What's the rush?

Maybe someone can clue me in to this whole Black Friday thing.

People usually have the Friday after Thanksgiving off from work. So I'd have thought they would use that day for some much-needed sloth. You know, sleep in, and then spend the rest of the morning/afternoon in front of the TV, clicker in hand, letting last night's dinner marinate in their bellies.

But instead, many of them are up bright and early, rushing out to rev up their SUVs so they can swamp the nearest department/electronics store to take advantage of "bargains" on the first day of the holiday shopping period.

What these idiots don't realize is that these stores quickly "run out" (i.e. stock only 10) of the advertised items, because they know that gullible customers will just buy the closest item that is stocked but for some reason isn't discounted.

It's really funny that these people are out hunting for discounts anyway. According to several surveys, shoppers are planning to cut back their holiday spending due to rising energy costs. Again, how many of those people are driving SUVs?

Why can't Americans understand simple cause and effect? They rolled out of bed early, camped out at Wal Mart and trampled Grandma Gertrude so they could get one of those $29.99 DVD players from Taiwan. Then they waited in the checkout line for 20 minutes to buy the damn thing when they could've had it for $34.99 and no wait the next day. And then, on the way home, their Ford Explorer XLT belched the savings right out of its ass.

Idiots.

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Ya Think...

Seven years later, researchers discover that most Web surfers now use bookmarks...

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Wait...

Why are people sending money to Martha Stewart? Browsed on CNN:

Stewart also beseeched supporters, who she said have sent hundreds of letters in the past week, to stop including gifts and money. Instead, she asked gift-givers to make donations to their favorite charities or organizations.

"Please know that while these gestures of friendship and support are deeply appreciated, any such items must be returned to the sender by prison officials," she wrote.

Some people. It reminds me of the coworker who told me she was voting for Bush because "I just like his wife." So shallow and stupid.

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An Abomination

Paul Begala asked:

"Why does Rudy Giuliani get to be married three times and Newt Gingrich married three times and Rush Limbaugh three times and a gay man never once?"

It's statements like this one that put the gay marriage debate in perspective. Like chickenhawks who blithely send other people's sons to war, the spector of hypocritical conservatives making moral decisions for the rest of us would be laughable if it weren't so real.

To ask whether I support gay marriage is almost to ask whether I support black-latino marriage. Regardless of whether I hold the same ethnic preference, such couples exist and their unions harm no one, so who am I to oppose formal recognition of them? I simply can't fathom how any thinking person could be troubled by affording equal rights to equally loving (and taxpaying) gay couples.

But therein lies the rub. The so-called "case" against gay marriage is not intellectual, but rather, an emotional, flailing appeal to the innate bigotry of ignorant people. Indeed, the opposing argument is a flailing one that defies both reason and common decency.

Proponents of caution and nuance say that gays brought this upon themselves "because they would not be satisfied with evolutionary change but instead demanded revolutionary preference." However, gay couples who married in San Francisco are no more culpable than those who demonstrated for voting rights in the 60's, flouting appeals for "law and order" from lawmakers who sought excuses for delaying what was morally right.

And enough, too, of those who apologetically state that President Bush, in his heart, really didn't want to do this. He seeks to place language about sexual orientation, of all things, in the Constitution of the United States. How can there be daylight, then, between those who seek to outlaw homosexuality and the president, who is as wedded to these extremists as he is lacking in moral courage?

Today, the storm rages on in full farce. But at the end of the day, after the Constitutional amendment fails and equality is the norm in many states, gay marriage will be seen in much the same light as interracial unions: common sense, a fact of life, and only a lightning rod in the most anachronistic and backward corners of this newly enlightened country.

As one Massachusetts lawmaker said, "Allow people to get married who love each other. See how it works out. And my guess is it will be the biggest nonevent in the history of Massachusetts." When the storm blows over, the demagogues who opposed gay marriage will be ashamed of themselves. They ought to be now.

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"She Asked For It"

I'd like to nominate the following individual for Troll of the Week.

You see, four months ago, fed up with the media's wall-to-wall coverage of the Elizabeth Smart rescue, I typed the following short yet exasperated post:

The Elizabeth Smart Story

Look, who gives a fuck? I mean, really.

To which Angela Nicole Colbert yesterday commented:

I think the whole thing was a bunch of bullshit she could have gotten away at any time but she didn't she liked being exactly where she was at if you look at her when she takes pictures she looks really sneaky as if she knows something that we dont. Look how big the girl is how's somebody going to make her stay unless they are using some kind of force and she was spoted walking somewhere near by, by herself and she never at once thought to go home.

Umm, ooookay. I may have been a bit blunt with my reaction, but at least I'm not still venting about the story four months later. And the fact that the visitor found this weblog post means she must have been googling for the subject. Might we be just a wee bit obsessed?

*Update* The fact that she found my site via this famous Vietnamese execution pic only makes it more creepy.

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Shut Up and Drive

Woman's SUV is hit, rolled while she's talking to radio station about Jacko

"Cheryl Picker was talking to WABC in New York when listeners heard a loud crash, the sound of crackling glass, tearing metal and then silence. 'Cheryl, are you OK?' the co-host asked. 'Cheryl? Cheryl?' A faint voice responded, 'Please call the cops.'"

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The "Gay Gene" Theory

Nicholas Kristof wants to know why, if homosexuality is genetic, gays haven't died out already:

Surprisingly few readers raised the most obvious question: if homosexuality is partly genetic, why are there so many gays?

After all, gays are presumably less likely to engage in heterosexual pairings — the behavior that passes down genes. So if there are genes linked to homosexuality (which is still not proved, but seems increasingly likely), then how have they been passed down to our day?

Kristof goes on to discount a few glib theories, and then offer some genetic gobbledygook as a possible reason why homosexuals abound today.

But to examine the issue in such a binary manner, I think, is to narrow the scope of discussion and miss the point entirely. While most people self-identify as gay or straight, many of them fall somewhere in between, being physically fixated on one sex but also finding themselves strongly attracted to certain attributes that can be manifested in either.

The fact that people are often pressured to embrace the label of gay or straight (or the equally simplified 50-50 bisexual) may explain why so few people acknowledge such a latent attraction.

There are certainly many, many people who are exclusively attracted to the same sex. Some of them would even declare, forcefully, that they have never ever felt any non-familial affection for someone of the same sex -- no, not even a fleeting attraction during that confused and transitory period in junior high that everybody talks about. To them I respond, okay, okay, I believe you.

But for many others, sexuality is a far more complex entity, varying not only with genetic and biological traits, but also with one's environmental and emotional circumstances.

That's why I don't put too much stock in theories of a "gay gene." Sure, genetic factors can foment certain sexual traits. But overall, sexuality is far too dynamic be calculated and controlled through heredity.

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Eavedropping on the Conscience

Group Hug is a site that allows visitors to confess a secret to everyone else in the world. In doing so, the confessor supposed to relieve some guilt and feel better about themselves. Get it...<>.

It's is another one of those Novel Ideas -- ones that we weren't clever enough to think of, but that seem obvious once brought to our attention. If you're like me, you'll spend way too much time reading page after page of people's (formerly) innermost thoughts, realizing just how much we all have in common.

To be sure, it's not all rosy. It seems that 80% of the confessions are about sex, and many of them go beyond the typical "I-want-my-girlfriend's-best-friend" variety. It's to be expected, in fact, that the illusion of anonymity entices many to share awful tales -- cheating, molestation, etc.

I'm sure many of the "confessions" are probably just well-constructed lies, but that doesn't present much of a problem. After all, as long as the tales remain plausible, the audience's voyeuristic tendencies are satiated nonetheless. It's sort of like porn that features 35-year-old "college co-eds" -- it sure isn't what you were expecting, but it'll have to do.

Anyway, on to my favorite confessions thus far:

-> When I was six years old, a group of other kids my age was admiring a daddy longlegs (spider) while waiting for the school bus to come. A teacher came up and started saying how helpful spiders were and how beautiful this particular one was. I then squashed the spider in front of them all, and still don't know why I did that, twenty years later.

-> I really don't like to shower- it is cold when i get out. I can go a week- nobody says anything

-> I am an attorney. 'Nuff said.

-> In the throws of puberty, I once took the family kitten to the bathroom and got it to lick my penis. After 10 seconds I felt terribly guilty. Within the month the kitten had run away. I still feel terrible about it.

-> i fantasize about vandalizing hummers. i hate those cars.

And finally...

-> At my job, I have to drive a 40-foot long trailer full of books back to a library. Usually I drive it across town. I have to take up the whole road when I make turns, over-compensate, I can't go more than 30 mph, etc....It's huge basically.

So one day while making a right turn, some woman with Virginia plates comes up on the left of me mad close, and I ass-ended her car with the back of the trailer. Her shit was Done; the whole right side of her car was dented in, he mirror was hangin off, the window broke. At the time I had to act like I felt bad and that it was an accident, but I was really only saving face for the library.

Thats what she gets for coming to NY.

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The Elizabeth Smart Story

Look, who gives a fuck? I mean, really.

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Be Happy

I'm convinced it's the isolation. That, or the torture of a slow news day is finally taking its toll.

You see, I've been thinking about a few things after reading a post over at Divigate. Eric is actively searching for happy people, having realized that he's unintentionally surrounded himself with grim company:

I came to a scary conclusion today: I know about eight people really well. Of this group, I wouldn’t consider any of them happy people... What does this mean? Does this mean I associate myself with grim company? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I don’t actively search for unhappy people. I even try to distance myself from people who are particularly negative. I imagine being the Co-Chair of an Atheist and Agnostic society means I encounter a higher percentage of unhappy people than most. Yet, I find it rather amazing that I know no one who is truly happy, truly content.

While I don't know any of Eric's friends, I think that assessment is a bit too simplistic to respond to accurately. After all, I don't believe anyone can even be completely grim or totally happy. Rather, people are usually content with certain aspects of their lives and unhappy with other parts.

But perhaps I'm oversimplifying the question myself, so let's look closer. If we were to drill down from the most general feelings about our lives and scrutinize specific living conditions, would our feelings still be as binary? What would we find there, bubbling up through the layers of the human psyche? Happy or unhappy? I think not.

Each person is an ocean of feelings, a complex mixture of longing and resentment, fulfillment and disappointment, exhiliration and anxiety. It's never as simple as a sliding scale, as our feelings are constantly being tugged every which way, churned about by the changing circumstances of our everyday lives.

The "level" of one's happiness is never static, either, as I've learned over the past two weeks. Yes, let me use myself as an example. My recent trip to New York was a personal high point, ending with a rare bit of optimism that spilled over into the days afterward. However, since then the afterglow has faded, and a confluence of negative events has left me fighting a bout of depression. Lately, my mood has been rather listless, bordering on a kind of free-floating despondency that seems to turn everything gray.

But I digress. I think that, before one can assess the happiness of others, he should first ask himself how well he even knows his friends. We are, after all, taught that as often as possible, our appearances should deceive. I have gotten to know many a chipper fellow, only to realize that they are, beneath their winning grins and dandy airs, a roiling mess.

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For the Good of Evil

I've always been rather disgusted by the double-standard with which the Catholic Church has been treated in the abuse scandals. Not only has there been a stunning lack of scrutiny by the government, but I've also wondered whether Catholics themselves would have continued to support an instutution that sheilded rapists of little girls rather than boys.

If you ask me, this sculpture makes its point perfectly.

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Fear for Profit

I watched CNN's Sept. 11 Remembered the other day. It was well done, depicting, as well as any other program I've seen, the great tragedy of that day as told by the people who witnessed it.

In the "climactic" segment, CNN showed the both planes hitting the World Trade Center towers. Repeatedly. From multiple angles.

And then, after the most heartwrenching quote about children who witnessed the attack from a playground, the network cut to a commercial for the Hummer H2.

The commercial is a familiar one. The Hummer is shown rolling, like a tank, through a downtown district. There are no other cars on the street. The female driver casts a fearless glance up at tall buildings. "Mmm, mmm, mmm," a female voiceover hums, teasingly.

The commercial, in this context, carried an infuriating irony. I won't venture a guess as to whether this was intentional or not, but the images of the terrorist attacks and the H2 were, in any case, juxtaposed in the minds of the viewer.

The message: It's a dangerous world, indeed. So if you want to be safe, buy yourself a Hummer. A bona fide mobile fortress, you can take this beast anywhere, and no one can touch you. "SLIP INTO SOMETHING," viewers are finally implored, "A LITTLE MORE METAL."

I won't retread the previously established arguments regarding how America's 12mpg culture aids the terrorists, except to say the following.

Sometimes, I wonder whether certain people are worthy of the sacrifices of others. These people must already feel safe, indeed, navigating the jungles of suburbia in their Excursions and Suburbans and Escalades, too stupid, apparently, to make the connection between their idiotically decadent lifestyle and the Saudi oil wealth that funds those who attack us.

When I really think about it, something inside me is glad the Hummers burned.

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Boi Meets Boi

Okay, so I was wrong. Wes won the competition on Boy Meets Boy. Brian lost. Franklin is the straight dude, and is indeed shit outta luck. That is, until the other reality TV shows come calling.

I never said I was good at assessing these things.

The consequence of my being wrong is that I lost a bet with Eric Masten. The terms were that the loser must do the following:

1) Create a post that names the winner with a link.

2) Include 10 sentences of adoring (or sarcastic but plausibly true) praise for the winner.

3) Leave the post at the top of the home page all day long. (I tried posting something at 11:45 last night to exploit a loophole, but no luck.)

I told Eric I'd have to post in the morning because it would be hard thinking of something nice to say about him. I spent part of the night thinking of what to say, and the rest of the night thinking about issues related to a certain person's impending presidential campaign. The result was that, when I woke up, the sentences came to me quite easily:

Eric Masten is a noted scholar, and also a well-known commentator on issues of great importance to the American people. He is a career public servant, having last served as Supreme Allied Comman-- ...wait a minute, wrong person.

Okay, enough stalling. Here we go...

1. Eric is one heckuva smart guy. He needs to learn how to string those thoughts together into something rational, but hey, baby steps.

2. He's perceptive, too, having beaten me at his own game. See, when Boy Meets Boy came on, he and his friends all put their little collective gay antennae up, and well, they chose the straight guy and I didn't.

3. Eric is very devoted to LGBT causes, as evidenced by his recently rebranding his blog with all kinds of LGBT links. I was at his site a few weeks ago and there was nothing of the sort, but rest assured, he's not the type to act out of a guilty conscience.

4. If you go to his site, you'll see that he's a rather prolific writer. Actually, the posts are so sparse nowadays that finding a new one is akin to winning the lottery. For example, check out this gem.

5. Eric has lots of friends who dash into action to disagree whenever I say something reasonable about gay people.

6. And let's face it, the guy is a stud, plain and simple. He's got many, many partners friends to vouch for it.

7. Along the lines of the previous sentence, Eric is an ambitious Washington intern. You were surprised?

8. Eric can be very witty. It's rare, but it's there, somewhere. If he actually wrote that.

9. The best person to toot Eric's horn is, well, Eric.

And the last one...

10. I could probably count the number of gay people I know (online and offline) on one hand. But Eric is the best of the bunch, a genuine good guy who will make some lucky fellow very happy.

Whew. Sure can't say I phoned that one in. And by the way, Eric, I only said that last thing because I ran out of true stuff to say.

Random | 565 Words | Comments (0)

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Boy Meets Boy

For anyone who's watched this series, let me save you some time:

Wes is the straight dude.

Brian will "win" the competition.

Franklin will be shit outta luck.

It's an intriguing show, really, with the gay guys being "the norm" and the straight guys forced into the closet. A unique and enlightening twist on the usually childish reality TV genre.

But how do I know how it will end tonight? Well, if you caught the last episode, as I did, the indicators were all there. Wes, who seemed the gayest of the three finalists, is straight. He said the word "why" at the end. It wasn't the fact that he said it, but rather, how he said it that blew his cover.

Franklin, the most masculine contestant, is actually gay. One jealous glare, and it was obvious he's playing for keeps.

Brian will win if the chooser, James, is smart. If he's not so smart, he'll choose Wes, the straight guy.

Culture | 164 Words | Comments (6)

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Friends With Benefits

Maybe someone can explain to me, rationally, the straight case against gay marriage.

The statements I've seen thus far have been rather vacuous, characterized more by well-I-just-think-it's-wrong dismissals than serious, thoughtful misgivings. Others put forward self-contradicting arguments that are absurd on their face, unwittingly making the case for gay marriage while underscoring the writer's own ignorance.

Here's what you commonly hear once you get the detractors to cease their frantic, seething, hair-pulling, Bible-thrusting frenzy and articulate their reasons for opposition:

Marriage is an institution between one man and one woman.

A non-argument. Simply re-stating the current definition of marriage does nothing to justify its exclusiveness.

It denigrates the institution of marriage.

I fail to see how husband and wife, upon hearing that the gay couple down the street just got hitched, will subsequently flush their rings down the toilet and call it quits. How does the prospect of someone else getting married make yours any less meaningful? And how does the idea that others can get married make it a less attractive option for men and women who love each other? Another non-argument.

Marriages are for ensuring the continuation of the species.

No, procreation is for ensuring our continuation, and I think nature has that part set on auto-pilot. I've seen some strange arguments against gay marriage, but I don't think even the most extreme conservatives would argue that gay marriage will cause people to stop fucking.

But marriage IS for procreation.

Wow, really? They should require fertility tests, then, when straight people apply for marriage licenses. And no old people, either. They need procreation like they need to be behind the wheel of a car.

Slippery slope: People will want to marry children.

There is an entire body of national and state law that states children do not have the right to make adult decisions until, well, they become adults. Those laws have never been eroded, and they won't be invalidated by gay marriage either.

Slippery slope: People will marry their dogs!

Riiight. Allow consenting adults to marry, and suddenly there will be no defense against inter-species marriage.

This is a silly, flailing argument that nevertheless needs to be addressed so we can move on to more serious discussion. Animals, like children, cannot legally give consent to such pairings. Therefore, I think we're on solid legal grounds when we exclude bestiality. Reductio ad absurdum is the last refuge of those who cannot put forth a rational case.

Slippery slope: Incestuous family members will want to marry!

Please. First, such relationships involving children are child abuse, plain and simple. And as a rule, adult incestuous relationships are discouraged, if not outlawed, because of the danger inbreeding poses to the potential offspring of such unions. Unfortunately for anti-gay zealots, gays don't have the capability to produce deformed offspring.

Slippery slope: Groups of people will marry!

Then why hasn't group marriage occurred in any of the countries that already allow gay marriage?

Besides, there are plenty of legal reasons to limit the number of individuals who can be part of a marriage contract, one of them being the need to prevent fraud -- groups of people getting together and sucking resources from the system like it's some group discount at BJ's.

Gay marriage allows gays to recruit more members.

Ah...now we're getting down to the real reasons people oppose gay marriage: fear and loathing of homosexuals, and a belief that gays simply wish to make their "lifestyle" more attractive to lure more straight folk.

This is the argument implied by Deb, the detractor I linked to above: "To me, being gay for some is the only way that otherwise really awkward people can 'fit in' to a group. Who wouldn't 'choose' that over being isolated, especially now that our entertainment industry has glorified being gay to such a huge extent."

So, all gays started out as "awkward" people who found their true calling in having sex with other men/women. Like I said, absurd.

Next, they'll want adoption.

And then, of course, gays will recruit the children and abuse them, much like the catholic church.

This argument is an appeal against gay adoption, the merits and drawbacks of which can be debated later. It does not directly address the issue of gay marriage, since many straight couples do not have children.

Second, the argument implies that exposure to gays is inherently harmful to children. Deb, the writer I linked to above, made a particularly revealing comment to this effect -- one that goes to her own laughable ignorance:

Case in point...I have a friend who's gay. He has pictures of naked men all over his apartment. He's a great guy, very nice, very responsible and very successful. Should he be allowed to adopt a child if he gets married to his boyfriend? Would you put a child in a hetero home with pictures of naked women (or men) all over the walls?

The none-too-clever insinuation is clear: Gays, while "nice" and "responsible" on the surface, are voracious horndogs whose obsession with sexuality would undoubtedly spill over into their child-rearing. Placing kids with these people is akin to child abuse.

And while I'm at it, I'll offer one final, damning quote from Deb:

I'm fairly sure those with my view are going to lose in the end. Can't put the genie back in the bottle and all...But I'm sad about it. I do see that our society/culture is taking a nosedive in the civility and focus on the common good sense. Not sure it was ever really that strong except for a time in the mid-fifties (if you were white), but still.

Uh-huh.

Overall, opponents of gay marriage can't offer a reasonable case against gay marriage because there is none. They appear to be motivated more by the "yuk" factor than any broader, rational concern for society.

It's been said elsewhere, and I think it bears repeating: "These arguments serve mainly to obscure the issue, not illuminate it. Conservatives say they abhor gay marriage because they value marriage. The truth is they abhor gay marriage because they abhor gays."

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Capturing the Friedmans

Capturing the Friedmans is a spellbinding look at the collapse of an American family. I caught this docu-movie at the local art house and was unexpectedly floored by it.

Arnold Friedman, an award-winning former teacher, lives with his wife of over 30 years and three sons in the small town of Great Neck, New York. The oldest son owns a camera, and as a result, we are treated to several mundane scenes of suburban family life. But there is, beneath the veneer of this seemingly average Jewish family, something much more incendiary.

Arnold Friedman is arrested one day after a kiddie porn magazine is intercepted by postal inspectors. A subsequent search of his home turns up "stacks" of such material in his private office and behind the family piano.

More ominously, investigators discover that Arnold has been teaching a popular computer class to neighborhood kids for years. In the ensuing frenzy, Arnold and his son Jesse are charged with hundreds of counts of sexually abusing students in the classes.

By almost any standard, his would seem to be an open-and-shut case. But as more information is revealed, the more dubious the case becomes.

Prosecutors relayed stories of constant, open sexual abuse among students, yet they never found any physical evidence of abuse either on the children or in the classroom area. Members of the Friedman household said they never observed any abuse.

Interviewed today, some who had leveled the accusations as children said they were coached by parents and police who did not ask what happened, but rather, insisted that they had been abused and demanded to know the method and the frequency with which the acts occurred.

Some former students said the claims of sex games were preposterous, and that no unusual events occurred. Others said they had been hypnotized by investigators and "recovered memories," telling wild tales of group sexual abuse.

This, despite the fact that many children taking the courses were picked up by family members (sometimes unannounced) and never cried or told tales of inappropriate goings on before the kiddie porn charges surfaced. In fact, many of the kids had even reenrolled for the advanced computer course.

In this small town, where the desire to outdo the Joneses is trumped only by the desire to fit in, some parents recalled being pressured by other parents to say their kids were abused. At the height of the frenzy, those who resisted were accused of being in denial.

It is here that one realizes the irony of the film's title. In other child abuse cases, an observer notes, when the family of the accused believes the person is innocent, they "circle the wagons" and vigorously defend him. In this case, that did not happen because the family was so stunned by the revelation of Arnold Friedman's pedophilia. As a result, the mother somewhat ruthlessly "cuts the rock from the canoe," and we watch as the family implodes.

After seeing this film (which is, for now, the only way in which outsiders can assess the situation), it seems to me that objective viewers will leave the theater perturbed that the case against the Friedmans may have been perversion of justice. It is indeed likely that Arnold Friedman engaged in some inappropriate behavior, what with his pornographic computer games and admissions of prior abuse. But the specific charges against him seem more the result of hysteria than his own actions, and the case against his son appears to be completely fraudulent.

(The problem was addressed in a recent New York Times editorial, but the conclusion is wrong, damn wrong, having less to do with the actual film than the writer's own willingness to pervert it for his own liberal agenda. The answer to cases like this one is not to relax sentencing guidelines for genuine abuse cases, but rather, to ensure that law enforcement officers investigating such cases are properly trained to get at the truth.)

Let us examine the problem of Arnold Friedman's pedophilia from the perspective of administering justice. Arnold stood before the jury as an admitted pedophile in nature, but claimed he had not acted in the manner of which he was accused.

In a broader practice, avowed pedophiles often claim their pedophilia is an involuntary sexual orientation, much like heterosexuality or homosexuality.

It would seem to me that presenting such a claim to those sitting on juries and courts would doom the accused regardless of any lack of evidence supporting the accusation.

When confronted with the permanent, unreformable pedophile, even reasonable jurors will be filled with a mixture of indignance, fear and horror. They will be unwilling -- indeed, unable -- to distinguish between predisposition and action.

Thus, the pedophile is, in whole, a monster. Abuse is his nature, his destiny, and he must be, as often as he rises, banished, lest their own children be preyed upon.

Thus was the case with Arnold Friedman, the once-exemplary citizen who, once outed, so horrified the community that he had to be ousted by whatever means. It appears that his son's prosecution was unjust, but in the eyes of the police, the townspeople and, indeed, perhaps Arnold's own wife, it was all the same.

Movies/TV | 868 Words | Comments (0)

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Idiocy

"No, Frank, I didn't get a raise," my supervisor exclaimed, his arms outstretched in a what-do-they-want-from-me pose. "It's a Jewish hospital!"

Life | 21 Words | Comments (0)

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For the Love of God

People who write CHECKS (for items that total less than twenty dollars) in the EXPRESS LINE should be dragged out and seriously beaten.

Cryptic | 24 Words | Comments (0)

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Retards in Red States

This is from a Wall Street Journal story about inbreds in Elkhart, Indiana with nothing to do:

A bunch of armed guys from this small city are prepared to take on terrorists. The "Homeland Security" crew isn't very busy, though. "We don't do very damn much," admits one town defender. "We drink some coffee and run around the neighborhood. It gets boring."

Almost as stupid as casting out satan (Florida) or keeping a confederate state flag (Mississippi).

I'm starting to warm to a traditionally Republican idea; maybe keeping people from the polls isn't so bad after all.

Culture | 97 Words | Comments (1)

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A Hulking Mass of Futility

I saw an SUV get stuck in the snow today. No, not in a huge snow-drift. Just a little pile of snow on the ramp to the parking lot.

The driver was riding alone, of course, in his gas-guzzling, smog-spewing, planet-warming, road-hogging monstrosity. And unfortunately, I didn't see him get stuck. I just noticed the plumes of smoke in the corner of my eye. It was coming from his tires, which were spinning in place as he revved the engine in vain. They stank, too, with an acrid, repulsive smell. Soft rubber, burning.

The driver eventually had to have his SUV pushed out by two guys who were waiting for the bus. It was the high point of my day.

Life | 120 Words | Comments (5)

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Axles of Evil

A group called The Detroit Project is running advertisements that copy the tone and style of the government's latest anti-drug campaign. You know, those commercials that state "Drug money supports terrible things. If you buy drugs, you might, too."

The Detroit Project's ads aren't about drug money, but rather, oil money. "What's your SUV doing to our national security?" they ask. The ads feature actors in the roles of SUV owners saying things like "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country," "I helped hijack an airplane" and "I helped teach kids around the world to hate America." Video and transcripts are here.

Contrary to what the cable media would have people believe, the ads are not meant to insult SUV owners, but rather, to appeal to the U.S. automaking industry for more fuel-efficient vehicles. ("Detroit, America needs hybrid cars now" reads a plea at the end of one spot.)

My goal in writing this is nowhere near as noble. After all, someone has got to ridicule those intellectually lazy folks still rushing to join the SUV crowd. They're the "patriots" who talked tough on terrorism after 9/11, but somehow remain blithely unaware of how their own needless decadance supports the very groups we're at war with. No, the current situation is too rich with irony to let it pass without comment.

If our president had been more courageous, he would have used some of his post-9/11 political capital to push for stricter fuel efficiency standards, which would have spurred investment in hybrid engines in the short term as well as alternative fuels for future vehicles. Americans, for once, were ready to make genuine lifestyle sacrifices and would perhaps even pay more for such vehicles if they became available. But the Bush administration, of course, would have none of that. Oil men themselves, Bush and Cheney told the country to shop rather than sacrifice. "Keep America Rolling," the automakers chimed in, encouraging Americans to go out and buy another 12MPG Ford Expedition to replace that aging 14MPG Dodge Durango.

And what about the actual consumers? Yes, it's true that everyone uses petroleum to some extent and therefore enables our partnership with terrorist-supporting states. Hell, lots of people drive sports cars that get even worse mileage. And it's hard to find fault with folks who actually do go off-road, or who tote five kids around, or who purchased SUVs before 9/11 and simply aren't ready to go buy another vehicle.

But there's a whole other demographic driving the current SUV trend. These are the people who need a light TRUCK for all their daily duties, like going to the shopping mall or the movies. They continue buying them, even after 9/11, because they're fashionable, everyone else has one and, of course, it's so nice sitting up high. They sit in their gigantic vehicles, all by themselves, in the rush-hour traffic to and from work each day. You know how treacherous those suburban freeways can be.

But maybe I'm missing the point entirely, so let me see if I can grasp their logic: Terrorists who spring from a region sustained by oil wealth use that money to repeatedly strike out against our country and its interests. Therefore, I'm going to answer them by buying myself another 14mpg, gas-guzzling monstrosity. Then I'll slap an American flag onto the back of my SUV to let the motorists I'm muscling off the freeway know that yes, I am a patriot who supports our country in a time of war. And contrary to what the Insight-driving, bleeding-heart liberals are saying, I can't change my lifestyle by echewing the SUV for an fuel-efficient car, because then, of course, the terrorists win.

Mmm-hmm.

Culture | 623 Words | Comments (1)

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