Weezer’s Raditude.

raditude1109
Weezer’s latest offering is playing on my computer right now: Raditude. My youngest brother hated it. I am really digging it, and I haven’t been wild about the stuff Weezer’s been putting out lately. This is the end of a long weekend, so I don’t have the energy or the desire for any in-depth review. Or anything.

I’m tired from running around and thinking about little else but Baby G. I bought Baby two giraffe toys at the Smithsonian last week. This kid is going to be spoiled. Mommy finished a very fine hand-knitted hat for Baby (and one for Daddy and one for Mommy also).

We know the sex of Baby.

But several family members do not yet, so I can’t blog about it.  I can blog about being in the Ultrasound room all morning.  All three times we have had one so far, we have had the same Ultrasound technician.  She’s very nice and very thorough.  This morning, she mentioned that GE had some new machines in that they are trying to sell the hospital.  These machines are also capable of 3D  imaging!  Okay, awesome!

So we did the regular Ultrasound.  Got to see multiple images of Baby, including the heart, the stomach, the head, the face, the hands, the kidneys, the footsies, the bladder, the stomach, the sex-organs, etc.  Problem was, Baby wouldn’t hold still!  The tech was getting frustrated over how long it was taking to get the pictures she needed, and she’s very very patient.  But then she got them all and went to get the GE rep to use the new machine.

The images on the new machine were much much better, but Baby would not cooperate to have his/her picture taken.  And this kept on when the U.S. tech put the 3D imager to work.  Baby would not take his/her hands away from his/her face!  It was very adorable, frankly, but it took a while to get an image of Baby’s face.  He/she looks like his/her Mommy! I commented that he/she is definitely our kid, with all this squirming and dancing around.

I also learned a clue today to why I tap tap tap all the time.  My mom was a medical secretary while she was pregnant with me.  So I sat in front of an electric (1970s) typewriter for hours a day, hearing the nice, soothing rhythm produced by my mom’s fantastic typing abilities (seriously).  My mom told me that I moved around a lot while she was typing.  This explains my (ahem) pretty good sense of rhythm perhaps but also my constant tapping (my hands, my pen, my toothbrush, an empty bottle or can, etc.) that drives my poor wife nuts.  My foot’s tapping on my desk right now, like crazy.  I’m freakin musical, and I owe it to my mom.  I wonder how to ensure that Baby is musical?  Playing bass?  Mandolin?  Mommy’s singing (Daddy can’t sing)?  Bike bells dinging?

I don’t have an electric typewriter.

On gut reactions and why we can all do better.

Where has all my patience gone?

I’ve noticed that I’ve been kind of a Dee I See Kay lately, at least on my blog. I’ve been reacting strongly to strong stimuli, but I’ll not cop to over-reacting. I have grown exceedingly impatient with people’s dismissals of things they don’t agree with. Isn’t that what I do?

No, it is not. Thought-through reactions and gut reactions are not the same thing. While one may certainly disagree with someone and do it strongly, I don’t think one could claim that anyone can type fast enough for long blog posts that get thought about before being typed up, revised before and after being published and sometimes sit in the que while I make sure I still want to publish them count as gut reactions. The whole point of a gut reaction is that it comes from somewhere else than our rational brains.

Having a gut reaction like, “You’re wrong,” or, “I disagree with that,” or, “No!” to something that is actually thought-through is irrational and foolish.

And it’s insulting. Say that Julie tells Billy that she’s upset with the way that he, I don’t know, gives in to his controlling best friend too much. Julie thinks it through, formulates it and expresses it as clearly as she can. Billy gets mad at being told he’s wrong, and he reacts with a, “Fuck you! You’re a bitch!” Gut reactions to reason are something animals can do, you know.

Someone I know and see every single day (!) likes to tell me that “it’s hard to disagree with [me]“. I try to shut up if I haven’t thought yet. I try. I often fail. Reactions that pass from the outside world right back out without running through the filter of our rational faculties are unintelligent. Am I claiming to be smarter than my just-as-educated interlocutor? Certainly not. Am I claiming to put more….consideration into my “position” than gut reactions to the contrary? Yes.  They could, too, but they don’t.

And that’s what’s so fucking frustrating about semi-universal gut reactions. While I know some backward people (SHIT!), for the most part, the people that surround me personally are intelligent. So when we react stupidly, it’s frustrating precisely because we’re not stupid — we could and should do better! And I’m sure I do it, too, because I am a stupid ass and can fall into the same stupid patterns of behavior as everyone else, likely more so if you really wanna know. I’m not claiming to be perfect. Ask my wife; I can be a huge asshole and often. Seriously. As if you haven’t picked up on that already.

Thinking about one’s response/reaction, well, that’s not a gut reaction. When people disagree with us intelligently, we might see that we’re wrong and grow. Or, they might. Gut reactions don’t help anyone, not even the reactor. We just spread stupidity.

Bad Catholic, or bad American: you have to choose?

RI Bishop Kennedy
Not working to legislate your own religion gets you banned from receiving Communion?  Sure, the Church can do what they want (and I’ll refrain from references to the 2003 scandals), but I think religious leaders in this country are completely misunderstanding their role in politics and especially their members’ role as politicians.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman’s support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal’s Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation’s most famous Roman Catholic family.
RI Bishop Kennedy
“The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him “that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I’ve taken as a public official,” particularly on abortion. (More….)

What choice do you have? Be a bad Catholic or be a bad American? Last I checked, it was a sin to get an abortion, not a sin to NOT work to make them harder to get. And last I checked, Congress[wo]men were elected to be representatives of American citizens, not representatives of their churches. No matter what you think of Kennedy and no matter what you think of abortion rights, the Catholic Church and this particular bishop, you have to admit that Kennedy was not elected to be a Good Catholic Representative and to legislate his Catholic faith.  Not all of the citizens he represents are Catholic, right?

Am I calling politicians that put their faith over the office they were elected to bad Americans?

Why can’t hating assholes keep it to themselves?

Or at least not try to manipulate the laws of the land to suit their own prejudices? Wait, I know. Because these anti-gay, anti-reason, anti-socialist, anti-progress people are mean, stupid, backward, take your pick.

Via The New York Times:

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. (More….)

Sure, I suppose you could be an intelligent homophobe.  I guess.  I don’t know.  Most of the truly homophobic people I’ve come into contact with are pretty stupid.  That’s been my experience.  I’m not making a universal declaration that all homophobes are stupid.  (So keep your hyperbolic hatemail to yourself.)

Why do we “liberals” get to determine the laws according to our own preferences?

One, the Constitution does not support what these people are doing. That’s why they want to change it. We do not have a State Religion. We should not. No, never. Do people who run around saying that “America is a Christian country, founded by Christians, so you heathens just shut up and let us pray in public schools” realize that theocracies can and often do result in hate and violence?  Heard of the Taliban?  If we let “Christians” legislate their religion, you know what will happen next (among other things).  People will realize that there is no such thing as “Christianity” and will war with each other over their own interpretations of the New Testament.  Faith versus Good Works.  Transubstantiation versus symbolism.  We’re dealing with petty, small-minded people here.  (I’m not saying that all Christians are small-minded; just the haters, and they’d not all Christians.)  Do you really think they’ll take over the country and just live and let live and not go after each other?  If they win, they’ll see, for instance, that Catholics and radical evangelicals don’t have enough in common to be grouped together, really.  And if you did group them, you’d have to be broad enough to include a lot of “non-Christian” religions, too.  Oh.  Shit.

Two, the hurt caused by treating gay people like, you know, everyone else, is that of the sensibilities of some people.  “Oh, shit, Uncle Jackroy is sad because gays get to marry, and he’s crying because they elected that n—–r to be President of these United States.”  Oh, shit, indeed.  Ignore the fact that I am probably not the only one who thinks these sensibilities are retrogressive and ignorant, i.e., that they don’t deserve consideration as much as other people’s rights and liberties do. It’s only people’s feelings here. Discrimination, on the other hand, destroys lives, livelihoods, creates a culture of fear and hate when it’s suggested that beating someone to death because of their sexual orientation is not a hate crime. Not discriminating makes some people uncomfortable. And, knowing more people like this than I care to admit, I don’t give a shit.

In fact, I like it. I love it!  I love love love it when racists in the U.S. have a black President. I love love love when homophobes get all uncomfortable around homosexuals. I love love love it when people’s hate hurts them. I’m mean, and I can’t help it.  People who are not particularly nice getting what they deserve doesn’t sound as bad as other people suffering for these haters’ hatefulness, right?  I mean, getting rid of the hate would be ideal.  But that’s easier said than done, and, and, AND — we don’t get the sense that these people want to give up their hate, now do we?  They’re marching on Washington!

But then I might fall into the “thought” of the haters, that some people are better than others and that the “lower” people don’t deserve equal social or legal consideration. But there’s a difference between being a gay-hating bigot and being born gay. It’s not discrimination to show disfavor to gay-haters. It’s a reaction to something they freely choose to do. We all have the right to feel how we want, to hate who we want. But when haters try to change the law and re-make The System that already fucks over some people based on facts about them that they didn’t chose (ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, economic circumstances, geographical location, etc.), that’s in infringement on the rights of these people and an affront to everyone else whom these weak scum-fucking-buckets might decide to push around in the future.

The Insane Right (not to be confused with regular conservatives who actually think and some of whom I know read this blog and who I like a great deal) is going after gay people and abortion rights today. Tomorrow, it might be people in inter-racial marriages, people with “too much” education, people who are better at them at sports or arts-and-crafts, people with green eyes, people who don’t go to church, people who ask too many questions.

It might be you and me.

“The Family” should not necessarily be decided by social consensus, as if stupidity in numbers makes something morally right or factually true.  We could all be wrong. Wasn’t long ago that we officially fucked over black people.  Now it’s all unofficial (but still systemic), but at least laws sorta protect black people, ideally, on paper at least, a little.  Shit, I couldn’t live in the neighborhood where I live now just 50 years ago — for being Catholic, too close to an immigrant and for my wife being black.  That’s not that long ago!  My Mom, who is only second-generation, could not live there when she was born.  This is all recent!  Wasn’t that long ago that a white man and a black woman were not legally a family because we couldn’t get married!  Not a family!

What, do we think we have our heads sufficiently out of our asses that we can collectively be persuaded to define “The Family” by a dick, balls and a vagina?

Wow, that’s crude!  But.  Still.  What about infertile couples?  They can’t have kids “naturally.”  They might have resentment over it and be “bad parents,” right? (I don’t think so at all.)  Not to mention the fact that I personally and closely know exactly (?) 27 people who should never ever ever have become parents, all of whom really like the penis-vagina thing and most of whom are gay-hating dinosaurs themselves.  Research doesn’t show that same-sex couples make bad parents at all.  And everyone knows there are more orphaned children on the planet than there are heterosexual couples willing to adopt them. And, I’m not a sociologist, but I never understood the insistence on “the family” anyway.  I know several people who would have been way way way better off without their “families” — but this is still a little alien to me, since I think I had some pretty damned good parents.

I do realize the irony of this post title and its content.  You know what?  Firstly, I’m not trying to change laws, only ranting.  Secondly, fuck you if something on a website you chose to read (and a long post at that) is breaking your heart.  Go to GodHatesFags.Com for some solace.  Or, you know what, instead of hating on haters who hate haters, go save some souls.  Feed the poor.  Volunteer your time.  LOVE SOMEBODY.

The last thing you heard.

ubrack1009
I’ve said it before:

Smart people believe what is true.  I mean that in a Jamesian sense, as in, what works — what is true because it works and what works because it is true.

Most people believe what they want to believe — because living in the world is difficult and so we all need little lies to keep us sane.

Very stupid people believe the last thing they heard — because they don’t even think; they don’t even mimic other people’s thoughts; they just ape people’s words.  And I caught myself doing this once tonight, waiting for the bus after I was at work for over nine hours.  I forget what it was about.  Still.  Scary.

I don’t want to be on par with the ignorant, racist, rat bastards I sometimes come into contact with.  No thank you.

Potluck, all about the company.

Office potluck yesterday.  Was not looking forward to it.  Awkward, since I work 4 floors above everyone in that office.  Etc.  But, with good company, it was enjoyable. (Seems like an inane thing to blog, now that I think of it.)

Oh, now we have to call Mom?

I am gettin sick (literally) because my neighbor has taken to either acrobatic sex or cleaning the bedroom during the wee hours of the morning, when everyone’s in bed but even Buddhists and dog walkers aren’t awake yet.  Now, the rules are, tell the management.  I tried a sweet little note first, but that didn’t work.  I know; I should be a grown-up and talk to them.  But, for one, the office discourages it, and I don’t wanna find myself apartment shopping.  For another thing, me in my underwear, beard matted, eyes red and my tired fury at its peak — would not lead to a pleasant or fruitful exchange.

I think how angry this and other things make me should be a signal that I need to change something.  I’m flirting with resuming a mediation practice (hence the playful jab at early-rising Buddhists).  But meditation is hard work, and I am a lazy man.  So it’s slow-going.

On pleasant early meetings.

I had a coffee meeting this morning with a gentleman who is extremely pleasant, who likes coffee as much as I do and with whom I joked about a shared stationery fetish when we both pulled out fancy notebooks.  My, oh, my, even with more caffeine later, working alone in your office when it’s beautiful outside, especially after a very pleasant meeting first thing, is difficult and….unpleasant.

On the up-side, I spent lunch-time today reworking some dissertation stuff, so that I am doing my part to get that sumbitch defended before Baby comes.  Still, I am increasingling tired of looking at and thinking about this thing.  Changing language around, etc.  I was talking with someone today about publication.  Well, he was talking about me doing some publishing.  And I had to say, “Hell no.”  I don’t want to look at that thing for some time after I defend it.

On another up-side, when work and other people get to me, I think that, in one year, I’ll have a beautiful Baby and my PhD.  The stress to get there becomes obviously worth it, from that start — not just in hindsight.  I remember what Nietzsche said: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

I think I forgot to mention that the second ultrasound was Okay and normal and good.  There are a few small issues with Mama for which there have been some prescriptions (and prescriptions for the problems that prescriptions caused).  But, so far as we can tell, things are going well.  Morning sickness is over, and Mama has her energy back.  Coming up: 20-week blood tests and the Big Ultrasound wherein we can (hopefully) learn the gender!

Nothing looks like this, not lately.

brightleaves1009
This week: grey, rain, rain, rain, grey. With recently broken bones and my still-smashed right hand, I’m tempted to sound like one of those people who acts like crappy weather was invented just for suffering and just for their suffering at that.  It doesn’t feel good.

However, in search of better times and making the best of what’s left of autumn, Mrs. P. and I will venture to our very favorite bookstore and perhaps have dinner somewhere in Charles Village, Hampden or Roland Park.  I will have a waterproof messenger bag, so treasures will make it home unscathed.  At least it’s going to be in the upper 50s/lower 60s.  I hate when it rains just shy of the freezing point.  Unless I’m cycling.  I do get a kick out of that.

Curiously, Normal’s is on 31st Street, where I blew a spoke last Sunday and had to miss the ride I’d spent so much time helping to plan.  Much better tidings today, I think.

My bike is out of commission currently.  Yes, breaking a rear spoke on the drive side can make your wheel no longer turn without hitting the frame.  No, this does not, as has been suggested, make me a wimp or perfectionist.  It’s a matter of my understanding bike wheels, at least a little bit.  Plus, there’s the empirical smack-your-ass part where my wheel literally does not turn.  The shop will take care of it; it’s under warranty.  It’s a good excuse to visit my favorite bike shop.

I need to get some new books and spend quality time with the Mrs. and our little belly/Baby.  As if it’s not obvious, I’m growing increasingly less patient with people’s bullshit.  A nice walk usually helps a lot.

Apt. planning, June 2009.

summermole09
When we moved this summer, we spent the day at Ikea. We measured the rooms before we left since last time we shopped for an apartment, we bought two desks we didn’t have space for. We used pages torn from a Moleskine Cahier, squared. We stayed long enough for two meals (lunch and dinner) and were still loading my dad’s pick-up truck when the store closed. It was very nice to get it all finished though.

On seeking advice.

advicetree1009
“…if you seek counsel from a priest, for example you have selected that priest; and at bottom you already knew, more or less, what he would advise. In other words, to choose an adviser is nevertheless to commit oneself by that choice. If you are a Christian, you will say, consult a priest; but there are collaborationists, priests who are resisters and priests who wait for the tide to turn: which will you choose? Had this young man chosen a priest of the resistance, or one of the collaboration, he would have decided beforehand the kind of advice he was to receive. Similarly, in coming to me, he knew what advice I should give him, and I had but one reply to make.”
– Jean-Paul Sartre in the essay “Existentialism is a Humanism”

In other words, if you ask someone for advice, don’t get pissy when you don’t like what you hear. You knew what you were going to hear anyway, and you know it. And if you ask someone for advice on a very regular basis, why would you relish the opportunity to tell your adviser that [s]he is wrong? If it’s funny that [s]he is wrong, why ask her to tell you what to do all the time?  And why would you assume your adviser is wrong because some other person said something different? Maybe the second person is wrong. Maybe they’re both wrong.

I get asked for advice a lot and have since I was 18. I actually like it. I think I’m just a good listener, if I can toot my own horn. I don’t think I possess some superior wisdom, and my station in life proves it.

I think people don’t always believe what they want to. Some people just believe the last thing they heard. Then there’s the person who never ever asks for advice and who unknowingly does stupid things that talking to another person might have fixed or prevented. (I am guilty of this.)

Still, and this is important: there is a lot to be said for doing your own thinking. A lot.  Who can claim to do that?

Purple blanket.

zblank1109
Being a good Baltimorean, Mrs. P., AKA Aunt Frankie, made a Ravens purple blanket for Little Z, AKA Zack Jr.  This is him playing with Baby G.’s toy stash and enjoying the colorful rug in my living room last week. Also, rocking that purple blanket.

Little Z, by the way, said his first word that day: Dada.

Where did autumn go?

johnnyoct09
Damn, I miss it every year.  This year, I have an excuse: Little One on the way.  I think we’ll be able to slow down next year.  I always think that.  But the dissertation defenses will officially be over.  And, for the first time since I was probably still wetting my pants occasionally, I will officially be out of school.  I think I’ve completely under-estimated how much that is hanging over my head.

Yay, it’s Veterans’ Day.

Today is the day when people with no respect for members of the military (because they don’t agree with their leaders) talk their bullshit on their Facebook pages while those of us who quietly respect our brave men and women show our respect in more productive ways.  Talk to a veteran.  Don’t put bullshit in your newsfeed, man.

FOX “News” is for idiots, and I can prove it.

Okay, I lied.  I can’t prove it.  I don’t even really think it’s true (so save the hate mail).  But as a good Pragmatist/Empiricist, I can offer a small bit of evidence.

Someone I know who watches it and also doesn’t like black people, gay people, Jews, Muslims or evolution loves it.  He says stupid things in front of me on a regular basis, knowing what color my wife is.  Yes, this guy says racist shit to a man he knows is married to a black woman.  So fuck him.  I don’t feel the need to bow to him the way a lot of people I know and respect do (and I wish to hell they wouldn’t) and like I fall into doing.  Not now.

“I watched it on FOX News.  You know, I’ll give it them.  I’ll give it to FOX News.  When that shooter did that at Fort Hood, they said they had a report of the name, and I’ll give it to them, they said they wouldn’t give it because they weren’t sure.”

Yeah, you know, you have to give it to FOX News.  They don’t report things that aren’t true.  They have the utmost journalistic integrity.  They didn’t give out a name they weren’t sure of (GASP!), so they must be trust-worthy.

Also from this smart guy (and some of this is on here in other places):

“Obama’s Muslim.  I don’t care what you say.  He’s Muslim.  You better wake up, boy.” (Call me “Boy” and tell me to wake up when I’m twice as intelligent and thrice as educated as you are.  Nice.  I don’t mean to throw my education around, but when dumbasses imply that I’m stupid or clueless, I can and will.)

“A bunch of brothers got Obama elected.” (To which a fellow Republican tried to diffuse the situation with, “No, a bunch of crazy people got him elected.”  While I think that’s crazy, I certainly appreciated the effort on this other gent’s part to shield me and everyone else from this guy.  And, you know, if white people don’t vote, then fuck them, too.)

“I don’t believe in evolution.  I believe in Scripture.” (Johnny, are you really gonna call someone stupid for believing in “Scripture” instead of evolution?  Yes.  Yes I am.  Evolution isn’t something you believe in like you believe in Scripture.  It’s something you can prove.  You can’t prove Scripture.  They’re not in the same arena.  Not the same game.  And anyone who says they are is as stupid as a jagged rock.  Certainly I can understand believing what  you believe in the face of what you might feel is a lack of scientific proof of evolution.  I have not heard a lot of these folks equate science and religion, though.  They seem to prefer one to the other, which is a choice.  Not one I’d make, but there you go.  But yes, if you think science and religion are the same thing, you are stupid.)

“It’s a BLACK church!” (Oh, shit.  Black people.  In church.  A few blocks from your house.  Worshiping their BLACK GOD, with their BLACK KIDS!  HOLY SHIT!  You’d better move to the County!  SERIOUSLY!  MOVE!  Whenever I hear Old Hampdenites — and you know what I mean — talk about moving because of the F-G-T word and the N-G-R word, I wish to hell they’d all move to Carrol County like they talk about.  If you gotta gentrify Hampden all the way, do it.)

“O’Malley got elected by appealing to blacks.” (Well, like I said, white people should get off their asses and vote then, huh?  But I guess it’s not white people’s fault that they don’t vote.  I mean, there are only old men and Muslims running, right?)

And yes I know people who also know this guy and how I feel will read this and will tell me to “lighten up.”  How come when I’m pissed off and someone disagrees with me, I’m always over-reacting?  Saying racist shit around kids?  Shit, ya’ll are under-reacting.  And I’m related to someone who doesn’t give enough of a shit (in my opinion) about any of this and with whom I routinely have pretty bad arguments about something neither of us should really have to deal with.  When it comes down to it, racists are lesser people.  Yes.  That’s right.  Lesser people.  What, are you going to argue that two identical people, one racist and one not are equally valuable to the human race?  Even in the eyes of God or god or etc.?

FOX News: For idiots?  I don’t know.  I just thought it was a funny post title.  I do think it stimulates the same kind of unquestioning people who wear their “faith” on their sleeve — you know what kind of anti-everything people who don’t actually have a faith.  They just like a justification for who they hate.  “I ain’t no ignert racist hohmohfobe!  The Lord says dat ain’t right!”

I can also prove the opposite, that FOX News is NOT for idiots in the same half-assed way because several of the Republicans I know do NOT have their heads up their asses — at least not any further than I do also.  I know some smart people that I actually and truly love very much as family and friends who are staunchly Republican and like FOX News.  I don’t think they’re idiots — and not racists either.  But there’s a difference.  You know what they don’t do?  Say racist shit around me or tell me to wake up or tell us that FOX is actually the best news venue, that is has a special claim to truth.  They just like it and don’t need to justify it.

“I have black friends!” — defense for racism?  I mean, I don’t believe for a second that most of these people have actual friends without bastardizing the word and concept of friendship.  “I have Republican friends!”  I’m certainly not completely biased against people with very different political and social views than I have, right?

I am in fact completely stuck in a position to be around some crazy and backward people in several situations and relations.  So I can’t just go away.  It’s complicated.  I’m waiting for them to either die out or get their lives saved by a gay black Muslim atheist who’s married to a nice Jewish man from France.

Does Nietzsche have a point when he talks about some people just being a drain on the rest of us and poison to Life itself?  Were it not for the idea of the weeds among the wheat, hell, I’d wish for a plague to rid the world of these dinosaurs.  Nietzsche also talks about having strong enemies.  These racist, homophobic, anti-gay/Muslim/Jewish/evolution/thinking/reason pieces of garbage are not the strong enemies we want, are they?  I mean, terrorism is hard enough to try and tackle without racism and xenophobia thrown into the mix so that those of us who don’t want to be associated with this blind, ignorant hate leave off the Good Fight.

All this talk, and I never delivered what I promised.  No proof.  I was totally going for the headline, man.  I don’t actually think only idiots watch FOX News.  I know enough people to know better.  But, you know, I’m just mad at someone right now.