Maggie's Farm

"For Marines in Afghanistan: be careful where you fart"

From Monty Python's 'Holy Grail':

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."

Those Python boys were really ahead of the curve.

Maybe some of our Marine or Army readers can verify this, but I've read before (and in one of the comments to the article) that MRE's are serious fart-inducers, presumably because of all the preservatives. If so, that would put this directive right up there with "No telling dirty jokes." Good luck, top brass.

Next up: A directive stating no farting in the direction of the gays invading the military because it will remind them of all the sex they can't have. Because if there's one thing we don't want in a group of men trained to kill people, it's cruelty.

Re: the MLK statue, the link above is kind of meaningless without some background story, like here.

Personally, I don't have any problem with it being sculpted by some Chinese guy who also did some Mao statues. That would be akin to a museum turning down a Rembrandt because he also painted the portrait of some despotic king. As for the stance and expression, anyone who remembers King as calm and gentle and kindly never saw him deliver one of his firebrand speeches. I think the pose and expression are just fine.

The controversy, as I see it, is placing him in the National Mall, a spot historically reserved for ex-presidents. It was, typically, a Democrat (Clinton) who decided to cast history by the wayside by starting this project.

I did, however, find this quote (from a different article) to be somewhat amusing:

"Not even in his wildest dreams could Martin Luther King Jr have imagined that he would one day find himself honoured alongside two of America's best-known and best-loved presidents."

Apparently, this moron has never heard of February 12th and February 22nd. MLK is already alongside two of our most-loved presidents.

It looks exactly like what it is -- a black man as chiseled by a Chinese man. I agree it's not a very good likeness, but the family picked it out (from four choices), so I guess they figured it was good enough. Still, though, there must be a thousand talented black American sculptors who would have done a better job, so one kind of cringes at what the real story is, and how it ended up in Chinese hands. Somebody got paid something, no doubt, no doubt.