Neato
Crosses are What Now?
Matt’s post the other day talking about the poster showing a cross o corpses got the wheels turning. I agree that that poster would be a horrible thing to hang in the living-room, but then I got thinking about the cross itself, and I can’t figure out how people can look at it and think good, happy thoughts.
Think about it. Sure it’s a symbol of religion. But it’s also a symbol of death! They nailed a dude to it, broke his legs and waited for him to die! But people have no problem wearing cross necklaces and decorating their houses with cross-related things. To me, that seems wrong. That would be like the guillotine being a symbol of freedom in France because of its role in the French revolution, and people having replicas of it in their houses and yards. Or, wouldn’t it be considered morbid if relatives of people who died in a plane crash wore pendants of mangled planes around their necks to mark the sacrifice their relatives made? Isn’t that just a tad sick? So how is that any different than having crosses on display? Maybe it’s just hard for me to get my head around since I’m not religious, but the whole thing seems a little twisted.
Sex With Old People
Well not really. But it got your attention.
Am I the only person tired of hearing and old hag tell young people who to get off? Anyone in Canada knows what I’m talking about. That fucked up Sex with Sue Johanson show that’s on all the time. It’s not even just the show anymore – she tours and does speechs and Q&A’s at college and university’s and stuff. It’s just disturbing to see someone that old talk about this kinda stuff.
Besides – how can someone that old still know what’s relevant in sex today? Last week I happened to be flipping by and caught her giving advice on giving head. But I mean is the advice “slowly get down on your knees, favour your bad hip and encourage him to play with your one remaining breast” really relevant to people watching? I mean telling young people “just remove your teeth to give a real smooth blowjob” just isn’t helpful.
And no one really wants to hear about how President Taft’s mustache used to tickle your thighs back in the day. But I suppose the advice of no matter how in to it you get, don’t give away the allies strategy as they storm the beaches of Normandy is useful. I mean you never know when you’re shipping out.
And who can’t use some advice on sex talk? “to get her really riled up, be sure and whisper something dirty in her ear like ’23 skadoo'”.
Time to get this antique off the air, though.
Thanks, Boss, You’re So Kind.
Wow. You know management is a bunch of insensitive pricks if you work at Northwest Airlines. Why? Because after they decided to lay off workers, they gave these victims of the axe a book of helpful tips on how to save money, which included telling them to go dumpster-diving. Wow, talk about taking away someone’s dignity. Then they were surprised that people took issue with a few of the tips. Now they agree they were a bit insensitive. A bit? Amazingly, that booklet can no longer be found anywhere. Gee, I wonder why. Hopefully the guy who wrote it will be its final recipient.
You Did What?!
Here’s something that I’m sure will shock the hell out of pretty much anybody who knows anything about me, and maybe even disappoint a few people, likely the ones with poor taste in entertainment.
After doing quite a bit of thinking, I’ve decided to give up my radio show. I hadn’t been completely happy with the way things were going at the station for quite a while, and after taking some time away over the summer to take care of the move, visit friends and family and to try to cure the radio burnout I was having, I’ve realized that things being the way they are, I’ve accomplished everything I can possibly accomplish there.
I’m sure that doesn’t make sense to some of you, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Recording interviews in advance. Producing commercials or public service announcements for the station. Reporting on live events. Creating pre-taped bits to use on shows. Picking music for shows without hours, sometimes days of extra effort. Keeping logs of everything because by law we have to or we’ll lose our broadcasting license. Taking requests. These are all things that I am currently unable to do without help. there might be more, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind. Since the first day I walked through the door there, I’ve been asking for and offering to do whatever I could to help with getting systems put in place so that I could do some, if not all of those things. and in the 4 years that I’ve been there, absolutely 0 progress has been made on any of those fronts. So essentially I’ve been stuck doing the same thing since day 1 and even though it’s been fun for the most part, there’s only so much you can do with 1 thing before you run out of creative things to do with it. My job is to entertain people, give them a laugh, do my best to make sure that while they’re listening to the radio that they’re having fun. and I think for the most part I did that. but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m no longer having a good time, and if I stayed on, I know that it would only be a matter of time before that started to show through in my work, and now that I think about it, I think it had already started to do that to some extent.
As for why I don’t just get help with all of this stuff and quit my bitching, I can explain that too. I’ve gotten as much help as I can reasonably expect to get, and I thank each and every person who ever took the time to give me a hand. But with such a high turnover around there, good help is hard to keep. Just when I’d start settling into a groove with somebody, life would get in the way and that person would be gone, leaving me to start all over again with somebody else. there’s only so many times you can rebuild everything from the ground up before it starts to wear on you, and I think I’ve reached my limit. Besides, a lot of the things I mentioned above are one person jobs, and there’s only so much I can do to make it look like the other guy isn’t doing all the work while I stand around like an idiot.
So all of that being said, as hard as it is, I know in my heart that it’s time for me to move on and find other ways to use the skills and talents that I know I have, the ones that aren’t being taken full advantage of the way that I’d hoped they would be. It wouldn’t surprise me if some day I found myself back there, whether it’s doing something steady again or even just popping in now and then if they need an extra body, but for the time being, the station and I need to see other people.
I don’t want to leave you all thinking that I didn’t enjoy doing what I did for the last 4 years, because that’s far from the case. It was nowhere near being all bad. I got to work and interact with some fantastic people, I have a lot of great memories to keep with me, and most of all, I got to live out my life’s biggest dream. Not everybody gets to say they’ve done that, so in that sense I consider myself lucky. Lucky and extremely greatful for being given the chance.
More Morons from the Morons’ Club
Here’s another letter to the editor about the spray-painting incident. I don’t know why the stream of letters on the subject interests me so much. Maybe I should stop posting them, because they’re probably boring everyone else to tears. At least this guy makes some sense, unlike that other pile of crap that was sent in by that other girl. Let’s break it down, shall we? My comments are in bold.
Man made out to be someone he is not
CHRIS YANG
(Aug 9, 2006)
Dear Editor – Re: ‘Local activist accused of spray-painting downtown wall’
(Guelph Mercury, Aug. 3).
One would think that such a headline would yield a small, perhaps one paragraph article, as this is a simple instance of vandalism.
One would think so, except for what he was spray-painting sounds eerily similar to what other people who like to set fires around the city might spray-paint. Would someone spray-painting “Long Live Osama Bin Laden” in New York shortly after the attacks on September 11 get a short story? Nope. Didn’t think so. They’d probably get a few stories and a media circus. If you don’t want attention, don’t draw it to yourself!
The article, containing Matthew Soltys’ photo, is much more than a paragraph, and it certainly gives him cause to worry that others will associate him with other actions for which he has not been charged.
If he was so worried about that, maybe he should have thought a little longer before pointing his spray can at the wall.
The piece describes the history of the word ‘eco-terrorism.’
This is because of a quote given by him. I know people can be misquoted, *gag* I have been misquoted myself, but he had to have decided they needed a history lesson about eco-terrorism for them to get the roots of the quote they got.
This word is the only non-link to the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental organization that is also discussed in the article.
There was also a mention of an environmental radio show that our spray-painting buddy runs. Is this guy trying to say it’s linked to ELF too? Uh-oh. I think he’s doing more harm than good.
Guelph Police Sgt. Dave Elloway seems to think the public should know the suspect in this vandalism case was carrying a word, ‘eco-terrorist,’ while he was spray-painting. This is disgusting.
What’s more disgusting is that the reporter agrees with him.
Why is this so disgusting? With all the grafiti accompanying fires, it’s not a stretch to think this is an important detail.
The article clearly states there is no evidence to link Soltys to the Earth Liberation Front arsons, but serves to be the biggest link between the two.
Wrong again. The word our buddy was found with is the biggest link between the two.
By providing a photo and information completely unrelated to spray-paint, this article has made Soltys out to be what he is not.
Dude, did you read the article? At all? Your friend who you make out to be a poor hapless little victim of the media provided that information himself.
It is disgraceful to print a photo of Soltys in association with information about eco-terrorism.
I ask again, why? He associated himself with the word by being found with it on him while he was merrily defacing property. If it was somehow planted on him and he had no idea it was there, then maybe I can feel sorry for him. Otherwise, he chose to be associated with it.
This serves to link someone with something they did not do for no other reason than the alleged possession of a word.
Something tells me he wouldn’t need much help from the newspaper to link him to those things. Maybe he should have thought more carefully about whether what he was doing was a good idea.
The newspaper may as well have written eco-terrorist across Soltys’ photo and spent the rest of the article offhandedly mentioning that he is not one. Shame on you.
Now now, let’s be fair. Before we heap all the criticism on a reporter, I suggest this guy direct a little bit of shame towards his vandalizing friend too. Through this whole thing, he hasn’t made him take any blame at all.
Chris Yang
Guelph
I think I’m done ranting about this, until someone writes something else stupid, that is.
Stupid Day couldn’t be a Better Name!
Thordora came up with a good name for today. Stupid Day. It must be if a mother will let her children play in the *parking* lot and entrance of the apartment building where I live without thinking this was a bad idea or considering relocating their games to a giant park nearby. Seriously, I got a ride home from a meetting, and my friend said one kid was laying down in the parking lot while some woman watched over the kids. Um, hello? Do you think maybe now’s the time to teach Little Johnny that a parking lot is not a playground? Well, I guess if she doesn’t, natural selection will take over and kids like Little Johnny will be prevented from contributing to the creation of anniversaries of this sad day.
>Here We Go Again
And Now It’s Time For Today’s Story That Makes Steve Seriously Consider Throwing Himself Over His Balcony
We, as a people, have now reached the point where we feel it necessary to
cut the smoking scenes out of classic cartoons to prevent children from being exposed to unacceptable negative messages.
If you just read that and either A don’t see a problem with it or B think it’s a good idea, I’d like you to do the following: Stop reading, log off of the internet, walk into your kitchen and stick your head in the oven. You have nothing positive left to offer the world and honestly, we could do with a few million less of you.
I said to Carin the other day that I’m glad that we grew up when we did, because there’s no way we could grow up in this era of rampant retardedness and still become the people we are now. I have no idea where everything went wrong, but I’m convinced that at some point many years ago some kind of mystical forces put their heads together and decided that no matter what it took, they would eventually succeed in their quest to turn each and every one of our children and a sizeable number of adults for that matter into non-thinking, non-questioning, inactive piles of fucking idiot flavoured Jello Pudding who would be more than happy to swallow anything they tell them to swallow with no concern about how bad it might taste or how hard it might be to keep down. That has to be what’s going on here. Why else would we be changing history to make it more “suitable” for students, or worse yet, not teaching history at all? Why else would we stop requiring students to read classic novels because we don’t want them running across words or ideas that we don’t like anymore? And why else would we remove all of the fun stuff from playgrounds and ban activities like tag or even running around fast so that the kids don’t get hurt? It’s because people with knowledge and imagination can think for themselves, and that makes them a lot harder to control.
I’m sure that to some of you I probably seem like a total nutcase right now, and that’s fine. But before you write me off, do me one small favour. Look around. I mean really look around. Read the news. Read the archives here. Spend some time talking to some kids and teenagers. Listen to some community radio. Spend some time in a city, preferably a university town, and listen to the conversations that other people are having. Better yet, try to have a few conversations with some people yourself. If you can do all of that and you’re still convinced that the world’s future is A ok, fine, we’ll have to agree to disagree I guess. But more likely than not, you’ll come to find out that something is horribly, horribly wrong with the world and that some how, some way, we need to do something. what exactly that something is I’m not entirely certain, but it sure as hell doesn’t involve letting those bastards mess with Tom and Jerry.