Narcissist of the Year?

Ned feels strongly that there are simply too few honors to bestow on the host of truly eligible politicians and political wannabes. Therefore, in view of the unprecedented reports of colossal narcissistic behavior that assault us daily, Ned, Prof Dr Q A Wagstaff OBE FRS, together with the anonymous Nominating Committee are moved to announce the creation of an Honorary Title of Narcissist of the Year.
From time to time the Committee will nominate candidates, but the final election will be held later in the year. The Committee wish to begin the process by offering its first three nominations: Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.
Trump's every utterance oozes narcissism of the highest order, but his most recent behavior, in which he joins the 'birthers,' and goes on to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination, asserting he could easily beat Obama, makes his a true Narcissist.
Gingrich's nomination would be as much a Lifetime Award as a contemporary honor, but his most recent declarations concerning 'family values' arising out of his 'conversion to Catholicism,' coupled with his preposterous criticism of Obama's Libyan policy, make him a strong candidate.
Palin, an immodest person with much to be modest about, leads the field at this point. The very fact that she thinks anyone would be interested in the mindless drivel that constitutes her every public utterance shows her to be a Narcissist of the very first order.


Ned and the Committee welcome nominations from our friends.

New From The Most Narcissistic Generation

Ned's friends will relish today's story in the NYT of a report on the self-assessed "emotional health" of incoming college freshmen. Seems some pointy-headed intellectuals take a survey every year asking these kids how good they feel about themselves. Since Ned's sense is that they are all chronic narcissists who have been told all their lives that they are exceptional, great, above average and all that rot, it comes as little surprise that they could be overwhelmed when they find that they might actually have to accomplish something on their own, and precious little at that, given rampant grade inflation at colleges across the country. But this to Ned is the best part, "The share of students who said on the survey that they had been frequently overwhelmed by all they had to do during their senior year of high school rose to 29 percent from 27 percent last year." Now, Ned's researches have shown that the performance of high-school kids has dropped steadily from the '50's to today, so to hear that these kids feel 'overwhelmed' by the trivial work that they are actually asked to accomplish speaks volumes. Moreover, the GPA of HS grads has been rising faster than their waistlines, such that a 4.0 is about equal to a 3.0 three or four decades ago. Combine this with numerous reports of HS students who basically take their senior years off to plan their proms, take extended spring breaks in Cancun, have their tummies tucked, tits and derrieres lifted, and drive their new BMWs back and forth to the nearest Nordstroms to buy whatever they want, it's no wonder they feel overwhelmed.
Ned feels a case could be made for an entire new government agency to look into this crisis and perhaps suggest new tax cuts for billionaires and Sneering Plutocrats to fix it.
And all those kids who never get to go to college or drop out of HS? Fuggeddaboudit.

Shower etiquete

Ned's foray to his "sports club" today was not without another opportunity to make one of his typically pithy observations on the human condition. Ned's shower room has six shower heads, spaced three on each wall, facing each other. As Ned was undressing, he heard the water running on one of them, but, since his vision does not extend to the x-ray spectrum, he cold not tell which one. Imagine his surprise, and delight, to find a narcissist in possession of a middle shower. Now, Ned's more astute followers will immediately ask, perhaps, why anyone entering an empty shower room with three showers on each wall would take the middle one, thus making it awkward for the next individual to use one of the adjacent showers. Ned would always choose one of the end showers in such a circumstance, so as to allow the next user to comfortably use the end shower on the same side, but would never choose a middle shower unless one of two circumstances was in evidence: first, if the middle showers were better than the end ones, and second, if a middle shower were the only choice. Neither of these circumstances applied here.
Ned would conclude, perhaps too harshly he admits, that he witnessed yet another example of narcissistic, selfish behavior on the part of a Being gliding through life, blissfully unaware that other humans are in residence on the planet as well.
One day, Ned will have something to say about shower spitters, the lowest of the low, but for now he will quietly, and as unobtrusively as possible, slink away...