10.09.2006 | "Unacceptable"

Growing up in the Bronx, we weren't what you might call sophisticates. We knew that wine came in two colors, and that the beer you drank was the brand that was cheapest. Why else would anyone drink Pabst? We also didn't know very much about the so-called finer things in life.

But we did know how to spot bullshit. We knew, with killer instinct, when a guy was lying through his teeth. We had especially good radar that told us when so-called adults were being what has come to be called "nuanced." Which to us would have been, had we known that French word "nuance" in the first place, just the same as bullshit.

Now comes North Korea's nuclear test and the cockroach posing as the Dear Leader (what, Team America isn't true? Say it ain't so...). Well, we would have known how to handle a moke like Kim Jong Il, but he's got a million-man army, so that approach won't work, either...

Now to the bullshit department. Our dear leader Dubya, along with other dear leaders in various parts of the world, have deemed the Cockroach's test "unacceptable." Well, back in the day, this word meant that you would do something to change that which was not acceptable to you. With your fists, or rocks, or a baseball bat. But you absolutely would not say that something was unacceptable and then just keep talking about it.

Because that is exactly what we are doing. Talking. Talking. And, the gravest threat of all, referring the whole thing to the Useless Nation's insecurity council for more...talking.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't the toughest kid around, and I didn't hang out with the toughest gang. We knew our limits. And it is for precisely that reason that we chose our words with care. If we could do something to change that which was not acceptable to us, we did so. If we could not, we basically shut up.

Message to Bush and, especially, all the asshat diplomats and politicians out there: if we are not prepared to actually do something to disarm North Korea, then let's simply stop flinging words about as if they had no meaning.

There is no honor in laying down verbal gauntlets if we are not prepared to back them with action and not just more tough-sounding but empty words.