Thursday 17 October 2013

This Week in Assholes...

There has been so much going on this week that it was too hard to decide what I wanted to rant about.  Instead of agonizing over it (because I don't have time for that) I decided to do them all.  So without further ado may I present This Week in Assholes.

1) The Staff at Eastern Wayne Middle School - Last Friday a middle school decided to put a spin on one of their hum-drum safety drills.  Because safety drills could always use a little pizzazz, am I right?  Somehow a small group of trained professional educators all thought it would be a good idea for one of them to pose as a masked gunman and scare the shit out of 6th graders teach them to be more aware of their surroundings.

Huh.

Well, I guess if you want to teach them to be "aware" that they are in a school and that school these days are lousy with gunmen then, congratulations!  Mission accomplished.

And wow!  Not one of the adults involved had any misgivings about the project?  Really?  What happened?  Did you start your weekend drinking early?  Did someone secretly switch your coffee to decaf?  Did you all graduate from a fake online school?  You know what?  I don't care why.  If this is what you consider to be good decision making then you all need to be fired.


Won't you pleeeease stop getting yourselves raped?
2) Dear Prudence - Emily Yoffe, otherwise known as "Dear Prudence", is trying to rebrand  herself as "Dear Prude" this week. Yesterday she handed out some holier-than-thou bullshit of the unsolicited kind that would make Helen Lovejoy wet her pants:

"The Best Rape Prevention: Tell College Women To Stop Getting So Wasted"  (aka. Boys, continue to drink your faces off.  Nothing bad ever happened from that.  Just kidding, alcohol is the devil. But seriously boys, you got nothing to worry about.)

I'd link to it but I don't want to send her any traffic.  If you want to read some great responses check out this response from Maria Guido and this post by Erin Gloria Ryan.  They're both excellent.



3) "What's Your Excuse?" Mom - Next up, the latest headlines in the probably non-existent Mom Wars are all about fitness enthusiast Maria Kang's "What's your excuse?" image.

Good Lord, I find this woman exhausting!  She truly has no idea why people don't like her.  Based on her aggressively worded non-apology she seems to believe her critics are just jealous fatties who find it easier to hate on her than heave our their fat asses off the couch.

I read her blog describing her weight loss journey and I congratulate her for overcoming a serious eating disorder.  I admire her for working very hard to achieve the kind of healthy and muscular physique that she has.  I would never begrudge another woman that accomplishment just because I am soft and squishy and about 10 pounds overweight.  The fact that she has done all this while being employed full time and taking care of three kids really is impressive.

But it's not what she's saying, it's the way she's saying it.

I think her intention was to copy the "What's your excuse?" meme depicting amputees making great physical achievements like becoming competitive athletes or climbing Mount Everest, in spite of being disabled.  I find it weird that she seems to liken the challenges of being an able-bodied Mom of three small children to those of a person with missing limbs.  And she knows she's not fat-shaming, y'all because she used to be overweight.

Please.

Her heaviest weight was 153 pounds at a height of 5'4".  OMG!  QUICK!  SOMEONE ROLL HER BACK INTO THE OCEAN BEFORE SHE DIES!!!

Oh, let's not forget that she weighed 180 pounds while pregnant.  Ewww!

She thinks because it was a lot of hard work to lose some unwanted weight (and I have no doubt that she worked very hard) that she has overcome some kind of insurmountable obstacle.  That's why she feels entitled to this "inspirational" meme.  Because being a thin and hot Mom of three is the same thing as being a marathon runner with prosthetic legs.  But the message she's actually sending here isn't "You can do it!" or "Live life to the fullest no matter what stands in your way!"

Without any context at all this message fairly screams "You can't use having babies as an excuse to be fat.  I am living proof that the truth is you're just lazy!"  And yes this is exactly what fat shaming is all about: the assumption that a person is overweight because they are lazy.  Which she would be keenly aware of if she had ever actually really been fat in her life instead of tragically hating on herself because society dictates that skinny=hot.

So thanks, Maria Kang!  The only thing that was missing from our lives was yet another Mom telling us that looking hot after pregnancy IS possible.  What a unique and unheard of idea!

4) Tea Party Republicans - This week's winner of the Shittiest Asshole Award goes to Tea Party Republicans.  It wasn't even close!  First you shutdown the government because you don't like Obamacare.  Then you act surprised when the shutdown means the closing of National Parks resulting in this little gem right here:


Yes!  She should be ashamed, upholding the government shutdown YOU voted for, Randy!  That is fucking brilliant!  I can't tell if you are truly crazy or if you're a trolling genius but that right there is something to behold.  Then, while hundreds of thousands of people are living with no income, while oil spills happen in North Dakota with no one to clean it up, and while programs to feed the hungry are at risk, they rise en masse to defend....cold stone monuments.

Not to mention putting the country at risk of default.  You know, usually I can find American politics amusing when I'm safe way up here in Canada, but you crazy fucks are on the verge of screwing over the economy of the entire world!  And you're acting like it's not any big deal!

W! T! F!

So Here is your Shittiest Asshole Award.  You can have Ted Cruz come pick it up on your behalf.

He can use it to fund his next campaign.



1 comment:

  1. THe one about the school is the most alarming! I remember once hearing about a police department that staged a fake bank robbery, only without telling the police involved (or anyone else, including bank employees and customers) that it was fake, just to see if the cops would be prepared to handle it. SO basically they traumatized a bunch of people for nothing, and some of them even sued later! Subjecting 11, 12 and 13 year old children to the same thing? Wow, what a great idea! I wonder how many of those kids are going to have years of nightmares and even refuse to go back to school. :(

    ReplyDelete