Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) gave a speech on the senate floor yesterday to push for “Rosa’s Law”. Rosa’s law is a piece of legislation that mandate the phrase “mentally disabled” be used in place of “mentally retarded” when referring to such citizens on health and education paperwork.

“In changing the language, we believe it will be the start of new attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities.”

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This madness must end. America is in the middle of two strenuous wars, and we have an economy on the brink of total collapse, yet we have a senator who seems preoccupied with the use of a certain descriptor used in government documentation. Yet again, another bleeding heart Democrat who is more concerned with feeling good, rather than doing good for the nation as a whole.

Now, before I get chastised for being heartless by those who would accuse me of standing in the way of a little girl’s supposed happiness, I would like to disclose the following:

I am physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which prevents me from walking without the assistance of an orthopedic device or another person. I have been called many things, such as “disabled”, “differently-abled”, “handicapped”, “handi-capable”, “crippled”, and a few other words along the way that can’t be shared here.

Guess what?

In spite of all the labels that have been assigned to me and others like me, one thing has remained constant:

My condition has never changed. People need to learn that while words do have meaning, which is important, context is also a key component in this equation. For instance, “retard” means to slow or hinder. It does not mean “stupid”, and the modifiers “mental” or “mentally” refers to the type of impediment. It is not, in and of itself, an attempt at ridicule or character assassination. Referring to someone as “mentally retarded” in official paperwork is not the same as yelling it in anger toward the person who cut you off at the intersection. It just isn’t. The words have a benign meaning. It’s the context in which they are used that can change them.

Quite frankly, when one looks at this objectively, this proposed law is nothing more than a time wasting exercise by those in our legislature, which will change nothing, except maybe making a few self-loathers feel better about themselves.

For the Record, the namesake of this legislation, Rosa Marcellino, has Down’s syndrome. She is, for all intents and purposes, mentally retarded. She is also 7 years old. With that in mind, one could probably say with a high degree of certainty that Rosa has no interest in official health and education paperwork at this point in her life. So, it stands to reason that this crusade was most likely started by a family member looking for attention, and Rosa is to be used as a face for it.

Honestly, that is just sad.

More than that, has anyone thought of the road this could lead us down? This is one step away from thought policing. How long will it be before legislation is introduced which will prevent us from saying certain words? It may very well be just around the corner. Such measures may never pass, but the mere possibility of such things being proposed should frighten any freedom-loving American.

We should be more concerned with today’s truly pressing matters. There are circumstances today which threaten our very way of life, yet some of our legislative officials seemed more concerned with how you feel, and more importantly, how they feel about themselves. The future of America is too important. We shouldn’t be wasting time on this drivel.

Words are just words. The only powers they have to offend are the ones that we decide to give them.

I knew deep down the other day that my off-hand comment about peanut allergies and other designer suburban diseases in my post about bad journalism would elicit a response. Specifically, I knew that the moveon.org of the nut hunters would be out scanning the internet for heathen words like mine, which would threaten not only Little Joey with the anaphylaxis problem, but that also threaten their very belief that they should be telling anyone’s children what they can and can’t take for lunch. Seriously, with the exception of a cigar and a beer, the kids should have the right to whatever the parent packs.

But I digress. The third comment on my post was from Nutzi scold Dad Ken, telling me about his terrible wind from that piece of cheese he ate in 1973. Poor bastard. I feel sorry for him. No, not because he’s bloated, but because he has nothing else to do but scour the internet looking for comments from people like me that turn his world order on its ass.

That said, one of Kathy’s readers put is all into perspective.

So a few months ago my annoying relative with her peanut threatened hellspawn decided she was going to drum up support to make the nearby town “peanut free”. One of her acolytes wanted to know if my business would support the initiative. “Without reservation” said I. And then I thanked her for setting the precedent.

“What precedent?”

“Well, you see, I’m an alcoholic. I cannot drink it, I cannot be around it, and even having alcohol for sale where I live places me in jeopardy. My doctors will have no problem attesting to this as it’s essentially a life threatening allergy. So once you get peanuts banned, you’ve established a legal precedent for me to have all alcohol removed from [name of town]. I will get the bars closed, the liquor stores shut down, and the town declared an alcohol free zone.”

“You can’t DO that!!!” [She's almost bug-eyed -- this is the dumb @#$% who shows up at family events like baseball parties thrown for our kids with four cases of beer in the back of her SUV, because it's good for kids to see their parents getting @#%-faced and then drive home with them after they've consumed 10 beers apiece.]

“Why not? What makes peanuts so special? You don’t think there aren’t children being put at risk by alcohol? How many children have to die so you can drink a Bud on a Friday night?”

Way to fuck ‘em with their own dick.

Shut up. Really. These nut allergy people are so banal with their Nazi Nut Hatred and their anaphylactic fear of the old fashioned PB&J. Now they’re after your cookies…

Bella Cucina’s Death by Chocolate cookies contain walnuts, which are not declared on the label and could be hazardous to anyone with nut allergies.

Hide your children! Get to the bomb shelters! Somewhere out there are cookies that aren’t wearing their big yellow star… oops, I mean, their allergy label.

These designer kids with their designer allergies need to grow a pair. Yes, of nuts. You know what gives me anaphylaxis? Eggplant. You know why? Because it’s from the Deadly Nightshade family - so there’s a pretty good reason right there not to eat it. But I have. Sometimes it just shows up in food, and since I’m not one of those people who goes screeching into restaurants howling about how fucking fragile I am, I usually don’t think to ask ahead if a certain dish contains it. So I suck it up, drink a couple of cups of strong espresso to reopen the ol’ windpipe, and get the fuck on with it. I’ll die when it’s my time to die. And if you’re so thin-skinned that a peanut will kill you, then your time to die was in the womb. It is merely a credit to science that you’ve remained with us for so long. So long.