Author: Rick Snee

Take it from Snee: Heroes are meant to be destroyed

I scanned the news all week to find a topic to skewer. Unfortunately, all I could find were stories about the VMAs, fallen politicians and opinions on why the surge is/isn’t working. But I did notice a theme, one that is always in the news, but not always at the same time.

We embrace people for a variety of reasons as icons, emulate/support them for a bit and then dig up the dirt to bury them.

The obvious example here is Britney Spears. I’ve endured her songs in the dorms for the past four years, so I found it fitting that her career was killed not long after I graduated. And maybe most of her downfall was through her own panty-less fiascos, but the American people got tired of her after a near decade and now she’s a has-been.

Then there’s the politicians. We elect these people to office, and then wait for a scandal to get rid of them. Even now, we’re pushing primaries ahead of schedule to send Bush back to his ranch on a permanent vacation … as opposed to all the time he’s spent there so far.

Let’s not forget how high his approval rating was on September 12, 2001. Five years later, he’s no longer a hero. Is that statement incredibly simplistic? You bet. There are a million reasons we don’t like him anymore, whether those are a million illegal immigrants, a million million dollar budgetary defecit or a way overestimate million lives lost in the Iraq War. My point is that within five years of being a hero, he overstayed his welcome in the good guy light.

Heroes never last long because, although they may inspire us to become more, they remind us of our own shortcomings. We appreciate them at first, but then we look at our own lives and wonder, “Why not me?” At first, “why not me” means, “I could do that, too.” But after a while and being sexually molested by a bogus modeling school, “why not me” turns into “I’m not that great, and neither is that person.”

Going back to Britney Spears, we saw a tasty bit of jailbait that swore she was a virgin. She sang, she danced and she gave men guilty boners. Girls wanted to be like her (though I don’t know why), and boys wanted to hit her one time at least, if not once more. She didn’t have a great voice, but she had everyone’s attention. She made me believe that I, too, could be an onstage tease with snakes and back-up dancers.

Like Britney, I’m not a great singer, but people don’t want to see me in pigtails (really, handlebars). The bitch had to go down.

And go down she did, on people that I had grown to dislike for similar reasons: Justin Timberlake, Kevin Federline and Chriss Angel. They’re more celebrities that seem as mildly talented as the rest of us, but why do they get million dollar paychecks and private jets? Why do they get to sit next to Jodie Foster at awards shows when the rest of us have to kill a president for her?

So I enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude when I saw the pictures from the VMAs and read the reviews, announcing her pop tart career over. My dislike of her was vindicated: she’s not as good as me. In fact, now she’s worse than me. Hooray! The hero is dead!

President Bush? Same story, only he has no public speaking ability yet won debates for the presidency. Basically, just re-read the Britney Spears part again, but insert “invade other countries” instead of “Justin Timberlake, Kevin Federline and Chriss Angel.”

That’s how we like our heroes, dead and buried. We need them to become obscure references at parties to seem funny. We need new heroes so we can dress ourselves differently. (Can you imagine if MC Hammer still set the bar on fashion today?) Even Beowulf had to die doing what we loved him best for: killing scary monsters.

And what happens when they finally die and we’re happy again? We eulogize them as if they never did wrong. Try looking up the Nixon obituaries if you don’t believe me. And that’s the role of the hero.

Take it from Snee: 40 is not the new 30

I have a couple of announcements before launching into my usual, slanted hyperbole.

First off, I am writing a year-long column for Radford University’s Whim Internet Magazine. Titled “From the Outside,” it will feature stories from me and other alumni about our time at RU and how it has impacted our lives after graduation. If you are an RU alum, feel free to send your stories my way.

Second, if it wasn’t official already, you can Take it from Snee every Wednesday here at SeriouslyGuys. It’s my favorite way to celebrate Hump Day, and it should be yours, too.

Okay, those are out of the way. On to the rant.

I’m tired of hearing about “40 being the new 30,” “30 being the new 20” and etc. It’s bad enough that we kid ourselves into feeling younger than our actual years, but now we’re trying to justify it with euphemistic self-delusions?

If you are 40, but act like a 30-year-old, you aren’t 30 years old. You’re a 40-year-old who’s acting like a 30-year-old with bad knees and/or a bad back. Besides, what’s the difference between 30 and 40 anyway (, asked the 26-year-old)? Is there some magical transformation in those 10 years? Is it okay to impregnate teenagers at 30, but not at 40? Does hang-gliding come with an age limit? Does your hair not fall out because you feel 30?

For those playing at home, the answers are “very little,” no, no, no and “it’s not really a factor because not everyone loses their hair at 40.”

We secretly know that the idea is ridiculous: just look at “30 being the new 20.” This statement implies that it’s okay if you’re 30 and still living at home because it’s the new 20. It’s “perfectly normal” that you’re waiting for your peers to divorce so you can date people your own age for the first time since college. Your lifeguarding job is “building up a resume” while you wait for the job market to improve. Those toys you’re bidding for on e-bay are collectibles, not evidence of your virginity.

It’s, for the sake of being SFW, balderdash.

Years are nothing but numbers. They’re a unit of measurement in the fourth-dimension, which is much bigger than how we feel. Complaining about our material journey through time and space makes as much sense as complaining about the mass of your molecular structure. (Okay, so we’re worried about being fat, too.)

And sure, age runs our bodies down. And maybe with modern health practices, we don’t deteriorate as fast, but you’re still 40 years old. And that’s where the real bull puckey comes to play: instead of acknowledging our years of growth, experience and wisdom, we’re trading it in to act like self-absorbed teenagers again.

Remember how you acted as a teenager or 20-year-old? And look around at the actual 20-somethings around you. Do you really want to be like that again, or even just associated with them? And perhaps that’s why our generation doesn’t recognize a need to grow up: because you have refused to.

Like most widely-accepted relations, we’re associating two dissaparite facts and blowing them out of proportion. Age, in our case, is merely an indicator of years. While our bodies wear down with age, there is no set schedule, and it varies based on genetics and health. Unfortunately, because we are consumers, we equate age with “time to buy a new one,” whether one is a new car, trophy wife or egg salad sandwich.

Take it from Snee: Hollywood has been RAMed

At this point, 75 heroes have lent their names on The Facebook to claim their right to bear any and all arms, as afforded by the Constitution of the United States. That’s not a drastic surge from two weeks ago’s total of 71, but the Rick Snee Antidisestablishmentarian Militia picks its battles.

(Maybe a Switchblades-for-Lunchboxes Drive in front of elementary schools? Let me know.)

Today, I’d like to switch focus from our own efforts to those of an unlikely ally: Hollywood. For all of its over-the-top liberal idealism, the film studios of Lala-land have routinely put out movies that stress that all Americans have the right to bear the most “dangeous” of weapons that would place the average citizen on par with our Department of Defense.

I don’t mean movies that glamorize guns: they’re the tip of the C-4 laden iceberg. I mean movies that feature heroes welding arsenals above and beyond what the wimpy NRA can stomach.

The Astronaut Farmer
I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve heard about it, which is more than enough to praise or pan a film according to opponents of The Passion or Dogma.

Apparently Billy Bob Thornton reprises his role from Armageddon: the astronaut with some crippling flaw that prevents him from flying into space, whether its a public school education or actually being crippled. Instead of sticking with his cushy desk job (or cushy plough job), he builds a rocket capable of reaching orbit in his barn. The government, trying to hold him back, decides that civilians shouldn’t have rockets, but he builds it anyway and, presumably, goes into space.

This movie is important to our cause because an orbital rocket is really a balistic missile, minus the balistic. Billy Bob, who doesn’t take guff off of bears with bad news, has better ideas than to let The Man take away his pride and arms.

The Manhattan Project
Not only does this movie feature a reasonably hot Cynthia Nixon (the vaguely annoying/sexless redhead on Sex and the City), but also lasers, homemade nuclear bombs and a cool remote control truck.

The main character is a high school student who protests a secret government plutonium lab with his own nuclear bomb made with self-taught derring-do … and plutonium stolen from said secret lab.

This movie’s importance is dictated by arguably attractive Nixon in an article for her school paper: Paul Stevens is the first private citizen to enter the nuclear club.

Evil Dead 2
When evil is poised to usurp our bodies, what is our only viable option? Stopping said evil with a chainsaw.

Although this movie and its more popular sequel, Army of Darkness, augment Bruce Campbell’s arsenal with a sawed-off shotgun (ho-hum), the chainsaw is iconic. Sam Raimi cleverly realized that the right to bear arms includes lawn tools in place of hands, and RAM thanks him for it.

That’s only three examples out of thousands of films Hollywood has made to bolster our effort. With the Michael Bays of the world at our side, there’s no way we CAN’T win the hearts and minds of the popcorn-munching public.

UPDATE: Hollywood has very important news for us! Today is the 10 year anniversary of SkyNet blowing us all to smithereens, which is yet another reason to arm ourselves with anything at hand.

Take it from Snee: There’s nothing wrong with ‘flip-floppers’

My age group barely votes, and the most common arguement is that “there’s no one I want to vote for.” They base this on the most common political arguement since John Kerry’s failed campaign: they’re hypocrites who flip-flop. Politicians accuse each other of this, and the media looks for this evidence like it’s the Pentagon Papers. Take, for instance, The Daily Show: every weekday, Jon Stewart features a recent quote from some notable politician, and then plays video of said politician saying the opposite weeks or years earlier.

Is it too much to ask our leaders to stick to their guns year-in and year-out? After all, the government should be able to resolve all of the problems we have yet to settle after too many mojitos at Ruby Tuesday: poverty, war, taxes, race issues, abortion, time travel flaws in Back to the Future, whose round is it, global warming and so on.

What these non-voters fail to realize is that politicians are an extension of our own indecisiveness:

  • We want to catch terrorists before they kill people, but we don’t want to be monitored by the government.
  • We want cheaper oil, but don’t want to invade more oil-producing nations. And we want to drill more oil here, but we also want cleaner water and otters.
  • We want to see less poor people during our commutes, but we don’t want to pay more taxes, and killing them all is, apparently, out of the question.
  • We don’t want gays in the military or women in combat, but we had better not get drafted when recruiters can’t fill their numbers.
  • Gay sex is gross because it involves anal and oral, but (heh) we want to do that stuff with our girlfriends.
  • We want 17-year-olds to be tried and punished as adults, but we don’t want 18-year-olds to drink. (How come we don’t want any adults to be tried as minors? It’d make a great defense for teachers who have consentual sex with their students.)
  • We want our entertainment to be chock full of sex and violence, but we don’t want our children to see it. And we want to control what our children see, but we also want to work at high-profile jobs and go on vacations without them.
  • We want fast food that tastes disgustingly good, but we want it to be healthy like a home-cooked meal. On a related note, we love spicy food, but hate diarrhea.
  • Communism is evil, but so is capitalism.
  • Our president is an idiot, but is nefariously deceiving us to strip away our rights, fly planes into buildings and invade other countries.
  • We accuse the media of covert political bias … at the insistance of openly biased sources like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore and Arianna Huffington.
  • We want to know everything about our favorite celebrities … until they become political. We also want those celebrities to be normal, good people, but we also want to hear about their DUIs, bigotry and infidelity.
  • To paraphrase Chasing Amy, men want their women to be sluts in bed and virgins everywhere else. On the other hand, women want predictable sensitive men, but also want unpredicatable jerks.
  • There’s no more racism or sexism, but white men are still uncomfortable watching black male porn stars (especially with white women), and we ask questions every election like, “Is America ready for a [insert minority status here] president?” Oh, and immigrants can come to this country, but they had better speak English right away; stay out of our neighborhoods, schools and hospitals; and not take our jobs. And despite all of this, we think people who are openly racist are worse than those who look both ways before telling a joke.
  • And who can forget this everyday gem: “I think abortion is morally wrong, but I wouldn’t take away anyone’s right to it.” At the moment of personal crisis, this thought turns into, “I don’t want to have a child, but I don’t want to put it up for adoption because that will ruin his or her life.”

So of course politicians like John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton and all the others flip-flop. We do it every damn day, so how else can they win our ever changing votes?

Take it from Snee: Beliefs and science don’t mix

So I was watching the National Geograpic Channel last night, and I wound up catching a special on Atlantis.

I have nothing against people searching for mythical places. It’s this kind of dreaming that led to the eventual discovery of the actual city of Troy.

My problem is with leaps of logic that were featured on the show.

Leap #1: Atlantis can be found because Plato wrote about it as a real place. Sure, and John Milton wrote about Heaven and Hell as real places, but that doesn’t mean that we can dig our way to Hades or fly a spaceship to Heaven. And let’s not forget that, although the classic Greek and Roman thinkers were pretty smart, they weren’t always right. Cases in point: believing bees come from dead bulls and art should be censored if it doesn’t instill positive morals (Aristotle and Plato’s Republic).

The launch-point for this disasterous base jump is that Plato’s name is on it. Certain names are given carte blanche to pretty much say anything and have it interpreted as fact. For instance, when Mr. T says he pities fools, we automatically assume said fools are pitied. However, we’re ignoring the overwhelming evidence that, while they are pitied, they are not exempt from a pitiless ass-whooping. While Plato certainly stated a lot of “facts,” the proof is often lost because we don’t have YouTube videos of him contradicting himself in real life (from which no one is exempt).

Leap #2: Hieroglyphics depict a helicopter, submarine and flying saucer. Hieroglyphics are a written language that was only translated as recently as 1822. Any attempt to interpret these symbols without understanding how to read them is akin to looking for pictures in the phone book. “Look! There’s curious dots hovering over certain characters in this book! They look like spaceships over the Washington Monument! That must mean Americans got their government from space aliens!”

Leap #3: Atlanteans left evidence of their existence that we haven’t found yet. The people looking for Atlantis keep describing the ancient Atlanteans as a superintelligent race, yet they couldn’t leave a single record anywhere? Why would displaced survivors of a continent-ending catastrophe not want to leave a historic record somewhere? And if they did, why would they hide it? The answer is simple: they wouldn’t. If fourth-graders are smart enough to create time capsules, these people should have done better.

Leap #4: Aliens or displaced Atlanteans must have taught the Egyptians and Mayans how to build pyramids. This last one is pretty much veiled racism. In the mostly white, all western eyes of Atlantis hunters, brown people can’t build monumental structures out of stone. This, of course, ignores their own contributions to (read: our patent stealing for) our own culture: rockets and gunpowder, pasta, math, writing, money, and Jesus.

And what is their smoking gun on this suicide plunge? It’s a sculpture on a Mayan pyramid that depicts a slightly elongated face with a big nose and lip whiskers. Not only is it incorrect to assume all Mayans were round- and flat-faced and couldn’t grow facial hair, but it doesn’t account for the one universal presence in all cultures: bad artists. Even if we use their (ignorant) evidence, how many bad sculptures have we seen that do not capture their subjects?

It’s okay to believe in places that aren’t proven to exist. That’s the fun part of beliefs: nobody can tell you what you can or can’t believe. But beliefs are not hypotheses, theories or laws. Once you try to apply those to a belief, then you have to wonder why you believed in it in the first place. The results of such attempts result in the entertaining and often insulting leaps in logic listed above. Take it from Snee: just like women and seamen, beliefs and science don’t mix.

Take it from Snee: Fight terror with terror (and RAM!)

After two weeks, I’m proud to announce that the Rick Snee Antidisestablishmentarian Militia has really taken off. Already, 70 heroes have pledged to defend the entire Second Amendment, unlike the NRA and similar groups.

Which brings us to our first order of business: our name. Personally, I love the name, but it’s a little … how do you say? Long. It’s time to shorten that puppy down into one intimidating abbreviation. After much deliberation and some Harry Potter-inspired nominations, the group’s press name shall be RAM. (The “Snee” is silent.)

Not only is RAM shorter, but it bears double significance as an acronym that lets the nation know that our movement is a ram, beating at the gates of fear-mongering by those who would disarm us. At least until they pour hot oil on us (the use of which we also advocate).

Next up: what issues shall we tackle? After much brainstorming at my think tank (me, Johnny, Jack, Jim and Jose), I’ve realized there’s one thing I hate more than anything else: terrorism. Yes–not to risk going against the grain, but–I hate terrorists, terror and terrifying things in general unless I’m the terrible one.

If it weren’t for terrorists, we wouldn’t have to stand in lines at the airport. Lines to give them our baggage, lines to get in the terminal, lines to sit down and put our shoes back on, lines for random body cavity searches (would they just search me already?!). Lines and terrorism have to go.

And so my collegues and I have devised a plan.

Everyone knows that most violent crimes could be prevented if more people were armed. It is a proven fact that armed crime rates could hypothetically go down if there might be more weapons in the streets, potentially maybe. That’s right: I’m not afraid to use facts.

It’s time for action, and that is why we will lobby the FAA to permit all passengers to carry their constitutionally-protected arms on aircraft. No searches equals no lines. And if all passengers are armed, then terrorists will never be able to carry their weapons on board, thanks to terror. Bingo, terrorism solved. You’re welcome. Our aircraft will become the safest in the world, other than Quantas.

This plan doesn’t just apply to aircraft. Believe it or not, there’s domestic crime, too. The sure-fire way to prevent Americans from maiming each other with weapons is to guarantee their right to carry as many weapons as they want. Could bank robberies happen if anyone could walk in with a gun? Absolutely not. What about at public schools where weapons could be traded like sack lunches? Not on your life. Why live our lives with coulds when we should be living with shoulds?

Terrorism can only be prevented with more terror; armed crime can only be prevented with more arms. And those are arms that the Second Amendment and RAM will fight for.

Take it from Snee: VCDL hampers Second Amendment rights

So I read an article yesterday about some guy bringing his gun to Haborfest in Norfolk, Va. When it turned out he wasn’t a cop and didn’t intend to take his .45 and go home, the police arrested him. Since this is Virginia, the news has been greeted by armed citizens and the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who are arguing for the man’s Second Amendment rights and claim that state carrying laws trump an event’s wish to ban firearms.

I’m not going to argue for or against the man’s arrest. The gun ownership advocates will give that argument greater (or lesser) justice. My argument is against guns rights groups and their half-assed interpretation of the Second Amendment.

If you read the Second Amendment, it grants the right to bear arms–not just guns–in order to maintain a militia. The question is not whether groups like the NRA and the VCDL are endangering the rest of us by handing out guns with mortgages, but why aren’t they fighting to uphold the Second Amendment’s real meaning as the framers intended?

The whole point of the Second Amendment is to allow citizens to form militias to protect all of the other rights in our constitution should any government–foreign or domestic–attempt to take those rights away. Ignoring the fact that any repressive government would repeal the Second Amendment, rendering any gun owner unconstitutional and the NRA and VCDL moot, these arms must deter or combat essentially any standing army, including our own.

(For those already snickering, this isn’t a literal satire advocating the amputation of arms from infants. Jonathan Swift was so-o-o 262 years ago.)

Guns are not enough to stop Army Strong (even if it is an Army of One). Our individual owner’s rights should include all arms for waging war on the United States, including–but not limited to–swords, crossbows, howitzers, tanks, plastic explosives, stealth bombers and tactical nuclear warheads. Anything less would abridge my Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms for my antidisestablishmentarian militia.

(Now recruiting: the Rick Snee Antidisestablishmentarian Militia. Join our Facebook group!)

Since the NRA and VCDL focus only on guns, I can only make one of two logical assumptions about them: either 1) they’re in the pocket of anti-nukes politicians and special interest groups in order to keep us from uprising, or 2) they can’t read.

The NRA has an out, of course: they’re the National Rifle Association. However, they also advocate private ownership of handguns and shotguns, so my assumptions apply.

The VCDL has no excuse. Virginia’s citizens need every possible arm attainable to once again gloriously uprise against the wussy liberal North. No one wants another embarassing Appomattox because the Antidisestablismentarian Militia didn’t have an adequate missile shield.

It’s time to stop giving groups like the NRA and VCDL any form of legitimacy. They aren’t really fighting for our Second Amendment rights, not completely. They’re just like liberal environmental groups that want to promote hybrid cars for cleaner air, yet let the cows and their methane farts–the real culprits–live. Until they win my right to own my own fully-armed Apache attack helicopter, they’re just hogging the spotlight and accomplishing nothing for the rest of us.

Take it from Snee: Shut up about spoilers

It never fails: for every writer that posts a “spoiler” about a movie or book, there is one jerk to immediately post, “Where’s the spoiler alert???”

(To answer that question, one need only read the link, and immediately above and below the offending article.)

Spoilers don’t exist for the man-children that wait to read a certain book after an all-night book store party with a sorting hat. They exist for those that are more interested in the entire work instead of some usually trite “surprise” ending.

That’s right, I’m defending spoilers and pissing on J.K. Rowling. She’s hyped up an inevitable ending so much that she’s dared people to steal her thunder … and by thunder, I mean the typical ending of any cliche magical world where apparently all the adults are idiots and only children can save them.

Seriously, does anyone get tired of this genre of fantasy? From Peter Pan to The Neverending Story, more stories about children saving fantasy worlds get made every year than all of the Christmas movies combined (not including Christmas movies where children save the North Pole).

So the fans wonder why we spoil the ending for everyone? I’ll retort with why read the spoiler? It’s not forced on you. Hell, it’s usually locked away in the section of the Internet reserved for grown-ups and real users. If you’re such a dedicated fan, why can’t you resist ruining what might sadly be the greatest literary moment of your life?

The truth is that you can’t avoid reading spoilers because you’ve already discussed it to death on your message boards. You need to know if you’re right. And that’s the love-hate relationship with spoilers.

The ongoing argument that is called the Internet would cease to exist tomorrow if all fights were resolved today. I mean, does anyone still visit the Web site for “The Village?” No, because everyone’s seen the movie. Spoilers end arguments, and that’s bad for the Internet.

Spoilers also prove you’re right or wrong. It’s great when you’re right, but how often does that really happen?

And perhaps that’s why fans hate the more pervasive (and hilarious) spoilers: the ones posted on their chat boards. It ends their debates, possibly proves them wrong, and at the very least ruins their book.

But do spoilers really ruin the book? My argument is only if you’ve never read a non-Harry Potter book in your life, which seems to be a common trend. That’s why timing is the essence of this book’s success. Everyone’s reading again, which means they have no clue what other books are like and how much Rowling borrows from them. And it’s okay that she does that, but she’s no genius, nor are her stories thoroughly unique.

To test this, I submit this ending to show just how much Rowling cribs from others. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll tell you exactly what will happen. Snape will die a hero because you can’t invite the double-agent to family reunions (see the MI-5 Family Handbook). Harry will live, because, well, that’s what he does: he lives. That’s his schtick. Voldemort will die because he’s fighting a child. Anyone else who dies is inconsequential or already dead.

Oh, yeah: SPOILER ALERT.

Take it from Snee: Protest effectively or kindly go home


Environmental protestors struck a blow for clean air by asking others to drive their cars on “Honk If You Hate Smog Day.”
Internet radio stations struck a heavy blow to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) by broadcasting dead “air” (dead bandwidth, really). The stations are protesting a royalties hike that could effectively drive most Web stations out of business.

In other words, they gave the RIAA a preview of exactly what they want: Internet radio should either pay up or go away–not mad, just away.

This reminds me of a similar protest in the 1970s when women across the nation refused to collect paychecks to protest their income disparity with male coworkers. Instead, they stayed home and baked pies … scorn pies.

In the 1960s, African-Americans also drank from “blacks only” water fountains for a day to protest Jim Crow laws. That same decade also witnessed National Armed Forces Enlistment Day when all of the hippies signed up for infantry duty in Vietnam.

Long before that, teetotalers gave out free whiskey for a day in the 1920s, encouraging Irish and German immigrants to vote for candidates supporting Prohibition. They followed up with a similar event in the 1930s to prevent the repeal of the 18th Amendment.

Even Martin Luther used the same tactic when he encouraged Protestants everywhere to hold masses in Latin a day after posting his infamous theses.

So, of course, National Day of Silence is a good idea. Although, they ripped the name off from gay and lesbian equal rights organizations.

Take it from Snee: Radiation is radical!

Summertime is what movie studios refer to as blockbuster season. That is, when they’re not preoccupied with consuming the blood of virgins on stacks of $10,000 bills. The staple for the summer blockbuster has been superhero flicks. Courageous men and women in tights–the most courageous of outerwear–fight crime and insane Ph.D’s (most likely from universities) while preserving truth, justice and the American way.

When we think of superheroes, superpowers and origins come immediately to mind. In almost every superhero’s case, their super powers come from radiation: The Hulk, Spider-man, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four … the list goes on and on.

Even Superman can credit his superpowers to cancer. Consider this: he is powered by UV rays–much like malignant melanoma–and his superpowers diminish from exposure to the radiation from pieces of his home planet, Krypton. In the medical world, that’s called aggressive treatment. Still doubt it? Most of his radiation treatments are administered by Lex Luthor, a rival of any doctor, even House.

Finally, consider the real-life example of Lance Armstrong. As soon as he got cancer, he started winning simultaneous Tour de France races.

But do the liberal media celebrate their cancer and encourage the rest of us to follow in their footsteps? Emphatically no. They don’t want people to fight for the American way, so they use smear tactics and fear-mongering to keep us away from radiation.

The latest yellow journalism is trying to implicate cell phone radiation as the cause of bee and bird disappearances. The media doesn’t agree with the War on Animals; they wish it would go away so they can get back to their Paris Hilton coverage. Of course they’ll accuse radiation of killing animals. All this really proves is that radiation is–in itself–a superpower, and we need more of it to “disappear” the lions, tigers and bears (oh my!).

They’ve gone further by saying it can kill humans with their latest report on a woman who wears a metal net to save her brain from electromagnetic radiation. This media darling, who we’re calling the Cindy Sheehan of radiation, is supposed to be a sympathetic role model. But would the media say the same if her magic hat was made from tin foil?

Our government, however, has listened to Hollywood, and they have the right idea. Unfortunately, they’ve been giving radiation away for free to other countries since 1945. Write your congressman and ask for–nay, demand–more domestic radiation immediately!