Pinatas are GOOD because they often hold candy. Or sometimes chocolates, or small bags of illicit drugs.


Pinatas are BAD because they sometimes hold shards of glass, or swarms of bees, or gasoline. Fiestas in the barrio are a bitch, yo.


Pinatas are GOOD because they usually come in the shape of animals, like burros, or bulls, or hula dancers. Beating these pinatas with sticks teaches children that we are better than these filthy, backwards animals in every way.


Pinatas are BAD because they occasionally come in the shape of a crocodile, a pirate, or a clown. This sends the wrong message to children, because beating these things with a stick in real life will get your fool honky ass killed.


Pinatas are GOOD because the word comes from Spanish, and Spanish words are fun to say. If you go to Taco Bell and order a 'pinata, por favor', they'll likely give you food, like a taco or enchilada or something. Because they don't know any better, either.


Pinatas are BAD because the 'n' in pinata is properly spelled with a squiggle over it called a tilde. My keyboard doesn't have an 'n' with a squiggle over it. The Spanish are trying to get us to spell with letters that don't exist, according to my keyboard. Damned dirty Spaniards.


Pinatas are GOOD because breaking a pinata is the only activity you can engage in with a blindfold, a stick, and a gaggle of small children without going to jail.


Pinatas are BAD because the children get to hold the stick. Also, the blindfold is a good start, but ball gags and ankle chains would be a real improvement.


But pinatas are GOOD because if you make them out of concrete or reinforced steel, you can keep an entire neighborhood's worth of kids busy in someone else's yard for hours. And if the string breaks, you might actually take one or two of them out.


So, overall, pinatas are GOOD.


And that's how I feel about pinatas.


* NOTE #1: If you're looking for a real pinata, you could probably do worse than Party Delights, where all the pics above came from. I've never seen so many smackable candy-filled carcasses in one place in my life.


* NOTE #2: No hula dancers or 'damned dirty Spaniards' were actually harmed in the making of this post. Really, I dig Spanish folks, and they're actually very clean, as a people. Plus, hula dancers are pretty hot. Rawr!