Our values and priorities are so fucked up in this country. Penn State head coach Joe Paterno turns a blind eye to a former assistant coach who was (allegedly) molesting children and yet he is (apparently) being allowed to retire at the conclusion of the (all-important) football season.
Let’s look at this from another angle - imagine for a moment that instead of a football coach, we were talking about, let’s say, a History professor. Would he be allowed to retire at the end of the year knowing what he knew and having not notified the proper authorities? Hell no! They’d fire his ass like a cannon (and rightly so).
It’s morally repugnant when the Catholic church shelters child abusers and those who facilitate or ignore the abuse, and it’s just as disgusting when it’s done by Penn State University, or any other organization.
Paterno must go.
The commercials finally convinced me, so I asked my doctor if I’m healthy enough for sexual activity.
He said, “I’m a podiatrist, jackass.”
Back in 2003 I went to see the “Tell Us The Truth” tour. Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello), Boots Riley, Lester Chambers, and Mike Mills joining forces to raise awareness about the dangers of media consolidation and the FCC’s recently increased “media ownership cap” which allowed individual networks to control a larger percentage of the national market.
Flash forward to today. Media giant Comcast buys control of MSNBC, which then promptly fires Olbermann, their highest rated host.
Tom Morello’s words from 2003 seem particularly prophetic today.
A few massive corporations will soon control all we see on TV and print and radio, there’s a very narrow number of gatekeepers, and that can be very destabilizing for a democracy. Ten years ago, 50 corporations controlled the major media outlets. Now it’s down to six, and everybody loses except the super-rich at the top.
Since it’s apparently perfectly okay for a complete stranger to say to me:
“You’re so skinny! Don’t you eat?”
Then it stands to reason that must be acceptable for me to respond:
“You’re so fat! Do you ever stop eating?”
I think I’ll try that out. I’ll let you all know how it goes.
Like anyone with an email address, I get my fair share of spam. Most of it is simply annoying but every now and then I get a gem like this, brilliant in its awkward absurdity:
Attn;My Dear,
This is to bring you notice that i have register your ATM VISA CARD with DHL COURIER .And the card’s value is $1.5 millions united state dollars,so The delivery charges has been paid but i did not pay their official keeping fees since they refused.Reasons for their refusal is because they do not know when you are going to contact them because the keeping fee is $45 dollars per a day.
And i deposited it yesterday 23th June 2010 So that is reason why i did not pay for keeping fee and that is only you are going to pay them,so i want you to contact them urgent to avoid increase of their keeping fee.
Contact Mr. Johnson Udo
DHL DIRECTOR GENERAL
EMAIL:dhlexpress_c@qatar.io
Phone +229-9841-6839
This are the information needed for easy delivery of your CARD.1.YOUR FULL NAME_____,2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS______,3..YOUR PHONE AND CELL NUMBER____,4.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE____,5.YOUR COUNTRY_____
So as soon as you recieved your card do let me know ok,
Best Regard
Mr.Robert Erickson.
“Attn;My Dear,“? “A copy of my picture“? Fabulous!
Why wouldn’t DHL Express’ email domain be “qatar.io”?
Of course I’ll pay the “keeping fee”, I want my $1.5 millions united state dollars!
Seriously, anyone dimwitted enough to fall for something like this deserves whatever misfortune befalls them.
It seems that two geniuses were spotlighting deer one night back in January. They managed to get the pick-up they were shooting from stuck in a farmer’s field as they tried to retrieve one of the downed deer. They then asked the landowner to pull their truck out. He refused and instead called the Game Warden.
Investigation revealed that the duo had two deer carcasses in the pick-up and five more back at the shooter’s residence. While being interviewed by officers, Cody Patton, 20, of Hillsboro, Ohio admitted that he had shot the deer with a rifle while his side-kick, Matt Leisure, 20 of Sabina, Ohio shined a spotlight on them.
Patton (the shooter) was ordered to pay a total of $5480 in restitution and court costs. His sentence also included a one-year hunting license revocation and forfeiture of the rifle used to kill the deer.
Leisure (the spotlighter) was ordered to pay fines and court costs totaling $858 and had his hunting license revoked for two years.
The fines levied against the shooter seem fair and reasonable, though it seems to me that the person holding the spotlight should be just as culpable as the shooter and should face the same punishment.
The problem I have is the paltry one and two year license revocation. Finding deer resting in a field, blinding them with a spotlight, then shooting them while they’re immobilized isn’t hunting, it’s just killing. I think that anyone who engages in such wanton killing should be banned from hunting permanently, or at the very least for a period of say, ten years.
Full newspaper article here, from the Wilmington News Journal.
Finally saw the horn-as-doorbell idiot in the flesh. While I was out working on my car (@ 8:15AM) there was a familiar blast of steam-boat sounding car horn. Stepping from behind the raised hood I’m face to face with a Cadillac full of (I’m assuming) carpoolers. Lady in the passenger seat says “we weren’t blowing at you, we were blowing for our friend”. I don’t know if they heard me say “Have you never heard of a fucking doorbell?” as I climbed into my car (whose windows, like theirs, were down), but I don’t really care.
What the hell is wrong with people? Surely at least one of those people, too lazy to walk to the front door, has a cell phone and could call their friend to announce their arrival, rather than entertaining the entire neighborhood with their charming novelty horn every Goddamned morning, at 8AM!
I feel bad for neglecting the blog. If you feel like you’re missing out on your daily/weekly/monthly allotment of Gregisms, you can catch up with me on Twitter (@gargreguan). Anyway, I just wanted to share my latest brainstorm with you, my adoring public.
I’m going to start an “anti-social networking” site and call it…
HateBook(!) As soon as I figure out a way to monetize the thing I’ll be sitting on easy street.
Shut up! I hate all you melon-fevers!
As I do almost all of my banking online or via debit card, I use, at the very most, 3 or 4 checks per month. This means that an order of checks lasts me a very long time. After writing the check for my rent (the only check I write every month, I discovered/remembered that I’m almost out of checks. I had noticed this some weeks ago, but since I was still using the freebies from when I opened the account (literally 3+ years ago!) I couldn’t just re-order online and would have to talk to a “customer service represenative”.
So, I call the 800 number and navigate through the menus until I get “Troy” on the line. Troy was quite personable, making chit-chat as he gathers the necessary information (evidently, the weather in Manila, Philippines is quite nice now). Troy asks me if I want the same checks as before, “sure, that’s fine” says I. Then Troy dropped a bombshell; 250 of the rather ordinary-looking checks I’ve been using will cost $77!! First of all, I do not need 250 checks, it’s taken me 3 1/2 years to use 150. Secondly, $77 for checks? That’s fucking crazy!
So, I politely explain to Troy that there is absolutely no way I’m paying that much for checks. With little fanfare he hooks me up with plain-old, regular-ass checks, yellow, I believe, for a much less angina-inducing $21.50 per 150. Assuming I don’t move (or die) I should still be using these checks 5 years from now.
$77 for checks! That’s just crazy talk!
“They” tell you not to make eye-contact with people in New York and for heaven’s sake, don’t speak to people in the city or on mass transit. I say ‘bullshit!’ Don’t talk to the visibly deranged or those who obviously don’t want to be bothered. Otherwise, go for it. Who knows what interesting conversations and experiences you might be missing, sitting in your insular fear-cloud.
Here’s a picture which perfectly illustrates my point:
Click to embiggen.
If I hadn’t engaged him in conversation I could have said “I saw an interesting bike messenger on the train.”
Since I did, I had the pleasure of chatting with him for a bit and when I asked if I could take his picture, he struck this great pose. Just as you’d suspect from the photo, he was a very colorful and interesting character; one I never would have met if I’d listened to “them” and their “conventional wisdom”.
I was talking to my best friend earlier and he was exhorting me to get a Facebook account. I explained that I’m not a big fan of the “social networking” sites and related the story that follows to illustrate my point. He seemed to enjoy the tale and said, somewhat derisively, that I should write about it on my blog, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Every year my town holds a real old-fashioned ice cream social at the park by my house. Big Band music, ice cream, the whole shebangabang.
Several years ago, overcome by curiosity, I attended said event with my (at that time) girlfriend. After the music, as I was enjoying my ice cream a sweet elderly lady came up and engaged me in conversation. I played along and chatted for a bit, but the voice in my head was saying:
I don’t know you, why are you talking to me? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Apparently some of us just aren’t ice cream social material. I still chuckle at my grumpy antisocial attitude (at an ice cream social no less!) to this day. Don’t even get me started on the people at the hardware store!
Evidently I would feel right at home at the ‘Grumpy Old Bastard Days’ festival.