I suspect most people here would recognize this fellow:
That is, of course, Max Klinger (as portrayed by the awesome Jamie Farr). For those unfamiliar with this character, Corporate Klinger was enlisted into the Korean War, and he was willing to do anything to get the hell out of there and go back home to the United States. Thus, he decided to appear mentally ill and would dress as a woman, hoping for a Section 8 discharge. One of the things which made the character so funny is that the Lebanese actor playing him was quite hirsute, so the juxtaposition between the hairy Jamie Farr and his sartorial splendor was comic by itself.
That was back in the early 1980s, when I was a kid and when one of the best-known characters in the world was a man dressing up as a woman so that people would consider him insane and thus unfit for the army. Fast-forward to today, and I present to you Sam Brinton, whom you pay as a taxpayer to figure out what to do with the nation’s nuclear waste:
Now, Sam doesn’t just dress as a woman. He (oh, sorry, “they“; I’ll get to that in a moment) takes it a step farther. Sam, you see, wants to be addressed as “they”, which Wikipedia plays right along with……..
The Department of Energy doesn’t quite play along, but they don’t want to go offense with “he”, so they take the awkward middle-ground by dispensing with the convenience of personal pronouns altogether………
Now, I wouldn’t have even known Sam existed were it not for the fact that he (I’m not playing along either) seems to have a penchant for taking things that don’t belong to him. I’ve read about his history, as well as his claims about his childhood, and I’ve got a hunch this chap isn’t unacquainted with stretching the truth just a skosh.
So why do I bring this up? Am I rattled by this fellow’s existence? Do I want people like this to hide from society? No, that isn’t it. I mean, no matter which way you swing, I’d rather you not push your sexuality right into my face so blatantly. I’m just as annoyed some some hyper-hetero guy trying to show the world what a stud he is. By way of example, I believe every Dodge Charger on the road should detonate when it exceeds 70 miles per hour, because in my experience the drivers of these vehicles are unalloyed pricks. So my distaste for over-the-top “Look At Me!” behavior is universal.
I simply find it interesting – -just interesting – – that in the span of my short life, I’ve witnessed the notion of a man dressing up flamboyantly in this fashion has morphed from (a) an implausibly comic portrayal of someone who wants to present themselves as mentally ill, to (b) a senior official in the administration of our nation’s government, tasked with deal with nuclear waste.
I used to think the entire “slippery slope” argument that was used years ago was strictly the purview of empty-headed crackers, but now I’m not so sure. Oh, and if you’re at the airport, be sure to keep a close eye on your bags.
