So I had decided to stop posting anything here. Mostly because I had better things to do, and because there's already a million hand-wringy d'bags writing about their feelings on the stupid interwebs... basically, a general Fuck It.But you know what, dear friends? There's a lot of fucking stupidity out there. Granted, I perpetuate a fair amount of it myself, but I'm shunting that thought to the side for now. I'm shunting it in the interest of scratching two major itches I'm feeling lately.
One such itch is in response to shitty so-called science. I'd posted a couple of times on here about the resurgence of phrenology, and of the psuedo-science of "love" research that basically just ends up justifying the perhaps pathetic magical views about romance held by the average jackoff, but there was a recent article in a "science" journal that I wish to snottily- snootily?- eviscerate. Now I like to think of myself as an un-PC dickwad who occasionally enjoys reveling in sexism, but when I read this stupid fucking article, I thought "what an idiotic way of writing about this pretty boring study," and then promptly said 13425254 Hail Mary's for unfairly besmirching the reputation of idiots and the boring.
Listen to this garbage:
Sexual stereotypes are not the preserve of humans. Male dolphins, it seems, are
not interested in learning how to use a sponge, but their sisters are.
Now, being An Enlightened Dude, I'm thinking: huh. "I'd better be sceptical about what's coming next. I wouldn't be surprised to read some dodgy, troubling justification of some sort of tired sexist trope. What's worse, like so many scienticians, the scienticians in charge of this study will have brilliantly thrown a dazzling array of statistics and other scietisticist devices to razzle-dazzle my fragile semi-social-constructionist mind."
But, dear reader, I need not have feared such razzle dazzle. For the whole "[s]exual stereotypes [not being] the preserve of humans" angle was most assuredly based in the most base, inane assumptions:
Janet
Mann of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and colleagues have now
reviewed data collected during 20 years spent monitoring this group of dolphins
and found that, while mothers show both their male and female calves how to use
sponges, female calves are almost exclusively the only ones to apply this
knowledge.
Mann of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and colleagues have now
reviewed data collected during 20 years spent monitoring this group of dolphins
and found that, while mothers show both their male and female calves how to use
sponges, female calves are almost exclusively the only ones to apply this
knowledge.
The half-awake reader will assume that the sponges were used for cleaning, or for the uterine, vaginal, or intralabial insertion of some sort of spooge-blocker, or other such "feminine" projects. Why else would the "writer," a presumably be-vaginaed Catherine Brahic (whose name suggests some sort of chicago origins, rendering her irredeemably suspect, as we shall later explore, you and I), assign this to the Vast Pile Of Data What Shows That Bitches Best Stay Barefoot And Pregnant.
But no, Dear Reader. They use this sponge for-- wait for it-- HUNTING.
Yes, hunting. That practice (which is awesome, in my opinion, when accompanied with bright orange vests and chocolate coloured dogs and all kinds of North American Mini-Communitas), that a million halfwits use to explain a million so called Irrefutable Differences Between The Sexes. Except, you know, they usually attribute Hunting and Technology to those of us who rock the phallus. But not these dipshits.
Whatever, I'm bored with this garbage.
So Itch Number Two, to which I referred earlier, was a long time coming. Let me explain. The day that this guy
was subject to many news stories detailing his Cursing, his Greed, and his General Doofishness, I thought, "my, how entertaining! What a cynical asshole! I have waited for the day during which he was Served a Complaint detailing some likely criminal practices."
So it's not like I was in dude's corner, or whatever. Despite the fact that, and my family hates this, I have no regrets about not voting for Judy "Barr" "I Think These People Are Comfortable Around Me" Topinka. (And those of you who know how fond I am of presumably lesbian accordian players know how much this means.) Look, a crooked populist democrat is NEVER WORSE THAN A REPUBLICAN.
I will justify this later, but suffice it to say that it will relate to the fact that I'm less concerned about a jagoff who shaves a mill here and there to a dick who makes it their Raison D'etre (French for "dickwadness" and "really good beer") to steal from the poor to feed the rich.
But whatever. I enjoyed hearing the details, the swears, etc. I though it was pretty lame that all the late night hosts thought the funniest thing about this story was dude's name (sorry, but in the Chi, a Slavic name doesn't exactly trip us up), (even though, when I heard the story on BBC and they said "Rod Blag-oh-YAY-vich" instead of "Rod Bluh-GOY-a-vich," I thought it was funny to say "Whoa he's being charged with War Crimes now?!" [still not funny, though almost makes sense, if you say it out loud]), but I enjoyed seeing a cynical, greedy person exposed for the dick they (allegedly) are.
But then this stayed the main story in the tribune. And it stayed the main story in the tribune. And it stayed the main story in the tribune.
Even though this was going on.
And then this happened.
And, less importantly, various right-wing twats teed off on a man I respect, for something that may or may not have happened.
And it basically seemed that the right and "middle" of this country, who had first allowed the coup of and then elected a torturer, an inept lier whose lies and greed got this country into a war which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, suddenly had a story to distract the rest of us from their (and our) complicity in recent atrocities.
Suddenly I got sick of jokes about Blago's hair.
If you've wasted time reading this shit, you can at least read this and (even more apropos) this.
