There’s been a lot of gun talk recently since the murder-suicide of Jovan Belcher and the recent Florida murder of Jordan Davis by a Michael Dunn, who claimed to be defending himself from nefarious teens with loud music. In fact, maybe it’s me, but it seems that senseless deaths and massacres were the big gun stories this year. And now, of course, Fox has to go and offer their take on this very touchy issue. A lot of people on Facebook are also running to the protection of these defenseless firearms.
Let’s start with the conservative right-wing noise machine, though. It’s black people’s fault. I’m not even joking about this. Just take a look here. Also, check out the flippant way Gutfield here just dismisses kids being killed by guns as just gang members killing each other off.
Gun violence is an “urban problem,” just some kids in gangs shooting each other. Sorry, but that’s crap. Statistically, rural areas, especially in the south, have higher instances of gun violence than urban areas. Of course, whenever someone at Fox says “urban,” you know what they really mean. It’s the same position they had regarding welfare. The one where they said welfare was hurting the black community.
The conservative circle-jerk, though, got ugly when Fox suggested that female victims of violence should just make better decisions. The advice was not, you know, for men to stop being violent. Or for us to find the root cause of all this violence in our country. Nope. Blame the victim.
This dribble from Fox would be offensive and rage-inducing enough, but I also saw something floating around Facebook over the last few days. Feast your eyes:
Wow. Yeah. Uhm, baseball bats?
Sorry, but no cigar.
Here are the realstats according to those organizations. You may notice that blunt objects account for a VERY small part of this and firearms account for more than two thirds of the total. The graph on Facebook uses some weird Martian math we humans haven’t perfected yet, but the bottom line is that guns help crimes. You want to talk about the Second Amendment and its role in helping citizens defend themselves? Wonderful, but don’t tell me bats kill more people than guns. Don’t tell me people go on mass batting sprees. Don’t tell me children get killed by not knowing how to use a bat.
First of all, a gun is a weapon, not a tool. A car is designed to move people and good from one point to another. Its status as a “killer” on that list is because people don’t properly use them. It’s intended purpose is transport. The same thing goes for a knife. Drug abuse and falls hurt the person too stupid to know what he or she is doing. Drugs, I might add, are also used for religious ceremonies in certain cultures. And many of the things on that list are ACCIDENTS. How many gun deaths are from accidents? How many are intentional? That’s another huge difference.
When properly used, a gun kills something. When improperly used, a gun kills something. It’s a weapon. See the difference?
If we’re going to have the gun discussion, we need to all be on the same page of reality. Stop talking about guns as though they were some holy artifact of American pride. A gun is not a tool. It is a weapon. Firearms have been involved in more deaths than any other weapon and our country has the highest homicide rates in the modern world. Areas with the most lax gun laws have higher homicide rates. Most NRA members support tougher gun laws, registration, and background checks, but the idiots at the top (including Ted Nugent) say “No” because if we can track guns and make sure criminals have a harder time getting to them, then apparently scary Obama and the communists will invade America.
Yes, there is such a thing as a responsible gun owner, but a responsible gun owner should also be aware of the damage that a firearm can do. The bulk of the NRA knows this and wants tougher gun laws. Believe it or not, I’m pro-Second Amendment, but I’d like to make it harder for sickos to buy a thousand rounds of ammo before they shoot up a school. I’d like to know convicted criminals can’t get their hands on a Beretta. I want to know that if someone owns a gun, he or she is well-trained and continues to be well-trained. You have to at least be able to read a sign to drive a car, but apparently, asking for mental stability when purchasing an item that is strictly a weapon is a sign of fascism.
A gun isn’t a blanket. Stop clinging to it like a five-year old.
Caiden Cowger explained his views on homosexuality, why he thinks it’s immoral, and the injustice of not being able to preach to homosexuals. He capped it off this week by explaining why he believes homosexuals are evil and yet he himself does not hate them, just the sin.
He sounds like a bigot three times his age. Let’s break this down.
In this episode, we go after George Lucas, the Komen Foundation, Whitney Houston, and Chuck Norris… but not in that order. There are too many things to talk about right now, so let’s shotgun this.
This is a very quick post, no pics, no nothing, but I need to say something…
It’s not even Thanksgiving and the War on Christmas is in full swing. Heathens, pagans, atheists, and dirty liberals, rally to me! We’re going to make sure Santa gets shot down by NATO, the Nativity gets replaced with heavy metal cut-outs, and all Christmas carols are replaced with Cthulhu songs.
If you asked the good folks at Fox and the Drudge Report, that’s pretty much what’s happening. Ladies and gentlemen, the War on Christmas 2011 is in full swing!
This is the time of year when conservatives like to bitch and moan that liberals are destroying the sanctity of their commercialized pseudo-pagan holiday celebrating the birth of their savor that was actually born in spring. They get all huffy that other faiths have the audacity to celebrate holidays in December. They insist everyone should say Merry Christmas and ignore anyone else least you show yourself to be an American-hating Nazi.
Here’s what happened. The industry is creating a self-imposed tax (note how this has nothing to do with the president) and the new regulations are going into effect. Please note how it is the INDUSTRY that wants the tax in order to help their business.
What did the Right hear?
“OBAMA IS TAXING CHRISTMAS TREES!”
There is no War on Christmas. It’s really gotten to the point where any action a liberal takes that does not involve singing carols or wrapping presents is part of some attack. I did plenty of stories on this last year, and I was hoping to have a few more weeks to prepare, but let me just lay it out for you guys.
There is no War on Christmas. There are just insecure conservatives who simply must have everything be the same or else they begin to question their faith.
Now that we got that out of the way… bring on Christmas salvoes!
And to get everyone ready for the weekend, here is a video of our future god empress. See you Monday!
Yeah, that's me in Joker make-up. I made the paper, too! For non-criminal reasons!
October 25, 2011
As if the stupidWaronChristmas wasn’t enough, Fox now thinks there’s a War against Halloween. I guess pulling out of Iraq left them wanting combat of some sort, so let me indulge them.
The Fox story goes something like this. Schools are banning Halloween celebrations because they don’t want kids eating candy and they want to not exclude anyone who doesn’t believe in the celebration, i.e. immigrants. But allow me to let Ren and Stimpy here to say it far more stupidly than I ever could.
The schools are banning candy to help kids eat healthier.
The celebrations are not being banned. They’re being moved to after-school so the parties won’t disrupt classes.
Likewise, kids can still wear costumes, but so as not to distract from valuable class time, the kids may wear the costumes after school.
Some of the kids cannot afford costumes because of tough economic situations, and this led to hurt feelings and isolation. Worrying about other people’s feelings is NOT a liberal conspiracy. It’s called basic human decency.
Now let me get to the one major point of contention for me.
Immigrants are offended by Halloween? If anything, I think Halloween is TAME by the standards of most immigrants. Take me for instance. I come from a culture that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, but instead has a holiday where we lay out altars dressed in food, flowers, and booze so the spirits of our dead relatives can visit us. We INVITE the ghosts in. Little Timmy in his Situation costume? Lame. We deal with real ghosts.
Represent!
The only reason I can assume an immigrant would be offended or feel left out by Halloween is if he or she did not know what it was. Seeing things like spirits and magic treated like a kid’s game might be offensive to some who hold on to beliefs that treat them as real, and I’m sure a lot of pagans and Wiccans take offense to things like the portrayal of witches. The celebration’s spread around the world, though it’s only here in the States that it seems to have attained the kind of holy reverence once reserved for Christmas. Halloween is not some sacred rite here. It’s a fully commercialized day where kids get hopped up on sugar, get to play dress-up, and women are made to dress like pseudo-hookers.
War on Halloween? Please. If we immigrants are somehow tainting the purity of this Americanized pagan harvest observance, it’s only because we know what the season is really about.
And now, in an effort to make you think nothing but good thoughts, here’s Michael Winslow doing Led Zeppelin with only his sound effects and a guitar. This is the sound of pure, distilled awesome.
So Hurricane Irene was not the apocalyptic disaster the press made it out to be. The earthquake a few weeks ago did damage, but it wasn’t anywhere close to Japan’s damage. Still, both disasters caused damage and lives were lost. As a nation, we should look to these affected areas and at the very least hope the people there get the help and resources they need.
And wouldn’t you know it? Conservatives don’t like that sort of thing.
What? The American Right Wing is actually mad that tax dollars are being spent helping people who just suffered through a natural disaster? Surely, I speak lies!
None other than Glenn Beck himself is outraged that the government is providing aid. No, seriously. See, in his mind, to accept help is to be weak and subservient. If the people in Vermont, for example, didn’t plan on what to do when horrendous flooding and winds destroyed their infrastructure, then they have no business asking their government to help. I wish I could make this up, but it’s true.
To top it off, Fox is having a field day asking if we even need The National Weather Service. That thing that lets us know when bad weather is coming? Since it doesn’t make money, it must not be doing its job. I guess since police departments and firefighters don’t bring in the big bucks for the government, either, we can get rid of them, too. At least we have Bill Nye defending it.
Maybe it’s just me, but out of ALL the problems in the world and the nearly 6.7 billion people on the planet, could the hurricane and earthquake be for something else? Maybe it’s God telling New Jersey to do something about The Situation. Maybe sharks swimming through streets in Puerto Rico is a sign telling them there are enemies in their midst. Maybe having millions of people without power is a sign that we need to go back to nature and embrace neo-Luddism.
Or maybe all these people are trying to profit out of the misery and death and chaos created by shifting global climate patterns.
Remember, folks. When you think a hemisphere-spanning event relates specifically to you, that’s called “rampant narcissism,” otherwise known as “votes Republican.”
Think about it. Have you ever had to tell a story to someone while remaining as objective as possible? Try telling ANY story without having your own bias influence it and you’ll see the challenge of trying to be a journalist.
That being said, it’s one of the reasons Fox News needs to drop “news” from its name.
As many of you have heard, Fox’s parent company, Newscorp, has a bit of a problem. They’ve been caught in various hacking scandals, everything from hacking a missing (later confirmed dead) girl’s phone to listen in to messages left behind by grieving relatives and friends, to hacking 9/11 families, celebrities, and everyone else under the sun. These hacks have become a federal case both here and in the UK. Needless to say, Rupert Murdoch’s days are numbered…
Except he still controls Fox News, and Fox is, by their own admission, fair and balanced, so they must be telling the truth, right?
The scandal has received little mention on the Little Network that Could, but one story in particular showed just how far the so-called “journalists” at Fox are willing to go to protect their parent company at the cost of journalism ethics. Check out the following clip and see if you can tell where they dropped the ball.
Give up?
They make a big point of the fact that there are other hacking cases out there, but we’re all focusing on Newscorp. The Pentago got hit too, they cry out! Why don’t we focus on THEM!? Why are we all gawking at poor Newscorp?!
Because, despite what the clip tried to insinuate, Newscorp is the one that did the hacking, not the one that got hacked. We’re watching the company because they are the accused party, not the victim. It’s like Herman Cain playing the victim because people call him out for his hatred of Islam. It’s like Bachmann supporters acting all butt-hurt because Michelle “Queen of Loony Land” keeps getting corrected for all her gaffes.
To Fox and everyone who supports them, you’re not the victims. You’re the ones who are accused. You’re like a robber than complains he had to get tackled by police after fleeing the scene of a crime. You’re like the high school hero who says he can’t be allowed to fail a class or he won’t be able to play on the team. You’re like the politician who pulls strings to hide an affair because he has too much power and too much to lose.
Okay, but there’s one HUGE difference between the Wikileaks incident and what News of the World did.
The paper was fishing. They were blackmailing. They did not use the hacking to uncover information about crimes. This information was used for sensationalism and self-service. Wikileaks, whatever the legality of their actions, exposed crimes.
Where is the need to hack a dead girl’s phone to listen to the anguished cries of her parents, friends, and family? What does the paper gain from violating the privacy of 9/11 families? Hacking celebrities?
What Newscorp did was illegal and morallity reprehensable. If Fox was a real news organization, if it had any integrity, it would report on the scandal instead of trying to cover for the boss.
But then again, Fox ISN’T a news organization, is it?
And now, to wash away images of bad, bad Murdoch, here is a tutorial on how to speak good like Kristen Stewart.
Sarah Palin got a documentary called The Undefeated? Didn’t she lose the vice-presidency and quit her gubernatorial job mid-way through?
I had an interesting conversation regarding meat on Twitter. I’ll probably write more about it later, but suffice to say I’m a proud meat-eater and have no qualms about killing an animal for my food. With that in mind, there’s a reason a lot of vegetarians and vegans get a bad rep. It’s self-involved jerks like this that make the rest of you look bad.
Fox News has been claiming Media Matters is an illegal organization because it is labeled as a non-profit and yet it attacks their news network, a clearly partisan agenda driven by politics. Well, there are a few problems with that, not the least of which is that news Corp., which owns Fox, hasn’t paid taxes in years and receives government aid.
And finally, here’s the trailer for the sequel to Sherlock Holmes. I hope they don’t overdo the bullet-time, but other than that, it looks fun. See you tomorrow!
As we all know, yesterday was the day we celebrate the Founding Fathers abolishing slavery, standing up to evolution, and ending communism. Or something like that. I don’t know. I’ve been looking over Bachmann and Palin quotes.
Anyway, let’s go over a few things hot on the internet and news cycles and see if we can find a few items of interest.
Fox News is, for better or worse, one of the mainstream media outlets. However, a few journalists have uncovered the secret 25-year-old plank for Fox News, a plan set in motion back in the Nixon Era. The bad journalism and the blatant slant and spin? It’s not an accident…
I already knew Michael Bay was a hack who couldn’t direct traffic if he tried, but this is sad. As a friend of mine said, I never thought I’d describe Transformers 3 as “cheap,” but Bay actually reused footage from his blatant rip-off of Clonus in the new Transformers movie. Yes, he recycled footage from The Island and just added robots.
I’ve fought the good fight here on Randomology. I’ve battled the nitwits and the stupid, the racist and the close-minded. I’ve pushed back against those who would hijack education, the Constitution, and twist the idea of progress into something awful. I’ve ranted against those who likewise hijack religion in the name of ratings or fame.
But when you go after Sesame Street, you better believe I will FUCK YOU UP. I grew up with Sesame Street. Sesame Street helped me learn English. I loved the Muppets growing up, and if you grow balls big enough to go after Jim Henson and this pure, fun, educational part of my childhood, I will personally rip your spleen out through your knee.
Behold the wisdom of going after puppets. No, really. Just watch the video and see how these guys can see the Mongol-like invasion of progressivism in… Elmo teaching kids letters.
Now, maybe you watched the video, but maybe you didn’t. That’s fine. Let me go over a few of the more… interesting points they try to make regarding Sesame Street and the media in general.
0:36-0:51 Sesame Street was created to cater to poor black and Hispanic children who didn’t have reading material at home.
…And? What’s wrong with originally catering to sections of the population that traditionally lag behind in education? I would think this is a good thing. Blacks and Hispanics usually lag behind in education, and this isn’t a stereotype. Research throughout the years have shown this. This is due to a number of reasons, everything from inadequate resources to troubled home life.
And yes, I myself am Hispanic, and while I didn’t have these kinds of problems, the show helped me.
0:51-1:26 Sesame Street’s website tells parents to use gender-neutral nouns, give dolls to boys and trucks to girls, and just this year, an openly gay boy was crowned prom queen in a school in Virginia, so this is a “direct assault on this country’s moral foundation.”
Okay, this string of accusations has three parts, so let’s go through each individually.
First of all, using gender-neutral pronouns isn’t some subversion of morality. It’s the inevitable result of both genders being equal. Do these two clowns have something against equality? Even MLA and APA handbooks say you should use gender-neutral nouns. However, this being Fox, I doubt they’d know the standards of journalism.
Second of all, could someone please tell me where on the Sesame Street website these evolutionary throwbacks found that little piece of information?
And third of all, this thing with a gay man being voted prom queen? How exactly does Sesame Street link back to this? This is really the point of the clip where the discussion goes into generalities and strawmen, but let’s pretend that this has nothing to do with Sesame Street. Let’s say they’re just outraged that the media in general is saying that a gay man can be prom queen.
So?
I guess these are the kinds of people who would also be upset over two lesbians going to prom. The school voted and the kid won. Fair and square. And it was an affirmation that the student body embraced this young man’s decision. Just watching him and how proud he was of his friends and family speaks volumes.
1:37-2:14 “The values of young people today scare me because we’re robbing them at earlier and earlier ages of their childhood. They know more. They do more.” Our shows used to be more wholesome, and parents aren’t monitoring what their kids are watching.
The children! They invoked the children!
And if you too would like to know how you can tell people to stop using children as a shield for their own ignorance, just click here.
So many things wrong here… What, exactly, is Sesame Street taking from our children? Just read that quote again. The panel is actually mad that children are LEARNING. That’s right. They don’t want children learning things like reading and math or about other cultures. God forbid little Timmy learns that in Mexico, they use a lot of spices and have different kinds of limes.
As for the whole “wholesome” shows thing… as much as I loved I Love Lucy and similar programming… Lucy smoked while she was pregnant. Everyone smoked. Aside from Ricky, name another visible, independent minority. Please. Show me the episodes where they addressed things like racism, inequality, and the rights of women. Show me when the Cleavers had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.
And don’t even get me started on The Honeymooners.
Yeah, the shows were “wholesome,” and I’ll admit they were funnier than half the crap on TV right now, but don’t hold them up as ethical and moral beacons.
2:15-2:26- Artists are liberal, and artists make these shows, so…
Now, our former Miss America got cut off, but if you listen carefully, it sounded like she was going to make a case for “Artists make and write these shows, artists are liberal, and therefore, since we know liberals are evil, these shows are evil.”
I got news for you, Spray Tan. Artists made those shows you and the Right-Wing Brigade were pushing up a few minutes ago. Yeah, artists tend to be more liberal and open minded. We have to be.
But the politics or personality of the artist have no merit on the aesthetics of the art itself. Let me put it another way.
I hate Michael Bay. The guy is a diva who is full of himself and can’t take the blame for his own mistakes. On the other hand, The Rock happens to be one of my favorite 90’s action movies. Not surprising, since Bay made it before he apparently replaced his blood with pure testosterone and diesel fuel. Likewise, H. P. Lovecraft created tales of morbid and alien terror, yet he was an unapologetic racist. On their own, though, the stories created an entire sub-genre: Lovecraftian horror.
Oh, and may I just say that, when you want in-depth commentary on the state of the media, education, and child psychology, your first choice for a panelist should ALWAYS be a former Miss America, right?
2:27-2:54 If you look at tyrannies, the first thing they do is go after the family and religion. Then, government can become the family and religion.
Again, this has nothing to do with Sesame Street, but let’s ignore that.
How is the media going after family and religion? Can we get examples? Specific shows and incidents? No. All we get are generalizations. The fact is that if you want to make the case for the media destroying families and religion, it’s not because television is preaching against it. It’s more likely that parents aren’t paying attention or being involved with their kids. Religion does not address the issues it needs to address.
I would never raise a child just on Sesame Street, or any other show or book. That’s called bad parenting, so stop blaming the television for parents not doing their job.
2:54-3:15 Liberals think they’re so great, that their morality is so good, and they want to spread their message. They don’t even teach the basics in school like reading, writing, and math! They don’t even use their own money to get their message out.
Yeah, we like to think we’re right. We want to get our message out. So does the right. This is really just Hannity mad that liberals have the balls to say what they believe. I’m serious. He’s just ranting that the Left has the gall to try and spread its message as though it’s some instant thought-converter.
And Hannity, how much of YOUR money do you spend to get your message out? How much does Beck spend? Beck was crying about this Israel trip of his costing a few million dollars even though he is worth $80 million. Even if he spent only 10 million dollars, he could fly more than 2,000 people there for free.
The rest of the video is just ranting against how liberals supposedly don’t have their own charities, how there’s apparently between rich liberals and the American elite that involves some weird word-play on Hannity’s part, and Sesame Street is never mentioned again.
There are legitimate concerns about children’s programming. I know this, but at least make a substantial argument. I’m very protective of Sesame Street because it really did play a big part in my childhood, although seeing the raging liberal that I am today, I may have proven the panel’s point.
Sesame Street is one of the best educational tools for young children. Combine it with good parenting, and kids get a lesson at home they might not otherwise get. It’s a great tool for learning English for foreign-born kids, and it’s evolved throughout the years to show a more multi-cultural, open society.
And if anyone goes after Sesame Street, Oscar, Gonzo, or any of the Muppets without some actual justification, I will go after them with extreme violence. Napalm may be involved.
