SemiConscious Dot Org

This weekend, the Special Lady Friend and I headed over the mountains to visit a friend of hers. This friend, who was born and raised in Seattle, has been having a tough time adjusting to the cultural wasteland that is Yakima, where she recently moved for a job. She invited us out there to keep her company for a couple of days. (The fact that the Yakima Valley Spring Barrel wine tasting festival just happened to fall on this very weekend is entirely coincidental.) On Saturday, the friend and her boyfriend chartered a van to drive our drunken asses around to all the vineyards we would be visiting.

And in this van, something happened that sets my teeth gnashing every time I think about.

In addition to the four of us, several of the boyfriend’s business partners were riding to the wine tasting. Upon being introduced to us as we entered the van, one of them asked the Special Lady Friend where she had gone to school and what she did for a career. When she replied that she had gone to Seattle Central Community College, he asked “how did you go there and avoid getting shivved?” (Note: SCCC is located in one of Seattle’s most racially diverse neighborhoods and has a large number of African-American students.)

This was rather offensive, but the SLF pressed on, pretending she hadn’t heard it and informing the guy that she had gone there to get her degree in interpreting. Whereupon, this asshole, a man we had met less than thirty seconds before, replied:

“Is your degree in interpreting Ebonics?”

Oh, and incidentally, the woman we had driven to Yakima to visit, whom this jackass had also never met before, and who was sitting less than five feet away, is black.

I was flabberghasted, as was the SLF. Had we actually heard what we just heard? What kind of brainless nitwit makes “wink wink, nudge nudge” racist jokes to people he’s just met? When we reached the winery, the SLF told her friend and the friend’s boyfriend what had been said, and they confronted the bozo. He assured us all that he had “lots of black friends.” I certainly didn’t believe him, but if he was telling the truth, hopefully those black friends don’t trust him too much.

“Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?”

There’s an interesting article in April’s School Library Journal listing the do’s and don’ts of blogging about your job. And by “interesting,” I mean that I looked at the list and said “yup, did that…yup, did that…yup, did that too…shit!”

Now, granted, I never painted with my ass and posted videos of it on YouTube where my students could find it. (How they recognized their teacher by viewing his ass is something I’d rather not contemplate.) And I’ve never referred to students as “drugged out idiots” in my blog. (Nor would I ever do so, because they’re great kids, and because of what they’ve dealt with in their short lives, generally a hell of a lot stronger than most adults.) But, at one time or another, I’ve violated every single one of these:

Five Reasons Not to Blog

1. “I want to give them a piece of my mind!”
2. “Oh, the stories I could tell.”
3. “I think I can find some time at school…”
4. “Nobody will find out that it’s me.”
5. “It’s OK, I will keep it private.”

So come on, ‘fess up. How many of these have y’all broken? I won’t tell anybody. Honest.

(link via Tame the Web)

For those of you kids out there who may be new to The Interwebs, the Darwin Awards salute those brave, selfless souls who serve mankind by voluntarily removing their defective genes from the breeding population in hilarious ways.

In the spirit of support for this magnificent and worthy institution, we would like to offer our own nominee for the prestigious award: this guy!

He then leapt on a table and dropped his trousers as customers fled screaming.

A witness said: “There was blood everywhere. Everyone ran out of the place.”

Surgeons battling to save the severed willy tried to sew it back on in the first UK op of its kind.

Quick-thinking cops recovered the organ from the restaurant floor after subduing its crazed owner with CS gas.

The manhood was packed in ice and taken with the man to London’s St Thomas’s Hospital.

A spokesman there confirmed doctors had attempted to re-attach it, but the hospital refused to say whether the procedure had been successful.

Technically, since our nominee had the bad sense to remain alive, he shouldn’t be eligible for the top prize, but only an Honorable Mention. However, since the nature of the injury is one that will preclude his ever breeding (assuming he hasn’t already), we feel the judges should make an exception in his case.

Unless, of course, those meddlesome doctors are successful, thus ruining his chance to win.

Could somebody please explain these assholes to me?

Honestly, I thought I was finally insulated against their bile. I thought I had finally set the intellectual, moral, and philosophical limbo bar so low that the American Right could no longer slither under it. I thought no new, depraved level of verbal sewage emanating from their fever swamp could shock me anymore. Not really.

And then a madman shot 33 people on a college campus, and this gang of soulless lizards lined up to blame the tragedy on coed dorms, liberal permissiveness, the victims themselves, and Muslims.

And they’re still at it! A week has passed, and the torrent of deranged editorials shitting forth from the clenched sphincters of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders continues unabated. In the past few days, we’ve seen the Virginia Tech massacre blamed on

1) Gun control

2) Male rage against the feminization of America

3) Radical Marxist college professors

4) Atheism

And, as always, those old conservative staples,

5) liberalism and

6) The victims. Those pussies.

And, for the truly unhinged, SATAN HIMSELF!

To paraphrase the tagline from a blog I happen to very much enjoy reading:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

Yes, that was an immensely satisfying weekend. Three wins in a row over the hated Yankees. A huge comeback on Friday night in a game that seemed irretrievably lost. A major league record-tying four consecutive homers in tonight’s series finale. Rivalry newcomer Daisuke Matsuzaka plunking both Slappy and Jetuh. Still, it wasn’t all good news.

I could expend lots of brain cells crafting a finely reasoned analysis of the series, but why bother? Hell, it’s only April, and there will be 15 more of these games. So instead, I’ll just cut and paste the comment I left on the Goat’s website.

The Good:

1) Obviously, sweeping Pure Evil is always good.
2) The big comeback to beat Rivera on Friday.
3) The emergence of Okajima as an excellent setup man for the PapelBot.
4) Manny and Tek are finally starting to hit.
5) We scored more runs for Matsuzaka tonight than in his first three starts combined.

The bad:
1) Our top three starters combined to give up 25 hits and 16 runs in 20.2 innings pitched.
2) Daisuke is MUCH less effective when men are on base and he has to pitch from the stretch…a discrepancy so glaring that even Joe Morgan couldn’t miss it.
3) Lowell’s second homer was the only hit all night with men in scoring position. We stranded 22 runners.
4) Against a Yankee team ravaged by injuries to its pitching staff and missing Matsui and Posada from its lineup, we had to come from behind to win three squeakers.

Oh well, the good definitely outweighed the bad. However, this is far from a perfect team. The hitting with men in scoring position has to improve, and the bullpen (apart from Papelbon and Okajima) is still an adventure. Still, the Yankees are wounded, and this is the time to put some distance on them. We all know they won’t be down for long.

Chapter #9,652,785 of The Only Rivalry That Matters convenes in one week.

In December 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal published a list of 29 predictions of what life would be like in the Year 2000. (Strangely enough, “Unelected Dipshit Gains Oval Office Through Widespread Fraud, Tears Down Constitution Piece by Piece, Declares War on Entire World” was one they missed.) Reading through the list offers a fascinating look back at a simpler time, when we still labored under the quaint and touching delusion that humanity was evolving towards greater rationality and intelligence. Awww, that’s so cute!
(link via Stupid Evil Bastard)

Some highlights:

Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

Obviously, in 1900 no one could have predicted the invention of television.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. U no teh Kewlest Old Skool Wordz EVAR!!!1!!

People in 1900 were really fixated on the idea of oversized foodstuffs (#12, “Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day.”) The concept of strawberries growing as large as apples is mentioned not once, but twice.(#13 and #26.)

Some of you may know that my betrothed is the head sign language interpreter for Seattle Hempfest. However, most of you probably don’t know that Hempfest racked up massive legal debts last year when they were forced to sue the city after the construction of Seattle Art Museum’s sculpture park effectively blocked the entrance to Myrtle Edwards Park.

To partially recoup some of these costs, and to ensure that they have enough funds to hold the rally again this year, they’re putting on a benefit this Friday, April 20th at Little Red Studio, located at 750 Harrison Street. Everybody should go. It’s easy to forget, here in enlightened Seattle, that the pot laws in the overwhelming majority of US states and cities are still mired in the Dark Ages. As long as law enforcement in this country continues to perpetuate the lunacy of throwing citizens in jail for the chemicals they put in their own bodies, events like Hempfest will continue to be necessary. Throw them a few ducats this Friday.

I’m (respectfully) stealing this post title from The Goat, and I second his sentiments.

I’d really like to report that, out of respect for the victims and their families, the bloodthirsty denizens of the Wingnutosphere called a moratorium from their brainless braying and resolved to wait at least a day or two before trying to use this tragedy to score political points. However, as TBogg so ably documents, no such luck…

On a stranger and more morbid note, I can’t help but notice that this is the second time in a dozen years that a horrific massacre has occurred on Patriot’s Day. And no, before you ask, I’m not about to suggest some wacko conspiracy theory. There is no connection whatsoever between the two events; the first was an act of terrorism, and the second appears to be the proverbial violent loser on a rampage.

The only reason I bring this coincidence up is to suggest, as a native of one of the two states that observe this holiday, that maybe we discontinue doing so. I know that, from now on, whenever the third Monday in April rolls around, I sure as hell won’t be thinking about Lexington and Concord, but rather about bodies being pulled from piles of rubble or carried out of campus buildings.

(Update: 4/17) I should, in all fairness, give credit where credit is due. The Right Blogosphere is proving themselves incredibly inventive in their attempts to blame the actions of a deranged lunatic on their usual targets: liberal permissiveness, the victims themselves (for not tackling the guy as he was reloading) and, of course, Muslims, Muslims, Muslims, and more Muslims.

To paraphrase a commenter at Alicublog:

I’m thinking of purchasing a handgun, to protect myself from conservatives.

Our world is a dynamic one, full of constant, sometimes bewilderingly fast change. While such an environment is exhilarating and intellectually stimulating, it can also be confusing and disconcerting. Because of this, it’s nice to occasionally step back and reflect upon a few regular, constant, predictable truths. For instance, the sun will always rise in the east. Spring will always follow winter. My taxes will always be due on April 15th.

And every time a new Harry Potter book comes out, some religious lunatic will try to get it banned.

Mallory, despite never reading the books herself, still vigorously contends that Harry Potter literature is an “evil” attempt to indoctrinate youngsters in witchcraft. During an earlier hearing, she pointed out that the stories “encourage children to perform spells and that the books’ good characters lie, cheat and steal,” without repercussion (heaven forfend!). Moreover, because the Bible “states witchcraft is an abomination to God,” in her opinion these texts have no place in our school libraries.

If nothing else, this woman is certainly persistent in her lunacy. After being rebuffed in her efforts by the local school, school board, and State Board of Education, one would think she’d have the common sense to realize the game is lost, right?

Aw, HELL no! She’s taking that shit to court!

Proud, yes, PROUD am I to realize that I live in a country in which societal ills such as poverty, hunger, and homelessness have been so thoroughly eradicated that Christians have nothing more pressing to worry about than whether or not the minds of impressionable young students are being warped by poorly-written fantasy novels.