lawyerings
Yeah, yeah, yeah… Obamacare sucks, and so does it’s mom. No what else sucks? Your mom playing lawyer on the internet. She reminds me of this:
Category: THE WORLD
memorial burgers
My dad missed WWII by a few weeks. He early enlisted in the Navy, so he wouldn’t get drafted into the Army and have to sleep in the dirt. At least that’s what he used to say. A few years before he died something about Normandy came on the TV. He was visibly shaken, pissed and said something to the effect of, “they just threw those boys off the boat.”
I’m not interested in arguing about whether he was right or wrong, but that was the moment it finally got through my head, as much as it can, that this shit isn’t a story from an old book or movie. Real lives… thousands and thousands and thousands of them. My dad’s reaction was because they were his peers and his friends, and in recent wars they volunteered.
Most of us “honor” them by changing our profile pics – maybe a parade, then we eat and go to white sales or watch war movies on AMC and congratulate each other for it. Most of us are pussies.
AND THEY’LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR… WAH-WAH!
“We can learn to ignore the bull—t in the Bible about gay people, the same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bull—t in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bull—t in the Bible about all sorts of things,”
Some Christian students walked out. Savage finished those remarks moments later and referred to the students who left as pansy-asses.
For this there is now a call from conservatives (many of whom I call friends) to Viacom (owner of MTV where Savage just launched his own show) to fire him.
I find that absurd and short-sighted. Perhaps he should be criticized for using words like bullshit and pansy-assed when addressing an audience that young, but it’s not worth sharpening your pitchforks over (chill, it’s metaphor).
I’m not going to get into the merits of Dan Savage’s Bible interpretation. Him being right or wrong isn’t the point. I will say that Christians attacking him have once again missed an opportunity to defend scripture. Instead of walking out (which started the second he said Bible, before there was anything to deem offensive) and pressuring his boss to can him, those offended should have used this as an opportunity to counter his theology. They instead chose to send a message that Christians are intolerant and unable or unwilling to bother defending or explaining their faith, to which the conclusion is often that it’s because they can’t.
Besides all of that, this boycott mentality that both political extremes use now is hypocritical, wrong and short-sighted. This is no different from Media Matters having a team dedicated to bullying Glenn Beck’s sponsors, effectively trying to get him fired for saying things they didn’t like. I will say this is a little more serious than Don Imus. He was villified over one word, but you can see how the same faulty logic was used there. There are plenty more examples of this silliness on both ends of the spectrum.
This crap is wrong because the punishment just doesn’t fit the crime. It’s hypocritical because both sides do it, and it’s short-sighted because you’re giving the opponent grounds to give it back to you when the opportunity presents itself (and it will). No, technically Dan Savage’s free speech wasn’t violated, but creating this environment where anyone with a controversial opinion and notable platform are having their livelihoods routinely threatened for using it is truly regressive.
That’s not good for liberty or free speech or progress or unity.
And refusing to listening to opposing points of view sure as hell isn’t good for aspiring journalists who are still expected to at least pretend to set their personal feelings aside when covering a story. On the other hand, points for non-conformity.
*Some are invoking other provocative things Savage has said as grounds for their overreaction. That’s the political equivalent of a spouse bringing up past when losing a marital spat. I’m not interested.
*I’m also not buying that this is a case of the guy who started “It Gets Better” being guilty of bullying. Although I wonder if Bret Easton Ellis’s approach isn’t better? Probably not though.
CAN’T WAITE FOR THIS WEEK TO BE OVER: SNOOKI, CANCER CHICKEN AND YOU
Roseanne Barr is running for president.
Whoever wrote her book called it It’s a Shore Thing for a reason. This week’s Jersey Shore was extra classy. Most notably, Snooki peed her pants on the dance floor and demonstrated how NOT to treat a UTI (drinking). The Situation referred to young ladies he would like to pursue sexually as “real estate”. Deanna got so day drunk they had to cut her extensions out. Or was that last week? Their boss from the t-shirt shop is bewildered by the group’s work ethic.
Don Cornelius is dead from an apparent suicide. Just because I’m not putting a joke about the irony of the “Soul Train” in relation to the beliefs some religions (wrong ones) have about where his soul is going here doesn’t mean I don’t have any.
Many years ago my mom was Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s secretary at an Illinois state level bureaucracy that oversaw other bureaucracies. No, really. In fact, while I was growing up she often cited stories from that job when explaining the ills of government red tape. I think my sister worked for him later on too.
Now his son, Sam LaHood, and his colleagues have been place on a no-fly list in Egypt. The organization they work for is monitoring elections there. It sounds like the organization is cramping the style of Egyptian security forces with allegedly sketchy agendas. Said sketchy guys found out LaHood’s connection to the Obama cabinet and are trying to exploit it. Egypt’s ambassador to the U.S. pinky-swears it will all get worked out. Meanwhile, LaHood and his colleagues are secluded at the U.S. embassy in Egypt.
Our family has great respect for Ray LaHood and the situation is at the top of our prayer lists. We ask you remember them in yours. If you’re thinking of telling me how Ron Paul would not handle this, please think again.
I went to the grocery store this morning. For some reason Ashton Kutcher gets to act like a dog, and Demi Moore is on the cover of all the tabloids speculating on how hot a mess she is.
I watch SyFy now. I was surprised too. They show reruns of something called Ghost Whisperer. Jennifer Love Hewitt and her boobs talk to ghosts and their loved ones to clear up any loose ends. She also runs and antique store, has a baby and a happy marriage. By happy marriage I mean, her husband is totes cool with her talking to ghosts, dies then takes over the body of another dude, then hits his head and remembers he’s the first dude. OK.
He also bathes her. It’s disgusting.
Komen un-un-funded Planned Parenthood. Friday is funday, so I’m not interested in going over the abortion debate, but the informed consent advocate in me thinks this is good in the long run. After this week everyone knows Komen supports Planned Parenthood and can give according to their values. It also might make people scrutinize other charities they give too.
In the interest of scrutinizing charities, I wish we would reconsider this weird marketing… thing… Komen and other “big” charities have created. Charity in America has become buying self-congratulatory rubber bracelets for 99% .99 and calling that giving. It bugs me.
Polo tycoon, John Goodman, adopted his girlfriend. Wait for it… He did it to protect his fortune from the family of a man he’s charged with killing in a DUI accident. So he’s evil, just in a different way than headline leads us to believe.
GIFFORDS RESIGNATION IS CRUEL IRONY
While it’s partly due to addressing her recovery, her choice to resign is also an example that she may be the one politician who sincerely puts the needs of the people ahead of ego and power and ambition.
I hope she can come back.
A VAGUE EXPLANATION FOR POSSIBLE, RECENT DISTANCE AND HOSTILITY
I’m reaching the end of what I now see was the most mentally and emotionally difficult 5 years of my life. I’m proud and ashamed of how I’ve handled it at different times, sometimes the same time.
My point of view has broadened because of 2 situations in my personal life, and I think this is why my views on politics and faith have moved towards the middle, particularly over the last year. I’ve also come to see the huge difference between debate and discussion, particularly in politics. Discussion can be friendly, respectful and productive. Debate is about winning and mocking your opponent. Unless the other person is open-minded and influential I have no urge to spend my time on it, and it’s certainly not an experience I want to have with anyone I care for personally.
As far as faith, I will always believe one’s soul is their most important possession, largely because you have it for eternity. I’m not confused on the big stuff, but I am doing some soul-searching on a few finer points, and I need the freedom to figure these things out for myself and by myself.
Don’t worry.
That’s not all I have to say, but I think it’s all I should say.
RAND PAUL SURVIVES ORDEAL IN CUBICLE
Rand Paul was preparing to voluntary board an aircraft in Nashville today when the scanner being used by airport security was triggered. He was then referred for a secondary inspection in which a pat down would need to be conducted.
He refused because he’s a dick and political opportunist who saw a chance to concoct a controversy he felt that would violate his personal liberty to do whatever the hell he wants with no regard to national security.
He initiated the process of walking away so he could focus on exploiting the incident to get the most attention out of it. He was then informed he couldn’t leave that area because when law enforcement are investigating suspicious activity in a timely manner it’s not in anyone’s best interest to allow the suspicious individual to just do whatever the hell they want.
The situation has since been resolved and Rand has been safely returned to his perpetual temper tantrum headquarters. Although he was late for a speech at the March for Life. Thankfully the participants found a way to soldier on without him
The event gave his dad a chance to bitch about the police state that exists in his mind, so at least the family will have something to toast to next tuesday.
The TSA has clearly and correctly stated that he was not detained, but the senator is sticking to the story his daddy stitched in his underwear which were never removed.
Mike Tyson is a pig and The Daily Caller must be held accountable
Reacting to rumors of an alleged affair Sarah Palin may have had over 20 years ago, the gist of Tyson’s remarks were regarding the legendary endowment of black men. You know, like how black men’s penises are so large they would actually rearrange a white women’s internal reproductive organs during intercourse. He said Sarah had “met the womb-shifter”.
The Daily Caller published the above-linked short, straight-forward article which was clearly a disgusted reaction to Tyson’s comments. Well, to most people. The Daily Caller faced immediate and bizarre outrage from many Palin supporters. The same geniuses that freak out any time The DC says anything remotely critical of Palin. They took the article to be endorsing Tyson’s comments. That’s when The DC added the disclaimer that’s now at the beginning of the article. In my opinion, that was their only mistake.
Besides misinterpreting the tone of the article, the armchair critics seemed to think the story wasn’t news at all. Those of us that hung around for the first week of journalism school know that there are set criteria to determine newsworthiness, and what interests you specifically and caters to your personal sensibilities isn’t one of them. The Tyson piece falls under at least 4 of them. It was news, and it was reported properly.
This controversy is an ass-troversy (not my best wordplay). The truth is that every time The Daily Caller runs a slightly negative Palin story her supporters completely freak out. The cherry on top of this crazy sundae is that this was in no way anti-Palin.
Over 2 years ago Playboy published a hate-f*** list of conservative women. Google it. Tyson’s comments and the dude that wrote the Hate-f***’s comments were equally disgusting. The Playboy “article” was extensively covered on the right in much the same manner that The DC covered Tyson’s comments and resulted in the article being eventually taken down.
These people are as dumb as The Daily Show audience thinks Sarah Palin is. They made a WAH!-mountain out of a molehill, undoubtedly providing the DC with increased traffic and Mike Tyson and whoever’s radio show this was a week’s worth of free publicity.
And that’s why I quit blogging about politics.
*Someone on twitter asked me if I think Dan Riehl, Greta Van Susteran and Tammy Bruce were dumb since they’re leading this clusterschtup. The answer is yes, for years now.
*The more I think about it womb-shifter was pretty clever for Tyson.
It’s not really about who Tucker Carlson wants to f***
Last night Tucker Carlson tweeted, “Palin’s popularity falling in Iowa, but maintains lead to become supreme commander of Milfistan.” Meh, a little tacky for the editor-in-chief of a major political website and seasoned political analyst to say. From what I can gather that’s the reaction he got, and so he deleted the tweet and replaced it with, “Apparently Charlie Sheen got control of my Twitter account last night while I was at dinner. Apologies for his behavior.” And then it was over. Just kidding. This is twitter, there are screen caps.
I found out about it by stumbling across a really, really long blog someone wrote about it. There was nothing really wrong about what the person said other than the fact they wrote hundreds of words about a deleted tweet that didn’t call for someone’s death or minimize their rape. I didn’t think it would be that big a deal. When will I learn?
He deleted the tweet and apologized, so that should’ve been the end of it, I thought. Michelle Malkin doesn’t consider his Charlie Sheen joke an apology. She has a point. I can also appreciate how she would take greater offense to this than I would. She’s been on the receiving end of unbelievably vile rhetoric, and I’ve often wondered if I could handle it. Perhaps he should issue a serious apology. I won’t be surprised if one is made by the end of the day. I hope he knows making it from his website won’t count. If it’s not on twitter it didn’t happen.
(Honestly, I had more of a problem with his Michael Vick comment, but I also understood that he wasn’t really wishing for Vick’s death.)
And so this has become an official thing. You know how I knew it was a thing? When Carlson was equated (not compared, equated) with Nir Rosen by a Palin supporter in my mentions column. For me, that’s when it quit being about Tucker Carlson and acronyms. That tweeter (and there’s more where he or she came from), which I won’t link to, encompasses everything I’ve said about Palin supporters for the last year. I understand where their hyper-sensitive, knee-jerk defense of her comes from. She’s been treated despicably since she entered the stage in August ’08, but it is my opinion that her staunchest supporters have become the perfect parallel of the O-bot cultists we so often mock. If they can’t handle a deleted, midnight tweet from someone on the right, then they are in no shape to defend what she’ll face in a presidential primary. In short, find your big kid pants or get out of the way.
I also suspect that most people outraged over this have never decried equivalent jokes about Michelle Obama’s boob-belt or Hillary Clinton’s pear-shaped pantsuits. I’ll stop short of using the H word.
As a conservative-ish woman, I find this personally embarrassing. We’re now expecting “our men” to treat us with the same kid gloves the miserable wenches on the left do. Well, I don’t need it. As a matter of fact, Tom McCammon, a dude, speaks for me perfectly on the double standard Palinistas are promoting. I’ll let him take it from here. The bottom line is that if the country is in the state of emergency we all claim it is then we need to grow a thicker skin about things like this.
2012 is approaching fast, and we are not ready.
UPDATE: Carlson just tweeted, “I’m sorry for last night’s tweet. I meant absolutely no offense. Not the first dumb thing I’ve said. Hopefully the last.” Most of us knew that, the rest will mostly stay mad at him no matter what.