I Sleep Better Knowing This

I tried to send my sister an email where she works apprising her of my cancer situation and the fact that I'm going to start radiation therapy tomorrow. And their web postmaster bounced the email back to me, with this snooty note to the effect that we don't allow profanity on our system. Well don't I feel better! The housing market has collapsed, the financial system melted down, the Taliban is resurgent, Osama bin Who is still out there, and it's suddenly illegal to be Mexican, but they don't allow profanity on their system! Wow, I'm glad there are enough bland faceless IT droids out there in the world to protect us from all that profanity.

The word I used, bastard, isn't even profanity! It has a precise definition and is no more profane than words like illegitimate or conceived out of wedlock. And the exact phrase I used, poor bastard, is so close to daily usage the IT droids might as well complain about phrases like toilet paper or bowel movement.* One could argue that I used the word incorrectly, or in the wrong context, but they weren't judging my grammar or syntax, just the word I picked.

I bet the IT guys who wrote that list go to bars after work and say things like Man, this fucking job's killing me; those bastards in management are really busting my balls!

Arrogant hypocrites. I don't think the world is greatly improved by this sort of nonsense. Or improved at all. But I bet it makes a lot of jobs for IT consultants who can assure the spineless hand-wringers in HR that not a single instance of bastard will slip past their filters. I personally would think it would be more offensive to call someone a retard than a bastard, but retard will zip right on through, no harm, no foul.

* Might I suggest that instead of bowel movement they encourage the use of phrases like make a boo-boo or excrete a man-killingly large bolus.