8 posts tagged “wtf?”
Right now in Lawrence, Kansas, it is 4 degrees (that's -20, for you folks keeping score in Celsius), but in case that's not enough to make you want to curl up and stay in bed, with the wind chill it's -16 (-27 C).
I walked to work. It has to be pretty bad for me not to walk to work, usually so bad that the campus is closed. With four layers of clothes, plus a hat, mittens, and two scarves, it wasn't too bad. The two most important parts of me stayed warm--my ears and my feet.
By the time I got to work, though, I had ice on my eyelashes. WTF? I felt like a Discovery Channel documentary on Arctic exploration. Ice on my eyelashes? The crazy thing as always was seeing folks who didn't dress for the weather. People without hats and gloves. Look, folks, when the National Weather Service tells you to wear a hat and gloves to avoid frost bite and hypothermia, you should probably listen. It's not like your grandma telling you to wear bread bags on your feet to keep dry.
Did I miss the memo? I realize it's been ten years since I worked for Planned Parenthood as a sex educator, so it's possible I haven't kept up with all the latest stuff on that front, but when did it become okay for teenagers to get pregnant?
I don't have anything to say about Sarah Palin's parenting habits, because teenagers will do stupid shit no matter how responsible and loving their parents are. So for all I know, she's the best mother in the world. As for her daughter, she's probably a nice, decent girl. Even nice, decent teenagers do stupid shit.
What I want to talk about is the total two-faced attitude of religious conservatives in America.
Apparently, the official response to Sarah Palin's 17-year old's pregnancy is that it's "great" that she's keeping the baby and getting married. What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? Really? Srsly? It's "great" that she's pregnant? What the fuck kind of mixed messages does that send? Oh, right, the same mixed message that abstinence-only sex education programs send.
Palin, of course, supports abstinence-only sex education programs, but I'd like to make a radical suggestion. Let's stop bullshitting each other about this. If a 17-year old getting pregnant is so great, why bother with abstinence-only sex education? If pregnant teenagers getting married before they're out of high school is so fan-fucking-tabulous, let's start promoting fornication-only sex education. Never mind condoms and STD slide shows, let's just show the kids a couple of pornos and turn the lights down low. Hell, fucking's fun, they should do it while they're young. Hey...that even rhymes. That could be the motto for our new sex education program.
All I want to know is what McCain/Palin's platform has to say about aid to women and children in poverty. Because if we're going to start encouraging teenagers to get knocked up, we need to be prepared to feed and clothe all those unplanned little bastards. Pro-life, pro-formula-and-diapers, pro-food-stamps, pro-welfare.
For years I've known that Cumulus radio was run by a bunch of freaky ultra-conservatives. You know, like so much of the "liberal media."
Sunday night as I cooked this week's lunches (garlic mashed potatoes and Parmesan broccolis, yum), I was listening to the ancient rock station out of Topeka. It was the radio station I listened to in college and it was pretty cool back then, but somewhere around grad school, Cumulus bought it and turned it into a robot radio station. Now it's a carbon copy of every other Cumulus classic rock station.
In the middle of their programming, Cumulus runs these little public service announcements that are covers for their job ads. The PSA's start with advice about how to succeed at interviews, but end with a plug for their sales hiring website. The advice appears to be pretty straightforward--women should wear modest clothing and natural make-up. Their final bit of advice, though? "Avoid wearing open-toed shoes, which are associated with social issues."
That's a direct and accurate quote, because I heard the little faux PSA three times in an hour, and after the third time, I stopped mashing and wrote it down.
Did I miss something? What "social issues" are associated with "open-toed shoes"? Help, my people, I'm confused.
Yup. Just went to a Beginning Photoshop class. I'm one of those fearless people who'll just click-click-click away on a software application until I figure out what I need to know. I know a lot of basics, but I'm missing some things that I'd have learned if I hadn't taught myself. I really want to take the Intermediate and Advanced classes, but I am first required to take the Beginning class. I assumed there would be some slow moments for me, but I'm a patient creature. To a point, I'm patient. Beyond another point, I was trapped next to someone who required 5 minutes of class time to learn how to right click the mouse. I think you can imagine how the other 2 hours and 55 minutes of class went.
Usually, to keep myself amused at these workshops, I create my own little projects that diverge sharply from the "official" workshop exercises. (As you can see in my post about a website authoring workshop I took.) This time the official project was so bizarre that I just went ahead and did it, although poorly. I did end up adding my own commentary to it.
If you travel abroad, you probably sometimes feel marked like Cain--readily identifiable to others as a citizen of the United States of Wackjobs and Morons. Even where stupid Americans don't pave the path to contempt in foreign countries, American politicians in the news have solidified our national reputation.
I don't know if it's any comfort to you, but there are plenty of crazy politicians in countries that like to pretend they're perfectly normal.
Take France, and its new president Nicolas Sarkozy. This guy has seriously eaten the Freedom Fries. How do you say WTF? in French? The French political climate has gone from being "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" to this guy, who says, "Zee Irahnians, if zey do not do what I vant zem to do, zen vee shall have some fisticuffs. Hawhn hawhn hawhn." Great. So the UK traded in Tony Blair for a more rational model, but France has decided to trade down for a "war president" model? Have they learned nothing from our experience with George Bush?
In Germany, they've got wacky covered with Gabriele Pauli, who has proposed a law which would cause marriages to automatically expire after seven years. You'd be free to "renew," but after seven years, you'd automatically be free, without the need for a divorce. It's not a new idea, but it's certainly out of place in the current political climate.
In the Philippines meanwhile, federal trial judge Florentino V. Floro, Jr. was fired by the Supreme Court, after he admitted that he "regularly sought the counsel of three elves only he could see." Exactly how is this different than what judges like Antonin Scalia are doing? As far as I can tell he's taking counsel from one or more entities that only he can see. After the firing, the Supreme Court and its members' families have experienced mysterious illnesses and car wrecks and a fire destroyed the Supreme Court crest. As a result the Supreme Court has issued a resolution that calls on Floro to cease his "threats of ungodly reprisal." Maybe those little elves aren't as invisible as the Supreme Court thought?
I don't know, but all the sudden I don't feel quite as embarrassed by American politicians. Oh, I'm still horrified, but just a little less today.
Can anyone tell me what this is? It was in the garage when we bought the house, and it just doesn't look like something we need. I figure I'll put it out on Craig's List, except I don't know what it is.
I am an internet explorer (no, not the software). I cruise around in the obscure corners of the web, looking for oddities. Remember the one about Jesus being Tom Selleck? This one is even weirder:
The folks at Bible Doctrine News would like to present for your consideration, the ways in which Ted Bundy's life is a parallel of the life span of the state of Israel. See? I can't make that kind of thing up. It's too crazy to be fiction.
If you can't quite bring yourself to click on that link, just have a little taste:
Ted Bundy was one of history's most evil domestic terrorists. A psychopathic necrophiliac and rapist who preyed upon college girls from 1973-75, he was a cold-blooded murderer. Born a bastard and rejected by his mother, he became the servant of Bel, the ancient god of Babylon. God sent him as a sign of the diaspora, and his life paralleled the birth and rise of the nation of modern Israel.
I don't want be too harsh on Larry, but I think he's a nutjob of the first degree. Of course, Larry has a ready retort for me:The Florida duck survived two near-death experiences in her rise to fame. Now, with the duck's picture on the weather map, it has become obvious that the angels orchestrated all this. The duck's rise to fame is somewhat analogous to Nancy Pelosi's. She became the first woman Speaker of the House this year after the Democrats won the elections. She was born March 26, 1940, where 26 is for Political Babylon and 40 is for maximum divine discipline. It was Day 86, for the Arab persecution of the Jew. Her dad was Jewish, but she is Roman Catholic. Her trip to the terrorist land of Gad in Asia this weekend corresponded to the Florida duck's picture over the Arizona-New Mexico desert and second near-death experience.
For those who have never made the greatest decision of life to accept the free gift of Eternal Life, please go to the Salvation page. Otherwise, the information presented on this web site will be meaningless. Those who aren't saved do not have a human spirit and cannot understand Spiritual information. What's worse, it is foolishness to them.
Yes, it is, Larry. Yes, it is.
*shit. Censoring myself so people can read at work
You can't make shit like this up, people. As someone who has quite a bit of personal and professional experience with making up unbelievable shit, I'm telling you that what is about to follow could only exist in the non-fiction world. No self-respecting fiction publisher or editor would let a thing like this fly.
A few days ago I happened across a post by Miss Scotch about her exciting days as an English tutor for the child of some Italian yoga Hindu cultists. She posted a picture of their guru that got me started on one of my random internet searches. That random internet search brought me here: Woman Thou Art God, The University of Mother God Church, presented by its one true prophet, Rasa Von Werder.
In detailing her many visions and conversation with Jesus (and several other historic religious figures, this is what the website of Woman Thou Art God has to say:
In 2002 Rasa dreamed about being married. This always means Jesus because Jesus has actually betrothed her with three rings in 1978, and married her in a mystical experience in 1982. In this dream, she's looking at her husband who is standing next to a fireplace. He is dressed in black, and He is Tom Selleck, suddenly she is shocked because she has not really seen her husband so beautiful as if she was blind before. The next scene he is on top of her making love, she knows his penis is inside of her but there is no feeling of grossness...only a feeling a divine love.
That's right, folks, Jesus appeared to her as Tom Selleck.
Here is what Rasa has to say about why Jesus appeared as Tom Selleck:
By the way, Jesus rarely appears rarely looking like the long-haired, robed person in classical art. He appears as we said, as the most handsome, sexiest man that Rasa can conceive of. Handsome and sexy means beauty, and God is beauty. On the other hand, the devil is ugly, and when he appears he is always ugly except in rare cases when he tries to fool you with outward appearance and appears attractive, but there is a sinister feeling to his looks.
Thanks, crazy lady, because regular religions don't already stress the "evil is ugly and ugly is evil" theory. You're really breaking new ground here. Had enough? Me neither, let's read on:
There is a saint named Baba Muktananda that Rasa has had the closest relationship with, next to Jesus. [One] night, [Baba] was on top of her and he was transmitting the lotion of consciousness into her being. She didn't feel anything like sex or penis, but his being on top was a symbol and a sign that he was downloading grace into her. Another time he appeared as Jean Claude Van Damme, one of Rasa's favorite stars and yet another time as the star from "The Highlander" -another super-handsome man.
Or how about Mohamed came to her in a dream as David Hasselhoff, and he was naked, holding two puppies. Like this:
Perhaps the bizarre part is that beyond all the total fruit and nut religious visions and spiritual sex, the website has some interesting articles on women's empowerment issues, like breastfeeding and polygamy.
