I'm tired

I don't often complain, because it's kind of pointless, but today I'm in a mood. So here goes.

I'm tired of all this shit happening to my family. This is kind of silly, because I realize we're still better off than probably 85-90% of the people on the planet, but still - I get it, God, you're pissed off at us for some reason! Actually, since there is no God, I don't get this. My fallback reason is that Arizona is cursed. We've lived here a few months shy of four years. Since moving here, we have had six major negative events occur - some true tragedies (the medical stuff) and some simply economic (both Krys and I have lost a job since we moved here - Bush's economy at work!). I'm tired of it. It makes me twitchy.

I'm tired of people like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore. Shut the fuck up, both of you, and your entire ilk. I started to read the Time magazine article about Coulter, but stopped before I threw up in my mouth. According to Coulter, a liberal is a person who want to abort a child as it's coming out of the womb and call it a constitutional right. That makes me sick. How is that solving anything, Ann? I guess a conservative is someone who thinks executing retarded teenagers is a great idea. Moore isn't any better. Once upon a time, he made interesting documentaries. I was with him through most of Bowling for Columbine, until he started badgering Charlton Heston. Now, Heston set himself up for it, but how is pestering an old man going to solve anything, Moore? Huh?

I'm tired of the media not doing their jobs. This includes Fox and CNN - I'm an equal opportunity hater. It's kind of sad that the two sources I trust for news are Jon Stewart and Steven Grant, neither of whom is a "journalist." Case in point: the whole Ward Churchill brouhaha. Here's the whole essay that caused the flap. Yes, Churchill called the victims of September 11 "little Eichmanns," which was a pretty stupid thing to do. But his point is vaster than that, and he is trying to interrupt the obnoxious chest-beating that took place in the wake of the attacks and show that maybe, just maybe, the attacks didn't take place in a vacuum. He could have used better words, but the only place I saw any reasoned discussion of the entire essay, rather than just two words, was in Steven Grant's column. The entire media simply shouted "little Eichmanns" over and over again until no cared about anything else.

I'm tired of George Bush and his stupid Healthy Forests Initiative and his Clear Skies Initiative. Is he fooling anyone? Please, someone explain how either of these makes our forests healthy or our skies clean. I'm not being facetious. I just don't get it. Obviously I'm stupid. Any Bush supporters out there? Please explain.

I'm tired of lots of people treating Patrick Haab like he's some kind of hero. Illegal immigration is a serious problem, as I've mentioned before, but this guy arrested people he only guessed were illegal immigrants, simply because they were Hispanic. The state attorney didn't press charges because it turned out they were illegal, but what's to stop anyone now from arresting Hispanics anywhere in the country simply because they don't like the way they look? Haab has said he's not prejudiced, but since his arrest, he's been on several talk shows and radio shows, saying illegal immigrants are turning the country into "Americo." Let's just call him what he is - a young punk soldier with a gun who has some racist ideas and got a little carried away. He's not a fucking hero.

I'm tired of the cult of celebrity in the country. I know it's not going away, but do we need entire sections of the newspapers devoted to it? One of my many dream jobs is editor of a paper, because it would cost a dime and be stripped to the bone. So much of what's in the newspaper is crap, and the celebrity section rules the crap heap ("I wear my crown of shit, on my liar's chair" - ah, Trent, where are you now?).

I'm tired of sports discussions when the sports being discussed are not in season. I'm sorry, Woody, if you're reading this, because you do an excellent job keeping up with all of this, but you know what? If sports talk radio went away tomorrow, we'd all be happier (well, maybe not the personalities on the shows, but the rest of us). I love the Eagles, but you know when I start caring about them? The first week of September, when the season starts. No, I don't care who they draft. No, I don't care when mini-camps start. It's just too much coverage, a function of this 24-7 365 cable crap we now have.

I'm tired of people supporting the troops. I'm really tired of "Christians" claiming you can't be a good Christian unless you support the troops. I've said it before, and I'll say it here - they're volunteers. Nobody held a gun to their heads, and most of them probably thought they'd have a nice tour somewhere in Germany and get money for college and some job training. Well, that's the chance you take, people. I don't support the war, I don't support our troops - I'm sorry if some of you have friends and family in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it sucks that they're paying for Bush's hubris, but they're there because they wanted to be in the armed forces.

I'm tired of moral relativism. Wait a minute, Greg, aren't you a liberal? Don't you think people should be able to get abortions on demand while smoking weed and allowing illegal immigrants into the country? Well, I'm liberal, but I still have morals. I'm tired of kids getting pregnant and nobody saying it might be a bad thing. I'm sorry, Yazil, because I think you're mature enough to be a good mother, but 17-year-olds without a high school diploma should not be getting pregnant, and if no one tells these girls that, they'll continue to think it's okay. So many of my students who were wonderful and had a bright future got pregnant, and although they all say they'll go on to college, the few I've heard about later are not going to college and struggling with the motherhood thing. Some things in this world are wrong. I may think the things that are wrong are different from what the fundamentalists currently taking over the country think are wrong, but some things are wrong.

Speaking of teen parents, I'm tired of bad parenting. Krys and I like to check out Nanny 911 occasionally, and it's always the parents' fault that their kids are evil. Parenting is a difficult job, but it's not impossible. So many parents are awful, and it's no wonder their kids are too. Here's a tip: if you don't want your kids to do something, don't do it yourself. Don't want your kids to curse when they're four years old? Stop shouting "fuck" to everyone within your vocal range. Don't want your kids to drink when they're teenagers? Don't take them with you to the Circle K to buy beer and then drink it in front of them. Don't want your kids to be hyper? Don't give them candy before they're old enough to walk. I'm not Super-Dad, but Mia has never had soda, and we're not in any hurry to give it to her. Bad parents, I think, don't consider how much work it is, and they give up to easily. Kids are persistent, so you have to be too. Krys told me about a co-worker who wouldn't let her 13-year-old buy thong underwear. She told her daughter this for three years (starting when the girl was ten) and the daughter finally got the message and didn't buy a thong when she had the opportunity. Parents have control over their children, and if you don't want your 12-year-old to dress like a whore, don't let her. Bad parents piss me off more than bad kids, because they're children - they have an excuse. Krys was reading on-line about a parent who put her kids to bed after nine o'clock because she (the mother) wanted to sleep in every morning. If you don't want to get up at five o'clock in the morning, don't have kids.

Well. Now that I sound like a grumpy Lili von Shtupp, I'll shut up. Smokey appears to be doing a little better, and he apparently has found his litter box, so that's a good thing. Surgery on Monday - fun!