Category: BullShit

Posted on

Time for some “Old School” thinking

There’s been a ton of stuff said about the Refugees and their plight…

In my opinion, a large percentage of it is complete and utter bullshit.

Ever heard the saying “Man the lifeboats! Women and children first!”

Ever thought about what that actually says?

IF you think about it, that simple phrase is saying; “We value our future, we’re protecting it by making sure the women (who may be pregnant), and our sons and daughters (who are our future), and our culture, will survive.”

That’s historically been the stance of Men in shipwrecks, times of war, and disasters.

It does not mean the men thought their women inferior, it says; we recognize that while we may be bigger and stronger, you can do something we can’t, give birth. 

It says; women are strong enough to raise a new generation of our people and that our culture and people will survive if they do.

It says; that right now it’s our job to protect you from whatever disaster is befalling us so that you have better odds of surviving to raise our children.

So without hesitation, I’d accept refugees from war torn places who were in fact women and children.

That’s what you’re supposed to do, in fact it’s the exact opposite of racism, because instead of fostering genocide, accepting women and children refugees insures that a group of people who may be completely different from you will survive and presumably return to their homelands when whatever disaster they escaped is over.

The above is the Old School view, at least as I was taught by my father and grandfathers.

So within that framework, looking at a majority of male, young, able-bodied, men calling themselves refugees, simply doesn’t track.

I can’ see them as refugees, I can only see them as cowards, or worse.

They’ve left their wives, children, mothers, and sisters in countries devastated by war, and famine, to fend for themselves. These cowards have boarded boats to foreign countries to live in relative opulence where they often don’t work, have a stipend, food, and time to complain about housing, and internet access.

What the bloody hell?

These men are exactly the men who should have been waving to their wives and children from the shore.

After the boats carrying their future were safe, these men, (if they were men) should have grimly turned to meet their enemy, fueled by rage and sadness that they may never see their wives & children in this life again.

This is the philosophy I was raised with.

I was raised to be suspicious of large numbers of able bodied young men going anywhere. Typically, large groups of young men were an army.

I find myself wondering what the hell is going on and how we’ve come to this place where we don’t or can’t question the nature of refugees.

More concerning to these old eyes is that it’s apparently verboten to even ask questions about refugees, and their intentions.

When you look at Europe, who has accepted thousands of refugees and see the unrest, it becomes pretty obvious that something is wildly amiss. The violence in Paris & throughout Germany should at least give you momentary pause.

It’s not hatred to point out a problem. Understanding the problem is the first step to correcting it. Superficially, one could say the problem is these refugees are coming from war torn countries.

Ok I’ll buy that. But where are the women and children in all this? When refugee centers are overwhelmingly young and male doesn’t that speak to another issue?

Add to that the basic culture clash about women’s rights, what is considered appropriate attire, and behavior. Then throw in the more  relaxed religious beliefs of the west, boredom, a healthy dose of alienation due to language difficulties, or misunderstanding of how to live in a free society where everyone is supposed to be equal,  and you’ve got a powder keg waiting for a spark.

Isn’t that what we’ve been seeing?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or Phd in Sociology to see what happens next. Any idiot should be able to predict the outcome.

It’s never rainbows and unicorns.

With that in mind, I’m all for vetting all refugees carefully. To do that, we have to have a plan and procedures that will ensure those claiming refugee status are in fact refugees.

We’ve done it in the past and there is nothing wrong with having a standard today.

 

 

Posted on

An Ugly Tableu

Getting home from a hard day at work. I get out of my car and see two neighbors having a conversation. I think nothing of it at first.

It’s only as I’m opening my car passenger door to get my backpack that I clearly hear the woman in the conversation fairly shrieking “You touched your penis!”

Some part of my exhausted brain went, “Huh? What?”

The conversation that I heard after that went something like;

You touched your penis, you were in my apartment. You’re a piece of filth! No wonder your wife left you, no wonder your son doesn’t want to live with you. I hope everyone figures out what a peice of trashy filth you are!

The man who was the object of this tirade is using a cane to walk, he moves slowly and uncertainly, due to severe spinal damage. In other words, this guy is probably zero threat to a woman. And God only knows that he may have adjusted himself because of something to do with the injuries.

I honestly don’t know, I wasn’t there. I can say that occasionally this guy when I’ve spoken to him outside the apartments. I have noticed that sometimes (clearly unconsciously he adjusts himself). Honestly it looks like he’s in pain when he does it.

As I focused on the “Conversation” I could see that he was genuinely ashamed. I could also see that the woman was quite enraged.

Then I really took a look at her and the first thought I had was she looked like Jabba the Hut.

Hell, I’d have been adjusting myself to prevent my penis from crawling up inside.

But then I realized I was downwind. I couldn’t help but notice the fetid odor of unwashed human, with just a touch of yeasty vagina. Yeah, I could smell all this from about 10 feet away.

RETCH

Now I have a conundrum, I can ignore this insanity. Or I can say what I really think, which is;

“Damn lady if this broken old man is getting wood because of your fat stinky ass, you should count yourself lucky. I’d imagine there’s been nothing twix your legs that didn’t run on batteries for decades. I’d bet your vibrators are so stinky that you have to replace them every month because some stink just never goes away. I’d never punish my dick by putting it in you. Hell, seeing you naked would make me want to suck cock for free, on the street, in Iran! At least then my torment would be ended quickly by a fall from a tall building.”

But I weighed my options, decided that I was too tired and that this was not my battle.

After all for me, very few people I encounter would be worth my energy.

I evaluated the situation for a moment more…

I closed the passenger door to the car, shook my head and walked away.

Neither of these people were my concern.

In retrospect, I think that it was the shrillness of the harridan, and how closely she was mimicking, so closely the “Group Think” of the feminist movement today. Obviously she thought all men were scum but wasn’t pretty enough or gutsy enough to simply declare she was a lesbian.

Some gay men who never fully embrace their gayness get really weird and very hostile to women and other gay men. Perhaps this was the female version of the phenomenon.

Remotely interesting… Still not interesting enough for me to engage. Perhaps it was simple penis envy… Nope, not interesting enough.

I climbed the stairs to my apartment, unlocked and opened the door, closed it behind me and was immediately cloaked in silence.

Bliss!

I guess that I’m just over all the politics, victimhood, and insanity.

I did feel kinda bad for the guy.

But like most men, I figured if he wouldn’t defend himself then I wasn’t going to do it for him.

Yep, the peace of my apartment was a lot better than listening to a shrill bitch badmouthing men simply because we have external plumbing.

Posted on

Shut up and take my money!

I’m over it,

I’m tired of corporations being political. I’m tired of companies who feel that they’re somehow entitled to attempt to shame any of us into thinking the way they do. Yes, that includes Apple and Microsoft.

All of you have exactly one thing that you need to do. Provide your products or services and shut the hell up about anything else.

You don’t dictate policy, and you deserve what ever punishment you get when you stick your noses outside your area of expertise.

If you want to pull advertising, or make a statement about politics or elections… DON’T.

Either you’re a goods & service provider or you’re not. As a shareholder I’d be seriously pissed off at Kellogg and their executives, not for their opinions per-se, but because they’re stupid enough to remove themselves from the advertising sightline of potential customers.

How moronic can you be?

Conservative money spends just as well as liberal money.

Have you people learned nothing? Trump won because a rather large percentage of people in this country are sick and tired of being told what they’re supposed to think, how they’re supposed to act, and what they’re supposed to feel; by a bunch of ivory tower “Elites” whose sole concerns during the day are if their maid is stealing cleaning supplies, whether to wear Channel or Cartier, or if their driver is smoking in the limo.

Get a clue.

The larger majority of Americans are concerned with feeding themselves, and paying the bills.

Which does open an interesting possibility…

If the demand for Kellogg cereals drops, does it follow that the company will be forced to lower their prices? Isn’t that one of the market factors that control prices?

I don’t as a rule eat cereal so that’s a non-issue for me personally. But I can’t see myself purchasing products from companies that don’t know their place.

That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? I don’t have to actively protest or boycott anything. I can simply choose to make my own coffee, cook my own taco, breakfast, or burger, I can hold on to machines and other durable goods for a few more years and in the process save money.

So to corporate America, keep your opinions to yourselves and take my money.

To Kellogg… I’ll expect deep discounts in the coming months and an apology would be nice too. $6 for a box of cereal? Really?

Posted on

OH Shut the hell up!

I wake up, get coffee, wake up the computer, sit down…

The very first thing I see as I’m firing up my browser to check which bills need to be paid is an AP headline article. 

Trump family dinner raises issues on press access

You have got to be freaking kidding me!

Other articles report it like, Trump leaves his Dark Tower.

Sauron 2

Really? So you’re using a literary allusion implying that President Elect Trump is Sauron from the Tolkien classics.  Oh For pete’s sake.

The man hasn’t taken his oath of office, he’s the President Elect, not the President yet. 

And let’s face it Journalists, you haven’t done anything to endear yourselves to the President Elect. Is it really all that surprising that he’d like to have a dinner with his family away from your scrutiny?

After all how many poison pens have you emptied on how many thousands of reams of paper trying to tear the man and his family down.

God knows, I wouldn’t want to have my food turn to ash on my tongue (obscure literary allusion) because some reporter saw me not using a salad fork.

I can see that headline.

Can wwducat be trusted at state dinners, he doesn’t know which fork to use!

 Look Journalists…

You’ve betrayed the public trust. You’ve been caught time and again displaying incredible bias over the past eight years. That is your responsibility, you have no-one to blame but yourselves. So it’s time for you to own it.

Decide if you want to continue to be yellow journalists or if you want to move back toward being the folks the nation looks to for truth.

Mordor

I’m sorry, but it’s going to take consistent unbiased fact checking, for years, to regain the people’s trust. The mistakes and excesses of  the past will be visited upon newly minted journalists, today and well into the future.

Stop looking for the fluff pieces. WHO the hell cares if Trump goes to dinner with his family away from prying eyes? Why does that matter?

If you must report on the President Elect; report on his cabinet postings, his advisors, his plans for uniting the country, improving the economy, and all the other major issues we face.

You might begin by being polite and checking your privilege. It probably wouldn’t hurt if you quit your whinging about being shunned as well. 

We don’t need moment by moment coverage of the President Elect’s flatulence.

We need you to understand that the duty of your profession is to provide information.

That information, should consist of simply the facts of a situation with as little personal opinion or bias as possible.

You’re rather tough job is to report what you see and what you’ve discovered via investigation, not hearsay. Then you must leave it to the people to decide what they want to do with the information. It’s a tough job, and often thankless, but it’s a vital job to ensure the freedoms we enjoy in this country.

Recently, you’ve gone wrong; a bit off the rails… Fortunately, Americans are generally forgiving and it’s not too late to regain the respect that you one enjoyed.

If you want to express your opinions write Op-Ed pieces. Otherwise keep your opinions to yourselves and report the facts.

Just my opinion…

Posted on

Oh Yeah… Gotta make sure ya get that pound of flesh!

First, I guess I took a little more than a short technology break. I don’t know how frequently I’m going to be posting but I’ll see what I can do to be a bit more regular about it.

Abusers

I’m posting about this growing trend to make sure that someone is absolutely bashed, kicked, shows appropriate contrition, and then is bashed and kicked some more.

Here’s an example.

Been working at a company 6 months, been transferring calls to the appropriate extension for all that time. Phones and extensions are changing all the time and so it was without much surprise that I get a new phone list.

Dead center of the page, there’s a RED label that says “Warm Transfer” followed by an extension. It’s an unfamiliar extension and so at a glance you’d think that the red lettering was calling your attention to a new extension.

WRONG!!!!

Beaten

Turns out someone thought that coloring only the words “Warm Transfer” was a good idea to highlight a supervisory extension on an otherwise data heavy, very busy page.

So in a chaotic, very busy environment, where you’re graded on how many calls you take in a day, and how often your associated paperwork has mistakes and people on the phones complaining about everything from their lot in life to other products, and the product that you actually are there to answer questions about, you make a mistake. In a normal workplace, making a mistake would be, meh and the employees wouldn’t live in fear. Unfortunately that’s not the case where I work.

Torturers

Someone on a call, needed to talk to a person in the department associated with the “Warm Transfer” number. So you dutifully set about to transfer them, and you dial the most prominent number on the phone list.

OOOPPPPSSSS!

An unhappy supervisor answers and asks how they can help. You explain what’s up and they respond by telling you “This is a supervisor line.” You apologize, then they ask how you got this number you explain it’s on a paper in front of you next to text that says warm transfer and tell the supervisor that you’ll let everyone around you know that the number in question is associated with a supervisor so they shouldn’t use it unless they need a supervisor.

The Sup tells you ok, and transfers you to the right extension. You take care of business, then move on to the next grumpy, annoyed, irate person.

Then your corporate instant messaging lights up asking all kinds of questions and demanding to know why you’re not paying attention to their instant messages, when you’re actually doing your job and talking to a customer.

You finish the call and respond to an interrogation via instant messaging. Then you’d think it was over.

IT’S NOT!

Screamingsupervisors

The last and final indignity is that now YOUR supervisor comes over to make sure that you are appropriately contrite, know what your mistake was, and that it was solely your fault that you interrupted a supervisor.

FOR GOD’S SAKE! REALLY?

It was a simple and easily corrected mistake. On top of that the mistake had been corrected & noted immediately after the first supervisor had said it was the wrong extension.

But in this day & age there is no such thing as an innocent mistake. 

Waiting for your mistake

So for me at least, every day is a grueling eight hour stress test.  Make no mistakes, answer every call, don’t spend too much time documenting, move on to the next call, don’t say what should be said or what needs to be said, and live in fear or terror of being chastised, yelled at, or honestly… bullied all day long.

I come home each day more exhausted than when I was working lifting and toting 50 LB bags of fertilizer, or crawling around in 100° F attics running ductwork.

I’ll tell you this, those honest jobs were a hell of a lot more personally satisfying. 

Workplace Bullying institute

Ahh well, this too shall pass.

And that’s why I’m looking for a new job and why I’ve been offline for the most part for the past few months.

We as a society need to remember that minor mistakes and problems, not only shouldn’t but needn’t be blown out of proportion. 

A simple comment, a word, or small mistake is not cause for the weight of JUSTICE to be brought to bear on the individual who misspoke or did something slightly wrong.

Most of the time, folks will correct their behavior on their own with a simple, “Hey, X, Y, or Z isn’t right.”