At Least It's Something

I got nothin' today.  I think all of the gay marriage crapola has wiped me out or something.  So here's Marcel the Shell to entertain you. 

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From The Idiots At Newsweek

You know, when President Barry announced his "newfound" position on the gay marriage, I thought that I was one step closer to having a dream of mine realized.  That dream being that I might never have to hear about this subject ever again.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  Now, all of my news feeds are inundated with the glowing media reporting of his "announcement".  And since it would seem that no one else is going to do it, I guess I'm going to have to be the one to report this accurately.  I certainly can't leave any sort of unbiased reporting up to Newsweek.  Look at their cover!  Look at it! 

Are you freaking kidding me, Newsweek?  A gay halo?  A gaylo, if you will.  This isn't news!  And even if it was news, you're reporting it wrong!  Ahem...allow me...

See, before President Barry was against gay marriage, he was for it.  That's right.  When he ran for the Illinois Senate for the first time in 1996, he was all for the gays getting all married and stuff.  But then when he ran for re-election in 1998, he wasn't quite sure about it.   And then when it came to run for the U.S.Senate in 2004 and for President in 2008, that's when he decided that he should be against it.   I should also mention that he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment.  That would have made it so that marriage would have been defined as being between one man and one woman.  So he was against that.  But in 2008, that's when he said that he personally felt that marriage is between a man and a woman and that he isn't in favor of gay marriage.  And now here we are in 2012 and he's all for it again.  Good grief.  And now we're supposed to be all excited about his "announcement"?  No one else but me sees it as a transparent political move that just works for him right about now?  OK, then. 

You know, there's one part of his sudden "enlightenment" that I think has been under-reported.  And that's probably for the same reason that other key issues about this story have been under-reported as well.  It just doesn't fit the narrative that the sucky, sucky media wants so badly to portray.   It's the part where he said, "I think it's important to recognize that folks who feel very strongly that marriage should be defined narrowly as between a man and a woman, uh, many of them are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective. A bunch of them are friends of mine."

EXACTLY!  Just because people aren't exactly for gay marriage, doesn't mean that those people are hateful bigots.  Now, don't get me wrong.  Some of them absolutely are.  Those sorts of people are commonly known as a-holes.  But the folks who have a strong religious component to their opinions or those who just aren't quite very comfortable with redefining something that has been the same since the beginning of time, those folks don't deserve the wrath that is sometimes placed upon them.  That's a component to this issue that I have always found fascinating.  Those who want to be treated equally even though they're different lashing out at those who don't agree with them.  Uhhh, didn't you just say that it's OK that you're different?  So, it's OK for you to be different than them, but it isn't OK for them to be different than YOU? 

Let's also make sure that we don't overlook the caption.  "The First Gay President".  Holy crap!  Did he come out?!  I always thought that he looked a little TOO lovingly at Biden, if you know what I mean!  Jesus, Newsweek.  Just because someone comes out in favor of something, that doesn't mean that they ARE that thing.  President Barry has drones bombing the crap out of terrorists in foreign lands.  Is your next cover going to be of him with the caption "The First Homicidal President"?  "The First Murdering President"?  Of course not! You know why?  Because it would be not only incorrect, but completely freaking asinine as well!  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  (OK, I don't know for sure if Newsweek was ever 'mighty'.  But that cover is definitely crap.) 
 

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Patience, Young Grasshopper

The peculiarity of where this country decides to focus its attention on occasion completely baffles me.  In case you've been under some sort of glorious rock lately, I will tell you that President Barry, during an interview with Robin Roberts, came out in favor of gay marriage.  I think.  And from the reactions I'm reading, you'd think that something wonderful just happened instead of just one guy changing his mind.  Or not. 

Look, President Barry is a pretty progressive guy.  I have a hard time believing that he, deep down in his heart, was ever really against gay marriage.  I'm more inclined to believe that he was against it for purely political reasons.  Whatever the reason is, here is his latest statement on where he stands in regard to gayrriage:  "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married." 

While that's a lovely sentiment, I don't know that it's going to make a difference in anything.  And that's for a variety of reasons.  First of all, I just want to point out that he did include the word "personally".  That's what he now suddenly believes on a personal level.  Is that going to translate to a political level?  I have a hard time believing that it would.  That'd be great if he wanted to go and campaign in states that are putting gay marriage bans on their ballots, but I just don't see that happening.  And the reason I don't see that happening is because he also said that "..states should have the right to decide what marriage is".  Of course.  This way, he can be for gay marriage and appease those folks who have really made it their number one social cause, while at the same time allow himself to stay out of the issue because he sees it as not being a federal issue.  Tricky. 

But here's one of the things that I find just fascinating about this whole dynamic.  Until now, President Barry had been, essentially, against gay marriage.  But no one gave him any crap about it.  Everyone was just fine with it and continued to sing his praises as if he were the second coming of Christ himself.  No one called him a bigot.  No one called him a hater.  No one pressed the issue.  There weren't rainbow flag protests outside of the White House.  None of that.  People just let his ideas evolve on their own until he came to a different conclusion that they were happy with.  Why aren't other people who are against gay marriage (or who aren't sure about it) not given that same sort of time and/or leeway for their opinions to change?  Why are people automatically so angry at those folks?  I don't have an answer for this, by the way.  It's merely an observation that I've made. 

Here's another angle of this that I find interesting.  So far, every single state that has put gay marriage to a vote has voted against it.  Every.  Single.  One.  The states that allow gay marriage have only been able to do so through legislation.  But every time that it's given to the people for a vote, they have voted 100% against it.  Every. Time.  What's that all about?  And with the recent passage of the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman in North Carolina, that brings the grand total up to 30 states with similar laws on the books.  Thirty!  Yet the topic is still covered in the media as if it is a minority of people who feel this way.  Clearly, that's not the case. 

All I'm trying to say here is that it's a tricky issue for a lot of people.  And the whole gay acceptance thing has come such a long way over the years.  Things just take time.  And really, just because someone is against gay marriage doesn't mean that they hate gays.  Sometimes it does.  But sometimes it doesn't.  In fact, most of the people that I've met or that I know who are not exactly for gay marriage are absolutely NOT people who hate gays.  I just think that we just need to be patient with people in the same manner that everyone seems to have been patient with President Barry. Do you have any idea how long it took civil rights legislation to go through?  Longer than you would guess and definitely longer than I would have liked.  (In case you were wondering, Lyndon B. Johnson passed a minor piece of civil rights legislation in 1957.  That was the first legislation passed since the Civil War had ended.  See?  Takes a long time.)  People just need to be patient and see it for what it is.  An evolution of thought.  And evolution is not a speedy process. 

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Really? The Cover?

Remember when Time magazine used to be awesome?  OK, maybe I'm exaggerating just a tad with the use of the word "awesome".  But it did used to be a great source of comprehensive news stories from around the globe.  The journalism was good and the topics were good.  Oh, but that Time seems to have come and gone.  And in its place, we are left with the sort of Time magazine that has this on its cover.  Behold!

Now, if you're like me, you took one look at that and your brain came up with the omnipresent "Oh, what the hell is that?" inquiry.  And I really wish that I could go into a lot of detail about what the article was actually about, but I'm not about to subscribe to Time.com in order to do that.  Besides, I highly doubt that anything in the article is going to sway me away from what I have to say about their cover.  And just for the record, the picture depicts a one Jamie Lynne Gurnet as she breast feeds her four-year old son.  Good Lord...

First of all, I'm not against breastfeeding.  You want to breast feed, have at it!  You want to breast feed in public, I'd prefer it if you'd be discreet, but again, have at it!  You want to put a picture on the cover of Time magazine of yourself breast feeding your kid who is almost five, I'm going to recoil in horror.  And it has nothing to do with partially seeing a breast!  Breasts are simply lovely!  It's really hard to get around that fact.  Breasts are gooooooood.  But to me, if you're putting that sort of picture out for all the world to see, you're about something more than just how you want to nourish your child.  You're looking for some sort of attention and you've chosen what I feel is a highly inappropriate way to get said attention. 

Speaking of attention, what about the attention that your kid is going to get out of this?  I'm sure that he'll be thrilled, just thrilled, when he's a teenager and his friends find out about this (and they will) and then the picture of him suckling on his mother when he's a four-year old, like a newborn calf, is going to cause some problems for him.  It might even be causing some problems now for him.  Why would you put your son in a position like that?  Why would you place your small child in such a vulnerable position?  I can't agree with that choice on any level. 

Something about this whole mode/style of parenting doesn't sit well with me.  It seems to be more about a certain group of people who are intent on pushing their particular lifestyle down the throats (no pun intended) of others.  I will never understand that part of humans.  Why, if they like something and someone else doesn't, the former will feel the need to make sure to flaunt the thing that the other person doesn't like right in front of them?  I don't get that.  And breast feeding your kid when they're no longer an infant seems to fall right along that line. 

I understand that there's the whole bonding issue thing.  But you can bond with your kid without breast feeding them.  I promise.  It's been done gazillions of times before and people seem to be just fine! And if it's really just about the nutrients that the kid can get from breast milk, can't you just pump and have the kid drink it after it's out of your body?  I seriously think that if you have some "need" or "desire" to have your kid breast feed after the kid is no longer a baby, you need to take a long, hard look at what your real motives are.  And if you're not willing to do that, what say you stop trying to actively push that sort of "parenting method" upon other people.  (Have you ever noticed that when people are doing something that is "controversial" (eg, crazy as a fruit bat) that all they want to do is tell you what a terrible person you are for not doing it?)  And if you're not willing to do that, what say you just take a baby step and not have a picture of you breast feeding your school-aged child on the cover of a national publication, eh? 

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No One Cares!

I'll be honest with you.  When I heard about President Barry's newly evolved thoughts on gay marriage the other day, I cringed.  It wasn't because I disagree with his re-newly formed stance. (This is the third time that he's changed his mind of the issue.  Not that you would know that because the media sucks so bad.)  No, it was because I knew that once he waded into the issue that it would be all I'd have to hear about for days on end.  Non-stop talk about gay marriage and how "evolved" the President is.  Are you kidding me?!  No one took the time to look at how gay marriage is really perceived in this country.  (That would be that every single state that has voted on gay marriage has voted against it.  That would also be that there are 30 states that ban gay marriage.)  No, all it ended up being was a bunch of feel-good crap that makes everyone involved feel like they're so enlightened on the issue.  You want some enlightenment?  I'm here for you! 

How's this for enlightening?  Gallup did a poll over April 9-12 of this year.  The question was "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?"  Now, if you went strictly by how the news cycle has been reporting things over the past 48 hours, you would swear that gay marriage was at the top of the list.  At the very least, you would have to assume that it was in the top ten, right?  Here are the top ten non-economic (even though gay marriage, and more so, gay divorce court, would do wonders for the economy, it isn't really considered an economic issue) responses from people as gathered by Gallup: 

Dissatisfaction with government.  Healthcare.  Education.  Ethics/Moral/Religious decline.  Foreign aid.  Immigration.  (Have I said gay marriage yet?  I haven't?!  Then I shall continue.)  Energy.  Lack of respect for each other.  Judicial system.  War.  (That's ten.  Not yet?  I'll keep going.)  Poverty.  Care for the elderly.  Crime.  National security.  Abortion.   Lack of military defense.  Race issues/racism.  (Bet you thought that racism would be a little higher up too, wouldn't you?  Nope.  It clocks in at number seventeen.  Huh.  Thanks, media.)  Situation in Iraq.  Welfare.  Environment.  (Environment is at number twenty.  Again, thanks to the reporting of the weak, weak media, you'd have thought that all anyone ever thinks about is global warming.)  Social security.  Situation in Afghanistan. (I'm starting to get tired.  I hope it shows up soon!) Unifying the country.  (I don't even know what this one means.  The Civil War IS over, right?)   International issues. (How this doesn't include the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm not quite sure.)  Elections.  Terrorism.  War.  (See previous war comments.)  Drugs.  Gay rights issues.  There it is!  I found it!  Coming in in twenty ninth place, gay rights issues!  Just barely eeking out The way children are raised, Overpopulation, Guns/gun control, The media, and The advancement of computers/technology.

I should also take this time to point out the the gay rights issues received less than 0.5% of the responses in the most recent polling of this question.  It got 1% back in February, but that was the only time this year that it ranked above 0.5%.   But would you get that from everything you read in the media?  Hell no, you wouldn't!  No, instead you'd be left with the impression that everyone wants gay people to be able to get married and that issue is first and foremost on the minds of all Americans!  Not only is it not first, it's damn near DFL (Dead Effing Last).  But that's all I'm hearing about.  Non-stop.  It will stop one day, though, right?  Please?  Why can't we have a President who has affairs again.  At least that was interesting.  (OK, it was still mis-reported, which probably explains why so many people still think that Bill Clinton was impeached for having an affair, but at least it had some substance!  I'll take Presidential blow jobs over gay marriage any day of the week, starting NOW.)

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Fifty Shades Of Surprises

Remember back when I 'reviewed' Fifty Shades of Grey, the women's erotic novel (one of three!) that is sweeping the nation? Well, Saturday Night Live did a parody commercial of that book and the whole phenomenon that has developed over it. It's absolutely hilarious. It's probably not appropriate to watch around small children (unless you really want to have a discussion about what the "microphone" really is). It might not be safe to watch at work, but it was on network TV (albeit at 11:30 at night on a Saturday), so I'll just let you make that decision. But safe for work or not does in no way detract from the fact that it's hilarious. And probably true. Behold! (If it doesn't play, try clicking here.)

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It Has Nothing To Do With Fate

Well.  I came across some disturbing poll results today.  The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy did a little polling and if their results are even a little bit indicative of what is going on out there, they really have their work cut out for them.  Before I get to the part that will have you wanting to jump out of a high window, I want to mention that while this organization may sound like they're all about the teenagers, it doesn't seem like that's all too accurate.  The people that they polled were grown-ass adults, ranging in age from 18-29.  And actually, that makes the results even more frightening. 

Participants in this survey were asked if they agreed with this statement:  “It doesn’t matter whether you use contraception or not; when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen."  I would like to take this opportunity to point out that these questions were asked recently and this isn't archival data from the 1700s.  This was done in 2011 and again, with grown-ass adults.  That's why it scares the bejeezus out of me that four in ten actually agreed with that statement.  Wait.  Wait.  WAIT! 

Were these people not privy to the ol' very basic sex education classes that I sat through in high school?  Just the beginning part of that question "It doesn't matter whether you use contraception or not" makes me cringe.  Of course it matters!  That's why it exists!  It's contraception!  It's purpose it to be used and then to subsequently prevent pregnancy after you have all the sex!  But four out of ten morons believe that it's just fate?!  Doesn't matter what you do.  If it's going to happen, it's going to happen?!  Uhhh, I honestly don't know what to say about that.  Forty percent is a little too close to half for my liking.  Fate.  OK, then.  Moving on...

Here's another one:  "Thinking about your life right now, how important is it to you to avoid getting pregnant/getting someone pregnant?"  This was asked of unmarried young adults aged 18-29.  Again, grown-ass people.  72% said that it was very important.  That's good.  You know what's not good?  The other people who answered.  Only 12% said that it was "somewhat important".  How is that even a choice when you're talking about getting pregnant or not?  16% had some sort of a variation of it not being important to them.  The parameters of the survey do not outline whether or not it was a requirement that participants in the survey be sexually active, but I can't imagine why they would want people who are not having sex to be a part of this survey.  If you're not having sex, the problem of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy has nothing to do with you.  So if I am to assume that those 16% that don't give a crap are currently sexually active, then I'm a little more than just concerned that they don't give a crap.  Those are the kind of people that I want studied at great lengths. 

Explain this to me:   "Fully 94% of unmarried young adults 18-29 say they have all the information they need to avoid having or causing an unplanned pregnancy."  BUT "11% say they know “little or nothing” about condoms, 42% say they know “little or nothing” about birth control pills, and 73% say they know “little or nothing” about IUDs."  HOW are you between the ages of 18 and 29 and know "little or nothing" about condoms?!  I can kind of understand the IUD thing, but only because it's not talked about or mentioned as much as the other two.  But condoms?  What sort of grown-ass adult knows nothing about a condom?!  I wish that they broke that answer down by age.  Then again, maybe I don't.  If I found out that it was mostly 29-year olds that answered the question that way, I'd have to start walling off my walled off compound again.  I cannot be part of a society where people who are almost thirty know nothing about condoms.  I just can't! 

Then there's this:  19% of the people surveyed answered 'Yes' to this:  “There is so much negative stuff said about birth control that it makes me feel I’m better off/my partner is better off just not using it.”  Negative stuff?  More negative than having a child that you're not ready for (and apparently have no idea how it came to be either)?!  What exactly are they referring to that is so "negative"?  Because the way I look at it, it's all of the getting pregnant that's the negative part of having sex.  Regardless, even if there are "negative" things about birth control, it's disturbing to me that one in five of these softheads thinks that no birth control is the way to go instead.  Twenty percent.  That's about twenty percent too high for me.  What is wrong with you people?! 

So you have all of that stuff going on, but then you have questions like "I have all the information I need to avoid having/causing an unplanned pregnancy."  Somehow, 94% of these folks answered 'Yes' to that question.  But these are the same people who forty percent of them think that it's just fate if you get pregnant regardless of your contraceptive usage!  Clearly, they do NOT have all the information that they need.  No, the information that they have is a bit outdated.  Medieval even.  Perhaps someone should inform them that science has made great strides since the days of leaving everything up to fate. 

This is all not good.  It's all very bad, actually.  The fate question really threw me for a loop.  If you'd like to see this data so that you can cry over it yourself, it's available here.

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Octo Nightmare

Brace yourselves.  Octomom has done her masturbatory porn video.  It should be out by June.  I guess there's a lot of editing or something that goes on with these things?  I don't really know and I don't really think that I want to, either.  Actually, there are a lot of things that I didn't want to know about this.  And I'm going to share them with YOU.  How lucky do you feel?  What if I told you that by 'lucky' I meant 'nauseous'?  Better?  Yeah, not really for me either.  Well, you've been warned.  Here we go. 

According to the Huffington Post, in true Octomom lunatic fashion, Nadya Suleman says of her first porn video "I'm very excited for it to come out!"  Well, that makes one of us.  She's excited for it to come out?  Why would that be?  She is a laughing stock.  She is vehemently hated by many (and for good reason).  She's dead broke.  And now she's doing solo porn.  That's exciting for her?  I can think of a lot of other adjectives that I would have thought of before using 'exciting'.  Words like 'humiliated', 'upset', 'ashamed' and 'desperate' come to my mind.  But not hers.  Nope.  She's excited.  If that right there doesn't tell you all that you need to know about this chick, I don't know what else I can do for you. 

Here are some other excerpts from her thoughts on what is apparently the apex of her life.  "My first shoot was amazing...Such a learning experience for me in so many ways. I don't think I could have asked for a better crew to work with. They were so patient and willing to teach me. I owe a lot to Wicked Pictures contract star Jessica Drake; she opened my eyes to a whole different world of self-pleasure that I could have never imagined. They made me look so glamorous, and for the first time in my life, I felt beautiful and sexy. I'm very excited for it to come out!" 

A learning experience?  What in the hell did she learn?  Not to have fourteen babies when you don't have a job, a place to live or a spouse?  And I'll bet that her eyes were opened to a "whole different world of self-pleasure"!  It would definitely be a different world to be doing yourself surrounded by lights and cameras and an entire crew of people.  You know.  Because usually when you're doing that, you're typically alone!  And I don't care what she says and I don't care what she was wearing, doing masturbatory porn is not glamorous.  Maybe her and I have different definitions of the word (which wouldn't surprise me as I can't find a single thing that we have in common other than we're both female, and quite frankly, I'm ashamed to have that much in common with her), but what she just went through was not glamorous.  It doesn't surprise me that it was the first time she felt beautiful and sexy, though.  It's probably really hard to feel like you're either of those things when you're harboring practically and entire baseball team in your uterus. 

But here's the part that kinda made me wanna throw up a little bit.  It's definitely the part that I read at least three times and each time all I could muster up was "Wtf?"  It's the part that said "At the shoot, Nadya also posed for a set of photographs in which she's seated at the head of a long table, her body covered with SpaghettiOs"  Wait.  Wait.  I said WAIT!  SpaghettiOs?!  Number one, why would you waste perfectly good SpaghettiOs in such an obscene fashion?  And number two, did I mention wtf?  Yeah, WTF?!  Did THAT make her feel beautiful and sexy?  To have her both slathered with a delicious childhood treat that she probably feeds to her own children?  How is being covered in SpaghettiOs anything but disgusting?  And whose idea was that?  Was it hers? I don't get it. 

Even after it is explained, I still don't get it.  It says "For the pictures, we had her topless with a thick sparkly red choker with a big red heart in front and red and white polka dot panties ... like 1950s style...SpaghettiOs were all over her body and she's even throwing the SpaghettiOs toward the camera. The label on the can was changed from SpaghettiOs to say 'Saucy Octos.'"  Uhh...what?  How is being in red and white polka dot panties and covered with SpaghettiOs "like 1950s style"?  I don't fancy myself a historian or anything like that, but I am fairly familiar with the styles of the 1950s and I have never encountered a style that included being covered in SpaghettiOs.  Ever.  And wtf is a 'Saucy Octo'?  They're not shaped like eights!  They're shaped like Os!  It's right there in the name SpaghettiOs.  Not SpaghettiEights! 

I don't understand any of this.  Then again, she is, by most definitions, mentally ill (in at least one form or another), so I guess that this isn't supposed to make a ton of sense.  There's still no word on how much she was paid to do this, but whatever it is I don't see how it's going to solve her long term problems.  And while she might have declared bankruptcy, I went through the paperwork and she hasn't filled out everything that she needs to.  If she doesn't turn in the required forms in a couple of weeks, her case is automatically dismissed.  And when (if) she does turn in the required forms, one of those will be a statement of her earnings and whatever she earned for the great SpaghettiO fiasco will need to be reported.  I'll get back to you when that information is available.  In the meantime, let's just try our hardest to forget all about this.  It's certainly not worth the nightmares that it will induce by remembering it.  But if you do want to remember it, there are a bunch of photos over at TMZ that should suffice. 

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Watch out, Bo!

Why this song hasn't received more attention in the few weeks since it has been out is beyond me.  It's hilarious.  Continuing to play on the not-so-recent revelation that President Barry ate dog when he was a child in Indonesia, some genius came up with a parody of the delightfully 80s tune by Hall & Oates "Man Eater".  The lyrics are awesome, but the real highlight is the chorus that goes:

Ohhhhh, here he comes.

Watch out Bo, he’ll chew you up.

Ohhhhh, here he comes.

He’s a dog eater.

Seriously brilliant, don't you think?  OK, at least it's funny.  And all of you people out there who find the time to do these things?  I salute you.  You are the treasures of the Internets.  All of them.  Full lyrics are below the video.  Behold! 

He only comes out at night To find a tasty bite 
Nothing is new, I’ve seen his gaze before 
Watching and waiting 
He’s sitting with you but eyeing some Basset Hounds


So many to taste and see 
Chihuahua friccasse 
Dear Leader is wild, but he’s tamed by the taste of a puppy’s tail 
Served up on a platter 
The school lunches are sure gonna get bizarre


Ohhhhh here he comes 
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
He’s a dogeater 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
He’s a dogeater
 
I wonder if Michelle approves 
Fried puppy just won’t do 
Poached poodle flan, the One will really rip their fur apart 
Mind over matter 
Tele-promp-ter glaze but a beast is in his heart


Ohhhhh here he comes 
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
He’s a dogeater 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up 
Ohhhhh here he comes 
He’s a dogeater

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It's A Nice Change From Al Sharpton

Have you heard the story about the 20-year old student who was attending Berkeley when he was caught up in a federal drug raid, never arrested or charged, but ended up being forgotten about in a holding cell for four days without food or water?  If you hadn't heard about it before now, it was pretty much what I just described there.  The guy's name is Daniel Chong and it's really not much short of a miracle that he didn't die in there.  He's now suing the DEA for 20 million dollars and I certainly hope that he gets it.  This incident was clearly nothing more than government asshattery at its finest.  But I wanted to point something out. 

After this story came out, I thought that it would get a little bit more attention than it did.  I'm not sure exactly why it didn't, but I guess it doesn't really matter.  But I'll tell you what impressed me about the publicity that was not given to this incident.  Mr. Chong is Asian.  But yet, there were not any Asian groups out there protesting his maltreatment under the assumption that someone must have had it in for him because he was Asian.  I cannot tell you how much I admire that.  You can't tell me that if this guy had been black that we would not all have been subject to the rants of Al Sharpton proclaiming how it was because he was black and how everyone who is white is a big ol' racist.  Yeah, that's exactly what would have happened.  You can't swing a dead cat without hitting Al Sharpton when something like that happens to a black individual. 

Do I have a point with all of this?  Not other than what I just stated.  I guess it just kind of gives me a little bit of hope that not all ethnic groups out there think that all white people are racist and out to get them.  Didn't I know that before?  Sure I did.  Of course I did.  But after the Trayvon Martin debacle, sometimes you wonder.  I like it that this horrible incident can obviously be chalked up to the incredible stupidity of whoever was working at the DEA.  There are a lot of things that can be chalked up to stupidity rather than a dislike for a certain race.  This is one of them and I'm glad to see it being treated as such. 

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