I Hate You All

     Not really. That's just a character I play in The Misanthrope's Manual, a satirical dictionary I'd pieced together back in the 90's. I'd mentioned it late last month when the Kindle version went live. Well, the proofs I'd ordered came in the mail yesterday and, barring a few typos, it looks pretty good. In a day or two, I'll upload the corrected proof to Create Space and, a day or two after that, the print version will go live.
     As you can expect, since many of these definitions were written over 20 years ago when I was still in the autumn of my youth, this vicious little book contains a lot of old yet new material that's never seen the light of day (although, as I said in my introduction, dozens were published in the early 90's in Light Quarterly Magazine, run by my old partner in crime, the late John Mella). And even though this was written many years before I became a political blogger, many of the definitions are political with a liberal bias and I took more than a couple of shots at Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party.
     Here's a sample of some of the political ones:

Act of Congress- One which is of honesty, diligence, and of representing its constituents, an act which has thus far fooled the American public for 237 years.

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Blackmail, n- A plot involving a politician, a known whore, and an extortionist, making one in all.

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Civil Liberty- Alleged freedoms supposedly enjoyed by a nation's citizens. There are two great abuses of it: The second greatest is in not exercising one's right to vote. The greatest is to make use of it.

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Democrat, n- Usually, a liberal politician, as opposed to one of the other party, or an autocrat, a self motivated politician.

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E pluribus unum- The motto of the U. S., Latin for "Out of many, one," most likely a reference to the one Congressman not under indictment.

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Firing squad,- A military detachment dispatched to burials of statesmen, always three days late.

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Gridlock, n- A Congressional term, meaning “conflicts of disinterest.”

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Hell, n- The growing supernatural headquarters of the Republican Party.

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Inauguration, n- The swearing off of corruption, the swearing out of the Opposition and the swearing in of a thief.

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Jack the Ripper- A 19th century serial killer who murdered and dismembered the wrong prostitutes (See “Politician.”)

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King Snake, n- A large, harmless snake, save for its bipedaled namesake (Homo politicus).

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Lobbyist, n- The best compensated lawmaker, as K Street is the epicenter of the undeclared third chamber of Congress.

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Metonymy, n- Euphemizing with a PhD. It is the process of substituting a word or phrase for an intimately associated one. (E.g. “criminal enterprise” for “Republican Party.”) 

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     That's it. If you want to read the rest, you'll have to fork over $2.99. Don't worry, there's more where that came from. As slim as The Misanthrope's Manual is, it's packed with mostly nasty, brutish and short definitions, over 500, at last count. And, as I said earlier, that comes out to a little over half a cent per laugh and you're not gonna get a better deal than that. And, to show you all what a good pinko I am, I even took quite a few brickbats against Wall Street oligarchs and the 1% long before the bailouts.
     And I'll sweeten an otherwise bitter pot: Since Mrs. JP and I still need a lot of help in April and survive until May, for anyone who kicks in more than $25 to our Paypal account, I'll order a physical proof at cost, sign the title page and mail it to straight to you at my expense (if your street address has changed since giving it to Paypal, please notify me.). Donate $30 or more and I'll write a definition for a word of your choice in the inscription that I'll never publish anywhere else.