BETWEEN ME AND EWE

I know I promised to write about Halloween, but I’ve been distracted. But once you read this, you’ll understand.

Today I saw a headline that just knocked me on my back and made me realize that there really is something new under the sun. Several decades ago, the post-modernists declared that everything had been written and all one could do is re-write it. (Or at least I think that’s what they declared... that’s how my English major friend explained it to me.) But I have stumbled upon a sentence that I can pretty much guarantee has never been written before. You could be forgiven for thinking it had been produced by a random word generation program. But no, it’s from a real news story. Behold:

“Oregon Gay Sheep Experiment Challenged By Tennis Champ”

Take a moment and re-read that sentence, and bathe in its absurdity. Thousands of years of written communication, and the language had never before needed to produce a sentence like this. But there it is, in all its glory.

The story itself is also a unique read. It tells of an Oregon State University study looking for biological differences between gay and straight sheep. They found that 5-8 percent of sheep are “male oriented” (they don’t use the term “gay” because it is too “human oriented). Some of the animals are killed so researchers can study their brains. OSU says the research could help ranchers avoid spending thousands of dollars on rams that won’t breed.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals caught wind of this experiment and had Martina Navratilova send a stern letter to the university. A press release from PETA calls the experiment “a program of sexual eugenics in animals.”

I must admit I’m relieved that PETA is finally sticking up for the gay sheep. They know that those researchers at OSU are hiding behind “science” to pursue their blatant anti-gay-sheep agenda. Those men in lab coats know that a proud gay sheep will eventually demand its rights, so he must be kept down. At other schools, gay sheep are demanding domestic partner benefits and a special theme night at Disneyland.

But not at Oregon State. You just know those OSU guys are taunting those sheep with signs that say things like “A marriage is between a ram and a ewe… it’s just that simple.”

And what is being done? Almost nothing. “When they came for the gay sheep, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a gay sheep. And no one was left to speak up when they came for me.” But now PETA is speaking up, so I guess we’re all ok now.

I kind of got off on a tangent there, but I think my point remains clear:

“Oregon Gay Sheep Experiment Challenged By Tennis Champ”

Baby pictures and that missing Halloween story coming up later this week. Really. And apologies for the awful pun in this post's title. I'm not proud man.