When I was a kid, after seeing Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), I had this novel idea to be a costumed crime fighter.  That’s right, I thought that with a combination of training, Eastern philosophy, and a shitload of guns I could stalk the mean streets of New York looking to do good deeds and bring criminals to justice … or at least delivering such a beating that would leave them too scared to commit future crimes.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t envisioning myself running around with tights with my underwear on the outside.  I was cool enough to see myself more as a Punisher figure, wearing biker leather, with a Zorro cape.  Okay, so I wasn’t that cool.  I was 13 years old at the time.

I’m now 33.  Unfortunately, my world view is now completely and drastically changed.  I don’t think that my desire to be the altruistic, non-profit superhero is nearly as strong as it once was.  In fact, its completely fucking dead.  Other than getting a teary eye watching RSPCA (aka Humane Society) video of abused circus bears, I have developed a strong sense of apathy for the rest of the world at large. The only uses I can conjure for my proposed superpowers is to rip off the stock market or in some other way become incredibly rich with little or no effort. Or maybe effect the outcomes of sporting events by using telekinesis to alter the flight of a football.  Or make people I hated in high school develop Irritable Bowell Syndrome.

It’s funny that the older you get, the closer you get to the dark side of the Force.  Luke, give into your Malox.  So let’s just embrace the fact that I’m past my hero days and I’m full bore on the sinister, wise cracking, pimp daddy, world conquering, smart ass Super Villian.  Deez Nuts.

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America is faced with great problems and they only seem to get greater as each year passes by.  It’s like we’ve got a huge scale with good stuff on one side and bad stuff on the other.  Each year more turd burgers get stacked on the bad side.  These turd burgers only fester and grow ever worse as they clump together in a fetid mess on the bad side of the scale and slowly the balance tips away from the good side.

The economy, health care, crime, immigration, global warming, corruption, terrorism, lead paint, and two foreign wars.  But I’ve got a solution about the war turd burgers.  In fact, I’m so passionate about how to solve the problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other place that we feel messing with that I’m going to add an expletive to that.

I’ve got a FUCKING solution.  My philosophy of war. [Read Column]

I joined a fraternity when I was a junior in college.  Before that I’d bounced around for two years from Oklahoma State in my home town to the far north of Wisconsin for Marquette University (Jesuits.  God bless them) trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do.  Upon my return from the frozen north (… and extremely expensive north.  Jesuits.  Damn them), I became a rushee, signee, and ultimately a pledge of Phi Gamma Delta which was introduced to me by several of my close high school friends.

I was 20 years old at the time of my signing.  That’s late to join said institution, the molder of fine, young men.  I was among the oldest of my pledge class of misfits and ne’er-do-wells.  Among them a US Army Ranger with 124 confirmed kills, a hockey goon, a gaggle of small town rednecks, an eight foot tall red-headed giant, an assortment of motley and colorful characters that could as likely be found in a federal prison or a Sunday school class, and …. the Pissing Bandit. [Read Column]