What is WRONG with these people???

south carolina. YOU again with your ol' bullshit....

At a recent town hall meeting, South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer criticized the children of poor families, using an impressively dehumanizing metaphor and flunking basic causality in the process.

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program. (Source)

 
as you can see, Andre has extensive personal experience with poverty.
 
now, Andre has taken it upon himself to respond to the criticism regarding his comments by stating this on his personal blog:
 
My suggestion to require parents of children who receive free lunches to attend parent-teacher conferences is simply a common-sense idea to help break the cycle of dependency, while at the same time providing a better education and a brighter future for the children affected.
 
Requiring drug testing for adults receiving tax-funded benefits is also just good, plain, common-sense.

Yes, I am speaking out for such requirements, even though they may be “politically incorrect” in the eyes of the news media. It’s better for the children, it’s better for the taxpayers, and, in the end, offering a hand up instead of a hand out will be better for those who have become taxpayer dependents.

Americans are a compassionate people who will always help their brothers who are truly in need. But we cannot and will not allow those who are simply “riding the system” to continue to do so without consequence.

but what of the feeding stray animals only causing them to breed comment? no mention on his blog.

i'm so over this whole idea that the solution to poverty is for people to decide to stop being poor. but i must admit the whole "maybe we should refuse to feed them, then they'll be too weak to fuck" argument is a new one to me.

i can only imagine what his next suggestion might be....

just when i thought this guy was alright by me, based on his "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW" response to the Luv Guv clandestine trips abroad to be with his soulmate, he goes and proves that above all: he's a South Carolinian...and they are stupid.

i'm not kidding that i'm about sick of this state, man. if it's not for the drivers acting like assholes on I-77, it's the politishuns acting like assholes in DC.

i woulder if YaVaughnie would be willing to drop a few thou on some billboards telling them to STFU?

when issues are forced

yesterday, i had a conversation with a friend and asked her if she'd created any new year's resolutions. she said no, she hadn't. i stated i hadn't either and settled on the fact that i didn't really think i needed to make promises to myself to change anything.

then today, a few moments ago actually...i took a reader's survey on a blog i read regularly. question number 8 crystallized the wackness of my existence right now:

(click to enlarge)

so apparently, all i do regularly is watch tv, drink wine, surf the web, and die a little bit everyday...i'm in desperate need of a life overhaul.

damn.

and i thought things were going so well...

a little ditty about Carlos Estevez

life's funny, am i right?

just when you're pretty sure you know the rules of the game, of what does and doesn't make a person a piece of shit, here comes a curve ball.

to recap: Chris Brown beats the shit outta Rihanna and we're still talking about it as late as last month.

Charlie Sheen pulls a freakin knife on his wife and is arrested on 2 felonies and...well....let's just say the clamor for the spill of his blood is muted. and this is after allegations of physical abuse against his previous wife and an "accidental" shooting of then fiance Kelly Preston in 1990.

where you at, Oprah?

 

i asked myself why there was this difference in reaction earlier today, but i already know the answer.

and that answer is getting really really really old.

well, i guess i could put it all in perspective. maybe the media isn't talking about Carlos and his switchblade (how stereotypical) because they have other things to talk about?

yeah....i'm giving the media way too much credit.

i said it yesterday and i'll say it again: it pays to be a Sheen, man. you can just keep on being crazy until you finally kill a woman.

Chris Brown is totally changing his same to Critian Estevez in 2010!

Like it or not? I pick not.

so i read an irritating little number today on msnbc that informed me that Like it or not, name can impact your career.

it was full of anecdotes about the motel owner who made his Latino employees white-out their names. this is the same guy who states he once made his black employees do the same thing without any complaint, so what's the problem? he's a defense attorney's dream client, am i right?

and just when i thought the article was going to save itself by pointing out that “changing somebody’s name is something that could be viewed as intentionally discriminatory or not but it still could have a disparate impact on a certain group of workers," it throws itself back into the bullshsit bag with this statement:

"If, however, the employer has some legitimate business reason for asking a worker to change his or her name, he said, and is not only singling out one group, then that may be a different story."

i'm really hard pressed to think up any legitimate business reasons which would necessitate an employer asking an employee to white out his or her name. but what do i know, i only investigate discrimination for a living.

and the article presses forth on the Bullshit Express, we get this particular infuriating tidbit of advice from Bruce Lansky, a guy who wrote down a bunch of baby names and got it published. he advises:

“If you’re picking a name for your child, it’s reasonable to select a name that reflects your ethnicity but which will strike most people as ‘familiar’ or ‘mainstream’ rather than ‘foreign’ or ‘off-putting.’”

see what he did there? he set up some nice helpful synonyms for us. Familiar is to Mainstream as Foreign is to Off-putting.

BUT THERE'S MORE!!

“A foreign-sounding or highly ethnic-sounding name will have people wondering if they spoke English in the household, or if they’ll be able to get along and mix with Americans.”

soooooo, i guess the job history and educational background which are listed on an applicant's resume or application couldn't answer any of those questions, right? because we're just gonna assume someone with a foreign (off-putting) sounding name can't possibly be American. Right?

He suggested finding names that are part of your culture or ethnicity but are not too overt. For example, he said, “if you’re Irish, you could choose Kevin or Shawn, instead of Dermott or Shamus.”

Or use an Anglo-sounding name as the middle name, he noted, giving a child a choice on what to use when they get older. “It can be Abdullah and his middle name can be Henry,” he said.

the author of the article could have talked about how the certain someones in positions of hiring or authority believe they have a right to tell certain browner someones that their names are wrong, and how this is a monstrously obvious show of the privilege and power that drives Racism and Oppression in the country. but nah, why go through all that when she could let us know that she used white-out on her own name, choosing to be know "professionally" as Eve. rather than Evanthia.

"But you do mind if we call you Sal?"

the bottom line?

stop scaring Americans with your foreign, off-putting names! otherwise, you're gonna force someone to discriminate against you on your job. and why would you want to play the race card like that, Abdullah Henry??

afterall, “most people in America are not bigoted, but they do have comfort zones.”

no, i'm not the police captain from Law & Order!

this story actually rated a double take/eyeroll/sigh from your's truly. how did he NOT know who he was on the panel with?


From Crooks and Liars:


During some of the media's endless coverage of the Fort Hood shootings today, Larry King brought in former POW Shoshana Johnson, Dr. Phil McGraw and former JAG officer Tom Kenniff to speculate about what the mindset of the accused attacker Nidal Malik Hasan may have been. When Kenniff called some of CNN's previous coverage on the topic "psycho-babble", tried to say that a ranking officer could not be suffering from PTSD and asserted that Hasan's motivations looked more like an act of terrorism because he has a Muslim name, Shoshana Johnson and Phil McGraw both rightfully called him out for it.

When Kenniff while attempting to counter McGraw and Johnson asked Johnson if she had ever been to Iraq, she had to remind him that she was a POW:

KENNIF: I spent a year in Iraq, ma'am. Have you ever been to Iraq?
JOHNSON: I'm a POW. I got shot.

Kenniff was obviously unaware that Johnson was in fact the first female African American POW in U.S. history.


Seriously, read the story, transcript and all.

Pop Quiz

when you look at the cover of this YA book, what do you think it's about?






1) a young white female who has a credibility issue

2) a young white female who tells the truth and is branded a liar

3) a dark skinned african american female with natural hair who is a pathological liar

yeap, you guessed it!

cockadoodle-dont

ever had an experience where you tried out a new look and thought you were bringing down the house with your glitz and glam, only to later find out that even though people told you that you looked fabulous, in actuality, they thought you looked like dookie?

this is what that experience looks like:






*sigh*