I’ve been too angry to write anything lately. I need to stop looking at comments on news stories. I know they are just going to work me up into an angry face. Between shootings, gun rights and gay chicken, people have been very vocal about their opinions lately. Those opinions aren’t always so loving of their fellow humans. I had a few days of ranting to anyone who would listen about how messed up society can be sometimes, but I think I’m finally done. In the past, I would just write about it, but I don’t want my space filled with my own brand of vitriol and anger anymore. I think I’m just going to avoid the source of my grief. Is there a reliable news source that doesn’t allow commenting, cause that’s what I need? It cuts out a good deal of stupid from my daily routine. Seriously. Count me as one of the minority that thinks that not everything on the web needs to be social.

So…how ’bout those politics?

Okay, discussing politics is one of my no-no’s, but I’m just all bottled up inside and I feel the need to climb up on a soapbox for just a teeny bit. Let me have my moment.

I don’t pay too much attention to the rhetoric coming out of politicians mouths these days, cause I’m pretty sure it’s all insanity. I am all for freedom of religion, but by no means can I support a politician running on a religious ticket. To me, the second you open your mouth and talk about your religious beliefs in the context of a political issue, you have completely lost any credibility as a representative of the people. The people = all people. Regardless of age, sex, race, or creed.

I can’t even begin to touch on the hot mess that is Rick Santorum. I’m pretty sure that is a practical joke being played on Americans. It has to be, right? The issue that is just making my eye twitch is the birth control debate. I am just completely shocked that this is even an issue. When I first got on the birth control pill in my early 20s, it wasn’t even for the sake of a contraceptive. My body got all kinds of confused after having a baby and, at the risk of TMI, I was put on the pill in an effort to keep me from calling the doc’s office every other day convinced that I was hemorrhaging myself to an anemic existence. In other words, stuff was not right. The pill made it right. Woman use the pill for plenty of reasons other than pregnancy prevention. Classifying it solely as a contraceptive and writing it off as a luxury for woman is completely asinine.  That should be some sort of slogan: “The Pill – Not just for avoiding getting knocked up!”

I was just shaking my head at all this nonsense, and then Rush Limbaugh had to weigh in. Oh, Rush. Normally I wouldn’t pay any attention to a pill-popping attention-craving crapstick like Rush, but this happened:

“What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex — what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

Source: Huffingtonpost

This? All because SANDRA Fluke wanted to speak at a congressional hearing on birth control over the wide variety of uses for birth control pills.

Sigh.

I don’t even know how to process this. The rantings of a man so desperate to be relevant that he continues to spew as much inane, offensive “insights” as possible? I guess it makes him feel all manly to call a woman young enough to be his daughter a “slut”. Well done, gramps. You stay classy.

…that the sanity level in the human race gets lower and lower.
You know, I will be the first to admit that I don’t “get” a lot of performance art. I suppose my brain functions on a more logic-geared blueprint than is required for such art. I’d like to say it’s because I outgrew that stage in my life where I looked for deep meaning and hidden subtext in such things, but honestly I don’t think I ever was in that stage. I blame it all on the drugs I didn’t take. It’s not that I don’t think it’s good to spark conversations or force people to look beyond the status quo; I’m all about that. Does smearing feces on a painting urge me “to move beyond the superficial material plane to a higher level of spiritual contemplation”? Uh…not really. In fact, it makes me think “Damn. If that’s all it takes to get some sort of fame…why didn’t I think of that?” It also makes me wonder both where the ‘artist’ procured said dung, and whether or not he wore gloves while handling it. (I really am no fun for these artists.)
So I’m not really surprised that the latest controversy-inducing artist to pop out on the scene decided to raise the bar in terms of “how can I possibly disgust people even more”, as the elephant dung, while getting some people’s knickers in a twist, was fleeting. And if you’re going to be a fame whore, by all means BE a fame whore. That leads us to our latest story . Add one woman, donor sperm, a turkey baster, and herbal abortifacient into a large bowl. Mix well. Film the alleged abortions, splatter the results on some sheets, and call that mess “art”. Garnish with a dose of “this is supposed to evoke a dialog on a woman’s body and its roll” for added zest.
I answer this with a “um…do what now?” This doesn’t anger me or make me scream about the morality of the project. I am just wondering why is it when someone in an art program or with a school backing them or the right sponsors gets her period all over a bed sheet and hangs it up, it is considered “art” but if a regular ol’ person such as myself did that, no one would be pondering on the function of my uterus or engaging in a dialog about women’s roles in life? Instead, people would think I was completely out of my mind. If a regular ol’ person tied a up a dog and let it starve to death slowly, no one would be examining it for a statement against animal cruelty; instead, the person would be hauled off and charged.
It baffles me. It really baffles me. I’m not sure why there is a degree of allowance with these things when done under the pretense of art, or even if there should be. Like I said, maybe I’m not designed to understand such things. Perhaps I’m not hip enough to believe that every bodily function could pass as an artistic expression. I suppose on one hand, these artists were successful. They’ve disgusted people into speaking about their actions and managed to gain their 15 mins of fame, whether positive or negative. Let’s have a dialog on that.
And then after that, let’s discuss how unbelievably nasty it is to put your bodily fluids on display for the world to see. I mean, come on now.
(And is it me, or does ‘let me bleed all over the place and film it” chick look an awful lot like Elizabeth Peña? It’s eerie.)

I’ve seen this story making the rounds on the internet, and I figured I’d weigh in too.
Basically, a 72-yr old man in Kansas was convicted of ‘aggravated indecent solicitation of a child’. Part of his sentence was that he needed to post signs on his house and car identifying himself as a sex offender. Now a few years ago, I would have been like ‘you’re goddamn right, but this isn’t nearly harsh enough’, but I seemed to have shaken my vigilante-esque attitude of late that encompassed the belief of removing body parts off of offenders. I guess I began to understand that such an action, aside from being completely insane and barbaric, would not really accomplish much especially since the core of the problem does not stem from a couple of nads, but from the mental aspects. This punishment just seems..off. As I’ve seen other people mention, if the man is truly a danger and the judge feels people need to be warned, then lock the dude up. If not, there is no point in doing this unless the intended result was to stir up some true vigilante nuts and have them harass the guy. It’s a difficult issue to be looking at, especially as a parent. I cannot honestly say that if someone harmed so much a hair on my kids’ head that I wouldn’t go utterly ballistic and unleash some raw animalistic maternal ass-kicking to reciprocate, because I know I would lose it completely. (I am the person that called my son’s first soccer coach’s wife a rather unpleasant name because she was getting a little too close to my son with her car, but in my defense I did not realize it was the coach’s wife. Had I known, I would have chosen a much less controversial insult to toss her way completely behaved myself. Yeah. He didn’t rejoin that team the next season. Too awkward.) I suppose it’s quite easy to allow ourselves to dismiss those deemed unfit for society , dehumanize them and condemn them to a sub-standard lifestyle, but there is just something in my gut that tells me this accomplishes nothing in the long run for our society. I certainly don’t want to seem like I’m sympathizing here with the ‘bad guys’, as I cannot possibly understand what would make a person think it was okay to do something of a sexual nature to someone who’s not anywhere near sexual maturity in the physical sense. I just don’t feel like this was the most effective sentence the judge could have come up with. It’ll be interesting to see if it holds up.

I read this bizarre article on Newsweek that described the ‘rebel movement’ occuring in Chile’s youth. They call themselves “Pokemones”, love their anime and gadgets, and entertain themselves with a little thing called public orgies. I say bizarre because to me, technophilia and anime doesn’t seem to have a logical connection to public orgies in my mind, but hey…what do I know? And I realize that I’m not quite *that* old to be making comments about youth today, but what the eff? Seriously?
We used to rebel by stealing street cones or knocking over signs or sneaking out of the house and breaking curfew. Maybe some underaged drinking. But not public sex romps for spite. That’s just…well how is that even effective? I predict an upsurge of STDs in Chile.

Caught a story on Reuters today about a children’s Advent calendar in Germany that includes the imagery of a serial killer from the 1920s who killed a good number of boys (Story here)
Totally messed up. Merry Christmas!

Slate has published an absolutely wonderful article that I think everyone should read and take to heart. Its subject matter should be taught in every school right beside fire safety and “stranger danger”. That’s right folks. Life-saving information.
What to do if you are surrounded by a street gang monkey hoodlums
You know, those monkeys are goddamn bastards sometimes.

Woman yanks off testicle with bare hands
AND TRIES TO EAT IT!
YARRRGGGGHHHHHH!
There is only one response I can think of for this story: