Further Ruminations on VWP (work in progress)

Gentle Readers, this next section can be construed a being mean and nasty. So be it. I'm not pulling any punches, kids. This is the way I see it. If it makes you angry or uncomfortable, that's OK. You'll get over it. I've thought about these things at some length and some conclusions I have drawn aren't pretty.


VWP are very fond of grass. Lots and lots and lots of very green grass. It's unclear to me exactly what the purpose is for of all that nicely cropped vegetation. VWP do some darned weird things to keep that green looking, well, greeny. Some of those weird things are disastrous to birds, animals, possible VWC and the environment in general. Take spraying chemicals, for instance. OK, so the logic is there won't be any pesky weeds. There also won't be squirrels, birds, earthworms or other naturally occurring forms of life. It's beyond me why anyone in their right mind would object to dandelions or clover or whatever... Clover is pretty and dandelions are useful.* VWP use lots of gasoline cruising around on their Clean Green Lawn Tractor Machines mowing and aerating and thatching and mowing some more and fertilizing so the grass will grow more so it has to be mowed yet again. This is totally nonsensical. Grass isn't xeriscaping. It has to have all that stuff done to it plus, ya gotta water it. Just plow the stuff under, plant native plants and vegetables. At least there would be some sort of return for the gas and water usage. That makes sense. But, then again, I'm a non-VWP so I don't get it.

Very many VWP also like to appear to be "green" in their sensibilities. These folks are often the same ones referred to in the above paragraph. OK, so you're recycling paper to save the earth for your VWC. What about all the wastage and pollution from other facets of your existence. Just because you recycle paper doesn't mean that you are anything whatsoever like "green."** Perhaps you have really "gone over the top" and bought a hybrid vehicle. OK, so you aren't using tons of petroleum but where the hell do you think the electricity comes from to charge those batteries? Atomic power? Coal? Where? I'm not a rocket scientist but I know it sure as hell isn't just floating around in the aether, waiting to fill your car batteries.

VWP seem to get a real boost when they have the opportunity to advise someone who is not VW how to live their lives. We're all guilty of this to some extent, it's one of those annoying things about human nature. My observation is that the VWPs who tend to be advisers are also often VR. Some of the advice dispensed is so obnoxious that it's easy to dismiss. Other times, it's subtle, mean jabs. The obnoxious ones are totally oblivious. The subtle ones have put thought into their venom.

A seemingly odd aberration on the part of some VWP is their fondness for "The Good Old Days."*** Magazines, movies, gatherings like recreations and rendezvous, that sort of thing. It's totally beyond me why an accountant would choose to dress up like a mountain man from the 16th or 17th century and skin things. Or an attorney pretend to be a voyageur. Just thinking about what was needed to survive, day to day, wears me out. It's fatiguing to imagine those people in a mountain cabin all winter long. Or paddling a canoe miles and miles and miles on a small amount of beans and some booze. I can't believe that the wide-eyed folks wandering around oohing and aahing about hatchet throwing and soap making could possibly survive without a modern infrastructure. Maybe that's what makes the whole reminisce thing so nice. The illusory fable about The Noble Savage, Simpler Days or something. Lovely and comforting to think about with no actual burden of survival or accountability.

A particular kind of VWM enjoys a "sport" called Big Game Hunting. Calling what these people do "sport" is White Mendacity at it's most egregious. Where is the masculinity or sport in shooting a bull elk from 3 miles away using a high-powered rifle and a scope? Then paying some other person, probably an honest Redneck who thinks you're a bonehead, to dress the kill. They take the meat and hide, you get the trophy head to hang on your wall. You know why they think you're a bonehead? Because you are. You're a lazy coward. A dastardly caitiff. An unscrupulous blackguard. That Redneck you look down your nose at hunts, yup, shore nuff. But he hunts for food, up close and personal. He (or she) dresses their kill, takes it home and it feeds their family. They sell the hides for extra cash. They probably also run traplines. It's damned sure you've never walked a trapline nor removed a critter from a trap. You'd get your hands dirty. You? You hang dead animal heads on your wall and think you're a Great White Hunter. You are the ethical descendant, direct and in unbroken moral descent, of the VWP who hunted the American Bison to the edge of extinction, skinning the beasts and leaving everything else to rot. You should be ashamed of your very existence on this planet. But you're not, more's the pity.****

Some other VWP like to comfort themselves and assuage whatever passes for a conscience with membership in organizations like those "peeetuh" people.***** I have a slight acquaintance with a couple of them, to my sorrow and intellectual horror. These folks are as White as you can possibly get. There aren't a lot of them out here in the sticks, thankfully. Mostly we get the storm troopers who are stupid enough to let farm raised chinchillas loose in the middle of an upper Midwest January. (You folks better hope none of us actual people get our hands around your necks. Those poor creatures died and died horribly. You're thoughtless idiots.) Being a non-VWP who lives in the sticks, I know exactly where that beef on my table comes from. I've helped raise them, participated in slaughter and respect their lives. I have killed chickens and helped slaughter hogs. Don't talk to me about cattle being intelligent, compassionate beings. Your VWC's gerbil has more sense than a cow. Have you lost all sense of perspective? Are you totally loony? You've obviously never in your life had any sort of an encounter with a real, live bovine, swine or fowl. (Cattle aren't intelligent nor are they compassionate, you fool. Hogs are a lot better but still, they eat their piglets. Chickens are just plain old rock-stupid.) Don't babble on like you do. It labels you as a flatfoot city kid and just makes you appear absurd.

Very many VWP seem to hold pre-school education in high reverence. This is somewhat baffling to those of us who hold Jean Piaget's words dear, "Play is the work of children." Sure, our school system is a mess but I don't really fault the teachers. I hold parents and government guilty. Teachers can only work with what you send them, parents. Being VW and sending your little kid to Early Childhood Education to, hopefully, become a genius is faulty reasoning on your part. Talk to your infants, not baby talk, talk to them. Read to your kids. Let them play and get dirty or wet or bruised or whatever. They won't learn how to adequately address the real world if their only frame of reference is a protective bubble, a classroom and sanitary, spotless living conditions. I don't advocate slatternly behavior just let the poor children be children! Three year olds being forced to sit in a classroom and learn by rote? Any thinking person should know that isn't likely to work for 99% of those kids. I will point the reader to a blog here: Play is the work of Children. One VWF of my acquaintance became enraged when her children came to play at our house and, subsequently and as children do, got filthy dirty and wet. This poor unfortunate VWF hasn't spoken a word to me in the many years since that incident. It still makes me wonder.




* Dandelion wine, while not exactly commercial standard stuff, works in a pinch. Just call it a "tonic." My WCTU Gramma made dandelion wine in a crock under her kitchen work table. It was acceptable to do that because, after all, it was for medicinal purposes. Uh huh. Dandelion greens are delicious, too. Made like wilted lettuce... mmmmmmmm.
** That "green" thing bothers me. It's like religion, it's too damned easy. A sop for consciences that otherwise would be overburdened by guilt.
*** From my recollection of what my parent's told me about their lives before WW2, there wasn't such a thing as the "good Old Days." Life was tough, in many cases hand-to-mouth. I can't say how well I would do ,either, but I do have some old-timey skills that would help. It would be a start, at least. Again, though, I'm non-VWP and have a damned clear idea of just what it takes to survive. That doesn't make me better than anyone else, just more realistic, I guess.
**** I know, I know, but these "hunters" infuriate me to the point of being inarticulate.
***** If this offends any of you, I really am sorry. You need to get real, though. Death is a part of life. That's the way it is. I don't mistreat my animals but I don't delude myself with some anthropomorphic illusion of any particular animal's similarity to people. Sorry, doesn't cut it, not out here.