Wednesday, May 28, 2014

50 First Dates: Nice Guys Need to Finish


There was shooting over the weekend in Isla Vista, CA. You may not have noticed, since there are about 30 gun deaths a day in the US, and one mass shooting a month since this year, 187 total since 2006. That’s an average of two per month. All this math would be fun to do, were it not for that fact that every number represents someone’s life.
Morpheus knows what's up.

In Isla Vista, 13 were injured, and six people, George Chen, Katie Cooper, Chen Yuan Hong, Christopher Michael-Martinez, Weihan Wang, and  Veronika Weiss, were killed. The shooter apparently shot himself. This would be about the time I rag on the NRA and talk about arming every citizen to make the US “safer”. I’ll just say this: I never heard a fireman say that the best way to prevent more fire deaths is to give absolutely everyone over the age of 5 a flamethrower.

There was a groundswell of outrage, not as much about flimsy gun laws than about the shooter’s basis for attacking. He wrote a 140-page manifesto full of rage and angst. He even released a video mapping out his plan. If you don’t want to read the rantings of a murderer, He was livid over the fact that he was still a virgin at the age of 22, how he’d never so much as held a girl’s hand. Most of all, he was enraged over the fact that such beautiful girls were repulsed by him, the “supreme gentlemen”, yet so attracted to obnoxious douchebags. In short, he was the ultimate Nice Guy™.

-_- Such a peach.
Nice Guys™ are “men” who feel they deserve the affection of women with whom they interact because they were respectful to them and didn’t act sexually aggressive to them. They always blame everyone else (mostly “heartless bitches” and “alpha douchebags”) for their own loneliness instead of their inflated sense of entitlement for doing acts of kindness that they should have been doing in the first place. In general, men ARE entitled. It’s a matter of whether and individual man is aware or actually thinks that entitlement is justified. If you think that is bull, if you are a man reading this, think about the last time you felt the need give a fake number to a woman because you feared that she might act physically aggressively if you just said, “Sorry, I’m not interested”. For that matter, when was the last time you felt the need to apologise for not being interested in someone?  Men are privileged to wear what they want without getting cat-called or shamed. We’re not that funny, but women will laugh anyway, because they don’t and to be called “bitch” for not. Nice Guys™ specifically have the delusion that nice acts and respect for a woman should yield sex, not companionship (which also isn’t deserved for just being Nice™), but sex. They believe that a women who DON’T choose them are not “virtuous”, since they didn't pick the “obvious” right choice: them. The Nice Guy™ is part of the reason why women feel the need to let men down easily, in order to preserve their egos and feelings...and also to avoid being beaten up or worse. Nice Guys™ are the reason why, as annoying as it can be to experience, the Fadeaway is a regular and necessary tool women use to break it off with men in which they are just not interested after a few dates. A common Nice Guy™ trope is, “I took care of you when you were drunk, and you still aren’t into me? WOE IS ME!” Translation: “I didn’t rape you when you were most vulnerable. I deserve sex for that! WOE IS ME!” “WOE IS ME” is the primary call of the Nice Guy™. It’s not really English. It’s just what “WAAHHHHH!” sounds like enunciated. Nice Guys™ are the ones who create a meme like #NotAllMen to respond to a meme like #YesAllWomen, because Nice Guys™ are too myopic and "sensitive" to realise that #YesAllWomen is NOT a personal attack on them, but a rather a way for people to vent because SIX PEOPLE WERE MURDERED by the type of asshole who would likely create a meme like #NotAllMen. The problem with Nice Guys™ is that they are VERY nice, until you turn them down. That’s when you realise they are not nice gentlemen, nor are they really friends. They are just dicks with chips on their shoulders and no talent for truly engaging someone.


Things go downhill so fast...
I mock Nice Guys™. Like Pick Up Artists, on the evolutionary scale, they are somewhere between troglodyte and 5-year old gum on the bottom of a desk when it comes to maturity development. “Men” like that are the reason why there is a House of Ruth, why someone made a video called It’s Your Fault, a SlutWalk and Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, among other things. The need for feminism is proven by these people. It's not just about equal rights in voting and employment. It's about being able to interact socially without the fear of being slandered or harmed based on what they say or do. Now, people died because of an extreme case Nice Guy™ Syndrome. I’m sure people will blame Aspergers Syndrome, or a devastating divorce, or an early introduction to pornography for this Nice Guy’s™ rampage that left six people dead. I refuse to feel sorry for him. This is not anyone’s fault but his own. I was a virgin until I was 22. It never dawned on me to go on a shooting/stabbing spree prior to that! I knew I wasn't getting laid because I was socially inept. This did not work in my favour, so I fixed it...I still kept my Lego Death Star in my bedroom, so that was also the last time I got laid...BUT STILL!

This killer* blamed everyone else but himself for his social failings, but I’m pretty sure dousing seemingly happy people with coffee didn't really enamour himself with anyone. If only he’d been armed with lattes this weekend, we’d just have some angry students, and not candlelight vigils for George Chen, Katie Cooper, Chen Yuan Hong, Christopher Michael-Martinez, Weihan Wang, and  Veronika Weiss, all thanks to a Nice Guy™. If only there were a vaccine to fight against Nice Guy™ Syndrome. In the mean time, we have to endure Nice Guys™ going online to lament about how they are not loved while they masturbate in a pool of their own tearful self-pity and hypocrisy. Sadly, awareness of male privilege is the only cure, and that is a few thousand years overdue.




*You’ll notice that I didn't mention the Nice Guy’s™ name throughout this piece. That’s because I’m sick of mass murderers being recognised in the news. Notoriety is still a form a fame.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Trans Is the New Black

Rochester got the biggest, most justified angrection™ this week! It all started when our aptly named mayor, Lovely Warren, announced that effective 1st January, City of Rochester employee health plans will include transgender health benefits. That is very new and rare. If you know, transgender health concerns a lot, from hormones to surgery.


Not this Beck.
THIS Beck.
What should have been good news was tarnished by two shock jocks on WBZA-98.9FM. Kimberly & Beck of The Buzz mocked the new rule as schlock jocks do, but it was pretty much a 12 minute hate-filled tirade that makes Rick Santorum sound like Mahatma Gandhi. Here is a link, but be warned, it hits EVERY rage trigger:


I only listened to 5 minutes before I nearly passed out from the ragegasm™ I got. So much filth, it made me want to punch stuff. If you care not to get as mad as me, I’ll just give you highlights:
  • It only took them 53 seconds to start playing “Dude Looks Like a Lady”.
  • It only took one minute for them to ask if you can just get a boob job if you cry enough.
  • 1:20: calling trans people “nut jobs” for wanting to transition, since psychological appointments will be covered.
  • 1:30: Insinuating that women who have to difficulties getting coverage for breast cancer treatment will be looked over for a person who wants to start gender reassignment.
  • 1:50: Claiming Beck should get a “mangina”.
  • 2:00: Balls grafted on Kimberly mentioned.
  • 4:00: Mention of a transgender girl softball player at a local high school.
  • 5:16: Second mention of “psychological issues”
  • 6:25: Second mention of cancer patients not getting care in lieu of the new provisions.
  • 8:00: Making fun of the transgender high school girl when a woman called in to correct them.
  • 10:00: Saying, “Thank you, sir”, to the woman who called in.
  • 11:30: Saying there’s not enough love in the world. (This does NOT make up for the previous 10 minutes.)
  • 11:44: Making the “Slippery Slope” argument.


Throughout the entire 12 minutes, the amount of ignorance they voiced over what it means to be transgendered and gender nonconforming was staggering. When the woman caller (who is transgendered) tried to educate them, they simply displayed more ignorance.


It only took the WBZA and Entercom about 12 hours, and then another 12 before they fired Kimberly and Beck for their transphobic diatribe...by the way, “Transphobic Diatribe” should be the name of an all transgendered punk band. Make it happen. Before I get to the point of this post, let’s get some things out of the way before I get a bunch of private messages:
  • Yes, the First Amendment allows you to express yourself any way you like. It does NOT protect you from people responding to your expression. Just as you cannot whine about the diarrhea you get from taking advantage of a free all-you-can-eat coupon from Taco Bell, you cannot claim your firing is a violation of your “freedom of speech”.
  • In a free market, your job is a privilege, not a right. If you violate a tenet of your contract or hurt your employer’s bottom line, your employment is in jeopardy. You piss off the boss: you get canned.
  • This one firing is not a sign that people in the public eye will be hindered from expressing themselves. Respecting people is not a hindrance, it’s a virtue. If a performer wants to say explicit things to an audience, he/she can. If it is not well-received or in violation of an agreement signed, he/she can’t claim that rights were trampled. You want to be edgy? BE EDGY! Just know that someone, including your boss, might not take kindly to your edginess. I am well aware that my own blog is giving some race-baiting, chauvinistic, gay-bashing gun-nut a HUGE angrection™ right now. I’m just glad it’s not my boss...or is it...Hi, Mike! I’m typing this on my lunch hour, off company grounds! :-)
  • Affording basic (or even complex) rights to a minority group does NOT take any rights away from the majority group. When the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were ratified, the US did NOT enslave and take away the voting rights of Christian white men. In the states where gay marriage is legal, they didn’t start forcing heterosexual married couples to divorce. The majority population will ALWAYS have his rights intact, no matter what. There is no rights-exchange. These aren’t baseball cards; they’re human dignity.
  • If you don’t know anything about a topic, then it’s in your best interest to shut the fuck up about it until you go read a book or two, or even listen to people trying to set you straight, lest you lose your job.
  • The American Psychiatric Association has already unequivocally dismissed the idea that homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender/non-conforming people do NOT have a mental illness that makes them gay, bi, or anything else. There’s a good chance that the psychological appointments that transitioning people have more to do with dealing with the external abuse that they receive from family, former friends, and assholes on the radio than anything else. Besides, mental health IS a necessity, whether covered under a health plan or not. Your mind is in your brain, which is in your body, yes?
  • The “Slippery Slope” defence is getting tired. It was used to justify institutional racism, sexism, and homophobia. Now transphobia? The only “slippery slope” that will happen is that people will be able to live as they like, so long as they don’t harm anyone else.


I will likely STILL get a bunch of private messages, but hopefully, I’ll get much less. The rest of this is addressed to the trans community of whoever reads this:


We have made great strides in black and brown rights, women’s rights, and gay rights. It is likely that marriage, adoption, employee harassment protection, and all other basic human rights that every white Christian man enjoys will be afforded to all in this nation within our lifetime. Even the Southern Baptist Church, the America’s most historically prominent justifier of color-based slavery and Jim Crow, chauvinism, and hating gay people under the guise of “being a good Christian”, is re-examining its stance on such issues. Hate for Muslims and immigrants has always been there. It’s just reared its head in different forms. The United States needs a new primary bogeyman to publicly abuse. Newly freed blacks, the Irish, women who can do math, guys who kiss guys, Chinese rail workers, and Japanese Americans (among others) have all enjoyed the top spot for a while. Now, I fear it’s going to be trans people’s turn. 

Trans people, you’re the new niggers of the United States. You’re the new Black. Expect a lot of fight back, more so than usual. In the past, people would make jokes. The abuse you’ve felt in the past might ramp up, which is frightening, because it was pretty bad before. You’ll have allies, and you’ll have enemies, but you’ll have solace in the knowledge that you’re not going to be the Bull Connor of this chapter in your fight for rights.

There will ALWAYS be racism, sexism, and hate for “the other” in this country, but whether it will be tolerated in social circles is another question. It took over 300 years for blacks to get to where they are now in America. It took women another 100, and we’re seeing some exponential progress in gay rights. Let’s hope this bodes well for trans people of the US. If not...Let’s all move North. I always wanted to learn Anglo-French anyway.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Bombs over Boobs

A Very Nice Fake Ad.
I like breasts. There; I said it….I like pretty much every part of a woman, though, so saying, “I like breasts” is like saying, “I like the three sprinkles on this cupcake”. If we’re all being honest, most heterosexual men (and probably a few women) in this country like breasts, whether they say they’re “leg men” or not.

There has been a lot of fuss on The Internet about an article that addressed a bill in Texas that would protect women from being harassed when they feed their infant children in public directly via mammary glands. Fortunately, under Texas State Law Section 165, women ARE protected to feed their children wherever the hell they want. The ad campaign was an art project by two very talented artists/graphic designers, and was likely meant to stoke a little controversy. Whoo boy, did it do its job! The Internet’s angrection™ nearly caused itself to pass out! The Internet got is such a frenzy, you’d think that a white owner of a mostly-black sports team got caught on tape saying racist shi-...ohhhhh.

I am not sure what the origin of wanting to force women to hide in closets and empty rooms and restrooms is. Perhaps it was the 5000+ year tradition of systematically treating women like they are property and breeders. Perhaps it was the formula and medical industry’s convincing people in the 20th Century that formula is superior to breast milk. Maybe it was the fetishization/commercialization of the breast by everyone from ad makers to film and TV show makers so much so that the show of a nipple is like the fruit just hanging over Tantalus's head. It could be the general shaming of women’s bodies by Puritans and and other religions and...EVERYONE; really, who knows? Regardless, we are at an impasse where we have to pass laws to make sure women who want/need to feed their babies can do it without harassment.

Romans really shot the shit.

Someone actually compared breastfeeding to a dog licking himself or publicly taking a dump.(Actually, taking a dump was a social event as well originally.) Admonishing people for breastfeeding is a time-honoured tradition. It used to be so looked down upon that people who could afford it would hire wet nurses. Many slaves were wet nurses to their masters’ children, which is a little bit confusing. If you find someone to be less than human, why would you have them feed your child with her own bodily fluids?

How is this not okay...
...yet this is?
The US is leading the way in making the breast more a pornographic prop than just part of a person’s body. We smush them together to make smaller ones look bigger, we insert potentially dangerous sacks of fluid in them to make them larger, we show everything but an ariola in adverts for everything from beer to butter. Yet we make people cover them up or be ashamed of themselves if they’re showing cleavage at all. It’s no wonder views on the act of feeding a baby are so dichotomous. Breastfeeding is so controversial in this country because we’ve successfully made the female nipple such a fetishized taboo, that TV stations get fined hundreds of thousands of dollars if there is so much as a minor “wardrobe malfunction”. People act like seeing breasts will corrupt their children and turn them into horny, slobbering imps. What is so funny is that by banning the view of the body, we are turning our children into horny, slobbering imps. I’m not the only teenager in the world who snuck a Playboy in my mattress as if it were the Hope Diamond. Conversely, I can see as many decapitations, bomb explosions, gunfire, superhero-related violence (which usually ends in a leveled major city, insinuating countless deaths) as I want. I can see all that in a PG-13 film. But should there be one nipple popping out, we’d better just wait for the End of Times and kiss our asses goodbye! Our children are forever tarnished! It’s even okay to show the torso of a woman pregnant with a CAT, as long as the nipple is blurred out!

I hope that the 21st century will yield a LOT more progress in the problem of body shaming, but specifically women’s. For people who are are so grossed out or disturbed by women feeding their children, I’d like to follow them around, and when they start eating something like a candy bar or a sandwich, I’d wretch in horror and insist they go to the nearest bathroom or hide under the table until they are finished. Formula or natural milk, no one should be admonished for taking care of her child as she sees fit. Babies need food when they need it, and there should be no shame or shaming in feeding a hungry child. That’s called being a good mother, not being scandalous or attempting get attention. For crying out loud, it’s just milk. Let’s not forget what the human breast’s primary function is: feeding babies. This goes for all mammals, but you should know that if you took middle school biology.

For those who care, check out these sites:
http://breastmilkcounts.com/
http://breastfeedinglaw.com/


Thursday, May 1, 2014

One Racist > 200 Black Girls

Unless you went camping on Mars this weekend, you likely know all about Donald Sterling and his disdain for his MexiBlack (Blaxican? African-Amexican!) girlfriend taking pictures of famous black men and posting them online. They’re all fully clothed and all; he just didn’t like that she would associate with Negroes. However, for some reason, it’s totally fine for him to have a mixed-race mistress. Can you believe it? An old white guy who owns a giant organisation of black people who make him money having a black mistress on the side! That is unheard of! Ask any white Jefferson or Washington you know.


Punishment was swift for Mr. Sterling. NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned him from all NBA games for life. He also plans to try to force him to give up ownership of the Clippers. I’m not sure how that is going to work. I say really bad things about the Tea Party, and I would accept that they would likely ban me from any of their rallies and meetings, but if they try to take away my Star Wars Limited Edition tea set, they have a fight on their hands. Regardless, it is what it is.


A few things bother me about this whole thing, though. Donald Sterling has been treating brown people like shit for YEARS. He’s a slum lord! He tried to not rent to black and brown tenants, and when he did, he treated them like they were trash! How else do you you think he’d run an NBA team? Why do you think the Clippers sucked for so long? Even the 76ers got better, for crying out loud!

Sterling is Jewish. It will always confound me that a member of a group that is historically oppressed can exact oppression on another group.


Donald Sterling got a lifetime achievement award from the NAACP. It’s because amidst all his racist business practices, he made “penance” by setting up charities and programs for minorities. so for every handicapped elderly black woman he wanted to evict for complaining about her flooded apartment, he bussed a bunch of kids to a basketball camp. this is somewhat like when mafiosos kill someone, but then go to church and donate a boatload of money to them to clear their consciences. The NAACP does NOT have a Bigot Confessional!


If the NBA commissioner can actually get Sterling to sell, he’ll make a profit. The $2.5 million fine to a billionaire is like charging $.05 on a $2.00 coffee. He bought the Clippers franchise for about $12.5 million. Its estimated worth is about $575 million now! That's not a punishment! It’s as if he was playing the Candyman mirror game, except he said, “nigger” 5 times, and a giant bag of money appeared behind him.


The most bothering element of this whole thing is that while EVERY media outlet was focused on Donald Sterling, the fact that an extremist group kidnapped 200+ girls from a school and are turning them into sex slaves is a Page 10 article! 234 young women were kidnapped in the most brazen of attacks by Boko Haram. Where are the SEAL teams taking them out? Where is the UN joint force helping Nigerian armed forces root out and destroy their hideouts? It’s been nearly a month. Do we need to say that they have weapons of mass destruction to get people involved? Should we rename Nigeria “Yemen-Light” for a bit so that we can orchestrate some attacks? Should we tell people that Boko Haram is harvesting crude oil and gems? How about we tell the world that the assailants kidnapped 234 white blonde exchange students? That would at LEAST get the US involved. We love saving pretty white girls. Will the world care then? THESE WOMEN ARE BEING SOLD FOR $12 A PIECE!

But sensationalism, on ALL spectrums of the media from left wing MSNBC to right wing Fox to Malaysian plane-obsessed CNN, dictate that we must pay attention to an old white man who we should have know was a racist piece of shit. Nice going, America. You're making us Canada's dirty underpants. Again.

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