For those who have lost their brains at some point – perhaps because you forgot to plug it in, or you weren’t getting a good signal, or you left it in your other purse (or are you one of those folks who are still trying to pretend that your brain hasn’t been replaced by your mobile phone???) – yesterday was Easter.
For a huge chunk of the world’s populace, that day is important… either because you agree with the beliefs associated with the day, or because you disagree and want to make a point, or because you’re completely confused and have mixed up Easter with any of a variety of other holidays:
“Easter’s that day when we wear bonnets and multicolored ties to commemorate when Jesus came out of the tomb and saw his shadow, which meant that we’d have six more weeks of ham, stale chocolate bunnies, and lots of egg salad, right?”
For me, it was an important day for another reason as well – it marked the end of Lent. And this year, Lent was much more significant to me than it was in the past. You see, rather than giving up something small, like Diet Coke or chocolate or the musical stylings of Lady Gaga, I chose to make a real, personal sacrifice.
I gave up getting into social/religious/political debates online.
It seemed like a good plan at the time. Even when I first thought of it, I recoiled from the idea like my wife recoils from spiders. It sounded hard – and that fact added to its appeal. If my sacrifice was truly painful for me, then maybe I’d get out of Lent what I’m supposed to… that was the idea.
I had no idea how hard it was actually going to be.
Do you realize how much has happened in the world in the last 40 days??? OH MY WORD!!!
Now that Lent is over, what have I learned? Was this time worthwhile? I think it was. I learned that I’m a little too argumentative. I realized that I don’t have enough empathy when I’m discussing the world with folks. I re-learned that some people have linked their opinions very closely with their self-esteem, and that I should tread a little more gently. And I remembered that while every opinion is not valid or true or logical or even sane, people are allowed to have them.
Hopefully this will lead to a kinder, gentler online presence for Mikey.
But, for right now, I have 40 days of stuff saved up. I have 40 days worth of rants that are threatening to blow my spleen if I don’t release some of that pressure. I have 40 days of comments that have been eating away at my psyche, stripping it to the bone like a school of piranhas in a bad jungle movie, devouring a poor bit part character in order to show that the lead actor’s predicament is indeed dire.
So, as you might imagine, this rant is more for my benefit than yours… if you don’t want to read it, that’s completely understandable. If, however, you, like the majority of Americans, are unable to drive by a traffic accident without twisting your neck like a sadistic owl in the hopes of seeing something more gruesome than your typical day at the office, go ahead and read it. I won’t judge.
A couple of notes: first, these are from the last 40 days, so they may seem a bit dated – and even cryptic if you haven’t kept up with some of the social/religious/political developments in the world. Secondly, they aren’t in any particular order – I wrote them down as I thought of them. Thirdly, if you find yourself disagreeing with me at some point during the course of this rant, I’m guessing that’s kinda the point…
Here it is – Mikey’s Post-Lent Social/Religious/Political Rampage:
1. Pia got voted off. Preteen girls don’t agree with you – and they’re the ones who vote.
2. Glenn Beck. Wow.
3. Maybe folks who are on their 3rd, 4th, or 5th wife shouldn’t preach about preserving the institution of marriage.
4. Why do we care more about the voices in Charlie Sheen’s head than the voices of our middle and lower classes?
5. Pink nail polish doesn’t make you gay any more than eating salmon makes you a grizzly bear.
6. A couple of words for The Donald: he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya… a vote for you as President is the same as asking Dr. Kevorkian to help with a sore throat… and the only reason that someone hasn’t trapped that horrifying warthog on the top of your head is that PETA doesn’t discriminate against ugly animals.
7. I am definitely NOT John Galt – praise the Lord!!
8. Read the book yourself. Don’t take the word of your favorite angry-churchlady-channeling pastor who also hasn’t read the book.
9. If you’re an actor, politician, or UCLA student, remember that the world can read your tweets, see your YouTube postings, and watch you on TV (even if it’s only CSpan!)!!
10. You can’t both preach the virtues of capitalism, AND complain that the NY Times is going to charge for access to its website without sounding like a bonehead.
11. That bonehead in Florida does, in fact, have the right to burn a Qu’ran. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a bonehead.
12. Really, Newt? We’re going to be a secular atheist society dominated by radical Islamists? You don’t see a problem with that statement?
13. Whatever you think of what he may or may not have done, Bradley Manning really does deserve fair treatment.
14. Kobe (and EVERYONE ELSE in the world), it doesn’t really matter what you meant by it… just don’t say that word. Ever.
15. It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone when a politician doesn’t know history – when the people who elected them don’t know history.
16. The “good old days” were only good for a select few people. For a LOT of people, they were really really bad days.
17. Be honest. If you are seriously interested in education reform, then do something to reform education. Don’t cite “education reform” if all you really want to do is break up a union in order to please your corporate donors. If you’re going to choose a few rich over a lot of poor, at least be honest about it.
18. Make sure you know everything about what it means to be a Christian before you go on about what it means to be a Muslim.
19. Math is real. Stop saying that you are doing the “will of the people” if less than 50% agree with you.
20. Math is real. There is a pretty big difference between less than 3%, and more than 90% – and this WAS intended to be a factual statement.
21. Math is real. Getting rid of the Bush tax cuts for the very very few would reduce the deficit more than the current proposal to cut benefits from the very very many. And have you ever noticed that the vast majority of folks who whine the loudest about keeping those cuts are never going to have enough money to benefit from them?
22. Dictionaries are our friends. “Regulation” and “Socialism” are NOT the same thing.
23. Read a book. No one is going to be able to impose Sharia law on you, even if they wanted to. So get over it, and let them build their church.
24. Just because I think bullying is wrong and should immediately be stopped doesn’t mean that I want to turn you gay.
25. Here’s a touchy one: laws against hate speech and abuse aren’t contrary to the 1st Amendment, and laws restricting the availability of ridiculously large ammo clips aren’t contrary to the 2nd Amendment.
26. I know I said it before, but it’s worth repeating. President Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. If he’d been a white guy named Bob, but with all the other stuff being the same (a foreign student as a father, a mother born in Hawaii, an opinion that we should try to get along with Muslims, a liberal view toward taking care of the non-billionaires, etc.), would there be this ridiculous outcry?
27. The phrase is “I couldn’t care less.” Really. Look it up.
28. When did “educated” and “elitist” become interchangeable words?
29. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. Really.
30. A person can be smart – but for the most part “people” are dumb. Here are three facts to support my hypothesis: 1) polls show that there are a lot of people who agree with Warthog Head’s birther fantasies, 2) another poll showed that a large chunk of the population of Mississippi thinks that interracial marriage should go back to being illegal, and 3) you know that deodorant commercial where Bear Grylls says that remarkable phrase “…and fear is like tasty gravy to a hungry wolf”? Well, in that commercial, after Bear says “put on the meat ponchos”, and we see those poor schmucks running away from a pack of Hollywood stunt wolves, the fine print at the bottom of the screen says Do Not Attempt…Check mate.
31. On one side of the scale, we have Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. And on the other side of the scale, we have reasonable work hours, safer working conditions, restrictions on child labor, minimum wages, paid vacations, family medical leave, cleaner air and water, Social Security and Medicare, and some protections from discrimination in employment, housing, education, banking, and health care – none of which would have happened under the “invisible hand”. Not a tough choice.
32. This headline is an example of the hilarity that makes me think our entire educational system has completely failed our society: “Sean Hannity Doing Show On Media Bias.”
33. The statement “Christians shouldn’t be interested in social justice” makes as much sense as peanut butter and onion pudding with licorice and liver pilaf.
34. Biased modern historians’ interpretations versus the actual words of the actual people who actually decided to secede… there might be a reason that we’re still fighting the Civil War. Might be worth challenging assumptions and doing some research…
35. Undocumented workers who have jobs (ya know, the ones you think they stole from Americans??) DO pay taxes. Employers withhold from them just like they withhold from the rest of us – the difference: undocumented workers can’t file returns, so they don’t get a refund… Plus they pay sales tax for everything just like the rest of us. Complain about immigration if you feel like you must, but stop whining about taxes.
36. In the moments right before you realize that you are wrong, being wrong feels exactly the same as being right. Try to bear that in mind when you are certain of something.
37. When you doctor up a photo showing President Obama in a family of chimpanzees, just admit that you’re a racist. Don’t say “It’s ok because I have friends who are black.” It’s not.
38. Don’t say stupid things like “Glee” is “shoving the gay thing down our throats”… just change the channel to one that’s shoving the stupid thing down our throats. It’s America.
39. You maybe shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t like Rush Limbaugh when he has said that I am “savage”, “walking human debris”, and “worse than any Nazi secret police”…
40. Hey Facebook, would it really be so hard to come up with a button to push that would not only hide me from all of your existing games, but any new games that might come out in the future?
Whew. I’m glad to get that off my chest.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled surfing… Have a great day!!