Friday Night Lights Blind Me

So last night I'm watching TV, which is usually my fate on Fridays because I have to wake up so insanely early on Saturdays for work. The idea that people voluntarily wake up this early to "get stuff done" on the weekends is sickening. Unless you're milking goats or driving to Virginia, stay in fucking bed. Anyway...

I'm flipping through bad TV, Numbers and Tool Academy and reruns of Criminal Minds (Oh, Welcome to the Dollhouse, please just start already), when I end up on the Rachel Maddow show. Maddow is one of those pundits I want to like. She's cute, smart, funny, and a lesbian. But she says "bullpuckey" every five minutes, which in combination with her stilted delivery, serves to drive me batshit insane. She's going off about the stimulus package, about how stimulus means spending, ect. I agree with everything she's saying, which is one reason these shows are so boring to me. I mean, on the Daily Show at least they're coming up with jokes. But regular pundits are just going to repeat the same observations I've read online and heard on the radio and thought my own self, thank you very much. So it's just ego stroking. Plus it leads to me subconsciously recycling their lines, which is just heinous.

Anyway, she said something that stuck with me. She commented on how she thought this Republican opposition to the stimulus package was the beginning of a upcoming war on unions. And I thought, yeah, that's pretty sharp. I mean, with all this infrastructure and education and healthcare stuff, the unions are front and center here.

So then I made the mistake of switching to Hannity.

I remember the days when I used to try and watch Fox to get some idea of the opposite point of view, like 5 years ago. Now I can't leave it on for more than five minutes without wanting to live in a shack in Nebraska and never talk to anyone ever again. Or devote my life to taking down Limbaugh.

As luck would have it, this particular five minutes of Hannity was featuring his guest, Ann Coulter. A few observations about Ann. I realize she's supposed to be some classy NY socialite type girl, little black dress and all, fox of the conservative party, but oh my god is she a hick! Seriously. Listening to her talk, just the tone she employs, is like listening to some unemployed housewife from the sticks of Georgia go off about her neighbors and the new organist at the Church. I'm reminded of the woman trying to argue to me that hitting a pole was not her fault, because the pole shouldn't have been where she couldn't see it, and getting really really mad when I tell her hitting inanimate objects is ALWAYS your fault. I hate that tone. I can't decide if it's worse in a New Jersey accent or a Southern one. Anne's so involved in her facial expressions and condecension, she can't form sentences anymore. Also, she looks like she lives on Slimfast. Like all the actual nutrients in her body have been replaced by fake strawberry slime.

Anyway, Ann is going off about how this stimulus package, this 780 billion dollars, is all just to supplement the government jobs that already exist. How if you have too many people working for the government, and here I assume she's talking about the poor women at the DMV or the SS office, then they will always just vote for money for themselves. Then she refers to it as the Socialist Government Bill. And Hannity calls it the "End of Capitalism As We Know It Bill" and I change the channel. But not before I hear at least three references to the stimulus package supporting FRISBEE GOLF COURSES.

I had to google this, cause I was like "is this some secret Republican metaphor?"
Turns out Austin TX had down on its stimulus wishlist some funding for a Disc Golf Course. And this has been jumped on as an example of how much pork is in the package.

FIRST of all, this serves to illustrate how there is no point in trying to work around people like Hannity, because they are dumb children who only hear one word in your sentence and stick with it. "If you eat your vegetables, maybe you can play xbox later". And then 20 minutes and 4 brussel sprouts in the garbage later, they're begging to play video games despite not meeting the conditions, and screaming about what a meaney you are.

SECOND, I happen to like frisbee golf courses. I remember the first time S. and I stumbled upon a disc golf course. I think we were in Warren? Not sure. There was a reservoir we wanted to visit, and while walking along we kept seeing all these weird cage cup things stationed everywhere. Then we finally saw some guys playing, and figured it out. On another trip, we ran across a car which was COVERED in disc golf promotional stickers. Like, these guys from Michigan are singlehandedly promoting the sport across the country. It was crazy.

THIRD, way to kinda screw us Austin :)

Anyway, all that's beside the point, which is that Hannity and Coulter literally referenced disc golf three times in three minutes, and it was surreal. I'm sure there's something more credible in that package to get upset over.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh and before I go, let's talk about the BOYSCOUTS.

"The Boy Scouts had to suffer the consequences for sticking by their
moral values," said Eugene Grant, president of the Portland, Ore., Cascade
Pacific Council’s board of directors.
"There’s no question" that the Scouts’
anti-gay, anti-atheist stance has cost the organization money, he said. As a
result, he said, "every council has looked at ways to generate funds … and
logging is one of them."

"Every time (a council) gets a new scout director, they call a state forester to come out and see if there is any good timber to harvest," said Paul Tauke, Iowa state forester. "There's always pressure to make money."

So GAYS AND ATHEISTS are responsible for the high impact logging. I wonder what's next? A Girl Scout cookie China lead poisoning scare?