How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? is a Dream Machine Site The Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web

What do I know about liberty? This you will have to judge for yourself by reading my words. It may...or may not...help you to know that I have been variously an athlete and scholar, a spy and a convict, a teacher, husband and father, not necessarily in that order.

These are my very first words ever in a newspaper column. I hope I don't fuck up...

Yes, today, my words are going to be about the word "fuck." If you don't like this, well, fuck you!

The late and legendary Lenny Bruce had a comedy routine about this phrase. He said that sexual activity is so much fun that "fuck you" should be a warm and pleasant greeting rather than a put down. You and I know, of course, that this is hardly the case. Generally it means something more like "at this moment, I don't think I like you even one little bit!"

Of course, it could also mean "bother" as in "don't fuck with me." Mostly, however, the word as used as a punctuation mark. ("Where's the fucking duck tape?" or "Why does your fucking mother have to come visiting every summer?")

My youngest daughter is nearing eighteen and freedom (mine). Twelve years ago, at about this time of year, she was a five year old just starting school in kindergarten. As part of what we thought of as "real world" training we advised her not to use the 'F' word in school because she might get us all into trouble.

She thought that it wouldn't make any difference, because they probably all heard the word at home like she did.

"Ha! Little does she know." I thought. It seemed like time for Dad the Scientist to be a positive role model for young daughter. I decided to show her how to scientifically poll her classmates.

"Ask any ten of them," I advised, "whether or not they have ever heard this word. Then, we will extrapolate..." I continued, liking to spice my conversation with ten dollar words, "...the data to your entire class. Maybe to the whole city! Who knows where this could lead?"

As an afterthought, I began to worry about such little details as rigor and controls. I suggested that she better test all those who say they know the word to see if they actually know what it means.

That evening, I eagerly awaited the results. I was sure that I was about to give her a very smart lesson indeed about how different the rest of the world was than her liberal household. As soon as she got home, I asked her how many of the kids had passed the "test."

"All of them." she said.

"All ten of them?" I wondered aloud. I guess I expected to find that she had carefully picked the ones to whom she had popped the question.

"No, all of them. I asked every one of them whether they had heard the word and they all did. And everybody knew what it meant too. Even the teacher. Or, at least I think she knew too, but she didn't want to talk about it. She acted like you, Dad!" she said, giggling.

The point of this story is that we tell ourselves a lot of fairy tales. One of them is that if we shield our children from certain troubling (to us) information they will be spared ever knowing it. This is a false belief but probably harmless. The children will get the information somewhere else. We will be spared the embarrassment of having to talk about it with them.

Some of the other fairy tales we tell ourselves are a lot more serious. These I will be discussing in forthcoming columns. I want talk to about abortion rights and race relations and gun control and wars on drugs and other foolishness. I especially want to talk about politicians, for no other class of humans depends more on our belief in fairy tales than these bozos.

Talk to you later...

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