Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/6/2017
Sorry I’ve been gone for almost a month. Over the last three weeks, I’ve been out of town for my 50th Birthday (yay me) and playing at a funeral for someone who died much too young (boo the inevitability of death). Thanks for waiting patiently and not filling my e-mail with angry messages.
So anyway – here goes!
It Took Less Than Two Days for Conspiracy Theories To Pop Up About the Las Vegas Shooter
Here’s the dirty little secret about this kind of conspiracy theory: It never seems to happen when the shooter is a person of color. At least nobody seems to spend a lot of time talking about them.
I know someone is going to point out that there are conspiracy theories around 9/11 and the attackers there were (allegedly) people of color. Yeah, but I’m talking about mass shootings.
And the thing that seems to come into play here is that people don’t believe white guys would do this sort of thing. Not unless those white guys are members of the CIA or the FBI or Interpol or whatever the fuck these people think.
When a person of color shot up an Orlando nightclub, nobody started saying that it was a cover up. It was terrorism.
But white guys don’t commit terrorism. They are lone wolves.
Which is bullshit because wolves don’t even have opposable thumbs
So the alternative is to look at an act of senseless violence and think “I understand Islamic extremists. I don’t understand some 64 year old dude shooting up a concert so it must not be that.”
By the way – they don’t understand Islamic extremists either. But that’s for another day.
It is kind of remarkable to me that some of us can’t wrap our heads around a guy shooting up an elementary school but we can totally wrap our heads around the idea that some shadow agency decided to stage the event so they could get gun control legislation passed.
Which they can’t so what the hell is that about anyway?
Thing is, at least some of this is racism. Some of it is our inherent response that we’ve been taught the more pigmentation you have in your skin, the more violent you are.
Conspiracy theories are dumb. One guy shot all those people in Las Vegas and we will probably never know why. But it was one guy. And he was white. Deal with it.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/8/17
Sorbo is a Conservative Christian and while I don’t agree with him on…well…most anything in the political arena, that’s his right. So it doesn’t piss me off that he is speaking at a big old anti GLBTQ “values voters” conference more that it pisses me off that the conference exists.
I will note that twice divorced Donald Trump is also speaking at the “values voters” conference so I begin to wonder exactly which “values” are important to these folks. Apparently dumping your wife for a younger model is a completely acceptable value.
But Sorbo, star of the immensely popular (in Conservative Christian circles) but objectively horrible God is Not Dead, is outspoken about one thing that really bothers me – how persecuted he is for being a Christian.
In the article linked above, he talks about how he had trouble getting jobs after he “came out” as a Conservative Christian. I mean, his acting in “Hercules” was amazing so he should have been working all the time. I don’t know when he “came out” but I see he was in an obscure series called “Andromeda” for five years.
He was also in Kull the Conqueror. If you’ve seen it, I’m very sorry.
I mean, did David Schwimmer “come out” as a Conservative Christian? Because he hasn’t had a ton of work since “Friends” went off the air.
How about every actress in Hollywood who is over forty? Did all of them “come out” as Conservative Christians?
Sorbo’s bullshit idea that he had trouble getting work because of his Christianity doesn’t hold up to the number of credits on his resume. On the other hand, given how many of those credits are shitty Christian apologist films, his narrative is probably very useful in getting him roles in those kinds of films.
And I’ll bet those roles pay.
Poor Kevin Sorbo.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 8/4/17
Marvel Editor Posts Selfie With Her Staff and Gets Harassed
Look – this sort of thing just doesn’t happen to guys. I keep bringing it up but that is only because there is some subset of the human race that will respond to this story by saying “what’s the big deal?”
The big deal is she posted a fun little picture and a bunch of people harassed her because she’s a girl and they don’t think girls should be working in comics. That’s the crux of it.
There are guys out there who think women ruin comics simply because they are involved. It’s like they think comics are the one geek medium that is reserved just for them. What with Star Wars being completely overrun with women, they really need something in this crazy world that isn’t covered in girl cooties.
The Justice League, for instance, is completely swimming in girl cooties.
So they decide to take it out on a group of women who were having lunch. Because they worked in the wrong industry.
And no, this isn’t all guys. This isn’t even most guys. This is some tiny subset of guys who feel they are losing power because the comic industry is hiring women. Not a lot of women. Not enough women. But more than zero.
If we pretend that this subset of guys isn’t a problem, though, we don’t get it. Because if a bunch of male professionals in comics posted selfies, nobody would give a shit.
It shouldn’t happen to anyone. The fact that it happens only to women should piss us off. We shouldn’t be talking about how few people are doing this. We should be talking about how nobody should be doing this at all!
Shit that Pissed me off – 7/21/17
Meme that Pissed me Off
I love/hate anti Feminist memes because they are all insufferably stupid. Take this one:
OH SNAP! Clearly the 50’s woman was perfect and the modern woman is completely fucked up! Because that is literally what every modern woman looks like!
Not that it would matter if that was what every modern woman looked like because fuck you and your standard of beauty, oh haters of feminism. Not that the modern woman in this meme has anything to do with feminism.
I mean, I’m pretty sure there are women with shit tons of body piercings who would claim they are not feminists. Also pretty sure there are women who look a lot more like our 1950’s “ideal” who are loud and proud about feminism.
And how do you know the young woman on the right didn’t alter her appearance to please the men in her life just like the woman on the left? Both of them could be sacrificing their own identity. Or, maybe, neither of them are. You don’t know. You just grabbed a couple of pictures off the internet to basically say “damn, I wish women would just shut the fuck up and meet my standards of beauty and decorum because clearly we would all be a lot happier.”
Except maybe women but why the fuck should we care about that?
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/30/17
Trump Corner: Trump Admits his Claims of Taping Comey Were Bullshit
Donald Trump made a cryptic tweet that he may have taped conversations with James Comey before Comey testified to Congress. In an interview last week, he admitted there were no tapes.
Which isn’t a shock. Nobody thought there were tapes. The fact he’s been dragging this shit out for weeks is an embarrassment. Especially when you consider how often he uses the term fake news, you would think even his own supporters might cry foul when he creates it.
Instead, however, there is laughter from the right as they joke about how Trump was able to make everyone talk about secret white house tapes for a little while and, therefore, ignore the fact that Trump may well have attempted to obstruct justice. Ha ha ha!
The claim of taping Comey was, in itself, an attempt to obstruct justice by drawing focus away from what he was saying and suggesting there might be proof he was lying. By even suggesting such a thing, Trump undermined anything Comey would say.
There’s a bigger problem here as the Trumpbot response to his tweets about Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski exhibits.
Trump supporters respond to all of this by saying “ha ha – he played you!”
In all fairness, if Andy Dwyer was saying this shit, we’d think it was adorable.
Maybe he did. Then again, maybe he’s just a fucking asshole who can’t handle the fact that not everybody loves him because some of us think fucking assholes shouldn’t be fucking President.
But let’s assume he is “just” trolling the left. I don’t understand why that makes people happy. It’s like saying “well as long as he only makes fun of the half of America that isn’t me, I’m cool with it.”
Oh those poor liberal snowflakes can’t take a joke! Unlike those hardy conservatives who are completely capable of taking a joke, right? Give me a fucking break. They have an entire news network devoted to the fact they can’t take a joke.
And Trump isn’t framing this stuff as jokes. He’s framing it as a childish defense of his brand. He’s making personal attacks and he means them.
Decent people don’t treat each other this way. I don’t care if he’s playing the left or if he’s just an asshole incapable of keeping his mouth shut. Either way, he’s just an asshole.
And every person who defends his asshole behavior or claims that his behavior is, somehow, OK because he is just giving liberals their comeuppance for wanting government to help the poor and marginalized communities (fuck us) is just as much of an asshole. Conservatives are not assholes for being conservative.
But Trump is an asshole. And anyone who defends his behavior as “just sticking it to the left” is also an asshole.
Shit That Pissed me off – 6/16/17
Conservatives and Liberal Alike Freak Out Because They Have No Idea What Julius Caesar is About
So last week Delta and Bank of America withdrew financial support from the Public Theater because their production of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare drew inspiration from politics of the day. As the article I linked to states, this interpretation isn’t new.
In fact, the Guthrie did an Obama themed version of the play five years ago. Outrage generated: zero.
What pisses me off here is the fact all these pissed off people apparently haven’t actually read the play. Or if they read it, they didn’t understand it.
And I get that. Shakepearean language can be challenging.
“Villain: I have done thy mother.” Titus Andronicus Act IV, Scene II
So here’s the thing: Julius Caesar is not a play about how awesome it is to assassinate political leaders. The assassins in the play all end up dead!
The motivations of one of them, Brutus, are noble. The motivations of the rest are less clear and certainly more selfish. Caesar himself is complicated – neither wholly good or wholly bad.
To pitch a fit because the subject of the assassination is kind of like Donald Trump is missing the point.
But further, what the hell has happened to our country that our President is off limits completely? We can make jokes about him but heaven forfend we depict him as the subject of an assassination attempt. We can only do that with fictional Presidents?
If the concern is that we’ll give people ideas, I’m sorry to say that they already have those ideas.
The events of this week already prove that.
Basically, this should be a non issue. The left shouldn’t care because fuck Trump and his party if they can’t take a joke (which this isn’t even) and the right shouldn’t care because they should fucking read the play.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/9/17
Wisconsin Politician Says it is a Fact that the Earth is 6000 Years Old
Forgetting for a moment that facts are things that are true, Wisconsin State Representative Jesse Kremer stated that a biology professor could not counter a student’s claim that the earth is 6000 years old because that is a fact.
I know that some embarrassing percentage of Americans actually believe there is evidence to support the notion that the Earth is younger than written history. In this case, “embarrassing” means “more than none.”
Home schooling taught me everything I need to know about science!
Further, I know those people vote. And I know some of those people run for office. I even know some of them get elected. I just have a real problem with the idea their beliefs are so mainstream as to allow them to suffer no ill consequences from saying them out loud. This guy isn’t going to have any trouble being re-elected.
There is going to be a huge contingency of people saying he’s brave for speaking truth as power.
Except – and I can’t stress this enough – it isn’t truth. It’s bullshit.
You can believe the formation of the Earth was a long miracle without dismissing all of the evidence that exists. There is not a single scientific fact that supports it was a short one.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/2/17
Men’s Rights Asshats Comparing a Women’s Only Showing of Wonder Woman to Segregation
Meanwhile in Texas, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has announced they will be holding a women only showing of Wonder Woman on opening weekend. This idea was so popular, they had to add an extra showing almost immediately.
Now, you might wonder why it would be a problem to hold a women’s only showing of the first mainstream super hero film featuring a woman as the protagonist. Especially when the movie is going to be showing on several thousand screens across the country and there are, currently, two showings that will not allow dudes.
The problem, several guys tell us, is discrimination! In fact, they say, a man who has publicly announced he is purchasing a ticket to this showing is basically fighting the same fight as Rosa Parks.
For those of you who don’t know who Rosa Parks is, let me assure you that you know only slightly less than these pigs.
So let’s consider a few ways in which this is not segregation.
First, of course, this is a private entity and they can do whatever the fuck they want. More importantly, though, this is not a “separate but equal” situation where the “separate” showing is notably inferior. Guys can go to any other showing of Wonder Woman and see the same film. They are not being told that if a woman wants to watch the movie, they will have to give up their seat. They are not being sent to screening rooms with inferior projectors or seats.
They will get the exact same experience. Except, I guess, there won’t be hundreds of women in the theater.
Is this guy thinking as the only man in a room full of women, he has some sort of chance?
Another way in which this is not segregation is men are not a marginalized class of citizen. Men have all the power. If you wanted to understand what it feels like to be marginalized, you entitled fuck face, you would need to consider a situation in which there were two showings of Wonder Woman that men were permitted to attend. Further, you would need to assume that women could buy tickets to every other showing but even if those showings did not sell out, men would not be allowed in the theater. Further, you would need to assume that if a woman wanted your seat in one of the two men’s only showings, she could have it and you wouldn’t get your money back.
That is being marginalized. You just don’t get to go to two fucking screenings of a movie.
Also, your men’s right’s hero is not anything like Rosa Parks because he’s not a tired black woman who just wanted to be able to sit down after a long day of work. He’s not running the risk of being put in jail and/or beaten for violating the law. At most, he’s going to be ejected from the theater and not given a refund. Unless he gets petulant. At which point, he could possibly be forcibly ejected. To compare this privileged buffoon to Rosa Parks is to identify yourself as an unthinking jackass more concerned with your own imagined needs than you are with other people’s very real rights.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 5/19
Note – I was out-of-town last week so I have two weeks of stupid shit piled up. I probably won’t get to all of it so I apologize if your favorite annoying thing didn’t make the cut.
A Creationist Scientist is Suing the Grand Canyon
Andrew Snelling is a Geologist who is also a creationist. This in itself makes no sense because in order to be both, you need to basically ignore all the evidence that would make you a credible geologist. But he’s got a PhD so we have to accept that he knows stuff about Geology even if he doesn’t actually believe any of it.
So he wanted to do some research, including collecting samples, in the Grand Canyon. Such things are allowed but you have to apply to do so and his application was rejected.
So he’s suing for religious discrimination. You know, because Christians have it so hard in our country.
Heh. Geologist. So hard. Get it?
Anyway, his claim was rejected because it was presumed he would use the samples to “disprove” existing science about the Grand Canyon and since the Grand Canyon is, you know, a protected landmark, they don’t want people taking rock samples to do bad science. Sounds like his application didn’t really say what he was going to use the samples for, either.
Which is probably because he knew he couldn’t say “I’m going to use the samples to prove the Grand Canyon is no more than 6000 years old even though recorded human history goes back further than that and I’m a fucking idiot.”
So he basically asked to take samples without really telling anyone why and they said “no – you can’t just take samples because you have a degree in Geology. You have to have a reason.”
And he’s responding “you hate me because I’m a Christian! I’m going to sue.”
We don’t hate him because he’s a Christian. We hate him because he uses his Christianity as an excuse to be a bad scientist.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 5/5
Republicans Pass Their New Health Care Bill
I mean, I’m not panicking yet. It is possible the more “moderate” Senate will pass a more “moderate” bill and when this whole thing gets to reconciliation, national health care won’t be as fucked as it will should the House bill become actual law.
Sitting in this seat with a pre-existing condition, I’m worried. I think forcing insurance companies to do away with the pre-existing condition clause was one of the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act.
The legislation looks like it will reduce taxes for wealthy Americans (how fortunate they must feel), increase premiums for people in their 50’s and 60’s, and replace reduced cost health care with tax credits.
Coming soon from Hasbro: the Tax Credits edition of Scabble (TM)
I like tax credits. I mean sort of. When you get a tax credit for your health insurance, though, it isn’t the same as paying that much less for your insurance. It means you end up paying a little bit less in taxes. But not the same amount.
So in the end, this bill does what a lot of other conservative bills have done – it reduces the tax burden on rich people and replaces is with a greater expense burden on everyone else.
Rich people with diabetes will still be able to afford their insulin. Middle class people with diabetes will be able to afford their insulin but might have to work an extra job when it is time to send their kids to college. Poor people with diabetes will complain about how they can’t afford their insulin and then be criticized for owning a television.
I mean seriously, why can’t they just sit in their shitty apartment and spend all their spare time thinking about why it’s their fault they are poor?
Grail Diary 