Your Grrrs ...
John from Rockford, Ill.: My Grrr goes out to all these pompous self-righteous jerks who think it is supposed to be open season on smokers! Just what did we ever do you? You people act like we are trying to force cigars, pipes, and cigarettes down your lily-white throats. You treat us like so many children. Why? Just because we smoke and you don't. Big deal! You are no better than us and you certainly aren't any smarter than us. Yet, all we hear is you bitching and whining every time we light up a cigarette, pipe, or cigar in your royal presence. If we act indignant it is because you caused it with your rude sarcastic remarks and your trying everything to force us into quitting when we don't want to. You force us to stand outside like so many cattle and insist on pressuring legislators to pass asinine laws that take our rights away so you will be satisfied. We are forbidden to go to certain restaurants and businesses, our insurance rates are through the roof and we have had too many limitations as to when and where we are allowed to smoke. Now, you want to take all that away! Let me tell you jerks something, you are not as superior to us as you think. In fact, in most cases you are worse. You complain about the smell of our tobacco but your attitudes stink worse than our tobacco ever will. What gives you the right to judge us?
Sheri in Austin, Texas: Love your column for the insight and laughs, but about lung cancer I'd like to say this: My dad was diagnosed with it in 1985 after nearly 30 years as a heavy smoker. They gave him three months to live, but he survived. Thanks to very thorough annual exams from the Air Force since he was a fighter pilot, his cancer was caught early enough to treat. Although he survived, his quality of life has been hard to watch since that time. He is a fighter though. My husband's father (also a heavy smoker) died from lung cancer in 1975 when my husband was 21 and he had to take over for his dad. He comes from a family of migrant farm workers and is the oldest of four children. Once they were all grown, he went on to college determined to leave that difficult time and move on. That aside, I think the real message here is DON'T SMOKE. I'm sorry this has been dragged through the media with the coverage focused on the parties involved and not the cause (regardless of whether or not the victim was the smoker or was a victim of second-hand smoke). It's generally agreed that smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer — so with your GRRR! will you please add that the real message should be "Don't smoke"? Judging from the popularity of your column, maybe it will help someone. It's horrible to watch someone trying to breathe through their own blood that is flooding their lungs. I'll never forget it.
Jim in Springfield, Mo.: My Grrr is that not enough people are buying fuel-efficient hybrid cars. If they would, there would be more gasoline available for me and my Durango, with a great big HEMI inside, that lets me blow past your little fartmobiles and enjoy my daily commute. By the way, people who buy hybrid cars are not better people than those who buy SUVs. They just think they are!
Matt T. in cyberspace: I am a longtime 49er faithful and I never liked Terrell Owens. When he first came to the team I thought he may have a chance but it didn't take long for his childish antics to make me hate him ... OK, dislike him severely (never hate). Now, he is with the team he begged to be with, got his old contract torn up (which the Eagles could have easily said he must stick to), was made the third highest-paid receiver in the NFL for the following three years and given the chance to play with the quarterback he really wanted to play with. All of a sudden, this team isn't good enough. McNabb is lazy. He doesn't get the respect he deserves. He isn't being paid what he deserves. Who does he think he is?? There are some huge, and I mean huge, babies in the celebrity world but this one is by far the king. If it is some sort of title he wants as recognition, let's give it to him. He earns the title of not only the biggest whiner in the NFL, but in the entire celebrity world. I will be honest, I have never wished a person lose his/her job forever but this is what I wish for him. I really wish that he gets what he wants from the Eagles and they tear up his contract. Then, as my wish continues, that no other team even considers discussions with him. Let him find a real job in the real world and see how it is to work at a job for a paycheck, not because you love what you are doing. T.O. — Grrr!!!
Michelle in Cyberspace: In response to your Grrr on the media coverage of Dana Reeve, I would like to be able to see what is going on with her because I and many others care about her and the outcome of this disease.
Susan in Dallas, Texas: Just a thought that passed through my mind while reading the "Your Grrrs" column of August 16. Celebrities, whether stricken with cancer, throwing their excess in everyone's face, or being plastered on every magazine cover, are just people. They all put their pants on one leg at a time and wipe their rears just like us. May your readers and everyone else enamored with the doings of celebrities remember this small rule. Now do they seem so fantastic and worthy of all the attention we are giving them? Thanks again for a wonderful workweek diversion with your column.
Scott L in Brunswick, Maine: I was walking out to my vehicle at a rest stop in Canada. Parked next to my truck was a van full of what appeared to be college students. They had the doors open and were obviously waiting for one of their friends to come out and join them. With the van door that was facing my truck open, there were no less than three of them standing on the running board of my truck and hanging on to my roof. And they looked shocked when I politely but firmly asked them to get off. There’s a difference between public and private property; seems that was lost on these people.
Caroline in Aerospace: My Grrr ... goes to the people on a full flight from Newark to Denver last week who decided they needed to form a line for the bathroom on the plane. As luck would have it, I was stuck with a seat directly across from one of the bathroom doors and continually got butt shoved in my face throughout the 3-hour flight as people coming out of the restroom had to squeeze pass the Oblivions in the aisle. If you must use the facilities on a plane, please please do not get up and form a line in the aisle if you spot even one person waiting to use the bathroom.
Neil Jack in Cyberspace: So, in the Wal-Martian Obliviot example Christopher mentioned, where the woman got hit by a car because she was standing in a parking space (quite obviously one of the “prime spots” in the lot) to hold it for her husband, which one is the bigger Obliviot? Is it the woman, for standing there, or the person who hit her with the car (undoubtedly with an H2)? Hopefully this is a sign of things to come ... Obliviots taking each other out and ridding the world of the chaos they cause!
Chris H. in Pasco, Wash.: A very loud GRRR to the Austin Community College for denying resident status to the Marine pulling two tours of duty in Iraq!!! I just read the article on FOXNews.com about the community college's stupid and very unpatriotic decision to deny this Marine his state residency. I hope the residents of Austin let this college know in no uncertain terms how wrong they are. As a fellow veteran, I find this action despicable.
Ruth R. in Cyberspace: I completely agree with you about celebrity overexposure and too much personal information. I can't watch a movie or TV show today without being distracted by what I know about the actors' personal lives. I couldn't enjoy "Batman" without thinking of Katie Holmes as Tom Cruise's new girlfriend. I struggle to block out the ugly personal affairs of other actors when I watch them on the screen. It's very hard to believe the character and lose myself in the story when TV and print tabloids have flooded us with unsavory details about their lives. Enough already! Maintain some mystery and privacy, please.
Major "Fluffy": Tell Mr. Boyd he is ALL Wal-Martian, not part. Can he guarantee that the cart he refuses to push 10 feet to the rack is not going to move and roll back into my car after he has so delicately placed it at the intersection of FOUR parking spaces? Don't think so. How about stuffing another Twinkie in the pie hole to get the energy to push it the ten feet to the rack so you don't cause damage to someone's car!
Doug M.: I was thinking about smoking and how bad it is for your health as I settled in the chair to read an article about a teenager dying in another alcohol-related car crash overnight. They seem to come once a week around here. Well, hopefully, this teen wasn't smoking. That can cause cancer in 30-40 years!
And finally, this "Racial Profiling Quiz" has been going around the Internet and was sent to me enough times to warrant a post. It appears on the Federalist Patriot Web site.
To ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people. They will continue random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the president's security detail, 85-year-old congressmen with metal hips, and Medal Of Honor-winning former governors. Let's pause a moment and take the following test:
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
(a)Olga Corbutt
(b)Sitting Bull
(c)Arnold Schwarzenegger
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
(a)Lost Norwegians
(b)Elvis
(c)A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
(a)John Dillinger
(b)The King of Sweden
(c)The Boy Scouts
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
(a)A pizza delivery boy
(b)Pee Wee Herman
(c)Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by:
(a)The Smurfs
(b)Davy Jones
(c)The Little Mermaid
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:
(a)Captain Kid
(b)Charles Lindbergh
(c)Mother Teresa
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
(a)Scooby Doo
(b)The Tooth Fairy
(c)Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
(a)Richard Simmons
(b)Grandma Moses
(c)Michael Jordan
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1998, the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a)Mr. Rogers
(b)Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
(c)The World Wrestling Federation to promote "Mustapha the Merciless"
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed and thousands of people were killed by:
(a)Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd
(b)The Supreme Court of Florida
(c)Mr. Bean
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
(a)Enron
(b)The Lutheran Church
(c)The NFL
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
(a)Bonnie and Clyde
(b)Captain Kangaroo
(c)Billy Graham
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
Anyone for racial profiling?
Respond to Mike | Grrr! Lexicon
Mike Straka is the director of operations and special projects for FOXNews.com, and covers entertainment and features on the Sunday program "FOX Magazine." He also writes the weekly Grrr! Column and hosts "The Real Deal" video segments on FOXNews.com.
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