The behavior displayed by the crowd in the video above brought me to tears. And people wonder why it’s so easy to taint the immigration debate with accusations of xenophobia. Why it’s so easy to assume many Obama haters are racists. No, it isn’t fair -- but it’s what happens, because of people who react to a bilingual man asking a question in Spanish, to another bilingual man in this disgusting manner.
Now I hate it when you call a place and they tell you to push 2 for English. That should be push two for Spanish dammit. English is our language, officially or no. I understand people wanting to be able to understand what the Bishop was saying -- of course I do. But to heckle him? To chant ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH… wow. Just wow.
***
This morning I specifically requested that Isabella be allowed to watch the Presidential address at school today. At her school they were leaving it up to the teachers. Her teacher said that she’d try to find out what time it was on and have the kids watch it. I’ll find out at the end of the day if she did, and if not, we’ll watch it when she gets home.
I find the people that have caused such an uproar about this to be completely irrational and stupid. There is not one -- NOT ONE -- logical reason behind not wanting The President of The United States -- one of the most shining examples of how a good education can catapult you beyond your wildest dreams -- to encourage our kids to do well in school. If it had been Bush, I would have still wanted her to listen, without a doubt. If it was McCain, same deal.
The White House released a copy of his prepared remarks and you can view it here. Nothing about healthcare or politics. No subliminal messages about becoming a part of his socialist army. Nothing except encouragement and good words that should and could come from any side of the political arena.
I posted this on Facebook: “If you are so stupid that you will (or would) not let your child attend school Tuesday because of the President’s address to our children about working hard and staying in school, kindly delete me from your friend’s list. No need to debate, or explain your opinion -- just go far, far away. Because you are an idiot. And I’m not being close minded -- I’m being intolerant of idiocy.”
And in a comment, Dawn made a great point: “The whole “you don’t have to listen to the authority figure b/c mommy and daddy disagree” may come back to bite them … with every teacher, administrator … etc.”
How true is that?
Sasha, who is a teacher, said: “I totally agree! We say the pledge everyday at my school. how damn UNAMERICAN not to let your kid listen to the president of the United States address them about education.”
Remember the people throwing a fit because Obama didn’t put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance a while back? Same people that are pulling their children out of school to avoid this speech. Hypocritical, eh?
C.J. Koster is an asshole. He also might be the funniest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Three lines into a Facebook chat and he’ll have my eyes tearing up from laughter. You should read his blog, because he’s pretty damn great. Except for when he tags me for memes and then threatens me bodily harm if I don’t follow thru. That’s not cool at all – that’s what makes him an asshole.
Anyway, here I go:
Eight things I like:
Giant Cheetos. If I happen to be high as hell and suffering from the munchies, thus rendering myself oblivious to their similarity to Styrofoam.
Money. I loooove money. Moneymoneymoney.
Giving head. What can I say? I really, really like doing it. I have huge teeth right, so I have had to really practice to learn how not to scrape all the skin off of a guy’s member. All that practice paid off so I’ve been told and it’s kinda fun.
When Justin Timberlake hosts SNL. It’s comedic gold, I tell you.
Petrilude. I’m really debating contacting him and asking him if he’s available to do a makeup party or something and make us all hot shit before we go out one night in Chicago during BlogHer. Who’d be down for that? Anyone? Anyone?
Seriously considered ripping this catheter out of my urethra and then changed my mind once the Darvocet kicked in.
Watched the Lakers be lazy and the Celtics get beaten.
Learned how and implemented my new skill of changing and emptying my own piss out of plastic bags. It’s not fun.
Drank a diet coke that wasn’t caffeine free because my nurse made me deathly afraid of getting a ’spinal headache’ (a rare side effect of spinal anesthesia that’s described as the worst headache you’ve ever had in your life) and said that caffeine would help if I got one, so I figured it could help prevent one as well.
Eight things I wish I could do:
Lose weight without moving an inch or eliminating fried foods from my diet.
Pee in a toilet.
Take a shower.
Wear jeans.
Make my dreams come true. Like literally, some of the dreams that I have when I’m asleep – make them come true.
Use my laptop, but the internet here is racist and won’t let me use the network.
Stretch my legs, but there’s a cat using me as a pillow.
Afford a new tattoo.
Eight things I don’t like:
Having to wait until Monday to get this fucking catheter removed.
When people make noise when they eat. It’s disgusting and annoying and I want to punch them. If it’s not crunchy, I should not be able to hear it.
Blueberries. They are the devil.
Having the hiccups, which I do now.
Reese Witherspoon.
This fucking catheter.
Carrying around a bag full of piss, because of this fucking catheter.
I just hope you’ll take 3 minutes of your time to watch the following and see how when every time you purchase or consume chocolate, you support the enslavement of millions of children as well as the violence surrounding the trade.
This month makes a year that I personally have eaten only slave trade free and fair trade cocoa products. (I’d started in February, but I fucked up, eating some Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked which I had read was fair trade, and isn’t) I’m very proud of myself.
But I know.
You don’t care.
That Dove bar is too fucking good.
That box of Godiva you got from your sweetheart just can’t go to waste.
You are PMS’ing and you need that Hershey’s kiss.
I know.
You’ll go to bat for child abuse here in the US.
For Tibet.
Against that OctoMom woman.
Against Proposition 8.
For Obama.
But fuck Africa, and the 24 million adolescent boys cut off from their families and working day in and out for no pay, under threat of death or abuse for your fucking Snickers.
hearing ‘popping cherries, popped her cherry, popped cherry’ or any variation of the saying.
when waitresses come over and ask ‘how is everything?’ the moment you just stuffed 1/2 a potato in your mouth.
watching people eat on television. It’s like they put in the script ’smack and suck your teeth and have all around horrid manners to make it seem more realistic that you’re a fucking twat’. Examples:
Sex & The City S06E02. Great Sexpectations. Miranda and Carrie eating pizza. (Fast forward to 22:00.)
The L Word S02E05. Labyrinth. Jenny and that goddamn bagel. (Fast forward to 7:40.)
running out of Percocet/Vicodin/Oxycontin the day before you wake up with a monster headache.
diabetes.
the hybrid dog fad. That shit drives me NUTS. You want a mutt? Go to the fucking pound.
the people who by animals as holiday gifts. From pet stores, or from commercial breeders, brokers and puppy mills.
people who leave their Christmas lights up past mid January. Take that shit down.
running out of hydrocodone on the day your period starts.
living in North Carolina.
people who get their panties in a bunch because you may have possibly called God an imaginary friend for adults under you breath at their baby’s Christening.
not having a Wii.
people that judge you based solely on your outside appearance. Wait until you really find out what a bitch I am before you think I am, please.
This is where I should be talking about the fact that we’ve done it, we’ve signaled changed, we’ve succeeded in getting the best candidate into the white house. We’re going to get things moving in the right direction in this country- in the world.
But all I can think is “Oh my God, we have our first black president.“
It’s not why he had my vote, of course, being as liberal as I am, but it is all I can dwell on right now.
I never thought I’d see it.
I never thought my children would see it.
My grandparents never thought the same.
Yet here they are, elated to have watched firsthand this country come from this:
to this:
I’ve never seen them so elated in all of their lives.
Now, it’s not so far fetched for a little black kid to believe that they can be the P.O.T.U.S. one day.
Wow.
I’m on a black power cloud right now.
And I, along with every other black person in the world right now, totally deserve to be.
But, in the same stream of consciousness, I am so terrified.
Hate it when iTunes has 1/2 a blue dot on a podcast that I listened to until 30 sec. left. Drives me nuts, I have to FF to the end to fix it [maria0305]
