As I write this, someone is manufacturing a scandal over something someone else said on the radio. The scandal-manufacturer is out for blood. This is nothing new. It happens quite frequently. And predictably.

It occurs to me that no one ever seems to take the time to ask me what I find offensive. I thought I’d jot down some ideas off the top of my head. In the present manufactured-scandal, I have yet to hear from anyone on a first-person basis who was actually offended by the radio commentary; since I know for a fact the things below offend me, in my book, they take priority. Assuming of course that this hubbub is really about getting rid of offensive things…

One. When I watch a movie or television episode from the 1970’s, when Womens’ Lib was brand-new, I get offended when I see the following exchange:

MAN: I’m looking for Doctor such-and-such. Can I reach him here?

WOMAN: You’ve just found her!

MAN: A woman?!?!? (Man’s jaw drops and all kinds of flies swarm in)

WOMAN: (Some disparaging remark about how the man shouldn’t be that surprised, or something)

That offends me. I don’t like thirty-year-old movies telling me what should be surprising to me just so they can “correct” me, when they’re supposed to be entertaining me. This is one of the reasons I don’t attend church. I don’t like having pastors who don’t know me from Adam, telling me about the sins I’ve been committing all week so they can tell me I need to repent. Screw you, buddy. Look: I bought this movie, or else I rented it. You’re supposed to entertain me. Don’t go lecturing me on how I need to become more “liberated” after making asinine assumptions about how I view women, when you don’t know anything about me.

That goes double for when a “guy” with a full armored suit and opaque racing helmet kicks the asses of a bunch of other guys, and while everyone lies on the ground nursing their injuries “he” takes off “his” helmet to reveal — gasp! — a full head of hair and a gorgeous female face. Same principle applies. Entertainment, not lectures.

Two. Another movie complaint. The doofus dads. I don’t like family comedies where the patriarch of the family is depicted as some kind of doofus. And I’m highly insulted by the insinuation that I should be expected to purchase expensive movie tickets, plus soda and popcorn, so that my family can view these images. WHAT–THE–HELL. You movie people…when you go deer hunting, do you make the deer pay for the bullets? When you go fishing, do you make the fish pay for your bait, line, weights and license? Why are you demanding I pay for my own hanging?

Anyone who wants to campaign for less respect to be paid for the dads, can jolly well send the bill to the feminists. And I mean just the hardcore ones who really hate men, not the reasonable ones who just want to support equal-pay for equal-work.

Three. Aggressive drivers on the freeway talking on cell phones. Without hands-free devices. Holding the cell phones up to their left ears, guaranteeing themselves a blind spot as wide as Rosie O’Donnell’s ass. Scares the shit outta me — and you better believe it offends me.

Four. Accusations — for my willingness to host the slightest bit of nodding consideration to Intelligent Design (ID) and related theories — that I must be a Young-Earth Creationist (YEC) who thinks the earth isn’t a day over six thousand years old. I find that highly offensive. Kevin Miller of Brown University, I am talking to you.

Five. Movie thing again. People who are supposed to be villainous, or evil, or both, who are given a southern accent to help accentuate their pig-headedenss. That offends me a lot…on a third-party basis. I’m a third-generation Scandinavian immigrant who grew up in the Pacific Northwest; trust me, I don’t have anything close to a southern accent. But this just offends the hell out of me. Come to think of it, English accents are used for the same purpose sometimes. I don’t have an English accent, but some of the English folks I’ve met have been a decent bunch o’blokes. So I’ll include that too. You want me to believe your movie-villain is all big-n-bad, have him do some big-n-bad stuff.

Six. Seeing men, in general, blamed for the recent fad of super-duper models being super-duper-skinny women. Yes, I agree it’s unhealthy. Yes, I agree someone is at fault. No, I don’t think you should blame men for it…not the straight ones. Sexy women have curves. Just about every straight guy I know, agrees with me. We don’t like the Kate Moss look, and don’t you dare tell us we’re starving women to death. I’m about as horny as straight-men come, and I can tell you a half-naked new-name starlet with the body of Marilyn Monroe would be pretty damn welcome right now.

Seven. The word “utilize” being used where the word “use” will do just fine. No call for that.

Eight. Women with short hair, like you’d see on a guy. Especially cropped really short on the back of the neck, like a young boy. Yuck.

Nine. Atheists telling me they’re right and I’m wrong…just because they “know” it to be the case. They are exactly what they call others. They’re indulging in exactly the same circular-reasoning they accuse others of utilizusing. They’re right because they know they’re right, and they know they’re right because they simply are. How come they get to use that logic even while they deride church-people for exactly the same thing?

Ten. People who assume other people are crazy, just because they have guns. I don’t have a gun. But if someone else wants to buy a gun and keep it at their home to protect their family, I think that’s a noble thing.

Eleven. People who insinuate that smoking tobacco is bad for you, but never have an unkind word to say against Marijuana. It’s just so phony. If tobacco fucks up your longs, so does pot. I don’t smoke, but this really gets under my skin.

Twelve. People who drone on and on about the problem with homelessness…only when there’s a Republican in the White House. Again. It’s so freakin’ phony.

Thirteen. People who indulge in demagoguery about AIDS research, and don’t mention cancer, ever. Cancer has killed people longer than AIDS. We don’t know anything more about cancer than we do about AIDS. More people are dead of cancer than from AIDS. It’s just an attempt to appeal to politically-powerful special interest groups…with lives on the line (in danger of both cancer and AIDS). It’s unconscionable. It’s offensive.

Fourteen. Mens’ baggy pants that slip down around their ass cracks. Frankly, I wonder about people who don’t find this offensive.

Fifteen. Country music. I’m mostly alone in this. But I still find it offensive.

Sixteen. People taking Michael Moore or Rosie O’Donnell or Barbra Streisand seriously.

Seventeen. People who demand “action on global warming”…while driving around in something that gets six miles a gallon, or less. My car gets 35 mpg or better. I drive it a mile to work, a mile home again, and I drive forty miles on Wednesday and every-other-weekend to pick up my kid. Do the math; I’m burning up three gallons a week and the global warming people want me to feel guilty. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE, you’re chewing your way through maybe a gallon and a half EVERY GODDAMNED DAY with your stupid shopping-at-the-mall and watching-Al-Gore’s-movie-one-more-time-again bullshit and you want me to feel guilty just for driving to work? That is, those of you who aren’t flying around in a private jet when it suits you. Screw you.

Eighteen. Popup ads on the innernets. They offend me.

Nineteen. Television shows where people talk at a jackrabbit pace. Like Gilmore Girls, The West Wing and Law & Order. People don’t talk like that, and asking me to believe they do is an insult to my intellect. Some people watch TV to have their intelligence insulted; I’m not one of them. Dialog on television should be at least as believable as an old Star Trek episode, and when you think about it, I’m imposing an exceedingly low standard there. I’m referring to the “Kirk” baseline, after all. It’s not asking too much, is it?

Twenty. White kids pretending to be black. I don’t know why black people put up with it. Seriously. It looks like a form of ridicule against inner-urban blacks. And always, there’s that undertone that life has been somehow mean to them and that they are in some way “angry.” How tough do these little white kids have it, really?

Twenty-one. News stories about “wealth gaps.” Believe me, I’m not wealthy…but I’d like to be someday. What is the point of amassing this wealth, in a land where newspapers come out every day inciting the paupers and peasants to revolt against me? Add to that, the fact that a lot of people in journalism, compared to the “household average,” are doing very, very well economically. What kind of light does that then cast on stories like these? Wealth gap — feh. Try “risk gap.” Ninety-nine percent of the risk, is embraced by one percent of the population, while everybody else hides under the bedcovers. I would hope there’s a freakin’ wealth gap.

Twenty-two. Marvel comic books. While I do think comic books are important and the western hemisphere does owe Stan Lee a dept that it can’t repay, I grow weary of “heroes” with some superficial dark side and “villains” who have something “noble” about them. There’s something to be said for good old-fashioned good-good-good guys and bad-bad-bad guys. And for God’s sake, Wolverine and Spider-Man need to stop their freakin’ whining. Why can’t you be like Superman? Just vanquish the evil, save the planet, and the public-relations problems will work themselves out.

Twenty-three. Morning news programs. If you see it on the boob tube before seven o’clock, rest assured: It is not important. Mama ducks walking their baby ducks across the street, holding up traffic. Katy Couric thinks there’s global warming. Barf.

Twenty-four. People comparing Hooters to “strippers’ bars.” It’s a widespread practice. It’s technically inaccurate. It’s a deliberate, politically-motivated lie. And it’s offensive to Hooters’ staff as well as to customers, like me.