Psychotic Hatreds III

Cell Phone Ban

Episode 100!

Re: Obama's School Lecture

I didn't see Barack Obama's lecture to high school students, but according to everyone who did see it, it was basically a talk on the importance of trying hard not only in school, but life. You are in charge of your own destiny, there is no excuse to not try, that sort of thing.

So why are so many Americans so pissed about the very idea of the President talking to their children, that they pressured schools to not participate in the lecture? Why are they so convinced that Obama has a hidden socialist agenda, when there has been little to no evidence of this at all?

I don't know, but frankly I'm getting incredibly sick and tired of it by now. While I have little patience for the narrow-minded to begin with, for Obama haters to constantly resort to lies and fear-mongering is BEYOND stupid. If you want to criticize someone -- and be taken seriously by anyone with an I.Q. of above 15 -- it's not hard to try using facts and an even temper. Why won't American conservatives even try that, it seems?

Further, I have to ask, would these same people be getting their knickers in a knot if it were the dim-witted fanatic Sarah Palin giving this lecture? (man I can't picture much worse role models for young women than her) Would they be so upset, if it were the same words, out of... oh I don't know... Bill Clinton?

I thought America was "the land of the free", so why are so many of the people living there acting like it's their personal gulag?

Vidiots

Hamilton Sucks!

So the City of Hamilton has reluctantly decided that it will build and partially own a new stadium. Officially, this is to assist Toronto's bid to host the 2015 Pan Am games, but the fact that our existing stadium is falling to pieces as I speak probably has a lot more to do with it. In any case, there are, as usual a ton of detractors to the very idea of doing anything to invest in this city. I can't help but ask, are these people suicidal, or just plain stupid?

There's a reason why I've previously said, that the City of Hamilton has some kind of allergy to doing anything to really make things better for its people. For years, our local government has insisted on chasing away the handful of businesses that want to build some sort of mini industry here. That is, of course, after they have the patience to wade through an arcane bundle of red tape that no other big city in Ontario has even dreamt of. This is truly insane; our officials sit endlessly on their thumbs when historic downtown buildings collapse in the middle of the street, and crooked house builders violate stop work orders, but as soon as a large company wants to make life better for us, they can't shoot it down fast enough.

Consider if you will, the fact that not too long ago, Maple Leaf wanted to build a processing plant on the outskirts of town. This would have given the community a lot of badly needed jobs. You would think that this would be an easy thing for Hamilton City Hall to approve, but no, they said that we didn't want those sort of jobs here. I'm completely serious. Excuse me, but speaking as someone who HAS been unemployed, in a city with one of the largest unemployment rates in Canada, ANY job is one that's wanted! I don't recall ever giving some faceless bureaucrat the right to decide my destiny for me, so piss off.

Then there's the fact that every time we badly need to build something in this city -- a new city hall, new sewers, a new stadium, whatever -- our local councillors constantly ignore it until the press uncovers some disaster; such as, the outside walls of city hall falling down, or the Lister Block, Tivoli theatre, and several other downtown buildings partially collapsing, or lightstands falling off of Ivor Wynne stadium, or our sewers bursting whenever someone coughs near them. Once again, here's a newsflash: considering that the economy not only in Hamilton, but much of Ontario, is based on manufacturing and construction, doesn't it seem smart to... oh, I don't know... give them something to build???

Hamilton is a very weird town; we're the size of a big city, but we very much have a small town mentality. What I mean by that is that we're very scared of -- even angered by -- changing things, until well after they've walked up and bitten us all on the ass. There are people who say that I should get into local politics, but this is a big reason why I'm not sure if I want to: I believe in doing the smart thing; I believe in standing up for the people who are trying to survive in this town. That's simply not the way we do things, here. That's it for me.

Humans are superior to animals, riiiiight...

I just got back from a walk in The Zoo. Overall it was a great trip (aside from the heat), but there was this one thing that disgusted my whole family.

We saw a peacock walking near a public path, with some chicks -- something that we'd never seen before, in all the years we've been going to the zoo. However, an East Indian man and his five year old son were following them (the boy quite close). Sure enough, this kid ran at and spat at the babies, while his father just watched innocently.

ALL of us, plus some other tourists, saw this and yelled at them both to stop. He only seemed to get the message when we pointed out that if the kid goes near the flock again, the mother will probably attack.

Honestly, this just boiled my blood for two reasons. One, I hate bullies -- one of the few things I can honestly and shamelessly say that I do loathe -- especially anyone who is twisted enough to attack newborns of any species (don't forget, serial killers often start out as animal abusers). Two, no matter what culture you're from (if indeed that is an issue here), if you've been around animals at all then you know that the most universally potent instinct that exists is that of mothers to fanatically protect their young offspring. In short, if the animal has any capacity to harm a human at all, then picking on its own is literally suicide.

But anyway... I wish I'd thought to congratulate these idiots/jerks for teaching a bunch of infants that humans are the most obnoxious and heartless creatures on this planet.