You remember Babar, don’t you? He was the little elephant who went to Paris and lived in an apartment with The Old Lady, who was fond of little elephants. Cut that out! The Babar books were written in a more innocent age. We are not talking about a cougar who is into bestiality, and is particularly attracted to elephants because of their long, firm trunks. No! The Old Lady is a sweet little grandmotherly type. And Babar trots through book after book, living a peaceful life except for one incident when he finds himself in a war with the rhinoceroses. How nice!

But let us return for a moment to the first page of the first Babar book. What happens? Babar’s daddy is blown away by a hunter! How do you think that made Babar feel? Lousy, to be sure, but he never takes revenge on the human species.

Until now.

Fox News has reliably reported that a Mr. Solomon Manjoro was smeared uniformly over the grass in Zimbabwe during a poaching expedition. The culprit? Babar, or a reasonable facsimile thereof!

It is unclear why Babar forsook his erstwhile tolerant attitude toward people trying to kill him and remove his tusks. It may be that he saw the video posted on YouTube showing a South African safari guide charging an elephant to the cheers of his drunken comrades. But a more likely explanation is that Babar has joined the animal mainstream. The domesticated and semi-domesticated animals are in revolt!

Roy of Siegfried and Roy was attacked by his tiger. Grizzly Adams was eaten by (surprise!) a grizzly bear. Everywhere we turn, another former friend of man has become a consumer of man.

This is great!

We now have the opportunity to rewrite all those puerile children’s stories with cute cuddly little beasties to more accurately reflect contemporary reality.  For example, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” can be rewritten to conclude with a bear feast at which Goldilocks is served to the assembled guests with an apple in her mouth. Winnie the Pooh will rend Christopher Robin limb from limb.

We can finish off the PETA people, too. We will present them with pets – carnivorous pets! Poisonous pets! The ferocious pets will probably form their own PETA organization: Pets for the Eating of Thickheaded Asses.

We can revive the circus – not the Barnum and Bailey type – the Roman type! We will not throw the Christians to the lions. We will throw the politicians to the lions!

Good idea, no?

There is danger everywhere! First we had pipe bombs, turning every plumber and tobacconist into a potential mass murderer! (OK, so the tobacconist doesn’t sell the same kind of pipe, but you must allow me a little poetic license.) Then we had handguns! Then we had assault rifles! But now? Danger lurks in the housewares department of every department store! I’m talking about pressure cookers!

Don’t get me wrong, Dear Reader. I was as nauseated as most by the atrocity at the Boston Marathon. Maybe more nauseated. I spent the lockdown in Boston sitting at the top of my staircase with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with double-ought buckshot across my knees and a 357 revolver tucked in a belly band, while my baby grandchildren huddled in a bedroom. Paranoia? Absolutely not! I was five minutes, as the carjacked Mercedes drives, from the area being searched for one of the homicidal maniacs who bombed the Marathon finish line and murdered a harmless campus cop.

But back to more serious business. Pressure cookers have now replaced assault rifles as the most fearsome inanimate objects running amok in the world today. Personally, I have always detested pressure cookers. I was always convinced that they would explode violently even when used according to the instructions in the manual. (Of course, the instructions are written in Mandarin, so following them can be an issue.  Also, everything pressure-cooked in one of those contraptions tastes like waterlogged Brussels sprouts.) But our paranoid society has now developed an anti-pressure cooker reflex.

The Detroit News reports that “Federal agents have arrested a Saudi Arabian traveler who arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with a pressure cooker.” Now, they do go on to point out that a pressure cooker was a key component of the Boston Marathon bombs, suggesting that busting Mr. Hussain Al Khawahir was not unreasonable. Maybe not. On the other hand, there were a lot of other components in the bomb. One was the remote control unit from a radio controlled toy. While I admit that I do feel a kind of terror when one of my grandchildren aims a radio controlled tractor at my ankles, I do not consider that a terrorist act.

And we are in for even more trouble. Remember when an irate journalist chucked a shoe at President Bush II? Perhaps shoes are terrorist weapons, and the next thing you know, the authorities will be making us take off our shoes at airports! Ridiculous! What? You say we already are forced to take our shoes off at airports? Ah ha!

But this is all great!

There are so many more small kitchen appliances to add to the infernal machine list! How about electric meat slicers, those digit-hungry refugees from an Edgar Alan Poe novella? How about food processors, those potential mixing devices for who knows what explosive stews? Try to fly to Dubuque with a Mixmaster for Granny’s birthday and you will find yourself face down on the floor with a shootin’ iron pressed against your neck.

However, on the plus side, as the infernal machine list grows, the amount of baggage you will need to bring with you when you travel will decline precipitously. In the not too distant future, we will all adopt the following policy, leading to merriment, titillation, revulsion, and many other rewarding emotions:

FLY NAKED!

What, Dear Reader? You do not recognize the word in the title to this post? Do not feel bad. Everything will be revealed to you in due time.

First, a hint on the etymology of the term. It is derived from the Greek. Why, you ask, is the Happy Pessimist inflicting this load of arcana on you? Don’t blame me — blame the United Nations. You know, that wise organization that has appointed Iran as the chair of the Nuclear Disarmament Conference.  The savants working on the problem of world hunger have just released a report with the UN cure for world hunger:

EAT BUGS!

This, I assure you, is not the wild raving of a delusional mind (certainly not wild raving. Delusional mind, well…). In any event the UN recommends entomophagy (from the Greek ent = ant, phagy = snarf). The learned report issued by these inhabitants of the Island of Laputa (see: Gulliver’s Travels, Book 3) waxes ecstatic about the protein and carbohydrate content of common household vermin. (When reviewing this report, I recommend that you keep in mind that your shoe is also protein.) The report points out that members of the Order Insecta are commonly eaten in several cultures, including the Cambodians (who eat tarantulas), Australian aborigines (who eat ants), and Mexicans (who eat worms and grasshoppers). As far as your interlocutor knows, however, this diet is not common in Western Civilization, or Eastern Civilization, or ANY civilization for that matter. The ingestion of creepy-crawlies (with the exception of lobsters and crabs) has heretofore been the mark of a pre-civilized society.

There have, of course, been chinks in the anti-insect culinary armor. I recall my reaction of disbelief when confronted by the menu of an otherwise delightful local Mexican restaurant with the choice of several dishes offered with and without grasshoppers. I was assured that the “with grasshoppers” version was the traditional recipe. My initial reaction was that the proprietor had come up with a clever way to unload a contaminated batch of chile peppers on his pretentious customers. But it turns out that he was dead serious.

So now, if the UN  gets its way, we will all regress to the pre-agricultural phase of human development, throw away our fly swatters and cans of RAID, and spend our free moments crawling around looking for goodies.

But this is great!

Horrible tenements will be swept clean of cockroaches and silverfish, immediately raising property values and increasing local government receipts from value-based property taxes.  The formerly revolting properties will also attract a much better class of tenants, accelerating gentrification.

The rate of inflation will decline precipitously, as purchases of lamb chops and sirloin steaks will drop like a stone. Further, our expenditures on domestic help will also decline, since leaving food scraps all over the floor will become a wonderful way to attract tonight’s dinner. What was once decried as execrable housekeeping will now be celebrated.

The only risk we face from this program is the possibility that the titans of finance and industry will attempt to corner the bug market. I can see it now: hordes of gigantic automated bug vacuums patrolling our fields and streets, shlurping up every insect in sight, then disgorging them to the packaging plant which will can them, freeze them, dry them, or otherwise process them. The packages will then appear on supermarket shelves. (Of course, in some areas, finding insects on supermarket shelves will be a familiar experience.)

Bon appetit!

The Constitution of the United States is completely out of date! Or at least thus sayeth the likes of Mayor Bloomberg, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the New York Times, to name but a few. All the Constitutional protections that have allowed us to eat and drink what we want, vote for any moron we choose, and arm ourselves against the legions of maniacs who desire our destruction and the destruction of our wives, children, grandchildren, dogs, cattle, snowmobiles and go-carts, should be kaput if we are to enter the brave new world.

A document dedicated to the absurd proposition that we know how to take care of ourselves cannot withstand this onslaught in a time in which half the people of the country pay no taxes and collect food stamps. So a new constitution will be written in the very near future.

But fear not, Dear Reader. Your interlocutor, the Happy Pessimist, has decided to turn his not inconsiderable talents to getting this show on the road. I have not completed a draft of the entire document. Nonetheless, I will share with you the preamble that I have completed, which constitutes a dramatic improvement on the one written by Gouverneur Morris, the head of the style committee of the original Constitutional Convention. Well, it’s an improvement if you believe, as do the vocal advocates of junking the present constitution, that the constitution should reflect the zeitgeist that is driving the country to total and irreversible ruin.

“PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF 2013

We the people of the United States, in order to achieve perfect material and social equality among all its citizens, do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States.

All persons deserve equality in all things, and are endowed by their government with the right to enjoy this result. Governments are instituted among men in order to achieve this worthy end.

The government of the United States shall have absolute power over all persons residing within its domain, and over all possessions of such persons. Citizens have those rights, and only those rights, which are granted to them by the beneficent government.

Past injustices, no matter how ancient, must be rectified at any cost. Those whose ancestors perpetrated these injustices, or whose ancestors were contemporaries of those perpetrators, or who have any link of consanguinity, language, or culture with those perpetrators, bear eternal guilt for the injustices, and are deserving of continual punishment through whatever mechanism the government deems appropriate.

Any person who raises himself or herself above the level of others, whether through his or her own efforts or as a consequence of the efforts of his relatives or of his or her associates, is an enemy of society. It is the role of government to reduce the level of such persons until they have exactly the same status as all others.

The only exception to the principle of equality is in the case of the servants of the people who carry out the glorious work of government, including those who have achieved elective office and those who toil in the bureaucracies which implement the laws, and those they have befriended in consideration of the many valuable gifts that they have showered upon these servants, often in the dead of night. The servants of the people and their friends are deserving of a special place in the social hierarchy, and may enact laws and regulations which provide for their well-being in any manner that they see fit, even if this results in a level of physical and social comfort which exceeds the average for the people as a whole.”

If you like this, just wait until you read my new Bill of Rights!

So, here we are in the Land of the Free in 2013! Our safety is guaranteed by the video cameras with microphones on every street corner, boldly watching all they survey to spot malefactors of greater or lesser talent plotting our demise, while simultaneously peering gently over our shoulders to be sure that we are not reading or speaking seditious thoughts. You think I exaggerate? Don’t bet on it!

It was interesting when the Homeland Security folks started their “If you see something, say something” program. See what? A guy with a beard? It was interesting when the White House set up a website for the reporting of peccadillos of Republicans. But at least these Orwellian insults were searches for something moderately concrete. Things are now at a whole new level.

The latest benefit being conferred on us by our masters is pretty retro, harking all the way back to Nazi Germany. Palm Beach county in sunny Florida is now instituting a “rat out your neighbors” program, funded by one million smackeroos of state funds. The idea is to encourage everyone to report to the police anyone who expresses hostility to the government, and might therefore constitute a danger to themselves or the community. The motivation for this advance in civil society is to prevent additional unpleasantnesses like Aurora and Newtown. County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw says “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?'” I, for one, think it is an issue, particularly if it’s two in the morning and “somebody” is clad in SWAT gear and is battering down your front door.

And who expresses hostility to the government? EVERYBODY! Listen to the casual conversations around the water cooler on April 15. Listen to the comments from the guy who just got a two-hundred-and-fifty dollar speeding ticket. If you don’t hate the government at least seventy-three times a day, you’re just not paying attention.

But this is great!

Implementing the Palm Beach Program countrywide will have enormous benefits. To begin with, we can institute fines for anti-government speech, thus reducing deficits by all levels of government. We will create millions of jobs for minions of the law who will follow up on anti-government comments (we can call them the “vhere iss your papers” squad). We can expand the program to encourage children to squeal on family members, thus augmenting their allowances.

And the program has the potential to rise to great technological heights! Remember those tens of thousands of drones hovering over your backyard barbecue? We can equip them with microphones, and monitor all those conversations. Electronic rats! Amazing!

The only flaw in this plan is that an aerospace engineer has designed a cheap device to detect drones by their engine noise.

It goes on the market in  a month or two.

I have already pre-ordered one.