He Pokes the Kitty

Several things currently affecting my blood pressure

As always, stupid things people do are pissing me off.  Here are a few examples:

Stupid Ads

This is why Hard Rock Cafe sucks.  Metal?  Like Duran Duran and bad grammar?

And did I mention it's still the 1950's?

When you have not one, not two, but three options for adding emphasis to a word, why do you choose "this" one?  Screw "you!"

No matter how many times you say it's just a joke or a metaphor (as if you know what that word means), calling for the death of someone you disagree with politically is abhorrent, infantile, and, actually, Anti-American.  Oh, and also insane.

Ailurophobia or diguised bigotry?

Why is it considered okay to hate cats, and tell everyone who has cats how much you hate cats?  Non-cat owners may not know what I'm talking about, but feline keepers are sure to.  All you have to say in front of some people is, "My cat is--" and you get a vitriolic "Man, I hate cats!  Can't stand those things!"  And sometimes the added (and always welcome), "I'd kill one if I saw it!"

Why is that acceptable?  I know if I went around saying I hated dogs dogs -- I don't, by the way -- people would act like they just saw me eat a baby.  But cats, those aloof, independent, strange little predators some of us keep in our homes -- hating them is as American as an incoherent purple-faced rage about Hilary Clinton's mere existence.  And I don't get it.

This all came to mind after a couple of recent experiences:  In one, I was speaking to one coworker about my cats and another, across the room and not involved in the conversation, piped up with the standard, "I hate cats!"  In the other, I was reading a series of comics I otherwise enjoyed very much (Preacher), wherein the two main characters first tried to kick a cat to death, then trapped it in a toilet and flushed it.  (The cat was later rescued by two of the story's "villains," if such a story can be said to have bad guys.)  I can't help thinking this was the author yelling across a room at me, "I hate cats!"

I grew up with cats, have had dozens of them in my life and have met many more, and I have to say I've really not met many with the characteristics cat-haters attribute to all cats.  Certainly in my experience there are far fewer asshole cats than asshole people (although that's probably true throughout the animal kingdom).  So what the hell is it?  Why do people hate low-maintenance, lap-warming fuzznuggets who keep our houses free of vermin and bugs?  Anybody got a guess?  I can never get a clear answer from the haters.

Definitions are what you make of them

I'm so tired of hearing the Right use the health care reform bill to say we need to return to "fiscal conservatism," and that the deficit created by the bill is unacceptable.  I didn't hear a peep from them when the Iraq war cost was racking up to $704 billion, with no end in sight and no foreseeable way to recoup the cost. (That figure does not include the cost of the war in Afghanistan, by the way).   On other hand, the health care reform bill is projected to cost $904 billion over ten years, but on its way to that figure it will greatly aid a huge number of Americans, as well as reducing the cost of care by allowing more Americans to get preventive treatment.  How has the war benefited anyone who isn't a "civilian contractor," also known as mercenary, or a defense contractor?

The part that hacks me off the absolute most, though, is that the Right is saying raising taxes is fiscally irresponsible.  They say tax breaks are the only way to go.  What?  Even children can reason that if you spend more than you make, then intentionally reduce your income, there's nothing "responsible" about that.

At last, PROOF!

You must read this 'livetract," Jesus' Resurrection: Where's the Evidence?  It's truly astonishing.  It will change your life.  But not in the ways the author had in mind.  If you're like me, you'll finish reading it and think, "No wonder so many Christians are muddled, hate-filled idiots who can't seem to understand simple logic."

The fellow who wrote the tract, Rusty Wright, is "an author and university lecturer who has spoken on six continents."  (I'm presuming Antarctica is not one of them.)  According to his tract, he was once a skeptic himself!  But then he read the Bible and realized, shoot, there's just no other explanation except that Jesus rose from the dead.  I mean, could his scrawny apostles really have taken out all those "Green Beret" style Roman guards at the tomb, moved the heavy stone from in front of the entrance, and stolen his corpse?  And what about the 500 people who said they saw him three days after the crucifixion?  Huh?  How do you explain that away, Mr. Smarty Pants Scientist Guy?

Good grief, where do I even start?  I mean, everyone who reads my blog will already know where I'm going with this, but the folks who read and believe this stuff will read my next statement and feel only blankness inside their skulls.

If you are going to use one part of an ancient text for evidence to prove another statement made in the same text, you may as well just go ahead and assume it's all true. 

I worry sometimes.  No, a lot of times.

The Wonder of the American Business Model

The (unnamed) company I work for just went through its fifth (sixth? seventh?) round of layoffs yesterday, and while some chaff was definitely culled, some very talented wheat went with it.  We're in recession, I know, and all businesses are suffering, but let's take a few things into account here:

-- We took a company-wide survey about a year ago to see how our employees felt about the company.  For the most part we were a happy bunch, but overwhelmingly we felt that leadership was aimless and did not communicate with us.  We were given many promises that our concerns would be addressed.  All well and good.

-- The new head honcho of our group, who is so dedicated to our cause that he allows the company to fly him to and from his home on the east coast every week.  (Clearly, he plans to stick around and enjoy the prosperity he's creating for all of us.)

-- Our new leader told us that he's not happy with the profit my division is making.  It's simply not enough.  For him to be happy, he says, he wants 150% profit on every product we sell.  Recession aside, what product reaps such profits?  Cocaine, maybe.

-- Finally, our concerns about leadership were addressed, by firing everyone at the top and replacing them with friends of our new leader, complete with guaranteed 100% bonuses per year and very impressive golden parachutes -- even though none of them have any experience in our business.

-- One of these new leaders, after telling us we should commit all of our resources toward jumping on a trend that is already monopolized and also probably on its last legs of growth, told us WE should define the direction of the company.  (He doesn't want to be a tyrant.)  Thanks, that's leadership for sure!

-- We were told in a meeting, shortly after another round of layoffs were announced, that we had a crapload of capital (something like $175M in liquid funds), so we shouldn't worry.  We could acquire pretty much any company we want!  (I'm sure that reassures the stockholders, but all it did for me was make me walk out of the meeting.)

-- Last, but definitely not least, is the fact that the division we're hinging our future on has not made enough money to pay even ONE of its current employees, yet it's expanding so quickly that I see a face I don't recognize nearly every day.

This is capitalism at work, as far as I can tell.  There are a bunch of rich guys who all know each other, who move in and get hired on at ailing companies, then ride the plane until it runs out of gas in midair.  Then they bail out together, leaving the employees that they personally shook the hands of -- once -- to plummet safely into the ground.  Then they move on, looking for another joyride.

Even though I still have a job -- for now -- I can't help resenting this reality.  Are there companies out there that actually give a shit about the people who work for them?  I thought this was one, until I looked up and saw the vultures circling.

America's new slogan: Fuck You if You're Not Rich!

Hungry Hungry Hypocrite

I just read a blog from a Republican (or ex-Republican?) who's not happy with the GOP's behavior in the last decade or so.  He talks about how Republicans condemn an activity with great vehemence while being frequent committers of that very act, how they resort to ridiculous hyperbole and lies to try to smear their opponents, and how blatantly they disregard the Christian ideals they claim to hold dear.  The author very helpfully links to many, many examples of this behavior, so I won't go into details.

Since I already knew or suspected most of what he said anyway, what I really found interesting was the comments made by Republicans.  For the most part, they completely missed the point.  Mostly they railed about how there were plenty of examples of corrupt Democrats (although of course they didn't provide any links and resorted to hyperbole and generalizations).  They didn't even realize that there is a difference between doing wrong and condemning someone for an act and then committing it yourself.  This kind of misunderstanding falls under my theory that many Republicans are comfortable, and even completely unaware, that they are sufferingg from cognitive dissonance; that is, holding two conflicting ideas in one's head at the same time.  Most people find this state very distressing, but people like Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and George W. Bush not only are not bothered by this state, but seem to think it's perfectly normal.

Just to clarify, here's the difference between Republican and Democratic transgressions:  The Right claims Right, while the Left says, well, I could be wrong, who am I to judge.  Knowing that small-minded people see the former as strength and the latter as weakness, the Republicans have grasped onto their moral "superiority" with greedy, greedy hands -- and it's backfiring on them.  They want to engrave the Ten Commandments into the steps of the Senate building but they want to torture suspected terrorists, and when confronted with this obvious discrepancy, they have no recourse but to scream, "Traitor!"

I know I tend to speak very harshly about the Republican party, in my blog and elsewhere, but I do not hate the party or the people in it.  In a country of 300+ million people, two parties already aren't enough to represent us all, so the last thing I want is Republican failure.  I know there MUST be intelligent, thoughtful Republicans out there, in public and in office, but their voices are drowned out by a cacophony of raging, broken-brained people screaming out their anger at all they cannot or will not understand. 

I can only hope that another congressional defeat for the neocons will cause their fire to fizzle and gutter out, giving rational conservatives a chance to speak.  And to those successors to the party's throne I have this advice:  Perfection should always be the goal -- with the understanding that perfection is unachievable.

And y'all thought I was a Demmicrat

As most of you probably know already, the US Supreme Court is deliberating over a challenge to Chicago's 28-year-long handgun ban.  Just to show that Republicans aren't the only ones who can be hysterical idiots, Mayor Daley had the following to say:

"Why can't I go to the Supreme Court and sit there with a gun and listen to the arguments? If a gun is so important to us on the street or someone's home, why can't I go to the Supreme Court and sit there with a gun? I'm not gonna shoot anyone. But, I have a right to that gun."

"Why can't I go see my congressman who doesn't believe in gun laws? Why can't I carry my gun into congressmen's offices or go to his home and knock on his door and say, 'Don't be worried. I have a gun. You want me to have a gun.' Why is it they want to be protected by all the federal money ... to protect all the federal bureaucrats, but when it comes to us in the city, there's no protection?"

Thanks a lot.  Thanks for taking a citizen's desire to protect his life against attack and making it sound like what gun owners are demanding is the ability to carry a firearm anywhere they choose.  That's just as ridiculous an argument as the opponents of gay marriage who say next thing you know people will want to marry their recliners.  If that's the best you can do, you need to step down, Mayor Daley, because you just became another yapping reactionary.

I never considered owning a gun until my house was broken into.  Twice.  While I was asleep in bed.  If you're lucky enough to have never experienced this, let me tell you:  The feeling of powerlessness from knowing someone has forcibly entered your home and may be on his way to murder you is something you never forget.  Before that, I never really even considered my right to bear arms.  After that, I bought a pistol, then learned how to use it safely, keep it clean, and how to fire it properly.  Now it resides close to hand, so that if someday another asshole decides to invade my house, I at least have an option.  I have no desire to carry a gun around with me just because I can, I simply want to be able to legally protect my life and my love.

Fuck you sideways, Mayor Daley.  I'll never live in your city.

Where it's at

I live on Alki, about 100 feet from the beach, and I've noticed something interesting over the last five years:  People need to be there when the weather's decent.  In droves.  They'll sit in slow-moving traffic and search vainly for a parking spot so they can wander around near a beach where you can't swim.  And I wonder to myself, while hating them all, why?

I just don't understand

Do the makers of sidebar and banner ads just select images at random nowadays?  I mean, what the hell am I supposed to make of this?

Does having over $10K in debt turn you into a rat/dwarf person?  Or is the rat/dwarf person the spokescreature for this "new relief program?"  What are they trying to tell me?

Syndrome of a Down

Sarah Palin is very angry with the network that signs her paycheck over an episode of Family Guy.  It seems there's sketch on the show in which Chris has a date with a girl with Down Syndrome.  He asks her what her parents do, and she replies that her mother is the ex-governor of Alaska.

Now, being of a somewhat liberal bent, I can usually sympathize with folks who feel offended over heartless jokes about something they can't do anything to change, but I'm afraid I just don't see even the usual offensiveness that is Family Guy in this situation.  Is it offensive to imply that Palin's daughter might grow up and someday go on a date with someone?  Or is using a Down Syndrome-afflicted character in a comedy show simply off-limits?  Or was there actually something offensive in the sketch that isn't being reported?

I'm a little disappointed in Sarah, to be honest; she's as hot as a successful real estate agent, she's not afraid to say anything, no matter how outrageous, and she is ready to defend Alaska from the Reds with her wolf-hunting gun, doncha know -- but she also seems awfully thin-skinned for someone with aspirations to the presidency.  Still, though, I can't contain my excitement:  Palin-Bachmann 2012!