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The 4th of July. “Independence Day.” “The Big Easy.” The day the entire planet gets together to put aside our differences and bond over our common love of fireworks and professional baseball. It’s here again, just as we all expected it to be and, as usual, it fills the heart of every man, woman and child with patriotic warmth and togetherness.
Now, we all know what rituals we are supposed to engage in: “Oohing” at fireworks, enjoying barbecues, hoping your hot neighbor-lady gets drunk enough to have sex with you, but no one really knows why. It’s true. The real history behind Independence Day is a complete mystery, lost forever to the ages in a whirlwind of lust, hot dogs and unwarranted restraining orders. Sure, there are rumors as to the origins of Independence Day, but we may never really know the truth. Much like showering and wearing pants in church, Independence Day is one of many practices that people regularly engage in without having the slightest idea of Why.
Well, never being one for mysteries, I took it upon myself to clear up this whole confusing ordeal once and for all. I’m here to expose the truth behind Independence Day. I dug deep, folks. I hit every library, museum and strip club in the entire East Coast and I’ve emerged covered in equal parts truth and body glitter to share with you my discoveries. Here, for the first time ever, I’ve assembled all the facts and figures to give you the road to Independence Day.

1765



-Taxation Occurs, Very Little Representation is Involved- Great Britain, who at this point still controls America, decides to set up the Stamp and Quartering Acts, a series of taxes on the American people who refuse to pay on the grounds that they had no say in the voting process that led to the creation and enforcing of these taxes. Adding insult to injury, GB adds the first of many unfair Townshend Acts, (named for harmless, family-friendly comedian Robert Townsend and yet, somewhat oddly, spelled wrong). As a result of the unfair taxation, the colonists famously coined the rallying cry “You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”



1770



-Boston Massacre- A confrontation between British troops and Colonists erupts leading to the death of five (5) fucking people. The first death, that of black Crispus Attucks, (who was really just trying to avoid actual slavery), is regarded as the first casualty in the colonists’s struggle for independence. This is also regarded as the first in a long standing tradition whereby a black man has to suffer the unfortunate results of and put up with a bunch of stupid white guy bullshit.



1773



-Tea Act- The Tea Act is passed and this is a really huge deal. Great Britain knows how much the colonists love Tea so they charge them exorbitant sums. This is, for some reason, not capitalism.



-December- Bostonians throw a boatload of Tea overboard into the water in what is known as The Boston Tea Party. Now no one has Tea. (America’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills are not quite fully developed). While the giddy Bostonians stared out at the sinking, ruined Tea, grinning triumphantly, one standoffish colonist, Stanley, is heard to ask “Why didn’t we just take the tea? Then we’d have it.” After a thoughtful pause, he is thrown overboard.

1774



-First Continental Congress- The FCC is formed with the intention of peacefully and reasonably stopping Great Britain.



1775



-Nevermind.- About five months later, Revolution happens all up in Britain’s shit. The Continental Army is formed with George Washington as its head lunatic.



1776



-Common Sense Thomas Paine’s Common Sense becomes an instant bestseller and makes a strong case for total Independence that reaches just about every colonist. His follow-up, Common Cents, a series of tasteful photographs of loose change, does not enjoy a similar success.

-July 4th- We’re finally independent! Oh… Oh we’re not? Oh, okay, the Continental Congress just approves the Declaration of Independence.
(This can’t honestly be what we’re celebrating. There’s no way, right? Of course not. We’re gonna go ahead and keep moving.)



-August 2nd- We’re finally independent! Oh. Not yet? Okay.
The Constitution is just Signed.
-August 3rd - The Constitution is just Sealed.
-August 4th - The Constitution is just Delivered.



-September 9th- “United States of America” is chosen as the country’s name, just narrowly beating out “GreatBritainSucksburg” and “Titslyvania.”



-December 5th- The First American College Fraternity is formed.



-December 6th- Collar-popping, barbed wire tattoos and date-rape invented.



-December 25th- To celebrate Christmas, George Washington sails across the Delaware River and slaughters a bunch of Hessian mercenaries.

1781



-Fuck it!- Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. They didn’t even want American in the first place. They heard it was full of skanks anyway and said that we can keep it.



1783



-September 3rd- We’re finally independent? American Independence is secured.
(Still no?)



1788



-June 21st- US Constitution Ratified.
(That’s it then, right? We’re official now? Let’s say ‘yes.’ June 21st, 1788. A day that will live in WhoGivesAShitfamy.)



1789



-Here Come Da Prez- George Washington becomes the first white President of the United States.

Oh, son of a bitch, that’s everything, isn’t it?
So… So, there you have it, I guess. Apparently, every 4th of July, we are asked to remember the Declaration of Independence being approved, even though it wasn’t actually signed for another month, even though we’d already unofficially “declared our independence” by murdering the shit out of a bunch of British troops a year earlier, and even though we wouldn’t even technically win that war for another 7 years, July 4th is where it’s at.
Also fireworks.
Fireworks, as you probably know, are the Iroquois symbol for arbitrarily selecting a day to represent the formation of an entire country in the hopes that the people celebrating the holiday won’t bother doing any research, (it’s a fairly complex language).

If you’ve been wondering why some posts on this blog have seemed thin and phoned in lately, I’ve got some answers for you–unless you’re talking about Gladstone’s posts; I don’t know what’s wrong with that guy.

But on the off chance you’ve sensed a little haste in my posts as of late, like calling a koi pond a coy pond, or referring to the Holocaust as if it didn’t happen, then you’ll be happy to know that I’m not off my game; I’ve just been hauling boxes of all my worldly possessions up three flights in order to move into my brand new Los Angeles apartment, complete with famousness guarantees and a self-service cocaine bar (currently understocked).

Why the move? Well, to be honest, a number of star-crossed romances went south and a healthy percentage of the San Diego Mormon population wanted me out. And you don’t say ‘no’ to a mob of guys with pitchforks and magic underwear.

But even though I’ve been a Hollywood celebrity for a whole 48 hours now, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m nothing more than a small-town kid lost in the Big City. So I thought it’d be worth our while to get to know Los Angeles the only way a Blogger knows how: Googling.

Join me, won’t you, for a brief walking tour of the City Of Angels? Except instead of walking we’ll be sitting on our fat asses, and instead of Meg Ryan riding a bike with her eyes closed and getting hit by a truck…actually, we’ll keep that part.

Los Angeles: Portrait Of A City In Google News Headlines

THE HEADLINE: Oh My, Mini Me

The Gist: Verne Troyer, soon to be known as Oscar Winner Verne Troyer for his stunning performance in The Love Guru, is sexually functional. Who knew? This lady, who videotaped their sex and has made the tape available through TMZ.com

What Can We Learn? That Hollywood can be as cruel as she is generous. And that Verne Troyer has a massive penis. Seriously, he’s shaped like a gavel.

Overall Impression: I’ll have to start having sex in an EMP suit when I’m famous.

How Much It Makes Me Want To Live in L.A.: A lot. Where there’s sex tapes, there’s sex, and me having it.

THE HEADLINE: A Need For Beer

The Gist: An old woman drove her car through the front window of a liquor store in Long Beach, then got out of the car, went to the coolers, and attempted to purchase a six-pack of Bud Light.

What Can We Learn? Los Angeles is a city on the move. We like our beer domestic, our store windows out of the fucking way, and our elderly incarcerated on $15,000 bail.

Overall Impression: As long as I maintain my habit of only drinking alcohol poured down the length of a Corinthian leather chaise lounge, I think I’m in the clear.

How Much It Makes Me Want To Live in L.A.: Somewhat. I don’t care for flying cars, but I love brass, and this lady’s got it in spades.

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Like many of you, I took a break from the lavish penthouse parties that are my workaday routine to jaunt to my local imax and see Wall-E this weekend.

And I’m here—at least textually—to tell you that it’s not only a wonder of computer graphics, but also a film that dares to stand for something. Wall-E shines some much-needed light and compassion on a largely unexplored sphere of human existence: that of the elderly gay man.

For years, the elderly gay man has been a ghost, a myth, a tale told to disturbed children. We’ve tried to pretend they aren’t out there, puttering around their one-bedroom apartments in tasteful sweater vests.

But let me tell you something: that flamboyant ball of styled hair and liberal sensibilities you see walking down the streets of Hillcrest today is going to get old one day. And then, like many elderly gay men, he’ll spend his days not bothering people, eating breakfast at curbside cafes, and occasionally meeting for sex at big unmarked warehouses downtown.

Which brings us to Wall-E. Naturally, the Nazis over at Disney forced Pixar to subvert their original ideas with an exotic setting and thinly-veiled symbology, but the subtext is clear.

Our story centers on Wall-E, the titular, elderly gay robot. He’s spent seven hundred years collecting interesting trinkets, fastidiously organizing anything that’s out of place, and singing along to old tapes of Hello Dolly.

We can find out a little more about him by analyzing the trailer:

In the opening, we see him helpfully correcting a stranger’s fashion faux pax (notice he never leaves the house without a spare light bulb), and fretfully righting an out-of-place letter “R.”

Next, they drive the point home by showing us his interaction with a cockroach. He shrieks upon seeing it, stamps on it, and then gingerly sighs with remorse for having killed the poor dear. Finding it somehow alive, he feels chagrined rather than pleased, and icily ushers it indoors, where it won’t muss up his koi pond or Japanese water bridge.

They cut away just before he recites an Oscar Wilde quip on the transience of life.

Then we see, in quick succession, the facets of existence that comprise the life of an elderly gay man: a befuddled lack of directional sense, a distrust of tools, curious fascination with women’s undergarments, failure at traditional sports and games, love of shiny things, and, finally, an illogical fear of massive explosions.

In the end, Wall-E just wants his way of life understood and respected. As he infiltrates the world of unfashionably obese straights and tinkers with his bonsai, he asks only that we treat him with the kindness he affords us. Don’t judge, he seems to twitter, gently clasping his robot hands.

Bravo, Pixar, for sharing with us a unique and stunning vision of the life of an aging gay.

NEXT–Eve: Fag hag or post-op transsexual?

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael is moving heavy boxes as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

I strolled into work on Monday morning, settled into my swivel chair, turned on my computer and started reading through my morning email. (Cracked pays me VERY generously for my time, but they refuse to comp me for my private jet which, as you can probably imagine, is getting a bit pricey to fuel up these days. As such I’ve been forced to work a day job lately to make ends meet. It’s humiliating, but that’s the price you pay to travel in style.) Things were pretty dead around the office, so I poured myself another cup of coffee, pointed my web browser to Cracked.com and got totally psyched to read the first feature article of the week, The 10 Most Delicious-Looking Sandwiches From 80s Movies. Needless to say I was caught completely off guard when this came up on my screen:

Egad, man! I’d been Websensed!

In its own words, Websense is an “industry-leading web filtering solution” that “improves productivity, reduces legal liability, and optimizes the use of IT resources” with “pass-through filtering technology,” “dynamic protocol management” and “industry-leading reporting tools.” I’m sure that means something to upper management types with yachts and PowerPoint presentations and fancy shirts that actually have buttons on them, but what does it all mean to ME, the average employee who just wants to play some Flash games, read some fart jokes and watch some IcySpicyLeoncie videos on the clock?

Let me sum it all up for you in a nutshell: It means “Websense sucks.”

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As a rule, none of the Cracked bloggers talk at great length about themselves. Sure we add a few touches here and there to make certain articles funnier or more relatable, but these items are almost always exaggerated, if not outright fictions. For example, reading many of Dan’s posts, you wouldn’t picture him as an elderly Chinese woman, which he most assuredly is. This policy was put in place long ago by our editors, partly to keep the blog relevant to as wide an audience as possible, and also partly due to a healthy fear of the stalkers and readers with lurking-themed criminal records who realistically make up the bulk of said audience.

As a consequence, most of our regular readers won’t be aware of the fact that I’m Canadian, and Cracked.com’s official “Overseas Correspondent.” The reason I don’t talk about it much is because it honestly isn’t that amusing. It turns out that all of the funny Canadian jokes have already been told, and in retrospect, they weren’t that funny to begin with, e.g, we all say “aboot,” we’re all unfailingly polite, and we all live in igloos, hur hur hur. Also, we unnecessarily add ‘U’s to perfectly good words like colour, neighbour and couck-sucker.

I bring up my shameful northern heritage today because it’s Canada Day, our nation’s birthday. Canada Day is just like your Independence Day, except it’s about 3 days earlier, and we never had a movie made about it where Bill Pullman plays the President. (Nice one, Hollywood.) So, because I’ve been drunk all weekend and don’t know what else is going on in the world, and also to further Americo-Canadio relations on the Internet, here I present several facts about our country, which as far as I know, are basically correct:

___

Canada became a country in 1867 when we filled in the proper forms with the British government.

Our national animal is the beaver. It was chosen as a symbol of our country’s glory for its ability to soar majestically over the landscape on its wide tail.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Canada’s national police force, which along with providing basic local law enforcement duties, also fulfills similar roles to all those American agencies with the letters, like the FBI, DEA and TGI Friday’s.

Due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis, and our northern latitude, during the winter months Canada actually travels backwards in time several days.

The Canadian accent is actually much milder than most Americans imagine, and many Canadians live and work amongst Americans undetected, constantly gathering hair samples.

Yes, hockey is still quite a big deal up here. You should really give it a chance sometime. It’s fast paced and hard-hitting and oh fuck it… I can’t do it any more. Hockey sucks. We admit it.

You can not catch HIV from sitting on a Canadian.

Re: hockey. I’m not kidding. This past season I watched almost no hockey, and it was great. You know what’s better than watching hockey for three hours? Fucking anything.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy, which technically means we have to obey the Queen if she orders us to do something. It’s mainly a symbolic thing however, as she rarely exercises the privilege - the last time being in 1978 when she ordered us to execute Gordon Lightfoot.

Measured by landmass, Canada is the second most obese country in the world, after Russia.

The name Canada is derived from the native word ‘Kanata,’ meaning ‘village.’ This name was chosen over the protests of early explorer John Shortcock, who wanting to name it after his wife, lobbied strongly for the name “Mrs. Shortcockland.”

The thing is we’re just no good at sports that involve balls. Football, baseball, soccer, golf, you name it, we suck at it. Anything involving something vaguely spherical in fact. Hot Air Ballooning? Don’t even fucking talk to me about Hot Air Ballooning.

Canada is the home of many great inventions, like the electric light bulb, the television, the telephone, and intellectual property theft.

Canada has the world’s largest coastline.

Canada has the world’s highest percentage of schoolchildren who know which country has the world’s largest coastline.

Ever since I saw the flickering blue form of Princess Leia plea for help from an aging and wizened Jedi hermit, I’ve wanted two things above all else: hologram technology, and to bang Princess Leia. And thanks to exciting technological breakthroughs from our friends over in India, I could accomplish at least one of those goals as early as 2010.

And as for my less savory ambition, who knows? I mean, Carrie Fischer’s career isn’t going so well, I’ve got this whole blogger thing, and by 2010 she could well be in the throes of early onset dementia.

As you may have deduced, I’m talking about holograms. Not mirrors, not 3-D goggles, not that old Sega arcade game that looked kind of 3-D, cost a whole freaking dollar, and took up the space of three Killer Instinct 2 consoles. Actual holograms.

According to the article (which is conspicuously absent of any images, videos, or science fiction references), the 3-D imaging handsets will be able to project free standing holographic environments and photos that you’ll be able to rotate, move through, and dissect. The pornographic possibilities alone are life-changing.

But I’m trying not to get too excited. Frankly, I’m used to the thought of holograms being made of blue-tinted scan lines, and “revolutionary technological breakthroughs” ending up being gay scooters.

But there are reasons to be hopeful. The company behind the project, Infosys, is a huge technology conglomerate in India known as “the Taj Mahal of training engineers,” which is kind of creepy considering the Taj Mahal is a building for storing dead people.

Plus, their headquarters looks like this:

If sci-fi-caliber holographic technology is going to enter our world, I’m fairly certain it will be via a glass pyramid made of diamonds fronting two triangular pools being constantly raked by indentured servants.

The Infosys people promise that the images will be high quality, without loss, and that the handsets will be able to capture 3-D images as well.

Imagine it: every time one of your friends snaps a shitty picture of you on their cell phone, it will be instantly transformed into a perfect, rotatable hologram. Yes.

The article also mentions applications such as analyzing crash sites, helping medical students practice surgery, blah blah blah, and GAMING.

I’m sure at first it’ll just be flash games, like moving one 3-D block back and forth across a gray field. But by the time we get to the HoloSet 8, I’m hoping for full mindlink and the ability to psi-blast minions on no less than four dimensional axes.

So I put it to you, Cracked Blog readers. What’s the first thing you’ll do after unwrapping your very own holographic handset?

And don’t say videos of Carrie Fischer; I don’t want a bunch of copycats slowing up my downloads.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael is relocating his life, home, and Those Aren’t Muskets!

When I told some of my Cracked cohorts that this week’s HBN was going to be about Will Smith, I was met with much shock and alarm:

“I LOVE Will Smith,” DOB proclaimed, while attempting to spray a six pack tan line onto his abdomen.

Mikey Swaim agreed. “Will Smith makes me forget I hate all Black people,” he said.

Chris Buckholz had a slightly different take: “Dammit, Gladstone! Who the hell gave you my phone number?”

I’ll be the first to admit that Will Smith is not particularly hateable. But HBN is a harsh mistress. Each day I try to fill this world with a little more love and compassion, but HBN is there, staring at me with it’s bullwhip, full body leather, and 6 inch fetish heels, demanding that I spew venom online. And me —tied up and fitted with gag ball— just can’t refuse. Actually, that doesn’t work at all. “Harsh mistress” is not a very good metaphor.

HBN is more like a drunken, cocktail waitress offering quick gratification with a minimum of effort. Yeah, that’s better. So sorry, Will. I didn’t have to do it, but this interview of yours is the equivalent of Mandy at the Hi Lite bar writing her phone number on the back of the check. Watch it after the jump.

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I got Shaquille O’Neal’s phone call at about three in the morning. I knew the call was coming, so I was already awake. I knew exactly what this was about.
“Statch,” he said as soon I hit “answer” on my cellphone, “I need your help.” He didn’t even give me a chance to say “hello.”
“I did something stupid, Statch. Something really stupid.” He was weeping.
“I know, Shaq, and if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure the whole world knows at this point.”

“You gotta help me, Statch, you gotta tell me what to do.” ‘Statch’ is sort of a nickname, by the way. Years ago, I was a fairly successful underground rapper who, due to the fact that I was so young at the time, was dubbed by the rap community as ‘Statutory Rap’ or ‘Statch,’ by close friends. Shaq, as you’ve probably deduced yourself, was one of those friends.
“Tell me what to do, Statch. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Like old times.” Old times. He never would’ve even gotten himself into this mess if he’d have just listened to me in the first place.

In the early 90’s, Shaq was in a bad way. Not in terms of basketball. He was doing fine, I guess, (or as fine as a basketball player could do in the early 90’s who isn’t on the Bulls). He was in a bad way in terms of rapping. His first CD without a major label, the almost impossible-to-find Oh, Kneel Before O’Neal was a commercial and critical failure. So, Shaq did what any aspiring hip-hop artist did in the early nineties. He came to see me. I gave him credit for having the good sense to choose me as his mentor. He could have gone to see any of the mainstream MC’s, but he chose me, (while not the most commercially accepted rapper, I was the undisputed Archbishop of hip-hop to the underground scene), because integrity was important to him.
“Teach me, Statutory Rap, Sir,” he said at our first meeting. He was so nervous. And sweaty. Jesus Christ. “Teach me how to rap.” I was impressed by his passion, his dedication and his inability to shoot foul shots. It was a character flaw we both shared.
“Alright, Shaq. On the condition that you do exactly as I say, I will help you.” Needless to say, Shaq agreed.
Now, I don’t like to brag and I don’t want to go into the exact details of what I did, but I’ll let history do the talking on this one. Shaq’s first mainstream album, Shaq Diesel, the one he recorded with me, went double platinum. While the albums that followed didn’t have quite as much commercial success, the hip-hop community was in agreement that Shaq was improving as a rapper each and every year, due in no small part to his Sensei, Statutory Rap.

Around 1998, Shaq started getting cocky.
“Let me get into freestyle battles,” he’d beg me.
“You’re not ready, Shaq. I’ll tell you when you’re ready. When the time is right, you’ll feel it. And I’ll tell you.” He also was getting more assertive with his lyrical content. In the past, he’d write a line and if it was good we kept it, and if it was retarded we cut it. This, as far as I know, is a good strategy. By 1998, Shaq thought he was all grown up. I remember him trying to push this “Tell me how my ass taste” line for about eight months. He was just crazy about it. Motherfucker wanted to name his next album either Ass-sparagus or 12 Recipes for My Ass (And Accompanying Wines). When he showed me a sheet of lyrics for a new song he was working on, it almost always contained some variation of ass-eating.
“Shaq, this won’t do,” I’d tell him. “I don’t think the image of some other guy eating your butt is one that you’d want to promote. Hip-hop is about a lot of things. Male-on-male ass-chomping is one of the things that can only really be used sparingly. Or not at all. Not at all, in your case. No one wants images of Scotty Pippen ’sucking on a Shaq-Ass-Snack.’”

“No, but he’s eatin’ it because he lost. Like ‘Eat my dust, sucka.’ Except it’s my butt.”
“I know what you think you’re saying, ‘Quille, but it just isn’t coming across. Moving on, you’re talking about Biggie way, way too much. It’s disrespectful to drop his name every other word. And I think, in the long run, it’s just causing more problems for you in terms of clarity. Here you’re saying you’re ‘not as good as Biggie,’ and later on you switch to saying that you are Biggie. You say ‘Shaq, A.K.A. B.I.G.’, which, in addition to being in direct conflict with what you said earlier, just involves way too much spelling. Like, more spelling than you’d ever want to do in a rap song.”
“You got it all wrong, Statch. I’m not saying I’m Biggie, I’m just saying that I am big. I just wanted to spell it out…Because I’m so big.”
“Right, I know, you want the people to know that you’re literally very big…But when you nickname yourself Biggie and B.I.G. right after you finish praising a dead rapper, whose name happens to be B.I.G…well, do I really need to keep talking?” I did. “Do you understand how that might be confusing to some people?”

It was that discussion, the discussion about ass-tasting and Biggie dropping that caused a wound in our relationship that never fully healed and, eventually, led to my very public firing. He’d gotten too big for me, it would seem.
“Whatever you do,” I told him the day I cleaned out my desk, “don’t second-guess me on that ass-eating thing. I know what I’m talking about. Also, don’t ever try to freestyle. And certainly don’t dance awkwardly while you do it. Also, promise me you won’t still be making fun of Patrick Ewing four years after he retires.” I have a real knack for giving oddly specific advice.

And now, here we are. Ten years after my unceremonious departure from the rap super-duo that was Statch and Shaq, he comes begging to me to help him out. I hung up the phone, told him I’d think about it and post my answer on my Cracked Column today. So here goes.

To be honest, Quille, there’s nothing I can do for you. Just look at yourself in that video. There hasn’t been a bigger sports star falling this hard and this far since Secretariat got drunk and shouted the n-word at the 1996 White House Press Correspondent’s Dinner.

This is a huge loss for you, Shaq, and it ends up being a huge win for Kobe. By not responding, Kobe looks like the bigger and better man. Do you know how remarkable that is? Kobe Bryant’s a monster. Kobe Bryant, in all likelihood, probably murdered a guy or two. Kobe Bryant is a man who barely - and I mean barely - beat rape charges. (Seriously, who would have thought Paul Pierce would be harder to beat than rape charges?) You called out Kobe, (reeking of a fresh rape trial), and Kobe still manages to look like a real class act in this whole situation. So, between your colossal screw up and your refusal to take my very sound advice, I’m afraid you’re on your own. I’m washing my hands of this whole ordeal and, as the Archbishop of Hip-Hop, I am hereby excommunicating you from the hip-hop community.

Today, I’ve decided to go ahead and do what every would-be and established comedian ought to be doing and pay respects to the late and brilliant George Carlin. This can go down one of two ways: you can either skip the videos below this paragraph and read it like any old post, or go ahead and click play on the one to the left to listen to the audio version of the 7 words you can’t say on the internet, which I felt compelled to make if only to stay true to the format of Carlin’s original 7 Words You Can’t Say on Television (conveniently placed directly to the right). Obviously both contain NSFW language, so if you’re at work, reading’s probably your best bet.

Here’s to you, George.

7 Words You Can’t Say on the Internet (Without Starting a Flame War)
I love the Internet…it’s my teacher, my job, my lover with a thousand vaginas…so I want to talk about the Internet, and especially words on the Internet. Because besides pictures, movies, numbers, sounds, and flash animations of people dancing in silhouette about their APR, words are all we really have on the Internet.

We use them to tell people how we feel–usually about them–we use them to converse with people from all over the world about why their country is so shitty, and in general, we use whatever words we want. It’s liberating, right? “Fuck this!” “Gayyyyy.” Posts are padded with pricks and forums are filled with fucks. Not literally of course, that would require a lot of video embed.

But we say what we want, don’t we? We say things you can’t say on TV. Things George Carlin only said offstage, and that’s saying something. And we start to think that we can say anything, because really, who cares? It’s the motherfucking Internet. It’s not like school, not like the Internet can go “Hey! Who said that? Which one of you little snots called me a bowl of menstrual soup?”

BUT…there are those words. Those words that almost guarantee you’re going to spend the next eight hours getting death threats in your private messages folder. Things you say out of anger, when you’ve spent your lunch hour systematically deconstructing the arguments of a 14-year-old fuck who thinks he knows so goddamn much about the Spiderman mythos.

So unless you get off on hitting refresh all day, then there are words that you kind of…stop using on the Internet. Because let’s face it: unless you’re browsing through pornography, and that’s only about sixty percent of the time, there’s still a bare level of human decency that most people seem to expect. And there are seven words you just can’t post without risking becoming the one-man figurehead of the losing side of a flame war. You want to know what they are?

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In an article in Time magazine last week, a high school principle in a small town explained his school’s high pregnancy by saying that a group of girls had made a pact to get pregnant together. Surprisingly, this unleashed a smidge of a media furor, of the sort that only the hint of illicit teenage sex can unleash. “Oral sex amongst teens drops in popularity” the headlines screamed, I presume. “Teen sex: More babies, less fisting” they continued, again, in my mind.

For some reason (a sudden influx of oily guys with camcorders?) the mayor of the town has reacted vociferously to the story, claiming that there is no independent evidence of a pregnancy pact. But the fact that 17 girls in a school all got pregnant within a year is undeniable. Everyone following the story is asking the same question: how else could so many teenage girls get pregnant so suddenly?

Yet a followup article by Time, backs the original story, finding more evidence of hot, taut, pre-planned teen pregnancy. Most notably, many of the girls in question were reportedly extremely happy when they heard the positive results of their pregnancy tests, and reacted with high fives, fist bumps and impromptu demonstrations of the ‘Soul’ja Boy.’

Much as it pains me to say something sensible, I have to side with the media in expressing my distaste here. I’m no prude, but I feel really uncomfortable with the concept of girls making a pact to have babies together, for any purpose other than racing them. Some have suggested that the recent film Juno and high profile teenage moms like Jamie Lynn Spears are to blame for this new found desire amongst teenage girls to get knocked up. Personally I reject that easy answer, instead choosing another, easier one: I blame the girls, for the twin crimes of being stupid and fertile.

A more grounded observer might also lay some of the blame on teenage boys, the presumed fathers of the children, and a demographic not known for being terribly mindfull of the eventual destionation(s) or effects of their sperm. (As an example, at one point during my youthful, peak years of fertility, I believe I got a golf club head cover pregnant.) Yet the articles I’ve read only mention the teenage fathers in passing. They instead focus more attention on claims by local authorities that some of the fathers were in their mid twenties, one of them possibly homeless. Yikes. Who knew there was such a thing as a homeless pedophile? How do they get on to Myspace?

If I can conclude this with some kind words and guidance (probably not), I’d like to direct a message to any teenagers who are reading this. Kids, I speak from experience: no matter what the cool kids tell you, sleeping with a homeless guy is not the way to become popular.

And for the internet enabled homeless people reading this: Dudes. Not cool. We’ve all been there, ok? We’ve all been homeless before, and we’ve all been asked by a teenage girl to impregnate her. These are all just normal aspects of growing up. But by the same token, we’ve all had to find the maturity within us to look that girl in the eye and say “What are you, a cop?”