May 14-20, 2009editorial@boulderweekly.comHonk if you’re high…Honking a car horn is sort of a two-way street. On the one hand, hearing someone honk their horn is the most grinding sound imaginable, especially under specific circumstances — say, when you’re sleeping at 6 a.m. and your neighbor’s ride decides that the horn is a far better indicator of his presence than a doorbell or telephone call. At the same time, however, when some jackass cuts you off in traffic, you can never find the horn fast enough. We have to admit that honking at some oblivious driver who is texting away on their cell phone feels validating, noise pollution be damned.
But one Boulder resident took the whole honking thing a little too far. OK, way too far. Phillip Babby was arrested on May 8 on suspicion of driving under the influence, possession of drugs and following another driver too closely. And what did Babby allegedly do as he followed another vehicle so closely down Boulder Canyon? Honked. The whole damn way. Authorities were alerted to Babby’s driving after a driver complained of being honked at for 10 miles while driving down the canyon.
When pulled over, Babby allegedly had the good sense to offer the police officers some hallucinogenic mushrooms — maybe as a sign of good will, or maybe just as an easier response to the question, “What is wrong with you?”
And while we understand where someone might want to honk at someone driving far too slow in an unpassable area, we can’t help
but wonder what was really going on inside the driver’s head. When under the influence of hallucinogens, there’s no way that honking your horn at a car for 10 miles in response to another driver is the logical route your brain took. No, there must have been something else. Maybe Babby thought he was at a Phish concert and was just helping to progress that 20-minute guitar solo. Or maybe he hallucinated a giant cucumber in the road, and was alerting it to keep it from being pickled.
Job insecurityLast week, just in time for the University of Colorado’s commencement, a local headline informed us that certain graduates have “built-in job security.” So who are these wise students who somehow chose the right major not knowing that the U.S. economy would tank in time for their graduation?
Are they geeks heading off to work for Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Are they renewable-energy engineers? Swine-flu scientists? Porn stars?
No, they’re members of ROTC. Having taken money from Uncle Sam to pay their college tuition, they are now guaranteed a job within the ranks of the U.S. armed forces! Not only will they have a job, but they’ll have benefits, too — health care, dental, vision, retirement. Isn’t that swell?
While their former CU classmates are hoping for part-time work at Taco Bell, struggling to pay back student loans and eating ramen (still), they’ll be traveling to exotic locales with all accommodations paid for by the U.S government.
Hey, all you English and history majors, we bet you’re just green with envy!
Or maybe not.
It turns out “job security” is really a euphemism for “four years of mandatory service.” And those exotic locales? They include places like Fallujah, Iraq, and Jalalabad, Afghanistan. And the accommodations? A tiny, hot room in the Green Zone with a shelf full of MREs.
You might not realize it, recent grads, but your current state of hopelessness and poverty is a good thing. You might not have a job, but you have something those in ROTC have just relinquished — freedom. And, really, compared to MREs, ramen isn’t that bad.
