T HE bylaws for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists clearly state that "When any more than 30 wackos kill themselves in a fancy-shmancy California mansion, member columnists are obligated to devote an entire column to same." Space, not suicide,
is the final frontierThis is a stupid rule passed on the third or fourth day of the annual columnists' convention when, frankly, everyone was too liquored up to know better. I'm now beginning to get a little worried about some of the other rules we instituted, like "Any columnist who lives in the first state to allow marriages between same genders, different species or small electric appliances shall buy every other columnist in the society a Lexus automobile or provide free airfare to and lodging within the columnist's home state, especially if that state turns out to be, say, Hawaii, for instance."
I have no independent recollection of voting on that resolution. And in fact, I'm pretty sure I was in a deep, self-induced nap at the time. Those rascals.
Anyway, I really don't have anything significant to say about the designer death of 39 computer nuts. Some have blamed the Internet and computers in general for the deaths. My experience with computers has occasionally caused me to consider homicide, but never suicide. Mainly because my death clearly wouldn't correct any software compatibility problems, while a carefully selected homicide or two might just convince those idiots designing the programs and hardware to quit fooling around and come up with computers that actually work like they are supposed to.
It is not surprising, given the arbitrary and contentious nature of computers, that the Rancho Santa Fe wackos actually thought that an alien-carrying spaceship was following the Comet Hale-Bopp. In fact, it wouldn't have been surprising if their computers told them that the comet was being trailed by Art Linkletter and the cast of "South Pacific." (By the way, last week I pointed out that developers used "hale" -- the Hawaiian word for house -- way too much, in the same manner that California developers uses the word overuse "Rancho." Then, all of a sudden, we have a bunch of people who believed in a comet named "hale" killing themselves in a "rancho"... well, you gotta admit, it's pretty weird timing. Not weird enough to launch a cult, but when I'm on, cosmically, I'm on.)
I wish I had something important and insightful to say about the alien cult suicide deal but frankly, we've mowed this lawn before. To recap: the grass always seems greener on a higher plane.
But you know, if you've always been such a total loser that if someone says kill yourself you consider it, you just know that this whole "higher plane" stuff has got to be baloney. Have you ever been right before? So why would you expect to be right this time? I mean, you just can't go through life screwing up right and left, making all the wrong calls and decisions, and suddenly expect to score a touchdown on the last play of the game.
Now, some people would say that in order to keep a vigorous and healthy human gene pool, every few years you have to have some wild-eyed psycho order everyone to kill themselves. The theory being that anyone who actually follows the orders of a person most people wouldn't even follow to a mall, probably shouldn't be reproducing anyway.
I have more compassion than that. We do have to try to help misguided souls who fall for these kinds of cosmic parlor tricks. My advice has always been, when the head of your religion and/or your personal computer technician tells you to kill yourself or others, you slap him on the snout and say, "Bad dogma! Bad dogma!"
Secondly, always open your own pudding cups.