(Schaden)Freude, Schöner Götterfunken
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in its Fourth Movement, contains the well-known chorus Ode to Joy. The first words out of the choristers’ mouths are “Joy, thou shining spark of God.” ‘Puter’s taken a little license in the title of this post, attributing joy in other’s suffering to be a gift from God. Normally this would be beyond the pale, but wait for it. ‘Puter’s found possibly the only upside to the downturn in the economy (how’s that for juxtaposition).
“What’s the opportunity that could make you so happy, ‘Puter, despite the enormous financial debacle unfurling before us?,” you ask. An opportunity to crush teachers’ unions once and for all!
Behold, WaPo is reporting that GorT’s homeland doesn’t have the money to pay the teachers’ guaranteed contractual raises next year, some apparently up to 10.5%. And the union’s not having any of this renegotiation crap, even if it means bankrupting the school system. So it’s down to this. Profligate spenders MoCo Public Schools can’t pay the exorbitant raises promised the greedy teachers’ union because of the downturn and anticipated revenue shortfall. Unions are not interest in compromise. Mr. Immovable Object, ‘Puter’d like to introduce you to Ms. Unstoppable Force. This one’s got donnybrook written all over it. There’s no way to avoid here. Either the union caves and rewrites its contract thereby weakening itself significantly, or it takes work action, alienating parents and students. One can only hope for a municipal bankruptcy.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! ‘Puter’s so giddy he can hardly contain hisself. This could hardly have happened to a more deserving bunch of folks.
And, seriously, aside from “Schadenfreude,” is there another German word as cool as “Götterfunken?”
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.