Rob
« Previous Entries‘Tis the Season….
Thursday, December 11th, 2008When 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.
Thoughts on Ethnicity
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008I’m going to ask you a question. Before you answer it, I want you to read the rest of this blog while thinking about it.
The question is this: What is your ethnicity?
It might seem like a simple enough question. I bet an answer popped into your head as soon as you finsihed reading it. It may be the correct answer. However, I want you to think about it for a moment.
What defines ethnicity? Is it the color of your skin? Is it where you live? Is it what language you speak? Is it where your ancestors are from? Is it something else?
It could be any of those. I guess it is really up to the individual to define the term for his or herself. I’ve been thinking about this question since I was involved in a discussion yesterday evening about this very topic.
My great-grandparents came over to the United States from Poland. They continued to speak the language when they arrived, and had children who spoke Polish. But those children also learned English which became their primary language.
As time went on, and generations were born to my family, the use of Polish diminished as did the Polish customs that the family had brought with them from their homeland. Soon, my generation was born any trace of the “old country” was all but gone. I suppose you can say that the family was “Americanized.”
So, here’s my second question: Am I Polish? Am I Polish-American? Or am I just American?
At what point does “American” become an ethnicity?
Those who come from Italy are italian. Those from France are French. Germans come from Germany. But, who are the people that come from America? Why do we put our ancestors’ ethnicities in front of “American” when we say who we are?
If I were to move to Italy and become a citizen, would I be considered American-Italian? Or Polish-Italian?
Where do we draw the line?
If I were to go back to Poland I would realize just how Polish I’m not. The same for an African-American who’s never been to Africa (not to mention that Africa’s aa continent, not a country so I’ve never understood the term African-American as it seems to apply to all blacks. Not every black person in America has roots in Africa.) How about an Asian American who’s never left the continental United States? Are they of the American ethnicity? Keep in mind, I’m talking ethnicity and not race.
It’s a good question to ask yourself, and I’m curious to hear opinions on this.
We’re All Winners!!
Monday, April 21st, 2008I read somewhere recently that a principal at some midwestern school has outlawed the game of tag. I believe she described it as a “game of intense aggression,” and is therefore unsuitable for the children of her school.
Along with this, dodgeball has been outlawed in many schools. Apparently it’s too violent as well.
In many parts of the country, little leagues have stopped keeping score.
I’m getting sick and tired of hearing this “every kid’s a winner” bullshit. Every kid is not a winner. Every kid should not be treated as a winner. If you want your kid to be a winner, teach him how to win.
You can’t expect children to grow up to be functioning adults if you coddle them until they’re 18. Can you imagine what a skewed sense of the world they’ll have? As soon as they leave their parents home, the world is going to crush them because they haven’t been properly taught how to succeed in it.
We’re being way too easy on children. We walk on eggshells with them because we’re afraid their feeling will get hurt and they’ll grow up with problems. It’s our generation of 30-somethings that’s doing this, too. For some reason we don’t want our children to have the same difficulties in school that we did. We want everything to be easy for them, everything handed to them on a silver platter.
I’m sorry, but the world doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to fail. You’ve got to lose. You’ve got to embarass yourself once in awhile in order to really know how to win. That’s life. You have to expose children to the harsh realities that await them someday so that they can actually handle it.
Let your kid lose once in awhile. It’s good for him.
Fags Unite!
Monday, March 31st, 2008No, I’m not bashing here.
Because I am a fag, and proud of it.
Don’t worry, guys, I still like the ladies, but I’m going to proudly call myself a fag.
Why, you ask? Because I am, and so is anyone else who opposes Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. According to the Phelps clan, that is. It has nothing to do with homosexuality any longer. In Phelps’ eyes, a ‘fag’ is anyone not a member of his congregation.
This past weekend Topeka, Kansas was the scene of the first annual Million Fag March, a peaceful protest against Phelps and his cronies. The motto of the protest is that freedom of speech works both ways. Fred Phelps may have the right to picket when and where he pleases, and so do the rest of us.
While I believe a peaceful protest against the WBC is a valiant and wonderful idea, I have to question whether or not it will serve the purpose intended. While Fred Phelps and his family are nothing but an array of vile creatures, this protest may give them attention that they do not deserve.
I’ve always been a proponent of ignoring the WBC and its idiocy. The more attention given to them, the more of the spotlight they monopolize. What they want is media attention, and anything done to attract that attention is welcomed by them. Even protests against them. Especially protests against them.
Fred Phelps is an old man who’s probably going to be dead sooner than later. Depending on whatever religion you follow, he’s either going to burn in Hell or come back as a retarded squirrel. Or just not exist, if you don’t believe in an afterlife.
Once he’s gone, that Church is not going to have the momentum to go on like it has been. I don’t think his daughter, Shirley, will be able to garner the same following as he has and the ‘movement’ will die.
Let nature take its course.
The ‘Miracle’ Of Birth
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008So, a transgender man is pregnant. It’s all over the news like it’s some sort of an amazing feat.
This ‘man’ still has the reproductive system of a woman. Now ‘he’s’ pregnant.
Why is this news? Why are people fascinated by this? This woman gets her breasts removed, grows some facial hair and starts living as a man. But she still has a vagina, uterus and all that other stuff women have that are used to make babies.
Technically, she’s still a woman.
Women get pregnant.
It’s not some scientific breakthrough, not some freak of nature. It happens all the time. That’s why the world still has people.
I don’t understand what the big deal is.
Anyway, here’s the link to an article about it.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4526582&page=1
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