Shit that pissed me off this week – 3/2
Forgive the absence of my weekly bitch session – I’ve been on vacation for the last two weeks. Some of this stuff is a little old but I wanted to bitch about it anyway.
Autotuned Banana Boat Song
I’m not going to open every weekly bitch session with a complaint about an autotuned song. I swear.
This one, though, is horrible. I tried to find a version of the song on youtube and, thankfully, I didn’t find it in the five minutes I wished to devote to the project.
Think about this, though, some modern song maker decided they liked Harry Bellafonte, they figured they would butcher his music by doing a popped up, autotuned version of it. Someone else heard it and decided the rest of us needed to hear it.
I feel it is likely they were just trying to share their pain.
So now, try to imagine this autotuned:
Or this:
I thought not. Now let us never speak of the autotuned version again.
Rick Santorum says he will overturn the Supreme Court if he doesn’t agree with them
I think most people who read my blog or know me have a pretty good idea what I think of Rick Santorum but here I’m not so much pissed at Santorum as I am at every idiotic fuck that thinks he’d make a good President.
You morons claim to love America on one hand and yet would vote for a guy who thinks the whole checks and balances system is bullshit and if the Supreme Court makes a ruling with which a lot (or very few) of Americans disagree, the President can just throw the ruling out.
Hey, I really hate the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling that made Super Pacs possible but you don’t hear me calling for Obama to strike down the decision. You know why? Because that isn’t how our government functions.
Most of us are proud of it. If you really want a theocracy with Rick Santorum at the top, how about you buy yourself an island in the Caribbean and form The People’s Republic of Having your Head up your Ass?
If Rick Santorum reflects your values, you need to understand that he should not be in charge because, you don’t have the right to force your values on anyone else.
Young Grammy Viewers Didn’t know who Paul McCartney was
Dear “Glee” writers: we need a Beatles episode! Stat!
What do you mean “Who are The Beatles????????”
Noooooooooooooo!
What was with the “In Memoriam” section of the Oscars?
Usually they start showing us a montage of the people who died and they make a few assumptions. For one, they assume we all know who Liz Taylor was. For another, they assume we don’t know who the hell Ray Agahayan is (he was a costume designer). Usually for the folks we don’t know, they give us a clue. Sometimes they show a clip of their movies or maybe just the title of a film.
This year, they gave us a name and a fucking picture. Unless it was someone we already knew. Then maybe we got a clip. More likely, though, we got nothing. I think this was so we could hear the “beautiful” rendition of “What a Wonderful World” by a singer notable primarily for the fact she had the worst hair in the history of bad hair.
In fairness, though, the Academy did tweet a link to their in memoriam gallery. You know what you find there?
A bunch of names and fucking pictures.
A Priest denies communion to the daughter of the deceased because she is openly gay
This priest was a jackass. Yeah, I know the Catholic church tells priests they should deny communion to homosexuals. That doesn’t mean you have to actually do it. At a funeral. When the person’s mother is in a fucking casket next to you.
How cold can you get? What an asshole.
The headline of the article concerns me, though. If you click through, you’ll see the headline is “Priest Walks out of Woman’s Funeral Because her Daughter is Gay.” That sounds pretty freaking bad.
Thing is, that claim may or may not be valid. He denied the daughter communion. He left the altar when she delivered a eulogy. He did not go to the graveside because he felt ill.
Maybe he was lying when he said he felt ill and he really didn’t want to say words at the grave site because there would be a lesbian there. He said he was ill. Maybe he was just – you know – ill.
As for leaving the altar during the eulogy – was what he did unusual? A funeral is a time for friends and family to mourn together. I’ve been to funerals where the priest stayed at the altar during the eulogy and funerals where the priest did not. The latter has been more common in my experience. Perhaps it was conspicuous because that is a behavior this priest has not exhibited before but again, that assumes facts not in evidence (at least not in the article).
Now, if I was there, perhaps it was super obvious the priest left the altar because of who was speaking and it was equally obvious that he was lying about feeling ill. The article doesn’t make that clear.
The guy was a jackass because no matter his personal beliefs (or what his bishop tells him to do) he shouldn’t have publicly shamed a mourning daughter at a funeral.
The headline is misleading at best. It doesn’t make the priest (or the church that supports him) any better but it may obscure the facts of the situation in favor of an eye catching headline.
Online Voters Pick the Creation Museum as the Top Vacation Destination for Kids
Take a look at this poll (the numbers can change but holy fuck – the creation museum is in first) and note what rounds out the top 5: The U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Two Smithsonian museums and Yosemite National Park. At the top, however, is a museum that touts pseudo science as the truth.
Digging into the data we see that the majority of the destinations available for selection are secular locations like National Parks and museums that aren’t propaganda for one particularly creepy interpretation of the bible. There are even two entries for Cape Canaveral (one of which is spelled correctly). I didn’t count the number of options but there are hundreds.
If you are a fundamentalist Christian looking for a good destination to indoctrinate your kids, what are you going to pick? With so many choices, you pick the Creation Museum because Yosemite may be pretty but all the interpretive signs in the canyon will tell your kids that Yosemite valley formed in millions of years and you will just have to explain to them how that is biblically impossible over and over again. Talk about an exhausting vacation!
What makes me angry is that online polls are filled with biases like this and people treat them as valid. Because every fundamentalist voting in this poll picked the Creation Museum, it bubbles to the top. When every one of a large pool of people is picking a single option out of hundreds and everyone else is actually picking – you know – their favorite choice, the poll will be skewed. And it is.
I should note that the poll was inspired by an article Budget Travel posted last year in which they picked fifteen destinations kids should see before they are 15 and the creation museum didn’t make the cut. Neither did a lot of other great locations like Cape Canaveral, Yosemite National Park, The Monterey Bay Aquarium or The Black Hills. No list like this is ever going to be perfect.
But a poll that elevates a destination like the Creation Museum is a poll that ought to be torpedoed.
Atheist Billboard Considered too Controversial
Click on a link and look at the billboard. All it says is “Atheists.”
Would a billboard that said “Christians” have been equally controversial? Of course not.
That is the issue at work here. Believing in god is not controversial. Failing to believe in god (and stating so publicly) isn’t either.
Wisconsin Senator Proposes a bill that Suggests Single Parenthood is Child Abuse
What? No provision for single parenthood in cases of rape and incest?
Although if this guy genuinely believes that single parenthood is child abuse then he ought to be completely behind gay marriage and adoption rights for gay couples. Unless two parents of the same sex somehow count as only one parent.
Raising a child as a single parent isn’t child abuse. This is.
Holy shit are people crazy! I know some people thought similar things when Wellstone died. Those people were also crazy. Maybe everybody should put away their pitchforks and remember that overweight 43 year olds die all the time.
One Million Moms upset because Toys ‘R Us is displaying an Archie Comic featuring a Gay Marriage
I’m not linking to the (poorly named) One Million Moms website because I will not drive traffic to their site. Instead, here is a quote from their statement on the issue:
Toys ‘R’ Us employees do not actually set up the displays; they leave this up to the vendor, but they should be aware of the merchandise being sold in their stores nonetheless. These comic books are sold at the front checkout counters so they are highly visible to employees, managers, customers and children. Unfortunately, children are now being exposed to same-sex marriage in a toy store. This is the last place a parent would expect to be confronted with questions from their children on topics that are too complicated for them to understand. Issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, which is becoming extremely common and unnecessary.
A trip to the toy store turns into a premature discussion on sexual orientation and is completely uncalled for. Toys ‘R’ Us should be more responsible in the products they carry.
Aside from the fact that One Million Moms is a homophobic organization, look at what they are implying about the intelligence level of the average child. They say these issues are “too complicated for them to understand.”
Really? I started talking to my kids about gay rights when they were four because they brought it up. They didn’t notice a picture of two guys kissing – hell, I don’t remember how the topic came up.
You know what I did? I addressed the topic in a simple manner that talked to them about the concept of homosexuality in terms of love and not sex. And they totally got it. Took a couple of minutes and then they were off playing with toy cars.
The idea that kids are too stupid to understand this sort of thing or that it could be (redundantly) “introduced too early and too soon” suggests that whoever wrote this shouldn’t have children because she doesn’t actually understand them.
Note: I only assume the writer is female because of the name of the organization. If the writer is a guy, they don’t understand children either.
If you don’t want to talk about it with your kids, take some responsibility and tell them YOU don’t want to talk about it.
Otherwise, have the guts to tell your kids what you think. This isn’t their problem – it’s your problem.
Gay Teacher fired by a Catholic School Because he is Getting Married to his Boyfriend
Hey Mr. Santorum, speaking of supreme court rulings I don’t like but have to live with anyway, the recent ruling by the supreme court that allows churches to discriminate against anyone they want made this particular piece of jackassery possible.
Look, I was raised Catholic. I have a lot of friends who are Catholic. My mom is Catholic. I don’t want this to turn into “bash the Catholics week” because I like all the Catholics in my life.
I don’t think Catholics are bad people but I sure do hate the Catholic leadership. The pope is a dark ages homophobic, misogynistic ass and he encourages his followers to be the same. In fact, he is demanding his followers be the same. As a result, a teacher who just wanted to marry the person he loves is looking for a job.
And don’t give me that “he should have known the risks” BS. Of course he knew the risks. He seemed to think he’d be safe because it wasn’t like he and his boyfriend were in the closet. Everyone knew.
But hey, the good news is this: homophobic parents in St. Louis who don’t want to home school have another option!
Grail Diary 
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