There is a new twist on the malicious harassment of innocents.
Has it been brought to our attention by feminist activists? Is it grist for daytime talk shows pandering to the culture of victimization? Will we see Ted Koppel moderating a Nightline town hall meeting to discuss it? No.
The vicious harassment to which I refer was discovered by astronomers looking through the Hubble space telescope.
The victims of this harassment won’t be appearing on Oprah anytime soon. They are galaxies.
That’s right. Galaxy harassment.
I ask you—is no one safe?
The astronomers say that the beautiful spiral shapes of galaxies are torn to shreds by the gravitational tugging and pulling of other galaxies passing close by at high rates of speed.
No doubt these harassment incidents are premeditated. A gang of anti-social misfit galaxies spot their intended victim, a cute little galaxy drifting along minding its own business; they fan out to surround their unsuspecting target; and then, in a rush of—whatever—they pounce!
They chew off the poor victim’s elegant spiral arms—they lunge and nip at its gossamer star-strands. When it’s over, the confused victim of their hateful game is reduced to a huddled, elliptical mass, no longer recognizable as the eye-catching celestial feature it once was.
We contacted the groups that would normally be expected to come to the aid of victims of this sort of uncivilized behavior, but their responses were disappointing.
Molly Yardarm, former president of Grannies Nattering Against Sexual Harassment, told us, “The whole galaxy concept is patriarchal and therefore corrupt. The word galaxy comes from the Latin word for ‘milk,‘ a subliminal reference to breasts that we find udderly intolerable. Let the damn things suffer!“
Sarah Fraidy, chairperson of the Center to Prevent Everything, said, “Whatever they’re doing to each other, they must be using guns. We ban guns, the harassment stops. Isn’t that logical?“
U.S. Attorney General Janet Rhino issued a statement saying that she appreciated being advised of the situation, and that she was formulating a plan to obtain search warrants and carry out a lightning raid just like the one she saw in Die Hard 2.
Finally we asked Dan Blather, anchorman for OBS News, who said, “Because these incidents take millions of years to unfold, the story just isn’t ‘visual’ enough for television.“
