"I'm a sweet Transvestite..."

For those who have no idea where the title comes from here is a handy link.  You should really watch this insane movie sometime.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc80tFJpTuo

     Okay now that you have been thoroughly traumatized by Rocky Horror, onward to the matter at hand!
     So a Lady who I am proud to call an E-Friend (Never met her, but find her absolutely amazing.) Jenn Burleton posted a link to this new kids show coming out on the HUB this month  (Okay next month by one day don't get persnickity with me!)  I actually went to the HUB website and watched the trailer and I loved it!  I provide two links for you to peruse.  The first is Jenn's link to a Breitbart Article.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/05/28/Children-network-transsexual-superhero

     As per usual, I find the comments posted after the article much more interesting than the surprisingly (At least for BB) complimentary article.  People railing on and on and on about how a show about a Boy who becomes a girl superhero is bad, nasty and down right wrong.  My personal favorite is "WRONG, Kids between 2-11 in NO WAY should be Exposed to this Type of Un-Natural Depravity."  Will cover the reason I find this so damned funny in a second.

http://www.hubworld.com/watch/2378698461001/shezow-series-premiere-promo

     Above is the link to the actual series trailer, watch it for yourself and make your own decisions about the show.

     Now on to why I find the almost rabid condemnation of this show that is basically about a Cross Dressing (Kid's voice never changes so I am not sure if he is actually Transgender or just some poor kid stuck wearing female attire while he battles crime.)  Most of the people railing about this sort of thing probably grew up watching the sort of toons that I did.  So I find it funny they rail against gay stuff, cross dressing stuff etc in modern toons as a danger to their poor fragile children.  Why?  Let me whip this out for you.  (Gasp!)
     Let's cover Loony Toons for firstsies.  Gods how many times did Bugs, Daffy and even Elmer a few times get dressed up in women's clothing?  Prolly every fifth episode or do.  Heck there is even one episode where a Norse Elmer carries a metal bra wearing Bugs to a romantic spot and starts making nice nice.  Fast forward to a newer generation and shows like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs were filled with cross dressing toons.  So far I haven't seen a lot of trauma or confusion resulting from those shows.  Well, unless you count grumpy older people railing against change.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW9BapLxwkw

     Slightly more obscure unless you are into Anime is the show linked above which tells the story of a boy who (Gasp again) turns into a pretty young girl when doused with water.  I know a lot of people my age who have watched the many versions of that show.  Despite what so many people are terrified of, they turned out normal.  (Well okay, close enough)  I'd say 97% are straight fairly well adjusted people and the 3% that aren't were pretty durned messed up even back then.

     Really what it boils down to is this.  We are becoming so overly sensitive and fearful as a culture that anything we see as a threat to the very tenuous status qua becomes a threat in our minds.  Ignoring the arguments over morality and right or wrong for a moment, the overwhelming fact is that LGBT acceptance is becoming more common every day.  States are moving against the Federal DOMA mindset and allowing Same Sex couples the same marital rights as everyone else.  People who are "different" no longer hide it in shame, but openly show it no matter where they go.  The Stigma is shifting from LGBTs to the people who condemn them.  That scares the crap out of a lot of people.

     So much like Women's Rights back in the day and Racial Equality not so far back, people are seeing the "way things have always been" eroding away.  Suddenly they are faced with the fact that a group of people who have been ostracized (Huh spelled that right first time) for a long time suddenly have the power to fight back.  So instead of accepting the inevitable, these people will continue to rail against every single "attack" that comes along and will probably never realize that their fear and hate is making them the minority.

End of rant

PS:  and in response to some of the comments in the BB post, Really?!  In this day and age, we really still have people that believe that being Gay or Bi or whatever is a Mental Illness?  Wow, what's next locking them up in little rooms and attaching electrodes to sensitive body parts to change their orientation?   

Whither goest Truth or Sorry I can't hear you with my head in the sand!

Zat you Sam?

    (Aside the first: And before we even start this romp, please let me assure you that I do indeed know that the old Ostrich with its head in the sand thing is pure hokum!  I just happen to like the analogy of it and this particular image.)
     (Aside the second:  Does it amaze anyone else just how vast and amazing the Interwebz is?  No matter what the topic no matter how esoteric and obscure, if you type it into the right search engine, you will find some article or picture on the subject.  I won't even begin to go into how many Ostrich images I found.)

     Anyho, onwards and spiraling ever downwards to the depths of Heck.  So a bunch of different articles were posted by various friends on FB today that kind of got me thinking.  The topics ranged from sheep innards to gas prices to hams made in China.  (Well to be fair, they aren't being made in China now, but they might be soon enough.)  Like I said the topics were extremely varied, but they all made me ponder how elusive Truth is and how so many people would much rather avoid it all together to keep it from conflicting with what they believe.
     Many moons ago, I read an article in an actual honest to gosh paper magazine that interviewed 250 people who were suffering from some form of terminal, very nasty disease.  Many of the illnesses could have been either cured or greatly eased if the illness had been caught early enough, but the majority of these sufferers admitted that they had postponed going to a Doctor to see what was wrong with them because they were terrified of finding out the truth.  So even though there were multiple indications something was seriously wrong (Coughing up blood, strange rashes etc.) they refused to find out what because they were afraid of knowing.
     Someone said recently (Can't remember who and can't find citation of the quote.  Hell it might have been one of my many personalities for all I know.) that it is a shame that we live in an era where information and facts are freely available to a huge number of people, but we still choose to live in our own ignorance.  I'd like to modify that slightly by stating that people choose to live in their own ignorance or the ignorance of others as long as it supports what they believe.

I tell you they are out there!  I saw it on the Interwebz!

     People KNOW what they KNOW and anything that doesn't fit into that knowledge is a lie or part of some grand conspiracy to keep the TRUTH from coming out.  Prime examples of the are:  The Moon Landing was faked, 911 was a inside job, Sandy Hook was some secret government plot to take away our guns.  However, these are the extreme examples.   Even most doubters laugh at these.  (Or at least snicker quietly to themselves.) 
     Less extreme examples which are supported by an astonishingly large number of people are:  Aspertame causes everything from male pattern baldness to whooping cough, Inoculations cause Autism and Coffee causes cancer.  They support these ideas because they KNOW that they are facts because a bunch of people posted it on the Interwebz.  Never mind the Doctor who supposedly started the Aspertame Scare doesn't exist and the so called researcher who created the Autism scare has been thoroughly condemned by all of his peers for sloppy oftentimes dangerous research on children and has even admitted that he used improper techniques himself.  We won't even go into the ridiculous idea of coffee being bad.
     No matter how much data comes out.  No matter how much truth is revealed, people refuse to listen to it or to even consider it because it contradicts what they know to be true.  Course, in all fairness this is not a new phenomenon.  Long before the Interwebz, people always clung to their own truths even when facts attacked.  Guess it shows that we have not come all that far after all.

No no no!  I said Facts not Fax!

End of rant

    

Step away from the Deceased Equine!

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/ss/Michelle-Obama-Vs-The-U-S-Flag.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgWMI0hch8

     So I have been reading snide and insulting comments about the above video since essentially the day after it happened.  Thousands of people jumping on the bandwagon in outrage over Michelle Obama reportedly saying "All this for that damned flag" or minor variations on that theme.  Seen so many "experts" claiming to have read her lips and KNEW what she said and so many thousands more willing to follow just because they don't like the Obamas and want to believe anything bad about them.  (Barry Sotero anyone?)

     Now I personally know several people who are actually deaf and are very good at reading lips.  Most of the ones I asked about it couldn't clearly make out what she said, but agreed that the way her lips moved didn't form the words in the sentence in question.  Keep in mind these are people who lip read every day to essentially function in the real world.

     Still, people may argue (And Gods do they argue) that my friends could be wrong.  And I agree that everyone is fallible.  Everyone makes mistakes.  However, this little rant isn't really about whether my friends are right or someone else is right.  This rant is about credibility.  

     So the person/s who posted this particular link on You Tube said, "Yes, folks, that is what she said, according to an instructor at a School for the Deaf and Blind who watched the video."  This would be incredibly damning except for one teensy weensy fact.  "Contrary to what's claimed above, no instructors employed by the River School in Washington, D.C. participated in the interpretation of Michelle Obama's lip movements in the video in question.

"Please be advised," read a statement posted on the school's website in 2011, "that the River School was not involved in any translation services for a recent video clip currently circulating on the Internet." The denial was reaffirmed by River School director Nancy Mellon in a statement quoted by Politifact.com. "It's definitely not us," Mellon said. "We would never try to do anything like this."
     The plain and simple fact is, anytime you try to back up your "facts" with lies then that automatically discredits anything you are claiming.  The fact that the rumor mongers couldn't find a single actual expert to back up their claims damns their claims as lies.  It comes under the same heading as Obama's birth certificate.  Real experts who have spent their entire lives in their chosen fields have tried to prove that Obama's BC is a fake.  They failed.  No credible proof has ever been put forward to show that he is anything other than a natural born US citizen.  So instead of accepting this, people cling to lies like the aforementioned Barry Sotero April Fools Joke or the Umpteen dozen Barack Obama Social Security cards.  People refuse to accept actual facts as long as it contradicts what they "know."
    To me, when anyone argues with lies, they have already lost.  Even if what they are trying to say is true, the fact that they have to resort to lies and disinformation means they will never prove their point.  Baffling people with Bullshit may get you the sheeple, but will never prove your point.

End of rant 

A little Squid Pro Quo for my brother.

Yummy!

http://porkbrainsandmilkgravy.blogspot.com/2013/05/even-more-discombobulated-than-usual.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PorkBrainsWithMilkGravy+%28Pork+Brains+with+Milk+Gravy%29

     No folks, don't worry.  You haven't stumbled across the wrong Blog by accident or found some odd cooking site instead of my usual rantings.  I am here to tell all of you about a much better blog and writer than my own NSHS (Not So Humble Self).  If you like my insanity, you will love this guy.

     The all of this started was yesterday when I was down at the Author's (Who I am proud to call brother) and we were discussing writing while watching children happily frolic in the pool.  I mentioned that, thanks to all of you, my readership in portions of the world where English is not the dominate language now exceeded the readership in the US.  (A fact that still amazes me, thank you.)

     My Brother said (And I quote hence the "  ") "Well, F'dang, how the hell can you have more readers than me?"  I had to honestly shrug and admit that I had no idea.  We both use the exact same resources for our blogs and he is a much better writer than I could ever hope to be.  He grumbled that any time he mentioned my blogs in his my readership skyrocketed and griped that when I did the same for him, his readership barely blipped.

     So once again, I am putting his very well written, insightful and often times humorous blog out for all of my readers to see.  Go to his site, read his blogs and subscribe to his weekly humor column.  You will be very happy you did.

End of rant

What if the shoe was on the other foot?

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-ariz-sheriffs-office-profiles-latinos-225627617.html;_ylt=AwrHgMu4JqBRxVMACQUJVux_;_ylu=X3oDMTI5OGJsdTJmBG1pdANBVFQgMyBTdG9yeSBKdW1ib3Ryb24gSG9tZSBDYWNoZWQEcG9zAzIEc2VjA01lZGlhQXR0V2lkZ2V0cm9uQXNzZW1ibHk-;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3

     Now believe it or not, this isn't about Old Joe and whether or not he is profiling Latinos (Hispanics) or whether or not said profiling is wrong or justified.  I am not even going to touch let alone open that can of worms.  Nope, like most articles I read, most of my ire is aimed at the comments section.

     Overwhelmingly, (I read 10 pages of comments) the whole attitude is "Whoo Hoo!  Go get them!"  People seem to be okay with the idea that an entire section of people Might be being targeted just because of their appearance.  They cheer these actions even though the vast majority of the targeted group have done no crime or harm to anyone.  They seem to think it is okay to target the majority if it catches the minority.  Doesn't that worry anyone besides me?

     I very seldom if ever play the Hitler/Nazi Card because it is so often misused and overused.  However prior to and during WWII, the Nazi Party deliberately targeted a select group because they felt the group was a danger to national safety.  Though there was little if any evidence, the Jewish people were arrested and placed in Concentration Camps simply because they were Jewish.  

     Course on this side of the ocean, The US Government was just as guilty.  They rounded up 1000's of Japanese Citizens, many of which were second and third generation, and shipped them off to our own Concentration Camps even though there was no evidence that any of them had committed any crime or bore any hard feelings toward the US.  They were imprisoned simply because of their ethnic origins.  

     Moving down the line a bit, during the Racially Heated times of the 1950s and 60s, it was not uncommon for Black people to be targeted by law enforcement simply because of their race.  A Black man driving a very nice car would be pulled over by police not because he had committed a crime, but because they thought he had stolen the car.

     Moving down a bit further, we have NYPD who, with CIA training, began targeting large sections of Muslim populations even though there was no evidence that any of them had done anything illegal.  Most of them were law abiding citizens/immigrants who had no ties to any sort of terrorist/extremist groups.  They were targeted simply because of their faith.

     Lets toss some numbers out there.  According to the 2011 Census there 52 million Legal Residents of the USA not including our protectorates.  Meanwhile, the entire (Including all races and nationalities) population of Illegal Aliens is estimated to be between 7-20 million.  (Course this a number that is impossible to accurately measure since most people in the US illegally aren't just going to come out and admit it.)

     So lets take the mid-range of that estimate and say that the entire population of Illegal Immigrants is 13 (Hope I did that right, my math sucks) million.  And just for Gits and Shiggles, lets say that All of them are of Hispanic origin.  (They aren't but this is a mental exercise.)  So that is roughly one quarter of the Hispanic Population.  So ignoring the numbers and just the percentage, that means that any action targeting the whole to get to a portion would be harming a very large number of innocent people.

     So we have Jews, Japanese, Blacks and now Hispanics who have been targeted.  All of you should ask yourselves what happens when it is your group being targeted?  Will you still be cheering next year when someone in power decides that since the WBC are a bunch of inbred morons that anyone who is a White Southern Baptist should be targeted just on the chance they might be planning something dangerous.

     Selective targeting of groups is a slippery slope.  The human mind is brilliant at justifying the things we do even if those things are wrong.  I will leave you with the words of Martin Niemöll (Which have also been overused and abused lately, but seem appropriate here.)

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

     Never forget that you are always "one of them" to someone else.

End of rant

Define "Fair wages?"

Man is not human, he is an alien I tell you!

     So one of my FB friends posted this yesterday and it isn't the first time I have ever seen it.  I think that the way this man treats his employees is amazing and the world would probably be better off if more people were like him.  However, it sparked a bit of a heated (One sided since I am pretty damned mellow) argument with another FB "Friend."  (I say "friend" because I have never met them and very rarely "Speak" to them online.)  Her argument got me thinking and I decided to once again mention my thoughts on the subjects discussed.
    X's main argument basically amounted to "Everyone should be paid a salary that they can live off of comfortably whatever job they possess or skills they have."  In short, a burger flipper at Wendy's should make the same salary as someone who has gone to college/school for  years and received specialized skills and training.  A Janitor should make the same money as a Lawyer or Doctor.  She said it was wrong for the companies and corporations to "Keep all their money" and not give it back to the people who work for them.
     I have several problems with this attitude.  The first is that why should an unskilled laborer be paid a salary with benefits equal to someone who took the time to spend 4 or more years studying and working hard?  My wife went to college for 4 years and graduated with honors with two degrees.  She later went back to college and received her Masters WHILE also attending the Air Force NCO Academy AND still working her full time job.  She now makes a very nice salary and will make even more as time goes on.  She has earned her success.
    This idea that everyone "deserves" to make that same kind of money even though they have done Nothing to deserve it is annoying.  I am all for everyone earning Minimum Wage (Whatever that might be where you live), but the concept that everyone has the right to earn a salary good enough for them to own a house, buy a car and live comfortably while working that previously mentioned Burger Joint Job is beyond silly.
     When I was growing up, my father worked 10 hours a day for the County Road Crew.  He also cut 5-10 yards a week.  See, he didn't make enough all the time at his regular job to make ends meet so he...(Gasp of shock here) worked at another job to make the extra money.  He didn't whine about his pay (Which was decent back then) he just did what he had to do to make the money he needed to take care of us.
     Today, the vast majority of Americans want everything that everyone else has but they think that they should have it all without doing what is necessary to get it.  The aforementioned FB type person said that EVERYONE should make at least $25.00 an hour and that it was unfair that companies didn't pay them that much.  (She also mentioned retirement bennies, free health insurance etc, but we will let that one go.)
     People need to check that ridiculous attitude at the door.  If you want better pay, better benefits then go out and do something to earn them.  Get the training or schooling you need to get them.  Don't expect to live high on the hog working as a cook for a fast food chain.  If the job you currently have doesn't pay you enough, then get two jobs.  No one "deserves" to make the big bucks.  Like anything worthwhile in life, it has got to be earned.  Minimum wage means exactly that, the bare minimum needed for One person to survive.  Want more, do more.

End of rant

"It's all on the wheel..."

     Seems to be a day for movie/song quotes.   The quote "Ace Hunter: It's all on the wheel, it all comes around." is from the totally fun, totally bad 1982 movie Mega Force which was actually just a cinematic excuse for Stuntman Supreme Hal Needham to show off every single vehicular stunt he could come up with along with tons of explosions.  If you can find it, rent it.  It is Highlarious.!

http://news.yahoo.com/wave-attacks-kills-least-86-iraq-150634066.html

     Don't get me wrong, I don't approve of the attacks that occurred/ are occurring in Iraq.  I feel that these acts of terror are the height of cowardice and evil.  I believe that anyone who commits these acts should be hunted down and executed.  This is also not a rant about how "Gee, look at all the good the American Invasion of Iraq did.  See how much better off they are now!" might not be entirely accurate statements.  (Sarcastic yes, accurate no.)

     Nope this rant is more a discussion of Karma or the Golden Rule.  Two statements from the Article so profoundly illustrate this.  "Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government."   "Iraq's Shiite majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country."

     See during Hussein's reign, he promoted the prosperity and well being of his chosen few.  The Sunni's held all positions of power in his government and held most of the nation's wealth.  The Shiites were basically treated as less than second class citizens and were often murdered and oppressed.  The Shiites cried for justice and mercy and the people in power ignored them.  It was good to be the King.  Now, the shoe is on the other foot.  The Shiites are in charge and the Sunnis aren't.  Who's oppressing whom now?

     I am not saying that it is right that the Shiites are oppressing the Sunnis.  In a perfect world, once the Shiites had gotten into power, they would have remembered how they felt when they were the underdog and worked to make things better for everyone.  In a perfect world, they would have realized that it would be just as wrong for them to abuse the Sunnis as it was for the Sunnis to abuse them.  Of course this is far from a perfect world, so anyone with any gram of sense would have known what would happen.

     All I am saying is you can't spend decades abusing a people, ignoring their cries for justice and then turn around and whine when the same thing happens to you.  What goes around comes around.  You pile crap on other people and eventually you will wind up covered in crap yourself.

End of rant!