A Lesson in Airport Baggage Carousel Etiquette:
A Lesson in Airport Baggage Carousel Etiquette:
July 12, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Watching McCain on Meet the Press. Coupla' thoughts...
July 12, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Can someone please tell me why the fuck this piece of garbage was one of the top stories on my iPhone's CNN app today:
PSYCHICS SEE MAGIC IN MICHAEL JACKSON'S LIFE
When Glynis McCants looks at Michael Jackson's life, she sees the number five.
Jackson's talent was discovered when he was 5 years old, he came to fame as a member of the Jackson 5 and he planned a series of 50 concert dates in London, England, as part of a comeback tour before he died on June 25 at the age of 50.
For McCants, a noted numerologist and author, those facts are very telling: "Five is the number for drama, and it was in his life his whole life."
Numerology deals with the influence of numbers on personal characteristics and human affairs.
July 11, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I fully intended to weave Michael Jackson's death into a piece I've intended to write for a long time - about our failure as a society to fully absorb all that has been learned about mental illness and incorporate it into our understanding of our fellow human beings. For whatever reason, I'm not quite ready to write that yet, so it will have to suffice to say that I am deeply saddened not so much by MJ's death as by the factors that make his premature demise seem inevitable. Looking back at the tortured arc of his career, at the abuse and negligence of his family and friends over fifty years, and at the unbearable weight of stardom on this fragile soul - it's a wonder he made it this far.
Michael Jackson was clearly a psychotic individual - and I mean that in the medical sense, not in the derogatory way that is so often carelessly and ignorantly applied to people we don't understand. He was emotionally, sexually, and psychologically divorced from reality while stardom prevented, if not discouraged, meaningful counsel and care from reaching him. He was worshipped by those who appreciated his artistic contribution to the world, with little regard for what lie beneath. He was labeled a "freak" by those who did not. He was protected and his behavior was reinforced by those who had access to him.
As for the allegations of child abuse: We'll probably never know if Michael Jackson molested children. I'm inclined to think some very bad people used their own children to take advantage of the man. If it did happen, I'm comfortable placing a significant portion of the blame on any parent who saw fit to let their child spend the night with a man as sick as Michael Jackson. Again, medically sick...not disgusting or evil.
In the end, it literally doesn't matter whether Michael Jackson was black or white, man or woman, adult or child. All I need to know about Michael Jackson can be heard in "I'll Be There," "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," and "Man in the Mirror," (my three personal favorites): The purity, the genius, the individuality, and the physical manifestation of an era and a genre in one person. Perhaps we missed out on a great comeback and another burst of genius, but I think Michael is probably better off missing out on another round of fame, ridicule, wealth, abuse, adulation, and exploitation.
Rest in Peace, Michael. Rest in peace.
July 09, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A few miscellaneous thoughts today...
July 06, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Isn't it the book of Matthew that says "Why do you look at the speck of shit on your neighbors dick and pay no attention to the plank of extramarital jism on your own?"
I'll get to Michael Jackson tomorrow. I'm not done with Sanford & Co. yet...
I'm hearing a lot of rational, humane voices on the right and left saying that we should all back off and let Mark Sanford deal privately with his own mistake. "This is not a partisan issue." "Infidelity has no party affiliation," they say. Bullshit. Let me explain very plainly why the Ensign and Sanford affairs, when put into context, are a very big deal (aside from the obvious fact that Republicans have never atoned for the crime of putting the country through the impeachment of a president over a blowjob - and that they still use Clinton's philandering as a catch-all retort to any argument).
The Republican Party has made sexual morality the cornerstone of its movement for the last 30 years. In doing so, they have aggressively sought to deny certain freedoms to the gay community, ostensibly in the "defense of marriage." They have exploited the issue of gay marriage to rally their base, disingenuously conflating the religious sacrament - which churches are certainly welcome to define as they see fit - with the civil institution that recognizes the joining of couples for some simple, secular, logistical, monetary, and legal matters. Pull out your marriage certificate and see if you can find the word "God." (Mine, from Pennsaylvania, makes no mention of any deity.)
And so, while I would generally agree that such matters are the supremely private domain of the two parties involved, Messieurs Ensign, Sanford, Vitter, Craig, Gingrich, Foley, Hyde, Livingston, McCain, et al, relinquished their right to that privacy when they became sanctimonious legislative moralizers. Sure, Democrats have been complicit in continuing this civil rights debacle - many of them voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which Bill Clinton signed into law - but I think we can safely stipulate that the Republican Party is what stands between gay couples and marriage equality. The 2008 Republican National Committee platform calls for "a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it." It goes on to say:
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems.
(I'll grant you, it does not say anything about whether the father should or should not be fucking other men, women, or teenage boys on the side.)
Republicans are driving the movement to deny monogamous gays the same privileges that are afforded to adulterous heterosexuals. If they really want to defend marriage, perhaps they should start by making divorce and adultery illegal - punishable by prison time. Or castration. Or, better yet, as the Bible prescribes, death.
But that's not what they want. They simply want to cling to this last shred of puritanism as evidence that this is still their Gods' land. They will not go down...ahem, I mean, they will not be defeated by the abortionists AND the gays! This isn't about defending marriage. This is about pride. This is about proving that provincial values are not inferior to big city, northeastern elitism. And perhaps they'd have a shred of credibility if their legislative fear of the Almighty extended to their own personal lives...but apparently it does not.
Forgive me if it sounds like I'm equating homosexuality to adultery. I'm not. I'm saying that this is not merely another isolated incident of personal failure. There is a lesson that must be learned from the parade of hypocrisy that began when Clinton's staunchest impeachment opponents (Gingrich (R), Hyde (R), Livingston (R)) turned out to be fellow cheaters, continued with the whoring adventures of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), the gay bathroom stall antics of Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), the gay congressional antics of Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), and climaxed...ahem, I mean, came to a head...or rather, culminated with the revelations of infidelities by Promise Keeping Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) within the same week. (Please visit www.republicansexoffenders.com for a more comprehensive litany!)
When the greatest proponents of a particular moral philosophy can not live up to the tenets of that philosophy, the philosophy itself must be called into question and we must, at the very least, limit their ability to limit the rights of others based on that philosophy.
June 26, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
If you're new to Chronically Pissed, welcome. I've been less than prolific lately, but i'm feeling more loquacious these days, so that may well change. I hope you'll check back regularly - or better yet, use the subscription form on the right and be notified of new posts. Thanks for stopping by.
Pissed as ever,
CP
June 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
So do I understand correctly that Sean Hannity's position on political sex scandals demands resignation if and only if the offender is/was a "family-values candidate?" Because in the next clip, an infamous one from the August of 2008, Hannity says of John Edwards: "I'm wondering - if you can't keep the promise to your family, can't keep the promise to your wife, you're having an affair, you're lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American people trust you when you say you're not gonna lie to them?"
June 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
When I was 14 years old, I chose Thanksgiving dinner as the occasion to out my mother as a pro-choice baby killer in front of our extended family. We had never had a frank discussion about the issue, but I had long suspected her to be on the side of darkness and evil. And so I provoked an argument at the table during which I skillfully elicited the most common pro-abortion arguments, each of which I met with a scathing, well-rehearsed version of the most common Pro-Life ripostes.
June 05, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)