Category: Random Thoughts

Hey, I’m just writing down what the voices tell me to.

(These are the longer, more complicated random thoughts. For the shorter 140-characaters-at-a-time version, follow me on Twitter.)

A modern redneck’s guide to modern life…

These times, they are a-changin. And changing fast. Sometimes it’s easy to get left behind, and not know how to behave in this brave new world we live in. Here then are a few pointers for those of us having difficulty coping….

1) It’s okay to use the word “gay”, but only for things that are actually gay, for example “A rainbow colored White House is so gay.” It’s not okay to use “gay” to mean lame, as in “A rainbow colored White House is so gay.”

2) You no longer need to say “gay marriage” as now simply “marriage” includes both “straight marriage”, “gay marriage”, and “puppy-dog-kitty-cat marriage”. If you still need to make the distinction in conversation, try something like “all dude marriage” or “chick marriage”

3) Your rebel flag is no longer socially acceptable. This doesn’t mean it can’t still be part of your life. While official state sanctioned displays may be gone, personal displays are still okay. Just remember, the more people see it, the more people will wonder if you’re a racist. A small banner underneath stating your actual racistness, for example “100% Southern, 60% Racist”, will save a lot of questions. Or, consider instead a private in-home display. I recommend a tasteful display on your bedroom wall, right next to your Rhodesia flag.

4) Most other expressions of Southern Pride are still acceptable, but be aware of the occasion and your audience. For example, shouting “Yeehaw!” is still acceptable in many situations, but there are exceptions. For example, shouting “Yeehaw!” is now considered to be in bad taste during a cross burning. Those are meant to be solemn affairs. You can still have fun, but please keep a sense of decorum. Also funerals.

5) And lastly… Sorry, but public lynchings are still a major faux pass. Try to avoid if possible. But if unavoidable, please keep the “yeehaw’s” to a minimum, and be sure to send thank-you notes to all involved afterwards.

A quick conversation about a certain flag…

“We should ban the flag, it represents the losing side of a horrible war that nearly destroyed our county, and many people see it as a symbol of hatred and racism.”

“No, we should keep the flag, it’s not about hate. It’s a symbol of our heritage, it represents the pride we have in our culture, our values, our way of life.”

— a conversation that never happened in post-war Germany

Baltimore Explained

I’ve been looking through the pictures of the rioting and looting in Baltimore, trying to make some sense of it, and all I’ve come up with is this. All the pictures of looters show them coming out of the stores with toilet paper. Seriously, along with whatever else, they’re all grabbing TP. All of them. We may be missing an important and critical aspect of this story. Nobody talks about it, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. And if you gotta go, you gotta have that paper. If the people in Baltimore need toilet paper so badly they’re willing to burn down their city to get it, maybe we should listen. If we can break the cycle of violence with a few multi-packs of Angel Soft, maybe that’s a price worth paying. Hey, if it stops the rioting, I’m willing to send in a roll or two. Who’s with me? ‪#‎TP4Baltimore‬‪ #‎EveryWipeIsImportant‬

Save the Christians

I recently saw a post on Facebook of a cartoon, it depicted a handful of protesters/activists/whatever holding up signs saying save this species or save that species or save this other species, while basically lamenting that no one was interested in saving the Christians. This is just one example of many with this same theme, the Endangered Christian.

Okay, here’s the thing… Christians are NOT an endangered species. There are nearly two and a half billion (that’s “billion” with a “B”) of them on the planet. There are more Christians than any other flavor of human. BY FAR. If you are Christian, you don’t get to play the oppressed minority. You ARE the majority. You ARE the culture. You ARE the dominant force in our society. You’ve won.

Need proof? Look at your money. The single most important non-religious artifact in our society, and you get to stamp the name of your God all over it. And speaking of money, we let you operate multi-billion (that’s “billion”, with a “B”) dollar industries, doing pretty much whatever you want, unregulated and TAX FREE. No one else gets that deal. No one.

Look, just because we may occasionally stop you from forcing some of your more onerous Christian beliefs on the rest of us, that does not mean that you’re endangered. No one needs to save you from the brink of extinction. If anything, we need saving FROM Christians. Too many Christians just aren’t happy unless their spreading their Christianness all over the rest of us, whether we want it or not. God, please save us from the Christians who are attempting to save us.

Seriously, you are free to do anything you like. Whatever your God requires of you, do it. But you are NOT free to require the same from the rest of us. You decide what’s right for you. Not for me. Just you. Your rights end where my life begins. This is not oppression. This is freedom. Thank God for freedom!

Web Sites Which Publish Fake News and Other Hoaxes

http://www.fortliberty.org/hoax-sites.html

That “news” article you read on Facebook that has you all worked up? Guess what? It was total bullshit.

These sites make serious money publishing bullshit. And by reading the bullshit, commenting on the bullshit, and re-posting the bullshit, you’re helping them make even more money. So they can publish even more bullshit.

It’s a vicious bullshit cycle. Please, break the loop. Stop feeding on the bullshit.

Seth Meyer has ruined Venn Diagram Humor (Not that it matters)

So, for my first foray into the post-Craig-Ferguson late-night tele-pocalypse, I thought I’d try watching Seth Meyer’s version of the Late Night show over on NBC. (Not much choice, CBS apparently gave up on guest hosts for the remaining LLS and went with reruns of “The Talk”. Talk about a late-night hellscape… but I digress.)

Anyhow, I enjoyed Seth’s work on Weekend Update, and the few bits and pieces I’ve glimpsed have seemed promising, so, what the heck, let’s give it a shot. This night he was following the standard Carson formula, in between the monologue and the first guest you do a behind-the-desk bit. His bit this night was Venn diagrams…

Okay, an easy enough premise, reveal circle one and circle two, each containing seemingly unrelated things, then reveal the intersection containing the punchline that relates the two. Okay, fine. Nevermind that this shtick is all over the Internet already, that’s okay, it’s everywhere because it works. It can be funny with the right writing.

Here’s the problem with Seth’s Venn diagrams. With almost every single one, the intersection containing the punchline wasn’t a proper intersection at all. Out of maybe a dozen or more, there were two, only two, that could be considered intersections. The rest were all supersets. Now, the bit could have been just as funny if the punchlines were presented as supersets. Funny and mathematically correct. As it was, the punchlines were funny, but their inaccuracy in the diagram was absolutely grating.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I don’t care that Seth Meyers doesn’t understand Venn diagrams. I could care less. What bothers me is that he would attempt using Venn diagrams in bit without understanding them. If you make jokes about things you don’t understand you’re likely to get the details wrong, and that detracts from whatever humor was in the joke. Rookie mistake. I can’t believe in a whole room of writers there’s not one nerd who would catch that.

Even that shouldn’t matter, but I know me, it will. From now on, if I happen to flip over to Late Night, I’ll be like, there’s the idiot who does Venn diagrams when he knows fuck all about how they actually work, and I just can’t respect that. Sorry Seth.

So the search continues. I’m telling you guys, Netflix is looking better and better….

Vaccinate. Your. Children.

It’s not a matter of choice, or of preference, or of belief…

The simple truth is this — if you do not vaccinate your children, you are putting other people’s children at risk. Period. Other children MAY DIE, as a direct result of your action. If you have a legitimate reason to not vaccinate (immune deficiency, allergy, etc), then it is just unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. We will not hold it against you.

On the other hand, if you do not have a legitimate reason, if you are acting only out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, or worse, out of “belief”, then you are, quite simply, a despicable human being. You can “believe” anything you like, but when your “belief” causes harm to others, it becomes a problem. The word we usually use to describe such a problem is “evil”. If you unnecessarily risk the lives of others, you are evil. That’s it, evil. It really is that simple. There is no way around that truth.

Don’t be evil.

Easy-Bake Oven

A recent discussion on kids and gender identity reminded me of an incident from my childhood.

When I was a little kid, I wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. Now, my parents were generally pretty tolerant of whatever weirdness I threw at them, but apparently this is where they drew the line. I can picture my dad saying “No son of mine is going to play with an Easy-Bake Oven.”

But…. I don’t think they “got” why I wanted it. It’s not that I wanted to play housewife, pretending I was cooking and baking in the kitchen all day. (Not that there would be anything wrong with it if I did, but that wasn’t it.) Here’s the thing: These things made REAL cakes.

Now, mom might bake a cake once in a blue moon, and I understood they were a lot of trouble to make, but they were delicious. But now, thanks to modern toy science, here was this machine, made just for kids, that could bake a little tiny cake. I could make it myself. All by myself. At any time. Think about it… I could have cake ANY TIME I WANTED. I love cake. This. Changed. Everything.

Seriously, this was a game-changer. No more waiting, no more begging mom, I could have cake whenever I wanted, thanks to this little miracle of a machine. I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but if kids could do it, how hard could it be? I was excited, downright giddy over the possibilities.

But alas, it was never to be. I never got my Easy-Bake Oven. And all because they just didn’t understand. I didn’t want to play at being a mom. I just wanted cake.