[Disclaimer]
The term "Wing Nut" has been a Berkeley-one for some time now. I did not create the word, although I do see where it does fit with a degree of the mentally handicapped out here, not all with whom mental handicapped issues arise are of the Wing Nut variety. So if anyone gets offended by this word and how it is applied to the mentally handicapped, I do not use the term as a pejorative. For me, it's a term of endearment to those I am speaking. In fact, I defend most of them on a daily basis, especially when Fascists come a callin', using terms like "blight" to describe homeless American Citizens, who have been abandoned by the very same people doing the condemning, no less?
I do love irony.
Okay, I have been sitting on my bag now for over a year and a half now, and I have seen and heard some of the weirdest things I have ever seen and heard during that time frame. Sometimes those things I hear make sense, in the grand scheme of things... while other things I hear tend to go into the gibberish bin. Sometimes, though, a "Wing Nut" will ramble, for a good, solid minute, and say absolutely nothing whatsoever. But then, in their rambling, somewhere along the line, a quote will come out and present itself, and it will be tied to something you were just contemplating, not a minute before that Wing Nut uttered it.
This has happened to me more times than I care to count. So, if you pay extra close attention to the Wing Nuts of Berkeley, you may get some insight on something you were pondering about. This is not the focus of this piece, however, but I thought I would add it anyway, because it may be pertinent to this subject by the end of my about-to-behold observation (from the other day): as with most Wing Nuts, myriad run-on sentences cluster the landscape, like the selective listening capabilities of Justin Bieber's fan base.
What you will get, on a given day in downtown Berkeley, California, is a Wing Nut standing (or sitting) on a corner, and they will be talking... and talking... and talking. Again, most of it is garbled nonsense, while some of it can be useful to the writer paying attention to his environment. However, sometimes... a person will take offense to something the Wing Nut says.
Now, from all indications, these people who get offended, they appear to be "normal." And what I mean by normal is, an average person (based on a cursory examination of that person's clothing and mannerisms) with average intelligence (or, that was the first impression, anyway), that should be able to decipher who is a little crazy and who is lucid and has the ability to reason. Well, apparently, this is a subjective art form, the ability to spot a person and believe they are reasonably intelligence. Because the other day, I witnessed something so dumb it really is hard to wrap my head around it.
The other day, a Wing Nut was doing her thing, ranting about something. I wasn't paying her any mind, as I have seen this movie before, and know how the protagonist gets it. And, since I was not in need of any (otherworldly) assistance at the time, the details of her gibberish was unimportant to me at that time. Then I heard this other woman's voice: it screeched and sounded as though someone had stepped on her little toe, intentionally. She began to talk a bunch of crap to the Wing Nut lady. The Wing Nut lady wasn't phased, though, as she just kept right on going on with her dissertation on how Rice Chex are actually microchip implants they (Federal Government) get you to ingest, that way they do not have to implant anything under your skin, and it's entirely voluntary, too!
Now, after about ten seconds, if a person does not realize they are arguing with a mentally handicapped person, especially the woman I encountered the other day, the person doing the arguing has issues. Physically, the (Wing Nut) woman looked bad enough. Combine her appearance with the fact that she was obviously (at least to me) afflicted with some sort of paranoid-schizophrenia, among other issues, like drug addiction, with maybe a dash of alcoholism sprinkled throughout, and a reasonably intelligent person should be able to figure out they are not arguing with someone who has the capability to return your volley.
The woman angered by the presence (and words, apparently) of the Wing Nut lady was not getting this memo, apparently, as she kept on arguing with the lady, who was never phased by the woman's anger toward her, as she was on "Planet Zorn." This woman then began to lunge toward the Wing Nut lady, as to suggest she was going to physically assault her if she did not shut her mouth in her direction. I had finally seen and heard enough ignorance for one day, as I then told this person that the person she was arguing with was "severely limited," and "is not a threat to you. She is mentally handicapped." And then, as if the woman was hit in the face with a bucket of cold water, stood at attention, as though she was a private and a Colonel just walked into the room.
Then the woman said, "Oh! No wonder! Thanks for letting me know!"
The woman walked off, shaking her head at the Wing Nut lady, in disgust, as she looked at me, trying to relate to me, using her eyes to convey a message to me of, "Yeah, I'm with you."
Um, no, you aren't. You are ignorant. You are driven by fear and could not see the writing on the wall in front of you, even though it was screaming at you, the entire time. So, do not look at me as though we are in the same club, because we are most certainly not. And, it's not that my club is an exclusionary club... intentionally. It's only an exclusionary club because you have to be a certain level of intelligence to join; and you have to be this tall, too. This is not our club's fault, as we are not the ones doing the discrimination... the conditions to join our club are simple: do not be ignorant.
-James Richard Armstrong II
