Watermelon Balls: The Third Degree

Here's a little something from the Taipei Times a while back, which you won't find on their site. It comes from the weekly Johnny Neihu column - the irreverence and humour of which I truly appreciate. The elusive Cathy Pacific appears to be Johnny's main squeeze, and has only made this one, very special, guest appearance. (ppssssst: I heard she nearly made Johnny lose his job).

Anyway, without further ado, I present:

CATHY PACIFIC
洋漍溙


What's green all over, lives in an ivory tower, and has balls the size of watermelons?

You have three guesses.

Or, better yet, while my man Johnny is busy in the bathroom making offerings to the porcelain goddess (he read a New York Times article by Edward Wong last night, immediately took ill, and asked me to step in), allow me to elucidate on this cryptic question.

Take a look at the article "Intellectuals must be the watermelon effect's foe" in the Taipei Times (March 8, page 8). Did this piece of obnoxious, idiotic and masturbatory crap also make you projectile-vomit onto your morning paper? Good, because I did.

You really don't want to visit Neihu Mansions right now.

For those of you lucky enough to have kept your youtiao and doujiang down, let me update you on the latest theory why the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will lose the presidential election.

According to Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), professor of political science at Soochow University, the DPP will eat shit on March 22.

Not because the general public understands that their idea of governance is putting assclowns like Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) and Tu's lapdog Chuang Kuo-jung (莊國榮) in the spotlight to divert attention from incompetence elsewhere.

Not because they have been caught funnelling money from the public coffers into "private" businesses set up to provide a cushy landing pad for party VIPs.

Not the myriad other reasons why we would be disappointed - and more than a little pissed off with - the party that promised so much and delivered a lot less.

No, no, no, no, no - these reasons are far too simple and straightforward for the great and abstract mind of Professor Hsu.

Hsu has been kind and condescending enough to inform us that the real reason why the DPP is bound to bite electoral dust is because the masses are fundamentally misguided, psychologically unsound and incapable of rational analysis.

I quote: "As many believe that [KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九] has a good chance of winning the election, they are flocking to jump on the bandwagon and demonstrate their correctness... voters want to be in the winning camp to avoid the psychological consequences of losing... they deliberately ignore squabbles over the character of candidates, as these background noises would interfere with a sense of personal fulfilment."

Abso-frigging-lutely brilliant. Don't even bother pardoning my French.

If that's all the intellectual prowess and rational faculty required to become a professor of political science, then I should have tenure at Oxford and my own shaded parking spot by now.

The strange thing is that Hsu is not being original in hiding his head between his legs and licking his watermelon sized balls for comfort, all the while banishing the possibility that the DPP is responsible for its own failure from his undoubtedly brilliant mind - over-taxed as it is by concerns for the public's welfare.

Sorry, Professor Hsu - was that too long and complex a sentence for you? Let me rephrase it: It's time the DPP examined why it has let Taiwan's fledgling democracy down. It's time to pull your head out of your ass and smell the coffee. Has it ever occurred to you that the DPP is not infallible? That it should, in fact, take responsibility for its own cock-ups? Or are you really so far up shit creek that you can't see the paddle lying in your lap?

I especially like how Hsu says the public ignores mudslinging election campaigns because "the background noise would interfere with a sense of personal fulfilment." Allow me to wrestle your outsized head out of your rectum for just a moment, professor: the background noise, which you refuse to hear, is the sound of public discontent at having assclowns for politicians. Sorry if this interferes with your sense of personal fulfilment, but one day when you're all grown up and understand the meaning of responsibility, you'll thank me.

By the by, Professor Hsu, how does one go about proving that an election is won or lost on the strength of this "bandwagon effect"? I mean, while we're on the topic of rational thought and argument and all those other faculties that you seem to imagine are the sole property of the intellectual class, let me ask you this: Pray, have you conducted double blind tests on the voting patterns of the public? Though I am only a mere member of the rabble, I'd still like to see hard proof, just so I can take a leaf out of your book of "independent judgement."

Otherwise, if you are merely pulling this "bandwagon effect" out of your pie-hole as an Ah Q Consolation Prize for having cast your lot with the assclown camp - and so you can point your finger at my commoner's abilities for rational thought from the top of your lofty ivory tower (the heights of which you and your watermelon-sized balls undoubtedly require a roped wheelbarrow to climb) - then you should bloody well stay in that tower because my stiletto heels and I are waiting to make your acquaintance on all too intimate terms.

Don't get me wrong, Professor Hsu. Like Johnny, I love democracy and I support Taiwanese independence - but I don't feel inclined to excuse the real failings of the DPP, or console myself for their losses by blaiming the rabble. Regardless of whether the DPP Is fit to govern (and I'm not implying that the KMT is any better), your arguments are a tautological and obviously an attempt to assuage your pride.

By the way, I admire your attempt to appear unbiased when you say that "rational examination" will reveal "who is the best suited for office." Of course, given that you had just pissed on Ma and his "lack of ability" in the previous paragraph, you really leave alot of room for readers to discover "who" the "bested suited" candidate is.

What's the matter? You have the lam pa to call ordinary people feeble-minded but can't come out and say that you support the DPP for fear that we'll dismiss your argument for the empty tripe that it is?

And while we're on the subject of letting people make up their own mind - well, isn't that the point of having a democracy? You say that "efforts for Taiwan's democracy" should be factored into a candidate's suitability for presidency - yet you just spent, oh, some 400 words telling us that we are collectively incapable of thinking for ourselves.

You then propose a solution. We plebs are to be guided by some group you belong to called the Intellectuals' Alliance, whose members are motivated by their ability for "independent judgement" and their desire to leave room for "rational debate despite the spread of the watermelon effect."

Oh, I get it: You clever folk with PhDs, ABCs and other letters after your names have got together to form an alliance so you can do the rational thinking and "independent judgement" for us poor, misguided souls who are being led by our simple desire to be "in the winning camp" inspite of our welfare and that of our nation - and all for our benefit, I presume.

Well, thanks, professor - but for your information, that's called an oligarchy. You want me to spell that out in Braille on your ass with my stiletto heels? (Just to warn you, I charge extra for pseudo-intellectual boffins who think they're exclusively blessed with the ability to think independently just because some fluke in the educational system failed to expose the fact that they are egomaniacs who believe they know better by dint of having made their way through higher education.)

Take it from Cathy, darlings: When I went to college, I met plenty of PhDs who didn't know independent thinking from their right tit.

Need I remind you, professor, that when "independent judgement" is formed on behalf of others, it ceases to be independent. It seems to me that you fail to grasp one of the fundaments of democracy - that people will choose for themselves regardless of what others may think or say.

You can sit there and speculate on the whys and hows of others' decisions, but next time have the decency to keep your condescension in your ivory tower, hmm?

One last thing before I run off to check if Johnny has finally emptied the contents of his outraged tummy. With all due respect... actually, scratch that... with no respect at all, Professor Hsu, intellectuals like you have no place in "comfort[ing] the disappointed and frightened." The only thing that disappoints and frightens me is you.

So leave the ruddy flames of reason alone. You're likely to give yourself a third-degree burn.

Note: Cathy Pacific is a retired flight attendant with Asia the Invincible Airlines. The rest of her curriculum vitae is too long and too confronting to list here.