

And, cock and balls! Just for good measure.

It’s hard for me to watch movies. As a writer, I’m hypercritical of everything. The jokes aren’t funny enough. The plot is contrived. He is not falling in love with her, because she is completely unlovable. Why is he not bleeding out? Et cetera, et cetera. A movie has to be truly exceptional for me to involve myself with the story instead of quietly fixing the plot. With books it’s even worse.

Some things, I’ve trained myself to ignore. A head injury severe enough to cause unconsciousness, for example, is super bad in real life – but someone is knocked unconscious in every movie. Accept it. It’s a movie. A human is assumed to be critically injured after any fall of more than ten feet, but action heroes fall way more than that in every movie. Accept it. It’s a movie.

Space aliens speak English.

This is a tough one.

I get that subtitles suck, as does inventing a new language for each of the four aliens on the screen. It can also get tedious to have two aliens who don’t understand each other learning each other’s language (unless you montage that shit). It’s a great way to stretch a two-hour movie into five hours of, “I don’t understand what you’re saying … thrakka doesn’t mean a hand job? I’ll just put this back in my space-pants, then.”

Okay, that’s a bad example, because that scene would be completely enjoyable and I could watch that for five hours. But most movies aren’t about space-handies.

This puts me in a tough spot. I know why all the aliens speak English – because if they don’t, it’s a logistical nightmare. But it’s glaring. It’s in your face. Star Trek cheats it by pretending the badges can translate anything into anything. Star Wars cheats it by having characters that can only be understood by other characters. Guardians of the Galaxy cheats it by saying, “Fuck it, everyone just speaks English.”

So it’s left to me. I’m forced to solve this on my own.

In the ten thousand year history of galactic trade, language has been an issue. The Tangerites of HIP 50465 are able to trade their orange fruit to the Tomatoinians of LFT 445 because they took the time to learn each other’s language – but the Tomatoinians would turn around and sell that fruit to the Appleturgs at a huge profit because none of the Tangerites who spoke Tomatoinian could also speak Appleturgese. And on and on, times a million. The lack of a universal language cost a lot of space-aliens a lot of space-money, and space-Esperanto never caught on despite many repeated attempts by the Esperantites.

But in the 1950s, Earth began to broadcast television signals to other Earthlings, and some of these signals bled into space. (We actually started radio signals much earlier, but without a visual context these signals were just wa-wa-wa sounds.) These signals were first received and interpreted by a cephalopod race who thought Earthlings were hysterical – not because they were watching The Honeymooners (which they were), but because we were so bland looking. Every other bipedal race looked at least a little like us. Add some gills to an Earthling, and you have a Haquer fish-person. Make the earlobes long and dangly, and you have a Zingity. Our lack of a distinguishing feature gave us the appearance of the crash-test dummies of every other race.

So the cephalopod race recorded our signals and began to distribute them to other races. They were disguised as entertainment, but they were actually a sophisticated insult. “This is what all you bipeds look like to us. See how stupid you look? Hah-hah-hah.”

The bipedal races of the Milky Way missed the insult – but they loved Jackie Gleason. And then they loved Gone with the Wind. And then they loved The Wizard of Oz and Leave it to Beaver and Days of Our Lives. English began to catch on as the galactic dilettantes lauded Earth entertainment as the best in the galaxy – primarily because the cephalopods owned the space-rights and bribed the space-dilettantes.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the signals from Earth reached the more civilized parts of space, and hardcore fans of Dennis the Menace could find the source of this wonderful entertainment. The cephalopods did what they could to hide the true location of Earth, but to no avail. Their Earthling goose was now shooting its golden eggs into space, where they could be gathered by any Umbrellian with a receiver.

With no more bribes from the cephalopods, the space-dilettantes shifted their attention to other things. But English had already caught on. It was convenient, elegant, and pronounceable by most of the galaxy. Its use didn’t bruise any egos. And as a result, English because the unofficial trade-language of the Milky Way – much to the dismay of the Esperantites, who’ve spent the last 50 years unsuccessfully trying to push their own version of The Honeymooners called The Menacing Monkey People from Dirtworld who are Celebrating their Recent Lifebonding.

So most of the aliens alive today haven’t seen Gilligan’s Island or Footloose. They’ve heard of Earth, but they’re not sure why and they couldn’t pinpoint it on a map of the Milky Way – much like Latvia to a modern American. Or Nigeria. Or Portugal. Heh. I could go on. Modern Americans can point out very few things on a globe. But I digress.

And that, boys and girls, is why aliens speak English.

On a side note, the race of cephalopods are now known as the Squidwardians due to the popularity of Spongebob Squarepants. They don’t care for the name change at all, but fuck those Squidwardians.