Joe In Revolt

Joe's back from Missouri and he's pissed, with talk of leaving us cup of joeless. I'm not quite sure what his beef is about, but rest assured I will do all in my power to retain his sage wisdom here on pseudo-intellectualism. Being here in the cradle of liberty (Boston) has rejuvenated my democractic spirit and I will reprint uncensored his somewhat over caffeinated complaints to me (along with his usual help for helpless musings). Joe appears to have an Anglo fixation this week, perhaps the fluctuations in his mood might be due to the brand of Kool Aid that Tony Blair has been spiking Joe's coffee with.
Dave -
I don’t know how you feel about about airing the seamy side of the Pseudo goings-ons in public at the behest of propriety I have attempted to contain the issues and incidents but as it seems you wished to hem and haw and in quite a few other ways set yourself up as a target for my admonishments it has come to the unfortunate point at which I am forced to speak the Truth and let the chips fall where they may. My point being simply this. Excuse me for one second, I’ve got an itch. Ah there that’s better. Now where was I? Oh yes. At the point of admonishments I believe. You crafty devil. You almost escaped without hearing the whole piece of it but that ‘s not to be. So. As I was saying. The time has come for a reckoning and since the time that I enlisted to provide my pseudo services for you, your blog site and your esteemed reading clientele. Which is not to say that I wish to decline the provision of services to any who may have difficulties reading the entries. I had approached you on numerous occasions about the feasilbility of providing word-free, image-rich, text that would accommodate all of the so-called readers who visit the site without being able to actually read the words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. contained therein. You at the time said that you liked the idea but that for reasons having to do with shortness of staff that the appropriate preparations would be unwieldy and in the long run, impossible. I accepted that because I’ve found, in this life - as opposed to the one just before my previous incarnation - you’ve got to choose your battles and choose them carefully I might add. So what I was saying is that I had approached you on numerous occasions abut the pheasibility of providing word-free, image-rich text that would accommodate all of the so-called readers who visit the site without being able to actually read the words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. contained therein. And as I had said elsewhere (pronounced as if it were, ‘el-swear, I’m requesting that you give this word, ‘elsewhere’ a colloquial reading herein) that regardless of whether I misspelled the word as ‘pheasibility’ or ‘feasibility’ which takes its origin from the Latin ‘fees’ which comes from the root ‘fee’ as in ‘fee fee fi fi fo fo fum the point remains the same that you staunchly refused citing shortness of staff. And I felt that your readers were all being made to suffer as a result of your hiring practices. If you feel you want or need tall staff, go head and hire tall staff but don’t use staff height as an excuse to disenfranchise a very important segment of your dedicated blogdom. Follow my point here? So . . . what I’m saying is that because you have attempted to stalemate the natural progress through which I have been attempting to reach out to our viewers with ‘word-free’ text needs and been forced to provide word-based text as a stand-alone, as a result of that situation I am going to have to - and again it feels a little peculiar for me to air this issue publicly - insist on an immediate 36% increase in all revenues associated with the syndication of my irregular contribution to the pseudo cause. I will be taking a short hiatus in any case as I review mathematical resources in search of a quantitative solution to the problem of multiplying .36 by the concept and/or numeral that originated in the Arabic but now is commonly accepted in the occident as ‘zero’ which in both English and French is the common sum of bubkis (pronounce as ‘bubb’ - ‘kiss’). Upon return I am sure to be pleased to continue delivering the service for which I have been deriving the larger part of my imagined income over these past years. I trust that nothing I have said in this communique has disturbed our on-going relationship. I consider utmost honesty in matters of finance to be utterly inconceivable and, in many respects, an impediment to any and all negotiations and therefore have consistently eschewed the use of any honest statements. I trust that you in turn will do the same and in the future we will continue, as we have in the past, to negotiate fruitfully and vegetably. In some respects, I believe we will work our way up to being able to negotiate using fish and poultry but that’s for another day’s conversation if you will.
I include my assigned contribution below. Vince, too modest to come out with this himself was the original intended audience for the now wildly successful ‘Dummies’ series and later was called in to model as the average reader for the ‘Idiot” series as well. In these respects I found him to be an unusually, more than I would have expected, stupidfied, individual. In any case he writes to me as follows:

Dear Joe,
I’ve got to say that in my recent travels I have found the stereotype of the typical Brit as far from my experience as imaginable. First of all I want to comment on the usual reputation for stand-offishness. I found that the people I met in my travels were open friendly and genuinely interested in conversing and communicating. Also, much to my surprise and delight, generous and forthcoming. And the expressions they have there! They throw that term ‘brilliant’ around so freely that upon returning to the states I’ve decided to apply to Mensa just to see if maybe they were right in continuously referring to me as a “brilliant wanker.” I never figured out what the second half of the phrase signified but felt bathed in the luxurious first half. They say that we all rise to our highest potential based on the expectations we experience others have of us. In this respect I feel that I have risen to the level of praise and have found that, again upon returning, I have been impressed with my own thinking myself. This is an experience that I am enjoying not only because it’s pleasant but because it’s also new and surprising for me. I guess the only question I have is why and how the Brits ever developed that reputation they seem to have for having a cool or dry temperament. Have you any insight you can share with me on this?
From an Anglophile,
Vince

Vince,
I hate to burst your bubble Vince. As a potential Mensa member you should have enough faith in your judgment to evaluate any people - Brits being no exception - on their own terms and on the basis of your actual experience with them. Stereotypical expectations - since you brought up the power of expectation - lead to impoverished relations between groups, peoples, nations . . . Vince, I congradulate you on feeling good about yourself and believe that, if your missive is any true measure of the man, you more than deserve that colorful moniker you brought back with you from the continent.
Sincerely,
Joe B. aka Joey B.