Shocked I Tell You
b'Sacred excrement. I knew this was going to happen eventually. But it knocked me right out of my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room anyway. This just in...seriously: "A Vancouver Buildings Council has blocked the lease of a restaurant property to the fish-and-chips chain "Moby Dick" on the grounds that "Dick" is an offensive word. The restaurant chain says the name has "Literary significance" and does not refer to male genitalia. \\n\\tDick is not an offensive word." No. Dick is my name. I am occasionally not offensive. Dick was also my dad\'s name, it is my name, and the name of a couple of other reasonably un-offensive guys I know. \\n\\tI figured this would eventually happen because that\'s where we\'re going. We are becoming a "Win or Whine" society. First there was the famous "N" word. And doesn\'t that sound weird to you when some well dressed, well paid fantastically famous newscaster is reporting on a serious story with a straight face, and he\'s talking about "Senator so and so" who shocked his audience by using "The N Word." "Shocked I tell you." By the way, "Shocked I tell you" is a very funny quote said by a corrupt cop in the old, black and white Bogart movie called "Casablanca." The cop in question is closing a nightclub because he has just supposedly found out that there\'s illegal gambling going on. As he\'s saying "I am shocked, shocked I tell you that there is gambling going on here", one of the employees comes up to him with his evening\'s winnings. But of course he\'s "Shocked, shocked I tell you" that there\'s illegal gambling going on. Sacred excrement.'