Tacky Behavior On The Part Of People Who Should Know Better.

May 15, 2007

I have recently been subjected to , and by extension subjected a dear friend to, Tacky Behavior On The Part Of People Who Should Know Better.  Now, I have been around this kind of trashy behavior all my life and I’m tired of putting up with it. 

In my younger more feisty days I would have put the gloves on and gone hunting down the offending trashites, looking for some much deserved justice out of their persons in some shape or manor, preferably involving bruising.  However, as I am older and slightly calmer now, I will wait for a bit, let things settle down , and find the right time for the information to come out.

You see, I myself take part of the blame for this trailer-park tinged behavior.  I accepted an invitation from a secondhand person to an event.  And since my radar isn’t in proper working order anymore, I completely missed the significance of that little faux pas.  However,  knowing the inviter like I do, I had to believe that it was ok to accept, as he has always been one of the most considerate and honorable men I know.  Therefore, when I was asked to invite a friend, I had no qualms about inviting a very, very good friend who is tenderhearted and a LOT of fun to be around.  We would go together, meet the rest of the group, and have a rip roarin good time at a few slightly raunchy places, thereby having stories to tell the grand-kids later that would make them blush and look at us in new and exciting ways!  It would all be good.

NOT!  We were excluded from the beginning.  It was rude to the point of ruthlessness.  It would have been kinder to have just told us after dinner that we wouldn’t be included in the rest of the festivities planned for the evening and so thank you for coming to the dinner and we’ll see you at the wedding.   Instead we were to follow the other two cars to a hotel and join them in a room that had been reserved.  We were out of the car and following them across the parking lot when they hit the door.  As we got to the door maybe ten feet behind them, we found it remarkable that the fifty feet across the lobby was entirely empty of the approximately 10 women who had just entered in front of us.  They were very swift of feet!  We also found that the door required a key card to open and we didn’t have one.  So we proceeded around to the front and inquired at the front desk as to whether they had a room in either of the names we knew.  She informed us that she couldn’t help us.  Not that there were no rooms in that name, but that she couldn’t help us. 

We spent a good fifteen minutes walking through the ground floor hall trying to see if we could hear a bunch of white trash bitches honking off behind any of the doors, but no such luck.  So, now having to admit that we had been deliberately ditched by this marvelous bunch of common hos, we have a few hours to kill.  We are both nearly speechless.  I mean seriously, how many times after you get out of the sixth grade do you honestly have to consider things like this happening to you? 

So we found a couple of ways to spend our time and then went home.  It was kinda sad.  It was even more sad the next day when again I saw two of the girls in the group and watched as they caught sight of me, turned to each other and began to giggle and laugh uproariously with each other. 

It makes me wonder about the kind of people who think that hurting people for sport is a good thing.  I wonder what kind of things they tell themselves to make it ok to hurt someone’s feelings just for fun.  I wonder what they say inside of themselves when they are choosing the next person to cause pain to, is there some certain trait that they are looking for?  Or is it just the next unfortunate person who comes into their sight?  I don’t understand how one goes about telling themselves that they have soooo many people just waiting in line to be their lifelong friend, that they can afford to callously toss good people aside like garbage and laugh about it. 

Like I said at the beginning of this whole thing, I’ve been around this kind of common, trashy, unraised, behavior all my life.  I’ve seen it a million times.  It comes from not being raised right in the beginning, then being too lazy to make sure that you choose to act right when it’s your turn to call the shots.  It’s just easier to roll on back to those less than humane beginnings . 

I have accepted my part in the hurt caused to my friend.  I have apologized to her several times.  If my brain was in proper working order my red flags would have been dancing the macarena at me over that invitation and I would have known better than to accept.  I was trying to help celebrate a new beginning for friends.   My friend was only there because I asked her to come with me.  It was my disability that caused her pain and for my part in that I am deeply sorry and ashamed.

Now let’s add to the entertainment by adding that the main person at the previous event managed to top off the event the following evening by hurting the feelings of an eight year old girl by popping off at the mouth to her at the end of a very long evening when said eight year old girl went to tell her that she was leaving. 

I am no longer surprised by the stupidity of people or the incredibly stupid things they do to hurt people for no good reason.  I see it and I feel it all the time.  It just makes me terribly, terribly sad.  I hope that they accomplished whatever it was they were planning to do by excluding us, and I hope it was worth the cost. 

Because (to quote myself) I’ve managed to live my entire life without them in it, and I’ll manage quite well to live the rest of it without them in it as well, and never really notice the difference at all. 

My friend is owed a huge apology.  A heartfelt apology.  I hope she gets one.

As for me, I am neither owed an apology, nor will I accept one.  I am done.


Gay Marriage

April 17, 2007

It amazes me that in the the most advanced time that we know of on this earth, in one of the most socially, economically, and scientifically advanced countries on this earth, we still can’t manage to keep our asses out of each other’s bedrooms!

Who cares if gay couples get married?  How in the hell does that possibly have any contrary effect on heterosexual couples?  And don’t come thumping any Bibles at me either.  Let me just remind you that one of the main reasons this country was founded was the desire for religious freedom.  That means that you don’t get to pound your mainstream Christian beliefs down my throat. 

We no longer need to be fruitful and multiply.  I think it’s pretty plain for anyone to see that the human race has gotten that one down pat.  We might even be said to have been excessively successful at it.  So, other than procreation, what is the problem?  

Let’s just put it bluntly.  Because heterosexuals are in the majority, we can just refuse to allow anyone in a minority the same rights and protections as us because they are different.  I thought we took care of that kind of idiotic thinking with the civil rights movement.  I guess not quite.

It’s funny….I notice that when children are young, you have to point out to them the same lesson over and over.  They don’t have the ability to apply a lesson learned in one situation to a slightly different situation.  It takes a little bit of maturity and a little bit of intelligence for them to get the hang of it.  Sadly it seems that we haven’t reached that point as a country yet. 

Aside from the fact that I just don’t feel like someone else’s sexuality is my business, the problem I most have with the national feeling against gay marriage is this:  if it’s OK for the majority to tell gay people who they are allowed to marry, how long will it be before they can tell YOU who YOU can marry? 

That may sound alarmist to you, all comfy and safe in your bed with your husband or wife.  But what if your spouse is of a different faith than you?  What if that becomes politically incorrect?  What if the majority suddenly decides that interfaith marriages are a security risk?  What if they’re un-American?  What happens if you can’t marry the person you love because their faith is one thing and yours is another?

Not their business, you say?  What about the separation of Church and State, you ask?  Good question!  What about that?  There are plenty of churches ready and willing to marry gay couples.  The states won’t legalize the marriages.  Their reasons are all based on religious beliefs.  That is a pure, unadulterated violation of the rules governing the separation of Church and State.  Go figure.  Not the first example by far, and certainly won’t be the last.

Here’s the deal.  We let it slide that two people who love each other and are willing to make a legal binding commitment to each other, be told that they can’t do it because someone doesn’t like what they do in bed together.  We let it slide because it isn’t us.  We let it slide because we are ignorant, embarrassed, afraid.  We let it slide.  And the next thing that happens is, someone is standing in our bedroom door making judgements about whatever private things we do that are none of their damn business, and saying that we can’t do it because the majority says it’s wrong.

Couldn’t happen here, could it?  Not in America.  Not in the land of the free.  Well, it’s not really free anymore though, is it? 


Sickness

April 15, 2007

I am at a total loss as to an explanation for sickness.  What possible purpose does it serve in the vast scheme of things?  Why should we become ill and then get well?  Why should we become ill at all?  What is the underlying cosmically necessary meaning behind it all? 

Couldn’t there have been some other teeny tiny prey for a virus to pounce upon that didn’t live in my body?  You would think that either the Higher Power(s) or evolution would have hit upon something!  Seriously!  There could have been herds of little cow like creatures roaming around in snotty stuff for viruses to feast upon and we would never have been the wiser.  Or how about little rodentesque critters scampering around hiding in obscure places for viruses to ferret out? 

The viruses could have banded together and made little slaughter houses to deal with the varmints they caught!  And for those vegan viruses there could have been little plant stuffies for them to eat.  Nutritionally sound if consumed in the proper quantities.  Why would that have been a problem?  Why didn’t it develope that way?  Instead we’re stuck with viruses and an immune system!

The way I see it is this:  My body wouldn’t need an immune system if there wasn’t anything for it to be immunized against.  So, why sickness?  What is it’s purpose?  Why not just be well until we die?

We should live long healthy lives until the very moment that we keel over dead.  Or at least not get sick until it’s time to die.  Yeah!  That’s it!  We’ll be totally well for all our lives!  The only time we get sick will be the one and only time in our lives we will ever be sick.  Then……kaplooey!  Yer dead. 

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Until you’re skipping down the street having the time of your life, and suddenly……ACHOOOOO!

Uh oh!   *gulp*


Free Speech

April 11, 2007

If you have a problem with people saying what they think, you might want to stop reading right here.  Because unlike Imus, I won’t be coming back later to apologize for saying it.  As far as I know we still live in America.  I still have a right to free speech.  If you don’t like what I say, you still have a right not to listen to it. 

I understand why a politician will apologize for making a remark that most intelligent people will naturally notice is remarkably stupid, like Imus did.  They have a future riding on their ability to appeal to a majority of the people in their districts. 

Entertainment personalities, especially “shock jocks” like Imus, on the other hand, are supposedly making their living by saying incredibly stupid things on a regular basis.  Why should they bow to the pressure of public opinion and apologize for saying it?  Hell, why bother apologizing for it at all?  It’s out there for all time now anyway.  You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, dude.  All you’re gonna do now is smear it all over the counter.

Imus has a right to say whatever stupid thing he wants to say.  As long as he doesn’t violate any FCC rules and regs he can say anything he likes and we have no right to censure him.  If we don’t like what he says we have the option of simply turning him off.  As long as Imus keeps his dumb ass off my property, he can say all of the backwardly stupid, inbred thinking, family-tree doesn’t branch kind of stuff he wants to and I’ll defend his right to say it to the death.

I don’t have to agree with him, what he says, how he thinks, or even the fact that in some areas he obviously can’t or hasn’t thought.  It doesn’t matter that I believe that he is probably making remarks like this out of some sort of self hatred.  He has a right to be an idiot on the air if he wants to and he doesn’t have to apologize to anyone for it!  He owes no one an apology for being less than a decent human.  Being a creditable, decent, humane individual isn’t a requirement for having your rights protected in this country.

We in America need to remember that we are guaranteed the right of free speech.  We don’t need to apologize to anyone for the things we say.  Whatever stupid, ignorant, ill thought out, uneducated, pitiful opinions we might have, we are free to state them to the world if we want to and we don’t owe apologies to anyone for them. 

We are free in this country to be idiots, racists, bigots, and fools if we want to.  It’s a free country.  So, I say:  Go Imus!  Talk it up!

Just make sure you stay away from my house because your right to free speech ends at my property line.  I have no problem with temporarily seceding from the Union and kicking your sorry ass from here to next week. 

Barring that, talk on, ya idiot!  I’ll defend your right to do so on the public airwaves until America isn’t America anymore.  Which could be next year if we keep on in the same way we’re going now.

I’ll put the coffee on the for the Homeland Security guys, just in case.  If having sex on an airplane is in their domain, defending Imus’ right to be an idiot might be too.  *sigh*