The greatest battles currently being waged in America is not being covered by CNN. You won't be hearing about them tonight from Tom Brokaw either. In fact, pundits all along what I've come to coin as the "Bill Spectrum" (O'Reilly to Maher) are being notably silent about them. But make no mistake, readers, these battles are very real. Oh yes, very real indeed.

What, you ask, are these under-the-radar battles? Where are they being fought? To be honest, I don't know where to begin. I could start at the beginning, but that seems so terribly cliche don't you think? So instead, I'll start by addressing the latter, and in doing so, hopefully the former will begin to illuminate itself—kind of like that Lite Brite you used to have as a kid.

Despite what you may be thinking, I'm not talking about the literal battles going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor am I talking about the political battles being waged by Barack Obama and that other blond dude running for the Democratic nomination. You see, this war, these battles, are of a more personal nature, and they are being conducted as we speak by millions of American in locker rooms and public restrooms across the nation: The battle between the button-fly and the button-fly wearer. I myself am a hardened veteran of such conflicts, doing as many as five tours a day on some occasions depending on the outfit I'm wearing.

There's literally nothing worse than running to the bathroom right at the breaking point—after all, you were in the middle of an important game of Halo—only to have to fumble through five buttons. At that point, as you're fingers are thwarted time and time again by the buttons, all you can do is pray that your bladder doesn't erupt out of your body and curse whoever designed these jeans.

I mean, what the hell were they thinking? Don't they know about zippers? They've been around since 1851so I'm pretty sure they're public knowledge. So why use the button-fly? It is a wanton disregard for technological advances! It's slapping God in the face for giving us higher brain functioning! To me, using the button-fly is like trying to start a fire with sticks when there's a perfectly good lighter on hand or doing open heart surgery with a hacksaw. It just doesn't make any fucking sense.

I tried searching zipper-fly vs. button-fly on Google to see if there were any arguments that were actually in favor of the button-fly. I literally only found one on an open forum site, "...the only advantage I see is [that] my schlong never gets caught in a button-fly." That's it. One advantage. But really, how hard is it to not catch your dong in a zipper? Not very. That should be a non-issue. On the other hand, having to pee really badly and being foiled by the 16 unnecessary buttons on your pants is an issue. At 21, I'm way too fucking old to be peeing my pants or even almost peeing my pants (Although I do have a buddy who got drunk and peed in his girlfriend's bed recently. She wasn't psyched). And what's worse is that I don't do laundry, so if a pair of button-fly jeans are all I have left, I find myself stop-lossed until I can find time to go to Laundry World.

C'mon True Religion, get with the fucking program. Button-flys are the worst. I'd go so far as to bet that Bobby Boucher's mom might even consider them the Devil.

-Adam