I'd consider voting for this guy.
That slightly maniacal-looking person with his head stuck out of the Armored Personnel Carrier is the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, Arturas Zoukas, or as he's known around town, Clem, and that's a Mercedes Benz he's crushing the living dogpoop out of, and I'll explain why in a moment. (You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Well, tough, I'm writing the story anyway.)
My primary function as your Popemeister, here at the All John All The Time World Church, is to spread the message of the "soothing balm of Johnism", at least, that's what they told me when they interviewed/hired me for the position. (On the AJATTWC employment application, where it asks about my "position" on my last job, I told them "prone".)
My secondary function, other than to ride roughshod over the Church mascot, my roommate, sidekick, BFF and three-times-a-week sparring partner, the Harley Dog, (you can see a picture of the great beast right over there <---, oh, sorry, --->), is to provide guidance and leadership to my flock of loyal followers, all several of them, particularly in the area of influencing, ahh, excuse me, helping them make informed decisions about the various issues that confront us all, all the days of our lives, especially the young and the restless of my flock. (In fact, when I finish this post, I'm headed over to General Hospital to visit one of my "people" who's currently under the weather; it's a minor surgery thing, she'll still be bold and beautiful when she gets out.)
Hey, did I tell you guys I have tickets to see "La Boheme" next week? No?
So there I was, minding my own Pope business, when I received this email from one of my flock of followers, not to be confused with Flock Of Seagulls, a really bad rock band from back in the '80s (actually, the band wasn't that bad, but the hairdos, yike), asking me a profound legal question (yes, your Pope is also a legal expert, holding a JP degree (Juris Poopahkis), as well as my degree from the school of Hard Knocks) that I felt had implications so profound as to compel me to answer in one of my thrice-weekly posts. (Thrice? Whoa, that's a good one.)
("La Boheme" is an opera by Puccini, okay? Soap operas, get it? Geez.)
The email, and the question it contained, came from some John guy's nephew, or at least he says he's John's nephew, although I'm sure only John's sister knows for certain, and it dealt with an obscure and little known legal tenet, commonly known as the "Are You Guys Really That Dumb?", and it requires a little background information to understand the principle.
Many years ago, back in my pre-Pope days, I had occasion to work with a gentlemen who, besides being afflicted with the social stigma of being a Minnesota Vikings fan, clung to the belief that the answer to the question "If a tree fell in the forest, and no one was around, would it make a noise?" was a resounding No. (The company we were working for had no pre-employment requirement of an IQ or any common sense; yeah, they hired me too.)
I learned this fascinating bit of information one day at lunch, when said fellow employee blurted out this amazing theory, just after asking someone to pass the salt.
"Yeah," he explained, "if there's on one in the forest, then there's no eardrums for the sound waves to bounce off of". (And at the next table, another of my fellow employees sustained an injury just then, a sprain of the muscle that allows you to roll your eyes.)
I left the company not long after that; I figured, with guys like that on your team, you're probably looking at a long, losing season.
The legal theory that John's nephew (?) asked about was along the same vein: it involved the crime of "mopery", which according to The Nephew is the "exposing of one's self to a blind person." (I had heard the word defined that way previously, but I wasn't sure that was accurate, so I looked up the definition in my New American Law Dictionary and Explainer Of Obscure Legal Theories but couldn't find it; shit, I'll just make something up; he won't know the difference.)
Where these two very obscure ideas meet is at the junction of "what, are you kidding me?" Allow me to explain. (Good luck stopping me.)
A tree falls in the forest, crashing to the ground in a great flurry of leaves, breaking limbs, snapping branches and small, furry animals, like the ebert, being violently thrown to the ground from their various nests and hiding places. The only reason that the noise attendant to such an event goes unheard is the absence of organs that can receive and interpret the sound waves, which are necessarily produced by said event. (The sound waves are produced, not the organs.) The boy genius at work there even mentioned them, thereby validating the alternative to his theory. Duh.
In a similar vein, the exposure of one's genitalia to another person, despite the fact that the recipient of the "exposure" is a person not having the ability to see, is still a crime, based on intent; the inability of the "exposure recipient" to see and be offended by said exposure does not ameliorate the crime. The "exposer" still has his yaya hanging out, and in most precincts, that's illegal. Or at least a crime against the senses. (Think Rosie O'Donnell naked).
(Not bad for off the top of my head, huh?)
So the answer to the question of whether or not a tree falling in the forest makes noise, and whether or not it's a crime to expose yourself to a blind person, even if it is Tuesday, and maybe to the most profound question that faces us all in life, is this...
...I believe the Dodgers can still make a late season run at the NL West crown; hey, they have Kershaw, who's getting serious consideration for the NL Cy Young, they have Matt Kemp...well, never mind that now.
(You didn't really think I was going to give you some great, profound legal insight did you? What, are you crazy, I'm a Pope, I'm not Robert Shapiro, gimme' a break.)
Oh, the mayor up at the beginning of the article? (See up.) I just used that because I liked the picture. I like Ol' Clem, too; the reason he was squashing expensive European automobiles was to put emphasis on a city ordinance banning parking in "bike lanes", which is where the ignorant douche-bag owner of the Benz parked his car.
Yeah, I like Clem; he wanted to send a message to the city's drivers: "Park in the bike lane at your peril". Then he showed his followers "the peril".
Just as your Pope will just keep trying to show all my loyal AJATTWCers out there the peril of "stupid".
Because maybe one, or even several, of the folks out there who believe in soundless falling trees, or the theory that "well, they can't see me so it's okay" or "hey, I'm important, look at my big car, I can park anywhere I want" will read one of my posts and wake up to what assholes they really are.
(Hey, Nephew Guy, I know you asked me about mopery just to have to have some fun, so that wasn't meant for you.)
You guys ever hear of a comedian named Judy Tenuta? Very funny lady; I have no idea if she's still performing or not, but when she was, she had a line she often used in her act, right after making some thoroughly outrageous statement: "Hey, it could happen."
When pigs fly.
Love and courtrooms,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
