Commonwealth Network
  
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 Volume 3, Number 5 May, 1998  The Comma Nazis Hey kids! Skippy here with you again. It's been a long time since you and I had a real heart to heart. It seems like every month I impart to you my knowledge and my wisdom. Every month you lap it up like the pathetic dogs that you are. Somehow though we never really connect. I suppose that's because you are so far beneath me mentally and emotionally that you really can't comprehend my greatness. It's kind of like trying to bond with an ant. You may find it amusing and even cute (if you are a very sick individual) but you can never bond with it. Whatever the reason, I want to correct it this month. I want to let you all in on a part of me that I don't always share. I want to tell you something about me that few people (other than my regular readers) know about yours truly. Every thirty days I give you the benefit of my Skipness. I pour my heart and soul onto the page in the hopes that it will help you live what you laughably consider your lives. I work and I work, hunched over my keyboard. Oftentimes taking upwards of ten minutes on each column. I then turn these nuggets over to a pack of no talent swine who we will refer to as my editors. They read my wisdom and do you know what they say to me? They tell me that my grammar sucks. That's right, these braindead buffoons have the temerity to speak to me of punctuation. Can you belive this? Without me drawing you in like lemmings this rag would have folded ages ago. But do they appreciate this? Do they shower me with gifts? Do they bring beautiful women to my home for me to use and then discard? No, no they don't. All they do is pick, pick, pick. This should be a comma, that should be a period, sheep only has two e's. As though I have nothing better to do than worry about what a semicolon is supposed to do. What they don't seem to understand is that I'm an idea guy. I need to use every part of my brain converting my volumnous intelligence into small easily digestable nuggets that your brains can comprehend. Do you realize how difficult that is? No of course you don't, you're not bright enough. The point is that I don't get the big bucks to punctuate my sentences, that's what editors are for after all. Besides, who's to say what proper grammar and punctuation are anyway? It's not like they have books about it or teach it in school or anything. Sure my editors can claim that you aren't supposed to have a sentence that's an entire paragraph long. But who made them the grammar gods? Just because they spend a lot of time inside and have little or no social skills they know how to punctuate? I personally don't buy it. I firmly believe that if they would just get off my back and run my column as God intended it, you would all love and worship me even more than you do now. (though I find it hard to believe that it is possible to be more loved than I already am) We'll never know though, and do you know why? Because the comma-Nazis will never allow it. If they were to run my column without all of their little sqiggly lines they would see just how pointless their lives really are. That's really the problem here, you know. These "editors" have no actual writing skill to speak of. They have no message to convey. God does not perch on their shoulder and pass his wisdom through their words. They are merely souless technicians, automatons. Grey little men in a technicolor world. We shouldn't scorn them really, it isn't their fault that they were born without talent. No, I guess pity is probably the thing to feel in this situation. That's why I'll continue to allow them to butcher my work with their punctuation, it makes them feel loved. And you know that I am all about Love...
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