I was at a party not long ago drinking beer and telling freshmen I was on the lacrosse team… I was at a party not long ago drinking beer and telling freshmen I was on the lacrosse team when I saw a kid wearing a leather jacket. It wasn’t the cool kind of leather jacket a ladies’ man or an action hero would wear, but the kind with chains and buckles attached to it. The kind that says its owner may or may not be addicted to heroin and probably enjoyed Elephant.

The thing that caught my eye about this jacket wasn’t that it wasn’t cool looking, though, but that fastened on its right breast was a patch of a crossed-out swastika.

Once more, for emphasis, the jacket had a crossed-out swastika patch sewn onto it.

Apparently, some time in the recent past this kid had decided that it was both socially relevant and fashionable to wear clothing that advertises his opposition to Nazism, and then he went out and made it happen. Now before I go off on a longer rant on the implications of this specific patch, I think it’s important that I take a moment to point out that it appeared to have been altered. From where I was standing, it looked like a regular Nazi patch that he x-ed over with a magic marker.

This means that one of two things had to have happened for the jacket to exist. The first possibility is that he bought it from a neo-Nazi and then crossed out the swastika so as to make it more acceptable for daily use (which would have been a wise move, as the Nazi party polls behind even the Democrats today). The second is that he had to go to a Nazi paraphernalia store in order to buy a Nazi patch so he could then cross it out to make his “statement.” Though these are both equally funny possibilities, I found myself rooting more for the second to be true, mostly because it makes the jacket a more deliberate construction.

Now for the longer rant. It’s heartening this day and age to see a young person with the courage to take a stand on such a controversial issue. The public be damned – he separated from the flock and let his voice be heard. People have been pretending that Nazism is OK for too damn long, and finally someone had the nerve to stand up and say that a slaughter of millions of innocent people that happened more than a half-century ago was a bad thing.

Now, what I just said was stupid. Not the whole column (arguably), but the last paragraph. It was stupid because it is worthless to take a stand on common sense. A button that says you support air is not necessary; neither would be a button that is pro-drinking fluids to prevent dehydration. Or eating food for sustenance. I personally am strongly in favor of delicious and healthful food. Many have stood in my way, but I have been doing everything in my power to get the message out there that delicious and healthful food is good to eat.

What’s next? Why not run for state senate on the platform of opposing child molestation?

“I will take a hard line stance against child molesters, and do all I can to spread the word that it’s wrong for adults and children to have sex with one another. I know it will be a hard road, and the debate will be fiercely contested, but with a strong secular spiritual force on my side, I know I can prove to people once and for all that parents shouldn’t be allowed to have sex with their own children