Recently there's been a lot of people who oppose gay marriage, who then claim the government shouldn't be involved in regulating or defining marriage. Fine. That's a legitimate point of view, I suppose. But there are problems with using that line of reasoning to prevent gay marriage from becoming legal.

1) the first thing you need to understand is this: you don't have ownership of the word marriage. Whoever you are, whatever your little group of ideologues are, they don't OWN the word marriage. Sorry. Marriage, as a term, can be defined as lots of things. Colloquially, marriage can refer to a mixture of any two or more elements: a marriage of jazz and pop music. It can be a close union of ideas. It can be the king and queen of the same suit in a game of cards. Whatever YOUR idea of marriage is, is not the only definition for it. You don't own the word. You don't get to dictate its sole definition.

2) marriage, in the eyes of the government, is a legal agreement. It's a business contract. All the benefits legally accrued from that state-recognized contract relate to this: tax incentives, next-of-kin benefits, public assistance benefits, insurance benefits, wage benefits, consent benefits, etc. All of these are non-religious and non-specific benefits granted to individuals within the arrangement of marriage. This (and not romance, not true love, not a fairy-tale ending) is what marriage is to the state.

"You don't own the word marriage. I do." - the Mushy Pear

So keeping these two things in mind, I think it becomes obvious that "marriage" as a legal contract between individuals, recognized by the state, should be made available for everybody. Furthermore, there's no reason why the term marriage shouldn't be applied to that contract. In fact, there's a good reason why it SHOULD be: if it's going to be applied to heterosexual unions, it should be applied to all unions; separate but equal doesn't work well. Uniformity benefits everybody here, terminology-wise.

So if you think the state has no business being involved in regulating or defining marriage, that's fine. That's your choice. The solution? Don't let them define or regulate your marriage. If you don't want the state involved, how about you go to your local church/temple/mosque/basement, have your favourite holy person/parental figure pronounce you married, and be done with it. If you don't want the state involved in your relationship, don't invite them in. It's as simple as that.

Now, if you say to me, "yeah, but we want all the legal and tax benefits of marriage! We need that state-recognized contract!" Then bam, right there, you're demonstrating why marriage contracts, as offered by the state, need to be available to everybody. In a democracy, everybody gets the same legal rights under the law. Simple as that. By refusing to allow the state to extend the rights and privileges of the marriage contract to certain individuals, you are denying them the right to equality in society.

And yes, American society has a loooooong history of doing just that, but it sure don't make it just, and it don't make it right.

You know, there’s been a lot of talk in the past few decades about the wonders of nuclear power. Admittedly, less talk after the disaster in Japan killed 7 million people, but talk nonetheless. The French actually get 93% of their power from nuclear sources, and they make some of the best fried snails around. So it’s not surprising that there’s a pretty strong push these days to look for various forms of alternative energy. Nobody wants to be like the French, am I right!

Now, we could go with some other options, like solar or wind energy, but there are a few problems with those. First, they’re kind of dirty hippy power sources, and that makes me uncomfortable. We didn’t fight off the Ruskies in three different wars to let the commies win. And second, we can’t be dependent on foreign energy to meet our domestic demands. What happens when the sun decides to team up with the other celestial bodies and charge triple rates for sunlight? Not in my America.

No, there’s only one real solution here: coal. And yes, I know what you’re thinking – coal is dirty. But put it to you this way: what mineral did Superman choose to give to Lois Lane in Superman III? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t depleted uranium. It was coal. Coal is deeply embedded in the cultural and economic fabric of America.

Did you know that the United States has the greatest coal reserves in the world? We’ve got nearly twice as much as the Russians, three times as much as the Chinese, and a hundred times what the Mongolians have got. The Mongolians! You can’t beat numbers like that. Imagine a world where we don’t have to rely on Saudi oil, Canadian uranium, or Martian sunlight. Can you picture it? I know I can, and it’s a dirty, sooty world of wonders.

Now, we’re already on the right track. Coal already fuels more than 50% of all power stations in America, but I say we don’t stop there. 50% has never been “good enough” for America in the past, and we can’t let it be good enough now. We have another 250 years of coal under this great land of ours. I bet we can run through that in less than a hundred if we put our minds to it!

Basically, the choice is this: either we buy good, solid, made-in-America coal, and power our homes and businesses with patriotism, or we allow yet another industry to be outsourced to the Chinese and the Arabs. I love a good General Tso kebab as much as the next man, but Uncle Sam comes first, and he’s hungry for a hard black nugget of pure, American-grade coal.

Don’t let him starve.

America is the auto-nation. I live 20 miles from the nearest store. Not because I couldn’t have bought an apartment closer, but because driving is like the national pastime. And if there’s one thing I want to support, it’s pastimes. Driving is in our blood. We all do it, and every patriotic American loves it. It’s good for us, too. Most of the time, anyway. The only exception is handicapped parking: this corrupt and broken system is actually causing American obesity.

Did you know that most people who have handicapped stickers aren’t actually handicapped? In fact, it’s apparently the third most corrupt government program behind the postal service and the Marines. People photocopy their neighbors’ passes and stick it in their windows. Or they fake a limp and get their doctor in on the scam. It’s disgraceful.

And those who aren’t faking are just as bad. 90% of legitimate handicapped passes last year were handed out to those who had problems that were a direct result of obesity. Bad joints, difficulty walking, etc. Yes, that obesity, the one caused by laziness, overeating, and lack of exercise and self-control.

So these people are self-inducing a handicap, which then results in what. You guessed it… less exercise! Now do you see why the system is so broken? Fat folks are being given a free pass to a sedentary life-style. They’re just digging themselves deeper. Well, not literally – if they were, maybe they’d get fit.

I feel like I’m an enabler. I wouldn’t give a heroin addict a free pass for unlimited needles at VeinsRUs, so why is my government helping the great waddling unwashed in their continued pursuit of fatness? It’s wrong. The American government has to help these people. I know we all believe in small-government, but this has to be the exception. The situation is too dire.

My suggestion is we split the handicapped parking system into two sections: one, people with disabilities unrelated to obesity. There are like five of them in America, so this shouldn’t be too hard. They can keep their spots up near the front doors. For the rest, I say we move their special reserved spots to the very back of the parking lots.

It’s the least we can do for them.

When I was growing up kids got to school in one of three ways. Either they walked, a parent drove them, or they took the bus. And yet, though all three students got to school the same, not all three students of these transportation techniques arrived at school the same student. Taking the bus creates a certain type of person. It shapes, and molds. It forms young minds and young spirits. Taking the bus is an integral part of creating a Real American.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, buses are smelly and dirty. And yes, that doesn’t help kids already struggling with body odor issues. But think of it this way: is life always clean and fragrant? Rarely, especially at my house. There’s a life lesson in that, and kids who wimp out and walk the 10 miles to school are going to miss it.

Life isn’t always pretty. I know that better than anybody. I’ve had to suffer nearly all my life with almost intolerable ugliness. Sometimes a paper bag is the only thing that gets me through the day. The bus teaches kids ways to cope with what they will eventually recognize is the almost unending misery of life in modern America.

Thanks to the rotting away of self-respect and independence in American culture over the past few decades, kids today will have little more than pain and suffering to look forward to. Their lives are going to be ones of hardship and suffering. Ones of trial and tribulations. It’s a jungle out there, and our kids need every advantage they can get.

I’ve had to suffer nearly all my life with almost intolerable ugliness.

That’s where riding the bus comes in. Think of it like one of those training camps they use for American soldiers before they send them to the Middle East to fight terrorism. The school bus, with its social inequality, stench, violence, rampant corruption, and all-around unpleasantness, is like a microcosm of wider society. Kids who go through that are going to come out of it better trained to deal with everyday life in the Greatest Nation in the World.

Really, the best thing you can do for your child these days is to make sure they ride the bus as a child. Miss the bus, turn out a wuss.