Archive by Author | Petsnakereggie

Shit That Pissed me Off – 10/30

The Internet Rushes to Defend a Cop Who Beat up a Kid

I’m very careful to research the stuff I post for this blog.  I want to make sure I understand the complete story before I rage against something that isn’t nearly as bad as it first appears.  If my information comes from addicting info, I make sure I find another source.

So when a cell phone video of a “school resource officer” throwing a teenager around surfaced, you’d think I would look for the other side of the story.

Nope.

See it literally doesn’t matter what the student was doing wrong prior to the video.  The extremely violent action was not provoked by a kid sitting at a desk.  Even a kid refusing to leave the classroom.  The officer lost his cool and physically assaulted a child.

To enter a dialogue saying “well she must have done something to deserve that action” ignores the fact that circumstances in which someone deserves to be beaten up are extremely rare.

Did Apollo Creed deserve to be beaten up by Rocky? Or Rocky by Apollo? If only they had just talked it out.

Did Apollo Creed deserve to be beaten up by Rocky? Or Rocky by Apollo? If only they had just talked it out.

If the assault had been committed by a guy who wasn’t in uniform, nobody would be trying to make excuses for his act.  But he’s a cop so he clearly did everything right and his actions shouldn’t be questioned, right?

No.

He’s a cop.  So he should know better.

And the rest of us should stop trying to find an excuse to blame the victim.  When someone starts hitting a person who is not hitting back, the person doing the hitting is to blame.

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Shit that Pissed me off – 10/23

Another Hearing about Benghazi

In spite of the fact it has been publicly stated that these hearings are nothing more than an attempt to discredit Hilary Clinton as a presidential candidate, the Senate held more hearings about Benghazi this week.  In what should come as no surprise, the committee spent considerable time discussing Clinton’s e-mails even after claiming they wouldn’t.

The saber rattling by the right about Benghazi is embarrassing.  It is done.  We are done.

The public doesn’t fucking care.

I mean, that isn’t true.  The far right cares and can’t get enough.  They think somewhere there is a smoking gun.  Ignoring, of course, the fact that the one body completely unqualified to find a smoking gun is the United States Congress.

The US Congress even concluded J. Harvey Oswald acted alone. I mean, they were right. But that isn't the point.

The US Congress even concluded Lee Harvey Oswald wald acted alone. I mean, they were right. But that isn’t the point.

If you would like to beat Hilary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders), oh Republican establishment, can I suggest you do it with better policies and better candidates?

Or are you already aware that won’t work?

Iowa Right to Life Director Doesn’t Really Know Much about Birth Control

I will never understand why pro-life advocates are not strongly pro birth control.  I mean, people will have sex.  It doesn’t matter how many purity rings you sell or how many abstinence only sex ed classes you teach.

Hell, married people who don’t want to have kids will have sex.

And if some of those women who want to have sex get pregnant, they might want an abortion.  Why wouldn’t you be in strong support of something that reduces the odds of an unwanted pregnancy in the first place?

I’m serious – there should be pamphlets about contraception and condoms at every pro-life event.  They should be handing that shit out in front of Planned Parenthood.  Here’s a good slogan: “use protection so you don’t even need to consider having an abortion!”

But they aren’t handing out condoms. In fact, after statistics have shown abortion rates in Iowa dropped after use of contraception increased, the head of Iowa’s Right to Life said:

I think that contraception, by and large, has a huge failure rate.

For the record, she is totally fucking wrong.  Used correctly, the failure rate of most contraception is less than 1%.

So – and I ask this with all respect – what the fuck is this really about?

Road Rage

I’m going to be the first to admit that I fucking hate other drivers.  All of them.  They are in my way and many of them engage in random lane changing or hang out in my blind spot or tailgate or drive too slow in the fast lane or don’t pull into the intersection to turn left until the light turns fucking yellow.

So I really understand road rage.

I am so angry, I will shake my fist at you in the rain!

I am so angry, I will shake my fist at you in the rain!

I don’t understand a guy who pulls out a gun and shoots another driver.  Nor do I understand a dude who swerves to hit a motorcycle.

When I get angry at another driver, I honk my horn at them.  If I’m super out of control, I might do it twice.

I feel like it is the proper way to say “you drive like a douchebag” without, you know, shooting them.

I know regular readers will be shocked that I didn’t complain about guns here.  So let me be clear, I’m not happy some asshole had a loaded gun in his car and shot a four year old.  He doesn’t get brownie points for admitting he murdered a kid because some other asshole cut him off in traffic.

Road rage is certainly made worse by a loaded gun.  But it is always bad.  The solution, of course, is for everyone else to stop driving.

Anti Geek Bullshit

So maybe you know (or maybe you don’t) that this week contained the date Marty and Doc Brown travelled to in Back to the Future II.

You may also know that a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer dropped this week.

Geeks were understandably excited about these two events.  The former resulted in a whole lot of jokes.  Many of which were repetitive and/or not very funny.

The latter resulted in blog posts dissecting every single shot.

And, of course, both resulted in a bunch of people railing against the geeks for being so fucking excited about something they personally didn’t like.

It takes all kinds, I guess but here’s the thing: if someone is excited about Back to the Future because they fucking love those movies, why do you give a shit?  If you are pissed that people don’t love your favorite movie, you need to learn something about art.

Love of art is subjective.  And yes – the Back to the Future movies are art.

Pop art, sure.  But still art.

You don’t have to like it.  But you don’t have to unzip your fly and piss on it either.

 

 

Shit that Pissed me off – 10/16

LUSH is in Trouble for “Offensive” and “Pornographic” Ads featuring Women’s Butts

I think it is universally understood that women are never supposed to be naked in public.  Breast feeding is the sort of thing that should be done in private and goodness knows you should never feature the bare ass of a woman on a poster being displayed where children might see it.

The bare ass of a little cartoon girl, however, is completely OK!

The bare ass of a little cartoon girl, however, is completely OK!

Calling it “pornographic” seems a little bit excessive, though.  Right?  I mean, we are talking about butts here.  They don’t have dildos sticking out of them.

It seems to me that our threshold for what is pornographic is beginning to creep into the “any part of a woman’s body that is not her forearms or knees” territory.

Parents sure are concerned about what their kids might think about sex.  Having kids myself, this concern seems so completely baffling.  When my kids were young, they would probably have giggled at naked butts because they thought the word “butt” was funny.  Then they would have made fart jokes.

Because kids love fart jokes.

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Shit that Pissed me off – 10/9

No Hymen, No Diamond

No link on this one.  Do a Facebook search if you want to find it.

This Facebook group is dedicated to the idea that men deserve virgins to marry.  If a girl doesn’t have a hymen, they aren’t going to put a ring on it.

They also post a lot of really super funny misogynist jokes like “How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb…. 0, everyone knows feminists can’t change anything!”

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HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!  Checkmate, feminists!  You haven’t changed anything at all!  Ever!

Well, sure.  You got the right to vote and paid family medical leave and legalized abortion but what have you done lately?

I shouldn’t give a shit about a bunch of insecure men’s rights assholes and for the most part, I don’t.  They are an embarrassment to other human beings but I believe their point of view is the minority and they just look like petulant douchebags who resent all the women that won’t date them because they are disrespectful cocks.

But I’m raising two boys.  And I’m trying to teach them that women should be loved and respected and afforded all the rights men take for granted.

And the existence of garbage like this makes my job a little bit tougher.

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Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/25

A Story about the Legends Football League

In case you’ve never heard of the Legends Football League, perhaps you might know of it by its previous name: The Lingerie Football League.  It is the only “professional” football league for women in the United States.

I put “professional” in quotes because the athletes aren’t paid, get no medical care, and are expected to play football in swimsuits.

The reason they wear swimsuits instead of, you know, pads, is because nobody will watch women play football unless they are scantily clad.  It’s all very depressing because the article points out that what these women really want to do is play football.

As a result they are exploited in almost every conceivable way.  And they allow and accept it because they get an opportunity to play football.

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL???  What do you mean you didn't notice the score?

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL??? What do you mean you didn’t notice the score?

If you are a woman and your passion happens to be football, what other choice do you have?

It is not the fault of the women who are in the league.  They recognize the choice that they have to make and they make it freely.

I know these ladies aren’t ever going to be paid as well as men but I have to ask: shouldn’t they get paid something?  The league wouldn’t exist without the players and someone is making money. Too bad it isn’t the women who are, quite literally, the face of the league.

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Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/18

A 9th Grader was Cuffed and Arrested Because he Made a Clock Was Muslim

I’m sure you’ve read about Ahmed Mohamed this week.  He built his own clock and made the mistake of bringing it to school and showing his teachers.  He was proud of himself because he made something cool.

His teachers were concerned he’d built a bomb.

Because, you know, most kids who want to blow up their school show the bomb off to their teachers first.

One more thing: REAL BOMBS DON'T LOOK LIKE THIS!

One more thing: REAL BOMBS DON’T LOOK LIKE THIS!

So this kid was cuffed and interrogated by police and then suspended for three days.  Because he built a clock.

Now if Ahmed had been white, I somehow think this situation would have turned out differently.  Strange given that most of the school shooters I know of were white.  Maybe school bombers are different.

As of right now, two important things have happened.  On the positive side, President Obama invited Ahmed to the White House, MIT invited him to their campus, and about five dozen tech companies already want to hire him.  Because fuck the people who got scared by a Muslim kid with mechanical skills.

On the negative side, he says he has learned his lesson and he won’t bring his inventions to school any longer.

Which is precisely the lesson he shouldn’t have been taught.

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Shit that Didn’t Piss me Off – 9/18

Apologies to regular fans of my Friday blog.  I’m going to do things a little differently today.

I’ve been writing Shit that Pissed me off most Fridays for the last three years.  I enjoy it as an exercise in writing humor and in exploring my opinions about what is happening in the world around me.  Since I’ve started writing the column, it has never coincided with my birthday.

Well this year, it has.

So I decided instead of spending my birthday thinking about stuff that annoys me, I’m going to write about things that make me happy.  I’ll post this week’s shit that pissed me off on Monday. Because even on my birthday, there are things that piss me off.

I begin my 48th year today and in honor of that, here are 48 things that make me happy.

1.  I’ve been married to the same amazing woman for the last 25 1/2 years.  She is brilliant, courageous, thoughtful, sexy, and supportive.  She laughs at some of my jokes.  She listens when I’m in a bad mood.  She corrects me when I’m wrong.  There is not a night that goes by where I am not happy we share a bed, a home, and a life.

2. I’ve got one fantastic mother.  She loves math and has spent her life finding ways to help others love it too. She loves being an amateur artist.  She is a fun travel companion.  Any day I know I’m going to see her is automatically a good day.

3. My oldest son is great.  He’s clever, cheerful, fun, and affectionate.  He grew several inches in the last year and is starting to show signs of facial hair.  Pretty soon, he’s going to learn how to drive and get a job and start looking at colleges.  I’m not sure I’m ready for any of that.

4. My youngest son is wonderfully creative.  The way he builds new Lego structures and describes ideas for new games or parks or dinosaurs shows boundless inventiveness.  His head must be such an interesting place to live.

5. My Brother is full of passion and energy.  He has been remarkably successful in not just the field he has chosen to pursue, but most anything he decides to accomplish.  We have a great relationship hampered only by the distance that separates us.

6. My Sister-in-law has a sharp sense of humor, an infectious positive attitude, and seems like a perfect partner for my brother.

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Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/11

In Wisconsin, they are Banning a Long List of Foods from Food Stamp Eligibility

So, OK.  I see what they are trying to do.  They are trying to help poor people eat healthier.

I mean, it’s great that we want to spend a lot of time convincing forcing poor kids to eat brussels sprouts but isn’t being poor bitter enough?

It seems like we are punishing poor kids and single moms for being poor kids and single moms.  If they are getting a little government assistance (and food stamps are a little government assistance), why not let ’em use it to buy ketchup if they want some?

If you want ketchup on your hot dog, little girl, tell your parents to GET A JOB!

If you want ketchup on your hot dog, little girl, tell your parents to GET A JOB!

No, poor kids!  If you want to eat some french fries, the most you can put on them is a little bit of salt!

Also, they need to be sweet potato fries because we aren’t going to let you buy potatoes.

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Shit that Pissed me off – 9/4

Kim Davis

Kim Davis, a clerk in Kentucky, has been on a religious crusade for a while now.  Steadfastly refusing to issue marriage licenses because her conscience (and the Bible) won’t allow her to “condone” same-sex marriage, she has been fighting for her right to discriminate against people she doesn’t approve of religious freedom in the courts.

And she has lost.  Time and again the courts have told her “this is the law.  You have a sworn duty to uphold it even if you don’t agree with it.”

This week, after once again refusing to do her legal duty, she has been jailed for contempt of court.

There are so many things that bother me about all of this.

First of all, she is abusing the court system.  There has never been a time when she would have abided by the court decision if she lost.  Never.  Sure, she probably believed she would win but so what?  If you are going to use the court system and you lose, lose with some dignity.

Second, if she can’t do her job for moral reasons, she needs to quit.  Instead of using her religion as an excuse to deny people a legal right with which she doesn’t agree, she needs to accept that she can’t fulfill the function of her office.  Because she can’t won’t.

Third, can you imagine the issues should the court eventually side with her?  Devout Muslims could refuse to issue drivers licenses to women.  Devout Jews could refuse to serve McRibs at a McDonalds.  Devout Buddhists could ruin a concert by clapping with only one hand.

Fourth, this isn’t about her personal beliefs being under fire.  She isn’t doing this so she personally doesn’t have to issue same-sex marriage licenses.  Told she would be released from jail if she allowed her deputies to sign same-sex licenses, she said she would not.  In other words, even though she would not be issuing the license, she won’t allow one to be issued by anyone in her office.  That means she is enforcing her own belief on those who work with her.  Which is exactly what she claims to be fighting against.

Finally, I have a real problem with Christians who are casting stones.  Because Jesus was pretty clear on this point:

he-without-sin-017

Kim Davis cheated on her first husband with her third husband.  Which is adultery and one of those commandments fundamentalist Christians are so anxious to put in courthouses.

I’m not judging her for that.  She screwed up.  People screw up all the time.  I’m judging her for the fact she has the temerity to deny a legal right to others when she, by her own religious beliefs, has no right to judge them.

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Shit that Pissed me Off – 8/28

Sarah Palin is Still Able to Say Things People Will Repeat

Earlier this week, Curt Schilling was suspended from ESPN for tweeting something really stupid.  In case you are wondering, it was the following meme.

It’s said only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?

So we are using Godwin’s law to compare all Muslims everywhere to Nazis.

The problem isn’t even the logical fallacy involved.  It is the fact that Schilling works for ESPN and some of the people who watch ESPN are Muslims.  ESPN could give a fuck about Schilling’s politics.  In fact, I’m guessing sports fans skew slightly conservative so that probably isn’t an issue.

It would also appear most Republican sports fans are left handed.

It would also appear most Republican sports fans are left handed.

However, the fact that Muslims could choose to stop watching ESPN because they employ someone so publicly Islamophobic is going to be an issue.

Enter Sarah Palin, who apparently still gets to talk into microphones.  Any time a conservative gets punished for doing anything, she figures it is because the liberal media hates conservatives.  And she says so.  And for some reason, she keeps getting air time.

So let’s make this really clear: Schilling didn’t get suspended because he’s a conservative.  He got suspended because if ESPN didn’t do anything, his tweet could have cost them money.

Seems like a reason Republicans should be able to get behind.

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