Shit that Pissed me Off 5/3/19
Appeals Court Rules that Bde Mke Ska Name Change was Illegal
I’m not pissed at the court. It is entirely likely that their ruling was fully supported by Minnesota Law and their job is to uphold what is legally right. Not was is morally correct. So they did their job.
The lake currently known as Bde Mke Ska was previously named Lake Calhoun. It was named after the 7th Vice President of the United States, John C Calhoun. Calhoun was not from Minnesota (he was from South Carolina) and was a strong proponent of slavery (as I said – he was from South Carolina).
If you’d like to know what he thought about slavery, this just about sums it up:
Calhoun asserted that slavery, rather than being a “necessary evil,” was a “positive good,” benefiting both slaves and slave owners.
Before the lake was named after Calhoun, it was called Bde Mke Ska. That’s what the locals called it before the locals got told they didn’t live here any more and were told to pack up their things and move to land the people with guns didn’t think was worth anything so they were OK with people they didn’t give a shit about living there. They figured if the land turned out to be worth something, they could make the former locals move again. Because they still had most of the guns.
So the DNR and the City of Minneapolis decided the change the name back to Bde Mke Ska. Their reasoning was the name Lake Calhoun was actually a slap in the face to both black people and native Americans. Which it was. It was also kind of a slap in the face to Minnesotans seeing as Calhoun was, as I mentioned, from South Carolina.
Not everyone was thrilled about this change. And that’s OK because you are totally allowed to not give a fuck about black people or Native Americans or Minnesotans because you’ve called it Lake Calhoun for your entire life and why should you have to change?
I know I resent the hell out of all the changes made to my computer over the years!
So a venture Capitalist asshole named Tom Austin decided he hated being “bullied” by “elites” (because black people and Native Americans have historically been super elite) so he filed a lawsuit to change the name back. And he won. Because the court of appeals determined the Legislature needed to make the name change and not the DNR.
Here’s what pissed me off about Tom Austin and all the people who are thrilled that they won this court case – it didn’t fucking matter to them. If the name had never been Lake Calhoun, they wouldn’t have cared that the name was Bde Mke Ska. They just would have called the lake Bde Mke Ska.
And if someone had decided to change the name to Lake Calhoun, they would have fought that because they don’t like it when names change.
But the name Lake Calhoun was hurtful to people. So the decision was made to change it back to a name that was not. Because we’ve figured some shit out and we’re trying to do better.
Austin wasted taxpayer money on a lawsuit that didn’t fucking matter to him. He was just pissed off because he didn’t want to remember a new name and because he didn’t want to be reminded that white people in America have done some really shitty things. I mean, Tom Austin never owned slaves. And he never forced Native Americans off their lands. Why should he have to learn a new name (actually it was an old name but whatever) when none of that was his fault?
So now it is probably up to the legislature to make things right. And they probably won’t. Let me tell you why!
Shit that Pissed me Off 4/26/19
Washington State Senator Maureen Walsh Says Nurses Probably Just Play Cards all Day
Walsh has apologized for what she said and, of course, claimed that her comments were taken out of context. She’s also been sent nearly 2000 decks of playing cards because you don’t fuck with nurses.
But let’s try to look at what she said in context because it’s actually pretty bad and I’m really sick of the “out of context” excuse anyway.
Walsh was speaking for an amendment to a bill that would have provided nurses in Washington State with uninterrupted meals and rest periods. Basically, if a nurse is on a twelve hour shift and they are on their lunch break, they are on their lunch break. Find another nurse because, you know, there is more than one working that shift and they don’t all take lunch at the same time.
The amendment Walsh was pushing for (that made it into the bill) would except “critical access hospitals” in rural areas from the bill.
Walsh was arguing that outstate hospitals with smaller staffs would be hurt by this law because no nurse would leave her contractually mandated rest period if there was an emergency and they were the only nurse in the building thus possibly risking the life of a patient nurses clearly don’t give a shit about as much as having uninterrupted breaks.
Besides, she said, nurses in rural areas probably already get breaks. They probably, she said, play cards for a “considerable amount of the day.”
This is an actual picture of a Washington State nurse
In context, what she was saying was that nurses in these areas don’t work that hard anyway. She later said she was tired and regretted the comment. Maybe she should have taken an uninterrupted break.
And yeah, Walsh is a Republican. I only bring this up because the bill in question was supported by the nurses union.
In general conservatives don’t like unions. So when a union is in support of a measure, they are probably going to be against it. Unless it’s a police union.
There might be nurses in “critical access hospitals” that play cards during the day. I mean, I have no idea. Maybe they are all playing Minecraft if Minecraft is still a thing. Is Minecraft still a thing?
But no they aren’t. Walsh was pretending she was concerned about patients but really she just wanted to make sure nurses didn’t slack off. When we are tired, we usually say exactly what we mean.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/8/19
A New Study Indicates Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism
If you understand anything about vaccines, you know that they don’t cause autism. They just don’t. We don’t know what causes autism. But it’s not vaccines.
But here we go – another study is showing that vaccines do not, in fact, cause autism.
So what pisses me off? Why the fuck are we still studying this?
I have an idea, let’s spent more time proving something we already know!
I don’t blame the scientists for doing so. I mean the anti-vaxx movement keeps coming up with bullshit science to link autism and vaccines in the ultimate game of confirmation bias so someone needs to keep doing actual research to counter the constant barrage of bad information.
Anti-vaxxers crawl out of the shadows every time something like this surfaces because they really want to believe big bad pharma is out to kill us all by ensuring we don’t get polio. It is a pretty sinister plot they have uncovered and the only side effects to being wrong are outbreaks of measles and whooping cough.
The other thing that bothers me is this idea that people with autism are somehow more broken than they would have been had they contracted polio. Rather than treating autism as a challenge to be managed and understood, anti-vaxxers want to believe we can just cure it. The implication that being on the spectrum is worse than dying of a preventable disease is about as bad as suggesting we shouldn’t teach blind people how to read braille because what’s the point?
Unlike flat Earthers, who are just stupid, anti-vaxxers are dangerous. They get people killed. And they divert money from studying how to help people live with autism or from determining the actual cause of autism to more studies about how vaccines don’t cause autism.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/1/19
I totally missed last week because I was driving to a show. So I have some items from last week I’ve carried over. Because they still piss me off.
Captain Marvel Being Panned Pre-Release by People Who Haven’t Seen the Film
In the grand and glorious tapestry that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there hasn’t been one film featuring a Woman as the lead character. Until March 8th when Captain Marvel will be released.
Yes, yes, Ant Man & The Wasp technically had The Wasp as a lead/title character but that was a shared lead and Ant Man came first and it was a sequel and it didn’t seem to piss off Men’s Rights douchebags so let’s try to avoid being pedantic for just a moment, OK?
When it comes to pissing off Men’s Rights douchebags, nothing works better than a movie (any movie) about a woman. Mad Max Fury Road was awesome but why did it have to have a woman in it? The worst thing about The Last Jedi was all those girls getting in the way of the story that should be about whiny emo dudes just like them.
Holy shit! That’s why they hate Kylo Ren so much!
“Look at that whiner! He has all the power but he’s still not happy with it so he’s going to take power away from everyone around him who doesn’t have it just so he can feel better about himself even though he still doesn’t. That is so unrealistic!”
The scene is a lot more interesting if you imagine this guy eating Funyuns and crying.
I’m a nice guy! Why aren’t girls interested in nice guys?
Anyway – the reviews are already pouring in for Captain Marvel and many of them are by guys who haven’t actually seen the film!
That’s right! They are already posting negative reviews with their major complaint being “I don’t like that Marvel has, after three Captain America Movies, three Iron Man movies, a couple of Ant Man movies, and so on, decided to bow to the pressure of Social Justice Warriors by making ONE MOVIE with a girl in the lead!”
Some are even gloating that they are going to kill the box office for Captain Marvel just like they did for The Last Jedi.
Whatever, guys. If you didn’t notice that nearly every woman and person of color was dusted at the end of Infinity War, maybe you need to realize that women have a bigger representation gap than you.
So go back to your meditation chamber, Kylo, and feel sorry for yourself. Because the rest of us don’t.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/4/19
I’ve taken a rather long break from Shit that Pissed me off for several reasons. So if you are a regular reader, I’m sorry you had to be pissed off without my help for the last month.
For the next three weeks, I’ll be on vacation. Hopefully, I will get one or two posts up over that time but if I don’t, it’s probably because I’m lazy.
Government Shutdown
We have a partial Government Shutdown going on right now. If you’d like to understand the impact on actual people, here’s an article written by a friend of mine who is a National Park Ranger.
Let’s explore what this is all about.
The border wall. Turns out that was easier to explain than I thought.
President Trump (goddamn it) wants five billion for his border wall that he has said Mexico is paying for through an unratified trade agreement that won’t actually pay for the wall. He already says the wall hasn’t been started/is already partially built/is basically finished. He just needs five billion dollars. Come on!
House Democrats have, so far, told him he can fuck right off. Senate Republicans have been wishy washy because they probably think his wall idea is fucking stupid (it is) but they are in the same party so they have to kind of support him even if they don’t.
End result, lying, narcissistic, delusional, racist, sexual predator doesn’t have money for his wall yet. So he’s shutting down the government and blaming the Democrats after he said he wouldn’t.
Hey look! The source of 98.2% of the fake news in America!
Essentially, Donald Trump is putting people out of work in order to get a border wall built so brown people can’t “steal” the jobs that Trump isn’t letting people do.
And I know that’s a weird analogy because most government employees aren’t picking lettuce in California.
He keeps talking about how much we need the border wall but the evidence is far from clear.
In the end, the party of smaller government is shutting down the government because they want more money for something that probably isn’t worth it. And they are pointing their fingers across the aisle rather than at the white house because they are still afraid to stand up to the bully who is theoretically the head of their party.
Much as I want to see this shutdown end, my hope is House Democrats avoid caving on the issue. I don’t need my tax dollars wasted on a bullshit wall that won’t do what Trump pretends it will.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/9/18
Trump Corner: A Press Conference for the Ages
Why bury the lede on this one?
So the day after Democrats managed to take over the House (more on bullshit Gerrymandering later) but not the Senate, Trump decided to refuse to answer reporters questions.
Now I could talk about the way his administration banned a reporter using a doctored video to bolster their unsubstantiated claim the reporter attacked an intern. But they just did that because their base loves it when Trump attacks reporters.
That’s why he consistently refers to the free press as an enemy of the people.
If you hear that and nod your head in agreement, you are creeping me right out. The press is, in fact, the tool by which the people can help keep that fucker honest. Well, they can try. Honesty is not part of his meager skill set.
The truth is the enemy of the Trump camp and most reporters have a pesky way of trying to find out the truth. Best way to deal with that tendency is to discredit most of them. That way the reporters who are biased to report what you want them to report are the only ones your legions will listen to.
So that was awful. But maybe you missed when our President who, if you recall, has always been a wealthy white man, lectured a black woman on racism.
Not only did Trump lecture the reporter, Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, on racism. He wouldn’t even let her ask a question.
I mean, I know he’s the President. He can talk over whoever he wants.
Also he’s a man and what he has to say is more important.
But that doesn’t mean he should. Alcindor was asking him if his rhetoric emboldened white nationalists (it does). He could have answered the question but the answer wouldn’t have been very good. So knowing he couldn’t really address it, he just blamed the reporter – a black woman – for bringing up racism.
He claimed his poll numbers were better with African Americans then they’ve ever been (which is technically kind of true based on one poll that is historically biased towards Republicans but also really not the point).
What he didn’t do was address the question of white nationalism. He could have spoken out against white nationalism. But he didn’t. He just told a black woman she was racist.
PS: that (skewed) Rasmussen poll he cherry picked showed that he has a 50% approval rating. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY???? Read More…
Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/26/18
Man Gropes Woman on a Plane and Says it’s OK Because Trump
Now I understand that not every man who voted for Trump feels it is OK to grope women without consent. Some of them just think it is OK for Trump to do that but they would never imagine doing it themselves.
Well, OK, maybe they would imagine doing it themselves. But they would never actually do it unless there was absolutely no chance that they would be caught.
The thing is, our President has normalized sexual assault. He has turned victims into punch lines and perpetrators into supreme court justices. He has shown a lot of men in this country that you can do this kind of thing and get away with it.
Given rape culture in this country, that should actually not be a surprise. Thing is, when you have an admitted sexual predator in the white house (he’s on tape so shut up with your apologist bullshit), even the minor amount of stigma that existed before has been shredded.
Tell me more about how it’s a scary time for young men!
Sure, this guy was arrested and he’ll be fined or spend a few weeks in jail. He’s not going to stop thinking that what he did was OK.
And the biggest problem with Trump is that he’s popular with a subset of the American public because he represents all that deeply felt awfulness in each one of us. He releases the national desire to be a bunch of fucking unapologetic assholes.
So congratulations, women of America! You already had to deal with ten million other problems. Now you have a bunch of white dudes who have been told that actions don’t have consequences.
Shit that Pissed me off – 10/12/18
Man who Strangled Woman and Then Ejaculated on Her Receives No Jail Time
So what this guy did was technically not sexual assault. He just strangled a woman until she was unconscious and then masturbated on her because that was the only way he could get off.
Now if you look at this scenario, you think “dude is going to do this shit again.”
And I realize the law has limits unless you are a black man convinced of marijuana possession. At which point we should put him into solitary confinement for twenty five years.
It’s what Jed Bartlett would do!
But it really does send a message that we don’t give a shit when the victim is a woman, doesn’t it?
And I know what you’re thinking. “Tim,” you think “isn’t it true that we don’t really give a shit when the victim is a woman.”
Well, random person on the internet, it shouldn’t be true but in a case like this where everyone involved seems more concerned about this fine upstanding family man who couldn’t get hard unless he strangled his victim unconscious than they do about the next woman he strangles.
“Innocent until proven guilty” seems to have given way for “innocent even if proven guilty.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/5/18
Buckle your seat belts, y’all. This week. Holy shit this week.
Also, possible trigger warning because I do talk about sexual assault in very general terms.
Trump Corner
Let’s just start here with our shitbag of a President. What has he done recently?
Well, he mocked a sexual assault victim, he said it is a scary time for young men in America, and he said the King of Saudi Arabia wouldn’t last two weeks without American military support.
That last one might actually be true but what a way to undermine one of America’s strongest allies. And yeah – the rulers of Saudi Arabia are awful and I could get behind any President who had the courage to say so but that’s not what Trump was doing.
I’m really done being polite about this asshole. He is a sexual predator (no those women did not make their stories up). He’s a bully. He’s a racist.
And in spite of all of it, there’s a possibility the Democrats won’t win this fall because…hell I don’t know why.
Ahhh! Brown people!
Because people enjoy supporting a man child who delights in punching down at women, minorities, and the poor (who vote for him anyway)? Because they are such evangelical zombies that they will follow any man who claims to be the same (unless he’s a Democrat)?
I don’t know. Everyone of every political persuasion (with the exception of white supremacists) should hate this man. They should hate everything about him.
And yet they don’t. They go to his rallies. They laugh with him at victims of violent sexual assault. They show up at the polls to vote for whomever he tells them to vote for.
If the rest of us aren’t willing to show up at the polls and fight back this November, I’m out of ideas, folks. Because Trump and the rabble who blindly follow him into the abyss of humanity need to lose. Badly. And often.
There are more of us who are against him, aren’t there? There have to be.
So listen to me: if you think he is a good man, you are wrong. If you think he gives a flying fuck about you and your problems, you are wrong. He is interested in making money for himself. That’s what this Presidency is about. It isn’t about making America Great Again. It is about making Trump richer than he already was.
And he doesn’t give a shit who he hurts a long the way. This week it’s Christine Blasey Ford. Next week it might be you. And there will be stadiums full of people laughing right along with him.
Shit that Pissed me Off 7/27/18
Parade Announcer Gets Called on Sexist Bullshit by a 12-year-old
This is a great story so before I start with a trademark rant, let me just say how fantastic it is that a 12-year-old girl recognized the sexism at work and said something.
In Russell Township, Ohio, there was a parade. Parades happen in a lot of small towns so this is nothing to be surprised about. Taking part in the parade were the local girl and boy scout troops. Also not much of a surprise. It gets the kids out of the house and engaging in physical activity. I’m all for it.
As they walked by, the parade announcer said the boy scouts were the “future leaders of America.” OK, I guess. Seems kind of presumptuous but OK.
Then the girls walked by and the announcer said they were just there to have fun.
In reference to the Cyndi Lauper song which, though catchy and awesome, sends something of a poor message when it comes to the ambitions of young women.
Also, I’m guessing the Girl Scouts of Russell Township weren’t dressed like this (not that it would be a problem if they were).
Julianne Spyer was walking with the Girl Scouts that day and was none to pleased to learn that the boys were future leaders of America and the girls just wanted to have some fun. She wrote a letter to the editor and it went viral.
Everyone is super proud of Julianne for calling out the sexism displayed but I have to wonder – what now? Do you think that we are suddenly going to start doing better because of a 12-year-old in Ohio? Or are we so busy patting the kid on the head that we are going to stop there?
I also wonder, if this letter had been written by someone who was not a twelve year old, would it have gotten any attention at all? Would anyone else have noticed the subtle sexism that the announcer probably didn’t even think about?
I don’t wish to belittle what Julianne did one bit. She noticed something wrong and she spoke up. Her actions end up being irrelevant unless the next local parade announcer doesn’t make the same mistake. Or gets called out when they do.
Let’s celebrate Julianne because she is an awesome little girl and one of the future leaders of America. Even better, let’s celebrate her by actually listening to her message.
Grail Diary 