You might rightfully think that that is an awfully strong statement coming from someone who has never met the Great Oprah Winfrey, and hopefully, never will. But it’s true. I do hate her. Why do I hate her? Is it because she is a billionaire who is better-looking than me and gets more respect? No, not at all. I hate her because she promotes blatant bullshit on television. Newsweek has an excellent article all about why Oprah and the quackery she promotes is so terrible. I couldn’t have said it any better myself. When I heard that Oprah was promoting The Secret, I thought she had reached a new low.
Then she gave Jenny McCarthy a show. Ay-yi-yi! But enough out of my big yap. Just go ahead and read Newsweek. Then turn off the television, with all its’ Oprah Winfreys, Bill O’Reilly’s, Maury Povich’s and Fox news. You don’t need it!
Father Ted was a wonderfully delightful show that poked gentle fun at the Irish Catholic Church. Here is a quote from the creator of the show:
If all copies and records of ‘Father Ted’ were somehow wiped, I would find it impossible to summon up the affection with which Arthur and I initially wrote the show. Somehow, these days, The Irish Catholic Church seems a lot less cuddly.
I would go further and say that no religion anywhere is warm and cuddly. Nobody needs it. It’s just like that tupperware container full of moldy green food festering in the back of the refrigerator.
Throw that shit out!
If you check out the link you will see testimony from a victim of catholicism. I am quite impressed with his bravery. I think I could live a thousand years and still cringe at the thought of confronting certain people in my life.
This story really set off my old creep detector. Remember Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher that was arrested and jailed for her relationship with her underage student? She and her husband hosted a “Hot for Teacher” Night. If you want to spew chunks on your keyboard, go ahead and check out the promotional poster. On the off chance that you don’t want to see the poster, allow me to describe it. It’s a picture of a scantily clad young woman wearing school-girl fantasy gear. Puke. This event creeps me out on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Glorifying child rape? Celebrating the abuse of your authority over young people? It’s a really creepy toss up.
I may have to post pictures of kittens after writing about this disturbing story, in order to cleanse my blog of evil spirits. YECH!
It’s not a secret that I absolutely love Ted talks. There are so many wonderful bits of educational goodness at that site. Any time when I am feeling pessimistic about the world, I head on over to Ted and find a reason to feel optimistic. Take Steven Pinker’s talk about “The Myth of Violence”.
This doesn’t really make sense, does it? We live in a terribly violent world with ongoing wars, commercialism, global warming, stupid government, and patriarchy. But there are reasons for optimism.
While we are still a violent society, we are much less violent than we used to be. Just take a gander through the pages of the Bible. Imagine living in a time period when the death penalty for such crimes as talking back to your parents, adultery and theft were socially accepted. It is really hard for me to wrap my brain around that. I am so used to going through my day and knowing that the worst punishment I face for any crime is imprisonment in jail or perhaps a pesky fine. I will probably never lose a family member due to warfare or violence or capital punishment.
We can always do better as a society and there are still more things wrong than right. But it’s good to remember that things have gotten better.
Why aren’t people angry about all this crap spewing forth from the mouth of the bestest most liberalest president ever? I think I am honestly more scared of him than I was of Bush. Why would I make such a seemingly ridiculous assertion?
This morning at school I saw The Globe and Mail cover story about Obama’s pretend attempts to close the Guantanamo Bay jail. It was a fine piece of propaganda, with Obama promising to protect the public from the “terrorists”. I might have to cut it out and frame it for History class. Apparently, the people incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay must be jailed indefinitely despite the fact that it is seemingly impossible to find any actual crimes to charge them with. We know that they are terrorists because Obama, the rider of unicorns and kisser of babies, said so. He gives pretty, meaningless speeches and then does whatever is politically expedient, just like every other politician. At least when Bush did the same thing, people got angry and made fun of him on the teevee. But when Obama does it? Nothing. Oh sure, there are a few Glenn Greenwald’s and Dr. Violet Socks’ ringing the alarm bells. For the most part, I am not seeing appropriate levels of outrage.
After eight years of the Bush Republicans and all of those cheerleaders demanding that the terrorists be punished, Republican voters are supportive of non-stop warfare. Many people were just fine with America invading other countries and building military bases while so many of their own people went without healthcare and proper education. Bush got elected. Now the so-called “progressive” community is going to be singing the praises of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Maybe they will insist that a President needs to be able to incarcerate people indefinitely without charging them with a crime. It’s OK if the government rifles through your computers’ hard drive. Habeus Corpus? Who needs it? Give the Wall Street crooks a pile of money. Who cares? Obama says it’s a good thing so it must be true.
Getting the moral vapors over sexting is the latest parental scare. That word gives me the creeps. It’s another one of those made up internet words, a combination of the words sex and texting. How do you combine sex with texting? Easy, a teenage girl sends a naked picture of herself to her boyfriend. If we did not live in a patriarchy, the boyfriend would probably keep the picture for his own viewing or delete the photo. I’m sure that is exactly what happens a lot of the time. But you can very well imagine what happens when the boy wants to humiliate the girl for whatever reason. He forwards the photos to all of his friends and puts it on all the social networking sites.
If this were a fair or sane world, this would result in a butt-kicking by the boys’ parents for violating the trust of his former girlfriend and generally being a meanypants for no good reason. But we don’t live in TanyaLand, we live in a patriarchy.
It seems that the general consensus is this: these terrible girls that send these pictures must be punished! Criminal charges must be laid. Being labeled a sex offender will learn the young’uns good. Pervy old school administrators must confiscate the phones, look through the pictures and give those girls a firm talking to. They do this for the girls’ own good.
Luckily these girls have advocates on their side. A caring “leading authority on cyber-crime” Parry Aftab, is campaigning to have the girls’ charges reduced from child pornography to a misdemeanor. This is apparently the best that anybody can do. Except in Vermont. At least Vermont seems to have the right idea. There is currently a bill to legalize the consensual exchange of pictures between young people.
But no word on whether boys send out pictures of their penises, and if they do, what punishments they should receive. Males can do no wrong.
I want Jenny McCarthy to get schooled. I want her to invite educated, intelligent scientists and doctors on her show, who each week dissect her vapid little opinions and dismantle her cherished biases. I want her to be embarrassed in every hour. And I want her to get a little wiser, episode by episode, so that by the end of a year she actually becomes an informed and interesting person.
Help people learn some actual science and medicine by making Jenny McCarthy a public example, and help McCarthy become a better human being — one who doesn’t kill children with her ignorance.
WARNING: Following post contains terrible grammar but I don’t care enough to re-write it for the umpteenth time.
Obama has already proven himself to be enough of a tool by attempting to hide the torture photos. For more on Obama’s intense stupidity and how he gets off the hook for being a misogynist asshat, I recommend reading Dr. Violet Socks. But he has really gone and stepped in it now! A very good friend of mine sent me an email linking to this article on Huff Po entitled “Something you’d like”.
As he is a fellow drug policy reformer, I figured that perhaps it was an article about Mr. President Obama handing out joints at a local medical marijuana dispensary. Or maybe he was releasing all of the drug war prisoners out of jail and immediately erasing all their criminal records. I would even settle for a youtube of Arnold Schwarzenegger on CNN demanding that his favorite plant be recognized as the medicine that it is.
A marijuana plant in every pot!
But alas, I clicked the link and all I got was the same old tepid lukewarm BS baby-steps towards drug policy reform that we have seen before and will see again. The Governator wants to talk about drug policy. Big deal. What is there to talk about? The drug war is a failure. We already know that.
One of the President’s Henchmen told the Wall Street Journal that he wants to get away from the idea that the U.S. is fighting a “war on drugs.” So what? Does he actually want to quit fighting the war on drugs or does he want to win the propaganda war? Should we call it a disagreement on drugs instead while Mexico gets torn up by more violence and more people rot in jail for smoking a plant?
Call me cranky and demanding all you want, but I want, expect and demand a lot more before I start strewing rose-petals in the path of all these big-talk, do-nothing politicians. Kerlikowske even states outright that he doesn’t support efforts to legalize drugs. He’s a fracking tool, I tell you! A tool of the patriarchy as well as a tool of the racist, classist war on some people who use some drugs. Obama found his number in the Big Book of Drug Warriors. Obama wants to spend even more money on drug enforcement than Bush, if Huff Po is to be believed. (Huff Po had Jim Carey write a science article, so their credibility is immediately suspect.) Norm Stamper says repeal drug prohibition so at least Huff Po got one thing right.
I won’t be happy until everyone can grow, sell or share whatever plant they want without the government’s interference. Anything less than that is bupkis.
