Ape Mind Transcripts

In what passes for ingenuity among yokels, southern racists have discovered a new stratagem for camouflaging their dislike of black people. Instead of using the slurs mostly commonly associated with bigotry (you know what they are), rednecks have taken to calling the irrational objects of their ire “Canadians” instead.

As Toronto’s National Post—an interested party—reports, “‘Canadian’ has apparently become a code word for blacks among American racists.” The practice dates as far back as 2003, when Mike Trent, a district attorney in Houston, sent an e-mail bemoaning “some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant.” (Amazingly, Trent maintains that he was unaware his comments carried any racial connotations, stating, “It would not be impossible or unusual for people from other countries to be on our juries.”)

For this laughable act of backtracking, I nominate him for the 2008 “But Some of My Best Friends Are Black” Award. But I also thank him, and his racist peers, for alerting me to this piece of racist code.

I would warn them, however, that they run the risk of “crossing the streams” with their slurs. Given the effort the right has dedicated to making “Canadian” synonymous with “waiting list” and “delayed knee-replacement-related fatalities,” they might be courting confusion among their base with this new formulation. Imagine the embarrassment of the politician who thinks he’s delivering a knock on “socialized” health care only to have his audience hear him blowing the dog-whistle of “welfare queens” instead.

Beyond his totalitarian rages and murderous anti-Semitism, Hitler was apparently an unpleasant guy to be around. As MoreIntelligentLife.com reports,

“Medical historians are unanimous that Adolf was the victim of uncontrollable flatulence…his private physician, Dr. Theo Morell, recorded in his diary that after Hitler downed a typical vegetable platter, “constipation and colossal flatulence occurred on a scale I have seldom encountered before.”

His digestive problems were a lifelong problem, worsening as he aged, but they also may have represented an instance where the cure was worse than the disease. The article states that his physician prescribed pills for the disorder containing strychnine and atropine, compounds contributing to vicious mood swings. He also administered daily amphetamine injections, cocaine eyedrops and pills derived from ground bull testicles.

German intelligence went as far as to wonder whether the doctor was a spy, but the historical record seems to support the notion that he was just an idiot. It’s hard to think of a more fitting victim for malpractice.

At the same time, it’s also tempting to wonder how much of the madness at the end of World War II was inspired by a raving, drug-fueled mania, as opposed to the alternative, a monstrous, sober mania. Some combination of the two is probably where the truth lies.

My friend, and Notre Dame Magazine editor, Kerry Temple has written an excellent short piece on Notre Dame’s lost places in the most recent issue of the magazine. The ghost of campus past really resonates, in part because of the emphasis the institution places on its history, and partially because so much of that history is gone.

I have friends who still nostalgically reference living in Grace and Flanner, dorms converted to administration buildings within the past decade. My mom has often told me about going to basketball games and pep rallies in the old Field House. I’m amazed by how much has changed on the campus since I left five years ago…a lot of it is unrecognizable. The post office is gone, as are the Stepan Center basketball courts, where I played countless games from high school through graduation, most of the soccer fields, a tailgating haven, and well, Edison and Juniper, the main streets that bisected campus.

(more…)