In the last few months my favorite phrase has become “bat shit crazy” (“BSC"). I don't know why, but the phrase sings to me. It's much more descriptive than nuts, or insane or even mad as a hatter. BSC creates the image of bats flying out of someone's ears and leaving their droppings behind in place of that person’s brains. That is the best visual of crazy that I can imagine.
According to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase's origin stemmed from the earlier phrase "bats in the belfry." In the really olden days bats would inhabit the belfry of abandoned churches. Bats hate loud noises and when a church that had not been used in some time had its bell rung, the bats would quickly whirl out of the belfry making squeaky bat sounds. The only thing that was left behind was their guano.
So, when somebody said that an individual had "bats in the belfry" it meant that there was "nothing going on upstairs" (as in that person's brain). To be BATSHIT CRAZY is to take this even a step further. A person who is batshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the belfry is coated in batshit. Hence, the craziest of crazy people are BATSHIT CRAZY.
If you haven't noticed, the world has turned bat-shit crazy. It's as if we went to sleep on December 31, 2019, and woke up on January 1, 2020, in an episode of the The Twilight Zone. The usual half-hour episode has been running for nine months straight. That's a lot of episodes without a break. I really liked The Twilight Zone, but right now I could sure use anything else; even Gilligan's Island or Green Acres would be welcome.
Some would say that I am exaggerating or taking poetic license with what is going on. In response I would say that you have exchanged your brain with a labrador puppy, have cornered the market on happy pills, or are, yourself, BSC.
Just because the world has gone BSC does not mean that you have been personally infected. As a public service, I have developed six questions to see if you are. You may be wondering if the questions are scientifically based, but do not worry. I have had it reviewed by the same doctor whom Our Dear Leader looked to in order to determine if hydroxychloroquine was an efficacious treatment for the coronavirus. You know. The one who believes the government uses alien DNA in its vaccines. So there is nothing to worry about.
Here are the six questions. It's six because I had to stop somewhere and six seemed to be a good number.
DO YOU HONOR DEAD GUYS WHO OWNED SLAVES, COMMITTED TREASON AND WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THEIR COUNTRYMEN?
For this one, let me get my bias right out in front. The Confederacy was a bad thing and it lost the Civil War fair and square. It was built on the principle that it was just dandy for white people to own, sell, and rape black people. The principle equated people to baseball cards, even if most of us treated our baseball cards with more respect. Even in 1860, it did not take a learned moralist to recognize that slavery was wrong. Most Southerners knew this and threw away their collective moral compass because it was the only way they could maintain their standard of living.
Let's not forget that we fought a bloody war over the issue of slavery and that the Southerners got the crap beat out of them. We burned their crops, invaded their cities and Sherman made Georgia howl. But none of that happened before roughly a half of million Americans died. Only a madman would want to honor the men who led an army whose goal was to defend the right of white men to own, sell, and rape black people. It is almost beside the point to mention that many of these moral pygmies betrayed the oath they gave to defend the Constitution when they previously had become officers in the Union Army.
That brings us to the darling of the Confederacy: the traitor Robert E. Lee. He was a commissioned officer in the Army of the United States who had taken an oath to support the United States Constitution. He was a traitor to that oath and deserved to be executed as a traitor.
His supporters argue that he was a reluctant participant and was a foe of slavery. This is untrue. And, even if that were true, who cares if he was reluctant? That only means that he knew what he was doing was wrong. Besides, many criminals are in jail and will be for a long time for reluctantly committing a crime.
Lee was a slave owner who, after inheriting many slaves who were supposed to be freed after the death of George Washington and his wife, refused to free them. He refused to honor Washington's tradition of respecting slave families; instead, he hired them off to other plantations. He did not oppose slavery and only ruminated over the effect of slavery on its white owners, neglecting any obvious effect that slavery had on the slaves themselves. Honoring Lee is a repudiation of why the Civil War was fought and requires a forced ignorance of who he was and what the consequences of his actions actually were. He was a traitor and a cruel slave owner.
If you think he should be honored, give yourself one point..
2. DO YOU TAKE MEDICAL ADVICE FROM POLITICIANS?
Be nimble here; you’re getting a grade: Your child or parent comes to you and tells you that he has a brain tumor and that if it isn't removed, he will die. Do you:
1. Say good luck and go back to watching TV or whatever you were doing;
2. Go to youtube, find a video on how to perform do it yourself brain surgery and perform the surgery yourself [here is a link to the video]:
3. Call your favorite politician and ask them if they concur with the doctors diagnosis and will perform the surgery; or
4. Find the best damn brain surgeon you can.
Any answer other than 4 gets you one point. Can you imagine any sane person calling the White House to get the President's recommendation on how to treat brain cancer or what the appropriate treatment is? So why would it be different when dealing with medication to treat the coronavirus? I can believe the FDA, the CDC, the best doctors in the world or some guy with no medical degree. What is the sane choice?
Like I said, if you are hesitating in answering this question, give yourself one point.
3. DO YOU THINK THAT SOMEONE OTHER THAN WILT CHAMBERLAIN IS THE
GREATEST INDIVIDUAL BASKETBALL PLAYER OF ALL TIME?
This is a pet peeve of mine. Michael Jordan was an amazing and unequaled basketball player. But his personal accomplishments do not compare with those of Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain.
Wilt is the only player ever to lead the league in assists, point and rebounds. He retired 50 years ago and still holds 72 NBA records; including several that are considered unbreakable. These include averaging 22.9 rebounds for a career, 50.4 points per game in a season, scoring 100 points, 55 rebounds in a single game, scoring 65 or more points 15 times, and 50 or more points 118 times. He is one of only two players to score 20 points, grab 20 rebounds, and dish 20 assists in a single game. And then there is my personal favorite - He played in 1045 games over 13 seasons and never fouled out.
Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain
Jordan had more championships than Wilt (6 to 2). But then Wilt never had a Scottie Pippen as a teammate and Jordan did not have to play against the greatest dynasty in NBA history. Also, if championships are the key, the GOAT would definitely be Bill Russell with 11, or maybe Robert Horry with 7 across three different teams.
It's Wilt and if you don't agree give yourself one point. And now I feel better. Aren’t you glad?
4. DO YOU REFUSE TO WEAR A MASK BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE
A RIGHT TO REFUSE TO DO SO?
Let's get this right on the table immediately. Mask wearing is not about you. It's about protecting everyone with whom you come into contact. Masks don't do a great job of protecting you from exposure to the virus, but they are marvelous at limiting your ability to infect someone else. That is important considering most people who have the virus do not have any symptoms.
It's about human decency, the acknowledgement that the world does not revolve around you and the realization that we all have an obligation to protect our neighbors. It was never described better than in a tweet on June 28, 2020 by Libby Jones. It's reproduced verbatim below.
Welcome to the Freedom Cafe! We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. And, in the same spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they prefer to follow as they prepare and serve your food.
We understand that you may be used to chicken that has been cooked to 165 degrees. We do have to respect that some of our cooks may have seen a meme or a YouTube video saying that 100 degrees is sufficient, and we do not want to encroach on their beliefs. Some of our cooks may prefer to use the same utensils for multiple ingredients, including ingredients some customers are allergic to. That is a cook’s right to do so.
Some servers may wish to touch your food as they serve it. There is no reason that a healthy person with clean hands can’t touch your food. We will take their word for it that they are healthy and clean. Water temperature and detergent are highly personal choices, and we allow our dishwashing team to decide how they’d prefer to wash the silverware you will put in your mouth.
Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you’ll agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do - and especially not for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.
If you still believe you don't have to wear a mask give yourself a point.
5. DO YOU THINK THAT RACISM DOESN’T AFFECT YOU?
As a country, our greatest asset is our citizens and their brains. So why would we waste the knowledge and talent of the considerable part of our populace based on race? That would be truly stupid. As the iconic ad for the United Negro College Fund proclaimed; "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
Blacks, other than skin color, are genetically identical to whites, to Latinos, to Asians, and to every other member of the Homo Sapiens on earth. A person's intelligence is simply not related to skin color. The plain, unadulterated, uncontroverted fact is that a person’s race is irrelevant to a person’s job qualification. To reject the most qualified person for a job because of his or her race is dumb, ludicrous, rash, imbecilic, and inane. Get the point? If you don’t, you’re going to give yourself another point.
If you are sick and need to hire a brain surgeon to remove a tumor, would you hire a lesser surgeon because he was white? If you say yes, then I say that you get the result you deserve. Just ask Negan, the sociopathic villain on The Walking Dead . Even he figured out that with zombies eating through what remained of the human race, people were assets not to be wasted. If a sociopath can figure it out, why can't the rest of us?
Historically, countries that have ignored the talent of their citizens have done so at their own expense. If you want a good historical example of bad conduct, the Nazis are always available. But for the racism of the Third Reich, the Nazis may have won the Second World War. For the Nazis, their barbaric anti-Semitism was premised on their belief that Jews were a different race than Aryans.
Before the rise of the Nazis, German accomplishments in physics were the envy of the world. German scientists had discovered nuclear fission. With the rise of the Nazis and the accompanying racial purity laws, Jewish and other non-Aryan scientists were being removed from university positions. When warned that Germany's scientific supremacy was being threatened, Hitler retorted: "If the dismissal of [Jews] means the end of German science, then we will do without science for a few years."
Contrary to Hitler's protestation, Germany could not, in fact, do without science or its scientists. Jewish physicists such as Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard immigrated to the west rather than stay in Nazi Germany. A trickle turned into a flood that swept away their irreplaceable knowledge of nuclear physics. Einstein and Szilard were instrumental in convincing President Roosevelt to begin the Manhattan Project that eventually led to the building of the atom bomb.
When the Germans tried to build their own atom bomb, Hitler found that they lacked the talent because German science had been transferred to America. Hitler's anti-Semitism was, first and foremost, barbaric and immoral. The English language does not have sufficient derogatory words to describe its barbarity. That said, however, it was also stupid. Jews had fought bravely and without hesitation for Germany in the First World War and there was no reason to believe that absent the barbarity of the Third Reich they would not have happily helped build a German bomb and thus led Germany to win the Second World War. But, as Forrest Gump said, “stupid is as stupid does”.
Notwithstanding centuries of overt and then covert racism, black men and women have made a tremendous contribution to the United States. This is notwithstanding the efforts of the white government to preclude them from filing patents on their inventions and other steps to suppress or steal their inventions and accomplishments. This is notwithstanding the white government’s provision of inferior schools, greater poverty, hunger and disease.
Yet, black people have beaten the odds and saved countless lives, even of those who oppressed them. Take Charles Richard Drew (1904-1950). If you or a loved one has ever needed a blood transfusion, you have Dr. Drew to thank. As a new doctor, he refined methods for the collecting, processing, and storing of plasma. In World War II, he developed the first blood bank as well the use of bloodmobiles for the delivery of blood supplies. His efforts eventually evolved into the American Red Cross Blood Donor Service. Yes. Think about that for a moment.
His accomplishments were made despite the color of his skin. He observed that
[w]hile one must grant at once that extraordinary talent, great intellectual strength and unusual opportunity are necessary to break out of this prison of the Negro problem, we believe that the Negro in the field of physical sciences has not only opened a small passageway to the outside world, but is carving a road in many untrod areas, along which later generations will find it more easy to travel. The breaching of these walls and the laying of this road has not been, and is not easy.”
Dr. Drew is just one of the many men and women who accomplished great things despite the racism that exists. Even ignoring the ethical and moral questions that are raised from racism, it is just plain stupid.
Anyone who thinks otherwise gets a point.
6. DO YOU THINK THAT KAMALA HARRIS IS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT?
This one is really easy. Senator Harris was born in Oakland, California. But some think that because her parents were foreign born that she may not be a natural born citizen. If you agree, give yourself a point.
Senator Kamala Harris
SCORING
As in life, all points are not worth the same. You might not have figured it out, but there is one question on the test which if you received a point you are by definition BSC. That is question 2. This question tests your survival skills.
The question was what you would do if your child or parent comes to you and tells you that he has a brain tumor and that if it isn't removed, he will die. The correct answer is 4 - Go get the best doctor you can find. The wrong answers are below with a non-empirical, made up, unverified analysis of what the answers mean.
For the other questions here is the scoring and the resulting analysis. Remember that the scoring method has not been vetted by anyone who knows what they are doing. But I have talked to some people who believe that it is a good idea. So what do you have to lose?
BSC Scoring Table
To translate you score into a totally biased, unverified, and made up analysis see the table below.
I hope I have helped you in your quest to determine if you are BSC along with other parts of the world. I've enjoyed creating the test since people I know say it's the greatest test ever created. And by the way. I passed with flying colors.