Talked to A today, and she mentioned that she was in a facebook debate with someone over the UC Davis pepper-spraying of students. It really pisses me off to no end when I hear people my age saying things like, "The kids have a something-for-nothing attitude" and "the cops warned them and they didn't move."
First off, the students at UC Davis and colleges around the country and indeed the world are protesting recent and dramatic hikes in tuition. Some of them march under the banner of OWS but most of them just want to voice their distress over the fact that they may not graduate college based on the fact that it costs too damn much. That's not a "something for nothing" attitude you fucking douchenozzle. You have to live pretty far under a rock to not understand that college is cost-prohibitive to most people (including myself, who only paid through it thanks to one dead grandmother). Most students are looking at between 30 and 50 thousand bucks in loans; or more like $300,000 if you go to some of the top rated schools that my friends have gone to. Folks who graduated college 20 years ago are still paying off student loans, and that was during that magical time my generation remembers as the Clinton years, when all you needed to do for work was get an A+ certificate. So in a climate of deregulated loan practices and an SEC that quietly looks the other way when grievances are levied on behalf of borrowers, how exactly does the average student plan to pay that shit down? Yet, they're the unappreciative little shits who need to learn to sit back and take it like men, right?
Second, and more to the point, cops don't need to use nonlethal weapons on peaceful protesters. A nonlethal weapon is used for non-compliance, generally when a cop has already arrested or announced his/her intent to arrest. People to go peaceful demonstrations or group trespassing knowing full well they can be arrested and someones even counting on it - mass arrest is one of the most powerful tools the public has at their disposal. It clogs the legal system with thousands of trials-by-jury and forces the issues of the protesters to be addressed. What the cops at UC Davis and around the country have been saying is effectively, "We won't arrest you but we'll beat the piss out of you until you leave."
What the hell kind of country has that attitude? North Korea? China? South Africa? It subverts the First Amendment in the most sadistic of ways: through fear of exercising the rights it provides. Sure, we all have free speech, and nothing is stopping you from saying what you want, but if you, plan on getting maced. The idea here is to scare people into submission, yet still offer the option. So nobody is taking your rights away - you're just going to be in for a world of hurt if you choose to take advantage of them.
If the cops really wanted the world to hate their fucking guts, regardless of the good and often heroic things they do every day, this is the fastest way to do it. Acting as the tools of idiots like Bloomburg or this chancellor of UCD just makes them look like the black shirts of 1930s Italy. Oh, and kicking the shit out of Iraq war veterans doesn't help so much either.
Peaceful protest and mass arrest are how people get shit done. The true mark of a country that does not give a flying fuck about it's people, that treats the populace as a marketplace full of consumers instead of a community full of people, and holds up the facade of free speech with one hand while duct taping someone's mouth shut with the other, is responding to protest with violence. My fear is that the level and frequency of violence on part of the police will increase, but my hope is that, as it does, the level and frequency of violence among the protesters does not. When I was on the high school debate team, my teacher always told me to try to stay calm and look rational, if the opponent starts acting irrationally. Escalating police violence will only serve to highlight those who are truly out of line.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
GW Sucks; Super Soldiers are Stupid
Here a story illustrating why corporations are run by gigantic idiots.
My gaming buddies and I got together at a local Games Workshop for Thursday Deathwatch (a D&D-ish tactical role-playing game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe [more on that in a minute]). The store manager was a perfectly nice guy, and though I didn't know him very long, certainly seemed good at his job and had a massive hand in the central Jersey area gaming community. Also one of the most personable human begins I've dealt with in a while (take that assholes who think us nerds are all social failures).
About two months back the manager threw some racist douchenozzel out of his store for making fun of a black kid at a gaming event. Said racist douchenozzel wrote a letter to Games Workshop about how because he couldn't be a racist douchenozzel and got kicked out, and GW had lost his business forever. GW canned the manager, and with him lost about 90% of their customer base. Here's whats wrong with this picture.
1) Nobody wins in a situation where someone is acting like an asshole, so it's better to throw the asshole out and deal with them being an asshole than losing more customers who don't want to hang out with assholes (I used to work at a coffee shop with music events so I've down some throwing out in my days). Yeah you'll lose the asshole's business and maybe the business of assholes' asshole friends, but it's a hell of a lot better than letting the asshole gradually drive non-asshole customers away.
2) Gaming is a small community, and now that Warhammer 40,000 has some stiff competition from games like War Machine, keeping the community together not only creates something that all people into or having a passing interest in gaming can enjoy, but it also keeps your business alive. Now that the manager is gone, most of the central Jersey community has gone with him. Now gamers like my friends have pledged not to spend cash at the store but instead get game pieces online, often cheaper.
3) Jerk wads like me might post their address and may or may not direct people to make snide remarks when passing by. So save your good ones for when you are in the neighborhood of: Games Workshop at Echelon Village, 1120 White Horse Road, Voorhees, New Jersey 08043.
So a big fuck you to Games Workshop. It's bullshit reactionary capitalist thinking like this that has tanked the living shit out of our economy and will also tank the shit out of your store. To quote Kurt Cobain, "We will survive without you. Easily."
I had some thoughts about the Deathwatch game itself, now that I've gotten into it and have delved a little further than normal into Warhammer 40,000 mythoi (real word, I promise). It's one of the original things, along with the movie Aliens, that introduced the idea of capital-S- space capital-M marines. Only unlike the space marines in Aliens, they lack Micheal Biehn's rugged good looks and the thick James Cameron-esque air of parody (back when movies had more subtlety and less stupid goddamn blue hippies).
Also scratch one Sigourney Weaver from the Deathwatch's arsenal because Warhammer doctrine states all space marines must be male.
The whole thing is so juvenile that it could have been written by the most sexually frustrated and in-the-closet fifteen year old boy on planet Earth. The space marines themselves seem less like battle-scarred heroes and more like tragic figures: somewhat monstrous super-soldiers single-mindedly pursuing a hopeless war of galactic expansion; thugs for hire retaining just enough conscious thought to cling to a past of glory and honor on the battlefield (minus all the diarrhea and post-traumatic stress disorder). Super soldier stories always struck me as too implausible because of two logical errors: how do you control them and what do you do with them when the war is over. I guess the latter is solved by the setting being a universe that has been at war for ten thousand years and nobody has thought to step back ask if there was a better way to approach things besides fucking shooting them.
But I digress. Even if the game is kind of dumb, it's nice to share it with good friend and good players. Because with any collaborative gaming, you can't talk about the game without talking about who you play it with. The most intricately crafted rules and best game scenarios can (and usually do) fall to crap if the people you play it with are jackasses.
I've never been one much for games like Warhammer for Magic. There's a certain lack of narrative that makes the entire thing boring for me. I guess it's the writer in me talking. Or the prick (I almost assume there is some overlap).
My gaming buddies and I got together at a local Games Workshop for Thursday Deathwatch (a D&D-ish tactical role-playing game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe [more on that in a minute]). The store manager was a perfectly nice guy, and though I didn't know him very long, certainly seemed good at his job and had a massive hand in the central Jersey area gaming community. Also one of the most personable human begins I've dealt with in a while (take that assholes who think us nerds are all social failures).
About two months back the manager threw some racist douchenozzel out of his store for making fun of a black kid at a gaming event. Said racist douchenozzel wrote a letter to Games Workshop about how because he couldn't be a racist douchenozzel and got kicked out, and GW had lost his business forever. GW canned the manager, and with him lost about 90% of their customer base. Here's whats wrong with this picture.
1) Nobody wins in a situation where someone is acting like an asshole, so it's better to throw the asshole out and deal with them being an asshole than losing more customers who don't want to hang out with assholes (I used to work at a coffee shop with music events so I've down some throwing out in my days). Yeah you'll lose the asshole's business and maybe the business of assholes' asshole friends, but it's a hell of a lot better than letting the asshole gradually drive non-asshole customers away.
2) Gaming is a small community, and now that Warhammer 40,000 has some stiff competition from games like War Machine, keeping the community together not only creates something that all people into or having a passing interest in gaming can enjoy, but it also keeps your business alive. Now that the manager is gone, most of the central Jersey community has gone with him. Now gamers like my friends have pledged not to spend cash at the store but instead get game pieces online, often cheaper.
3) Jerk wads like me might post their address and may or may not direct people to make snide remarks when passing by. So save your good ones for when you are in the neighborhood of: Games Workshop at Echelon Village, 1120 White Horse Road, Voorhees, New Jersey 08043.
So a big fuck you to Games Workshop. It's bullshit reactionary capitalist thinking like this that has tanked the living shit out of our economy and will also tank the shit out of your store. To quote Kurt Cobain, "We will survive without you. Easily."
* * * * *
I had some thoughts about the Deathwatch game itself, now that I've gotten into it and have delved a little further than normal into Warhammer 40,000 mythoi (real word, I promise). It's one of the original things, along with the movie Aliens, that introduced the idea of capital-S- space capital-M marines. Only unlike the space marines in Aliens, they lack Micheal Biehn's rugged good looks and the thick James Cameron-esque air of parody (back when movies had more subtlety and less stupid goddamn blue hippies).
Also scratch one Sigourney Weaver from the Deathwatch's arsenal because Warhammer doctrine states all space marines must be male.
The whole thing is so juvenile that it could have been written by the most sexually frustrated and in-the-closet fifteen year old boy on planet Earth. The space marines themselves seem less like battle-scarred heroes and more like tragic figures: somewhat monstrous super-soldiers single-mindedly pursuing a hopeless war of galactic expansion; thugs for hire retaining just enough conscious thought to cling to a past of glory and honor on the battlefield (minus all the diarrhea and post-traumatic stress disorder). Super soldier stories always struck me as too implausible because of two logical errors: how do you control them and what do you do with them when the war is over. I guess the latter is solved by the setting being a universe that has been at war for ten thousand years and nobody has thought to step back ask if there was a better way to approach things besides fucking shooting them.
But I digress. Even if the game is kind of dumb, it's nice to share it with good friend and good players. Because with any collaborative gaming, you can't talk about the game without talking about who you play it with. The most intricately crafted rules and best game scenarios can (and usually do) fall to crap if the people you play it with are jackasses.
I've never been one much for games like Warhammer for Magic. There's a certain lack of narrative that makes the entire thing boring for me. I guess it's the writer in me talking. Or the prick (I almost assume there is some overlap).
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Quick note about Penn State
This isn't usually the kind of thing I pay attention to, but X had the tee-vee on yesterday and I caught something that was so sleazy and transparent it pissed me right off. This is why I don't watch television, folks.
Some jerkhole from Penn State was giving a press conference regarding the little problem their beloved football coaches seem to have with sticking their penises in young boys. Generally parents don't expect their snowflakes to come home and have had something more vile and disgusting than school lunches them, so the university has been gutting high-profile coaches and even the college president - so much so that it looks like they're trying to remove a brain tumor with a chainsaw.
One question flew across from a reporter: "What's the most disturbing aspect of this case?"
Answer? "The victims."
Uh, what? What do you mean, victims? Are the children disturbing? Is this some kind of child rape-shame, that they're now the dirty girls and nobody in B-dorm will date them? Does this asshole just hate kids? Sure, the case is disturbing, but it's also disturbing when priests and Republicans do it, so why does this merit some kind of special level of disturbitude?
Now let me preface this with the fact that the college is trying to show lip service to parents everywhere, hammering home the point, "At Penn State, staff will probably not rape you." But here are a few things related to this case that are endemic of how sick we are as a society and are far more disturbing than perverted old fuckheads with decision-making power.
First off, that is absolutely the most self-serving and safe answer possible. And it is tragic - those kids are probably going to be fucked up for life. But again, it is the best attempt to paint Penn State as a kinder, gentler kind of child rapist. You know, the kind that lets the kid keep the candy afterward. From this we can infer that Penn State cares the most about Penn State, and not some kid's sore ass cheeks.
Far more disturbing than what is essentially the Catholic's diddling problem in big shoulder pads and tight little pants (side note: I've always found the traditional dress of football a little gay - I know emo kids whose pants aren't that tight and they don't spend their time throwing themselves onto piles of other sweaty men) are some of the reactions. Supporters of beloved coach Joe Paterno side with him even after the scandal broke, wearing white to a game as opposed to blue.
Blue being the official color of child rape, apparently. Who makes this shit up? Anyway.
Loyalty has always been a kind of funny thing to me. I believe in it, but there have to be limits, and I'd say imparting a child with severe trauma he won't remember until he's 40 is a pretty big one. And I'm sure there aren't many Lions fans offering up their firstborn complete with a sticky note reading, "Go Nuts." So in a way, coming out in support of these ass-hats is saying, "Pork my kid and I'll fucking kill you, but do it to someone else's and we can still get drinks Friday."
It was my assumption that once it broke that you were a pedophile, the entire world turned against you, and if you came out in support of a pedophile as Paterno evidently has done, it just turned fucking faster. I guess that rule only applies to people who don't have glorified Nike-sponsored daycares named after them:
Someone call Alanis Morissette and tell her that this is the definition of irony, not anything in her toe-tappingly stupid fucking song.
There's also a new run of rape jokes flying around Penn State's campus. Now, it is a firm pillar of my entire existence that nothing is sacred, and all aspects of life no matter how disgusting, evil or tragic are ripe for parody, but rape isn't exactly the low-hanging fruit. As Facebook has proven, our prudish, overbearing nanny-state of social mores has forbidden us from publicly making jokes about race, religion, and stuff that generally tends to offend large groups of people, but sexual assault is still hilarious, and offending all women everywhere isn't a problem because they only think they're people anyway.
One must also understand that the human brain works in strange, generally offensive ways. Part of the reason "dark humor" exists is because when Joe Average is confronted with something so terrible his normal, raised-in-suburbia-on-Saturday-morning-cartoons-and-public-school can't comprehend, the mental defense is to laugh. It's why an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball throws herself down a flight of stairs is side-splitting in the context of physical comedy, but if it were to happen in front of you, you'd probably call the paramedics.
But let's be clear. There is a line as thick as a Buick between this and saying, "Know what's 9 inches and gets me laid? My knife." The former is a little perverted, but if you're willing to see passed the dick jokes you get that it's a play on advertising to children. The latter isn't funny. It isn't even a joke. It's really just a way of saying, "Yeah so, in all seriousness, you'll probably get raped."
I can't really tell if the recent attention rape jokes have been getting is genuine hatred towards women (something that is always present in society, even if it isn't obvious), pretentiousness, stupidity, or something that has always been there and is just now squarely in the media cross-hair. But all of that is beside the point.
Making a joke of something terrible does two good things at once. It makes the issue accessible to all, and allows for discussion by all - something George Carlin mastered better than any other comedian I am aware of. But the brand of humor that is now popular (if it could even be called humor) doesn't do either of those things. At best it's negligible and irresponsible, and at worst it glorifies. This is effectively the response Penn State has when beloved sons get caught putting their sexual organs in The Forbidden Zone.
So Penn State, there are things that are much more disturbing than "the victims" in this case (and I assume it's a very big headache for you that there are victims to begin with, yeah?) It is not often one has a chance to step into the limelight and say something meaningful that literally affects everyone, and you have a chance here, to speak about the culture of entitlement among public figures, of misplaced loyalties and about things that really aren't funny. But instead, you're choosing to do nothing but cover your own massive anuses and talk down to those of us listening like we're a bunch of fucking five-year-olds who need to get out of the kitchen because mom and dad are fighting.
Some jerkhole from Penn State was giving a press conference regarding the little problem their beloved football coaches seem to have with sticking their penises in young boys. Generally parents don't expect their snowflakes to come home and have had something more vile and disgusting than school lunches them, so the university has been gutting high-profile coaches and even the college president - so much so that it looks like they're trying to remove a brain tumor with a chainsaw.
One question flew across from a reporter: "What's the most disturbing aspect of this case?"
Answer? "The victims."
Uh, what? What do you mean, victims? Are the children disturbing? Is this some kind of child rape-shame, that they're now the dirty girls and nobody in B-dorm will date them? Does this asshole just hate kids? Sure, the case is disturbing, but it's also disturbing when priests and Republicans do it, so why does this merit some kind of special level of disturbitude?
Now let me preface this with the fact that the college is trying to show lip service to parents everywhere, hammering home the point, "At Penn State, staff will probably not rape you." But here are a few things related to this case that are endemic of how sick we are as a society and are far more disturbing than perverted old fuckheads with decision-making power.
First off, that is absolutely the most self-serving and safe answer possible. And it is tragic - those kids are probably going to be fucked up for life. But again, it is the best attempt to paint Penn State as a kinder, gentler kind of child rapist. You know, the kind that lets the kid keep the candy afterward. From this we can infer that Penn State cares the most about Penn State, and not some kid's sore ass cheeks.
Far more disturbing than what is essentially the Catholic's diddling problem in big shoulder pads and tight little pants (side note: I've always found the traditional dress of football a little gay - I know emo kids whose pants aren't that tight and they don't spend their time throwing themselves onto piles of other sweaty men) are some of the reactions. Supporters of beloved coach Joe Paterno side with him even after the scandal broke, wearing white to a game as opposed to blue.
Blue being the official color of child rape, apparently. Who makes this shit up? Anyway.
Loyalty has always been a kind of funny thing to me. I believe in it, but there have to be limits, and I'd say imparting a child with severe trauma he won't remember until he's 40 is a pretty big one. And I'm sure there aren't many Lions fans offering up their firstborn complete with a sticky note reading, "Go Nuts." So in a way, coming out in support of these ass-hats is saying, "Pork my kid and I'll fucking kill you, but do it to someone else's and we can still get drinks Friday."
It was my assumption that once it broke that you were a pedophile, the entire world turned against you, and if you came out in support of a pedophile as Paterno evidently has done, it just turned fucking faster. I guess that rule only applies to people who don't have glorified Nike-sponsored daycares named after them:
Someone call Alanis Morissette and tell her that this is the definition of irony, not anything in her toe-tappingly stupid fucking song.
There's also a new run of rape jokes flying around Penn State's campus. Now, it is a firm pillar of my entire existence that nothing is sacred, and all aspects of life no matter how disgusting, evil or tragic are ripe for parody, but rape isn't exactly the low-hanging fruit. As Facebook has proven, our prudish, overbearing nanny-state of social mores has forbidden us from publicly making jokes about race, religion, and stuff that generally tends to offend large groups of people, but sexual assault is still hilarious, and offending all women everywhere isn't a problem because they only think they're people anyway.
One must also understand that the human brain works in strange, generally offensive ways. Part of the reason "dark humor" exists is because when Joe Average is confronted with something so terrible his normal, raised-in-suburbia-on-Saturday-morning-cartoons-and-public-school can't comprehend, the mental defense is to laugh. It's why an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball throws herself down a flight of stairs is side-splitting in the context of physical comedy, but if it were to happen in front of you, you'd probably call the paramedics.
But let's be clear. There is a line as thick as a Buick between this and saying, "Know what's 9 inches and gets me laid? My knife." The former is a little perverted, but if you're willing to see passed the dick jokes you get that it's a play on advertising to children. The latter isn't funny. It isn't even a joke. It's really just a way of saying, "Yeah so, in all seriousness, you'll probably get raped."
I can't really tell if the recent attention rape jokes have been getting is genuine hatred towards women (something that is always present in society, even if it isn't obvious), pretentiousness, stupidity, or something that has always been there and is just now squarely in the media cross-hair. But all of that is beside the point.
Making a joke of something terrible does two good things at once. It makes the issue accessible to all, and allows for discussion by all - something George Carlin mastered better than any other comedian I am aware of. But the brand of humor that is now popular (if it could even be called humor) doesn't do either of those things. At best it's negligible and irresponsible, and at worst it glorifies. This is effectively the response Penn State has when beloved sons get caught putting their sexual organs in The Forbidden Zone.
So Penn State, there are things that are much more disturbing than "the victims" in this case (and I assume it's a very big headache for you that there are victims to begin with, yeah?) It is not often one has a chance to step into the limelight and say something meaningful that literally affects everyone, and you have a chance here, to speak about the culture of entitlement among public figures, of misplaced loyalties and about things that really aren't funny. But instead, you're choosing to do nothing but cover your own massive anuses and talk down to those of us listening like we're a bunch of fucking five-year-olds who need to get out of the kitchen because mom and dad are fighting.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Politirant, Nov. 11 Edition
Now with 20% more dick jokes FREE!
Thinking of making this a monthly thing, since I tend not to delve into politics much in writing anymore. And if it becomes a monthly thing, people will say that it was a thing, and that it just happened. Sounds cooler than it really is.
Anyhow, we're officially less than a year away from the presidential election, although good luck convincing the GoP and CNN of that. Not even rumors that Justin Bieber knocked up some 20-year-old chick back stage and is on the way to becoming every teenage girl's number one babydaddy has broken the constant and fucking monotonous coverage of the Republican explosion. (Thought it does beg the question, what fucking 20-year-old listens to that Justin Bieber? Was she deaf?) Picture a scene where a seventeen year old virgin nervously cleans the back seat of her father's convertible while her boyfriend sits on the ground crying and trying to get his pants back on. Now imagine you're the girl, quiet sobs and love songs from the radio around you, thinking, "What, that's it?". That's about how I feel toward the coverage in general. But because general doesn't say anything and that analogy sucked, let's get into specifics. Starting wiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...
The 2011
Starring:
Herman Cain
Mr. Flavor of the Week. There are three separate but equally valid theories to describe this man's bizarre behavior.
1) He is a poor politician in general and has no concept of what it is to run a successful campaign. He has no hold in several key race states, is grossly underfunded, and seemingly has no organization whatsoever. His talking points are all over the place and he contradicts his own firm stances daily, sometimes in the same interview. In less than a week of rigorous talk show appearances, Cain has basically alienated everyone in the country. He reminds me of the proverbial dog chasing a car in two ways: he wouldn't know what to do with it if he caught it, and when he's chasing it, nothing else matters. Today he stated that he wouldn't be answering any more questions about the two alleged sexual harassment suits that may or may not have happened and that he did, didn't, may have or may not have paid one or more settlements on, and I sincerely believe he believes this will make the issue go away.
Or behind door number 2) there is the notion that he was not a serious candidate to begin with and ran just for shits and giggles. This actually goes a long way to explain his self-immolating behavior, as it's a pretty smart exit strategy. He can be forced out for his lunacy, leave the race and not have to admit any kind of defeat.
C) This theory is not my own - all credit to comedian Janine Garafalo. She says Cain is the "pay-per-view" candidate. His presence as the one black conservative other than Alan Keys (R-Fucking Insane Asshole) and his place in the presidential killzone makes the GoP look a little less racist. Although Cain's outright hatred of immigrants makes one wonder about his own views on race.
Of course there's always option D) the guy is a fucking jackhole.
Michelle Bachmann
Hard to get a read on her. The only opinion I can really form is that she is a lazy rich kid who honestly believes all of this Bible end-of-the-world horse shit and won't hesitate to throw you (yes YOU!) into the line of fire if she thinks it'll speed up Jesus knocking on her front door by a split fucking nanosecond. Her welfare kids and farm subsidy, not to mention a political career defined by social issues and reaction lead me to believe she is not a serious candidate in any arena. She's there to make money and kill the gays.
Because, you know, a bunch of dudes in hot pants marching through Times Square to the tune of Lady Gaga is the biggest threat facing America.
Rick Perry
The former golden boy (and not so name just because he can out-Boehner John Boehner in terms of fake tan grossness) of the Tea Party has two great strengths as a politician. He has an uncanny ability to sense the changing of the wind and foresee trends, such as sensing that Texas was going to swing way over to the far side of batshit in the 90s. His second strength is what I will call Sheer Tensile Anal Flexibility. He is a master of letting other people fuck him in the ass for contributions. Seriously, there's so many dicks in there it's hard to tell where dick ends and man begins. He's appointed donors to every possible position, from regents at universities to flat out making up bullshit state positions to give donors a kushy job at the taxpayer's expense.
In addition to a record-setting 300:1 dick-to-asshole ratio, it is impossible to tell where Perry's principals lie. The man knows no limits and draws no lines in the sand when it comes to his beliefs. The best example of this is a plan to mandate girls in the 6th grade get Gardisil shots - a vaccine against HPV - which is known to cause cervical cancer. This clashes with the fact that most of Texas only thinks unchaste women get STDs and that Trojan condoms are manufactured on the upper-west side of Hell. The plan fell through, but Perry's departure from the almost priest-like devotion to his beliefs was due to Gardisil manufacturer Merck snagging $120 a shot, all at the expense of Texas public schools.
Here's a little analogy to remember every time you think of Rick Perry:
"Perry is to investors as a cheap Herpes-ridden hooker is to the crew of the Battleship Enterprise on the first day of shore leave."
This is what makes him so terrifying as a candidate. His prime supporters are the Tea Party, and worse, the super-paranoid lunatic fringe libertarians with itchy trigger fingers and a whole lot of ammo. Perry's only guiding moral in life is "spread ass cheaks, insert penis," and the length to which he is willing to go is basically unlimited. So in closing...
Dude would fuck his sister for money.
Mitt Romney
Who. The fuck. Names their son. Mitt.
That aside, Romney is an old hat conservative rich boy who thinks wearing a five hundred dollar Land's End jacket and posing in Maine swells one's testes to lumberjack size. He will also be the most likely to win the nomination when all is said and done. He's also into being married and reserving the right to fuck other women (I mean, really, is there any other reason for the Mormon's to exist? Let's just cut all this God loves the USA in the butt bullshit and admit it - some dude like the whores and needed an excuse to continue liking the whores).
Otherwise there is little remarkable and not much we haven't heard before. He's a flip-flopper of epic proportion who'd say, "Good morning," to you when it's clearly 9pm and your dog just died. This can actually be useful for progressives since Romney's stance on economic issues can lean left, depending on the need. He also comes from a background of being pro-choice and pro-gay, which has not exactly warmed the hearts of the swaths of bigots that turn out at these pay-for-entry no-cameras speaking events the candidates try to pass off as public forums.
And what is up with the plastic surgery? The guy looks like the least successful run of Ken doll Mattel has ever known. So bad were his sales figures the designer went home and shot himself.
Rick Santorum
Who?
Ron Paul
The fact that seemingly smart people buy into Ron Paul's ideology amazes me. If right wing rhetoric is one gigantic stream of urine, then Ron Paul is the last little bit that dribbles down your leg.
It's well-known the man is a gigantic racist, and things like taking massive contributions from a group known as Stormfront - the largest neo-Nazi organization in North America - are not doing much to change that image. His anti-government rantings and cries for anarchy in the streets really strike a chord with young people, but it's not the kind of freedom anyone actually wants. Ron Paul, on a personal level, does want anarchy. Around him. But as far as actively participating, fucking forget it. He wants state-sponsored protection from the people he would willing take social, legal and medical protection away from.
This really strikes me as the attitude of most of Paul's followers as well: a bunch of quasi-sociopaths too fucking absorbed with themselves, willing to strip down the trappings of functional society to a base "everyone man for himself" level, yet somehow exempting themselves from the need to live in fear that their neighbors are the ones conspiring to steal their beans, and strutting around with the faux-intellectual, self-congratulatory bravado of a thirteen year old boy who tells everyone at school that Suzie Hicks just gave him his first blowjob.
Here's my advice for people thinking of voting for Ron Paul.
Step 1: Take an ordinary number two pencil.
Step 2: Place it between your index and ring fingers on your left hand.
Step 3: Align your left fingers in a plain, holding the pencil gently.
Step 4: Squeeze all four of your left fingers together using your other hand. Do this for ten seconds.
Did that hurt?
Good. That means it's working. Do this every time you think you might vote for Ron Paul.
Jon Huntsman
It is ironic to me that the only candidate on the field with a shred of political credibility (like working as Obama's ambassador to China) probably has the smallest likelihood of winning the nomination. While I personally would not vote for Huntsman, I give him that he is the one candidate who has not gone and hung two crosses from his nipples and swung them about in the public's face in what must be the most uncomfortable strip tease in history.
It's difficult to know where Huntsman is going. On one hand, he may just quietly fade to background noise as he has been all along, or he may jump to the front of the polls once all of the other candidates crash and burn. My feeling is that his future as a candidate depends on what others do around him, considering that he's already been told to fuck off by both Fox and CNN.
And finally there's Obama, and what a dissapointment that motherfucker turned out to be.
I'll conclude with a thought about Occupy Wall Street.
OWS is terrifying to politicians on all sides of the field for one reason and one reason alone. For years now, politicians have lived in the bubble of red vs. blue. No matter what evil has been committed, you always have a ready-made scapegoat, and the underlying issues are quietly kept out of sight. And sure, the battleground is alight with flames on social issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control, racism, and so on, but in a time of economic crisis, where are the jobs bills, and why is everyone trying to rob social security?
On economic issues, Dems and Reps are basically in agreement. Democrats come up with national bailouts, and Republicans laud them in public, and in private pass similar measures of a smaller scale. Outsourcing is bulletproof. And you just have to have Superpacs and unlimited campaign contributions. And while they're at it they might as well kick unions in balls a few more times, for good measure. On foreign policy, same deal. Education? Drug war? Obama's plan to get the troops out of Iraq isn't even his: it's a legacy of the Bush years when his approval rating was lower than Nixon's and he needed a last minute bump in the polls to ensure a graceful exit. Might as well be a team of synchronized fucking swimmers.
OWS instead directs its anger toward business, which doesn't know a red and a blue, only a list of who can be bought and for how much. This has both sides of the party shitting themselves. The reds are trying to shamelessly brand OWS as racist, anti-Semitic and privileged, while the blues are trying to assume leadership of the growing mob and direct the anger toward congress.
Both of these are separate but equal efforts to destroy any power OWS may have, and stagnate any chance of real change. Obama claims he supports OWS, but his voting record is obstinately pro-Wall Street and anti-regulation. And the feverish anti-poor people attitude in Congress is a symptom, not a cause. Obama's version of OWS would be like a doctor giving you Asprin for a headache while you are slowly dying from pneumonia.
All of this is endemic to what I believe to be a key flaw in modern politics. Leaders understand that their job is to get re-elected, not to actually lead. And in a climate of deregulated elections, it becomes an all-out no-holds-barred slug fest, and any notion of honesty or sincerity is thrown right out the fucking window.
We're also still a year away from the election, and I really wish everyone would shut up about it already.
Thinking of making this a monthly thing, since I tend not to delve into politics much in writing anymore. And if it becomes a monthly thing, people will say that it was a thing, and that it just happened. Sounds cooler than it really is.
Anyhow, we're officially less than a year away from the presidential election, although good luck convincing the GoP and CNN of that. Not even rumors that Justin Bieber knocked up some 20-year-old chick back stage and is on the way to becoming every teenage girl's number one babydaddy has broken the constant and fucking monotonous coverage of the Republican explosion. (Thought it does beg the question, what fucking 20-year-old listens to that Justin Bieber? Was she deaf?) Picture a scene where a seventeen year old virgin nervously cleans the back seat of her father's convertible while her boyfriend sits on the ground crying and trying to get his pants back on. Now imagine you're the girl, quiet sobs and love songs from the radio around you, thinking, "What, that's it?". That's about how I feel toward the coverage in general. But because general doesn't say anything and that analogy sucked, let's get into specifics. Starting wiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...
The 2011
GoP Primary Contestant Breakdown Lighting Round Hootenanny!
Starring:
Herman Cain
Mr. Flavor of the Week. There are three separate but equally valid theories to describe this man's bizarre behavior.
1) He is a poor politician in general and has no concept of what it is to run a successful campaign. He has no hold in several key race states, is grossly underfunded, and seemingly has no organization whatsoever. His talking points are all over the place and he contradicts his own firm stances daily, sometimes in the same interview. In less than a week of rigorous talk show appearances, Cain has basically alienated everyone in the country. He reminds me of the proverbial dog chasing a car in two ways: he wouldn't know what to do with it if he caught it, and when he's chasing it, nothing else matters. Today he stated that he wouldn't be answering any more questions about the two alleged sexual harassment suits that may or may not have happened and that he did, didn't, may have or may not have paid one or more settlements on, and I sincerely believe he believes this will make the issue go away.
Or behind door number 2) there is the notion that he was not a serious candidate to begin with and ran just for shits and giggles. This actually goes a long way to explain his self-immolating behavior, as it's a pretty smart exit strategy. He can be forced out for his lunacy, leave the race and not have to admit any kind of defeat.
C) This theory is not my own - all credit to comedian Janine Garafalo. She says Cain is the "pay-per-view" candidate. His presence as the one black conservative other than Alan Keys (R-Fucking Insane Asshole) and his place in the presidential killzone makes the GoP look a little less racist. Although Cain's outright hatred of immigrants makes one wonder about his own views on race.
Of course there's always option D) the guy is a fucking jackhole.
Michelle Bachmann
Hard to get a read on her. The only opinion I can really form is that she is a lazy rich kid who honestly believes all of this Bible end-of-the-world horse shit and won't hesitate to throw you (yes YOU!) into the line of fire if she thinks it'll speed up Jesus knocking on her front door by a split fucking nanosecond. Her welfare kids and farm subsidy, not to mention a political career defined by social issues and reaction lead me to believe she is not a serious candidate in any arena. She's there to make money and kill the gays.
Because, you know, a bunch of dudes in hot pants marching through Times Square to the tune of Lady Gaga is the biggest threat facing America.
Rick Perry
The former golden boy (and not so name just because he can out-Boehner John Boehner in terms of fake tan grossness) of the Tea Party has two great strengths as a politician. He has an uncanny ability to sense the changing of the wind and foresee trends, such as sensing that Texas was going to swing way over to the far side of batshit in the 90s. His second strength is what I will call Sheer Tensile Anal Flexibility. He is a master of letting other people fuck him in the ass for contributions. Seriously, there's so many dicks in there it's hard to tell where dick ends and man begins. He's appointed donors to every possible position, from regents at universities to flat out making up bullshit state positions to give donors a kushy job at the taxpayer's expense.
In addition to a record-setting 300:1 dick-to-asshole ratio, it is impossible to tell where Perry's principals lie. The man knows no limits and draws no lines in the sand when it comes to his beliefs. The best example of this is a plan to mandate girls in the 6th grade get Gardisil shots - a vaccine against HPV - which is known to cause cervical cancer. This clashes with the fact that most of Texas only thinks unchaste women get STDs and that Trojan condoms are manufactured on the upper-west side of Hell. The plan fell through, but Perry's departure from the almost priest-like devotion to his beliefs was due to Gardisil manufacturer Merck snagging $120 a shot, all at the expense of Texas public schools.
Here's a little analogy to remember every time you think of Rick Perry:
"Perry is to investors as a cheap Herpes-ridden hooker is to the crew of the Battleship Enterprise on the first day of shore leave."
This is what makes him so terrifying as a candidate. His prime supporters are the Tea Party, and worse, the super-paranoid lunatic fringe libertarians with itchy trigger fingers and a whole lot of ammo. Perry's only guiding moral in life is "spread ass cheaks, insert penis," and the length to which he is willing to go is basically unlimited. So in closing...
Dude would fuck his sister for money.
Mitt Romney
Who. The fuck. Names their son. Mitt.
That aside, Romney is an old hat conservative rich boy who thinks wearing a five hundred dollar Land's End jacket and posing in Maine swells one's testes to lumberjack size. He will also be the most likely to win the nomination when all is said and done. He's also into being married and reserving the right to fuck other women (I mean, really, is there any other reason for the Mormon's to exist? Let's just cut all this God loves the USA in the butt bullshit and admit it - some dude like the whores and needed an excuse to continue liking the whores).
Otherwise there is little remarkable and not much we haven't heard before. He's a flip-flopper of epic proportion who'd say, "Good morning," to you when it's clearly 9pm and your dog just died. This can actually be useful for progressives since Romney's stance on economic issues can lean left, depending on the need. He also comes from a background of being pro-choice and pro-gay, which has not exactly warmed the hearts of the swaths of bigots that turn out at these pay-for-entry no-cameras speaking events the candidates try to pass off as public forums.
And what is up with the plastic surgery? The guy looks like the least successful run of Ken doll Mattel has ever known. So bad were his sales figures the designer went home and shot himself.
Rick Santorum
Who?
Ron Paul
The fact that seemingly smart people buy into Ron Paul's ideology amazes me. If right wing rhetoric is one gigantic stream of urine, then Ron Paul is the last little bit that dribbles down your leg.
It's well-known the man is a gigantic racist, and things like taking massive contributions from a group known as Stormfront - the largest neo-Nazi organization in North America - are not doing much to change that image. His anti-government rantings and cries for anarchy in the streets really strike a chord with young people, but it's not the kind of freedom anyone actually wants. Ron Paul, on a personal level, does want anarchy. Around him. But as far as actively participating, fucking forget it. He wants state-sponsored protection from the people he would willing take social, legal and medical protection away from.
This really strikes me as the attitude of most of Paul's followers as well: a bunch of quasi-sociopaths too fucking absorbed with themselves, willing to strip down the trappings of functional society to a base "everyone man for himself" level, yet somehow exempting themselves from the need to live in fear that their neighbors are the ones conspiring to steal their beans, and strutting around with the faux-intellectual, self-congratulatory bravado of a thirteen year old boy who tells everyone at school that Suzie Hicks just gave him his first blowjob.
Here's my advice for people thinking of voting for Ron Paul.
Step 1: Take an ordinary number two pencil.
Step 2: Place it between your index and ring fingers on your left hand.
Step 3: Align your left fingers in a plain, holding the pencil gently.
Step 4: Squeeze all four of your left fingers together using your other hand. Do this for ten seconds.
Did that hurt?
Good. That means it's working. Do this every time you think you might vote for Ron Paul.
Jon Huntsman
It is ironic to me that the only candidate on the field with a shred of political credibility (like working as Obama's ambassador to China) probably has the smallest likelihood of winning the nomination. While I personally would not vote for Huntsman, I give him that he is the one candidate who has not gone and hung two crosses from his nipples and swung them about in the public's face in what must be the most uncomfortable strip tease in history.
It's difficult to know where Huntsman is going. On one hand, he may just quietly fade to background noise as he has been all along, or he may jump to the front of the polls once all of the other candidates crash and burn. My feeling is that his future as a candidate depends on what others do around him, considering that he's already been told to fuck off by both Fox and CNN.
And finally there's Obama, and what a dissapointment that motherfucker turned out to be.
I'll conclude with a thought about Occupy Wall Street.
OWS is terrifying to politicians on all sides of the field for one reason and one reason alone. For years now, politicians have lived in the bubble of red vs. blue. No matter what evil has been committed, you always have a ready-made scapegoat, and the underlying issues are quietly kept out of sight. And sure, the battleground is alight with flames on social issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control, racism, and so on, but in a time of economic crisis, where are the jobs bills, and why is everyone trying to rob social security?
On economic issues, Dems and Reps are basically in agreement. Democrats come up with national bailouts, and Republicans laud them in public, and in private pass similar measures of a smaller scale. Outsourcing is bulletproof. And you just have to have Superpacs and unlimited campaign contributions. And while they're at it they might as well kick unions in balls a few more times, for good measure. On foreign policy, same deal. Education? Drug war? Obama's plan to get the troops out of Iraq isn't even his: it's a legacy of the Bush years when his approval rating was lower than Nixon's and he needed a last minute bump in the polls to ensure a graceful exit. Might as well be a team of synchronized fucking swimmers.
OWS instead directs its anger toward business, which doesn't know a red and a blue, only a list of who can be bought and for how much. This has both sides of the party shitting themselves. The reds are trying to shamelessly brand OWS as racist, anti-Semitic and privileged, while the blues are trying to assume leadership of the growing mob and direct the anger toward congress.
Both of these are separate but equal efforts to destroy any power OWS may have, and stagnate any chance of real change. Obama claims he supports OWS, but his voting record is obstinately pro-Wall Street and anti-regulation. And the feverish anti-poor people attitude in Congress is a symptom, not a cause. Obama's version of OWS would be like a doctor giving you Asprin for a headache while you are slowly dying from pneumonia.
All of this is endemic to what I believe to be a key flaw in modern politics. Leaders understand that their job is to get re-elected, not to actually lead. And in a climate of deregulated elections, it becomes an all-out no-holds-barred slug fest, and any notion of honesty or sincerity is thrown right out the fucking window.
We're also still a year away from the election, and I really wish everyone would shut up about it already.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Monkey crotch for all!
So I am two days into this organic cleanse that involves eating a rice dish made with moong beans (pronounced "mung," sounds like dung [for a reason]), some kind of spiced tea that tastes like monkey crotch and apples. This thing is supposed to last for seven days, and so far every indication points toward me not being able to do it (also giving me one more fucking reason I never want to visit India).
Of course, I'd imagine the Indian folks I know would be pretty offended to have this associated with them. It's more like an Indian-inspired weight loss tactic with a bunch of spiritual horse shit padding it the same way Micheal Bay is padded in bad movies. It's very obviously targeting white people who want to live a "healthier lifestyle," but to be honest, I don't know how much this will benefit me since I feel like 90% of this stuff is crap to begin with. I mean, I get the science behind it - me drinking a pot of coffee a day and subsisting on preservatives and grease isn't good, and anything to help me break those habits is good, but I think my doshas will be fine without a few gallons of jock strap sweat and twigs.
I am not a spiritual person. I don't sign on to any major religion and steer clear of the "spiritual but not religious" lifestyle. Do I believe in supernatural things? Yes. Do I believe in a higher intelligence in the universe? Well if it invented dinosaurs then maybe less than intelligent, but since it invented the platypus, it might not be smart but it sure is awesome. Do I believe in a mythic father figure up in the clouds who wrote a book about how to die right and punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous in the afterlife? No. Not at all. And not in any sense, since Eastern religious are basically a variation on the theme rather than a different way of seeing things. It's still a social institution that puts man at odds with nature rather than accepting that man is part of nature and all of the natural stuff we do maybe isn't so bad (everyone else is doin' it man).
So for now the cleanse continues, though the only thing it may be cleaning out of my body and mind is my sanity.
Positive note: one week without coffee, first day without a headache.
Progress?
Of course, I'd imagine the Indian folks I know would be pretty offended to have this associated with them. It's more like an Indian-inspired weight loss tactic with a bunch of spiritual horse shit padding it the same way Micheal Bay is padded in bad movies. It's very obviously targeting white people who want to live a "healthier lifestyle," but to be honest, I don't know how much this will benefit me since I feel like 90% of this stuff is crap to begin with. I mean, I get the science behind it - me drinking a pot of coffee a day and subsisting on preservatives and grease isn't good, and anything to help me break those habits is good, but I think my doshas will be fine without a few gallons of jock strap sweat and twigs.
I am not a spiritual person. I don't sign on to any major religion and steer clear of the "spiritual but not religious" lifestyle. Do I believe in supernatural things? Yes. Do I believe in a higher intelligence in the universe? Well if it invented dinosaurs then maybe less than intelligent, but since it invented the platypus, it might not be smart but it sure is awesome. Do I believe in a mythic father figure up in the clouds who wrote a book about how to die right and punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous in the afterlife? No. Not at all. And not in any sense, since Eastern religious are basically a variation on the theme rather than a different way of seeing things. It's still a social institution that puts man at odds with nature rather than accepting that man is part of nature and all of the natural stuff we do maybe isn't so bad (everyone else is doin' it man).
So for now the cleanse continues, though the only thing it may be cleaning out of my body and mind is my sanity.
Positive note: one week without coffee, first day without a headache.
Progress?
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