Shit stinks.
I mean ‘shit’ in the fecal sense of the word. Actual shit.
This is not a metaphor nor euphemism, though I don’t understand
how it could even be the latter.
When something reeks, people tend to say, 'Good
gullivers, that smells like shit'. In our minds, shit is the
worst-smelling of all things, so we immediately liken a horrible scent to it.
Gym socks, dumpsters, weird uncles. Shit, shit, shit.
…
“But what does shit have to do with Hitler?”
Great question. Thanks for asking.
Comedian Bill Burr did a stand-up bit about how bad people
are immediately compared to (Adolf) Hitler.
For instance, 'That loud orange guy is so crazy and
dangerous, he could be the next Hitler.'
However, as Burr also pointed out, Hitler was not the
worst guy ever. Nor is shit the worst-smelling substance ever. (Have you encountered a durian fruit or a Lesser Anteater?)
…
*For your convenience*, I have compiled a list of people
who were worse than or at least as evil as Hitler.
Some of these baddies may not be statistically worse than him, but they were downright awful so feel
free to call people these names sometimes just to mix things up.
(I will return to ‘the S word’ later and it will probably
make even less sense.)
Pope
Urban II (c. 1042 - 1099)
Yes, a pope.
This guy is credited with initiating the Crusades- eight “holy wars” covering
almost 200 years.
Instead of kindly asking Muslims in Europe to vacate
the continent, Urby gave an order to redecorate everything with their blood
instead.
His direct campaign killed about 200,000 people, which
pales in comparison to Adolf, but think about the seven subsequent Crusades and
everything similar that followed.
The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind.
(Did you expect that?)
So yes, at least one Roman Catholic pope was as bad as
Hitler.
Vlad
The Impaler (1431 - 1476)
When an opposing army showed up to overtake Vlad's
territory, they would find their own soldiers (from a previous raid) rotting on
stakes shoved through their bodies.
This much is factual about Prince Vlad but he has been
accused of many other evil things, such as boiling people, skinning them alive,
and dining among his (still living) impaled victims. It has even been said he
washed his hands with and/or dipped his food in their blood, possibly feeding
it to them as well.
Imagine eating food that was dipped in
your own blood while a piece of wood is through your body.
If even half of these things are true, Vlad deserves a
spot near Hitler out of sheer brutality.
Also, he was Bram Stoker's inspiration for his
blood-sucking character Count Dracula.
To give him some undeserving credit, we may never have eaten Count Chocula cereal without Vlad The Impaler.
(Worth it?)
Mary
Tudor (1516 - 1558)
Though the breakfast cocktail was named for her
and not the other way around, Bloody Mary was the only surviving child of King
Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine Of Aragon.
After a long struggle to attain the English throne,
which included plenty of violence and proving she was not a child of incest,
Mary declared all Protestants to be heretics.
She then ordered the burning of over 300 of them because whatever Protestants believe
did not jive with whatever she believed.
Her untimely death from influenza and/or cancer left
the throne to her half-sister, Elizabeth I, who was much less violent, but
supposedly never engaged in the act of intercourse.
Ivan
The Terrible (1530 - 1584)
Unlike his grandfather, Ivan The Great, who was great,
Ivan The Terrible was terrible.
Russia's first tsar
was paranoid and prone to such things as killing his own son and beating his pregnant
wife.
Not just terrible by personal actions, Ivan led Russia
into a downward spiral that lasted for 100 years, until Peter The Great
(greater than Ivan The Great?) came to power.
Maybe this guy wasn't so bad but he will forever be known as 'The Terrible' so he had to
be included here.
Josef
Stalin (1878 - 1953)
Have you heard of the KGB? How about Gulags? Both symbols
of Russian brutality are credited to Stalin.
Hitler's partner-in-moustache changed his original surname
to the Russian word meaning man of steel.
Unlike Superman, however, Joe decided to kill his country’s residents via massive
starvation and execute people who disagreed with him, which led to tens of millions of deaths.
He enjoyed rewriting History and even changed the date
and year of his birth.
His inter- and intra-country wars also did a lot of
damage to Russia financially and geographically.
Some people you would probably not want to have over
for dinner herald Stalin as a hero, but most do not really care for his methods
and massacres. Even all the places he had named after himself have been retitled
as part of de-Stalinization.
Mao
Tse-tung (1893 - 1976)
A close ally of Stalin, Chairman Mao turned a
struggling China into a hefty world power.
Unfortunately, he also oversaw tens of millions of deaths along the way.
Torture and murder were nothing to Mao, who killed 30-40
million people by starvation. Millions of others perished in the harsh
conditions of his labor camps.
In addition to these atrocities, Mao did horrible
things to his vilest enemies- educators. He had his soldiers round up teachers en masse to beat, kill, and sometimes even
eat them.
Dude was bad news but is still generally honored
within the Chinese Communist Party.
Pol
Pot (1925 - 1998)
A big fan of the previous guy, this Cambodian dictator
and I share a similar philosophy- that money should be outlawed and modern
things are evil and should be destroyed.
One topic on which Potty and I would disagree is respecting
differing opinions and ways of life. I tend to not interfere when folks want to
do as they please.
Pol Pot, on the other hand, ordered anyone who refused
to leave the cities for farm life to be tortured and/or killed. Many of those who
did leave the cities were forcibly worked to death.
Oh yeah, and his troops put landmines all over the
country, which still get stepped on to this day.
Look up the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge regime for more.
Albert
Fish (1870 - 1936)
This guy admitted to raping/torturing/murdering over
100 children, though only a few were actually linked to him.
One certain victim was named Grace Budd.
Alby earned the trust of Grace’s family then tricked
them into letting her accompany him to a non-existent birthday party. Instead
of a fun time, Fish took Grace to an empty house, got naked for some reason, strangled
the girl, then cut her up and cooked her in various ways.
As if that was not gruesome enough, he wrote a detailed
letter to the Budds describing what he had done.
He did, however, assure them ‘She died a virgin’, which
the family must have been comforted by even though there is no way its minimal
amount of relief could have possibly comforted them.
…
The next time someone is awful, call that person a
Fish or a Pol. It may not make them less-horrible but it will confuse them and
that in itself is always a victory.
…
This complete lack of a segue brings me back to shit.
Did you know that not everyone wipes their asses the
way you do?
Years back, a friend walked in on another friend in
the bathroom, who was wiping his rear while purposely standing up. The first
friend ran to report the news to the rest of us.
Half, including myself, were appalled. In no way had we ever thought of a butt-wiping technique
other than leaning slightly.
But the other half was just as shocked at us, having
never considered a method that did not involve performing a squat.
And maybe there are other ways out there that are just
waiting to be discovered.
The point is that some people commit mass genocide and
others wipe their asses while standing. If there is a correlation, I have not
found it. Somebody do a study.
Before you criticize these freaks of Nature, consider
that they actually believe their inexcusable acts are good. Try not to
jump to judgement.
In closing, rising off the toilet to wipe or rising in
power to kill everyone is basically the same shit.
Once more, shit.