Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/17
A Senseless Massacre in Orlando
I pretty much have to lead with this, don’t I? There’s no way to avoid talking about a killing spree in which almost fifty people were gunned down in the largest mass shooting in US history. Although that depends on how you define mass shooting, as the internet has been careful to remind me.
As if arguing over the how extreme the slaughter was actually matters in the least. Would it matter less if the gunman had only managed to kill five people?
The only thing that now seems to matter is that he was a Muslim. Even though there is enough evidence to suggest that he was a homophobic man who was also likely dealing with a lot of self loathing because he was secretly gay, the narrative is all about his religion.
He may have wanted it to be that way because he pledged allegiance to ISIS during the attack. But that is the narrative he wanted.
Not a picture of the actual shooter because fuck him.
He wanted to be known as radical Islamist. Is that because he didn’t want to be known as gay? I have no idea. What I do know is that the narrative revolves around radical Islam and that narrative originated with the man who did the killing.
No matter what, we haven’t spent enough time recognizing that whatever he used to justify his act, he deliberately targeted the GLBT community. This act of violence was done specifically to harm a community he found objectionable. The reasons he found the community objectonable are irrelevant because there is hate speak coming from everywhere. Not just Islam. I’ll get to that later.
We’ll talk about all of this for a few weeks. And then we will forget about it until the next mass shooting takes place.
At which point, we will only talk about the killer’s religion if they are a Muslim.
One note though: if you want to talk about gun control, or not gun control, or Islamic fundamentalism, or whatever else you want to talk about, that’s great. And it is important. But please do something tangible as well. there is a Gofundme campaign that has raised over 5 million for the victims. I know it seems like $5 won’t make a difference. But it will. If you want to make a difference, please do more than talk. Contribute to the campaign or donate blood or do something to support your local GLBT community. Do something.
Shit that Pissed Me Off – 6/10
Judge Sentences Convicted Rapist to Six Months Because He Was Drunk
In a case that involved a brutal sexual assault, the rapist has said he’s going to do everything he can to educate people about the dangers of the drinking culture on College campuses.
As his victim pointed out in an eloquent statement she read in court, he doesn’t seem to have any desire to speak out on the subject of stopping sexual assault. He seems convinced that if people stop drinking the sexual assault will go away.
The rapist’s father also made a statement in which he argued that his son should not be punished for the rest of his life after “20 minutes of action.”
I’m just going to point out that this young man was apparently a star swimmer and that means he was regularly rewarded for just a few minutes’ work. Somehow, however, he should not be punished for twenty.
The judge listened to the boy’s father and the victim’s statement and decided that the father was the one who was mostly in the right and a young man who sexually assaulted a woman behind a dumpster so violently that she had pine needles in her vagina is going to jail for – at most – six months. Probably more like three.
And his lawyer is appealing.
The concern voiced by the father and the judge has everything to do with the “ruined” life of the rapist. It has literally nothing to do with the ruined life of the victim. But who cares about her, right?
She wasn’t the one on trial.
Except, in our justice system, she actually was. Read More…
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/3
Donald Trump Says There is not Drought in California
Even though California has been suffering through a worsening drought over the last few years, Donald Trump has been assuring farmers that there is plenty of water and when he’s President, he’ll make sure they get it.
I know that it is easy to say that Trump is just a politician making hollow promises but let’s remember that Trump believes global climate change is a hoax. Not wrong. A hoax.
So when he starts spouting conspiracy theories about the California water supply, it is entirely likely that he believes them. He believes that the drought isn’t really happening and it is just liberal, tree-hugging politicians who are to blame for the fact California farmers can’t water their crops.
This photo making it look like Lake Mead is at 40% of capacity is clearly created with gigantic mirrors.
And the more evidence he is shown to the contrary, the more likely he is to believe it is all a big fucking conspiracy.
This guy is going to be the Republican nominee for President. His party is going to stand behind him because they have no choice.
And that ought to scare the hell out of everyone.
Shit that Pissed Me Off – 5/27
Just a quick note: I was on vacation for two weeks so a few of the things that pissed me off this week are old. I didn’t want to forget about them, though. So you’re welcome, I guess?
Meteorologist is Handed a Sweater While on the Air Because Viewers Complained About her Dress
Let’s count all the ways this is wrong.
- On the air? Are you fucking kidding me?
- Her dress was not indecent. You could see her shoulders. If that was distracting people from the regional temperatures, those folks have some serious issues that go far beyond what their weather person is wearing.
- Although they were not, apparently, so distracted that they were unable to text and e-mail while she was still on the air.
- They asked her to cover herself while she was on the air!
Guys – assume for a moment you are a weather person and you wear a shirt someone finds objectionable. Or, you decide to do your morning report in a muscle shirt. Do you think you’d get half the e-mails that this young woman did?
They would probably be trying to get his co-host to shove cash down his pants.
The fact people made it their business to whine about her dress should be embarrassing. To them.
It shouldn’t have been embarrassing to her. Except it was because the station made the incomprehensible decision to fix it. On the air!
Point is, women in media are subjected to this kind of scrutiny all the time. They have to think about every style choice they make because the “wrong” choice might just result in an embarrassing situation like this one. Men in media basically need to decide which tie to wear.
People don’t send a lot of e-mails about ties.
Shit that Pissed me off – 5/6
Fox News Commenters Make Racist Statements in a Story about Malia Obama’s Choice of College
I know. Reading comments is always a bad idea. In this case, Fox turned them off after a whole lot of racist assholes turned up to share their thoughts regarding what was basically a harmless story about a young woman’s college choice. Unfortunately for her, she is young black woman.
Being black in this “post-racial” society means that you are going to have racist epithets thrown at you by a bunch of internet ignoramuses for having the temerity to exist.
Fox was smart to turn off the comments. However, they need to recognize that they invite this kind of commentary. It is their own personality that helps encourage people to be racist fucks on the internet.
Malia Obama will be fine. She has been the target for this kind of language since her father became a legitimate Presidential candidate and while I’m certain her parents have protected her from the worst of it, there is no way they could protect her from all of it.
There’s just too much.
Thing is, as long as Fox news keeps insisting we live in a post racial society but has to shut down comments on an article about a young black woman, I will continue to wonder why anyone takes them seriously.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/14
Racist Gun Shop Owner Vandalizes Car of Bernie Sanders Supporter
The dude sells bumper stickers that read “MFZ,” which stands for “Muslim Free Zone.” Clever fucker, ain’t he?
So he sees that he doesn’t like that some lady he doesn’t know supports a candidate he doesn’t like. The obvious solution would be to leave her alone. Because it’s not his car and therefore he shouldn’t be putting his bumper stickers anywhere but on – you know – his car.
Instead, he puts his stickers on her car and then brags about it on Facebook.
Now what he did is vandalism and that means he really ought to be arrested and at least fined. That may still happen.
Although it is unlikely there will be any riot gear involved in making the arrest.
The other thing that happened is the owner of the car found his post and told him he was an asshole. Fortunately, he knew a whole bunch of other assholes who leapt to his defense and trolled the shit out of her.
So it’s all a big happy ending, right?
He got to be an asshole. At the moment, he isn’t going to jail or paying a fine for fucking up her car. And all his asshole friends think he’s awesome.
I’m losing my faith in humanity.
Shit that Pissed me off – 4/8
Asshole Gamers Lose Their Shit Over a Transgender NPC
So Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear came out with an expansion and it includes a transgender character. Which is cool.
No word on what bathrooms the character is allowed to use. I suppose it depends on the state…
Anyway, a bunch of dickweed gamers are apparently pissed because the writer of the game had the audacity to introduce her social opinions into a video game! They are dropping one star reviews in the gamer equivalent of carpet bombing. With Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Of course there is a picture of Cheetos and Mountain Dew on the internet.
Amber Scott, who wrote the game, has this to say:
As I’ve said before (and I won’t say much more on this subject other than to get my perspective out there): I’m the writer and creator. I get to make decisions about who I write about and why. I don’t like writing about straight/white/cis people all the time. It’s not reflective of the real world, it sets up s/w/c as the “normal” baseline from which “other” characters must be added, and it’s boring.
So that seems pretty logical. Nobody should give a shit.
But apparently including a transgender character in a fictional world that has ogres and goblins is just to unrealistic for some gamers. The best solution, of course, is to shut up and complain about the gameplay.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/1
Japanese Whalers Killed 200 Pregnant Whales
So the Japanese are still whaling in the name of “legitimate research.” They headed off for their yearly kill of Minke whales and, among the 333 whales they were permitted to kill, they managed to bag 200 pregnant females.
To be fair – when you are killing a whale, you can’t tell if it is a pregnant female. I’m sure if they had known that almost 2/3 of the whales they were killing were pregnant, they would have killed them anyway.
Is this whale pregnant? Who cares????
The excuse they give is that they are researching the breeding habits of whales or some other bullshit that basically comes down to “fuck you, rest of the world, we just want to kill whales.”
I don’t get it. I really don’t. All this bullshit to keep the members of four whaling vessels employed.
If they can’t find any other jobs for these guys, Trump could probably use some help building a wall. I don’t think he has any problems with the Japanese.
Oh. Um….never mind….
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/25
Microsoft Hired a Bunch of Models in Skimpy Schoolgirl Outfits for an Industry Party
Before I go on my traditional mini rant, let me begin by saying the head of Xbox games, who sponsored the party, and the head of Microsoft both came out saying, in effect, “holy shit was that a horrible decision and we feel like complete assholes and while we can’t actually say we are going to fire whoever put this party together, we are totally going to fire whoever put this party together.”
So I don’t want to pile too much abuse on a company that seems to recognize how stupid it was to host a women in gaming panel on the same day they hired some sexy Catholic schoolgirls to encourage gamer nerds to dance.
I will, however, heap abuse on whoever actually decided to hire the sexy Catholic schoolgirls.
Because what in the hell were they thinking? In a time when their industry is under heavy fire for not really giving a shit about women gamers, they decided it’d be a good time to blatantly not give a shit about women gamers.
I did a Google search for “woman gamer” and found this image. The internet is a strange and wonderful place.
They could have hired ripped dudes to dress up as Italian plumbers for a little gender balance and it still would have been a dumb PR move but probably wouldn’t have resulted in quite the uproar they are currently experiencing.
I realize the return on investment may have seemed lower given gaming is still very much a male dominated industry but when you are throwing thousands of dollars at a dance party for gamers, you may have already been making poor investment choices.
Maybe if it had been a Dance Dance Revolution party for gamers…
PS: After reading this article, I do think it’s important to address the dancers. They were doing a job for which they were hired. There is nothing wrong with that.
Shit that Pissed me off – 3/18
Reporter Arrested at Trump Rally For…Doing his Job
This is the kind of thing that happens when your front-runner is a racist asshole*. Thing start to get out of hand.
Am I happy that counter protests turned violent at a Trump rally this week? No. I don’t know if anyone knows who threw the first punch but the point is that nonviolent protest should, ideally, remain nonviolent.
As soon as things get violent, it doesn’t matter who started it. People get hurt.
Note also some of the things that Trump supporters have shouted at this Reporter, who is Indian. Things like “Go Back to Iraq!”
It is possible that the statement was misinterpreted and he was being courted by a travel agent.
Trump is the kind of polarizing figure who tells people it is OK to judge people because their skin is the wrong color. He tells people it is OK to punch someone because they don’t like what Trump has to say.
And look – I know the Republican party is freaking out over the possibility of Trump being their flag bearer but they need to realize that they created this monster. The rhetoric of their party that includes people talking about “legitimate rape” and “religious freedom” is a rhetoric of intolerance that completely undermines any rhetoric about smaller government.
This guy is dangerous. And so are his followers.
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