I don't believe in Lamarck's theory.  I'm a Mendelian man all the way when it comes to explaining evolutionary genetics.  There's just too much evidence to suggest that Mendal's laws of segregation and independent assortment are the number one reason why people in Georgia are consistently having two-headed hair-lipped babies with their family members.  That being said, my daughter made me question the life I've spent calling proponents of soft inheritance a bunch of "dumb fucking epigenetic assholes" just the other day.   

You see, we were driving through town and my little girl, being an inquisitive child, asked me what was growing in a field that we just so happened to be passing.

"Milo."  I said with fatherly authority.

Looking in the rearview mirror, I could see that my daughter was regarding me with hate filled eyes.

-RECORD SCRATCH SOUND-

Let me stop right here in my narrative and ask you this… what's the longest that you've ever waited for a joke to pay off?  Maybe you reversed all the pictures in a friend of yours house (done it) and waited a week for them to get back from vacation to notice.  Maybe you removed the last page of someone's book (done it) and waited for them to read the whole thing before realizing your horrible trick.  Maybe you've put off coming to the punch-line of one of your tricks for months, dying all the while to tell your victim that they've fallen prey to your dastardly ruse and that they are fools for doing so!  If you have, then I'd like to say "Congratulations." and welcome you to the club of comedy lightweights.  You've got nothing on the pure awesomeness that is me.

So…….

Now that the action is paused on the scene where my wife and daughter and I are riding in the car on Monday night and my daughter is looking at me like she wants to kill me, let's do one of those screen wipes and flashback to a similar event that occurred eleven years ago.  My wife and I have just met one another and we are driving through the desert admiring the scenery.  At this point, neither one of us has any idea that we will be spending the rest of our lives together and our hateful daughter isn't even a twinkle in either one of our eye.

"What's that?"  My future wife asks, pointing out the window towards a square of green crop that's growing off in the distance.

"Milo."  I say smiling and patting her on the leg. 

For a moment our eyes lock and we smile at one another.

-RECORD SCRATCH SOUND-

I'm not a farmer.  I've never known any farmers.  Everything I know about farming has been learned from movies like Children of the Corn and Field of Dreams.  If you asked me to tell you honestly all my thoughts on agriculture, I would say that all crops are corn and filled with a mixture of demon spirits and ghostly baseball players.  In other words, I have no idea what the fuck milo even is.  I was just told that it was a crop once so I went with it.

Let's flashback even further…  This time, we're going all the way back to my childhood.  I'm about six years old and I'm riding in the truck with my dad.  Slowly we pass a field and I ask him what's growing in it.

"Milo."  He says confidently.

I think to myself, "Milo? What's milo?" but I don't ask.  Instead, I decide that every crop that I see for the rest of my life will be milo.  It'll be my little joke on the world.

-RECORD SCRATCH SOUND-

For the past 30 years following that afternoon, whenever someone has asked me what a certain crop was, I have almost ALWAYS said "Milo."  In other words, this has been my go to reply for just about every question that's ever been posed to me with regards to farming.  I've told people that crops were milo for so long that I sound like a fucking expert when I say it and for years no one has ever questioned my authority on anything that I say about milo farming.

Since I've already told you that the full extent of my knowledge concerning harvestable produce is corn and something called milo, I don't need to say that almost every answer I've have ever given in my life concerning farming has either been "Milo" or "Corn".  It's not like I'm asked these sorts of questions often but they do occur at least two or three times a year.  I figure, over the past 30 years I have told people that farms were growing milo at least 100 times.  Thirty of these times were to my wife.

About five years ago, my wife and I are riding in the car.  Almost six have passed since I first told her that the farm that we passed that day in the desert was growing milo.  We have gotten married and just bought a house.  I have continued to tell her that every crop she's ever asked about is milo.

"I wonder what they're growing over there?"  My wife says wondering aloud as she looks out on a field of green.

"Milo."  I say.

There is a long pause.  "Wait a second!"  My wife blurts out after a moment.  "You ALWAYS say milo!"

-RECORD SCRATCH SOUND-

Put yourself in my position for a second.  You have this little joke that you've kept to yourself for 30 years and finally, after all that time someone finally gets wise to it.  I'd like to say that I played it cool and made up some story to explain why everything that has ever been grown in the world is milo and how it's the new crop that people can't do without.  Sadly, I can't.

As my wife looked on in horror, thirty years of internalized laughter came pouring out of me all at once.  It was so boisterous that it was downright cruel.  I wasn't just laughing at my spouse, I was laughing at everyone who has ever been fooled by this lame little quip of mine.  She was just the first and only one who has ever figured it out and she bore the brunt of the demonic-orgasmic guffaw that flowed forth from my mouth.  The fucking joke had finally ended after thirty fucking years.

Or had it…

Let's go back to the car ride on Monday when my daughter asked me what was growing in that field.  I saw her innocent question as the opportunity to begin again.  I told her "Milo" and I thought that, that would be the end of that.  I figured that I had at last gotten my milo joke back and I could start it afresh with a new generation.

As I looked in the rearview mirror at her expression of malice she replied through gritted teeth… "No daddy.  That's NOT milo."

And so maybe there's something to Lamarckism evolution after all.

Of course, since we as a nation hate Hillary Clinton and generally disregard women as complaining things with boobs attached to them, once this fact was revealed, no one really cared that the law regarded female attire rather than fashionable Jewish Livestrong armbands.  Still, the damage had already been done and every time someone found themselves considering Iran or our Presidents desperate pleas for us to let him bomb them they thought "They're like Hitler so that's okay by me."  Equating someone to Hitler (especially where Jews are concerned) can only be compared to a white person being called a racist by a black person just because they don't like rap music.  I mean, even if you really hate rap music and love all black people, their still partially correct because your ancestors probably owned their ancestors and that bigotry has obviously transferred itself over several generations to make you not want to hug Flava Flav today.

In January the news reported that a United States Death Cruiser had been harassed in the Persian Gulf by an angry conglomeration of Iranian Cigarette Boats which had encircled the vessel with guns poised, screaming taunts and dropping mysterious white packages into the water surrounding it.  To back up this assertion, the Pentagon released a video taken of the event which showed the dangerous looking death-bomb tiny-boats patrolling the flanks of our ship not dropping packages overboard and not aiming their non-existent guns at anyone onboard.  The video also included an ominous message which was later found to have been recorded separately and combined with the footage shown.  It said:  "I am coming to you," and then curtly adds, "You will explode after a few minutes."

When officials at the Pentagon were confronted in the press by the Iranians with regards to the validity of the hilariously polite suicide bomber that can be heard speaking on the tape, they admitted that the message had been recorded from an internationally recognized ship-to-ship communications channel and weren't even really sure if it had come from the Iranian patrol.  Apparently the Persian Gulf is a busy place where everyone hates everyone else and people are always threatening to explode one another "-after a few minutes".  In fact, Navy veterans within the US who are familiar with these types of messages have stated on the record that they are almost 100% sure that the voice on the tape is of a Gulf prankster named "The Filipino Monkey" (great name!) who sails around in the area telling everyone all the time that he's going to explode them.

Despite the fact that almost everything about the incident was revealed to be a fraud and no matter how funny that I might think it to be for a person named The Filipino Monkey to get on a ships radio and tell whoever might be listening that they are going to explode in a few minutes, the story succeeded in further vilifying Iran.  Joseph Cirincione, of the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington stated at the time:   "We have to take a step back and make sure we don't hyperinflate these threats, to prevent a shooting war that nobody really wants."  A week after Cirincione made those pansy assed statements; George Bush visited the region and said:  "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, so the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf – and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."  Then, our President revealed that he was in fact The Filipino Monkey and that we would all explode in a few minutes.

In June, Israel staged a military maneuver (Israel famously loves military maneuvers) to prepare for a unilateral air strike on Iranian nuclear sites of which both the UN and Tehran maintain are solely for generating electricity and not for weaponization.  This week, the United States relocated the aircraft/super-destroy-kill-carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Arabian Sea just off the coast of Iran.  Naturally, that country is a little paranoid right now and they're shooting off as many "test missiles" as they can get a hold of in a Chihuahua-like defensive measure to try and appear just as intimidating and dangerous as the two hugely militarized big-dog nations currently pointing guns at them.  The whole thing has a very familiar ring to it and it's kind of insulting to think that our government would ever think that we would fall for it again.  I don't care how cool Shock and Awe was to watch on TV I'm just not buying the validity of another offensive conflict in the Middle East.

Yesterday, the Iranian government released a photo of several missiles being test-fired at an undisclosed rock lair within that country where their evil leader Skelator constantly plots the demise of He-Man.   Hossein Salami, a commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, was quoted as saying: "The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation."  Still, like everything else about this growing conflict, Salami's claims are a bunch of baloney.  The photo was faked.

Much like Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and Chuck Norris, everything that you've been told about Iran and everything you will be told is a lie.  Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said of the test:  "Israel has no desire for conflict or hostilities with Iran, but the Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program must be of grave concern to the entire international community."  Gordon Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary stated:  "The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity.  Iran must refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world."  Meanwhile, Iran has agreed to talks with European leaders regarding the cessation of their nuclear activities in return for trade incentives.  That is exactly what the United States wanted (supposidly) and it's probably why the sky is always rainbow colored and all water has begun to taste like chocolate this week.  

In truth, I'm not that big of a fan of Iran.  I don't like the way that they treat their women and I'm sure that their leader is just as much of a dick-muncher as our leader (only with much more lava dripping from his skin and a dark belief in the occult).  Still, I've got to wonder; if oil falls $9.00 a barrel in two days on the news of Ahmadinejad's nuclear concessions to Europe, and during that time America, Israel and Iran all work together to inflate tensions in the Middle East and drive up prices… is that a conspiracy?  If nations lie about one another in an effort to provoke war, is there a scheme of some sort at work?  If there is, then who in America not named Dick Cheney or George Bush stand to have the most to gain from it?