Janie Boschma

Dear Ask Anything,

– Con-fez-ed

Dear Con-fez-ed,

The Shriners are a group of old men who like to drive in parades in goofy little cars, often being the only participants not throwing hard candy at spectators. They are also famous for the Shriners Hospitals for Children and various other types of community work, so it really wouldn’t be fair to make light of their organization with all of the good they do. Unfortunately, the Showcase/Scene editors of this paper are ruthless and demand I fill up this space, leaving no other recourse but to poke fun at them and their strange little group.

Founded in 1870 in New York City, the Shriners (or the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for short) are the brainchild of famous stage performer William J. Florence. Yes, that William J. Florence, the well-known actor behind such classic characters as Captain Cuttle in “Dombey and Son” and Sir Lucius O’Trigger in “The Rivals.” I mean, who knew? Anyway, he and his Freemason buddy Walter M. Fleming decided they weren’t all that into the rituals of the Masons and agreed a new offshoot group should be created that focused more on fun and less on global domination. The inspiration for this group came after Florence was invited to a party in Marseilles by an Arabian diplomat. After the party, he was allowed into the diplomat’s own secret society. Florence took many notes about this Arabian secret society and stole as many ideas from it as he could when creating the Shriners.

This blatant copying of the Arabian diplomat’s secret society also helps explain why they wear those funny little hats, otherwise known as fezzes. The fez was a popular fashion item in the Ottoman Empire, and the Arabian diplomat and others in his secret society probably were wearing them at the time they let Florence party with them. Really, the Shriners are lucky Florence didn’t hang out with a nudist colony, they might not be such a fixture in modern day parades if that were the case.

Dear Ask Anything,

– Rock

Dear Rock,

To answer your question, one popular theory about the origin of Rock Paper Scissors is that it can be traced back to… wait for it… ancient China. It’s true! I’m not even making that up just because I like discussing feudal China; it just happens to keep coming up as the origin to things you people ask me about. Apparently, the game was popular among warlords during the memorable Han Dynasty, who created it to pass the time, for gambling purposes and to decide who got shotgun on long TP-ing raids to Mongolia.

There is also the theory that the game was used to make military decisions, which would be the beginning of a proud tradition our current administration seems to be continuing in its management of the war in Iraq. Rumor has it that Donald Rumsfeld’s unexpected victory over Colin Powell by virtue of a paper over a rock (fittingly enough) helped make the decision to dissolve the country’s standing army.

But finding the answer to this question caused me to think, which was a painful and unpleasant experience to say the least. I was reminded of a question I’ve been wrestling with for some time, why does paper beat rock? I have sent letters to the United States of America Rock Paper Scissors League asking this question, but so far I have only received cease-and-desist letters and mail bombs in response.

I mean, scissors cutting paper and rock crushing scissors I get, but what does paper do to rock? Paper covers rock, but that doesn’t destroy it. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s gone; we’re not dogs for crying out loud. If anything, rock rips paper because paper is so weak and fragile, much like the psyche of my opponents in Rock Paper Scissors.

I believe there should be a revision to the game, replacing paper with something that can actually destroy rock, like a jackhammer. Then scissors could beat jackhammer by cutting its extension cord, so everything would be hunky dory. How jackhammer might be conveyed by hand is something I have not decided, though. I’ll leave that up to the USARPS League(soon to be the USARJS League) to decide.