America, Land of the Offended

Alright, it takes a lot to offend me.  I’ve been called pretty much every name in the book and I can take the abuse mostly because I don’t LOOK to be offended.  Somehow, many other people do the opposite and are offended at the slightest hint at anything that can be remotely considered an insult.  Ugh.

It’s gotten so bad that I really don’t know what to say to anyone.  Everything needs to be qualified these days, especially since every subgroup of the population has found some sort of identity in what makes them unique, whether it be blacks, whites, gays, anti-gays, christians, etc.  I don’t know, I’ve always had a “live and let live” attitude toward most people, so long as you don’t “live” in my face and do your “living” in the privacy of your home.  No one cares about your ethnicity nor your lifestyle, religious beliefs, etc, etc, etc, unless you try to ram it down our throats.  But that’s another discussion for a different day.

Back to the Land of the Offended.  OK, let’s start with a hypothetical, but very real example.  I have a friend who’s Jewish.  If I refer to him/her as “a Jew”, is that considered offensive?  I take it, it IS, but I couldn’t for the life of me explain WHY.  Somehow, “they’re Jewish” vs. “he’s a Jew” walk some fine offensive scale and one tips the scale while the other doesn’t.

Another example is saying someone’s black.  Apparently the Political Correctness Committee has decided on this whole “African American” label, which is just absurd.  Of all the black people I know, none of them is from Africa, nor have they ever been there.  I’m proposing we then use the term: “AMERICAN African American” to denote those people who are really just Americans, but have the same color skin as those people from Africa who then may have migrated to the United States.  Yeah, silly idea, right?

You can’t even say “you’re gay” anymore, without pissing someone off.  Of course, gays, like all subgroups that have identified themselves as a separate group from the rest of the population, have taken their knocks and undue abuse.  Unfortunately that just comes with the territory, like the fat kid in school getting verbally/physically abused; it sucks, but the world ain’t gonna change and I don’t know what to do about it (and if you’re going to complain about my view, then YOU offer a solution).

I like to joke around, but it seems like everyone these days takes everything so freaking seriously that no one can see humour in anything and they just look to be offended.  Virtually anything you say can be taken the wrong way and very few people actually consider your intended message before taking on the defensive view.  Sure some jokes go way too far and certainly sometimes you say something unintentionally offensive, but jeez, can’t people approach things as adults and address the issue?

So, I’ll plod on and continue to joke around knowing that sooner or later someone will get upset and I’ll do the damage control as needed.  That said, I hope all you homos have a great Xmas.

Yes, that was a joke, except the Xmas part, which I hope offended someone.  Please let me know, although I’m SURE you will.

Christmas Shopping and Must Have Products

America today is in bad shape; our economy sucks and our values have gotten so twisted.  I still can’t get over the Walmart employee getting crushed in a mad Black Friday rush of shoppers and I realized that I share virtually NOTHING with the mentality of this mob.

Sure, I’m a self-proclaimed cheap ass and I like saving money and sending in rebates and all that, but if I sit here and try to think of a single “must have” item, I can’t.  There is NO DVD that I absolutely must own, there is NO movie that I HAVE to see, there is NO product I have to buy…and so on.  It’s very strange for me, being a former collector of, well, STUFF, to have attained this position.  As a kid, I got caught up in all that marketing, which is probably why I despise marketing so much today.  I was told which toys were fun in all the commercials and I cluelessly added them to my christmas list.  When it turned out that the toys sucked, I didn’t seem to care (although I did notice), because there was always another toy being pushed on TV.

That all changed when I shut off my TV, canceled cable and stopped reading newspapers and listening to the radio.  I consciously shut out any media outlet as much as I reasonably could and now I find that I’m somewhat immune to advertising.  I’m trying to keep my kids from that same barrage I was subjected to, but it’s not easy.  It’s OK, to some extent, but you do need a constant awareness and need to limit the impact.  Look at virtually every kid you see; all their toys and accessories are licensed characters: Disney, Dora, Thomas the Tank Engine, Spongebob, Elmo, etc…ad infinitum.

Funny enough, parents don’t even notice what they’re paying for, nor the negative impact it’s having on the child.  Case in point: at toy stores, the ‘blank’ play ball sells for $3.49 and the exact same ball with Dora’s oversized head on it sells for $4.99, as do all the Disney balls.  So, cheap ass me buys the cheaper ball (after all, it’s just a ball) and to make it cooler, we break out the permanent markers and decorate it ourselves.  Score one point against Disney and score one point for independence.

The only time I’ve seen TV recently was during the NBA finals and the Presidential debates, etc prior to the election.  To be honest, I was appalled at not only the obviousness with which the ads pushed products, but I laughed hysterically at the lists of side effects mentioned for virtually every pharmaceutical product advertised, especially ironic for the ‘erectile dysfunction’ pills (sure you want a stiffy, but would you die for one?).

I don’t know, maybe it’s a lost cause.  We all ask for a ‘kleenex’ instead of a tissue, we ‘xerox’ things, and we ‘google’ search terms, so we’ve already been programmed.  It’s not all bad, but it is scary how it creeps up on you.  For now all I can do is limit the damage to my family without impacting our enjoyment of life.  It does require an acute awareness, but I’ve developed much of it.

For the record, my iPod* is not one, my cell phone is not an iPhone* and my christmas list is empty.  I have everything I need (until something breaks) since I bought it all when I was told to by my TV.  Now I’m just enjoying them for a change instead of clamoring for the next ‘thing’.

Homework: shut off your media (TV, radio, newspapers/magazines) for a week and figure out who you are, or if there’s any part left of who you are.  Report back.

*For the record, I will admit I do want both of these, simply because they’re excellent products.

Wow…President Obama…woW

Well, we did it.  We’ve elected the first black President and I couldn’t be happier.  Not that I care that Obama is black, but I’m thrilled that it never even crossed my mind that he’s black; Obama stood strong on his merits and won the election because he deserved it.  Once again I am proud to be an American and am not embarrassed by our Commander in Chief.

If you look real close, you can see my little green 'X'

I guess I’m most impressed with his character, but it is incredible to me that he never played the race card.  With all these morons out there like Al Sharpton, along with every other minority group out there whose members CONSTANTLY remind you that they’re part of a minority group, it was refreshing to have a guy just offer his views and then let the words resonate until enough people heard them to create the movement that got him elected.

McCain’s concession speech was to be commended and it was welcoming that he shushed those losers who were booing Obama.  Sure I was upset back in 2000 when Bush was elected and I was downright pissed off in 2004, but in both cases I just accepted Bush as our President and I sucked it up for four years.  Now I get my revenge in the form of an excellent orator, a qualified politician (an oxymoron, yes?) and a man who is best qualified to right this country.  Sure it’ll be tough, but Obama’s our best hope.  And thank goodness Mrs. Palin didn’t speak; it only would have ruined the kindness exhibited by McCain.  In retrospect, had McCain acted like he did during his concession speech, he may have convinced more voters that he was, in fact, a human being.

Obama’s acceptance speech was awesome.  I don’t even know why, but I kept tearing up every now and then and I can only believe it was because his victory is just that bittersweet, when I think of how far we’ve come from our country’s stained history.  The absence of ‘whooping it up’ and ‘playing to the crowd’ by Obama was noticeable and was very indicative that Obama’s for real and winning this election is only a door being opened; the real work starts in a couple months.  I’ll say it again: I hope no one tries to assassinate him.

Well, this election was historical and the country is, finally, ready for some positive changes.  Quite possibly in my lifetime I’ll also get to see the first woman President (my daughter?) and I’m sure there are many other ‘firsts’ that will come along that will be welcome changes in this greatest of countries.  My secret wish is for a candidate whose last name is “President” to become President, so everyone has to call him “President President”.  That would be totally sick sick.

It’s been a while, but I’m glad to be proud of our leader; that hasn’t happened in quite a few years.