Column: Guest Column, by Rex Huppke

The human body’s primary design flaw is that when the mouth opens, nothing slides in place to keep a person’s stupid from splashing out.

Most people have low enough levels of stupid that it’s not an issue. But those brimming with the stuff — usually the ones whose mouths are open the most — face a real struggle, and that was on vivid display in 2013.

Consider just a few of the year’s verbal lowlights.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen, when asked in a deposition if she ever used the N-word, said: “Yes, of course.” She said it might have been in telling jokes, which she then eloquently defended by saying: “Most … most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target — I don’t know. I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know. I can’t … I don’t know.”

Fox News host Megyn Kelly took the white Christmas concept to its logical extreme by taking a firm stand on the Caucasian-ness of Santa Claus.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white,” Kelly said, later insisting that Jesus “was a white man too.”

And Iowa Rep. Steve King defended his opposition to immigration reform by warning that most people who sneak into the country from Mexico aim to destroy America with their freakishly large calf muscles.

“For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” King said.

You see what I mean? Mouths open up, stupid sprays everywhere.

Former MSNBC pundit Martin Bashir reacted to some stupid that sloshed out of Sarah Palin’s mouth — comparing slavery to the national debt — by recounting how a slave could be punished by someone urinating or defecating in his mouth. Bashir then suggested Palin “would be the outstanding candidate” for such a punishment.

That comment was: dumb, offensive and, as it turns out, fireable. The rare “should’ve kept your trap shut” trifecta.

And celebrity-ish person Amanda Bynes — who usually ejects her excess bodily stupid via Twitter — said in an interview with InTouch Weekly that she only has “hot friends,” and that the ugly people of the world are conspiring against her: “I have no clue (why people say I’m insane). Every time I’ve heard it, it came from an ugly person’s mouth, so I don’t care.”

This is not good. We either need to give natural selection a boost — is there a way to encourage lions to eat people like King and Bashir? — or hope evolution helps humans develop larynx-based dumbness dampers.

Of course, there is another solution.

As we slide into 2014, what if people who are blessed with fame but cursed with stupid take a page from those who have neither. I’m talking about the people who do things rather than say things, who don’t let their mouths flap open, even if their insides are full of insight, but simply go about the business of making the world a better place to inhabit.

You probably know someone like that — a friend who volunteers to teach English-as-a-second-language classes; a priest who quietly comforts the dying; a soldier who serves her country without complaint; a teacher who works hard to make sure your kids get smarter and don’t grow up to say dumb things.

Those are the ones you don’t read about in “Dumbest Quotes of 2013” lists. In fact, you rarely read about them at all.

It’s the stupid spilling from the mouths of pop stars and pundits that gets the attention, not the good being done by those who eschew seflies and controversial tweets and public comments.

Maybe if the high-profile people occasionally mimicked the humble, the world would be a little less dumb.

Or maybe we should just release those lions and hope for the best.

 

Rex Huppke is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and a noted hypocrisy enthusiast. You can email him at rhuppke@tribune.com or follow him on Twitter at @RexHuppke.