Shit That Pissed me off This Week – 3/9

Brittany Spears’ Criminal

Three times in a row my weekly tirade has started with a song that made me angry.  I’m sorry about that.  They keep playing this crap at work and I can’t escape.

The thing that annoys me about this song is the musical hook.  It is horrible and they won’t stop playing it.  It feels like the entire song is that one banal progression of notes.

Those notes are, oddly, the exact opposite of an earworm to me.  Instead of being a tune I can’t get out of my head, it is a tune I instantly forget until it gets played again and I remember how much I hate it.

It’s like having short term memory loss.  I forget about the song until it gets played again so every time I heard it, I get to say “what the hell is this horrible song? Oh, it’s that one.”  That might not be so bad except for the fact the annoyance doesn’t subside with repeated exposure to the song.  Completely unfair.

This article shows the REAL Problem with what Rush Limbaugh said last week

A friend of mine recenty observed that while what Rush said was horrible, why wasn’t there a similiar amount of outrage when David Letterman called Sarah Palin’s daughter a whore?  Or when Bill Maher called Palin a cunt?  Why didn’t facebook ignite with a firestorm of indignation?  It’s a fair question and I agree with him in one aspect – what Letterman and Maher said wasn’t OK.  They did get taken to task for it and their apologies, while better than Limbaugh’s, were not particularly good.

The thing is, Limbagh’s statements actually influence the way people think, as the linked article shows.  That is what makes what Limbaugh does different and why the outcry is so much louder.  High schoolers can be assholes and will be no matter what Limbaugh says.  However, how many of these kids think this way because their parents do???  Thinking one of Letterman’s jokes is offensive drives very little further conversation.  Limbaugh is the voice of the right wing and as such, what he says matters a lot more than what Maher says.

And heck, even when Michael Moore uses the words “prostitute” and “bitch” to mock Rush, he isn’t actually changing how people view women who use birth control.

None of what these guys said was OK. So what’s the difference?  Why is Limbaugh the target?

The difference is the impact of what is being said.  Limbaugh knows what impact his words have and he said something completely out of line.  And what he said literally has (idiotic) people changing their minds about birth control and every woman who uses it.

This isn’t about what Rush said about one woman.  It is about the fact his words  fundamentally shifted the dialogue about birth control in our country.  Now a woman who is celibate but uses the pill to regulate her period is a slut.  A woman in a stable marriage who doesn’t want to get pregnant but does want to have sex with her husband is a slut.  A woman who just enjoys having sex and wants to make sure she is protected from pregnancy and STD’s is a slut.

Because of the impact his words have, he should be held more accountable for them.

The Jarring Song they Inserted at the end of the Credits for “The Secret World of Arrietty”

Ever since Disney decided they really needed an R & B cover of “A Whole New World” to play over the credits to Aladdin, they seem to have made it their duty to ensure that some soul crushingly painful song plays over the closing credits of every animated film they make or distribute.

They do this to sell records. OK, nobody sells records anymore. They do this to sell downloads on iTunes.

The Secret World of Arrietty is a very good film and one of the reasons is the well produced score.  The music is a remarkable hybrid of Japaneese and Irish music that I found almost as engaging as the story.  So when I got 3/4 of the way through the credits and this monstrosity began to play:

I was literally pulled out of my pleasant contemplation about the film I’d just seen because all I could think was “what the hell is this piece of shit song?”  Don’t worry – I didn’t say it out loud – there were a lot of kids in the theatre.

Contrast this song with this example of the musical style that had been present in the rest of the film:

Like that song or not, you have to admit that these two songs are jarringly different and if you played one after the other, the average listener would be just as shocked as if you’d followed up Quiet Riot’s “Cum on Feel the Noise” (yes – they spelled it that way on purpose) with a Tony Bennett cover of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Disney stuck this song in for the sole purpose of selling copies of the song to brainless teenagers who were forced to sit through the credits by their parents.  Sadly, it’ll probably work.

Utah House of Representatives Passes Bill to ban the Discussion of Contraception in Sex Ed

What the fuck????

It seems like becoming a Republican lawmaker these days requires you to undergo some sort of treatment that prevents you from reading studies like these or at the very least, it prevents you from giving a damn.

Granted, there is some evidence that suggests abstinence only education can have some effectiveness in delaying sexual activity (in certain groups under certain conditions), but the truth is that using contraception is about a lot more than preventing teen pregnancy or keeping kids from having sex.

Even in the study mentioned, one third of the kids given abstinence only education ended up having sex in the next two years.  We know that some kids are going to have sex before they should and if we don’t give them all the information possible to ensure they make the right choices, we are doing them a disservice.

What are we trying to say here? Oh sure, it’s OK if a few kids contract HIV so long as fewer kids are having sex. That’ll solve everything!

I know that one counter argument is that parents should be doing the sex education.  Well, I know this is going to come as a shock but….they aren’t.

At the end of the day, though, this push for anti contraception sex education isn’t about what is best for our kids.  It is about pushing a moral agenda.  We all know that, right?

Note: this article is two weeks old but it pissed me off this week

Girl Scouts chase down & Punch guy who Stole their Cookie Money. In the Face!!!!

The only thing that pisses me off is that some assholes decided they were going to take $200 from girl scouts.  What the hell?  Did they think they were playing Grand Theft Auto or something?

The rest of the story, however, is awesome.  I don’t advocate violence but how about this gem from one of the girls:

I hope your face hurts from when Iravia punched you…jerk. I’m serious. No, one of our girls ran up, Bam! Yeah. So I hope your face hurts. I hope it leaves a scar.

That’s right asshole!  You messed with the GIRL SCOUTS!  You take their money and they will punch you in the face!

I want this jackass to get caught but if he isn’t, I hope he spends the rest of his life with an irrational fear of Girl Scouts.  The thought of this loser screaming and saying “get her away from me” any time a ten year old girl with a box of cookies knocks on his door is satisfying, don’t you think?

Bishop Compares Gay Marriage to Slavery

If I’m still doing a weekly “shit that pissed me off” post twenty years from now, I’ll bet that Gay Marriage will hardly come up.  This is a fight that the Fundamentalists are losing little by little.  And they know it.

Why else would this doofus (I’m running out of synonyms for “idiot”) say that if gay marriage were legalized “further aberrations would take place and society would be degenerating even further than it already has into immorality.”

So he is upping the ante on the classic Pat Robertson Sex with Ducks argument against gay marriage by suggesting that bestiality is the least of our worries.  If gay people get legally married, it could lead to slavery!

Which the Bible says is OK.

So, if we are to follow this messed up logic, gay marriage = THUNDERDOME!!  Two men enter – both of them leave to find a nice condo by the river.

Warp Drive may Come with a Killer Side Effect

I think the main reason I’m an atheist is because I figure that if I was an all powerful being who could create any kind of universe I wanted, I’d create a universe where warp drive was relatively easy to achieve.

So, I then assume, if god created me in his image, he/she would think the idea of interstellar travel is as kick ass as I do.  Such a god clearly does not exist.  Therefore any god that could exist is not as cool as the god I want to exist and as a result, I deny their existence because they have pissed me off.

Bullshit arguments aside, this article pisses me off because I WANT WARP DRIVE!!!! Also teleporters.

Christian Pastor does the Predictable and Claims the Indiana Tornadoes were God’s Wrath

Every time there is a devastating natural event, you can count on a whack-job member of the Christian right trotting out the same “god did this – REPENT” shit.  It is offensive and cruel because he is using god  to justify death and/or destruction on a massive scale.  Was the holocaust also a “warning from god?”

Hell, what would happen if everyone in the world converted en masse to this whakadoodle’s idea of how the world works?  What would they say the next time an earthquake killed thousands of believers?  We didn’t believe hard enough?

Here’s what I often think when confronted with off the wall dogma like this:

I love my children so much that if one of them did something truly reprehensible, I would probably still love them.  If one of my boys spent the majority of his life in jail for something I knew he did, I would still visit him because I love him that much.  There is very little they could do that I would be unable to forgive.

The Christian god this dude believes in loves me more than that.  At least that is what this guy believes.

And yet that god goes around killing people with tornadoes to make a point and sending people to hell if they don’t accept Jesus Christ?

Let’s reverse this for a moment.  I love my children so much that if one of them became a fundamentalist Christian (please no), I would forgive him and still love him.

God loves me so much that if I don’t accept Jesus Christ, he will send me to hell for all eternity.   He’ll also kill a bunch of people in Indiana.

Wisconsin Senator Glenn Grothman Claims Women are Trained to lie about Unplanned Pregnancies

This guy pissed me off last week as well and he continues to stick his foot in his mouth.  This is remarkable for many reasons but especially because it is pretty hard to shove your foot in your mouth when your head is already up your ass.

Honestly, with guys like this, Limbaugh and Rick Santorum around, how is it that any woman votes Republican these days?  The more the crazy wing of the Republican party talks, the more I get the feeling that once they put this whole gay marriage thing away once and for all, they are going to go to work on the 19th amendment.

That wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t seem like the crazy wing of the Republican party is taking over.

International Women’s Day

Actually, I think this is a very good thing.  Except for the fact it is 2012 and we still haven’t got this shit figured out. And the fact it is one freaking day.

Women are half of the world’s population and they get a day.

Now I, like a lot of other guys, like women.  I shake my head at the constant battle over women’s rights that nobody should have to fight for because they should just fucking have them.

You know the best way to celebrate International Women’s Day?  Tell every woman in your life how much you appreciate them, how much they matter and  then tell them that the next day.  And the next.

I also think that we should end the day with the ritual sacrifice of a serial rapist or wife beater but that is probably a bit too extreme….

Welfare Recipient who won the Lottery Becomes the Example Everyone Uses to talk about Welfare

There are all sorts of things wrong with this situation.

For one, any system that fails to notice when someone has a dramatic change in their income needs to be repaired.  The article I linked to mentions legislation that is being introduced to ensure when someone wins the lottery, they have their public assistance pulled.  Seems pretty reasonable.

Then again, you have this woman who won a million dollars and now says that she is having trouble paying her bills because she has two houses and she doesn’t have a job.  Uh….why the hell does she have two houses?  I know nothing about her – this article gives few details and it is designed to make her look as bad as possible but hey, how about you sell one of the houses?

It bothers me that people who win the lottery tend to be the ones who go bankrupt because they have no way of understanding how to deal with that kind of money.  $500,000 *can* set you up pretty well for a long time.  If you don’t blow it.  How about setting these people up with a financial planner?  Maybe they did that for her and she didn’t listen.  I don’t know…

But here’s the really big problem, this lady just became the face of welfare.  She just became every welfare recipient in the country.  In the same way that Rush characterized all women who use birth control/want to have sex without getting pregnant as “sluts,” this story is being used to categorize all welfare recipients as people who are gaming the system.

When, in fact, this lady is just seems to be extraordinarily dumb.  I know that some people game the system and I believe that everything possible should be done to prevent abuses but you can’t look at this one stupid person and assume that she is the face of welfare in America.  She isn’t.

Turns out Arizona Republicans Hate Women as Well

What is in the water this week?  Seems like this is “let’s alienate the ladies” week in the Republican party.

This new law allows doctors to withhold information from expectant mothers if they suspect that information could lead to an abortion.  So if a mother may be looking at a life threatening pregnancy, the doctor can just keep it to him or herself.

Wouldn’t most doctors tell a mother that piece of information even if they are pro-life?  I expect they probably would.

But I also expect they would have no problem withholding information about a potential birth defect.

While it may come as something of a surprise to most pro-lifers, most parents want their baby and learning their child may have Down’s syndrome gives them time to prepare for the challenges of having a child with special needs.

Doctors should not get to withhold information from parents because of what they think the parents might do with that information.  That isn’t their business and it sure as fuck isn’t their job.

Neighborhood Watch Captain kills 17 year old boy Armed with a bag of Skittles

As a liberal, I am used to the drumbeat that we have lost the gun rights battle.  Maybe we have.

But I continue to be concerned that the right to bear arms means that stupid/paranoid/dangerous people can carry a gun and if those people have guns, it is a lot easier for them to kill someone.  I recognize that not all the facts are known in this case but innocent people are killed by gunfire all the time.

I believe there needs to be a balance between our right to bear arms and our right to make sure that our biggest risk is someone breaking into our home and not the neighbor with a pistol who is being given the right to shoot first and ask questions later.

I realize people are quick to cry racism in this country (I wonder why) but you have to ask yourself – how is it that a black 17 year old in a gated community ended up shot by the head of the neighborhood watch? Did his race have anything to do with it? Of course it did. A white 17 year old would never have aroused suspicion in that community.

Those of us who are opposed to firearms are not, by and large, opposed to people having the right to bear arms.  We just think the damn things are really fucking dangerous and we ought to be careful about who has them.  And if you have a permit to carry a gun anywhere you go and you use it to kill someone who wasn’t doing anything wrong, there should be severe consequences.

It’s coming right for us is not a defense.