Author: Katrina

Grown Up Christmas List

December 3, 2009

Now for a festively ageist version of…

YOU SUCK!!!!

I’ve griped about certain Christmas songs many times before, and will surely continue to do so even long after I’m dead. So here’s another whose creator I’d like to throw screaming into the middle of the ocean.

This song is “Grown Up Christmas List”. Just the title threw up some red flags to die-hard pro-youth me. Then at some point I actually heard the song and listened to the lyrics. Yup, I’d say those red flags are quite warranted. :irked:

Basically, the song is about someone asking Santa for wars to never start, for everyone to have a friend, for love to never end. Hmmm… that sounds very nice actually. I can get on board with that. It’s a very nice song.

However! One little problem which completely ruins it and makes it not the lovely song it could be but downright objectionable. Remember that title? Yeah, the idea is that this person is asking Santa for all these nice things, as opposed asking for toys or other material things. In other words, material items are things kids ask for, but adults want nicer things like peace and love and whatnot. Because, naturally, kids are inherently selfish and just want lots of toys.

Oh, boy, yet another example of yuletide hatred of children.

Go fuck yourself with a crucifix, Amy Grant.

Inaction of Grace

December 2, 2009

So last week on Thanksgiving, I was at my family’s house and we were sitting down for our turkey dinner, which was late because Thanksgiving dinner really shouldn’t be served when it’s dark outside unless it’s the second one of the day. My mom is the type of person who doesn’t know shit about religion but clings to certain aspects for no other reason than “you’re supposed to”, which I suppose fits her right in with a good 95% of the world’s population. So when all of us are sitting at the table, she starts to say a prayer of thanks, and my dad puts his head down, too. My brother and I, on the other hand, are having no part of it. I just went ahead and kept eating, and he didn’t join in since he saw I wasn’t. My mom noticed he didn’t and was all like “why didn’t you pray?” and he’s like “Katrina didn’t either!”
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Ignorance Doesn’t Make You Cool

December 1, 2009

I hereby decree…

Ignorance does not make you cool.

What a surprise after reading the title. Anyway, on this first of the 2009 December “blogathon” right here on Sure, Why Not?, I want to blast those idiots who are under the impression that being unfamiliar with certain knowledge or technology somehow makes them superior.

It’s yet another issue that adults always blame teens for doing while in reality the adults are way worse about it. The stereotype is that teens don’t want to admit to their friends that they know about history or that they have good grades or what have you. Yeah, right, five minutes on NYRA’s forums will kill that mindset quite nicely.

In the case of adults, it is often in the form of their pride in being luddites. They often say “ooh, I don’t know anything about Facebook, hahaha” as if it’s amusing and at least they’re not among the inferior beings that do have the extra knowledge of what Facebook is. Replace Facebook with Twitter, YouTube, or any other similar site, and the responses are the same. Because, despite the fact that all of these sites are being used more and more by older crowds, those older crowds usually avoid admitting it, or passing it off as being necessary for work or in order to appeal to younger people for a business or something lame. You know, because, gasp!, how could a mature adult use a tool that is supposed to be aimed at young people?! You’re all growed up so you don’t use things those little (read: under 30) people use. Don’t you feel special?

And at times when I inform the proudly ignorant adult of the benefits of social networking, no matter how well I point out the helpfulness of it for whatever issues they’re having or ways they’d like to make things easier, I’m met with denial or indifference. Because Twitter could spit gold out of the monitor and they would still refuse to try to learn it for fear of being uncool in the adult realm.

Of course, this is hardly limited to websites or technology in general. Some of this I’ll rant on separately later (hey, I’ve got 30 more consecutive days to fill here!).

This Makes Me Want to Crush Skulls

November 19, 2009

With other skulls.

Taser gun used on 10-year-old girl who ‘refused to take shower’

The officer had been called to the girl’s home in Ozark, Arkansas, by her mother because she was behaving in an unruly manner and refusing to take a shower.

In a report on the incident the officer, Dustin Bradshaw, said the mother gave him permission to use the Taser.

When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, and resisting as her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed.

“Her mother told me to take her if I needed to,” the officer wrote.

The child was “violently kicking and verbally combative” when he tried to take her into custody and she kicked him in the groin.

He then delivered “a very brief drive stun to her back,” the report said.

The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, who is divorced from her mother, said the girl showed signs of emotional problems but did not deserve to be “treated like an animal”.

He said: “Ten years old and they shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.” Local Mayor Vernon McDaniel said the FBI should investigate.

He said: “People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation.” The local Police Chief Jim Noggle said no disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw.

“We didn’t use the Taser to punish the child, just to bring the child under control so she wouldn’t hurt herself or somebody else,” he said.

He said if the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg.

Mr Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile.

A little girl was violently electrocuted by a police officer, at her idiot mother’s consent, because she didn’t want to take a shower and was upset at being forced to.
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Croatan 2009

November 18, 2009

I meant to write this over a week ago, but just hadn’t gotten around to it. So now it’s about 11 days later. Whatever.

So on November 7 I drove south, stopping briefly in Aquia, VA to get gas and visit Grandma in the cemetery, and on further south until the 4 hour and 40 minute trip brought me to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It’s like the most popular vacation spot for anyone who lives within 2 hours from Washington, DC, though I hadn’t been there. It was a lovely autumn day, and first Saturday for several weeks that it wasn’t raining, so I went, since I wanted to see something.
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Letter to Under-21s

October 28, 2009

Dear Under-21s,

This is just a friendly reminder that we expect you to go risk and lose your lives fighting in the wars we wage, to extinguish our burning houses, to resuscitate us and rush us to the emergency room, to appear naked for our sensual delight in our centerfolds and clubs, to fix our computers that we stubbornly won’t learn to use properly, to be the majority of participants in any civil rights and social justice struggle, to refuse to hire you until you pay increasingly exorbitant tuition fees to us so we can provide you progressively lower quality education, to give up a chunk of your meager paycheck to pay for our social security, to play the NCAA games we fervently gamble on and scream at you when your mistakes cost us a bet, to volunteer to help the less fortunate whom we prefer to deny our thoughts and money, and to cast your vote on Election Day despite our deliberate measures to make the process extra difficult and complicated for you even though you’re a first time voter even though we will still complain that your age group doesn’t turn out at the polls and thus won’t show the slightest interest in representing your needs and just keep acting like you’re not citizens but just extensions of your parents. We expect all that, but that does NOT mean we want you to drink with us, to join us at the poker table, or to behave in any other way that even comes close to implying you are equal to us. You are not. We are your elders so we are the ones who are entitled to unconditional respect and service from you, the lowly youth. We will, of course, continue to paint you as the ones who believe they are entitled to everything.

Sincerely,
The Middle Aged and Elderly

P.S. Fuck you.

P.P.S. Yes, we can say fuck, but don’t you dare think you can!

Gate B38

September 25, 2009

From a week ago until this past Wednesday, I was off on a bit of an adventure. Normally I might put it on Twitter or something, but in the absence of that, I had to do it the old fashioned way: pen and paper. Remember that primitive crap?! Anyway, enjoy!

(Times are local.)

September 18, 2009
5:50pm
-Arrived at Dulles parking lot: Nervous!
-Parked in Green lot, 9C, Shuttle stop #18

7:45pm
-Long security line was long!
-Also, I didn’t get a window seat: FAIL!
-Now at Gate B38 waiting to board. One hour to go.
-OMFG! There’s a place here called City Wok!
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No Presidential Speeches for Students?

September 4, 2009

So on September 8, President Barack Obama will being giving a speech aimed at students that schools are encouraged to show live in their classrooms. And, of course, conservatives are throwing a fit. Why? Because as responsible parents, they don’t think this is appropriate for their children to be viewing, that Obama is just trying to indoctrinate their children without their consent.

In fact, there’s even a poll on Facebook about it: “Should the United States President be allowed to do a nationwide address to our children at school, without prior parental consent?”

*facepalm*
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A Fine Round Nine

August 31, 2009

And… August has come to an end, for today is August 31, which means that once again today is…

DAY
100

Ah, another crazy ass summer full of the usual mixture of lulz and fail. Let’s review.

Got off to a slow start. On Day 7, for the hell of it, drove up to Gettysburg and drove around the battlefield a bit, and climbed on some historically significant rocks.

Day 8 I ate some awesome dumplings.

Day 10, trying to empower and embiggen (yup) the youth rights blogosphere so I started Youth Blog Tuesday on the forums. (I’ll see you in the September 1 installment!)

Day 14, went to the movies and saw Up. Movie about an old widower who somehow makes his house airborne with BALLOONS and flies to Venezuela to visit some waterfall, only for him and the stow-away eight-year-old to get back to the US at the end somehow, though never any mention how he got off the charges of reckless endangerment, crossing international borders illegally, transporting a child across international borders, etc. Cute movie.
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Leave Them Kids Alone

August 26, 2009

Now for another screaming, yelling edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

This time, I’m talking to the asswipes who think it’s so clever and funny to complain that “oh noes, I’m out in public and I hear a little kid crying, parents need to control their kids!” Next person who says that is getting stabbed in the face (or banned from the forums, LOL).

A couple weeks ago, I was out with my mom and my five-year-old brother. I had to go with them to the zoo because my mom is a severe metro n00b, and the type of n00b who thinks she’s an expert which only makes it so much worse, so for their own good, I went with them and had to practically hold her hand through paying the fare and getting the tickets and pointing her to the right stations to go to. Seriously, look at this map, and considering we were going from Twinbrook to Cleveland Park, which as you can see involves no transfers or anything, it’s all that much sadder.
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