Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/9/18
Utah State House Makes The Worst Rap Video Ever
Mostly this is so bad it’s funny but you have to be a little upset at the fact they made this horrible and cluelessly racist video that uses the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (and titled “The Fresh Prints of Bill Here” – I’m not kidding) to educate children in a way Schoolhouse Rock did much better back in the 70’s at all.
Spoiler: This was not based on a song by Will Smith.
The mostly Republican and all white cast put together for the express purpose of teaching kids how legislation works while simultaneously setting poetry back several thousand years is hypnotically painful. Barely ten seconds in, there is a remarkable effort to make the word “chamber” rhyme with the word “there.”
It fails.
And while I’m sure whoever produced this video will argue that it is about how a Utah State Bill becomes law, it really is exactly the same process covered by a certain bill sitting there on Capitol hill. That video also didn’t feature a bunch of white people unironically trying to dance like black rappers.
The legislators featured in the video can almost be excused for their clueless behavior because it probably wasn’t their idea. But someone thought this up. And shot it. And edited it together. And at no point did it occur to them that what they were doing was going to be a spectacular failure.
Shit that Didn’t Piss me Off – 9/18
Apologies to regular fans of my Friday blog. I’m going to do things a little differently today.
I’ve been writing Shit that Pissed me off most Fridays for the last three years. I enjoy it as an exercise in writing humor and in exploring my opinions about what is happening in the world around me. Since I’ve started writing the column, it has never coincided with my birthday.
Well this year, it has.
So I decided instead of spending my birthday thinking about stuff that annoys me, I’m going to write about things that make me happy. I’ll post this week’s shit that pissed me off on Monday. Because even on my birthday, there are things that piss me off.
I begin my 48th year today and in honor of that, here are 48 things that make me happy.
1. I’ve been married to the same amazing woman for the last 25 1/2 years. She is brilliant, courageous, thoughtful, sexy, and supportive. She laughs at some of my jokes. She listens when I’m in a bad mood. She corrects me when I’m wrong. There is not a night that goes by where I am not happy we share a bed, a home, and a life.
2. I’ve got one fantastic mother. She loves math and has spent her life finding ways to help others love it too. She loves being an amateur artist. She is a fun travel companion. Any day I know I’m going to see her is automatically a good day.
3. My oldest son is great. He’s clever, cheerful, fun, and affectionate. He grew several inches in the last year and is starting to show signs of facial hair. Pretty soon, he’s going to learn how to drive and get a job and start looking at colleges. I’m not sure I’m ready for any of that.
4. My youngest son is wonderfully creative. The way he builds new Lego structures and describes ideas for new games or parks or dinosaurs shows boundless inventiveness. His head must be such an interesting place to live.
5. My Brother is full of passion and energy. He has been remarkably successful in not just the field he has chosen to pursue, but most anything he decides to accomplish. We have a great relationship hampered only by the distance that separates us.
6. My Sister-in-law has a sharp sense of humor, an infectious positive attitude, and seems like a perfect partner for my brother.
Shit that Pissed me off – 5/29
Cardinal Raymond Burke was featured here just last week. I think it is fair to say that he has a big problem with homosexuals.
He also seems to have an even bigger problem with people who feel homosexuals have a right to exist without feeling ashamed of themselves. While even the Pope seems a bit wishy-washy regarding church dogma on this particular topic, Burke is not.
He even went as far as to say “Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.”
If I say a complete non sequitur, maybe nobody will notice I’m an intolerant asshole!
Whoa, dude! You know you owe the pagans a lot, right?
If it weren’t for the pagans, we wouldn’t know when Jesus was born. Or when he died. We wouldn’t have an entire holiday devoted to drinking if St. Patrick hadn’t needed to drive those pesky pagans snakes out of Ireland.
So disrespect the gays, my friend. It seems like the only way to get ahead in your particular line of work.
But leave the pagans out of this. What have they ever done to you?
Shit that Pissed Me Off – 8/22
Canadian School Board Candidate Wants Creationism Taught in Schools
Her picture looks adorable. I’m sure she’s twenty. Maybe.
She is firmly of the opinion that they should teach the controversy (that doesn’t exist). She also says that schools should focus on the “basics” of education.
Like evolution, right?
No no no no no no no no!
Well, she thinks it should be taught in science classrooms alongside creationism. She also thinks sex education should be abstinence only because that is also “basic.”
As basic as Abstinence-Bible-Contraceptives are tools of the Devil!
Is this barely not-teenager going to be elected? I doubt it.
And yet I’m tired of living in a world where people continue to believe that creationism should be given the same amount of time in the classroom. And I’m tired of living in a world where we continue to argue about abstinence-only sex education when the evidence clearly shows it is inadequate.
Shit that Pissed Me off – 7/25
Syrians are Destroying Sculptures Because Allah
Dear everyone in the world: Just because your particular strain of god does not approve of something is no reason to take that thing away from the rest of us.
When you destroy a sculpture that is thousands of years old, you can’t just make a new one.
This has existed for thousands of years and Allah has done nothing about it. Therefore we must!
Unfortunately, this sculpture ended up in one of those places where the prevailing belief system says that historical significance is not a good enough reason to keep something around if there is a face on it.
So thanks, religious extremists, for taking something away from the rest of the world because you believe it will lead to eternal damnation! You guys are the best!
Shit that Pissed me off – 7/18
A Lot of People are Freaking out About Immigrant Children
Here’s what I genuinely don’t understand:
The far right is super concerned about the rights of unborn children.
Once the kids are born, though, they don’t really give a fuck. Especially if those kids weren’t born in America.
In this case, we have a Republican candidate so anxious to show how anti-immigrant he is, he stages a protest with a busload of immigrant kids. Too bad it turns out the kids were actually from a YMCA camp. Apparently they use school busses to move all kinds of kids around. Who knew?
Look! Its a school bus! I’ll bet there are illegal immigrants in there!
Seriously, does anyone do research before setting up a photo-op?
But more seriously, these are children! This immigration “crisis” is bullshit election year stuff. There are all sorts of people crossing our borders all the time. Politicians only care every two years.
The rest of the time, they only care if there are enough immigrants around to pick their food, cook their food, and clean their houses. And they don’t give a shit about how many of them are on school busses.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/6
Guy Threatens to Kill a Dad Who is Teaching his Daughter How to Ride a Bike
He didn’t just threaten to kill someone. He did it while holding a loaded shotgun.
He admitted he did so to police. He even said he probably should have fired.
At issue is not the question of whether or not people have the right to own guns. The issue is why people feel that casually producing a gun and pointing it at someone in the street is an acceptable act. This guy is a loon but his action is, I think, part of a greater movement that troubles me.
When people openly carry semi-automatic weapons into Target because they feel it is their right, we have a problem. This isn’t about the right to bear arms any longer. It is about the right to not have someone point a gun at you when you are shopping for produce.
I told you to get away from that lettuce!
I feel that if I like a different kind of Pop Tarts than you, I shouldn’t be concerned that we are going to need to have a showdown in frozen foods to settle the problem.
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 4/11
While I think the situation in the Ukraine is alarming, I also think that there is very little the US can (or should) do about it. I don’t know if that is because I know where the Ukraine is on a map but it seems clear there might be some relation.
In a very interesting survey, the Washington Post found that the less you knew about the Ukraine, the more likely you were to think we should get involved.
The map in the article shows where respondents placed the Ukraine on a map. It’s pretty troubling when you see that more than one person chose Australia. Or Greenland.
Yes. Some of the dots are in the fucking ocean.
Now, there is a possibility some of these people were dickishly selecting the wrong location just to skew numbers.
Even allowing for that, people are forming opinions about something they know nothing about. I’ll bet if they were educated about the situation, though, they wouldn’t change their minds. People are dumb that way.
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 2/14
Disney Star Gets Death Threats Because Her Show Featured Lesbians
The star in question, Mia Talerico, is five years old.
Her show featured a play date in which her friend had two moms. You know, a healthy happy lesbian couple. Just the sort of thing that causes the bile to rise in the average Christian Right household.
Yeah. This sort of thing is really threatening.
So what’s the Christian thing to do?
Not being a Christian, I’m a bit uncertain. Can someone tell me if threatening the life of a five-year old girl is the Christian thing to do?
And can someone tell me how this kind of behavior comes even close to hating the sin and loving the sinner?
Also a memo to “One Million Moms” – you currently have only 60,000+ “likes” on Facebook. You could increase that number twice as fast if only you allowed lesbian moms!
Geeks Without God Tackles the Creationism vs. Evolution “Debate”
This week’s Geeks Without God was about as timely as our podcast gets. We talk about the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye that took place last Tuesday. I have to be honest and admit we didn’t actually watch the debate because we had strong issues with the fact it was even taking place.
Were we right to judge what took place without actually watching it? Well, given that our objections had little to do with the content of the debate, I think that we had some valid points to make.
Creationism is something that annoys the hell out of me because it is completely dishonest and I’m pretty sure it comes out in this week’s podcast. So if you want to listen to me (and Molly and Nick) get pretty vocally angry, I’m guessing you’ll like this week’s show.
You can listen to it here.
Grail Diary 