First Aid

Every now and then, I feel thankful that I'm not an idiot. Don't get me wrong, most of the time I yearn for the simple, carefree life of the halfwit. I long to relish the stupid joys of the lowest common denominator, uncomplicated by critical thinking, ulterior motives, ironic distance or simple logic. To drive my daughter straight to Disneyland and delight in the asinine, saccharine femininity represented by their Princess Fantasy Faire. To take in an adorable baby chimp without thinking through the very real possibility that it might grow up and rip someone's face off one day. To say "It's all good" and really mean it.

Being stupid is fun and relaxing. That much is obvious, and it enrages the non-stupid to no end. Just look at the Letters pages here on Salon: Filled with intelligent, tormented human beings, angry at everything under the sun, absolutely furious – livid! -- over the existence of television sets and octuplet moms on disability and fat kids and Sarah Palin and anyone insensitive to the plights of polar bears, severe allergy sufferers, the home-schooled, and, of course, intelligent, tormented, lactose-intolerant human beings like themselves.

But being an imbecile has its drawbacks. Yesterday, for example, I got an email from the IRS. Apparently the IRS needs more information from me -- including my social security number, which they seem to have misplaced. That's understandable, really. The IRS is huge, their office is probably a wreck. Anyway, I have just 12 hours to fill out my tax refund claim form, but my correspondence must remain confidential and "must not be disclosed by anyone other than the intended recipient." I think that means don't tell your accountant about this, because she might not realize that the IRS handles much of its business through email, and sometimes refers to taxpaying citizens as, simply, 'Rabbit.'"

The truth is, I wouldn't have to be that much stupider than I am now to fill out that form and send it back. Instead, I just feel really glad that I'm not a complete moron.

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Last week, I put the 2009 Continuous Integration poll online. However, at one point, I started to notice some major irregularities in the voting patterns - in short, some unscrupulous voters where apparently attempting to skew the results in their...

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