A Deaf Registry to Promote Harmony Among Cripples

I don’t think we should be so quick to pooh pooh this idea of registries, where certain groups of people are entered into a government data base so the rest of us can keep better track of who and where they are.

A lot of people talk about a Muslim registry. I think we should be talking about a deaf registry where all deaf people are required to sign up so we, the hearing majority, can keep better track of who and where they are. I think this could really promote harmony among different factions of cripples. Because what’s the point of these registries? The point is to make those of us who aren’t members of the group we think needs to be registered feel more secure about living among them. That way they can’t sneak up on us as easily and take us by surprise. Deaf people are like that. Any hearing person who has ever been to a party where there are a lot of deaf people knows what I mean. Deaf people are really sneaky in the sense that unlike most other cripples, they look perfectly sane and normal, unless they look insane or abnormal for some reason besides being deaf. So when deaf people are mixed in with a bunch of hearing people, I feel off-balance and awkward because I never know whom I can just step up to and talk to. And forgot about trying to figure out who’s deaf by who’s talking sign language. That guy talking sign language could be an ASL interpreter or a deaf person’s hearing brother or something. And whenever I talk to a deaf person I talk all rubber-faced, exaggerating my enunciation so as to make it easier for them to read my lips. I’m real considerate that way. But sometimes at a party full of deaf people I start talking to someone all rubber-faced and it turns out that person can hear and I feel like a real bozo. And then when I see that person over in a corner later talking in sign language with others, I’m convinced what they’re saying is, “That bozo over there was talking to me all rubber-faced.” So then I’m afraid to talk to anybody until I know for absolute sure if they’re deaf or not.

But suppose deaf people were all required to wear a government–issued identification marker of some sort, at least when they’re out mixing with hearing people. I know that would sure make me feel more secure around them and I’d be a lot more relaxed at their parties. The identification marker can be something stylish, like a nice necklace or bracelet. It doesn’t matter, just so it makes it clear to the rest of us that these people are deaf. And in the spirit of full inclusion, the deaf identification marker would have to emit a periodic sound, so as to be accessible to blind people. Because when blind people go to places where there are a lot of deaf people, I bet they’re as off-balance as me times a zillion. Because they can’t even see who’s talking sign language. So the only way for them to figure out who’s deaf is via audio cues. The audio cue can be something pleasant, like chirping birds. Actually, maybe not chirping birds, because then a blind person might be embarrassed to learn that they’ve been trying to talk to a parakeet. And that would make their insecurities about being around deaf people even worse. But if the sound is too irritating and grating, it may cause hearing cripples who aren’t blind to avoid deaf people altogether. So maybe the sound can be on a high frequency that only blind people can hear.

Man, promoting harmony among cripples sure is complicated.



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Love Crimes

A hate crime is a very specific thing. A hate crime occurs when somebody commits a crime against somebody who’s black or gay or Jewish or Muslim or whatever just because that person is black or gay or Jewish or Muslim or whatever. You can be sentenced to more time for committing a hate crime than you would be for committing a regular crime.

But a love crime is an even more specific thing. A love crime occurs when someone murders a cripple. It officially becomes a love crime if the killer claims the love defense by saying, “I really loved her/him and it broke my heart to see them all crippled up like that. So I took mercy on them and killed them.” Quite often you can be sentenced to a lot less time for committing a love crime than you would be for committing a regular crime. And it helps if the cripple you kill is a relative.

Love crimes happen all the time. In 2013, Dorothy Spourdalakis killed her 14-year-old autistic son, Alex. With the help of Alex’s caregiver, she stabbed Alex in the chest repeatedly before slitting his wrists. She claimed the love defense. She was sentenced to only four years in prison and was released last week six months early.

And she ain’t the only one. In 2009, Kim Yarbrough of Austin, Texas, put a lethal dose of prescription drugs into the feeding tube of her husband, Lloyd, who had brain damage from encephalitis. But she claimed the love defense so she was convicted of “injury to a disabled individual” and received 10 years probation. And this was in Texas, where they execute litterbugs.

And she ain’t the only one. It goes on and on and on.

The love defense seems to only apply to crimes against cripples. I don’t think anyone has ever killed a Jewish person, for example, and then said, “I really loved her/him and it broke my heart to see them all Jewed up like that. So I took mercy on them and killed them.” Good lock selling that one.

And the love defense also seems to apply only to the crime of homicide. I mean, suppose somebody commits a lesser offense against a cripple, like stealing their lawnmower. That person would get laughed out of the courtroom if they said, “I really loved her/him and it broke my heart to see them all crippled up like that. So I took mercy on them and stole their lawnmower.”

So if you ever get a hankering to commit a hate crime, you might want to play it safe and make sure your victim is a cripple. And always remember that if you want to claim the love defense, make sure you kill that cripple.



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The Proper Way to Piss Off the Riot Cops

The way things are going, it sure looks like there’s gonna be a whooooooooooooooole lotta street protesting going on in the upcoming years.

There’s gonna be a lot of scenes of tense standoffs where a frothing mob marching behind a banner encounters a line of cops wearing turtle-shell chest protectors and riot helmets. And that means things are gonna get ugly. There’s gonna be a whooooooooooole lotta skull busting going on.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s possible for protesters to piss off the riot cops without getting their skulls busted by them. Yep, protesters can have their protest cake and eat it too.

So here’s a key tip for anyone organizing a frothing mob of protesters: make sure that frothing mob includes a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooole lotta cripples. Because we still live in a world, so far, where it’s considered uncool to bust the skulls of cripples, even if they’re protesting. This causes riot cops to have existential identity crises when confronted by cripples. “If I can’t bust skulls, then what’s the point in being a riot cop? I don’t know who I am anymore!” When confronted by cripples, riot cops feel emasculated and powerless. And that really pisses them off.

So it’s vitally important to not only hustle up as many cripples as possible for a protest but also to put them all at the front of the march. But even then there’s no guarantee nobody will get their skull busted. When the riot cops can’t bust the skulls of cripples, they do the next best thing. They bust the skulls of the nearest verts (which is short for verticals, which is slang for people who can walk). I pity the poor verts standing directly behind the frontline cripples.

But there’s a way around that dilemma. Again the solution is to round up as many wheelchairs as possible. The wheelchairs don’t have to have cripples in them. As a matter of fact, it’s best if most of the wheelchairs are unoccupied. There should be a wheelchair for every protester. So if there are 10,000 protesters, 10,000 wheelchairs should be rounded up. And every protester should get in a wheelchair. That’ll really piss off the riot cops because they’ll know damn well that a lot of the protesters must be verts faking like they’re crippled. But they won’t be able to tell for sure who’s faking it and who’s not so they won’t know for sure whom to single out for a good skull busting. I realize that rounding up a shitload of wheelchairs like that can be logistically and financially prohibitive. But fortunately there are other easier ways for protesters to pretend to be crippled. They could tap a white can around or use crutches. Or they can flash a bunch of hand signals and pretend like it’s sign language.

But whatever you do, if you want your frothing mob to piss off the riot cops without getting everybody’s skull busted, don’t forget about the cripples!




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Is Katherine Hepburn a Scumbag?

So if somebody cheats and pretends their pet dog is a service dog just so they can get that dog into a public place, does that automatically make that person a scumbag?

Most moral, decent, God-fearing people would answer this question with a resounding. “Hell yes!” This is a crime against crippledom that ranks right up there with parking your car in their special parking spaces or hogging up their bathroom stalls.

Fake service dogs will eventually blow their cover. We’ve all heard stories like about a guy who got his dog into an art museum by swearing it was a service dog and then the stinkin’ mongrel went and pissed all over Rodin’s The Thinker. Real service dogs don’t do stuff like that. In order to become official service dogs, they must survive a rigorous etiquette boot camp.

The service dog fakers ruin it for the real cripples with real service dogs. And service dog faking is big business. Anybody can go online and buy a service dog vest, no questions asked. Law-abiding citizens are starting to get pretty pissed off. There’s a bill in the Colorado legislature that would impose a fine of up to $1,000 for anyone faking like their dog is a service dog.

So yeah, passing your dog off as a service dog is a scumbag thing to do. But really, aren’t there other forms of cripple impersonation that are a lot more scumbaggy? Like how about faking like you’re a make-a-wish kid? That’s the height of scumbaggery right there. I’ve never heard of an actually case of that happening but I’m sure some scumbag out there has tried it. It’s inevitable. Are those make-a-wish kids vetted at all to make sure they’re legit? They probably have to furnish a doctor’s note or something. But hell, if you can get a fake service dog vest online, you can probably get a fake doctor’s note declaring you to be an official make-a-wish kid.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending scumbags. I’m just saying that maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Take the case of an actual woman I know who confessed to me that she once committed service dog fraud. She’s a strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman. And since I just exposed her as a service dog faker, I will give her an alias so as to protect her from the mob. I’ll call her Katherine Hepburn. Anyway, one day this strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman named Katherine Hepburn was out zipping around in her wheelchair accompanied by her per Chihuahua on a leash. Katherine Hepburn passed a grocery store. Picking up groceries was on her to-do list for the day. She knew that taking the dog home and then returning to the store unaccompanied was the morally upstanding thing to do. But she also knew that since she was in a wheelchair, everyone might just assume it was a service dog. So, when faced with a weighty moral conflict, Katherine Hepburn did what millions of humans throughout the centuries have done. She said fuck it. She took the dog into the store and nobody said a word.

Now granted, she didn’t misrepresent her dog per se. It was more of a case of don’t ask don’t tell. But I ask you, does this make this strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman named Katherine Hepburn a scumbag?



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