Now THAT'S Offensive

I'm offended by the way people choose to be offended. 

Ben and Jerry's, a fine American institution to which I contribute regularly, makes arguably the best ice cream in the world.  I like ice cream.  I don't need it, but I like it very much.  So when I heard there was a new flavor out, I was ready, spoon in hand.  But I can not find the new flavor.  Evidently it offends some people.  Not the ice cream, but the name of the ice cream offends.

Jerry's Shweddy Balls flavor is fudge covered rum and chocolate balls in Ben and Jerry's incredibly wonderful vanilla ice cream.  Yum.  But evidently, other fine American institutions find the name of the ice cream so offensive that they have demanded it be taken off grocery shelves. 

Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children died from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could have been prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spent on its military in two days!  Most recent statistics state over 13% of the world's population is hungry.

Humans slash and burn forests, shoot endangered species, continue to create and toss plastics, which produce dioxins (big, bad carcinogens) as well as pollute the planet for gazillions of years in the name of convenience.  We continue to drain the Earth of her oil and blast the tops off her mountains so we can burn fossil fuel instead of coming up with better ways to feed our energy addiction. Humans enslave women and children; torture, ridicule and kill each other in the name of God. 

We feed our children's minds on violent video games where they learn that might is right and blowing up other people is cool.  We feed their bodies with junk food including things much more dangerous than fancy ice cream, because they want it, then we pass laws to keep the toys out of happy meals because parents don't have balls enough - shweddy or otherwise - to say no to junk food or to keep them home and make a decent meal. 


44 million Americans have no health insurance coverage.  40 other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S.A.  Do you reckon there might be a connection? 

These are the things that offend me.   

If you find it your moral obligation to save our children from naughty ice cream flavors, would you also spend some of that righteous indignation on filling up your local food pantry?  Would you help your child see the personal value in choosing a plain notebook and donating school supplies with the remainder of the  money?   Would you make recycling a priority.  Would you please at least take your pretty little face out of your ass long enough to see that there are some really important ways you could improve the world that have nothing to do with shweddy balls