Shit that Pissed Me Off – 4/19/19
Trump Corner – Twitter
Donald Trump loves Twitter. His followers love him on Twitter. He can say whatever he wants, regardless of actual facts and he can see the love immediately. The likes. The retweets. He lives for that. Every like feeds his ego like krill feed blue whales. And like blue whales, Trump’s ego is one of the largest living things on the planet.
This week, like every week, he’s tweeted some outrageous things but I’d light to highlight a two things on opposite ends of the “fuck this guy” spectrum.
On Friday, he tweeted something that was directly aimed at Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar. Omar, you may recall, has made some comments recently that were inadvertently anti-Semitic (and which she has apologized for more than once). One has to contextualize all of this by recognizing that Omar, a Muslim, is supportive of Palestine (like a lot of Muslims). Her opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will more than likely be influenced by that and anyway, she has made some comments there were less than perfectly worded. I assume that is because she is human.
Trump makes such statements all the time. But his supporters love him for it.
He also has noticed that Omar is someone his supporters inherently dislike because she is a Muslim and they really don’t like Muslims. So on Friday, Trump tweeted “we will never forget” and a video of Omar talking about persecution Muslims have faced since 9/11 and then some shots of the burning buildings.
Oops! Wrong burning building! Too soon?
It was a shocking racist embarrassment by a President whose theme song is “Racist Embarrassment” by Kid Rock.
As a result of that tweet, Omar has stated that the number of death threats she has received have increased. The conservative response, by the way? Quit whining – Donald Trump receives all sorts of death threats.
I mean, of course he does. He’s the President of the United States. Even if he weren’t an insufferable prick he would receive more death threats than almost everyone in the world. Not as many, I’ll bet, as Barack Obama received. But a lot.
Thing is, he regularly makes statements that put other people at risk and he doesn’t give a fuck.
So two takeaways here: Trump is using the fact Omar is a Muslim to fire up his base against Muslims and Ilhan Omar is getting more death threats than she used to. Which means she was already getting them all the time. But Trump made it worse. On purpose.
The second tweet I’m highlighting was after Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament on Sunday. Woods, once the greatest golfer in the universe (I feel confident saying that since the principles of evolution suggest there is no way any other intelligent species has developed golf), has been through a lot of challenges over the last ten years. Some (a sex scandal) were his own fault. Others (several back injuries requiring surgery) were not. His return to glory was certainly inspirational to some.
Especially Trump, who loves golf almost more than he loves himself. He tweeted out his congratulations to Woods, whom he has golfed with and would probably claim he is better than, and said as a result of Woods’ accomplishments, he was awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor in our country. It is awarded by Presidents to individuals who, history tells us, share their values.
I have no idea if Woods is a Republican. He’s a golfer and most golfers are conservative. He also comes from a very different background than most golfers. I also think he’s more of a pragmatist in the Michael Jordan vein who keeps his politics to himself because people of all political persuasions buy Nike products.
Like this light up Nike swoosh liberals and conservatives can buy for – this is real – $2,400! Perfect for your politically neutral man cave!
Regardless of his politics, he’s a winner. Again. And Trump likes winners. So even though there is typically a long vetting process for Medal of Freedom winners, Trump just fucking announced he’s giving one to Tiger.
Woods will be one of the youngest people to receive the award (most of the Apollo astronauts were younger).
I can see why Woods, who may be the greatest golfer in history and who has been a pioneer as a person of color in a sport that doesn’t have very many of them, is deserving of recognition.
But I’m not going to deny I’d prefer to see it happen twenty years from now when Woods has retired and, hopefully, used some of those billions he’s earned on philanthropic endeavors. But he’s probably a deserving recipient.
Here’s the thing, though, Trump isn’t giving this award to Woods because of Woods. He is giving it to Woods because in doing so, he gets to share in Woods’ accomplishments. He gets to make Woods’ Masters win, a great individual achievement, about him.
Never forget that this is all about him.
If Woods never won another major golf tournament, Trump wouldn’t have considered giving him the Medal of Freedom. Woods did it while he was President, though, and that means Trump, the President of Golf, gets to recognize him for it.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/20/18
I will note this story actually happened late last week and a lot has happened since then. But in case you somehow missed it, let me sum up.
Two men entered a Starbucks in Philadelphia last week. They did not immediately order because they were waiting for a colleague. One of them asked to use the bathroom and was told the bathroom was for customers. They were then asked to leave. They refused because they were waiting for a colleague before they ordered. The police were called and they were arrested for trespassing. Which, I guess, they technically were.
But who cares? White people go into Starbucks all the time and nobody calls the cops when they want to use the bathroom before ordering.
The cops weren’t called because these guys were trespassing. They were called because the manager was uncomfortable. And the manager was uncomfortable because they were black.
Starbucks has responded better than most companies. Their CEO has apologized to the two men and on the 29th of April, every Starbucks will close for racial sensitivity training.
And white people are pissed. What are they supposed to do for their coffee?
Maybe you could just make our own fucking coffee for one, you lazy assholes.
Now one day of sensitivity training doesn’t erase the problem. As the article linked above points out, black people aren’t surprised by this story. They deal with this kind of thing every day of their lives.
So let’s hope Starbucks doesn’t check a social justice box and assume everything is OK. Because it isn’t. Read More…
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/13
A Bunch A Few Christians are Pissed about a Coffee Cup
Starbucks has unveiled their holiday coffee cup design and it is boring. It is literally a red cup. Their marketing team has covered up the fact they apparently chose not to hire a graphic designer this year by saying the plain red cup allows people to assign their own holiday story to the cup.
Which, I have to tell you, is one of the dumbest marketing ideas ever. A coffee cup is not a tabula rasa and I sincerely doubt the next Pulitzer prize will have anything to do with the color red or coffee.
A few Christians (a very few) have decided, however, that this cup represents the first salvo in this year’s War on Christmas (TM)!
How dare Starbucks fail to emblazon their cups with snowflakes or snowmen as in years past? Snow, of course, being one of the most recognizable symbols of Christmas the world over.
Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas!
One only has to do a little digging to discover that Starbucks still sells gift cards that say Merry Christmas and they still sell Christmas Blend coffee and they still sell fucking advent calendars!
If Starbucks is engaged in the War on Christmas (TM), they are clearly not fully committed to the fight.
This whole story, by the way, is amazing. You have Bristol Palin saying it is a conspiracy by the left to make the Christian right look dumb.
You have the guy who started the thing looking like an idiot when he defends his bullshit opinion.
And, of course, you have Starbucks. They have made so much money off of this “controversy,” they must be hoping it goes on for a least another couple of months.
Shit that Pissed me off – 1/10
Wisconsin State Senator Wants to Make Sure Workers are Allowed to work Seven Days a week
Talk about a completely dishonest putz. Wisconsin labor law says that an employee must have a 24 hour break in a seven day week. It also says that this requirement can be waived by joint request of the employer and employee.
But Senator Grothman feels just awful for the hard working citizens of his state who desperately want to work seven days a week so they can earn some extra overtime but big government won’t let them! He wants to get rid of that restrictive law that prevents people from the windfall of overtime money that would await them if they could only have a seven day work week.
If there’s one thing that would make my job better, it would be if I could spend even less time with my family!
Does that sound like something workers are crying out for in Wisconsin?
Do we imagine that a lot of employers want to shell out a whole ton of overtime?
Or is it more likely that they’d like to have employees work shorter shifts seven days a week and they can’t get their employees to sign that pesky waiver?
Grail Diary 