Friday, January 19, 2007

I Use Words That Mean "Poop" A Lot When I Speak Or Blog. What's With That?

Before I ramble on and shoot my mouth off, here's some long-awaited kid pics. You're welcome, mom.
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I only wish that the cool 3D here's your unborn child looking like a skinny old man pictures didn't make such huge files when scanned (maybe it's all the pixels?) so I could have it up here instead. They're neat. If the 3D images are to be believed, Cindy will be giving birth to Emperor Palpatine in a few months.
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Here's C-Man showing us how happy he is to be playin' in the snow-woh. I think this was New Years Eve.(?)
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Here I am showing 'em how it's done, and getting a face full of snow while I do it. Not shown : Face full of snow.
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Here's the boy and I, mere seconds away from crashing into some brush, if memory serves.
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Master-C, makin' a snow angel. It took a few attempts, and a few examples, before the concept was understood.

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Christmas morning, time to rip and tear until your fingers bleed!
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I'd like to take this opportunity to thank James for the awesome Playmobil pirate ship, which contained many small pieces, most of which have been picked up from around the house dozens of times, some of which have found themselves into the perfect spots to stab an errant foot in the dark at one time or another, and one of which was driven into the back of my neck by and excited 2 year old earlier this week. I'd also like to thank blogger for its shitty formatting flaws which prevented me from putting these pictures up here the way that I wanted to, and ultimately gave me a headache even as I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to do it this way. Bravo!

Finally, here's the "meat" that I wanted to share with the few who care. As if my posts ever contain any protein or anything else useful to chew on.

Let me preface by saying that I try to stear clear of much political discussion on my blog because:
  1. I think 99.9% of active politicians today, on both sides of the fence, are greedy, self serving power hoarders who have little interest in either the plight of the common man or upholding any sort of values or morals.
  2. I don't think something as silly as a blog, no matter how large its readership, is going to change enough people's minds to actually cause a shift in the current system. I can see that shift happening, but I don't think it's going to be brought about by my, or anyone else's, poorly informed, near incoherent rambling - there's an awful lot of white noise that one would have to listen to in order to get near any kernel of truth.
  3. Why bother spewing venom in the first place instead of actually trying to make a change? We have the sacred power of the vote that allows us to do something with our opinions. Even though I'm frequently told that my opinions are incorrect in the social climate I inhabit, I'll still exercise my right and make my decisions based on the values and morals that I hold, that cannot be dictated to me by anyone, ever.
So here it is. Today, upon reading a close friend's blog, I came across a certain nugget (I use nugget here because I think this certain nugget is...Well, a nugget of crap). This is a person who, although I don't always see eye to eye with, I consider to be reasonably well informed and I do value his opinion and consider him a friend. To each his own. But this bothered me:
Conservatives don't care. They hate the present, they fear the future. The past is their only refuge, and for all its uglinesses, at least one thing about it is inarguable: white men were in charge. White men could do anything they wanted. White men ran the world. They could grab the secretary's ass and beat up any faggot they came across with impunity. Niggers and spics kept to their places, by God. And everybody wished everybody else a Merry Christmas and they damned well liked it, too.
Conservatives are the stereotypers, so let's stereotype them. Is that what I'm supposed to walk away from this with? Clever thinking, fellas. I guess it's pulled from here, but after reading that, I couldn't bring myself to read the linked post. I'll leave anyone else to comment on the seperate innacurate points found in that passage alone and just say that what bothers me the most about it is that, at least in the scientific, pseudo academic environment I currently inhabit, the general populist opinion is that the conservatives and Republicans of the world are the ones who do the stereotyping, that can't see in shades of gray but only black and white, and are incapable of placing themselves in someone elses shoes. What a load of shit. This one paragraph pretty much encapsulates everything that enrages me about the current climate in this country. On one hand, you have whiny, preachy, self serving shitheads that characterize anyone with opinions the least bit different from their own as evil, misinformed minions of satan incapable of forming a rational thought, and on the other hand you have whiny, preachy, self serving shitheads that characterize anyone with opinions the least bit different from their own as evil, misinformed minions of satan incapable of forming a rational thought.

Let me drum this up a different way, by quoting my gut reactions to "well written, informative" excrement such as the preceding quote:
Liberals care about the wrong things. They would rather ensure that any child-killing rapist is taken out of prison and given a second chance because they were either mistreated as a child or to messed up on drugs to know what they were doing than give them what they deserve. It wasn't their fault, right? We should all be given equal rights, but no one should have to die for them anymore, especially if it happens to be in a country that has oil, or practices the muslim faith. If we do anything in those countries, no matter what has been done to us, or what good might be at the heart of anyone involved at any level in the fight, it's only done to line the pockets of some politician. And those politicians with their money bags filling up? They're obviously only in politics for the money and power. No Democrat politician would ever behave in such a way - pushing their own agenda to better their investments. We should all strive for change, as long as change means more taxes, and helping out those who have no desire to help themselves.
Asinine, right? I, of course, think that's a complete distortion of things, and although I'm sure that there's some rebel flag waving numb-nuts somewhere who would agree whole-heartedly with what I just said, I think both of those little excerpts are complete and utter bollocks. I would urge anyone, anywhere, to stop dealing in absolutes - we're none of us Sith, anyhow - and hop on the reality trolley with me so we can take a trip out of crazy land. Suffice to say, if you're either far left, or far right, you're completely batshit insane.

In closing, I want to say that I enjoyed the arguing that was going on between myself and said friend, so here's an open invite for anyone in blogland to leave a comment telling me what a complete and total asshole I am.

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Does zombie Orville scare the shit out of anyone else the way he scares me?

PS: I apologize for spelling and grammar errors. One of the bugs blogger still needs to work out is not effing up the pictures you've so carefully downloaded, placed, and formatted when spellcheck is run!

5 comments:

Jackson Curtis said...

The funny thing is there is some truth in both of those descriptions. But you're right, it's not productive to point fingers.

I've found that the people who are the most venomous (in life, not just politics) are usually the most fearful and insecure, and have adopted particular ideologies as their identity which is why they react so emotionally when challenged.

I'm actually in the process of a writing a post myself on this, because I think it's a conversation worth having.

PCS said...

I fully agree with jcs. Ever since 9/11 the conservatives have been acting extremely venomously towards liberals. The liberals have reacted with fear that our constitutional rights are being infringed upon. "Handsome's" post was not pointing fingers in my opinion. He was making observations about the way conservatives act and then attempted to interpret his observations. This is not stereotyping in my opinion...it's editorializing which makes for good blog reading.

B-Wizz said...

Handsome starts his article by telling us how much he enjoys stereotyping conservatives. Here's the thing - for everytime I heard some muttered phrase about the "damn bleeding heart liberals" growing up, I now hear a hundred bloggers or journalists shouting about the mackwardness of the conservative mind. Most of them seem to be uninformed, loudmouthed jackasses the likes of which I took art classes with in college, who don't seem to be able to back up most of their opinions short of "Bush resembles a monkey."

I realize full well that there are equently ignorant people who vote Republican that are making just as many decisions, through the small power that a vote allows us these days, as well. There are, of course, some considerations with this. One is that due to the pervaviseness of the media, and the ability to shout your opinions from a rooftop via the Intarweb(TM), we all get to hear everything that the loudest has to say. I also have a feeling that the more die-hard conservative, god fearing people in this country, aren't the blogging type. So we don't hear as much from them.

One thought that keeps goingthrough my head when I read things like that - if you want another Republican president, keep it up. If the loudest voices continue to incense the "silent majority: you can be damn sure that they will show up to the polls and vote whatever it is on their concsience. I would urge anyone that really wants change to speak responsibly.

Oh, and I want these damned political e-mails to stop being sent throughout work. Would anyone care to guess what would happen if I played the devil's advocate and dared to send out an e-mail at work urgin co-workers to show up at my pro-"surge" rally?

Jackson Curtis said...

I see venom and finger pointing from both sides of the aisle. I absolutely agree that there's been venom from conservatives towards liberals, but I hear an equal amount from liberals towards conservatives. Whether it's in retaliation or not, what does it accomplish?

How does either group think it can accomplish anything good through hatred and fear?

The side that captures the heart of the people, is the side that ultimately will lead. And hearts aren't won through bitterness and fear. Persuaded yes, won over, no.

Jackson Curtis said...

You need to post again. Here are some potential topics for you to consider.

Who would win in a fight between Superman and Darth Vader.

Why midgets instantly make a movie or show better.

What the hell are the Wilson brothers thinking?!?

Jim Carrey, you are the not the next Tom Hanks. Deal with it.

The post-modern, cultural exegesis of Jackass.