Logorrhea from the depths of consciousness. Void where prohibited by good taste.

2003-10-18 - 5:54 p.m.

The Historical Museum in Bern, Switzerland has recently purchased Einstein's Swiss passport for 93,000 Swiss francs (about $70,000 USD). Apparently they're going to exhibit it to the public in 2005. This will give the curator and anyone else with access to the item loads of time for photoshopping their faces into the passport photo, loaning it to people to use as ID at the pub, showing it at airports wearing a white fright-wig and behaving indignantly when security ejects them, etc. Then, one day in mid 2004 it will be mislaid in an airport cafe in Dar es Salaam, and a host of interesting adventures will ensue. In 2005, there will be a clever film released chronicling the passport's travels, directed by Keva Rosenfeld and starring Tutenkhamen and Hitler's brain.

It should be possible, I think, to revoke someone's membership in the human race. We wouldn't kill them or anything -- just shun them, or make them wear a T-shirt that says "Pariah - kick at will," or force them to live in remote areas where the sun sets for months at a time and there's no cable TV. Abandoned in the Pariah Hinterland, they would be forced to unite in forming some sort of functioning society, but since the population would be made up largely of the assholes we ejected, it would probably take months of wrangling just to achieve a consensus on pizza toppings let alone dire social exigencies, and they'd be too busy talking with their mouths full and carefully urinating on toilet seats to sit down long enough for proper civil meetings. Eventually some tyrant would create a government, and splinter organizations would arise, the People Who Leave Their Mobile Phones' Ringer Settings on "Skull-Shatteringly Shrill" While at the Cineplex warring ruthlessly with the People Who Rev Their Engines to Set Off Nearby Car Alarms, and ultimately the fragile, flimsily balanced asshole community would implode, crushed under its own villainous weight.

Funny the things you think about after someone cuts you off in traffic, especially if you're much too creative to simply wave a middle finger.