Beer People Play God

Billboard for Miller Lite beer spotted on a Milwaukee City street this morning: "Best Brew for Your Crew." I was outraged! How does the brain trust behind this sign know that Miller Lite is best for my crew? How do they know I even have a crew? If they mean the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, which is sometimes called "The Brew Crew," I can see a corporate sponsorship tie-in. After all, their home games are played at Miller Park. But even then, it's an assumption conveyed as a certainty.

I hope you're as outraged as I am, for only you could accurately make a blanket statement about which beer would be best for a given crew. Unless the crew in question was polled and the results widely disseminated. This was not indicated on the billboard. Rather, it was presented as a truism. Translation: Miller Lite advertising brain trust = God. If there was an asterisk accompanied by a full justification of the claim, I missed it. I hope asterisks are more prominently displayed on Earth 2.0, by the way.

This billboard is just one more example of free will as runaway freight train. As you design the new human race, please take a closer look at allowing people to appear authoritative when they simply want us to buy something or vote for someone. So many suffer when this happens -- and not just the modestly educated. Geniuses who are in a hurry or otherwise distracted also may accept God-like statements as fact because they will place a low priority on examining the evidence. This is not fair to geniuses or imbeciles, for we are all human beings and deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect.

I don't know why trivialities like this set me off. I guess if I ignored them, I would feel complicit in the crime. It makes me want to avoid beer for the rest of my days. And crews. Perhaps even reading.

Bumper Car Violence

I figured it out! I've solved the crime problem that has been plaguing humanity since the first person coveted something that wasn't his. Wait till you hear this...

People who are consumed by rage should have round-the-clock access to bumper cars. They'd be granted free admission to their municipal bumper car emporium. Once inside, they would visit a kiosk and answer a few simple questions about their rage. Presto! A dummy sitting in a bumper car would assume the likeness of someone matching the rage criteria.

For example, let's say I want to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. The dummy would have thick black curly hair, a large nose and spectacles. I would then hop in a bumper car near the Jew, press the "start" knob in my death machine and attack the Zionist enemy with full fury. After five minutes of bashing the vehicle and watching my victim helplessly gyrate, I would feel victorious. The urge to kill Jews on every continent would pass, and I might be inclined to sip a cappuccino at a cafe or head straight home to work on my memoirs.

Please consider this simple, yet breakthrough, idea before you put the finishing touches on Earth 2.0. If visiting a municipal bumper car center would not always be practical, you could drop two cars down from heaven, along with a bumper car track, a kiosk and a dummy.

If this works out, you could use the same concept to fulfill positive wishes. I could see a love-starved fella riding with a resemblance of his secret admirer in the same bumper car, going round and round until he fell asleep. Just thinking out loud.

I Happen to Like Alcohol

Alcohol, which I happen to like, is one of those things that can cause big problems when not used properly. I would put machetes and religion in that same category, just off the top of my head. I wish there was a way for these items to be enjoyed by law-abiders, but not taken to their extremes by others. I hope you're taking notes, God, because this would be a nice tweak for the new world.

Here's how my idea might play out, using the three examples above:

• A young man has too many fermented yeast beverages at the Earth 2.0 Pub 'n Grille, slides into his transportation device, and gets a pre-recorded celestial lecture when he tries to turn on the ignition. After the lecture, the doors lock and he must remain in the transportation device all night.
• A coconut harvester comes home from work early and catches a rival male satisfying his wife in a way that he instinctively feels is wrong. With machete in hand, he lunges at his rival intent on severing his head from his torso. He suddenly develops a central nervous system breakdown, manifested by shaky hands that cause the weapon to drop. The shaking continues until rival escapes and wife buries machete in nearby school yard.
• A brainwashed disciple of an elderly male know-it-all feels like killing a few dozen people who do not share his spiritual views. As he retrieves his holy spiral-bound notebook to begin sketching a plan of attack, tears stream down as if he were slicing onions without protective goggles. Every time he opens the notebook or loads his semi-automatic rifle, the tears prevent him from killing his perceived foes.

I have an entire notebook full of ideas along these lines, which I'd like to share with you. I'm free next week, except for Wednesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon and a noon conference call Friday that could drag on for over an hour. If you can work around these conflicts, go ahead and make an entry on my calendar. Otherwise, next week is wide open.

FYI, I didn't mean to imply that the coconut harvester's wife and rival male are blameless. They certainly deserve to be held accountable. Maybe their private parts burn for a year. Just enough to prove you're on top of things.