Prepare Yourself.

Today's post is a vent session. So if you don't want the stress, go drink some tea and knit something. :)

Vent #1:

The tragedy of JonBenet Ramsey. Very very very sad situation and I feel horrible for the suffering of that poor little child.

But.

I am disturbed by the "Child Beauty Pageant" industry. It seems wrong to me to dress up small children in makeup and revealing outfits and parade them around in public. Does this not feed pedophilic tendencies, and make these children very easily accessible targets?

Also, Joe and I were watching a show and they were talking about what a shame it was that the mom died before the killer was found, yadda yadda isn't it tragic and she was innocent the whole time, and the cruel ol' media was so mean to her? I think my exact words were "Yeah, the mom is such a martyred saint for ho-ing her daughter around in public." And Joe's exact words were "I like how they're trying to make the mom into a saint, when the same media kept accusing her of the murder for years."

It's times like this when I just want to move to a commune in Canada somewhere.

Vent #2:

The boss (we'll call him TB for short - no names - libel is fun til you get caught!) tried to argue with me the other day (after saying some derogatory things about Muslims) that Islam was an inherently violent religion. I said "no more so than Christianity." And he got huffy and just couldn't believe that I could think a religion based on a nice guy dying for other people could be violent. And I said "No, I mean what people have DONE with it. Like, oh, I don't know...killing Jews. And Muslims. And witches. Remember the Crusades? Salem trials? And the Inquisition?" And then he said (you might want to sit down for this):

"The church wasn't directly responsible for any deaths in the inquisition. That was all carried out by the state."

At this point, I just sat there and blinked. And said "You know, I don't think we should talk about this anymore, because that's...just....wrong." Splitting hairs, anyone? I didn't want to have to point out that the state was RUN by the church. And that there was direct written evidence that priests tortured people to death. And that the Pope (JP II) apologized for the inquisition, didn't he? I thought he did. And if that's not an explicit statement of guilt, to apologize for it, then I don't know what is.

He is such the product of a catholic upbringing. How can people not question things? It's like those people who say the Holocaust never happened. Oh right - those people are usually catholic too. Coincidence?

Vent #3:

TB and I got into a conversation today about the evils of Walmart. He doesn't see it. He's a republican. His comment was that he couldn't understand people badmouthing walmart, because it wasn't WALMART'S fault that small businesses in the area went out of business, because (and I quote him here) "Small business is dead."

I want to set the GOP on fire.

I said that my issue with walmart (other than the fact that they parade being an "American" company, but yet use indonesian/chinese/vietnamese sweatshop labor to produce most of their stuff), is that they propagate the idea that poorer people can afford to have the same stuff as richer people, but yet the stuff will probably break within a year and will not only cost more in the long run, creating more debt for the poor people, but will also clog up our landfills with all the stupid plastic packaging.

I said though, that it's not an issue with walmart specifically, but of the current american psyche to want everything without consequences/budgeting/realism. It's killing the economy AND the soul of this country, and it's evident to me every time I go to Europe and see people buying very high quality items with money they've saved, and then caring for the items because they cost a lot and are valuable and will last a long time if properly treated. I see the differences between Joe and me all the time in this respect - Joe doesn't understand why I treat my car badly (no wax, sporadic oil changes), treat my clothes badly, my shoes, my books, my pots & pans. In his mind, you buy the best you can afford and then TAKE CARE OF IT. What a freaking concept. I'm getting much better about at least paying attention to the way I treat things. And I shop at walmart because I'm poor. But I don't like it.

We live in a disposable society. And not just that we think we can throw things away as they wear out and get the newest thing instead. I think our country is on an unavoidable and irretrievable downward slope to poverty and unimportance in world matters. We have no cares for the environment, we don't give a shit about older cultures and respect for traditions, and we just let millions of people in Africa die every year because they don't have anything we want.

Ok. Breathing now.

Thanks for letting me spew a bit of venom at the world. Now, what can we as a society do to FIX these issues? Any ideas?

Or is it going to take us losing our "Superpower" status to finally get a grip on reality?

Time now for beer. Hmm....maybe THAT'S the answer! Hasta luego, gente!