Our word for the day.

Sublimate

Pronunciation: \ˈsə-blə-ˌmāt\
Function: noun

A chemical product obtained by sublimation.

Sublimation of an element or compound is a transition from the solid to gas phase with no intermediate liquid stage.

Radio jackass Don Imus is at it again. He made some off-color joke about Adam (don't call me "Pacman") Jones' color and now he's in for another ass-beating. What I don't get about the whole affair is why do we care what he says? We know he's a jackass, yet we treat his nonsense with the same respect we would treat a politician or religious figure making the same remarks.

Your attention please: He's a radio guy. He has a program on the radio. They pay him to make stupid remarks, and when you call attention to his nonsense it only makes him say more stupid stuff.

Which leads me to Anthony's Rule of Thumb #5:

When you see a non-sports personality on the sports page of the newspaper or a sports personality on the front page, it's almost never anything good.

It's either an athlete who killed someone or a personality who did something stupid. Either way, I think we should learn to separate the sports from the non-sports. It makes it easier to keep track of things. As for Imus, he's so irrelevant it's funny. So far, the only way we hear his name is when he does something to offend ten people.

A Haiku:
Imus keeps talking.

He's corrosive sublimate.

Don't let it burn you.

Sublimate

Function: Intransitive verb

To divert the expression of (an instinctual desire or impulse) from its unacceptable form to one that is considered more socially or culturally acceptable.

People don't like being told what to do. I find that out almost every day when I see someone driving and talking on their cellular telephone, which is a primary offense in New Jersey. If I can make eye contact, I'll yell at them. Usually, it's in a demonstrative tone, "Get off the phone!" Lately though, my plaintive cries have turned to a more pleading "Get off the phoooone," and I use the sad puppy-dog eyes that make it clear that their behavior, while illegal, is also annoying to me personally.

Usually, what I get is a smug look, and as was the case tonight, while on my bicycle I spied a caller/driver and did the yelling tone. With his window open and only a lane of roadway separating us, he heard me over the din of his conversation.

"Fuck you, Nancy!" he replied, which shocked me because I was told that guys on bicycles were kind of cool, so how could he think that a guy on a commuter bike would be anything but? Either that, or he thought I looked like this Nancy person he knows. A third possibility occurred to me; that he could have been talking to Nancy on the phone, and my admonition came at an inopportune time, when he was just then telling Nancy she should fuck herself.

I don't think it was that one.

What is interesting to me is how people can turn obviously wrong behavior around and make it look as though the person correcting them is at fault. I'm figuring that most of them have active sperm or egg, and therefore have produced children to whom they teach these tenants of life, wherein the fault lies with the accuser and not in their own actions. As for me, I was excited that the person (Nancy?) he was speaking to had to hear "Fuck you Nancy" over the phone. Mission accomplished. Who's the jackass now? I hope he was talking to his grandmother.

Guilt diversion is a valuable skill. That way, nothing they do is wrong, since they can sublimate their behavior and make an appropriate excuse to anyone who calls them on it.

I think it's where the expression "ignorance is bliss" comes from.

A haiku:

Ignorance is bliss,

because I can sublimate

my illegal act.