As I was driving in to work today I noticed an annoyance on the road. Like a bee inching closer to a comfortable seat at a picnic, a car was slowly creeping up on my bumper…in the SLOW lane. Don’t ask me why, but the closing in of a front fender in my rear view mirror slowly (and in proportion to the closeness of the car) raises my blood pressure. Perhaps it is because I do that thing where I imagine what might happen. I might have to stop suddenly due to someone in front of me stopping suddenly, and this ass hole will ram into me crunching my bumper like tin foil. I will be sitting there rendered unable to turn my head to face her as she runs up to my window screaming “why in the hell did you stop so suddenly you %#@ing &*#@ head!!?” And I won’t even be able to answer that the reason is the same reason that SHE stopped suddenly, that I was too close to the car in front of me. The reason I can’t answer is because her stupid face wont stop yelling at me and trying to punch my windows while I sit in agony realizing I won’t be able to go to the gym for a week because my back and neck are injured.
None of that happened of course I just made it up, which in turn made my blood pressure go up, see?
So, eventually I saw my exit and proceeded to dramatically get off of the highway to make my point that she was too close. She didn’t notice because she was singing and as she drove on past I spotted her bumper stickers. Excellent, I thought, I can read said bumper stickers and consequently judge her as a person based on their contents. As I scanned the back of her car, suddenly EUREKA! I found it. A giant UofL decal! “Typical, no wonder she drives like an ass hole.” I thought to myself.
But almost immediately I realized what I had just done. I had grouped her and made a judgment about her character based on her membership in that group. There is a name for that….oh yes “Prejudice.”
People love to say “all of so and so’s fans are _________.” No they aren’t, they are all individual people cheering for their team. There are the wealthy ones who buy all the over priced team gear, sit in the best seats and can actually get just as out of hand as the country folk. There are the drunken fools who spill beer and yell insults at the ref about everything from their mom to their hair style. There are cute little kids, of all races, ages and class who will become the next generations of fans. We all have bad eggs who make the group as a whole look bad but that is no reason to judge the entire group. There is a small group of Muslims who are extreme terrorists and do awful things, but they are just that, a small group of bad eggs which most Muslims will tell you do NOT represent the groups’ feelings and beliefs.
The only difference between you and someone else is your god given personality combined with the way you were raised. Skin color doesn’t change who a person is inside and neither does the sports team which they happen to root for. It also doesn’t change their driving abilities, that comes from something else entirely.
Prejudice stems from a variety of places, but mostly it is a very ugly learned behavior, passed down through the ages because people have a need to feel better than others. I caught myself doing it today and wanted to call myself out because in discussing ugly behaviors we bring forward the reasons they exist and hopefully make our society more cohesive in the long run.
So, now that I don’t have a simple excuse for the lady who rode my bumper today, I can use my overactive imagination to decipher her reasons for doing so. She was listening to Journey and got a heavy foot picturing herself on Route 66 with the wind in her hair? She has dyslexia and gets confused on whether the far right or far left lane is the fast one? Perhaps she was trying to read MY bumper stickers and form judgments about me? Regardless, I thank her for being an inconsiderate driver because she really made me think today!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Religious Uniformity!!
Now, at the end of times, when the government is falling to pieces before our very eyes, buildings and churches are burning in flames and lawlessness has run amok so severely that we aren’t safe from ignored doggie poop in our own neighborhoods, NOW is the time to return to the good old days when religion was in bed with the government….literally.
Christians were persecuted during the Roman Empire, so it is time to get justice!! The tables have been turned and there are too many of us now. This will solve all our moral issues in this country because people who are Christian are automatically moral people! They don’t do things wrong. I mean you would never hear of a priest say, molesting anyone. Or of a conservative Christian cheating on his wife in one of those gay sex scandals, no, no no. It just doesn’t happen my friends.
Uh oh, what happens if Christianity no longer becomes the majority religion in this country? Will I have to worship Buddah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you ask? Nah, that is the beauty of having government intertwined with religion, we can TELL people to believe what we want them to believe!!
Conversely there are no good people in other religions, they just all bomb stuff with their terror bombs so having a Christian government is certainly the way to go for our country, and well probably every country.
Seems to me that most people will be accepting of this arrangement. So much so that perhaps we should impose our opinions and beliefs on the rest of the world. We will call it the “Great Crusade.” That is “ade” with a long aahh, as in the word façade, so it’s different from that other one, see?
This will allow us to get rid of that pesky gay marriage issue once and for all when the government itself is a Christian one! After all, a same sex marriage and partnership is NOT in God’s plan. God’s plan was to create life and love and then have humans procreate. They would then grow distant enough from God to become sinful. So then the plan was to wipe out all those people with a flood, and again allow humans to procreate, this time to a disturbingly massive number which damages the planet to the point of our own extinction. Then the plan is to take back the rainbow from the gays ( I assume by wiping them all out with another flood on pride day when they are gathered together to fornicate.) Then straight humans can go on overpopulating until I think God will just create another earth! Twin earths, how cool. Gayless twin earths.
The founding fathers meant for this to be a Christian nation with good old Christian values and who are we to challenge that? They were right about every thing, and EVERY thing should be restored in order to save this country from imploding. I mean, who doesn’t miss slavery? Slavery is fun! And I don’t really need to vote, especially when it’s cold and rainy in November. NO fun.
I’m sure everyone will agree on MY denomination, I mean it is the best. If people are pushy about being able to choose a denomination, then perhaps each state could adopt it’s own. I just hope that my group doesn’t end up in Alaska…I hate the cold.
Christians were persecuted during the Roman Empire, so it is time to get justice!! The tables have been turned and there are too many of us now. This will solve all our moral issues in this country because people who are Christian are automatically moral people! They don’t do things wrong. I mean you would never hear of a priest say, molesting anyone. Or of a conservative Christian cheating on his wife in one of those gay sex scandals, no, no no. It just doesn’t happen my friends.
Uh oh, what happens if Christianity no longer becomes the majority religion in this country? Will I have to worship Buddah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you ask? Nah, that is the beauty of having government intertwined with religion, we can TELL people to believe what we want them to believe!!
Conversely there are no good people in other religions, they just all bomb stuff with their terror bombs so having a Christian government is certainly the way to go for our country, and well probably every country.
Seems to me that most people will be accepting of this arrangement. So much so that perhaps we should impose our opinions and beliefs on the rest of the world. We will call it the “Great Crusade.” That is “ade” with a long aahh, as in the word façade, so it’s different from that other one, see?
This will allow us to get rid of that pesky gay marriage issue once and for all when the government itself is a Christian one! After all, a same sex marriage and partnership is NOT in God’s plan. God’s plan was to create life and love and then have humans procreate. They would then grow distant enough from God to become sinful. So then the plan was to wipe out all those people with a flood, and again allow humans to procreate, this time to a disturbingly massive number which damages the planet to the point of our own extinction. Then the plan is to take back the rainbow from the gays ( I assume by wiping them all out with another flood on pride day when they are gathered together to fornicate.) Then straight humans can go on overpopulating until I think God will just create another earth! Twin earths, how cool. Gayless twin earths.
The founding fathers meant for this to be a Christian nation with good old Christian values and who are we to challenge that? They were right about every thing, and EVERY thing should be restored in order to save this country from imploding. I mean, who doesn’t miss slavery? Slavery is fun! And I don’t really need to vote, especially when it’s cold and rainy in November. NO fun.
I’m sure everyone will agree on MY denomination, I mean it is the best. If people are pushy about being able to choose a denomination, then perhaps each state could adopt it’s own. I just hope that my group doesn’t end up in Alaska…I hate the cold.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Pets
Anyone who knows my cat, Sammy, knows that she is an extremely vocal cat. Sammy screams for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s when she wants to be let into her room where her food and litterbox are so that she can do her business. When the dog gets too close for her liking (usually within about 1 foot) she will scream and smack. She screams as she runs into the room to announce her presence. This is especially hysterical because the running scream becomes a staccato noise. Mah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. When Sammy is hungry (which is all the damn day) she screams and it gets louder and louder the closer I get to the food bowl. maaw, Awww, AAWWWW, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW!!! If you enter a room which Sammy has already occupied for the purpose of sleeping or self cleaning, then she will scream at you to let you know that she was there first. Pick her up, Scream. Pet her, Scream. Look at her, Scream! The noise sounds like a baby banshee crying in anguish.
Anyone who knows my dog, Koda, knows that she has OCD. She has a severe obsession with her tiny tennis ball from PetSmart (henceforth to be known as “Ballie.”) Ballie is the source of endless amusement for Koda. Throw it for her and you will be her best friend. She never, and I repeat never gets tired of that game…even if you do. Spread out a blanket on the floor and Koda will carefully fold ballie into the covers and then search for the buried treasure. Ballie can be hidden in Koda’s toy box and she will remove every toy in search of the precious thing and then parade it around the house with pride to show us how she retrieved it. Her most beloved game (and most hated by us) is playing “Risk.” Risk involves nudging the ballie gently towards the couch/bed/dresser (anything it could get stuck underneath) and trying to catch it before it goes under. If she is unsuccessful it has to be retrieved in other ways (i.e. barking at it until we get it out.) Koda will even take Ballie to eat/drink with her, which means that ballie waits patiently IN the water bowl while Koda drinks. The result is that eventually every ballie turns into “ugly ballie” and must be surreptitiously replaced with a new one.
This past weekend I took Koda out for a walk around the back of the condo and I noticed a ballie laying in the grass like a fuzzy neon Easter Egg. Apparently a game of Risk ended in ballie rolling off of the deck which is a frequent issue (which has recently been resolved thanks to crafty Cristy.) I led her over to grab ballie and while I was trying to help Koda sniff out the now nasty thing so she could carry it in all of a sudden I hear from above me “MMAAWWWWWWW!” I look up to see Sammy’s chubby cheeks staring down over the railing off of the deck. So I can now add to the list in the top paragraph that Sammy also screams when she can look down on you in disgust.
Anyone who knows my pets knows that they are so weird.
Anyone who knows my dog, Koda, knows that she has OCD. She has a severe obsession with her tiny tennis ball from PetSmart (henceforth to be known as “Ballie.”) Ballie is the source of endless amusement for Koda. Throw it for her and you will be her best friend. She never, and I repeat never gets tired of that game…even if you do. Spread out a blanket on the floor and Koda will carefully fold ballie into the covers and then search for the buried treasure. Ballie can be hidden in Koda’s toy box and she will remove every toy in search of the precious thing and then parade it around the house with pride to show us how she retrieved it. Her most beloved game (and most hated by us) is playing “Risk.” Risk involves nudging the ballie gently towards the couch/bed/dresser (anything it could get stuck underneath) and trying to catch it before it goes under. If she is unsuccessful it has to be retrieved in other ways (i.e. barking at it until we get it out.) Koda will even take Ballie to eat/drink with her, which means that ballie waits patiently IN the water bowl while Koda drinks. The result is that eventually every ballie turns into “ugly ballie” and must be surreptitiously replaced with a new one.
This past weekend I took Koda out for a walk around the back of the condo and I noticed a ballie laying in the grass like a fuzzy neon Easter Egg. Apparently a game of Risk ended in ballie rolling off of the deck which is a frequent issue (which has recently been resolved thanks to crafty Cristy.) I led her over to grab ballie and while I was trying to help Koda sniff out the now nasty thing so she could carry it in all of a sudden I hear from above me “MMAAWWWWWWW!” I look up to see Sammy’s chubby cheeks staring down over the railing off of the deck. So I can now add to the list in the top paragraph that Sammy also screams when she can look down on you in disgust.
Anyone who knows my pets knows that they are so weird.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Political Rant
Frustrated!
*My appologies for all of the political/non-funny subject matter of late. I try to put these things on my blog rather than on Facebook because I assume that those who read my blog are familiar with my political leanings and are thus less likely to become offended. I promise to post something funny and light hearted soon*
Surveys on facebook thankfully have no scientific value and are not published as statistics, however a recent one grabbed my attention. The question is “Should people receiving government benefits such as welfare have to be drug tested?” An overwhelming majority of people replied yes.
Who do you think the majority of people who benefit from welfare are? Children. And do those children decide to be born to parents who can not provide for themselves and their families? No they do not. They have absolutely no say and if their parent can’t feed them because said parent smoked pot last week and failed a mandated drug test, then that child is helpless.
As a liberal I am frequently accused of having a “bleeding heart,” among other things, but as a liberal I can safely speak for most other liberals I know in saying that we are not under the delusion that the welfare/medicare/WIC/Foodstamps sytem is perfect. It is absolutely flawed and at times encourages recipients to stay in their current situation.
In my opinion, one of the best ways to start moving in the right direction would be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, thus reducing the number of people dependent on the system to begin with. There are far too many people in this country and on this planet having children who simply do not need to be having children.
So, in walks Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization which relies heavily on the government but also on private donations (mine included.) They provide birth control, condoms, counseling, pap smears, information and support, along with occasionally providing help with abortions when needed throughout the country. However here come the political issues:
Currently our system would appear to reward people who have multiple children. This is a flaw in the system which needs to be overcome.
Additionally, our government is currently going through a massive budget overhaul, in which they are attempting to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. PP is demonized for the abortion side of its business, a very small part of the organization which receives absolutely NO federal benefits as it is.
So, in order to save money, we are cutting funds for an organization that ultimately saves our country healthcare costs, saves lives, and decreases the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country thereby reducing the number of people relying on government funding. WTF? This frustrates me, and now I have said my piece about it.
*My appologies for all of the political/non-funny subject matter of late. I try to put these things on my blog rather than on Facebook because I assume that those who read my blog are familiar with my political leanings and are thus less likely to become offended. I promise to post something funny and light hearted soon*
Surveys on facebook thankfully have no scientific value and are not published as statistics, however a recent one grabbed my attention. The question is “Should people receiving government benefits such as welfare have to be drug tested?” An overwhelming majority of people replied yes.
Who do you think the majority of people who benefit from welfare are? Children. And do those children decide to be born to parents who can not provide for themselves and their families? No they do not. They have absolutely no say and if their parent can’t feed them because said parent smoked pot last week and failed a mandated drug test, then that child is helpless.
As a liberal I am frequently accused of having a “bleeding heart,” among other things, but as a liberal I can safely speak for most other liberals I know in saying that we are not under the delusion that the welfare/medicare/WIC/Foodstamps sytem is perfect. It is absolutely flawed and at times encourages recipients to stay in their current situation.
In my opinion, one of the best ways to start moving in the right direction would be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, thus reducing the number of people dependent on the system to begin with. There are far too many people in this country and on this planet having children who simply do not need to be having children.
So, in walks Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization which relies heavily on the government but also on private donations (mine included.) They provide birth control, condoms, counseling, pap smears, information and support, along with occasionally providing help with abortions when needed throughout the country. However here come the political issues:
Currently our system would appear to reward people who have multiple children. This is a flaw in the system which needs to be overcome.
Additionally, our government is currently going through a massive budget overhaul, in which they are attempting to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. PP is demonized for the abortion side of its business, a very small part of the organization which receives absolutely NO federal benefits as it is.
So, in order to save money, we are cutting funds for an organization that ultimately saves our country healthcare costs, saves lives, and decreases the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country thereby reducing the number of people relying on government funding. WTF? This frustrates me, and now I have said my piece about it.
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