Sure, Why Not?

So I was at Target earlier and there were some sets of novelty drinking glasses on one shelf. One set’s theme was of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, with glasses showing the squirrel and Clark entangled in lights and other stuff. Oh, and this set identified these as “pint glasses” and had “Age 21+” printed on the corner of the box.

Yeah… Okay. A lot of things about this.

1. These are drinking glasses and contain no alcohol. Drinking glasses are not age restricted. They can be used for any drink.
2. There were identical drinking glass sets on the shelf of Wonder Woman, Minions, Peanuts, and Avengers and such, none of which said “Age 21+” nor identified them as “pint glasses”.
3. Pint is a unit of volume, equal to two cups or half a quart or 16 fluid ounces. This measurement refers to this volume of any substance, not just beer.
4. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is not an “adult” movie. In fact, it’s been on constantly all month on ABC Family.

In another fun edition of “weird shit in Christmas songs” let’s have a look at the old carol Personent Hodie, also known as “On This Day, Earth Shall Ring”.

Second verse starts off like this: “His the doom, ours the mirth, when he came down to earth.”

Mirth! We’re supposed to be mirthful that Jesus showed up as all human and stuff and bled out on the cross? I get that the idea was that he did all that for our sake for some convoluted reason, but it seems to be more than a little dickish to be mirthful about it.

I mean, I can see it being “how wonderful, he saved us!” But this makes it sound more like “Hahaha, he’s going to get crucified!”

Which, if anything, seems to render the crucifixion pointless.

Gather around. Gather around. Let’s sing!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Sounds hazardous.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Pervert.

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir

That’s nice.

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

That’s racist.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe
Help to make the season bright.

Being sleepy and kissing?

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

Didn’t they get any turkey?

They know that Santa’s on his way
He’s loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh

Yay!

And every mother’s child is going to spy
To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

These kids want proof of these supernatural claims. I like that.

And so I’m offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two

What about 11-month-olds? What about 93-year-olds? Hmph!

Although it’s been said many times, many ways
Merry Christmas to you!

And no one is arresting you for saying it. Take note, Christian conservatives!

Yeah, we’ve all heard the “Jesus is the reason for the season” types. What this holiday and season is about is awfully contentious for something that we can at least agree is supposed to be about peace and love.

But I’m not disagreeing with that statement.

Yes, Christmas is about Jesus. There’s no question about that.

It’s just that it’s ALSO about Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, trees, presents, cookies, cards, lights, holly, the Grinch, mistletoe, carols, candles, cookies, garland, tinsel, Charlie Brown’s sad little tree, gingerbread houses, snow, light, dark, stars, cookies, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, candy canes, leg lamps in the living room bay window, elves, the Griswolds, Rudolph, cookies, Ebenezer Scrooge, feasting on roast beast, the Polar Express, ribbons, wrapping paper, George Bailey, cookies, trains, stockings, sleigh bells, Yule logs, Nutcrackers, poles, Saturnalia, Solstice, cookies, those weird wreath hats with the candles they wear in Sweden, that cake they eat in Japan, Grandfather Frost, Jack Frost, chestnuts, and, of course, peace, love, joy, hope, and giving. And cookies.

And what the hell is wrong with that? 😛

Some time ago, I saw a picture of a protest in California about some new vaccination requirements. Yeah, the protesters were anti-vax idiots (redundant, I know) who were none too pleased about this. One woman’s sign even clearly said “My Child, My Choice”.

There’s yet another sign of the mind-blogging extent of parental entitlement. When forbidding you from letting your child catch serious illness and die is suddenly some egregious violation of parental rights.

What’s next?

“How dare you force me to actually FEED my child? Food contains sugar and pesticides and scary sounding ingredients I can’t pronounce and know nothing about but am sure they cause cancer. I have a right not to give that to my child!”

“How dare you force me to actually give my child WATER? It’s also called dihydrogen monoxide and it’s the main component of urine! It’s also full of fluoride which will make my child stupid! Also chem trails.”

Sigh.

Where does anyone get this ridiculous idea that being more environmentally friendly means impeding human progress? As if it’s one or the other. As if wanting to reduce pollution is against technology or something.

I’ve seen some of my friends make this sort of claim, particularly libertarians. And it’s pure political posturing, and as with most or all political posturing, it makes no sense.

Here’s a thought. Maybe a new technology that is more environmentally friendly than its predecessor is in itself a form of human progress. What an idea!

Instead of this whole “you want to reverse climate change? how dare you disparage the invention of the telephone!”, or, more to the point of what people who say this are really thinking, “how dare you impede a business’s right to destroy the planet!”, how about “hey, climate change is a problem, we need renewable energy, let’s embark on finding ways to solve these problems via, you guessed it, new science and technology!”?

This is obvious if you think about it for five seconds. Though if you’re just trying to make some political point, thought has nothing to do with anything.

Ever notice how our world seems to give unchecked power so much benefit of the doubt? Or, well, I suppose that’s true by definition as, if it weren’t given benefit of the doubt, then it wouldn’t be unchecked.

Look at some of the reactions in cases of police brutality. “Oh, well, he must have done something wrong for the police to have gone after him in the first place. They wouldn’t beat him up or shoot him for no reason.” You know, because apparently if a police officer so much as looks at you, it just makes sense to these people that you might as well kiss your ass goodbye, rather than, you know, saying “hey, this is wrong!” like any decent person would.

There’s also child abuse. Parents have near limitless power over their children, which very much allows for abuse, and abuse is very much rampant, but when it happens, you get reactions like “oh, well, the kids are probably exaggerating or outright lying, just ungrateful brats who probably deserved it, all parents love their children!” Ignoring that, for one, no they fucking don’t, and that they have no actual reason to believe the kids are lying, or to know for sure either way for that matter. But what is known is that parents who want to commit unspeakable crimes against their children could do so very easily, and pretending they just don’t or wouldn’t is very dangerous.

Then there’s war crimes. A hospital or school or the like gets bombed, killing a bunch of innocent civilians. And what’s the response? “Oh, well, that’s war for you. Sometimes civilians get killed. In fact, they probably weren’t so innocent and were likely hiding the bad guys so they probably deserved it.” Based on absolutely nothing. Just more of avoiding the necessary task of calling out what’s horribly wrong and instead trying to justify it.

Know what else? God! If an omnipotent God allows all of the above and more and worse to happen, who’s telling him to knock that shit off? It’s always “God works in mysterious ways! Everything happens for a reason! God loves us!” Yeah, meanwhile, somewhere in the world, a four-year-old girl just died of an infection caused by a ritual genital mutilation, but sure, yeah, loving omnipotent God we should continue worshiping.

True, a lot of this comes from feeling helpless, seeing many of these forces not as always right but as all-powerful and therefore there’s no choice but to assume rightness. And just plain not knowing how to change anything and finding it easier to tell the victims that they were the ones who were wrong, to give the illusion that we have more control over our fates than we actually do. But we can understand that tendency and still acknowledge it’s wrong. I mean, you don’t need to know exactly how to make a certain change in order to speak up about what’s wrong. Shit, if you had to, about 90% of those protesting or raising awareness about just about anything would be out of work! But there’s bad things happening. Acknowledge that they are bad and quit making excuses for them.

I’m completely sick to death of the idea that watching sports and playing video games are male-only activities.

Me, I do watch sports, being a fan of the various Washington teams, and while I don’t play as much as I wish I did, I do enjoy video games as well. Oh, and I’m female!

I even see this idea coming from progressive sources that should know better. Too busy criticizing traditional cis-het masculinity and all that’s stereotypically associated with it that they end up reinforcing it by erasing those who aren’t cis-het males who enjoy such activities.

Society has been very slowly coming around about this, truth be told. Realizing that, yes, there are plenty of female gamers, and, yes, there are plenty of women watching NFL games who aren’t just putting up with it with a male (real) fan. Too slowly, though.

Not to mention that “nerdy” activities, like comic books and role-playing games and sci-fi and the like, are assumed to be just for guys. I don’t even get that stereotype. What, are girls supposed to be too pretty and not supposed to be thinking at all to be interested in that sort of thing, and that any girls who aren’t pretty are just, as always, assumed to not exist?

After Ebenezer Scrooge had his fateful Christmas Eve encounter with the spirit of Jacob Marley and then the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, he vowed to change his ways and become the nicest guy in the world. He bought the Cratchits a Christmas feast and promoted his nephew. We all know that.

But that next night, suddenly another spirit visited him.

Scrooge: Another spirit! What is it now? Who are you?

Ghost: Oh, don’t worry. I’m just here to have you rate your experience with the Past, Present, and Future Ghosts. Would you say you were satisfied with their overall message? What parts of your experience stood out the most for you?

Scrooge: Hmm, hard to pick just one. But perhaps it was what the Ghost of Christmas Future showed me that was the most eye-opening.

Ghost: Yeah? Go on.

Scrooge: He showed me that little Tiny Tim would die, and then that I would die. If I did not change my ways.

Ghost: Alright. Is that all?

Scrooge: It was devastating to my very core.

Ghost: So you have made changes in your life that should prevent these things from happening?

Scrooge: I believe so.

Ghost: It’s just that, well, you’re still going to die eventually no matter what you do. People might actually be mourning you when it does happen if you’re kinder, but you’ll still be dead.

Scrooge: Oh. Well, what of Tiny Tim? At least he’ll have a full life if I pay to have him cured.

Ghost: I wouldn’t count on it. I mean, it’s like 1830, and while it’s not clear what exactly he even has, it seems like some degenerative disease that no one can really do anything about anyway.

Scrooge: So you’re saying what the third Ghost showed me was all going to happen for sure? I asked if these were the things that will be or what may be, and he did not answer. He did not say anything actually.

Ghost: Yeah, that one isn’t actually able to speak. But I’ll make a note of that you did not get your question answered.

Scrooge: This is unbelievable! I went through all that with the Ghosts only to find there’s nothing I can do.

Ghost: That’s not exactly true. You should still be a good person as you’ve vowed to do. You’ll have friends and all. You won’t be so alone. You’ll have fun. That’s what’s important, right?

Next day, Ebenezer Scrooge returns to being a miserly asshole, and dies the following year. No one comes to his funeral because they’re over at Tiny Tim’s funeral.

Now what? Ah, this song…

Oh there’s no place like home for the holidays
Yup. Home is good. Not hoisting yourself elsewhere to visit horrible relatives.

Cause no matter how far away you roam
Wait, what?

When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze
Yeah, family is definitely not who I want to see for that.

For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home.
Agreed!

I met a man who lives in Tennessee, and he was heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie
I’m sure he can get pumpkin pie back in Tennessee.

And Pennsylvania folks are traveling down to Dixie’s sunny shores
Seriously, these people are not going home for the holidays. They are leaving their homes!

From Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific
Sarcasm?

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays
Exactly! What’s with all this talk of holiday travel?

Cause no matter how far away you roam
Which shouldn’t be far at all if you stay the fuck home.

If you want to be happy in a million ways
As opposed to unhappy in a million ways, as traveling to visit family would surely mean.

For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home!
As long as you’re alone. Don’t need horrible relatives traveling in to bother you either. You can make your own pumpkin pie.

I hereby decree…

Baking cookies is the happiest activity there is.

Well, it is. Just say the words. Baking cookies. See, there’s a smile!

Saying “let’s bake cookies!” conveys joy and excitement. It’s not like anyone ever says “ah damn it, I’m stuck baking some fucking cookies!” Just plain doesn’t happen.

There’s all kinds of ways to make cookies. Lots of room for experimenting! And what’s more fun than experimenting with different ways to create a tasty treat? Nothing, that’s what!

And after all that fun with trying different ingredients and methods, you end up with cookies! Yay! 😀

Every now and then I go through a few days or weeks that I read Snopes regularly. After some time of it, I just have enough. There’s just so much bullshit floating out there that people are for some reason believing and spreading around more, all of which could be avoided if they gave it five seconds of thought. The idea that Snopes even has to debunk some of this stuff is just exhausting to think about.

A fair share of new posts to Snopes are debunking bullshit floating around about Muslims. The assertion is like “help, a Muslim forced some event to stop serving pork products!” and they’re like “no, some satire site made that up”. Or “help, Christian imagery was removed or banned because Muslims complained!” and they’re like “no, some right wingers made that up”. Or, as one recent one, “help, look at this image of a pro-ISIL rally in the US!” and they’re like “no, that’s actually an anti-ISIL rally”.

This shit spreads around, for one, because bigoted assholes. But also because people seem to really want to be offended or outraged or indulge some sort of persecution complex. I guess screw facts if it gets in the way of running around like a panicky idiot. And not in a delightful Wade Duck sort of way.

According to a trans* activist friend of mine, apparently, in New York City, the average age at which homeless trans youth become homeless is 13.5 years.

Average!

I mean, I’ve written before about how parental love isn’t exactly as unconditional as conventional belief would have you think. But even knowing that, it’s so pathetic that parents would kick out kids who are in middle school or younger for any reason really, but still so much more mindblowing that it’s about something so ridiculous as the kids not acting the part of the gender their genitals tell them to be. How fucking petty and heartless can you goddamn get?!

I’ll bet these parents think they love these kids, too. I’ll bet lots of people think that. I guess the mere idea that they might not despite some clear evidence to the contrary here is just too much. 🙄

At the start of tonight’s Washington Redskins vs Dallas Cowboys game:
“Alright, the great rivalry! Let’s rock! Go Redskins!”

Halftime:
“Okay so far. What a weird game!”

4th Quarter:
*bites nails*

Midway through 4th Quarter:
“YES!”

Tail end of 4th Quarter:
“NO!”

End of game:

So there’s a hot new trend these days of coloring books “for adults”. These things are everywhere!

Except coloring books for adults have already existed. They’re just called “coloring books”.

That’s adult society’s insecurities for you. There’s nothing explicitly “for children” about the coloring books that have already existed. Unless what you’re coloring being animated characters of some sort has some hard and fast upper age limit. Which it doesn’t. It’s just adults balking at the idea of doing anything associated with children. So label some coloring books as being “for adults” and they’ll clamor for them and you’ll make a mint!

Not only that. It’s not like adults are supposed to be having fun with these “adult” coloring books. No, they’re therapeutic somehow. Stress relief! You know, the only thing adults’ leisure time is supposed to be about. Fun and imagination is just for children, after all. 🙄

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with these more various types of coloring books being out there, not at all. But by branding it as “adult coloring books”, therefore something typically associated with children being presented with the children somehow removed from the equation, it’s adults invading children’s space for their own benefit and shoving the real children out. Makes me start to understand what the hell people mean when they talk about “cultural appropriation”. *shrug*

I hate it when anti-vaxxers and intactivists are talked about together as if they’re basically the same thing. Unfortunately, there is plenty of overlap, from those who see both issues as part of some “natural parenting” movement (more on that another day).

Anti-vaxxers are against vaccinations. Intactivists are against infant circumcision.

Those against both see it as some issue of infant body integrity, a thing I can get behind. But there’s one gigantic difference.

Vaccinations are actually extremely necessary, to save the baby and anyone around said baby from preventable diseases. This much is fact. When anti-vaxxers deny these life-saving vaccinations to their children, they are not protecting their children’s rights to their body. They are condemning their children to serious illness, a very severe violation of their rights and an abandonment of parental responsibility. And why? Because vaccines contain ingredients they can’t pronounce and that’s scary to them?

Circumcision, on the other hand, is not at all medically necessary. There is no prevention of life-threatening illness involved in it, unless you count the ridiculous grasping of straws like “uh, we think circumcision might possibly maybe prevent HIV (even though condoms would still be necessary so it doesn’t matter)”. And even so, most of the time it’s done for cosmetic or religious reasons, and people are really goddamn attached to these cosmetic or religious reasons, so this unnecessary barbaric practice continues. This is a painful violation of a child’s body that serves no real purpose and must be stopped.

Vaccinations save lives. Circumcisions are just “durr, foreskins are gross”.

Really no comparison.

So you’ve probably heard that Scott Weiland of the Stone Temple Pilots died late last night.

So ends an iconic voice of 1990s music.

I’ve seen them in concert a couple of times. Wouldn’t call myself a big fan, but I definitely like a few of their songs. Particularly “Vasoline”. In any case, STP has clearly been an important part of the 1990s soundtrack of our lives, I suppose.

Think about it. Making music that affected people in so many ways, just as all other musicians. But also and more extraordinarily being sort of an essential piece of the scene of their time. It’s art. It’s part of culture. It generates emotions and such in people. That’s something special.

Scott Weiland was only 48, but, aside from at least making it way past 27 unlike so many others like him, he still added something to this world. Just like all other musicians. Just like all other artists. I suppose we all can only hope to do something like that, to any extent.

When flying, I’ve only ever had a layover twice, in 1997 and 1998, and both were in Denver, going on to Salt Lake City and Albuquerque respectively. Family vacations. Of flights I’ve booked myself, they’ve always been nonstop. I insist on it.

That 1998 trip, we missed the first flight and had to catch a later one, which in turn made us miss the second leg, which we had to get the next morning. Annoying.

And not worth it! Unless the flight is really goddamn long or it’s absolutely not an option for whatever reason, nonstop is the way to go.

But in those situations where a connecting flight is necessary, the connection should at least make sense. The connection point should at least not be completely out of the way. When I went to London in 2009, thankfully there were plenty of direct flights from Dulles to Heathrow, but the search pulled up some that would get to London by way of Munich. Munich! As in clear past London, only to turn around and come back. What the hell? There are flights to Seattle-Tacoma from here that would connect at Dallas-Fort Worth, swinging way to the south and very much not in the direction of Seattle from Washington DC. There are flights to Las Vegas that connect in New York-JFK or Boston-Logan or Long Beach.

These don’t make any damn sense! If any one leg of a trip with at least one stop is longer than the nonstop flight, something is terribly wrong.

Or it’s the airline industry being the airline industry. Something like that.

Now for a traumatic, censoring edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

I want everyone to just stop talking about trigger warnings. Particularly the idea that they’re ruining colleges or something. For one, I think basically nobody talking about them, whether for or against, even knows what the hell they are for.

If you’re going to be discussing in detail something like rape or other sexual assault, child abuse, medical abuse, or other such topics that you can reasonably figure would be disturbing, yeah, it makes sense to give a little heads up ahead of time. Doesn’t it? Of course it does.

Oh, hey, guess what. That’s exactly what a trigger warning is!

It’s called that because these topics in depth could “trigger” one’s post traumatic stress disorder. Can’t have much of an educational environment if someone is shaking and reliving a horrific attack.

I especially don’t get how a trigger warning constitutes censorship as some are claiming. Nobody is being censored. It’s providing some content info up front so that someone who can’t cope with the material can opt out. It’s allowing people to make an informed choice. What in the mother of hell is so offensive about this?

Now, to be clear, plenty of those demanding such warnings and “safe spaces” are being unreasonable as well. I’ve seen “trigger warnings” for some incredibly stupid things. Some of my favorites on that front include “swearing” and “mention of Christianity”. I also don’t think they should be required of college professors or others, though they should at least be courteous of their own volition about topics that actually could fuck someone up psychologically rather than taking a decidedly cold “just suck it up” approach.

But then again, none of this matters. Who cares about nuance and facts and compassion when there are fruitless political battles to be fought, when there are millennials to belittle, when there are the unthinking masses to drum up into a frenzy? Let’s not forget what’s really behind all this.

(Have I really not posted in three months? Ugh. Well, let’s see how far this December thing goes this year…)

You know those posts that float around social media saying “only 90s kids remember this” or someone else whose adolescence occurred entirely or in part prior to the turn of the century?

Cassette tapes. Getting film developed. Car windows that roll up and down by use of a hand crank.

Yeah, I, a 90s kid, am glad to be rid of all that shit, too. Thanks for reminding me.

Oh, but the next generation won’t appreciate not having annoying things like this anymore because we have digital media files and power windows? Well, good, it gives them more room to find what’s lacking in the current technology so they can in turn improve on that! Yay, progress!

And then there are the posts suggesting today’s kids will never know such bygone things like, say, a Pez dispenser or ending friendships by playing a well-timed Draw 4 card in Uno.

Except they can because Pez and Uno are totally still around, so I don’t know what the fuck these people are talking about. *shrug*