Friday, March 04, 2016

Trumpeting One's Own Horn. Where Echidne Explains US Republican Politics to An Alien.


As I mentioned below, it is tough to write about the US politics with sarcasm and irony, when politicians themselves go on dick measuring competitions in public debates.  After all, exaggeration is one of the tricks in the sarcasm-and-irony bag, and Donald Trump stole my thunder the other night when he assured the Murkan Peeple that he, indeed, is humongously endowed down there.

Imagine trying to explain what happened in that debate to an alien from outer space, one with great intelligence and understanding of interplanetary ethics differences, but who doesn't have much knowledge about our earthly cultures and customs.

It would go something like this.  Echidne The Professor in the process of explaining:

"Here is one representation of a male human naked.  What Trump talks about is the vertical tube between the legs of the statue, the bit that floats on top of the two spherical objects:




Mr. Trump wants to reassure his voters that his vertical tube is longer (and/or wider?) than some of his critics have argued*.  This makes him well qualified as a world leader."

The alien will then ask what the functions of that tube are:  "Is it used to think deep thoughts?  Can it toss out radiation or shoot nuclear bombs?  Can it smite the enemies?"

I answer:  "No.  It is used by male humans to release liquid waste matter from the body after the liquids have gone through the digestive process which extracts what the body needs from them. The tube is also used as an insemination device in two-sex reproduction.  The male seed comes out of that tube and enters the female human's reproductive channel."

The alien will turn thoughtful, think for several minutes, sigh deeply (I assume oxygen-use by this alien).  Then it will ask: " Is the amount of liquid waste matter proportional to the size of the tube?  Is it a flammable, acid or otherwise noxious substance which can be sprayed on potential foes?  Of military use in that sense?"

My answer:  "As far as I know, the size of the tube has no correlation with the functions it has.  Small tubes and large tubes work with the same efficacy.  Possessors of large tubes do not produce more liquid waste matter or more semen."

The alien throws up what goes for its arms and shakes what can be assumed to be its head.  It asks why the size of the tube would matter at all, given that it doesn't appear to be functionally related to the job of running a powerful country.

Here Echidne gives a longer speech which is deleted here.  But the gist of it is that the length and/or girth comparisons of the tubes among male humans are linked to their competitive drive**, and that the tube, in its more stiffened form when ready for insemination,  is a synecdoche for the whole man.  The bigger the tube, the bigger the man.

But, the alien notes:  "Isn't there a female human running for the leadership of your country?  She lacks a tube.  How will she compete?"

And there you have it.




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*  I'm told by reputable sources that he uses a wheelbarrow to trundle it around.  Were he to win the presidency, the wheelbarrow would have this insignia on it:



**  An example from another large country and its gung-ho leader.  Note the Moby Dick part: