Have you noticed the word like making its irritating permanence in our vocabulary? It is almost completely synonymous with said. Everybody sounds like a valley girl when they talk. And this bugs the hell out of me.

Among other uses, like can be used informally to indicate dialogue as reported speech, which indicates uncertainty. For example: when Angela says, “Jordan Catalano was like, ‘whatever.’ ” In this sense, we don’t really know what Jordan actually said, but it may have been “whatever.” We don’t know for sure because it’s an indefinite quote. Even if the words are actually correct, using like compromises its authenticity.

In our culture’s ongoing war over the human mind, we are continually losing these seemingly insignificant battles. Information comes from everywhere and there is so much to filter out that we often don’t. We remember what we must and store the rest as vague memory. It’s a stretch to imply that a simple misuse of a single word is the source of all our society’s crises, so naturally I’m not implying this at all. I’m identifying a symptom of an overall problem: spreading the resemblance of information is not the same as spreading information. This minor subconscious gaffe is not a source; it is an indicator. One of many. And it seeps into our society only to soften our foundation of knowledge.

Consider for a moment the last time you thought to yourself, “why are there so many idiots in this world?” Well, ponder that rhetorical question no more! I have the answer, and it’s so simple that even an idiot could have thought of it… and maybe I did! The number of idiots is increasing in direct proportion to the overall population!

Given the fact that our population continues to grow despite overwhelming scientific evidence suggesting it’s unsustainable, there is exponential possibility for future idiots. Let’s assume that only 1% of the population are idiots, which is likely a low estimation. Two centuries ago, there were about 900 million people on the planet, which works out to roughly 9 million idiots. Today there are about 7 billion, which works out to 70 million idiots! That’s a massive increase in idiocy! These idiots are everywhere, too! They aren’t restricted just to one city, like Ottawa, they’re spread out all over! They’re driving drunk on the roads, stopping in the middle of the walkway at the mall, being president of the United States… it’s idiot madness out there!

We have a predisposition to control our pet population through spaying and neutering, with the logic being that we don’t want to have stray animals running around. Imagine if we applied this same approach to people! This way we wouldn’t have stray humans all over the place, reproducing uncontrollably and being nuisances! Before you get your panties all in a bunch, by “stray humans” I do not mean homeless people. We are all nothing but strays, physically or mentally. We live on a planet with finite resources and area. We have the ability to live peacefully with each other and with nature… but we choose not to. We continue in our habitual ways, possibly due to arrogance and possibly due to ignorance, unwilling to compromise or change. Maybe we’re all idiots, some just have better disguises than others?

So I guess there’s some kind of war going on right now.

I don’t know what to make of this situation. I’m not sure exactly what my position is. I oppose war but I also oppose genocide. In order to “disarm Iraq” and remove Hussein from power, the USA and whatever allies it might have are going to jump headfirst into war.

I can’t say that I support either George Bush or Saddam Hussein’s positions. They’re both incapable of running a country and neither of them are right in any regard. When Hussein came to power, he immediately had every other rival politican executed. That’s only a little worse than buying an election like Bush did. Continued…