Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/26/18
School System Blames Late Busses on a Weather Report They Already Knew About
OK, so a little perspective.
Last year, my band had a holiday show scheduled on a day that was forecast to have a horrible snow storm. Even though we didn’t know how bad the story would end up being, we chose to cancel the show and refund the tickets because driving was supposed to be dangerous. The snow happened but it wasn’t nearly as bad as predicted and we could have done the show.
Earlier this week, a gigantic storm was predicted by every weather service. The local school systems opted to close school slightly early and the result was a lot of busses trying to get kids home in the midst of the worst of it. Some children were stuck on busses until past midnight.
That, my friends, is a logistical failure.
Who (aside from every meteorologist in the country) could have predicted this would happen?
Now far be it from me to add to the outrage culture in a weekly blog entitled “Shit that Pissed me Off” but the problem here is the fact the school system then blamed the weather forecast with the implication they never could have known how bad it was going to be. This ignores from the fact they were told how bad it was going to be.
It wasn’t snowing in the morning. I know because I dropped my kid off at school and it wasn’t snowing. By noon, it was horrible. Again, I know because I drive for a living and I was driving in it.
The issue here isn’t the fact kids got stuck on school busses. It’s easy to say “they should have known because they literally did know” but when do you cancel school? Before the storm hits? What if we only get an inch? So they tried to send kids home early once it was clear the storm was going to be as bad as predicted but the end result was they waited too long and some kids (and their parents) had a really shitty night.
Where they screwed up was in blaming the weather report rather than saying “we screwed up.”
The weather report was right. They didn’t act fast enough. They should simply blame themselves.*
*Note: Later in the week, the Superintendent of the St. Paul Schools sent out a very well worded apology that blamed their own shortcomings. So good for him.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/10/17
After Historic wins for Transgender Candidates, a Minnesota Politician is a Douche on Twitter
It should be no surprise that Twitter is where people go to be insufferable assholes. I mean, our President has made it his career (because he clearly doesn’t enjoy being President).
This week, off-year elections went pretty well for the non ruling party. I mean we are looking mostly at city council races, mayoral races, and a few governor races but still, the Republicans didn’t do great.
One could argue that happens when the highest ranking member of your party is an incompetent, bigoted sexual predator but perhaps that’s just me.
In case you were wondering, this is the incompetent, bigoted sexual predator I was taking about.
In Minnesota, Representative Mary Franson was a bit disappointed by the fact four transgender candidates won elections this year so she took to Twitter. Because that’s what you do when you want to make sure as many people as possible know you’re a transphobic jackass.
She tweeted “A guy who thinks he’s a girl is still a guy with a mental health condition.”
Which was her way of saying “fuck these transgender candidates, I’m going to publicly call them crazy.”
She didn’t call them “crazy,” of course. She used the more acceptable term “mental health condition.” Which I suppose I should applaud.
But everyone knew she meant crazy. And in an environment where the conservative talking points around gun violence are always about mental health, there is a veiled implication these people are one step away from shooting up a school.
Would she have made the same tweet if even one of these candidates was a Republican?
My guess is yes. Because she’s an awful person and if she wasn’t a Republican state representative in a heavily conservative district, she’d probably be out of a job in the next election cycle. But she is. So we’re stuck with her until she decides to quit.
Sigh.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 7/28/17
North Carolina Church Reportedly Importing Slaves from Brazil
Post racial society, huh?
This report, which the church very pointedly doesn’t deny in it’s vehement tirade against the news organization that broke the story, suggests some troubling things.
Now I know we could all simply dismiss this entire mess because people aren’t that awful but history tells us that, yes, people can really be that awful. There is currently a person that awful working in the white house. And our President regularly listens to what Mr. Bannon has to say.
America is, we are told, the greatest country in the history of countries (sure we are) so we ought to be super upset about this entire problem. However, with the possible exception of Vatican City, we are the most smugly Christian country in the history of countries and that means any report like this must be viewed with suspicion because Christians just don’t do that sort of thing!
And to be fair, most Christians don’t do that sort of thing. We should really get upset, though, when some self professed Christians actually do that sort of thing.
Remember how we all got super upset about this story five years after it broke?
The response so far seems tepid. It isn’t the sort of “what the FUCK” kind of response you like to see when a church is accused of enslaving people. I mean the health care vote is a big deal and it affects all Americans so I understand why we aren’t quite as concerned about a few Brazilians.
Once we get this health care thing sorted out, though, can we spare a few thoughts for people tricked into slavery?
Oh fuck. We’re never going to be done sorting out this health care thing, are we?
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/9/17
Wisconsin Politician Says it is a Fact that the Earth is 6000 Years Old
Forgetting for a moment that facts are things that are true, Wisconsin State Representative Jesse Kremer stated that a biology professor could not counter a student’s claim that the earth is 6000 years old because that is a fact.
I know that some embarrassing percentage of Americans actually believe there is evidence to support the notion that the Earth is younger than written history. In this case, “embarrassing” means “more than none.”
Home schooling taught me everything I need to know about science!
Further, I know those people vote. And I know some of those people run for office. I even know some of them get elected. I just have a real problem with the idea their beliefs are so mainstream as to allow them to suffer no ill consequences from saying them out loud. This guy isn’t going to have any trouble being re-elected.
There is going to be a huge contingency of people saying he’s brave for speaking truth as power.
Except – and I can’t stress this enough – it isn’t truth. It’s bullshit.
You can believe the formation of the Earth was a long miracle without dismissing all of the evidence that exists. There is not a single scientific fact that supports it was a short one.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/14
United Airlines Fails Spectacularly at Customer Service
United Airlines had a fully booked flight but also had several employees who needed transport to where they would be working the next day. They asked passengers to give up their seats for an $800 travel voucher. Nobody volunteered.
Maybe because it was a Sunday night and they all had work the next day. And their boss wasn’t going to pay them for the day off. What a bunch of selfish pricks.
Anyway, rather than upping the offer (which they totally could have done), the airline opted to pick people at random. And one guy didn’t want to go. So they had security drag him off the airline in front of a bunch of cell phone cameras.
As you might imagine, it has been a bad week for United.
I’m not the only person who remembers when this was United’s ad slogan, right?
But it has also been a bad week for the passenger who was dragged off the plane. As soon as his name became public, news organizations began to dig into his past and it turns out he’s not a perfect person.
I’m shocked to discover that as everyone else I’ve ever met is completely perfect.
His past transgressions have nothing to do with not wanted to be forced to take a different flight after he paid for his ticket and the airline made some poor planning decisions.
The response from a few corners of the internet have been, basically, he deserved it.
Um…no. The guy was violently removed from the plane. Not removed from the plane. Violently removed from the plane.
You can argue all you like how three other people voluntarily left after being randomly selected. Doesn’t matter. Beating people up just isn’t something you should be doing unless they are a Nazi.
And in spite of all the muckraking our media has done over this fellow, they have not been able to turn up any evidence that the guy is a Nazi. So I’m going to say the beating was entirely unjustified.
He didn’t deserve it. That’s the problem with this whole “let’s wait for all the facts to come out” mentality. It doesn’t matter what type of guy he was. It doesn’t matter if he was a little bit belligerent when told he’d have to leave the plane after buying a ticket.
He was violently removed from the plane. He didn’t deserve it. That is the only fact that matters.
Shit that Pissed me off – 5/6
Fox News Commenters Make Racist Statements in a Story about Malia Obama’s Choice of College
I know. Reading comments is always a bad idea. In this case, Fox turned them off after a whole lot of racist assholes turned up to share their thoughts regarding what was basically a harmless story about a young woman’s college choice. Unfortunately for her, she is young black woman.
Being black in this “post-racial” society means that you are going to have racist epithets thrown at you by a bunch of internet ignoramuses for having the temerity to exist.
Fox was smart to turn off the comments. However, they need to recognize that they invite this kind of commentary. It is their own personality that helps encourage people to be racist fucks on the internet.
Malia Obama will be fine. She has been the target for this kind of language since her father became a legitimate Presidential candidate and while I’m certain her parents have protected her from the worst of it, there is no way they could protect her from all of it.
There’s just too much.
Thing is, as long as Fox news keeps insisting we live in a post racial society but has to shut down comments on an article about a young black woman, I will continue to wonder why anyone takes them seriously.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/22
An Open Letter from a Conservative Jerkwad to Strong Female Characters
This was posted back in March but I only found it this week. I’m sorry – I was slacking.
Basically, this is a crazy religious screed about why Rey is a terrible character because women are weaker than men (the Bible says so) and any time a woman kicks some ass (especially superior male ass), it’s lazy storytelling. It happens all the time. Except for nearly every fucking movie ever made.
Hey everyone! A man is here to save the day! How original!
He doesn’t just have a problem with Rey, mind you. He’s also got problems with Furiosa, Ripley, and pretty much every other female character who wasn’t in need of rescuing by a man.
When he is talking about the obvious physical differences between most men and most women, you could almost give him a pass. Then he says this:
It’s not just a matter of small bodies versus big bodies. Women are the weaker sex because they’re more timid and emotionally vulnerable and tender-hearted than men. God made them that way.
Oh, I get it. You suddenly got a degree in psychology by reading the Bible. Women are more timid? How can they be when they have to put up with bullshit like this every day?
I’m sick of the “God created women to be this way don’t blame me it’s in the Bible/Koran/whatever the fuck religious book I happen to read” argument. Talk about lazy storytelling.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/25
Microsoft Hired a Bunch of Models in Skimpy Schoolgirl Outfits for an Industry Party
Before I go on my traditional mini rant, let me begin by saying the head of Xbox games, who sponsored the party, and the head of Microsoft both came out saying, in effect, “holy shit was that a horrible decision and we feel like complete assholes and while we can’t actually say we are going to fire whoever put this party together, we are totally going to fire whoever put this party together.”
So I don’t want to pile too much abuse on a company that seems to recognize how stupid it was to host a women in gaming panel on the same day they hired some sexy Catholic schoolgirls to encourage gamer nerds to dance.
I will, however, heap abuse on whoever actually decided to hire the sexy Catholic schoolgirls.
Because what in the hell were they thinking? In a time when their industry is under heavy fire for not really giving a shit about women gamers, they decided it’d be a good time to blatantly not give a shit about women gamers.
I did a Google search for “woman gamer” and found this image. The internet is a strange and wonderful place.
They could have hired ripped dudes to dress up as Italian plumbers for a little gender balance and it still would have been a dumb PR move but probably wouldn’t have resulted in quite the uproar they are currently experiencing.
I realize the return on investment may have seemed lower given gaming is still very much a male dominated industry but when you are throwing thousands of dollars at a dance party for gamers, you may have already been making poor investment choices.
Maybe if it had been a Dance Dance Revolution party for gamers…
PS: After reading this article, I do think it’s important to address the dancers. They were doing a job for which they were hired. There is nothing wrong with that.
Shit that Pissed me off – 1/2/15
United and Orbitz are Suing a Guy for Exploiting a Loophole
I just keep thinking if the dude is exploiting a loophole in your system and you want him to stop, you could just close the fucking loophole.
Instead of figuring out that problem, they are suing a guy who isn’t making any money. He just outsmarted them. What an asshole, right?
I said sue the smug fucker! Why would I want to hire him?
They have lawyers sitting around waiting for something to do. It’s probably cheaper for them to threaten this kid than it is for them to figure out how to fix the gap in their own procedures.
Or they could just accept that some people are going to get a cheaper fare and stop giving out free pop on flights. I mean, they’ll do that eventually anyway, right?
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/7
What the Fuck is Wrong With You, Arizona?
So in Phoenix they are detaining sex workers, taking them to a church and then coercing them into joining a (religious) recovery program without access to lawyers. This can be done, I guess, because the workers are technically not under arrest. They will only be under arrest if they don’t join the program.
Clever.
It is so much easier to coerce people when you don’t arrest them first!
Sometimes I think you don’t deserve the Grand Canyon. Especially since there was a time when you would have dammed it and turned it into a big fucking lake if you’d had the chance.
A week after Arizona tries (and fails thanks to one person) to make discrimination against gays extra illegal, this story comes out. It seems that the high heat in the summertime might be adversely affecting some people by making them feel that just because something is legal, it is also moral.
Grail Diary 