Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/9

Gossip Columnist Attacks News Anchor for her Jeans

Jana Shortal has written about the fashion expectations surrounding women in news so it seems strange that Star Tribune gossip columnist C.J. chose to spend several paragraphs lambasting Shortal for the clothing she chose to wear while reporting on the discovery of Jacob Wetterling’s remains.

CJ’s fashion sense is, of course, her own and her column is not a hard hitting section of the paper.  She has been quick to point out she is a columnist and not a journalist.

Seems to me that it shouldn’t matter.  If you are an insensitive jackass, you can give yourself any label you want and you’ll still be an insensitive jackass.

Fun Fact: Google “insensitive jackass” and the first pictures that come up are of Roger Ebert!

Now CJ has since issued a notpology for her column that confirms she is, indeed, an insensitive jackass. She claims she was so upset by the Wetterling news that she was just thinking about the family’s feelings when she commented on Shortal’s fashion choices.

Her tweets immediately following the posting of the original article would suggest something entirely different but hey – if Donald Trump can change what he means every time he opens his mouth, so can the rest of us.

Football Player Beats up a Senior Citizen

Bruce Miller used to play for the San Francisco 49ers.  Then he beat up a senior citizen and now he doesn’t play for them any longer.

I don’t know a lot about Miller.  My bet is if he is a decent football player, he’ll be in uniform somewhere else next year.  Because being a star athlete cures all ills.

Except, of course, for failing to stand during the national anthem.  And that’s the problem.

Because sitting during the national anthem is pretty small and insignificant compared to beating up an old man, isn’t it?

Now Miller lost his job and Colin Kaepernick still has one.  So you could argue that their “transgressions” (not that Kaepernick has committed one) are being treated appropriately by the 49ers.

And that is probably right. The 49ers have responded appropriately.

But the fact is, folks are a lot more pissed off about one dude’s choice of how to exercise his right to free speech than they are about another dude assaulting a stranger.  Maybe we should examine our priorities, America, when we get more worked up about a guy sitting down (actually kneeling) than we do about a guy breaking an actual law.

Some Assholes Knock Down a Rock Formation

In Oregon, some fuckers on a beach decided to knock down a rock formation that was behind a fence because it was “dangerous.”  They claimed they did it because the formation had caused one of their friends to break his leg.

Given the formation was behind a fence, I’m going to guess that their idiot friend broke his leg during a time he was also breaking the rules.  Like the rule on the fence that told him not to climb over the fucking fence.

His honor, however, needed to be defended (I guess), so they pushed over the rock.

I’m horrified to wonder what these losers might do to the state of Colorado if a friend breaks his leg skiing.

Who knows how long this formation would have stood?  The fact it took just a few people relatively little effort to knock it over could mean that it was going to topple in a few months.  Or years.  Or decades.

I mean, who knows?

Nobody ever will.

Because some assholes needed to avenge their stupid friend’s leg.

Donald Trump Says Putin is a Better Leader than Obama

I swear, if Trump wins this fucking election, I’ll need to create a new column entitled “stupid shit our President said this week.”

I hope that doesn’t happen.

This week, Trump said Putin is a better leader than Obama.  And he might be.  I have no fucking clue because I don’t live in Russia.  I do know that Putin’s 82% approval rating exists, at least in part, because he has a lot of control over the results of those polls and I also know that approval ratings don’t define great leaders.

Obama could never have that good an approval rating because 30% of our country is hard line Republicans who spend most of their time criticizing Obama for breathing.  I’m not saying they want him dead.  I’m saying they think he takes breaths wrong.

You would think that Trump would take a hit from hard line Republicans for praising a Russian leader not named Gorbachev.  But such is the hatred for Obama amongst those same people that they will likely find a way to reconcile their blind patriotic hatred for Putin with their blind partisan hatred for Obama.

Their response will probably be “yeah, they are both bad.  But what Trump was trying to say was that Obama is more bad.  No, he hasn’t got a long list of human rights violations and suppression of the press.  But he’s more bad.  Don’t you get that?”

Rob Lowe Celebrity Roast Makes me Feel Sorry for Ann Coulter

I like Ann Coulter just slightly more than Donald Trump.  She’s a conservative troll who calls herself a humorist but does so without the benefit of actually being funny.

So you would think I’d be delighted at the prospect of a bunch of people making fun of her.  And in theory, I am.

Thing is, if you are going to make fun of someone like Coulter, you need to actually be clever and insightful and maybe, just maybe, not make it about her appearance.

Like in this picture where she looks…just fine, actually. But what is she pointing at, my friends? What is she pointing at???

It is ironic, I suppose, that Coulter is an anti-feminist and yet I’m complaining about a bunch of jokes made about her looks.  I mean, she herself has suggested such jokes are fine and other women who have a problem with it are just thin skinned whiners.

So I don’t expect Coulter to complain about such things.

Instead, I expect the people who have called Coulter out on her shit to complain about such things.  Because it shouldn’t matter who was targeted.  Coulter has written and said a whole lot of terrible and stupid things.  If the jokes had been solely about that, nobody should care.

Hell, why couldn’t they have just made fun of her for not being funny?

“I’m not sure what Ann Coulter is doing here: everyone else is funny sometimes.”

“Boy that last presenter wasn’t very funny. Who wrote their jokes, Ann Coulter?”

They could have just read quotes from her book and asked her to explain the joke. The title of her new book is “In Trump we Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” That’s pretty funny.

So I feel sorry for Coulter mostly because she could use a few comedy lessons (says the guy who has never sold a book and probably never will) and it is clear she didn’t get one.

Woman Shot After She Told a Man to Stop Harassing Her

I suppose I should note that the killer said he thought that the gun wasn’t loaded.

So let’s parse what happened and figure out how an unloaded gun would make things better (aside from a young woman being alive instead of dead).

A woman is hanging out at the J’Ouvert festival in Brooklyn and some dude she doesn’t know comes up and begins grinding on her body.  He’s not just dancing with her.  He is making physical contact without consent. She tells him cut it right out.

So he draws a gun that he claims he thought was unloaded, points it at her eye, and pulls the trigger.

It was loaded and she’s dead.

Which is, yes, worse than if there hadn’t been a round in the chamber.

But you have to ask yourself what part of pointing a gun at a woman you just sexually assaulted was OK in the first place?

I was directed to this story after reading a Facebook post about a sixteen year old girl who went to a concert and had to leave because she couldn’t dance without a bunch of men groping her.  She told them no over and over again and they didn’t give a fuck.

Maybe she can take care of herself.  Sounds like she navigated that situation as well as can be expected.

But here’s the thing – why should she have to?

Why should a young woman walking down the street have to worry a man will point a gun – loaded or unloaded – at her if she doesn’t want to dance with him?

Seriously, guys (and by “guys” I am specifically referring to men*),  what the collective fuck is wrong with us?

*Yes, I know that not all men are like this.  Not even most men.  But isn’t it still too many?  And don’t we as men have a responsibility to figure out how to make it happen even less?

And with that delightful end to my column, I will point you to this week’s short story offering about the unexpected dangers of a windy day.  I also posted part 2 of my story The Not-So-Silent Planet.  Part 3 will be posted on Monday!