Libertine: On the Prowl
Vidi, vici, veni -- I saw, I conquered, I came. _______________________________________________________________
Burned
I've been using Ebay for eight years now, since the fall of 2000. In all that time, I've never had any problems with the purchases I've made.Until now.
About three weeks ago, I bought two books from two different sellers. I got an automated response from both sellers acknowledging my order and that the payment had gone through. The first seller also contacted me personally to thank me for my order, advising me of when the order would be sent. The second seller never contacted me personally, but using Ebay's tracking system I saw that my order had been marked as "shipped".
The first order arrived promptly within a week. Great -- another smooth transaction completed. The days, then weeks, dragged by, and the second order never arrived. Every day I'd check my mailbox, to find nothing but ordinary mail in there.
I went back to the seller's page to read their feedback again and found that new negative feedback had been left for them -- the customer never received their book and the seller never responded to the buyer's emails. I began to get a bit nervous, but considering that this was the seller's first negative feedback, I hunkered down to wait it out.
When I reached the last day of the estimated shipping times for the book, I contacted the seller, in accordance with Ebay policy, and waited the required 48 hours for a reply. Unsurprisingly, the seller ignored my email, just as they had with the previous customer. I left scathing, negative feedback for the seller, warning other potential customers away. I've filed a claim and now I'm waiting for it to be resolved. I don't really want money back -- I just want the damned book I ordered!
Have any of you been burned on Ebay or another site, and how did it eventually turn out for you?
Projecting an Unintended Image
The little Chinese girl, Lin Miaoke, who starred in the opening ceremonies for the Olympics apparently singing the Chinese patriotic song, "Ode to the Motherland", turned out to be only lip-synching the song. The girl whose voice was actually heard, Yang Peiyi, was banned from singing the song in public because she was not considered "attractive enough" for the world to see. Her "imperfections" are a chubby face and uneven teeth.The two girls are nine and seven years old.
"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, said, "The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression,"
Oh, they're projecting an image, all right. An ugly image.
They're telling the world that an individual's worth is summed up by their physical appearance, not in their inherent worth as human beings and this accident of birth trumps anything they've worked to achieve.
They're telling the world that even little girls must conform to a narrow, sexualized idea of beauty -- I'm sure many pedophiles would be quick to agree. They are saying those who don't measure up to the narrow definition of what is considered fashionably attractive at any point in history are a lesser form of human beings who should hide themselves from public view and never be seen doing anything worthwhile or fun.
I think it's totally shitty.
This incident reminds me of something I once saw on a talk show in the early 90s. Martha Wash, a plus size singer who recorded the dance song, "Everybody Dance Now", was barred from performing her own song on a music video and was replaced by a svelte lip-syncher, simply because she was not thin.
That disgusted me then, and the incident with the little Chinese girls disgust me even more because they are children.
Thoughts?
Don't Expect Us To Think; We're Just Doing Our Job
Pardon my lack of blogging in the last few days. My primary lover, who has been out of town for the better part of a month returned home the other day and we've been....busy. You get the drill, I'm sure.I'm still kind of worn out and not all that inspired to write, but somthing happened this morning that was rant-worthy, so I'll write about that.
After going out to pay a bill this morning, I swung through a fast-food drive-through for lunch. I won't name the chain, but it is one that usually has better service than the abysmal McDonald's a block further up the road.
I ordered a burger, fries, and drink combo, telling them to leave off the tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise on the burger. Those who have read my blog in the past know that while I don't hate mayo, per se, I prefer to have it left off my burgers because most restaurants put way too much of it on burgers. Too much mayo on a burger makes the bun soggy and prone to disintegration as soon as you pick it up. It also has a bad habit of turning the lettuce into a limp, slimy mess. Tomatoes and pickles, I just hate them on a burger, period.
After I told the squawk box that I didn't want these three things on my burger, there was a prolonged, stunned silence on the other end. I'm guessing they were trying to gather up enough brain cells to actually....think!
Finally, after a long while, a woman's voice snaps, "Just what DO you want on your burger?" I sighed and spelled it out for them, "Everything else that normally comes on that burger, except for the three things I mentioned." In this case, that would be lettuce, onions, and mustard.
But it was a naive hope that they'd be able to actually use their brains. When I got home and opened my burger, I found they've given me a naked burger; there was NOTHING on it. It was too much for their little brains to comprehend leaving off three ingredients while including the other three normally included. For them, it's either everything on it, or nothing at all.
And they didn't give me a straw for my drink, either. I guess that was my punishment for expecting them actually to think.
Morons.
Firefox Woes
I've been a Firefox user for quite some time now, using it through several updated versions. Most people I know who use it rave about it, while simultaneously trashing Internet Explorer.At first, I agreed with such people, but I've been having several quirky problems with Firefox that have lasted through several of the most recent updates. I also bought a new computer last year with the latest version of IE included, and I've not had any problems with that.
The problems I'm having with Firefox appear and disappear unexpectedly for no apparent rhyme nor reason. The most common problems are:
I'm on dialup, and if I happen to get tossed offline while viewing pages in Firefox, I must close the browser and re-open it again in order to be able to continue using the pages I was viewing. If I try to make comments, refresh, or click on another page, it won't respond, and I'll see "Stopped" at the left bottom corner of the page. This doesn't happen in IE -- I can just pick up where I left off without closing and re-opening the browser.
A recurring problem happens on message boards, where Firefox will not recognize text editing buttons in message board response boxes. That is, the bold, underline, italic, quote, and other buttons will not work when I click on them, but I have to add the code manually. This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough, and without warning, to be annoying.
When I get the above problem on message boards, Firefox will also not recognize paragraph breaks and it will render several paragraphs as one unbroken block of text. These two problems are so annoying, that I just use IE when I want to make comments on message boards.
Another on-again, off-again problem is that on every single one of the blog systems I use (Blog City, Blogger, Vox, and EFX2) Firefox will either not display the text editing features in the text boxes or they will be unclickable, thus unusable. Again, I'm composing in IE more and more.
Yet another on-again, off-again problem is with Gmail. Though I can sometimes view Gmail normally with Firefox, more often than not, I have to view it in "Basic HTML", which does not allow the user to use all of Gmail's features. More recently, I'm getting errors more often when using Gmail in Firefox.
These are the most common, ongoing annoyances I've had in the last year or so using Firefox. Note that none of these problems occur when using Internet Explorer.
I'd be curious to hear if other Firefox users are having the same problems that I'm having and if they're turning back to IE more and more.
Autism Controversy
Far right radio talk show host, Michael Savage, lived up to his pseudonym last Wednesday when he dismissed autism as a phony disease when he said, "In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out..."What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, `Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, you idiot.'"I'm wondering what medical school this obnoxious cretin went to to be able to pull such a harsh, absolute statement straight out of his ass? The man has a PhD, but that's not the same thing as being an MD.
You know the guy has to be a real wingnut when another right wing talk show host, Neal Boortz, htakes the time to criticize him on the air (unrelated to the autism issue). Last week, Boortz said something to the effect that he could understand why Savage would not want to use his real last name (Weiner) on the air, but one had to question the mentality of someone who would pick "Savage" as a pseudonym. Boortz went on to wonder what people in other countries must think of our country when they hear Savage refer to it as "Savage Nation".
Indeed.
Not Everything Is Going Up
Gas prices are up, higher than they've ever been in my lifetime. When I first bought my car in 2003, it took five dollars to to go from three quarters of a tank to full. Now, it takes fifteen dollars.Food prices are likewise up. A couple of months ago, baking potatoes were 88 cents a pound. When I was in the market last night, they were $1.48 a pound. Other food items have risen as well, though some not quite so dramatically as the potatoes. It's also costing me more to feed my cats.
There's one thing that hasn't gone up in all this frenzy of escalating prices, however.
Yep, you guessed it. It's my salary. Still just as low as ever. Of course.
If it keeps up like this, pretty soon I won't be able to afford to eat, nor be able to drive to the grocery store to buy the food in the first place
Thoughts?
Misplaced Trust
It seems as if like a phoenix, the EFX2 blog site has risen yet again from the ashes. But this is no thanks to He Who Must Not Be Named, aka Keith, who is the owner of the blog hosting site. Repeated attempts to contact him about the problem continue to go unanswered.The only reason EFX2 is alive again (sort of) is because of ChicaX, who cared more about the blog site and its people than the man who owned the place. She wouldn't give up on it, and eventually found a way to get it running again. However, she, nor any of the other Community Leaders, have full access to to the inner workings of the place, so her fix will likely be a temporary one. To really fix the place so it will remain stable would require that full access, but this would require He Who Must Not Be Named turning over the "keys" to the place to someone who is willing to take on the responsibility.
After reading that EFX was up again, I went over to the site chat box, where several people were dancing the happy dance that it's back. There were also several blog posts conveying the same message. Though EFX2 has been up and down like an elevator in its rather short life, and He Who Must Not Be Named has shown time and time again that he's washed his hands of the place and moved on, many EFXers have chosen to naively put their blind trust yet again into a blog site that never shown any lasting stability. Though many of us created new blogs at Blogger, Wordpress, and most commonly at Vox, many EFXers will drop their new blogs like a bad habit to give their full allegiance yet again to the haphazard disaster of a site known as EFX2.
Some of these same people are also quick to defend He Who Must Not Be Named continuing to ignore requests for assistance: "maybe his computer doesn't work', "maybe he's sick", and the ever-popular, "don't complain -- at least it's FREE".
I crack up every time I hear the last excuse. What fucking good is FREE when it doesn't work at all? And I'd add that Vox is free, Blogger is free, and Wordpress is free. But they WORK. I think the hosting site working should be a basic requirement of any blog hosting site, free or not. I'd also turn that sentiment around to those who are complaining about the lack of the comment alert system at Vox and other places into "Don't complain -- at least it WORKS....and it's free, too!"
Such bloggers talk about the community feel of EFX, others talk about the convenience of comment alerts. Granted, Blogger is abysmal when it comes to interactivity, but Vox has excellent interactivity where one can easily keep up with their EFX friends. No, it doesn't have comment alerts, but it WORKS. I think having to do a little work and manually checking one's friends' blogs for new comments is a very small tradeoff for having a blog system that is there when you need it. Indeed, what use is a community feel when you can't get to the community to interact or comment alerts when you can visit the blog to read the comments?
However, unlike the last major breakdown of EFX, where nearly everyone ran back to EFX with no hesitation, I noticed that several others are like me in that they no longer trust the place and aren't so eager to carelessly abandon their new blog homes for their unfaithful lover, EFX2. Last September, I was nearly alone in urging people to continue to maintain their new blogs, as EFX was surely going to shit the bed again bigtime, sooner or later. All that time, I continued to maintain my Blogger blog, as well as one on Blog City, so when EFX hit the iceberg yet again, a couple of weeks ago, I lost NOTHING.
This time, however, several people share my caveats and I read several comments urging people to back up their blogs, maintain the new blogs they've created and, if they must absolutely have their EFX fix, to double post and not depend on EFX to be their sole blogging home.
Don't get me wrong. I love my EFX2 blog -- I'd missed my New York City skyline custom header. But I'd be an idiot to place any faith in EFX2 ever again. It's a matter of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". I'll likely double post there, but I'll not neglect my other 3 mirror blogs. It's not that hard to do mirror blogs. You write the post once and publish at one blogging site. Then you copy n' paste at the others. Simple. Doesn't take a lot of time.
Thoughts?
Driving Like It's 1975
When I'm out driving my car around town, I've noticed that most drivers around me drive as if gas is still fifty cents a gallon. Either unaware that gas is now four dollars a gallon or simply not caring, I see other drivers making little or no effort to drive in ways that would make the most of their gas mileage.Most people drive as if the speed limit is merely a suggestion, and a bad one at that. Their egos compel them to drive as fast as they can possibly get away with at all times, even when they're not in a particular hurry or running late to get somewhere.
They hurry up to red lights, then jam on their brakes at the last possible moment. When the light turns green, they jam the pedal to the floor with jackrabbit starts. They weave in and out of traffic so they can get to their destination 30 seconds faster. It's important to hurry, you know! Even when you've got no particular place to go and no particular time to be there.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend any more money at the gas station than I absolutely have to. I've got other things to spend money on than gas. I like taking my car onto the highway and driving fast, just like the next guy, but at four dollars a gallon, it won't hurt my ego any to drive the speed limit in around-town driving.
Of course, I get laid regularly, so my ego doesn't need propping up by trying to turn quiet residential streets into Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
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10 Gas Saving Tips
1. Don’t speed.
Driving 65 mph instead of 75 mph will increase your fuel economy by about 10 percent.
2. Avoid "jack rabbit" starts.
Flooring the gas pedal wastes gas and leads to drastically higher pollution rates.
3. Anticipate stops. (Don't hurry up to red lights)
Think ahead to anticipate stops so your vehicle can coast down. Accelerating hard and braking hard wastes gas, increases pollution, and wears out your brakes.
4. Keep your tires properly inflated.
For every 3 pounds below recommended pressure, fuel economy goes down by about 1 percent.
5. Avoid rush hour, if possible.
Stop-and-go driving burns gas and increases emissions of smog-forming pollutants. For hybrids that can stay in electric mode at low speeds, the effects of stop-and-go driving are greatly reduced.
6. Travel light.
An extra 100 pounds in your trunk reduces fuel economy by about 1 percent.
7. Combine trips.
Warmed-up engines run more efficiently and generate less air pollution.
8. Leave off the air conditioning, if possible.
AC increases fuel consumption, increases smog-forming NOx emissions in some vehicles, and can involve environmentally damaging fluids. At high speeds, open windows increase drag; use vents if possible. (I must admit this isn't one I follow -- I can't stand being hot. But I try to follow the others as much as possible, so I don't feel guilty about this one).
9. Check your own fuel economy every few weeks.
If you notice the numbers slipping, then think about how your driving might have changed, and consider getting a tune-up or an oil change.
10. Drive less.
Give your car a rest by taking public transportation, riding a bike, or walking. The exercise will do you good.
Local Only?
When I got a new computer last year equipped with Vista Premium, I noticed that my internet connection would sometimes degrade to something called "Local Only".I was baffled the first time I saw this. Local Only? What the fuck is that? I thought it meant that I could only access websites that originated in the area where I lived.
But I was soon disabused of that notion. I tried clicking on the site for my town's newspaper and I was just as unable to access that as I was any other website. I discovered that when the connection reads "Local Only", you can't access any websites.
A "Local Only" connection isn't any sort of a connection at all. You are, for all intents and purposes, offline. Using dial-up, when I'm reduced to "Local Only", I have to officially disconnect and then reconnect.
So, going back to my original question: What the fuck does "Local Only" mean? What purpose does it serve? On my two previous computers with Windows 95 and Windows XP, respectively, you were either online or offline. There wasn't any of this "local only" limbo, a connection that didn't connect you to anything.
Perhaps some of the techie geeks here can clear this one up for me.
Weather Rant
We've been having a heat wave here for the better part of a week. Daytime high temps are averaging ten degrees above normal for this time of year. That's the high 90s, close to 100, folks. Accompanied by high humidity, of course.I know some areas are getting it worse than me with flooding, tornadoes, and so on, but that's only scant comfort from the heat. I hate hot weather like a cat hates rain.
Up until this latest heat wave, temps had been reasonable and I'd been under the (mistaken) impression that we were going to have a mild summer.
I don't feel like doing anything but laying around under the air conditioner. I've reverted to reverse-hibernation mode, rarely going out until early evening. I'm considering moving my bed right under the air conditioning vent, as it's too sticky to even get laid right now. Now, that's HOT!
Even my cats are miserable. They're just laying around listlessly, as close to the AC vent as they can get. Neither them nor I have much of an appetite; it's too hot to eat.
Too hot to eat, too hot to fuck. That's definitely my idea of hell.
May Odds and Ends
I'm worn out from my "birthday visits" to several women, so today will be an odds and ends entry.It's cool and overcast here today, but I don't think it will rain. Perfect weather for me, as bright sunlight bothers my eyes. It would be nice if the weather would stay this way all summer, but I'm not holding my breath.
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I've added a new commercial to my "love to hate" list. It's from Hardee's, who has a history of crappy commercials. I love their burgers, but I think they have some of the most obnoxious commercials going.
This latest commercial has two scruffy looking blue collar workers eating their burgers inside their vehicle. For much of the commercial all you hear is amplified slurping and smacking which. on its own, is enough to make me lose my appetite. It certainly doesn't make me want to run out to Hardee's for a burger.
Finally, one guy says to the other, who has just finished his burger, "Are you going to eat your cheese paper?" Blech. Totally fucking gross. And I ask you, what kind of man wants to lick the cheese off another man's burger wrapping? I'm getting nauseated just thinking about it.
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On the Yahoo home page this morning, I noticed a box featuring very expensive cars. One was the Lamborghini Murcielago. Glancing at it quickly, I thought it was the Lamborghini Mucilage. You know -- that brownish-orange paste you used to use in art projects in elementary school.
I'm guessing the tires on this car really stick to the road!
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I've ranted about a TV commercial, now it's time to move on to radio. And the focus of the rant is poor enunciation.
In one ad, the announcer speaks of "assessories" one can get with a particular product. Is that stuff for your ass or is it stuff to assess the original product with?
In another spot, the announcer urged listeners to buy "bloons" supporting breast cancer research for Mother's Day. Bloons? How lazy can this mush-mouthed announcer be if she couldn't say the entire two syllable of balloons?
Thoughts?
Frustration at the Bookstore.
I've not been having very good luck recently when it comes to shopping for books.I went into the bookstore yesterday looking for a few specific books. One of the books was the second of a Star Trek trilogy and had been recently released on the 29th of April. I'd bought the first book of the trilogy in this store the day it was released, so I was surprised to see that they didn't have the book.
When I went to the front desk, they looked it up for me. They found the book on their database with a note saying that the store wouldn't be carrying that book.
WTF? Why on Earth would a bookstore carry the first book of a trilogy, then decide not to carry the other two. If they weren't going to carry all three, then there was no point in stocking the first one. And it's Star Trek; it's not as if the books won't sell.
I was also looking for the paperback release of another series of books, which again, they didn't have.
I ended up leaving the store empty handed and irritated.
My town has only one mega bookstore, in this case, Books A Million. I've noticed that they're carrying far fewer books than previously. The politics and current events section, for example has more books displayed with the front cover showing, rather than shelving them with the spines showing. The only reason to shelve in this manner is to make fewer books fill up the same amount of space.
At the same time, they've recently devoted an entire aisle on both sides to those Japanese longer-length comic books, which has taken space away from other books of a more serious nature. Catering to the lowest common denominator, yet again.
Books A Million has had a monopoly in our town for nearly ten years, as the next closest mega-bookstore is thirty miles away. Thankfully, this monopoly is about to come to an end, as a new Barnes and Noble store is currently under construction in my town. I can only hope that it will not follow the same stocking decisions as Books A Million and I'll be able to find the books I'm looking for without always having to order online.
On a related note, I went to buy a new pair of sneakers today, as I had a fifteen dollars off coupon for the store. I found the shoes I wanted, but none in my size, naturally. I'd checked online to see if that store had the style in my size before driving there, which the website assured me that it did. I guess I could order them online, but shoes are something I like to try on before I buy to make sure the fit is correct and that they're comfortable.
Thoughts?
Don't Bother Us With Facts, We Have An Image To Maintain!
Once again, I've read something that shows just how insanely absurd some of our laws can be.Last week, the Kentucky Supreme Court told a man he could no longer press the claim of paternity of his son, even though he has the incontrovertible proof of a DNA test that indicates that he is indeed the child's biological father.
Why, might you ask?
It's very simple. The child's mother was married to another man at the time of the conception and has remained married to that man throughout. The court considers holding up the image of what our society believes a marriage should be to be more important than the truth. They have decreed that in the interests of the institution of marriage, that a lie must take precedence over the truth.
Don't bother them with facts; they've got an image to maintain in Kentucky!
"As long as marriage is on the books, it must mean something," wrote Justice Bill Cunningham.
Really? Is he saying that it should mean more than the truth? I'd always thought that the law was about upholding the truth, no matter how inconvenient it may be to a society's ideals.
"We are in need of a bold declaration that the marriage circle, even one with an errant partner, will be invaded at one's own legal risk," he added. "While the legal status of marriage in this early 21st century appears to be on life support, it is not dead."
Marriage must really be in critical condition if he thinks the only way to support it is by perpetuating a lie, i.e., a "legal fiction".
But Kentucky's ruling is firmly grounded in legal history. The idea of "marital presumption" has barred attacks on the "legitimacy" of children for centuries. Courts have long held that allegations of fatherhood by third parties can only disrupt the family, confuse or embarrass the child, and unsettle the social order.
What the ruling ignored, however, is that these laws are obsolete in the face of modern technology, as in the instance of DNA tests, that can absolutely prove paternity. When such laws were adopted, there was no way to establish paternity with any certainty, thus these laws made better sense at the time.
Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson in a dissent attacking the majority's notion that the boy will be better off not knowing the truth about his parentage said, "Our world is full of inconvenient truths. We accomplish nothing for families, the broader community and our justice system when we deny those truths."
The truth is better than a lie, and the earlier the child learns the truth, the earlier he can adjust to it. I can't imagine it will be a happy moment for the boy when he inevitably finds out the truth as an adult and discovers he's been lied to all those years. His biological father isn't seeking custody or to deny him a relationship with his stepfather; he just wants to know his son, be a part of his life, and for the truth of his paternity to be formally acknowledged.
For laws to be respected and to have any relevance, they must keep pace with current realities. A law becomes obsolete and maladaptive when it is applied to circumstances that could not have existed at the time the law was enacted. To insist upon enforcing obsolete laws, even when they deny truth and perpetuate lies does not reflect the intentions of those who enacted the law with the information they had to work with at the time. Rather, it makes a mockery of the law.
Thoughts?
Don't They Have Anything Better to Do
When I think I've heard everything when it comes to certain politicians wanting to turn this country into a Nanny state, I hear something new to prove me wrong.Lawmakers in the Florida Senate have proposed a measure that would ban fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of some trucks and cars.
Republican Sen. Cary Bake called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz".
Are you kidding me? Are these legislators bored and have nothing more important to devote their attention to? Are we paying them to outlaw tacky trucks? Don't they think that the police have enough...and indeed, too many...laws to enforce already?
Personally, I've never seen a set of "Truck Nutz", But one of the female police officers I worked with had a set of fake boobs attached to the grille on the front of her personal car and I thought that was pretty funny. I'm guessing if she'd lived in Florida, these busybodies would want to ban those, too.
And though the truck owners who have these things hanging from their trucks are no doubt micro-penised weenies trying to compensate, it's a free country and if that's how they want to express themselves, they should have the right to do so.
Is it any wonder that our government is going down the tubes?
Children: Setting Healthy Boundaries vs. Breaking Their Spirits
Last night while out driving, I tuned into the Focus on the Family show, to see if they'd say something that I could use as ranty blogging fodder. Most of the show was the usual, unremarkable fundie nonsense, but one segment set me off sufficiently for me to create this entry.James Dobson was talking about kids who don't always obey their parents, using an incident with a three year old as an example. Dobson made the comment that challenging a parent's authority is the original inborn sin, i.e. evil. He elaborated that adults still carry around this "inborn sin" and the inability to obey without question is one of the things that destroys a society.
My first reaction was to wonder if Dobson thinks that God can't tell the difference between humans and sheep. Because, surely, if God wanted sheep, then there was no need for human beings to exist.
Secondly, a three year old challenging a parent's authority may be annoying, but it's neither evil nor sinful. It's the beginning of the process in which a child develops a separate identity from one's parents and is primarily a learning process. Children naturally test their boundaries in order to learn what their parents will permit. Challenging authority is also part of a child's natural curiosity to know why about everything in their world. Personally, I'd worry about a child's mental health if they were too docile.
It's a parent's role to set boundaries for their children that become increasing wider the older the child becomes. By responding to the inevitable challenges to their authority in a teaching spirit, rather than in a punitive one, it helps a child make sense of their world, to learn to reason, and to acquire a mature sense of ethics and morality that isn't based on fear of punishment. And, it enables them to stand up for what is right, rather than blindly following authority for its own sake.
Parents setting healthy, common-sense boundaries for their children does not involve breaking their spirits as Dobson seems to believe. Indeed, the prevalence of an authoritarian parenting style in Germany in the early 20th century was no doubt a large part of why Hitler was able to take over the country and control it for 12 years, as most Germans had been conditioned as children to obey authority unquestioningly.
Thoughts?
Thick Southern Accent = Doomed to Failure?
I haven't ragged on my favorite self-righteous elitist, Neal Boortz, in some time. I listened to him the other night and he kindly supplied me with something to rant about.Boortz was talking about a news story where a chunk of green ice from a plane's toilet had fallen out of the plane and ended up going through the roof of a tire business in a small town in Georgia.
Boortz included this story in his show in order to make fun of the accents of the store owner and his ten year old son, who were both interviewed by the news crew. The emphasis was on the nearly incomprehensibly thick hillbilly accent the little boy had. He went as far as to play clips of the father and son talking, so that the audience could have a good laugh at their expense. Boortz lamented the fact that they were interviewed at all because, in his opinion, such people make all Southerners look like "blithering idiots".
He then noted that any time there is some sort of disaster in the south, be it floods, tornadoes, or whatever, that the news people invariably interview hillbillies, whom Boortz thinks apparently come down from the hills for the sole purpose of embarrassing their more patrician Southern neighbors.
I have to admit that he's right when he points out that interviews with redneck types are practically ubiquitous when it comes to news coverage of various types of disasters. But I'm guessing the news crews interview such people because such disasters tend to happen in the neighborhoods where they live. There's no point in interviewing the Snooty McRichpants types when no disaster has befallen their exclusive gated communities. The point is to get accounts from people who actually were affected by such disasters.
But this wasn't the part of Boortz' show that pissed me off. After making fun of the little boy and his father, he went on to say that children with such thick country accents ought to be taken away from their parents, because failing to teach their children proper English and demonstrating it in everyday use, that such parents were committing child abuse.
Why would allowing a child to speak in the local accent constitute as child abuse, you might ask?
If you're a regular Boortz listener, it's simple. He believes that speaking with such a thick accent will prevent the boy from ever being a success in life, regardless of his actual intelligence. He predicted the boy would never have a job any better than selling bait to fishermen in a bait shop. Never mind that the father was a successful business owner of a tire shop and the son could likely inherit that business from his father one day and be able to support a family quite nicely with profits from that business.
But that would only allow the boy to live a middle class life, which,to Boortz, is being a "failure". If one doesn't aspire to be a millionaire with a high-powered corporate job, then that person is a loser in Boortz' eyes. I don't know about you, but I think an honest tire store owner is more relevant and useful in my life than some rich, fat cat CEO.
Boortz also ignored the fact that many people can read and write perfectly well, despite having thick accents of varying kinds. When I was on the police force, several of the lawyers in town had thick, countrified accents that made a Yankee like me wonder if they'd just fallen off the hay truck. But I quickly learned it was a mistake to underestimate such lawyers, as they'd wipe the floor with you in court if you did. After hearing this, it made me wish that Boortz, who was a lawyer before becoming a radio pest, had gone against one of these lawyers in court and been made an ass out of in court.
It also never occurred to him that a better solution to teach children proper English would be to improve local schools, not to take them away from otherwise good parents. Indeed, did it even matter to Boortz that this boy's parents were likely loving parents capable of raising him to be a man with good character, despite their apparent shortcomings in English grammar and enunciation?.
Thoughts?
Academic Stage Parents
I was uninspired about what to write today, but while reading an entry at Sorting It Out, I was inspired by what he had to say. You can read his take on the subject on his blog, but I will reproduce my experience of it here, which grew from the comment I made on his blog.Most of you who are parents are familiar with the science fairs that most schools have each year. During his school years starting in the late 80s, my son was expected to do some sort of science project each year for the fair. These fairs were heavily promoted by the school, with family and friends duly turning out to see the science projects, which would then be judged by scientific soundness, originality, and so on.
The entire point of these fairs was to have children learn something about how science worked and to see how it applied to their everyday lives.
Or so I thought.
What made the science fairs at my son's school totally suck back then was the fact that most kids' projects were done by their PARENTS for them, in the hopes of winning first prize. Very few were done by the kids themselves and very few kids had actually learned anything, as their parents had shunted them aside to make the perfect project for them.
As for me, I'd rather see a science fair actually done by the kids themselves, however makeshift or primitive they would look. At least then the kids would be actually learning something and meeting the goal of why schools hold these fairs in the first place.
I made my son do his projects himself, knowing full well he had no chance in hell of ever winning the prize. But he damned sure learned something about science doing these projects, which made him the winner in my book.
Thoughts?
Wednesday Rants
Today, I have a grab-bag of rants, all heard on the radio.The first is an increasingly common element I'm hearing on radio commercials. As an announcer speaks, one hears an amplified, steady bass drum beat in the background, sometimes alone and sometimes with a repeating loop of three notes or so from a guitar or wind instrument. The announcer talks at a fairly fast pace, and is nearly drowned out by the incessant, "WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP" in the background.
To me, there's nothing that says "cheesy, homemade commercial" quite like the "wump, wump" machine going in the background. One of the most recent offenders in this category I've heard in the last week is an ad for a local car dealership. This commercial has the ubiquitous yelling announcer along with the wumping bass drum, which combined together has all the necessary elements for classically tacky commercial. A second ad is one for a local gym, which has a similarly slick and sleazy effect. But the last one is an ad for Petco "Where the Pets Go". This commercial would have been an OK ad, except for the addition of the "wump, wump" effect. The only thing I can figure is that the "wump, wump" machine must be the latest ad agency gimmick.
__________________________________
About a week ago, I heard a song that's been on my "Songs I Love to Hate" list since it was first released, nearly 30 years ago:
"You Can't Change That" by Ray Parker and Raydio
What I hate about this song is that the line, "You can't change that" is repeated 28 times during the course of the song. I know, because I counted.
After about the sixth, "you can't change that", I DO "change that"...the radio station, that is.
____________________________
Next, is my newest addition to the "Songs I Love to Hate" list:
"That's the Way It Is" by Celine Dion
Basically, this is a fairly unremarkable song; pretty much of a yawner. What grinds my gears about this song is her enunciation of the words, particularly the word "love"
One line is:
"So don't surrender 'cause you can win
In this thing called lo-o-o-o-ve"
The problem is that she sings the drawn-out "lo-o-o-o-o-ve" as "ler-her-herve"
"Ler-her-herve"? What in the fuck is "ler-her-herve"?!
The damned woman sounds like she doesn't know if she should sing or hock up a loogie!
As always, feel free to mention commercials or songs that you love to hate in the comment box.
Proposed New Law Takes the Cake. Literally.
In recent years, many new laws have been proposed, and some passed, that are what I consider to be creeping nannyism in our society. That is, the government has been inappropriately intruding into the private behavior of adults that does not affect the rights of others.But what I read most recently takes the cake. Literally.
In January, Mississippi House Representatives W. T. Mayhall, Jr., John Read, and Bobby Shows introduced HR 282, which would prohibit state-licensed food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese based on criteria prescribed by the Mississippi State Department of Health. That means anybody with a BMI of 30 or above won't be able to eat with everybody else.
As well as being blatant discrimination, it would restrict the rights to restaurants to do business and would put restaurant workers in the inappropriate position of having to determine the health status of potential customers, a role for which they would be grossly underqualified. Let's not even begin to address the fact that one's weight, either fat or thin, does not always accurately measure a person's health.
And what's next? Will smokers have to prove they don't have emphysema to buy a pack of smokes, and drinkers have to prove they are not alcoholics before buying a six-pack? And let's not forget, that while smokers and drinkers don't have to engage in those behaviors to survive, even fat people have to eat.
The government has no business acting in a parental role for adults who have not been judged to be mentally incompetent. In a free society, competent adults have the right and the responsibility to make decisions about their own health and that includes the right to make what many other people would consider to be the WRONG choice.
Thoughts?
Elitist Voters
Ok, it's time to rag on Neal Boortz again.I listened to him the other night and he was elaborating on his theme that some people ought to be prevented from voting. (See my post, "The Dumbass Voter".)
In his most recent rant on this topic, he lamented that so many "non-achievers", whom he also referred to as "losers", "dregs", "worthless", and "useless", were allowed to vote, mainly because they would likely vote for Democrats.
He stated his wish that only "achievers" be allowed to vote. An "achiever", according to Boortz, is not simply a person who has a regular job. And full-time parenting or volunteer work is entirely off Boortz' radar. I'm sure he also cannot conceive of achievement that does not involve making money. Rather, an achiever in his book is a workaholic who works 60+ hours a week, at a high-paying, high-status job. People more likely to vote Republican, that is.
Boortz even complained about voting day being on Tuesday -- he saw this as a conspiracy against "achievers" who cannot leave their jobs in order to vote on a work day, despite 12 hours being available for that purpose.
This is all part of his continuing lament that rich people are badly done to in our society; that "losers" are simply "insanely jealous of rich people", when they suggest that not all rich people are hard-working paragons who deserve every penny of the money they have. Apparently inheritance, dirty business practices, favoritism, and nepotism do not exist in Boortz' world. He is ready to believe any negative stereotype as being typical of all poor people, without exception, but woe to the person that even suggests that even a fraction of rich people are rich because they inherited the money or got a good job because their golf buddy down at the country club put in a good word for them.
And of course, middle class and poor people are "ignorant losers" to him when they dare to vote for their own interests instead of voting to favor the rich or big business.
He also continued with his ongoing assertion that poor people are poor because they "choose" to be poor; that they're just simply too damned lazy to be rich. In his world, every person who works hard will become rich and, presumably, start voting Republican. And he believes they can do it all by themselves with no help from anyone or the government. Of course, it's completely out of his ken that some people might be satisfied with making a moderate amount of money and value things other than making the most amount of money possible.
My father grew up desperately poor during the Depression. His father was a tenant farmer, which is one small step above a sharecropper. After serving in World War II, he got an office job with a major oil corporation and, over the years, made his way up the ladder to a respectable mid-level executive position, after getting his BS in Business Administration. My father never became rich, but achieved a solid upper middle class position. But compared to his childhood origins, he was rich indeed.
But he didn't do it all by himself, with no help from people or the government. First, he had parents who believed in him and allowed him to finish high school, in a time and place where most lower-class children quit school as early as possible to help support the family. Secondly, he got his job with the oil corporation in part because my mother's father put in a good word for him. Third, he'd have not been able to go to college at all if not for the government and the GI Bill.
And my father, though an "achiever" in Boortz' book, never once voted Republican. Though he traveled far from his humble roots, he never forget where he came from and how it was for those left behind. Grateful for the help he got along the way, he realized that many good, hard-working people weren't fortunate enough to get the breaks that he'd gotten. When I was a kid, he told me that Democrats looked out for the little guy, while Republicans helped the rich get richer. He said he'd cast his first vote for Harry Truman in 1948 and he'd seen no reason to switch parties as the years went by.
If Boortz had his way, he'd have us return to when our country was new and only propertied white men -- the rich of that time -- were allowed to vote. And a country like that would be little more than serfdom for the rest of us.
Do you want to live in a world like that? I don't. I might hate when dumbasses vote for candidates I don't like, but I think it's a small price to pay for a free society.
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