‘Tis the Season….
By Rob | December 11, 2008
When I was a kid, Christmas seemed like such a magical time of year. Everyone seemed happy, people were buying me expensive toys (I think I got the entire Kenner Star Wars collection spread out over a few years between Christmas and birthdays) and I got a lot of time off from school. Not bad, huh? All because this guy named Jesus was apparently born that time of year.
As I got older, Christmas seemed to be becoming less and less about goodwill toward men, happiness, Jesus and all that I had been raised to believe it was about. It started to be more about retail, money, buying things at discounts and showing people you cared about them by showering them with money and material things! Family members that all but ignore each other year round were coming together, putting on a fake smile and pretending to actually care about each other for one day.
During the Holiday season you also see people being - drum roll - kind to strangers. The homeless make out pretty well, as do the people we encounter on a professional basis. Your doorman, your mailman, the guy who sells you your newspaper every morning all get tips above and beyond what they’d normally get year round. We spend all year taking these people for granted but on the Holidays we pretend we care about them and their families just because it makes us feel better to do so. Where’s all of that good will toward our fellow man the rest of the year?
Which brings me to the events of this year’s Black Friday. Yes, the day after Thanksgiving when the greedy masses of Americans invade retail chains all across the country. Heavily discounted merchandise inspires people to line up in front of stores as early as 2am, waiting for the gates to open and the race for cheap electronics and toys to commence.
This year, at a Long Island Wal-Mart a mass of people filled with the Holiday spirit broke down the doors and a stampede into the store killed a young employee by the name of Jdimytai Damour, who was just there to do his job. He was instructed to let the crazed holiday shoppers in once the store opened, but they couldn’t wait for that. They had to get IN. They had to get their discounted Xbox and Playstation accessiories. They had to break the doors down and trample this poor man to death. In their efforts to give their family a Merry (and heavily discounted) Christmas, they deprived this man and his family of theirs.
The customers rushed into the store, trampling him not even giving any thought to the people around them, or the condition of this poor man who took his last breaths on the floor next to the pop machines. They needed to get their discount TVs! They needed the discount Malibu Barbie Dream House! It didn’t matter that they had to kill a man in the process.
Is this what the Holidays are? Christmas is now a holiday dedicated to greed and materialism. It’s the season where we prove over and over again just what a shallow, materialistic culture we truly are.
I don’t know how you plan on spending this Holiday season, but I know where I’ll be. On my couch, away from the insanity, watching bad horror films and knowing that what’s happening outside my front door is much worse than what I’m seeing on my TV screen.
Topics: Rob, Uncategorized | No Comments »
man up, Senator Reid.
By Kelly | November 7, 2008
So turncoat Lieberman says he’ll stop caucassing with the democrats if they take his chairmanships away.
Um… and this matters WHY?
Since he supported the party’s candidate for president? Since he votes along with them so often? Why is it important that he say in the caucus when he does nothing to further the goals of the democratic party, and actively works to keep them from being acheived?
Come on, Reid, boot the deadweight. It’s not like you can count on his votes in the future, or his support for the president-elect’s agenda. Let him bluster. So what if he goes to the GOP. Does anyone really think they’ll pass over a longtime Republican to give mumbly Joe a chairmanship on their side? Shit, they picked Caribou Barbie over him on the McCain ticket! Cut him loose, and he can see how popular he really is on either side.
Topics: Idiots, Politics | No Comments »
victory
By Kelly | November 6, 2008
So after the screaming and the jumping up and down and the tears and the people dancing in the streets (literally), I’ve had a couple days to reflect.
I really do have to give McCain credit… after the sleeze and near race-riots he presided over, after the way he inflicted Bible Spice on all of us, I think he may have saved his reputation with one of the classiest and most heartfelt concession speeches I’ve ever seen.
Good for him. I’ve never hated McCain. I hated that he was so willing to sell his soul to the Rove wing of the party after what they said about him and his kids in 2000, though, and that he let the same extremist religious fanatics run his campaign now.
And then, well, there was Obama’s speech. I don’t think we’ve seen a man like Obama on the national political stage in at least a generation. I wonder if this is how my grandparents felt listening to JFK (since, after all, my mom is 51, she was a kid when JFK and MLK were killed, so it has been that long). I figure kids will study the speeches of Barack Obama along with those of FDR, Lincoln, and JFK for generations to come.
Yes, this is a triumph for African-Americans. No question about it. But that, in and of itself, makes it a triumph for us all. It shows we have moved past the nation we were, and although I don’t expect him to take the oath of office and have racism disappear overnight, this does send a message. So many people have bigotry in their hearts, and console themselves with the belief that everyone thinks as they do, and is too afraid to say. We’ve turned the light on them now, though. Today they have to look around and see that no, most people don’t believe as they do, most people don’t have deep seeded hates, and they are in fact a member of a rapidly shrinking group. Maybe some of their beliefs will be challenged, both by seeing our president-elect and his amazing family, and by seeing how few Americans believe as they do. After all, people can change.
And there is another triumph here, one of ideology. For my entire adult life I have been told that what I believe is outside the norm, that I’m on the left fringe, that this is a conservative nation, and liberal is a dirty word. I never believed it, though. Look at what happens when social security is in danger, look at how every single politician talks about their support for free public schools… two fine socialist institutions. Look at abortion- the GOP makes it a platform issue despite the vast majority, some say over seventy percent of adults, thinking that it should be legal at least to some degree beyond just rape, incest, and a mother’s life.
More than that, for my entire adult life I have been told I am in some way not a true American. That because I live in a city, work with a computer, don’t attend church, have gay friends, whatever, I’m somehow not authentic. Real Americans live in the country, or at least the suburbs. They’re blue collar. They’re christian. They drive pickup trucks, not coupes and subcompacts. God knows Palin said enough about it over the last few weeks.
And now we know, the “unamerican” parts of America are the majority. Most of us do work in offices, we’re cube dwellers on the whole, not plumbers, and even though most people say they’re christian, on the whole we as a nation don’t go to church, we aren’t bigots, and most people who might not be actively in favor of gay rights are generally pretty much live and let live about the whole thing.
And if anyone else makes a latte crack I seriously will beat them with a seventh grade US history textbook. Since that is the year us pre No Child Left Behind students learned that the US revolution was born in coffeehouses.
Topics: Politics | No Comments »
America is Ready.
By Chuck | November 5, 2008
It is just starting to fully sink in now.
Over the course of this election I watched, read and absorbed everything I could. Watched polls come in. Read the bloggers and journalists from both sides. Listened to people when they talked. Heard the hate and the praise. The hope and the fear. I was afraid. I was excited.
From my seat at my desk my eyes were assaulted with everything from hope so pure it made my heart ache to hatred so vile it made be clench my teeth until it hurt.
At first it seemed unlikely but over time things started looking better, more hopeful, but even then I didn’t feel content. As the polls came in for the primary run I got excited but still I felt that this wasn’t a sure thing.
Then the primary was won. I couldn’t believe it.
And I still couldn’t relax.
People screamed that he couldn’t win Hillary supporters. He couldn’t win whites. He couldn’t win Hispanics. I bit my nails.
More polls and more panic. It looked too good. Pundits talked about the Bradley effect. I didn’t buy it.
It looked close. Could we squeak by? Obama picked Biden. I loved the pick. It was perfect. But there was no southerner on the ticket. Shit. Can he grab any southern voters at all?
McCain picked Palin. Everyone with a working brain saw that pick for what it was. McCain got a small bump from the pick at first then she started to talk. Every time she opened he mouth pure bullshit fell out. I couldn’t help but laugh at her. She personally lost McCain any chance at stealing a majority of independent votes and any of the so-called Reagan Democrats. She spit hate and anger, played to the fear. She hyped up the idiots with her moronic words. But she failed. She successfully solidified the extremist fools into the main McCain support base instead of leaving them out on the fringe.
It looked bad for McCain.
Election day was stressful for me. My polling place is very close to my house and I could have voted at anytime but I waited. My wife was at work and I wanted to go as a family. So I waited. I bit my nails. I watched the news. I saw the lines. I read the stories of people crying tears of joy on the way out of their polling place. I read stories of voter caging. I was still worried.
Finally we went and voted. No wait at all. Went in, pulled levers, went out. We stopped by the Obama office after voting and it was packed. It was loud. It was full of energy. I was still worried.
Back to my couch to have a few beers and try to relax as I prepared for what I thought would be a long long night.
The numbers started creeping in as I sat there drinking my beer and chewing my lip. I stepped outside to make a few phone calls and noticed something strange. Silence. I live in a college neighborhood within throwing distance from a main road. No voices. No traffic sounds. Nothing. I have never heard it this quiet here.
OH, PA, VA, IA went blue. I screamed. More results came in. Some red, some blue. Around 10:30PM eastern my brain clicked in. Math. If CA, WA, HI went blue it was over, that was 270. We had it. My wife warned me that it was still to early to celebrate. My phone lit up with texts. Kelly was analyzing, Phil was worried.
11:00PM
The left cost goes blue! Holy shit! It is over! I’m still a bit worried though. Is this really it? It is only 11PM. No shenanigans?
A very classy concession from McCain. No speech from Palin thankfully. That is when it his me. Relief. It is over.
Another trip outside. It is now a different place. I can hear the shouts from the Obama office all the way over here. I’m smiling. I’m laughing. I’m happy. I am actually happy.
I watch people show up for the victory speech in Chicago. A massive sea of people. I don’t ever think I have ever seen that many people in one place. All the faces happy. Many of them crying. All of them united no matter their race or creed. It was amazing. The camera panned over and I saw Jesse Jackson. He was crying. It nearly killed me.
After it was over, after everyone was gone or asleep, I cried.
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Another win from America’s Wang.
By Kelly | November 4, 2008
Ah Florida… will anyone unseat you as the WTF capital of the United States?
I try to be understanding. I try to say “hey, they can’t help it, they’re educational system blows since most people in the state are seniors who couldn’t give a fuck about it.”
But really now, you’ve raised the bar for idiocy and ignorance.
Naming a high school after the founder of the Klan? Classy! Deciding to KEEP THE NAME IN 2008? Moronic doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Now, there’s a lot of people in the article talking about history, and why the name isn’t actually offensive. Here’s a little hint from this latte-sipping liberal. When your school earns an F GRADE on FLORIDA assessments you are not allowed to discuss history. or math. or science. or literature. You are allowed to ask me if I want fries with that.
Oh, and if you get bored…
5530 Firestone Rd., Jacksonville, Fl. 32244
Oh, and they’ve been kind enough to list a whole ton of phone numbers here… and I’m not saying you should call them or anything, but I am saying the area code for Jacksonville, FL is 904.
Topics: Idiots | No Comments »
