Swabby Online

Cousin Sobby Proves Why Irradiated DNA Is Better

2007-11-16T08:00:00.001-08:00

My identical Cousin Sobby publicizes our family photo album today.

After viewing it, you can see why I thank God and the Radioactive Chief for dosing me with high levels of gamma rays aboard the U.S.S. Nautilus.

But for better or worse, they are my family. I just wish Cousin Sobby would stop airing the family laundry so publicly. My genetically inferior cousins and family members can't help it if they're a couple of amino acids short of a full double helix.

I've Decided: Swabby Shall Run for Governor

2007-11-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

Via some back-channel communications with Mr. Heidelberger over at that fine Madison online publication (now there is a gentleman with some intellect!), I've decided to bypass a run for legislature from Arlington. I'm going to run for Governor of South Dakota in 2010 instead.

Like my Cousin Sibby, I haven't decided upon a party, if any. The Republicans believe in values but hate intellectuals. The Democrats seem to tolerate intellectuals but hate values. I'm thinking perhaps of resurrecting the Whig Party or joining my Cousin Sibby in his attempt to form a Conservative Coalition of some sort.

Further, as my Cousin Sibby notes today, legislators already depend upon his tremendous research skills. I think to heal the rift between us two identical cousins, I shall want him to be my Campaign Research Director.

And my other identical Cousin, Sobby, I shall approach to be my Communications Director, as he seems facile with Photoshop. Unfortunately, I shall need to buy him the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary due to his atrocious spelling. Other Cousin Sibby should borrow it as well.

While I believe Mr. Heidelberger would be a likely candidate to be a member of my inner staff or Cabinet, I need a man with more experience as my running mate. Thus, I will be approaching Dr. David Newquist of that Aberdeen online publication. Like me, he believes society has gone to hell in a hand basket, he uses lots of big words like me, and he's earned a Ph.D. Very impressive.

Plus, I believe Dr. Newquist would have no compunction about telling young toughs to get off his lawn.

So, with my team in place, I shall begin the much overdue process of the intellectual reformation of South Dakota and continue my search for The Couth on a larger scale.

Hello, I'm Swabby, the Cultured Cousin

2007-11-12T15:04:00.001-08:00

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Swabby, the long-lost triplet cousin to Sibby and Sobby.

Unlike my uncouth cousins who are looking for, respectively, The Truth and The Pudding, I on the other hand am looking for The Couth. You know, refinement and sophistication.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but but both of my unwashed cousins are anti-culture, anti-intellectual, anti-Goethe simpletons.

They probably think brie is something you use to clean your whitewalls.

They probably think an etude is a Honda subcompact.

How did I get to be so intellectually and culturally superior to my nitwit cousins who I share substantial genetic material with?

Simple. Unshielded nuclear power.

Back in the early 1960s, I served as a mechanic's mate aboard the U.S.S. Nautilus, one of the first submarines in our nation's nuclear navy. I was the nuclear engineer's "gopher." Unfortunately, or perhaps, in retrospect, fortunately, Radioactive Chief was my CPO and he didn't believe in even the limited safety precautions we were supposed to take in managing the ship's reactor.

He just kept mumbling something about "Radiation is for pussy pinkos! Get closer and screw the lead suit."

Thus, because of exposure to massive doses of radiation, my substandard DNA that I share was Sibby and Sobby was transformed into super-human, or at least, more normal, human DNA.

Thus, instead of loving Spam as I did as a kid growing up with my cousins in rural Davison County, I liked quiche post radiation. Instead of loving country music, I now appreciate classical music. Instead of being unable to spell, I learned how to use a dictionary and even--perish the thought!--a thesaurus.

And thus, post radiation, I was in Search of the Couth.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy my rather proletarian and brutish childhood with my two "special cousins." My first exposure to "nuclear" power was described quite nicely by Cousin Sobby.

I particularly remember attending Sunday school at our small rural, nondenominational church where Sibby, even as a kid, kept trying to tell our teacher Ms Johnson that some kid in Yankton by the named of Epp or some similarly unAmercan name was the spawn of Satan and would spread Secular Humanism across the land.

We all laughed because we didn't know about the dangers of Secular Humanism yet but I guess we should have paid closer attention to Cousin Sibby. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Anyway, you've probably gathered that things among us cousins has been a little strained throughout the years. While I think my cousins Sibby and Sobby are perfectly happy to howl at the moon and engage in pointless blog posts, I do love them dearly.

Blood--even irradiated blood--is thicker than water.

So, in the coming days and weeks, I will try and bring my feuding but well-intentioned cousins closer together while I also try to bring culture to the rest of you lumpen proletarians who don't know the difference between Bob Schwartz and Franz Schubert.

The photo above is me late in my Navy days. I am Swabby and a swabby.